#nearly benevolent dictator

[pratchettquotes]

The relationship between the University and the Patrician, absolute ruler and nearly benevolent dictator of Ankh-Morpork, was a complex and subtle one.

The wizards held that, as servants of higher truth, they were not subject to the mundane laws of the city.

The Patrician said that, indeed, this was the case, but they would bloody well pay their taxes like everyone else.

Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

[qqueenofhades]

Extremely stupid and contradictory question that I still want an answer to, but what is it that makes people want a dictatorship with progressive values?

For that matter, why is it that nearly all dictatorships are so fundamentally built on conservative/authoritarian ideals and values?

Why doesn't genuinely good values ever end up being the core value that gets enforced with ruthless brutality instead of people twisting themselves into knots to justify always sinking to the worst possible impulses built on hatred?

Is decency just fundamentally anathema to it?

This is one of those questions where you're actually asking several different things at once, and it will take a lot of work for me to explain and contextualize everything that you're looking for. However, I do think this is important to understand, so I'll give it a shot.

First, if I may point out, you've answered a bit of your own question when you ask "why don't genuinely good values ever end up being enforced with ruthless brutality?" I think it's fair to say that if your values were actually good or something that would broadly benefit the lives of most people, they would not need to be enforced with ruthless brutality. This is the case regardless of which ideology your totalitarian dictatorship is built on; i.e. conservative Christian fascism or left-wing old-school communism/People's Republics. Because a dictatorship, no matter which values it claims to use to justify itself, never exists to benefit people. A dictatorship exists to vest supreme power in one person or system and totally disenfranchise everyone else, and it is not, regardless of what some people on the internet in 2023 seem to think, a tool of social justice. Marginalized groups who have a hard time in a traditionally white/culturally Christian Western democracy will nonetheless have an orders of magnitude worse time under a dictatorship, as will everyone else. It is not something you should wish for under any circumstances, and also represents a naïve Western privilege where, having grown up with the unpleasant consequences of late-stage capitalism, people go for the fallacy that old-school communism must be better! Except it isn't, and when you totally blow over and ignore the objections of people who actually grew up under those regimes and warn you that they're not so great, you're just straight-up projecting and wishful thinking. It has nothing to do with reality or history or what anyone should aspire to.

The idea has existed in human society for thousands of years that if you can just get a "benevolent dictator" or "merciful autocrat," who can be trusted to rule with supreme power, do what's right for everyone, and get rid of the messy and flawed process of representative democracy that never seems to quite fix society's biggest problems. However: this doesn't work, it has never worked, there have been countless wars fought over this question, and it would certainly never, ever work in a setting as complex as the globalized twenty-first century. The Online Leftists who want Bernie Sanders, an old white man, to be their all-powerful dictator -- that is, uh, not the Social Justice Flex (tm) you think it is. And as noted, a dictator of any stripe is fundamentally anathema to actual progressivism or social justice, and anyone who loudly wants one (or thinks that the American president should act like one) is exposing both their profoundly immature understanding of the situation and a worrisome thirst for tyrannical despotism as long as it has "the right ideas." This has, again, caused countless wars and numberless deaths, because "the right ideas" will never be universal, universally agreed upon, or anything else, and if they're enforced with violence, you have -- again -- a dictatorship! It's not great!

In chaotic and uncertain times, people tend to want a "strong leader" who they can trust to just fix all their problems and relieve them from the burden of governance or worrying how things are going to work out. This was first articulated in modern Western political philosophy by Thomas Hobbes, who wrote his Leviathan in the mid-17th century during the English Civil War. Basically, his idea was that the people should democratically elect an absolute monarch/leader, who would then rule with an iron fist and retain supreme power, because they couldn't be trusted to govern themselves. (Hobbes is also where we get the pessimistic description of life being "nasty, brutish, and short.") Because things are bad right now, people likewise tend to want an absolute monarch of either right or left political persuasion, but these are both very bad options and should be equally resisted.

Democracy is flawed, imperfect, slow, cumbersome, and contradictory. It can be badly hijacked and corrupted (as we've seen in the last few years) by money, misinformation, bad-faith actors, and more. It is also still always, 100%, all-of-the-time preferable to a dictatorship. People still fall for the idea that having an absolute monarch who just "makes things happen" right away without the cumbersome apparatus of congresses or senates or supreme courts of judges would be "better," and totally ignore the massive and systemic disenfranchisement it would impose on everyone else. Especially in our current misogynist white-supremacist homophobic etc. system; the dictator WOULD be a rich white dude and let's not even pretend otherwise. Even if he made a play at being "progressive," it would not be true and it would not last. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc. etc. I do not want a dictatorship. I do not want to live in a dictatorship. I don't care what Good Intentions (tm) anyone has, because I think that anyone who wants to be a dictator or to live under a dictatorship has a very different idea of Good Intentions than I, or indeed most sane people, do. The end.

Yes, America is a deeply flawed country. Yes, it is built on systemic and ongoing racial and cultural white-settler-colonial genocide. However, where modern leftists struggle the most is the idea that two things can be true, because they're so deeply sunk into black-and-white, zero-sum thinking where if one thing is true, it rejects all the others. If we have a flawed democracy, the solution is to fix that democracy, not to just throw it out the window and cavil for an absolute monarch. You can be fiercely critical of America's imperialist actions, unnecessary wars, racist violence, and everything else while also realizing that if the first and oldest presidential democratic republic in existence was dismantled or turned into a fascist autocracy, it would be absolutely terrible for many, many countries around the world, and humankind in general. You do not have to subscribe to the nonsensical, navel-gazing tankie "logic" that America is the only country with (evil) agency ever, and everyone else in the world is just its helpless pawns. You do not have to subscribe to the idea that any work within the system, or accepting basic political realities, makes you a "bootlicking neoliberal shill" or whatever they're using to insult anyone who doesn't just live in their distorted bubble of self-righteous ignorance. You don't!

As I always say, the only people who really want a dictatorship are those who know that their ideas aren't popular enough to win a free and fair election, but think they "deserve" to be in power anyway, because etc. etc. My Ideas Are Better! (Spoiler alert: they are not.) This is the same whether it's the Republicans trying to outlaw elections or the Online Leftists who sanctimoniously refuse to engage with the civic process because it's "contaminating" for their Pure Ideas to make any compromise with reality. And yet those so-called progressives are utterly dependent on us Normie Liberals who actually vote against the rabid fascists, and are (just barely) holding the line. Because yes, in a liberal democracy, they do have the right to be sanctimonious, useless, toxic, holier-than-thou ideologues who sit on their asses and contribute nothing to the actual dirty process of change. But if the Normie Liberals haughtily refused to vote in the same way the Online Leftists do, the fascists WOULD be in complete control by now, and trust me, it would be grim.

To be frank, I think most, if not all, of what calls itself "Western leftism" has categorically and completely failed as a moral, political, or practical opposing force to right-wing fascism. Much of it is dependent on savagely backbiting even those people who already agree with you, refusing to take basic steps to enact change even incrementally (i.e. voting), and attacking the establishment liberal party, i.e. the Democrats in America, while vocally supporting foreign dictatorships as long as they're "anti-American" or ancestrally "socialist." We've seen the utter failure of Western leftists at developing a moral stance on Ukraine, a consistent opposition to Trump, or pretty much anything else that requires them to come down from their high horses and accept a more complex reality than their abstract purity tests or outright nonsensical clichés. And when you're attacking the Democrats nonstop and backing foreign dictatorships, that is, uh, pretty much the exact same thing that the fascist Republicans are doing. Which means both of these groups are profoundly and dangerously anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-intellectual, and anti-humanity. There's no way around it.

In short, so-called "progressives" want a dictatorship because they too have given up on democracy, don't believe that people at large are as "smart" as they are, and don't want actual praxis or the effort of making change within a flawed democracy. They subscribe instead to the magical thinking that an absolute monarch will instantly and benevolently fix everything, which has -- as noted -- been violently disproved over and over in human history, and they think that "leftism" consists of having the most "pure" views. They do not care about or actively deplore any idea of making compromises to put them into practice, they gain moral superiority by excluding more and more people to make a smaller and smaller in-group, they refuse to accept any information, history, or factual evidence that contradicts their beliefs, and they're just as angrily anti-intellectual as the worst Christian-fascist-nutjob-right-winger, because reality has a bad habit of being complicated and not fitting into neat boxes. And if you think, as I do, that it would be a very, very bad idea to trust these mean, vindictive, constantly-want-to-punish-everyone-who-is-not-exactly-like-them people with absolute power, then you'll have to move to the idea of accepting that for all its flaws, democracy is still the best and most just system we have yet invented for governing ourselves, and the idea is to fix ours, not get rid of it entirely. So yeah.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Hmm...I think when we take the Jabberwalker into consideration, I think that the Grimm were intended to serve a purpose SIMILAR to the Jabberwalker once did.

The Curious Cat was created to mend the Ever Afterans' hearts, while the Jabberwalker was supposed to send Ever Afterans for Ascension.

The Grimm are the "Death" part of what was supposed to be Remnant's life cycle. The Grim Reaper in a manner of speaking. Not evil, but absolutely necessary for Remnant's well being. and given just how cruel, imperialistic and out of control even a small number of humans are capable of being without being kept in check, probably not an absolutely terrible idea, albeit still ruthless and cruel.

But Light hated the notion because he viewed the Jabberwalker as a mistake due to it not being under his control (it was sentient and independent, capable of making its own decisions in a fashion), while Dark viewed it as what they're supposed to do. Death isn't supposed to be picky, only in doing what needs to be done.

So when Remnant first existed under their power, the "cycle" was heavily leaning in Light's favor: A world where HUMANS were theoretically supposed to balance out the Grimm. But the way it actually occurred in practice was that the Humans were too powerful due to a combination of Dark's gift of Magic and Light basically keeping Dark from doing his job properly. I mean Salem and Ozma by themselves were powerful enough to basically crush a giant Nevermore with ease; imagine what that must be like during the first age of humanity when nearly EVERYONE would have that potential of power!

Mixed together with Light basically putting the kibosh on the afterlife by forcing total stasis (to keep humanity under his control while pretending to be their benevolent savior), and Light basically held all the cards.

But then Dark nuked humanity in response to being abused and betrayed one too many times, and both gods abandoned Remnant because one human rebelled against them.

And then Humanity returned to a world where the Grimm were now the dominant predator in what is essentially a broken cycle, and Dark isn't around to keep them in control and on task anymore, while Light isn't around to pretend he gives a shit about humanity except as his own personal ego trip. Humanity was now the loser in the fight.

Taking all of the above, Light's little deal with Ozpin is him basically trying to forcibly tip everything back in his favor, essentially force humanity to be his slaves and to also exterminate everything that his brother did and stood for. Destruction and Paving the Way For Change being completely eradicated from Remnant in exchange for eternal stasis. Creating a world where he is absolute controller of life and death itself, where he dictates who gets his blessing and who doesn't, and all those who die can never come back to be reborn into something new, dynamic, changing, uncontrollable.

Absolute Order with no ability to grow except only how the God of Light wants it, if even that.

Oh, and eternally punish Salem and Ozma for daring to even think that she could oppose him or do anything outside of what he considers right, and the latter being tormented to further harm and torment Salem even further, because Ozma at the end of the day is nothing more than a pawn to harm the one woman who saw through his bullshit.

And all this because Light couldn't tolerate the idea of a truly balanced life cycle, because it meant that he couldn't control what happened in it, while Dark accepted the necessity of life's unfair but organic balance in his own way, only to be beaten down and harmed by his own brother for it.

