#i also wish there was a secret anti-coup in the making!

[presidentkamala]

Ughh how do i tell this guy that while we are on extremely the same page politics wise and i love a good vent sesh, i canNOT and i mean canNOT keep fielding his spiralling about rfk jr publicly lynching fauci and his copium fueled jags about the dems somehow uncovering election subversion and cancelling the results of the election

[duckiemimi]

the end.

i feel…content. which shouldn’t be surprising considering i’ve reached the ending, but you see, i keep a little document to log in everything that passes through my mind each chapter and i’ve typed in a lot, still as soon as i reached chapter 271, my mind was quiet. this is a lie—it wouldn’t be me if i had nothing to say, but the point still stands. i liked chapter 271. a lot. cue emotional end-of-the-movie soundtrack.

i also wasn't lying about the document. i picked up with a reread of chapter 268, but my biggest gripe was with chapter 269. this chapter was...strange. it was as if gege was using his characters to communicate his frustrations instead of exploring how everything would've affected them individually, or even (in gege fashion) moving onto the next thing entirely. this isn't totally out of the ordinary considering there have been other instances where it seemed like he was speaking through a character, but it felt even more jarring considering there was nothing to explain now that everything's said and done. it almost seemed like he was self-aware but couldn't help himself from writing the chapter this way, because these were also my sentiments while reading:

this chapter is so dense with information that we could've gone without. gege kept revisiting the past arc as to justify some of the writing choices he made, using maki to channel the voice of a frustrated audience. considering the long-winded discussions on why alternative plans wouldn't have worked, instead of a "say sorry and make up" chapter, the overexplained writing reads insecure. defensive, even. it seems like the collective pressure from fans and publication caved him in, but i wish he stuck to his guns instead of trying to clumsily fill fringe plot-holes with old cement. i hope this experience didn't kill his confidence in his capabilities—gege’s circumstances were rough as it is from what i know.

the new shadow school exposition dump and the scene where mei mei kills the school head felt rushed, too. which begs the question, why even include this? the earlier portion of jjk had an emphasized narrative on the fault in their system and anti-traditionalism, so perhaps this was gege trying to close circles. what i don't understand, though, is why introduce a new system at the end to ultimately kill it when residues of the old system still exist, the kamo and gojo clans being the biggest examples, two of the big three clans with the most influence in jujutsu society. even mei mei acknowledges that the death of the school head would mean the survival of the kamo and gojo clans, and likely their political clout. was something like decentralization not the goal here? yes, monopolies and tyrannical coups are undesirable, but that last scene was handled rather messily. but perhaps it was all a set up for mei mei's characterization. which begs the question, (again) why?

"the world ended but the earth kept spinning," is how i'd describe chapter 270. despite all the questions i had for past chapters, chapter 270 felt hopeful. it's the type of chapter you could easily picture in an ending-credit montage following the characters in the aftermath, which gave me a laugh. what stood out to me in particular was the reveal that cursed spirits are now public knowledge, meaning jujutsu is no longer a secret. that also pulled a dumbfounded laugh from me. i actually like the fact that we weren't given the nitty gritty of how society rebuilt after sukuna, particularly jujutsu society. timeskips at the end don't usually need that much explanation for them to have good impact. also, who is that next to takaba?

ending on a mission felt warm. i missed the way our main three used to work together, and maybe it's been a while, but it seemed like their chemistry got a lot better. or maybe the world got a lot brighter. and ohhh, that glimpse into how the jujutsu system works now was such a treat, especially seeing sorcerers and non-sorcerers interacting so well with each other! that conversation with gojo that yuuji had also felt warm. the conversation mahito, the ferryman of the styx, had with sukuna also felt warm, even if the change in heart felt like whiplash. i could probably churn out a couple more posts gushing about chapter 271 if prompted, but for now i say despite all the protruding bones i've picked at, i love the jjk's ending.

wow. it really is the end. for the six years of jjk's existence, i've only been there for four, but if i were a tree, you could cut me down in half and see four rings colored differently from the rest. thicker, richer. there'd be debates among scholars on which world-changing event made this happen, but the tree knows. rings become ink on paper.

anyway,

thank you to gege for creating jjk, and i'm sorry if there have been things i've said that were unsavory. now. i've never really given myself the chance to pat myself on the back for catching onto things, so allow me to be a little big-headed here. yes, i am going to list out some of the things i got right:

jujutsu no longer being a secret (i talked about this here and here);

yuuji's flashback to his conversation with gojo instead of a letter (this one is a little more minor, but here);

sukuna's humanity, despite how he seemed to be for a majority of the story (i talked about this here and here); and

a hopeful ending instead of a last-man-standing one (to be frank, most of my posts about jjk have this outlook, and though i was a little headass in this post, here it is anyway).

alright, petty-time over. but, yea! thank you so much for reading jjk with me! despite everything, it was fun!

[antiloreolympus]

8 Anti LO Asks

1. at the very least persephone could have been a nice pastel green to match demeter instead looking more like rhea's child, or demeter and rhea could have switched colors so demeter matches persephone and now the big three could take after the mother's green. even hepheastus and ares are in the orange range to be close to hera's yellow, meanwhile the most important mother and daughter relationship dont look related at all. the character design choses in this series make no sense to me.

2. I'd love to say smth critical about lo but I couldn't even read several chapters because of how boring it was. Like why should I read it. Story is not interesting at all and there is no plotpoint that can keep me invested. Also artstyle is super ugly and I don't understand what is happening and who is who most of the time. Won't pick it up ever again lol :]

From OP, not Anon: It's so weird because I first read LO in one sitting (it was about 80 or so episodes at the time) but now I can barely get past the first 20 episodes. Maybe that's just me though.

3. honestly thats kinda what i dont get at this point? because if it was a clear cut gossip girl lije secret dating focus on hxp's relationship then i would get it and it'd probably stay pretty consistent, but what does the AOW, trials, attempted coups, another war with kronos, and the like really add to the series? it just makes the story become unfocused and confusing, and does not aide in developing hxp's relationship. its supposed to be their story yet they're secondary in many ways.

4. i can honestly only remember one time rachel actually drew any genuine greek like LO art and it was a single illustration of hxp in the style of a black line greek vase and that's it, and that was over three years ago at this point. meanwhile instead the majority of LO artwork is 50 shades-inspired wattpad manips from her than anything that would actually give away this is supposed to be about greek mythology.

5. i also found it weird webtoons isn't using any stuff from the last two years to promo LO with? like the stuff they're reusing from 2018 looks nothing like it does now (even the colors dont match) so its like?? why not update it? even lets play and unordinary (which have been running longer than LO) have their promo stuff match the current product's look, not clinging to what it was like literal years ago. that's such a weird admittance that the current LO stuff isn't really good to use.

6. LO stans are banned from acting like they're superior to anyone. Y'all get no high ground on anything when you disrespect a whole ass culture, even more so when y'all defend Miss white af Rachel Smythe who also disrespects and tell Greeks they're wrong for trying to help her get her shit straight on their culture.

I genuinely wish webtoon would drop LO and promote actual better series and creators, or at the very least give me a block function, I'm tired of seeing LO whenever I open the app.

7. Rachel created her dream cast by rolling dice. None of the actors have any rhyme or reason or rythme about them. They were chosen randomly so she could get brownie points.

8. I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING. RS is framing Helios as an enemy of Persephone, but in the older myths, Helios was the only god who actually saw what happened to Persephone when Hades kidnapped her and he was key for Demeter to start finding Persephone. He was the second deity (after Hekate) who found out that something was up.

[bamf-jaskier]

Who the Fuck is Philippa Eilhart?

I don’t know if you’ve been following Witcher news lately but Philippa has just been cast!

Of course, many show-only fans might not be familiar with her character and game-only fans might not know how different her story is in the books, so I’m here to give a relatively brief overview of her plot line in the books. Warning: lots of book spoilers ahead as well as the standard graphic violence that is the norm in the books.

With that, Hi! I’m Aaliyah and this is Part 6 of my WTF Series - a crash course in subject from The Witcher books.

The first time we meet Philippa in Blood of Elves, she is an advisor to the King of Redania. Dandelion is brought before The Redanian Secret Service because they wish to know Geralt’s whereabouts. 

Excerpt:

Dandilion glanced at the fourth person present at the meeting, who until then had remained silent. Philippa Eilhart must have only recently arrived in Oxenfurt, or was perhaps intending to leave at once, since she wore neither a dress nor her favourite black agate jewellery nor any sharp make-up. 

She was wearing a man’s short jacket, leggings and high boots – a “field” outfit as the poet called it. The enchantress’s dark hair, usually loose and worn in a picturesque mess, was brushed smooth and tied back at the nape of her neck.

“Let’s not waste time,” she said, raising her even eyebrows. “Dandilion’s right. We can spare ourselves the rhetoric and slick eloquence which leads nowhere when the matter at hand is so simple and trivial.”

Here are some of Dandelion’s thoughts on Philippa:

Dandilion divided women – including magicians – into very likeable, likeable, unlikeable and very unlikeable. The very likeable reacted to the proposition of being bedded with joyful acquiescence, the likeable with a happy smile. The unlikeable reacted unpredictably. The very unlikeable were counted by the troubadour to be those to whom the very thought of presenting such a proposition made his back go strangely cold and his knees shake.

Philippa Eilhart, although very attractive, was decidedly very unlikeable. Apart from that, Philippa Eilhart was an important figure in the Council of Wizards, and King Vizimir’s trusted court magician. 

She was a very talented enchantress. Word had it that she was one of the few to have mastered the art of polymorphy. She looked thirty. In truth she was probably no less than three hundred years old.”

Then, Dandelion leaves to go back to Geralt and Philippa follows him in the form of an owl:

A big grey owl glided down to the sill without a sound. Shani cried out quietly. Geralt reached for his sword.

“Don’t be silly, Philippa,” said Dandilion.

The owl disappeared and Philippa Eilhart appeared in its place, squatting awkwardly. The magician immediately jumped into the room, smoothing down her hair and clothes.

“Good evening,” she said coldly. “Introduce me, Dandilion.”

“Geralt of Rivia. Shani of Medicine. And that owl which so craftily flew in my tracks is no owl. This is Philippa Eilhart from the Council of Wizards, at present in King Vizimir’s service and pride of the Tretogor court. It’s a shame we’ve only got one chair in here.”

Geralt is trying to hunt down a wizard, Rience, who is trying to get Ciri. When Geralt is about to kill Rience, Philippa lets Rience portal away and Geralt, Shani and Dandelion are quite upset:

“Philippa!” shouted Dandilion, still holding the weeping Shani. “Have you gone mad?”

“No,” said the witcher with some effort. “She’s quite sane. And knows perfectly well what she’s doing. She knew all along what she was doing. She took advantage of us. Betrayed us. Deceived—”

“Calm down,” repeated Philippa Eilhart. “You won’t understand and you don’t have to understand. I did what I had to do. And don’t call me a traitor. Because I did this precisely so as not to betray a cause which is greater than you can imagine. 

A great and important cause, so important that minor matters have to be sacrificed for it without second thoughts, if faced with such a choice. Geralt, damn it, we’re nattering and you’re standing in a pool of blood. Calm down and let Shani and me take care of you.”

Of course, this is all a part of Philippa’s larger plan to hold a coup and gain political power. Vilgefortz hired Rience and if Geralt had found that out then Vilgefortz would be revealed as a traitor to the Brotherhood and Philippa couldn’t have that happening before her coup.

The next time we see Philippa is in Time of Contempt at the banquet on Thanedd Island. She talks to many of the guests, here is a short conversation between her and Geralt:

“There’s no caviar.’ (Geralt)

‘One moment.’ (Philippa)

She looked around quickly, waved a hand and mumbled a spell. The silver dish in the shape of a leaping fish immediately filled with the roe of the endangered shovelnose sturgeon. The Witcher smiled.

‘Can one eat one’s fill of an illusion?’

‘No. But snobbish tastes can be pleasantly titillated by it. Have a try.’

‘Hmm… Indeed… I’d say it’s tastier than the real thing…’

‘And it’s not at all fattening,’ said the enchantress proudly, squeezing lemon juice over a heaped teaspoon of caviar. ‘May I have another goblet of white wine?’

‘At your service. Philippa?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m told etiquette precludes the use of spells here. Wouldn’t it be safer, then, to conjure up the illusion of the taste of caviar alone, without the caviar? Just the sensation? You’d surely be able to…’

‘Of course I would,’ said Philippa Eilhart, looking at him through her crystal goblet. ‘The construction of such a spell is easy as pie. But were you only to have the sensation of taste, you’d lose the pleasure the activity offers. The process, the accompanying ritual movements, the gestures, the conversation and eye contact which accompanies the process… I’ll entertain you with a witty comparison. Would you like that?’

‘Please do. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘I’d also be capable of conjuring the sensation of an orgasm.”

She is quite ruthless and cutting and while Geralt remains upset about Rience, Philippa, in true sorceress fashion, has already moved on. As well, she is explicitly queer in the books which I talk about here

Later, Geralt gets up in the night to go to the bathroom and stumbles upon Philippa attempting a coup. Triss temporarily blinds Geralt and Philippa and Tissaia exchange tense words. Philippa sends Geralt away with Dijkstra, offering him mercy despite him finding out about her coup. 

However, Geralt gets away from Dijkstra and goes back to Thanedd where a full-battle is going on. 

Turns out, Tissaia and Philippa’s fight cumulated in Tissaia releasing Vilgefortz and lowering the barrier as seen in this passage:

“They’re still fighting,’ said Carduin, grinding his teeth. ‘It’s hot down there, one spell after another…’

‘Spells? In Garstang? But there’s an anti-magic aura there!’

‘It was Tissaia’s doing. She suddenly decided whose side she was on. She took down the blockade, removed the aura and neutralised the dimeritium. Then everyone went for each other! Vilgefortz and Terranova on one side, Philippa and Sabrina on the other… The columns cracked and the vaulting collapsed… And then Francesca opened the entrance to the cellars, and those elven devils suddenly leapt out… We told them that we were neutral, but Vilgefortz only laughed.”

Geralt then runs in Keira Metz who was thrown out a window and she explains that after Vilgefortz was released the Scoia’tael (Elven and Non-human fighters who are allied with Nilfgaard sort of) attacked: 

“Sorry. How did the Scoia’tael get here?”

“They were hidden in the cellars. Thanedd is as hollow as a nutshell and there’s a huge cavern under it; you could sail a ship in if you knew how. Someone must have told them the way—Ouuuch! Be careful! Stop jolting me!’

‘Sorry. So the Squirrels came here by sea? When?’

‘God knows when. It might have been yesterday, or a week ago. We were preparing to strike at Vilgefortz, and Vilgefortz at us. Vilgefortz, Francesca, Terranova and Fercart… They conned us good and proper. Philippa thought they were planning a slow seizure of power in the Chapter, and to put pressure on the kings… But they were planning to finish us off during the Conclave… Geralt, it’s too painful… It’s my leg… Put me down for a second. Ouuuch!”

Later, there is a flashback to Philippa and Tissaia’s fight:

‘Enough!’ Philippa slammed her fist down on the table. ‘I shall satisfy your curiosity, Carduin. You ask who is preparing a war? Nilfgaard. They intend to attack and destroy us. But Emhyr var Emreis remembers Sodden Hill and has decided to protect himself by removing the mages from the game first. With this in mind, he made contact with Vilgefortz of Roggeveen. He bought him with promises of power and honour. 

Yes, Tissaia. Vilgefortz, hero of Sodden, sold us out to become the governor and ruler of all the conquered territories of the north. Vilgefortz, helped by Terranova and Fercart, shall rule the provinces which will be established in place of the conquered kingdoms. It is he who will wield the Nilfgaardian scourge over the people who inhabit those lands and will begin toiling as the Empire’s slaves. 

And Francesca Findabair, Enid an Gleanna, will become queen of the land of the free elves. It will, of course, be a Nilfgaardian protectorate, but it will suffice for the elves so long as Emperor Emhyr will give them a free hand to murder humans. The elves desire nothing so much as to murder Dh’oine.”

Tissaia states, “That is a serious accusation. Which means the proof will also have to be as weighty. But before you throw your proof onto the scale, Philippa Eilhart, be aware of my stance. Proof may be fabricated. Actions and their motives may be misinterpreted. 

But nothing can change existing facts. You have broken the unity and solidarity of the Brotherhood, Philippa Eilhart. You have handcuffed members of the Chapter like criminals. So do not dare to offer me a position in the new Chapter which your gang of traitors–who have sold out to the kings, rather than to Nilfgaaard–intend to create. 

We are separated by death and blood. The death of Hen Gedymdeith. And the blood of Lydia van Bredevoort. You spilled that blood with contempt. You were my best pupil, Philippa Eilhart. I was always proud of you. But now I have nothing but contempt for you.”

I won’t go into detail for the sake of brevity, but Philippa ends up escaping Thanedd unharmed after her failed coup and we don’t see her again until Baptism of Fire when she is forming The Lodge. 

Here is an excerpt of her pitch speech about The Lodge to the other mages:

Philippa Eilhart stood up, her dress rustling.

‘Distinguished sisters,’ she said. ‘Our situation is grave. Magic is under threat. The tragic events on Thanedd, to which my thoughts return with regret and reluctance, proved that the effects of hundreds of years of apparently peaceful cooperation could be laid waste in an instant, as self-interest and inflated ambitions came to the fore. 

