#some Moro concepts and practice

[monebula-art]

A Witch with the Heart of a Dragon

[the-mortuary-witch]

NYX

WHO IS SHE?

Nyx is a primordial Goddess of the night and darkness. She is a deity of infinite wisdom and secret knowledge, and she is thought to be the progenitor of the universe. She is also associated with the void and the abyss, as well as the primordial chaos that predated the creation of the universe.

BASIC INFO:

Appearance: she is typically portrayed as a beautiful and radiant figure, who appears youthful and ageless. Her body is often described as being made of light and shadow, and as having a radiant and ethereal appearance. She is often depicted as having long dark hair that flows freely in the air, and she often wears black and white attire.

Personality: Nyx is often described as a mysterious and ethereal entity, who governs the night and the Underworld. She is said to be a solitary figure, who keeps to herself and observes the world from a distance. She is often portrayed as a quiet and wise figure, who represents the depths of the night and the cycle of life and death. She is also viewed as a nurturing and protective force, who guards the secrets of the Underworld and ensures the smooth passing of the dead into the afterlife.

Symbols: crescent moon, night sky, mist, shadow, black lotus, darkness, torch, three-phase moon, and stars

Goddess of: the night and darkness

Culture: Greek

Plants and trees: poppies, night blooming lilies, moon flowers, olive tree, rosemary, mistletoe, gladiolus, and forget-me-nots

Crystals: black tourmaline, cascading quartz, obsidian, amethyst, charoite (one of her fav crystals), black onyx, smoky quartz, garnet, black rose quartz, cat’s eye, turitella agate, prasem stone, Lake Superior agate, moonstone, and moss agate

Animals: owls, crows, foxes, cats, nightingales, and bats

Incense: lavender, frankincense (one of her fav incense), chamomile, myrrh, dragon’s blood, and cinnamon

Practices: lunar magick, astronomy, healing, dream work, sleep magick, rebirth, and astral projection

Colours: dark blue, black, purple, silver, and red

Numbers: 3, 4, and 9

Zodiac: Scorpio (not official)

Tarot: The Star

Planets: Moon and Pluto

Days: Monday, new moon, and Mabon

Parents: Chaos

Siblings: Erebus

Partner: Erebus

Children: Hemera, Aether, Moros, Apate, Dolos, Nemesis, the Keres, the Moirai, Oizys, Momus, Oneiros, Hypnos, Eris, Thanatos, Philotes, Geras, and possibly more

MISC:

• The Moon: often associated with Nyx as she is the goddess of the night. It is a symbol of her influence over darkness and the universe.

• Stars: Nyx is also frequently associated with stars and constellations, as the night sky is her realm. Stars represent her infinite wisdom and knowledge and the heavenly lights that shine through the night.

• Void: the void is the primal, infinite void that existed before the creation of the universe. It is the primordial chaos that Nyx emerged from, and it is thought to be the origin of all things.

• Infinity: the concept of infinity is also associated with Nyx, as she is a deity of limitless wisdom and knowledge. Infinite knowledge and understanding are core values in her realm of the night.

• Destruction: Nyx is also often viewed as a goddess of destruction and ruin, as she is the embodiment of the void and the abyss.

• The Origin of the Universe: in one version of mythology, Nyx is said to have emerged from the primordial chaos and void that existed before the creation of the world. She is thought to have been the source of the energy and matter that gave rise to all existence.

• The Creation of the Olympians: in some versions of mythology, Nyx is believed to have given birth to Zeus and the other Olympians. She is also thought to have been their caretaker and protector.

FACTS ABOUT NYX:

• Nyx is associated with the night, darkness, and the abyss.

• She is also associated with the void, which is the space between dimensions and universes.

• Nyx is also associated with infinity, secret knowledge, and wisdom.

• She is often portrayed as a deity of creation, destruction, and transformation.

• Nyx has also been linked to the concept of fate and destiny.

• She is the primordial goddess of the night and the personification of darkness.

• Nyx is one of the most important goddesses in Greek mythology.

• She is associated with the night sky and the stars.

HOW TO INVOKE NYX:

Working with Nyx involves taking time to set up a sacred space, cleaning and dedicating this space, offering prayers of reverence and gratitude, showing care and thought with offerings, asking her for guidance and wisdom with your prayers, being open to messages she may send, and being mindful and attentive throughout the devotion.

PRAYER FOR NYX:

"Nyx, Goddess of the night and the primordial void, please accept this prayer and my offerings as a gesture of respect and devotion. I seek your guidance and your wisdom, and I ask for your protection and protection. Please guide me on this path of devotion and show me your wisdom and light. Hail Nyx."

SIGNS THAT NYX IS CALLING YOU:

• Feeling a deep connection and draw to Nyx’s energies.

• You are experiencing a calling or pull to work with her.

• You have vivid dreams or visions involving Nyx.

• Noticing signs and symbols related to Nyx appearing in your life.

• Having a desire or enthusiasm to learn more about Nyx.

• You feel an urge to explore spiritual practices related to Nyx.

• Experience increased synchronicity or meaningful coincidences related to Nyx.

OFFERINGS:

• Milk.

• Black coffee or tea.

• Dark chocolate.

• Silver jewelry.

• Dragon fruit.

• Perfume.

• Olives.

• Dew gathered before the sun rises. Wine.

• Fire.

• Dark beer or liquors.

• Moon water.

• Feathers.

• Molasses.

• Starry and celestial items.

• White or black candles.

• Dark and protective herbs or spices.

• Flowers: lilies and night-blooming flowers.

• Moonshine.

• Poppies.

• Depictions of the stars and the night sky.

• Depictions of the moon and/or figurines of moths.

• Sleep-inducing teas.

• Telescope.

• Moonstone.

• Depictions or figurines of cats (especially black cats).

DEVOTIONAL ACTS:

• Offer prayers and praises to Nyx, dedicating your energy to her and expressing your devotion.

• Light incense and candles dedicated to Nyx in your ritual space for an extra touch.

• Journal about your dreams.

• Create offerings and rituals to Nyx, such as offering food, plants, and other gifts, and dedicating your offerings and rituals to her.

• Read books on astrology and astronomy.

• Study and research Nyx, her mythology and energies, to get to know her better and develop a deeper relationship with her.

• Nyx and her energies, and connect with her on a deeper level.

• Spend time in nature at night, communing with Nyx and experiencing her energies.

• Go stargazing

• Staying up late.

• Sleeping.

• Nighttime journaling.

• Practicing good sleep hygiene.

• Researching the Moon’s effects on the Earth.

• Making moon water.

• Watching the sunrise and/or sunset.

[velvets-stuff]

So... I have this new concept for an AU, obviously for a WK AU...

Practically Martin is some magical being/cryptid from the forest who one day finds an abandoned human baby (Chris) and decides to keep it, why? Human babies are certainly adorable(?

I've been thinking about this concept since I watched “Princess Mononoke” again and saw the relationship between San and Moro, I just don't know what it would be Martin 🕴️, a harpy?, an elf?, a god?, no. I know, but I like the idea.

[lunamusings]

Thanks for the open tag @jellyluchi

Tagging: Anyone who would like to do it! No pressure.

San - If you have ever read up on Lithium, you will know that she had serious but also justified anger issues from her early childhood trauma. This was an aspect of her inspired by San's reasonable hatred for humankind after being abandoned by her birth parents to get out of being killed by Moro and humans causing the death of the forest around her. Likewise, Lithium has had few people in her early life that did not see her as a disposable lab experiment and would lash out at anyone who crossed her. Patience and love persisted though and she was able to get a handle on that anger, with only the most dire circumstances bringing it back to the surface.

Hinata- In a lot of ways, young Hinata before she came into her own was the young Lithium the anger was trying to protect. Inner Lithium is a soft and caring person with love enough for anyone who crosses peaceably over her path. Try to harm those people and like Hinata, she will do anything in her power to protect them, regardless of the personal cost.

Firestorm (oc bottom left): First off, all my Ocs have historically inspired each other in some way or another. Firestorm is actually Lithium's contemporary, having been finished around the same time Lith was created. Lith was the sandbox where I tested concepts for Firestorm and her story. Lith inherited her unwavering resilience in the face of dire circumstances, which for Firestorm was a massive civil war and a wacky political marriage pending the results of the war.

Ageha - Ageha and Lithium have the most back-and-forth with their traits. Ageha was my avatar character in an Anima Beyond Fantasy campaign I ran from 2013-2016, so she had very set abilities from the game setting. She is the reason Lith is a tiny but ridiculously strong beast of a woman. Ageha could lift every member to the party, even the 7'2" teenage martial artist. It fit so well with my vision of Lith, she had to have that too. Also boob size. Both ladies have their own gravitational pull at this point.

Nausicaa - None of the ocs here would be around without Miyazaki's flagship heroine. She inspired me to draw, to write, to create characters in the first place. And that was with the terrible chop job the original localizing company did to the movie. Even that version had such a grip on little four year old me, I wanted to be like Nausicaa, even if I didn't know that was her name because the dub was that bad before Disney picked it back up.

Lark - The original Short and Deadly, this were-unicorn lady was a big influence on Lith's humanoid characteristics. She also contributed to Lith's bustline, but also her practicality. Lark was raised on a mini farm in a small town but had dreams of fashion design for herself and others like her (not model-shaped), so she had to get creative with making her own wardrobe in the middle of nowhere while getting everything else done. Lith inherited her weird and wide skill set for survival reasons.

Madison's Character Inspiration

where I pick 6 characters to yoink their storyline and personality with and glue it onto my OC 🤓 (half-joking there, but, they did serve as my core inspiration for Madison in a number of aspects)

Tagging the friends who also did theirs in the Discord server, as well as some other folks to do this with their beloved OC(s) and S/I(s) as well! No pressure by the way, do it if you want to! 💖 @emproleon (the OG!! Thank you for sharing this in the server ❤️) @amberswords @anikasenkujo @funnyvalentineswife @hand-domain @jellyluchi @papersirens @shaylistic @sweetsparklerain @trashbabyart @uminozerol @werewuffgoth @white-cherries @whitespirit91 @zizalovesyou

Empty template + Character inspo blurbs under the cut

Ruby Rose (RWBY) - In the very early days of RWBY coming out I fell in love with the young female lead who had a strong sense of moral justice. We've all had our fair share of young protagonists who aim to do a lot for the world they live in and that especially rubbed onto Madison especially in her younger teenage years.

Steven Universe - Steven is described to be optimistic, outgoing, and soft-hearted but also naive and socially oblivious. His journey of maturing throughout the series was something that I got a huge chunk of inspiration from when I was writing down Madison's backstory from birth to the various stages of her life. Madison does go through a similar matter like Steven where she carries heavy burdens at a young age and struggles to keep up with the demands made of her due to her inexperience with life and lack of emotional control.

Nana (Elfen Lied) - If you see art of Madi with horns on her head similar to Nana then I'm sure you can piece two and two together to see that they're of the same species (and personality too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡ – ✧)). Madison is exactly like Nana in the sense that her empathy for other people's pains is what keeps her from conceding to the part of her genetics that desires to be homicidal. You've also got that bit of lore where Madison has gone through a part of her childhood where she was raised as a test subject in a research institute which I'll share more in the future.

Nancy Drew - The inspiration I got from Nancy and put into Madison's character is her ability to stay determined and help others when she can provide such assistance. I adore how resourceful and independent Nancy is and so I try to emulate that onto Madison especially in her older years. A fun fact is that Madison has a love for books in the mystery genre and reading the Nancy Drew series lead her to be more curious and critical of the world, mentally solving puzzles in her head that she can apply when situations call for a solution.

Akane Tsunemori (Psychopass) - Fun fact here is that Akane's VA Kana Hanazawa is my voiceclaim for Madison and I just love love looovveee Akane so much that I had to put her here as one of Madison's main inspirations! You've got that naïve to callous pipeline characters go through when they soon face the horrific realities of the world which definitely happens to Madison in her late teen and young adult years. Generally polite and respectful thanks to several etiquette classes she took up in high school, Madison earns the respect of fellow peers when they find that she is also intelligent, insightful, and compassionate. Despite having the means to enforce violence with her Stand or her vectors from being a Diclonius, Madison does what she can to deescalate a situation and employ less destructive actions, just like Akane in her former years as an Inspector.

