#it can either be a beautiful thing or the cause for societal collapse

[thequeenofsarcaasm]

The only thing stronger than the power of friendship in anime is the power of homosexuality

[flickeringart]

Neptune in aspect with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto and Chiron

(Read my other posts 1: Neptune aspecting Sun & Moon, 2: Neptune aspecting Mercury & Venus, 3: Neptune aspecting Mars)

It is always difficult to interpret aspects of generational planets to other generational planets because they are such big forces and encompasses such broad complexity that it would take a genius to accurately convey their impact through the Mercurial function; verbal and written communication. The social and collective planets are describing the bigger picture of what is going on a societal and global scale – but they do matter in the personal natal chart because they indicate the overall collective climate that one was born into and will inevitably color the personal life experience. When I refer to “collective tendencies” in describing these aspects I’m therefore also referring to “personal tendencies”.

Neptune in aspect with Jupiter

With the harmonious aspects this would translate into a time of deep collective faith and belief in the transience of the world as well as a faith in the ability to be redeemed through the correct attitude and positive expectations. This is a typical aspect of “follow your heart and your dreams” which is often considered extremely naïve by more “realistic” people. With this aspect forming at a point in time, there’s a greater collective tendency to take chances and put one’s luck in the hands of the universe. This aspect lends itself to big dreams and visions, a freedom to pursue spirituality and let go of inhibitions, to pursue freedom with complete abandon of boundaries, to enjoy culture and contribute to it in order to feel closer to the divine. In case of the hard aspects, belief systems may be dissolving and reconstructed, the future might seem obscure; the erosion of culture and lost sense purpose might cause people to pursue religion or spiritual doctrine more vigorously than ever. People could attempt to escape from it all through distraction and dissociation, to cling to illusions in order to cope, or take to drugs in order to numb the sense of meaninglessness and desperation that permeates the social-societal fabric. The hard aspects could indicate disillusionment and disappointment in religious doctrine, an abandonment of belief and collective spirit. People could feel betrayed and deceived by thought leaders and visionaries leading them astray instead of enriching their lives. In any case, these two planets together combine the yearning for something sacred and transcendent with the symbolic expressions of meaning in culture and social life.

Neptune in aspect with Saturn

With the harmonious aspects this combination of planets, the collective might try to create a system of protection for the less fortunate, to provide a container for the unformed and passive souls that are helpless in the face of existence. It might also lend itself to collective fantasies of the ideal state with an ideal structure. Hard work and duty might be glorified and seen as the height of goodness. There could even be a great sense of bliss in restricting and depriving in order to chip away at a distant goal. It could also mean that there’s romanticizing and mythologizing of authority, a deep need to idealize paternal figureheads and put faith in tradition. This aspect forming at a specific point in time could generate a tendency to expect to be taken care of by society, for the powers that be to provide and coddle its citizens. There could be an expectancy to be redeemed through putting noses to the grindstone and get rewarded in this (or the next) life for doing the right thing, for believing in the system. With the harmonious aspects this might not be such a disastrous preconception to live by but with the harder aspect it becomes another story. With the hard aspects, Neptune-Saturn might express ad deep guilt and regret in not pursuing worldly goals or becoming successful – there could likewise be a sadness of not being receptive enough to have dreams and longings because of too much realism. There might be great defensiveness collectively against chaos as to make people paranoid to not loose control. Counter to what is desired; this fear might cause more disorder and a collapse of defense systems through the very effort of keeping them intact. Saturn has to do with boundaries and Neptune has to do with dissolution, which might indicate collective experiences of trying to keep things in but being unable to. Avoiding the “swamp” whatever form it comes in, would be the dilemma of these people’s lives and for the greater collective at this specific point in time. Escaping responsibility causes guilt and disorder and taking responsibility will cause guilt and disorder, whether it’s mental or physical or both. There’s dysfunction present at both ends. There would possibly be an undermining of authority taking place and simultaneously a stronger defensiveness around authority in order to not fall prey to the temptation of chaos.

Neptune in aspect with Uranus

With the harmonious aspects, this set of planets will combine themselves to create a common experience of looking to the future for redemption. That which is new is idealized and welcomed with open arms – change might seem like an appealing concept. Dreams of a utopian society where every individual is accepted and harmoniously coexisting without the necessity of rigid rules and structure might be prevalent. Faith in humanity and its capacity for genius to solve all its problems might come with this planetary contact. In fact, Neptune is sextile Uranus at this point in time, pointing to a longing for change and the opportunity to create something new that saves humanity from the “dark” past and elevates it to new heights of spiritual and scientific excellence. This is a highly idealistic combo that can produce genius solutions that are in line with the yearnings of the collective. The hard aspects can create tremendous despair and incapacity to pursue progress, without feeling like there’s an abandonment of the potential for redemption. These are the aspects that will sabotage any new endeavor and model in favor of remaining in a state of nebulous undifferentiated potential. New discoveries and insights made during the time of the hard aspects might produce great hurt and disillusionment in the collective. The new discoveries will seem to threaten that which is perceived as pure and sacred, the romantic ideals of humanity will be crushed in favor of breaking free from the limits of the status quo. The collective might polarize into people who want to jump on the band wagon of more advanced thought and the people who can’t abandon the “way things are” because of sentimentality and feeling ties. Either way, with the hard aspects there will be a conflict of the glamorous, timeless and bittersweet and the push to break out of the confines of old society. Neptune often symbolizes the urge to regress or transcend to reach a state of unity; Uranus symbolizes radical rebellion and revolution. With the hard aspects, there’s no way to have both. Uranus is too aggressive and might push people into emotional chaos, Neptune is too receptive and might consume and confuse people as to what is really going on in terms of thought advancement to ever come outside of their current mental framework.

(Buy products with my art) 

Neptune in aspect with Pluto

With the harmonious aspects, the Neptune-Pluto dynamic expresses itself through experience of unity through crisis. This might sound scary, but Pluto is after all representative of destruction and rebirth. With this aspect the collective longing for redemption stimulates the impulse to protect something that is necessary for survival. At this point in time Neptune is sextile Pluto, which makes sense considering the state of the world we’re in at the moment. There’s a sense of a need for survival in order to be able to guarantee a blissful destiny of humanity. The collective feeling tone is certainly categorized by fear and paranoia at this time, but also of greater oneness because the whole world is going through this pandemic. With the Neptune-Pluto sextile there’s a need for drastic measures in order to survive the pressure that is felt. The way to Eden is through the darkness. Pluto is in Capricorn, which suggests the desire to protect and control the structure of society at all costs – hard work and endurance is necessary for survival on a collective level. To ensure integrity of the building blocks of society becomes more important than anything else.

