#mostly how the thing is. the ideology is extremely harmful

[soggypotatoes]

my tutor asked me if she could ask a question abt queer culture and she was all 'but i dont want to like, burden you with the expectation of explaining things to me, or treat you like a mouthpiece' and i was like omg PLS ask me questions i LOVE being treated as a mouthpiece hahhaha

and then she asked me about terfs and how older feminists may not align with terf values but feel protective of their experiences as afab women when the cultural conversation around feminism and queerness is changing.. and i was like.. oh god, do you have a few hours to spare?

so she asked me to email her resources and information about this topic hahaha

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading trigun in japanese 3 - "weirdo" and vash's pronoun switching

disclaimer: my jp reading posts are all for triangulation purposes and nothing else. scanlating mangas is tough work. @-@ i know this.

"Weirdo"

the word 'weirdo' in 2024 english carries connotations of neutral-bad or positive depending on the context of the speaker. depending on how one curates their internet space, weirdo often leans more positively with the same meaning as eccentric, but not always.

however, but in JP, "weird" is more specific and often negative. there's the well known, hentai 変態 (ie. deviant, pervert, freak, extremely negative in tone), and in this case, kimochi warui 気持ち悪い (gross, off-putting, bad vibes). eccentrics are more as 変人 henjin and carries a more neutral tone.

in this panel here papa nebreska uses 気持ち悪い in katakana キ���チワルイ in reaction to vash busting his ass saving people and putting out of harms' way. vash's vibes are so off putting to this wanted man he's actually creeped out.

this is particularly interesting to me bc the english translation didn't end up portraying how utterly weird vash's mindset is fully. it wasnt until wolfwood points out how flawed vash's pacifist mindset do i get a proper frame of reference of norms in this world, but i might be having skill issues in english comprehension. ;w;

Pronoun switching

quick. 俺 Ore! 僕 Boku! 私 Watashi! they all mean "I", and there's 2 spectrum of expressions going on here thats commonly believed. 1st being Masculinity to Femininity. what's the 2nd?

the answer is... Rudeness/Assertiveness to Politeness. and gosh does vash switch a lot between Boku and Ore in the first 4 chapters of this manga lmao.

(to be clear, while i am aware of trans hc thats very popular in the fandom, im not at all diminishing or talking about gender expression specifically. im talking about what vash is presenting himself as in context.)

so to perhaps oversimplify this, in JP the idea of politeness and hierarchy is so super duper important, its very built into the language itself. and Japanese is a very high context language. if someone of a higher or equal standing uses "Ore", its totally fine. but if someone of a lower standing uses "Ore", they've committed a social faux pas.

as an obvious example, if a fresh new employee approaches his Boss with "Ore", he's potentially getting dressing down in the company. maybe in front of his coworkers. if this employee forgoes polite speech (keigo) and uses a too Assertive and Casual speech, they've Really Fucked Up and are one foot out the door.

this is also tied up in gender to some extent, hence why girls using Ore is incredibly uncommon, but guys would use Watashi in certain contexts such as talking to their Boss. (woo woo the forces of hierarchy/patriarchy... or something.)

so. vash switches his pronouns for the same effect. when he uses Ore, he's making himself sound more assertive and confident. when he uses Boku, he's often making himself sound less threatening, smaller, open, and trying to avoid conflict.

sound familiar?

bc if you translated all of that into a character design instead of relying on just jp pronouns, we'd get TriStamp Vash.

slight spoilers, but this is even true in one of the tensest moments between vash and wolfwood, where the latter provokes vash and tears into his pacifism ideology. vash sticks with boku in this scene as he says his piece.

if he ever uses watashi, it's bc he wants to be polite straight out of the gate with an air of formality. (this is japanese manners and the proper approach to talking to strangers. mainly to get a feel for each others standing without offense until context changes.)

i also wanna point out maybe something obvious here but.

real life pronoun switching in japanese is a COMMON thing. no one ever really sticks to 1 pronoun bc of Good Manners and the aforementioned hierarchical systems in place. it is only mostly in anime/manga and video games where characters overly prefer 1 due to this being a good shorthand for characterization. this being how rude or polite they are, and in some cases, Gender.

[darkfictionjude]

you don’t have to put it on this blog but was going to address ur analysis of the US election because I don’t think it’s entirely accurate (as a woman of color myself). She ran a very misguided campaign that was filled with celebrity endorsements (who are in image and in reality so far removed from the conditions of regular folks) and Liz Cheney (who’s a unpopular war hawk amid a year that saw the most anti-war protests), most of her messaging was catered to right wing voters and centrists which historically never works well.

This leads to working class people, who mostly care more about material conditions than ideology or image, to move towards right wing populism because regardless of how harmful or horrible the ideology might be, they saw her image as one far removed from their concerns and Trump took advantage of this. In fact even tho Trump is probably more pro-war, he pretended he wasn’t and even campaigned on ending wars. In fact Trump had fewer votes than he did his first time, but Harris had even fewer because voter turnout was just not good esp when her whole campaign was just “im not as bad as the other guy” and no concrete domestic or economic platform. She also never distanced herself from the Biden administration so people saw her as a continuity candidate to one of the most unpopular presidents of all time.also Her messaging to Arab Americans, who have been most affected by the conflict in Lebanon and Palestine/Israel, was just very tone deaf (there’s a speech where she says she knows the deaths in the Middle East is tragic but people need to prioritize the prices of groceries)

before she was a candidate she was also a prosecutor and was responsible for so many horrible things so anyways I can understand in many ways why she lost and I think just saying she’s a woman reduced the issue to identity politics when it’s much deeper than this

So the reason I said that was because like I said a few times I didn’t want to get into politics on this blog. I wasn’t going to go on a whole explanation for an ask that wasn’t even about politics because it makes no sense. That person who sent me that ask didn’t ask for that. Like I wasn’t going to go into extreme detail on this blog because this is a game blog

Obviously there’s more reasons, the fact that she didn’t have long to campaign also didn’t help but it isn’t wrong to say that so long into its history America has never had a woman at the forefront while other similarly advanced countries have, gender and race is a problem in American politics

The only reason I’m answering this is because I feel like I’m being talked down and I don’t like that. I wasn’t reducing anything and it wasn’t an analysis I literally just a quick answer for a question that was mostly about the game. I’m educated, I’m politically aware, and I really would have preferred to have talked about this on the other blog like I said I’m not comfortable doing it here but I did so because this is the blog the message on

[kazimirkharza]

What are your thoughts on how many anarcho-primitivist/luddite/anticiv spaces have been taken over by right-wing types? It seems less people are actually engaging in primitivist thought and more so thinking it's "based" and "trad."

I saw how you got downvoted for insulting whatalthist, and this is what led me to ask this question.

I'm assuming you're referring to online spaces. There's a strong effort by the right to co-opt primitivism. There are some forums that are frequented by right-wingers, though they're in the minority; most problematic spaces are the ones about Kaczynski and things directly related to him. There are also many social media accounts that express primitivistic ideas in combination with authoritarian and rightist politics (e.g. individuals who adore both Ted Kaczynski and Pentti Linkola). Most concerning to me are actually the offline examples that get press coverage.

I see this as being both due to deliberate efforts to co-opt primitivism, much in the manner Nazis co-opted socialism, and due to ignorance on the part of many right-wingers. It isn't too hard to misinterpret Kaczynski's remarks about leftism if you read him inattentively, and conclude that he must be some sort of right-winger. Ted's mistake was focusing on attacking the left too much and worrying too little about the right, but at the time he wrote his manifesto this choice made sense.

Ted was a fan of Earth First! and when he wrote Industrial Society and its Future the wounds of an ideological split within it were still fresh. EF! started out as a truly ecocentric movement with extremely narrow goals of protecting the wilderness from the ravages of industrialism and other harm caused by civilized humans. After gaining a lot of momentum, EF! attracted thousands of newcomers, many of whom leaned more to the side of leftist humanism than deep ecology, causing conflict — the newcomers were trying to transform the movement into one about ecology-related social justice issues, while the original Earth First!ers preferred to only focus on wilderness conservation. (For more on this check out Earth First!: Environmental Apocalypse by Martha F. Lee). The right-wing in America at the time was comprised mostly of people who were staunch prometheans, warmongers, etc., and Ted rightly assumed they weren't going to take over his movement. However as the political climate changed they became one.

The US and the rest of the "West" seems to be experiencing a rise in right-wing back-to-nature ideas, similar in many ways to the so-called "right-wing hippies" of the Weimar republic. I'm talking about doomsday preppers, christian nationalist communes, etc. Kaczynski did not anticipate this, and by the time news about who was adopting (some of) his ideas — not just anarchists and former Earth First!ers, but people including the Greek fascist Golden Dawn party, and Andreas Breivik — reached Kaczynski in his supermax prison it was a bit late. He penned a short note titled Ecofascism: An Aberrant Branch of Leftism in 2020, arguing against their ideas and saying he's their enemy. However, more people read and will read ISAIF in the future than this obscure note and the few other scattered critiques of the right that can be found throughout his work.

What we need to do is to aggressively shun these types until we successfully repel them. This applies to real life and online interactions. There will always be some who'll try to co-opt primitivism, but this big wave needs to be halted. There are also some who are genuinely willing to learn and adjust their beliefs, but they're few in between. It's necessary to distinguish between the two, keep the latter and reject the former.

