#not being used as merely a tool for death and destruction and by constantly protecting others

[mistress-light]

Well, maybe I am now convinced that Clive did survive.

[ill-will-editions]

MARGINAL NOTES ON THE AGAMBEN SCANDAL

Originally published in Italian here.  

“Soon afterwards, something else emerged – yet another justification for incorporating the ‘Children’s Songs’ into the ‘Poems from Exile’. Brecht, standing before me in the grass, spoke with rare forcefulness:‘In the struggle against them, it is vital that nothing be overlooked. They don’t think small. They plan thirty thousand years ahead. Horrendous things. Horrendous crimes. They will stop at nothing. They will attack anything. Every cell convulses under their blows. So we mustn’t forget a single one. They distort the child in the womb. We can under no circumstances forget the children.’ While he was talking, I felt moved by a power that was the equal of that of fascism – one that is no less deeply rooted in the depths of history than fascism’s power. It was a very strange feeling, wholly new to me.” 

- Benjamin on a conversation with Brecht, 1938

It seems that what irritates many and persuades few about Giorgio Agamben's ongoing reflections, deep down, is his rendering of the image of passive consent to the state of exception imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. An image that manifests itself as a normalized adherence to the injunction of the absolute primacy of bare life, a life reduced to mere reproduction, deprived of any attributes of the experience of freedom. The image of this consent would suggest that bare life is revealed as the only horizon, or value, remaining of human experience, which is tantamount to saying that the human now denies itself any experience: it reveals itself as an intuited fact, a fact that emerges today in these circumstances, and which was therefore already present before.

Incidentally, it should be noted that something else is proven to be pre-existing or proemial to pandemic management—something that applies to the historical proletariat, i.e. the industrial worker, as much as to contemporary workers of all kinds; something that reveals itself in the mirror image of the majority of elderly people left to die alone under the legitimation of social protection from contagion, while the truth is that after years of state sanctioned austerity measures there are not enough hospital beds; something to do with the fact that Italy, “no country for young people”, is determined by the miserable distribution of income, ergo by the misery and predation of welfare—this pre-existing fact is that the injunction of biological reproduction is absolutely relative at a global scale according to different people’s privileges based on their geographical location, at a local scale, since social reproduction depends on the convenience of the economic machine, and finally at a time scale unique to each form of life with regards to the constant destructive forces of predation. So there is an experience of the thanatalogical power held by the present human society. 

Yet in the present situation, the image given by Agamben, that is to say the one in which it would appear that the social cement to which we objectively seem to adhere is revealed to be the command of bare life alone, is not inexact. At least, as long as a mass consent to the suspension or disembodiment of social relations, under threat of losing basic biological reproduction, persists. But what does this mean?

In an important passage from 1955, Georges Canguilhem argued against identifying human social organizations with living organisms. Canguilhem argues that while every human society or rather human society in general is a collectivity of living beings, this collectivity is neither an individual, since it does not obey the laws of homeostasis of a singular biological organism, nor a species, since it cannot be confused with “humanity” which is always open to the search for its specific sociability, while society is by definition closed. Society is a means, a tool, says Canguilhem. It demands rules but has no capacity for self-regulation, and thus disorder is its only presumably normal state. For this reason, regulation cannot be left to an apparatus produced by society itself; it must come from elsewhere—and here, again through Bergson, Canguilhem goes back even more surprisingly to Plato on the same question Walter Benjamin had returned to in order to arrive at his critique of sovereignty and the law by philologically revealing its fiction: justice. Canguilhem uses justice according to Plato, a supreme form of society that is at the same time irreducible to its bodies, to make the Bergsonian opposition between wisdom and heroism work: unlike in the living organism, there is no wisdom in society, and the proof is that its normal state of crisis constantly gives rise to the need for heroes and heroisms who emerge in the background of a crisis situation and are then called upon to give it a solution—all of this of course legitimized by a representation of extreme danger that is the mirror image of the permanent sense of threat perceived by society in its precarious nature.

It is clear that, in spite of some contrived and astonishing Marxian syncretisms, which have unfortunately run their theoretical course, we are dealing with social reproduction in its materialistically determined distinction from simple reproduction.

Let us try to make Canguilhem work in what appears to be Agamben’s contradiction: between him capturing the political truth on the state of exception and an aporia of his current discourse on normality, the rule of exception as taught by the tradition of the oppressed—to borrow from Benjamin’s 8th thesis on the concept of history. What particular kind of adherence to the formal exception are we seeing in the face of this pandemic? Or rather, why is it that the injunction of bare life displays itself in this circumstance?

This pandemic is not the dengue, which still causes more infections and victims than the coronavirus in Latin America, or the yellow fever, that has made new massacres in the last two years from South East Asia to Africa. This pandemic is global because it threatens the definitive global relations of capitalist society. The virus starts in the central metropolis of the global construction industry, a haven for capital in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and then impacts primarily in China, Europe and the US, with the addition of the oil states and those engaged in conflicts in the Middle East. This explains the representation of the danger, but not yet the social acceptance that it is gaining: in order to grasp it, it is perhaps necessary to question whether this same support is in fact illusory. This does not exempt us from ascertaining the force of the historical reification of this apparent image and therefore from ascertaining, as Agamben does precisely by capturing the truth of this moment’s image as it presents itself to history, that adherence to the guarantee of bare life is the foundation of the social pact. But we know, precisely with Agamben and Benjamin, that both this guarantee and the social pact are a pair of fictions—in other words, a false synthesis of opposites: such as, in close kinship, that of sovereign legitimacy in relation to justice and law. What does the experience of the oppressed teach us about the relationship between the life-form of capitalist society and simple reproduction if not that this relationship is simply null and void? That the mission of capitalist society, reversed through thirty years of globalization, is precisely exclusion, disinterest, the power or profit to command freely, independently from any guarantee of biological reproduction? It is this truth, affirmed in the practice of governance and introjected by the oppressed, that is now laid bare: the injunction to isolate and the suspension of social life are accepted precisely because it is at the moment in which society—and, coincidentally but separately, biological life—is most endangered that the whole experience of the divorce between the two finally condenses. In other words, individuals suddenly become conscious that it was power itself that laid down the fiction of the social pact in the first place: and therefore, it is the reality of society itself that is laid bare, its pure coincidence with power, and its powerlessness to produce any stability, any healing for the sick, any protection for life.

It is true that in this instinctive recording of the truth about society and power the injunction to cling to bare life as the sole horizon of social behaviour is reproduced: but it would be better to say that it is reflected in it. On the one hand, in fact, power enjoins the suspension of social life as a necessary condition for its own re-legitimization; on the other hand, this same suspension finds acceptance among people only as a condition consciously forced upon them by the evident fact that power and its social organization have no capacity to defend life effectively. In this dichotomy and beyond the instantaneous image of a forced convergence we can glimpse the crossroads between forms-of-life that are being prepared. On one side of this crossroads, there is an emergent form-of-life which, accepting the nakedness of society and power, secedes from it in order to affirm the value of life as an encounter and the mutual aid of bodies in their affections, thereby re-opening the horizon of a free experience, and on the other side a form-of-life imposed as a reproduction of society and its command, reconfigured exactly on the acceptance of the truth of their substantial powerlessness to protect life, bodies, and affections as what is common to us, and indeed on the acceptance of their destiny to separate us in the face of a distribution of death. And it is all the more so true—as seems to be the case in our present situation—that the reconfiguration of capitalist society and its general relations of power take the form of a predominance of digital capitalism, of data capture and of a predictive function of the devices of control: that is, of a total grip on the biological that at the same time mineralizes it.