With the hard aspects between these planets, the picture becomes less appealing. The urge to merge and retreat into the world of pre/post existence to find healing and peace inevitably causes chaos and violent destruction. The collective would find that the fear and pressure that is experienced is too much to handle. Taking control and exercising power destroys all the hope of beauty and love in the world. This aspect could indicate a time of heart-breaking vulnerability and a lot of fear and need to escape into a dream of how things could be. People born around the years of 1814-1822 seem to have Neptune square Pluto in their charts if you look it up on astrotheme.com. These people would’ve been born into a collective climate of hopelessness and despair to some extent, of power wielded over the weak. There would’ve been a necessity to surrender to the threat of death, to accept the unacceptable and either give up power or use it at the expense of sensitivity and compassion. Karl Marx is a good example of an individual with the square aspect because it falls across two angular houses, Pluto in the 1st  house of self and Neptune in the 10thhouse of public image. The conflict between Neptune-Pluto is consequently evident in his persona. Publicly he’s known for his ideas about how the ideal society should be run (Neptune conjunct Uranus in the 10th). He argued that class tension and antagonism that developed under capitalism was unsustainable – the ruling classes controlling the means of production and the working class offering their labor in exchange for wages would not work in the long run in his opinion. The working class would eventually develop class-consciousness and conquer political power to establish a classless communist society. In this case, Neptune symbolizes the working class and Pluto the ruling class - in Marx’s experience these were at odds with each other (as reflected in his chart). His opinions certainly came from his inner personal tension of needing to identify as powerful (Pluto 1st house) and to offer a recipe of redemption as a part of his life’s work (Neptune in the 10th). I’m sure he felt powerful in himself, yet despairingly at loss when having to contribute to society. Undoubtedly, he felt like he had to give up his power to serve at the feet of the ruling class, to “give himself up”, like Neptune often nudges us to.

Neptune in aspect with Chiron

The harmonious aspects would translate into a peak experience through suffering, a sense of being touched by the sublime through the unintended infliction of pain, whether it’s physical or psychological. Redemption is inextricably linked with the misfortunes and wounding that can’t be cured with current scientific method. Suffering is somehow a vehicle for finding a sense of unity with the remainder of life, it makes for a transcendent experiences that allows for ecstatic bliss in conjunction with permanent damage and disability. At the point in time of the aspect’s formation there might be an unusual acceptance and romanticizing of disability, even to the point of elevating it to something divine and sacred. Knowledge and methods of healing are pursued as a means of redemption, a means of returning to Eden. Technique and skill to remedy the wounds of the collective are sought with a deeper emotional hunger. Compassion and unconditional love might be seen as the key component to healing. Artistry, creativity, music, drug use, alcohol, meditation, hypnosis and emotional surrender might be sought in the name of healing. There could be an effort to collectively spread as much knowledge and insight as possible in order to cure a little bit of the ignorance that causes so much trouble in society. Living with a permanent wound unites people, it connects the souls of the world in mutual longing to go “home”, to return to oneness. The wound stimulates a longing for fusion, which might express itself through a deep understanding of people’s suffering. Princess Diana is a perfect example of someone with the trine; she saw the universality of suffering and wasn’t hesitant to shower “love” on people with severe sickness or disability. She saw herself in people’s pain.

The hard aspects are more gruesome, as always. Personal wounds conflict with the need for fusion and a sense of oneness with existence. At the specific point in time of this aspect there might’ve been feelings in the collective of being fundamentally flawed and damaged to ever be redeemed and brought into the light of the eternal. There would’ve been great struggle to save people from irretrievable damage, yet the longing itself could cause more damage and additional feelings of insufficiency. There could’ve been a tendency to cover up the wound, numb it out and avoid looking at it in order to have a chance at something beautiful, pure and elevated. However, the escape and dissociation from it would only make it worse. The resistance to hope would potentially make the healing journey difficult. Great sympathy could be present yet it would be frequently cancelled out by stone cold realism. Chiron is the wounded healer archetype. He uses the mind and his practical skills to cope. When he’s in hard aspect with Neptune there’s going to be tension in the face of the possibility of redemption. It might only be an illusion after all, and the dark abyss of disillusionment is nothing to gamble with– consequently people would stick to the difficult but nonetheless, real, experience of pain in front of them. However when the pain of life becomes too much and one succumbs to the sweet escape through drugs, alcohol, food, tv, spiritual practices or any other method, it might backfire terribly and cause total disintegration and victimization. A good example of someone with the square is Oprah Winfrey with Chiron in the 1sthouse and Neptune in the 10th house. She’s widely known as a person of great compassion and insight – on a public level she embodies the role of the redeemer to some extent. Her identity however is that of someone who’s been wounded yet has come to terms with the burden and has learnt to live with it. She’s generally perceived to be very wise, similar to Chiron in myth. However, in her need to heal people she makes it into a show and molds the narrative to her liking or preference sometimes. She’s deeply compassionate, yet she can also expect people to live with the permanent burden of certain pains. Her Neptune draws the public in – promises redemption, but in person, she expects people to be realistic and strip their issues down without glamorizing or mythologizing.

[elliethesuperfruitlover]

Alternative Conditioner

A/N: This is going to be another Robbie fic, but I’m thinking of another person. Emotion and feelings are what I base my writing off of, that’s why it’s so vivid. Enjoy! 

Warnings: smut, lots of grinding, dry humping, unprotected sex, rough sex, choking, use of weed

  You have emotions, so does everyone else. Nobody is going to stop you from feeling how you want to feel, or something that moves you in a certain way. Feelings are feelings. Emotions are emotions. And, by now, you should’ve learned, Robbie Sheehan wearing only bamboo underwear around the house is Robbie Sheehan wearing only bamboo underwear around the house.

“Robbie!” you yell to him from the bathroom.

“Yes!” he shouts back, pausing what he was doing to listen to what you needed.

“Can you come help me get my hair washed?” you replied, holding your shampoo bottle in your hand, preparing your microfiber towel and conditioner in front of you.

