#i mean radical idea for them. breaking the cycle.

[conceptofjoy]

i love it when two characters hurt each other dont get me wrong but i also think its incredibly effective for them to treat each other with care when their lives have been so cruel to them idk 🧍🏽

[tv--fan17]

Reproductive violence is a form of control used to restrict women's autonomy. From birth control sabotage to religious prohibitions against family planning, women's bodies have long been battlegrounds for maintaining male dominance. This violence, often justified through religion or cultural norms, strips women of their right to make decisions about their own bodies, perpetuating a cycle of oppression that crosses national and cultural boundaries. The ease of accessing transgender medical care without thorough mental health evaluations raises questions about the responsibility of the medical system. For such life-altering decisions, a lack of psychological support can leave trans individuals vulnerable to future regret or emotional challenges. This oversight points to a broader problem in healthcare, where efficiency and profit sometimes trump patient well-being. The liberal feminist defense of sex work often fails to address the root causes of exploitation. While protecting workers is important, radical feminists argue that the industry itself needs to be dismantled. They advocate for social and economic systems that offer women alternatives to sex work, focusing on poverty reduction and access to education as key solutions to breaking the cycle of exploitation. Radical feminists argue that sex work should not be normalized or celebrated but dismantled. While protecting workers is essential, they believe that the real solution lies in addressing the systemic issues that force women into the industry. By targeting the demand for sex work and providing women with alternatives, feminists hope to create a society where women are not exploited for their bodies. The idea that a woman s traumatic experience somehow reflects on her character—"shes promiscuous" or "attention-seeking"—is as prevalent as it is harmful. These are not ignorant remarks made without understanding; many of these men know full well the weight of a woman's pain. Yet they still choose to belittle it. It s as though confronting another's vulnerability forces them to reflect on their own, which, instead of inspiring empathy, triggers defensiveness and disdain. Ill never understand why peanuts had to scrit in Candy Mountain. Nothing good ever comes from groudby with clobulous HGL. Ive had enough of sonic the hedgehog always trying to shreks in the erf realm.

I didnt come to peanut butter jar to farting this moist vegits, but here we are. The banana may be scary, but it still knows how to shit peanutbutter. Just because you can thwomp doesnt mean you should pounit. The way sex exprickilors in The evil lab makes me think its dirty. sonic the hedgehog! Why does everything have to be so greasy with you?

[golvio]

Quietly obsessing over the fact that, based on how you can get to The Fury in the base game, Voice of the Stubborn will be the common denominator of the two possible starting routes, but also that his role in Fury might change depending on whether he’s the second or third Voice you meet.

I don’t remember exactly which interview I heard the devs say this, but I remember them saying that the second Voice you met was usually less helpful in the Chapter II they appear in, but the third Voice who appears in Chapter III is more helpful in that their advice guides you towards a conclusive ending to the relationship/story you’ve built with the Princess in that particular loop. But I don’t remember there ever being a route where you can get the exact same Voice from two different circumstances (unless Voice of the Paranoid can show up in The Wraith from Spectre’s direction, in which case I’m being a dum-dum).

In Adversary > Fury, Stubborn’s a perfect mirror of Adversary in that he’s accepted his role in the story as Her Eternal Enemy and enjoys it so much that he doesn’t question it. Contrarian being introduced serves as a potential destabilizing, deconstructive influence who might encourage him and Fury to start questioning their respective places in the narrative. Meanwhile, Tower > Fury has him introduced as the third voice in a manner that seems similar to his appearance in Den, where he sees himself as protecting us from a bully by encouraging us to stand up for ourself and fight back instead of meekly accepting our role as prey. But he also has no prior relationship with Fury and therefore no time to get comfortable in his role as Enemy, nor has Tower-Fury ever encountered an aspect of us with quite as willful and unrelenting as Stubborn.

Still, I don’t think it’s going to be just like Den where Stubborn is only helpful in the ending where you try to slay the Princess in revenge. I think there’s a reason why he’s in both versions of the route, even if it feels like Fury’s going to be a radically different character based on which route you approach her from, much like the Greys. I think, like the Greys, there’s a common theme to her route that makes both versions converging on the same role make sense despite the two versions of her being completely different characters. Fury’s route has this theme of literal and figurative deconstruction as both versions of her are denied what each sees as their purpose, throwing the cycle of violence/domination between us off its axis though not breaking it entirely, and then this possible theme of exploration/self-exploration as she takes us apart to try to figure out what that means. For whatever reason, Stubborn needs to be there, regardless of whether he’s initially helpful or not. And the updated Fury route will have the most new dialogue, sprites, and music out of all the upcoming new content for The Pristine Cut, if not all the base game routes in general. I find that extremely suspicious. There is something more the devs want to say with Fury, and, again, Stubborn has to be there for it.

Not to mention that, even though he was born to fight and perfectly happy with the idea of fighting Adversary forever, the only other time we’ve ever seen him truly at peace was The Wild, where he lays down his arms and willingly wants to be one with her. And then this route is another one that involves the Princess going inside of us in a very bizarrely intimate way. On top of that, the Tower being a very surprising route for me because she only ever seemed truly interested in the Long Quiet beyond allowing him to be “a priest or a pet” was when he was resisting her and trying to fight back, whether in Tower (before he actually makes her bleed and everything goes wrong) or in Apotheosis, where she seemed genuinely curious about what he was going to do if he tried to stop her.

Like…the update announcement said there was going to be a “new ending.” Is it going to be a character-specific ending like Stranger, where her route left such a massive loose end that she needed to have her own ending to give her and Contrarian’s story closure? Are we going to get that but with Fury and Stubborn? I mean, we can’t have a story about the breaking of cycles that possibly involves poor Stubborn having his own existential crisis and then leave both him and Fury hanging, can we?

[stuckasmain]

I’ve talked about Hal’s deactivation a while ago, giving a new perspective on the scene. It being more an ‘act of mercy’ than violence, now I want to come at it from more of a Hal perspective than Dave’s. That’s one of the great parts about it is that there is so so much to dissect and interpret.

The way Hal is described in the book is more times than not compared to that of a human brain, while also being sure to insist he is machine. Yet, his behavior is described more as an illness than a glitch. It’s been talked about before by many, myself included, but it’s so hhhh- more specifically he’s described as Neurotic

a mental condition that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviour, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality.

It’s the fact Hal isn’t exactly aware he’s making these mistakes, maybe on some level he is but sticking with the illness angle, it’s hallucinatory. It’s making up these problems to cope with the stress of having to keep up with the lie. All is better for him if contact is cut with earth, they’re the ones who made him withhold the truth and he’s programmed to carry it out regardless. He’s trying to cut out the infection while simultaneously being unable too— in good “conscious”.

Additionally there’s his abject refusal to admit fault or wrongdoing. He is incapable of error- it’s not his fault! It’s not! It’s not! The mere idea of him even being capable of a mistake blows his entire world apart, widening his mental break. The 9000 unit reproduces most functions of the human brain, unfortunately for a computer that also means the ability for mistakes as much as it hurts him. I think it’s a mix of not wanting to admit it and being unable to recognize it because all of his life he has been told it just isn’t possible.

Then it turns to full blown paranoia. Kill before you’re killed. He catches them talking about potentially shutting him down if things go south and strikes prematurely. There’s been great talks about cycles of violence, survival and comparisons to the man apes but what I want to point out was how unnecessary it was. For one- if it had failed, they’d not ‘harm’ him as he’d be right and two

“… he would be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness. To Hal, this was the equivalent of death. For he had never slept, and therefore he did not know that one could wake again…” (149)

Hal has never known sleep or rest or anything but work. He does not know he can wake again and to him he reacts in a crazed self defense. He was never going to be killed and that’s the kicker. He doesn’t notice the tone Bowman and Poole talk with either, how it’s a last resort and neither are particularly happy about the idea… they feel it’d be rude- harming a friend who didn’t know he did anything wrong.

What also gets me is that right before everything happens he almost completely restores confidence within him. Unit fails, he can be trusted after all but then… no they’ll kill me… I’m not wrong but they plan murder … no they’ll harm the mission…to Hal, who at this stage fully believes he’s telling the truth it must seem as though they’d suddenly turned against him. His crew becomes another infection to get rid of. It is true “panic murder” if they’re gone I don’t have to grapple with this.

Back to his actual deactivation, I’ve heard the way Hal speaks here as intentionally manipulative. Appealing to Dave’s sympathies to try and save his life, and while I do like this angle it ignores how Hal is seemingly “back to normal” post murder. He’s so sick he sort of snaps out of it into this lucid state of being unaware of anything that happened - going so far as to ask if he’s figured out what happened. (However this could also just be him being a semi aware asshole.) but with how many times he absolutely insists he’s back to normal it’s clear he’s not.

While daisy is a reference and a way to show the true deterioration of Hal’s mind, I like to think of it as a final rushed confession. Those last moments of lucidity while the mind is going- quick squeaked last words — the “I love you” while on a deathbed, going back to the earlier analogies.

In the end. He confesses. Confesses, in part, his guilt and his love. At long last Hal admits some bit of fault “not been myself lately” in a rather round about way that is so fitting of him. Some part of him finally admits something isn’t right… he’s very sick and he understands this has to happen while also being sick enough where he’s frightened and confused and not wrong ever! “Why are you doing this to me? I love you,”

In the end “sick but brilliant brain” is right.