In this sense, as shocking as the image used by Agamben, the anonymous article, “What the Virus Said,” published by Lundimatin appears to be a discursive operation with a different effectiveness and power: precisely in its address to the current form—captured at this moment—of the average social behaviour and to place itself ahead of that choice. A choice that seems to take on a global body in many different signs of conflictual life, which tend to dispel the crystallized image of a common decision on life itself paralyzed in the capture by the naked thanatocracy to which corresponds the automaton that we have come to call the Leviathan.

-Correspondence and Translation Committee - Vitalist International (Roman Section) 

Translated by the Vitalist International, Atlanta Section

[project-rebirth]

Stacia Sequenzia - The Holy Knight of ATOM

Name: Stacia Sequenzia

Age: 17 (Age of Death) 10,988 (Chronologically as a Legendary Spirit)

Legendary Spirit Class: Knight

Rank: EX

Contractor: Bowen Chuuno

Synopsis

Stacia Sequenzia is a Knight Class Legendary Spirit that is to be summoned by  Ministry of Science  Field Operator, Bowen Chuuno. She is the Legendary Spirit that fights on behalf of the currently small Chaldea Group along side Rosalia Echidimont, Kamijou Touma, and the Index LIbrorum Prohibitorum to end the Multi-Universe Holy Grail Wars, events that happens every 70 years, with the fourth and now fifth wars being 10 years apart.

Background

Stacia was not born a regular human. She was instead a byproduct of the Grand Church of ATOM, a religious organization that was built around the worship of the Multi-Universe God, The Might Atom. Many centuries ago when the Church had huge amounts of authority over many worlds and their governments, they had tried to create their own Atomite so that the Church would have a messiah who would lead their forces and spread the word and will of their God. However  all they ended up producing were failures, failures which were disposed of after failing to display traits of their God.

Eventually, they had brought in an Magician who was well versed in a variety of fields of magic and had managed to successfully help the Church create their first Atomite. When the False Atomite was born, they were shocked to find out that their messiah was a female, but despite this, they were satisfied with the result. In the following years, Stacia was raised by the Church to follow their teachings and doctrines, as well as having her refine her magic power and her atomite powers. This had led to her becoming among the most powerful Magic users in the Church and at the age of 7, she had started training to become one of the Church’s Enforcer Knights.

As she was a prodigy and full of potential, in just five years, she had ended up joining the Knights and begun rising in the ranks in the years to come. She displayed such skill with her magic, refining her energy into Divine Magic Power and had become proficient with the sword. At age 15, she had been given the Holy Sword Excaliburn, her trademark weapon which allowed her to gather energy from all over the Multi-Universe and refining it into a destructive light of Divine Magic Power. When she had first used it in the battle of Fiore, she had ended up annihilating half of the enemy forces, allowing for those she led into battle to make short work of  the remaining forces. However, she had learned that using its power would cause her to suffer injury.

About a year later, The Rebellion of Eincrad had broken out, in which those who hated the Church’s policies rebelled against. Among those who were part of the rebellion was a childhood friend of hers whose family had been punished for a crime they had not committed. Because of this, Marcus had abandoned the church and joined the growing rebellion. Over the following months, it would turn into the Eincrad Civil War, which the Rebellion had been fighting to oppose the church. Stacia and the other knights were deployed to eliminate them as enemies of God (ATOM), being told that they had fallen to the influence of the Abbysal God known as The Fallen. Stacia believed in this propaganda and had cut down people who were once loyal civilians. It was only then when she had found out that her old friend Marcus was part of the Rebellion that she truly began to question the church.

Between her feelings for her old friend and her duty to the Church, Stacia felt conflicted, unsure of what to do. She prayed to the God she was supposedly an incarnation of and later, met with the Pontiff of the Church of ATOM, to which she was told that they had fallen from grace, that there was no way to save them and that the only salvation she could give them was to cut them down with her Holy Blade. With that, she had her resolve firm, beleving that their deaths at her hands would bring them the salvation they needed in order to have peace.

In the final days of the war which had ravaged the many worlds, especially the capital Eincrad, Stacia had engaged the remaining forces of the Rebel Alliance on the battle of keldrat. There, she had encountered Marcus and had fought his forces in a climatic battle. The conflict raged on for many hours with Stacia and Marcus being the final warriors on the battlefield who could fight. marcus revealed that he had been messing around with Dark Magic in spite of the Church and the God whom they were representing. Stacia knew her role was to kill her old friend, yet refused to do so, instead trying to drag the fight on for as long as possible while trying to get him to return to the light.

Her attempts fail when he denies her, ATOM and the Church, gains the upper hand, and deals to her a fatal blow. Marcus leaves her for dead, but not before lamenting that he wished things had been different, but because she had been unable to understand the hearts of the people, things ended up the way they did. So he had blamed the conflict on her, for being a pawn of the church that had created her.

After it was over, she had regretted everything that had lead up to this moment. She had regretted that she had been used by the church to harm innocent people, and that she could not understand the hearts of those whom she had mercilessly condemned to death. As she laid there dying, she was approached by a mysterious force she thought was the Might Atom Himself and, though in actuality, it was the Multi Universe's Counter Force System. The Counter Force had appeared and formed a contract with her, and Stacia accepted. She was to obtain the wish granting spiritual item known as the Holy Grail, where she would use its power to redo her role as a knight and to prevent a tragedy like the rebellion from ever happening again, in exchange for her becoming a Legendary Spirit in the Phase of Legends. Even if she failed to obtain it, she would return to this moment at the end of her life where she could try again and be summoned, forever trapped in a frozen link in time.

Historically, another old friend of Stacia, Allan had found her on the hill of Keldrat and took her body to a forest where she had supposedly died peacefully. Excaliburn was thrown into the Lake of Spirits, and the war, although it had ended, several smaller conflicts continued to arise with the emergence of a mad knight called Artorias The Mad, rampaging about. The Church of ATOM had suffered as a result of the loss of Stacia, and their influence had collapsed in the following years. They had done what they could to cover up Stacia's existence as an Atomite, destroying and altering documents that only refereed to her as nameless knight who was among the many casualties of the war. The Church of Atom grew smaller and became an obscure religious organization that no longer had the influence they had centuries ago and had simply dropped out of the spotlight.

Personality & Character

Stacia is a strong-willed young woman who usually speaks truthfully but is willing to lie if necessary. She is courageous, determined, and set on winning the Holy Grail. She constantly insists that she is a knight and a Familiar foremost and that she should not be treated as a mere human, for it is irrelevant to the role she is to play. She is resolute in following her own morals, regardless of the more viable, yet underhand, tactics being available. Stacia prefers direct, fair confrontations based upon codes of chivalry. Not even her hunger for the Holy Grail can make her abandon her code of honor. This leads to conflicts involving strategy with the likes of Tsuchimikado Motoharu, and other Legendary Spirits, who often use underhanded tactics. She often struggles with her identity with being a Knight of God and a Human. She dislikes being treated as a girl and human due to her status as a Knight and Legendary Spirit. She tries to keep the notion that as a Legendary Spirit contracted to her master, she is a tool and is to be used as such.

