#literally ALL of my classes are in the same building

[glypt0don]

So, this is quite a rant. You can skip to the bottom, if you want to know my opinion but don't want to read that much... But I worked hard on it and I think it's important, so it would make me very happy if you read through the whole text.

So this fits into something I wanted to post about anyway: a broader theme of why do we frame things as wars? Like, why is it culture war, specifically. First I liked the concept, I thought it described something quite complicated reasonably easily. But I pondered on it a bit more and I think there's more going on.

It's pretty trivial, that most societies went through a huge change over the last half century. It's not just feminism. I could make a whole list of things we as a people took on. Anti-racism and civil rights, religious acceptance, global trade, reinterpreting the meaning of peace, connecting the word through the world-wide web, etc. We ( or, as I am barely an adult and have no idea how to change things for the better, I should say you, or maybe chat) decided it was time for change, so change came. You brought it about.

And I agree. Change WAS and IS necessary. What that change should entail, well, we all have our ideas, right? And they have the ugly tendency to differ from each other. The question then is, how do we coincide our contradictory ideas on society? The answer is both worrying and very important.

To be fair, our race doesn't have a great track record on solving these kinds of issues. I dug into my historical knowledge, since, you know, those who don't learn from it, repeat it... The only thing I can compare to what's happening today would be the Reformation (which probably says a lot about my historical knowledge). That's the only time I know, where societal assumptions were altered so much in such a short time. That time it was specifically about the Catholic church (if you don't know, what I'm talking about, you really should, so Google it), and the result was a series of wars, that ultimately may have wiped out about a fifth of Europes population. The wars were of course led by powerful men, who capitalised on the divide to further their own goals.

As back then, now too, we can't rely on institutions to tame the public. Many media and political identities have a direct interest in polarising society. Because that's what happens. All these contentious issues about gender, class, or foreign policy become dividing lines between folks who are supposed to be parts of the same whole (call it community, state, nation or humanity, depending on how wide you can think). You know, how it works, probably saw it a few times, whatever your interests are. It's literally everywhere! We fight it out with the perceived enemy of the week sometimes, when there is an election, something notable happens, or it's simply Pride Month. Then everyone goes back to their respective corners, where they vehemently agree with themselves. We don't talk a lot, just throw words at each other, like Buggs Bunny, playing tennis with a dynamite.

I should say, this post is a notable and refreshing outlier. Thanks, @trans-androgyne , for starting a discussion for a change!

I know, it's a bit like nuclear armament. You can't just stop, because THEY won't, and then they win, and you can't allow that. It's life and death! And I don't have some magic pill to make it all go right, or believe me, I wouldn't sit here, typing this out at 3 in the morning Central European Time. But let me propose this: don't call it a war! Neither culture war, nor gender war, nor anything like that. Because this isn't a war. Just ask anyone in the middle east! They can tell you, what is war, and THIS IS NOT IT! And also, because it may not be guns and destruction yet, but nothing guarantees, that it stays that way. We already had multiple attempted takeovers of capital buildings since this cursed decade began, because our social reality became so fragmented, that you can't accept the results of a popular election anymore. That should raise alarm bells. I know it does, but it can be much worse! Learn from history, do not repeat it! Hit the Wiki page on the Huguenot war! On the siege of Magdeburg. Or, if that's not your cup of tea, watch Civil War! I genuinely think it's the best movie of the year.

Call it Social Discourse! That sounds much more manageable, doesn't it? Or you can come up with something else, as long as it isn't some warmongering bullshit. And maybe the next time you meet someone with sexist, homophobic, racist, or maybe radical left and anarchistic views (whatever you're opposing), don't attack them with your words! Those aren't weapons. Try to talk to them instead! Try talking about feelings! Listen to theirs, make them understand yours! I say feelings, because you both have those. Try finding a common ground, however small, and build up from there. Like Minecraft Skyblock. It can be hard in a challenging way, instead of making you want to shoot yourself in the head. Remember, you aren't fighting a war. You are having a discourse.