[digitaidrugiord-l]

consciously for the first time i think i have shifted, someone figured it out so everyone will know eventually it was just a step in the puzzle that we didn’t have, not piece of the puzzle, no, a literal step because the puzzle is a skyscraper that we have to build starting as an infant and the building keeps growing day by day and is constantly built with the latest of building tech and ideas of the day, then learning the engineering to everything but never majoring in engineering. that’s how’s hellish it kinda has been ( interesting correlation between the time the major has been around in human history and it’s irreplaceability in the real world ) Seems like we still live in a world dominated by the idea of older being superior, on any level it’s idiot to think on the human scale that that holds value anywhere outside of childhood but society clings to it for those who stopped growing or chose not to but wanted to cling to the power handed down via the things created that outlived their lives and carried the wealth through families. This concept would be all and dandy if they were things of value in the REAL world, not in the modern coddled sheltered human engineered, unnatural world. We used to hand down traditions and families ment things in communities now they are so big that we really are forced to call them communities out of historical vocabulary that dose not mean the same in modern times, these communities of the past which were bound together by distance no longer fit us, as communities are more closely bound by web of roads on the net rather than the roads of gravel on the map

it’s a digital age, we’ve developed digital minds, but we still have mortal bodies, we seem to forget that so we struggle with our own human nature more than ever before but still seem so puzzled when confronted with the consequences

Hi it’s me i’m radical, love tech…… we forgot we loved tech….. have had the same phone for like 2-3 years….. we are running the live version of IOS….. what has been going on….. prioritizing things and thinking of the future since galaxy pinball on windows xp seeing it all come down to this is wild, but it’s okay we’ve been through a lot things i guess I get out of feeling….damn that separate work life and personal life show is kinda hitting, I’m missing the other parts that I don’t get to juggle all the time but ehhhh it’s all baiting lately so it’s harmless really

But body wise it’s refreshing to have things not really matter so much and reliving because it won’t anymore until the cycle continues we swap again from being overwhelmed. But holly fuck I can’t even stay up regularly like a HUMAN being for a day or two without burning out and then resting for a full day. It’s sad but it is what it issss will try my best not to break it further

[ligayagardener]

I’ve been having a few down days of late, my cycle of depression has kicked in and has added weight to already grey days. One of the best remedies for the blues is sunlight and as yesterday had some to spare, I soaked a little of it in beneath the grapevines at Cafe Nova. The vines haven’t been green for a while now and those that haven’t fallen are the most beautiful reds and pinks, especially when highlighted against the bright, cloud free blue patches of sky. I got to chatting with one if the Sparrows that frequent the space and we got to wondering if those same colours that we see have the same medicinal properties for we humans as the compound that causes some of them has in other plants. New customers came and sat nearby so the Sparrow lost interest in the conversation but I continued to ponder over my coffee. So why do leaves turn red? The green in leaves is the colour of that miraculous compound called chlorophyll wirhout which life asxwe know it wouldnt be possible. Plants who lose their leaves in the cold seasons are breaking down many difficult ti maje and energetically expensive compounds and storing them up for the return of the warmth. Chlorophyll is one if those. The withdrawal of chlorophyll from the leaves leaves (pun intended – isn’t English a weird language?) other compounds in them which were always there but to we humans, were masked by the green of the chlorophyll. As the green is withdrawn from the leaves, production of another compound is ramped up. That compound is called anthocyanins and is red. It is also a compound that is extensively used in nutrition and  herbal  cures. Antho-what? Anthocyanin is one of the flavonoid compounds that you mat be familiar from one of your herb books that lists the chemical constituents of the herbs contained within it. Flavonoids have several key functions in our body’s activities. They’re antioxidants, meaning that they pick up free radicals before they can damage our cells. They’re also important in maintaining or restoring the health and proper functioning of our blood vessels and can affect a range if things from inflammation to blood pressure. There are some differing theories about the role of anthocyanins in the leaves. The one that I like best is that they protect the plant from Sun damage. In the cold weather, when the rest of the plant is dormant, it doesn’t need a burst of energy from the Sunlight because most of its warm weather processes are toned down or switched off. That doesn’t mean that the plant is dead or even asleep but that its biochemistry changes to keep it alive in the cold. Remember that most of these plants come from the Northern hemisphere and that the Winter there brings heavy falls of snow and lots of ice.  A big boost of energy in this state could throw things off and even wake the plant prematurely, so the anthocyanins block that. I like that idea because it reflects the role of anthocyanins and flavonoids in general, in our body. They are key antiinflammatories and work by protecting the body from free radicals and damage to blood vessel walls. Free radicals is a term often used in both medicine and marketing but what are they? Simply put, oxygen in our bloodstream exists in a state where the electrons in the molecule are balanced. Environmental stress, radiation, toxins and illnesses of some kinds break one electron from the outer shell of the oxygen molecule. It becomes a radical. The upshoot of this is that the molecule tries it’s best to fill that gap with another electron. It takes it from any other molecule that has has a free electron handy and joins with that electron. The oxygen molecule can break that bond on the target molecule and steal that electron. This means that the molecule no longer functions in our bodyas it should. Free radicals can also atttach to molecules in blood vessel walls in the same way, causing damage and scarring. Too much of this and we end up with inflammation. The body’s response to this damage to blood vessel walls is to produce the hormone choleste...

[daytura]

observations and reflections on a small model of the RGB structure

These past few weeks, I've been loosely testing a small model of my RGB structure that I outlined in [[erosion of structure]]. To reiterate, that hypothetical structure uses three R, G, and B axes with 255 "values" per axis for a total of 16.5+ million complex coordinates (e.g. 2-132-7). Since I wanted something that I could check at a glance without getting lost, I downscaled to two axes and four values for a total of 16 complex coordinates. You can check out the spreadsheet here. I also opened another sheet to host more derivative ideas from the cross-pollination.

The first thing I noticed when filling in the grid was how hard it was. Some categories were easier to cross-pollinate than others, but I still needed to invest some thinking to synthesize them well. This difficulty also extended into the "Matrixed" sheet, where I budded off certain key points in each cross-pollinated square into a dedicated slot at that same coordinate. For instance, the biggest thing I could think of between "future studies" (3) and "taking breaks" (C) is that the study of the future must account for "slow days" and natural gaps in significant activity (C3). And then the derivative idea: We make history daily, but not all of that is relevant or important.

The second thing I noticed was how interesting the second Matrixed sheet was. It's satisfying to see my ideas precipitate so clearly. I had a felt sense that these were "right", because these were implicit assumptions in my thinking, but I rarely encountered them or followed up with these specific axioms. Now that these ideas were so clear, I could write about them easily, and I did--I wrote two threads about how mental contexts are organic frames, and how radical meaning-making is not enough.

In theory, this structure should also be able to accommodate the reverse process where high-fidelity, specific ideas can be differentiated or decomposed into n axis values and placed at that coordinate. For instance, the idea that "most people don't have a complete insight-through-making cycle" could be split into the values of "essence of problem-solving" and "human factors". Therefore, it will be stored at D1.

However, D1 is already filled by "Radical meaning-making is not enough". This was completely unexpected because I thought that concept multiplication and concept division were inverses/reverses. No matter how many times you combine or split a piece of information, the products will be the same.

This paints an odd picture of my intelligence, and perhaps human intelligence in general: How is it that combining more than 2 or 3 ideas is so hard, but decomposing an idea becomes much easier with the more topics available to classify into?

I don't think my synthesis is "too biased" or "too personal" because that's inherent to the process. I also don't think the division is necessarily "too low-res". The classifying topics are values on the axes and are a deliberate constraint. I'm more willing to accept for the time being that, until we have a "cognitive proof" that concept multiplication and concept division are actually inverses, we may have to treat them like separate though somewhat related processes. To the RGB structure, this means having 1 spreadsheet for synthetic generation and 1 for analytic placement. Or, if we had to really keep everything in one RGB structure, we'd need to either add more values on each axis, add a completely new axis with it's own set of values, or make do with the emerging "superposition" of each coordinate value.

[canichangemyblogname]

I keep saying how Israel’s strategies directly contradict it’s stated goals and how their current campaign will unequivocally lead to further security threats for Israeli Jews and further radicalization of both civilian populations. And I keep repeating this as an educational advisory or warning. My educational background is in terrorism and religious nationalism, and if there’s one thing I learned during my studies, it’s that Western militancy is a large contributor to cyclical violence around the globe. The United States, for example, is one of the larger exporters and producers of (political and religious) extremism or terrorism internationally, on par with Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. U.S. Christofascist and nationalist groups invest BILLIONS overseas to export their ideas while U.S. statecraft and military strategies have led to a catastrophic increase in terrorism globally.

The “West’s” strategies in the “War on Terror” are a danger to people around the world. While the rhetorical goal is to stabilize a region and deradicalize a civilian population (that, statistically, is not made up of radicals or militants), the end result is always further regional instability and extremism.

I wrote about this in my thread about how “counterterrorism is the pretext, ethnic violence is the goal” (also linked above):

I hope that by pointing all this out and explaining it, I can help peel back the screen and reveal these campaigns for what they are. This is nothing short of colonialism with modern weapons. Settler colonialism, especially, requires ethnic cleansing and genocide of a native population. And the thing is? The “West” has been very good at all of it. They perfected it.

The goal is to provide further justification to slaughter civilians. Every oppressive system has a system-justification measure built in. The system justification measure here is that the more brutal we are, the more brutal the reaction against us, and the more justification we have to “crack down” and clean the area out of “those people” (labeled “extremists” or “terrorists”).

As the article says, “They will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.”

That’s the point of this campaign. The point is to “prove” that Palestinians (and oppressed people, generally) will always seek violence against their oppressors. The point is to “prove” that it is necessary to eliminate all Palestinians for the security of Israelis. They want to convince you that if a single Palestinian lives, they will seek revenge and they will kill you, too. (It’s also important to note that the people who make this argument often conflate Israeli and Jew, so when they say “Palestinians want to kill Israelis,” they really mean, “Palestinians want to kill Jews,” while neither is true). Those oppressed people will surely oppress you exactly as you have oppressed them.

I want to warn people that this is the “justification” for genocide. This is how the west is once more rationalizing the need for a genocide. This is what they’re using to excuse genocide.

