#if they allow bad people to maintain power in their system NONE of them are good people and the narrative falls apart

[mamawasatesttube]

i think, for me, a large part of why i refuse to accept edgy writers at dc trying to make batman an abusive parent (while ofc refusing to acknowledge that what they're writing is abuse) is that... the entire premise of the justice league, as a narrative tool, is that they are Good People. the second any of them turn a blind eye to one of their founding members abusing his kids, the superhero narrative falls apart. they can't be good people if they enable child abuse! this just turns them into, like, fucking cops. it doesn't WORK.

also like clark kent my good friend clark kent is the best man on the entire planet and he would not fucking say that. he would not be besties with a man who abuses his kids. and given that he is literally superman, it would be very hard to hide that from him. he would not fucking let that slide

but like. the entire concept of the dc universe where superheroes exist and we as an audience are supposed to root for them and believe in them. this falls apart when people go "actually, bruce hits dick and is extremely emotionally manipulative and etc etc etc". by all means let him fuck up, let him have flaws, and let him get things wrong, but to be a hero he fundamentally needs to be a good person. that's the entire point.

[thewisecheerio]

Elden Ring, Systemic Oppression, and Scapegoating

The most chilling lore associated with Messmer is this line from his armor set:

On his mother's wishes, Messmer made himself a symbol of fear, undertaking the cleansing crusade she desired. "Direct thy maledictions, thine ire, and thy grief towards me alone."

Yes, it's driven by compassion. Yes, he's doing it out of a desire for his mother to be able to "correct" the things she suffered. Yes, yes, very sweet, we all love the snake man and the way he wields his compassion to do vast evil.

But you know what else this does? By directing all ire toward Messmer, he makes himself the scapegoat for the system, allowing the flogging to continue endlessly. He is distracting from the real problem, on purpose, so that no one targets the real problem. Messmer is singlehandedly the most potent weapon in Marika's arsenal for enforcing her oppressive vision on the world and maintaining its power.

When you're suffering under a bad system and have no easy scapegoat for that suffering, you understand that the system itself is the source. You understand that you must remake the system from the ground up for anything to change. But when you DO have that easy scapegoat, what happens?

"If only we got rid of Current Leader, everything would be better."

"If only we got rid of Single Bad Law, everything would be better."

"If only I made better individual choices, everything would be better."

The reality is that none of these actions can undermine the power of a system that is rotten to the core:

A single bad leader will be replaced with another bad leader--as we see with Marika's children trying to replace her rule without fundamentally changing how the system functions.

A single bad law cannot deconstruct all the harm to targets of other laws--as we see with Fia's or Dung's ending that only prioritize a single oppressed group without regard for any other.

And individual choices? No matter how many good individual choices you make to help NPC you meet along the way in Elden Ring, the Golden Order itself will continue to oppress the Hornsent, the Misbegotten, any remaining piece of Fire Giant culture, and so on. You cannot help these groups with individual actions, because individual actions rarely solve a collective problem.

No, the only way to stop the Golden Order from harming people is to destroy and replace the system entirely. Ymir even tells us so:

I fear that you have borne witness to the whole of it. The Conceits - the hypocrisy - of the world built upon the Erdtree. The follies of men. Their bitter suffering. Is there no hope for redemption? The answer, sadly, is clear. There never was any hope. They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start. Marika herself. And the fingers that guided her. And this is what troubles me. No matter our efforts if the roots are rotten, then we have little recourse.

By giving Queen Marika (and by extension, the Greater Will) a scapegoat for all the evil of the Golden Order and its systemic oppression of its outgroups, Messmer has actually handed her the key to solidifying her rule. By distracting from the rotten system itself and laying all blame at his own feet, Messmer has ensured that the systemic oppression of the Golden Order would remain unaddressed—even unnoticed by its followers—far longer than it ever should have been allowed.

[bioethicists]

hey i'd really love it if you could say more about biopolitics? i hadn't heard that before and it seems fantastic.

😅 u guys humor me too much- these type of asks are like catnip for me i am rolling around on the floor

biopolitics was originally conceptualized by foucault in a series of lectures- the very simple explanation of it (which foucault scholars probably would feel doesn't do it justice) is that the state has a vested interest in creating citizens who are "healthy" (as defined by the state usually by military/work readiness) + reproducing more "healthy" citizens (in this way it often intersects with outright eugenics). people often refer to it as the politics of "making live + letting die" (necropolitics by achille mbembé is an incredible analysis of this second part, focused on colonial power's interest in determining who dies)

what this means is that, at its core, the state engages in programs to improve the "health" of the population not out of altruism but because it needs a supply of work-ready, combat-ready, reproduction-ready individuals. the concept of "health" is tied up in one's ability to perform labor in service of the state, so much so that disorder or the severity of disorder becomes defined by this ability. public health efforts center not on decreasing suffering but on restoring the population to a condition in which they can once again perform labor (including reproductive labor) + serve the greater needs of the state.

my friend cora at umadison did an excellent presentation on how the u.s evokes within "anti-obesity" campaigns a concern that "obesity" is a threat to military readiness. messaging concerning family planning/abortion are often engaged by the state to coerce certain ppl into having children + others NOT to, based on the idea of the Type of Citizen they want. on a deeper level, this haunts us from birth- were there programs to try to improve your mother's pregnancy? public school health surveys? scoliosis tests? presidential fitness tests? irt COVID-19, whose death was seen as acceptable + whose death was seen as worth preventing? was prioritizing a 'return to work ' an out-of-the-blue approach or a natural conclusion of a public health system structured around producing + maintaining a steady supply of labor? none of this is asserting that state public health intervention is inherently BAD, just that its core motivations are not altruistic but rather political (so it has no interest in expanding into a public health model where fitness to work/serve/birth is NOT seen as the marker of health).

a very cynical read of the opioid epidemic would be that the state is so heavily involved now because it is finally impacting individuals that they want to Make Live. harm reduction is reluctantly being adopted (thanks to the tireless work of incredible activists!) but only if it can fit into the framework of Making Them Live Until They Can Become Sober. sobriety is the unspoken end goal not because it reduces suffering but because it allows for workers. the truly liberatory logic of harm reduction, which focuses on autonomy + safety + reducing suffering, is antithetical to the motivations of a state which openly despises those who don't 'produce' proportionately to what they receive.

my interest is in reimagining medicine + the body + disability + suffering outside of this biopolitical framework by acknowledging that our very definitions of all of these things have been engraved in the public imagination with labor production in mind. i'm not interested in trying to create new state programs that are 'untouched' by biopolitics because that's impossible + i can still extract tangible benefits from it (for example, i got all my covid vaccines early + for free bcuz my labor was important enough for the state to invest in my life). the idea is to engage with these programs clear-eyed + willing to look at who we Make Live + who we Let Die. most importantly, we can find what lies outside it all + envision new ways of living

[shinyhappydigistar]

So who wants to listen to me ramble why an Empire reestablished by Grand Admiral Thrawn would be an “Empire” in name only? Nobody? Well that’s too bad, because you’re going to hear it. ^_^

Whether you like how it’s being portrayed or not, Thrawn’s ultimate goal as of the events in Ahsoka is to reestablish the Galactic Empire, all to help the Ascendancy against critical threats like the Grysks. Timothy Zahn has even stated this as such.

But it’d be an Empire in name only, as I just don’t see him being Emperor, nor do I even see him having someone in mind to be his figurehead/puppet ruler. After all, Thrawn is shown in canon (or the books at least) as being terrible at playing politics, which Palpatine was a master at thanks to the Force. I don’t even know who he’d even choose as Emperor, as ultimately what Thrawn wants is an overwhelming military power to crush the threats to the Ascendancy and his people, over anything else.

Realistically, any government led by Thrawn would be a military junta, where he works alongside other high-ranking Imperial military and regional governors to maintain order.

It makes the most sense, when you think about it: he can work behind the scenes to guide them and manipulate situations to best suit his needs. Like someone who can speak to the people on his behalf, someone who can play politics (but doesn’t outwit him), someone with charisma who can pacify the public, etc; It’s possible even other non-humans will be part of this council, if he deems them beneficial. (Which some of the more hard-lined, anti-alien council members wouldn’t like, for sure!)

All the while, he gets to operate in the background, where he works best. This makes him more a military dictator than an emperor, as he’s still the center of the council—he just doesn’t openly rule.

Would this be a fair system? Hell no, juntas are awful governments that oppress people and commit atrocities on the regular. Despite Thrawn’s best efforts to avoid this, he’s still cultivating an authoritarian regime that has shown in history to be built on sand and innocent blood. There’s going to be too many bad apples that he can’t—or feels he shouldn’t—cull from the system. They will do horrible things to people and some of those things he’ll allow as a lesser evil.

And there’s the fact he won’t live forever. He’s up there in age, and unless he’s okay with cloning—and we know trusting Imperials is not good—the paranoia is going to amp up. Who can he trust to keep up the system he’s so carefully crafted? Potentially none of the Imperial Shadow Council can be trusted outside of Captain Palleon, and maybe some of the humans he’s sent to the Ascendancy for aid. Somewhere down the line, someone will destroy what he built out of greed and egomania. And he knows this. Paranoia could be his ultimate downfall if he allows it.

This won’t happen, clearly, because the sequel trilogy (and the Legends Thrawn trilogy) indicates he won’t succeed. But I wanted to give you folks a more realistic vision of what the political makeup of galaxy would be like if he did. 🤔

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Foxconn's Wisconsin death-rattle

No one epitomizes the hollowness of the pose of the "hard-nosed businessman" than Scott Walker, the union-busting thug who, as governor of Wisconsin, signed up to give away $3b to the Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, who promised a massive new factory.

This was an obviously bad deal right from the start. For literally decades, Foxconn had been tricking rubes like Walker into handing over vast public subsidies for electronics plants that were then drastically scaled down, or canceled altogether.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/foxconns-con-seeking-whopping-subsidies-for-wisconsin-michigan-manufacturing-jobs-if-they-happen.html

But Walker - presently joined by Trump - didn't care. All he cared about was being able to maintain the pretence that "business-friendly" policies (smashing unions, eliminating worker protections) would attract "investment" that would make everyone better off.

The public subsidy promised to Foxconn kept on growing, rising to nearly $5b, even as Foxconn reneged on its promises, eventually refusing to say what kind of factory - if any - it would build.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/13/21020885/foxconn-wisconsin-deal-renegotiate-tax-subsidy-lcd-factory-plant

Foxconn kept up the pretense of activity, though. At one point, it used all that public subsidy money to buy up or rent out a bunch of Wisconsin's nicest urban buildings and announced that they would be "innovation centers," which sat, empty.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18296793/foxconn-wisconsin-location-factory-innovation-centers-technology-hub-no-news

Periodically, the company would announce that these innovation centers were now thriving, filled with Wisconsin startups that would plug into the Foxconn commercial/manufacturing ecosystem, but...they were still empty.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18565408/foxconn-wisconsin-innovation-centers-factories-empty-tax-subsidy

All of this commercial theater kept the deal alive, kept the subsidy money flowing, and served as a convincer as Foxconn sought out other suckers who'd hand it more public subsidy on the promise of a plant in their out-of-the-way town.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/12/mammon-worshippers/#scott-at-at-walker

This is the *real* "art of the deal." Foxconn let Trump and Walker run around, claiming to have brought manufacturing back to America, even as it floated trial balloons like, "What if we scrap the factory and instead export Wisconsin dairy to China?"

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/23/foxconned/#foxconned

Walker eventually lost his job to Tony Evers, who commissioned an independent investigation to see what parts of the massive Foxconn deal could possibly be salvaged. The auditors' conclusion was what *none of it* was viable. None of it.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20747166/wisconsin-foxconn-deal-state-report-lcd-factory-innovation-centers

But all this came years after Walker's administration and Racine County had seized family homes near the Foxconn site to make way for a road-widening project to help the trucks that would never come reach the factory that would never be built.

https://beltmag.com/blighted-by-foxconn/

People lost the homes they'd lived in for generations, all for unconvincing political theater that allowed Walker and Trump to do a little boasting and empty the public coffers into the accounts of a global tech giant best known for driving its factory workers to suicide.