All of it is to say, the world and society are changing, wether you like it or not, and we have to change with it, to survive. That is the simple fact. If you call that change a war, that's just gonna make the whole thing unnecessarily painful for everyone involved.

This was sociopolitical advice from a giant armadillo.

Genuinely, what happened to “feminism is for everyone”?

That’s the feminism I grew up with: encouraging people to recognize that fighting sexism and restrictive gender roles helps folks of every gender. We’d push back on the idea that feminists hate men, pointing to inclusive feminist literature and how many men are feminists.

Now, there are so many people insisting that the solution to patriarchy is to openly hate and ostracize men no matter what. Why? What is the benefit? It’s certainly not effective in fighting oppressive structures to exclude half the population from your cause on the basis of immutable traits. It may feel cathartic to say horrible things about men and try to punish them for your frustrations with patriarchy. But the only actual effect I see is the increasing right-wing radicalization of young men, who are being told that the left hates them for the way they were born and presented with an abundance of proof that it’s true.

Why are we going back to treating men and women as different species? It doesn’t fix things to say “well women are the good gender and men are the bad one” this time. If you sincerely want to dismantle sexism, you’re going to have to unpack and let go of all sex and gender essentialism—even that which considers women inherently pure and men inherently immoral.

[acesammy]

man. so the engineering department at my school (which i am a part of) has put soooo much money into buildings and equipment in the last 10 years and i literally don't have a single class on that side of campus

[doyoueverstopandthink]

what does it say about me if i cry about frankenstein’s creature every time i get even slightly tipsy

[fandom-blackhole]

.

[letteredlettered]

I do think Wei Wuxian is the coolest among the MXTX casts, but I also agree that Shi Qingxuan is a strong contender. Embarrassment = 0; confidence = quite high; kindness/goodness/compassion = quite high. I think where they actually lack is in swagger, because I think the "heft" of one's swagger is at least indirectly proportional to badassery. (I didn't mention this in my previous analysis as I think most of us can agree that Hua Cheng's and Wei Wuxian's b-points must be at least by most measures roughly equivalent, and at a level that would make SY!Shen Qingqiu fan himself likely unto death, if he didn't faint first.)

While SQX is quite the badass, people who aren't Xie Lian, Hua Cheng, or Luo Binghe have trouble being in even the same weight class as Wei Wuxian when it comes to sheer BAMFery.

Interestingly, I actually wouldn't place Mo Ran in the same category of badassery, unless one were to successfully lobby to include his specific badassery as Taxian-jun. Then Mo Ran would actually outclass everyone considered heretofore; I would argue his BAMFery one ups even Luo Bing-ge of the original Proud Immortal Demon Way (who must be counted separately than Luo Bing-mei, as they are in fact different people on two different timelines, unlike Mo Ran/Taxian-jun, who are the same person on two different timelines. As we have devolved into parenthetical, I will also take this time to remark that Shen Yuan would inevitably dispute these rankings, and not only out of rabid stanning for his fave, but because I think he would find the Zhenlong Chess Formation so ludicrously OP that Taxian-jun's method of controlling it through the Shared Heart Technique pushes Mo Ran even beyond the role of "wish-fulfillment protagonist" and straight into the result of weak world-building. Even Airplane Shooting Toward the Sky wouldn't write a technique so stupidly OP and easy to hack. If Luo Bing-ge existed in the world of Mo Ran, Luo Bing-ge would surely manage the Zhenlong Chess Formation without resorting to some pathetic worms, a method which literally anyone can master and so proves nothing; it's basically cheating, Shen Yuan would contend).