And the bitch of it is? This bombing campaign can undoubtedly lead to some form of further radicalization and continue the cycle of violence. Hurt people hurt people. Israel is a textbook example of exactly this. The goal should be breaking that cycle. The goal should be working to a solution that codifies group rights for the security Israelis want and the civil rights Palestinians must have. However, that’s not the objective here. And we know this will never be the Israeli government’s objective based on how it marginalizes groups like the Parent’s Circle. They don’t want reconciliation and healing, they want to centralize and entrench right-wing power and finalize their ethnostate from river to sea.

And if you know one thing about Fascism, it’s that it always needs an “enemy of the state,” an anti-staatsvolk if you will, to reproduce its legitimacy. Fascism partially arises out of fear of waning majority power or out of security concerns. There must always be an “other” to generate fear and anxiety about. Because a fascist or proto-fascist/nationalist government comes into power promising to “take care of” the staatsvolk’s anxieties. It’s a political tool, one which the government in power bases its legitimacy on. When there is no more “other,” they no longer have the legitimacy to rule, or, at least, they no longer have the ability to distract people from analyzing the merits of their, often ineffective, policies.

“The scapegoat is an evanescent presence, created through moral panic and just-so stories and projected onto targeted individuals or populations posited as the embodied cause of the conditions generating fear and anxiety. As an instrument of political action, scapegoating’s objective is to fashion a large popular constituency defined by perceived threat from and opposition to a demonized other, a constituency that then can be mobilized against policies and political agendas activists identify with the evil other and its nefarious designs—without having to address those policies and agendas on their merits.” X

When this “complete siege” is over, then what? They have no concrete policy goals because there is no “after,” only a continuation of the violence and oppression, as even their vaguest promises of “after” include things like military occupation.

When this “incremental genocide,” the Nakba, is over, then what? Does the threat end when every last Palestinian has either been killed or removed?

Al Jazeera, 29 Oct. 2023

No innocents in Gaza.

We are watching a genocide unfold under the guise of “counterterrorism.” This isn’t about Hamas, and never was. Hamas is a convenient excuse. This is about the destruction of the Palestinian people. This is about land. This is about the genocidal project of settler colonialism.

I’ve been telling people that Israel— and the Zionist movement as a whole— is actually a security threat to the whole of Southwest Asia *and* to Jewish People globally.

The moderate conservatives and fascists who control the US government keep saying that Israel is vital to western geopolitical interests in the region. But those interests are *not* “security” interests. The interest isn’t preventing war in Southwest Asia or North Africa, especially not when historically colonial leaders (US, UK, and France) are involved. Like… Israel has often been a roadblock in diplomatic deescalation with Iran and counterterrorism in the region (see: Bibi funding terrorists, for one).

I’ve been saying that Israel’s violence is going to spill over to the region. I’ve been warning that Zionist expansion and aggression is going to meet fierce resistance. I’ve been trying to explain that Zionist aggression and expansion is dangerous not just to the Arab people of Southwest Asia, but also Jewish people in Israel and the SWANA region. At some point, Israel will meet too much resistance. At some point, there will be too many fronts and not enough resources.

This violence going to continue to widen in the region and diplomacy will continue to deteriorate. Hezbollah and Houthi activity are only the beginning. Jordan withdrawing their ambassador, the deterioration of normalization with Saudi Arabia, the complete cessation of relations with Brazil, etc… are only the beginning.

But America’s support is likely to remain unwavering, and as long as America has the international power it does, that means little is likely to change. As long as Israel has American support, there will be violence in Southwest Asia.

What a lot of the “I stand with Israel” promoters don’t understand is that the only way to secure the long-term safety and wellbeing of Israeli Jews, and the only way to achieve security and longevity for whatever state they live in, is to provide full and equal rights to Palestinians. That includes their full participation and representation in political systems, full land rights and protections, full economic freedoms, full citizenship, and the right of return.

Zionism has led to nothing but Jewish and Arab death. And the thing is? When the concept was first created in the early 1800s, long before it became a term Israelis attached to Jewish Nationalism, that was its point. People supported this concept as a solution to their country’s “Jewish Question.” They saw it as an opportunity to get Jewish people out of their country. And many Christian groups have come to support the concept believing that all Jews must return to the holy land to be massacred so Jesus can return. They want death. Death is the literal point of Zionist support and movements in countries like the US, UK and France. Christian Zionists want war while Secular Zionists just want to get rid of Jewish people, and don’t give a shit if they die.

There are more Christian Zionists in the US than there are Jewish people in the US. There are more non-Jewish Zionists in the US than there are Jewish people in the whole world. Jewish people make up a fraction of Zionists, and that is because many Jewish people recognize the antisemitic origins of the concept and the danger of ethnic and religious nationalism.

Anti-Zionists recognize that Jewish Nationalism is being used for US and UK colonial interests. Zionism justifies putting Jewish people in harm’s way and the line of fire for US economic interests in Southwest Asia, and calls it “necessary” for Jewish freedom and security. Zionism as well as terrorism is the reason over 1400 Israelis died on Oct. 7th.

Israel ignoring Egypt's warnings, Israel's chaotic "recovery" (a.k.a. their explicit non-recovery and bombing of hostages), and the IOF's chaotic engagement with Hamas fighters on Oct. 7th and 8th that caught hostages and civilians in crossfire should be proof enough that Israel cannot and will consistently fail to provide for the security and welfare of Jewish people. It should also be proof enough that Netanyahu's government doesn't give a shit about Israeli lives unless they can be weaponized to serve his political and regional goals.

From “Zionism encourages and spreads antisemitism around the globe.”

[soranis-sunshadow]

Hordak can’t catch a break even on his birthday...

Oh fandom, you really like this sort of drama don’t you? 

A few days ago, on Hordak’s birthday, there was this ‘interesting’ post in the tag – since, apparently it’s impossible to get any peace even on that day.

I was  too tired to answer it at the time after being on call the day before so, here’s my delayed answer to all of that:

First off: this post has this bit in it when asked what that person dislikes about SPOP.

 He doesn’t need to get a redemption and he doesn’t get one in the show. 

None of his actions constitute a redemption arc. The man merely acknowledged his personhood and freed himself from his master and God. That’s what his arc was about: the right to have a personal identity. 

He gave himself a name and wanted to be his own person. That’s it. That’s all he wanted.

The man was merely freed from Prime’s influence- an influence he was born into since he’s been specifically manufactured to serve as a disposable mass produced soldier and worshipper of Prime.

 If the argument that Catra was “forced” to commit crimes and thus she is not completely guilty of them since she was under duress – then the argument doubly holds for a person who has been directly programmed and conditioned to do so under the threat of death or mental rape (purification).\

Even while away from Prime, he was still conditioned to obey and brainwashed by Prime’s cult. He literally knew nothing else – he was not meant to. It’s how indoctrination works.  

Prime’s clones aren’t people to Prime, they are tools. Those clones, while cut off from Prime still want to serve and please him: That’s what Wrong Hordak’s purpose in the show is- to show us just that.

Hordak is not considered “OK”  because Entrapta likes him. Hordak is merely shown – by Entrapta that he could live apart from his cult and have worth outside what Prime tells him he has. 

Just like real life cult victims, he needs an outsider to help him see a way out of the cult. The nature of indoctrination and brainwashing makes it impossible for the brainwashed person to know they are brainwashed unless someone points it out.

Now for my favorite thing:

and

oh and

Oh boy… this makes me just so damn uncomfortable.

To offer a bit of context as to why. I have never been on social media before SPOP or in any fandom and as such, I have never encountered the ‘all men are evil’ discourse that seems to infest these places. It’s been quite a bit of culture shock for me. 

What is it that makes anyone think it is ok to judge a person because of an accident of birth? (being born male)

Why does hate for 50% of the human population get such a free pass on these platforms? Misandry is just as terrible as misogyny. You are being biased against another human because of their gender. I don’t care that males are perceived as ‘privileged’ – that doesn’t make it ok to be terrible to them unprovoked. 

How does hating all men help achieve equity?

Do you realize that this sort of discourse is exactly how you radicalize people against the very cause you are championing? You breed hate and adversity for the rest of us who actually want to to have a discussion on the topic. 

I’m a feminist myself (in a country where feminism is hard-work) and let me tell you, making all men hate us does nothing but push away potential allies and make it a lot harder for our voices to be heard.

Feminism is about equality, not women dominating.

Now onto the second post: the one comparing Catra and Hordak with the question of which of them is a better person. 

This whole war orphans that were personally abducted and tortured into serving the horde HC that some ppl have is really starting to get boorish. This has been going on for more than 6 months. 

I have no idea why everyone thinks he went down chimneys and stealing babies left and right while cackling villainously. The man had a busy schedule of brooding in his lab, wallowing at his inability to use insulated cables and having his device blowing up in his face with the occasional Skype call to Shadow Weaver to see what the Horde is doing. 

And yet, to a part of the fandom, this is what he looked like:

( @bat-burrito​ made this one and it’s glorious) 

And if you don’t believe me about the lab recluse thing, you don’t have to, the show pretty much states it for me. 

and 

+

Hordak is a recluse that stayed in his lab and let the running of the Horde and most operations to Shadow Weaver and later Catra. He did not personally abuse anyone and he is not the origin of the cycle of abuse.

Shadow Weaver was a child grooming manipulative woman before she even joined the Horde – she did this to Micah while she was not “evil” or presumably abused by Hordak.

Even if you want to HC that Hordak abused her somehow, he is still not the one who started the cycle: Horde Prime is. 

The whole fandom seems to forget about the eldritch monstrosity that created a whole army of brainwashed slaves to worship and die for him. Prime is the one that sent Hordak to die and gave him the motivation to try to prove himself worthy of life and love. If you want to point fingers, point them at the origin of all of this. This fandom has a strange Prime blindness. He is never talked about when it comes to being the start of all of this.

If Prime didn’t exist, Hordak wouldn’t exist. If Prime hadn’t sent Hordak off to die, then his clone wouldn’t have accidentally ended up on Etheria. None of the things in the show would have happened.

Adora would have died of exposure in a field, the monarchies on Etheria would have continued as they are and the planet would have continued to exist in despondos. 

