#power inequities

[tauntaunsworld]

It's all about keeping us in line while the riches get richer, if they can turn a blind eye to school kids being murdered senselessly, the least we can do is call them out for who they really are, thoughts and prayers not included.

[affogato-analysis]

Caitlyn as a symptom of Piltover’s violence

No because i need to throw hands with both her haters and lovers.

Mass spoilers for Arcane, season 1 & 2, for every characters.

(post is like 2k words)

(small edit it's been five hours and you guys are so kind and positive?? i love you so much, the conversations are so fun! the reblogs i see u and ily, my ego is soaring! i got more arcane rants coming if u wanna tag along idk lmao)

(thanks a lot is all i mean to say)

Was what Caitlyn did in season 2 act 1 terrible? yes. Does that make her a terrible person? debatable. Is she the best girl ever and above any criticism? also no what the fuck.

What happens to Caitlyn, essentially, is that she loses her mother and burns for justice and vengeance, and is willing to do all she can to reach her goal. Which is not an uncommon arc in Arcane, to be willing to burn it all for your family and getting overwhelmed by anger and loss.

The main difference is the scale and power dynamics. Because the chembarons have their shimmer, Vi has her gauntlets, Powder and Jinx have bombs, Silco and Vander have allies but they quite match each other when it comes to power until the very end.

So why is Caitlyn’s case so apart from the others? Here’s the thesis: Caitlyn is a symptom and the harm she causes is a consequence of Piltover’s domination over Zaun. I will argue for it thank you.

The main characteristic of Caitlyn, in the context of Piltover leading a targeted assault on Zaun, is that she is the one with power. Caitlyn is, first and foremost, a Kiramman. The show’s explicit about the power of the name, because with the name comes respectability, status, wealth. The Kiramman family is a powerful one, that’s why Ambessa chooses her above Salo. Both Cait and Salo have enough hatred for the Undercity to follow her lead if she plays her cards right, but Caitlyn, even if not officially appointed, has the power to exist in the Council’s room. Salo is nothing beyond the Council — and while it gives him power, his own family or personal entreprises are irrelevant enough that we do not know of them — while Caitlyn is powerful even without the Council — she does bypass every standard enforcers recruitment procedures to get Vi in, and thus we are told that she is one of the most important if not the main funder of the enforcers. In a state holding its peace through sheer violence and constant repression (especially after Jinx’s rocket), if one private actor owns your police force, you are at that actor’s mercy (which, yes, does turn on Cait when Ambessa’s soldiers take over).

Most importantly for us, the Kiramman hold one monopoly of power over Zaun. A vital need of Zaun they are the only ones to answer. Yes, we’re talking about the vent system. Caitlyn, in her anger and in her determination to do whatever it takes to get to Jinx, is willing to use every power she has. That includes her rifle and her aim, when she takes the shot at Jinx despite Isha and Vi standing in between, but also the vent system.

And as we’ve said, Caitlyn is going through a fairly usual character arc in Arcane of becoming a monster for love, for family, only to be brought back by love and family (Vander i’m looking at you) (and then that culminated into nothing to serve Viktor’s character arc tihi) (i mean it when i say Caitlyn has an amazing arc). It just so happens that Caitlyn owns Zaunites’ right to breathe. Is it immoral to weaponize it? Absolutely, and we can deplore the lack of political repercussions on the Kiramman in the show but that’s a more general criticism: the audience and the Zaunites are expected to just forgive Piltover to ally against Noxus. We can have sincere grievances about that (i do, and a lot of caitlyn hate comes from there from what i’ve seen) but it’s not a Caitlyn exclusive problem.

The thing is, Caitlyn’s weaponizing of the vent system isn’t the root of Piltover’s oppression or of enforcers’ violence. It’s a symptom of this violence. Cait can weaponize the vents because she owns them, because Zaun’s clean air is her possession. Because Zaun’s vital needs are dependent on Piltover. Cait doesn’t even realize just how much she’s hurting Zaun. She knows she’s gassing them but, and to her credit, it’s a fairly targeted assault (what Cait is doing isn’t terrorism!) but she is a reminder that whatever little fresh air they have, it’s still a mercy from Piltover. Piltover engineers a problem and a solution and holds that solution above Zaun’s head to silence their protest. This is domination, this is the root of that vent system being oppression still: the Kiramman hold Zaun’s air hostage and it took two mourning girls for that hand to cut off the air flow.