All right, so Mo Ran would win badassery, but I would not contend that is the only component to swagger. Taxian-jun's habit of raging about and forcing his former tutor into marriage and fucking him repeatedly and abusively while promising to impregnate him as suits his second wife is really actually quite pathetic behavior. Taxian-jun is actually a sadder boy than Hua Cheng and Luo Bing-ge put together, imo, sadder even than Luo Bing-mei when SQQ was a corpse, and why Taxian-jun never resorted to corpse fucking is probably only a result of the fact that he was too doped up on evil flowers to think of it. He's violent; he's a rapist; all swagger is heretofore revoked. Taxian-jun is in fact the opposite of cool.

He's a fucking loser.

Now, if you consider Mo Ran on his second timeline, wherein the Taxian-jun impulses are fully suppressed, in my opinion he doesn't have the swagger necessary to compete with the likes of Wei Wuxian and Hua Cheng. He would never use the Shared Heart Technique. He's just a very strong cultivator, putting him on par with say, Lan Wangji, rather than any of these high b-point contenders.

Meanwhile, if you consider my own scale, in which goodness and openness to love are significant factors, Mo Ran certainly ranks highly, and his gentle dom confidence is of course much cooler than the sort of mindless rage dom confidence to which some danmei characters resort--I'm looking at you, Lan Wangji.

But even at the apogee of his goodness, I would contend that Mo Ran lacks confidence in other ways. He fears Taxian-jun. He is ashamed of Taxian-jun. He knows he is Taxian-jun; he believes he can still become Taxian-jun; he fears Taxian-jun being seen and known by Chu Wanning, and this fear and self-doubt makes him someone who cannot, perhaps, be embarrassed, but can be deeply ashamed, which--while a character trait I am deeply interested in--is not the same as cool.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian can feel shame, roughly, but forgets about it a few hours later. He's literally too cool to be bothered by much. The guy can have a party in a room by himself. They guy gets tortured and builds a flute. The guy finds a weapon of mass destruction in a turtle and leaves it there because eh, who needs it, and then goes back and gets it--no one knows when--whenever he needs to save the world. The guy saves a bunch of kids with his bad cooking. I can list out some crazy things that Mo Ran and Xie Lian and Hua Cheng all do, but they all take some time to cry and feel a little bad maybe every once in a while, but not Wei Wuxian, king.

inspired by a conversation with @letteredlettered

[roimp]

SO TODAY....

(THIS IS ONLY FOR ROSE)

[jewishrizahawkeye]

and the arguments that i have won against you in my head; in the car, in the shower, and in the mirror before bed…

yeah i’m so tough when i’m alone and i make you feel so guilty and i fantasize about a time you’re a little fuckin’ sorry-

and i try to ꪊꪀᦔꫀ𝕣ડ𝕥ꪖꪀᦔ why you would do this all to me. ‘you must be insecure. you must be so unhappy.’

and i know in my heart: hurt people, hurt people. and we both drew blood, but man those cuts were

ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴇQᴜᴀʟ!!

and i try to be tough. but i wanna scream ‘HOW COULD ANYBODY DO THE THINGS YOU DID SO EASILY?’

and i say that i don’t care.

say that i’m fine.

but you know i can’t let it go, i’vetriedi’ve triedi’vetried for so long… it takes s⃞   t⃞   r⃞   e⃞   n⃞   g⃞   t⃞   h⃞ to forgive but i don’t feel ₛₜᵣₒₙg

[the-starlight-papers]

I’m so tired of my physics lab group because it’s me and then a bunch of guys who went to the same Christian high school in the same town as my university and they just talk about guns all the time.

Today one guy was telling a story about his cousin who’s in Communications so the professors are more liberal so she has to deal with them “talking about pronouns and crap.” Same guy has a sticker on his phone that says “I support FREE SPEECH not ~POLITICAL CORRECTNESS~”

Of course they were all talking about the Citadel shooting in Nashville too and how the shooter was trans.