Stacia is shown to regret her time as a Enforcer Knight and seeks to redo her life so that she could change the fate of herself, the church and her friends. She holds herself responsible for the destruction of the Church and the Kingdom of Eincrad and called herself an inadequate messiah. Because she had been brought up believing that she was an incarnation of God, she had tried to hold herself to those standards and believed that she was doing good, but when she realized she had caused more harm than good, she began to hate herself for not meeting those standards. She feels that she is unworthy of her title and status as an Atomite. As she spends more time with Bowen, Touma, Index and even interacting with those within Academy City, she starts to loosen her icy shell, realizing that such a place where everyone lived happily needed to be protected.

[thwippyparker]

Try To Fix You- Chapter 5

Masterlist

Read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

Feel free to comment, like, or share this if you want to be added to a tag list, or you can add yourself HERE. Enjoy!

Eventual Peter x Reader, Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, ANGST **************************************************************************

Avengers Tower was just as intimidating on the inside as it looked from the outside. The lobby was much busier than expected given the hour, full of people who you assumed to be agents. The dress ranged from street clothes on operatives who appeared to be on undercover missions to tactical gear. You assumed the agents dressed in business attire were more of your run of the mill desk workers. It was hard not to be intimidated surrounded by all of these people who could probably tell you dirt on everyone in the city and/or kill you without batting an eye. Guards in full tactical gear were posted by each door “I guess you always have to be on guard when you’re the freaking Avengers!”  You thought to yourself as you walked past the lobby and into the elevator corridor. You got a few odd glances from a gaggle of business women chatting about lord knows what. However, as soon as Peter saw the guard manning the elevator, some of his stress began to melt off of his shoulders.

“Hey kid, what are you doing here so late,” the man said with a sort of lopsided grin. He looked vaguely familiar but you couldn’t quite place him. His face was handsome in a rugged way, his hair was cut short and he seemed relaxed. His kind gray eyes like a calm sky, just before a storm. The way he looked at Peter showed he held a certain fondness for him, even if there was a glint to his eye that you read as mischievous. Almost like an older brother who loves to tease and taunt their younger sibling. He had a calming aura around him that made you feel safer just standing near him. He was one of the more casually dressed agents, wearing a black t-shirt, hoodie and some dark wash jeans. As you took in what he was wearing, you noticed the metal hand at the end of his hoodie sleeve. 

The realization hit you as your jaw went slack, the infamous Winter Soldier was a mere few feet from you. You had heard about him from Peter, after Europe and had then done some digging on your own when trying to learn more about the people your best friend chose to fight. His cybernetic arm seemed different though, what was once silver now black with delicate gold accents. It was odd to you but your realization didn’t remove the calm that you had felt just moments before. You expected with his past that you would feel on edge, but who were you to judge someone based solely on the past. 

“Just here to see Tony, Bucky. He in the penthouse?” Peter said smiling, oblivious to your inspection of Bucky. It was still so at odds with the image of him you had in your head of the nerdy, self conscious boy he once was. Here he was talking to a super soldier just as easily as if it were you or Ned. You obviously had a lot to relearn about him since the last time you had really been around him.

These last few weeks had been a roller coaster of trying to relearn your best friend, everything felt so new and yet still so similar that it was only moments like this that you really felt the effects of your time spent apart. It made your heart hurt thinking about it. Peter was always your lifeline, but lately he had felt more like a stranger, maybe it was because you just couldn’t see him for who he had become but rather what he had been. It was so hard to believe that 2 years could change so much. But the evidence was laid out in front of you, wearing neon and glitter just begging for you to notice, you made a promise to yourself to talk with him more about everything that had happened during the gap as soon as you were done here. Maybe it would help you create a new normal, one where you didn’t feel constantly thrown off kilter by life’s ever changing ways. 

“Yeah, the workaholic is where he always is, the lab. I’m a bit worried about him so I’m glad you’re here to visit.  It’ll really cheer him up, I know how much you mean to him. Almost as much munchkin, who by the way will also be thrilled that her big brother is here to visit. Do me a favor, tell her to easy up on the make-overs. She always makes me look like a drag queen, not my best look” Bucky said, shuddering as he turned his gaze towards you. He surveyed you as if he was trying to discern if you were good people or he would have to deal with you later  “Now Peter, it’s rude to not introduce your guest. Who is this lovely young woman” He had a softness to his voice that wasn’t there before, almost as if he could read your soul and realize just how close to breaking down you were. Everything had felt like it was getting back to normal before the phone call today. Now, you just wanted to curl up in one of Peter’s hoodies and lie on the couch while eating Ben & Jerry’s. 

Peter rubbed his thumb along the back of your hand as he glanced down at you. “Oh, right. This is y/n y/l/n, she’s my best friend.” He smiled at you as he looked back at Bucky, “Tony actually asked to see her, can you believe it?”

Bucky had a look of shock pass over his face for a moment before the stony, relaxed mask he had on before was resituated. He rubbed the back of his neck with his metal hand and you could hear the metal plates shifting slightly. “Wow, that’s kind of a big deal. You sure she can handle it, kid?” 

You were wondering what he could possibly be talking about. The last time you had seen or heard of Tony Stark was before the snap that caused everyone you loved to fade from existence. It was a surprise when everyone came back as suddenly as they left; but after he had saved the universe, his wife Pepper had given a statement that he was retiring and would like to not be bothered any further. Surprisingly, the press respected the statement. You guessed that’s what happens when you do what he did. It was shocking that the once media “darling” would back out from the limelight but who could blame him, he’d been doing the hero act for years and deserved some rest. 

Peter’s smile never wavered though as he looked at Bucky, “I think she can handle it. Plus, it’s not like she’s a complete stranger to him. I remember babbling his ear off talking about her when we would be in the lab tinkering with my suits. He also saw her kick butt on Flash’s live stream when we were in Europe when you all were on that ‘covert mission’, he said with air quotes using his free hand.  

Getting that Peter wasn’t going to take no for an answer, Bucky stepped aside as the door to the elevators opened.  “If you say so, punk. Just tell FRIDAY where to go, you know the drill. Oh, and y/n, nice meeting you. Sorry for the twenty questions,” he chuckled, “force of habit trying to protect everyone here, ya know? I hope to see you around sometime.” As the elevator doors closed, you released the breath you hadn’t realized you’d been keeping in. Peter looked at you and pulled you close, rubbing your back as he talked to the empty air of the confined space. “FRIDAY, Tony’s lab please.”

Suddenly a disembodied voice filled the silence, “Should I alert him of your arrival?” The voice sounded friendly enough, you were wondering if that was just you reflecting though. 

“Nah, he knows we’re on our way. Is Morgan with him?” he asked, still not letting you go, chin resting on the crown of your head. You could get used to the closeness of the action. Being with Peter, you had received a softness you hadn’t gotten in over a year and a half. It felt nice to be held without expectations or worry that a fight was on the horizon. Peter was stable and you didn’t realize how much you had missed the stability before that first night. 

“Morgan is currently with Mrs. Stark, on her way to dance practice, would you like me to alert them upon their arrival to the tower” You begin to wonder if you’ll get to meet the little girl who had thoroughly melted Peter’s heart upon being returned from wherever you all were during the snap. Once everything settled, Peter had gained two “adopted siblings” and the Parker’s had finally accepted Tony and Pepper's generosity. 