Four years later, the con appears to be winding down. Foxconn has officially admitted that rather than investing $10b, it will invest $1b and instead of creating 13,000 jobs, it will create 1,454.

As David Dayen writes for The American Prospect, it's a prelude to killing the deal altogether. Foxconn isn't even sure what this imaginary factory will build. Maybe parts for network switches? Maybe electric cars? (My money is on dairy farms!)

https://prospect.org/power/foxconn-finally-admits-con/

Gov Evers has whittled Foxconn's promised subsidy down to $80m, which Foxconn will have to return if it doesn't deliver (Trump, take note: that's how you do a deal).

But Evers couldn't save the state from all of Walker and Trump's foolishness. They've already blown $200m on "sales and use tax exemptions, state road improvements, and grants to local governments for workforce training."

Far worse off is the village of Mt Pleasant and the County of Racine, who've blown $1b on the nonexistent factory, including $160m to seize and destroy their residents' family homes, and $117m to run power to the empty site where no factory will be built.

The State of Wisconsin is supposed to pay the county and town 40% of that expenditure; writing in Good Jobs First, Greg LeRoy argues that the state should cover 100% of those payouts and then recoup it from Foxconn.

https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/news/releases/revamped-foxconn-deal-leaves-mt-pleasant-and-racine-county-fiscal-peril

As Dayen says: "Rather than offering bribes to corporate giants, they’d be much better off improving their education, health care, and transportation systems, making them more attractive to businesses. That would have the dual benefit of making their cities and states nicer to live in. Wouldn’t that be a concept."

[chaoticevilbean]

An (Un)Official List Of Things Only Anakin Skywalker Can Do

Originally written by Ayala Secura

Blow people up with his mind on accident

Anakin expressed concern over his lack of emotional control. He gave many examples of normal problems that can arise from this. He then casually added one that is not common, usual, or even plausible for known Jedi. From his recollection, he would often cause beings who enraged him to spontaneously and violently combust.

I did my best to reassure him that such things were considered unusual, but weren't reason for him to be fearful. At the time, I simply didn't wish to increase his worries. I did maintain that the exploding of beings is very bad, and that he should work on finding ways to productively release such strong emotions.

I apologize here for the "renovation" of the hangar. (Secura)

Hear as far as the length of the Temple (without meditation)

Amendment: Hear as far as the diameter of Coruscant (without meditation)

Anakin once again was expressing concerns over his lack of control. He also complained that it was causing him headaches. Upon my questioning, he explained that he could hear the younglings playing on the other side of the Temple. I tested this by having us stand on either end of the longest part of the Temple we could reach. I asked if he could hear me (without a comm) and he responded that he could (using a comm).

Later, when he was still within the Temple, I found myself on a mission with my Master. It was not a very rushed assignment, and I began humming. Upon my return to the Temple, Anakin asked me if I knew what song it was, humming the exact tune I had. Apparently, he had been walking with his own Master and had heard me, though he hadn't been focusing enough to identify what he was doing. (Secura)

Smell differences within water despite being a non-variant Human

Smell differences within air despite being a non-variant Human

He accompanied me to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. It was a normal walk through the gardens, until we came across one of the smaller ponds. He commented that someone had cleaned it recently. When I asked how he knew, he explained that it smelled different.

He and I were sitting within his quarters. We were simply chatting when he complained that someone had messed with the ventilation without alerting him or Knight Kenobi. He could smell the air was slightly different than before. As he put it, the smell wasn't the problem, but the lack of communication was.

Both instances, he couldn't elaborate on what exactly the smells were, nor how he knew what each one meant. He simply knows these things. When tested with some other Padawans, the only ones that came close to knowing such things were Nautolans, out of a base group of 15 species. The experiment is listed in the Archives as Liquid and Gaseous Change Detection. (Secura)

Eat death sticks without consequence

Both of our Masters brought us to the lower levels in order to fulfill a mission. Anakin and I were left in a corner booth, with instructions to remain there and cause a commotion if someone attempted to harm or harrass us.

I looked away for TEN SECONDS. Ten seconds, and he was being offered a death stick by a clearly intoxicated individual who had no sense of what should and shouldn't be given to a barely ten-cycle-old. Anakin had no experience with such things. He had no idea what he was being given, and managed to get instructions to pour the liquid into his fizzyglug within the fleeting moment I was not paying attention.

He consumed it, chugging the liquid when I attempted to order him to stop, and then take it from him when he didn't listen. The individual who gave him the death stick had the sense to begin to panic, finally realizing Anakin's youth. However, Anakin finished off every drop with nothing but a smile. I got our Masters attention, but even after taking him to the nearest medcenter and runnign multiple scans, there were no signs of any harm. I have received significant therapy for that event, and Anakin has since been informed to not take anything from strangers. (Secura)

Generate electricity on levels that a (non-variant) Human cannot perform (without a health declination)

He was making his hair do that weird static thing that Human hair does every time he got excited. He also kept causing screens and pads to glitch or turn off whenever he picked them up while in a similar state. A solution of temporary insulating gloves and frequent reminders helped him gain control. (Secura)

Communicate words through the Force with minimal bonding

Amendment: No bonding is necessary for this form of communication, and is possible within the expanse of the Temple

Amendment: Communication is possible over most distances

He asked me if Aayla was available to study (with the Force) because his mouth was full and he'd already been told off that day. (Vos)

Skywalker told me that my Padawan was experiencing a panic attack from across the Temple. No bond existed between us before or after the interaction. (Fisto)

Skywalker informed me of a mission delay over several systems. He explained later that he was attempting to prevent his Master's worry about informing the Council and knew I would inform the other members for Kenobi. (Windu)

Consume raw meat (without a health declination) despite being a non-variant Human

Nervous to eat lunch alone, he was. Asked to eat together, I did. Showed him the kitchens, I did. Ate five live frogs, he did. Proud, I am. (Yoda)

I handed him a rodent I had found within my quarters, asking him to hold it so I could call someone. I was going to call a being who could help me prevent further instances and get rid of this rodent. I needn't have worried about relocating or disposing of the creature, though. I remember hearing a loud squeal, then turning to find Skywalker trying to tear away the fur of the rodent. He had no notion that it was an unusual habit for a Human. (Ti)

Jump into the Temple vents without using the walls

Amendment: Without using any aid

Amendment: Jump in/out of the Temple vents and on/off obstacles of similar height without any aid whatsoever

He's proved this multiple times over various training excercises, and occasionally his attempts to avoid said excercises. There's footage of it from the Temple's cameras. He has no regard for safety when it comes to jumping off of ledges, cliffs, or roofs/out windows. Caution advisory does nothing. (Kenobi)

Send emotions through the Force without a bond

Amendment: Send emotions without a bond, over great distances, with extreme precision and without any meditation or prior preparation - such emotions will likely be magnified upon reception, and can cause fainting, among other symptoms

Upon the death of notable Jedi Master Pak'll Tiffn, I had decided to participate in their culture's traditional week-long mourning practices. Near the end of this, young Skywalker asked me why I seemed so "down". I explained my grief at the death of Master Tiffn, and he continued to question me on the cause of my "distress". When he discovered I had technically finished the practices an hour before, he sent such a strong wave of excitement to me that I found it hard to not smile for the following three days.

I also found myself wishing to work on starfighter engines, which I attribute to the excitement being of Skywalker's creation. (Tiin)

I had a migraine while on a mission. Skywalker sent me a wave of comfort that caused me to pass out. He has since been informed that he should not interact with Jedi in the field unless he is certain they are in a safe enough position to do so. (Windu)

Accidentally cause plants to grow at a visibly accelerated rate

Anakin fell asleep in the Room of a Thousand Fountains while attempting to meditate. Upon my arrival, I found the grass already past my knees in height, and several nearby shrubs beginning to flower. I write my apologies here to the caretakers of the Room, and express my gratitude that none of you commented on it. (Kenobi)

Accidental levitation whilst walking

Amendment: Accidental levitation whilst walking, running, and other movement in which one is not standing/sitting/lying in a singular place

Witnessed during sparring practice with Master Kit Fisto and Master Ki-Adi Mundi

Bypass shielding enough to receive a clear perception of a being's emotions

I was working through some guilt over a recent mission and the requirements to fulfill it. Anakin walked over and did his best to comfort me without any understanding of why I was feeling that way, but knowing exactly what I was feeling. Throughout our entire interaction, my shields remained firmly in place, and strong enough that he really shouldn't have been able to even know where I was.

Oh yeah. He came from across the Temple to find me. He bypassed my shielding from across the Temple, without realizing his actions, and did so with better precision than a fully trained Master. (Vos)

Carry items of any weight without strain from channeling

According to Skywalker, the only trouble he has with lifting all the furniture in his quarters is he has to focus on the act while also looking for his missing holopad. (Koon)

(regarding previous entry) Reminds me of the time he lifted all the ships in Hangar 6 in order to find a single wrench, which was in somehow within the vents. (Billaba)

Cause a building-wide power outage from a nightmare/vision

Incident recorded as Padawan-induced. (Nu)

Bite through beskar when curious

Taste the strength of metals

Skywalker is no longer allowed in the forges without someone actively supervising him and him alone. He saw a piece of beskar I had managed to aquire. He was curious about the ore, due to it being unknown to him. I caught him with it in his mouth like some youngling sneaking a cookie. Apparently it tasted really strong. I thought he meant the taste was pungent, until he said that even durasteel didn't taste as strong. (Ria)

Heal minor personal wounds immediately, within a few seconds and without discernible energy usage

Heal major personal wounds immediately, up to halving recovery time and with lessened energy usage

Incidents recorded in mission reports including Skywalker (Nu)

Accidentally mind trick crowds of 20 or more

Amendment: Untested limit of how many can be affected, although the effectiveness of the tricks varies between individuals, and can reach up to 50 beings (recorded)

Note to all those who may serve a diplomatic mission with Skywalker: he can safely diffuse mobs, protests, and other upset crowds. He will need time to calm his own emotions afterwards, as it is (theoretically) his increasing anxiety that causes such effects. (Fisto)

Learn a language after hearing it only once

Amendment: Anakin will not know this is happening. He will simply begin to speak the language back at whoever spoke it to him.

Incidents recorded in mission reports including Skywalker (Nu)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All Jedi are now welcome to add to the (Un)Official List of Things Only Anakin Skywalker Can Do. All editors are asked to put some form of a source, even if such source is simply a page-long rant about Padawan Skywalker's habit of not checking if a substance should be poisonous to him (condolences to Knight Vos).

Please also include some sort of identifier to connect each edit to the being(s) who created them.

Sincerest gratitude and condolences to all Jedi who find themselves editing this file. (Secura)

[sweetbitterimpossiblecreature]

A Brief And Concise Summary Of Is Wrong With The ACOTAR Series

I think we can agree that a lot of ACOTAR is pretty iffy. Consider this a very brief refresher.

What's Wrong With Feyre/Rhysand (juxtaposed against Feyre/Tamlin)

Rhysand drugs and sexually assaults her in Book 1

This is "for her own good". Because he "has no choice". Despite the fact that, from what we know of the plot, Amarantha thinks that Clare Beddor was the one Rhysand was diddling, and is only interested in Feyre because Rhysand, "her" man male, has taken an interest in her.

If we extrapolate from this we can figure that Rhysand is the one directly putting her into danger.

Now, let's be clear: drugging someone is bad. Sexually assaulting someone is bad. One could argue there were extenuating circumstances. But if, in such a situation, what your mind goes to is "I know, I should assault this person... for their safety" I have questions about your moral qualities. There were a million things he could have done. He could have done whatever he did to Clare - that is, remove her ability to feel any pain - easily. He could have helped her escape. Under The Mountain, he - while still there unwillingly - has a lot of power, as Amarantha's side piece. Maybe this would have resulted in him being punished- however, he is hundreds of years old and a badass motherfucker, and she is a nineteen year old human girl.

Now, onto Tamlin. Obviously not a lot of people really ship F/T anymore after ACOMAF, because compared to F/R, it's boring. I read another person's post about it, which was very enlightening: they said that Feyre's personality is essentially a mirror. When she is with Rhysand, she's snarky and malicious- because she is "bouncing off" his energy. When she's with Mor she's super feminist and "in awe of her strength". On the other hand, Tamlin is kind of an empty character. He's a pretty boy with anger issues, which should be more interesting than it is. SJM manages to make him bland. Because Feyre has nothing to bounce off of, (a lot of this is from the person's post), she and Tamlin together is mainly just him introducing her to his world.