Misaka Mikoto (A Certain Scientific Railgun) - Along with Mikoto and most of these characters, I think I really like the trope of "Friendly and easygoing character with great powers has keen sense of justice and wishes to keep the world safe, but wants to do so with peaceful/harmless means as much as possible….But then gets cold and unfeeling in the process 🙃" way too much that you can see the similarities in all of these characters' backstories and how I'll be incorporating that with Madison too sdkjbsjkd but! the same can be said for Mikoto too with how she does her best to help others to the point where she sacrifices her own wellbeeing for their safety.

[piracytheorist]

Since the first thing that strikes me about re8, story-wise, is that it seems to be all over the place? Again, I’ve no idea how it ties to previous games but it feels like this parental/mother-child theme is just hanging there with no resolution at all? I mean yes, Ethan saved his daughter, presumably breaking some sort of abuse cycle, yay, congrats, but what about his wife/gf? Isn’t she supposed to be like the main protagonist of the story of a mother bereaved to the point of tyrannical madness

Or rather, this specific story is not the right choice for his character since there’s SO many ethical and philosophical issues and questions implied but never properly explored because of Ethan’s ‘fuck you, idc’ attitude (which is completely understandable in those circumstances but adds virtually nothing to the plot and arguably even ruins it a bit). Heisenberg could’ve been an excellent ally with fascinating grey morality (provided the writers wouldn’t push him to the point of absolute insanity and let freedom, not power-hunger be his main goal and motivation for rebellion).And again, aren’t the lords supposed to represent child development stages? In which case Ethan what? Kills the possibility of some evil version of Rose? Or his own chance to experience fatherhood throughout all of those stages? Either way, it seems a bit… weird to have a Parent destroy multiple people whose main relevance to the plot is that they’re children of an abusive antagonist in a storyline so extremely focused on parent/kid relationships.

I feel like the main theme of re8 is not just parenthood/motherhood, but the relationship itself of the parent to the child. There's a lot of mentions to "children being used". Miranda kidnapping people, experimenting on them and mutating them and then treating them like they're her kids; Miranda kidnapping and practically killing Rose; Dimitrescu making daughters out of reanimated corpses she experimented on; Heisenberg wanting to use Rose's powers, etc etc.

And it's important that Miranda is at the center of this. There's something very interesting she says to Ethan in her boss fight:

"Why do you interfere? Surely you have no need of Rose now, so close to death?"

And that's where her mistake was. Ethan wasn't doing all that because he needed Rose herself. He was doing it to save her, fully aware that he wasn't going to be a part of her life cause he knew he was dying. Miranda was way too dependent on her love for Eva - and like, I honestly get it that losing your child can devastate you (if anything my fear of that is one of the reasons I don't want to have kids) - so much that her life literally revolved around her child. Once Eva died, Miranda wanted to die. Once she found the Megamycete and discovered she maybe had a chance to bring Eva back, she dedicated her entire life and ruined multiple others to do just that. Her one and biggest need was to get Eva back. It wasn't a simple want or wish. It was a need. She'd get her child back, damn everyone else - including other people's children.

Miranda had no-one to blame directly; Eva had died from the influenza, it wasn't like she had any chance to change things. Ethan's case was different; he had people to blame, particularly, the one who kidnapped Rose and dismembered her, and her lackeys who kept said parts and fought him for trying to take them back.

So on one end, you have a parent who lost her child due to a tragedy, and ended up destroying other - innocent - lives in order to get her back. On the other, you have a parent who lost his child due to a crime, and ended up going after the criminals responsible in order to get the child back. Like, it wasn't even revenge, and it wasn't that he "needed" Rose in his life. He simply wanted to save her and ensure she'll be alright.

I fully agree it could have been Mia as the protagonist in re8, and that it was a wasted opportunity to simply fridge her and have her in the sidelines angsting over her husband. But whether it was Mia or Ethan as the protagonist, I feel like the theme that I explained above does offer a resolution, showing the opposites of Miranda and Ethan, and ending Miranda's tyrrany of her "need" to have her child back through Ethan's determination to ensure his child's safety and happiness - even if he doesn't get to be a part of any of that later on. Miranda showed obsession; Ethan showed dedication.

And this is how I see the abuse cycle breaking and the resolution is reached; an obsessed parent hurt a good parent's child to bring their own child back - the good parent's dedication stopped the former, allowing the former's tyrrany to end and their child to grow up safe.

Seeing as this is a horror game, I don't tend to focus on the morality issues (if I'm interpreting your second message correctly). Like, the developers are making a grant effort to put us in Ethan's shoes, first-person POV, plain character protagonist and all; our child got kidnapped and practically murdered, and we have the chance to bring her back. We'll absolutely raise hell to the people who are responsible for it and we will get our child back, fuck any moral dilemmas we might have. When someone is threatening your life, you have the ability to kill them to defend yourself. In the case of a caring parent, that ability may multiply by a lot when the threat is towards their child. And I feel that this is what the game explored in the end. Though the whole survival issue is taxing on Ethan, he doesn't give a damn about who he has to kill if it means saving his daughter - but again, it's only the responsible parties. We see how watching all the people at Luisa's house die affected him, and even before Elena died, he wanted to ensure her safety before he went searching for Rose; he is sympathetic and morally rational, but also capable of cold-blooded murder if someone is threatening his child. To a lesser extent, we saw that in re7 too. With his life on the line, he killed Jack (multiple times) and Marguerite, and at the end he recognized how they were actually victims of Eveline. But they were still actively trying to murder him so he wasn't given the chance to help them. With Zoe, he promised to send help, and he did, even wanting to talk to her once she'd been rescued by her uncle and Chris. The same applies to re8, but as I said, it's multiplied since it's his daughter who's in danger, and the end of re8 proves he cares for her safety more than his own.

Now, all that said, I think it's important to note how it's stil a Resident Evil game. I haven't actually played or watched any playthroughs of other games, but the basic concept in these games, from what I understand, is that the player shoots zombies; ex-human beings who have lost any human mentality and will just come for your throat if you don't kill them first. They're not humans anymore, they can't be reasoned or sympathized with. It's not really an issue of morality, ethics or philosophy. Your life, and the life of your child in the case of re8, are in danger. You don't give a shit. You just start shooting and hope for the best. Again, I don't know if the morality issue is explored in other RE games, but to be honest... Resident Evil doesn't sound like the kind of franchise that's thematically into going super deep into the morality of shooting zombies to save your life.

I have to admit I haven't thought of the Lords being representative of child development stages. I think they could be put as Moreau being a toddler, fully dependent on their parent - funnily enough, the Greek word for baby is "moro", pronounced almost exactly the way "Moreau" is pronounced in the game - Donna as a child, Heisenberg as a (rebellious?) teenager, and Dimitrescu as a late teen/young adult (if anything, Dimitrescu seems to behave like the eldest child of the bunch). But I'm not sure the connection that has to Ethan as a father, if anything because the bosses are fought in complete random order of age, if my analysis is correct. Like, I understand the symbolism behind the Lords' behaviours, maybe as you said they represent the obstacles Ethan had to overcome. In one single day and with his life on the line, instead of in the course of Rose's entire childhood and adolescence, but that's exactly why he hated being a protagonist of a horror game, lol.

Anyway, yeah. All in all, I don't think Resident Evil is a franchise where we should expect to sit down afterwards and ponder whether we were right to shoot the zombies that were trying to kill us. Again, I'm not the right person to ask this, since I don't know anything about other RE games, but that's the conclusion I'm making in a meta-thinking way.

[arandompostarchive]

SALEM - Ch. 18

SAVED WORK

Summary: In all the centuries of your existence, you had never been dragged out of hiding by another god, put in a superhero team and forced to save the universe. But it seems your luck has run out.

_____________

***

You tugged Loki along with you, heading to the conference room Steve usually called you to. You saw Loki use magic to change into his armor, and you did the same, changing into Tony’s new suit for you. You’d have to thank him for it later.

You arrived there before most of the others. They took a bit longer to change than you and Loki. Magic was a helpful thing. Steve, Tony, Bucky, and Nat were the only ones in the room when you walked in.

“Y/n, we’re taking the quinjet closer, Tony and Sam will help you and Loki get up there since you can’t exactly teleport somewhere you can’t see,” Nat said, reminding you of the plan. You nodded along, taking your seat at the table next to Loki.

You noticed the group had put an extra chair at the table for Loki. It wasn’t much, but it was progress towards at least acknowledgment of Loki’s existence.

Thor had walked in as Nat finished talking and took a seat next to his brother. Steve turned to the three of you, switching into Captain Mode. “The important thing is that you, Loki, and Thor take out Moros. We’ll give you weapons from the ship. Y/n, you and Loki have fought him before. Do you think the three of you will be able to do it?” He asked. There wasn’t anything condescending in his voice, just worry the fight wouldn’t be over as quickly as possible.

“With weapons that can kill him and the assistance of my brother, we should not have a problem,” Loki said, reassuring Steve.

Tony rolled his eyes a bit. “I’m just saying, why is this guy so hard to kill? I mean, the two of you are gods and it was two against one. For once, I’m not trying to be an ass, I’m serious. Why is he so dangerous?” He asked. You could see it was a serious question, though you were sure he was holding back on some sarcastic remark. Steve looked to you for the answer, apparently Tony had voiced a question he wanted to be answered as well.

By that time, the entire team had joined you in the room, all in their suits. You looked between Tony and Steve to answer the question.

“The Asgardians and Olympians are different. The Asgardians may have labels, like ‘god of lies’ or ‘god of thunder’,” You gestured to Loki and Thor respectively. “But they are all one race. They get their titles later in life depending on their personalities. Olympians are born knowing their purpose. We are all different.”

Nat seemed confused at your explanation. “I’m not sure I follow.” She said, her head tilted to the side.

You sighed, unsure of how to explain it and make sense. “Each god has their own ‘specialties’ I suppose. I use magic and can use it to change my form, like when my eyes go dark. Poseidon uses water, Athena is a genius, Ares has strength, and so on. My brother is the god of destruction. Needless to say, he destroys.” You took a moment, making sure you were making sense. “He was born into destruction, unlike the rest of us. He’s the concept of destruction itself, which is a hard idea to kill. Some gods are less powerful than others, and children of Nyx tend to be much more dangerous. Especially ones with an ability like destroying anything. And I mean anything. Buildings, planets… people. My brother is not to be trifled with.” You said the last part softly. It was true, but you thought that was better kept out of the conversation of people about to fight Moros unless it was absolutely necessary

Loki’s hand squeezed your thigh in reassurance and you put your hand over his and smiled up at him. He returned the smile, turning his hand over so you could hold onto it. You saw Tony roll his eyes. “Dear god, if you guys are going to turn into a gross touchy couple, I’m blasting our resident smurf in the face, hear me?” He said, staring at you. You laughed a bit, while Tony glared.

“While I do find this sweet, we’ve got a really angry god to fight,” Sam said, drawing your attention back to the task at hand. You all nodded. Even Tony could be serious when he needed to, although he always tried to lighten the tension with humor. It was greatly appreciated most of the time, despite your sarcastic responses.

“Everyone else, besides Thor, Loki, and Y/n will stay on the ground and fight back the army. SHIELD has offered agents to help us and authorities will help when they can. Thor, Loki, Y/n, you can’t crash this ship. Tony was able to get some visuals of it. If it goes down, it’s sure to destroy far too much of the city. People will die without a doubt.” Steve looked to you, making sure you understood. The three of you nodded and everyone left to prepare.

Moros was already here, the best you could do was be as prepared as possible. You hadn’t fought with Thor and Loki before, although they had spent centuries fighting side by side, you had only fought beside Thor for a year and Loki for only a week. You could hardly call it practice. So, you shared as much information about Moros as you could think of. His fighting style, weapons, anything that came to mind.

Tony came up to you a few minutes into your explanation and handed you the weapons from the ship. You spread them out on a coffee table in the living room in order to divide them up. There were three of them, two daggers and a longsword. They weren’t the world’s prettiest weapons, but they would certainly do.