  His reply was his feet pattering along the rug of your hallway, and he was tying his hair up. He reached out, but you stopped him, urging him to wash his hands.You’d been loving with Robbie since just about when quarantine started. Your house was mostly for when Robbie’s house smelt so much like sex that you had to travel over to your own abode for some time. Half of the both of yours’ time was spent either being intimate, or just having sex. The rest is spent sleeping, cuddling, or eating. It didn’t take the two of you too terribly long to open up to each other, and your relationship was going quite well.

“But they’re gonna get washed anyway!” he whined, still turning on the faucet to clean his fingers.

“I’ve no idea where the fuck your hands have been, and my hair must stay in tip top shape. None of your dick germs must reach these beautiful tendrils.” you say, doing a hair flip.

  He mumbled something that sounded like “not like I haven’t spunked in your hair before, not a big deal.” Okay, he’d run out of places to release himself, and it was right there, so he thought fuck it. The next day was a hot fucking mess, to say the least. He almost came at the sight of you, but you had other fish to fry. Your hair was already wet, so all Robbie had to do was put just the right amount of shampoo on your hair, then just massage it in. He sniffed the bottle, accidentally huffing some of it, then checked the ingredients to make sure that no harmful sulfates were going in your hair. Once he was sure that everything was in the right place, he poured an extremely generous amount of shampoo into your quickly drying hair.

“Robbie, I-. How in the name of Jesus Harold Christ did you manage to put a third of the bottle of shampoo in my hair?!” you said, looking at it coating your hair, slowly dripping back into the sink.

“Hehe, oops.” he said, pushing the bottle away, and getting it away from him. He didn’t want to spill the remaining contents on the floor, and or your or his eyes. He began to rub it into your scalp, trying not to tangle your hair too terribly badly. You toweled away the excess, and wrapped it around your neck to avoid the entire wet t-shirt situation. Robbie began to slowly tease you, nipping at dry spots on your neck, and kissing them softly. He tongued them afterwards, and he lost focus on your hair, and began to give you hickeys and lovebites, moaning into them. He looked you in your eyes, piercing them, and leaning his head back.

  He continued his motions, and whenever you let out a noise, he mimicked it, grinding into your ass, your shorts not doing much to hide the feeling. It was hot at the moment, and the air conditioner was quite poor at its job. You ground back into him, sending him into a fuss of whimpers, and your hair sat forgotten, the shampoo soaking into your roots. You straighten yourself out, and he uses one hand to grab your hair, pulling it, then reaches the other into your shorts, delving into the heat he’d made you create. You moaned earnestly, and Robbie placed his feet on the other side of yours’, getting better leverage to get himself off. Two fingers made their way into you, covered in your excretions. He scissored them in and out of you, his thumb flicking at your clitoris, eyes rolling back into your head. Robert arched his back, then started dry humping you, and you bent over, taking it like he wanted. There the two of you were, getting off on each other, closing in on your orgasms. The edge was getting closer and closer, like a kayak on the river rapids, rushing towards the waterfall. Your euphoria stretched itself out, and you yelled Robbie’s name into the air. He kissed along your neck, and when you tried grinding back into him, he pushed your hips away, then made quick work of your hair.

   You made no big deal of Robbie’s lack of orgasm, sometimes he liked to be teased to the peak, only to be worked back up again. You rinsed your hair for the last time, then put a towel over it to help the drying process. You were quite hungry, and in your post-orgasmic haze, you ate an entire apple, and sat on the floor, still suffering aftershocks. On the patio, the birds chirped, and cicadas buzzed, calling to their brethren from the trees. The trees swayed, and the sun beamed on the grass, creating an illusion of rainbows on the ground. For a while, you sat there in the majesty of nature, taking small breaths, letting the sun soak into your skin. Your hair had long dried when you emerged from your relaxing moment, and the house was the same from when you abandoned it. However, Robert had other plans.

“Oh! Yes, right there!” he said from somewhere in the house. So he was trying to reach his own orgasm. He really is horny all of the time, it seems. You slowly made your way to the hallway, your feet becoming a whisper of their usual yells. The bathroom door was cracked, and just through it, you saw Robbie touching himself, and he was grinding against the side of the counter, peeking his eyes out to look at himself.

  You opened the door completely, and stepped as quietly as possible towards him, and you held your breath. You snuck up from behind him, and he didn’t notice. You were so close to him that you could see every hair of peach fuzz on his lightly tanned face. His long eyelashes fluttered delicately on his skin, eyes wrinkling when a finger brushed against his balls, making him let out a gasp. You looked down at his sex, and saw the beads of pre cum spilling from his tip, lubricating his length. His thumb swiped along the tip, just as it did to your bundle of nerves just a little while ago. You took a risk, and breathed on his neck, causing Robbie to open his eyes, their pupils wide with lust, the green and gold sparkle barely visible. His hand sped up, but you had other plans for him. Your mouth found its way to his neck, biting the skin taut, and licking it after its torture was over. Breathy moans left his mouth, and his hips thrust up into his hand, causing a chain reaction. You kiss down the side of his body, your swollen lips meeting his hip bone.

  Your knees bent in front of him, then took his length whole into your wet awaiting mouth. You licked his tip, dipping it into the hole leading to his urethra. You kissed his cock gently, like you did his neck after you attacked it, and he whimpered at your actions, his hand going to the counter for leverage. He thrust into your mouth, and your lips closed completely around him, and you took him deep, handling him to the very hilt. His eyes closed shut, and his cock twitched as he released his seed down your throat, and you almost choked on his semen, but swallowed the warm liquid, and you kissed his tip one last time before leaving him to his devices in recovery. You walked down the hallway, then collapsed on the couch, your hand covering your face.

  Robbie’s underwear clad ass was sitting directly in front of you when you woke up, and you thought that you were being pranked. Turns out, he was just practicing his yoga, and trying to calm his fast nerves. Those were the simple things that you enjoyed with your relationship with Robbie. The two of you could just walk around the house naked, or with you topless, and there would be no bullshit over it. Home is somewhere that you two were free to say what you wanted, and do what you wanted, without societal pressures or judging eyes. Neither of you wanted to be that asshole, and just purely respected each other’s likes and dislikes.

Which was why you smacked his ass when it got even closer to you.