We now have discord, disorder, mutual hostility and mistrust. Events are beginning to get out of control. In order to regain control, in order to prevent a cataclysm happening, the helm of this storm-tossed ship must be grasped by strong hands. 

Mistress Laux-Antille, Mistress Merigold, Mistress Metz and I have discussed the matter and we are in agreement. It is not enough to re-establish the Chapter and the Council, which were destroyed on Thanedd. In any case, there is no one left to rebuild the two institutions, no guarantee that should they be rebuilt they would not be infected with the disease that destroyed the previous ones. 

An utterly new, secret organisation should be founded which will exclusively serve matters of magic. Which will do everything to prevent a cataclysm. For if magic were to perish, our world would perish with it. 

Just as happened many centuries ago, the world without magic and the progress it brings with it will be plunged into chaos and darkness; will drown in blood and barbarity. We invite the ladies present here to take part in our initiative: to actively participate in the work proposed by this secret assembly. We took the decision to summon you here in order to hear your opinions on this matter. With this, I have finished.’

Then, later on in Baptism of Fire at the first official meeting of the Lodge Philippa discusses how she wants to make Ciri Queen of the North. 

“Who, then, is to be this Queen of the North?’

‘A girl from a royal family,’ Philippa calmly replied, ‘in whose veins flows royal blood, the blood of several great dynasties. Very young and capable of producing offspring. A girl with exceptional magical and prophetic abilities, a carrier of the Elder Blood as the prophecies have heralded. A girl who will play her role with great aplomb without direction, prompt, sycophants or grey eminences, because that is what her destiny demands. 

A girl, whose true abilities are and will be known only to us: Cirilla, daughter of Princess Pavetta of Cintra, the granddaughter of the Queen Calanthe called the Lioness of Cintra. The Elder Blood, the Icy Flame of the North, the Destroyer and Restorer, whose coming was prophesied centuries ago. Ciri of Cintra, the Queen of the North. And her blood, from which will be born the Queen of the World.”

After this, Yennefer, who was brought to the Lodge agains her will (although she is a member) escapes with Fringilla’s help in order to find Ciri and Philippa is furious. 

The next time we see Philippa is in The Tower of the Swallows and it is when Yennefer is hunting down Vilgefortz and contacts Philippa for help:

Philippa stared at her from under lowered eyelids. “If you believe,” she said finally, “that you've won peace, time, or security with this declaration, then you've miscalculated. Make no mistake about it, Yennefer. 

When you fled from Montecalvo, you made your decision. You chose to stand on a different side of the barricade. If you are not with the Lodge, you are against the Lodge. Now you're trying to forestall us from finding Ciri, and the motives that guide you are opposed to ours. 

You act against us. You do not want to allow us to use Ciri for our political purposes. You shouldknow that we will also do everything in our power to make sure that you cannot use the girl for your sentimental purposes.”

“So, it’s war?”

“Competition.” Philippa smiled toxically. “Competition only, Yennefer.”

“Decent and honorable?”

“You must be joking.”

“Obviously. Though on at least one specific issue, I would like to have an honest and genuine conversation. And, incidentally, it involves a favor to me.”

“Speak.”

“Over the next few days, maybe even tomorrow, events will occur whose consequences I cannot foresee. It may happen that our competition and rivalry suddenly has no meaning. For the simple reason that one of the competitors will not be there anymore.”

Philippa Eilhart narrowed her blue-shaded eyes. “I understand.”

“Ensure that I posthumously gain back my reputation and good name. I will no longer be held for a traitor or an accomplice of Vilgefortz. I ask this of the Lodge. I ask this of you, personally.”

Philippa was silent for a moment.“I deny your request,” she said finally. “I'm sorry, but your exoneration is not in the interest of the Lodge. If you die, you die a traitor. You'll be a traitor and criminal to Ciri, because then it will be easier to manipulate the girl.”

“Before you do something that could be fatal,” Triss said suddenly, “leave something behind for us…”

“A will?” Yennefer said.

“Something that allows us to… continue. To find Ciri. Because we are primarily concerned for her health! For her life! Yennefer, Dijkstra has found some traces of… some traces of certain activities have been found. If Vilgefortz does have Ciri, then the girl faces a horrible death.”

“Be quiet, Triss,” Philippa Eilhart hissed sharply. “We are not trading or bargaining.”

“I will leave you the information,” Yennefer said slowly. “I'll leave you the information on what I've found and what I plan. I’ll leave a trail you can follow to her. But not in vain. If you will not facilitate my exoneration in the eyes of the world, then to hell with you and with the world. But at least grant me exoneration in the eyes of the witcher.”

“No,” Philippa denied the request almost instantly. “That is also not in the interest of the Lodge. You will also remain a traitor and a mercenary sorceress to your witcher. It is not in the interest of the Lodge for him to furiously attempt to avenge you. If he despises you, he will not attempt to take revenge. By the way, he's probably already dead or will die any day now.”

“The information,” Yennefer said dully, “for his life. Save him, Philippa.”

“No, Yennefer.”

“Because it's not in the interest of the Lodge.” A purple fire kindled in the sorceress’ eyes. “Did you hear that Triss? There, you have your Lodge. You see their true colors, their true interests. And what do you think of them? You were a mentor to the girl, almost – as you put it – a big sister. And Geralt…”

“Do not attack Triss’ relationships, Yennefer.” Philippa retaliated with her own fire in her eyes. “We will find and rescue the girl without your help. And if you succeed, that's fine, a thousand thanks, because you will have saved us the trouble. You tear the girl out of the hands of Vilgefortz and we will be happy. And Geralt? Who cares about Geralt?”

“Did you hear that, Triss?”

“Forgive me,” said Triss Merigold dully. “Forgive me, Yennefer.”

“Oh, no, Triss. Never.”

I know this is a long scene, but it’s so important and isn’t one I felt right in slicing up. This establishes Triss’ true betrayal of Yennefer. Just prior to this, it is practically stated that Triss and Philippa slept together and despite Triss’ love for Yennefer her loyalty to Philippa is stronger in this moment which makes this hurt so much more. Philippa is also so cruel to Yennefer in this scene, denying both Geralt and Ciri the truth of her motivations as to better manipulate them. It really showcases how her lust for power overrides her empathy. 

The final time we see Philippa is in Lady of the Lake when Ciri is brought before the Lodge. Here, Philippa describes what their plans are for Ciri:

“You are coming with me,” Lady Owl (Philippa) said, breaking the heavy silence, “and Sile to Kovir, to Pont Vanis, the summer capital of the kingdom. As you are no longer Cirilla of Cintra, during the course of the audience you will be presented as an adept of magic, being protected by us. 

At that audience you will meet a very wise king, Esterad Thyssen. You will meet his wife, the Queen Zuleyka, a person of singular nobility and goodness. You will also meet their son and heir, Prince Tancred.”

Ciri was beginning to understand and rolled her eyes. Lady Owl did not miss that detail.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “First of all you must impress prince Tancred. Because you are going to become his lover and give him a child.”

“If you were still Cirilla of Cintra,” Philippa continued after a long pause, “still the daughter of Pavetta and granddaughter of Calanthe, you would become Prince Tancred’s legal wife. You’d be the princess and later the queen of Poviss and Kovir. Unfortunately, and I tell you with genuine regret, fate has deprived you of everything. Including your future. You will only be his mistress. His favourite.”

Then Later: 

“Your’s and Tancred’s child,” Philippa watched here with dark eyes, “will ensure the future and status of this Lodge. Take note that it will be a great thing. You will be a part of it, because right after the birth you will sit with us at this table. We will teach you. You are one of us, even if you do not want to admit it yet.”

“On the island of Thanedd,” Ciri overcame the tightness in her throat, “you said I was a mindless tool, even a monster, Lady Owl, and now you say that I am one of you.”

Then, the Lodge asks Ciri what her last name will be, Philippa and others offering theirs but Ciri declines in favor of choosing Yennefer’s:

“Thank you, Lady Philippa,” Ciri said after a few moments, squeezing the head of the sphinxes in her hands. “I also feel honoured with the proposal to take the surname de Tancarville. However, it seems to me that my new last name is the only thing that I can choose for myself, I thank the two mistresses. But I want to be called Cirilla of Vengerberg, daughter of Yennefer.”

Ciri requests to go and see Geralt and The Lodge votes on this and Philippa is the deciding vote. At first, she is hesitant but then Ciri shows her a vision and Philippa says this: 

“This Lodge,” Philippa said at last in a firm voice, “is to decide the fate of the world. So, this Lodge must reflect the world. Here, equilibrium and wisdom does not always mean cold and selfish, calculation and vileness, and sentimentality is not always naive. On one hand, iron discipline and on the other responsibility, resistance to violence, gentleness and trust. Cool reason… And heart.”

“I,” she said into the silence that reigned after her introduction, “cast the last vote. I will take into account one more thing. An element that without balancing anything, balances everything.”

“Following her gaze, everyone looked at the wall, to a mosaic of many multicolour tiles depicting the snake Uroboros, biting it’s own tail.

“That thing,” she continued, staring with her dark eyes at Ciri, “is destiny in which I, Philippa Eilhart have only begun to believe in recently, which I have only recently begun to understand. Destiny is not the way to providence or comfortable fatalism. Destiny is hope. I am full of hope that it will become what we want to happen, so I give my vote to Ciri - Child of Destiny, Child of Hope”

In the pillared hall of Montecalvo the was silence for a long time. From outside of the window came the hunting cry from a sea eagle.

“Lady Yennefer,” Ciri whispered. “It means…”

“Come, my daughter,” Yennefer whispered back. “Geralt is waiting for is and it is a long road ahead.”

This is the last time we see Philippa, but based on what we hear at other parts of Lady of Lake, we know she does not have a happy ending. After this, the Witch Hunt begin, a period of time when the Clergy hunted and murdered sorceresses and destroyed their pictures and images. The Witcher Hunts themselves could be an entirely separate post there is so much there. 

Many sorceresses, Philippa included as later considered Martyrs but she was killed viciously by the clergy as described in this passage from Lady of the Lake:

…As well as many of the other faithful, St. Philippa was also besmirched with betraying the Kingdom, inducing riots and plotting a coup. Willemer, a heretic and sectarian, unlawfully appointed himself the title of archpriest, and ordered St. Philippa to be thrown into a dark dungeon, and to plague her with cold and hunger, until she confessed to her sins of which she was accused and repented. 

Also various instruments of torture were used to try and break her spirit. But St. Philippa with disdain, spit in his face and accused him of sodomy.

The heretic had her disrobed and whipped her with barbed wire and placed sharp splinters under her nails. While unceasingly preaching about his faith and denouncing the Goddess. But St. Philippa laughed at him and recommended to him to heal his sick mind.”

“Willemer then gave the order to have her taken to the rack and stretched, while tearing her body with sharp hooks and burning her with candles. Although thus tormented, St. Philippa showed no weakness in body and indeed her resistance and endurance seemed almost superhuman. 

The executioner’s arms went limp and with fear they retreated from her. Then the filthy heretic, Willemer, began to threaten them and told them to continue the torment. They burned St. Philippa with red-hot irons, pulled her limbs out of their joints and pulled at her breasts with blacksmith tongs. And although she passed away from this torment, she confessed nothing.

The shameless heretic Willemer, we read in the books of our holy fathers, later suffered for this punishment and it was that lice and worms began to eat him alive, his entrails rotted away and he died miserably. 

His carcass carried with it a foul stench and nobody wanted to bury him, and so he was dropped in a swamp.

For the suffering and death of St. Philippa the eternal memory of a martyr’s crown rightfully belongs. Let us give the Great Mother Goddess praise for her lessons and teachings. Amen.

The Life of St. Philippa, Martyr of Mons Calvus

The Book of Martyrs Compiled in the Breviary of Tretogor, For the 

Contemplation of the Holy Fathers and Mothers.”

Needless to say, Philippa’s hunger for power and The Lodge end in ruin. There are very few happy endings in The Witcher and this is just another example. 

So that’s my overview on Philippa! I had to cut some scenes and moments in the hope of keeping it short, but I hope it was still an enjoyable read. If you want another character/topic WTF post leave something in my inbox and I will get to it when I can. 

[atomic-taco-muffin]

The Lost Princess Chapter 70

Warnings: Me, skipping to saving Aqua b/c the anticipation was killing me, also fluff/angst

Rating: SFW

In the Badlands on the outskirts of the Keyblade Graveyard, Marluxia and Larxene stood atop thirteen pillars of earth.

“So, why are you back?” Marluxia asked. 

“Nice way to greet your old partner in crime,” Larxene said. Marluxia gave a small laugh at the title. “So, why do you think the old geezer took us back? He must know we backstabbed the Organization when Xemnas and Muki were running it.”

“Xehanort doesn't care about you or me. To him, we're nothing but empty husks. The old Organization was the same. Xehanort needs thirteen vessels to hold his essence. And let’s not forget him wanting that Spirit.” 

“Which one? There’s like 4 of them.” 

“You know which one.” 

“Oh. Her. But that girl has slipped through our hands multiple times. There’s no way she’ll submit. Especially with that pathetic team of hers. So, you up for another coup?” Larxene gave him a coy smile. 

“Oh, please. You couldn't do it last time. You gotta play it smart, like me,” someone said. They looked over to another pillar, where a man with blond hair was holding a large sitar.

“What?! You're not smart!” Larxene said. 

“Well, you heard what Marly said. I don't have to be smart,” Demyx smirked. 

“Or capable, or likeable, or attractive. A cereal bowl would make a better vessel.” Demyx tuned his sitar strings while Larxene roasted him.

“Whoa now, you are WAY out of line. I am extremely imposing...when I want to be. Which is, admittedly, almost never,” he said. 

“Why haven't you gone to any worlds? Are you slacking?” 

“'Course not. I got benched.” 

“Huh?

“Saïx brought Vexen on board. They must be planning to use replicas,” Marluxia said. 

“Those windup toys?” 

“Oh, no. The replicas are way more real than you remember. I mean, one stole my spot!” Larxene burst into laughter. (her laugh is so hot! fight me!)

“OF COURSE it stole your spot. You're dumb as a brick,” she said. 

“Har-dee-har,” Demyx said. 

“Vexen's latest replicas are no mere puppets. The Riku replica we used in Castle Oblivion was just a prototype. The next replica, the one crafted from Sora's memories, was real enough to join our ranks. And Vexen claims the new ones will be human in every way. If he ever finishes them,” Marluxia said. 

“Oh... The thing is...I kinda told Sora and his nitwits that we're ready. My bad,” Larxene said. 

“Let them believe as such.” A dark corridor opened to reveal Queen Muki. 

“Ugh. Muki,” Larxene said. 

“If they think that we have all thirteen darknesses, then they will panic. And panic leads to a lack of preparation,” Muki said. 

“Yeah, totally,” Demyx said. 

“Why is thing a member again?” Larxene asked as she pointed to Demyx. 

“Hey now! Pointing is rude.” 

“The first six members of the original Organization were all apprentices to Ansem the Wise, and the seventh and eighth members joined thereafter. The thirteenth member was Roxas, a Keyblade wielder. So. What about you? How do you suppose Xemnas and I chose numbers nine through twelve?” Muki said. 

“Because our hearts are über powerful,” Larxene said. 

“Wrong. You have been brought together for another purpose.” 

“What? So that we can rot away on the bottom rung?” someone asked. A man with short blond hair and multiple earrings appeared on the pillar adjacent to Demyx.

“You're in too? What is this, Organization Rehash?” Larxene sighed. 

“I happen to play an important role. No one ‘benched’ me,” Luxord said. 

“You were listening? So not cool,” Demyx said. 

“One must hold one's cards as long as necessary.” 

“What ‘important role’? That stupid box that Xigbar claims is real, but won't tell us a thing about? And what’s the deal with this ‘Princess’?” Larxene asked.

“You'll just have to ask Xigbar that,” Luxord said as he played with his cards. “Now then, Your Majesty, what is this ‘purpose’? You didn't invite us back for old times' sake.”

“You four are going to reveal your greatest secret: the ancient Keyblade legacy that slumbers within you,” Muki said. They each reacted with surprise and skepticism as Muki gave a breathy, hyena-like laugh.

In the Woods of Twilight Town, just outside the Old Mansion, a corridor of darkness appeared and Lady Elena strolled out of it, followed by Ansem the Wise. From behind a tree, Hayner, Pence and Olette watched.

“It's about time!” Pence said.

“Look! There’s mom!” Olette said. 

“Heeey, shut it! C'mon,” Hayner said. He moved ahead as the two skulk behind him. As Ansem the Wise and Elena walk into the courtyard, the trio peeked out from behind the gate. Ansem the Wise stopped just before the entrance door, forcing Elena to turn around.

“What now?” she asked. Ansem the Wise looked up to the curtained window.

“Please. I have created enough victims,” he said.

“Yes, you have. All the children sacrificed in the name of your research... So make things right,” Elena said. 

“I told you I did not take her. Her disappearance was why I put a stop to the research.”

“And that makes you honorable? You used Roxas and Naminé and threw them away. I doubt there's a merciful bone in your body. You took the girl, and hid her. Now, show me the data you are hiding here.” 

“Roxas and Naminé... If there is any reason that I still draw breath, it is to atone for what I did to them. But, would your daughter want to see this?” 

“She’s already seen enough. Along with my other kids.” Olette and Pence gasped. 

“She’s talking about us,” Pence said. 

“And Roxas,” Olette said. 

“Yeah,” Hayner said. 

“That man needs us,” Olette said. 