“Brother,” Thor started, “take the daggers and dual wield. Mjolnir may not be one of their god-killing creations, but it will certainly be able to deal a blow.” He said, smiling. You and Loki nodded, picking up your respective weapons. The sword didn’t have the usual beautiful look of a good longsword, but it wasn’t about the glamour today. It was much more about death.

You heard Steve’s voice over Friday’s system. “Everyone, report outside. We’ve seen movement from the ship. We’re leaving now. Thor, Loki, Sam, Y/n, Tony, you’re heading up to the ship. Get this over with as soon as you possibly can. You nodded, despite the fact that Cap could see you. Thor moved first, walking toward the elevator, you followed. Loki stopped walking.

“Coming?” Thor said, looking back as he waited for the elevator to come.

“We’ll meet you there in a minute,” Loki said, waving Thor off. Thor nodded, stepping into the elevator. You looked toward Loki, tilting your head to ask what’s wrong. He reached over to grab your hand and you took a step closer to him, slightly concerned.

“Be careful, my love.”

My love. My love. My love.

“Of course I will, why?” You asked, confused why he felt the need to remind you of something obvious.

He laughed. “I do not want to lose you. I doubt I can do that again, as selfish as that is to say.” You smiled at him and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.

“Loki, believe me, I have no intention of dying today at my brother’s hands. Or at all, for that matter.” He nodded at that, accepting your answer. He seemed nervous. You could understand that. You would be too if you were in his shoes. He had lost you for almost three and a half centuries.

“Good.” You opened your mouth, but he spoke first. “And yes, I will protect myself as well, before you ask.” You nodded, accepting his answer as well. “You should take that off, you know.” He said, gesturing to the left side of your face. You had started to get used to not seeing from that eye, but you weren’t quite sure you should take the patch off yet.

Loki reached up to take it off, his hands moving slowly to give you time to stop him. You let him.

He pulled off the patch, careful not to pull too hard and pull your hair in the process. “Much better.” He said. Lifting your chin up to examine your eye. You suspected he wasn’t admiring it, rather making sure it had healed, but he wouldn’t admit it, so you let it go.

You used your magic to summon a small hand mirror. The was a large scar over half your face and it was distracting, to say the least. It reminded you of a spider’s web. The discolored and burned skin, crawling its way across your face. But your eye was the worst part. It looked gray now, like you were blind. Which, in all fairness, you were. The off-white color was almost disturbing to look at for you, so different than what you were used to seeing. It wasn’t your face anymore. It felt like someone else’s had been plastered over it. It felt odd to know it’d never be the same.

“Are you alright, love?” The word shook you out of your thoughts. Not the question, the word. “You’re crying.” You looked at Loki and brought your hand up to your cheek. You hadn’t even noticed you had started crying. You weren’t entirely sure why you were crying either. Was it your face? The pain? Blindness?

“How can you call me that?” You asked softly. It wasn’t an accusation, more of a genuine question.

“Call you what? Love?” Loki asked, confused. He didn’t seem upset by the scar. More concerned about you rather than the burn covering your face.

“I’m not the same, Loki. I messed with magic that I shouldn’t have and now I’m stuck like this. And you love me?” You realized why you were crying. Before all of this, before Moros, or the Avengers, or even Thor, you thought much differently of yourself. You never would have believed that someone would’ve called you ‘love’ much less the same person from your days in Salem. But now, after everything that had happened, he still called you love.

“Because I love you. Do you not like it? I can call you something else…” He trailed off, trying to think of another name.

“No. I like it, I’m just confused I suppose.” You weren’t exactly sure how to describe what you were thinking.

“Well, I love you. I know it’ll take longer for me to earn your love back, but  I’ve missed you all these centuries. Now that I finally have you in my arms again I will not let you go over something as small as a scar.” He seemed to understand what you were thinking without you having to say it, which you were thankful for. You couldn’t hear a lie as well and his, that was true. But you could at least tell when he was lying. And right now? He wasn’t lying.

You leaned up, pulling him into a much deeper kiss before you led him over to the elevator and took it down to the first level.

***

“C’mon, just let the bird-man carry you,” Tony said, bored.

“There’s no other way up?” Loki asked, staring anxiously at Sam. He wasn’t a fan of flying. At all.

“How did you think you were getting there?” Tony asked sarcastically. You rolled your eyes at the argument, instead, securing your new sword into the sheath on your back. The sheath didn’t quite fit since the sword hadn’t come with one and you had to hastily make your own with your magic. It was far from perfect, but at least it worked.

“I’m not sure, but I wasn’t expecting to cling on to false bird wings to fly!” You and Thor had given up and had decided to let Tony and Sam deal with him (much to their dismay). Eventually, after far too long an argument, Loki let Sam carry him. Tony had refused to pick up the trickster, and you didn’t bother arguing.

“I will have you know, I dislike this!” Loki called out, midair. Moros’ ship was above the city now. It was within the atmosphere, although the air only got thinner higher up.

“Yeah, we figured that out by now.” Tony said, sounding bored with Loki’s fear of flying (of course, Loki insisted it wasn’t a fear. Just an “extreme dislike”).

“Only a little further!” You shouted over the rush of wind. The coms weren’t as helpful when there was wind rushing past you. Tony and Sam were much better off with their helmet and goggles. With the wind drying out your eyes and mouth, you envied them.

Soon, you ended up on the side of the ship, attached partially with magic, and partially with some technology you didn’t entirely understand. Asgard may have had technology in their society, but Olympus consisted of magic and magic only. No fancy tech for you to learn about. Tony cut through the ship’s metal with little difficulty with some sort of laser, you hadn’t bothered to ask him about any of his inventions and he got too frustrated explaining them, although you appreciated that he always tried to. The much more important part was that you got onto the ship and Tony and Sam flew back down to help the team. By the faint sound of shots and screaming you could hear below you, you figured the fighting must have started already.

The ship was bigger than you expected. The space you had entered looked to be a garage-like area, full of ships similar to the one you had stolen. There was a hallway off to the side, lined with odd-looking lights.

“I’m not certain what I thought would be up here, but it certainly is not this.” You heard Thor say from next to you. The ship seemed exclusively black, white, and gray, a soft monochromatic theme that screamed ‘military’. It smelled of bleach and cleaning supplies, and the whole place was immaculate. In any other situation, you’d appreciate the cleanliness.

“It doesn’t much matter. We need to find my brother.” The boys next to you nodded and the three of you looked around to find some sort of map.

There were words printed on the side of the hall, and you stepped forward to get a better look at them. The listed off locations with small arrows. The halls were painted a light gray, it reminded you more of an asylum than an army base, but it was much better than the dirt and blood-covered halls on Kalan.

“Here!” You shouted over at Thor and Loki who were checking different areas of the ship. The ran over quickly, anxious to find your brother. “Main Room. That sounds like somewhere he’d be, right?” You asked. Loki nodded in response and the three of you started walking toward the room.

You were doing your best to stay quiet. You wouldn’t hesitate to fight anyone you needed to, but you’d like to avoid as many battles as you possibly could.

The halls were long and confusing, each had the same board you had seen earlier, pointing you towards the Main Room, whatever that meant. You had come across a few guards, who strangely didn’t seem alarmed at your presence. Loki had suggested the three of you had set off an alarm system when you broke in. Thor seemed to agree with this, meaning Moros was prepared for you. Just what you needed today.

Soon, you finally reach a large, overdramatic door. It was black, a sharp contrast against the light gray of the halls. You looked at Thor and Loki who had each gotten out their weapons. You pulled out your longsword and forced open the doors, doing your best to look composed.

“Sister.” The voice echoed off the walls of the main room. It was a huge space with a large window to the city below. There was a chair directly in front of the window, and you could see a large broadsword in a sheath next to the chair.

“Brother.” You responded, doing your best to match Moros’ volume. Thor and Loki stayed behind you, letting you do all the talking. You doubted there would be much talking with Moros though.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Moros asked. His voice reminded you of gravel below someone’s shoe. The low, rough sound took up the whole room. You walked the length of the room, standing next to his chair at the window. You kept your hand on your sword. You could hear Loki protest from behind you before you heard Thor say something in response. Loki’s protests stopped and you silently thanked Thor for whatever he had said.

“Please, get more comfortable.” He gestured to your eyes, and you knew what he meant. You took a breath and let your magic change your form. Your eyes darkened and black veins spread out from them. You felt a bit more self-conscious looking like that, but at least you were in… good company. Or at least company that wouldn’t be shocked looking at you like that.

“You’re a goddess of war sister, although you take much more pride in magic and darkness than I.” He said. He looked over to you. It had been a long time since you had gotten a close look at your brother’s face. Full gods chose their forms, and this would’ve been terrifying to anyone else. Anyone who hadn’t grown up with the literal concept of the night as their mother. His face was covered in what looked like cracks. His armor was old, you could tell. Maybe made by the Greeks themselves. His eyes though. His eyes were what scared you. They seemed to be a white color, but you could see something in them. It was like watching a million cities burn away all at once. Like watching solar systems die and people perish. It was disturbing. Ir made you wonder what people thought of your eyes when they were dark.

“You must still appreciate a good battle though? Fighting and monsters. That’s exactly what you should enjoy, is it not? Is it not perfect?” The question seemed genuine. You weren’t certain how to respond. He was right, you did enjoy a good battle. Sure, you were with the Avengers to help people, but saying that your inner war goddess didn’t seep out every once in a while would be a lie. But still, you had more control than this.

“People will die, Moros.” Your voice wasn’t stern, more concerned. Hopeful that maybe he’d listen. You knew he wouldn’t, but it was worth a try.

He only laughed. “You sound like a child, Sister. Like a younger sibling asking me to stop breaking her toys.” He slumped down more in his chair, seeming more relaxed than you liked. You glanced back at Loki and Thor, mouthing at them to ‘stay alert’. Thor seemed confused, but Loki got the message and whispered it to Thor. They looked around them, keeping their eyes on as much of the room as they could. You didn’t like the idea of falling into a trap.

Moros gave another small laugh. The rough sound of his laugh made you cringe. “Though I suppose I am breaking your toys, aren’t I? You’re better than this, you know. You sit all day with humans. They’ll die before you blink. You’ve got, what? Maybe fifty more years with them? That’s nothing. And then those Asgardians.” He said the word with disgust dripping from his tongue. Like he wanted to get it out of his mouth as soon as he could.

You could hear Thor and Loki stepping closer to you, just enough for you to feel their presence behind you. “Even they die, Sister. Give it 4,000 years. You’ll see. They aren’t gods. Not real gods. They haven’t shaped worlds. They didn’t create the sky, like our ancestors. They don’t control the tides or move the sun. They control wars or love like us. They don’t control magic, like you, Sister. You could defeat that sorcerer of yours. And that brute he calls a brother? He is no Zeus. They’re no gods, Sister. Not like you, not a witch capable of more destruction than I could imagine.” That’s what this was about. He wanted your magic. He wanted to see what you can do when you could let it all go at once.

“You never get to use all your power. It’s all caged until you have to save the next human. I don’t know why you bother. They’ll die soon anyway.” Moros stood, walking close to the window. You grew concerned when he left his sword behind. You looked behind you to Thor and Loki. They seemed… upset.

“You won’t die?” Loki asked, looking at you. He was upset, though you couldn’t tell why. You nodded slowly in response.

“Not unless someone kills me. We’re much different than Asgardians, though I suppose that was obvious.” He didn’t say anything else, so you turned back around to join Moros.

“Look at them. You must enjoy it, the fighting? It’s who you are. All of our siblings are dark people. Chaos, insanity, murder, death, war, destruction. We cannot control who we are, Sister. No matter how much you would like to.” You could see your friends fighting below you. They looked small from your view above the city, but you could still see them doing their best to fight the ships full of people running through New York. “Earth is a beginning. Our grandfather created this all, and I shall destroy it. It is the way of life. And it would be so much easier if you would join. This world is pointless. Humans live, they die, they impact nothing. They destroy their own planet. At the very least, don’t stand in my way. Go home, back to Olympus. I’ll even let you take your friends. Zeus would never oppose a daughter of Nyx!” He said, his happy tone contradicted his message.