“Hey! What the hell was that for?” he said, rubbing his bottom, and looking around to face you.

“Y’know waking up with an ass in front of my face isn’t horrible, but I would appreciate it if I wasn’t at constant risk of getting farted on.” you replied, smiling sarcastically at him.

  He giggled, then went forward to kiss your lips, his slightly chapped ones smacking quietly against yours. The two of you sat there for a moment, making out, and exploring each other once again. He climbed onto the couch, and stuck his hands in your hair, traveling to your ass, which he grabbed and smacked to his content. You did the same, running your nails down his back when his hands neared your pussy, already becoming soaking wet for him. You sat on his lap, and began grinding into his crotch, lifting yourself up and down on his quickly hardening length. The two of you quickly undressed, and your nipples brushed against lightly muscled chest, and he tumbled on top of you, giving your eyes a quick look, silently asking for consent. You gave him full eye contact, and he looked down to level his cock to your hole, pushing his head in very slowly. He thrust in inch by inch, little grunts making their way past his parted lips. You whined at the intrusion, and he moved hips in pace with your heartbeats, taking his time to please you. The noise of his cock penetrating you became louder in your head. Your hands made their way back to his bottom, and they pushed him further into you, urging Rob to speed up.

“Patience, my dear. You can’t always get everything you want.”

“But you know what I want, and you also want that. I want you to fill me, and fuck me, and let your balls slap against me please. And thank you.” you said into his ear, biting it after your words.

  Robbie shuddered, then tucked his head into your neck, and your feet found their way to the arm of the couch. He was shocked at your flexibility, but began to pound you into the cushion. The sound of the springs squeaking at the speed of his thrusts filled your ears, and his moans joined in the chorus. The house was soon filled with noise, and the beautiful thought of sex was heavy in your heads. He began kissing along your clavicle, and bit it at the peak of his own release. His cum filled you, and spurted from the tip of his dick. He moaned and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, his back arched, and his chest touched yours. He pulled out, then made very quick work of you. His head shoved itself between your legs, and he ate his cum out of you, every last drop, and his face was covered in it. His fingers splayed across your breasts, squeezing them, and spanking them. Your toes curled by his head, and his tongue slurped along your walls, collecting your soon-to-be release. You were whimpering at his antics, and he looked up at you with such a dirty touch in his eyes, and sent you over the edge. You came into his hair, fully soaking him with your liquids, making him laugh.

“What’s so funny? I mean, I’ve squirted before.” you ask, confusion on your face.

“Now I’m the one who has to wash his hair. It’s all over my face.” he says, smile decorating his wet head.

  You join in on the laughter, and call it a day. You could stand, and Robbie smacked your ass when you began heading for the bathroom to shower. You chuckled at him, then spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out, still, how his cum ended up in your freshly washed hair.

Masterlist

[swordoforion]

Orion Digest No. 13 - Finding Balance in the Face of Crisis

The causes of the climate crisis are clear - unsustainable growth in terms of what we produce and how much we use in order to do so. Making more than we need leads to a subsequent growth in population, which leads to producing even more of a surplus, and so on until we run out of space and resources, and we're stuck with a large population that can no longer get jobs or afford to live, as well as a planet that cannot deal with both the capacity of humans and the method by which we produce goods. This, obviously, is a bad thing, for it spells the collapse of our current environment, and with it the conditions necessary for long term human survival.

So, if that is the problem, how do we fix it?

The problem of climate change is a war on two fronts - we must both fight the symptoms of the disease, as well as get to the root cause of it. If you have a rat problem in a house, you need to find a way to remove the rats, sure, but you also need to determine where they got in, so the problem will not persist - otherwise, you gain but a momentary victory. Just the same, while we need to focus on healing some of the damage, we also must make sure the practices that caused climate change in the first place are worked out of our society.

For alleviating symptoms, much of it comes down to understanding what we need and what we want. There are many modern comforts and distractions that we have lived without, and could live without once again, this time with the benefit of science to give us a leg up on the past. For example, mass transportation and non-polluting forms of getting around quicker are a bit more inconvenient, but help us cut back on the amount of motor vehicles in activity. Growing more of our own food may take more work than buying it directly from stores, but will decrease the amount of mass production that is needed to make readily accessible food. Really, products and services that we don't really need take up much more resources than we usually think about.

And I don't mean to say that every feature of our modern world is something we could do without. On the contrary, much of our modern technology and continuing innovation as actually shown improvement in decreasing the emissions it creates, and society has benefitted from many inventions over the last few centuries that have saved lives, connected us, and broadened our horizons. I will not advocate to get rid of computers as I write this from my laptop, but I think so many of the small things we overlook could have the biggest impact - I could live without sugary snack foods that come in boxes and plastic wrap, and make do with more natural foods, if it for the sake of the environment.

But to pin the blame on our consumption would be to ignore a much larger problem, and that is where we shift from the symptoms to the cause of the disease we seek to cure. For the Industrial Revolution didn't just bring about an age of technological development - it brought about an age of societal development. The culture of capitalism orchestrated a constant need for growth, as well as an idea of elitism that persist to this day. Whether exemplified in capitalist economics, where the most powerful corporations try to get ever richer, or in nationalist politics, where countries and factions within them do whatever they can to acquire political and military power, we've developed a world of might-makes-right instead of equal and shared prosperity. While this may seem a separate issue from environmentalism, the two are intertwined.

To eliminate the cause of the climate crisis, we need to realize the necessary limits on our growth, at least until we reach a point in development where we can expand our economy and population with a greater pool of resources (something that would come about once we are a spacefaring people). To realize such a thing requires changes in both economic structure and cultural awareness - at this point in our history, we should realize that mutual survival dictates a need for cooperation, and that we must think of the greater good above our personal benefit. This doesn't mean some should starve to conserve food - that is a misconception that is publicized to create fear against movements for eco-friendly changes.

In actuality, it means that the dream and quest for obscene wealth have no place in a world by the people, for the people, with around half of Earth's resources in the hands of around 1% of it's population. Instead of building a global society around empowering the few on the backs of the many, we could use those resources to aid both people and planet, to provide housing and food while helping damaged areas to recover and repopulate. And once that wealth is used to set us on the right path, we move forward not trying to produce as much as we can, but as much as we need.