“Right. And we need to get that Negaverse thing out of mom,” Hayner said.

“Yeah,” Pence said. 

“If you do find the girl, what is it that you expect will happen?” Ansem the Wise asked. 

“The child's memory holds a mystery to unravel--one concerning the battle we seek between light and darkness. You know something and that... is why you stopped the experiments,” Elena said. 

“You are completely deluded, M’Lady.” 

“We shall soon see.” She grabbed Ansem the Wise's shoulder and pushed him toward the door before Pence popped in.

“Yoo-hoo!” he said. Elena stopped. “'Scuse meee!”

Elena whirled around at this interruption.

“Pence, what are you doing here?” she growled. 

“Oh, well, I'm looking for a friend who used to live here.” 

“You live here. Unless your father moved somewhere else, then it’s not working.” Pence’s distraction enabled Olette to run inside the courtyard.

“But mom...” Pence stalled as he stepped closer. 

“No, no, no! Not one more step. Get out!” Elena said. As she walked toward Pence, Olette rushed and grabbed Ansem the Wise.

“This way!” she whispered. Elena spun around, seeing Ansem the Wise escaping as Hayner ran in, attempting to jump kick her from behind.

“Oi!” he cried. Elena summoned Anti-Nyx and it caught Hayner with its paws. “...or not!”

“Hayner!” Pence cried. Anti-Nyx tossed Hayner at the brick wall of the courtyard but a strange white blob curled around him and cushioned the blow. He bounced to the ground safely. More white blobs flew through the air from behind corners, like wispy trails. They surrounded Elena and Anti-Nyx, revealing themselves as Dusk Nobodies.

“The squiggly things?” Pence asked. It uncurled from Hayner as he sat up in disbelief.

“They...protected me,” he said. Pence grabbed Hayner's arm.

“Hayner! Get a move on!” he said. 

“Oh... Okay.” Pence helped Hayner up and the two ran back to the Woods. Elena focused her attention on the Dusks.

“I serve the Organization. This is treason,” she sneered. “I see what is happening. Have it your way then.” 

Olette and Ansem the Wise escaped to the Underground and Hayner and Pence caught up.

“Are you guys okay?” Olette asked as the two boys caught their breath. 

“Yeah, I think,” Hayner said. 

“Nobody knows the twists and turns of Twilight Town better than us,” Pence said. 

“You are Roxas's friends. And Lady Elena’s children,” Ansem the Wise said. 

“That's right. So you know him, too?” Hayner said. 

“Oh yes. Quite well.” 

“Pay dirt. Guess it was worth staking out our house after all, because this guy here is what I call a lead,” Pence said. He reached into his pocket and took out the photo of them together with Roxas.

“That's the only proof we have that Roxas was our friend,” Olette said. 

“Tell us about him. We wanna know him better,” Hayner said. 

“My dear master. You are safe,” a cloaked man said as he appeared behind them. 

“Who's there?” Hayner asked. They whirled around, seeing the scientist with blond hair.

“Even, is that you? So...those Nobodies were your doing,” Ansem the Wise said. The wispy blobs floated in behind Vexen and became Dusks again. Their appearance unsettled the trio. However, Vexen bowed his head.

“I have been waiting for this. Gave up a normal life in order to plant myself in the Organization. And when I heard Xehanort had gone looking for you, I realized it was my chance to find you as well. For you see, I, too, wish to atone. I also want to protect the royal bloodline,” he said. 

“Royal bloodline?” Pence asked. 

“I see. If it’s (Y/N) you’re protecting then I shall help you,” Ansem the Wise said. 

“Huh?!” Hayner, Pence, and Olette asked. 