Although, as sad as it was to admit, he had a point. As many people as you save, Earth would eventually crumble away. You’d have to return to Olympus sooner or later when the Universe eventually collapsed, and you wouldn’t even have Loki with you anymore. Asgardian life spans were impressive, but they didn’t last forever. Besides, your mother would want to talk to you about killing Ker eventually, not that you were excited about that conversation. She really hated it when her kids killed each other.

You couldn’t change who you were.

You’d always be the goddess of magic and war. You’d always have a place as Nyx’s youngest daughter. Always a child of the night, no matter how kind you were. Helping humans didn’t matter, it wasn’t as if the gods cared about them much anyway. There were plenty of other planets to fawn over and humans had long forgotten their existence. You could run away and keep Loki with you while you still had him. You could take up Moros’ offer. Drag all your friends away from the fight and bring them with you. Zeus never wanted to get on your mother’s bad side, which essentially gave you permission to break all the rules. You’d ignore Earth, convince them to save some other planets that were more worthwhile.

Moros was giving you time to think it over. You looked over the fighting. Every so often you’d see Sam and Tony flying over buildings, taking out as many soldiers as possible. But Tony seemed to stay close to the ship. He kept glancing back toward you, checking for any sign of change. He didn’t say anything. You couldn’t hear anyone contacting you over the coms, but he was thinking about you at least. And then you remembered…

How many of them would actually come?

There’s no way Steve would go with you. He loves these people too much, and he wasn’t your biggest fan. And if Steve was staying, so were Bucky, Sam, and Nat. If Nat was staying, so were Clint and Bruce. Thor had gotten attached to the humans over the past years. You couldn’t even blame him for it. Even Tony. He’d never say it, but he loved it here. He loved this team. Peter wouldn’t leave, he had his friends here. His new family. He was still an unofficially official Avenger, he’d never leave.

Which left you with Loki.

You could convince him to come. At this point, you were sure he’d go anywhere with you. You smiled at the thought, but the smile left your face quickly. You couldn’t leave your family behind. You couldn’t knowingly let a world die. You hoped that without you, maybe the Avengers would still find a way, but could you really take that chance. So, instead, you did just about the dumbest thing you could think of.

“Y/n, I know you may not like the humans as much as I do,” Thor started from behind you, “especially after everything they’ve done, but you aren’t thinking of saying yes, are you? There are billions of life forms here, not all of them are the same evil you’ve seen in your life. Please j—”

“Have you ever seen a sunset?” You asked calmly, ignoring whatever Thor was going to say. You were looking directly at Moros, and Thor recognized you weren’t talking to him. He didn’t interject again, letting you finish whatever thought you were going to start.

“What?” Moros asked incredulously.

“A sunset. Have you ever seen a sunset here?” You had a small smile on your face, remembering all the times you had seen a sunset yourself. They were beautiful.

“What does it matter if I’ve seen a sunset?” He was confused by your statement, completely thrown off. “That says nothing about humans! We created the sun, we created the sky, we move it across the heavens, we move everything!”

“That wasn’t my point, Brother. Have you seen a sunset?” You asked again, this time your tone sterner.

“This makes no difference, what are you talking about, Circe?” You glared again, not repeating the question. He sighed, resigning to your glare. “No, I have not.”

“You should. They’re beautiful. Humans love them. There’s a beautiful sunset in all of their romantic movies, they sit and just watch them constantly. Really. They do nothing but sit and watch the sun fall. There’s all these gorgeous colors, purples and oranges and yellows and pinks.”

You remembered sitting with Loki by the lake near Salem. It was a lovely view. Just the two of you, watching the sun sink past the dark lines of the trees, the sky echoing hues of orange. It was one of your favorite memories.

Moros looked at you like you were insane. “And?”

“That’s it. It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything more lovely in my life. You should watch one. Just one. Just wait for the sky to turn and watch the sun over the ocean, you’d love it.” His expression didn’t change.

You could see Thor and Loki whispering to each other behind you, probably talking about how insane you sounded right about now. Talking to your genocidal brother about pretty colors.

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” Moros asked, “Is there no explanation?”

“What I mean is, there’s no point in sunsets. There will just be another one tomorrow.” You could still hear Loki and Thor behind you, and see the confusion plastered on Moros’ face. “But that doesn’t make them any less pretty. Humans are just like that. There will be a billion more and yes, some of them are much better than others, but they’re kind. And they create lives for themselves. They have friends and families, and this world is theirs. There is no point in wrecking everything just so you can ‘fulfill your purpose’. Maybe you should just destroy smaller things, things without as much life and beauty.

Moros groaned beside you. He walked back over to his chair and sat down, slumping against it. You followed shortly after, waving the next time Tony flew up close to the ship. You doubted he could see you, but if he could he’d feel a little better. You could hear some static over the com so you pulled it out of your ear. It looked like it was broken or something. Not that you understood anything about the technology in your hand. You shrugged and dropped it on the ground. If everything turns out alright, you could just grab it later. If.

“That’s your point? To leave because colors are nice? Go to Olympus, make your own colors! Sister, you have magic. Go create your own universe!”

“It’s so much nicer when you don’t make it yourself. You never know what’s coming that way.” You said, calmly.

Moros grabbed the broadsword next to him, once again coming to his feet. “I suppose it was worth an attempt, huh Sister?” He asked.

You sighed in response.“I suppose it was, Brother.”

You have a feeling you were talking about different things.

***

[fresh-outta-jams]

Can You Hear Me?-Part 2

Johnny x Reader Author: MoRo

Prompt: Oooh okayy, I’d like to request some Johnny fluff please? Like maybe a soulmate au 

Summary: You were unconcerned about soulmate things because getting it was the end of your final year in collage and time was counting down until graduation. But what happens when your soulmate suddenly appears right before your finals exams and it turns out he’s been there for much longer than you knew? Having your soulmate in your head was not something you needed but the more you get to know him, the more you appreciate him being there. College!Johnny x reader

Note: I love this part so much! I wrote it while watching some of Johnny’s videos in Korea since I could see this boy doing something with film or photography if he wasn’t an idol. He’s just all around so talented. Warnings: More fluff Word Count: 1.5k

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

(OMG BUT THIS GIF THO LIKE HE’S SO SOFT AND ADORABLE)

You wake up to the sound of your soulmate's voice and roll over expecting to see him there next to you but he's not. There's a soft pang in your heart again but you push it away.

"Good morning baby. Uh i-is that alright if I call you that?" A deep voice asks softly, hesitantly. 

You giggle softly at Johnny's shy stuttering. "Yeah that's fine. I like it." You smile even though Johnny can't see you.

"Did you sleep well?" He asks you.

"Mmmhmm, I did. How about you...love?" You ask him, testing out a nickname for him.

"Love. She called me love." Johnny almost choked out of surprise on his food when you called him that. His heart fluttered and he smiled like a fool. "I slept good." He takes another bite of food. 

You sit up in bed and stretch, groaning as your muscles pull. Johnny hears you groan and gets concerned. "Are you okay Y/N?" 

You chuckle at the concern in his voice. "Yeah I'm fine. I didn't realize you could hear that. I was just stretching." 

"Oh..." You can hear his embarrassment and you laugh a little more. "You're so cute Johnny." He sends his laughter back down the bond, "Thanks babe. You are too ya know." You shake your head and laugh at him, cheeks growing red. 

Getting out of bed, you narrate your routine to him. "Right now I'm trying to figure out what to wear today. It's getting cold with winter coming in." You stand in your closet with a finger on your lips trying to decide.

 "Hmmm.." Johnny hums in response. "How about something warm?" He makes a smart ass comment. This boy wasted no time getting comfortable with you and you really enjoyed it. It felt easy and natural.

"Well no shit sherlock." You retaliate. Johnny laughs loudly down the bond. "So my soulmate has a fiery streak in her. I like that." You wish he was here so you  could swat him for that. 

"Believe me babe, I wish I was there too." He tells you softly.

 "Wait you heard that?" Your bond continues to surprise you in weird ways.

"Kind of? I heard part of it and felt you wanted me there..." He says. Then he goes silent for a minute. 

"Johnny?" You say his name.

"Come here during Christmas break." He suddenly says, popping back in and startling you. 

"What?" You weren't sure if you heard him right.

"Come here for Christmas break. Come spend a few weeks with me after you see your family obviously."  That sounds so amazing to you. The thought of going to see him pulls at your heart. Now you wish break was sooner. 

"Okay." You say finally

"Awesome." Johnny says in a breathy voice. You can practically see his grin.

 "Are you grinning right now love?" You ask laughing.

 "I am, how did you know?" He asks laughing back with you. 

"I don't know, I could just feel it. It was so bright." You tell him, cheeks turning pink at the soft confession. On the other side of the bond, Johnny's cheeks are doing the same. Both of you are turning into blushing cheesy soft messes because of each other.

 "Oh crap..." Johnny's turn to groan his time. "I have to get going and work on this film project with my group for class. I'll talk to you when I have the chance?" He sounds desperate like he doesn't want to leave you.

 "Yeah that's alright but I don't want to distract you. Besides I'll either be studying or whatever until Maeve drags me to go do something." You give him a little mental shove to get going. 

He laughs. "I like this Maeve. She's good for you. Takes care of you when I can't be around." Johnny confesses before leaving. "I'll be back soon, don't miss me too much." Then he's gone again. 

You roll your eyes at his comment and blush a little. It's still so weird to have a soulmate. Someone who is destined to be with you. You were relieved you won't be alone forever like you thought.

 Despite what you always said to Maeve, you were really worried about if there actually wasn't anyone for you. You never really tried dating, like some of you friends did, because no one interested you. You didn't want to put time and effort into something if you weren't invested. But having Johnny made you feel like this was right. Something just clicked in you and it felt natural. 

You had a few hours until Maeve woke up so you decided to watch some YouTube. You'd hope your favorite YouTuber uploaded today

He was a college student like you who posted vlogs and stuff with his friends since he's a film and photography major. You're not sure where he goes to school since he's really vague about his personal life except for what his major is, which is fine, you totally understand that.

 You scroll through his videos looking for some of your favorite ones. Finding one of your favorites, you click on it and settle back. 

"Hello everyone and welcome to another Johnny's Communication Center! JCC! Today with me I have my international friends, Jungwoo, Yuta, Doyoung, and Taeyong! Woooo~!" A handsome face with black fluffy hair and a gorgeous smile yells excitedly into the camera. 

You smile at the handsome face of John Seo. You loved watching his videos since they were always a nice break from the stress of school and made you laugh at his extraness. His friends were always funny too. They had really good chemistry together.

"Today we have planned another Johnny's Fashion Evaluation but in a special place! We're at the thrift store where we'll have 15 minutes to pick an outfit out for the person I’ve randomly assigned." 

You hear a voice of protest off screen. "Wait but what about you?" It was Doyoung asking when the camera turned to him. John, turning the camera back on himself, places a hand on his chest. "I am the judge for today!"

Rest of the boys give more shouts of protest at that comment. "Fine fine! At the end you all can help put together an outfit for me. Fair?" Then John continues with explaining the game, "So Taeyong is dressing Yuta, Doyoung is dressing Jungwoo, Yuta is dressing Taeyong, and Jungwoo is dressing Doyoung! Is everyone ready?"

The camera pans to the boys shouting and getting ready by doing ridiculous things like stretching excessively. "Ready, start!" The 4 boys then run off into the clothes racks. It's a mad house with them dashing to and from with clothes in their arms and quickly looking through things.

John takes you along, stopping by each boy and asking what their concept is.

"Desert." Taeyong says for Yuta.

"Mmmm, I think Mafia." Yuta says for Taeyong's concept.

"How about you for dressing Jungwoo, Doyoung?" John asks the brown-haired boy.

"Beachwear look." Doyoung responds back.

Then John finds a very confused looking Jungwoo. "And you Jungwoo? How are you dressing Doyoung?" 

"Aquarium!" He responds back.

"What?" A now confused John asks his blonde-haired friend. "Like blues?"

Jungwoo just shrugs his shoulders and nods.