You know, I find it very interesting that we don't know what the afterlife is like in Remnant. Ozpin never made it there because the God of Light cut it off. So what's the solution that they came up with?

I also find it very interesting that the Jabberwalker seems to be the moment that the Brothers split into Creation and Destruction, because before that they had their preferences, but they worked together on creating the Afterans. It's essentially an inverse of the Remnant creation myth of the two being locked in conflict until they collaborated on humans. And of course when they decided to be "two forces locked in conflict", Dark got the short end of the stick even if he didn't know it yet.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for trying to bring a dictator to justice?

I (50s M) have spent the past few years with my allies facing off against an evil scientist (30s-40s M). Recently, he nearly managed to take over the entire world, and we were just barely able to stop him after getting back our “leader” (15-20 M), who had been imprisoned and tortured for months on end.

After beating him that time, he completely disappeared for months. He was eventually found, but he seemingly had no memory of his actions, and had taken on a new, seemingly benevolent identity. Even still, cracks of his old self were starting to show. Our “leader” wanted to protect him, fully seeing him as a new person. I had the opposite response, merely wanting to bring this man to justice for his years of terror wreaked upon the world. We fought over it, and eventually I lost.

Just as I knew would happen, his old self returned not even a month later, seemingly brought back by another scientist who idolized him. this time, those two nearly brought about the apocalypse. If he had been arrested or killed, none of this would have happened.

TL;DR evil dictator lost his memory, leading a hero and i to fight over what to do with him. the dictator went free, and returned to his old self, causing disaster.

[ddelline]

f(ictitious work) i(n) p(rogress) friday

blurb | 9k into this impromptu, who knows what-post!canon!nobamaki (still don't know what the ship name is, no)... thing. who knows what it's gonna be? where it's gonna end? what the point is? certainly not me!

premise | what it says above, but also featuring: canonically dead!gojō, but somehow still featuring gojō!shenanigans, more spec parental!freshmen teacher!gojō!shenanigans (who's particular about clothes in the way insanely rich ppl are) bc what else

Gojō-sensei’s funeral is held on 2nd January at noon.

Tradition dictates that students and faculty alike dress in full uniform for funerals. In theory, it’s something Nobara considers to be acceptable. She never knows what to wear for life-and-death kind of occasions, with the exception of being out in the field, for which she wears her uniform. It’s decently tailored and in the right colours, and the A-line cut of her skirt, neither too short nor long, makes it pleasantly multi-purpose. It also makes her feel kind of powerful.

In other words: she’d happily consent to wearing an ensemble of: her school uniform, black tights, and any kind of dress loafers, to literally any funeral—school-affiliated or no; it’s sold, a done deal made easily.

Except in the case of Gojō-sensei’s. 

Nobara thinks she knew him as most people had: as a man most people knew next to nothing about. It doesn’t make her feel sad or anything, that she never got to know him better. He’d been a loud constant, annoying to a fault and in your face about it. He’d also he’d been her teacher, and she supposes affectionate, per his own, offbeat brand. She’s sad, but not sad that they didn’t get more time, or that they were never closer. 

She was very nearly royally pissed off. Pissed off at needing to intervene (on the behalf of a dead person) and dictate that the sartorial conditions of her dumbass teacher’s funeral not be beholden to stuffy, boring tradition. Her dumbass teacher, of whom she, plus every single person who’d ever met him, knew that there was nothing he despised more than keeping to convention and standard; that he likely never enjoyed anything as much as flipping a giant, fat fuck you to tradition—and jujutsu tradition in particular. 

They’d had little in common (for which she’d always been relieved—the concept of being ‘friends’ with Gojō-sensei was an icky thought) but for one thing: they’d been (weirdly) kindred spirits in fashion. If she were to do anything to honour what he’d been, both to the world and to her, she supposes it’s right that it was this.

It’s a scant hour before she’s due to be in the principal temple for the ceremony, and she’s paging through hangers looking for the jacket she’ll be wearing. She flips hangers off-handedly: grey herringbone blazer; floral-embroidered boatneck sweater; strappy, iridescent dress; black fitted blazer—

She stays a hand on the following hanger. It’s a jacket, untouched and unthought of since months—since a lifetime, if she counts lives lived (and died); experiences garnered since. She tugs it out and drops it on her bed. Smooths a palm over the expanse of it; wide polo neck and boxy fit, glossy, purplish-black fabric. 

Nobara doesn’t believe in higher powers, and she’s very sceptically inclined towards the existence of benevolent ghosts, spirits and/or divine intervention. Given her line of work she’s forced to concede to empirical evidence; people can live on after death—she’s got the scars to show for it, after all—but she’s also of the mind that curses are one thing—a guardian angel, holy spirit, or whatever else people believe is perched on their shoulder hindering them from walking into traffic—is something different.

But staring down at Gojō-sensei’s outrageously expensive, made-to-order uniform jacket—which can be found in her closet because she’d stolen it a few months ago in the name of fashion and redistribution of wealth—she can’t help but think that the motherfucker is lurking someplace closeby, a pale vestige caught between dimensions, watching and waiting for the moment in which he can pop into Nobara’s room and shatter a vase, or rearrange her closet, for shits and giggles. 

Whatever it is—the ghost of Gojō Satoru or creepy coincidence—works to make her pause and reminisce, hands splayed over the jacket as she imagines Gojō-sensei taking her down Omotesandō prior to a mission, early fall last year.

Despite getting off at Omote-Sando, which is logically situated on the street of the same name, Nobara’d been surprised to emerge at the foot of Omotesandō Boulevard, long and wide and bustling, lanes serrated by zelkova trees and sidewalks lined left and right with the world’s most well-respected fashion houses. She put a hand on her hip and turned to Gojō-sensei and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

Gojō-sensei tipped his chin in vague indication down the road in lieu of replying. Nobara counted to ten before following.

They neither spoke nor interacted until a ways down the road when Nobara (not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth, anyway) fitted herself snug against the glass of the Marni window, gaze drawn by and caught by the ornamental, deconstructed display of Francesco Rissi’s print-laden pre-collection. 

Gojō-sensei suddenly addressing her wasn’t enough to make her startle, but it was a near thing. “So you like this, huh?”

Nobara trained a suspicious glare at him over her shoulder. Gojō-sensei making any sort of conversation which didn’t a) require a Gojō Saturu-specific Rosetta stone to interpret, or b) made her want to light him on fire, ranked among the top tier of unusual occurrences. “Of course I do. I’m not some uninformed loser with no taste.”

Gojō-sensei smiled serenely. “Don’t talk ill of your classmates when they’re not here to defend themselves.”

Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that. She barked with surprised laughter—shocked in equal measure at Gojō-sensei, whacky and over the top and ridiculous on any given day, but never funny, attempting to be clever… and kind of succeeding.

Gojō-sensei looked pleased with himself.

They made their way down the boulevard at a slow pace. Nobara stopped at a display once every couple of stores, peering at and sometimes through the elaborate display curations: noted new pre-collection additions in some, scoffed at unimaginative accessories’ displays in others. Gojō-sensei stayed mostly quiet and on his best behaviour, only chiming in occasionally with a tidbit commentary (shockingly on the money), or an anecdote (weirdly compelling) until Nobara felt her head hurting with with conflicting emotions (respectively: ‘agreeing with Gojō-sensei’ and ‘not hating spending time with Gojō-sensei’).

Outside the regal, five-storied flagship steps of Valentino they approached the facade in tandem. Nobara peered at Gojō-sensei curiously: the lazy concave of his spine and his squared shoulders; the spotlights in the display bouncing off the glossy fabric of his blindfold. “You shop here a lot?” she asked wryly, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“Not off the rack,” he audaciously replied. When she sputtered, at a loss for a proper comeback that wasn’t a litany of insults, he grinned widely around teeth. It made her want to slap the audacity out of him—a comfortable, familiar feeling at least—talking about shopping for Maison Valentino Couture like he was describing the weather, or in this context, like he was talking about shopping for discounted high-street. 

It also made her want to steal his wallet and lift his no doubt very black, very metal, very invite only-credit card and go to town on every store this side of Shibuya.

“The menswear isn’t exactly revolutionary,” Gojō-sensei continued, unperturbed. 

She agreed. It made her seethe. 

Because Nobara couldn’t walk beside someone who claimed to be a haute couture client and not ask about it, she puffed a breath and changed topics, inquiring gruffly about the made-to-order process (“I can’t believe they cater to people like you.” An exaggerated pout: “That’s hurtful. Money is money, isn’t it?”).

Gojō-sensei indicated her skirt. “I have them make my uniforms,” he said. “Clothes I spend ninety percent of my waking time in can’t be uncomfortable, and school tailoring’s been lacking for the past few years.” 

Nobara blinked. She didn’t know what to do with that information. Didn’t know what to do with that her unhinged, idiot teacher: looks like a textbook himbo, manner of speaking like he’d just disembarked a spaceship after eons and encountered human civilisation for the first time, powerful like seven biblically accurate calamities mashed together—apparently unblinkingly spent money, in the give-or-take ballpark of north of fifteen million yen, on non-distinct, entirely unremarkable-ass workwear.

For a lack of better things to say or do which didn’t involve a) verbalising a long, drawn out noise like a tea kettle whistling, or b) shameless propositioning (not really, but for Valentino couture it’d be a near thing), she stomped a foot in the ground, spat a scathing comment about wealth disparities, and stormed off down the road.

(A month and a half later, two days after she’d socked Gojō-sensei in the mouth with a heavy fist for stealing her skirt and wearing it just to goof off in front of the sophomores and Itadori and Fushiguro (it had connected; Nobara refused to inspect the connotations of that), she limped off track following a gruelling cardio session, and noted a discarded uniform jacket folded next to hers. It wasn’t dirty enough to be Itadori’s; not worn soft with age and patched enough to be Fushiguro’s.

She picked it up; felt its weight and heft and high end thread count, the fall and silhouette a starch contrast to her own uniform jacket. She unzipped the high neck and smoothed a thumb over the label to be sure. Valentino Couture stared back at her in signature, blocky serif lettering. 

Nobara grinned viciously. She brought the jacket back to her room and stuffed it in her closet, feeling neither qualm nor regret. 

Gojō-sensei never asked for it back.)

Thinking back on it, it’s likely one of few available anecdotes about Gojō-sensei which manages to accurately quantify and encapsulate so much of what her teacher had been: impulsive, entitled and flamboyant; difficult to understand by choice rather than design and way too keen on leaning into it; self-important and spoiled with privilege (and once again, way too keen on leaning into it).

Nobara pinches the delicate, insignia-branded zipper of the jacket he’d never asked back between her thumb and forefinger. She pulls it slowly down, folding the exterior to expose the lining. The innards are a study in luxe materials and subtle craftsmanship: large swathes of black silk lining stitched with invisible seams; tucked near the bottom seam are dual flap pockets with hidden zippers, the dimensions of which would enable her to carry at least twice her current max amount of nails in the field. Saving the best for the worst , she thinks meanly. 

Satisfied with the extent of her hands on-analysis, she carefully zips it back up and shrugs it over the hanger. She tucks it back in her closet, opting to hang it at the very front, alongside a handful of precious fabric-items not to be chafed at by coarse denim or itchy wool.

[bugcatcherwill]

I’m Abit dumb but what is malice representing?

OH BOY I've been looking at this ask all day at work wanting to write about it hlkjadsf

Don't worry you're not dumb! A lot of what I talk about the Malice is pretty nebulous and vague so it's understandable.