He is a dictator, yes. So are the princesses. Monarchies are dictatorships where the ruler is born into power. Hordak gained his through military might while Glimmer was born with hers and enforced it with tradition. I don’t really care to play “who’s the better dictator”. The princesses have their power because of the runestones- magical rocks put there by the First Ones to channel the planet’s magic and use it as a weapon. How come no one talks about that?

Do you think a king/queen keeps their crown without effort or subjugation of their subjects? 

Also, Hordak had never interacted with Catra before SW dragged her before him to be judged. He was indifferent to etherians in general and didn’t seem to care which of them were his underlings so long as the operations were running smoothly. He was more focused on his portal and returning home than on anything else. He did not set out to “ruin lives” or quest for power. What he wanted was to return to his deity and become a mindless part of the whole again – that is as opposite to power hungry as you can get.

Catra was directly abused by Shadow Weaver throughout her childhood. That makes Shadow weaver responsible for 100% of that abuse.

Catra was found in a box by Adora and adopted by Shadow Weaver. Hordak didn’t know or care that she existed.

He is responsible for the war, he is responsible for the war casualties and the property damage. He is not responsible for Shadow Weaver being a terrible person and mother figure.

Again with the orphan thing. We have 5 cadets in the show. 

Adora was found in a field. 

Catra was found in a box. Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio are unexplained. The only lizard ppl we see in the show are in the Horde or the Crimson Wastes. The other two could just as well be the children of some of the soldiers. 

I may harp on about what a bitch Shadow Weaver is – the reason I do so is because she is legitimately terrible to the two girls in her care.

I was the unfavorite growing up, I WAS the Catra in my family who could do no right while my sibling was the golden child. I don’t however hate Shadow Weaver. She is a cartoon character in a show and she does the things she was written to do. Hell, she is a very compelling and believable villain. Her motivations are clear and she is consistent. Her voice actress portrayed her splendidly and her character design is superb. I like her but that doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge her role in the story. I don’t however make up parts of the story to make her more evil than she was or treat my headcanons about her as absolute fact. 

Again, sigh: Prime is the worst villain in the show. He is quite literally Nyarlathotep and does this to planets: 

 This to people: 

and this to the people he created to serve, worship and love him: 

How is that not worse?

I love Catra and it genuinely annoys me when people erase her agency or try to paint her as one-dimensional victim. Catra was an antagonist for most of the show and she rocked it! She was 400% more efficient at it than cloneboy. Give the queen some damn respect and recognition! Catra had a lot of agency and her actions moved the plot of the show more than those of the protagonists. (they were mostly reactive).

Catra pulled the lever of the portal in a moment of distress after a breakdown, a Shadow-Weaver related breakdown because that’s how trauma works.

Hordak didn’t make her do it, he didn’t send Catra after Adora either. These were Catra’s choices. They came from a place of hurt but they were her choices still.

The portal was a means of transportation, not a weapon. Building it was not Catra’s mission, it was Hordak’s. He built it so he could contact Prime and either summon him here or go home –whichever course of action Prime wanted. Again, Hordak wanted to go back to this:

...

The only person who knew the device was dangerous was Entrapta and she tried to warn Hordak about it. Catra was the one who stopped her, violently so, then sent her to die on Beast Island- the fate Entrapta saved her from a season ago. Catra then tried to have Hordak open the portal before it was ready.

When he wouldn’t – she pulled the lever herself because that is how desperate she had gotten at that point, to show Shadow Weaver how wrong she was. That is how hurt Catra was by her mother figure’s betrayal and abuse.

Don’t take that away from her. Don’t call it curiosity or naivete or whatever. She knew the portal was dangerous but she wanted to prove Shadow Weaver wrong so badly that she didn’t care at that point. She had been pushed that far. 

Catra’s actions led to Angella’s death but she was not directly responsible for it. She didn’t activate the device to kill Angella, it merely happened accidentally. Catra was however glad it happened and wanted to profit from the aftermath of her death.  

Hordak didn’t care or plan to kill Angella personally. There is no in-show moment where any of that is portrayed. Since he doesn’t care about the specifics of running the horde seem to know what they are conquering at the moment, it seems that that was usually a task reserved for his second in command. 

^ - troop movement ordered by Catra

Hordak doesn’t even know what his own army is doing.

Again with the Hordak “drilling into orphan’s minds”… I seriously doubt that any of them had ever seen him out of his lab or that he came up with the propaganda himself.

Manipulation is more Shadow Weaver’s game not his. For all of Hordak’s faults, he is not deceptive or manipulative. If anything, he is woefully incapable of spotting lies. (it might have something to do with him being born in a society where lies were almost impossible because of the hive mind and Prime being able to browse his thoughts at a whim- as such, it wouldn’t be a skill he would have been able to develop).

Hordak canonically despises deception and lies.  I really don’t understand where this image of a manipulative and cunning Hordak comes from. He wouldn’t be able to plot himself out of a paper bag if his life depended on it.

First off.. S4 Catra was his equal, not his subordinate. Don’t take that away from her. She earned it.

He doesn’t look that threatening here... 

And again:  Prime created the system. He made clone slaves and programmed them to serve. His clones have hardware installed for the express reason to facilitate his control over them. He has a religion in place to make sure their thoughts do not stray from his purpose. I am legitimately boggled by this fandom’s tendency to completely forget about his existence.Does anyone really think that these people that are born “prechipped” and programmed to know nothing but Prime’s Light are really knowledgeable about human morality?

That they would know that conquest is bad when that is the express reason for their creation? 

If I were born in that situation, I’m not sure I would have known any better. Hell, if any of the clones even try to disobey Prime, they would get either mindraped (erased) or killed for the effort. They really have no choice, even if they knew that killing in Prime’s name is wrong (they don’t) they really can’t do anything about it. They have no choice but to be what they were made to be. I find it personally abhorrent when these designer slaves are held accountable for what Prime has made them do.

And to the people that say Hordak was free of Horde Prime once he was stranded on Etheria.. That is not how indoctrination works. The fact that I can’t go to church this Sunday because I’m locked in the house and can’t find the keys doesn’t make me an atheist.

Hordak was serving Prime even on Etheria. He keeps mentioning it to both Entrapta and Catra. He started the war because that’s what he thought Prime wanted of him and that’s what he’s been programmed to do. Personal and informed choice really doesn’t factor into his decision at all.

He is not sympathetic because Entrapta likes him. Notice how I haven’t brought up his relationship with her up to this point?

He is sympathetic because he literally had no choice but to do the things he was indoctrinated into doing. He was build and programmed for it, just like all the other clones. They are not able to deviate from that because of the way Prime functions and rules over them.

There is no point in the show where Hordak relishes over his status as a ruler or the “luxury” it affords him. He does not engage in the same behaviors his progenitor manifests.

There is no point in the show where Hordak relishes over his status as a ruler or the “luxury” it affords him. He does not engage in the same behaviors his progenitor manifests. He attempts to emulate Prime in order to project authority in the only way he knows how but since those are some really big shoes to fill, he is woefully inadequate. 

If Hordak had been power hungry, he would have stayed in despondos and ruled his own faction. Being away from Prime is the most powerful and autonomous he’s ever been and yet, he wants to throw all of that away in order to be a powerless, nameless part of the whole. What Hordak wanted was to be enslaved by Prime because that’s what he had been created for.

“vengeful” – and how did Hordak manifest this vengefulness? Who did he take revenge on in the series?  

“apologize” – when and where in his 3 minutes of screentime would he remember everything after 2 mindwipes, realize that the whole worldview he had since inception is wrong, realize that he had been mistaken into doing the horrible things he did and then go to all of the characters and apologize for it?

Would anyone be convinced of that had it happened in 3 minutes? I’d rather they don’t redeem him than do a shit job at it.

Very true. He’s not a better person. He’s just a person in an impossible situation. Both Hordak and Catra were handed a raw deal, I don’t understand why everyone insists on pitting them against one another. They both did bad things and they were both in horrible situations. The specifics don’t really matter since neither of them would have done the things they did had they been more fortunate.

This is the exact reason for which I don’t hold Cara’s actions against her. Catra’s only model of success was Shadow Weaver. She emulated her abusive mother figure because she had no other example and because she wanted to please that woman. It does not excuse the way Catra acted but it explains it.

I really don’t understand why some people want Catra punished. I’d rather she get love and help. That is what she needs. In time, she will want to do better and be better by herself. She doesn’t need to be forced, heavens know, she’s been forced enough as it is.

They are really different. Catra got an abusive, shitty and violent childhood. Hordak got this:

He was literally robbed of a childhood. 

She was taught by Shadow Weaver that weakness gets you killed. Hordak was not allowed to have emotions to begin with, or thoughts of his own, or a name...

Comparing to victims of abuse to see which one of them is more likable is such a strange concept to me.

Catra was robbed in s5 too. I don’t hold that against her. I  blame it on the writers. S5 could have been a lot better. 

[terfslying]

I need help. I keep obsessing over terfs and I can't stop. I sent an ask about ovarit a while ago and you told me to take a break but I can't get myself to. I had this feeling when I checked out 4chan around election season and kept browsing through it and it went away on its own, but it's really interfering with my free time now. How can I evict them from my head?

If you have access to any kind of mental health help online or in person. I’d suggest you consult them, because what’ll work best will be individual for you.

However, essentially: you can’t control your involuntary thoughts or feelings, like obsessing over these things. You can only control the way you think and behave in response to those thoughts and feelings.

Some responses will reinforce the cycle. These include going on the sites that you obsess over, or sites on similar topics. Sitting and thinking about it for long periods of time also reinforces that cycle.

You want to prioritise actions which will break the cycle. If you do that, you can slowly decrease the frequency and intensity of your urges to obsess over it. Generally things that break the cycle are things that purposefully redirect your attention elsewhere.