Last you knew, two years ago, Tony was even looking at Peter to take over the New Avengers and was in talks with Peter and his newfound friend/ “brother” Harley on who would run Stark Industries when Pepper inevitably decided to step down. You hadn’t heard much since then but from what you could tell, Peter had definitely stepped up on the hero front. You had learned after Peter had moved you in that he hadn’t really needed anyone to help cover the bills, as the Avengers were paying for it. Or rather Tony was, as Peter had accepted his offer to head up the New Avengers. 

As Peter was letting FRIDAY know what to do you couldn’t help but remember how you got to where you are now and imagine what could have been if you had taken Peter up on his offer and confession so long ago. Could you have been a part of this close family with the Avengers? Would you have finished school, avoided so much of the heartache that life after Peter had held? Or was this how things were supposed to play out? You couldn’t imagine what sort of entity would want you to suffer as much as you had but maybe it was a more malevolent god like Loki that really controlled all of this. That was a grim thought. You remembered how much destruction and death he had brought when you and Peter were much younger. 

As you were deep in your musings the elevator doors opened and you saw a vast engineering lab, if you could call it that. It looked like a mix between a hotrod shop and a robotics lab at MIT. Peter called for Tony and you suddenly heard a tool drop followed by a string of curses, some of the words you weren’t even sure if they were actual swears or the kind you make up when a child is present as a placeholder word. You marveled at the cars around you, cars you thought you would only ever see in pictures. If it wasn’t for the fear of getting ready to meet one of your heroes, you would be going nuts over the 1967 Shelby Cobra that looked like it had seen slightly better days. Tony called to Peter about his location and Peter began navigating you through the maze of machinery, tools, and robotic exoskeletons.

When your eyes finally landed on Tony, you didn’t believe what you saw. There he was, in the flesh. But he had looked different than all of the pictures you used to have plastered on your bedroom walls and the pictures in your textbooks at school. You noticed scarring along the right side of his face and saw the way it snaked down the side of his neck and disappeared under the collar of his shirt. The worst of the damage appeared to be on his arm; the scars appeared to be much deeper there than anywhere else. He looked as though he had sustained severe burns and you wondered how far the damage went. “Now the media black out makes sense,” you thought as the realization hit you like a ton of bricks. “He had always been a vain person, so of course he wouldn’t want anyone to see the damage sustained by the war.”

As he went to stand up, you heard machinery whirring quietly and looked down. He had what appeared to be metal braces on his right leg. It didn’t look like anything you had seen before. “Maybe he designed it himself. The perks of being rich and an engineer, you can make a better prosthesis for yourself.” If he had caught you staring, he didn’t let you know as he held his hand out for you to take it. 

“Y/n, I assume? It’s nice to meet you, sorry about the circumstances though.” You took his hand and shook it, trying not to pass out from sheer joy. Disfigured or not, this was the man who you had idolized for most of your formative years. “Just so you know, I won’t let him get away with what has happened. I have already sent over the police reports and evidence to my lawyer. Best attorney in the whole state, I actually moved her here from LA when I got into some legal problems before all of this,” he said, gesticulating wildly at the room around him.

“Wait, her?” Peter asked, “ I thought you said you would send it to your guy? If I had known your attorney was a girl, I would’ve told y/n, might’ve made her more at ease.”

“First of all, my young padawan, you assume too much. Her assistant is very much a man, and he is my guy. Most correspondence is through him as Ms. Walters is a very busy woman. She will of course be taking the case pro-bono as she hates any man who harms a woman, very feminist in that regard. Second, I’m sure no matter the circumstances Ms. Y/n would be uncomfortable as the current situation is a difficult one to process. Not to mention being in a building with a god, an ex carney turned assassin and his family, a hundred year old soldier, a jolly green giant, a guy who shrinks, a guy who flies, and of course me, the cripple.” He chuckled at his own expense as he directed his focus to Peter, ”All joking aside, I’m surprised she’s ever comfortable around you my Spiderling,” he stated, pulling Peter into a head lock and tousling his hair, “considering all the babbling you used to do, if I hadn’t seen the feeds, I woulda thought you made her up.” 

As he released Peter Tony looked at you, your eyes still wide with awe. “Hey Pete, why don’t you go get y/n a refreshment from the kitchen while I talk with her about some things. Then we can all have a grown up discussion about some things that have been nagging at me the last few weeks.” Peter looked between you and Tony, as if trying to communicate with you silently, making sure you were okay. You nodded and his face relaxed, his finally focusing on Tony, “Okay, but can I talk to you really quick?” Peter had an odd look on his face as he motioned for Tony to follow him to a separate area of the workshop.

**************************************************************************

Once Peter had reached an area where he knew no one without superhuman hearing would overhear what he was about to ask Tony, he turned to face his father figure and mentor. His heart raced and his palms became slick at the mere thought of what could happen when he left the room. “You’re not gonna tell her, are you? What I told you? I don’t think she’s ready right now, Tony. Plus, I just got her back. I can’t lose her again. When I got that phone call, I thought I had lost her for good. I can’t have you dropping any kind of bomb on her when she is already in a fragile position.”

Peter knew he was rambling but he couldn’t help it. The thought of you leaving him again terrified him. But you were already so upset that he didn’t know how to approach the topic with you when your world kept getting upheaved. He knew you would have to find out eventually, but he wanted to at least wait until the court case was settled.

“Peter, I would never betray your trust like that. I merely want to give her an opportunity to get to know me as a person. Let her get her questions, excitement, and nerves out before the poor girl’s head explodes. I’m working on a limited schedule before Pep gets back or Buck opens his big mouth and the whole tower is trying to make the rounds. I will send an alert to your phone once she’s given me the okay and you can come back. You told me how much you both look up to me a long time ago and I want to give her the same opportunity I gave you all those years ago. I noticed you didn’t tell her about why I look like this. Poor girl looks like she’s seen a ghost.”

Peter felt ashamed, blindsiding you with Tony’s condition but he didn’t want to scare you and if he was being honest, it was still hard for him to deal with. Peter would never tell you, but dealing with his PTSD from the war and then also facing both snaps was hard to do. That part of his story was hard for him to relive, even with you. But standing in front of Tony now, it brought back the memories, like always.

**************************************************************************

Peter had reached for Tony instinctively when he held the stones, before anyone else on the team. He felt the sheer power, got drunk off of it. At first, Peter wanted to bathe in the feeling forever, he felt invincible. Within moments, it became terrifying. This was an unnatural level of power that no being should ever possess, mortal or not. Every cell was filled with it, to the point where Peter felt like his nerve endings were splitting and reconnecting over and over again.

The edge was taken off as other members of the team grabbed on to Tony and each other. Everyone’s minds felt connected too, as though they were all one organism, with Tony being the leader. A loud cacophony of voices drenched with fear flooded Peter’s mind to the point where he couldn’t tell where he ended and they all began. When it was finally manageable, Tony used all the strength he could muster to end the fight once and for all. 

For a brief second after the snap, there was nothing. Then, pain tore through everyone as the power surged out. Loud screams bubbled from the Avenger’s mouths as one by one, they all let go. Despite the entire team sharing the burden, Tony had sustained the most damage. As Peter let go of Tony, he dropped to ground, nearly knocked unconscious from the collective pain he had felt. Peter quickly sat up, trying to compose himself as the sounds in his head didn't stop. That’s when he noticed Tony.  

As Thanos and his army vanished, Tony collapsed to the ground. Most of his right side was covered in horrible burns, the smell of burning flesh and ash heavy in the air. Dr Strange tore through the crowd to open a portal, only keeping it open long enough for Pepper, Peter and Rhodey to step through before slamming it shut.