What Tamlin Does: prevents a skinny twenty year old from going on dangerous missions with him and combat-trained soldiers, accidentally blows up a room with her in it, and, at the end, prevents her from leaving the house.

This is not a Tamlin apologist post. Obviously it was really fucking gross of him to do that, and their relationship was toxic. However, a lot of his abuse stems from their inability to communicate, as well as own negligence. He does not knowingly and purposefully sexually assault her or rape her mind. And tbh, leaving a girl without combat training at home while he goes on missions with a bunch of muscled sentries is... kind of reasonable?

Again: not a Tamlin apologist post. It was abuse. However, if Rhysand is "allowed" to sexually assault, mind-rape, and drug Feyre "for her own safety", why is Tamlin demonized for preventing her from leaving his mansion "for her own safety"?

Another pertinent point: Rhys is never punished for sexually assaulting her. It is brushed off as part of his "mask" or that his hand was forced. Jesus Christ my dudes, his hand was not forced under her skirt. If he has to maintain his gross rapist abuser tyrant oppressor mask... why? Who did that benefit beside him? None of his actions remotely helped Prythian. They were done solely for his buddies - five people safe in a rich hidden city - and no one else, which is explicitly stated.

Finally, the power dynamic is fucked up. Feyre is less than twenty five years old. Rhysand is 500. There is a tendency in fantasy romance to romanticize a centuries year old man with a young girl, because the man does not show symptoms of age, and so it is easily ignorable. However, can we just briefly acknowledge how fucked up it is? Rhys is over five times older than Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and other known predators/abusers. She is twenty. That is really fucking gross. She is in a vulnerable position and he takes rampant advantage of that.

If he had wrinkles, liver problems, and erectile dysfunction, more people would acknowledge it.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying writing a book with an uneven power dynamic is automatically bad. For example, in The Locked Tomb series, which is in my opinion THE BEST FANTASY SERIES THAT HAS GRACED THIS EARTH (lol i'm starting fires), one main character Harrowhark Nonagesimus is in a position of power over Gideon Nav, the other main character. However, this is not glossed over or romanticized. Gideon resents Harrow for this- there is a relationship of mutual antagonism, fraught with unwilling familiarity and intimacy from growing up together. They are roughly the same age. While there is a certain power dynamic (in that world, there is a dynamic of necromancer and cavalier, i.e. sorcerer and sword) the "empowered" character (Harrow) emphatically respects her and does not abuse this power, although both would of course deny this, and she does make a show of threatening and being aloof. In short, while Gideon obeys her, Gideon also has power over Harrow, and the idea of what is essentially slavery is not romanticized.

Feyre Doesn't Face Any Consequences For Her Own Actions

Let me present a radical notion: a guy preventing you from leaving his house does not justify completely fucking ruining his country and harming the people inside it.

In other words: Tamlin does not deserve what she did to him.

I know that sounds iffy. We're conditioned to think that if someone is an abuser, then they are the scum of the earth, they deserve to die, torturing/murdering/doing anything to them is completely A-OK. However, here's another radical notion: someone harming you does not justify you doing worse.

Obviously, the effects of psychological abuse can cause you to hurt other people (see: Nesta), but Feyre deliberately and maliciously (oh, God, that insufferable POV of her in Spring Court; she reads like a cartoonish Disney villain) dismantles his country. She uses sexual manipulation (Lucien), torture (causing the sentry to be whipped), and mind-rape (who didn't she do this to? lol).

A summary of the entire first half of ACOWAR: "It smelled like roses. I hated roses. For this capital offense against my olfactory system, Tamlin and the entire Spring Court deserved to burn in hell. I knew exactly what I was doing. I smiled at him sweetly: no longer a doe, but a wolf. He didn't see my fangs.............." *aesthetic noises*

Man. I'm starting to think SJM had a horrible experience at a Bath & Body Works and took it out on the rest of us. Don't do it, Sarah!! I know Pink Chiffon and Triple Berry Martini are way too strong, but don't take it out on an innocent population!!

She steals from Summer Court (there are, yk, other solutions to theft. Like maybe asking politely) and ruins Spring Court. Her boyfriend - yeesh sorry, MATE - does nothing while a dozen Winter Court children are murdered.

Now: moral ambiguity is not automatically bad. Again using The Locked Tomb as an example, in the second book (spoiler alert), Harrowhark has a sort of moral ambiguity. She was raised from the beginning to worship the King Undying as God, and so she obeys him without question. Because of this, she commits a lot of crimes in His name: she "flips" - i.e. kills - the life force of planets, and she plots murder (albeit the murder of someone who tried to kill her first). There is no attempt to justify this. There is also no attempt to paint her as a virtuous and yet also badass Madonna figure. She is desperate, plagued with the "wreck of herself", and the book clearly displays her moral pitfalls. While her POV is of course colored by her mindset, it also is limited by her lack of information, and we as readers can acknowledge that.

BACK TO ACOTAR: Feyre is seen by everyone as gorgeous, formidable, and essentially perfect. Rhys sees her as flawless, "made for him", wonderful, beautiful, blah blah blah. (THEY ARE SO BAD FOR EACH OTHER; THEY EXCUSE AND GLORIFY EACH OTHER'S CRIMES, IT'S SO BAD, GUYYYS). Tamlin is insanely batshit in love with her, or whatever. To the Night Court she's the High Lady. In this way she personifies the Mary Sue character. (Excerpt from the TV Tropes page on Mary Sues: "She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal." Sound familiar?)

There is the Ourobous scene. And yet, paradoxically, while presented as an acknowledgment of her flaws, it is in fact a rejection of them. She sees her own brutality... and instead of recognizing that she has these deep, deep moral flaws and realizing that she needs to grow and be better, she in fact "accepts" them.

Guys: Self love means: "I'm important to me, so I'm going to get a massage today after work", or "heck, why not splurge on some expensive lotion, you only live once" or "you know what? I had a tough day today. I'm going to get that strawberry cupcake". SELF LOVE DOES NOT MEAN "oh, I accept all the war crimes I have done, I love myself". LOVING YOURSELF DOES NOT MEAN ABSOLVING YOURSELF OF ALL WRONGDOING.

It's this refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing that is so grating about ACOTAR. It's so goddamn one-sided. And you can tell that after Book 1, SJM decided to completely change the trajectory simply because of how jarring Book 2 reads compared to the first one.

Also: Feyre is a very, very young girl (compared to the other ruling fey) who did not know how to read for the majority of her life. She has no experience whatsoever in politics. Her being High Lady is not a win for feminism.

Rhysand: He Sucks

First, he is 500 years old. He should be written as such, not as some 20 year old virile frat boy feminist. Fantasy is all the more compelling for its elements of realism, which is a concept that SJM does not appear to grasp.

Second of all, his morals are absurd. He is written as the Second Coming of Christ, as someone who can do no wrong, ever, and his flaws only serve to make Feyre love him more. Anything shitty he does is written as part of his "mask" and she can See Beneath It and knows that it "hurts" him to maintain this "mask".

Fellas, WHY DOES HE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THIS MASK???? There is no reason for it. If A) he does not give a shit about Court of Nightmares (we'll get back to that), only about Velaris, and B) Velaris is hidden/protected from the world, what is he pretending for?

It would not hurt him politically to be seen as someone who cares about his country.

"Pretending" to be "Amarantha's whore" does not in any way shape or form benefit the macro-world that is Prythian. In Amarantha's name, he commits atrocities. He commits war crimes; he systemically oppresses entire societies. It doesn't even really benefit Velaris, because Velaris is already hidden.

Let me put this in a real-world perspective. This would be like if Donald Trump was suddenly like: "I know I was a shitty president but IT WAS ALL PART OF MY MASK, WHICH WAS TO PROTECT THIS MICROCOSM OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE THAT I CARE ABOUT". Like: okay? Sorry, or whatever, but I don't actually give a shit. What about the parents of the children who died? What about Clare Beddor? What about the people who were held in slavery, murdered, tortured?

Rhysand: omg it sucks that my cousin Mor was oppressed by this toxic misogynistic culture from the Court of Nightmares.

Also Rhysand: lol whatever, who gives a shit about Court of Nightmares. They all suck. They meanie. Lol what did you say? That there might be other girls just like Mor who are oppressed by this system? Lol whatever. I can't do anything, I gotta maintain my Mask. I gotta sit on this throne and show the entire Court that not respecting women is completely okay.

In summary: by parading Feyre around as his "whore" (!!) he demonstrates by example that it is completely okay for the Court of Nightmares to abuse their women.

A good ruler cares about all his people. Rhysand cares about a tiny tiny fraction of his people: those who were fortunate enough to be born into Velaris.

God, I'm exhausted. Onto Nesta:

The only character who successfully breaks the Mary Sue effect Feyre exerts on her people is Nesta. Her POV for the first half is a joy to read.

Obviously it sucks that Nesta was a huge bitch to Feyre for the beginning of her childhood. However, it was wrong for Rhysand to threaten her- he is a man male with a huge insane amount of power, and it is not okay for him to threaten to bring the brunt of it down on a young girl because she was a bitch to his girlfriend.

I've seen a lot of discourse on the morality of F/R sending her out of Velaris. Here is my two cents:

It was okay for them to cut her off of their money. If they don't want to enable her self-harm, that is their choice. Again, it's their money, even if it wasn't fairly earned (Rhysand born into an enormous fortune).

It was not okay for them to banish her from Velaris with the implication that she was an embarrassment. Let me explain.

If Rhysand and Feyre are talking to her as sister/brother-in-law, then that is that. They have the complete right to express disapproval and try to help. However, they should not be using their royal privilege against her.

If they are talking to her as ruler to subject, then they have the power to banish her from the city. However, a ruler would not give a shit about a random subject getting drunk and having sex. So, they should not be talking her about her problems as a ruler to subject.

I've heard it compared to her being sent to rehab. However, rehab is a system designed to help people with certain problems. It has specialized medical centers and involves therapy. Nesta gets her life threatened multiple times. It is not rehab.

In summary: why did SJM inflict this upon us. Throne of Glass was actually good! GAHHH! After the first few books she completely whipped around and introduced the idea of males and mates and fey and that C is actually A and the quality took a huge nosedive. Sigh.

Final horrible but unmistakable truth: The entire ACOTAR series reads like a bad A/B/O fic. I hate to say it but it's true. We're lucky there were no heat cycles. OH WAIT

[therealvinelle]

Do you think the volturi is the one governing vampire body? Or does Asia, South America and Africa etc all have their own vampire govt?

Oof, this one has been in my inbox for a while because I wasn’t sure where to begin.

Let’s begin with human countries. Why are they, historically, the size they are?

In simple terms - they are as big as they could be while still defending their borders. The Roman Empire expanded to unprecedented size because of their superior technology and military, the Hundred Years’ War were at their core an issue of England being unable to hold on to their territories in France but trying anyway, and up until just a century ago the map of Europe was constantly changing as rulers conquered, lost, and reconquered territories.

Of course, there are countless factors that enter into who is able to hold on to what, such as geography, wealth, the government’s priorities, and so on. My point is that conquerors will conquer as much as they are able to. They are able to expand their territories if they are stronger than their enemies, and able to hold on to their gained territories if they have the military might to fend off invaders.

Alliances are struck when they are mutually beneficial. For an allliance to be beneficial, there has to be something you need, something you stand to gain from your ally that you don’t already have.

The Volturi, per canon, are supreme. They have Jane and Alec who will knock out an army with just their minds, they have Chelsea who will turn an organized group into arguing squabblers who are suddenly feeling awfully loyal to Aro, they have Aro who will know every thought you’ve ever had and as such know every gift you try to hide from him and every conspiracy you might be privy to, they have Marcus who knows your weaknesses, they have Demetri who will hunt down the Volturi’s ever enemy, they have Renata making it impossible to attack their leaders, and they have sheer manpower.

The Volturi form the single most daunting collection of powerful vampires in the history of the world. You can’t keep them off your territory, you can’t even fight them. You’ve lost the instant the Volturi decide to fight you.