[everybodyshusband]

Lemme in that cocoon of dark/sad ghoul thoughts.... It's even better if it's sad dark regressed ghouls thoughts (in my opinion) bc those are the ones that really hurt 😭

no sad regressed ghoul thoughts unfortunately, but uhm, i do have thoughts about whatever this is... O_O

cw for eating disorders/calorie counting and obsessive counting under the cut. it's quite a lot, please do not read this if you think it will trigger you. also, a gentle reminder that i am by no means attempting to glorify or encourage eating disorders. i am not promoting aeon's behaviour nor trying to put it in a positive light.

the cocoon is basically filled with thoughts about how aeon accidentally developed an eating disorder O_O

think about it, he's new topside and so intrigued by everything !! especially numbers and counting !! like, WOAH, he can count so many things and keep track of numbers and woah, he couldn't do that in the pit, there wasn't anything to count, so this is incredibly cool !!! buuuut... as he's topside and around the abbey for longer, he's no longer quite so happy about everything anymore. slowly, other thoughts and feelings start to creep in, or at least, they begin to present themselves more entirely now he's no longer too busy being fascinated by life in the abbey.

he likes counting, he's discovered. aether buys him a watch that counts his steps and the from the first day he wears it, he's in love. he doesn't have to count his steps in his head anymore, it's a revelation !! but now he's no longer caught up with counting his steps, he starts to count other things. he starts counting the number of doors he walks through, the amount of letters in words he sees, and he especially likes creating counting patterns that he can't help but enact every time he sees something he can count.

but something he's especially intrigued by is the little nutrition information on the back of food packets; there are so many numbers and statistics he can look at and try to make sense of !! and naturally, he's drawn to a number he can keep track of: calories.

at first, it's not necessarily a bad thing. the ghouls are kind of aware of it, but he's not trying to restrict his intake in any way, so they let him be; he enjoys counting things, and as long as he isn't doing himself any harm by restricting his diet, then it's fine, right ? well. it would be, except for the fact that one fateful internet rabbit hole sends him headfirst into some extremely harmful ideologies (in his defence, he didn't think finding a community of people who also counted calories would mean they're counting to the lowest number they could eat rather than just counting for fun like he is).

he becomes obsessed, discovering the recommended daily calorie intake and flips his little notebook open to look at his counted calories within the past few weeks and... he's been at the "right" amount mostly; a couple of days here and there he's been over or under depending on illness and energy, as is fairly normal. but now he's realised that he can count to a limit, he wants to try that. it's almost like a challenge for him. a competition with himself that he eventually begins to find joy and excitement in, unaware of how harmful this newfound ideology is.

he starts by trying to stay under the limit every day for a week, always keeping track of the calories he's eaten in a little book he keeps under his mattress. once he's managed that, he sets a new goal, and then another, and another. and by the time the ghouls realise what's happening (he somehow manages to hide it from them for quite a while), he's already too deep in his obsession with counting his calories for them to ease him out of it gently, so despite how they want to help him in the kindest manner possible, they know kindness won't work. they're going to have to help him against his will and it's not going to be pretty.

...fuck that's a lot of writing O_O

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

What's your opinion on parasocial relationships

From: "I don't think we should be able to see fictional characters have sex because they haven't consented"

To: "Blatantly and overtly objectifies -insert celebrity here-"

There seems to be wild swinging from one end to the other 🤔🤔🤔

okay so this is uuuh a Large question and I need to start by saying flat out that "parasocial relationship" is a pretty value neutral term that's only very recently taken on a distinctly negative connotation. the term was invented in the 1950s in response to increasing television viewership in America, to describe the one-sided attachments that viewers formed with fictional characters and media personalities. while Horton and Wolh, who coined the term, did express concerns that some people might be prone to substituting parasocial relationships for real, reciprocal human connections, it wasn't intended to be a condemnation of the practice. parasociality in small amounts is essentially necessary to have any sort of stake in fictional characters or celebrities who can't love us back, and its worth noting that parasocial relationships significantly predate the terminology - humans have felt strongly about rulers who don't know them and characters from myths and stories for centuries. this sort of connection-making is fueled by the same extremely social nature that let us bond with dogs and other domesticated animals.

so the tl;dr there is that my feeling on parasocial relationships is that it largely depends on whether we're talking about, like, people having harmless crushes on attractive and charismatic actors or, like, twitter stans sending each other death threats over musicians who don't know they exist. like most things, it's harmless in moderations and is mostly down to individuals to use their grown-up brains to not make it weird and harmful.

now, onto the example you gave of people objecting to depictions of fictional characters having sex because they can't consent. I don't know that parasociality is the main issue at play here, although as we've noted a degree of it is certainly necessary to care that much about a fictional character in the first place. that particular ideological clusterfuck is a result of several things colliding, I think namely:

a.) an increasingly prevalent and normalized streak of extreme sexual conservatism amongst people who broadly consider themselves progressive. if you've spent much of the last decade online and especially in fandom spaces, you've probably seen this mindset becoming more and more pronounced via a bunch of horse-assed debates about the morality of depicting #problematic things in fiction and fanworks. sincere arguments that sex scenes are bad because made up people who don't exist can't consent to being featured in them is pretty much always where that particular line of thinking was heading.

b.) an absolutely tragic conflation of media consumption with activism and political beliefs. this overlaps heavily with point a (with a lot of assumption that if you're a Good person you must take great pains not only to not consume Bad fiction but also to call it out at every opportunity for being Bad, lest you be accused of having Wrong opinions) and also generates a lot of very stupid takes like treating Captain Marvel as a #girlboss #feminism movie despite being sponsored by the US Air Force and holding creators from historically oppressed identities to impossibly high standards of Good Representation, a thing that doesn't exist and no one agrees on. (read Elaine Castillo's excellent essay collection How to Read Now for way more eloquent thoughts on that.) the point being that people's so-called hot takes about popular media are almost conflated with their politics, whichever way they may lean. this also related to point c, which is"

c.) the internet and its many insufferable algorithms encourage outrage and conflict at every opportunity, so nobody can just say some normal shit like "I don't like seeing sex scenes on tv, it feels uncomfortable :/," because people will start crawling down their throat screaming about how it's actually very sex negative and queerphobic and problematic to dislike watching sex scenes and that the person who posted that is somehow personally oppressing people with sexual trauma who are reclaiming their relationship with their sexuality and were greatly helped by [insert sex scene here]. so you have to pre-empt those replies by acting like you're teeing up a fucking tedtalk and also are ready to throw down in defense of your lukewarm opinion, and that's a lot easier to do if you've figured out how to use language affiliated with social justice to bolster your point.

anyway. that's my opinion on that.

[eastgaysian]

Hello there 樂眀 (I think that's your name)! I have three (I think) things to say to you!

#1: Your pronouns are very cool

#2: Would you mind explaining some of your recent post (tumblr.com/eastgaysian/728507273015672832)? I'm not entirely sure what entrenched fantasy tropes you are talking about. the only one I can think of at the moment is the sort of evil race thing. it probably has a name but where one race are the bad guys or minions of the bad guys (usually orcs) but it sounds like theres a lot more. no pressure to answer though :)

#3: may I please see your little korean white dog??????

#4

look how big the #4 is! That's so cool! I never knew that could happen! Wow!

ok have a great day bye!

oh wow i think this is the first time someone's written my name in chinese online instead of just lok ming. and thank you it/its pronouns are very cool i think more people should use them.

yeah, what i'm referring to in that post is primarily the expectation in a fantasy world that Race Is Real, which is to say that race science/race essentialism is treated as a provably true fact of the universe and of biology, rather than a social construct. i'm not sure if there's a term specifically to discuss this in the context of fantasy, but to be clear, what it is is race science. if you are writing a world where sapient beings are divided into biologically distinct race categories, you have created a world where race science is real. if you are writing a world where certain biologically distinct races are inherently evil and their deaths are always morally justified, all the while being acknowledged as sapient beings of comparable awareness/intelligence to everyone else, your world has a racial hierarchy embedded into it as a law of the universe.

this is bad! even before we get into the fact that these inherently evil races are 9 times out of 10 coded as/composed of caricatures and stereotypes based on real life people of color. 'what if biological essentialism was real' is a hallmark of fantasy (and sci fi). it's not really a fun whimsical what-if, though, it's an extremely harmful ideology that causes direct harm to people in real life, and cloaking it in people being purple or having horns or pointy ears doesn't erase the troubling implications. and when creators literally just base their goblins on Jewish stereotypes or their trolls on Indigenous peoples or their fucking feral animal people on African cultures... somehow you've squared racism. there's other stuff i could talk about but they mostly build off of a fundamental basis of Fantasy Race Science Is Real anyway

[on this topic, i've heard that charles w. mills' the wretched of middle-earth picks apart the construction of fantasy race in tolkien in an insightful way (and tolkien obviously has far-reaching influence on high fantasy as a genre), but i haven't read it myself. i could probably look harder for a pdf, it's just not at the top of my list of priorities.]

anyway. my dogy ⬇️

[spongebobafettywap]

I really don't get the X-Men fandom: For people who claim to be all about inclusivity and "seeing people beyond their label" they are the most close minded folks I've met and can only think about labels.