Peter was unsure where he was until the sounds of monitors and the smell of disinfectant flooded his senses. He could still hear panic but now it was that of hospital workers trying to get Tony’s suit off and get him sedated. Peter wasn’t sure if he was hearing the staff or their thoughts. But he didn’t have time to figure out where he was or why he felt differently. He just thanked whatever force that controlled all the madness of the universe that Dr. Strange had gotten them to a hospital before Tony was too far gone. 

It was touch and go for a long time, but when the doctor came out with a relieved look on her face, Peter knew no matter how long it would take, everything would be fine. Only then did Peter allow himself to feel the exhaustion that had been creeping onto him since he had come back to the realm of the living. He felt himself slump in the chair, unable to keep himself upright any longer.

**************************************************************************

Peter came back to reality as Tony snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Earth to web head, you okay in there kiddo?” Peter shook his head to clear the fog as he looked at Tony. 

“I’m sorry Mister Stark, I should’ve told her about you or warned you that I hadn’t told her yet. It’s just… ugh!” Peter groaned, rubbing his face roughly, “I could hear how hopeless she felt, could feel it radiating off of her. I hate that I couldn’t have prevented this all because of some stupid thing I said years ago. I want to get her back, want to win her back. And I know it’s not the right time but I just can’t help but feel protective over her. She will always be the love of my life, even if I’m not hers. And to hear her talk about even letting the scum who hurt her get away because of who his father is made me see red. There’s no excuse for this though Tony, I’m sorry.”

Tony patted Peter’s shoulder, “I forgive you kid, I just hope she will when all is said and done.”

**************************************************************************

Masterlist

Read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Alienation

Alienation – the result of individuals and, through them, societies 'becoming alien' (i.e distant, disengaged, even uncomprehending) to the results of their own activity, the environment in which that activity occurs, from the people who share that environment and activity, and from themselves. Alienation is marked in those of us living out systems of social relationships which thus redirect our energy from living on our own terms in a manner we ourselves can choose and assert, and into simply reproducing and reinforcing that social system in order to attain the means for survival. Individuals with the means (intellectual, ecological, social) to create lives they freely desire are difficult to base top-down authoritarian systems upon without the draining use of constant force. Alienation makes it possible to relatively smoothly maintain the centralisation of wealth, knowledge and power, separated from us yet raised by ourselves and many like us.

A well-used example of alienation was deployed to describe private property and the economic exploitation of capitalism, by which the worker is separated from what they produce: their 'power to' do whatever it might be is sold as labour power, transforming it into an owner's 'power over' them and thereby alienating human beings from their capacity to create. However it would be a mistake to simply stop there, as Marxists mostly do for instance. (In the 20th century what became known as 'the Fordist compromise' began to allow producers a limited amount of access to the commodities they produce; without however changing the course of alienation, now even more marked in the 'post-industrial' consumer classes.)

We believe that the problem runs much deeper and older than wage relations, in both the 'external' world of habitual interactions and their ramifications and in the psyche. While alienation can be and is implemented through many institutions (religion, for one) with a far longer history, a more holistic example of how alienation begins to sink its deeper roots would be the dispiriting result on untold numbers of land-based cultures from assimilation into conquering empires, and the industrial revolution that forced a mechanical division between individuals and their livelihoods, their tools, their communities, their lands; the separation between production and knowledge itself. Let's take a step back to a more fundamental appraisal of what it might mean to be a potentially-free being on a living planet.

What do you know about the trees outside the window? What keeps them healthy? What about the other animals that live close to you; do you recognise their calls or tracks? What they do, what they prefer? What do you know about the lives of human animals that go on over the other side of the wall next-door, or the masses you pass on the street? What do they know about you? How does that make you feel?

What do you really know about where the food you eat comes from? Or about what has to happen for our homes to be lit, heated, or built? How many of your survival necessities or subsistence skills are truly in your own hands or those of your relations?

What proportion of your conversations still enjoy the depth of face to face interaction? How much of your daily environment can you navigate on foot, walking, climbing, swimming, being helped by a companion, or how much of it is it necessary to depend on regulated means of transportation through? How much of your immediate surrounding area are you physically, socially or legally barred from exploring? Why?

How much of your daily activity is to suit your own needs? Aside from within the symbolic order of the wage economy, that is. How much of it do you even really see or understand the repercussions of? Would we live in this manner if we could directly see and touch the impacts that are hidden from most, in ghettos, toxic dumps, slaughter-houses, hospitals, cemeteries, refugee camps, battlefields and felled rainforest in distant lands, youth jails, oceanic garbage-gyres? Or have we become so distanced from other lives by the allotment of everything into categories of utility, so justifying their and our exploitation, that we cannot empathise with parallel lives that become mere resources for our own, as rulers living off us cannot empathise with ours?

Does the concept of diversity have much relation to your life beyond the array of brands at the supermarket, or inter-relatedness have a meaning beyond message boards? We are tricked and trick ourselves into believing that the damming of a river or disappearance of wildlife doesn't really affect us, burying ourselves in air-conditioned coffins as a society to separate ourselves from the world we were born in.

Do you even remember how to enact and express your joy as you may have in your early years? What actually gives you deep satisfaction; or fails to, even though it may be what advertising and marketing, your parents, school, politicians or your peers tell you should do? How in touch are you with your own desires, multi-sensousness, thoughts and feelings? Might they be directed by social constructions of gender roles, 'human nature', class positions, urban desensitisation...? Might any tendencies which don't fit those constructions be smothered daily, in this world we endure? Do you ever feel like something is missing?

What about your own body; are your familiar with its cycles and drives, or are they an abstraction in a textbook or something that simply comes upon us from the blue? Is health just something obscure that a technical industry exists for and which we're objects to? Isn't the direction of our culture one directly away from the immediacy of human sensations, evidenced by inflating reliance on machine-readings of our 'vital statistics' and symptom-numbing drugs, shifting value from group play or physical activity in general into the spectacle of online games and, at best, exercising isolated with the iPod, or the generational proportion of Japanese society with a disinterest or even phobia of partner sex?

Do you find that you float from one hobby, job, friendship group or city to another, but never seem to be able to feel at home in yourself? Have you ever felt, like a comrade wrote, that the only revolutionary thing about your life is its relentless circularity? What systematically seems to push people into these directions, and aren't reflected in all histories and cultures, which suffer less of the loss of personality, loss of place, loss of purpose? What does it mean to be brought up and inherit not an intimate wealth of folklore to help us navigate a living landscape with reverence, but to be left grasping for a handle on an impersonal life that always gets away from us; as it did our immediate predecessors for multiple generations in the West, with little understanding or influence, our ancestral capabilities, skills and memories expropriated or sterilised? What does it tell us about the trajectory of this system when depression is a main cause of death in the 'developed' world?

It's this 'developed' world that we imagine most of our readers will be accustomed to: with the alienations of wage-labour, claustrophobic built-up areas, an endless routine repeated day after day to attain the means to go on surviving in the way we're used to, navigating the artefacts, mass media representations and bureaucracies of this civilisation, however irrelevant to our own thoughts and wishes. A while ago, Michele Vignodelli characterised the deeply meaningful interactions with a living Earth, as the cornerstone of existence, as having been replaced by “over-stimulation by artificial, coarse, mechanical inputs, through fashions, revivals, disco music, roaring toys, cult actors, events... a whole flamboyant, uproarious and desperately hollow world. A rising wave of fleeting inputs, a multitude of fake interests and fake needs where our emotional energies are swept away, drowning us in nothingness[...] This sumptuous parade seems to consist substantially in the stream of toxic, hidden grudges that flows beneath the surface of politeness, in the corridors of industrial hives; it consists in the snarling defence of one's own niche, to protect 'freedoms' and 'rights' that are sanctioned by law, in a deep loneliness which is increasingly hidden in mass rituals, in a universal inauthenticity of relationships and experiences.”