Considering their mission, the Volturi had to conquer the world, nothing less. And unlike Alexander the Great, emperor Marcus Aurelius, or Napoléon Buonaparte, they have the military strength to do so.

So, yes, when the Volturi win every single battle, and effortlessly crush anybody who would stand against them, then the world is their kingdom.

Now, it is in one way disingenious to bring this up when talking about the Volturi, since they are not conquerors in the traditional sense. They are barely even a gobernment. A government, at the basest, most vague definition of the term, is a group or a system that governs a community. There is a constitution, of sorts, and a means for determining policies, policies which are then enforced.

The Volturi have a sort of constitution (keep the secret), and policy (the law), which is then enforced, and their community (the supernatural world) is clearly defined.

So in that sense, yes, the Volturi are a government. However, they share none of the other characteristics. They have not formed any institutions (such as education), they do not form or maintain cultural norms (“Volterra is saying black unitards are in this decade!” said Alice never), and they do not collect taxes or tieths (such as “send the most delicious humans to Volterra” or “surrender your gifted vampires to Aro”). Note the diversity of Carlisle’s friends in Breaking Dawn, and the fact that the Volturi bother to use the modern lingua franca, as opposed to, say, Latin. These people are as hands-off as they can get away with being, caring only about the law.

Calling them a government, then, is to use the word in the vaguest, and arguably misleading sense of the term.

However, they do need their law, and by extension their rule to apply globally. There’s no point to it otherwise.

This, in turn, means that for another coven to become the sovereign government of a geographical area, the Volturi would have to allow it.

Now, why would they do that?

They have nothing to gain from an alliance, their power is supreme. If there’s a gift in this coven that Aro wants, well, that’s what Chelsea is for.

This coven would have to do exactly what the Volturi are already doing, and enforce the law. Can Aro be sure they’re even up to it? If they have a gift that means they would actually be able to do it, why not just recruit that gift into the Volturi instead? Why not just enforce it there himself, as he always has, and does with the rest of the world?

(Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to mind. Per the Buffyverse, at the turn of the century China was a Wild West for demons. With the dawn of modernity in the Western World forcing them into the shadows, demons flocked to China for a last hurrah.

I imagine something very similar would happen in the Twilight world, if there was a region the Volturi did not control. Vampires would flock there, it would be their Las Vegas. Which in turn is bad news for keeping their existence from humans.)

More, this would be a PR disaster.

If the Volturi are divvying up their power, does this mean they’re no longer strong enough to uphold their own law? Did somebody leave their coven?

Speculation and rumors would run wild, and people would be less afraid of them. Fear is the Volturi’s greatest currency. Everyone remembers what they did to the immortal children, to the Southern Wars, to anyone who has stood against them or broken the law. That is what keeps vampires in line, not some general or idealistic respect for the law. If the Volturi jeopardize that, they jeopardize their own authority.

So, no. There is only one ruling vampire coven in the Twilight world.

That being said, territories are still very much a thing, and Aro offered clemency to the Egyptians and to the Romanians if they would only agree to follow his law (they declined). If you want to rule a place and be top dog, then Aro doesn’t care and will happily let you do that, so long as you still respect the Volturi as the ultimate authority and obey the law.

[thechekhov]

Hi! I saw on a post that you're agender and I'm kinda questioning my gender (again) but what interested me more about that post was that you said you believe that gender is a social construct and I'm not really familiar with that theory. I was wondering if you could explain to me what the whole idea is? (bc I kinda only feel like a have a gender in social situations? In my head, my dreams and how I picture myself in the future, I'm genderless idjskahwksjejensj) Sorry for bothering you if I did.

This is a BIG topic and it opens a LOT of wormholes. 

We’re gonna do this in pie slice statements that will hopefully help explain what I mean. Please keep in mind I’m going to simplify many things for the sake of readability.

1) What is a social construct? 

Social constructs are ideas that are negotiated by social groups. Something being a social construct does not make it ‘not real’. 

For example, money is a social construct. Yes, we have cash - coins, credit cards - but these are physical props that are REPRESENTATIVE of the idea of currency. You have some form of credit to your name - the money is a socially agreed-upon idea of value being represented by bills in your hand, by numbers in your bank account. 

[Description: Two humanoid figures are standing side by side. The right-side figure is holding a rock in its hand. 

Right side figure: Let’s agree that this shiny rock is worth 2 sheep.

Left side figure: Sounds fake but ok.]

Technically, countries are also social constructs. We, as a society, negotiate what a country is, and this can be changed.

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of a dotted line drawn on the ground. The left figure is pointing down at it while the right figure watches, its arms crossed.

Left figure: Let’s pretend that everything on this side of the imaginary line is mine.

Right figure: ...ok but my house is over there.

Left figure: ... for 3 shiny rocks you can come visit.]

Does that mean canada isn’t real? No. (I mean, obviously canada ISN’T real, but we all agree to pretend it is.) The thing that makes it real is that we are in agreement, and all follow the social rules of pretend to make it seem like the Canadian border, the idea of Canadian citizenship, etc... is an objective fact. (It’s not. These are in fact, negotiable limits and parameters. We have laws in place to define it in legal terms, but those laws can be changed, or may change in the minds of communities. That’s why it’s a construct.)

By that same token, I hold the view that gender, as we largely perceive it in modern society, is a construct. Why? Because it is not inherent; we, as a society, negotiate its meaning. 

2) What is gender? 

People will probably fight me on this and that’s fine, but here’s my (simplified) understanding of gender (from someone who personally has none)

Gender is a social category negotiated by cultures based on your assigned or desired role in your community that influences, among many other things, your physical appearance, your role in family units, your expected position in jobs, etc. 

How I think it happened:

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of the panel, both holding children-looking figures. The one on the left is wearing purple. The one on the right is wearing green.

Green figure: Hey, I’ve got an idea. What if we separate the babies into two groups based on physical traits they have no control over?

Purple figure: Wh-- okay...?

Green figure: And then limit the jobs they can do and the community ritual involvement available to them based on that!

Purple figure: ... I feel like this is going to backfire on us someday.

Green figure: Nah, it’ll be fine.

The past panel is a dramatic closeup on the purple figure’s face - which is featureless - betraying a deeply doubtful emotion. It says nothing.]

Important points to remember: what gender looks like, what the limits are, what the expectations are... are not inherent to any human biology. We make up gender roles. This is evident in the fact that across the world, gender roles differ by culture. The positions people of a certain gender are allowed to take up are different. What is perceived to be ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ is different across cultures. 

Simply speaking - currently the (western) model we have, dumbed down, is:

You are assigned male at birth because of physical characteristics

You are raised being told to ‘toughen up’ and ‘boys don’t cry’ and encouraged not to show emotions

You are taught to wear male-coded clothes and discouraged from female-coded fashion choices

You are given more opportunities to participate in sports, encouraged to engage in physical activity, etc

You are not expected to need time off for child-rearing 

Here’s where gender as it works in society breaks down into being not a real thing but instead something we thought up: 

Nothing about having a penis necessitates wearing pants. Nothing about having XY chromosomes means you need to keep your hair short. Nothing about your genome makes the experience of nail-polish different for any human being. 

All of these are arbitrary traits we decided were allowed or not allowed to a specific group of people based on entirely unrelated physiology. 

Even if we delve deeper, there is MORE variation among individuals of the same ‘sex’ than there are, on average, of members of the ‘opposite sex’ when compared to each other. 

Many people use the excuse ‘women are physically not as strong as men’ to say that this has an evolutionary aspect driving these cultural, historical, socially-constructed gender requirements. 

But if there was a physical reasoning behind the culturally-set gender-limited job expectations, then we actually WOULDN’T need a traditional binary gender system to sort ourselves into categories. It would simply be decided as a meritocracy - stronger individuals, regardless of gender, would be given physically-demanding jobs. (Also we know that many jobs thought to be ‘traditionally male’ are just the result of sexist bullshit, so this reasoning doesn’t fly any further than I can throw it which is, coincidentally, not very far. Politics is one such area. Doctors are another. We can go on but I think you get my drift.)

My own example of this is an anecdote when my grandparents came to visit my partner and I in Japan. While we were driving down to Tokyo, my grandmother - who has a PhD in entomology - began to say that driving is a masculine activity and women shouldn’t be driving as it was ‘un-woman-like’. My partner almost immediately fired back that in Japan, studying insects or having any interest in them whatsoever was considered a heavily masculine-coded activity. In Russia, there is no such assignment, and my grandmother was left silently blinking in confusion, unable to come up with any excuse except ‘well, all cultures are different, I suppose...’

Do either of these things inherently have a gendered aspect? Of course not! But we assign gendered ideals to them anyway.

3) If gender is made up and constructed by society, then does that mean trans people aren’t real?

No.

Even if you agree that gender is a social construct, trans people are still real. TERFs don’t get a pass. Why? 

Because gender - as a social construct - still affects our everyday lives, dictates our social position in our community. Transitioning is still a thing that has to happen. The fact that you are NOT easily able to decide your own gender and are ostracized for wanting to transition, abused for dressing the way you want to be perceived, and bullied for wanting people to refer to you with different pronouns - all those are the effects of a social construct that has very REAL impact on our lives.

This is also why I dislike defining trans-ness by dysphoria. Because transgender people are not only their suffering - the suffering is coming from the outside!! Many trans people remember not being concerned about their gender identity in their childhood, because they did not yet perceive the world as being hostile to their desire to fulfil a specific role in society. The issues and self-hatred and dysphoria begins when they express wanting to be themselves - a life which they are forbidden from pursuing based on physical characteristics they were born with.

Does this mean we should try to remove gender from society? If we constructed it, we can deconstruct it, right?

Realistically, I highly doubt this is possible. Gender is so ingrained in our daily lives that it would be difficult. Nor, I would say, would it be necessary to achieve world peace. 

Having social groups - having gender - isn’t inherently a bad thing. The bad thing is when we limit those social groups to specific basic human rights, like voting, or when we forbid them from transitioning from one to another based on things that are out of their control. 

Also, I’m not saying genitals and secondary sexual characteristics aren’t real. Please don’t bother sending me that angry message, I’ll ignore it, I promise. 

But the concept of gender IS something we thought up and maintain and negotiate with each other to this very day. It’s not granted to us by a higher power, nor is it a constant, unchanging thing. It’s a part of the human experience and like everything, it has the potential to evolve - as a concept in our communal memory, as well as on an individual level, for people who feel they want to be perceived differently. 

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

[cosmichighpriestess]

Over eons of time, dark energies became deeply embedded allowing them to penetrate every aspect of life on earth.  Generation after generation has been and still is being taught that duality and separation are the reality. These energies are gradually surfacing in order to be recognized for what they represent and eventually clear as people cease energetically feeding, maintaining, and sustaining them for this is all that holds them in place. As you evolve, your energy changes and begins to vibrate at a higher frequency causing you to automatically be more sensitive to the energy of people, places, and things. 

This can result in experiencing emotions like fear, anger, anxiety, etc. that are not yours. Be alert not claim them as yours, but simply allow them to pass through and out with out giving them  power. Earth is a spiritual universe peopled with children of God and governed by Love.  However, the majority are still hypnotized by appearances to the contrary. Try to remember always that everything  you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell are concepts of a spiritual reality that is being translated by the hypnotized collective mind as being good or bad according to current duality and separation  belief. When you find yourself reacting to some thing or some person in a negative way use the occasion to honestly examine your beliefs.  Accumulated obsolete three dimensional beliefs often remain unknown and deeply hidden in consciousness  until something occurs to activate and bring awareness to them.  It is at this point that you simply and with no guilt or resistance, ask yourself; "What am I believing that is making me feel this way?"

There are no pairs of opposites in Reality,  good appearances are just as illusory as the bad ones.  Reality is spiritual but most have not yet attained a level of energetic resonance capable of aligning with higher resonating frequencies and so believes they do not exist.   This is why a great deal of trust is necessary during these present times.  Not a continuing  trust in government, organized religion, friends, family, or the so called experts, but a trust in truth, that the reality is and always has been One omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Divine Consciousness manifesting  ITself as all that is. Since God/Divine Consciousness  is all that is,  IT is and always has been the only cause and therefore the only effect. Ponder this. Awakening to truth does not mean you suddenly stop living your life. You are on earth at this time to evolve into enlightenment while in physical form, not to deny, hate,  or try and avoid humanhood as some religions teach.