Like when I think about Magneto, I perfectly understand where he's coming from but I can clearly see that his mentality and the execution of his ideology are both extreme and sometimes just evil which makes his redemption arc all the more satisfying and well earned. But no the fans and the writers go as far as to say "Magneto was/is actually always right and what he was doing back then was always the right thing and perfectly planned to help mutants".

Emma Frost was very evil at the start and she didn't care much about mutants or people other than herself. She had reasons for doing so and they made sense. Many many things happened which changed her overtime and ended with her finding herself back to doing something she initially liked: Teaching. But no the fandom and the writers both go "Actually Emma was always a mutant ally and X-Men at heart, was really constantly looking out for her people and everything she did was to help mutants and others".

If you were to say you'd never side with Mystique and Destiny, the first thing the fandom will do is call you homophobic then block you and spread the word around that you're anti LGBT. This tells you that the fandom really only views these two for the shipping and their sexuality aka as labels instead of the bigger scope which is that these two are SELFISH TERRORISTS AND BACKSTABBING CONSPIRATORS AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE WHO HAVE CREATED DYSTOPIAN FUTURES THROUGH THEIR OWN SHORTSIGHTED BUFFOONERY

The X-Men franchise got so boring when the story and writers began sharing the same lackluster and surface level analysis pov as the fandom

Magneto is mostly right, sometimes the writers just decide to make him come up with plans that will either harm humans or ones that target humans who aren't even anti mutant its very odd. Mostly because they want to write him as an extremist but they don't want you to sympathise with him too much. Whilst I don't like it I also think it is kinda hard to write him as a villain so I guess I understand why they do it?

Emma was literally part of the Hellfire Club they had ties to the Sentinel Program and engaged in anti mutant acts LOL. She was evil, she redeemed herself later but they devalue that arc by saying she was always good.

Don't get me started on Mystique its like if Magneto is written like "he has a point but lets make him do something evil so people don't root for him" Mystique is written like "lets make her do something so evil and then later pretend she has a point to try and get people to root for her"

And I hate it, I get that she's a shapeshifter so they want to do stories about her manipulating people and switching sides but I don't get why they can't do that AND have her be some type of pro mutant extremist. I much prefer the idea of Mystique being like akin to a Black Panther party member being a fugitive but still fighting to free Mutants and defend them and that getting extreme a lot of the time, thats the type of conflict I want to see with her and her kids. And writing her like that at least makes it more logical why the X-men would ally with her at times not a bad person at the core but just does some villainous things for good reasons. You're definitely right about how people call you homophobic if you don't like her or transphobic despite the fact she is not a trans character officially and she is bi.

Not even gonna comment on Destiny as I just find her like this character a lot of comic fans pretend to like more than they actually do lmao.

I definitely agree with you that the X-men books became really boring once the writers started to have the same surface level reading of the books as the fandom and then basically wrote fanfiction, its like why even bother when you can find this stuff online for free

[okthatsgreat]

can you do one for nagito? the "why is everyone mean to nagito, he never did anything wrong" except he did and deserves that everyone treated him like shit.

the fandom definitely treats all three antags quite differently but one of the similarities between how people treat nagito and kokichi is that they are both victimised in crimes that they had very intentionally committed. like i said in my previous post, in the fandoms pursuit of finding meaning and sympathetic reasoning behind these characters actions they are reducing them to character traits that do not embody them at all, which leads to the fandom getting angry at the OTHER characters for being mean or expressing fury over the antag's actions. ive seen this more frequently with kokichi but it ABSOLUTELY also happens with nagito

with characters like nagito it becomes a very fine line between understanding that he has a reason behind his actions and believing he is entirely justified in what hes done. there is a difference between a character having a motivation and a character having a justifiable excuse-- neither of these are "better" from a narrative standpoint necessarily, but it is important to discern when examining a character. nagitos ideology of hope has become so radicalised and overzealous that he is willing to hurt himself AND (more importantly in this argument) other people just to reach this.

kokichis true motivations are never reeeaalllly laid out simply (mostly because its impossible to tell if kokichi is lying or not), which leaves a lot of room for the fandom to create sympathetic explanations for why he did the things he did. nagito is a bit different in that he makes his motivations extremely clear from the beginning, and explains that he is intent on hurting others if it means finally reaching his goal. whether or not he believes it is for the "greater good" does not change the fact that he is intentionally placing his classmates in harms way. he gets people killed and he doesnt express much visible remorse about it, and is willing to do it again. he places BOMBS ON THE ISLAND???? it is ENTIRELY reasonable for the other characters not to like him. there is no reason for them to be patient with him when he is an immediate threat to their safety and wellbeing.

there are elements of nagitos story that are supposed to be sympathised with, absolutely. but using those sympathetic elements to portray nagito as a character who never wanted to harm others is reducing him to a person he really never was in canon. its unfair to expect the rest of the cast to be extremely patient with him and forgive him all because he has a few sympathetic reasons as to why he did the things he did. nagito still intentionally and deliberately hurt other people. having a reason for why he hurt other people doesnt mean the other characters are not allowed to react negatively to being hurt, and it sucks that some of the fandom thinks that theyre all dickheads for it lmao

nagito is an extremely fascinating character but he NEEDS to be analysed for his good and bad parts. his willingness to hurt others in the sake of hope is frankly what makes him so compelling. and please for the love of god he doesnt have to be this completely blameless victim for him to be your favorite character, APPRECIATE HIS FLAWS !!!!!

[katyspersonal]

Hey guys.. Thank you for the kind words. I am just not feeling like talking yet, I am mostly just spending time alone.

It is hard to explain how one thing leads to another thing and how things that are troubling me are conjoined, but I just feel like I don't have a place as a human being. I am caught in the loop of escaping people that hate whites / males / heteros / etc by proxy and soon enough the freedom and reason I've been after ends at dead end, me meeting people that instead hate blacks / women / LGBTs / etc. No matter what I do, no matter where I go it is always fucking something. It is always hatred to a demographic of people by proxy, people just can't comprehend the idea of hating the bad and harmful instead of this stupid disparity between "good" demographics and "bad". When it is not dumb American college esque "systematic/historical oppression" flex - it is a sob story about various bad events caused within confrontation to the group. EVERY demographics has people that will willfully weaponize belonging to it against others. EVERY single ONE. Every race, every gender, every culture, every sexuality will have pricks. When it is not """systematic""" privilege - it is victim's privilege.

And I am tired too. I question whether the freedom and reason I am looking for even exists. Maybe it is normal for humans to blame the ones who are not like them as a 'covenant' instead of looking up into something that can occur everywhere, and I just have no place in society. I feel like blasphemy is becoming the same entity as religion: there is always that guy that claims they know how things "really" work, that everyone who disagrees is against the "truth" itself. And I am tired. I am tired of running from one kind of control freaks and ending up with the other, after having a hunch of hope. I am tired of always, always, always being pressured into being an ideological soldier. When it is not 'you should let others walk all over you because you are white and cis' - it is 'you should stand against them with us as a woman and a bi'. And there is always control freakery, pressure and hatred for not agreeing 100%. When I am not called a disgusting bigot - I am called another woke brainwashed feminist (sometimes also with 'child murdering psychopath' for supporting abortion rights).

I am feeling ideologically homeless, because apparently 'for reason and against idiocy' is not an ideology. I choose my own sources of information and do what I can to keep drastically different people around so I am always forced to question or reaffirm what I already think, but HOW do I always end close with people with whom being honest is hated and punished? When it is not a public social abuse from cancel culture simps - it is private emotional abuse behind closed doors by friends.

And in the end? I am still the dumbest person in this equation. It is all my fault. I've failed to nurture enough self-confidence to be independent without the need of any approval, and so I am blaming who exactly? The entire human society for how it works? I feel like I am more like Djur4. He is not against the hunt altogether (he tells the hunter to go kill beasts outside), but he personally quit it and protects the beasts that CAN'T harm anyone, he has only like 3 true friends (funny enough, I also have 3 people that truly accept me as who I am without any contempt and conditions), but he has quite the mood swings and used to be fearsome (and well, I used to be aggressive kind of feminist anti something something years ago). But I am yet to become really like him, because he is confident living on his own with what works for him. (Heh. Would've been funny to switch M3nsis on Powder K3gs, considering he still resides extremely close to M3nsis base.)

In the end, what I am really looking for is the dreaded unattainable trait of "not letting someone's insults get to me", but even this is hard because if I never listen to them, how will I know when I am ACTUALLY being a dumbass? Is anyone really qualified to unmistakeably distinguish between "they insult me because they can't control me" and "they insult me because I really fucked up"? I've endured a lot of abuse from either "side" under delusion that they could not insult me without a logical reason... But what if they do not understand logic to begin with? Or what if their logic is rigid and stuck in certain dogmas, that can't adapt and evolve? And what if they don't know the "truth" but just fucking hate women, even if some of their observations and reasoning could be useful? In the end, no one can know my intentions better than me, but if I never listen - how WILL I connect with other people? Yet I did not connect just to be condemned for not being antagonistic "enough", or for constantly listening trash about women and their rights and being told that I am in "denial about FAAAAAACTS uwu" when I disagree. In the end, chaos is just another form of order, only its order is being antagonistic to the previous one.