You laugh at the John-Jungwoo exchange. He was one of John's funniest friends because he sometimes lost his head in the clouds. 

John walks around again to see what each friend has gotten. Jungwoo shows off a blue ombre jacket he found for Doyoung.

"Under the sea~ Under the sea~" the blonde-haired cutie starts singing randomly making John burst into laughter and you too.  

"It would be fun to hang out with them. They seem like fun." You think to yourself.

"Who seems fun?" A familiar voice pops back into your head.

"Ah! Johnny! You're back!" Your heart flutters with your soulmate being back. "I was just watching my favorite YouTuber to pass the time. He and his friends seem like a lot of fun. Today I was watching him do a fashion evaluation on his friends and it was funny."

"What's the YouTuber's name?" He asks.

"John Seo but he goes by Johnny. Well at least he does for his fashion evaluation stuff and his communication episodes." You respond back.

"Ahhh... He sounds like an interesting guy. Is he cute?" Johnny teases you.

Now you really wish he was there so you could hit him. "I mean he is handsome. He has a really nice smile and fluffy hair. But that doesn't mean anything to me." You say to make sure Johnny doesn't get jealous.

"Ohhh I seeee." Johnny laughs at your comment and your face gets a little warm in embarrassment.

"Oh hey does he happen to have friends named Doyoung, Yuta, Jungwoo, and Taeyong?" He asks you out of the blue.

You gasp. "Yeah! He does! How did you know that? I thought you said you didn't know who he was?"

Johnny started to laugh a lot at your comment. "Oh I know him REALLY well Y/N." His laughter continues to bounce around in your ears.

"Wait you do!? How?!" You are getting more and more confused by each passing moment.

"Because you goof," Johnny pauses for dramatic effect, "I'm John Seo. That's my YouTube account."

[skepticaloccultist]

The Cult of the Black Cube

"The Cult of the Black Cube" Arthur Moros

The concept of "chthonic" gods have long lingered in the midsts of magical practices. Hekate herself is often referred to as chthonic and the term, literally "subterranean", refers to gods and beings that come not just from under the earth, but from a time before the current order of the universe was established.

Saturn, a deity with a wide cultural appeal that spans much more than the Greco-Roman eras from which it is commonly derived, has become a focus for those looking to find a being whose origins are in many ways similar to the Luciferian path, but without the Abrahamic inclinations and Judeo-Christian mindset involved in the devotion of Lucifer itself.

As Saturn has become a kind of contemporary magical stand-in for the Lord of Darkness, harkening to an age that predates the Christian mythos, a wide selection of material based around the Saturnine figure has emerged over the past several decades.

In his insightful volume "The Cult of the Black Cube" author Arthur Moros gives us a brilliant analysis of the Saturnine path, illuminating some of the variables that have historically found root in Saturn as a deity surrounded by devotional and magical practices.

A concise text that begins with an historic overview and personal insights from the author the work ends with a practical grimoire for those who are interested in practicing along the path of Saturn.

Drawing extensively on the Arabic texts of the "Ghayat al Hakim" (the Picatrix) and the "Filaha al-Nabatiyya", "The Cult of the Black Cube" is as much a warning to the would be devotee as it is an instruction on how to proceed.

The traditions that have long surrounded Saturn and his surrogates involved a kind of temporal darkness of the mind that may ward off those not prepared for such an intensive path - involving blood sacrifice, emotional insecurity and stages of complete mental alienation.

The work presented in "The Cult of the Black Cube" is a straightforward introduction to Saturn as a practical devotional deity through which a follower may access the Saturnine Gnosis of the Black Cube, that physical manifestation of the "prison" in which Saturn has been bound and from which he may be called.

While Moros gives us some useful meat on which we may feast in terms of Saturn as a global idea rooted in many cultures throughout the world, I did wonder at his lack of reference between the "Black Man" that is conjured forth from the Black Cube idol, and the European idea of a "Black Man" as the center of the witch's sabbat. There is clearly a connection to be drawn between these cultural concepts that is overlooked. Though it in no way detracts from the book and its ideas, it is worth future exploration and investigation.

For students of the dark arts who find the Judeo-Christian setting of Luciferian Gnosis a bit heavy handed, The Cult of the Black Cube can provide a perfect remedy to those seeking the darkness of the benighted path.

As one can expect the publisher Theion have done an exceptional job with a dark blue cloth binding, silver stamped text on spine with Saturn sigil on the cover, and wonderful internal typesetting. As well the influence of editor David Beth is referenced in the text and it is clear he has had a hand in guiding these ideas and their author on his exploration of the chthonic path from which the Black Cube emanates.

Rumor is that the publisher is nearly out of the work, which means it will be out of print soon. It is a must have for students of Dark Gnosis, Saturnine practices and those looking for a solid alternative to the endless stream of Luciferian imagery in contemporary occultism. Get yourself a copy before they are gone.

Find your copy directly from Theion here:

The Cult of the Black Cube

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil's Bolsonaro issues decree officially changing drug policy, experts warn it will hit most vulnerable people

Decree provides for an increase in repression of trafficking and changes criteria for differentiation between user and trafficker

On the evening of April 11 2019, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree of the new National Policy on Drugs. In it, the Social Liberal Party politician puts in place many campaign promises, such as treatment based on abstinence instead of harm reduction, support for the model of therapeutic communities (practice adopted by churches), among others.

In addition to encouraging these measures and standing against the legalization of drugs, the decree provides for an increase in the repression of trafficking and encourages differentiation between user and dealer based on the location and conditions under which the drugs were seized, the social, personal, and action circumstances, and the person's conduct and background, instead of only quantity of drugs.

For the president of the Brazilian Institute of Criminal Sciences, Cristiano Marona, this change in drug policy is ultrarradical, similar to countries like Russia, Iran, and the Philippines. "It is a measure that is doomed to failure", he said.

Marona says that a debate so that the Justice would take into account only objective facts to differentiate traffic of use had been done, but that the decree makes clear that this idea will not be adopted by the government. "It's a policy that will strengthen the thinking that white people are users and black people are dealers", he said.

The coordinator of the Black Initiative for a New Policy on Drugs, Nathalia Oliveira, believes that the president's policy is racist. "The new drug policy continues to mask its racist intentionality, behind a purpose that at first seems good, yet unreal. There is no world without drugs, and anti-drug policies only criminalize and segregate the black population in Brazil", she said.

For Nathalia, this measure serves for two things: to guarantee the Ministry of Justice's budget for the therapeutic communities and to put into practice parts of the anti-crime project of its minister Sérgio Moro.

"This decree comes under pressure from the government to build some response from its first 100 days, because they know they are worn out. An authoritarian government can only respond to society with more authoritarianism", she said.

The measure appeals not only to the evangelical wing of Bolsonaro's supporters, but also to sectors of the private initiative that carry out resocialization services for addicts. According to the national secretary of care and drug prevention of the Ministry of Citizenship, Quirino Cordeiro, the other structures of the network of care, such as Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPs), must undergo changes to accommodate the new model.

"Abstinence treatment is based on a concept that is at the basis of chemical dependence, which is the lack of control that an individual has in relation to the use of a substance. If they have this lack of control, there will not be good results from a policy that models harm reduction, as part of the premise that the individual will control minimally to avoid damages caused by the substance to them", he told Folha de S.Paulo .

"The result of this law is more people interned in therapeutic communities, environments that are similar to mental asylums, with systematic human rights violations (such as physical punishments, sleep and food deprivation, attempts to "cure" minority sexual orientations and gender identities, slave-like labour, religious imposition, etc), and increased incarceration. It is the policy that this government manages to build for the poorest people in Brazil, who in this case are black", Nathalia told the newspaper.

Source, translated & adapted by the blogger.

[metamorotranslate]

It’s a long interview and i can’t put it under the “read more” but enjoy ♥ I: We promised you, we have him live on the phone: good evening to Fabrizio Moro, hello Fabrizio. F: Hello guys. I: Hello! Well met on "Rtr 99 Canzoni e parole fuori dal coro". We're talking about the event all week , because there are few hours left to your concert at the Olimpico stadium. Tell us about the preparations, what we're expecting from this concert, the guests, tell us! F: We were locked few weeks, actually few months in this shed near Tor Cervara. There was the stage set construction, we worked really hard, day and night, and so from the practical and technical point of view it's all right; from the emotional point of view i don't know yet because i didn't had the time to focus emotionally on this concept. It'll be two and a half hours of songs, there will be guests, Ermal Meta, Fiorella Mannioia, Ultimo. I worked really hard on the lighworks because it was designed by Jo Campana who is the number one for me, it's the best in Italy, he made the tour of Ligabue, Vasco Rossi, Gianna Nannini, there will be huge and crazy lightworks behind us, where will be projected repertoire images, graphics... I: So also a visual impact F: It's the first time i work so much on the production of my concert, because usually it was a rock'n roll production, i spent a lot of time- i focused my time on the musical words. The production was always accompanied by a black drape, that's all. I gave more importance to the music compared to the scenography. I: So this confirm also your artistic grow up, from this point of view, you evolve more and more. F: But actually i didn't have the means.I: Oh, sure, it is important as well. F: This year there is an important production, an importan agency that they're supporting me in every way. And also the production made a big step change. And also we're playing at the Olimpico- I: Well, i mean... I should say not. F: It's like going to a wedding with shorts I: You can't do it! The look is connected to the way it tastes. And you, Fabrizio, worked a lot and also collected big successes in these years, from your various partecipations to Sanremo Festival, with some songs like Pensa that it's in the music history; also Eppure mi hai cambiato la vita, Portami via, but the last success is with Ermal Meta and in fact he will be at your concert the next 16th June. What can you tell about this last Sanremo Festival? What you bring on that stage from the last experience that you had... Help me- F: In Lisbon? I: Yes exactly, in Lisbon at the Eurovision. F: You know why you didn't think about this word ? Because in Italy, i noticed this... I've never watched the Eurovision- I: You've never watched it before participating in it? F: Nope, i didn't even knew what it was, i swear. I: So you dind't expect all of that coloured artists- F: After i've participated, you know what happens, we italians didn't metabolized the importance of this european contest yet, in fact when we were there, there was a world-cup vibe, there was swedish with wine bottles, the same scenes you seen when the nations play. And there weren't italians there. We started to be passionate about this contest last year, for a couple of years. I: For a short time, yes. F: That's why you can't remeber the word. I: Haha, no that was a little slip of tongue. Well we are more participative in this event and why we understimate it, in your opinion? We consider it second-class, but in reality it's an important event. F: It's a cultural thing, because we have the Sanremo Festival in Italy, so we give more importance to it. In Sweden for example, i don't know why today i'm saying Sweden, there isn't a Sanremo Festival, there isn't a musical festival, the Eurovision is their Sanremo Festival. I: So they aim to that event. F: Exactly, and it happens in most of the european countries. This may be one of the reasons. I: Well we are traditionalists from this point of view, we like the tradition, the festival is the festival, is one, and it's Sanremo. And it's the one you won this year and we give you our compliments even though the trobles that you had to face in this festival. F: Difficulties are always there, we are used to them. We are used to overcome difficulties, do you remember Rocky Balboa? I: Yeah sure, today i red some news about you and Rocky Balboa, tell us. F: If i hadn't seen that film, especially the first Rocky when i was young, probably i wouldn't have done the songwriter, i wouldn't have taken a path full of pitfalls, full of challanges, full of tests, battle to survive, it's just like this, the musician path is very complicated, especially in Italy, in fact, after the concert, when the guys go in the backstage and they bring the auditions to me, i try to dwell to a thing and to give a really important advice, you must have a lot of patience, and also you must have a story to tell that conditioned us, in good and bad, and we can exorcise with music. The talent to write songs is the last one, it's a little bit strange but it's true. Just like footballers- I: So patience- F: Just like footballers, there are so many of them that don't have good feet, but they have stubbornness and strength, i'm thinking of Rino Gattuso with Rocky. There too it's talent, when people longed to emerge, of redress, it's talent in my opinion. I: Surely the determination and passion are the crucial ingredients, i like that you point out the patience, there's a wise man who says "Patience is the only weapon to get ahead, apparently, in a dead-end situation", so the patience is a weapon- F: you understand it after the fourties I: you say you understand it only after? But you should have it before, because young peolple are impatient. F: It's normal, when you're twenty it's right, it's also a biological question. I: Yeah, it's true. So Fabrizio is also young, you always speak to young people, who's better than you, so someone will listen to you and will take this advice with them, treasuring it. Even to bring all the way your passions and your goals. So you, i want to guess, you are a person who gets excited a lot, so express your anger, you a just like this F: Yeah, pretty much like this. I: But at the same time, i don't know if this thing is because of your fatherhood or just the fourties, you are a measured person. You follow your heart or your mind? F: This is a good question. I don't undestand it, sometimes the two of them cross paths, they are strictly related, and this is already an answer. I'm not able to use them separately. Surely, the heart is the first cog to go, when i make a decision, when i'm in front of a situation i have to face, the heart is the first cog to go and then there's the head, but this is not always good. Sometimes you should start with you head and then with your heart, especially when you're passionate, otherwise you there's a risk to screw up. I: Perfect. Fabrizio, before we let you go to your job and rehearsals, I want to remeber that he wrote important songs for Emma, Stadio, Elodie, Noemi, Mannoia that is a really important artist, and on stage with you there'll be Fiorella Mannoia, Ermal Meta and also Ultimo who revised with you your song "L'eternità", in this case "L'eternità il mio quartiere". How this collaboration happened? F: Well it's really strange the thing between me and Niccolò because, basically, we arrive from the same place in Rome, and this is already an important coincidence- I: Did you found out at Sanremo or- F: We found out- He come to see my concerts, when he was younger, and this thing make me laugh because one day he showed up, two yeard ago; I was going to do my concert in Rome at Palalottomatica, he brought me the sampler of the songs, he asked me to listen to them and if he can open my concert. I listen to the songs and i liked him really much, then i said "you can open my concert" I'm glad, he was a guy from my own neighborhood and i was happy it was me who can gave him this possibility, I'm proud and glad, especially if it's a good asrtist. He opened the concert, i saw him on stage, i loved him, he was really good, this guy had to do something, and in fact, after two years from that performance, he won Sanremo. He surpassed me, his concert are sold-out, and that's life. I: But sometimes they say you have to surpass you teacher, otherwise the teacher is not good. F: Yeah, yeah, i know. I was a friend, a big brother for him. He's really good and he's also a good guy. He has a beautiful eyes, i talk about the gaze, and Niccolò has a really good story with him wishes to tell. I: And i thank you for this story you told us, and also your meeting, we can all see that you have so much to tell with so much heart, so thank you also for the songs you give us. Happy concert with Fabrizio Moro at the Olimpico. You'll present the songs of your album "Parole rumori e anni" that is a collection. F: Yes, it will be a two and a half hours concert, and we're working on it for a long time, and there will be my dear friends on stage, and i wish i can give an indelible memory to all the guys who'll come saturday night at the concert because i know that most of them... It's an audience that represent me, i know that they have made sacrifices to buy a ticket and for this i thank them for life; thanks to my fan support I have the possibility to live this beautiful dream, to do my dream job. The thing that concerns me is to give an indelible memory every time there is a concert; i go on stage and i would like to have the possibility to not get off ever again. I: Well two and half hours are enough, then you come back soon, all right? We give you a break just like all humans, to eat, to sleep some hours, and then you'll return with new concerts. Don't stop Fabrizio, give us your songs always and thanks for today. We'll listen to your last songs with Ultimo, Fabrizio Moro, 16th June at Olimpico. Thanks Fabrizio! F: See you!