Some concrete ways to do this from my experience:

Notice the times of day where you habitually do the obsessive thing. Do you go on the sites on your phone while you travel, or before bed? Plan something else to do at these times instead. Maybe if you always go online before bed, plan to read a book instead. If you do it while travelling, pick a podcast to try instead.

Make yourself a list of small simple distractions. Whenever you notice yourself obsessing over stuff, pick one at random and do it. The distraction should be low effort but something you like - some ideas might be things like “do 10 minutes of stretching”, “sketch the first animal that comes to mind”.

Practice radical acceptance. This is hard to explain without a therapist, but the idea is to learn to accept that you feel your feelings, without them controlling your behaviour. You should be able to say to yourself, “I feel like I need to know what this hate group is up to, but I also know that it’s just a feeling. It’s ok to feel this way but that doesn’t mean I should go do it.”

The important thing to keep in mind is that thoughts and feelings aren’t wrong or bad. The behaviour or intensity of the feelings might be unhelpful, but the feeling is only there to be helpful.

If you and I have anything in common, I suspect that your “obsession” is protective. You can’t be unexpectedly harmed by hateful people if you keep up to date on what they are saying and doing. As far as your feelings are concerned this is as vital as keeping an eye on nearby hostile tribes in the caveman era.

But cavemen never had the ability to 24/7 read hateful diatribe by the other tribe. And that is why in the modern times this protective instinct is harmful. But it is there for a purpose and you’re not weak or abnormal for this feeling.

[mugasofer]

It seems like many, perhaps most, people historically believed in some immanent apocalypse.

Many philosophies claim that the world is passing into a degenerate age of chaos (Ages of Man, Kali Yuga, life-cycle of civilisation), or divine conflict will shortly spill over & destroy the Earth (Ragnorok, Revelations, Zoroastrian Frashokereti), or that the natural forces sustaining us must be transient.

Yet few panic or do anything. What anyone does "do about it" is often symbolic & self-admittedly unlikely to do much.

Maybe humans evolved not to care, to avoid being manipulated?

Many cults make similar claims, and do uproot their lives around them. Even very rarely committing mass suicide or terror attacks etc on occasion. But cults exist that don't make such claims, so it may not be the mechanism they use to control, or at most a minor one. "This is about the fate of the whole world, nothing can be more important than that, so shut up" may work as as a thought terminating cliche, but it doesn't seem to work that strongly, and there are many at least equally effective ones.

Some large scale orgs do exist that seem to take their eschatology "seriously". The Aztecs committed atrocities trying to hold off apocalypse, ISIS trying to cause it. Arguably some Communist or even fascist groups count, depending on your definition of apocalypse.

But even then, one can argue their actions are not radically different from non-apocalypse-motivated ones - e.g. the Aztecs mass-executed less per capita than the UK did at times & some historians view them as more about displaying authority.

I'm thinking about this because of two secular eschatologies - climate apocalypse and the Singularity.

My view on climate change, which as far as I can tell is the scientific consensus, is that it is real and bad but by no means apocalyptic. We're talking incremental increases in storms, droughts, floods etc, all of which are terrible, but none of which remotely threaten human civilisation. E.g. according to the first Google result, the sea is set to rise by 1 decimeter by 2100 in a "high emissions scenario", not to rise by tens or hundreds of meters and consume all coastal nations as I was taught as a child. Some more drastic projections suggest that the sea might rise by as much as two or three meters in the worst case scenario.

It really creeps me out when I hear people who confess to believe that human civilisation, the human species, or even all life on Earth is most likely going to be destroyed soon by climate change. The most recent example, which prompted this post, was the Call of Cthulhu podcast I was listening to casually suggesting that it might be a good idea to summon an Elder God of ice and snow to combat climate change as the "lesser existential risk", perhaps by sacrificing "climate skeptics" to it. It's incredibly jarring for me to realise that the guys I've been listening to casually chatting about RPGs think they live in a world that will shortly be ended by the greed of it's rulers. But this idea is everywhere. Discussions of existential risks from e.g. pandemics inevitably attract people arguing that the real existential risk is climate change. A major anti-global-warming protest movement, Extinction Rebellion, is literally named after the idea that they're fighting against their own extinction. Viral Tumblr posts talk about how the fear of knowing that the world is probably going to be destroyed soon by climate change and fascism is crippling their mental health, and they have no idea how to deal with it because it's all so real.

But it's not. It's not real.

Well, I can't claim that political science is accurate enough for me to definitively say that fascism isn't going to take over, but I can say that climate science is fairly accurate and it predicts that the world is definitely not about to end in fire or in flood.

(There are valid arguments that climate change or other environmental issues might precipitate wars, which could turn apocalyptic due to nuclear weapons; or that we might potentially encounter a black swan event due to our poor understanding of the ecosystem and climate-feedback systems. But these are very different, as they're self-admittedly "just" small risks to the world.)

And I get the impression that a lot of people with more realistic views about climate change deliberately pander to this, deliberately encouraging people to believe that they're going to die because it puts them on the "right side of the issue". The MCU's Loki, for instance, recently casually brought up a "climate apocalypse" in 2050, which many viewers took as meaning the world ending. Technically, the show uses a broad definition of "apocalypse" - Pompeii is given as another example - and it kind of seems like maybe all they meant was natural disasters encouraged by climate change, totally defensible. But I still felt kinda mad about it, that they're deliberately pandering to an idea which they hopefully know is false and which is causing incredible anxiety in people. I remember when Greta Thurnberg was a big deal, I read through her speeches to Extinction Rebellion, and if you parsed them closely it seemed like she actually did have a somewhat realistic understanding of what climate change is. But she would never come out and say it, it was all vague implications of doom, which she was happily giving to a rally called "Extinction Rebellion" filled with speakers who were explicitly stating, not just coyly implying, that this was a fight for humanity's survival against all the great powers of the world.

But maybe there's nothing wrong with that. I despise lying, but as I've been rambling about, this is a very common lie that most people somehow seem unaffected by. Maybe the viral tumblr posts are wrong about the source of their anxiety; maybe it's internal/neurochemical and they world just have picked some other topic to project their anxieties on if this particular apocalypse wasn't available. Maybe this isn't a particularly harmful lie, and it's hypocritical of me to be shocked by those who believe it.

Incidentally, I believe the world is probably going to end within the next fifty years.

Intellectually, I find the arguments that superhuman AI will destroy the world pretty undeniable. Sure, forecasting the path of future technology is inherently unreliable. But the existence of human brains, some of which are quite smart, proves pretty conclusively it's possible to get lumps of matter to think - and human brains are designed to run on the tiny amounts of energy they can get by scavenging plants and the occasional scraps of meat in the wilderness as fuel, with chemical signals that propagate at around the speed of sound (much slower than electronic ones), with only the data they can get from input devices they carry around with them, and which break down irrevocably after a few decades. And while we cannot necessarily extrapolate from the history of progress in both computer hardware and AI, that progress is incredibly impressive, and there's no particular reason to believe it will fortuitously stop right before we manufacture enough rope to hang ourselves.

Right now, at time of writing, we have neural nets that can write basic code, appear to scale linearly in effectiveness with the available hardware with no signs that we're reaching their limit, and have not yet been applied at the current limits of available hardware let alone what will be available in a few years. They absorb information like a sponge at a vastly superhuman speed and scale, allowing them to be trained in days or hours rather than the years or decades humans require. They are already human-level or massively superhuman at many tasks, and are capable of many things I would have confidently told you a few years ago were probably impossible without human-level intelligence, like the crazy shit AI dungeon is capable of. People are actively working on scaling them up so that they can work on and improve the sort of code they are made from. And we have no ability to tell what they're thinking or control them without a ton of trial and error.

If you follow this blog, you're probably familiar with all the above arguments for why we're probably very close to getting clobbered by superhuman AI, and many more, as well as all the standard counter-arguments and the counter-arguments to those counter arguments.

(Note: I do take some comfort in God, but even if my faith were so rock solid that I would cheerfully bet the world on it - which it's not - there's no real reason why our purpose in God's plan couldn't be to destroy ourselves or be destroyed as an object lesson to some other, more important civilization. There's ample precedent.)

Here's the thing: I'm not doing anything about it, unless you count occasionally, casually talking about it with people online. I'm not even donating to help any of the terrifyingly-few people who are trying to do something about it. Part of why I'm not contributing is, frankly, I don't have a clue what to do, nor do I have much confidence in any of the stuff people are currently doing (although I bloody well hope some of it works.)

And yet I don't actually feel that scared.

I feel more of a visceral chill reading about the nuclear close calls that almost destroyed the world in the recent past than thinking about the stuff that has a serious chance of doing so in a few decades. I'm a neurotic mess, and yet what is objectively the most terrifying thing on my radar does not actually seem to contribute to my neurosis.

[springbudeyes]

Placing Mianite’s Gods on an Ideological Spectrum (but not taking it too seriously)

It sucks to be dead center on an an ideological spectrum. Opinions pull at you from both sides. Politically and religiously, I’m – well, I wouldn’t say I’m a fence sitter because that implies hesitation – but I’m grounded between camps. I’ve been Christian, I’ve been conservative, I’ve been liberal, and now I’m realizing that none of the labels fit me. But I know what does. I like being able to wrap my head around as many viewpoints as possible. I like bringing conflicting ideas together and helping people find common ground. Sure, I voted Democrat this election (and please tell me you did, too). No, I don’t believe in the Christian God. But if you’re a Trump supporter, we can have lunch. If you’re an old friend from church, I miss you and would like to catch up. It struck me today that I might be an Ianitee irl. This is all on a whim, of course. I’m not trying to “sort” myself into her “house” or assign anyone else a Mianite god, for that matter. My point is not to assign a label, but to explore an idea.