“Not just her,” Vexen said. 

~~~~

You and your team flew in the Gummi Ship, not knowing where to go next. Sora's Gummiphone started to ring and Jiminy leapt into his shoulder as he pulled it out.

“Sora, somebody's callin' us on the Gummiphone,” Jiminy said. You and the others walked to Sora's chair and Sora answered the call. Dale appeared on the screen way too close to the camera.

“We got baaad news,” he said. 

“Huh?” Sora asked. Chip yanked Dale away from the camera.

“We totally lost contact with the King and Riku! They're all on their own in the realm of darkness!” he said. 

“Whaaat?!” you and your team asked. 

“See? I knew I shoulda gone!” Sora said. 

“Chip, how do we get to 'em?” you asked. 

“NOW we can ask?” 

“It's not like we can use that big old door anymore. It's completely gone,” Goofy said. 

“Yeah, we closed it after beating Ansem’s Negaverse,” Donald said. 

“And we certainly can't ask the King or Riku,” Vanitas said. 

“'Cause you wouldn't LET me ask,” Sora said. Dale pushed Chip out of the way.

“Only King Mickey can open a door to the realm of darkness,” he said. 

“Huh?” you and your team asked. Chip pushed Dale away and Jiminy hopped down.

“It's because he has a special Keyblade of darkness. He figured out how to make it open the way,” Chip said. 

“Oh...” Sora sighed. 

“Gawrsh, what'll we do then?” Goofy asked. You and the others groaned. 

“May my heart be our guiding key. It'll show us the way,” Sora said. He stood and summoned the Keyblade, aiming it ahead of him. The tip glowed and a portal opened outside the ship.

“A gate!” you and your team said. Sora put away the Keyblade.

“But where does it lead?” Celina asked. 

“It doesn't matter! Go!” Roxy said.

“Hurry, Sora!” Rumi said. 

“Okay,” Sora said. He sat at the controls and piloted the ship through the wormhole, the portal closing behind you all with a ripple. The bright warm sun shined down on the sandy beaches of the Destiny Islands. You and your team walked  along the seashore.

“Why do you think that gate took us here?” you asked. Walking further down the beach, Sora came upon a Keyblade in the sand, the teeth of the blade forming the shape of an 'E'. Sora knelt down and picked it up.

“A Keyblade?” Vanitas asked. 

“It looks so old,” Yui said. 

“It looks familiar,” Celina said. Sora held it in both hands, looking it over.

“How did it end up here?” he asked. 

“Hmm, maybe it's another guiding key,” Goofy said. 

“Sure, but to guide us where?” Sora aimed it forward and a beam erupted from the blade, striking a corner of the beach where a tree met a rockface. The area glowed, revealing a door. You and your rushed over to it.

“A door!” you said. 

“Let’s go,” Donald said. Sora closed his eyes, steeling himself.

“Not you guys,” he said. 

“Huh?” you and your team asked. 

“Well, (Y/N) and Celina can come I guess.”

“Hell yeah, we’re coming!” you said.

“We understand, but we don't want you goin' someplace dangerous on your own,” Goofy said. 

“Thanks, guys. But we'll be fine. We'll make sure Riku and the King are safe. Trust us,” Sora said. 

“Besides, I know the Realm of Darkness better than you guys,” Celina said. You, Sora, and Celina smiled and the others exchanged concerned looks. They nodded softly to each other.

“You promise to be good?” Vanitas asked. 

“And come home nice and safe?” Goofy asked. 

“Right,” you, Sora, and Celina said. The three of you turned around and entered the Secret Place. In the Dark World...

“Riku, look!” Mickey said. The Demon Tower wriggled in the air, bending over and twisting into Riku, knocking the Keyblade from his arms. It dissipated when it hits the sand.

“Riku!” Mickey gasped. The swarm of Heartless knocked Mickey off his feet and he also dropped his Keyblade, consumed by the swarm. Riku lifted himself up.

“Mickey!” he cried. The Demon Tower coalesced under swirling winds into an orb of darkness before Riku's very eyes. Purple fragments gathered within the orb, pushing out of it. The bubble burst and a dark figure leapt out landing on the gray sand. King Mickey watched from his prison in the orb as the dark figure walked toward his Keyblade, picking it up.

“This Keyblade...” Mickey gasped at the familiar voice. 

“Is it her?” he asked. The darkness peeled away at the woman, revealing blue hair.

“Mickey...” she said as she turned, revealing her yellow eyes. “You're too late.” 

“Aqua?” Riku asked. 

“You abandoned me, that's what. Left me in this shadow prison for more than a decade, knowing what it would do to me...Celina was here with me but even she left.” 

‘Celina? Who’s Celina?’ Riku thought.

“I'm sorry. It's all my fault,” Mickey said. Anti-Aqua turned and walked to the shoreline.

“I reached this shore after endless wandering. Waited forever for help to arrive. But no one ever came,” she said as she walked over the water. “I lost my Keyblade. Had no means of fighting my way back through the Heartless. You should have known I was stranded. Do you have any idea how lonely it is here? How frightening it is to have no one?”

Riku clenched his fist in the sand.

“All that's left in my heart is misery and despair...and now, you can share it!” Anti-Aqua said. Riku walked toward her.

“There's no need. Got my own,” he said. In Riku's heart, a version of Riku from the past wearing the dark clothes of his possessed self walked to his side, the Riku Replica. In his hand he held a special Keyblade, the Way to the Dawn. He looked over at Riku and smirked, before vanishing into particles of light. Riku clenched his fist again and summoned his Keyblade, walking over the water after Aqua. The orb holding Mickey floated over the water between them, becoming a swirling mass of Shadow Heartless once more. He struck at the swirling mass, sending Shadows flying left and right. The Demon Tower took on a purple aura and splashed downward, the Heartless's eyes glowing red, as Anti-Aqua appeared, raising the Keyblade in her hands.

“Enough!” she cried. She summoned large icy spikes, sending them careening toward Riku, before releasing the Demon Tower once again. Riku landed back on the water, breathing heavily.

“Sora...(Y/N)...” he said. A light shined from above and a door appeared, the same door from the Destiny Islands. You, Sora, and Celina soared in, landing with a splash on the water.

“We made it!” you smiled. Celina looked at you and noticed that you had a keyblade in your hand. 

(yes, it’s Ira’s Keyblade)

“(Y/N), look,” she said. You looked at your hand and saw that there was your father’s Keyblade in your hands. 

“Wow...” you said. Riku smiled and dispelled his Keyblade as the Demon Tower swirled in front of you all. The four of you held your arms out together, emanating a brilliant white light. Above, three colorful Keyblades and Celina’s trident, Unicornis, Nightmare's End, and Mirage Split joined together to form a giant three-handled blade. The four of you lifted your arms, raising the powerful Keyblade and trident, which glowed with a warm light. The four of your threw your arms forward and the light washed over the Demon Tower, dispersing the Shadows inside. They released Mickey from their hold, sending him falling to the beach with a shout. Riku rushed over to him and Anti-Aqua raced after him. She raised the Keyblade as Riku summoned his just in time but you stopped Ant-Aqua before she could attack. The blades clashed, sending up a gigantic splash. As the misting water fell away, you were holding back Aqua's Keyblade from Riku, sparks flying from the blades' contact. Riku stood with his mouth agape. Anti-Aqua leapt backward. You looked back at Riku, giving him a reassuring smile, which Riku returned. Sora and Celina ran over to you to give you a helping hand. 

“How, (Y/N)?” Riku asked. 

“No idea! But I ain’t questioning it!” you said. 

“Watch over the King. We've got this,” Sora said. 

“Okay,” Riku said. He rushed back to Mickey as You, Sora, and Celina dispelled the Master's Defender in favor of your and Sora’s own Keyblades to face down Anti-Aqua. She teleported over the water, sending a strike of dark energy in the four of yours direction. She spiraled on the water, summoning a dark Blizzard spell. Two identical clones appeared wielding the same spell, closing in on Sora. They release shards of ice that whiz by your, Celina, and Sora's head, just missing the three of you, before encircling the three of you in a glowing snowflake. The three of you narrowly dodged, but was struck by an icicle. The three of you ran forward, but Anti-Aqua teleported three times in succession, causing three of you to miss with each strike. For a moment, the three of you saw no one on the water, waiting with bated breath, but then the three of you turned your heads. She walked slowly away from you three.

“Shouldn't have abandoned me...” she said. Celina took a risky move and ran towards Aqua.

“Celina!” you and Sora cried. Celina grabbed Anti-Aqua and crashed her lips onto hers. 

“Huh?!” you and the others asked, surprised. Anti-Aqua melted in the kiss and felt the darkness melt away from her. A beam of light surrounded you all and you were all brought back to the Realm of Light. Aqua broke the kiss and looked around. 

“Are these...the Destiny Islands?” she asked. 

“That’s right,” you said. Aqua looked over and saw you. 

“(Y/N)...” she said.

“Hi, auntie,” you smiled. She ran over to you and got a good look at you. 

“My have you grown!” she said. You gave a small chuckle and wrapped her in a hug. 

“I missed you so much!” you said. 

“Me too,” she said. After catching up with everyone else, you and the others went to go find Ventus. 

To be continued...

[sldlovescartoons]

Okay. So, my brother started watching naruto awhile ago, and it’s made me revisit it. Really take a good look at it, and I find that I am very bothered by something, the more I think of it. I mean, there are a lot of things, but the big thing right now that I’m fussing about is the fact that the truth about the Uchiha massacre is a secret.

Problem number 1: the idea that it would reflect poorly on the Uchiha clan, who have been framed as victims. Big problem with that, that nobody really brings up, is that Uchiha were right??? They thought there was anti-Uchiha sentiment amongst the people: there was. So bad that when the coupe was discovered, the first thought was not that the leaders would die, no, every Uchiha would die. The idea that a member of one of the founding clans should probably hold government office for the first time ever? Impossible. They distrusted them so much they wouldn’t even let them help with the nine-tails with no actual evidence that they did anything. They thought they were being quartered off and spied on: they were. Hell, the village had turned one of their own against them. I find it difficult to believe that if all the information got out that people wouldn’t still view them as victims, no matter how cursed they were.

Problem 2: okay... I love Sasuke. He is my favorite. I find his story to be rather tragic. That said, I find it inconceivable that he’d have been pardoned and released so soon without that information being known. Honestly, even with it known, he still probably should have spent a few years in prison with years of house arrest after, not been released and allowed to wonder the world on probation. I find the idea that he was pardoned of his crimes without that knowledge impossible, even with Kakashi and Naruto backing him. Without that knowledge, Sasuke’s story losses the plot and becomes crazy and unsympathetic. Up until he found out his only crimes were aiding and abetting Orochimaru, some attempted murder, and the Deidara thing. He killed two major criminals: Orochimaru and Itachi. He could easily be pardoned for leaving and assisting Orochimaru on grounds of those two assasinations alone. Perfectly reasonable. If the truth is a secret, I can only assume his story is something like “after I killed my brother I just kinda went crazy, decided I was going kill everyone starting with Danzo. Then I just snapped out of it during the war.” I don’t think any amount of pull on Kakashi and Naruto’s part could do anything to help with at sort of story. Plus it just doesn’t make sense, logically. People would have a ton of questions that there were no answers to. Not to mention Kakashi and Naruto both have obvious blind spots for Sasuke that might invalidate their opinions to people out of the know. His former teacher and his best friend vouch for him, and they buy it? Weird.

Also:

The fact that Naruto, and presumably Kakashi, who knows the truth, let Homura and Koharu remain as Council Members. They are militant, old racists, and they know that, and they just let them keep their jobs??? Gross. Really gross, and uncool of Naruto in particular. You would think the first thing one of them would do is get a new fucking council. Just. Ew. Uncool.

I think the only true said about keeping the truth hidden is that it would cause war. That is true, and would be bad. Honestly, I think when Itachi said he wanted to keep the clans reputation the same, he was lying. As wise we are told he is, he had to know that the group of people who would fault the Uchihas is small and the group that would pissed large. Itachi is a liar above all else, after all.

More over, I find the fact that people are so bent on following Itachi’s wishes to be real wierd. Itachi fucked up, and was wrong, by his own admission! He knows he did wrong, and made several mistakes, and what he did was unforgivable. But everybody else is bent on following his wishes, except Sasuke, who is more focused on being like Itachi then anything else. He even goes against Itachi’s wish for him to be known as great hero, which would be great if he was doing it because he didn’t want to be manipulated by his brother anymore, not because he wants to be like him. The man tortured his little brother with images of him killing the clan twice, so he could punished for his sins. I don’t think his wishes should matter all that much, no matter how pure his intentions. (By the way, I don’t really have problems with Itachi himself. Love him. Just they way people react and think of him in universe after they know the truth. Because he still did fucked up shit.)

[fanesavin]

The High Inquisitor has a meeting with the Prelate concerning the findings of his investigation.

[ (x) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (x) | Part 4 | Part 5  (x) | Part 6 (x) | Part 7 | Part 8 (x) | Part 9 (x) |Part 10 (x) | Part 11 (x) (x) ]

@teddyaynesworth

Fane let Bellamy and Faye go, turning about and heading in the direction of the Prelate’s office. The nearer he got to the room the heavier the conversation with Lady Florent earlier in the day weighed on his shoulders. You cannot serve justice and peace. And yet, did he not swear to give the former, never the latter. Moving up the winding staircase until he reached the door in question and raised a clenched fist to knock before he entered. “I’m sorry to bother you Prelate, but I have urgent business to discuss with you.” Was this a mistake? Could he trust the man he was going to speak with? Fane didn’t rightly know, but the Prelate would play a role in determining the Raj the people called for and Fane was worried about the outcome.

Prelate Theodore "Inquisitor! I’d expected your work on behalf of the Council would have you occupied day and night.“ Theodore moved closer to Fane, thinning his eyes as he inspected the man’s face, the exhaustion inscribed on features that were doing their best to maintain order and fulfill duty. "Then again – it looks as though you’ve been racing through the candles already. Come, man, get off your feet for a moment. Have some wine.” The Prelate gestured towards one of the heavy chairs at his table, pouring them both his green wine. “Tell me what your concerns are. Does it have to do with your findings about the crown?”

Fane had been burning the candle at both ends and while he attempted to maintain a presentable appearance as befit his rank there were signs of the toll. Equally growing more restless the more he learned. Too many moving wheels and gears. The offer to sit took a moment to be considered but ultimately he shook his head, "I doubt I'd be able to sit still long enough." But the wine he did accept, taking a small sip, strong and a touch sour but it gave him a point to focus on. "As you well know, the late High Raj wished to have his coronation crown refurbished, that refurbishment happened here in the capitol with the Guild's best blacksmith who after several visits has confirmed the rig containing the venom was not present prior to its departure on the journey... The journey was clearly the most obvious point of weakness, and I've worked to confirm that the crown used in the ceremony was not the same one that left the Capitol at the beginning of its tour of the kingdoms. It was counterfeited and replaced."

As he’d said, Fane wasn’t able to stand still for the duration, starting to pace back and forth. “We know the crown went to and stayed longest in Blackspire, Summerset, the Kesleylands and Hathurana. It also had brief stays in Honeywild, the High Peninsula and the Eades… But in two of these locations I’ve come to learn the Captains left the crown unguarded...” He drew in a long breath turning back to the Prelate, “that was in Summerset and the Kesleylands.”

Prelate Theodore steepled his fingers as he listened to Fane's tense report, the words spooling out like coins on a money string -- clanking against each other, each heavy with value. "You've acquitted yourself most honourably," Theodore said, wanting to preface any further discussion with that accolade. It was a thankless task the Inquisitor had been given, and he'd clearly thrown himself body and soul into performing it to the absolute limits of his well-proven ability. "If we can count anything in this situation as fortunate, it's that we had you on hand to conduct this investigation." Picking up his wine, Theodore sipped it as he collected his thoughts. "Summerset and Kesleyland; one allied with the Forty Isles whose Grand Lady was subject to an attack, the other peopled with anti-witch zealots who do nothing but tarnish the name of their House." He raised an eyebrow at Fane. "If one was inclined towards the bolder set of evidence, it would look fair damning for the Kesleys, wouldn't it?"

Fane allowed himself a minute humourless smile but took the moment to catch himself. “I was charged with finding justice and I hope it is found.” The Inquisitor grew quiet as he let the Prelate think equally knowing the worth of silence. “Unfortunately, that’s just the issue," Fane stopped by one of the map tables his eyes drifting over the different Kingdoms "whoever carried this out was calculated and cunning. Why would someone go to all this effort and intricacy only to draw so much attention to themselves by trying to kidnap the grand-lady and then staging a coup in the keep barely days after the murder of the Raj?" Fane shook his head, "it doesn't make sense. Which is what leads me to believe Summerset is the more likely location that the crown was swapped.”

Prelate Theodore nodded, his voice wry when he replied to Fane's pinning the Summerset as the most likely culprit. "I'd have preferred if it were the Kesleys," he admitted. "Their House is chaotic and not well-liked or respected, especially after their antics these past few days. Summerset ... it's a kingdom with storied history, an admired Grand Lady, and strong ties to our most sprawling and economically virile nation of the Isles." Theodore frowned at the table, a knot of wood that hadn't been sanded down to lie flush with the rest. "Should we make accusations of the Summerset, we will have but once chance to make it stick." 

Fane sighed through his nose, "aye as I wish it was too." Fane continued to ponder the map, "Summerset and the Kesleys have always had long-standing rivalry have they not?" He grimaced at the mention of accusations, "that's the issue Prelate, I'm not sure I have enough to make an accusation and know it's the correct individual taking the blame." Fane straightened leaving the table, his features grim "there's more, we know that the princes of the Isles were in attendance at Summerset. The Forty Isles Captain admitted as much under interrogation from his Commander - he was bribed with forty isles coin to leave the crown while they were in Summerset while the other guard was diverted with a distraction… He took it as the briber implied the work was for the Queen’s Consort. The man unfortunately managed to find a way take his life in captivity before we had a chance to question him further… Equally, the counterfeit crown bore the mark of the forty isles.” 

Prelate Theodore sat up straighter, his frown deepening. "You mean to tell me that this counterfeit crown, the one fitted with the means for murdering the High Raj, had a visible mark of the Forty Isles?" Theodore rose from his seat, now, moving to the map table as well as though if they both scrutinized it enough, the secrets of its cartography would enlighten them. "Then either the Princes are becoming uncharacteristically slovenly in their dabblings in intrigue, or someone is attempting to shift blame to them."

Fane gave a slight nod of his head, "aye, equally the journeyman of the blacksmith in the Capitol that completed the refurbishment of the crown hailed from Summerset. She had to return there apparently to fetch her sister, only, she never to returned. It's quite a coincidence that the only other person to see the schematics for the crown and how it would be refashioned never returned... The amount of evidence continues to overwhelmingly stack up against Summerset." But he had to agree with the Prelate, it hearkened back to his earlier statement about the Kesleys drawing attention to themselves. "I can't say I'm so familiar with the younger Cardero but I've known Prince Iann for a fair few decades now. His son's been one of my wards and the man is as cunning as anyone in his subterfuge. I know the Raj defeated him in battle during the wars but I honestly can't admit to seeing him leaving such blatant evidence that would bring him and his House to ruin. The man's many things but an idiot he is not." He grew quiet, there was one piece of evidence he had yet to share. Finishing his wine he set it down, he settled into silence once more as he weighed up something with himself "there's one more thing... But... I can't I can see where it might fit in the larger puzzle if it even fits anywhere at all...."

"No, the Driftwood Prince is no fool. Liar and pirate he might be, and set to inherit a vast amount of wealth and far-reaching influence, but not a fool." Theodore tucked his hands into his long flared sleeves. "One might almost wish he was, eh, Lord Savin? At least then we would be assured of him accidentally showing his hand in this affair." His gaze swept along the archipelago of the Greater Isles, out through the dotted scatter of the rest that made up the Forty. "Instead of being obliged to consider the possibility that he's clever enough to clear himself of suspicion by making the reasons to suspect him far too obvious." He sighed and stepped away, moving to one of the tall panelled windows. "You may as well divulge all of your information, Lord Savin," he said. "Whether it adds another snarl to this tangle or not."

Fane made a quiet noise of agreement. "And considering he's set to inherit that wealth and his father's seat why would he wish to squander it with an ill attempted plan such as this?" He studied the ocean between the Isles and the main continent, he'd never liked sea-faring much and the Isles were a far cry from his own lifestyle. "You heard about the Kesley coup, the lord responsible ended up being taken to the dungeons for further questioning... Only to end up being found with his throat sliced from ear to ear." A grim death as any, Fane stood up seeming hesitant to speak but having no reason not to share what he'd learned. "My men that were guarding the night of his death reported that the Grand Lady was the last to visit the man alive and that she had a strange hooded figure accompanied her on this particular journey... She happened to claim to be there on my behalf... Which, I can say is untrue... No effort was made to bribe the guards however, which was either quite deliberate or a mistake..." He shifted, feeling uncomfortable as he spoke the words. "Perhaps she had reason for being there... They did attempt to kidnap her, and I would never wish to presume about such matters without more evidence if there even is indeed any to be uncovered... Unfortunately, my attempts to investigate such things is where I've come up dry, considering the Kesleys are all six feet under now... I did hope Lady Florent might be of assistance -- I know you and her were to be seated on the Raj's council and of her position as Master of Whisperers. Unfortunately, as she informed me earlier today she is of the belief justice and peace can't both be served." 