[ellie-mnop]

100 Days of Languages Challenge Day 22

Challenge #60: Learn 1 new grammatical concept/make a post and explain a grammatical concept if you learned everything related to grammar.

This is from yesterday but I fell asleep before I finished, so I’m finishing now and posting this today

I often struggle when trying to talk about periods of time, like how long it’s been since something or how long something took, so I decided to look up some articles about that and write some practice sentences. (I couldn’t find any articles about how to say how long something took, so this is focusing on the “how long it’s been” part.) Here’s what I used: https://streetsmartbrazil.com/faz-2-anos-use-verb-fazer-time/  https://streetsmartbrazil.com/moro-aqui-ha-2-anos-befriend-verb-haver/

Faz cinco anos que sou estudante da universidade, porque estou fazendo minhas aulas um pouco lentamente.

Faz três horas que Lucas está trabalhando na tarefa da escola porque ele tem dificuldade com a matemática, mas faz duas horas que Daniel terminou esta tarefa porque a matemática é facil para ele.

Faz seis meses que eu sou voluntário na biblioteca, mas parece que foi muito menos tempo porque ainda é tanto emocionante como uma coisa nova, e também parece que foi muito mas tempo porque não consigo imaginar minha vida sem isso, e é por isso que sei com certeza que quero fazer isso como um emprego.

Faz quatorze anos que eu não como amêndoas, porque minha alergia foi diagnosticado quando eu tinha nove anos.

Faz duas semanas que Elisa não fala com Isabel, porque ambos delas estão muito ocupadas.

Faz dois dias que você arrumou seu quarto, como é uma bangunça de novo?

Há quase seis anos eu trabalho em Stop & Shop.

Acordei há três horas e ainda uso o pijama.

Eu jogo Dungeons & Dragons faz nove anos, então aprendei o jogo usando as regras da quarta edição.

[elusivegreen]

Gonna slide this in here as one that I’ve made, and also take an opportunity to talk about blades and stuff a little bit as an amateur blacksmith.

The rattle on the parry was one reason attributed to the serpentine style blade, but another was kind of a born of necessity thing. I believe specifically with the Moro Kris, it was an attempt to make a blade that could open a wider wound with a thrust, even though the material of the blade is narrow. 

Going back to the leaf bladed designs, they were very common with Bronze. Now, Bronze cannot be tempered and hardened the same way steel can, but it could be work hardened. The idea behind that would be after the blade was cast in a mold, you could hammer on the edges to draw them out and make them thinner. Not only did this change the general shape of the sword, but the repeated hammer blows would also cause the metal to harden. It’s the same concept as when you bend a paper clip back and forth too many times and it breaks. With that practice, you could leave the spine of the sword a little more pliable and less likely to snap or shatter, while the blade portion would retain it’s edge better.

The same thing happens with steel during the forging process, but there is another stage during the forging called normalizing where you take it up to a critical temperature, and allow it to cool normally so that the grain structure of the metal has the opportunity to realign itself, which gives steel it’s superior strength overall. The quench, which is the big dramatic moment where they plunge the sword into the big vat while it’s red hot, actually locks the structure of the metal in a very specific state, that makes it extremely hard, and brittle. If you tried to hit something with a quenched sword it would shatter like glass. Tempering the steel, is a stage after quenching that helps relax that structure to a point where it won’t do that, although I’ll admit that’s a part of the process I don’t know as much about. 

How this swings back around to the original post is, some of the more obscure or specialized designs you can find in history that may have inspired fantasy designs to a degree, could have been based on the practical application of the material they had on hand. 

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry

[shirlleycoyle]

Why Are Résumés Still a Thing?

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Is there anything more nerve-wracking than having to sell yourself to a prospective employer?

They don’t know you. You don’t know them. And much of the pressure of making sure that connection makes sense too often falls on the individual rather than the potential employer.

At the center of this is the résumé, a document sent to potential employers, often with a customized cover letter, that explains who you are, what you’re doing, and the references you’ve gained over the years.

But where did this approach come from, and why are job applicants seemingly slaves to this dog and pony show?

Let’s look into the history of the résumé—and analyze whether they even make sense anymore.

“Having now sufficiently seen and considered the achievements of all those who count themselves masters and artificers of instruments of war, and having noted that the invention and performance of the said instruments is in no way different from that in common usage, I shall endeavour, while intending no discredit to anyone else, to make myself understood to Your Excellency for the purpose of unfolding to you my secrets, and thereafter offering them at your complete disposal, and when the time is right bringing into effective operation all those things which are in part briefly listed below.”

— Leonardo da Vinci, in a famous letter to Ludovico Sforza, then the duke of Milan and also known as Ludovico il Moro, offering his services to the Lord. This letter, featured in full on the excellent site Letters of Note, is often cited as the first résumé or cover letter. (Some, however, cite the letters sent to guilds in the Middle Ages.) While not as sharply structured as a modern résumé, it shares much in common with the application letter, a common structural element used for job applications hundreds of years later.

Typewriters, with their ability to indent, helped formalize the application letter. Image: Laura Chouette/Unsplash

Before the world of employment became obsessed with the résumé, we called them application letters

The business world is defined by its ever-changing terminology, and one sign of this is that we used to rely on a far more straightforward term to describe what a résumé effectively does.

For decades, we called them “letters of application,” or “application letters.” Written about in business correspondence books of different kinds throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, the documents slowly evolved in level of formality, and were reliant on recommendation letters from prior employers. In the 1883 book The Universal Self-Instructor, a general reference manual, it’s portrayed as serving a similar role to a simple cover letter. An example from the book, for an apprenticeship:

GEORGE S. GORDON, Esq.:

Sir :—

I beg to apply for the situation mentioned in the above advertisement, clipped from today’s Morning Post. I have been employed for the last four months in the foundry of Wheeler & Co., where I was bound apprentice. The recent failure of that concern and closing of the foundry has caused the canceling of my articles, and I am now anxious to obtain work elsewhere. I am permitted to refer to Mr. Charles Wheeler and Mr. Edwin Hoyt.

Hoping that you will be willing to take me on trial, I remain,

Very respectfully,

SAMUEL HENDERSON, 220 Main Street.

This type of letter would appear in books about “business correspondence,” which were a form of reference book for their day. While many books of this nature appeared throughout the first half of the 20th century, they were not written around the résumé, as many later books were.

This type of cover letter-like thing, once handwritten, eventually became more formalized with the addition of the typewriter, which allowed for some rudimentary organizing through the use of indents and tab stops. The approach became more rigid over time, the realm of bullet points and horizontal lines.

As the 1930 book A Course in English for Engineers puts it:

The application letter is essentially a sales letter. It is the means by which a person seeking employment attempts to market his training, his experience, and his personality. He who is successful in selling his services by letter is usually the one who has thoroughly analyzed every essential detail that goes into the writing of an application.

But the interesting thing is that the résumé, as the application letter came to be called, eventually evolved into a much more important form of business correspondence than anything else … at least for a while.

“While a résumé alone almost never earns a job for a person, a good one often serves as the deciding factor in obtaining the all-important interview.”

— Jill Smolowe, a The New York Times contributor, discussing the nature of the résumé in a 1979 article for the paper, written as part of a “Careers in the ’80s” insert, that in many ways seems to be written to introduce the concept to readers.

How the application letter evolved into the résumé

If you walk into any bookstore or library in the world, you’re going to see dozens, possibly even hundreds of books about how to write a good résumé, how to structure it in a way that maximizes what you do best—complete with a great cover letter and a minimal number of typos. Many will tell you to keep things under a page if you’re not above a certain age range; others will tell you that there’s nothing worse for making a first impression than a misplaced comma or repeated word.

But one thing that you likely will not find is a book that explains how to make a résumé that dates before 1970 or so. (Probably the first book on the topic with any long-lasting authority is Richard Bolles’ long-running What Color is Your Parachute? series, a self-help book that discourages the use of spray-and-pray tactics.) Most of them will date to 1980 or beyond, in fact.

While both the résumé and the curriculum vitae existed before then and were frequently asked for in want ads as early as the late 1940s in some professional fields, something appears to have changed in their role starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s—around the time when many service-oriented fields first gained prominence—in which the résumé, particularly in North America, turned into a de facto requirement when applying for most new jobs.

Companies started treating humans as resources around this time, and many workers traded in their blue collars for white ones. It was a big shift, and the résumé was in the middle of it.

Why the name change, though? There are a lot of reasons why “résumé” won out over “application letter,” but I think one of the biggest might come from the education field of the era. The U.S. Department of Education’s Education Resources Information Center launched in 1965, and early in its life, relied on the terminology “document resume” to refer to its bibliographic entries. This information reached schools through documents produced by the Education Department, and my theory is that the influence of this material on educators might just have touched the business world, too.