And if I can't become whatever the secret third thing is... it is better to exclude myself from this life altogether.

[howieabel]

“Over recent years, [there's been] a strong tendency to require assessment of children and teachers so that [teachers] have to teach to tests and the test determines what happens to the child, and what happens to the teacher...that's guaranteed to destroy any meaningful educational process: it means the teacher cannot be creative, imaginative, pay attention to individual students' needs, that a student can't pursue things [...] and the teacher's future depends on it as well as the students'...the people who are sitting in the offices, the bureaucrats designing this - they're not evil people, but they're working within a system of ideology and doctrines, which turns what they're doing into something extremely harmful [...] the assessment itself is completely artificial; it's not ranking teachers in accordance with their ability to help develop children who reach their potential, explore their creative interests and so on [...] you're getting some kind of a 'rank,' but it's a 'rank' that's mostly meaningless, and the very ranking itself is harmful. It's turning us into individuals who devote our lives to achieving a rank, not into doing things that are valuable and important.

It's highly destructive...in, say, elementary education, you're training kids this way [...] I can see it with my own children: when my own kids were in elementary school (at what's called a good school, a good-quality suburban school), by the time they were in third grade, they were dividing up their friends into 'dumb' and 'smart.' You had 'dumb' if you were lower-tracked, and 'smart' if you were upper-tracked [...] it's just extremely harmful and has nothing to do with education. Education is developing your own potential and creativity. Maybe you're not going to do well in school, and you'll do great in art; that's fine. It's another way to live a fulfilling and wonderful life, and one that's significant for other people as well as yourself. The whole idea is wrong in itself; it's creating something that's called 'economic man': the 'economic man' is somebody who rationally calculates how to improve his/her own status, and status means (basically) wealth. So you rationally calculate what kind of choices you should make to increase your wealth - don't pay attention to anything else - or maybe maximize the amount of goods you have.

What kind of a human being is that? All of these mechanisms like testing, assessing, evaluating, measuring...they force people to develop those characteristics. The ones who don't do it are considered, maybe, 'behavioral problems' or some other deviance [...] these ideas and concepts have consequences. And it's not just that they're ideas, there are huge industries devoted to trying to instill them...the public relations industry, advertising, marketing, and so on. It's a huge industry, and it's a propaganda industry. It's a propaganda industry designed to create a certain type of human being: the one who can maximize consumption and can disregard his actions on others.” ― Noam Chomsky

[anendoandfriendo]

Hey there! Y'all are out as plural at your work right? Would you be willing/able to share how you did that? Everytime we consider being openly ourselves outside of our close friend group, we kinda seize up, unsure of really how to broach the situation.

Honestly, we have a more "fuck it, fuck this, fuck that, fuck everything," attitude to most things when it somes to social norms and that's probably not something most people can pull off considering our body's parents' first concerns when we first started university were:

Please don't get stabbed.

Please don't get arrested at a protest.

We didn't do either of those things (aww, that's unfortunate) but basically the reason that happened is we asked the mother for some advice once way back when. She told us that at some point, she had also heard the words "just screw it and do it," from someone. So we took that to an extreme they probably were not expecting given the above.

Anxious? Screw it and do it. Scared? Screw it! Just do the thing already! Think that the worst could happen? Fuck this, there is already some bad shit happening and you don't need to hurt yourself even further.

While retail was our main job literally filed an ethics report against the boss of our boss...of maybe our boss??? but walmart is weird. We were told we would be notified when the case closes and still haven't gotten any notification so we're absolutely convince this man will not have a job within the next six months, but we've also gotten a yellow warning for trying to talk to them about another employee's Qanon ideologies.

What we mean when we tell you all of this is that YMMV. We are extremely stubborn and bullheaded and annoying as FUCK and will drag just about anyone through the mud who has the audacity to tell us we cannot/do not exist in public. Like. Not everyone is like that. We're mostly just using our worst natures and turning them into something a bit less harmful and more hopeful.

We also make heavy use of the weaponizing our supposed respectability, which we vaguely discussed here but only vaguely. Jade Leech 1.0 does this quite a lot even compared to the majority of us, and on the other side of that spectrum 🏖 has tried it once and failed miserably. We think if you have seen us talk about Jade 1.0 or you have met Jade 1.0 you will know what we mean, and we believe you have at least heard us describe his antics.

Edit: we found the article! We would take a look at this if you'd like to get an idea of what we mean.

Unfortunately, the more humanizing side of us is a little less refined than the monstrous side of our system, which means we don't think we're quite there yet but what's described in that article is something that makes sense to us and we strive to be more hopeful than "nice" when it comes to making the world better, if that makes sense.

[mournwatch]

and people said that proved they can r-move entire h-rassment posts when needed. Its not the main reason the site has issues but its why a lot of people are upset at st-ff about it all. Also I’m SO sorry about the random dashes I literally could not send the ask without them because st-ff bl-cks certain combinations of keywords from being sent in asks and this topic is one of the f-ltered ones. But yeah other than that you’re 100% right 2/2

So I heard about the case of this staff member as it was going down. If it’s not immediately obvious, I do know people who are on staff even if I myself am not. I sew costumes for a living at a corporation. As far as I understood it, what happened was someone found out that a person on staff (but *not on trust & safety*, which is the department that handles reports of harassment) was a Harry Potter fan. And then they proceeded to make a big deal out of it in a way that singled that staff member out for harassment, which is against TOS. I don’t remember seeing any specific transphobic posts from this person, just that they like Harry Potter. And that it seemed unfair that the person bringing this to people’s attention was punished, even though they really did break TOS.

Now, to be clear I think it’s in extremely poor taste to still be a fan of Harry Potter now. The author is so beyond the pale in terms of proof pointing to her bigotry. And being a member of Tumblr staff I don’t think you can even give this person the benefit of the doubt in assuming she didn’t know. She probably does. She could be anywhere from an ignorant idiot clinging to nostalgia to someone who really does hold transphobic beliefs. But ultimately as far as I understand it there wasn’t sufficient proof of her saying blatantly transphobic things, so what do you do? Would you, as a member of HR staff at a company, feel comfortable enough to potentially risk being brought to court over firing someone because they consume shitty media? It’s almost inevitable as an adult in the workplace that you’re going to have coworkers that have harmful political stances. My best friend worked with an antivax flat-earther. But if they don’t talk about it at work, there’s not a lot that most companies would do about that. It’s annoying and unpleasant but the same laws that protect someone like me, a trans gay Jewish AnSoc, also are protecting them. But anyway, since this person wasn’t actually on trust & safety, it isn’t within her power actually to make decisions over how transphobic harassment gets handled.

Further, it’s weird to then treat staff as if they’re a transphobic monolith when most people don’t even interact with each other directly. This company is almost entirely comprised of remote workers. They’re not like, hanging out around the water cooler pitying this person for liking Harry Potter. By far the most annoying result from their perspective has been this game of telephone that started at “there’s a staff member who has interests that are distressing” to “the company is sheltering a secret hive of TERFs.” When meanwhile the people I know who are affiliated with Tumblr are as far from that ideology as you can be. And they mostly are not going to be outspoken about this issue at all because it is pretty uncomfortable to get in direct fights with the userbase when it really only will result in not letting this matter ever die if they did and wouldn’t help clarify anything.

Most people who are invested in this come off as very young to me and without the experience of how working at a company like this is. They don’t know how difficult it is to be bound to a enforcing a set of rules that can both be used against bigots and people who mean well but still break those rules. I’m nearly thirty. I really feel sorry for the people who feel like they’ve been treated unfairly, but I think what they’re looking for doesn’t exist. You can’t even get people to all behave in a leftist discord server. And as you can see in the other conversation I’m having, people constantly underestimate the labor it takes to keep social media safe. I could grumpily tell people to grow up and touch grass but that doesn’t do any good either. All I can do is simply plead for people to think it through better.

[gayahithwen]

I notice that you immediately moved the goal post after I showed you that your "fact check" was factually incorrect. If you're not willing to ever admit fault, you will continue down a path of sunk cost fallacies that will only drive you towards more hatred and violent extremism.

Calling for recounts in close races is actually perfectly fine and normal. I personally don't know anyone who had a problem with Trump calling for a recount on the states he lost by a small margin. Were we worried about what the outcome would be? Sure. But it was his right, and recounts were done. And Biden still won.

Like, I don't understand how I can explain to you that people who genuinely care about democracy actually want things to be done democratically?

Harris/Walz is a vastly different ticket than Trump/Vance. If you can't see that, then... I don't know how to fix that.

Yes, Harris is not as pro-Palestine as we wish she could be, and peaceful protestors being arrested for "blocking traffic" is ridiculous.

But Harris is at least fighting for a cessation of violence. Trump, on the other hand, has said he'd deport pro-Palestinian protestors, and that he wants Israel to "finish the problem" with Gaza.

Those are some significant differences on the one issue you seem to care about.

Those of us who care about policies beyond Israel are also quite excited at the thought of having politicians in charge who are willing to do things like create programs that allows first time offenders to go to school instead of prison, or ones that make sure school children get free meals (both of those programs are real examples that Harris and Walz have actually done).

The Democrat party is actually acknowledging the wealth inequality in the country and have shown themselves willing to try some common sense approaches like increasing corporate tax rates and allowing the IRS the resources to investigate rich people's tax fraud.