@the-starlight-papers

[a-high-femme]

rant in tags bc I want to sob into a pillow

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[medicinemane]

Jesus fucking christ I get tired of sitting here and hearing my dad loudly ripping ass from the other room

Like listen, I get it, I get that you can't control your guts. Like fuck, for a while... as in like months, I was having trouble even leaving the house... still no clue what was even up which makes me feel like my theory about not eating enough is in the lead given... haven't found any allergies I can identify

So I get it and have sympathy (and fear inheriting my dad's guts), but... it's just so fucking gross man

And it's also like... maybe I'm eating, maybe I'm watching a show... whatever it is the mood's kinda ruined by this just... it almost literally couldn't be louder or grosser

I get you can't control your guts but... do something... anything... see a doctor or... anything

It's just nasty. He's not a bad person, but my dad's just a nasty dude

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

[timetravellingkitty]

everyday i see clueless westerners (especially white people) peddle thinly veiled hindutva propaganda which they wouldn't know cause they know absolutely nothing about what goes on in india. so here are some signs that that the person you're talking to is a hindu nationalist:

they either do not acknowledge casteism or claim that caste is a western construct. my personal favourite however is dismissing anyone bringing up caste discrimination by saying that the indian constitution outlaws untouchability. they may also bring up the fact that the prime minister belongs to an other backwards class (obc) so clearly india has moved on from caste and hindutva isn't only for the upper castes. they possess a shallow understanding of caste

harping on about "islamic colonisation" : no, the mughals did not colonise india. when you point this out, they will immediately assume that you think muslim invaders were innocent beings who did nothing wrong, which is very much not what anyone is claiming here

while we're on the topic of "islamic colonisation" they will also refer to the demolishing of muslim sites of heritage and worship and then building hindu temples over them as "decolonisation" (cough cough ram mandir) the hindu right also goes around pretending that they're the indigenous people of india

along a similar vein, they will dismiss islamophobia by bringing up instances of hindu oppression in countries like pakistan and bangladesh. it is true that hindus are persecuted in these two countries, however they are used to fuel their oppression complex, that their upper caste hindu self is under attack in india of all places (think a white christian in the united states). you should be in solidarity with minorities everywhere. it is neither transactional or conditional (note: they will never bring up sri lanka. persecution of hindus exists only when the oppressors are muslim)

claiming that hindu nationalism and hindutva are not the same because hindutva means "hindu-ness". that is only the literal translation of the term. like it or not, they're the same thing

they support the indian military occupation of kashmir. they will call it an integral part of kashmir, one reason which will be "hinduism is indigenous to kashmir." they will also bring up the last maharaja of kashmir signing the instrument of accession as further proof, as if the consent of the people was taken

they're zionists. do i even need to explain this. hindutva is just zionism for hindus

they refer to buddhism and jainism (sikhism too sometimes) as branches of hinduism rather than separate, distinct religions

they condemn any resistance to the indian govt as a burden or terrorism (like calling the farmers who are currently protesting a hindrance or terrorists. funny how sikhs are the same as hindus when they support hindu causes but terrorists when they resist oppression...)

they call you a pseudo liberal or a fake leftist. i'm telling you, they don't know jackshit. they can't even tell the difference between a liberal and a leftist and call US unread lmao. bonus points if they call you a liberandu or a sickular 💀

they call india "bharat" when they talk in english. there are in fact multiple indian languages that call india bharat or bharatam, but if they say bharat while talking in english, that is absolutely a hindu nationalist no questions asked

please do your due diligence. read up on hindutva. hindu nationalists have already started making gains in the united states, thanks to rich upper caste nris. do not fall for propaganda

[mosspapi]

Man. I keep putting off doing chores because the process in this new room is giving me massive anxiety, but that means I have even more to do at once. Which is even more anxiety-inducing. I am building the worlds biggest snowball here aren't I

[nickmarini]

Ayden’s Build 

TL;DR: Barbarian 1, Druid  2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 8 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 9 (Peace Domain). Feats: Squire of Solamnia, Remarkable Recovery, Warcaster, Knight of Crowns, Spelldriver, Tough.