But in short, my version of Malice is an allegory for militarism and how it ties directly to totalitarianism and tyranny. Long explanation below the cut, but CW for some heavy-handed political topics:

The way the Malice treats the monsters is evident enough. Every monster to the Malice is expendable. They're nothing but warm bodies used to accomplish its goals. They're not allowed free will or else it risks the chokehold it has. Any defectors must be immediately expunged. Any monster that is wounded beyond a threshold where it would need time to heal or would be incapacitated in some sense is deemed useless - and therefore discarded. And even worse, it is a system that is nearly completely autonomous. Once the war machine is running, it runs on its own. And it is in a constant demand of fresh bodies to push onto the front lines.

It's why Lizalfos under the Malice are never seen without tails, or why you never see Malice-filled monsters with any kind of impairment. And also how the monsters are forced into homogeny. Remember how Sterre mentioned it growing back its hair? You think that was allowed when it was in the Malice? No individualism. Under the Malice, every monster is simply a replaceable cog in the machine. And like how the Malice takes the monsters that fail too much and turn them into stall - failing the machine is often a fate worse than death. Blood for the blood god.

And as we can see with the Wizzrobes, the Malice dictates that anyone not born under the oppressive system must be educated and subjugated under the system. Free expression is not allowed - deemed weakness. Same with emotions that are anything but a vehement anger towards the enemy. They are told from as young as they can understand speech that serving The Calamity is their sole purpose - forced to believe it under harsh coercion.

Defection must be suppressed violently. It is not enough to quell the rebellions, they must be made an example. Through fear, the Malice forces the other monsters to stay in line when a sliver of guilt or regret breaks through the AGES of conditioning. Which is how it's been able to maintain its grip throughout ages before BoTW's events.

And, as we can see with Ganondorf, even if one tries to rely on totalitarianism to destroy another, it will never be satisfied. The machine demands more, there is not enough land it can conquer, not enough lives it can oppress, where it will say enough. It will find a new enemy, even one that doesn't exist. Ganondorf was trapped in the belief that all he had to do was overthrow the Royal Family and his and everyone else's problems would be solved - and continued to make that mistake again and again until he was finally convinced to break the cycle (more on that to come). But peace can never be found through dictators, no matter how "benevolent". It will simply lead to more dictators.

These are the key tenets to militarism. That is essentially what Demise and the Malice represent - and why The Calamity continues to fight long after Demise's...demise. I call it Demise's corpse because it is exactly that. It is not the original oppressor, but once he was toppled the war machine kept running. Because that's what it was designed to do. And Ganondorf mantled it because he thought he could control it. But you can't. You can never control it.

It's also extremely hard to break. Especially when that is all someone has ever known. Where they're, from birth, conditioned and forced into this line of thinking through oppression, fear, and hatred. And it's most powerful in large groups. Notice how the Malice is amplified in power when with groups of monsters? But weaker when they're isolated and alone? The line of militaristic thought is EXTREMELY difficult to undo, but not impossible. It takes effort, isolation from the source of hatred, and we (and the monsters of Hyrule in my fic) are inherently empathetic creatures. Hate is taught, but empathy is not.

And yet, sometimes it's just not enough. Some will just refuse to understand or see through reason/empathy, and defection can even happen for the wrong reasons, as you saw with the 3 Wizzrobes.

And also like in real life, once the façade is broken, and the Malice begins to lose its watertight grip and control, then it will turn even more violent - clawing and slashing as it desperately tries to maintain the stranglehold it once had.

If you're looking for the best example/inspiration in other works of fiction, I'd say the whole plot hook of The Clone Wars where the clones manage to rebel against their Order 66 brainchip is where I primarily got my idea for RATC. A lot of those themes are prevalent here as well

So yea, hope this was satisfactory :)

[opinated-user]

Lily never really got out of her edge lord phase huh?

She just straight up said that her oc is pretty much a dictator/ Queen with unchecked power because democracy is bad. Instead of having her sith oc set up a democracy that has better systems in place to combat corruption she just has her take power and apparently the entire empire is thankful for that.

I guess lily just thinks absolute power is fine as long as the right people are in power and the right people get executed. As if that has ever worked out ever, and never ended up with some group being made out to be the bad guy even when they're not. Also it says something that in her empire only women are allowed to be in those positions of power, cuz I guess she fell for the 'women are inherently better rulers then men' thing.

Ps: I also find it hilarious that she thinks the family bond between mom and daughter limit corruption when it u look at any history book royal families are full of murders for power. Girl clearly slept through history class and adopted some crazy politics as a result.

her politicis are merely an extension of her power fantasy dreams. anything outside of that is irrelevant for her. on this post alone, LO had the dream of alaina overruling the government completely on her own and recieving nothing but praise for it from everyone.

When building the Empire, Aliana didn’t have any faith in singular democracy. It’s a magnet for corruption without real oversight. A place where those with money can subvert the system. She didn’t trust it to not destroy itself.

And she was ultimately vindicated in that belief, as six years in the Imperial Council very nearly fell to a special interest group trying to subvert the Empire for their own ends. And when Aliana slaughtered the council and gave herself more power to oversee it in the future, there was a collective sigh of relief from the people

the portion about how a good mother/daughter relationship limits corruption is ony more bioessentialism from her, of the benevolent sexism kind. of course a mother who loves and cares for her daughter could never allow for corruption to happen, because then the daughter will love her mother too much for that to happen. we know this is the case because what could there be more sacred than women, but especially daughters and mothers? another thing that LO shares with radfems.

[lonely-dwelling]

Justice League 24

Today, Taylor and Spencer are discussing Justice League 24, a Forever Evil tie-in, originally released October 23rd, 2013

Taylor: What makes someone evil? The term is thrown around a lot in the media and it’s gotten to the point where it seems its meaning has become lost, just as we lose our sense of what good beer tastes like after a few or five drinks. We call certain dictators evil and the same goes for terrorists. In the stories we tell one another we talk about super villains and often these individuals are motivated by hate or revenge or the lust for power. We call these people evil and in both cases this is rightly so. But of course, considering someone evil is all a matter of perspective. One man’s terrorist is another man’s martyr; one’s hero is another’s villain. But suppose for a second we existed in a universe where this yin-yang balance didn’t exist. What would it be like? Justice League 24, a tie-in with Forever Evil, attempts to give us this answer and in doing so shows us some really deplorable characters.

In another universe a guy exactly like superman is born to some truly dickish parents. You see, his dad, Jor-Il (not Jor-El mind you), is truly a bad person and so is his wife. As their planet is about to explode they kill a bunch of people to ensure their son’s safe passage from the dying rock. In his spaceship, this would-be superman is bombarded with hateful recordings his entire trip to Earth. Naturally, this makes the baby a huge asshole and as such he turns into Ultraman, an evil version of Superman. Along with his cast of similarly evil anti-heroes, Ultraman begins an oppression of the Earth, which also sees the downfall of the Justice League. All seems lost until Black Adam makes a surprise appearance. But will he be able to overthrow this super evil Ultraman?

Normally I’m a huge fan of alternative universes and/or timelines. The Battle of the Atom taking place in the Marvel Universe is evidence enough of that. I’ve been enjoying that event greatly and it’s been a blast seeing members from various timelines interact with one another. The same is true of those goofy Star Trek episodes where they meet their evil counterparts. Sure, the plots border on shtick but  it’s fun to see what an evil Benjamin Sisco would do if he had the chance the kill himself.

That being said, I was expecting great, or perhaps at least entertaining, things from this issue but I was sadly disappointed. I think the reason for this is that Ultraman is just way too unlikable to stomach, even though I suspect the very reason for his creation is so he can be hated by the reader. Writer Geoff Johns goes to great lengths to establish why Ultraman is the way he is, devoting nearly half of the issue to the origin of Ultraman. Turns out that like Superman, Ultraman was born on a dying planet to parents who wanted him to succeed. The crinkle in the story of course is that this planet is populated entirely by assholes and it just so happens that Ultraman’s dad is the biggest asshole of all. He kills some people to assure baby Ultraman’s escape and in the process tells his beloved wife to “shut up and die.” Charming guy.

Now, this part of the issue is actually pretty fun. It’s entertaining to see the antithesis of Jor-El, the benevolent and educated scientist, running amok and dooming his son to a life of evil with an escape pod full of insults. The contrast between the two fathers is sharp and for a character that populates only a few pages, the unrivaled evilness of his ways is hilarious to watch. However, any more of a character like this and he or she needs to be instilled with subsequent motivations for their evil or they run the risk of becoming entirely flat, boring, and totally unlikable.

Thus enters Ultraman in his full-grown glory and he’s so steeped in evil that it robs the character of any agency –  he may have started with as a blank slate. Throughout the issue, he makes references to his own evilness and how that makes him a better person than Superman – or any other person he has the fortune of meeting. Ostensibly, the reason he gives for this is that he is a huge Darwinist. To Ultraman, “only the strong survive” and anyone who can’t beat him in a fist fight is a weakling who deserves to die. Apparently, survival of the fittest means being the strongest person around, but it’s not like scientists would have anything to say about that, or evolution itself for that matter. Can humans beat up a gorilla hand to hand? No, but we can outsmart them, and which species has become so powerful we now can eat Doritos any time we want? Right, you know the answer.

The absolute buffoonery of Ultraman’s stance is best exemplified by his bizarre decision to pick on Jimmy, a photographer at the Daily Planet.

It’s a ridiculous exchange and Ultraman’s anger at Jimmy is baseless to the point of being nonsensical. And that’s really why this issue falls flat. Ultraman is supposed to be evil, but his motivations for doing what he does are shallow at best. Just why is he such a complete and absolute void of goodness and just what does he, or his cohorts, get out of it? Normally with evil types, the reader can justify their actions in some way, but in this case there’s really no explaining it. Ultraman is 1000% evil and that thereby makes him the villainiest villain ever, but as it turns out reading about someone that terrible is pretty terrible itself.

Spencer! As you might have guessed, I wasn’t a huge fan of this issue. Did it fare any better with you? Do you think Ultraman is an intriguing character or just an ass? Can a villain be too evil for his or her own good?

Spencer: I think Ultraman could be an intriguing character, but despite all this issue tries to do with him, none of it really works.

In previous continuities, Earth-3 was a world of opposites, a world where Superman was its greatest villain, Lex Luthor its greatest hero, and evil always triumphed. It’s an interesting concept, but Geoff Johns seems to playing his version of Earth-3 as a world of absolute evil, and while that can be a lot of fun, it doesn’t necessarily make for the most compelling characters.

Of course, both of those interpretations are silly in their own way, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As Taylor mentioned, the best portions of this issue were the scenes set on Krypton, where Jor-Il and Lora are such terrible people that they cross a line into actual comedy.

Likewise, the issue’s take on baby Kal-Il’s arrival on Earth is another comedic goldmine precisely because it’s so over the top.

On the page prior we see that Jonathan Kent is a deadbeat abusive scumbag and his wife Martha a drug addict, then we cut to this dark reprisal of the typically heartwarming meeting between the Kents and their new child, only now, of course, lil’ Kal is an evil toddler; I must be a terrible person, but I couldn’t help but to laugh when I got to this scene. I can’t get over how he just walks up onto shore and barbeques John’s arm off, speaking in complete, articulate sentences like an adult in a child’s body. In no way can I take any of this seriously, but at least it’s fun, and that sense of fun is unfortunately absent from the rest of the issue, which treats all its events with morbid seriousness.

I realize that the Syndicate’s invasion is a serious, dangerous, thoroughly unfunny situation, but uniformly treating it all with the same grim, humorless tone makes it a slog to get through, and is at odds with the entire ridiculous concept of Earth-3 anyway. Do we really need deep psychological explanations for Ultraman’s evilness when he hails from a universe where everyone’s naturally a gigantic douchebag? Not really.