You know, while the GOP thinks 13 year old girls should be forced to give birth to their rapist uncle's child, and that billionaires need yet another tax cut.

Also, wtf are you talking about "entitled" to people's votes? That's not what this post is about at all. This post is a democratic reminder of how fucked up the electoral college is, and reminding people that if just six hundred people in Florida had voted for Gore instead of Nader, the early 2000s would most likely have been significantly different.

Would a Gore presidency have been perfect? No, I don't believe so. But there's a decent chance a more intelligent president would have been able to prevent 9/11. And even if he hadn't, he would probably not have full-on defied the UN Security Council to start an illegal war. The United Nations used to actually have some sway back in the day.

This post is about pointing out the futility of voting third party as long as the US remains a first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all, bipartisan system.

And it's pleading (not demanding, like you seem to think) with people like you, up on your high horse and ignoring mostly everything I'm saying, to make the choice and vote for harm reduction in lieu of your "ideologically pure" candidate who will never get enough votes to get into office.

With Kamala/Walz going up DAILY, I've seen more people talking about voting third party/Jill Stein (EW) and I believe the above screencaps from @three--rings can explain WHY Third Party votes NEVER work NOR is this the election to screw around in.

Everyone....like she says above.....PLEASE LEARN FROM HISTORY!!!

(Because if Trump gets in, he's NEVER LEAVING).

[thosearentcrimes]

I’ve become increasingly wary of the way a lot of people on the left respond to more or less every undesirable situation with “it’s because of capitalism”, even when the connection is entirely absent or tenuous at best. There are two subcategories of this response, one in which a long-winded explanation of how the situation relates to capitalism, and one (more of a joke, though the kind of joke where you simply say what you actually believe) where the punchline is just the word Capitalism and no explanation is provided.

While most long-winded explanations of how situation relates to capitalism make sense and are true because Capitalism is involved in basically everything, there are a lot of long-winded explanations that are frankly nonsense. There are historically illiterate, suspiciously conspiratorial, or outright illogical ‘explanations’ floating around, but honestly those are in some sense less harmful, because they can easily be disproven. It is trickier when everything that is said is technically true (or at least not particularly implausible), but it is all irrelevant, and does not establish a significant material connection between the subject matter and capitalism. Like, yes, capitalism is woven into the fabric of our societies, and so every other ideology or social system needs to come to some sort of understanding with it, but this does not mean that those other ideologies or social systems are parts of capitalism.

For example, I’ve seen posts that state or suggest that nationalism is a component of capitalism, and that’s a framing that, while you could try to defend it, obscures far more than it reveals. Yes, capitalists will take advantage of nationalism where they can, and nationalism has been formed by its interactions with capitalism, but this does not mean you can blame all problems caused by nationalism on capitalism. Our understanding of capitalism (and it being bad) needs to inform our understanding of nationalism, not replace it.

I think to a large degree this sort of perspective is caused by a poor understanding of an example where this kind of model mostly does hold, which is racism. Most contemporary racism is descended from fairly transparent justifications for the imposition of and maintenance of slavery and colonialism, and then the maintenance of the post-slavery racial hierarchy. Since slavery and colonialism were early adopters of capitalist models, the connections are important and enlightening. Unfortunately, the conclusion some people took from this seems to have been “bigotry is capitalist”, which is far too broad a statement.

I think this whole phenomenon is merely the application onto leftist politics of a broader tendency to pick a primary axis of understanding and subordinate everything else to it. It’s just that with left-wing politics the axis (class) is so well chosen that it will work the vast majority of the time, which builds the impression that the approach is universal and effective, when it more just happens to keep working. Radical Feminists claim everything is misogyny, terminally online right-wingers claim everything is postmodern neo-marxism, centrists claim everything is extremism, and they’re all obviously and laughably wrong. When we claim everything is capitalism, well, if you just define capitalism broadly enough, and maybe ignore a couple inconvenient examples, and squint a little, it is, right?

The problem is, if your reflexive reaction to any sort of bad thing happening is “this is capitalism’s fault”, you’re no longer actually saying anything about capitalism. The information content of a message is determined by its relative probability to counterfactuals. An unlikely statement is highly informative (which is why blind contrarianism resembles intelligence from a distance), while a guaranteed statement contains no information whatsoever.

Another problem with this perspective that I’ve seen is that it encourages an idealized view of the pre-capitalist past. Obviously there are other prominent pastorialist tendencies on the left, but I see people who seem to be pretty much convinced capitalism is the root of all evil conclude that it must have been pretty nice before capitalism, when evil hadn’t been invented yet. It’s not where I think all the fantasies about how being a medieval peasant was probably ok come from, but I think it’s part of why they spread so much despite being completely ridiculous.

[zealousdetectivegladiator]

Anarchist Themes in Assassins Creed (An Overview)

I apologize @assinteractions for the sheer length of this. I kind of hazed out and just kept going once I actually started writing/stopped just researching and drafting.

Note: This has yet to be edited. A link to the full, edited version on AO3 will be included later.

Sources at the bottom. Games are not included in the source list, as I mostly focused on sourcing things that were more external to the games.

Summary: The aim of this post is to look at anarchist themes in (some of) the Assassins Creed franchise. Constraints included the games I’ve actually completed, time, and the topics I felt comfortable speaking deeper on vs the ones that I felt it more appropriate to stay at a surface level, with the hopes those with more experience and knowledge feel comfortable enough to hop in with their perspectives and opinions. Finally, it ends with a brief look at the conflicts such theming creates for Ubisoft, and an analysis of the poor decisions made as a result. It is not in any way an attempt to exonerate Ubisoft, and I hope my tone makes that clear. Rather, it is an attempt to understand why a narrative with these themes has the kind of execution that it does.

Definitions & Sub-Categories

Any discussion around anarchy should start, at minimum, with some definitions. At its broadest, as defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu; note, this is the major source for much of the philosophical side of this analysis, as I do work and have a number of personal projects going on that chip into my time to do the heavy reading for this kind of meta), anarchy is an ideology that is suspicious of the state. Most forms of anarchy will outright declare the state unethical, and suggest that the organization of people in such a manner causes more harm than good. 

As things fall, there are then two (again, very broad for the purposes of this essay) sub-categories of anarchy that fall along action lines. I hesitate to use political terminology due to the flexibility and malleability of such terms, so instead I will term them collective-interest and individual-interest. 

Collective interest anarchy would posit that, in the place of the state, the organization of people should be undertaken in the form of voluntary-association communes. First, the voluntary nature is important. This idea of anarchy would posit that the most ethical way of organizing should include an “opt-out” option. If you are unhappy, it should be within your freedom to find another group or to live on your own, if you so choose. 

The collective piece comes in that mutual aid is a major part of this conception of ideal anarchic organization. Community gardens tended by the group, community work, etc. The group works together for their mutual gain. 

The individualist conception of anarchy instead posits an “everyone for themselves” mentality. One’s personal interests should be paramount. It also presupposes that each individual has near equal ability to act in their interests and, thus, does not or should not need aid (excepting, in some conceptions, extreme circumstances). 

Notably, the individual-interest conception aligns well with the needs and goals of capitalism. It perpetuates narratives that outright support and perpetuate capitalism. Hence, sometimes, you will see the term “anarcho-capitalism”, often referencing a stark minimizing of the state in the interests of letting corporate and capitalist organizations take the lead. 

As such, this analysis will be in three parts. First, a look at the Creed itself. Then, a look at both the depictions of collective organization/work efforts in several games and the depictions of state power. Finally, a more Doylist look at how the status of Ubisoft as a corporation impacted telling a story that so prominently centers anarchist philosophies and ideas. 

For the only outright political commentary I will make in this essay, if you do support anarcho-capitalism, I would ask you to do actual, proper research into the history of the US labor rights movement (as a look at just how bad it can get) or the labor rights movement in your country. The Battle of Blair Mountain, the shootings of tent cities, often populated by workers kicked out of factory housing for trying to unionize, the casualties of the Triangle Shirt-Waist Fire, and the brutalization of children under child labor practices are all aspects of unchecked capitalism, but they are not the only ones.

The Assassins and Anarchy: The Creed

The Assassins have several maxims they operate by. The ones most of interest to this analysis, however, are the last tenet of the Creed (“Never compromise the Brotherhood”) and the often quoted Creed-maxim itself, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” 

Starting with the latter, it suggests a philosophy inherently suspect of state/social authorities. Nothing is true, therefore social/cultural norms are open for questioning. If they are open for questioning, then everything is theoretically permitted. I stress that this is in theory, because from the first game we are given Altair saying that the Creed requires and mandates wisdom. It requires that those that follow it use their own judgment, not the judgment of others or of society in determining the validity and ethical weight of their actions. 

The first cited piece points to what is a more broadly seen collectivist instinct in the Assassins throughout the franchise. The Brotherhood is a collective, an organization made up of multiple individuals, but those individuals seek to work to their mutual gain and goals. This may involve compromising some personal goals or gains in that pursuit. 

This collectivist mindset is also put forward towards the people. While on some level, the people around them are tools in the execution of their goals (“Hide in plain sight” often being demonstrated as “hide yourself among the civilian population”), they are focused on minimizing the harm they do to those around them. Both the tenet of staying their blade from innocents and the rebuke given for too-public of assassinations play into this. To have such a public assassination would, historically, cause problemes for the otherwise uninvolved civilians. Soldiers and guards might ransack houses, or seize family members while they try to find the culprit. 