The days of convents and monasteries with rigid rules and regulations regarding spirituality are long  past. Mankind is ready to learn how to be in the world, but not of it. Enlightenment simply means living each day from your highest attained level of awareness which then allows more truth to unfold.  Do what needs to be done--go to work, cook dinner, wash dishes, mow the lawn, perform surgery, teach, repair cars or do absolutely nothing...but do it conscious of the fact that all activity is spiritual, with none being more spiritual than another. Yes, we realize that many activities have become perverted by human minds, but the reality is that activity is how individuals express the innate qualities of Source that lie within them.

There will always be some people you dislike which frequently comes as the result of some past life interaction  having nothing to do with the present. Other times it is because certain individuals seem totally out of sync with your belief system.  Do not judge yourself or them as bad or unspiritual  but rather bring to mind that no one is good or evil in and of themselves since God is the reality of every individual.  Know that they are hypnotized and acting out from impersonal false beliefs based in duality and separation regarding themselves and others. This does not mean you try to be best friends, or ignore what may be troublesome or hurtful actions on their part but rather means that after you remember the truth about them, you then take whatever human  footsteps may be required. 

Being a loving and spiritually empowered person never means being another's doormat, nor does it mean "walking on eggs" in order to keep a false sense of peace. Silently greet every person you meet as the Christ, and send Light to those far or near in the realization that they "know not what they do". The need for laws and jails will exist for awhile yet, but the collective is becoming increasingly aware that actions and solutions based in unconditional love serve to rehabilitate and heal better than force and aggression. It is a powerful time to be on earth because the ascension process now taking place is allowing souls to heal and complete issues that they may have been carrying though lifetimes. 

Many wanted to come but were not permitted for some reason or another.  Much is yet to come that will awaken increasingly more individuals and give credence to what we are saying. Many are and more will yet suffer and even die during this process, but know that most are volunteers who lovingly chose to assist in awakening the people of earth.  For some, their experiences were karmic completions chosen to be done publicly for others to see and learn from.  For others it is a personal choice as to how they can best serve the  ascension process, but all are helping in their way to bring universal consciousness out of the dark ages and into the Light. Those in the higher dimensions are observing and sending high fives to all even as appearances on earth would testify to  total failure. 

Know that things are not as they appear to be.  All is proceeding according to plan.  Rejoice even in the midst of dark events for these things reflect  earth's  journey out of density and the processes bringing change. Be at peace dear ones,  rest in your heart, and meditate often.  Meditation need not be the rigid structured process that most of you were taught when learning to meditate.  These methods were and are necessary for those unable to relax or allow themselves to be silent without the help of structure.  The purpose of meditation is nothing more than to reach a place of silent and secret alignment with the "still small voice" within. The process of getting there is what all the structured guidelines have been about.

Resting in  "I and the father are one" can be done anyplace and at any time with eyes open or shut--a pause at your desk, a trip to the bathroom, stopping for a red light, sitting under a tree, walking down a busy street, or being at the bedside of someone who is ill.  Every activity of daily living offers an opportunity to center, align with, and silently realize; "I am Divine Consciousness". Eventually and without conscious effort,  you begin to live meditation 24/7 and it becomes no longer something you do, but something you are. Be not afraid dear ones, for you are exactly where you planned to be before incarnating.  The planet is becoming increasingly filled with awakened souls who have chosen to assist in earth's transition to a higher frequency.  What you are witnessing is a world that is experiencing the strong and painful labor pains necessary for birthing a new world consciousness  based in love and truth. Allow the process dear ones.  Allow the process and hold your Light in spite of any and all personal or global appearances for Light is the only reality.

[itsclydebitches]

None of them liked Ironwoods growingly tyrannical actions, it's the whole reason Ruby lies to him, he looked shady as hell. They are shown very clearly uncomfortable with what he's turned Atlas into in the First episode. It's just that at the end of Volime 7 he crossed the line.

The key words there are “first episode.” I’ve mentioned on other posts that if the plot had simply continued the forward momentum of the group being disgusted with Ironwood’s choices and working against him (hiding out in the city, gathering like-minded allies, etc.) then we would have been golden. Ironwood is Volume 7’s antagonist. There, done. The problem is what starts in the second episode. Our basic events are as follows:

The group (and audience) learn that Ironwood has arguably justified reasons for everything “shady as hell” that he’s done. The embargo? They are at war with Salem and people have been stealing resources since our introductory trailers (Blake). Soldiers in the streets? That first episode showed that grimm are attacking defenseless civilians and, if the soldiers hadn’t been there to fend the grimm off prior to Penny’s arrival, they likely would have died. Taking resources? That’s to re-establish global communications and enact a plan to stop Salem for good, freeing the world from the danger she presents. 

However, they’re still morally gray choices which our group could have opposed… but they didn’t. They join Ironwood as public allies (standing with Clover and Penny against Robyn), as Inner Circle allies (they learn all of Ironwood’s plans—and we learn that he never lied to them), as huntsmen (it’s his power as general that gives them their licenses), and as fellow soldiers (they are indistinguishable from the Ace Ops in the missions they conduct). Now toss in a bunch of other connections like living in his academy, taking his weapon upgrades, and carrying the Relic. They might not like his actions, but they’re certainly doing everything possible to support and reap the benefits of them. 

Ruby does lie to him… which two in the group oppose (however lackluster that was). Yang and Oscar both question the wisdom of doing the very thing they punished Ozpin for. Ren also develops a strong (if quiet) alliance with Ironwood that will carry into Volume 8... until his semblance changed and he forgot about it. 

During all this there are efforts—mostly through Nora—to condemn Ironwood for his choices. How can you continue to hurt the people like this? Same answer as above: because he believes a short-term struggle is worth the long-term victory. Nora doesn’t agree… but Ruby, the leader, does. She pushes Ironwood to finish Amity somehow.

Which is an incredibly strange stance to take considering she knows that amassing a world-wide army will not defeat Salem. If the group wants Ironwood to stop hurting Mantle, all they have to do is tell him that Salem is immortal… but they don’t. They let him continue under this false belief, despite having more information about this war than he does and despite that information being the key to stopping the harm he’s enacting.

The arc of the volume is not the group choosing to trust Ironwood and then realizing he actually isn’t trustworthy, it’s the group (or rather, Ruby) deciding not to trust Ironwood and then realizing he is trustworthy. We get that climactic scene of Ruby and Oscar simultaneously realizing they should tell him about Salem and Oscar apologizing for keeping that secret in the first place. 

 Note that this occurs after they’ve talked him into telling Mantle about her. So not only is the group not made up of mindless subordinates being ordered about by a powerful general—it’s their advice Ironwood listens to—but now they’ve put an entire city in the position they were in during Volume 6. We’re told, via Ozpin’s arc, that telling people about Salem without including the issue of her immortality is a horrific thing to do. Those like Qrow have supposedly “wasted” their lives fighting an impossible war and the fandom has argued strongly that Ozpin has manipulated everyone involved in this fight by not giving them the full picture. Yet now, the group has spent months keeping that information from Ironwood when his questionable choices are based on that ignorance, and they’ve talked him into telling half his population that Salem exists and they should rise up to fight her… but not the pesky detail that she’s immortal. They did to Ironwood and all of Mantle exactly what Ozpin did to them.

Immediately after hearing that they’ve kept this secret from him the entire time they’ve been here (which he takes very well) Ironwood captures one of their main villains, loses his arm in the process, learns that two in the group have outright betrayed him to a political enemy, learns that despite all their best efforts Cinder has just waltzed into his office, learns that Salem herself is on her way and their defenses are already gone, knows that everyone is exhausted from a major battle… so when he decides to take all of Atlas, the majority of Mantle, and the Relics/Maiden they have to try and get out of Salem’s reach… Ruby says no. What’s her plan? She doesn’t have one. You’re just not allowed to leave.

The problem with the writing is it wants us to believe two contradictory things at once. Looking back, Ironwood is meant to be seen as an unambiguously bad guy in Volume 7, which we know because of scenes like Winter’s fight wherein she condemns him for everything he did in Volume 7, not just Volume 8 stuff like threatening to bomb Mantle. Yet at the same time, we’re simultaneously meant to believe that the group is made up of unambiguously good people who function as direct contrasts to Ironwood. Given what we got, these two things cannot coexist! Either Ironwood was a good man who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that, or Ironwood was a bad man… who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that either. If the group’s defense is, “We knew he was shady as hell. We knew what he was doing was wrong. We knew he was the bad guy here… but we still helped him maintain power, forward his plans, and reap the benefits of the flawed system for months on end”… that’s really bad. “I supported, assisted, and benefited from the guy who was shady as hell, but that’s fine because I felt uncomfortable about it the whole time” is not the hot take the fandom wants it to be. We cannot make these broad, sweeping statements about how the Atlas military—merged with its huntsmen—is an Evil Thing and then show scenes like, say, Jaune using his military grade huntsmen license to convince a bunch of civilians to follow his evacuation plan. The heroes cannot be Good and Pure while supporting the supposed villains and their systems; or, the villains cannot be purely Bad and Evil if they’re supported by the heroes.

The reality is that RWBY is badly written and this sort of simplistic, inconsistent writing doesn’t lend itself to a topic as complex as this one. To be frank, we don’t even know enough to make informed decisions about these actions because the world building is nearly nonexistent. What are these “resources” and how are the resources to patch a hole in the wall the same as the resources used to make Amity Tower into a world-wide communication device? How much power does Ironwood actually have and what other decisions has he made that impact Mantle? We never hear about any policies to explain things like the poor conditions, or the slum areas with the faunus. Why are the civilians so against the soldiers patrolling when we don’t see them abusing the public in any way, but we do see the grimm threatening them on the regular? Why does Ruby want Amity built so badly—willing to hurt Mantle to do it—when she knows a bigger army isn’t the answer/that telling people about Salem has almost always led to panic and betrayal? Is there really any difference between huntsmen and soldiers here? And if the answer is, “Yes. Huntsmen aren’t beholden to any power. That’s a good thing because following orders is Bad. They do what they think is best” than what are we supposed to make of someone like Rhodes who, apparently, did what he thought was best? If he’d been beholden to some superior there might have been a system in place to help Cinder. As it was, he was left to his own devices and a lot of fans are furious with the solution he, as one flawed individual, came up with. We simply don’t have a good picture of this world and when we do, things constantly contradict. It’s good for huntsmen to make their own choices, but only when Ruby does it, not Rhodes. It’s bad for heroes to keep the Salem secret and tell lies to their allies, but only when Ozpin does it, not Ruby. It’s bad for someone to try and save who they’ve got, but only when Ironwood does it, not Ruby, who apparently left Atlas after failing to create portals for her Uncle, Robyn, the Ace Ops, Pietro, Maria, and an entire army.

The way that the fandom gets around these problems—because too few are willing to just acknowledge that they are problems and RWBY is shoddily written—is by simplistically comparing RWBY’s military to a real world one. I cannot tell you how many posts I’ve come across that amount to, “Imagine thinking the teenage girls are the bad guys when a military general is right there, being a military general 😒 ” Those posts imply that fans like me are too stupid (too brainwashed, too close to “bootlickers”) to be critical of the military, but I assure you, that’s as far from true as can be. Those posts are trying to conflate real life politics with a fantasy story whose world looks nothing like our own. The is not a question of being critical of the military, it’s a question of being critical of RWBY as that fictional text… and that fiction never established any of the military problems we deal with in the real world. It might have (very easily), but it didn’t. Is Ironwood leveraging his people to conquer others or go after wealth? No, his world has literal, unambiguously evil monsters to fight. Does he amass power out of a desire to control the people? No, he lays out his exact thoughts on how these measures will help protect against those monsters and a witch. Does the military abandon its soldiers after war, leaving them with few resources and fewer prospects? No, we never see anyone struggling in that manner and one of the most prominent tragedies—Yang losing a limb—is answered by Ironwood personally sending a replacement to her home. Is the military at least built around propaganda, painting civilians an inaccurate picture of Freedom and Glory to convince them to fight? No, we see no propaganda, Ironwood—since Volume 2—has been focused on replacing people with robots and our entire story is built around one child’s desire to fight the exact same battle. Why do you want to be a huntress, Ruby? Because I want to help people! And that goal is never painted as a naïve outlook that Ruby becomes disillusioned with. Posts like the one mentioned above bank 100% on the reader mapping real life military criticism onto RWBY… rather than actually looking at the world RWBY built, what choices the characters make, the amount of information we’re given (little), and whether that in any way reflects our current, political problems. It doesn’t. 