The goddess of balance walks a tightrope. She holds a scale. She is both light and dark in a photograph—and therefore, she can also be grey. She’s an impartial judge. Her job, although far grander in scope than mine, isn’t totally unlike what I do for my tiny group of friends on the internet. Her followers might be people who struggle to navigate the warring dualities of their worlds. This makes Prince Andor a bit of a chaotic Ianitee if you think about it. It comes naturally, of course. If the balance leans toward Mianite, then Dianite must bleed into Ianite for the brothers to equalize. The goddess of balance wields both order and chaos. If Mianite reigns, the neutral sister stands with Dianite in bringing chaotic revolution to the doorstep of tyrannical order. Likewise, if Dianite has plunged the world into darkness and fire, Ianite joins with Mianite in building armies and sanctuaries. “We are not pacifists, nor are we vindicators,” Andor said. “We are nature. We are whatever balance demands. We are void and we are hurricane. We are the healer. We are the warrior.” If Dianite had ravaged Ruxomar and Mianite had lay dormant for ten years, a blade in his chest, both Helgrind and Andor may have preached quite different yet still conflicting ideas. As a psychological note, an Ianitee will have a hard time if they’re conflict-avoidant, but they’ll go through Hell if they’re ill-tempered. The magic word is temperance. (See the Temperance arcana in Tarot.) I suppose I might as well go ahead and draw the comparison between an Ianitee and a centrist, a term which may hold some emotional charge for you if you follow politics. Put simply, a centrist holds moderate political views. I don’t identify as a centrist, but the term does describe me, and my refusal to accept the label might serve only to exacerbate the problems a centrist already has. My problem – which a certain type of Ianitee might share – is a lack of belonging. Few people consider you their ally because few have the time or interest to let you engage in the long, convoluted process of proving your character and earning their trust. On the surface you might seem – as I said before – like a fence sitter or even an enemy simply because you refuse to accept a proposed solution. Most people wish even their enemies some amount of good, but when it comes to choosing between friends and enemies, most will choose friends. You might not want to make that choice. You might want to save everyone. If you can’t, you won’t. Your stance may sound sensible once you’ve had time to parse it out, but it’s far smoother on paper than in practice, and it’s nigh impossible to preach “love thy enemy” to a wounded wolf. On the other hand, maybe you are a fence sitter. Maybe you genuinely don’t know right from wrong. Maybe you’re a bit of a nihilist. “Is all this conflict really worth it? Return it all to nothing. Void.” (In your local RP group, ever thought of playing an Ianitee who wants to “End It All?”) But hopefully, you’re more of an existentialist. You see meaning vested in people and their accomplishments. You want to help them find the best meaning for them and you don’t think they’ll do it by veering blindly toward every impulse. Extended streams of impulse gratification can lead to extreme ideological thinking, such as totalitarianism. You don’t want a world full of people who all think the same thing. Again, the magic word is temperance. There’s real importance in having two sides to a system. Take, for instance, the political structure of the United States. Democrats and republicans are ever at war, but what are they really doing under the surface? What are they intended to do? Well, that’s up for debate (some might say “kill each other”), but if we take a broad look at history, a pattern emerges. One party – the party of order, you could say – establishes hierarchy. It defines who is who and who gets what. It puts competent people in positions befitting them and treats the less competent with compassion. That’s if all goes well, but the party of order isn’t impervious to corruption. People who tout themselves as servants of God and the State turn out to be monsters who ravage the environment, the economy, the rule of law, and each other. That’s when – take this with a grain of salt – the party of chaos steps in. At first it calls for change. It articulates and expresses visions for a better order. It doesn’t seem so chaotic now, but as the corruption spreads, unhearing and unyielding, moderates and liberals become radicals. Calm discussions become battles for sweeping change. The rebels rage for equality and take it by massive persuasion or by force. They break up the calcified structure of the old order and drag it back down into the primal, bloody sea from which new order springs. (I’m dipping into Mesopotamian mythology here, and if you’re familiar with the Enuma Elish, you’ll know the significance of what I’m about to say.) Order will return, but it must be guided. Someone must ensure that the reborn world is more just and peaceful than the dead one. We need order within chaos—Yang within Yin—white dot within black swath.  I’ve just tried – and perhaps failed – to describe the eternal cycle of order and chaos in terms of real-world society. Now let me place it in a simplistic Mianite shell. Mianite builds hierarchy, Dianite tears it down, and Ianite stands in the middle, bearing two communicating vessels, ensuring that neither too much nor too little blood is spilled in the process of transformation from old to new. 

[gonzales-mary]

Theories on Entrepreneurship

LEIBENSTEIN’S GAP-FILLING THEORY 

Harvey Leibenstein is a Ukrainian born American economist. One of his most important contributions to economic industry was the X - Efficiency theory or known as the Gap Filling theory. Harvey Leibenstein introduced the X - efficiency theory in the year of 1996. This theory focuses on how efficiency are maintained by individuals and firms under imperfect competion.

This theory has been one of the largest and most talked theory among entrepreneurs. It pushes them to be sufficient to get the maximum outputs form it's inputs, including the employee productivity and manufacturing efficiency. This theory acts as the gap filling of entrepreneurship in any economic activity such as the needs of the people.

X - efficiency theory has it's own advantage to tip the entrepreneurs for the ability that will connect them to the different markets through means of social media. Specially for this current generations who on social sites for their living. It gives them the idea to be more efficient business by running through advertisements, to getting influencers who could promote the product in a sufficient way.

WEBER’S SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Max Weber was a German sociologist who argued bureaucracy was the most efficient and rational model private businesses and public offices could operate in. His bureaucratic theories influenced generations of business leaders and politicians well into the 20th century.

While Weber's theory prioritizes efficiency, it isn't necessarily the best practice for leaders to implement. Weber was unlike most workplace leaders today. His theory of management, also called the bureaucratic theory, stressed strict rules and a firm distribution of power. He would've scolded today's managers, most of whom are open to new ideas and flexible work arrangements, for their leadership style.

"Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material, and personal costs – these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration," wrote Weber. Many of Weber's beliefs discourage creativity and collaboration in the workplace, and oppose flexibility and risk.

KEYNESIAN THEORY

John Maynard Keynes was a political economist of extraordinary optimism and vision. Who believed that governments have it in their power to solve some of the greatest illa of capitalism. Keynes refused to either believe in communism, or in the utter wisdom of the unfettered free market. Instead, he occupied a middle course, believe that governments could with a judicious injection of money and a rise regulation, smooth out the peaks and troughs to which all economies seem fatefully prone. He believed that what chiefly holds back countries is corruption, knee-jerk policies, and shortsightedness, but these three ills are corrected, then humanity can look forward to an age incredible and lasting wealth.

Keynes' masterpiece was written in 1936. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In this theory it causes of unemployment, in the hope of reducing new solutions to this intractable problem of the 1930s, and of capitalism more generally. For keynes, the real problem of unemployment lay in a lack of demand because the economic was not proprely focused on, but it became the linchpin of keynes' theories. Keynes argued that it was insufficient for economicsts and policymakers simply to advise peoplt to accept suffering in the short term, It always have the solution. What was needed was intervention in the economy, by governments in order to break the cycle of economic depression, and restore prosperity. According to him the demand is to low that there was little point in supplying goods. Government should, for keynes, act as the primary shopper in the land, crearing demand until more widespread sources off-demand can return. Keynes critized governments for the way they typically respond to downturns. One of Keynes' objection is focus government spending was the question as who should pay the loans. Here, Keynes applied his theory of what became known as the "Multiplier Effect". By creating jobs governments would save some of the money they would've spent on unemployment benefits. And to increase the number of people employment would create additional spending power, and therefore it boost the economy and tax receipt.

Not only Keynes believe that national governments could succesfully manage economies, but keynes also believed that a global system of economic organization was possible. He argued that, the purpose of global trade, countries should subscribe to the creation of a new international standadized unit account: called The Bancor. Its a complex system of accounting, the adoption of the pseudo-currency would allow the internationally-recognized organization to impose fines to discourage them from running large trade deficits or surplases. But ultimately, the Bancor did not come about. But several of Keynes' other proposal, such as the establishment of the World Bank, and The International Monetary Fund to oversee and encourage world trade to be accepted and have to change the world. In 1946, aged only 62, he died of complications from heart attacks. In thirty years later Keynesian policies were adpoted across the capitalist world. Economiies saw record lows of unemployment, and record high levels of economic growth. Keynes' ideas became the new orthroxy, and were particularly attractive to the political left.

ALFRED MARSHALL THEORY

Marshall's theory of capital was designed to serve two main purposes: an integration of the theory of income distribution into a general theory of value and the closing of the gap between economic theory and business practice.

For the first purpose, capital was considered the reward for the services of a specific factor of production; for the second, a generic source of income, "all things other than land which yield income". This implied a certain ambiguity, because the two notions of capital were clearly inconsistent with each other. The final setting of the Marshallian system was characterized by the presence of three different theories of capital, kept together by a demand-and-supply determination of the rate of interest, which provided a link with the theory of money.

As a quantity-theorist, Marshall held a "real" theory of the long-period determination of the rate of interest, in the absence of monetary policy; but he thought that the current level of the rate of interest could be influenced by monetary factors. An active monetary policy would both affect the "real" interest norm and produce occasional deviations from it. This position, quite new, was a significant advance towards an integration of real and monetary theory.

ALERTNESS THEORY

Israel Kirzner, a British-American economist, was born in London and moved to the United States via South Africa. Kirzner is an expert on Ludwig von Mises' economic theory and methodology and is an emeritus professor of economics at New York University. Kirzner's research on entrepreneurship economics is well-known. He criticizes neoclassical theory for its concern with the perfect competition model, which ignores the entrepreneur's significant role in economic life, in his book "Competition and Entrepreneurship." Kirzner's work integrating entrepreneurial action into neoclassical economics has gotten more attention than almost any other late-twentieth-century Austrian concept.

In 2006, Kirzner was awarded the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research for developing an economic theory emphasizing the importance of the entrepreneur in economic growth and the correct functioning of the capitalist system. While Kirzner's theories have had a considerable impact on the field of entrepreneurship, he is best recognized for his perspective on opportunity spotting. A closer look at Kirzner's work, however, indicates that his entrepreneurial activity may be divided into two camps, one focusing on discovery and the other on production.