This creed, however, lasts throughout history and throughout major social and political shifts. That suggests a guiding principle that would stress adapting to the times more than adhering to a traditional interpretation of the Creed. 

This collective-interest focus of the Assassins then shows throughout the games in the economic aspects. Ezio rebuilds Monteriggioni, Arno funds a place of public discourse in France, the Fryes become known entities and forces for protection on the streets of London. Somewhere in the twentieth century, though, we see the shift towards an individual-focus in line with their fall in power. Notably, this is not the only time we see such a parallel. 

I will also note that, while the selection of games is limited to games I have played most or all the way through, I have also gone out of my way to pick games that take place in major social/political/economic shifts in history. 

Ezio

To start with the collective action comparisons, the best place to start is Assassins Creed II. 

Upon taking some level of power and control in Monteriggioni, the player is introduced to the economic mechanic of rebuilding the town to generate income. However, from a more Watsonian perspective, we are seeing that Ezio is taking the reigns of the city and immediately working to improve the conditions of its people. After all, none of these people are Assassins. He is doing this because he sees them as part of his cause, though not part of his Brotherhood. On one of the broadest scales we see in the games, the Assassin character is actively working to the betterment of the immediate group around them. 

Notably, he is not looking to engage in politics (state activities) outside of eliminating the Templars. This is somewhat complicated by the social systems of the day - namely, that as a Lord he has a theoretical duty to be seeing to the welfare of his people. We are shown, however, that he is a change from the previous lord, his own uncle. He is taking action where others have not. Ezio, being then a bastion of a rejuvenated Brotherhood later in the timeline, builds his legacy on a basis that challenges a major arbiter of state/military power (the Church) while also working towards collective good and goals. This is a consistent narrative choice in his later games, I understand, though I have not completed those games. 

Arno Dorian

Next in the line up, from the timeline, we have Arno Dorian. He is in a more familiar setting. While still French nobility, we see him in a sort of liminal position. As an orphan and a ward of another noble in these times, Arno doesn’t have much standing or position himself, it is entirely dependent on Msr. de la Serre. Furthermore, we are shown that an adult Arno, while enjoying the finer life provided to him, is just as comfortable among people of a lower socioeconomic class. That comfort remains a standing part of his character, even bringing him into conflict later with other higher class Assassins. Furthermore, the comfort remains even after he loses the protection of being the de la Serre ward. 

Moreover, Arno’s fluidity between the classes is largely made possible by his morals. He is an Assassin because he believes in the values, but he clashes throughout the game. The Dead Kings DLC gives some impression that his grief had pushed him, for some time, away from Paris, it is telling how the sequence opens. De Sade is based in Paris. Given his acquaintance with Arno and his shown-to-be-keen understanding of the goings-on around him, it is a safe assumption that he knows about the Assassins. If he doesn’t know how to contact them, he knows where the Cafe Theatre is and can assume there are people there to pass along a message.

Instead, he seeks out Arno, knowing that Arno’s motives will not be entirely based in the goals of the Assassins, but in part curiosity, and part the welfare of the people. He can interact with the various levels of Parisian society because he is acting from goals of protection and assistance. 

That the economic function is the Cafe Theatre and the social clubs is also symbolically important. France is in the middle of massive upheaval, and the game goes out of its way to demonstrate that much of the city is torn between monarchy and the ideal of a republic. Using the benevolent benefactor model we saw with Ezio doesn’t work in that context, specifically because Paris and France are not holding to the social structures that support that. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (pardon my spelling), as the famous slogan goes, are the ethos of the day. 

The Cafe Theater, then, serves as a meeting place for all those ideas and ideals to come. Arno is, in essence, opening and hosting a salon for the people of Paris to share and debate their ideas. His business is benefiting the Assassins as much as it is benefiting the people. The inclusion of crowd events, then, suggests another shift in the collective-focused Assassin mindset. Direct action in the midst of the chaos means that Arno is able to do a lot of good directly on the streets, preventing pickpockets and the like. While similar mechanics existed in other games (i.e. the criers and hunting corrupt politicians in II), they are named and tallied in Unity. 

As far as being a transitional period for the Assassins and for history, the French Revolution is the end of a monarchy in a major European power. France, at the time, was also a hub of philosophical and political thought. Often termed the Enlightenment, this period was rife with new ideas for French society. 

A liminal character in a liminal space in a liminal time, then, fits the criteria set above: someone operating and adapting the Creed from what they are introduced to into something that fits the needs of the people and time. 

Arno is inducted with ceremony and ritual. It is not unlike the Templar inductions we see, particularly if we take into account the companion novel. While understandable, it is remarkable from a viewing perspective that the aesthetics are so closely aligned. Indeed, Mirabeau, a sympathetic character in his own right, is shown as being hesitant to act. The fragile peace with the Templars is already gone, with de la Serre dead, but he still wants to fight to preserve it. Also being part of the monarchist faction of France, he is the embodiment of an “Old Guard” of French elites. 

Conversely, we are given a sort of “old guard” of Assassin thought in Pierre Bellec. He is hardened by what he has witnessed from the Templars, and he does not trust the peace with them at all. He is vocally against anything to do with Elise de la Serre, regardless that as a temporary ally she could be incredibly useful. He is a foil, in many ways, to Mirabeau as he is to Elise, but he also fulfills a similar narrative purpose: pushing Arno to consider more than what he is told, but what he sees in front of him. 

Taking our earlier discussion of the Cafe Theatre and the crowd events, then, into account, we are left with the beginnings of what Syndicate later built upon: Assassins that are working on smaller levels, and notably outside of state authority, to better the lives of the people. Arno is pursued by police for crowd events, if they see him. Further, he often is seen actively breaking into areas of power and chasing down information or targets that are holders of state power, whether directly or indirectly via their money. 

Syndicate: Gangs, Poverty, and Collective Interest 

Syndicate brings the player to the shifting tides of industrial London. The urbanization, giving way to dangerous living conditions, the lack of regulation on products in the ever-shifting market, and the need to survive are the backdrop for the story of the Frye twins hunting Crawford Starrick. Moreover, the hunt takes place in the aftermath of outright rebellious action; the Assassins are based in Crawley, where the Fryes have grown up. Jayadeep Mir has been begging assistance from the British Assassins for a significant time because the people of London are suffering. He has been denied, in equal measure, because of the distance, physical and symbolic, of the Assassins from the people. 

That the Frye twins start in Whitechapel is particularly notable. They start with getting control in a neighborhood that is already poor, and already suffering. The game works through the districts systematically, and they get progressively nicer as the player works their way through. The economic stratification, then, is part of the scenery, and for good reason. To start in an idyllic London, some of both the side quests and the main story wouldn’t quite stand out as much. 

But the scenery is not so important as the story. And what Syndicate does, in the vein of collective-interest anarchy, is focus on a story that has as much a sociopolitical factor as it does a historical one. 

Crime and gang violence are, often, associated with poverty. And while there is a false assumptions in institutions of “law enforcement” that poor areas will stop being poor if crime is “addressed”, usually in a way that is preferable to the propertied classes (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police miniseries), academic research has borne out a different understanding. 

Studies of crime and poverty suggest that the lack of resources that is such a persistent part of poverty is more likely to increase crime. Furthermore, research bears out that when measures are taken to better distribute resources, to increase access to resources for communities that need them, and to reduce income inequality, there is a higher level of trust and lower levels of crime (Some sources below; Robert, of Behind the Bastards also covers it in the linked episodes (and other episodes) with better sources than my “what isn’t behind a paywall” searching could). 

Similarly, gangs often form out of a need for community protection. From the Sicilian Mafia to the gangs we see in Syndicate, it is clear that there is an initial function to the gang. The Sicilian Mafia started due to the lack of social protections in Sicily (Overly Sarcastic Productions, “History Sumamrized: Sicily” does a nice little overview of this). A group with a collective goal and interest. However, as Syndicate makes clear, it is all too easy for a collective interest group that is willing to work outside the confines of the law to act in selfish interest. The Blighters are, after all, the first gang we meet. Quite aptly named, as well, given they are a blight to the people. The Blighters also act in the traditional role of police, despite the existence of the police in-game (Behind the Bastards): they are paid thugs working toward aims set by people with more money. This is also shown, in brief, in Rogue. Hope Jensen’s gangs start extorting the people they claim to protect. 

It is important, then, that from the outset the Rooks, both the name for a type of bird-of-prey and a notably strong-yet-limited piece on the chessboard, are given a clear mandate and mission. They are meant to help liberate London, and it is established early on. It is also a way, given Rook power in any region grows through the player taking down other gang bases, Templar agents and institutions working off of child labor, for the player to see the “improved economic conditions create improved social conditions” paradigm. 

The Rooks are a criminal element, but within a society that is working off of exploitation. The state power is bolstered by the likes of Crawford Starrick, and has little interest in separating from them. By this point in history, the East India company was gaining power through the sheer amount of capital they brought to Britain, nevermind they were doing it to the cost and tune of human life and wellbeing across the globe. By the point the game takes place, the British crown had outright taken control of the British East India Company, all its India holdings, and its armed forces. Again, I would refer back to Behind the Bastards, specifically the second episode listed below, “How the Police Went from Gangsters to An Army for the Rich”. The thesis of the game, then, relies on the earlier discussion of the Creed commanding wisdom above all else. 