We're awash with communication technologies, and yet more often living alone, with fewer off-screen friends and little real-world social solidarity. In replacement we are given the imagined community of the market, the nation, or the virtual. What was once lived directly, becomes mere representation.

Alienation results in sensations including (but not limited to) powerlessness, shame, despair, delusions, hostility, social withdrawal, feeling constantly threatened or self-destructive, which are all pandemic within industrial civilisation. Its outward manifestations are on the rise everywhere that industry and 'development' have become the social norm, not just in the capitalist 'Old World' but now China, India, Africa. Alienation is needed for how our bodies are currently regulated in ways both great and small by being enmeshed within norms and expectations that “determine what kinds of lives are deemed livable or useful and by shutting down the space of possibility and imaginative transformation where peoples' lives begin to exceed and escape [the system's] use for them” (Susan Stryker). It forms a society of individuals largely isolated and dissociated from each other and themselves, despite the crowded cities, depressed, apathetic or filled with violent and directionless anger; and we identify it in how the dominant social mode pushes us further into this estrangement. It's the anguish of the living subjected to a deathly regime, and a condition that must be struggled against to overturn the whole social order – which we are demanded to adapt ourselves to fit. To adapt ourselves to ever-more limited and virtually superfluous roles, at any time liable to be replaced like a faulty cog. Beneath the surface of modern life, we live in what can only be described as a state of captivity, and the neurotic way we internalise this reality to cope with it seeps out and permeates our every interaction. The loss of perspective that the overwhelming totality of the current system engenders, casting a shadow over all past ways of life, makes it easier to be fooled when we're told that it is us who are maladjusted, malfunctioning, and when the system's guardians tell us they have just the cure for the mysterious undermining of life.

Yet in spite of generations of 'naturalisation', psychological immiseration tells us we are not at home in the world of social media, council estates, gated communities, artificial parks, billboards, office blocks, traffic jams, cash machines, asylums, factory farms, call centres and other prisons, stuck in a flaccid cycle of work, nuclear families and programmed entertainment. This is the environment our pre-determined interactions, which we all go through every day, has created; yet it is created against us and our own self-determination. Our health (inseparable from that of our landbase), solidarity, spontaneity, and indeed in the era of vast climate changes even our continued existence itself is jeopardised by our own alienated activity. The blackmail of the market keeps our habits and relationships, more often than not, not just delaying but actually antagonistic to the fullness of autonomous creativity. Mass social organisation is the separate power that stands apart from us as individuals, regulating and imposing on us, as the truly human-scale in life is dwarfed by an unending cycle of representations, bureaucracy, requirements, regurgitating what is; and what cannot fail to oppress us. The conditions of life forced upon us by the economy, the State and technological society have become powers that rule over and direct us, not tools to use as we see fit. The segregation from a multitude of lifeforms displaced by the city not just unfamiliarises us with our planet, but makes it much easier to participate in the industrial structure devouring everything.

Ignore these facts we may, they continue to come back to haunt us in the unarticulated precarity of our helpless dependence, the interpersonal violence, the deadly sadness. Self-medication doesn't cut it. Reality TV can't mask it. The chatter of the crowd won't drown it out. We are under mental and physical occupation by the capitalist-industrial system, leaving the firm but false impression of there being no outside, no choice, no escape. Is this really what we could call living?

[drakonics]

<DIR> // HC DUMP: GENERIC.

/under the cut for potentially disturbing/mature mentions. you’ve been warned.

<o1> contrary to annoyingly popular and recurring belief  seto is/was the furthest thing from spoiled given his seemingly polished upbringing and generally standoffish person as a whole. after a watered down past at the orphanage his new life he intended to give mokuba was the very furthest from anything he ever wanted. everything and anything gozaburo ever ‘gave’ him was double edged and even though seto could truly have cared less about the abusive fool inflicting on him he broke his stubborn streak when the bastard truly surpassed all unthinkable lows and began using mokuba as leverage to ensure seto did whatever he wanted. that being said any accomplishments made by seto are strictly his own. he has built his own network of success from the very ground up fully eliminating any and all traces of his ‘father’ over the years ensuring kaiba corporation became something all his own without the stain of adoptive ties to reflect on the company when mokuba someday succeeds him.

<o2> despite being unable to recall the exact events leading up to the untimely deaths of his real parents seto suffers from vivid recurring dreams/chronic nightmares centering around the scattered cause. born to a japanese father and a mother with egyptian roots dating as far back as the ancient days, the two met during an expedition in giza where seto’s father was conducting research on the first pyramids and his mother doubled as a tour guide at the time and was later revealed ( due to extensive research conducted by seto himself ) to be the successor of ancient tomb guardians with blood of the medjay hailing from the old kingdom. fittingly enough seto inherited her striking blue eyes and sinfully soft brown hair with his father’s more stern personality as an opposing trait, whereas mokuba took after their father in terms of looks but maintained their mother’s immovably caring personality. the kaiba brother’s pendants although made by mokuba also contain a second digitally reconstructed and salvaged image of their deceased parents, courtesy of seto’s personal additions alongside the intricate self destruct mechanism integrated in conjunction to the duel tower.

<o3> for all of his top of the line prowess and upkeep with personal/public appearance the greatly esteemed president of kaiba corporation is in fact not in the prime of health. the true meaning of rest is simply lost him and not an option given he is expected to be anywhere at any time whenever the occasion calls for it day or night. seto wages around 3-5 hours of sleep within a 24 period and never manages them consecutively resulting in consistent sleep depravation, chronic insomnia and bouts of sickness. in effort to counter balance the tolls taken on his health seto maintains a strict self-training regimen, a particular diet and coffee in dangerous dependability. when confronted about his overall decline of health seto merely states he will sleep when he is dead and the path he shapes known as his life will never stop regardless if he sleeps or not.

<o4> courtesy of kaiba corporation and his personal profits, seto has officially deemed a select percent of his entire generated revenue in donations to orphanages worldwide. to better the future and generations to come seto believes giving children like him and mokuba a chance to reclaim and successfully live their lives will make the most lasting impact. depending on their schooling success kaiba corporation also offers free admission to the duel academy upon graduating base grade school or fully paid tuition up front for college. as per seto’s endless pursuits in bettering his own technological finesse continue to evolve he is constantly adjusting the prices of all other kaiba related entertainment: kaiba land officially has multiple locations set up worldwide which operate strictly on their own real time via the intricate crystal cloud network. a handful of nature reserves are also in continued production as well as personal cruise lines that offer travel to and from all forms of attraction or personal getaways. all parks and attractions are operated at significantly cut costs to make them more easily accessible and affordable to the people with mandatory pre-release periods, however mainly focal on children in general.