From there on out, democratically run businesses - by the people, for the people - would produce needed goods and services, but a stable society would move forward in what we create, not how much we create of it - a focus on quality, not quantity. If we slowed down the exponential rate of our population growth, we could remain stable around where we are, and where we decrease our output and non-renewable energy usage, we could increase our study into eco-friendly technologies, using the rest period to better figure out a harmony between modern society and coexisting with nature.

For, in reality, we could exist much better than we believe we can if not pushed along by the expansionist nature of capitalism and nationalism. It's not, as some fear, a dystopian vision of forcing people not to have children, of living in poverty without air conditioning or the internet or transportation, of having to live a primal lifestyle. Even now, we learn more every day about how we can integrate sustainability into our world, and the adjustments that the common citizen would have to make would be minimal. Every day, I'm sure you hear about things like 'turning the lights off when you leave a room', 'making sure you don't waste water', and these things would really do well, if it weren't for the elephant in the room of economic giants that produce bigger and bigger amounts of waste.

Besides, there are things we can learn from the past as well as the present. Appreciating the beauty of the natural world around us and exploring areas right outside our door that we take for granted can make Earth seem so much bigger than it appears to be when everything is all connected. Life is all about balance - too much to either one side, and we lose important parts of it.

I fear that, given the complexities of this topic, I may have rambled on for a while, so in summary, I will state the case plainly. The climate crisis is the biggest threat to humanity we have ever faced, and it is one we cannot ignore and must act swiftly to alleviate. However, the abolition of capitalism and the power of a world federation that knows what needs to be done could, with the right steps, set us back on a path to a brighter future, for if we know how we got here, we know how to take a few steps back. The use of the wealth of the upper class could easily provide short term solutions and plant the seeds for regrowth, and a cultural emphasis on simplicity and a less consumerist lifestyle would decrease our output and encourage healthier lifestyle and cultural habits, allowing us more time that we desperately need before we re-enter a period of drastic growth.

This is not to say that such solutions would be immediately necessary - hundreds of years of devastation upon such vital parts of our planet are not fixed overnight, and recovery would be slow. We may never truly undo the scars upon our planet, and one day, what we have done may finally catch up with us. But I have hope, for if we cannot stop it, we can at least slow it, and work together to find a way beyond the limits of Earth, to the stars and to new homes, carrying the lessons of past, present, and future with us. And, if we are able to truly enforce such meaningful changes in our society, perhaps it might not be too late after all. No one can know the future, but we can choose a bright path and have hope.

- DKTC FL

[him-e]

anon asks:

Hi! I really enjoy your asoiaf m/eta - I was wondering, do you think that Jaime is on his best way to become Tywins "true heir", a scenario in which Brienne has a role similar to Joanna's? I.e. Jaime's genuine affection for her becomes his only sympathetic quality in the end, much like Tywin's genuine love for his wife appears to have been is only truly likable trait? Not to reduce Brienne (or Joanna) to that alone, but it would emphasize Jaime's doom and her rise nicely.

Hi, thank you! A couple things first, before I sink my teeth into the rest:

a) this is in no way an objective statement, but no matter how his arc ends, even if it goes the darkest way possible, Jaime has plenty of sympathetic traits (not necessarily qualities, mind) that allow me to find him relatable, and this makes him ALREADY incomparable with Tywin;

b) I don’t believe in love being a sympathetic quality or a mitigating factor per se, and I don’t think people who love are necessarily one step closer to *goodness* than people who don’t. For example, while I don’t see Stannis as necessarily incapable of love—I quite like the idea that under his stern facade there’s a lot of feelings, for his child, for Jon, for Davos, and maybe even for Melisandre, on top of his complex issues with his own brothers—even if we stick to the interpretation of Stannis as a loveless character, I don’t think this diminishes his fundamental goodness. On the other hand, there are the Lannisters, who are fifty shades of questionable, but they ALLL love so much!

The truth is that anyone can feel love. It’s not that special, you know? It’s just a human emotion—powerful, but not inherently moral. Not intrinsically a virtue, an end to be pursued at all costs, in itself and for itself, as traditional romantic narratives would want you to believe.

This is particularly true for a character like Jaime, who has been established as a lover since his first notable appearance in the books.

“The things I do for love (he said with loathing)” is probably his most iconic line, and it’s no coincidence that it’s associated to the TERRIBLEST, EVILEST THING he’s ever done (no irony). Jaime's debut in asoiaf is tied to the concept that lovers aren’t ALWAYS right just because they love, and to some extent the character himself is aware of it ("loathing” refers not to Bran, whom Jaime has really no reason to loathe lol, but to “the things I do”, aka the repulsive action he’s about to commit in the name of his love for Cersei). So the idea that Jaime’s ~one and only~ sympathetic quality can be his love for Brienne, when loving is both his original sin and virtually the only thing he’s done in his life, doesn’t work for me. (you might argue: but Jaime’s love for Cersei is incestuous and Badwrong, and Cersei herself is Bad whereas Brienne is Good! yeah, I think that line of reasoning is a slippery slope, because it places all the emphasis and the responsibility on who you love rather than how you love, as if the moral fiber and ~appropriateness~ of the object of your love is what makes your love noble. Mind, this is a very courtly-romance logic, so it’s nothing especially offensive, but I still don’t like its implications. It runs a bit too close to “bad people don’t deserve to be loved” to suit me).

with that said…

denying the centrality of love in these novels would be a terrible mistake. George is a romantic, and his attitude towards some romantic tropes isn’t deconstructionist at all, but rather a vibrant (albeit complex) celebration of them. Yet not all fictional depictions of romantic love are equal: I think Jaime/Brienne and Tywin/Joanna belong to two different genres. 

Jaime/Brienne is essentially a fairytale. It’s, of course, Beauty and the Beast. A tale about transformative love—love as acceptance of the other, love as understanding of the other, love as healing, love as the driving force for a radical viewpoint shift, a change of attitude and lifestyle (symbolized in the original tale by the physical metamorphosis of the Beast), love as having an actual positive impact on the world. As everyone knows, Martin loves the trope and makes it integral, more or less subtly, to several dynamics throughout the books. It has been stated repeatedly, even by the author himself, that Jaime and Brienne is one of those; the only question is whether there will be a subversion, and to which degree. Personally I’ve always seen as subversive the way GRRM gets rid of the problematic goodness = beauty equation (that exists in the original because fairytales are highly archetypal and symbolic and they rely heavily on simple visual associations, but they’re also inevitably intertwined with societal/cultural biases and the primordial fear of the imperfect and the deviant) and throws in the mix a Beauty who is actually Super Ugly! and a Beast who is a splendid, glorious, golden lion. When the Beauty is the Beast and the Beast is the Beauty, and the gender stereotypes inherent to the trope are repeatedly broken, the metamorphosis is necessarily mutual.