I’m never going to pretend there weren’t problems with Ironwood’s decisions. In fact, I love that this was actually a conflict in Volume 3 that gave both sides a fair shake: is it better to scare people and have an army at the ready to defend them, or is it better to keep them in the dark and potentially be defenseless? Ironwood’s kind heart bumping up against extreme measures is what made him compelling, especially when the story was having him grow in the “right” direction (AKA, listening to Ozpin). His treatment of Penny is another big issue, creating a whole ass person to serve as a military defense tool. That’s horrifying! So he’s absolutely had his problems long before the writing had him turn into a trigger-happy murderer, but part of the issue here is that the writing doesn’t acknowledge those problems in other characters. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for forwarding a military agenda and using military resources… then so is Ruby, the leader who backed that for months. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for funding the creation of a person to defend his kingdom… then so is Pietro, the scientist who not only built Penny, but came up with the idea in the first place. He’s not some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to create something morally reprehensible, he suggested it! The same way Winter wasn’t some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to go along with these plans. She supported them, agreed to be his Maiden, and was the first to suggest martial law! Yet Ruby, Pietro, Winter and their like are all presented as unambiguously Good People, whereas Ironwood is presented as the unambiguous Bad Guy—and when a lot of fans went, “But you’re not writing him like a Bad Guy? Especially when we compare him to the heroes?” we got his sudden, OOC murder streak in Volume 8. But it doesn’t work. Either the group is made up of morally gray/bad people because they did the things our antagonist Ironwood did, or Ironwood is not the morally gray/bad person the show insists he is (prior to Volume 8) because he did the same things as our heroes. You cannot give us that plot, those choices, that agency and insist on both at once. This problem has existed ever since we got an entire volume about how simplistically evil Ozpin is for keeping this secret… only for Ruby to immediately turn around and keep it herself, with no acknowledgement that either a) Ozpin wasn’t the bad guy then or b) Ruby is as bad as he is. But the show wants Ruby to be the Good Person in every situation, no matter how much she models her behavior after those she deems her enemies, and Ironwood’s arc only increased that problem tenfold.

[padawanlost]

I fully agree on your stance with the Yoda problem the Old Jedi Order had got going on, but why do you think the order was corrupted? Is the EU a source? (Because I haven't seen them as corrupted in the films.) Thanks for the great blog and sorry for my bad English!

Because the Prequels are about corruption, about how power corrupts (all kinds of power). Because George Lucas literatlly spelled it out to everyone who was interested in hearing. Because the Prequels are allegory for political instability and the role society and organizations play in the rise of authorianism.

The story being told in ‘Star Wars’ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not. – George Lucas in 2005

[The Jedi] sort of persuade people into doing the right thing but their job really isn’t to go around fighting people yet there are now used as generals and they are fighting a war and they are doing something they really weren’t meant to do.They are being corrupted by this war, by being forced to be generals instead of peacemakers. – George Lucas for E! Behind the Scenes - Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith

The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three “Star Wars” movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said. Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate. In ancient Rome, “why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?” Lucas said. “Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler. “You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody’s squabbling, there’s corruption.” [x]

I’ve said this before and i’ll say it again: corruption is so more than embezzling money or bribing officials. Corruption is dishonesty; it’s a change of purpose. It’s not as simple as being ‘evil’. And it’s not just about the big events, it exists in our daily lives too. It’s in our behaviors, our choices, even in our beliefs.

When you create a organization with the purpose of protecting all human life but then you take control of an army of slaves, that’s corruption. When you’re an elected official lying to the public and your superiors to protect your romantic interests, that’s corruption.

As I wrote before:

In the Jedi’s case, they corrupted themselves when they, by choice, failed to perform their duties. The Jedi Order maintained its status by promising to defend the Republic and all its citizens. When they failed to act on that promise and still claimed the rewards that function provided, they became corrupt. They were no longer providing the service they promised they would but they still were collecting the rewards of that position.

They corrupted themselves when they failed to stop slavery; when they allowed the rampant corruption in the Senate to go unquestioned, when they failed to investigate claims about criminal activities; when they caused mass starvation; when they refused to return missing children to their parents; when supported untrustworthy politicians to maintain their own political status; when deployed children into war zones; when they refused to send any kind of help to protect people from criminal activities; when they expelled their own members without a proper investigation or trial; when they put political prisoners in secret prisons without trial, investigation, legal council, visitation or chance of parole; when they allowed themselves to become militarized; when they played a role in the enslavement of clones; and when they lied and withheld information from the Senate.

These are all examples of the Jedi council putting what *they* thought was right above the law and above their own initial role in the Republic. It’s them breaking their promise to the Republic. Palpatine kept pushing them into making terrible decisions, and to keep their position, they wielded, thus, they corrupted themselves. Ahsoka’s trial is a perfect example of this. All the evidence was circumstantial and they were not entirely sure she was guilty but because of the political pressure they were under, they expelled her and forced a 16 years old to face a potential death penalty by herself. That’s corruption. That’s putting your own interests above the interest of the greater good. It’s doing harm to keep your status.

Anakin’s relationship with Palpatine is another great example: it was forbidden for padawans to leave the Temple with a Jedi companion, especially to spend alone time with a political. But, the moment Palpatine used his influence, they wielded even though Palpatine had no legal claim over Anakin. But, because pleasing the Chancellor was more important than keeping tradition, the rules were broken. It is another example of them forsaking their own rules and tradition for political gain.

Want another example of the Jedi corrupting their purpose and believes in the movies, just look at how Yoda and Obi-wan handled the Vader situation. They lied to Luke to get him to kill his own father. Instead of showing compassion, they plotted to kill Vader without any sort of real attempt to reach him. if luke had listened to them the rebellion would’ve been destroyed and all hope would have been extinguished. That’s why Luke is the best Jedi, because he didn’t corrupt his purpose.

I know I’ve said this a million times already but NONE of that makes the Jedi the bad guys, or worth of extermination. It only serves to make them human.

It’s not that hard to see. I mean, we are living pretty chaotic and desperate times, people are angry and afraid and it seems more and more people are letting themselves be influenced by such times. fear makes people do desperate things. that’s what happened to the Jedi. they weren’t evil people who needed to die. They were just people, normal people who were pushed into a desperate situation and in their fear and despair, they made some wrong choices that led bad things.

PS: thanks <3

[bluemoonbeam15]

CTA: Hopper

CTA is short for Cognitive Task Analysis. It's essentially a method of unravelling the inner workings of a person's mind and seeing how their thoughts affect their actions.

I'm starting with Hopper -- obviously -- because he isn't given much, if any, backstory in the entire movie. His actions were written purposefully for the audience to not feel any remorse for his demise. If he had been given a backstory, there would probably be more people who could defend his actions, which isn't what the directors wanted.

However, just by analyzing his dialogue and actions -- no matter how small of screen-time -- we can get a rough sketch of his true personality.

I've spent the last hour completing the 16Personlaties test online and reading through the results. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a website that has you go through a series of questions and by the end of it presents you with whichever personality type your responses most align with.

To the best of my ability, I have gone through each question and replayed Hopper's scenes in my mind to get a feel of how he would've answered them. The results showed him to be an ISTJ-A.

I = Introverted (52%)

S = Observant (95%)

T = Thinking (98%)

J = Judging (78%)

A = Assertive (69%)

I'll put a link to the website at the end of this post so any of you who are interested can read through it. This will also be the site I use for the other characters I analyze.

So since the link is available -- and the personalities can be read about, anywhere -- I will give my reasoning for how the result above fits his character.

BY THE WAY, NONE OF THIS IS CANON. I AM NOT STATING FOR A FACT THAT THIS IS HOPPER IN HIS ENTIRETY. IT'S ALL SPECULATION DRAWN FROM SMALL AMOUNTS OF EVIDENCE.

First off, let me brag on him for a moment for his incredible work. I know he's the bad guy and all, but let's give the man some credit. Only extremely powerful people in human history were able to convince a whole nation of people that they were in the right. Hitler, being one of those people.

While Hitler obviously did unforgivable things, everything he did was done thoughtfully and carefully. He analyzed the people, the children, and understood how their minds worked. This is what Hopper does in the movie.

By the time we are invited into this world, Hopper has already established a system within the colony. Despite not holding any true authority in their own monarchy, he had managed to set himself above the Queen. Even she is in fear of his capabilities and fights to keep him appeased.

He also manages to uphold his authority within his own gang. The fact that none of them -- aside from Molt -- have the boldness to question his decisions speaks volumes about how assertive he is.

But the only way he can keep his position is by applying his cognitive talents. We see in the movie that Hopper doesn't take the details for granted. He remarks that Atta didn't smell like the Queen -- implying he took note of which ant was in leadership. When he first lays eyes on Flik, he watches the ant's demeanor and takes in every detail. This allows him to recognize Flik when he reveals himself from the fake bird near the end of the movie. When the Circus Bugs arrive while Hopper is at Ant Island, he notices the empty box by the end of their act and demands to know where the Queen is.

We can even see that in almost every scene he is in, he does more observing than talking. In the beginning, he walks around and takes note of the ant's countenance around him, looking for any sign of rebellion as the source of his missing offering. He watches Atta carefully as she tries to explain that Flik is the reason it's missing. After punching the random gang member instead of Molt, he looks around at the colony to take in their reaction and adjusts himself accordingly. When Molt comes to tell him his "great idea," Hopper doesn't immediately rant off. Instead, he watches his brother carefully as he advances and takes in the sincerity and fear of Molt explaining himself.

As he walks around The Resort, addressing his gang, his eyes are pinpointing every grasshopper until they land on the three at the bar. He makes offhanded remarks and observes how the three react suspiciously overly supportive. By the time he lets them have it, he watches the grain fall and proceeds to keep his eye on every member as he makes his speech. When they get to the Island, Hopper manages to pinpoint the Queen in the midst of the crowd of ants. As the Circus Bugs first reenter the scene, Hopper silently follows his gaze as they pull up in front. Not once does he say a word until they make themselves fully shown. When the pill bugs appear, he watches them for a good while before finally allowing the Circus Bugs to entertain them.

Throughout their performance, Hopper is silently watching -- maybe laughing once during the entire ordeal. You can especially see it when Manny offers to let the Queen be a part of the performance and Hopper follows his every move as he does so.

As he gives his speech to the ants, he walks around and makes it a point to make eye contact with as many as he can. He observes their gradual return to submission. When Flik speaks up again, Hopper does not yell, summon Thumper, or try to interrupt him at all. He advances -- like he did Molt -- and observes how the ant will react to his closing proximity. It's almost as if he's gauging how much damage has been done to his influence before he decides on which course of action to take. In fact, for the remainder of the movie, Hopper maintains this way of decision-making. While in the canon, he's keeping his eye on Flik. When it rains, he pinpoints Flik in the crowd.

When he lands in front of Flik by the bird's nest, he begins advancing again and uses that time of observation to unsettle the ant. While Hopper uses analyzation as a way to base his decisions, he also uses it as a way to unsettle his opposition. In nearly every situation he quietly observes, the adversary becomes nervous and backs away. They mess up on their train of thought, try to explain themselves, or beg for mercy. It's more than Hopper looking intimidating, it's the way he looks at them to make them feel transparent. As if he knows every little thing about them, and in a way, he kind of does from the time he's observed.

The only hole in this is when the real bird finally makes an appearance and Hopper is so caught up in his rage of the previous bird that he neglects to fully analyze the creature before him. Of course, let's also take into account that he is blind in one eye, it's dark and raining, and his perception of reality has been slightly altered thanks to the fake bird from earlier. In his defense, he had good reason to believe the bird before him was also a fake.