If anything, Ultraman’s motivations mostly just serve to muddle the character. A common character trait of Superman’s is that he’ll try to do everything himself or throw himself into his teammate’s fights in an attempt to protect them (“Every punch I take is a punch they don’t have to!”), and that makes it even more boggling why Ultraman—who obviously lacks even a shred of Superman’s inherent kindness—keeps the rest of the Crime Syndicate around. I mean, yeah, he needs Superwoman to bear his child (ick), but Power Ring is a coward who can barely use his weapon; what possible reason could he have to allow him to live?! Why did he allow the citizens of his Earth to live—did he consider their cruelty a form of strength? That doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, at least from the version of Ultraman we’ve seen throughout this issue.

There are a few parts of this issue I legitimately, unironically enjoy, though. While it’s only hinted at, it appears that Darkseid may have been responsible for the destruction of both Krypton-3 and Earth-3, and that’s an idea that intrigues me. This issue’s other saving grace is, of course, Ivan Reis’ excellent artwork. Reis’ work is some of the most iconic in DC’s roster, and the man draws both dramatic splashes and 10 panel pages full of exposition with equal aplomb. I’m most impressed by the page where Ultraman arrives at the Daily Planet.

Genetically, Ultraman is Superman, and his uniform and powers are practically identical to Superman’s, so it’s understandable that Jimmy (or the reader) might mistake Ultraman for him, yet Reis—through posture, facial expression, and use of shadow—makes it clear that this is not Superman with only a glance, and that’s impressive.

Ultimately, though, this issue is a let down. Beyond the faults listed above, this issue’s greatest weakness—and Forever Evil’s greatest weakness in general—is simply that the Justice League isn’t around. Without good guys, the evil of the Crime Syndicate is nearly unbearable. As a group of ultimate evil who can’t even stand to be around each other, the Crime Syndicate is an interesting contrast to the fundamental goodness and camaraderie of the Justice League, but that contrast is lost when the League is nowhere to be found (and when the League can barely get along to begin with, but that’s neither here nor there).

I do think that the cover—an homage to Jim Lee’s cover from way back in Issue 1—is pretty rad though.

For a complete list of what we’re reading, head on over to our Pull List page.  Whenever possible, buy your comics from your local mom and pop comic bookstore.  If you want to rock digital copies, head on over to DC’s website and download issues there.  There’s no need to pirate, right?

[warningsine]

I think if you watch the show from the beginning, you can feel it morphing from what it starts as into what it ultimately becomes,” Christopher C. Rogers says of Halt and Catch Fire, the drama he cocreated with Christopher Cantwell that returns for its fourth and final season this Saturday on AMC. “The sense of having lived with these characters has let them become real for four seasons. I think the beautiful thing about the fourth season is, we know these guys now.”

On the eve of its home stretch, Halt and Catch Fire has long since outgrown the “copycat prestige turned groundbreaking television” narrative it’s been saddled with since 2015, when the period drama returned for Year 2 with a new setting, a reshuffled ensemble, and a reconsidered sensibility. As Rogers points out, we’ve now had years to steep ourselves in the fully realized version of Halt: the story of messy, stubborn, ultimately sympathetic adults stumbling their way toward a changed world.

In 2017, Halt’s success no longer comes with caveats. The story of the modern tech industry’s beginnings, told through the personal and professional lives of four hopelessly complicated people, is one of the best shows on television, full stop. No, you don’t have to watch the first season—but you should watch the next three, or else you’re missing out on a prime example of what happens when TV’s potential for long-term, character-driven storytelling is taken full advantage of. Yet knowing where Halt started is essential to understanding how far it’s come.

Rewatching parts of the first season a few weeks ago, I was struck by how the early episodes’ weakest points have, over time, developed into the series’ greatest strengths. When Halt started, the show was criticized (or, as the ratings showed, simply overlooked) for how closely its setup hewed to an obvious template, made all the more obvious by the originator of that template still airing new episodes on the same network. Halt’s pilot aired exactly a week after Mad Men’s midseason finale, even inheriting its prime, Sunday-night time slot. Its antihero, Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), was a blazer-clad, sports-car-driving, Gordon Gekko’d version of Don Draper. The other principals felt similarly typecast: rebellious programming prodigy Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis); dweeby engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy); Gordon’s wife, Donna (Kerry Bishé), equally knowledgeable but saddled with the additional burden of work-life balance. Nuances in all four archetypes emerged over the course of the season, but their first impressions didn’t offer much of an incentive to stick around.

Three years later, those of us who kept the faith have watched Halt’s core four endure nearly a decade’s worth of cross-country moves, accidental epiphanies, overnight successes, failed business ventures, marriage, infidelity, divorce, and depression. More importantly, we’ve borne witness to the changes those seismic events have wrought on the people directly involved in them. The Halt cast of today feels impossible to pigeonhole the way earlier versions of it easily could be, and were. With time and care, they’ve deepened into some of the most layered, believable people on TV. And along with them, Halt has evolved from one of Mad Men’s many imitators into its only worthy successor, a workplace drama that gives the work epic stakes by driving home what it means to those doing it.

Halt and Catch Fire is ostensibly about the computer industry, and key moments in that field’s early history have frequently dictated when and where the action takes place. That strategy has led the show into something like benevolent mission creep over the years, expanding from a relatively unknown chapter in tech’s early history to a mini-history unto itself, made manageable by its specificity. It’s a trajectory that was all but impossible for both viewers and the creators themselves to predict from Halt’s initial episodes. “When you sell a pilot, they go, ‘Do you know where this will go?,’ and you smile as big as you can and you say, ‘Absolutely!’ But deep inside, you really don’t know. And thank God that sometimes those initial ideas we had about where it would go proved to not be the case,” Rogers reflects. “Halt and Catch Fire for us, both personally and what you see on screen, has been the story of learning to listen to your show and let it become what it wants to be, not what you thought it was going to be.”

The series opens in 1983, with Joe and his team competing directly against IBM, building computers on Texas’s “Silicon Prairie.” By Season 4, it’s the early ’90s, and the gang has (mostly) relocated to Silicon Valley, where they’ve scattered across the booming tech landscape. After an abortive partnership in upstart gaming company Mutiny, Cameron and Donna have parted ways, with time only exaggerating the already marked differences between them: Donna, the pragmatic businesswoman, has become a high-powered VC partner, while Cameron, the principled creative, has become a reclusive game designer based out of Tokyo. Joe and Gordon, meanwhile, have a more successful company of their own, though Gordon does most of the heavy lifting while Joe remains literally stuck in the basement, hung up on a wallowing project (an early browser) that’s a not-so-subtle metaphor for his unrequited passion for Cameron, who’s married.

Rogers and Cantwell frame Halt’s significant time jumps, which total seven years over just a handful of episodes in seasons 3 and 4, as a matter of following their material. “We realized that, while the web was created in 1990,” where Season 3 left off after starting in 1986, “it wasn’t until the release of Mosaic, this browser, the precursor to Netscape, in ’93 that things started to take off on the web,” Cantwell explains. “We did discuss having the characters just continue to sit in the house and play with HTML code, but we thought maybe that was too avant-garde and that we’d be swinging above our weight class if we tried to do something like that.”

Instead, Season 4 opens with a brilliant montage that shows the three-year interim from Gordon’s point of view, bearing witness to Joe’s frustration and stasis even as he builds a business from the ground up. “We thought a way to differentiate the time jumps was to have the characters really feel like they’re waiting, because they would be,” Cantwell says. “So it was a fun way to approach the season—to isolate them and see them really drumming their fingers on the desk, waiting for their lives to change, and the rest of the world waiting for the World Wide Web to come to fruition.”

A side effect of following tech’s IRL timeline is how much ground the story is able to cover. Conveying seven years’ worth of life experiences in just a few hours of TV is an enormous challenge: If too much in the protagonists’ circumstances stays the same, the show’s reality starts to ring false; if too much changes, we risk losing our connection to people and places we no longer recognize. But Halt seizes the opportunity to take its characters further than it likely could have had the show confined itself to a more limited time frame.

Take Cameron, who we meet as a punky, arrogant college dropout only to see her grow into a much more mellow 30-something—still an uncompromising visionary, but one who’s been humbled by the disappointment of seeing of her ideas collide with practical obstacles. “It’s interesting for Cameron, who has always been labeled a genius and a prodigy from a very early age and has always been so confident and so self-assured in her amazing abilities, to suddenly be full of self-doubt,” Cantwell notes. “We’re seeing a real change and shift in the character as she matures. It’s a lot of those anxieties that all of us are familiar with once we reach adulthood and realize that we don’t know shit about shit.”

Cameron’s story line this season, in which a poorly received game forces her to question her own judgment for the first time, is a perfect example of what Halt does best: finding situations and conflicts that unlock a character’s hidden depths, forcing them to adapt while keeping their core motivations intact.

No character has changed more drastically, or benefited more from that change, than Joe MacMillan. Perhaps the smartest move Halt has made has been incorporating outside criticisms of Joe into the show. To other characters, Joe’s bluster and rash, destructive grand gestures don’t make him a genius asshole, in the ends-justify-the-means vein of a classical antihero; they just make him an asshole. But after spending Season 2 isolated from the rest of the cast in de facto purgatory and half of Season 3 as a full-blown villain, Joe has been successfully rehabilitated into the fold, partly because the show has given his actions serious consequences and partly because it’s given him the time to absorb and recover from them. “Joe is somebody that has been put through the wringer by everyone on the show, and last year,” when Joe’s latest bit of corporate subterfuge directly led to his protégé’s suicide, “was probably the roughest one yet for him,” Rogers notes. “I’d like to think we played fair with how that would change a person.”

Seven years later, Joe is still visibly shattered; it’s easier for the audience to forgive him because he so clearly hasn’t forgiven himself.

Halt deals with the difficulty of change as well as its inevitability: When Joe gets his hands on a new idea, essentially a preliminary version of Google, he flips right back into executive mode, throwing himself into the project and practically bullying prospective colleagues into joining him. (“You push people, Joe,” Gordon tells him. “Whether they’re ready for it or not.”) In many ways, it’s Season 1 all over again, but with the acute awareness both on- and off-screen that this is history threatening to repeat itself. Or, as Rogers puts it: “We find Joe returning to some of the dynamics we’ve seen before on this show that didn’t work and seeing if maybe now is the right time—if the changes that these 10 years have brought upon them as people have fixed those edges and smoothed them to the point where this time, they can reach their arms out farther. I think Joe is actively engaged in that, and has a little more perspective, but: Do people really change? Some of that stuff dies hard.”

Halt’s foursome has now been in a dizzying variety of combinations, both romantic and platonic. Gordon and Donna were unhappily married, then amicably divorced, and are now direct competitors in the nascent search-engine space. Cameron and Donna were acquaintances, then work spouses, and are now isolated and weathering the storm of tech’s institutional sexism on their own. Joe and Cameron were a tempestuous couple, then bitter enemies, and are now tentatively entering into an actual adult relationship.

Over time, though, certain constants and steady alignments have emerged among the four central players. Cameron and Joe have their differences—she creates; he sells other people’s creations—but they’re both dreamers at heart, constantly chasing the future and skipping over trivial details. Gordon and Donna may not be together anymore, but they’re both workhorses, picking up their more high-minded collaborators’ logistical slack. It’s in these tensions that the show’s personal and professional strands collide, with questions about how to run a business (or, on a much grander scale, how to build the future) growing inextricable from ones about how to live your life.