That certainly sounded like something Ciara would say, particularly to a person like the Inquisitor -- whose entire position was intended to bludgeon information from suspects with expedience rather than finesse. It was a good thing he was facing the window; that meant the Prelate could indulge himself in a smile before assuring Fane, "Our Master of Whispers occupies a liminal space both physically and mentally. It's necessary to her position, and it also makes her suspicious of ... the co-existence of certain systems of governance. Or rather, the possibility of co-existence." Theodore turned from the window to look at Fane. "We can amend that objection easily, you and I. The Dawnguard can continue to serve the cause of justice, and the Cloverry will devote itself to instilling peace." The Prelate motioned between them. "We can be the fulcrum. I am a creature of politicking, Lord Savin; there's no need for you to wear yourself down when it comes to that side of the equation. But we can continue to share information."

Fane merely made a non-committal noise concerning Ciara. "Well, unless you can convince her to part with any secrets for the sake of finding the person responsible for all this, I'm not sure we have a case." His eyes drifted to the window, and the chants and cries going up from the streets beyond. "Which leaves us with a conundrum, doesn't it? The people want and expect us to give them a High Raj."

Prelate Theodore corrected in a firm, sure voice, "The people want and expect the Cloverry to give them a High Raj. And the Cloverry is already tabulating appropriate candidates, you can be sure." 

Fane inclined his head in polite deference for his mistake, "aye you're right, I apologise... It's been a long week."

Prelate Theodore waved a hand before returning it to his sleeve. "Not needed, Lord Savin. It's become second nature to me to remind people that appointing the High Raj is the province of the Cloverry -- I know that it's something you are well aware of. It's been a long week for me, as well." Theodore rolled his shoulders back, then forward again before straightening. "Please, don't trouble yourself anymore with the matter of the counterfeit crown and where the culpability lies. The Council will now take that matter on board. You've ... done plenty, for a man reluctant to be pressed into wartime service again."

Fane straightened his posture lifting his chin. "No doubt," politics nor the game were Fane's area of expertise so he was glad to pass the mantle on to someone else. "I've done what was asked of me, if it bears fruit then I'll rest easy. But, should you require my service for anything else, just ask."

Prelate Theodore gave a halfway nod, but then reconsidered and stepped closer to Fane, extending his cold, elegant hand. "You've been invaluable, Lord Savin," he said with the calm sincerity that the most effective clergy aspired to. "The Council will always consider you a trusted member and treasured asset."

Fane was admittedly surprised by the gesture, rare was it for the Prelate to give acknowledgement as he was presently. Fane took the proffered hand, far less elegantly but then again, his hands never were meant for building or shaping empires. "I appreciate your faith Prelate, and I hope by the end of all this we come out with some semblance of the peace we hoped to craft by being here." After shaking the man's hand, Fane naturally stepped back. "Please, keep me informed of any further developments that happen to arise... Otherwise, by your permission I shall take my leave of you."

[him-e]

do you have any general predictions for Star Wars episode 9?

I’m not too confident in my predictions for IX, because TLJ was one giant curveball thrown at us. Not because we didn’t correctly predict most of it (we did) but because the ending wiped a lot of possible paths out of the way, with no actual cliffhanger to pin speculation on, Snoke dead, and the main storyline from Return of the Jedi already covered without bearing the expected fruit (=Kylo’s redemption). So as far as sw tropes and patterns go, IX is almost uncharted territory. Still, Star Wars is a fairytale, and imo the best way to predict where it’s going is to focus on larger themes and archetypal narratives. The central theme for IX was spelled out in in TLJ very clearly: we are going to win this war not by killing what we hate, but by saving what we love. I’m fairly confident that this theme will be developed through both Rey and Kylo, individually and together.(*)

Kylo Ren’s arc is also the main axis of this trilogy so in order to know where the story is going you have to figure out where he is going. And right now, Kylo Ren moved beyond Vader. Breaking the leash and killing his master did not redeem him, but actually cemented him as the Villain. In TLJ, he went from lost boy to actual god of the underworld. There’s no big bad outranking him. He’s the sole architect of his own misery. You can’t save him by eliminating another player—that ship has sailed with TLJ. At the same time, I have no doubt he’ll redeem himself. So how will he do it? In Beauty and the Beast—which I think is one of the patterns this trilogy was modeled on—the real villain is neither the witch nor Gaston, and it’s certainly not the Beast himself; if there’s a villain at all, it’s the Beast’s darker, uglier nature, whatever is crippling his ability for love and gentleness and self sacrifice, that has to be defeated. Like the Beast, Kylo is responsible for creating the dark castle that has become his prison; the only way to be free is to learn to let go—let go of his anger, let go of his ambition and desire to dominate, let go of his possessiveness towards Rey; let the Beast die in order to break the spell. The Beast is the Kylo Ren persona and everything that persona is connected to and helped create (the First Order, Hux). So I think one of the climaxes of the movie, if not The climax, will be the ~death~of Kylo Ren (and, I hope, the rebirth of Ben Solo).

With that in mind, here are my predictions (bold for the ones I’m relatively certain of, italics for half-predictions-half-wishful-thinking):

there will be a time jump (anything from 6 months to 3 years);  

the Resistance will have partially regrouped and be possibly doing some recruiting work across the galaxy;

we’ll see more new planets and maybe some familiar ones (Tatooine, Coruscant, Naboo? Perhaps we’ll even go back to Jakku)

Poe will be in charge, but there will be tension between him and Rey, maybe between him and Finn too—like, disagreements about military strategies and about Rey’s role in the war. Poe seems to have internalized Holdo’s message on his own terms: where Holdo’s “spark” line was about creation, Poe’s still thinking in terms of destruction. So I think he’ll actually butt heads with Rey, and Finn might be caught in the crossfire. Finn might agree with Poe at first, but eventually his loyalty to Rey will prevail.

(the tension will be eventually reconciled during the third act of the film)

a lightsaber fight between Rey and Kylo (we haven’t had one since TFA so it’s long overdue), to establish their current status as conflicted enemies who think their respective paths are sealed and it can’t be any other way. Maybe this happens when their respective armies are watching so they literally can’t avoid the duel. But the audience already knows they won’t truly hurt each other, so it will be more of a way to have them vent their feelings of hurt and yell a bit and like, “I offered you the galaxy and you betrayed me! “No, you betrayed me!!”, you know.

Reylo angst

more specifically, force bond angst (it would be a complete waste of juicy narrative potential to drop the force bond storyline, although I suspect that JJ will put his personal spin on it, either visually or conceptually). Whether Rey and Kylo went through a time of not having force connections at all (and possibly believing the bond is dead for good) or ignoring them whenever they happened, in IX the radio silence will be broken, and it will be angsty at first.

the bond will be discovered, causing Rey and Kylo to fall from grace among their own ranks. Their loyalty will be questioned, their connection to the enemy feared and regarded with suspicion. People will try to take advantage of it.

Poe/the Resistance will try to corner Rey into using the bond as a trap for Kylo, which will make her furious (paralleling BatB, where the villagers use Belle’s magic mirror to find the Beast and slaughter him);

JJ might partially reframe Rey’s parentage by adding more information and details about why she was sold out by her parents (rey*sky though is dead and will stay dead)

Leia’s death will be a plot point, one way or another. It’s possible we learn about her death in the opening crawl, and the film opens with the aftermath of her death and/or her funeral;

Leia’s death will have a major impact on Kylo’s arc and his redemption

Kylo attending to Leia’s funeral via force bond?

We will see Kylo’s loneliness. It will have shakespearian/greek tragedy vibes. 

He will be plagued by visions à la Hamlet and visited by Force ghosts. Luke, at least. Possibly Snoke (though I assume his wouldn’t be a proper Force ghost but either his toxic aura lingering or a figment of Kylo’s imagination, reliving his abuse over and over again). Less likely, Anakin.

Force ghost!Luke will appear to Rey too. (I feel like Rian didn’t give their relationship proper closure, probably on purpose, so that JJ could do something with it)

Kylo will also have to deal with the emptiness of vengeance. His whole family is dead, like he wanted, and yet he’s still suffering and not feeling whole. 

He’ll also see there’s no point in having power if he has no one to share it with.

the first order might produce a new superweapon, the usage of which will cause extra strife between Hux and Kylo;

speaking of weapons, something will be made with the legacy saber. Either that or Rey finally builds her own saber.

Some new aspect of the Force will be revealed, and/or there will be at least one climatic scene involving a massive use of the Force (in battle or else)

FIRSTORDERBOWL! 

Hux will 100% try to overthrow Kylo and become the anti-antivillain, the “mummer’s dragon” to quote asoiaf, because yes, the real enemy might be inside Kylo’s heart but we still need space battles, lightsaber duels and climatic action sequences. Hux hates Kylo, considers him unworthy, craves the title of Supreme Leader for himself, has personally witnessed how volatile and self destructive Kylo is when it comes to his personal emotions, and now knows his weaknesses (it’s unclear if he knew that Kylo Ren = Ben Solo before, but after seeing Kylo going on a rampage against Luke there’s no way he hasn’t connected the dots). The look Hux gives Kylo when Kylo enters the Resistance base on Crait is that of a man who is already plotting a coup. The novelization also says that Hux has access to secret camera recordings, which probably means he has or is soon to discover footage of Kylo killing Snoke to save Rey and the two of them fighting the praetorian guards. So all the elements are in place for Hux to launch a full blown coup… which Kylo won’t see coming because he thinks Hux is a worthless rat and he’s too busy wallowing in his own misery anyway.

The Knights of Ren should come into the picture. Either they’ll side with Kylo or, surprising, with Hux, which would raise the stakes exponentially as Hux would then have both military power and the support of a team of minor dark side users;

Finn will also have a part to play in firstorderbowl. Even though both TLJ and TFA were lacking on this aspect, I still expect to see his connection to the stormtroopers finally coming to fruition. He might incite a revolt, and even if not all the stormtroopers follow him, this would still significantly cripple Hux’s military power;

Kylo might be imprisoned or forced to flee; this new and definitive betrayal will finally make him see that the First Order is not, has never been the Right Way;

or Hux might try to kill two birds with one stone and turn Kylo over to the Resistance, while also revealing that Rey went to the Supremacy to ally herself with Kylo, so that the rebels lose their trust in her. 

Maybe both Kylo and Rey end up as prisoners of the Resistance, or Rey finds herself in such a predicament that she has no choice but flee with Kylo 

I honestly don’t expect Kylo to, like, actually SIDE with the Resistance—I think the movie will use him as a wild card until the end. But one thing will be clear and it’s that he cares for Rey—at the very least, he’s invested in her safety. 

Narratively, it makes sense that this time around it’s either Kylo who goes to Rey or they meet halfway.

We might see some trippy force bond-related other-dimension sequence.

Vision-related stuff, too. Maybe we’ll finally see what THAT part of the TFA forceback was about (the one with Kylo stabbing the “clan member”), or Rey’s vision of the future will come to fruition (assuming that both didn’t already happen with the throne room scene).

there will be a kiss. 

(more than one, actually. Finn’s totally going to kiss Rose and this time it will be a proper kiss.)

but yes. there will be a reylo kiss.

Kylo’s last stand will involve some sort of self sacrifice. I think even in the end he won’t be able to see a future for himself among the /good guys/, so he’d rather go out in a blaze of glory, saving what he loves.

Rey will save him (or try to).

Kylo Ren will symbolically (or even literally) die 

and be revived through massive force-healing by Rey. And it’s going to be a proper disney-style Beauty and the Beast scene.

Pietà/rebirth imagery. Probably heavy-handed.

(*) You could say that Rey already tried to do the “winning by saving” thing and failed, but I don’t believe for a single second that the sequel trilogy is trying to prove that message wrong. It’s just that in TLJ, Rey and Kylo weren’t desperate enough to really understand it. (or they were too desperate). They were still clinging to visions, to perceived notions of “winning” muddling the selflessness of their actions towards each other—Kylo wanted to share his power with an equal, Rey to secure reformed Jedi Ben Solo to the Resistance’s cause so she doesn’t have to be their “only hope”, a burden that probably scares her. They were both trying to placate their loneliness and *win* the other over, for understandable, but still rather self serving reasons. So their convergence was short lived. In IX, they’ll learn to let go, and THEN they’ll be able to make that selfless act of true, unconditional love.

[southeastasianists]

Earlier this week, New Mandala brought you a pair of short reflections from Thai scholars on the significance of the cremation of the late King Bhumibol. Today we also are pleased to share the thoughts of two well known scholars of Thailand based in the west.

Patrick Jory from the University of Queensland says that as far as the political significance of the royal cremation goes, it’s a case of “same old”:

I have an embarrassing admission to make. I have written about Thailand’s monarchy and I ought to be interested in a once-in-a-century moment: the cremation of King Bhumibol, the longest-reigning king in Thailand’s history. But as difficult as it is to say it, I found the whole event, well, boring.

King Bhumibol’s passing has been drawn out over the best part of a decade. As is well known, over the course of this long period the monarchy has become intensely politicised, following the overthrow of the democratically-elected Thaksin government in September 2006. Since then millions of words have been written about the monarchy, and King Bhumibol in particular, by royalists, republicans, constitutional monarchists, Yellows and Reds. One day, when the political climate in Thailand changes, new source materials become available, and people are finally free to speak out without fear of imprisonment or worse, we may learn something new about King Bhumibol. But in commentary on ritual events we tend to hear or read the same tired clichés—sometimes coming from prominent scholars in the field who should know better.

The boredom is partly to do with royal ceremony overkill. Since the decade-long political crisis that has enveloped the monarchy the royalist propaganda machine has gone into overdrive. Royal ceremonies of one kind or another are staged almost constantly, with the aim of maintaining a constant level of slow-burning royalist frenzy.

The royal cremation, despite the rarity of such events, the colourful costumes, the elaborate and imposing crematorium, and the arcane Hindu-Buddhist funereal rites, is in fact simply a variation on the usual theme of royalist propaganda. It projects the same message as all other royal rituals. The king is “god-like”, a future Buddha. He is loved by all his subjects (not “citizens”). His royal servants (kha ratchakan) loyally carry out his wishes. Thais are united in their loyalty to the monarchy. Of course, all these messages are untrue, which is why the ritual must appear as spectacular as is humanly possible.

As Clifford Geertz argued in his famous Negara: the Theatre State in Bali, this is the function of such ritual: to produce an idealised representation of how the state is ordered. As everyone knows, Thailand remains deeply polarised. The only space in which unity can be presented is in these confected and highly-controlled royal ceremonies. Hence the reason the managers of Thailand’s “theatre state” keep up a regular calendar of royal rituals. In these rituals “the people” are mere spectators—onlookers. Their only role is to affirm this idealised order, and to be seen to affirm it. Royal ritual is thus a metaphor for Thailand’s current politics.

The heightened degree of theatricality in royal rituals is in inverse proportion to the actual workings of the monarchy, and King Bhumibol’s own career. Critics of the monarchy are tried in camera, locked away in jail for years, or forced into permanent overseas exile. The monarchy’s political interventions are veiled in secrecy (does it operate through a “network”? Or is it at the centre of a “deep state”? Or?). Its financial affairs are opaque. The history of democratising, anti-royalist politics is erased.

The way the monarchy’s true function is kept secret is a kind of a modern-day version of the feudal practice when royal subjects were forbidden from gazing upon the monarch on pain of death.

Instead, we have the tedium of royal ritual.

Sapere aude!

Tyrell Haberkorn, until recently of the Australian National University and soon to join the University of Wisconsin, Madison, notes how the royal cremation provided a sideshow, in the form of an activist’s “an unplanned, forced vacation”, that raises questions about the nature of authoritarian rule in Thailand:

On 20 October, Ekachai Hongkangwan announced via Facebook that he planned to wear red and go read a book in a café for an hour or so on the day that King Bhumibol Adulyadej was cremated. To say that this unsettled the authorities is a gross understatement. A warning from the police came within a day in the form of an unannounced visit to his workplace. Ekachai maintained that his statement and planned actions were not in any way a violation of any law. Three days later, on 24 October, fourteen police and soldiers in and out of uniform banged on the door of his house and demanded he come with them. They gave him two options: go on a “vacation” to Kanchanaburi or spend time in a military camp until after the cremation. He chose Kanchanaburi but declined the authorities’ offer to bring his mother on the unplanned, forced vacation.

Ekachai, an activist and former political prisoner, was returned home, as promised, on 28 October after the cremation ceremonies were complete. He gave an interview to Prachatai several hours after his release that reveals both the overt violence—he was assaulted when the police and soldiers came to his house—and the absurdity—the authorities gave him 5000 baht in spending money, but then the officials accompanying him (to restrict his freedom) waited for him to pay for meals—of what took place. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights immediately called this unplanned, forced vacation by its actual name—arbitrary arrest and detention—in contravention to both Thailand’s obligations under international human rights law and the “law” of the NCPO itself.

Many times since the 22 May 2014 coup, I have written or said that what is taking place requires new kinds of thinking and new forms of analysis. The end of the reign of King Bhumibol and the beginning of the new reign does as well. For the past month, scholars, journalists and other commentators have interrogated the social, political, religious, cultural and economic meanings of the cremation and the participation of millions of Thais in it. But as a person who tends to approach Thai political history from what Christopher Krupa and David Nugent call “off-centered locations of analysis” outside the usual centers of power, my view is that Ekachai’s arbitrary arrest and detention, in addition to what took place on Sanam Luang, demands critical analysis. In the spirit of contributing to the urgent analysis that the present requires, here are three of the questions which arise:

1. What unsettled the authorities about Ekachai’s announcement? That he dared to suggest wearing a colour other than black on the day of the cremation? That he planned to go to a café and read a book? His announcement was one of a planned personal action, not a call for others to join in any kind of expression or protest. What is it about independent thought that frightens the authorities? (A note: Independent, critical thought is precisely what universities, including those in Thailand, hope to encourage in order to develop new knowledge, and rise in the rankings. Independent thought by an organic chemist or theoretical physicist would be lauded, but by an ordinary citizen is dangerous and must be stopped.)

2. Even in the flexible legal regime of the NCPO in which “law” is stripped of its meaning, the police and soldiers could not accuse Ekachai of any crime. So, in the tradition of many earlier regimes, they arbitrarily arrested and detained him; also in the tradition of many earlier regimes, they attempted to mask this fact by taking him to waterfalls and tourist sites in Kanchanaburi, rather than placing him behind bars (this article details this history in Thai, and the first chapter of this book does so in English). Do the authorities think that arbitrary arrest and detention appears any less coercive or violent when carried out under the guise of an (unplanned, forced) vacation? Do the authorities realise that this attempt to mask arrest and detention fails and also generates fear and insecurity about the possibility of disappearance? Are they naïve, cynical, or a combination of both? What is in the minds of the authorities does not affect the experience of those who become their targets, but it may reveal the kind of regime and society they imagine and aim to build.

3. What kind or mode of analysis might be capable of answering these two questions, and many related ones, including why the arbitrary arrest and detention of Ekachai Hongkangwan should signal a crisis and moment of danger for Thai society, not only one individual? In her recent book, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, Masha Gessen criticises the failure of humanities and social science scholars to understand the ease of the destruction of the possibility of democracy and the return of totalitarianism in Russia. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, she writes that, “In functioning democracies the contradictions between avowed ideals and reality can be and often are called out, causing social and political change. This does not eliminate the built-in gap, but it has a way of making societies a little more democratic and a little less unequal, in spurts. Totalitarian ideology allows no such correction….There is no gap between totalitarian ideology and reality because totalitarian ideology contains all of reality within itself.” Her analysis is resonant with present-day Thailand. If one were to parse the gaps between ideology and reality in Thailand, beginning with the last two weeks of October 2017, where would one begin? One place might be to the off-centered locations of analysis which may seem far from power but are in fact key to its maintenance, like resorts in Kanchanaburi.

[celxstialclanarchive]

🔥 Spill some salt XD

The Salt is spilleth on:

Konoha’s treatment of just everything

Ok, I love Konoha as much as the next guy, but please explain why all their poorly concealed mistakes are the best kept secrets and their sheep mentality is never questioned, or at least called out.