Can this fairytale have a tragic ending? Absolutely. Martin is a master at this—it’s actually what his deconstruction is about, taking fantasy/fairytale tropes and adapting them to completely different genres, causing that sort of cognitive dissonance in the reader, who isn’t used to see THAT trope take THAT form (see: “Martin kills all the heroes!”). However, whatever the deconstruction at work is in JB’s case, i doubt it will end up completely negating the transformative nature of the trope itself. But let’s set this aside for now, because it’s not relevant to the discussion.

Tywin/Joanna is different in genre, scope, meaning, basic tropes. To begin with, I don’t see Joanna as the Beauty to Tywin’s Beast. There’s no clash between two conflicting worldviews here; their love isn’t of the transformative kind, it’s a love that cemented their established identity, rather than challenge it. I think this pairing is written around a completely different cluster of tropes—the power couple, the “behind a powerful man there’s always a powerful woman”, and the dead mother/wife. I like to think of Joanna’s death as transformative in the sense that it represents the loss of the feminine---it creates an unbalance in an already awfully masculine-coded family, whose aftershocks still affect the lives of all her children even decades later. In short, Tywin/Joanna is a tragedy.

(seriously: if you’re looking for a parallel to Tywin/Joanna in Jaime’s narrative, a “humanizing the monster” kind of love, look no further than Jaime/Cersei. Jaime’s love for Cersei humanizes him, and Cersei’s love for Jaime (and her children) humanizes her. Unfortunately, the narrative makes it clear that theirs is a (figuratively) sterile, doomed kind of love. Like in a greek tragedy, we feel sympathy as we clutch our chests in anticipation for its inevitable collapse. Fate did to Tywin/Joanna what a downward spiral of irreconcilable differences, deep-seated grudges and destructive actions did to Jaime/Cersei, but the end point is equally tragic.)

Also: Jaime’s BATB dynamic with Brienne is not a “sympathetic” footnote squeezed in between his villain arc A and villain arc B, nor something that can be reduced to “his only likable trait” and waved off. It’s a crucial aspect of his arc (and Brienne’s, who is—let’s not forget—a major player from AFFC on) and has ramifications on the overall plot (Oathkeeper, sending Brienne after Sansa, Lady Stoneheart, not to mention the discussion around honor and oaths that is a central theme in asoiaf). It’s not a coincidence that Jaime is introduced as a pov only after he meets Brienne. This dynamic is integral to the story George is telling.

In comparison, Joanna (and by extension Tywin/Joanna) is something that belongs to the past, and only affects our story indirectly. It’s a dead character and a dead relationship. And that’s what marks the biggest differences, not only with Jaime/Brienne but also with Jaime/Cersei. Joanna, in the context of the narrative, is remarkable for her ABSENCE. It’s her death, the void that she created much more than her life, that has an impact on the characters. It doesn’t help that Tywin, the one person who’s able to remember her as a fully fledged human being, isn’t a pov either. GRRM gives us only scraps, and it’s up to those of us who care to put together the pieces of the puzzle of who Joanna used to be. This is, of course, a despicably convenient treatment of a female character on the author’s part, even more despicable since it’s not an isolate case in asoiaf. There’s no easier way than a dead mother to fabricate a sad background for your protagonist, and it also solves the problem of making her fit within the narrative, giving her an actual personality and things to do, etc. We expect better from a writer of Martin’s calibre, and that’s where the criticism comes from.

But lazy sexist writing aside, why does George give us so little?

I think it’s (in no small part) because he understands the power of certain romantic tropes, how they seduce the reader’s imagination—how humanizing they are. Tywin’s love for Joanna and Joanna’s love for Tywin, if explored in depth, would humanize Tywin to the nth degree.

But Tywin isn’t supposed to be given the sympathetic treatment. Of course, GRRM knows better than make him a cardboard villain, so he gives him nuance, he gives him contradictions, among which there’s a dead wife he loved fiercely. But he doesn’t flesh it out. He doesn’t give us a detailed story, only scattered bits and pieces, generally second and third hand information. This relationship isn’t made for the stage but for behind the curtains, because Tywin’s ~feelings~ need to remain veiled and largely inaccessible to us, just as his inner monologue is: we aren’t supposed to sympathize.

Jaime, on the other hand? Jaime gets a pov and TWO romantic relationships fleshed out in depth, one of which is a BATB dynamic with a heroine. His heart is on stage for everyone to see in a way Tywin’s heart isn’t—cannot be. I think it’s essential to recognize that Jaime and Tywin occupy different spaces in the narrative, and their potential to be seen as sympathetic characters is largely different. It’s hard for me not to see authorial intent in the way Jaime is perceived VS how Tywin is perceived.

This brings me to the other question you raised, if Jaime is on his way to become Tywin’s true heir. I can only try to answer this is by looking at what motivates him, at what could be a significant and satisfying resolution of the issues his character raises. 

Jaime never cared for power but, like every Lannister, he strives for greatness. Now that that greatness is unachievable through his swordfighting skills, he’s looking in other directions, other possible fields to excel in. One of those is certainly Tywin: family. The other is knighthood: his other family. Both failed him, and he failed them both. The way Jaime failed knighthood is obvious to everyone, but the way he failed his ~responsibility~ towards house Lannister is subtler: by trading his birthright for a place at Cersei’s side, he basically washed his hands clean, giving Tywin free rein to further hate and abuse Tyrion in an escalation of desperate and delusional attempts to avert the latter’s ascension as heir to Casterly Rock, that climaxed with Tyrion being accused of regicide and Tywin’s death. There’s a great image in Jaime’s narrative, of the crimson and gold Lannister sigil VS the white shield of the kingsguard, but the real question isn’t which one Jaime will eventually /choose/... it’s whether he’ll ever realize he can be NEITHER. 