“You want them to be happy … and I think they struggle with realizing in the final season, that it’s not just about the next thing,” Cantwell says. “They’re all looking at the possible next thing, as they’ve always been looking for the past 10 years and over the duration of the series, and starting to question if the cycle of reinvention and innovation and finding the new idea is really the cure-all that they thought it was at the beginning of our story. That’s a big, existential question that they’re all wrestling with in the final season of the show.”

“It’s always been a show about having the right idea at the right time, and our characters’ failure to do that at certain moments,” Rogers adds. “That’s usually true in the business story, but I think it can also be true in the personal story.” This attempt at a relationship is only Joe and Cameron’s latest, and it remains to be seen whether conditions are finally right for things to work out this time around; Gordon and Donna figured out their issues only after they split up—though, as some excellent sparring scenes remind us, just because a divorce is amicable doesn’t mean it’s conflict-free.

In a way, it’s essential for Halt to work so well as personal drama because we already know how the the tech side of it ends. While the Halt crew lives in a world where Silicon Valley is a wide-open landscape, we live in a world where Google exists, and neither Joe MacMillan nor Donna Clark created it. Sometimes, Halt addresses this fact head-on; Cameron is dismayed to see gaming drift inexorably toward ultra-gory first-person shooters and away from the cerebral journeys she loves. But when I ask Cantwell whether the show has some tragic undertones, he pushes back: “I think there’s something interesting in American culture where we have a very black-and-white view of the term ‘loser,’” he observes. “We know that our characters are not going to be the ones with the Wikipedia articles written about them, but what’s fun about our story is, we can somehow still get excited about their excitement, because they’re in the fog of war and they don’t know what’s coming. I think there’s a beautiful parallel to their personal lives, and a person’s personal searches as well. We just don’t know, and as much as you think you know where it’s headed, you don’t.”

Halt and Catch Fire may be a show about tech, but it’s a show that uses tech first and foremost as a backdrop to and conduit for its characters’ universal struggles. You don’t need to understand ISPs or search algorithms to understand the impulse to perfect something before someone else gets there first, or see the difficulty in negotiating boundaries with an ex. As fitting as the Mad Men comparisons may be, Halt’s characters don’t speak in grand metaphors for the soul of America. They’re speaking as people, and in terms it’s possible for anyone to engage with. “Every season of this show has been a little less about technology, on the pie graph of what it’s about,” Rogers says. “That’s to its benefit.”

[anthonybialy]

Generation Ex

Experience is the best indicator, which means Democrats ought to be in big trouble.  Professional business loathers should be nearly out of business themselves.  They think that would prove their point.

The present onslaught of incessant annoyance should create a generation of government-loathers.  Every generation ideally faces institutions with institutionalized contempt.  Arrogant twits bossing you around hating your attitude is the best reason to maintain it.

People born in every year eventually find themselves old enough to get hassled for not contributing enough to the collective for the sin of existing as an individual.  Those taxed in every sense are supposed to be thankful for the privilege, which is naturally exercised involuntarily.  You don’t want to risk screwing up a decision with your counterproductive free will.

An extra concentrated dose of harassment from the soullessly monolithic entity that can’t protect you from a rotten flu is not good for any sense of health.  Enjoy a full life in your pod where nothing’s legal but cannabis, which is unhelpful for treating symptoms except for shielding oneself from how bad legalizers made everything.

Attempting a sequel of the worst feature isn’t just for Avatar.  Unlike a cinema trip, you’re not presented with the option to decline.  Contemptuous scorn was a nice touch as compliant liberals mocked your rights being taken as they used absolute power to bungle an infection that would have been properly addressed by chicken soup, DayQuil, and Sprite.

Decree enthusiasts are coincidentally the same pompous dolts who sneer at attempts to outrageously assert that rights and currency are not issued by the government.  Office-fillers who don’t know the economy gets worse the more that’s ripped off from it are suddenly experts on epidemiology.

Attempting to stop a virus by imprisoning humans epitomizes compassionate knowledge.  Melding the mind with the heart is our ultimate goal, and we should possess enough enlightenment to know whether it actually happens doesn’t matter.  Do you want to be a good liberal or not?

A cagey infection found its way around barriers.  Panicky fascists were wrong at every single moment about an indifferent escaped bioweapon.  China’s ineptness is our best defense.  Guilt paired with phrenology-level pseudoscience led to the guilted suckering of getting a shot during the most masked time in history, which differs from getting vaccinated.

Aspiring benevolent dictators require absolute authority to ruin the economy.  It’s  really your fault if you’re poor for stubbornly refusing to relinquish the last of your petty individual rights.  That’s as close as liberals get to personal responsibility.

Trying to avoid tradeoffs leads to the worst deal possible.  Existence gets more woeful the more they can control, which almost resembles a pattern.  The state’s fans assure us perseverance is all bliss needs.  We just need to maintain faith until the breakthrough when treating property as communal lets everyone have as much as they want.

The past few especially pushy years have just been a drugged-out version of normal abnormal federal shadiness.  Active bothering leads to widespread lethargy, and this speedball leads to neither speed nor a ball.

Very helpful ushers of prosperity take autonomy on top of your cash.  You’re left with the sense of guilt for daring to want to retain funds that you toiled to acquire.  Refusing to facilitate corruption constitutes the most shameful audacity.

Present sophisticated theories about authority lead to  addresses everything but government’s actual responsibility, which is to halt stampeding barbarians.  Liberals are too busy tracking down successful CEOs they deem villains to focus on what they consider inconsequential threats like subway track-shovers and global terror merchants.

Everyone should be sick of being told what to do by people who should be told to not do that.  Forced cooperation leads to universal misery.  That is not the thing we were told would be shared.  Anyone capable of interpreting stimuli can’t possibly still think eliminating choice leads to one glorious option.

The only thing more exhausting than being suspicious of everything is the aftermath of docile trust.  Any humans who are unfortunately not cynical by nature better start conditioning themselves.

The good news is that there’s not much training necessary.  A few moments on this wretched planet noticing countless infringements on life proceeding normally should be sufficient for incessant rebellion. Instead, baffling state fans are incredulous regarding companies with which they can interact freely while trusting the unaccountable monolith.

Please enjoy ample current ghastly examples for those who think history means switching from the “following” tab to “for you”.  Maybe enjoy isn’t the proper word.  Claiming to believe in science takes some nerve while ignoring an endless parade of evidence about how surrendering liberty leads to awful morons making dreadful decisions on your behalf.

Trusting authority is the most mortifying conspiracy to believe.  Liberal policy creates contempt for liberalism.  So, it works in its way.  Government doing everything but arresting whoever mugged you leads to getting robbed by those who claim they do so with legal authority.  They need your permission.  Keep letting them think for yourself if you think they’ve made you richer.

[pointreyesjournal]

The Amnesiac : ep25

The People's Republic of Macchiato

Tuesday

River gently bites my lip to wake me. The only thing I see as I wake is the faintest glimmer of light in her eyes as she turns her nibble into a kiss. “I have to go to work. I’ll see you at the coffee shop when you wake up” she whispers and then disappears into the darkness of the early morning. I glance at my watch. 5:30am is says. I disappear under the duvet for another three hours, then program my autopilot toward the coffee shop.

The knock on Henrik’s door went unanswered, but I find him in the coffee shop seated at the good table near the window. He waves to get my attention while I’m standing in the queue, and tips his mug toward me to show me that it’s nearly empty and motions for me to order him another one. I nod affirmatively.

A new girl is taking drink orders this morning, so I ask for my usual quad shot whole milk latte, plus a whole milk cappuccino, then stuff my credit card into the machine. When she asks me for a name on the order I tell her “Jack Kerouac” and she makes me spell out “Kerouac.” River is watching silently and gives me a wry smile as I begin to recite “K. E. R. O. U…”

—

“Pull up a chair” Henrik tells me as I approach the table. It���s an odd suggestion since he’s sitting alone with am empty chair across from him. I haven’t even begun to mentally process his request when I hear the latch on the bathroom door unlock and Emma steps out. “Floody!” she exclaims as she wraps her arms around me. “Have you recovered from your hero dose of mushrooms?” she asks before plopping her butt down in the seat across from Henrik.

I don’t even bother responding. Instead I commandeer an empty seat from the next table and sit down. River delivers the drinks to the table rather than suffer the indignity of shouting out “Jack Kerouac, your drinks are ready” to the entire coffee shop. As she is setting my drink on the table she brushes her fingers across the back of my neck. It is a surreptitious hello and good morning that goes completely unnoticed by the other patrons, but sends goosebumps racing down my spine.

“Settle this argument for us Floody” Emma asks. “Henrik says that the best businesses are benevolent dictatorships. I say that all organizations should be democratic.”

“What the hell prompted this conversation?”

“Emma thinks that her and her colleagues should have more of a say in how this place is run, and how the earnings are distributed” says Henrik.

“The owners are paying us minimum wage plus tips, and we’re just barely getting by on two jobs, but they just bought themselves a camper van” Emma protests.

“So, you’re saying they’re paying themselves too much, and not enough to the team?”

“Yes. If you study world history, you’ll know that America is the best country because we’re the only ones with democracy, and if democracy works for government it should work for business.” says Emma.

“And all dictatorships are bad?”

“Yes.” Emma says.

“Why?”

“Because in a dictatorship if the dictator doesn’t like you, he can just throw you in jail.”

“For no reason?”

“Yes!”

“But Emma, in a business, the owner doesn’t have any power over you. They can’t just throw you in jail or publicly execute you. You can just quit and walk away with zero consequences.”

“Yeah, okay, I see what you’re saying, but I still think we should have more of a say around here.”

“Well, there are really two ways to solve this problem Emma. You could be like Che Guevara and demand that power be transferred to the people through some sort of Marxist regime. And we all know how that turned out …”

“Yes, very well.” says Emma.

“No. Very badly. Or secondly, you and your colleagues could organize a labor union, engage in collective bargaining and threaten to walk out, forcing the owners to capitulate.”

“I would never do that. Union workers are lazy.”

“Well, I think those are your only two options Emma.”

“Well Floody, you clearly don’t know anything about business.”

[indigovoid]

The Ruin of John

By his posture you'd think he was propped. Slack-jawed and dummy-like, he hung motionless as unholy images flashed across his blank eyes, bulging at a blur of tangled hair and limbs. At once they possessed him and pulled him in before he could realize he'd come upon the cusp of light and dark. Jonathan was a husk of the boy his parents raised; the mere image of a brother to his siblings, taken and destroyed, vacantly dripping from his chair.

       When they found him he’d nearly been yielded to oblivion, but days and nights marked by anxiety and terror merged into weekends of merry-making and fond remembrance. One such night―the first anniversary of his beginning life as an idiot―he was recalled by his Precious Love:

       "Jessikah, you stupid bitch," he'd say, "your kiss is like lightning―when it lands, I'm ruined; though, in my ruins I harness the power of your affection to rebuild myself of adamantine, my spires threatening Heaven that they may surpass it, and every subsequent kiss destroys me yet.”

       "He had a remarkable way with words," Alex glimmered, "I remember the first time he persuaded me to fuck Jessikah, 'Her flesh is soft as dough, but you must bite quickly lest first you be devoured by her eyes.' He was intense and benevolent; her eyes, ravenous, my flesh a banquet. I obliged as she bared breast, tooth and nail, and he frothed like a sea at the bedpost.

        'You're oceanic, brother, and she is parched as the Valley of Death.' Jessikah is a woman of plurals, and Jonathan was her arbiter. He needn't beg despite my reluctance; his mesmer compromised my every conviction, so with muffled groans and howling as lycans we went again. Oceanic I may have been, but I soon collapsed, Saharan carrion; her appetite briefly whetted, her thirst briefly quenched, and me: through.”