His observations play hand-in-hand with his tendency to base his decisions on rationality rather than emotion. As well as being more judging than perceiving. For the record, the word "judging" in this sense is not used in a social manner. It is being able to make faster-paced decisions and to stick by them. People who are judging will be clean-cut and look presentable to others as a means of influencing others to agree with their steadfast decisions.

As also mentioned, Hopper does not act on his emotions. You can base an alternative opinion saying, "Oh, but he gets mad and threatens his brother," or, "what about when he killed those three grasshoppers?" and so on. However, acting on your emotions and acting on rationale are two different things. They look different too.

Consider this: had Hopper, the moment Molt opened his mouth, yelled or swung a punch at him, then he would then have acted on his emotions. Had he outright put those three grasshoppers in their place instead of going through the foreplay, he would have acted on his emotions. Flik was also not immediately killed when he first spoke up and when he continued to defy Hopper. Even at the end of the movie, when the real bird appears, Hopper halts his strangling long enough to realize that the bird is real.

After re-watching the movie with these characteristics in mind, it doesn't seem like there is one time where he acts on his emotions. Impulsively, is one way to put it. He never acts on impulse. Every move is calculated according to how he needs the situation to play out in his favor. Perhaps the only time he acts on emotions is when he punches the nearby grasshopper instead of his brother. And, even then, he lets enough rationality in to redirect his anger onto someone else.

Now let's dive more onto the hidden side of Hopper the movie doesn't shed much light on.

Despite giving off this hard, rough exterior, we know that the gang he surrounds himself with was on purpose. While he probably gathered them for the sake of enforcing the ants more into submission, I think it might be safe to say that they're there for his own mental stability. Let's be clear, Hopper doesn't need them to accomplish his goals. Flik doesn't spare a glance at the other grasshoppers once Hopper comes into the hill. All eyes are on him. Even when Hopper has taken control of the Island, Atta and Phyllis are constantly glancing to see his reactions.

It's especially significant when Atta notices Flik and the girls climbing the tree to the bird and the only grasshopper she looks at to see if they noticed is Hopper. Because in the grand scheme of things, his awareness of the situation is what will make or break their plan.

Notice with me too that the other gang members have the IQ of a rock. Any opinion they have is shown to be based on little to no evidence. And although they were on the right track to not go back to the Island -- which ends up being one of Hopper's downfalls -- they didn't necessarily understand the true power the ants could have over them. Basically, their desire to stay the The Resort was not based on truth but more their own personal wishes.

Personally, I believe that Hopper only keeps them -- and Molt -- around for the sake of keeping himself distracted. With his observations, it can be seen that he does more time thinking rather than acting. Imagine having a whole colony under your control and your mind running 24/7 to maintain that power. Imagine how stressful it has to be for him to know that in a single instance, all that work he put into molding the colony could be in vain. No wonder he needs some time alone for a massage.

But then imagine having others around you to keep your mind off of those stressors and anxieties. With the gang partying and having a good time, it would be hard for Hopper to dwell on all the ways everything could go wrong. I believe that's why he keeps Molt around. Hopper never said he promised their mother he'd let him join the gang, or that he'd watch him 24/7. He merely stated he promised not to kill Molt.

Molt is simply that happy-go-lucky persona that Hopper can not only release his stress on, but also someone who can distract him from everything storming within his own mind. It may seem in the movie like he's a lazy freeloader who uses the ants to avoid doing any work himself, but let's look at it this way:

> He's "babysitting" his brother constantly

> He has to travel a great distance back and forth at least once a year for the offering

> In that little time he sees the colony, he has to assert his authority to keep them obedient

> He has to keep his own gang members submissive

> It seems that he also runs (or at least co-runs) The Resort

> Just as all insects do, he has to protect himself, his gang, and his brother from bigger predators

Most of these have a lot of psychological weight that would wear Hopper out with all the stress it adds on to him. There's so much responsibility that has not only been forced on him, but also ones he's chosen to take. And some of those responsibilities were chosen for the sake of distracting him from everything else. It's a vicious cycle that he's gotten caught in where he ends up putting more on his plate than he can handle, all in a vain attempt to have something to redirect his attention from his other anxieties.

Hopper has a very self-destructive mindset in this term. It ends up getting to the point where, by the end of the movie, when everything begins to unravel before him, his anxieties kick in and he doesn't know how to handle it. He's spent so long trying to avoid those fears that he never established an escape for them other than the other self-destructive behaviors. He never found the right way out of his own torment.

In reality he influenced himself to be subdued just as much as he had the ants. He has convinced himself that he is weaker when mulling over his anxieties and letting his emotions get out of control. Therefore, he's put chains on them and has put an emotional muzzle on himself. And all of it is in an attempt to stay rational and maintain his position. In a way, Hopper has become so skilled at overpowering others that he has subconsciously overpowered himself. He's convinced himself that he is who he wants to be. He wants to be in control, calm, collected, strong, and powerful. And he has convinced himself to believe that he can be all those things so long as he pushes back the characteristics and emotions that would hold him back.

And he reflects this inner pain on the ants as he convinces them to be what he wants them to be. Submissive, mindless, fearful, and obedient. And so long as he pushes back the ideas and rebellion, they can be all those things.

If any of you want me to continue this analysis -- God knows there's still more to unpack about his personality -- feel free to ask! I will be doing the other characters (Flik is next).

Here is the link to the website I used:

https://www.16personalities.com/istj-personality

[eldritch-elrics]

svsss: journey through the mausoleum (plus, zhuzhi-lang is a himbo)

got to chapter 65 last night!

as usually i have a lot to say i guess jkdhgsds i think putting stuff under cuts makes people scroll past these posts more? but also i don’t really want to be too annoying with my Many Reactions so cuts are a good way to go

tldr: loved the mausoleum arc, big fan of tlj, communication is good, and i have a new favorite scene in the book

binghe is extra as FUCK for bringing in all those rhino pythons

so i maintain that tianlang-jun should have been foreshadowed more/is introduced too late in the story, but other than that i think he’s a really fun villain and i’m a fan

for one - he’s the only one who’s able to hurt binghe :0 harm the protagonist...

which creates some Very Good Tension

count number one of zhuzhi-lang being a himbo: trying to sacrifice himself for tlj while being threatened

“is zzl really a himbo” you ask. well, yes. is he dumb? very much so. is he nice? absolutely. is he hot? well, i have no idea. i forget if he’s described as attractive or not. but, i think he can be if he wants. does being a little bit evil negate his himbo-ness? idk! i’m sticking with my assessment

i think i have a bit of a soft spot for evil henchmen

zzl also protects sqq from the corpses <3 good for him

it’s always fun to me when the system is like “wooo yay you fixed the storyline! cut the filler!” because 1. love seeing sqq lay waste to pidw and 2. the implications?? once more i am wondering WHY is the system so interested in making pidw a better story. (and the fact that it’s still calling his adventures in this world a story.) are sqq’s adventures being written down and serialized in the real world? are we as readers supposed to believe that scum villain, as a text, is a direct result of sqq’s “editing” of pidw?

uh, back to the plot

binghe wasted spiritual energy trying to preserve the mushroom/plant body :( come on man...

i really like the whole stretch of plot when binghe’s unconscious. it’s just so tense!! really well-done in my opinion - this is the first time in a while we’ve got a sense that lbh is in danger, and sqq is also running low on energy and stuff, so they’re both in bad places and the stakes are high

PLUS the hurt-comfort of it all. sqq trying not to hurt lbh’s body :(

the whole part in the coffin!! excellent. and the convo with meng mo... sqq calling himself lbh’s shizun finally...

cuddles <3

dying at lbh’s fuckin. boner. and the system’s REACTION it’s so EXCITED i am just. holds my head in my hands. i can’t deal with this novel

the confrontation with qiu haitang and the old palace master was very cool and intense. though i have to say i’m not really a fan of either “angry unreasonable woman” or “bitter disabled person” as tropes/archtypes (especially how sqq was reacting to the palace master’s condition). and poor qiu haitang! i have no idea if there’s any way to set her mind at ease other than revealing the whole transmigration thing. i do hope she’ll turn up again and get a better ending?

so the plague city sqq callout party is once again not directly lbh’s fault! the old palace master is the one to blame!

SO ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS IN THE BIT I READ LAST NIGHT. is. sqq realizing that he could utilize lbh’s plot armor to his advantage. but then deciding that he doesn’t want to take that risk. doesn’t want to use lbh’s body as a prop!!!

character development :D

he’s really starting to see lbh as a person as opposed to a character! and being less selfish/survival-oriented...

man. sqq, almost beaten, lying on the ground holding binghe in his arms........ :(((

so is the implication that lbh injured/took revenge on the old palace master because the palace master was being creepy to him about his mom? it’s a bit vague but that’s my theory. weirdo old man...

speaking of people lbh killed. maybe it will be revealed that gongyi xiao is actually alive too :( i’m still salty about that

SO MUCH DEMON BLOOD. poor sqq

so i don’t think i got how sqq was able to free himself from zzl’s blood manipulation? was it because binghe woke up and subdued it?

binghe waking up was a lil deus-ex-machina-y lol i would have liked to see some sort of trigger for it (even a cheesy one). like i get why he’s ok and no longer hurt (protagonist powers!) but like, gimme a reason for the shift to happen at that precise moment...

but AAAAAA FINALLY THEY ARE TALKING

lbh realizes how much sqq went through to save him :( and he’s so happy he didn’t get abandoned!!!! aaaaaa my poor boy

i like crybaby lbh much more than i like cold/cruel lbh lol

i do agree with sqq’s assessment though - lbh keeps doing the thing where he cries and apologizes but doesn’t actually change. he’s slowly getting better about it but that’s some development i’d like to see

so tlj.... DOESN’T want lbh’s body? i stg his motivations change every 5 minutes. that’s one other thing i don’t really like about him. is the “trying to steal lbh’s body” thing just gonna go nowhere? f...

ALSO SQQ GETTING OUTRAGED ABOUT TLJ CALLING HIMSELF MORE HANDSOME THAN BINGHE

binghe dumbass moments <3 gave him the sword...

..........zhuzhi-lang vore.......

zzl, while healing sqq’s plant arm: don’t worry i don’t want to fuck you unlike LUO BINGHE.

sqq: OKAY??? THANKS

i really hope there exists shipfic of sqq and zzl. like i don’t ship them at all but they just get into so many Situations that i cannot help but think about it. like it would make a funny crack premise

you know what? sqq deserves his own harem. it could consist of lbh, lqg, sqh, zzl.....

SQQ CANNOT CATCH A BREAK. TLJ IS A FAN OF RESENTMENT OF CHUNSHAN

modern au tlj is the dad who is way way way too supportive and thinks sqq would just be a wonderful husband for his son~~

interested in tlj’s intention to unite the human and demon worlds. like on the surface it sounds like a good idea right? peace and harmony and reconciling differences and stuff. but tlj’s plan is certainly not well-thought-out, and i’m sure his intentions also skew towards a sort of “merge them so they’re both easier to rule over” thing - which i don’t think is confirmed or anything, it’s just my suspicion

both tlj and lbh have a sort of entitlement thing going on - “i’m powerful so i can do whatever i like / take for myself something i love (whether that be humans or sqq).” which is then backed up by the power the system allows them as final boss and protagonist respectfully

speaking of lbh taking whatever he wants: stop kissing sqq without asking him aaaaa!!!! we know you love him and it’s sweet but please bro

him going all that way to reunite with sqq though <3

and then zzl comes in and i just.

this scene is simply the best

the slapstick of it!!!! i wanna see it animated so bad holy shit

the scene was good when it was just “sqq hides lbh under the bedcovers and he’s having none of it” but then it just kept escalating...

sqq and zzl’s convo is so suggestive too...

zzl himbo moments again?

AND THEN TLJ WALKS IN

“no need to explain, i understand everything” OK BRO.

LIU QINGGE IS HERE <3

tlj fanboying over him a little lmao

tlj, upon realizing that lbh had been in the bed with zzl and sqq: oh, you guys were having a threesome?

i cannot deal with this. i’m gonna do some sketches from this scene it’s so funny

[korkrunchcereal]

WoW Q and A

Elaborate on the Chains of Domination cinematic: Story of Anduin and Sylvanas/relationship with the jailer is foundational to Shadowlands. Anduin was dominated. Jailer needed someone like Anduin to be able to walk into Bastion and claim the key. Brief moment of Anduin gaining control in cinematic, so still in there. Chains of Domination will explain more.