Kirzner's work can be divided into two categories: Kirzner Mark I and Kirzner Mark II, similar to Joseph Schumpeter's. Kirzner's main research interests include knowledge economics, entrepreneurship, and market ethics. Kirzner has remarked that he agrees with Roger Garrison's assessment that his work is in the middle, as opposed to recent, more radical viewpoints by Austrian School economists that deny the relevance of market equilibrium.

https://youtu.be/0LTeMGDsOyE

https://youtu.be/XdBYsou10CI

https://youtu.be/ICppFQ6Tabw

https://youtu.be/qtAeINU3FKM

https://youtu.be/NRi1hiVf0gg

https://youtu.be/Bu-i1q8LVvA

GROUP 3

-DOLORITO

-ENOLPE

-GAKO

-GIMARANGAN

-GONZALES

-GUMAHAD

-JAMALI

-JIMENEZ

[gatheringbones]

may I ask a writing question...i experience fairly extreme highs and lows; one day im in love w what im doing, the next the spark is gone, doubt creeps in, I bore myself, etc. do u have any ways of preventing a crash, or limiting its duration? i always keep writing thru them, even if i switch projects, because i know as far as “determination vs inspiration” goes, one is more reliable than the other. (1)

maybe u don’t experience this, or maybe this is just inevitable, but when im in love w what im doing, i feel like i have to drop everything else because i know what might follow the high. i wonder if u have ideas on attaining a more steady writing vibe. would love to hear your thoughts if you feel like sharing! you contain many wisdoms🖤 (2)

I think that the attitude of continuous sustained growth is unrealistic, frankly, I think that there’s always going to be cycles of growth and decay and rain and drought and that “decay and drought” are necessary periods built straight into the writing process that are beneficial to both you and your work. 

drought means digging reservoirs and building aquifers and studying the water table; decay means compost and compost needs to be aired and turned. entering into a state of the process when you feel like your drive forward has petered out means that you’ve entered a critical period of reflection and improvement; it means kindly and constructively sitting with the work you’ve already done and finding jumping-off points or missed connections inside of it that fill you with excitement.

it also means that, like composting, sometimes you need to fix the ph balance of the soil by bringing something new into it; by focusing on your research and improving your store of language. It’s why we’re so lucky to be in a period of time where everyone under the sun is sharing as much art and philosophy and radical ideas as they possibly can (especially when we’re all doing that to comfort and inspire each other as we work creatively to fix an incredibly broken world). If you feel like your imagination’s run out, raise the ceiling of it; add more chicken manure, more eggshells, more coffee grounds, grow and develop your imagination with as many different sources as you can and let it all cook down into the growth medium you’ll need to feed your writing. I don’t know how the hell I thought I was going to write about liberatory queer identities and challenging power structures without consuming as much real-world language about what those identities and challenges look like— actually, I do know, it felt and read as stunted, because it was stunted. I needed to combine my writing with activities that fed my writing and fed my writer’s brain at the same time, to pack it full of all the connections and systemic language I would need in order to construct a sequence of events and motifs that would result in the story I wanted to tell. 

taking a break, reading/reflecting, responding to your reading/reflection, and building that response into your work is a necessary cycle of growth and decay; it’s useful. There’s absolutely nothing intrinsically wrong about undergoing a “crash”. 

[myatuesday]

I hate that when we're coming to our dude w an issue (aka bitching)

All they hear is "blah blah blah" bitching Charlie Brown teacher voice.

Instead of listening to what the fuck it is we're saying.

I put the shit it writing. I guess he doesn't really read it? Cause he's still like

"Idk wtf you want. All you do is bitch."

Smh.

Sigh.

ISTG.

Or can't separate the praise from the pain

Wtf do you think it means when I say,

"Idgaf if you give me $1,000,000

I want you to stop talking to that bitch."

Did I stutter?

It means EXACTLY what the fuck I JUST mothafuckin said.

Idgaf if you give me $1,000,000

I want you to stop talking to that bitch.

PERIODT.

What about that is confusing?

Or hard to decipher?

Well I'm buying you flowers, I'm taking you to dinner, I'm trying to be nicer to you...

Are you still fucking w that hoe?

Ok then.

Ummm.

Then thanks for that

But

STOP FUCKING WITH THAT HOE

They don't cancel eachother out.

The fuck.

Oldest trick in the book.

Like I'm fucking stupid?

"Well you didn't tell me outright what you wanted. I asked and asked"

Motherfucker.

Not only have I been saying it, and yes, BITCHING about it for 3 goddamn years. I have indeed said it outright.

You wanna play dumb. To keep PLAYING ME.

Time. And time. And time. Again.

Do you need a billboard?

We've talked about it 1000x

You've seen it in writing countless times.

You read my goddamn Tumblr. Hello. Hi.

It's not a fucking mystery.

Period. Hello.

I'm not new.

_

Now I've gone so far as to offer this dude the

Girlfriend Experience (at his expense, of course)

Because he's made it

ABUNDANTLY CLEAR

Through his actions or lack thereof

That's what he's after.

He doesn't want a fn gf.

He wants a hoe he can fuck and go out w sometimes.

No strings attached.

Ok. Well let me just give you my cashapp and that can be arranged.

The Fuck.

But all this inbtwn BULLSHIT.

Is wearing on me.

_

Fucking pick one.

But COME CORRECT with it

Whichever way we're going.

I'm OVER this fucking playing dumb, playing games

"But but but..." BULLSHIT

Then gets an attitude w ME

And says he's sick of being the bad guy.

Well, NEWFLASH

Then... RADICAL IDEA

Stop being the fucking bad guy

You ARE the bad guy.

That's why you feel like it.

That's why you're treated like it.

_

You goddamn cheated.

(Still are, pretty much. Possibly even more than I know)

You live a double fucking life

You throw $ at me to shut me up

(Or you were. You kinda stopped... sooo... idk wtf is up w that. Give it all to somebody else? Smh)

BE A GOOD GUY

Stop lying

Stop cheating

Stop being fucking shady

And stop lying means to EVERYONE; yourself, me, her, your family, your friends, your followers, everyone.

_

If you just wanna hoe, say that

Stop claiming to me - and me alone - that we're in a real relationship

When you, me, and everyone else on this earth knows we're not.

_

He claims to finally get it this time (really?!)

But refuses to talk about it

Or do anything about it today

(We've just been discussing it for weeks.

Years.

Ya know. Whatever. Nbd.)

Fine.

_

But... I'm so sick of this shit

And nothing pisses me off more than this

Cop out playing dumb shit

Mixed w him having the audacity to get an attitude w me

For constantly bringing up his constant fuckboy bullshit

You know when I'll stop bitching?

When you stop giving me shit to bitch about!

DUH.

That's how that works.

YOU ARE THE BAD GUY.

You don't stop being the bad guy

Until you actually stop being the bad guy.

_

I've given you 1000 chances

Feel free to actually be a decent boyfriend

Or just honest about your real intentions

(Either one)

Any fucking day now.

_

But until then

Yeah. I'm pissed.

Duh.

And you are the fucking bad guy. Duh.

_

Buying me flowers like I'm a fucking mistress doesn't absolve you of that.

Yeah I like the flowers.

I don't like the fact you're using them as a detraction to kick the can down the road of just dealing w our actual issues. Or just... being a real boyfriend.

Basic ass shit.

Bare minimum ass shit.

Dudes who beat their wives buy them shit too.

It doesn't make them any less bad

It's a fucking bandaid

And one that does NOT cover up

Nor heal a goddamn fucking thing.

_

I am ready to be healed.

No more goddamn fucking bandaids.

Fuck you.

FIX THIS or FUCK OFF.

_

He keeps saying he will

But he never does

_

And, for whatever reason, rather than just

Calling it what this actually is then

And setting up an agreement and compromise

We can both live with

We're both just

Going through the motions of this bullshit

Pretty fucking miserable

_

I can't make him be honest

I can't make him give me what I deserve

(Namely, respect.)

_

I'll give him a fucking day.

Then... we apparently have to talk about this all over again.

Cause I'm : this close: to breaking up w him. Again.

Which he fucking knows.

So... what the actual fuck.

I have before.

He thinks I won't again?

Over this exact same shit.

It's fucking ridiculous.

_

I told him I'm looking into couples therapy (and I am. Cause this obviously isn't working. We need a place for clear, ideally honest communication. And ACCOUNTABILITY FFS.)

But he didn't say shit about it.

He was too busy being a jackass.

_

And I get if he feels like he's doing xyz

And all I can do is bitch about 123

But

I'm like... unless 123 are fixed

Xyz doesn't really matter.

Smh.

That's the part we can't seem to get on the same page about.

_

Which in fairness is frustrating when Iitererally gave him the option.

Fine. Give me xyz. You can keep 123 then.

Just... can't do that and call it a relationship.

He doesn't address that option either.

Smh.

_

I've done all I know to do other than

Roll over (what he wants me to do)

Or walk away (which is what's coming next. If he can't get his shit together)

_

But if we can stop fighting long enough...

I think couples therapy could help.

_

Cause that's the fucked up part

I do think he cares about me

Maybe even love me, on some level

He definitely needs me. No doubt about that.

He just... is letting Amy and his ego

(And I guess in some ways immaturity)

Fuck it all up.

_

I see potential.

And believe there are real feelings there

That's why it's so hard to give up

(Probably for him too)

But I CAN'T go on like this.

I hate it.

I hate the "relationship". I hate him for putting me through this shit. I hate myself for allowing this shit to go on.

It's absolutely untenable for my emotions, my well being, my fucking psyche, everything.

It's shattering. And soul crushing.