       Jessikah blushed as Alex dictated the memoir, Jonathan's crown slipping metaphorically around his head. She averted his gaze to feign interest in Vyshaad.

       "Perhaps there has been no poet so articulate as John," Vyshaad sighed, eyeing his gyrating glass. The spiraling liquid therein evoked memories of Jonathan's captivating monologues; their gravity, drawing his audience to the depth of the human condition, prodding the mind of that invigorating, pervading thing that spins worlds together and tears them apart.

        "He’d have climbed the firmament, given the chance. I wonder that he may have channeled Apollo to intimate his knowledge. He could have changed the world,” then Jonathan opened the door.

       "What up, guys?" he asked flatly, and glided into the room.

        Fond remembrance turned frustration. His body walked by, but his mind lingered somewhere without him. He hadn't the faculty to perceive their despair, though it overtook their features. They knew, to his dull, brown eyes they existed as he did: without worry, meaning, or life.

"Anybody want pizza? I got a pizza," he offered with a goofy expression, his gangly form swinging to the window whereby Jessikah sat. Leaning on her chair, he grinned, looking just past her.

        "Hey baby, do you want a pizza?"

        The room was still save the waft behind him. He simpered on Jessikah, momently awaiting a reply before looking to his friends. He almost seemed to sense their dejection; no one wanted pizza, but all were too downhearted to say. Skin and bone and a smiling, his dumbness suffused and dispirited.

       "Fine, more pizza for me," then he floated awkwardly out the door suddenly as he appeared.

       For minutes they lingered in silence before it was terminated by Jessikah with a sigh. She said what they all dreaded from the day he was found, preceded it with a common emotion, and what followed was purely benign.

       "I hate pizza.”

       "We all hate pizza," Vyshaad agreed, catching the implication in her tone. She looked up gravely, and murmured her submission to the demon she repeatedly fought.

       "I want him dead.”

        There was solace in admitting it. 

      "We all want him dead,”  Vyshaad was encouraged, “He belongs dead. That's not John. I don't know what that thing is, but it's not John."

        Meanwhile, Ernesto sat quietly looking into his lap between Alex and Jessikah, but raising his head, he was finally enticed to join the conversation.

       "I fucking despise pizza."

        It had been years since Emperor Trump abolished the Constitutional amendments and The Church assumed the role of Federal Government. The American Inquisition was operative; Hillary Clinton was arraigned and hanged for her crimes, and upwards of two-million other Americans were either hanged or imprisoned. At tremendous costs the Chinese and Russian threats had been neutralized. America was great once more.

       The Falwell Center for Pornography Control and Punishment monitored individual web-use and pulled guilty men and lesbians kicking from their homes to be piled into the beds of smut-wagons and brought to Inquisition headquarters. It was common practice that convicted virtual sex offenders were mercifully hanged at the capital, but to save Jonathan from such a fate, Alex was consummately resolved.

       "This is Jonathan we're talking about," Alex ejaculated, "We can't kill John!"

       Ernesto shook his head, "We needn't kill him. They take care of these things," he tried to explain, but Alex sprang frantically from his chair,

        “We’re talking about my brother, Ernesto! Your cousin! Jessikah, your Love! Vyshaad―your idol."

       "He's not the same," Vyshaad clarified, "The John I idolized was a poet, a philosopher, the gentlest lover I'd ever known. That's not John. The porn changed him. I'm telling you, that thing belongs dead. That's not your brother, Alex, you need to understand that."

       "And how so!" he plead in denial, goading them that he may attract Jonathan to the room.

       "Please stop," he shook his head to awake from the nightmare, "Don't do this.” He cleared his face to descry their coldness, then Jared emerging from the bathroom.

        He ambled shamefully to Ernesto and resumed the chair beside him. His long-sleeve shirt covered lacerations across his arms; his hair choppy and unclean; his normally pallid face, red and wet. They looked on him curiously as he mumbled through his shattered aspect,

       "I don't want to kill John..." Alex was half-delighted to discover an ally in keeping his brother from the Inquisition―though at once, he returned grotesque; the tragedy resumed. 

       "...but someone must," Jared raised his rosate face to Alex’s, their gushing eyes met; their sorrow alike, but Alex refused the benevolent gesture.

       "No!" Alex dissented as he rose, advancing out the room. They felt the coming struggle, and Vyshaad started in pursuit.

       "No!" Ernesto enjoined, "He can't save Jonathan. Just let him go, and call Them."

       In the next room, Alex found Jonathan admiring the spackle on the wall. 

        "John, let's go," he took his arm, swiftly ushering him through the den.

       "Are we going to get pizza?" Jonathan's eyes dilated.

       "No," Alex said impatiently, pulling him to the car.

       "Good," Johnathan drooled, "We already have pizza."

       He remained perfectly calm, oblivious to the dire situation. Alex buckled him in his seat and reversed, pedal to floor.

       "I remember these," Johnathan looked about in wonder. He hadn't been in a car, or off the property since his discovery in the attic one year ago. But now that he’s abandoned―that Jessikah, Ernesto, everyone means to submit him to the Inquisition―home is nowhere.

       Alex had been speeding wildly, subdued by adrenaline as the road merged with his peripheral. He'd have to compose himself immediately were his efforts not to be in vain, but They may be on the hunt. He couldn't think. He glanced at Jonathan, who had been staring at him.

       "We go?"

       "Yeah, John. The house isn't safe,” he faltered, ”There are people who want you―who want to take you away; people pretending to be your friends, John, but they want to hurt you. They're bad people. We can’t stay there anymore."

       “Oh no, Alex," Jonathan turned grave. If Alex didn't know better, he'd think Jonathan understood his danger.

       "I hope they don't eat my pizza."

       By nightfall, Alex and Jonathan came upon an imposing wilderness at the city limit. This was Jonathan's last stop until Alex could devise a plan.

       "Here we are, John,” Alex broke the quietude. He wiped Jonathan's mouth and opened his door.

       "Here we are", Jonathan repeated, "It almost like a forest," he said, gazing into the forest.

       "This is where you'll be staying for a while. I'll bring you what you need.” 

         The lack of preparation exacerbated Alex’s anxiety. He knew he couldn't turn Johnathan loose into the hills without a place to sleep, without water or a morsel to eat, but for a short time he must.

       "John, stay right around here. I'm going to get you food and things." He peered through the motley-lit bower into Jonathan's eyes, hoping to communicate. 

        "Will you do that, John? I won't be long."

       "I guess so," his dull voice floated from the darkness.

       Alex left Jonathan amid his black sanctuary of oak and pine. Either it was the traitors or the Inquisition, but someone was in pursuit, he knew; but he was satisfied with Jonathan’s asylum. He stopped to obtain the necessary items before returning to the summit.

       Jonathan was nowhere to be seen under the headlights. Sighing, Alex turned off the car and stepped through the shadows to find him.

       "Alex, is that you?" Jonathan whimpered, "'I’m stuck, Alex!"

       He couldn't discern whence the voice came. 

        "I've got your supplies, John! Where are you?"

       "Alex, help!" he anguished as though over a pizza, "What’s happening to me?"

       Alex spun in every direction, dropping the supplies. The moon scarcely shone in the arbor where he frantically looked. Jonathan was nowhere.

       "Tell me where you are, John!” But Alex was unrealized; Jonathan had been yelling at length before he noticed the silhouette running aimlessly beneath him, at which he horrifically shrieked.

       Alex ducked in alarm, swinging ‘round toward Jonathan plunging through the moon-flecked boughs.

       Alex wailed. Dangerously fatigued, he straddled the fringe of delirium and bolted to his brother’s aid.

       "Can you speak? Are you okay?"

       "Yeah," Jonathan supposed, "but it kind of hurts to move." Alex suspected Jonathan's understatement, having tumbled two stories through the copse like a ragdoll.

       "Fucking Christ, John, why were you up there?"

       "Well, you drived away, and I was scared. I heard a monster, Alex, I know it. I don't know about this," he spoke calmly, spread under the grove, beguiled by enveloping clouds.

      “That was probably thunder, John," Alex recalled a tremendous peel as he drove off. The night would be miserable, and Jonathan must brave it with the burdens of his plummet and without shelter. Alex stood wavering over him, supine and mangled, as a dark notion haunted his weary conscious: Jessikah may be right. She may be―she isn’t!

       The sky shuddered and groaned; now stars that littered its clarity an hour ago were deeply buried, and below, in blackness, the two were still.

       "It's back, Alex. You've done your best for me; you should go. I'll climb into the tree."

       "Don't climb the trees, John," Alex commanded, "It’s thunder; you’ve no need to worry. Now let’s get you settled."

       Alex lifted Jonathan’s rigid frame and walked him under the boughs of an old oak, leaving him reposed on a pallet by his supplies.

       "Thanks for tucking me in," Jonathan’s childish ardor scarcely became the horrible circumstance, yet Alex warmed, relieved of the night’s toil and thrilled to champion his brother.

       "It's nothing, John," he finally smiled, yet soon his features returned grim.

       "I love you. I'll be back in the morning."

       After hearing Jonathan's goodbye, Alex stumbled half-awake through the whistling black thicket to his car.

       The sky shattered and came down as he got in. He could have slept there beside Jonathan, languid as he’d become. At least he had a bed to regain, he thought; but guilt pervaded him. Tonight, Jonathan slept as a beast under rainfall, broken upon the hurst.

       But Jonathan was indifferent to the storm. More importantly, the night was black; God alone knew what lurked through the swathing shadows. He clenched his lids, toiling for sleep―to avoid the visceral horror of the woods, and then it hit him: the pizza. His heart plunged. He shot up with trembling arms, streaming blood and water. Taking a nearby oak branch, he staggered to his feet; fragmented, his legs bent and throbbing, but determination surmounted his injuries.

       "I gotta tell Alex to keep an eye on my pizza!"

       He hobbled over the dark holt, resolute in reaching his brother, realizing not that he staggered through the wake of their last moments together. Heaving, wailing for Alex against the torrent, he persevered, determined his pizza would be preserved.

       The storm was tyrannical, and the forest bent in obedience. Heaven roared and wept over the small town―black, in want of power―at the edge of which a mother gazed at the effect of Gaia's rage. Her husband was visiting friends in the city, and despite the tempest their son slept like the dead in his nursery.

       Yet, she worried he may be roused by the next violent, bursting thunder gust. If only Jared were home, she thought; were he only there to make them feel safe, could he… could he?―he hadn't been the same.

       Biting her knuckle, she turned from the window whereby she watched the gloaming attain its chaos, and approached the lantern, supported by a round table whereby Jared spent his evenings; where that afternoon he left her a note before departing unannounced, which she read again:

       “Going to town. There are people I must see. Keep our boy happy and safe.

                                                                — Mewo”

       It became like this about the boy’s birthday. Perhaps he was shocked and unready for fatherhood. Or maybe, Jared just wasn't the man he seemed when they two met.

       Nonsense! She shook it from her head. Jared was an incredible father; the most efficient provider and exemplary fryer of doughnuts. 

       The nearing sky tore, and she leapt; thumping the table, swinging ‘round, then sinking in relief. She measured her breaths, and arose. The storm was explosive. She would check on the babe, and herself go to sleep after she checked on the chaos once more, so resuming the window, she looked into the thrashing abyss...

       She was sure something moved by the woods that didn’t belong. Lightening flashed, and she discerned someone―something twisted and wretched, dragging itself along the coppice. She screamed, watching it stumble nearer, bent on something; yelling through the crashing blackness for God knows what... flesh, blood, life. Though soon vanished in darkness, it lumbered close.