Building Ayden was a joy and a journey. To begin we were told we had 20 levels to work with and stats of 20 across the board. The only thing I knew about Ayden from the session 0 was that he was going to be a Cleric of the Everlight and that I wanted to make him the best support character I could. I also knew that the Dawnfather was aware of the mission briefing and so would have directed his growth to the task at hand. 

Stats of 20 meant multiclassing into any class was possible and that any ability score based bonuses or proficiency based abilities were going to be very good. I figured that with a warlock and a sorcerer we’d have some pretty good counterspelling and 9th level spell access, so I didn’t worry myself about either of those, instead focusing on making sure we all survived. 

The Dawnfather and The Everlight share 2 of 3 Domains. Life and Light. The Everlight’s 3rd domain is Peace. The Peace Domain cleric is an excellent subclass and its 6th level ability, Protective Bond, was something I knew I wanted to build around. The ability to take hits for, and aid, my siblings while teleporting around the battlefield is an excellent support ability and it also lets allies in the bond do the same, fostering sibling unity and cohesion.

With the Dawnfather having Nature as his unique domain separate from the Everlight, and literally sending himself to Exandria to infiltrate a city full of the greatest mages of the age, the Oath of Ancients Paladin seemed like an obvious path. It is the nature Paladin, (his domain) and 7 levels gives you both Aura of Protection and Aura of Warding. This means as Ayden moves through the battlefield with Protective Bond he will be granting allies +5 to saves from his cha as well as resistance to damage from spells. Incredibly good going up against the wizards of Aeor he knew he would encounter. I didn’t want to go to 10 with Paladin because I didn’t want to be immune to frightened. I just felt that fear played too large a role in the reasons the gods were here and although aura of courage is probably my favorite ability going back to 3rd edition, I felt like it wasn’t right for Ayden. He had to fear in order to reinforce his need to hope. 

These two classes were set relatively quickly and then I began looking at how else I was going to build him out. 

I really liked the idea of being able to grant my allies some extra attacks and so I was looking at battle master to get commanders strike and goading attack as well as maneuvering attack to help take hits for and position my allies. Action Surge is also a great ability that could really come in handy if I needed to save someone and needed one extra action to do so. 

I was also looking at the 2nd level Divination Wizard ability Portent. The ability to fully dictate 2 rolls is very powerful in certain circumstances, especially if the numbers are very high or very low.

Both these seemed good but weren’t feeling totally right from a character perspective. They felt too forced.

As I was playing around with these two classes I was also building Aydens backstory. I really liked the idea of him being agriculturally focused, as this aspect of the Dawnfather is actually his youngest. Sun begets days, and thus time and seasons, and as civilization evolves agriculture follows. The fighter levels lent the idea that he has spent some time training under a knight or some such warrior, and I knew that he would eventually find his way to Trist to begin his tutelage and become her cleric. I liked there being these different eras of his life. 

It was around this time that I got an awesome email asking me to describe Ayden visually so that the incredibly talented Hannah Friederichs and Cael Lyons could begin to bring Ayden and the Dawnfather to life. I wanted Ayden to be a simply dressed with a shield he took from his mentor, but no sword for striking. They sent 4 sketches and told me I could mix and match as I desired. Image #1 however was exactly as I had envisioned him. It was the simplest and had this depth to his eyes that told the story of a much older soul in this 15 year old body. It was so perfect that it made me realize I had been going in the totally wrong direction with fighter and wizard. The concepts of nature and agriculture were suddenly staring me in the face. It was not wizard, but druid, and his mentor could have taught him to be a paladin as easily as fighter, but if he is the bringer of agriculture who has he brought it to? A remote tribe still hunting and gathering was the answer. Barbarian therefore replaced fighter. I can’t tell you how influential the sketch I received was. It felt like a bolt of lightning suddenly clarified everything. 