The great lion of Lannister? That’s Tyrion. Every attempt to turn the clock back is futile. The Rock is Tyrion’s by right since the moment Jaime chose to step back and join the Kingsguard for life.

And the white shield… is Brienne. It’s always been her.

a scenario in which Brienne has a role similar to Joanna’s […] would emphasize Jaime’s doom and her rise nicely

But is Jaime Tywin in this scenario, or is he Joanna?

Because Joanna died so that Tywin could rise as the character we all know (once again, I side-eye the idea of Joanna being Tywin’s “conscience” or her death being his ~villain origin story~, but it certainly made him more unbalanced). For the parallel to work, Brienne has to die for Jaime to rise (as a true villain, as his father’s heir, as Cersei’s valonqar, whatever), which has been speculated, and which I’m aggressively AGAINST. Because Brienne is the next generation, Brienne is a character who can have a REAL positive impact on the world, while Jaime… let’s be real, Jaime is a relic. He’s a relic of Robert’s rebellion, of a time that doesn’t exist anymore. The “Greatness” ship has sailed for him long ago: 

he’s never going to do anything as remarkable and controversial as murdering Aerys (oh sure, there’s Cersei, but I wouldn’t consider killing her an accomplishment. A mediocre rehash of his one and only teenage hit, at best)

he’s never going to be Arthur Dayne, either. Who the fuck wants to be Arthur Dayne anyway? That guy kept a pregnant girl prisoner. Being THAT guy would be only a regression for Jaime. He understood that there are orders you can’t follow at seventeen, why should he revert to performing his duty uncritically at thirty-five?

oh, and of course, he’s not going to outmatch Tywin. DUH, he’s TRYING, but it isn’t a primary concern or a central motivation for him the way it is for Cersei, for example. Everything he accomplishes in his military campaign in the Riverlands, he does only because people fear Tywin’s shadow, not his own. We can talk until next week about whether the trebuchet threat crowns him as Tywin’s true successor, or is actually a strategy more similar to the way Jon and Dany (and Ned) use their enemies’ children to maintain THEIR peace terms (which are fair and righteous whereas Jaime’s aren’t, and that makes all the difference of the world, or not, ymmv!), but what really matters is how his military campaign ends: he dumps garrison, orders and all without a note as soon as girlfriend shows up with a missing cheek and a quest to fulfill. It’s not that he lacks the intelligence or the ferocity to follow Tywin’s steps—he lacks the resolve. He lacks the commitment, because he’s always, perpetually, split in two.

I think it’s that split, and his ultimately futile attempts to become great at one thing or the other when BOTH are no longer available for him, that is the central obstacle that Jaime needs to overcome. Because Jaime wants Honor and Glory, but you know what Honor and Glory are?

Two horses.

Enter the valonqar impasse, and a lot of speculation on Jaime focuses on how he will ~choose violence~. He’ll drop all pretenses of honor, forget about Goldenhand the Just, (optionally) embrace his role as a Lannister commander and dig his own grave in a pointless, doomed last stand to hold Casterly Rock from Tyrion’s attack, and when it falls, kill Cersei and himself. And to be honest, a lot of this sounds plausible enough—I think it’s almost a given that at some point he goes back to Casterly Rock, has a last confrontation with Tyrion, and yeah, likely kills Cersei. 

But it’s a tad too close to Tywin’s wishes to suit me: sure, Tywin would never want Jaime to kill Cersei and commit suicide, but would he want him to defend Casterly Rock against Tyrion? Fuck yes. He’d be DELIGHTED to see Jaime step up as his ~heir~ and fight against his own paranoia of Tyrion the monster child eating the Rock from the inside just like he devoured Joanna’s life. The greatest irony about Tywin is that the kid he wanted to be his heir couldn’t be more ill-suited for the role, whereas it’s the other two—the girl and the dwarf—who deserve to claim that role for themselves. Why change that in the end? More to the point, how does Brienne factor in this? What kind of impact does she leave? Jaime’s resolve to embrace his role as the heir to Lannister does not, in any shape or form, need Brienne to happen. Nor does his choice to fight against Tyrion, or to murder Cersei. Tyrion confessed Joffrey’s murder, and the relationship with Cersei was meant to go to shit since the moment Jaime lost his hand and stopped being her perfect mirror, possibly even earlier. Remove Brienne from Jaime’s entire timeline, and you still have basically the same arc. OF COURSE, Brienne’s importance on the story doesn’t hinge on her impact on Jaime’s narrative. But I wonder what’s the point---like, structurally---of writing a BATB dynamic where transformative love is a crucial aspect, and end it with “and so they parted ways and each one continued to do the shit THEY WERE GOING TO DO ANYWAY, Brienne as the knight who believes in vows and Jaime as... whatever Jaime’s up to”. Bruh, what a waste of narrative space.

And this is where I switch to purely speculative/wish fulfillment mode, so, HANDLE WITH CAUTION, lol. I think Jaime will reject both Honor and Glory and die as the Kingslayer, as nobody’s heir, as the Lannister who lost the Rock, unredeemed… in the eyes of everyone but us, and whoever will be holding his hand in the last moment.

A few weeks ago, I went to see Logan. As I watched Wolverine sacrifice himself so that his daughter and the new generation of heroes could, well, inherit the world, so that they could have a chance for redemption when it’s too late for him, I thought, THIS, this is I want from Jaime. To die, but not before he’s pushed HIS heir forward, the person who will save the world, who will be the hero he cannot be. To “plant seeds in a garden you never get to see”. Unlike Joanna, who had no choice in this nor any idea of how important Tyrion was going to be for the world, I want it to be Jaime’s decision. This is the only way we can go back to “the things I do for love” and redeem that statement.

Because it’s that statement, even more than Jaime himself, that needs redemption. What matters isn’t the “for love” part, it’s the “do”. See, Jaime has already done something unequivocally good for love. He jumped in a bearpit and saved Brienne. So why are we still having this debate? Because, well, the scope of that action was limited to him and Brienne, to that particular circumstance, and to the relationship between them. There’s still something egotistical in saving the life of someone you care for—it’s still a “I’m doing this because you are important to ME” logic. Me, me, me. The real heroism, the real sacrifice, is renouncing to the person you love—renouncing to your “dream of spring”, so that others can have it. It’s what Brienne does, when asked “sword or noose”. It DESTROYS her, but she INSTANTLY gets that her feelings of loyalty, devotion and, yes, love for Jaime are no justification for letting two innocent people die.