I will never understand why Sakumo was vilified for something that is common sense in ANY. TEAM. Keeping your team alive at the expense of the mission would be a bad thing, yes, BUT! Without them, Sakumo himself may not have been able to return to at least report the mission’s success. And not to mention they were total assholes. I’d like to think I’d be grateful to the man who saved your life, but they didn’t stick around to look after the son of the man you wronged after commiting suicide, which I am sure tarnished his name in Konoha’s books even more. Good. Keep away from the second person you made suffer for being ungrateful little shits, but Kakashi isn’t safe from my salt. At least the Land of Water was honest with themselves about having teammates betray each other so deeply ingrained in their culture, as wrong as it is, as many minor antagonists have pointed out *coughrememberZabuzacough*. You can expect to see disloyalty because the Land of Water’s culture before Mei came into office is so fucked up, and she probably was the only Mizukage to start social change to fix these issues, in which won’t resurface for another fifty to seventy years at best. But Konoha is supposed to be a safe haven for children, right???

A lot of antis have already mentioned their spectacular track record with orphans, especially considering a great deal of them were by their own doing. Kakashi? Konoha. Karin and other displaced Uzumaki? Not necessarily Konoha, but why was Uzushio so thoroughly destroyed if Konoha was an ally and the first and fourth Hokage’s wives once called that place home?? Never really made sense so if someone can explain that hmu. Yahiko? Konoha. Kabuto? Konoha. Sasuke and Naruto? Do I even need to say it? DON’T GET ME STARTED ON DANZO AND ROOT!

The Uchiha. Neither side did the right things to settle the tension, lbr. All out genocide, guys? Really? Sending a thirteen year old with PTSD thanks to his father to do all your dirty work instead handling things like the mature adults you’re supposed to be? If Itachi is adult enough to be a double agent and dish out genocide on orders of elderly people, actual adults are adult enough to have discussions and peaceful protests to make light of the discrimination with those same elderly people. Peaceful protest would have been more plausible to do than a coup, because less room for vilification later on.

How did NO ONE question the murder of an entire noble clan in one night, with a seven year old survivor, and the reason Itachi gives is basically ‘lol just felt like it’? I don’t care if people didn’t like them, it’s too convenient, especially considering no other children were spared along with Sasuke, also a child. As a child myself, I knew something was wrong, based on logic alone and when the plot reveal came, I was not surprised that my suspicions were true. Kakashi is one of the few living who knew Itachi to some extent before the massacre, and considering that he knew his status in ANBU, this genius should have had some concerns. I headcanon that the thought police slowly started becoming a thing to keep things quiet, and enough people had been hurt and silenced by Root that to even think of questioning it in the privacy of your own home was a near death wish.

Which brings me to my next point- Kakashi Hatake.

For someone who has been severely wronged by Konoha, you’d think he’d be more aware of what Sasuke was going through after being told the truth. Kakashi was orphaned by everyone acting like being a decent teammate was a terrible thing. Hiruzen talks about the village being like a family, but since when is it wrong to watch out for said family, or actually treat everyone like family? Sakura to this day, has no idea why Sasuke did what he did so long ago and neither Kakashi nor Naruto felt bothered enough to tell her, their teammate. I’m more disappointed in Naruto for this since they both wanted Sasuke back. Naruto can point out a false love confession, but your crush’s crush’s reason for being public enemy number one isn’t worth mentioning? Yeah ok.

Kakashi constantly undermined Sasuke’s feelings and would changing the shinobi system really be a bad thing if someone who was like minded in believing it needed change actually got in contact with Sasuke to discuss more plausible ways to do so and make Konoha’s elders own up to all their injustices up until that point? And apparently he made Yamato watch Orochimaru? Dude what the ever loving fuck? WHY 👏 WOULD 👏 YOU 👏 DO 👏 THAT? That’s like working for the people who killed your family- wait.

Orochimaru. Fucking Orochimaru. Enough said.

The Kurama incident. Again, nobody putting two and two together and saying, ���isn’t it coincidental that our new jinchuuriki is a blonde orphan, our now dead Hokage was a blonde and looks kinda like him, and was so conveniently born on the same day the Hokage died? Hey, wasn’t his wife pregnant and expecting really soon, too? What’s up with that???” Just… gah.

Honestly, at this point, I think it’s fair to say that anything hugely harmful like the above mentioned kept secret isn’t because nobody is alive to question it. No one is smart enough to. *mic drop*

[waitedforgarridebs]

What if the IDEA of Moriarty was just the creation of Mycroft, to ensure that his little brother would have a reason to stay alive? Mycroft is not UNDER Moriarty's thumb - Moriarty IS Mycroft' thumb! #TheEngineersThumb

THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME AN ASK WITH YOUR TAGS ON THAT POST (x) I WANTED TO REBLOG THAT !!!! You genius, Mycroft is Moriarty’s thumb, this made my day!

Ask @johnnlocked, I was yelling, and it was 4am!

And yes, I completely agree with you, Mycroft created the idea of Moriarty - but I don’t think his motive was to give Sherlock a reason to stay alive / to stay off the drugs, and since I never came around to write that post, I’ll do a short version now. 

(I say “short”. It’s not short. Imagine what the long version would have looked like though, lmao)

I do believe that the government / Mycroft created the project “Moriarty”, nameless or with another codename (”Amo” / “Love”?). “Moriarty” means “navigator” or “sea-worthy”, so it could be something water-y.

Those are, after all, very “deep waters” for Sherlock… 

My theory is that Sherlock discovered the very fringes of the whole Moriarty machination in TBB #it’s always TBB. And this was completely not what Mycroft wanted, Mycroft never wanted Sherlock to know about this, at all.

Because, those people are really really dangerous, and Mycroft is far from being able to control them all - at least not as in, “don’t harm my little brother”, that would completely contradict the actual purpose of Moriarty; a tool to ensure “the greater good”. 

So, Mycroft wanted to focus the damage Sherlock could do to something more controllable, more limited, and that is not an entire organisation, but a single person. This is why Mycroft invented “Jim” Moriarty, and designed him in a way that he would be the perfect match for Sherlock, that he would be something Sherlock could obsess about, far away from all the actual business of Moriarty.

So far, so good. But if that plan would have worked, the whole plot of the show would have been quite boring though. 

I feel like Jim very much was following his own agenda, maybe he even wanted to destroy Moriarty from within, “commit suicide”, his apparent “death wish”, because thanks to Mycroft he now was Moriarty, he was the only person who would be able to stop this project. If Jim is anything like the character he plays, he loves chaos, he loves the randomness of things, and Moriarty is the exact opposite of this. Moriarty tries to order the chaos, to control it. Very much a Mycroft-esque thing to do. 

(I’m aware of the fact that all of this probably doesn’t make very much sense when you haven’t read at least this part of my meta series (x), but “Moriarty”, in my opinion, is an Orwellian project run by the goverment.)

After TST, and also looking back at the scene at the end of THoB, I think that Sir Edwin is very much in on this, he is probably Porlock. Lady Smallwood is quite clueless, and honestly, I can’t wait to see her kick everyone’s asses for this, but I’m getting off-topic…

Back to Jim. 

The introduction of the character “Jim Moriarty”, in combination with Irene, is the downfall of the Moriarty project. Irene gives Jim the information he needs to turn the tables.

“Bond Air” is Mycroft’s “Skyfall”.

Therefore, even if Mycroft tried to keep Sherlock save and the Moriarty project alive at the same time, there was no way this could ever have worked out. And it was the Moriarty project that had to die, because after the failed Bond Air project, it had already been kind of dead. 

It would’t take long for the terrorists to figure out that someone had played this game with them. That the British government had been trying to fool them in this way. Oh my, that would have had serious consequences. 

That is why Moriarty had to die. But one also had to ensure that no one would be able to link all those events to who actually had committed them, the British government, because this was exactly the reason why they had to kill Moriarty in the first place, to not have anything that would lead back to them. 

Nobody knew up to this point that Moriarty was a thing though. Except some criminals, and they would keep their mouth very much shut about this.

Cue: TRF.

Jim was actively advertising in this episode. And this not because he needed clients, or the money, that was never what he was doing all of this for. 

They. Told. Us. All. Of. This. 

It was important that the world got to know Jim Moriarty. The master criminal. The person who had committed so many crimes, who was apparently so powerful - and in all of that, Sherlock Holmes was helping.

Up to this point, Sherlock was the only person to ever have seen Jim Moriarty’s face - because, Moriarty itself has no face! - and now Sherlock was telling the world, hey, this is him, James Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime. I am the great Sherlock Holmes, you better believe me, this man is my worst nightmare, he tried to blow me up.

And, just before that, Jim had broken into the three most secure places of the country. Sherlock was only confirming to the public what the press had already been telling them, like, trying to steal the Crown Juwels, ermahgerddddd, arrest this man!

So, not only had Jim been able to show off his skillz, but also had he been able to link the name “Moriarty” permanently to his face.

He does all that, and then commits suicide. Welp. Not very clever? 

Except this was what all of this had been for. 

Now, Moriarty, the potential traitor, was dead. No need to take revenge on a dead person. And the link to the British government was gone, too. Sherlock Holmes was on vacation, so they had a lot of time of peace and quiet to get the project running again.

Oh yes. Moriarty is dead, long lives Moriarty. 

Or (Lord) Moran. 

The government didn’t stop doing what they were doing, this whole business was much too promising for that. They just had to carry their coups out in a different way - they have a lot of talented people working there, after all.

And if that meant that Sherlock Holmes had to come back from the dead only to actuate the off-switch on a bomb in order to prevent a terrorist attack that no one ever actually wanted to carry out, that was just meant to frighten people into agreeing with the introduction of an anti-terrorism bill, well. (x)

Which makes me think… 

SHERLOCK: […] Tomorrow the US president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment inside her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. KINGSLEY: What?!SHERLOCK (quick fire): Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilise the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable, thus precipitating … (he finally slows down and says the next words slowly and precisely) World War Three. (x)

I guess we should watch out for hints at that treaty in the upcoming episodes…?

ANYWAY.

Mycroft introduced Jim into Sherlock’s life. Mycroft planted the idea that Moriarty is a person in Sherlock’s head, the only person who could ever be an equal or worthy opponent for Sherlock. 

And Sherlock believes it.

Sherlock believes that Jim, even if he hadn’t been able to fake his death, would have been able to set up a plan that would take effect after his death, only to continue their little game. 

(^balance of probability, Sherlock, why do you even think that. I am so disappointed, honestly. YOU were able to fake your death, and you really think Jim wouldn’t have been able to do the same, and this just because of your gay fever dream, INSTEAD you really believe he would have been able to set up something like- oh my god make it stop)

And I really think that only in TST, Mycroft is beginning to realise what he really has done there. His brother is obsessed with Moriarty, despite the fact that he isn’t even alive anymore. 

Yes, the plan to distract Sherlock is kind of working, he doesn’t see what is actually going on, that Mycroft is the source of all of this, but at what cost? Is Sherlock gonna get insane because Moriarty will continue to not get in touch, and this additionally to all the guilt that must be nagging at him now because of that whole Mary-business? 

I can really see why he’s gonna be back on drugs tonight… no case and no John, oh my.

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

The inheritance of loss - Nation Information

http://tinyurl.com/y2tvr2yd Madhya Pradesh: Chouhan is a lonely man in the present day After 13 years as undisputed CM, Shivraj Chouhan finds he has few buddies left. The election outcomes that evicted Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 11 have been, because it appears now, solely among the many first of the political setbacks that have been in retailer for the veteran Bharatiya Janata Get together chief. Inside two days of the decision, Chouhan introduced he would proceed in MP politics and wasn’t going anyplace. He stated he would quickly embark on an ‘aabhaar yatra (gratitude tour)’ throughout the state, a plan the central management quickly requested him to desert. Then got here the information that he was able to turn out to be the chief of the opposition, a put up that finally went to former minister Gopal Bhargava (who shouldn’t be thought of near him). Chouhan then evinced curiosity in turning into the state BJP president, an vital place within the run-up to the polls. However a day earlier than the BJP’s nationwide council assembly in Delhi, he was shocked to seek out himself appointed nationwide vice-president, together with two different ex-CMs of states the place the BJP had misplaced, Rajasthan’s Vasundhara Raje and Chhattisgarh’s Raman Singh. The message from the cen­­tral management was clear: Chouhan wasn’t going to have his manner anymore. After a largely unchallenged stint of 13 years as CM wherein he had minimize down many rising political rivals, Chouhan is now within the cross-hairs with rivals ganging up and outmanoeuvring him at each flip. How will he get out of this chakravyuh he finds himself in? Political watchers in MP are satisfied the knives are out for Chouhan. That the ex-CM is not a favorite of the present BJP central management, the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo, is an open secret within the get together. Chouhan had nearly satisfied them that he was their finest wager earlier than the elections. However now, even after the get together carried out moderately nicely in MP-the BJP truly had the next vote share than the Congress and barely missed a majority, with 109 seats within the 230-member meeting to the Congress’s 114-Chouhan appears to be within the doghouse. The choices earlier than him are few: he might contest the Lok Sabha ballot, and if the BJP wins on the Centre, earn a ministerial berth and stay related (his constructive equation with the RSS might guarantee this). A second choice can be to remain within the state and work in the direction of destabilising the Congress authorities, given the slender majority it has. It might result in one other shot at workplace if he’s profitable. This is not simple regardless that the central unit of the BJP is not above directing a coup, as proven in Uttarakhand and Karnataka. Whoever tries will probably be pitting themselves towards Congress veterans like Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh who’re previous masters on the sport. A 3rd choice earlier than Chouhan, and one he has evinced curiosity in, is working in the direction of successful MP again for the BJP every time elections are held subsequent. This can entail quite a lot of arduous work, touring and assembly folks, which Chouhan is most eager as all this comes naturally to him. Chouhan’s strategists keep that within the days to return he’ll search extra accountability from get together president Shah. A brand new ‘vice-president’, he’s unlikely to wish to stay in a decorative put up as most incumbents have been. “I thank PM Modi and get together president Amit Shah for giving me the accountability of vice-president on the earth’s largest organisation,” he tweeted quickly after his appointment on January 10, sustaining a courageous entrance. Chouhan will spend a majority of his time in Bhopal to allow his touring inside the state. The vice-president setback aside, Chouhan cannot preserve himself from plunging into points dominating state politics. Although aides have suggested him to lie low for some time, Chouhan toured the northern and western districts that had been hit by a chilly wave and demanded compensation for farmers. “Chouhan is himself when he’s among the many folks. Most politicians would have given themselves time earlier than happening the street once more, however Chouhan has been at it,” says political analyst Girija Shankar. It appears Chouhan can also be pushed massively by this urge to maintain his recognition intact. Opinion polls earlier than the meeting election had given the Congress an edge however Chouhan was nonetheless the preferred chief in ballot after ballot. He could also be out of workplace, however Chouhan is set to remain within the public consciousness, the fixed excursions are an effort to remain related. However generally all of it goes awry. On January 18, Chouhan rushed off to Mandsaur to protest the homicide of native municipal chairman Prahlad Bandhwar and assault the brand new Congress authorities for the breakdown in legislation and order-only to be taught halfway that the accused was one among their very own, a BJP chief. In the meantime, there may be the native problem from his personal get together. One-time ally and Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar, former minister Narottam Mishra, BJP common secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, state BJP president Rakesh Singh, to not point out BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha, all of them appear to have discovered a typical agenda in preserving Chouhan out. A telling growth is that Chouhan’s publicity and press notes are actually being dealt with by a crew separate from the state BJP workplace which earlier did the duty for him. Within the days to return, Chouhan will face extra testing instances. Remaining vital when not in workplace is a large problem for many politicians. The result of the Lok Sabha election can be very vital for intra-party politics within the BJP, one thing each the central management and people affected by its selections are conscious about. Rajasthan: Raje’s again to the wall The ex-CM could also be at loggerheads with the Modi-Shah duo, however within the state she remains to be numero uno. As of now, apart from hoping that with a brand new management the anti-incumbency towards Vasundhara Raje will fade away by the Lok Sabha ballot, the BJP has no plan on easy methods to use the previous chief minister in Rajasthan. Raje on February 10 stated even when she is appointed get together vice-president, she won’t be leaving the state ever. She was addressing BJP employees in Jhalarapattan, her meeting constituency that falls within the Jhalawar-Baran parliamentary constituency from the place her son Dushyant Singh is a three-time MP and is predicted to contest this time too. State Satrap: Ex-CM Raje on the Rajasthan meeting after the brand new regime took over. Raje has tried to place an finish to rumours that she can be requested to contest the overall election in order to maneuver her out of the state. Raje has been visiting her son’s constituency and has already began a kind of election marketing campaign, hitting out on the new Congress authorities over the swine flu epidemic which has claimed 100 lives and the loss of life of 10 farmers within the chilly wave (the ex-CM alleges they died as a result of the federal government offered energy to irrigate the fields at evening when temperatures drop significantly). There was hypothesis that the get together needs Raje to contest the parliamentary polls. That will imply Dushyant is unlikely to get a ticket. One other part believes Raje could also be requested to affix the Union authorities if the BJP wins the Lok Sabha election. This appears extra seemingly, particularly as senior ministers like Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Manohar Parrikar will not be in the very best of well being. However Raje would possibly push for her son Dushyant to be made a Union minister as an alternative. Prime Minister Modi had denied this want final time round as a result of she was chief minister. So how is the BJP seemingly to make use of Raje? The get together has to this point tried to restrict Raje to the background after the election debacle. Her rival and RSS favorite Gulab Chand Kataria, a Jain by caste and an eight-time MLA, is chief of the opposition. Rajendra Rathore, a seven-time MLA and a Rajput by caste, is his deputy. Each have had lengthy tenures as ministers within the state, however have restricted affect over their castes. Rathore, as soon as a goal of the RSS due to his proximity to Raje, has reportedly been cultivating his connections with the RSS and anti-Raje lobbies within the get together of late. Fifty-four of the BJP’s 73 MLAs have been at Raje’s residence asking her to be the chief of the opposition earlier than she proposed Kataria’s identify final week. By the way, each Rathore and Kataria have been booked for faux encounter killings previously. Kataria was booked for the Sohrabuddin encounter (the place the Gujarat police and even get together president Shah have been accused at one level) whereas Rathore spent a month in jail for bootlegger Dara Singh’s loss of life in 2006. Each have been discharged later. In Rajasthan, the BJP plan is to work on strengthening a “weakened” organisation. Present state president Madan Lal Saini, 74, was introduced in earlier than the meeting ballot solely as a result of he was a grassroots employee. There had been some friction then as a result of Raje didn’t permit Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, 51, a Rajput, Union MoS and Modi’s alternative for the put up, a glance in. With Rathore now deputy chief of the opposition, the get together could not get Shekhawat again as state president as there may be hardly any time left for the Lok Sabha election. Union minister of state Rajyavardhan Rathore is one other fashionable BJP chief as is his colleague Gen VK Singh (each are Rajputs), however the BJP doesn’t have any distinguished Jat face apart from Dushyant Singh. Raje herself is arguably a Rajput, married to a Jat and with a Gurjar daughter-in-law, thus making her above caste equations. It’s her affect over voters and her maintain over the MLAs that the BJP should take into accout as elections close to. n Chhattisgarh: Raman Singh down however not out Has BJP central leaders’ backing, however push for OBC face at house is a fear. The knives are out within the Chhattisgarh BJP. And the goal is former chief minister Dr Raman Singh, whose 15-year rule within the state led to December together with his get together’s crushing election defeat by the hands of the Congress. Rivals are projecting the BJP’s droop to 15 seats within the 90-member meeting from 49 within the earlier election as a referendum on Singh’s insurance policies and selections. Innings defeat: Raman Singh speaks to the media after the meeting ballot outcomes. Sources near Singh, nevertheless, keep that regardless that the BJP’s hammering in Chhattisgarh was emphatic, the get together has not been as harsh on him because it has been on Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh. They declare state BJP chief Dharamlal Kaushik’s appointment because the chief of Opposition was at Singh’s behest and he would also have a say if a brand new president have been to be appointed forward of the Lok Sabha election. Not like Chouhan, who has been touring Madhya Pradesh, Singh has been taking it simple. “It is because Raman Singh shouldn’t be the one to run after positions and posts,” claims an aide. “Additionally, he feels striving for something in the meanwhile will not yield outcomes as selections about his future will not be in his fingers anymore.” Singh did go to Delhi after the election. He’s not solely on good phrases with the BJP central management, however can also be thought of near Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley. Within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Singh enjoys a great equation with sahsarkaryvah Krishna Gopal. What might nonetheless eclipse his political future is the evaluation inside a piece of the Chhattisgarh BJP {that a} robust OBC (Different Backward Class) management must be promoted to thwart the Congress’s consolidation in these communities. OBCs account for roughly 50 per cent of the state’s electorate-Kurmis, Sahus and Yadavs being the distinguished communities. Behind this rising view within the BJP is the Congress’s 68-seat haul underneath the management of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, a Kurmi chief. A pattern is already apparent-leader of Opposition Kaushik is a backward neighborhood chief whereas Chandra Shekhar Sahu, who criticised the Singh authorities’s pre-election determination to distribute free cellphones whereas refusing to waive farm loans, is a distinguished Sahu chief of the BJP. “Any strengthening of the OBC management in Chhattisgarh can be at the price of Raman Singh,” predicts Ruchir Garg, media advisor to Baghel. Brijmohan Agrawal, a distinguished state BJP chief, too, finds himself hemmed in by the get together’s push for OBC faces. The Raipur MLA is but to get any key accountability within the get together. Amid all this, the salvos proceed. “Many extra folks can have such eye-opening moments now,” was Singh’s retort to Sahu’s remarks towards his authorities. The previous chief minister additionally has to cope with recent investigations ordered by Baghel into alleged scams throughout his regime. Whereas Singh has challenged the brand new authorities to show any wrongdoing, his rivals are solely anticipated to show up the warmth. It is a battle that can be keenly watched. Source link