       "Jared!" she howled, turning to retrieve the shotgun, but her desperation swelled; she saw that in her startle the lantern was overturned. The timber floor turned hearth―there was no time! She panicked, darting for the baby.

        Jonathan couldn't see a thing, but his pizza must be secured. Though bursting gales threatened to return him up the hurst; though blasted and trammelled by gushing wounds and broken bones, he staggered on. He was through the coppice and coming upon the outskirts.

        Flames slithered throughout, consuming room after room. They must leave the house―the conflagration; everything they had was gone. They might wither with it all if they didn’t, but it. It's out there, craving flesh, roving through the tempest with bloodlust. The creature was nearby but the roof was coming down. She clenched her shrieking son close to breast, herself shambled and distraught, and it moaning in the darkness. Windows flared on the blast, and Jonathan noticed as he came stumbling down the hillock.

       He stood on the descent, acclimated to the torrential battery; mouth agape, eyes sparkling at the hypnotic conflagration. Jonathan bayed, collapsing to the mud in exhaustion. Comfortable in his repose, he bore the storm and contemplated sleep; but Alex must be found. He supposed it was God that roared over him. He knew this was punishment; he never should have left that pizza, and he paid the price of his impotence. However, his mission would not be compromised. Pain shot through his extremities as in defiance of God’s will he stood, though twisted; his neck powerless, his head lolling upon his shoulder as he dragged himself through the barrage.

       The next agonized shout for Alex wasn’t lost in the abyss; this time it met with an echo. It couldn’t be him. He reeled on, noticing by light of the burning undulation a shadow of something―someone―hurl itself through the shuddering night. It wasn’t Alex―it may have been!―but it screamed, frenzied and desperate. He surmounted his afflictions and bolted to aid the tortured creature.

      Screams covered the black gradient, and Jonathan brandished his oak bludgeon, prepared to engage. No monster, weeping blood and sludge―no devil could stop him. He didn’t care about Alex any longer; pizza was nothing. Though hemorrhaging and broken, he was a shimmering knight of Camelot. A powerful gale carried the voice of desperation to his ear again, and in a flash of lightning he saw the villain trying to escape with a child.

       She absconded from the blaze into the violent night, her infant wailing in her arms. When she believed herself safe; that she was beyond sight of that Hellion―the disfigured ghoul howling by the wood―she stopped, and watched her life as it danced in flames with the gales: their anniversary, when Jared brought her there, and showed her the deed… the proposal, at the tread of the portico… the celebration of their child; the grounds of their life together, and now where her head burst on the hillock under the blow of an oak bough, hurled again and again until it spilled onto the grass.

       No evil would beget this child tonight, Jonathan thought. He took the fallen infant from beside the ravaged beast and held it to his chest.

       “It’s okay, little baby. No one can hurt you,” Jonathan pet it heavily, shuddering; never before had he fought, much less defeated a monster, but for a young life he’d surmount any danger.

       “I’ll keep you safe, baby. We’ll be happy. I’ll tell you all about pizza.”

       Jonathan stood, cradling his child in the rain; Alex forgotten, his pizza forgotten, his bed and supplies erased. He looked in blithe and fascination on the spectacular inferno before climbing back onto the hurst. There, he thought, they’d live and love, and eat pizza. So, embracing his baby, he ascended through the pitch cascading sky, into the oaks and pines, without worry, meaning, or life.

[ericgamalinda]

My Sad Republic Redux

Sometime around the late 1980s, I traveled to the island of Calauit in Palawan. Ferdinand Marcos had gifted the island to his only son, Bongbong, and had populated the island with exotic animals from Africa.

After the People Power uprising deposed Marcos and the US airlifted the family to Hawai’i in 1986, there was some concern about the zebras, gazelles and giraffes that had been abandoned there, and an ecological preservation project was underway.

But the island still reminded me of the excessiveness of the Marcos family, who had all but turned the entire country into their personal playground—a kingdom they would rule forever.

When I learned that Bongbong Marcos had won the Philippine presidential elections, I felt a flood of confusing emotions wash over me. Anger and depression, mixed with overwhelming nausea. I felt helpless—for something that was out of my control. I felt a sense of failure—not mine alone, but shared with my entire country.

To understand how traumatic Bongbong’s victory is for those of us who lived through his father’s dictatorship, imagine a Spain with Franco’s family or Chile with Pinochet’s progeny winning national elections.

Jose Rizal famously warned us that “those who refuse to look at where they’ve been will never move forward.” We studied his works in school ad nauseum but time and again, when I see what’s been going on in our country, I realize his words have hardly sunk in. I have always suspected that our country is caught in an endless loop, a sinister Möbius strip where we are doomed to relive our nightmares over and over.

I am only 11 months older than Bongbong Marcos, so we belong to the same generation—the lost generation whose formative years were spent under his father’s repressive regime. I knew of Bongbong as the privileged son who could easily receive an entire island to serve as his own private safari, while the rest of us struggled to make ends meet. But that was all he was, the country’s spoiled but not especially bright brat. No one ever imagined him following his father’s footsteps. Today, some people imagine that Marcos 2.0 would be a benevolent, enlightened version of his father.

That may be wishful thinking. Bongbong has been quoted as saying that his father’s dictatorship was the “golden age” of the country. Golden for whom? His family, no doubt, whose reign had the political and military support of the United States, and who are still alleged to have siphoned nearly 10 billion dollars off the country’s coffers to their private accounts. Or their cronies, who benefited from his father’s largesse and the culture of corruption he had led. But not for the hundreds of thousands whose lives were destroyed, who were incarcerated, tortured, assassinated, or disappeared. Not for the millions of Filipinos who wallowed in deeper penury while his family hosted lavish festivals, mingled with celebrities, and lapped up mansions across the globe.

By denying his family’s culpability and showing no remorse for the suffering the people had endured, he appears as deluded as his own mother, one-half of the rapacious couple who ruled by fear and terror during the martial law years, who had said, without a hint of irony, that she wanted her epitaph to read, “Here lies love.”

We can blame this landslide victory on voter ignorance, or a naïve nostalgia for the past, or a desire for radical change. I understand when our political analysts say this is the result of decades of exclusion, of unkept promises, of frustration with the country’s entrenched oligarchism. But to choose a dictator’s son and hope he would make us “rise again,” as his campaign promised, contradicts everything our revered national hero had told us. We have moved backwards fifty years.

I have been researching on some of the major events that had shaped our country since the beginning of the 20th century and through the 21st for a new novel, and I am amazed at how resilient we always were, if not simply lucky. Our great-grandparents lived through the cholera epidemic of 1902, where over half a million died. World War I left us practically unaffected, and we quickly bounced back from the Great Depression, thanks to a thriving middle class. The Japanese Occupation was possibly the most traumatic episode in our history, three long years of excruciating suffering under a fascist power. This was followed, a couple of decades later, by the dark years of the Marcos dictatorship. We endured all that, and proudly picked up the pieces after. We remained hopeful that we would see the last of Rodrigo Duterte after his term (a hope that has proven false, alas), and we appear to be somehow managing to contain Covid 19, despite shoddy resources.

But another Marcos presidency? Led by a man who has shown no inclination to correct the wrongs done by his family? Who continues to delude himself and his followers about a fabled “golden age”? Would he revisit his private safari in Calauit, and would it remind him of that golden age when his family was virtually omnipotent, their opponents either jailed or dead, their bank accounts awash with the billions they had bilked from us?

The Marcos dynasty might rise again, as Bongbong has promised during his campaign. I don’t believe he will “save” the country, but he will certainly save his father’s dubious legacy and continue to rewrite it until we get used to the lies, just as his father once tried to do.

It will be another dark chapter of our sad republic.

[whetstonefires]

What are Green Lantern and Sinestro in your Earth-3?

Thank you! :D What a neat question. I have in fact had a lot of this written up for years and even more lore worked out, and then have never beaten any of it into postable form.

The Green Lanterns are the Power Rings, per I think most of the major canon mirrorverses? They still have the 'Guardians at Oa distributing Rings of (Will)Power' deal but there's not really an...ethical component.

The Guardians just believe that the stability of the universe is helped by concentrating power in the hands of strong-willed individuals and they facilitate this. I just kind of took their existing cop thing and rotated it 30 degrees and got incoherent naked fascism. There is only power and those too weak to seek it etc etc.

In exchange for power, which the Rings usually use to conquer their home planets and a varying number of neighbors, the Guardians expect their beneficiaries to uphold certain rules and agreements for them, as relevant--like, they're the guarantors for certain space treaties with the implicit promise of getting your ass beaten by Power Rings if you transgress. If the Power Ring doesn't cooperate with enough of these the Ring gets taken away. It's a fairly functional though brutal system. Any justice it produces is coincidental or the result of decisions made by specific agents within it, but it does work.

Sinestro is still very much the kind of person who'd get recruited to this system, he's actually a prominent example of characters who need very little fundamental alteration to kick them around to the other morality pole. Mostly he gets opposite direction character development instead, although I think his overall decency stat did go up a few notches to facilitate this.

In canon usually his defrocking as a Lantern is associated with using his ring to impose his will on his whole planet? Here that's encouraged but he gets into conflict with the Guardians about some of their demands not sitting right with him--he is trying to be a benevolent tyrant here he can't be flying off on his people to go do questionably ethical things in space.

And ultimately gets in contact (through his ring that's on the verge of being taken away) with Parallax, who's still imprisoned in the Oa battery, but rather than as a remediation for its evils because this is a mirror universe and fear isn't inherently an evil force, it's on the principle that fear is a weakness that must be suppressed. And they've had Ion the Will Whale leaching Parallax's energy in there so they can support more Rings at a higher energy rate, which is probably the actual main reason.

Some layers going on there about repressing your feelings of pain and fear and using them to fuel violence because that's more socially acceptable, and stoicism and the consequences to self and others. Honestly Sinestro and Harvey Dent have a lot of points of resemblance in this setting which if I'd ever gotten there would have come up when Jon Crane started hanging out with Sinestro lmao.

So anyway Sinestro eventually broke with the Guardians when they called him out on a job and it was hella unethical and he had a moment of realization and put his foot down.

So they took his ring, which was bad for him in that he nearly died due to being in space, and bad for his home planet in that as it turned out a lot of the existing social problems had only gotten worse as a result of using force to stop people from fighting one another, so by the time he got home there was full-scale war and as failed dictator with no more super-weapon he was not welcome.

So after some Big Sad he snuck onto Oa and busted Parallax out of the power battery because that was the one person he felt like he could still help and also Fuck This System.

And Parallax was like hell yeah wanna team up, and they did! I think Parallax probably kinda possessed Sinestro for a while, at least long enough to get them both off Oa and maybe for the duration of its recovery, but I don't think it's a full-time thing after that.

They've got a space vigilante group they call the Golden Lights, although Sinestro's still a law and order type, so he kind of acts like they're space cops without a government behind them. As a result one of the things they do is imprison people so dangerous their home planets can't hold them--Ultraman gets extradited to the Left Hand of Justice once he's sentenced after the Injustice War, because he had an escape record a mile long before he murdered President Obama and spearheaded world conquest.

Strawman had a building come down on him during one of the late battles in the war and was having a truly epic panic attack about getting slowly crushed to death, but fortunately for him one of the Golden Lights that came to help with the war got killed around then (I think Superwoman ripped them in half) and the ring came and found him because he was stark terrified at that exact moment, is in the habit of working pretty effectively through crippling anxiety even when putting himself in life-threatening situations, and is really good at scaring people on purpose when he wants to. Definitely best candidate on Earth.