The Fryes cannot single-handedly dismantle capitalism in the industrial era, nor can they, alone, undo poverty in London and its effects. The helplessness is, in some instances, baked into the narrative. They are inherently limited, unless they want to tangle with state power. Beyond just outright denying Queen Victoria on her final side-quest due to the ethics of colonialism, though, the Frye twins’ story also centers it in the main narrative. Working with Mrs. Disraeli means Jacob has to try and cater to a woman who has, as far as he can see, little understanding of how the lower classes of London live and work. That she manages well enough is a surprise to him, and part of what is meant to endear her to the player; she is not as bad as other state actors. 

The ball scene, however, is set in the seat of power in Britain: Buckingham Palace. It is no coincidence that Evie’s dress constricts her as she has to talk to Crawford Starrick. While the use of the trope could be dismantled for a separate, feminist critique of the game, the physical metaphor is powerful: If Evie (or Jacob) were to be working through the existing institutions of power, they would not be able to accomplish their goals in any significant manner. They would be inherently limited by the interests of the propertied class, whose voices would outnumber them. Yes, this scene is during the hunt for the Shroud. But the hunt for the Shroud has taken place alongside the social narrative, and continues to do so. 

It is little wonder, then, that we have allies like Karl Marx throughout the game, discussing the state of class politics in Britain. Or that, as players, we are watching the bottom-up approach of organizing and agitating. While there is another critique (and it will be brought up later) of how this could then be extended as a metaphor for unionization, and the sticky bits involved, in the context of the game it is important that the player understand why the existing power structures are not a viable option for the (social) goals of the Frye twins. 

Which brings us back to Freddy Abberline. From the outset, he says he doesn’t get the money to do the work he really wants to do, which is work that would help the people around him. He is inherently limited. He is the “good cop”, and the game centers the limitations he exists within as it shows the ways the cops exist as part of the institutions funded and perpetuated by the propertied classes. Notably, our discussion of backdrop comes back here. The nicer the neighborhoods in Syndicate, the more police presence there is. While actual research on real-world policing bears out the opposite (Behind the Bastards), the police are as much a symbol in this game as they are a social mechanic. As a symbol, then, the game is making clear that the wealthier people have the money to be protected and to be worth protecting. The poorer districts, however, do not see the same attention. 

Bill Miles & The Modern Assassins

It makes sense, then, that the narrative of the games would show the failures of the modern assassins alongside the creep towards individual-minded practices. Much like the decline of Monteriggioni under Mario, the modern assassins and what I’ve seen in various fan spaces called Bill’s “scorched earth” policy, the same policy that saw Clay Kaczmarek sacrificed as a test subject to Abstergo, is emblematic of the departure from the thing that made Assassins successful in the past: adaptation, and social consciousness. 

Notably, things come together once Desmond is involved. He is shown trying to get to know the people around him, and that encourages a stronger team atmosphere. The lessons Bill seems to learn from this then translate into later games such as Odyssey, where we see Layla Hassan working with an Assassin Team (and, in the DLC, the consequences she sees when she focuses too much on her goal and not enough on the advice and value of her team), and Valhalla, where we catch up with Sean and Rebecca as they once again work on a team towards Assassin goals. 

The Assassins also seem to have failed to adapt to 21st Century capitalism. Where Ezio funded the city through his work until it funded itself, Arno funded the Assassins through fostering a community resource, and the Fryes through the use of a protection racket that aimed to actually protect the people, the Assassins are secluded. The Farm is hidden in the middle of the Black Hills, and is repeatedly suggested to be incredibly remote. Desmond, notably, manages (on some level) because of the time he spent integrated into the normal world. How would the Isu plans of him being the savior have panned out if he had no concrete connection to the broader people? 

Isolation, then, from the people is part of what brings the Assassins low. 

Templars: Agents & Emblems of the State

The Borgias

I will admit outright that, like the section on ACII, this will be a somewhat shorter section. My knowledge of Renaissance Italy is not so strong as my knowledge of more recent/modern political factions and movements. 

Given the Italian peninsula saw state power more organized along city-state lines during the Renaissance, as Italy would not unified until the 19th century, the writers were left with the question of where to put the vestments of state power. States, however, are one more type of institution; the institution with the most broad-reaching power, then, is the Catholic Church, leading us to the Borgia. In some regards, it makes sense that this was the second setting in the Franchise; the Knights Templar, after all, were very entangled with Catholic history.

What is particularly of note, however, is that the Borgias (even in reality) were agents of social and religious power. The Catholic Church, for one, was very tied up in political and military matters throughout European history, particularly in the Renaissance. I’ve linked all four parts of the Overly Sarcastic Productions Pope Fights series as they’re very funny and informative, but the relevant one is Pope Fights 3 (and yes, Blue makes an Assassins Creed reference). This goes over some of the history in more detail than I am capable of doing. 

Our track of analysis, however, is more looking at why pick this period. The scientific progress, certainly, allows for the transitional narrative we see from Ezio. From the side of choosing antagonists, the Borgia are historically attractive antagonists. They make it easy, in some regards, to cast them as the villains. However, the choice of protagonists makes for its own compelling argument. 

As they’re written, the narrative religious power is vested in Rodrigo, the narrative military power in Cesare and the narrative social power in Lucrezia. The family is a foil to the Auditore family in many ways; the Auditore family was, at its closest, power adjacent. Giovanni was a banker, making his social power largely reliant on the good graces (and remaining-in-power) of Lorenzo di Medici. Ezio spends the series being a criminal and outlaw; he isn’t in a position to occupy more than social and economic power, and even that is constrained by what social circles he can actually access. Mario is shown to be more personally comfortable around mercenaries than he is around politics. Contrasted, the Borgia are dripping in the trappings of power. 

Moreover, both families operate off a triad of characters. The fighters, Cesare and Ezio, are accompanied by a sister and a parent. Ezio and Cesare are, arguably, the most similar. They are both the “military”/force arm of the triad. However, where Ezio’s power is increased by work for the people where he is, Cesare’s is increased at their detriment. Similarly, while both Claudia and Lucrezia, the sisters, are involved in working towards family goals, Claudia’s work is often more direct. She oversees the books of Monteriggioni, then takes over the brothel in Rome. Meanwhile, Lucrezia is often seen more as a pawn to be moved and married to political advantage. Finally, Maria and Rodrigo, literally opposites as the matriarch and patriarch of their respective families, are the last symbols of the divide between the Assassins and their localized mutual-aid organizing and the Templars far-reaching sociopolitical power. Borgia is a man in the Renaissance, and Pope besides. He has all the social power he could need at his fingertips. Maria is helping her daughter run a brothel in Rome after her family was disgraced. 

To summarize, the actions of the Audtiore, which are often taken towards a broader, collective good, are far easier to see against the actions of the Borgia, which often show us a much more fragmented, individualist thought process. 

Crawford Starrick: The State And Capital

Crawford Starrick as the villain for an industrial-age story is one that forces the player into seeing a direct line between money and politics. More specifically, positioning him as the head of a major corporation, on the public front, and the backer of many other, illicit enterprises in the private ends, asks the player to consider why there is a connection between politics and money. 

As the ability to produce increased so drastically, it is fairly widely acknowledged that worker exploitation became more than commonplace in the West. It became the backbone of the economy. Not unlike the Imperial Roman economy, which could not have functioned without slave labor, the Industrial and Imperial British economy relied on paying unlivable wages and hours that were not meant to be livable or survivable. Workers were meant to become replaceable. 

The British started two wars in China over the right to sell opium, a substance the Chinese government had tried to outlaw due to public health and economic concerns. That opium was, most often, from India, where workers were overworked, underpaid, and could often barely afford necessities, all at the command of the British East India Company. Remember, by the time of the game, the EIC is in the hands of the Crown. 

However, the discussion of imperial interests is tabled, at first, in the game. Arguably, it may be a wise move. After all, a wide variety of players have to get on board with a staunchly anti-capitalist narrative. Focusing on the evils of imperialism out of the gate might have them turning the game off too soon. Or, Ubisoft is a corporation and doesn’t want to look too closely at the ethical implications of being a corporation.

Crawford Starrick is a conventionally attractive, smartly dressed man. He is established as considering himself a “railroad baron”. The wording here (from the wiki) is telling; railroad barons are the origination of the robber baron trope, in which a wealthy man has amassed that wealth through illicit, illegal, often exploitative means. The self-glorification, however, speaks to a character that is centering power and capital. 

However, as the game shows, he does have moments where he is aware of the situation around him. In the face of inflation, he increases his workers wages (though, as the wiki points out, this also consolidates his power, by trying to prevent workers from agitating for other raises) and he promises to financially support Lucy Thorne for her service, before hearing of her death. There is a man somewhere in there that is aware of the good his money can do. However, his most generous act is towards someone from whom he has gained something. His most public facing act of generosity also acts towards his aims. 