The shifting nature of work also made the need for more personalized applications more necessary. A 1962 book, Analyzing the Application for Employment, noted the overly complex nature of fill-in-the-blank application forms, and that they would often take hours for prospective employees to fill out. In the book, author Irwin Smalheiser of Personnel Associates highlights an example of one such person stuck dealing with complex application processes:

One man we know, who perpetually seems to be looking for work, has devised a neat system for coping with the application blanks he encounters. He has taken the time to complete a detailed summary of his work history which he carries in his wallet. When he is asked to fill out the company application form, he simply copies the pertinent dates and names of the companies for which he worked.

In many ways, a résumé solves this problem. While some level of modification comes with each specific job, you often can reuse it again and again without having to repeat your work—no need to repeat your references for every job opening, but a cover letter refresh might be helpful. Sure, job applications stuck around for lower-end jobs, like fast food, but the résumé stuck around nearly everywhere else.

In a slower world, it was the best tool we had for applying for a new job. The problem is, the world got faster—and the model began to show its flaws.

This 1995 book, from the Princeton Review, is a good example of a job search advice book.

Five factors that made the résumé a more prominent part of workplace life in the ’80s and ’90s

Culture. With a growing number of companies able to compete on a regional, national, or even global scale, this created additional complexity that facilitated the need for new types of hiring and employee management practices. Starting in the late 1970s, the field of personnel administration took on the name human resources management (HRM), and the role became a more significant element of many companies.

Regulations. The 1965 creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the U.S.—part of a general movement against workplace discrimination—along with regulations on issues such as safety, created a need for a more objective approach to hiring. This played into the need for human resources departments to ensure that the company was an equal opportunity employer.

Technology. Sure, typewriters were nothing new, but access to them, along with the then-new computer and the growing ubiquity of the copying machine, made it easier for people to apply for multiple jobs at once. It was simply easier to apply for a job through the mail than it was to fill out an application form. (And when we got the internet, some of the earliest digital hubs, such as the free web host Tripod, offered résumé writing and job-hunting services to their users. And that was years before LinkedIn.) And when graphical interfaces and word processors became a thing, the first experience many people got with word processing software such as Microsoft Word was in modifying a cover letter template.

Economy. In many ways, the rise of the résumé reflected a shifting role of the employee in an economy built around white collar work. “Indeed—a point to be stressed—HRM in most companies was and is primarily concerned with managers and white-collar employees, not blue-collar workers,” George Strauss, of UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, wrote in 1991. The résumé, for better or for worse, shifted the burden of hiring onto the employee in most cases, particularly during economic dry spells.

Publishing. I wouldn’t put it in the same category as “going viral,” but the business press had a major surge in presence during the 1980s and 1990s, with the nearly century-old Harvard Business Review being rethought for general audiences, old-guard magazines like BusinessWeek and Fortune reaching the peak of their influence, and newer players like Inc. and Fast Company gaining readership. Likewise, reference and resource books targeting business audiences—especially those about how to get a job—had a real moment around this time. The combined result likely helped reinforce the résumé’s role in the business world.

Does the résumé really work anymore? Maybe not.

When I wrote about my desire to research the history of the résumé on Twitter the other day, something interesting and surprising happened: The result attracted a few business types that complained about the ineffectiveness of this tool and the problems it surfaced along the way.

Initially, this bothered me, because it seemed like it was getting away from my main reason for researching this history. But having thought about it some, it makes sense—it hints at the fact that we’re stuck with this outdated research tool, that nobody seems to be happy with, because it fails in a lot of subtle ways.

For all its success in the 1980s and 1990s, the rise of the résumé creates brand new issues.

While they generally do not include photographs, they can allow for latent discrimination, as prospective employers can judge a worker’s eligibility not on the quality of their work or their potential for success, but their implied background. Even a name is enough to throw off a potential employer.

Then there’s the ease of being able to make stuff up, something that has caught up some big-name companies over the years—most famously Yahoo, who lost a CEO, Scott Thompson, after it was revealed he lied about his education.

There’s also the factor of investment: It's often a game of who has the most polished result, not who has the most qualifications. Around 1988, Reagan administration White House staffers ran to professional resume-writing firms to get a layer of slick polish to their job history in an effort to get hired on with then-President George H.W. Bush. Good for them, and anyone else who can pay a lot of money for a professional resume rewrite—but what about people who don’t have the resources to play that game?

And as with things like standardized testing, they put a focus on surface issues that will not correctly tell the story of a person’s true potential. In many ways, work experience matters less in a world where modern technical skills won’t stay the same even five years after the fact.

Too often, many experts note, they focus on the wrong things. Speaking to Fast Company, Carisa Miklusak of the algorithmic hiring firm tilr notes that prior experience matters far less than current abilities and skill set. As a result, results have been pushed off to the side quite often.

“Employers are interested in skills and the results someone can generate, rather than titles or previous employment,” Miklusak told the magazine. “Focusing on skills provides a fuller understanding of the candidate’s experience and capabilities, and opens up more opportunities.”

Some of the most recent startups in the employment space largely eschew the résumé approach entirely. Triplebyte, for example, offers a really challenging quiz intended to find the best technical employees out there for equally technical jobs, leaning on a skill-based referral over a good cover letter in helping to fill a potential dream job. Likewise, other parts of the tech economy are leaning on abilities over degrees.. Likewise, other parts of the tech economy are leaning on abilities over degrees.

Is that strategy going to play out long-term? Who knows. But let’s just say that the CV, or whatever you call it, is really starting to show its age.

Building a good résumé is often a challenge, because the rules keep changing.

As a designer, it was only one part of my portfolio, and I had to combine everything together, cover letter and all, while making it look well-designed and clever. That often meant it was a little less straightforward, because that was the field I was competing in. (No templates here.) As the web came into play, that portfolio needed a digital element. And it also needed to live in other contexts.

As a job seeker I had a pretty decent track record, barring that time I interviewed at a newspaper on the day Pope John Paul II died. (That’s not made up. It was an odd situation that probably cost me a job, but one I don’t blame on the newspaper itself. Plus, it earned me an opportunity at an equally good job a couple of months later.)

For a while, I would update my résumé and portfolio every year, even if I wasn’t looking for a new job, just to keep in the habit, because the ground is always changing. But increasingly, I sort of feel like the approach had grown out of date—it especially doesn’t hold up well to career changes. For the last job I legitimately applied for, roughly eight years ago, I sent over a design portfolio and a one-sheeter about a website I ran. My current position didn’t even have very much to do with graphic design, but it was what I had been doing, so that was what I sent along.

I feel challenged to explain what I do today in this form. I feel like, if you care, you’ll find me—because that’s what the “gig economy” is all about.

In a way, this philosophy isn’t all that far off from the thinking of one of the earliest innovators in resume writing, an English land surveyor named Ralph Agas. During the 16th and 17th centuries, he used a variety of methods to market his relevant skills to the public, and one of those was by creating flyers that told the public of his sizable skills as a surveyor. He was advertising at a time few other people were, and it stood out.

Often, this is cited as one of the first cover letters, but I think it’s something else: This might be the first Facebook Page, and he might be the first influence marketer, beating out Bob Vila by 400 years. (Sorry, Bob.)

Maybe that’s the problem: Getting a job means standing out—and because the résumé has gotten so old and staid, it’s not doing that anymore.

Why Are Résumés Still a Thing? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[loose-leaf-teacanons]

Can you do also kikasa for the otp questions please?

1. Who liked the other first?

Kise. XD He’s not even surprised by it initially, because he gets temporary mini-crushes on people who impress him really easily, especially if they give him a hard time. With Kasamatsu, it’s kind of embarrassing, though – the guy is his captain, and a sour-faced hardass, and he’s not that impressive, okay, self??? Just because he ripped you a new one on your first day doesn’t mean he’s worthy of the dokis! You have standards!

He fully expects the stupid mini-crush to fade, and maybe it would, except Kasamatsu-senpai– (what the hell, self?! could you stop getting the dokis from calling somebody “senpai”? Urgh! …okay could you at least stop getting the dokis harder? /Please/?).

Well, except Kasamatsu-senpai keeps doing all those things Kise never even knew he needed (except for the whole throwing-stuff-at-his-head, though okay, if Kise is perfectly, entirely honest, sometimes he needs that, too. But don’t tell Senpai!!!), and he’s so passionate about basketball, and he works so hard, and he looks after everyone, and he’s got kind of a cute smile (one that sits a bit crooked like it’s not sure it should be staying on his face), and he’s actually pretty cool to be around, and he doesn’t talk down to Kise at all even though he’s really big on the senpai-kouhai stuff, and there’s something about his hard-won but earnest praise that makes Kise want to try ten times harder every time he’s on the receiving end of it, and how weird is that?

It doesn’t fully click for Kise until the Interhigh, where he ends up so taken care of and comforted (and he didn’t even know that was possible after failing to win, because at Teiko you just didn’t fail, period), only to then catch a glimpse of all the hurt and disappointment and frustration that Kasamatsu-senpai went off to bear alone, without letting on how he’s feeling to anyone, and that’s… yep, that’s the sound of Kise’s heart breaking.

That’s when he’s hit with something he hasn’t ever felt before, this overwhelming urge to not just bask in somebody’s company, care and attention but to give something back to them, to do even a little bit for them what they do for him.

That’s the moment it kind of starts dawning on him that this is love. He’s always thought of love as this burst-into-song thing with lots of flirting and pursuing and hearts and flowers and dates, that he never even thought it would actually be this, this “I will protect you and your happiness even if I die trying and even if you never know about it (actually it’s better if you don’t or you’d throw a basketball at me >.>) and I can’t imagine anything better than just seeing you proud and victorious and content.”

So yes, suffice it to say, he is so very, very screwed.

Kasamatsu, for his part, has Kise rather firmly in his “kouhai” drawer the entire time. Yeah, Kise’s special to him (special in the head! *eyeroll*), someone he feels responsible for and who is actually a good kid and pretty good company once you get at the passionate, hard-working, sharp personality buried under all that Teikou crap and the celebrity bullshit.

It’s not until he leaves for university that Kise even gets shuffled into the “friend” drawer (though they’ve been friends before that, obviously, it’s just Kasamatsu’s archaic and painfully earnest idea of senpai-kouhai dynamics that stops him from thinking of them as such), and sure, it’s probably a bit weird for Kise to remain so attached to him (seriously, did I clock him on the head too hard or something?), and it’s probably considerably weirder that Kasamatsu remains attached right back, but whatever, right?

And if he calls him rather more than he calls anyone else, if he schedules all his course load and homework so they get the occasional free weekend to meet up, if he shows up to watch all of Kaijou’s championship matches without fail, if he keeps sending Kise music mixes and remembering his birthday when he can’t remember anyone else’s without consulting his phone first (including his own; July… somethingsomething, right? *checks ID card*), well… anyway, that’s just how it’s always been with Kise.

(That sound you’re hearing, btw, is Moriyama and Kobori synchro-smacking their heads against the wall)

So yeah, Kise has his work cut out for him. XD

2. Where is their ‘special spot’?

Where indeed, senp– ow. Mean!

Kidding aside, I don’t think they really have one. Kise is always drawn to new places – he’s like a human Siri for trendy cafés, shops, movie theaters, music venues, etc. Kasamatsu calls it a skill that’s both amazingly useless and uselessly amazing, and Kise just sticks his tongue out because whatever, Senpai, you just admitted I’m amazing~~~! *sidesteps rib jab*

Kasamatsu himself tends to attach more significance to the events/memories than the places they happened in.

3. How do they cheer one another up?

Depends on what’s wrong, tbh. Kise is kind of a melodramatic handful to begin with, and he can bitch endlessly about small things like some kind of workplace rivalry or whatever, though in such cases he’s usually content to fling himself on the couch in an epic fit of pique and complain about it loudly and emphatically.