His hair levitates when he's got the Ring powered up making him glow yellow, just because I think I'm funny.

One of my favorite details on a similar note is that part of how the Lights power their interstellar flight is by thinking really hard about the void of space and how super dead they'll be if their rings power down. Ability to freak yourself out on command without becoming nonfunctional is an important space sheriff skill.

Ah hm got stuck on the Sinestro track there because, you know, due to the nature of this setting the good guys are the main characters and that's Sinestro and Jonathan Crane here. Mirror universes are very entertaining.

Okay, Power Rings:

Hal is a First Gulf War veteran who was one of those guys (a significant fraction of coalition casualties) whose plane went down because he was so bored with the vast technological superiority enjoyed by his side that he was doing loops and flirting with RPGs while out on bombing runs.

He lived but lost an arm, and lost his first few civilian jobs at Ferris Air by lashing out and drinking on the job, until he quit the last thing Carol offered him in disgust for it being bottom-tier office work with no contact with planes at all, let alone piloting. (The first job was as a flight instructor; he lost that real fast.)

When he first gets his ring and goes on an nice unhinged villain rampage that includes the classic 'make me absolute dictator over this city or i will destroy it' the person that takes him down is Cyborg Ultraman, who is just as suicidal as ever but not evil about it.

It takes him two defeats to stop wearing the ring on his energy-construct arm that he makes himself with the ring, even though it's a) hard to do that at all and b) really fucking dumb because if he gets hit hard enough that construct collapses this means he doesn't have his ring until he can call it back to the hand he does have, huge vulnerability.

Eventually ex-Marine John Stewart kills him for his ring, which the Guardians of Oa consider a perfectly valid succession practice, and John's the Power Ring on-deck during the Injustice War. Idk about Guy and Kyle and everyone.

Wow! This is a lot! I really should...fic.......

[comewithmeintothedeep]

Monster Lore (Sci-Fi) - Mobile

Creatures that exist in more futuristic/science fiction settings rather than fantastical ones.

Aliens

Extraterrestrial creatures from beyond the stars, aliens are a fascinating phenomenon.

The universe is infinite and expansive and, as it turns out, full of intelligent life both benevolent and malignant.

Some alien species are simply curious and yearn to understand more of the universe and its inhabitants.

Others are parasitic conquerors that seek for galactic domination over other races and planets.

And some aliens have their own planetary politics, history, and social issues much like Earth does.

Aliens are equally as fascinated by humans as humans are by aliens, for better and for worse.

Interspecies relationships are very popular, whether it be professional, scientific, platonic, romantic, or sexual.

The more malignant and parasitic aliens are more concerned with expanding their numbers and empire. Of which typically involves not only galaxywide genocide, but capturing the populations of those planets specifically for the purposes of breeding them to increase their numbers.

Hybrids

As the name implies, hybrids are humans with animalistic traits.

They are not anthropomorphic animals, but rather humanlike creatures with animalistic traits.

Some hybrids have more animallike traits than others, but overall hybrids look practically human aside from the obvious animallike features.

Each hybrid is different depending on the species and their individual societies are structured accordingly. Their relationships, customs, behaviours, and even professions are dictated by this.

In hybrid society and in hybrid circles, owning hybrids as ‘pets’ is a surprisingly common practice, but is highly illegal. Some humans take part in these ‘pet rings’ as well, trafficking hybrid ‘pets’. However, some hybrids take humans as ‘pets’ as well. This is less common and is more likely to get reported and convicted, due to hybrid laws having exploitable loopholes to prevent convictions.

Hybrids are only able to successfully breed and have offspring with hybrids from the same animal family, such as tigers being able to make with lions and so forth. However, hybrids that lean more towards their humanness rather than their animalness are more able to interbreed with other unrelated species.

This, however, does not affect whether or not hybrids will mate with a member of a different species.

Heats and ruts for hybrids are rather intense and while each species expresses this in distinct ways, the difference in species does not deter interspecies copulation.

Ruts can be incredibly dangerous in public as these intense periods of fertility can completely take over a hybrid’s logical brain. There is next to nothing that can stop a hybrid in a rut from attempting to mate with a hybrid in heat if they can scent it.

Some animals are more dangerous when caught in ruts than others, specifically animals like most large herbivores, most large carnivores, and most especially sexually aggressive animals such as rabbits and dolphins.

Hybrids are able to mate outside of their heats and ruts, but during them the urge to mate and breed is uncontrollable. Once intercourse is engaged, it’s nearly impossible to escape or break free and it will continue until the heat/rut is finished.

Some hybrids even abuse this, many of the more aggressive animals deliberately seeking out hybrids in heat when they know they’re going to rut just so they can catch and mate with someone out in public.

[hogwartsfirebolt]

Written for @drarrymicrofic prompt "flood"

They heard word from the upstream towns two days before the sky cracked open like an egg and brought forth the first rains of the season. It came late that year — they saw the first days of June before the water —but it came, sure as the sun rising at dawn.

The Old River was benevolent, and all who lived beside it had learned its language, knew what it meant when it whispered a soothing flow, when it raged a furious current. And they knew that the slow swelling of the waters, and word from upstream towns, was how its floods announced themselves.

Harry had lived in that town for many, many years — not all his 20, but enough of them to not know any other sky — and it was second nature by then, to carry his and his parents belongings to the lofted planks in their home as soon as the river raised its voice.

Once or twice a year they went through the routine, could sit comfortably beside their furniture on the garret for a night, until the morning sun came to lift the waters from the streets and from their homes, and life resumed its rhythm, allowed him and his parents back into their bakery.

It was different that year.

That first morning of rain, of the river’s song, his father looked up at the graying sky and told him, “It’s going to be big, son.” Told him, “My father’s father once told me that when he was very young, the river grew claws and they didn’t see the ground for a week.”

“I’ll load the garret.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough.”

It became clear once the sky joined the river in its cry, with a deep, rumbling voice made of thunder. They had a couple hours, at most, to figure out where they were going to seek refuge before the water flushed them out.

“The Colonel’s hotel,” his mother said, in a tone that allowed no argument. When his father tried, she added, “I know how you feel about him. It’s also the tallest building in town.”

She was right. His mother was always right, he had learned. And so they packed a small parcel of clothes and headed downtown, walked the two miles that separated them from the centric hotel. Far as it was from the river, the center was bustling with activity, families rushing to protect their furniture from Tláloc’s hands. Everyone could recognize what the skies foretold.

The hotel itself was four stories high, the tallest building Harry had seen in his life. The owner, Colonel Malfoy, was the stoic man appointed by General Díaz as the town mayor.

If his father was to be believed, the Colonel had voted in favor of the bill that dictated that people from across the river could not live in their town, should be cast away. People like Harry’s mother, like Harry himself, with the green eyes of the Otatlies. The proposal had not been approved by the General, but the fact remained, and Harry’s father held his distrust for the man close to his chest, ready to protect his wife, his son.

It wounded his pride to knock on his door, but it was the lesser of two evils, the known one.

The wife of the Colonel answered, let them in without questions after getting one look at them. The first drops of rain were already dripping from the tips of Harry’s hair.

They were led into a parlor, where the families of the four other members of the council awaited, seated by the Colonel’s chair.

“The bakers,” the Colonel said once he spotted them, no inflection, devoid of emotion. He was a regal man, had the unblemished skin of those who had never burnt underneath the unforgiving August sun in the plantain fields, the smooth voice of those who had never leaned over the smoke of the oven season after season. Harry disliked him on sight. “Take a seat.”

His mother walked into the room first, defiant, unafraid, and Harry followed. They took the table and chairs near a window, where they could look out at the curtain of rain, and, if they tried hard enough, find the chimney of their bakery.

There was silence in the parlor, the families reading books, the beat of the rain against the ceiling like white noise, a backdrop for the passing of the pages. Harry could read, his mother had taught him when he was a boy, but the Colonel’s wife must have assumed the contrary, for she didn’t offer him a book.

That was fine. Harry had time to think, and in his wondering, he opened up the untouched box inside his head that held the question he had been avoiding since stepping foot inside the hotel, the one that twisted his insides like a knife.

Where is he?

The Colonel had a son. Harry knew him, had met him at the bakery once, a year before, and been enthralled by his curious eyes, the lovely sound of his voice. It had been evident, back then, that he was not allowed to venture into the shops, likely had servants to fetch his bread when he so desired, yet there he was, underneath a hooded cloak, looking at Harry, looking at Harry, even as he bought cheese cigars and three milk cake from his mother.

They had met again at the market, weeks later, the Colonel’s son in the same cloak, buying tostones, the twice-friend plantains sold in every stall. Harry’s heart had stopped when he had realized it was him, that dazzling man from the bakery. He hadn’t been able to help himself, had talked to him for a moment without concern for propriety, given him the mammee paste he had bought for himself a few minutes earlier, and told him he was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, told him that that thought had been running laps around his mind since he had first laid eyes on him at the bakery.

The Colonel’s son hadn’t said anything, and Harry understood, he was highborn and thus should not be entertaining the chatter of a charmed, poor baker. But the brightness of his cheeks told a different story.

The third time they had met, it had been at the park. The Colonel’s son walked arm in arm with the Lieutenant’s daughter, unhidden, immaculately dressed. Harry, with the basket of bread he’d been selling that day over one shoulder, had stared at him, his heart in his throat.

Once more, he had seen him at the market. The Colonel’s son had talked to him then, said, “those sweets you gave me last time tasted like a dream,” with downcast eyes, before walking in a different direction.

Harry’s heart still pounded when he thought about that.

Where is he?

Talking to him was an impossibility. He was only a baker. But a part of him couldn’t help but wonder if they could perhaps find a moment to exchange a few words, now that they would be trapped together for a few days.

He knew what he wanted to say to him.

I’ll show you the market. I’ll show you the bakery. Where else do you want to go? I will show you how to pick the ripest plantains, I will teach you how to cross the river to buy marquee bread from the next town, I will introduce you to the other shopkeeps, if you want to come with me.

He would show him anything he wanted to see but hadn’t been allowed to. He would show him every inch of their town, of the next, the language of the river, if the Colonel’s son said yes.

But he didn’t see him that first night he spent in the chair by the window, surrounded by the wealthiest families in town, attempting not to feel weighed down by their eyes on him and his parents.

Dawn of the second day found the water up to the first floor windows, and the rain still pounding, ever-falling.

Harry and his parents were given a room on the third floor, which was were the kitchens were located. He ventured in around mid-morning, thought perhaps he would find a familiar face from town working there.

He nearly fell backwards when he saw the Colonel’s son, sitting on the counter, propriety to the wind as he asked the chef question after question about … about bread, it seemed.

“Puff pastry?”

“Yes,” the chef was saying. “The folding depends on the method, and the goal. I truly don’t know much about this, you should find one of the Potters once this is over, their bakery has been running for decades.”

Harry saw the Colonel’s son’s cheeks color, once again. His breath came faster.

“Um,” he said from the door, clammy hands in the pockets of his trousers. The Colonel’s son turned to look right at him, grey eyes wide. Harry forced himself to continue. “Y-yes. We fold thrice, butter two layers.”

The Colonel’s son swallowed. “Oh.”

“I can tell you about it if you want.”

“Oh.”

A flood, it had taken.

“I’m Harry.”

“Draco.”

Harry looked at him, at the grey eyes he had found so enthralling. He was only a baker. This was the Colonel’s son. It was daunting.

Harry was dauntless.

“I’ll show you. I can teach you. And then … I can take you to the market.”

Draco’s smile lit up his eyes.