[katiezstorey93]

A Violently Inefficient Culture

After killing two people and also wounding at least 5 others, a 24-year-old suspected serial bomb killer in Texas is currently dead, having actually eliminated himself yesterday while being sought by authorities. Also yesterday, police shot and also killed a 17-year-old Maryland student that had actually evidently shot and also wounded two students.The intentions are still unidentified. But one thing is for certain: These dysfunctional acts of violence are accompanying raising consistency here in the United States.Of program, that’s not all.According to an article in the Huffington Blog post, “The suicide prices for

teenage children and also girls have actually been gradually rising since 2007, according to a new record from the United States Centers of Condition Control and also Avoidance. The suicide rate for ladies 15 to 19 increased from 2007 to 2015, when it reached its highest point in 40 years, inning accordance with the CDC. The self-destruction rate for kids ages 15 to 19 enhanced by 30 percent over the exact same time period.”A web site entitled The Recuperation Village states that “68 percent of 12th have actually tried alcohol; 37.4 %of 12th consumed in the last month; 23.5 %of 10th consumed alcohol in the last month; 35.1% of 12th graders have actually smoked pot in the previous year; 16.6 %of 10th have actually smoked pot in the last One Month; which nearly a quarter of American high schoolers make use of a minimum of one sort of illicit medication. “Just what provides? Why is there so much ingestion of mind-altering compounds therefore much fierce dysfunctionality occurring in what claims to be a cost-free culture? Wouldn’t you think that individuals would certainly relish living in a complimentary society, offered the wide variety of alternative ways to pursue happiness?Here’s my diagnosis for the health issues that infuses the American body politic: America isn’t totally free in all, and also the factor that there is so much terrible dysfunctionality and mind-altering substance abuse going on is because individuals are living an incorrect reality, a fact that has been inculcated into their minds that this truly is” freedom.”I’m no psychologist but I understand enough about psychology to recognize that living an incorrect reality or a life of the lie is not mosting likely to bring about positive results. Rather, it is most likely to cause

deep psychoses.I can conveniently envision a young adult stating to himself,”So, this is freedom? This is the most effective there can be? No, thank you. I’m looking into.”Currently, picture rather that a young person recognizes the reality as well as has a grasp on fact– that he is not staying in a totally free society. Then, his way of thinking can transform. He could say, “Okay, I recognize why there is so much drug abuse and also violence in The U.S.A.. It’s since our nation isn’t really free and also since individuals have actually been indoctrinated because the initial quality right into wrongly believing they are totally free. Now that I have a grip on truth and also truth, I assume I’ll function to bring flexibility to our culture, which then might trigger substance abuse and violence to lessen. “That’s why libertarians are much healthier, psychologically talking, compared to statists. We have a grasp on fact. We understand the truth. We understand that the welfare-warfare state way of life under which we live is the reverse of freedom. Hence,

all the strange, corrupt results of this lifestyle do not shock us. For us, they merely materialize cause and effect. Considering that a welfare-warfare state is the reverse of flexibility, we libertarians aim to bring flexibility to our culture by advocating a taking down of the welfare-warfare state means of life.Libertarians shock and scare people. That’s because when people are convinced that they are complimentary, they can’t comprehend just how libertarians can be committing their lives to bringing flexibility to America. For an individual that has been indoctrinated into believing he is cost-free, the suggestion of bringing freedom to our culture is unusual as well as frightening. Libertarianism, with its aim of establishing freedom in The U.S.A., is a straight challenge to the incorrect attitude of” flexibility”that is instilled into everyone from the time he hits the first grade in the government-approved institutions to which his moms and dads were compelled to send him.Consider, as an example, America’s forever battles. They are a wonderful example of the life of the lie as well as the life of incorrect truth. Consider all individuals that a lot say thanks to the soldiers for their service. When you inquire what “service “they are revealing gratefulness for, they don’t skip a beat:”The troops are protecting our rights as well as freedoms.”

That’s the mindset that is inculcated into everyone from the initial grade on up. It’s a way of thinking that undoubtedly sticks with lots of people when they maturate. It’s a mantra that is also pronounced in church pulpits throughout Sunday services. It’s an actual testimony to the power of main indoctrination.The trouble is that it’s a lie. It’s an incorrect fact. The troops are not safeguarding our flexibility in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Africa, or anywhere else. That’s since no one over there is trying to remove our legal rights and liberty. Just how could the soldiers be securing our civil liberties as well as freedoms if nobody they are eliminating is aiming to remove our civil liberties and also freedom?But individuals with indoctrinated minds don’t intend to hear that.

It is frightening to them due to the fact that it endangers their way of thinking, their incorrect sight of the globe. They don’t want to hear us libertarians. They would rather maintain living the life of the lie, the life of a false truth, regardless of the unfavorable psychological consequences of doing so.Consider the terrorist blowback from UNITED STATE interventionism abroad. Just what is the very first thing that people with indoctrinated minds state in feedback to terrorist blowback? They say, “The terrorists( or Muslims)just despise us for our flexibility and worths. “When you mention to them that the terrorists(or Muslims )are merely retaliating versus Americans for UNITED STATE interventionism abroad, they snap, in some cases also terribly angry. They rail against us libertarians for being unpatriotic, also treasonous. They implicate us of” criticizing America “for anti-American terrorism. The last thing the indoctrinated minds wish to hear is that it’s not The U.S.A. that is the driving pressure of anti-American terrorism yet rather foreign interventionism at the hands of the federal government.In fact, that’s the core of the problem. Despite the fact that they will certainly never confess to themselves, individuals with indoctrinated minds have pertained to see the federal government as their god, one that can do no wrong. For them, their god is a triune god, one made up of three co-equal entities– the Pentagon, the CIA, and also the NSA.Thus, when their god does things abroad that generate the rage and also rage that materializes itself in terrorist blowback, they right away pertain to the protection of their god by saying that it’s not his fault. It’s all due to the fact that those foreigners dislike us for our liberty as well as values.Consider CIA main Gina Haspel. She managed a torture program and took part in the willful damage of videotaped proof of such torture. She’s currently been nominated to be the supervisor of the CIA. Does not that virtually claim it all? Here is an individual who ought to be in prison for going against the regulation.

Rather, she is being honored and also glorified. No question that throughout her confirmation hearings, she will be said thanks to for safeguarding our legal rights and also freedoms.And also among most of those that are opposing her election, the last thing you speak with them is any kind of recommendation that the CIA itself ought to be abolished. Instead, they limit them to simply requiring a new supervisor. Don’t bother that the CIA has participated in horribly bad activities since it was called right into existence in 1947, consisting of assassination, kidnapping, murder, MKULTRA, blockage of justice, secret hiring of Nazis, perjury, bribery, intrusions, coups, illegal security, deceptiveness, and also torment. The idea is that the CIA is important to our complimentary culture because it secures our civil liberties and liberties when it participates in its wicked activities. We simply require”better individuals”in public office.But God hasn’t developed an inconsistent cosmos. Excellent is never advanced with wickedness. When a federal government agency is taking part in wickedness, the government itself is taking part in evil. And a government that is engaged in wickedness is not progressing benefits. It is progressing evil.Consider all the anti-gun buzz after every mass capturing in America. Notification something exposing: Not one bachelor taking part in the buzz concerns also a peep of protest over the U.S. federal government’s being the biggest weapons supplier worldwide. Every year, the U.S. federal government and also its army of military-industrial-complex tools providers floods pro-U.S. tyrannical programs with weapons that the authoritarians then use versus their citizens in order to keep their grasp on power. Egypt comes to mind

. Yet, not a peep of protest from the anti-gun group. That’s due to the fact that the federal government, consisting of the Government, is their god.Moreover, barely anyone offers any type of thought to the possibility that the U.S. government’s 15-year, ongoing program of killing individuals abroad might simply be creating frame of minds of physical violence among Americans, both young as well as old, here in the house. That would clearly be aiming a finger of responsibility at their god, which suggests that many individuals are not about to entertain that possibility.Consider all the secret monitoring of Americans for “maintaining us safe” (from the opponents that the federal government produces with its international interventionism). We are all familiar with the NSA. However it goes a lot additionally compared to that. Bankers have actually been become snitches, required to report any type of “uncommon “deal of their clients. The reaction among statists? They are thankful that the government is maintaining them risk-free and”cost-free.

“The life of the lie. The life of a false reality.Consider public education, the state establishment where the brainwashing starts. Presence is mandated by law. If parents do not submit their children to state-approved indoctrination when they get to the age of 6, moms and dads are sent out to jail. When a pupil rebels against the coercion, indoctrination, regimentation, and consistency, he is identified with a mental disorder and also given drugs to make sure that he could obtain his mind”directly.”It’s all “liberty.” The kids just require the medications to understand and also value that. I can’t aid yet question the amount of those mass awesomes were provided those state-approved medicines when they were young.Every time I check out a young adult committing self-destruction, I state to myself: “I ask yourself if he would have devoted self-destruction if he had known the truth: that this isn’t really a complimentary culture yet rather a dysfunctional socialist, interventionist, imperialist welfare-warfare state culture that people

have been wrongly taught is’flexibility.'”

from network 8 http://www.nsorchidsociety.com/a-violently-inefficient-culture/

[amazingviralinfo]

Russia’s intelligence services have a long history of mingling sinister fiction with shards of fact and leaking through third parties to cover their tracks.">

Lord Byron observed, in skewering one of his favorite poetic targets of derision, that while the English have no word so good as the French longueurs to describe tedious, uninterrupted stretches of writing, they nevertheless have the thing. Similarly, there is no proper American term for what Russian intelligence calls aktivniye meropriyatiye, or active measures, but by now most Americans really ought to be used to the thing, as it might well decide our next presidential election.

As The Daily Beast reported Monday, the FBI now suspects that a year-long hacking of the Democratic National Committees emails and their subsequent publication on WikiLeaks was actually the work of Russian intelligence.

The Kremlin, it is now widely believed, is trying to rob Hillary Clinton of her chance to be the next commander-in-chief because its favored candidate is Donald Trump, a mercenary authoritarian who behaves and sounds like a forbidding cross between Vladimir Zhirinovsky and a Las Vegas pit boss. Trump, like Putin, wants to eviscerate NATO, dispense with lecturing the Russians on democracy and human rights, and lift any and all diplomatic or economic penalties on Moscow for its invasion and occupation of Ukraine.

Trump, like Putin, draws on a staff of consiglieri and advisers who have extensive experience in the financial and political sectors of the post-Soviet sphere, usually on behalf of those who wish the Berlin Wall had never come down.

According to a mounting pile of compelling news reports, the first of which broke in The Washington Post in June, two separate agencies of Russian spy services, the domestic FSB and the military GRU, gained access, independently of each other and without the others cognizance, to the DNC correspondence beginning in the summer of 2015 (the FSB) and followed by an intrusion registered in April of this year (the GRU).

Already, the leaked emails, showing the DNC cooking up ways to sink Bernie Sanderss campaign on the basis of his suspected atheism, have deepened a schism within the Democratic Party as its nominating convention gets going. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is out of a job come Friday, and meanwhile shes busy being booed at luncheons and confabs by incensed Bernie supporters in Philadelphia. Trump is already capitalizing on these embarrassments by egging on the Bernie Bros to stand their ground and reaffirming the rigged nature of the electoral system.

If Moscow Centre is indeed behind this bit of cyber skulduggery, then it represents the boldest intrusion ever by a past and present Cold War adversary into Americas political decision-making.

Indeed, the style and purpose of this intrusion bears an uncanny resemblance to old Cold War tradecraft.

An active measure is a time-honored KGB tactic for waging informational and psychological warfare designed, as retired KGB General Oleg Kalugin once defined it, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly NATO, to sow discord among allies, to weaken the United States in the eyes of the people in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and thus to prepare ground in case the war really occurs.

The most common subcategory of active measures is dezinformatsiya, or disinformation: feverish if believable lies cooked up by Moscow Centre and planted in friendly media outlets to make democratic nations look sinister.

As my colleague Peter Pomeranzev and I discovered in researching our report on the Kremlins weaponization of money, culture, and information, some of the most famous conspiracy theories to bombinate in backrooms, basements, street corners, college dorms were actually whole-cloth inventions of the Cheka.

For instance, a story suggesting that Jimmy Carter had a Secret Plan to Put Black Africans and Black Americans at Odds; that the United States used chemical weapons in the Korean War; that AIDS was an invention of the CIA; that the Jonestown massacre was by U.S. intelligence; that the United States tried to kill Pope John Paul II; that Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society were in cahoots to mount a coup dtat in Washington, D.C.

Many in 1963 doubted that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in murdering John F. Kennedy; but only a precious few ever saw their paranoid Grassy Knoll explanation transformed into a Hollywood blockbuster. American researcher Max Holland found that the KGB fabricated letter that got planted in the Italian newspaper Paese Sera was the first to allege that one of the suspects for the Kennedy assassination, Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman, was actually an operative of Langley. The New Orleans district attorney, Jim Garrison, got hold of a copy of that letter and while he never cited it in court, his film version Kevin Costner most certainly did in the paranoid Oliver Stone movie JFK.

Vasili Mitrokhin, a retired KGB archivist who defected to the West and smuggled out six enormous cases of Soviet foreign intelligence files, later recorded that the KGB could fairly claim that far more Americans believed some version of its own conspiracy theory of the Kennedy assassination, involving a right-wing plot and the U.S. intelligence community, than still accept the main findings of the Warren Commission.

Mitrokhins archive also settled another long-running debate about an actual CIA provocateur, the defector Philip Agee, whose KGB code name was PONT.

Get The Beast In Your Inbox!

Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.

Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).

By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the TermsofUse and PrivacyPolicy

Subscribe

Thank You!

You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason

Agee had been an officer stationed in Latin America and was forced to quit the agency because he drank, was loose with government money and all too eager to take to bed the many wives of the many American diplomats in whose company he traveled.

Then, in 1973, as Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew recount in The Sword and the Shield, the first volume of a two-part history on the exfiltrated secrets of the U.S.S.R.s special services, Agee walked right into the rezidentura in Mexico City.

He offered the Russians reams of information about CIA operations, according to Oleg Kalugin, who was then head of the KGB First Chief Directorates counterintelligence division. But the Soviets thought this too good to be true; Agee struck them as a dangle, a deep cover operative posing as a would-be defector in order to hawk faulty intelligence. So they turned him away. He next tried the Cubans, who found him legitimate.

Because of Havanas close security relationship with Moscow (one that had actually been coerced by the Soviets through anti-Castro espionage and economic blackmail), Cubas own intelligence service, the DGI, shared their new asset with their KGB masters. As I sat in my office in Moscow reading reports about the growing list of revelations coming from Agee, Kalugin later wrote, I cursed our officers for turning away such a prize.

Agees first act as a Soviet spy was to name names of his old American comrades in a best-selling book titled Inside the Company: CIA Diary. It was first released in Britain in 1975 and possibly curated by Agees KGB and DGI handlers. He outed 250 CIA officers and agents before he set about exposing those stationed in the capital of Americas closest Cold War ally, London, where he now took temporary residence, much like another controversial whistleblower.

Agee was eventually expelled from Britain, owing to U.S. diplomatic pressure, but not before becoming a left-wing celebrity, feted and defended by a raft of Labour MPs and The Guardian newspaper.

Miktrokhin and Andrew are generous in acquitting most of Agees admirers as mere useful idiots rather than duplicitous co-conspirators. Nevertheless, PONTs KGB file boasted of his stature as a putative transparency advocate and martyr of free speech, notwithstanding his clandestine and destructive work on behalf of a communist superpower: Campaigns of support for PONT, the file noted, were initiated in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Finland, Norway, Mexico and Venezuela.

In 1978, Agee began publishing his own newsletter, Covert Action Information Bulletin, a WikiLeaks-style journal designed, in Agees own words, as a worldwide campaign to destabilize the CIA through exposure of its operations and personnel.

The Bulletin was a KGB and DGI operation; the entire project was given the code name RUPOR (Russian for mouthpiece). Besides its internationally recognizable founder, other editors included other Americans, such as the journalist Louis Wolf, and featured contributions from other former CIA officers, although Miktrokhin and Andrew state that theres no evidence that anyone other than Agee knew which foreign governments were actually underwriting the Bulletin.

As an active measure, the pamphlet was a mixture of credible stolen intelligence and dezinformatsiya. Sometimes the KGB would feed Agee real morsels from Langley; elsewhere, when these proved impossible to come by, he was instructed to seek out open-source material ranging from readers letters to crises around the world which could be blamed on the CIA, as Mitrokhin and Andrew write. This is how the Jonestown massacre became an American crime.

The Russians and Cubans even set the schedule for when Western national security secrets, be they authentic or sham, were to be disgorged. Around the time of the Bulletins first issue, Agee and Wolf started handing out copies of a new book, Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, which carried the names of another 700 CIA employees scattered across the free countries of the continent. The success of that volume encouraged a sequel, which was duly produced as Dirty Work II: The CIA in Africa. Its publication, the KGB and DGI jointly decided, would coincide with a Castro-hosted conference in Havana for the non-aligned nations in September 1979.

Closer to our own time, following the invasion of Ukraine, we have seen the recrudescence of active measures as a form of Russian hybrid warfare. Sometimes theyre aimed at the United States, as when a phone call between Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, was suddenly uploaded to the internet and framed to show a shadowy plot to not only influence the course of Ukraines post-Yanukovych period but also drive a wedge between Washington and Brussels.

(That phone call had Nuland at one point say that the UN ought to be brought in to facilitate a peace deal deal and fuck the EU.) Few doubt who intercepted this communication and posted it online; Nuland herself, in conversation with the BBC, smilingly called the tradecraft really quite impressive.

A subsequent phone exchange between former Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and former European Higher Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton appeared to call into question who, exactly, did the sniping on Kievs Independence Square during the Maidan Revolutionwith the suggestion being that it was the opposition, not the Yanukovych government shooting civilians. (Paet had talked to a Ukrainian doctor who tended to the wounded on the square and had either misunderstood where she said the gunfire had come from or was just relaying to Ashton alternative theories.)