When he (Anduin) walks past Uther, did Uther know what was happening or did he feel bad? Couple things going on. His hand touches his wound, made by a weapon of the maw. Uther recognized on some level that power, as well as stirring memories seeing this blonde, kingly figure. Confrontation with Sylvanas in the raid one of the biggest moments in WoW.

Moving from classic to BC while keeping a copy. Whats it going to look like for gold, items/banks. Am I going to see differences or is it two separate entities for all time? Logging in at pre patch will snap a copy of your character. There will be an option to move onto BC classic, or stay in vanilla classic. Can pay a fee and activate “clone” to put them on BC classic if you choose to stay Vanilla. Beta is around the corner. 

How will high population  numbers be handled in TBC classic? How will you handle bottlenecks, sharding, dailies etc. Recognize high population, want to make sure experience is enjoyable. Optimization improvements to help stabilize servers. Experience of rare material and multiple people going is part of the game. Willing to make targeted changes if there is particular problems. 

 Will there be more race/class combinations? Player agency and choice is major theme. Customization key, but also want to reinforce differences. Want to maintain a world that doesn’t have exact symmetry. Have gone back over the years to change things. For now, think they’ve gone about far enough. Nothing planned, but never say never.

 Surprise on Covenant armor? Based on heritage armor. Pure aesthetic, want to give players more and more options. Gameplay reasons to not tmog the entire range (warrior wearing cloth for example)

Workflow change during pandemic? Happened very suddenly. Team reached to each other to find comfort. The isolation found purpose for devs. Making Shadowlands/games help to reconnect friends and people.

Any plans to address faction imbalance? What happened to cause it? Something talked about a lot. Know there’s a very real problem, particularly high end. What caused the problem? Imbalanced in racials allowed to persist too long. At this point, don’t think racials are imbalanced. People staying Horde however due to social reasons now; compounded issue from all the way back from MoP etc. No real answer. Social issue requires social answer.

Have you ever seen a swing in either faction direction due to story elements? Across the game as a whole, faction balance is pretty good. Its raiding/high end PvE that the imbalances really emerge. Have seen faction switches/more cross faction alts in BfA for example. 

If I play BC, when I decide to play on main char and a classic era realm at 60, will I have to name change? You have your name in both places. Ensure people don’t park on names forever.

Any plans to connect more realms? Had to do survey across all populations in all realms. Essentially have to copy an entire realms database onto another. Not a flip a switch thing, lot of work. Have been able to address a large amount of the very low pop. realms. Had to pause for Shadowlands launch due to launch and Shadowlands had huge effects on server populations. Last time they connected realms was right before WoD, and realms had a LOT of queue problems. Watching and waiting for populations to go down before making the jump.

Never gonna have cross faction raids, dungeons etc? Not gonna say never. Essential to hold onto identity but...

Will our amount of Anima be increased later? Is it possible for sanctum upgrades to be account wide? Lot to collect. Hotfixed Anima drops so far. Looking for new sources of Anima for next patch. Over all looking at the costs. Cosmetics are generally account wide. Anima is designed to span the bulk of Shadowlands. 

Sire Denathrius is an eternal one and imprisoned. What will he do? Will we see him again? Best laid plans can adapt. During BfA, intended Bwonsamdi to be a one off. There, but no big deal. Once they heard the VA they went “we need more of this character”. Planned for Sire Denathrius to be there, you kill him w/e. Then heard the VA and went “this guys awesome we love him.” Changed plan to keep Sire Denathrius alive. Will find some other role for him to take. Watch fan feedback to see how community responds/gravitate to. He is in that sword, there may just be allies of him that would be interested in liberating him from the sword...

When will we see more Heritage Armor? As each one was released, got more and more excited from response/enhanced feel of the game. Working on further Heritage Armor. Some coming to near future updates, some more in the future.

Any plans to bring back the AH app? Not as you know it perse. It got turned into a lot of automation. Revamp removed app, then change of the AH. Meant to be more of a socialize thing then accumulation of gold by automated system. Recognize however convenience factor. Consider getting back into some form, but not like how it used to be.

Will there be more new character customization options for Shadowlands? None in Shadowlands. Tend to be fairly big projects. Release them when it’ll be very good for players. Lot of work to juggle. Felt like they got good feedback and support from it. Want to invest going forward when it makes sense.

What are actual requirements for flying in Shadowlands? Where can we fly? Can we fly across the realms? Shadowlands pathfinder no rep grind. Just requires completing full covenant campaign (9.0 and 9.1). Cannot fly from zone to zone. Once unlocked, alts will be able to fly freely. 

In the BC classic, will there be class tuning that would make it notably different than 2007? Broadly no. Want to keep the authentic behavior of final patch, like classic had. Seal of blood

Is there work being done on new Torghast Anima Powers for later patches? Spec specific, when can we see? WIll be done through all patches/future patches. new powers etc. As for powers working outside Torghast, keep OP nature of them inside Torghast.

Difference between passage of time in Shadowlands and in Azeroth? Salanar the Horseman in DK order hall said he was in the veil for what felt like days and it was between WoTLK and Legion. Meet characters for whom time doesn’t seem to have meaning. What is time a construct of? Order. On Azeroth, understand the passage of time because of influence of titans/order. Outside of the influence of order, time loses meaning. A lot more fluid. Shadowlands about eternities. Can have it perceived differently by different characters even going through same thing.

Bringing back 10-man content, either as different difficulty or different instances for smaller groups to tackle. All raid basically is/can be 10 man. These days its the 5 player mega dungeons that fill the role. In BC, ZA and Kara filled that niche of the smaller group doing the BIG, raid like content. Fulfills the spirit of 10 man content.

Will summoning stones be available at launch of BC or come later? Will have them at launch.

What’s Bolvar up to and where is his story going? Will he have a major role to play? One of the fun parts of Shadowlands was getting Bolvar back into the mix. We saw him be pivotal in Torghast and getting into Shadowlands. Saw there was a price to pay for visions with Torghast. He will be front and center in Chains of Domination. Good rallying figure.  

In BC, how will pvp titles be handled without battlegroups? Originally, reward was made for the best player in each battlegroup due to technical reasons. Now that they have better technology, fair way is % based, though still want to keep it small amount. 

In Stormwind, Darnassus refugees mention going back once the smoke clears. Does this mean Teldrassil can grow back and become habitable again? The damage was pretty definitive/lot of lives lost. Don’t want to reverse on a whim. The story of the souls of the Night Elves however is not yet done, nor is Tyrande’s story going into Chains of Domination and beyond.

Will fresh classic servers be added in addition to TBC servers? For the timeline of BC classic, no new classic servers. Eyes on it however for the future. Will discuss once BC launches.

How do you get the Wandering Ancient Mount? Got to have Shadowlands. Will be in 9.0.5 patch update next month (March). 

[presence-of-darkness]

A reflection on the course of c!techno’s anarchy

Buckle in folks this is a long one.

Now I love technoblade as much as the next lesbian howevor my desire to throw down with c!techno increases with every moment. In my last post I mostly discussed my thoughts of the Tommy-Techno betrayal citation and why I thought it was inevitable and necessary as well as why I believed that destroying L’Manburg would be an ineffectual method of achieving Techno’s goals in the long term. This post can definitely be read without it but I will be building off of it a bit. I will be elaborating on the latter as well as my thoughts on the L’Manburg government and corruption.

Let’s begi with L’Manburg. As I said in my previous post for much of its time as a country especially during the end L’Manburg was a sham of a government with only an illnusion of power allowed by Dream. However like c!Techno has pointed out there have absolutely been many abuses of power by the government throughout its history. Things like how c!Wilbur appointed himself as president in the beginning, Schlatt immediately exiling his primary political appointments the moment he gained power, and the unlawful execution attempts of the Butcher Army. In an ideal world L’Manburg could have been a community of people standing against tyranny on completely equal footing. But it wasn’t and has always had stratified power systems that were completely unnecessary seeing that there were like what? Maybe 10 citizens of L’Manburg at its highest population? You don’t need a president over 10 people. 

However L’Manburg was never just a seat of government. It was a symbol of resistance against c!Dream (even if I don’t think it really ever succeeded in that) and it was home for a lot of the members of the server at times even if not at the end of the country’s days. As Ghostbur said to c!Phil yesterday in destroying L’Manburg they weren’t just destroying a government but they were also destroying the things and places people cherished and that held beloved memories. 

Now you might argue that destroying the L’Manburg government was worth this sacrifice (although c!Techno and c!Phil clearly didn’t view it as a sacrifice of anything of value showing a lack of understanding for the L’Manburg people) I really don’t think this has brought them any closer to succeeding in c!Techno’s goal of total anarchy. 

c!Techno and c!Phil both stated that they wanted to teach the lesson that governments for bad and that governments had caused this destruction. But that’s not the lesson that was taught and that’s not the lesson that was learned. A corrupt government is not what caused team chaos destroying L’Manburg. Team chaos is what caused team chaos to destroy L’Manburg. Few would take someone blowing up their country and home to be a persuasive argument as to why the country was corrupt. This was not liberation and this does not help heal the wounds of oppressive government. 

Now there were those who chose to stand on the sidelines and let L’Manburg fall and revelled in its destruction ie Nikki, Fundy, and HBomb. I’m gonna focus on Nikki and Fundy because I honestly haven’t been following HBomb’s character so I can’t speak on his reasoning and motivations. In the case of Nikki she has understandably come to the conclusion with clear judgement that the L’Manburg government was corrupt and that she has repeatedly been overlooked and ignored and that is not willing to fight for L’Manburg ever again. While I doubt she will ever be down for being part of a government again I also don’t think she’s been persuaded to anarchism. And then with Fundy his decision was not nearly based in the same rational thinking as Nikki’s was. His decision came purely out of trauma and anger. I believe he even said at one point something along the lines that he wanted them to feel the same lows of pain and powerlessness that he had. If you know the point I’m talking about feel free to leave the timestamp in the replies or tags. This 

With L’Manburg a crater people are moving elsewhere and with them will bring the same problems that caused the corruption of L’Manburg in the first place. There will just be new countries and governments formed or they will join one of the many remaining countries/governments/groups remaining on the Dream SMP. For example the lesson Eret learned from this is that he wants to be the kind of King that creates a peaceful and just community for his citizens, not that government is bad. 

However the biggest reason I don’t believe that this brings the server closer to the anarchy c!Techno wants isn’t because of the citizens of L’Manburg. But rather because of the person he teamed up with to destroy L’Manburg: c!Dream. As I have stated previously c!Dream is the actual tyrant of the SMP he just isn’t in name. He allows L’Manburg’s independence the first time when he got the disks because he traded the power they gave him for their independence. They never really won against c!Dream in the first war. I would argue that he helps L’Manburg get blown up because it puts him in a better position of power over the new cabinet and presidency of Tubbo. Which he maintains and asserts power over through threats and political pressure to exile Tommy. I will restate to my dying breath that Tubbo was as much of a puppet ruler as Eret is. 

Through these and through his many other actions we can see that c!Dream is the biggest example of the stratified power that c!Techno opposes, on the whole server. He just chooses not to make that power named and obvious. c!Dream doesn’t and isn’t working towards anarchy, he’s working towards the exact opposite. A monolithic “family” that can live “peacefully” as long as they abide by his rule. c!Techno has been blindsided through his desire for vengeance on L’Manburg for betraying him that he’s completely ignoring the fact that c!Dream is working completely ideologically against him. 

People have stated repeatedly that there is a cycle of corruption and bloodshed and there is. You cannot break a cycle of violence through violence. You cannot teach a lesson of peace through warfare. Lessons of violence just create distrust, anger, and trauma. None of which predispose people towards making decisions for their best interests. Without healing it just leads to more violence and chaos. Things which c!Dream manipulates for his best interests. 

c!Dream is going to betray c!Techno, because his anarchy, while helpful sometimes, is in the way of his unified Dream SMP. And while destroying L’Manburg has likely brought him closer to his goals, it really hasn’t brought c!Techno closer to his.

If you disagree with me or want any elaborations feel free to comment!