Caitlyn makes herself an enforcer of that violence in her grief, and that’s the symptom of a deeply ingrained disease. The root of that disease is always, always the inequalities between Piltover and Zaun.

The violence is the symptom of a system that is critically failing, repression means your governing body is illegitimate, weaponizing clean air is oppression to its finest.

To argue this point a bit further, we’re gonna circle back to Silco and Vander and how their power dynamic influences their behaviors and how their power struggle drives the entire undercity.

Vander and Silco both benefit from powerful allies. Vander has Grayson, Benzo and his position as bartender of the Last Drop makes him a valued member of the Undercity for Zaunites. Silco has Singed, Sevika and an entire network himself. They are two pillars of Zaun, creating a status quo that they work to maintain (at least their own position of domination) while furthering their own goals: Vander wants to raise his kids, Silco wants the independence of Zaun. Two vastly different sets of goals admittedly and that’s what leads them to reach out to vastly different individuals to help maintain it. Vander seeks out Grayson with whom he strikes a deal, while Silco allies with Singed for shimmer.

And when power suddenly shifts, when the right conditions appear, when the status quo is shaken, that’s when Silco asserts his power over Vander and his domination over the Undercity. Vander is put in a vulnerable position (his deal with Grayson isn’t enough anymore and he’s arrested) and Silco seizes the opportunity, deploys a power he has a monopoly over (shimmer). And after Silco wins against Vander, he can deploy his power over all of Zaun.

The status quo between Piltover and Zaun is constantly imbalanced. Piltover has already won at the beginning of the show and has been asserting, over and over again, through violence and in an abusive fashion, its domination on the Undercity. Caitlyn is like Silco in that comparison, she uses a power over which she has a monopoly (vent instead shimmer), in an unbalanced situation that puts her in the situation of the oppressor.

(And facing her, there is someone who is willing to turn that power against her. Just like Vander using Shimmer to protect his children, Sevika and Jinx using the vents for their own colorful clouds.)

Cait isn’t a poor innocent victim of circumstances but you have to acknowledge context and, in a show where parallels are so frequent, you can’t pretend she’s a completely unique character going through a completely unique arc completely unrelated to anyone else. If you hate her, hate a lot of other people too!

And, as is typical in Arcane, characters are monsters for love, and brought back by love.

And Caitlyn’s arc shows that! Past arc 1, she was lost. Vi had left, Jayce was missing, her mother was still dead even if after all she did, her father was a shadow of himself, the only one she had was Ambessa who was fueling her vendetta to further her own colonialist agenda. Suddenly she was alone, serving as a puppet on top of a pile of gold and too much power she couldn’t control. She can’t call back the gas once it’s out after all, she can’t call back the martial law Ambessa installed now that the resentment is growing in Zaun and that Ambessa is the one holding the reins of enforcers.

That’s why her switching sides was so immediate: when Vi calls her cupcake, she brings the girl forth, before the monster. She gives her love and Cait latches onto it, and uses it to pull herself away from that trap she walked right in. “Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? For love” & “Is there anything as undoing as a daughter?”: love is forever the way in and out of hate.

I am very disappointed that we never got a proper conclusion to the tensions between Zaun and Piltover. I wish we had witnessed negotiations between Ekko/Sevika/Jinx/a representative of Zaun and the Council, I wish they had gotten control of the vent system, promises of fair trade, independence, something. I wish Caitlyn had been made to apologize and deliver herself the keys to the vent system to Zaunites. I wish for a lot of things about the political resolution in season 2 and the show did not go how i wanted it to. Does deviating from what I wanted inherently make the show bad? No, although I do think it wasn’t the greatest this time around.

I however can not talk shit about the character arcs. Not all are as well crafted as Caitlyn but i will take no more Caitlyn slander on the basis of “she’s a fascist!”. 1- that’s not what fascism is, although she did walk a line close by; 2- she’s a symptom of oppression, and by reproducing she makes herself an agent of it. She weaponises Zaun’s air because she can because she’s in power because she’s the heiress to the Kiramman. Doesn’t make what she’s doing less harmful, but it has to be treated in context. Caitlyn is still a twenty something grieving girl with her entire world shaken up, she just so happens to also be the heiress to an extremely wealthy and powerful family in an oppressive system and every path that opens to her, in the midst of her hatred, brings her to reproduce that domination in the most efficient way she has access to: the vents and the enforcers.