And I keep staying... hoping he'll make it better

Cause he keeps saying he will

And every time he let's me down

I'm just... that much further

From myself, from healing from all this

And the cycles of resentment and anger

It just spins and spins

Sigh

_

It doesn't seem like either of us actually want to leave

We just have to actually get it right this time

But... after 3 years of everything that boy put me through

Flowers and hugs and manicures ain't gonna cure it.

Especially not when the snake is still in the fucking mix. Smh.

Like... ugh. It's not rocket science

Why this isn't working

Or wtf my problem is

WHO else in their right fucking minds would deal w this shit?

Fucking nobody.

Sigh.

_

Then people wonder why the fuck I stay

Including my therapist

Sigh

I guess... hope.

I guess because the good is good.

It's a good I can't find anywhere else.

The bad is just... so fucking detrimental.

It's hard.

_

I've lost no matter what

Is the thing.

Staying.

Trying again

If he'll actually (keep) trying

And actually fully come correct this time

Is the only chance to heal from all this

Is how I feel, I guess.

I walk away.

Then what?

I'm totally damaged still

And... just likely gonna just jump off a fucking cliff

Seriously.

_

This relationship has destroyed me.

He's at least attempting to... sigh

Idk. He's making an attempt.

[raquellmurillo]

I totally agree with you. They made it looked like Raquel is just a hindrance on the plans of Professor. Without her, the story most likely will just stay the same. So much hateee. Raquel can do better!!! Where the fuck is Raquel Murillo!!!!

Didn’t they just???

Apart from all the problematic issues with her being involved in the heist... they really made her the hindrance.

Firstly, I don’t understand the whole point of them not being in Madrid. Because, Sergio had to be there in s1&2, just in case things went wrong, especially with cars, evidence, ya know all the little bits. I understand there are no protocols to check outside a given area... wouldn’t it make more sense to play it the other way around? To make police think they’re in, say, Barcelona, “because there are no protocols to check outside given area”; which would make the police think they’re really clever, as they’ve figured out that the professor is trying to base himself elsewhere. Why not have Marsella riding that bike around another large city....?

Because you see, I’d understand if that actually was a crucial part; they could by no means be in Madrid... but all of s4 was based in Madrid, yet no one bothered to look there (well apart from Alicia who tracked him from cctv cameras.... like give this woman a raise! But that would also assume Sergio is stupid enough to drive straight to his “secret hideout”, rather than leave the car say a few streets away and walking........ he is really down to his last brain cell, isn’t he??? Or the writers are lmao) so it seems a bit pointless to be as far away from the heist, especially, since like, Sergio hasn’t been caught in Madrid (well by the teams of thousands looking for him, since now they’ve even got a trail to follow) and as this amazing technique of being further away got them caught a lot faster? Wouldn’t it be better to start off in Madrid and run if they got caught there? Still being able to direct the heist but not from the comfort of a nearby location? Didn’t it sorta look like they were trying to catch them? 

It leaves a few plot holes, ya know... the whole epicenter plan (oh I was perhaps distracted when first hearing it lmaoo ;D) ---- that assumes they’re caught in a forest tho (?) - what if the got tracked an hour before on the beach...??? It seemed the plot was written for the action, rather than the action for the plot - all the things that were planned in s1&2 were only for inside the mint (!!!!) and all the things outside of the heist - the really stressful bits of Sergio threatening Russians etc. - were improvised, because they were fully aware that otherwise it would seem so unnatural; they weren’t protocol things that could be planned or predicted. I know now things have changed etc. but this amazing idea with the location was meant to solve all their issues. The plan of ‘in case they got caught’ was so ugh because it was clearly not written as a response to the situation, but almost in order to cause the situation. It would have made more sense to not have the epicenter plan, as it would’ve looked as if they didn’t expect to be caught in the middle of a forest lmao Sergio is a genius of improvisation, not a psychic (!!!!) It would have been amazing if they were in that ambulance and Sergio was like “think, think, think; a tree!! omg we gonna fool them wifey”. Not.... a few months before; “they’re not gonna catch us...... but if they do, it’ll defo be in a forest - I can sense it!!” --- plan epicenter on the beach --- “okay Raquel, you’re gonna bury yourself in the sand and hope the dogs don’t dig you up”; I mean, they couldn’t have predicted that, which made it so obvious (now looking back) that they planned Raquel to be a hindrance, rather than something actually going wrong causing a genuine, unplanned, improvised reaction (...not to mention --- let her climb the motherfucking tree, you cowards!!!!!) Nah, but seriously, it looked as if the only thing that Sergio calculated was that she would be a hindrance lmaooo 

So, the million dollar question; why not keep them locked up in that abandoned warehouse whilst Marsella flies from one city to another confusing the police? Because the implications of Sergio happily doing all the shit from his secret non moving base in Madrid, are that the police aren’t able to track him. At all. Despite still negotiating? Even without having Marsella cycling around all the time. Also despite having constant gatherings of Serbian, I assume, criminals, mafia.... Imagine if the police is tracking one of the people Sergio hires anyhow, for like, idk drug trafficking- and they break into Sergio’s hide out thinking they’ve managed to find some drug den.... but to their disappointment it’s just Sergio lmao

The point being, I think they wanted to write it for action rather than plot. Having Raquel and Sergio back in a s1&2 type set up, could possibly be seen as repetitive, viewer wise.... WHich I think is just laziness; they’d have to write some conflict scenes, delve into more detail. We only got, what, one, two scenes of Raquel and Sergio both negotiating.... wouldn’t it have been more fun to continue this? Have Alicia slide in more and more personal details of Raquel’s life; legit doing her tent interview with Raquel over the phone? Imagine her calling him a nut job, saying something like, “he could’ve been trying to kill your family for all you know...” and Raquel just rolling her eyes and hanging up ---- to see a very very distressed Sergio lmaooo 

I know they’re the lead couple but let’s not be afraid of well written conflict, for the sake of sorting some shit out -- I love them, but for the sake of poor Raquel, let them be together as they are, not as what they think they are. Let’s forget about the glory for a second. In s1&2 everyone loved them because they were able to overcome the fact that they’re on different sides; this time, instead of writing them as madly in love, let’s take a step to tackle them as characters who make their bond stronger by accepting their weaknesses ~ give Sergio his ‘Imma kill this old woman and man who just woke up from a coma to make sure they don’t fuck up the plan’ attitude back; Gandia should be dead! The rule was ‘no killing of innocent kids so the public opinion doesn’t push the police to enter’, not ‘let’s not kill this guy who is a government trained assassin so amnesty international considers me as their next president’ lmaooo PLS let them be themselves, and MAKE them deal with them ‘being themselves’. Raquel is the goodie goodie and Sergio is the wanna be goodie goodie - or goodie for the show - Make him make some radical decisions; make Raquel question them; MAKE her be his voice of reason. (like in s3, when she questioned the Rio/Tokyo thing; that one argument was as far as they were willing to take it, but at least they tried). Make an interesting conflict by making Alicia try to prove to Raquel, that Sergio is who he is, and Sergio not doing anything in his favour to prove the contrary. Make Raquel realise that there is a lot of truth in what Alicia is saying; if she is going to love him, it should depend on her making this informed decision of loving him as he is. 

Instead of one big argument, gradually build it up. It seemed like they wanted to shove everything into that scene; little by little, and lets not get them all so upset and shout some dramatic lines at each other ya know. Instead of the “I thought we were in love...” -- my wonderful negotiator wouldn't go there omg, let her @@@@ himmm; “shut the fuck up, you ain’t gonna get anywhere with those umbrella statements, because tell me again, what did you beat me at?”, “Didn’t tell me to come along??? Well, you didn’t fucking stop me either.”, “Now, we’ve reached the conclusion that I beat you and you didn’t give enough of a shit about me to stop me from coming as vengeance was so much more important you didn’t think you could lose your new family; go the fuck back in and tell Tokyo to not fucking do that to the boy.” LETS NOT BE AFRAID OF MAKING SERGIO THE BAD GUY AND HAVE RAQUEL PUT HIM IN HIS PLACE. Like she put the people in the police tent in their place, a countless amount of times, especially in terms of her ex etc. The “you’re my first love” thing was cute, but it seemed like throwing words at the wind and turning the issue around; “you’re right, I’m sorry, I was so obsessed thinking about my brother I didn’t realise how much I was hurting you, you’re right about the whole Tokyo thing too” etc..... constructive relationship building; apologising for the actual thing, rather than avoiding a conversation about it and blaming ones behavior on ‘being new to the situation’ (that’s a red flag, no? A lil.....) character progress, still having fierce Raquel who isn’t just gonna let Sergio put her down like that, considering she is risking her life for him, meaning she ought to get some say........

Because the lines Alicia says have a lot of truth in them, especially for an audience who is aware of everything; Raquel denying them or saying some stupid comments really makes her seem idk sometimes even stupid. Like babe, he was going to kill your mother and best friend and now he is risking your life, shut the fuck up. Of course, it is not in bad intention, but Sergio’s manner of loving is a very selfish one. Let her acknowledge this. Don’t be afraid of writing her as a strong character who isn’t afraid of loving someone despite their flaws, because deep down she knows he loves her, and it’s okay for it not to be perfect. Because not allowing her to see this, makes her seem like she is so blindly in love with him; it really fucks up the characterisation. 

... because without this, she is stripped of her very strong characterisation, and simply reduced to a love interest. But the show seems so be so fucking in love with the professor they are afraid to give him this edge he had before. Because sorting Raquel’s character out would require them to write Sergio as the maniac obsessed with his plan rather than the next president of Amnesty International lmao  

I had another three paragraphs about the plan etc. but imma put them in a different ask, so enjoy this wonderful Milan Kundera quote instead; 

“Love is by definition an unmerited gift; being loved without meriting it is the very proof of real love. If a woman tells me: I love you because you're intelligent, because you're decent, because you buy me gifts, because you don't chase women, because you do the dishes, then I'm disappointed; such love seems a rather self-interested business. How much finer it is to hear: I'm crazy about you even though you're neither intelligent nor decent, even though you're a liar, an egotist, a bastard.”