Finally, we see him at the ball. It makes sense he is there - the player is repeatedly shown he is trying to get the Shroud of Eden. However, just as the interaction between him and Evie shows she (and Jacob) would be limited if they should try to work within the existing power structures, Starrick’s position at the ball is the exact opposite. To begin, it is stressed throughout the narrative that Jacob and Evie would need more money and connections to even go. Starrick’s presence there, regardless of his motives, plants him as a firmly entrenched piece of the institution. He has the kind of prestige and power that he can only get with the money and connections he has built up through exploiting his workers. What all the different ventures he is associated with have been suggesting, what the sheer propagation of factories with his name on them point to, is outright confirmed. 

Crawford Starrick, despite his quarrels with the institution of the monarchy, benefits immensely from the capitalism and imperialism that is fueling the British state in 1868. 

Abstergo: Modern Pharmaceuticals 

The final look at state power is an interesting one to say the least. Abstergo, as a corporation, takes the tropes of the “Tony Stark” archetype; massively wealthy, but doing just enough philanthropy to keep the masses distracted about how they’re so wealthy. Moreover, picking a pharmaceutical company in the age of the opioid crisis, puts an entirely different spin on the narrative as a whole. 

The opioid crisis is, on one level, the fault of pharmaceutical companies like the infamous Purdue Pharma incentivizing doctors to prescribe opioids. More details are available in the John Oliver segments linked below. On another level, it is the fault of legislation that treats addiction as a crime and not a public health crisis (see the John Oliver segments on rehab and harm reduction, linked below, for more information). The choice, then, of having Abstergo be a pharmaceutical company is its own point of interest and could serve as its own meta post. To summarize it briefly, though, it positions Abstergo as being directly involved in causing direct harm. And, much like the companies involved in the current opioid epidemic, they have enough money to buy their way around the laws of whichever country they are being challenged in. 

However, looking at it from the corporate angle (though I will discuss the motivations in making a narrative centered around emergent tech be spearheaded by a pharmaceutical company in the next section, where I look more at the intersection of Ubisoft’s interests and the actual narrative), it is an industry that continues growing. And, one that is known for being more straight-laced. Start-up cultures and tech-company dress codes are known, at least in some part, for being much more relaxed about professional standards. From a Watsonian perspective, then, choosing the more straight-laced pharmaceutical industry makes sense for an organization like the Templars that centers power and control.

The more interesting perspective, though, is the security forces of Abstergo. Discussed more at length in the second Behind the Bastards link, “How the First Police went from Gangsters to An Army For the Rich), the private security forces are a telling choice. They still have the accoutrement of ‘police’, which is a visual tie to state power and authority. 

Anarchist Protagonists, Corporate Creators 

This will likely, by far, be the shortest section. Ubisoft is, in the real world, a corporation.  This is not disputed. Therefore, their interests are in profit and in keeping and expanding their audience in this franchise. 

The challenge, then, for Ubisoft, is how to tell the Assassins Creed stories without running into the conflicting values of the protagonists and their company. For instance, as a corporate entity, they are directly benefited by the propagation of state systems of power. While they may not like working around taxes and regulations, the state still provides a set of agreed upon standards in negotiations, in pricing, and in currency value. They can price their games, then, according to one standard for one country. 

However, the stories they tell are centering agents that have reason to be directly questioning the state’s power and existence. Moreover, many anarchist philosophies challenge the basis of capitalist institutions like corporations. After all, corporations, in many cases, are not acting in a collective good or cause more harm than they do benefit. Whether it is worker exploitation (which Ubisoft is notorious for, see sources) or resource exploitation, corporations do not benefit from people (consumers) questioning their value or freedoms. 

This means Ubisoft, in many instances, is incentivized to make some incongruous narrative decisions. For instance, while it could be argued the instances of generosity on the part of Crawford Starrick are meant to make him more complex (i.e. raising wages in the face of inflation, promising to financially support Lucy Thorne), the Doylist explanations are not promising, and the Watsonian ones are even less so. On the Doylist front, Starrick is the head of a corporation, and Ubisoft has reason to try and make him more sympathetic. It is far easier to draw a line from Starrick Industries to Ubisoft and other modern corporations than it is from Rodrigo Borgia to a modern company. On the Watsonian front, Starrick raising wages pre-empts any wage calls from the workers themselves, meaning he is kneecapping any forthcoming efforts to agitate for better pay. People grateful for the pay will continue on and people not grateful will be easily marked out and discarded. As for Lucy Thorne, he outright says only one can wear the Shroud, and it will be him. Before he knows she is dead, he intends to leave her behind (setting aside, for now, the complications of the narrative suggesting a cure for disability; that is its own discussion and it is one worth having in a separate post) in order to further his own goals. 

Similarly, Ubisoft makes assumptions about its consumer base. Altair is, notably, white as hell in the first game. I haven’t picked the first game back up because it was so jarring. While some have taken the Watsonian track of “it’s an earlier Animus, it makes sense it does weird shit”, there is the Doylist take that… Ubisoft does have a lot of mixed protagonists instead of outright having people of color as their protagonists. Much like the imperial narrative being shunted to the side in Syndicate, Ubisoft doesn’t want to risk making “too many waves” by doing something it thinks will lose buyers. 

And the imperialist narrative of Syndicate. Hoo boy. I’ll keep this brief, since it is more useful to go into it on its own, solo merits, and this is already fast approaching “longer than papers I wrote as a poli sci major in college” territory. However, the fact that most of the critique of colonialism is related to a set of side quests that cannot be unlocked until after the main story is, itself, a way to hide them away. Some people will never play those quests, because they play the main story and are done. By the time they do, they might not internalize the message nearly so much as they otherwise might have. 

The other opportunity to critique colonialism came in another set of side quests, and yet the face of them was a man who was hesitant to agitate against British imperial activity in India. While on the individual level it seems to be in line with history and it makes sense, as he was taken to Britain for his education (a very common imperialist tactic to put in place local rulers sympathetic to the imperial power), it is still a decision Ubisoft actively made. And why? To blur the lines on the colonialism and imperialism issue.

Finally, making Abstergo a pharmaceutical company as opposed to a tech company, and only introducing the “Abstergo Entertainment” branch later in the franchise, establishes them in a more separate category than Ubisoft. A tech company might make more sense, especially if it were a biotech company. However, the jump from “tech company” to “video game company” is much shorter than “pharmaceutical company” to “video game company”; while this may not be the reasoning for it, it is still worth pointing out the incentive there, in my opinion.

Do not take this list as in any way exhaustive, either. I am open to critique on it, as well, as there are perspectives I am underqualified to speak on on anything more than a surface level. 

Sources:

Plato.stanford.edu

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80897-8 (De Courson & Nettle, 2021; study on poverty, income inequality, and crime. Will admit some of the statistics went a little over my head so open to feedback on this one) 

https://okjusticereform.org/2021/12/how-poverty-drives-violent-crime/ (overview of several studies done on the link between poverty, income inequality, and crime)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3mvH93Dq1on0KlVkwMAaAz?si=4sDaa82HRtmfCrA_GB97XQ (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police: Slavery, Mass Murder & The Birth of American Policing)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/74UxGpu3UgXKQNWDW8Gzu8?si=xRsUj7-9QuW83G0zCMFUXQ (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police: How the First Police Went from Gangsters to An Army for the Rich) 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0RuHisfwLLEpl5K6llocZl?si=r5wSKnKNR--ryiobFOrt7g (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police: The History of American Police and the Ku Klux Klan) 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2oqqAtDrcY36cllysGDHxu?si=vOQ5HryTRD6hY1lvkNLmgA (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police: How American Police Defeated Lynching via Torture) 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6QDynNT07bFpSp7jzxOUPu?si=fwnbzdqPRY6Kt35elGF3YA (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police: How Police Unions Made Cops Even Deadlier) 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3PwmCGYt5yPxdwhpEECGJw?si=x0HrzypcR3-tI3exx_ddHg (Behind the Bastards: Behind the Police: How the Police Declared War on Us All) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9aS8yy1n98&t=23s (Overly Sarcastic Productions: “History Summarized: Sicily)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5majAET5KA (Overly Sarcastic Productions: “Pope Fights”) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PiyOojCIDQ&t=527s (Overly Sarcastic Productions: “Pope Fights 2: The Reformation”) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXm60mJyqqU (Overly Sarcastic Productions: “Pope Fights 3: The Italian Wars”) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BFsADb5_vY&t=41s (Overly Sarcastic Productions: “Pope Fights - Frederick II History Summarized”) 

https://law.jrank.org/pages/9632/Railroad-Robber-Barons.html (Railroad- The Robber Barons) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) (Wikipedia: Robber Baron (industrialist)) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZ2UeOTO3I (John Oliver - Marketing to Doctors) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o (John Oliver - Opioids) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U (John Oliver - Opioids II) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM&t=418s (John Oliver - Opioids III) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWQiXv0sn9Y (John Oliver - Rehab) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMpCGD7b_H4 (John Oliver - Harm Reduction) 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/2/21499334/ubisoft-employees-workplace-misconduct-ceo-yves-guillemot-response (Survey shows 25% of Ubisoft Employees have experienced or witnessed workplace misconduct) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2nXGULzd88 (Feb 23, 2022: Ubisoft employees are still fighting for better working conditions) 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-14-toxic-culture-at-ubisoft-connected-to-dysfunction-in-hr-department (2020: Toxic culture at Ubisoft connected to dysfunction in HR department)