And, yes, by reproducing domination she is also an engineer of it. It’s important to acknowledge that what she's done is bad to put it simply, but do not denature her character to fit a conception of her that is easy to hate. I will put part of the blame on internalized misogyny too, as it pushes us to have less leniency and tolerance for women’s mistakes. No because I haven’t seen half that much hate towards Silco who, reminder, made the Undercity kneel by giving them severe shimmer addiction (engineering an issue and making himself the sole owner of the solution while maintaining it as a form of domination, everyone see where i’m going with this?).

Again, do I wish we’d seen more of the political consequences on Caitlyn of that? Yep, absolutely. But I will not blindly hate on her while ignoring the global context of her actions and I invite you to do the same.

Tell me, do you hate Jinx for her so-called terrorist acts or do you see them as part of resistance against Piltover? You can not see the context when you like it only i’m afraid, and, in an unprecedented show of nuance for the internet, we can understand context and acknowledge moral complexity and still hate someone.

Hate Caitlyn if you want, but do it in a constructed way so we can argue together please! I need to talk about this show so badly, please hate the enforcers and the change in Cait’s character but do so in a well-argued fashion, i beg of you.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - December 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles for 50% off this month!

1. Rooftop Solar Keeps Getting More Accessible Across Incomes

“The long-term trend is that the median income for a household with rooftop solar is getting closer almost every year to that of the median income for owner-occupied households.”

2. Endangered seabirds return to Pacific island after century-long absence

“"No native species were harmed during the removal of invasive rats from Kamaka Island,” Esposito said. […] The team also collected and planted native sedges and grasses while removing invasive trees to enhance nesting conditions.”

3. First-of-its-kind crew welfare measure adopted at Pacific fisheries summit

“The new measure establishes minimum standards on board, including access to clean food and water, medical care, and sleeping quarters. It stipulates that workers have “unfettered access” to their identity documents […] and “unmonitored access to communication devices to seek assistance.””

4. Greyhound racing is increasingly rare worldwide. New Zealand now plans to outlaw the practice

“New Zealand’s government rushed through a law to prevent dogs from being killed while the industry winds down, unless a veterinarian deems it unavoidable. This will prevent owners from euthanizing dogs for economic reasons, Peters said.”

5. Possible Win-Win for Wildlife Management and Food Security

“Wild-harvested meat donation programs can help improve food insecurity while also helping manage overabundance of wildlife species like white-tailed deer[…. In one program,] hunters donated 600,000 meals. But that’s only 5.7% of the amount of venison that food donation facilities could use, according to the Food Bank Council of Michigan. The researchers say this suggests there’s room for scaling up these programs.”

6. Poll of American Farmers Shows Strong, Widespread Support for Increased Farm Bill Conservation Funding

“The polling, which surveyed over 500 farmers and ranchers across the country, found broad support for continuing and increasing funding for climate-smart agriculture conservation programs.”

7. Long-distance friendships enhance trust in conservation efforts

“Relative to a person with no long-distance friends, having even just one friend in another village led to a 15% increase in conservation activities such as beach cleanups, reporting illegal fishing practices and educating others about sustainable resource management.”

8. Two major Sunshine State airports make switch to 100 pct renewables

“Power for operations ranging from lighting and air conditioning to escalators and charging stations will be provided from renewable energy projects [...] at the beginning of 2025, ensuring clean energy operations for the more than 8 million passenger journeys averaged each year.”

9. Expansion of federally subsidized public housing may offer a path out of LA's homelessness crisis

“[… A] half-cent sales tax [was] recently approved by L.A. County voters expected to generate $1 billion per year to address homelessness. […] “Metros with higher concentrations of federally financed public housing tend to have lower rates of unsheltered homelessness," Schachner said.”

10. $20 Million Available to Advance Habitat Restoration Priorities of Tribes and Underserved Communities

“Through this funding, NOAA will help support community-driven habitat restoration and build the capacity of tribes and underserved communities to more fully participate in restoration activities.”

December 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[shrinkrants]