<o5> it is excruciatingly important to note that a bout of sudden ‘kindness’ from seto is hardly true kindness at all up front if at all strictly due to him believing ( and being forcibly taught by ) that kindness is an immediate show of weakness. at many points seto was beaten by gozaboru whenever he cried due to the afflictions gozaboru made on mokuba. as such was just proclaimed another weakness gozaboru refused in a heir, seto grew to resent tears and emotions as a whole, effectively crushing his own as a detrimental drawback. lack of proper upbringing paired with a stunt in social growth since childhood effectively cut him off from normal development one would have according to generation and therefore seto suffers from severe social impairment and is unable to make emotional connections. many defining factors of his tyrannical business front and hellbent on remaining top-of-the-world persona were injected by gozaboru himself and forcibly imprinted ( to the point of both physical and mental ) abuse that carried into and ultimately tarnished his adulthood. seto has been put through more forced consumation attempts than he cares to count in one lifetime, compliments of gozaboru wishing to extend his own corporate clutches and influence via other rich or corporate owned families worldwide. attempts that have scarred seto to such a degree he is wary of women in general and utilizes sex in itself as a power play and tool and inherited gozaboru’s manipulation in the form of trauma ( as if unwanted sexual occurrences and attempted assassination efforts were not enough. ) adding to his already fiercely independent and withdrawn personality, seto firmly believes others will never simply approach him but that they all have an underlying motive and purely intend to use him because of his position, wealth and grand success; a defining paranoia that has sadly been proven time and again throughout the course of his arranged future successes which only further contributed to his inability and overall unwillingness to trust, forging the cold settlement that most if not everyone is out to hurt him so he fully intends to shut them down and hurt them first.  while even but a fraction of his trust is ten times hard earned and rarely given, seto is loyal to a fault and would staunchly go to the very ends of this world and the next if it means protecting anything ( or anyone ) he cares about.

<o6> although official records state seto dropped out of high school by choice, gozaboru withdrew his son seeing his intellect was years beyond what modern day education was capable of on the falsified notion that seto himself was above normal schooling and destined for much greater. in reality, gozaboru already knew seto surpassed him in every way possible and despite having groomed him as the perfect heir to someday succeed him, implemented a planned attempt to murder his own son in fear of losing his company and having everything taken from him. gozaboru attempted a number of recurring set ups in attempt to separate mokuba from his older brother and kill him off long before deciding seto was a liability, attempts that Seto was not only fully aware of in entirety but also planning a counter measure in turn. while it is known seto effectively manipulated the big five against gozaboru in conjunction with his inhumane treatment towards his own subordinates, official records state gozaboru was driven to suicide and took his own life by jumping out of the window of kaiba corporation’s presidential office on the top floor. the unpublished truth remains undiscovered to this day: seto turned gozaboru’s own murderous machinations against him and killed the man himself solely based on the belief that he was merely giving back everything that bastard ever gave him and his little brother.  thanks for nothing, gozaburo.

<o7> officially unreleased to the public and deemed solely for his own personal use, seto’s next generation of neurons links him to an encrypted network constructed with any and all depictions of ancient egyptian lore he has personally salvaged in effort to hopefully someday fully piece together the ongoing mysteries shrouding his past life and any ongoing connection he clearly has to the departed pharaoh. utilizing the original state of the art bleeding technology seto has successfully constructed a subconscious research vein dubbed the STEM, allowing it not only to connect with and create images solely based on the user’s brainwave activity but fully reconstruct scenarios based on their dreams and fleeting visions. In its final stages the STEM places the user in a catatonic state by integrating itself directly into their central nervous system and works in perfect conjunction with the nervous system to provide real time feedback, lifelike sensations and produce results generated directly from either. by diving his subconscious, seto has been able to place himself at the heart of many scattered memories pertaining to his past, effectively allowing him to ‘re live’ or experience certain occurrences as his past self, courtesy of obtaining DNA sequences in unorthodox means. ground breaking as it is the STEM is it hardly comes without its immediate faults and dangers as it forcibly dives into genetic memory and imprints at an alarming and often much too realistic rate. as the centered drawback of reproducing a near immaculate 3D world and structure at will, due to the overall strain placed on the user’s body their vitals are continually monitored and the system is set to cease immediate operations should they fall beneath the natural threshold of safety. 

<o8> prolonged use of the STEM has adverse and potentially life threatening side effects, one such that seto has deemed the ‘bleeding edge effect’ where the user will experience severe bouts of hallucinations caused by the user’s past life memories ‘bleeding’ into the present and can cause permanent mental disorientation or push the user to insanity if proper rest between sequences and extended safety protocol is not met during use and after. unbeknownst to seto himself by linking to his ancestor and diving his subconscious to the egyptian afterlife he has unwillingly attached the soul of his past incarnation to himself, effectively transcending the plane of digital space and dimensions alike. by utilizing this alongside his breakthrough with the quantum cube, seto has ultimately forced his own soul and that of his priest side to exist as one in present day.

[xtruss]

Why Do Some People Support Tyranny While Others Defy It?

"They understand to some extent that they are helping in the destruction of other people’s freedoms…and they revel in it"

— August 12, 2021 | Al-Market.US | By Brandon Smith

There is a fundamental question that haunts the pages of history and it is one that has never been addressed in a satisfactory manner. There are many schools of thought on why and how tyranny rises in any given society and all of them miss the mark in terms of explanations, primarily because they all allow their biases to rule their conclusions and blind them to the deeper aspects of power and conspiracy. In other words, they are willing to go down the rabbit hole only so far, and then they deny that the rabbit hole even exists.

The common assumption when it comes to autocracy or oligarchy is that people are “stupid” and easily manipulated into following compelling personalities that make promises they never intend to keep. This is a foolish oversimplification. In truth, the level of manipulation needed to lure a majority of people into dictatorship is so complex that it requires an advanced understanding of human psychology.

In our modern era, people cannot merely be ordered to submit at gunpoint, at least not right away. They must be tricked into conforming, and not only that, but they must be made to think that it was THEIR IDEA all along. Without this dynamic of self censorship and self enslavement, the population will eventually rebel no matter how oppressive the regime. A thousand year tyranny cannot exist unless a number of people are conned into applauding it, or, they directly benefit from it.

And this is where we find the true key to totalitarianism – It only thrives because there is an inherent portion of any given society that secretly loves it and wants it to exist. We might call these people useful idiots, but it is much more than that. They are not necessarily unaware of what they are doing; they understand to some extent that they are helping in the destruction of other people’s freedoms…and they revel in it. Sure, there are elitists and globalists that levy core conspiracies and seek out more and more control, but they could not accomplish much of anything without the aid of the army of sociopathic aberrations that live among us.

This strange and destructive characteristic is ever visible today in light of the covid lockdowns and the push for forced vaccinations. It is clear that there are some people out there that are overly concerned with the personal health decisions of everyone else. The science and the stats prove there is nothing for them to worry about from the virus, but they ignore the science. They thirst for the taste of power. They have become a cult which ignores all logic and demands fealty to their fraudulent narrative. They do not care about the facts, they only care that we comply.

Well, as I have said time and time again: We Will Not Comply!

And so begins the epic conflict; a tale as old as civilization itself. There are two types of people in this world: Those that want to control others, and those that want to be left alone. But what motivates the control freaks? Why are they the way they are? Lets examine some of the causes…

The Fear Engine

There are people that are driven by success, by merit, by hope, by prosperity, by faith, by optimism, by love, and by honor. And then, there are people driven by fear. There are hundreds of various fears, but only a few ways to react to any of them. Collectivists respond to fear with a desperate need to micromanage their environment; they believe that if they can dictate people and events to a certain degree, they can eliminate unexpected outcomes and be free of fear. But life does not work this way and it never will.