I was for sure cleric 6, Paladin 7 and now looking at druid and barbarian. 

I didn’t know Druid subclasses very well but Circle of the Stars jumped out from the pack just with its name. The Sun after all is a star. When I read its 2nd level abilities Starmap and Starry form it was so obvious. I can cast Guiding Bolt to set up those attacks I wanted to grant, and I can glow instead of wild shape and either heal more or have a massive bonus to maintain the concentration spells I knew I wanted to cast. For the keeper of time to know how to read the stars just felt right. It also feel right that the druids of a tribe that had been hunting and gathering during the tumultuous Calamity would have learned to navigate by the stars, a singular constant in an every changing age. 

Barbarian has a number of interesting subclasses but none felt like they clicked. 1 level of Barbarian though, for a character with 20 dexterity and 20 constitution, catapults your AC to 20 and it also gives you a proficiency in Constitution saving throws if you take it as your first class, again reinforcing those concentration rolls. He was found as a child by this barbarian tribe and his first class is also his first community. Barbarian was the strong foundation I would build upon. 

I was now Cleric 6, Paladin 7, Druid 2, Barbarian 1. Reorganized to be the order Ayden would have taken them in it becomes the following:

Barbarian 1, Druid  2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 7 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 6 (Peace Domain)

4 more levels to distribute. As a player who has mostly played 3.5 (I think downfall just about doubled the amount of 5E I have played) feats are my absolute favorite things, so getting to multiples of 4 in class levels to grab some was something I wanted to do (also I didn’t have to worry about ability score increases)! I had already given one feat up by taking barb and druid but I made up for it with the human variant. I also took the Knight of Solamnia background to give me Squire of Solamnia, the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns which would give me the ability to grant attacks to my allies without needing battle maneuvers. 

So I upped paladin from 7-8 for a feat and then decided to take Cleric from 6-9 because it gave me a feat and access to the spell Dawn. I mean the Dawnfather should be able to cast Dawn after all! 

Now to feats

1) Background: Squire of Solamnia to give me the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns

2) Human Variant: Remarkable Recovery. I knew I’d be taking extra damage so having 5 extra hp from any healing I get might just be the difference. It also plays into his background. He had to leave the Barbarian tribe he brought agriculture to because his skin could not retain the ceremonial tattoo ink that would have symbolized his initiation into the community. 

3) Cleric 4 Warcaster to get advantage on those concentration checks, that along with proficiency and starry form of the dragon means I need to take 28 damage (56 if it’s a spell) to even have to roll, and when I do I get advantage and proficiency on the check. Getting me to lose concentration is gonna be a task. 

4) Paladin 4 Knight of the Crown getting to grant an attack proficiency times per day combos wonderfully with Starmaps free guiding bolt, conveniently also proficiency times per day. 

5) Cleric 8 Spelldriver I’m gonna be casting a bunch of spells so the ability to cast multiple each turn is going to make my support spells come out much faster. I have a big fam to take care of!

6) Paladin 8 Tough I really went back and forth between this and Inspiring Leader. Granting all my siblings 25 temp hp is amazing but ultimately I decided that as I’d be tanking a bunch of damage I’d need toughness. Toughness gave me 15 more hp than Inspiring leader would have, and I ended up going down to 14 at one point so it was a decision that very much paid off by a single HP! Don’t wanna pop a deathward if you can help it!

Last but not least we were granted 2 magic items. One very rare and one uncommon. For my uncommon I chose a cloak of resistance, a parting gift from the tribe that Ayden could not join. This upped my saves to 11s or 17s and took my AC to 23. For his very rare magic item I took a spellguard shield, inherited from the knight who brought him from the remote tribe to Trist‘s school, giving me advantage on saving throws vs spells and magical effects and inflicting disadvantages on spell effects targeting me. Combine that with resistance to spells from Aura of Warding and that’s a nasty nasty combo v wizards. 