The intellectual justification for austerity lies in ruins. It turns out that Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, who originally framed the argument that too high a “debt-to- GDP ratio” will always, necessarily, lead to economic contraction – and who had aggressively promoted it during Rogoff’s tenure as chief economist for the IMF –, had based their entire argu- ment on a spreadsheet error. The premise behind the cuts turns out to be faulty. There is now no definite proof that high levels of debt necessarily lead to recession. Will we, then, see a reversal of policy? A sea of mea culpas from politicians who have spent the last few years telling disabled pensioners to give up their bus passes and poor students to forgo college, all on the basis of a mistake? It seems unlikely. After all, as I and many others have long argued, austerity was never really an economic policy: ultimately, it was always about morality. We are talking about a politics of crime and punishment, sin and atonement. True, it’s never been particularly clear exactly what the original sin was: some combination, perhaps, of tax avoidance, laziness, benefit fraud and the election of irresponsible leaders. But in a larger sense, the message was that we were guilty of having dreamed of social security, humane working conditions, pensions, social and economic democracy. The morality of debt has proved spectacularly good politics. It appears to work just as well whatever form it takes: fiscal sadism (Dutch and German voters really do believe that Greek, Spanish and Irish citizens are all, collectively, as they put it, “debt sinners”, and vow support for politicians willing to punish them) or fiscal masochism (middle-class Britons really will dutifully vote for candidates who tell them that government has been on a binge, that they must tighten their belts, it’ll be hard, but it’s something we can all do for the sake of our grandchildren). Politicians locate economic theories that provide flashy equations to justify the politics; their authors, like Rogoff, are celebrated as oracles; no one bothers to check if the numbers actually add up. If ever proof was required that the theory is selected to suit the politics, one need only con- sider the reaction politicians have to economists who dare suggest this moralistic framework is unnecessary; or that there might be solutions that don’t involve widespread human suffering.

[qiu-yan]

nie mingjue probably thinks that jin guangyao thinks of himself as a utility monster (a hypothetical being that messes up utilitarian calculations because it intrinsically receives much more utility from each unit of a resource that it consumes than anyone else does, and therefore by utilitarian calculation should receive more resources than everyone else). meanwhile, what nie mingjue isn't realizing is that everyone else in society thinks of jin guangyao as what i refer to as a reverse utility monster (a hypothetical being that intrinsically receives much less utility from every unit or a resource that it consumes than anyone else does, and therefore by utilitarian calculation should receive fewer resources than everyone else).

[tauntaunsworld]

Simply put

[alwaysbewoke]

[political-us]

So President Trump lied about the GOP’s budget not cutting medicaid and medicare? Couldn’t be…

[butcharyastark]

awake at 1am thinking about how both max and silver's arcs in black sails are about getting exactly what you always wanted and it backfiring spectacularly. and making everything worse somehow

[dontmindme-just-whatevering]

So people are arguing that Musk is rooting out corruption between the us government and the rich. Corruption is a real thing in the us government. But if Musk was really holding those who are the source of the corruption accountable then why is there no push back from the “deepstate”? You know the super insidious super powerful and wide reaching shadow government?

Maybe it’s because those who contribute to the corruption aren’t under any real scrutiny? I mean look at the agencies being targeted. Despite their flaws they are agencies whose goals was supporting and defending the poorest of us in the us and world wide.

Even our own governments retaliation is mild. The rich are perfectly fine up high on their thrones watching as we burn ourselves up. They laugh as we praise the destruction of our freedom, rights, and democracy.

[murfpersonalblog]

Murf's AMA: Mayfair Witches

@adamnablelittledevil you sent me such an incredibly lovely & thorough ask that I wanted to address every single point you made. So I'm breaking your PM up into separate AMA-style posts. Thank you SO much!

"And your comments on the stories really help! I don't know if I'll agree with you, but you're able to say something I can completely comprehend without spoilers and give me an idea of how they are, so thank you!"

Any time! Yes, my particular stance on AR's Mayfair books is largely based on my own personal fascination with different IRL conceptions of the afterlife, and how IRL witchcraft/magic/divination/necromancy all fits in wrt communing with the spirits of the dead/undead. So reading The Witching Hour completely rewired my brain--I owe AR a huge debt. Her ghost stories just give me everything I need.

"The way you described Lasher sounds terrifying. 👀 I wonder if it is as bad as Lestat's turning, the story of the twins or the Roman Coven killing the palazzo boys and torturing Armand because those were the darkest moments of TVC for me (I ignore what she pulled on TTOTBT). Is it just as heavy or worse?"

Hrm. It's complicated for me. Like, IMO Armand has hands down THE worst & most sympathetic backstory out of all the TVC characters (except Claudia). Kidnapped & gaslit & brainwashed by a satanic cult, and abandoned by the one person you trusted & loved the most when you failed to meet his ridiculously high standards/expectations.... IMO Armand is the strongest character to have withstood all that for so long and still come out the other side with his soul intact, omg.

As for Lasher, it's the totality of his iron grip over the Mayfairs for 500+ years that makes me personally put his treatment of people on the same/similar level as the Children of Satan.