AND THIS IS WHAT MAKES HER THE REAL DEAL, FOLKS.

We still have to see how Jaime receives the choice she made. Badly, some argue, he’ll be pissed and she’ll fall from grace in his eyes, because what else can the Lady Stoneheart ordeal be if not a plot device to make Jaime go finally berserk, a set up for the valonqar? But I think the whole incident is going to leave Jaime genuinely Shook (TM). Not only because he’s suddenly getting all the receipts of why he’s a bad person in his face, not only because he’ll see what his father’s brilliant military logic has done to a formerly admirable woman like Catelyn, but also because Brienne’s lesson will HURT the way TRUTH hurts. He’s a person who’s sacrificed a lot for love, thinking it was worthwhile; Brienne’s choice will prove that it’s not. That he should have sacrificed his love to do the right thing, instead.

You need to serve something greater than your own emotions. This is the most important of Brienne’s lessons, and I think there’s a possibility that Jaime actually UNDERSTANDS it, because that would be the ULTIMATE change, for him. (so powerful that it could potentially break that thrice damned prophecy, even.) To see that his feelings, desires, hopes and dreams aren’t important. It’s neither Honor nor Glory, and in the end, it’s not even Love. It’s about doing the right thing, full stop.

I realize this is very fanficcy, but boy, do I love Jaime Lannister and want his arc to end in a not completely nihilistic way. :)

(sorry it took me so long!)

[mukyoucom]

Far Cry 5 – What Awaits You in Hope County, Montana

From Playstation Blog USA

You’re stranded behind enemy lines in cult-occupied Hope County, Montana, and nobody’s coming to help you. Eden’s Gate, a veritable army of fanatics, has finally made its move and locked down the area, leaving you and every Hope County resident in cult territory. Now you’re standing alone against deadly odds in Big Sky Country, with no bars on your phone and only one way to stop the madness: take down Joseph Seed, the self-styled prophet of Eden’s Gate, and free Hope County from his campaign to save souls by force. And if you’re going to survive long enough to do that, you’re going to need to make some friends. Welcome to Far Cry 5, coming February 27 to PlayStation 4.

To hear Executive Producer and Creative Director Dan Hay tell it, Far Cry 5 is equal parts isolation and community, adventure and resistance. It’s a game that’s as much about finding common cause with like-minded people on a dangerous frontier as it is about exploration and explosions.

“You go out into the world and you meet people for the first time, you don’t know them, maybe they don’t trust you,” says Hay. “But if you can strike a deal with them, if you can have a conversation with them and make them part of what it is you’re building, they can join your resistance.

“It’s definitely about chaos, and there’s a lot of that in this,” says Hay. “But it’s also about building a beautiful world, and that’s a thing we want to introduce you to. We went to Montana, and we fell in love with it. It’s stunning.”

Hay and his team spent around 14 days in Montana during development, meeting locals and seeing firsthand what the state has to offer. They found beautiful countryside with diverse biomes and wildlife, all of which create tons of opportunities for outdoor activity. They also found people who impressed the developers with their sense of self-reliance.

“We met a lot of people who didn’t want to be messed with,” says Hay. “They want to be left alone. And there was this feeling of being able to take care of themselves. And it created this sense of a frontier, and a remoteness, that really resonated with us. But what happens when somebody else shows up and says, ‘yeah, I agree with you, don’t trust the government, we can do it ourselves, and I will provide’?” All of a sudden you create this petri dish, this magnet for crazy, which is where Eden’s Gate goes.”

At the top of Eden’s Gate sits The Father, Joseph Seed, who believes that societal collapse is imminent, and that a voice has commanded him to save as many souls as possible before that happens, whether they like it or not. While meeting with cult experts, however, the developers discovered that cults aren’t generally kept together by a single, charismatic leader, but by a hierarchy of people working together to accomplish specific goals.

In Eden’s Gate’s case, those people are Jacob, a 20-year Army veteran in charge of security; John, a lawyer who acts as the cult’s public face while aggressively buying up property for it; and Faith, who keeps the cult’s members pacified and “rowing in the same direction,” according to Hay.

“We look back at some of the characters that we’ve created before, and we’ve had those key moments where you sit down with them, and you look at them eye to eye,” says Hay. “But we kind of did it with one character at a time, and each game was a face-off. This time, we thought it’d be really interesting if we created a cast of characters [like that]. They each have their own personalities, and each even have their own agenda.”

It won’t just be the antagonists that get that kind of attention, either. Remember those friends we mentioned at the beginning? Potential allies are all over Far Cry 5’s Montana, and if you can convince them to stand up against the cult, you’ll be able to recruit them to follow you into battle. And unlike the interchangeable rebels of Far Cry 3 and 4, these Guns for Hire are unique characters with special skills, unique backstories, and distinct personalities.

Our first look at three of these characters in Far Cry 5 included Pastor Jerome Jeffries, a former parish priest who was driven out of his church, beaten, and left for dead by Eden’s Gate – and who now takes up arms to defend those the cult wants to oppress. We also met Mary May Fairgrave, a second-generation saloon owner who’s lost her family business to the cult’s predatory real-estate schemes, and Nick Rye, a cropduster pilot who’s ready to start raining down bullets to defend his family.

“When we see those characters come to life, when we see that they’re not just AI waiting around to give you a mission, they have real personalities, they have opinions about stuff – the world feels real,” says Hay. All of these elements – the world, the cult, the resistance you build – work together to create a world that feels believable while still giving you free rein to wreak havoc across an open countryside with a huge array of weaponry and armed vehicles. It’s a balancing act, but one that Far Cry is uniquely suited to pull off.

“The nice thing about games maturing is, we’re getting closer and closer to films and television in terms of the stories we can tell,” says Hay. “And I think it means we can start to tackle situations and characters that are a little more complex. It’s still ours – it’s our Montana, it’s our county, it’s our cult – but it means that we’ve grown up enough to be able to tackle that. Even though it’s a tough subject, it works in the game, and we feel like we can own it.”

Far Cry 5 launches February 27 for PlayStation 4, and you’ll be able to see a lot more of it on June 12, when Ubisoft’s E3 press conference kicks off at 1:00pm Pacific Time.

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