Finally, everyone remembers how the NSA listened in on German Chancellor Angela Merkels private cellphone calls, a bombshell report, tied to the Edward Snowden leaks, which put a frost on U.S.-German relations. Except that it seems the entire story, first reported in Der Spiegel (and primarily written by a WikiLeaks associate, Jacob Appelbaum) was wrongeven if the vast majority of Snowdens disclosures were genuinely and self-evidently scandalous.

Germanys top prosecutor, Harald Range, opened an investigation in June 2014 and closed it a year later, citing a lack of evidence. The documents published in the media so far that come from Edward Snowden also contain no evidence of surveillance of the mobile phone used by the chancellor solid enough for a court, Range said. Prior to closing the case, he had noted that the supposed gotcha document proving the NSA was listening in on an allied head of states personal conversations was in fact not an authentic surveillance order by the NSA. It does not come from the NSA database.

[uniteordie-usa]

Happy Birthday CIA: 7 Truly Terrible Things The Agency Has Done In 70 Years

http://uniteordiemedia.com/happy-birthday-cia-7-truly-terrible-things-the-agency-has-done-in-70-years/ http://uniteordiemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Truman-On-The-CIA-600x464.jpg Happy Birthday CIA: 7 Truly Terrible Things The Agency Has Done In 70 Years Oh, if Harry only knew… those fellows weren’t just looking for things to “report on,” they were actively enforcing global corporate hegemony using US government authority and taxpayer resources. (ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — On Monday, President Trump tweeted birthday wishes to the...

Oh, if Harry only knew… those fellows weren’t just looking for things to “report on,” they were actively enforcing global corporate hegemony using US government authority and taxpayer resources.

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — On Monday, President Trump tweeted birthday wishes to the Air Force and the CIA. Both became official organizations 70 years ago on September 18, 1947, with the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.

After spending years as a wartime intelligence agency called the Office of Strategic Services, the agency was solidified as a key player in the federal government’s operations with then-President Harry Truman’s authorization.

In the seventy years since, the CIA has committed a wide variety of misdeeds, crimes, coups, and violence. Here are seven of the worst programs they’ve carried out (that are known to the public):

Toppling governments around the world — The CIA is best known for its first coup, Operation Ajax, in 1953, in which it ousted the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, reinstating the autocratic Shah, who favored western oil interests. That operation, which the CIA now admits to waging with British intelligence, ultimately resulted in the 1979 revolution and subsequent U.S. hostage crisis. Relations between the U.S. and Iran remain strained to this day, aptly described by the CIA-coined term “blowback.”

But the CIA has had a hand in toppling a number of other democratically elected governments, from Guatemala (1954) and the Congo (1960) to the Dominican Republic (1961), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964), and Chile (1973). The CIA has aimed to install leaders who appease American interests, often empowering oppressive, violent dictators. This is only a partial list of countries where the CIA covertly attempted to exploit and manipulate sovereign nations’ governments.

Operation Paperclip — In one of the more bizarre CIA plots, the agency and other government departments employed Nazi scientists both within and outside the United States to gain an advantage over the Soviets. As summarized by NPR:

“The aim [of Operation Paperclip] was to find and preserve German weapons, including biological and chemical agents, but American scientific intelligence officers quickly realized the weapons themselves were not enough.

“They decided the United States needed to bring the Nazi scientists themselves to the U.S. Thus began a mission to recruit top Nazi doctors, physicists and chemists — including Wernher von Braun, who went on to design the rockets that took man to the moon.”

They kept this plot secret, though they admitted to it upon the release of Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists To America by Annie Jacobsen. In a book review, the CIA wrote that “Henry Wallace, former vice president and secretary of commerce, believed the scientists’ ideas could launch new civilian industries and produce jobs.” 

They praised the book’s historical accuracy, noting “that the Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was headed by Kurt Debus, an ardent Nazi.” They acknowledged that “General Reinhard Gehlen, former head of Nazi intelligence operations against the Soviets, was hired by the US Army and later by the CIA to operate 600 ex-Nazi agents in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany.”

Remarkably, they noted that Jacobsen “understandably questions the morality of the decision to hire Nazi SS scientists,” but praise her for pointing out that it was done to fight Soviets. They also made sure to add that the Soviets hired Nazis, too, apparently justifying their own questionable actions by citing their most loathed enemy.

Operation CHAOS — The FBI is widely known for its COINTELPRO schemes to undermine communist movements in the 1950s and anti-war, civil rights, and black power movements in the 1960s, but the CIA has not been implicated nearly as deeply because, technically, the CIA cannot legally engage in domestic spying. But that was of little concern to President Lyndon B. Johnson as opposition to the Vietnam war grew. According to former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Tim Weiner, as documented in his extensive CIA history, Legacy of Ashes, Johnson instructed then-CIA Director Richard Helms to break the law:

“In October 1967, a handful of CIA analysts joined in the first big Washington march against the war. The president regarded protesters as enemies of the state. He was convinced that the peace movement was controlled and financed by Moscow and Beijing. He wanted proof. He ordered Richard Helms to produce it.

“Helms reminded the president that the CIA was barred from spying on Americans. He says Johnson told him: ‘I’m quite aware of that. What I want for you is to pursue this matter, and to do what is necessary to track down the foreign communists who are behind this intolerable interference in our domestic affairs…’”

Helms obeyed. Weiner wrote:

“In a blatant violation of his powers under the law, the director of central intelligence became a part-time secret police chief. The CIA undertook a domestic surveillance operation, code-named Chaos. It went on for almost seven years… Eleven CIA officers grew long hair, learned the jargon of the New Left, and went off to infiltrate peace groups in the United States and Europe.”

According to Weiner, “the agency compiled a computer index of 300,000 names of American people and organizations, and extensive files on 7,200 citizens. It began working in secret with police departments all over America.” Because they could not draw a “clear distinction” between the new far left and mainstream opposition to the war, the CIA spied on every major peace organization in the country. President Johnson also wanted them to prove a connection between foreign communists and the black power movement. “The agency tried its best,” Weiner noted, ultimately noting that “the CIA never found a shred of evidence that linked the leaders of the American left or the black-power movement to foreign governments.”

Infiltrating the media — Over the years, the CIA has successfully gained influence in the news media, as well as popular media like film and television. Its influence over the news began almost immediately after the agency was formed. As Weiner explained, CIA Director Allen Dulles established firm ties with newspapers:

“Dulles kept in close touch with the men who ran the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the nation’s leading weekly magazines. He could pick up the phone and edit a breaking story, make sure an irritating foreign correspondent was yanked from the field, or hire the services of men such as Time’s Berlin bureau chief and Newsweek’s man in Tokyo.”

He continued:

“It was second nature for Dulles to plant stories in the press. American newsrooms were dominated by veterans of the government’s wartime propaganda branch, the Office of War Information…The men who responded to the CIA’s call included Henry Luce and his editors at Time, Life, and Fortune; popular magazines such as Parade, the Saturday Review, and Reader’s Digest; and the most powerful executives at CBS News. Dulles built a public-relations and propaganda machine that came to include more than fifty news organizations, a dozen publishing houses, and personal pledges of support from men such as Axel Springer, West Germany’s most powerful press baron.”

The CIA’s influence had not waned by 1977 when journalist Carl Bernstein reported on publications with CIA agents in their employ, as well as “more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The CIA has also successfully advised on and influenced numerous television shows, such as Homeland and 24 and films like Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, which push narratives that ultimately favor the agency. According to Tricia Jenkins, author of The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film & Television, a concerted agency effort began in the 1990s to counteract negative public perceptions of the CIA, but their influence reaches back decades. In the 1950s, filmmakers produced films for the CIA, including the 1954 film adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Researchers Tom Secker and Matthew Alford, whose work has been published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, say their recent Freedom of Information Act requests have shown that the CIA — along with the military — have influenced over 1,800 films and television shows, many of which have nothing to do with CIA or military themes.

Drug-induced Mind control – In the 1950s, the CIA began experimenting with drugs to determine whether they might be useful in extracting information. As Smithsonian Magazine has noted of the MKUltra project:

“The project, which continued for more than a decade, was originally intended to make sure the United States government kept up with presumed Soviet advances in mind-control technology. It ballooned in scope and its ultimate result, among other things, was illegal drug testing on thousands of Americans.”

Further:

“The intent of the project was to study ‘the use of biological and chemical materials in altering human behavior,’ according to the official testimony of CIA director Stansfield Turner in 1977. The project was conducted in extreme secrecy, Turner said, because of ethical and legal questions surrounding the program and the negative public response that the CIA anticipated if MKUltra should become public.

“Under MKUltra, the CIA gave itself the authority to research how drugs could:’ ‘promote the intoxicating effects of alcohol;’ ‘render the induction of hypnosis easier;’ ‘enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion;’ produce amnesia, shock and confusion; and much more. Many of these questions were investigated using unwitting test subjects, like drug-addicted prisoners, marginalized sex workers and terminal cancer patients– ‘people who could not fight back,’ in the words of Sidney Gottlieb, the chemist who introduced LSD to the CIA.”

Further, as Weiner noted:

“Under its auspices, seven prisoners at a federal penitentiary in Kentucky were kept high on LSD for seventy-seven consecutive days. When the CIA slipped the same drug to an army civilian employee, Frank Olson, he leaped out of the window of a New York Hotel.”

Weiner added that senior CIA officers destroyed “almost all of the records” of the programs, but that while the “evidence that remains is fragmentary…it strongly suggests that use of secret prisons for the forcible drug-induced questioning of suspect agents went on throughout the 1950s.”

Years later, the CIA would be accused of distributing crack-cocaine into poor black communities, though this is currently less substantiated and supported mostly by accounts of those who claim to have been involved.

Brutal torture tactics — More recently, the CIA was exposed for sponsoring abusive, disturbing terror tactics against detainees at prisons housing terror suspects. An extensive 2014 Senate report documented agents committing sexual abuse, forcing detainees to stand on broken legs, waterboarding them so severely it sometimes led to convulsions, and imposing forced rectal feeding, to name a few examples. Ultimately, the agency had very little actionable intelligence to show for their torture tactics but lied to suggest they did, according to the torture report. Their torture tactics led the International Criminal Court to suggest the CIA, along with the U.S. armed forces, could be guilty of war crimes for their abuses.

Arming radicals — The CIA has a long habit of arming radical, extremist groups that view the United States as enemies. In 1979, the CIA set out to support Afghan rebels in their bid to defeat the Soviet occupation of the Middle Eastern country. As Weiner wrote, in 1979, “Prompted by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter signed a covert-action order for the CIA to provide the Afghan rebels with medical aid, money, and propaganda.”

…..

Read More: www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-19/happy-birthday-cia-7-truly-terrible-things-agency-has-done-70-years

[xhafang-blog]

Eye protected desktop wallpaper and protective eye color settings

Do you know how to protect your eyes by using a computer regularly? This article will give you a detailed introduction to desktop wallpaper for eye protection and color settings for eye protection. Computer radiation for a long time watching the computer screen people, paying particular attention to protect their eyes, now almost everyone has a computer, apart from work, leisure time people have been accustomed to the Internet, using a computer to play games, see what news. However, it is very harmful to the eye if it is under the computer. What should we do to protect our eyes and minimize the radiation damage to the eyes?

Director of Key Laboratory of the Ministry of health, eye myopia Medical College of Fudan University professor Zhu Renyuan said, green and blue eyes of the best advice for a long time with the computer, often look at the blue sky, green space, visual fatigue can be alleviated to a certain extent. Similarly, if we turn the computer screen and the background of the page into a faint apple green, it can also effectively relieve eye fatigue and other symptoms to some extent.

Just this morning to see the CCTV "red sunset" program, in the home of a coup in how to set the color screen to protect their eyes tricks, I immediately operation again, the feeling can also be, although the page not beautiful, but the screen is not so bright, so dazzling, for their eye health, suggestions a little better or pragmatic. It is recommended that you try it on, and I wish the computer family to keep a healthy and bright eyes!

The first step is to click the right mouse button on the desktop, and then click the "properties", "appearance" and "advanced" buttons.

The second step, in the open advanced dialog box, in the project drop-down list, select the window".

The third step, and then open the right color list, select one of the other.

In the open dialog box, set the hue parameter to 85, set the saturation parameter to 90, and set the brightness parameter to 205. Click the add to custom color button, and then click OK to exit the settings.

The fourth step (if you're looking at those dazzling pages), open the IE browser and select the Internet option in the tools column",

Click the "accessibility" button to hook before "not using the color specified in the web page". And then click "OK"".

When all the steps have been completed, the background colors in the pages, folders, and text documents are all green. Among them, the hue, saturation and brightness parameters can also be modified according to personal preferences, so that they feel most comfortable when using a computer. My color is also set from black to blue.

The other is red, eye color, look for a long time, but also prone to dry eye, eye irritation and other symptoms, increased eye fatigue, so I suggest you do not use red as the computer screen and web page background.

Eye protection

I. health articles

Correct posture is the first step to protect your eyes. It plays a very important role in relieving eyestrain.

Specifically speaking:

Don't use computers for extended periods of time. Usually every 1 hours to rest for 10 minutes, in the rest of the telescope or do eye exercises; ornamental green plants to relax the eye muscles; eye drops can prevent dry eye in a certain extent, keep the eyes moist.

Between the eyes and the screen should be more than 50 cm distance, it is better to use the visual angle of 20 degrees. The presentation of entry personnel, should be reduced and a small presentation computer display the distance between the eyes due to constantly reduce fatigue caused by the conversion target.

In the use of computer should blink more, in order to increase intraocular lubricant and enzyme secretion, keep the eyes moist.

Often wash your face can reduce the computer radiation damage.

Drink green tea every day. Tea can improve the body's hematopoietic function, can enhance the immune capacity of the human body, reducing radiation effects.

Eat some fresh fruits and vegetables, can prevent corneal drying, dry eye, decreased vision and even blindness and other eye.

If there is eye discomfort, after a long period of rest can not relieve the symptoms, then you need to go to the hospital for examination.

Two environment chapter

A good computer environment is also important for protecting your eyes.

Specifically speaking:

Keep the computer room ventilated regularly. The room with an air conditioner should be paid attention to, because a lot of carbon dioxide can make people dizzy and headache.

Computers should not be placed against windows or with windows, the ambient light should be soft; the brightness of the computer monitor should be adjusted; the computer room is best equipped with shutters and curtains.

Computer room the best temperature 21 degrees, humidity 60%. It is recommended to put some green plants indoors, so that not only can the room temperature be maintained, but also the indoor oxygen can be added.

Three, display chapter

Computer monitors are often used by computer users, so it is critical that the light source is appropriate or not. Therefore, you can choose a suitable display according to your personal habits. In order to reduce radiation, you can also consider using LCD (LCD). General display radiation mainly comes from the back of the display of electronic element radiation, it is not recommended to face to face or desk before and after order placed, so as to avoid the back of the display of people, due to the radiation damage of others.

Four, refresh rate chapter

The refresh rate of the monitor is also closely related to the protection of the eyes. Low refresh rate will make eyes tired quickly, can not work for a long time, in general, 85Hz or more harm to the human eye smaller. Some famous brand display, installed in the driver after the "display properties" Settings "page, click the advanced button, then the refresh rate is set in the" adapter ", if the display settings can bear, the higher the better. However, some display drivers or monitors alone do not support higher refresh rates, so the average user's refresh rate is set at 75Hz. In order to avoid raising the screen after being painted black screen, affecting the use of.

Five, software articles

The intense work will often make people too and forget the rest, it will make the eye fatigue. There are some computer game enthusiasts, obsessed with the game and forget to protect the eyes, vision loss is of course inevitable. Therefore, we suggest that you do not indulge in computer games for a long time or watch TV programs, etc., pay attention to proper rest, choose other entertainment ways to relax.

Eye protection is an important life project, which runs through our work and life, let us start from now on, protect our soul, so that they will always clear and bright!

Use your computer for eight years to protect your eyes

Attention to work and rest, to prevent tendon strain. Long time operation of computer operation will lead to finger joints, wrist, arm muscles, shoulders, neck, back and other parts appear pain, therefore, the operator should rest for 10 minutes in an hour of work, or do some exercises.

Attention should be paid to eye hygiene. The distance between the eyes and the manuscript, the eyes and the screen should be kept at a 50 degree angle of view. When working, apply anti radiation lotion on face and hands.

Pregnant women should not touch the computer for more than 20 hours a week. To prevent prolonged sitting, causing pelvic blood retention is not smooth, so that relaxation degree; should pay attention to the computer and seat sitting height coordination, so that the healthy development of the fetus.

For a long time engaged in computer operators, should eat more fresh vegetables and fruits. Increase intake of vitamin A, B1, C and E at the same time. In order to prevent corneal drying, dry eye, decreased visual acuity, even nyctalopia, computer users should eat foods rich in vitamin A, such as soy products, fish, milk, walnuts, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, tomato, spinach and fresh fruit. Vitamin C can effectively inhibit cell oxidation. The main function of vitamin E is to lower cholesterol, remove rubbish from the body and prevent cataracts. Walnuts and peanuts are rich in vitamin E. Vitamin B1 can strengthen the nutrition of nerve cell, relieve nervous state of nervous.

Every day, the bubble point Green Tea. The lipopolysaccharide in tea can improve the hematopoietic work of the organism. When the body is injected with LPS, it can enhance nonspecific immunity in a short period of time. Tea can also protect against radiation damage.

6, in order to avoid the reflective or clear screen, the computer should not be placed in the window of the opposite or north; ambient lighting should be soft, if the operator behind the window should pull the curtains, to avoid direct exposure to the light fatigue screen back out of the bright image caused by eye.

The computer room should always ventilation, indoor installation of fan or air conditioning, to reduce bromine than two benzofuran on the body, the computer room near the dust density than the other space is hundreds of times higher, they are a long time attached to the skin, can cause various skin diseases. The computer room should be kept clean and the computer should be cleaned regularly.

The ordinary people blink less than 5 times per minute will make the eyes dry. When a person works on the computer, the amount of blinking is only 1/3 of the normal time, thus reducing the secretion of intraocular lubricant and enzymes. You should blink and rest at least once every hour.

Light green wallpaper is good for your eyes

Pleasing to the eye, no irritation to the eyes

Green is good for the eyes. Do you think the plants protect the eyes? Green is good for the eyes. It does not mean that the green itself is good for the eyes, but that the view from the nature can relieve the fatigue of the eyes. If you look at something within 33 centimeters, even if it's green, it's not good for your eyes.

Why look green is good for your eyes

Outside objects have a variety of colors that can make objects appear sharp and graceful, creating different emotions and hobbies.

Too bright colors make people feel tired, too dark colors will make people feel heavy; red and yellow can give people a bright feeling, blue and green brings cool and calm feeling. The absorption and reflection of light varies from color to color, red to light is 67%, yellow reflection is 65%, green reflection is 47%, cyan reflects only 36%.

The red and yellow to light reflection is relatively strong, so prone to flare and glare. Blue and green absorb and reflect light more evenly, so they are more adaptive to the nervous system, the cerebral cortex and the retinal tissue in the eyes. For example, green grass and green, not only can absorb light in the eyes of harmful ultraviolet rays, while reducing glare on the eye produced by glit.

When people in a tense after learning or work, trees overlooking the distant look in the window, it will feel a tense nerves relaxed, eye fatigue will disappear.

Women's health network (Editor)