There's no one Mayfair I feel particularly sadder or better for; it's them as a collective whole. There's things Lasher does to some of the Mayfairs that is just...it's graphic. With Armand it's different, cuz of the heavily romanticized & disjointed way he often tells his story. The gothic horror comes from seeing the ways traumatized people reflect on the bad things that happened to them--Armand's memory is just as spotty as Louis' sometimes; and the way he talks about Marius alllll the way to Blood Communion makes the fandom divided on what we're supposed to do with them.

But with the Mayfairs, there's no sugar-coating the carnage or softening/obfuscating the blows at all--AR describes things viscerally & graphically & explicitly in a way that you CANNOT excuse Lasher for. Even at the end of Lasher, when they "Let the devil speak his story," the prophecy (AR's Word of God) has already decided that his pretty words & excuses & tragic backstory don't effing matter in the end--he WILL be killed. Cuz he is 100% a PREDATOR, NOT a problematic love interest with abusive/grooming tendencies (a la Lestat & Marius).

Like, the vast majority of the TVC/IWTV fandom laughs at incest wrt Lestat & Gabrielle, cuz Lestat romanticizes so much of his trauma that it's hard sometimes to take it seriously. But incest with the Mayfairs is no laughing matter. It's sheer horror that's supposed to make you darn near physically ill reading about how much Lasher's twisted & manipulated everything. He's a MONSTER, eff how much he cries.

Granted, I still think the Mayfairs were awful immoral people, in ways that I don't see Armand. Unlike a brainwashed cult member, the Mayfairs KNEW Lasher was evil and that everything he gave them was tainted by his evil deeds. They call him the Devil. Unlike the Twins, they didn't control spirits ethically, in order to help their community and work towards the betterment of their society--they controlled Lasher selfishly, in order to gain riches & power. They think they can outsmart him, and pay the price.

But because they're women, they're vulnerable by default, as they lived during the Middle Ages & Tudor period & all these other times when women were being systemically persecuted by the Church; and then domestically oppressed at home as their husbands had full legal control over their bodies AND their money. The Mayfair designees completely buck the system; they're entirely matriarchal, but their power STILL comes from a demonic patriarch. So I sympathize with the lengths they felt they needed to go to, to remain at the top of the social pyramid--even if they were slaves to their greedy desires, and slaves to Lasher, as he manipulated them into thinking it was the reverse. They're victims and villains, in the best & worst of ways that always makes AR's characters so dang complex & interesting.

I think what happens to them is beyond effed up, but sometimes certain witches (*cough* Margueritte, Julien, Rowan, etc) I feel kinda deserved it???? But not even, cuz there's so much incest & mental illness in their family too, which makes me go Dang! They're not right in the head, so is it even fair to even blame them for all this? And ofc a ghost is LITERALLY manipulating them. But at what point does personal responsibility & accountability come in, esp. for Rowan?

Like, even Carlotta's evil arse has a lot in common with Coven Master Armand's most extreme(ly bad) actions--someone I absolutely love. So why do I hate her? When really, she was right all along! Her extremist draconian methods SUCKED; but if she got The Witch Carlotta book the way we got TVA, would my opinion of her change? More than likely! (Unless it was more like Blood & Gold, in which case....bye Felicia. 🙄😒)

So yeah, I see the Mayfairs as very similar to the Children of Satan, but flipped--they worship the Devil to get rich; NOT cuz they think they're inherently evil & deserve to suffer (a la Armand & the other vampires).

[martyrmarked]

even though sidri presents as conservative by choosing to ally with the templars and tolerating the chantry, she's perfectly well aware that her legacy (if there is to be one worth retelling) is going to be picked apart and refashioned in order to sell a narrative she's neither approved or desired. given this, she purposefully chooses companions that are unexpected with her to public moments, to anything that will be recorded and written down.

instead of cassandra and cullen who by all accounts should be her closest & most trusted, it's dorian and varric, or vivienne and bull, occasionally solas when she really wants to catch people off guard (that ages well). all of her words are chosen so carefully that there's no space for them to be misconstrued except purposefully and good luck trying to find a way to erase the dwarf and the mages that were nearly always at her side.

[biblebloodhound]

Approach Everything with Humility and Wisdom (Esther 5:1-14)

We need to take responsibility, first and foremost, by developing a just and wise character within ourselves.

Esther, by Marc Chagall, 1960 On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip…

[animalsoutloud]

Veganism may not solve all of the world's problems but there is no solving the world's problems without it.

[progressivemillennial]