All in all Ayden’s build is an incredibly hard to target tanky support character who can move through the battlefield protecting his allies and being an absolute nightmare for enemy spellcasters. The only thing I really didn’t fully consider was just how much damage he would take from Warding Bond which totally bypasses all those wonderfully crafted defenses. As crazy as it is, I think we barely got to scratch the surface of Aydens full potential and it’s probably good those mages decided to cast spells at everyone else because Ayden was going to be a tough character for a spell caster to crack. The Commanding Rally did get to shine allowing characters who specialized in weapon attacks to get a little extra out of those 20 level commitments. Ayden’s build was crafted to keep his siblings alive and let them shine as bright as possible together. I’m very proud of him!

If you read all this then you’re as nerdy as me and deserve a reward!

[copperbadge]

Recently I ran across an article about an art center that was doing creative expression classes for people with disabilities. Not that unusual, I've encountered that and trauma-oriented art therapy before, but it was the first time I'd come across the idea since getting diagnosed with ADHD. While the class was aimed more at high-needs disabilities, it occurred to me that I could -- if I wanted -- make non-prose art about being disabled.

Outside of my work in scene design I've never been much of a visual artist because I've never felt I had the combination of "something to say" and "a meaningful way to say it", but I started to question how meaningful and complex I really had to be to just make some statements about having ADHD. I can do it in prose, after all.

So I started thinking about how you would talk, in visual language, about things like time blindness, shame stemming from undiagnosed disability, the shift in behavior that medication can induce. Ways to express my condition to people who don't experience it. I still didn't really know how to build the pieces but whenever I went to an art museum I'd think about how I might do a gallery installation. The centerpiece of my mental gallery was a pair of barcodes, one marked "Neurotypical" and one marked "Neurodivergent".

[ID: An interior view of a small booklet, with pages marked 1 and 2, showing barcodes -- on the left, labeled Neurotypical, and on the right, in slightly weirder configuration, labeled Neurodivergent.]

And then I thought, why not make a zine? Nothing you're thinking of couldn't be put in zine form instead of on a gallery wall.

[ID: The booklet continues to pages 3 and 4; on page 3 is a postage-style label reading AUTISM with up arrows on either side, and on page 4 is a QR code labeled ADHD. The QR code technically should work but it just dumps a block of text I wrote about having ADHD into a browser.]

I grew up with zine culture in the 90s and I always wanted to make one but much like with visual art, I never felt like I had the right kind of thing to say; either I had too much to say or too little, and anyway I wasn't confident that what I wanted to do wouldn't just come off as trite and obvious. But you can make a six-page zine out of a single sheet of paper, so I did: I made Helpful Labels For Strange Brains by idab zines, a division of Extribulum Press. (i--dab is a term for a cuneiform tablet that contains a royal communication.)

[ID: The last two pages feature the same image -- a cereal bowl with a spoon in it, the spoon containing a single Adderall pill. One image, however, is captioned "Wake up. Pour yourself a cup of iced coffee. Fix a bowl of cereal. It's going to be a good day." while the other is covered in a detailed ADHD-style step-by-step process for the same actions, culminating in "It's going to be a day like that."]

I'm pretty pleased with how it came out -- the art all looks intentional and it still has that "taped this together after school" aesthetic I remember fondly from the 90s. And the confines of six pages, each only a few inches square, offers a good structure to keep things clear, simple, and meaningful.

[ID: The cover of the zine, labeled "Helpful Labels For Strange Brains" in a kind of esoteric stampy font.]

Especially nice is that if you wanted to you could just hand out the flat sheet, and let folks fold it into a booklet or not -- there's instructions for folding it on the back of the zine. Additionally I have some sticker backed printer paper so I could print it such that you could literally turn the labels into real labels.

Anyway if you want it, here ya go. You can print it on a single sheet of paper and follow the instructions on the back to fold it. I thought about selling it but I do not have the spoons to do a bunch of printing and folding and shipping.