The level of influence these people seek is so far beyond them that it can never be attained. That is to say, they will never be satisfied until they get more. Their fears will always haunt them because fears cannot be dealt with from without, they can only be dealt with from within.

Furthermore, the things they fear often revolve around their own narcissism and are of their own making. They fear failure, but they rarely work hard enough to succeed. They fear exposure, but only because they constantly lie. They fear conflict, but only because they are weak in body and character. They fear death, because they believe in nothing greater than themselves. They clamor for dominance of their surroundings because they wrongly believe that they can cheat fate and the consequences of their own terrible choices.

“Frankly at this point it is going to be us, or them. Our two tribes cannot coexist within the same society, maybe not even the same planet.”

The Safety of The Mob

The issue of fear extends into the common mindset of the totalitarian and how they find safety. The idea of standing on their own two feet and standing by their principles in the face of opposition is completely foreign to them. They avoid these situations at any cost and the notion of risk is abhorrent to them. So, they instead look for a mob to blend into. This makes them feel safe in obscurity while also wielding force through collectivist action. They can feel powerful while at the same time being pitiful and weak.

These people almost always operate through large single minded groups that punish any dissension in the ranks, usually with gatekeepers that moderate the motivations of the hive.

The mob itself is a weapon, its only purpose beyond the comfort of its adherents is to destroy those people that do not hold the same beliefs or values as the controllers. There is no defensive purpose to the mob; it is an assassin’s tool, it is a nuclear bomb. And, as we have seen in every modern dictatorship from the Bolsheviks in Russia to the Fascists in Germany to the communists in Mao’s China, the totalitarian mob is capable of murdering more people than any nuclear weapon in existence, all in the name of “the greater good of the greater number.”

False Piety in Place of Self Worth

All tyrants believe themselves to be righteous in their cause, even when they know that their actions are morally abhorrent. I have seen this dynamic on bold display during the covid mandates and the vaccine passports initiatives. Consider for a moment that 99.7% of the population is under no legitimate threat from the covid virus; they will not die from it, and in the vast majority of cases they will recover quickly from it. Yet the covid cult consistently argues that people who refuse the mandates, the lockdowns and the vaccines are putting others at risk, which is why we need to be “forced” to submit.

Most of them know according to the data that covid is not a threat, but the narrative gives them an opportunity to apply power through “moral judgment”, and so they lie, and they continue to lie about the data until they think the lie will be accepted as reality. This is a common aspect of most cults and of fundamentalist religions that have gone astray – The habit of adherents to value lies over facts and evidence not because they are trying to protect their faith, but because it affords them the chance to feel pious and superior to those they are determined to harm.

Those who disagree are labeled heretics, the lowest of the low, the unwashed terrorists. The anti-mandate crowd is thus stripped of its humanity in this way and is painted as demonic. The people who want to remain free become monsters, and the totalitarian monsters become heroes out to save the world. As author Robert Anton Wilson once said:

“The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.”

The Love of a Cage

I feel as though I understand this mindset to an extent, but it never fails to shock me the way in which people who scratch and scrape for power over others also seem to love being slaves to the system. I’m not so sure that it is ironic, as authoritarianism does fulfill some of its promises of “security” as long as the people involved are willing to trade away any impulses of liberty. If you do as you’re told at all times and serve the system without fail, then there is a good chance you will be able to hold onto the meager necessities of survival. You will live a life, though probably not a happy one.

For those that go above and beyond and cast aside all personal principle in order to further the goals of the system, they might even enjoy a modicum of wealth beyond their peers. You see, in a despotic society, the people who are most without honor are the people that are most rewarded. They don’t need merit, or accomplishment, or skills, or even brains; all they have to do it sell their souls and do whatever it takes to catch the eye of the oligarchy. They don’t have to be good at anything, all they have to do is be evil, and for some people that’s easy.

In this way the system becomes a comfortable blanket that otherwise useless deviants can be swaddled in. They wrap themselves in it and luxuriate in its warmth. They are not concerned with freedom because freedom feels cold to them. Freedom can be isolating and the existence of choice is terrifying. When all your choices are made for you there is never any doubt or internal stress. All that is required is that you wake up each day and obey.

For weak and ignorant people, subservience is a gift instead of a curse. They believe that a cage is meant to be gilded, not escaped from, and anyone that seeks escape must be crazy or dangerous. If free people exist then the slaves are forced to question their own condition and their own compliance, so everyone must be enslaved to remove any and all doubt from society. The hive mind is placed above all else.

The Defiant And Free

The little tyrants that infiltrate humanity probably look at liberty advocates as some kind of alien creatures from far beyond the bounds of their universe. They just can’t fathom how it is possible for someone to defy the system, to stand against the mob or the collective, even when they are outnumbered or when the risk is so high. They assume that it is a form of madness or a lack of intelligence; for how could anyone smart think they have a chance of fighting back against the dictatorship?

Liberty people are individualists by nature, but we also care about the freedoms of others. There is a common propaganda narrative that claims that individualists are “selfish”, but this is not the case at all. It is not enough for us alone to escape slavery, we will not stand by and watch others be forced into bondage either. We are willing to risk our lives not just to save ourselves but to save future generations from autocracy.

As the vaccine passports and mandates continue to escalate the totalitarians will find themselves even more bewildered, because each new mechanism of control will result in even greater impetus for rebellion, and frankly at this point it is going to be us, or them. They will not stop their pursuit of dominion and we will not comply, so we are at an impasse. Our two tribes cannot coexist within the same society, maybe not even the same planet.

The truth is that if voluntarism was a valued ideal then this whole fight could be avoided. If the collectivist cult was willing to accept the notion that they can choose to live in a highly micromanaged environment while others can choose to live independently, then there would be no crisis. We could easily go our separate ways. But this is not how totalitarians think: To them, all people are chattel, we are property to be staked down and reeducated until we see the light. And if we don’t see the light, we are to be done away with and erased.

This is why they are utterly to blame for the war that is coming. They cannot stop themselves from grasping for our throats and our minds. They are addicted to supremacy. They are living in a fever dream and the only drug that cools their veins is total oppression of everyone around them. I see what is coming next and it is not pretty for either side, but it will be especially gruesome for the collectivists because they cannot imagine a scenario in which they lose. They are so certain of their preeminence and the safety of their self imposed prisons that they will see failure as a phantom, a ghost that cannot touch them. It would only take a handful of minor defeats to bring them down, but this requires freedom advocates become more organized than they are.

The bottom line is this: Tyrannical systems are planned by elitists groups and governments and it is they that benefit most from the destruction of public freedoms. It is indeed a conspiracy, and the pandemic lockdowns and forced vaccine response are no exception. However, tyrannical systems could not be executed without the help of a larger psychopathic contingent of the population, and these people congregate together to make terrible things happen. It’s as if they hear a silent dog whistle as totalitarianism rises, or they smell the blood of innocent victims in the air.

Call them leftists, call them communists, call them collectivists, call them whatever you want; but know that the globalists are not our only concern. There is a wall of self absorbed and power hungry peons in the way, and they want whatever scraps they can get from the big boy’s table. They are not oblivious; they have not been tricked into doing the things they do. They are a sad and pathetic bunch but they are still dangerous in their ambitions, and they will continue to slither out of the woodwork as the covid agenda progresses.