Kasamatsu will mostly leave him to it and go about whatever it was he was doing before Kise made his dramatic entrance, and then come back a couple of minutes later and be like, “So, you good?” (and Kise will whine for a while about how callous and disinterested Yukio-san is in his terrible plight, you go to get coffee while the light of your life is suffering from the cruelty and injustice of the wo–ow ow ow not my nooooose!!!)

But yeah, it’s easy to tell when Kise is truly upset because his entire being just dims. In those instances, Kasamatsu doesn’t say much, just holds Kise as he attempts to fold up all 189 cm of himself against Kasamatsu’s chest and maybe have a good cry. Kise will usually tell him what’s wrong after he’s all cried out, and Kasamatsu just stays and listens and tries to help him untangle whatever issue it was for as long as it takes.

Kasamatsu’s upsets are really quiet, and tense, and you can just watch the furrow in his brow deepen, and every fiber of his being tightening, and still he doesn’t say anything and keeps it to himself out of some idiotic idea that he has to be strong and work it all out himself. It’s incredibly frustrating for Kise, who knows he’s not nearly as experienced at comforting people or that good with giving advice, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try, dammit!

What usually happens is he human-barnacles himself to Kasamatsu before he can vibrate out of his skin from all the tension, puts his chin on Kasamatsu’s head and tells him to talk, Yukio-san in a tone that brooks no argument, so Kasamatsu eventually deflates and does.

4. What is their favourite movie to watch together?

They like watching action comedies and sports movies together (and man do they love to rant about how inaccurate the latter often are, seriously, that coach should be fired for such an untenable training regimen and that captain is a complete idiot).

Kise also loves cheesy romance movies and tearjerky K-dramas, though those frustrate Kasamatsu endlessly with their idiotic cliché plots and people’s inability to just fucking talk to each other, what the fuck, so he usually goes to do something else while Kise catches up with the 537th episode of Passion Island or whatever.

Though occasionally he can’t help but overhear something or other and comments on it semi-automatically from across two rooms, like telling the crying heroine to “Just dump that guy, he’s a fucker” and he’s not even doing it to be a smart-ass or anything – like for a moment he’s genuinely giving advice to this idiot character he doesn’t even care about, and Kise suddenly can’t with the cute.

5. When did they know that they are each other’s soul mate?

Oh good god, no. I mean, Kise will sometimes jokingly call them soul mates, but as romantic as that concept is in the context of a movie, he much prefers this relationship where they have to compromise and learn to fit around each other’s little quirks and smooth out each other’s edges, and sometimes they fight, too, but that’s all part of what makes working things out together so worthwhile.

Kasamatsu just doesn’t get the concept, not even in a fictional sense, and it continues to baffle him that people like Moriyama can actually go on a hunt for a “soul mate” in real life, honestly, are you an idiot??? He just finds it so unrealistic that people expect to find someone “perfect” for them, and then have a crisis at the first sign of disagreement or whine about actually having to put in an effort. Moro––hmmmfhfhgh! *snogged within an inch of his life by Kise*

6. Where do they primarily kiss one another out in public? Examples forehead, cheek, hand etc.

They usually don’t? Kasamatsu gets easily embarrassed by PDA in general, plus they’re both mindful of the fact that Kise is becoming an increasingly public figure (once his career really takes off), and one thing they can both do without is having their relationship splayed out and picked apart in stupid gossip columns or lived through vicariously by crazy fans or whatever.

That said, Kise is really good at picking moments or places where nobody’s paying attention. Kasamatsu has found himself tugged into alcoves and behind clothes racks, or pecked in the half-second before he gets out of the car, and then he has to spend fifteen minutes getting rid of his flaming face. Urgh.

7. Who goes all out for the other persons birthday?

Nah. They’re both pretty low-key with each other. It’s all small, practical gifts and cake, mostly. Sometimes they’ll organize old team get-togethers for the occasion, but yeah, it’s all pleasantly uncomplicated.

8. Whose clothes is too big for the other, but they wear them anyway?

I’ve said it before, but I will say it again: Kise is simply heart-broken that Kasamatsu refuses to wear any of his clothes, and that he himself is too big to fit any of Kasamatsu’s. Sometimes he’ll steal a sweater to drape over his shoulders and be all pouty because that’s the best he can manage.

9. Who is the one who stays up late baking brownies and dancing in their underwear wearing a baggy shirt, and who is the one who comes down to see the other being all cute?

I’m sorry, I still find the idea kinda creepy in general. XD And they? Are so not the type to do this, even if this were a thing people actually did.

10. Would they cuddle even though it is super hot outside?

Kise tries, peels away ten seconds later to complain about how it’s too hot to do this, tries again half a minute later only to establish that it’s still too hot to do this, and this’ll go on until Kasamatsu threatens to dump his ass on the floor.

[drannafrost]

40 Years On, Why We Don’t Know Much About Lyme Disease

As you may or may not know, Erwin Schrödinger examined not-knowing and truthfulness in what is commonly referred to as the “cat paradox experiment” (Barad, 2007, p. 275; Lindley, 2007, p. xi; Schrödinger, 1980/1983, p. 152). In this famous thought experiment, Schrödinger created the problem of a cat in a box with a radioactive source and a Geiger counter. In the course of 60 minutes, one radioactive atom may or may not be released. At the one-hour mark, the observer may actually witness a cat jump out of the box and appear to be alive and well. But is it? Direct observation does not and cannot tell the whole story.

Though some misunderstood the principle of the experiment as a kind of “blurring,” Schrödinger’s experiment instead suggested the presence of an unclear or contradictory reality, according to Barad (2007, pp. 275-278). Barad suggested that this unclear or contradictory reality did not mean that the cat was either: alive or dead; alive and dead; or partly alive and partly dead. To perceive the cat paradox in this way would be to engage in a binary affair. Instead, the cat’s fate was literally in an entangled state: the fate of the cat was entangled with the fate of the atom.

Further, what Barad (2007) found “most disturbing” (p. 280) about the cat paradox experiment was that it illustrated the nature of the transition of the state of the cat during the process of observation. The value of the object, therefore, was no longer one thing or another, but rather what Colebrook (2007) called “a becoming” (p. 78). When one can liberate lived experience from concept, reality becomes less about time and more about iterative transformation (p. 78).

This understanding of transformation in relation to time, reality, and being is an excellent way to think about and transcend the binary affairs in lyme studies. The issue of serological testing is one binary affair that can subsequently lead people down a rabbit trail of other binary affairs, such as diagnosis, treatment protocols, and the issue of chronicity. Focusing on testing for now, serological tests look for antibodies, which is considered to be a sign of active infection. Therefore, some members of the lyme community interpret a negative test result to indicate that no active infection exists (Lantos, 2011, p. 790). To many in lyme studies, the case would be closed and patients “crying lyme” are actually suffering from another illness. However, physicians who disagree with the conclusion of these negative results may go ahead and diagnose and treat lyme disease anyway. They cite uncontrolled studies with high reporting biases for the reason why they cannot exclude the possibility that patients have lyme disease (Lantos et al., 2010a, pp. 3-4; Johnson & Stricker, 2010a, p. 1109). Ironically, those who interpret negative test results to be not-lyme point to those same studies as sufficient evidence—despite simultaneously believing case studies, anecdotes, and patient testimonials are sloppy and unscientific practices.

In any case, what many members of the lyme community from both sides of the issue of serological testing may fail to remember is that lyme disease in itself is untidy. For instance, consider one of the main sticking points surrounding diagnosis: active infection. Recalling Schrödinger’s cat paradox experiment, imagine that the cat is the lyme body and the radiation atom is a lyme pathogen. If the fate of the lyme body is entangled with the fate of the pathogen, naturally many questions arise: What exactly is active infection? How does active infection manifest or not manifest as observable sickness? Do the contents of a vial of blood drawn at one particular minute of one particular hour of one particular day indicate a definitive presence or absence of infection? Moreover, what is one to do with evidence that indicates that different labs yielded different results from the same specimen (Luger & Krauss, 1990, p. 762)? And what is one to do about evidence that showed the same lab can yield drastically different results from the same specimen (Bakken et al., 1997, p. 537)? Also, how do experiences, traumas, medical treatments, naturally aging biological bodies, sex, geographic location, environmental factors, and so forth, intra-act with the lyme pathogen over time? Like the cat in the box, at any given moment, the fate of the lyme body is in an entangled state with the fate of the infection.

To help flesh this out a bit more, it helps to explore one aspect of quantum physics known as a “quantum leap.” These leaps are not jumps in the sense that an electron moves from one orbit to another on one continuous trajectory; the electron does not move from a here-now to a there-then, as Barad (2007) put it. Instead, what makes the quantum leap “queer” (p. 182) is that no determinacy exists as to when and where the electron jumps, which makes “continuity and discontinuity . . . crucial to the open-ended becoming of the world,” Barad said (p. 182). In this way, lyme studies would flourish if it kept an open-ended attitude towards the lyme body and even the pathogens that infect it. Though technology and observation will help mysteries emerge, the body will always be there to lead the way through and make sense of them.

For instance, if one were to take a clinical history of a typical lyme body, one would often find a history of symptomatic flare-ups (U.S. Senate, Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 1993, p. 37). In my observations, many lyme sufferers experience on average about 10 years of illness with many flare-ups scattered throughout that time. Because the symptoms vary in intensity and length and appear as other diseases or illnesses, both medical practitioners and sufferers tend not to perceive all those episodes being part of a single disease. Usually, around the 10-year mark, these sufferers no longer have episodes of perhaps a week or maybe a month or more. Instead, their flare-ups become one, long continuous bout of symptoms. Having exhausted all other possible etiologies, bank accounts, physical strength, and relational capital, somehow they find the last-known person who seems to listen to what their body is communicating: the lyme-literate doctor.

In conclusion, transformation and quantum leaps in spacetimematter challenges the expectations about the certainty of lyme knowledge. As such, that a person can be suffering from lyme disease in spite of the pre-arranged script determined 40 years ago should be all the validation one needs for the insufficiency of current lyme knowledge.

References

Bakken, L. L., Callister, S. M., Wand, P. J., & Schell, R. F. (1997). Interlaboratory comparison of test results for detection of Lyme disease by 516 participants in the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene/College of American Pathologists Proficiency Testing Program. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 35(3), 537-543.

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Colebrook, C. (2008). On not becoming man: The materialist politics of unactualized potential. In S. Alaimo & S. Hekman (Eds.), Material feminisms (pp. 52-84). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Johnson, L., & Stricker, R. B. (2010a). Final report of the Lyme disease review panel of the Infectious Diseases Society of America: A pyrrhic victory? Clinical Infectious Diseases, 51(9), 1108-1009. doi:10.1086/656690

Lantos, P. M., Charini, W. A., Medoff, G., Moro, M. H., Mushatt, D. M., Parsonnet, J., . . . Baker, C. J. (2010a). Final report of the Lyme disease review panel of the Infectious Disease Society of America. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 51(1), 1-5. doi:10.1086/654809

Lantos, P. M. (2011). Chronic Lyme disease: The controversies and the science. Expert Review of Anti-Infective Therapy, 9(7), 787-797. doi:10.1586/ERI.11.63

Lindley, D. (2007). Introduction. In W. Heisenberg, Physics and philosophy: The revolution of modern science (pp. vii-xxi). New York: Harper Perennial.

Luger, S. W., & Krauss, E. (1990). Serologic tests for Lyme disease. Archives of Internal Medicine, 150, 761-763.

Schrödinger, E. (1983). The present situation in quantum mechanics (J. D. Trimmer, Trans.). In J. Wheeler & W. H. Zurek (Eds.), Quantum theory and measurement (pp. 152-167). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Reprinted from 1980, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 124, 323-338)

U.S. Senate, Committee on Labor and Human Resources. (1993, August 5). Lyme disease: A diagnostic and treatment dilemma (S. Hrg. 103-265). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[96thdayofrage]

A wide range of politicians and media outlets have described the alleged Russian interference in the last US presidential election (by way of hacking) as representing a direct threat to American democracy and even to national security itself. Of course, the irony behind these concerns about the interference of foreign nations in the domestic political affairs of the United States is that the US has blatantly interfered in the elections of many other nations, with methods that include not only financial support to preferred parties and the circulation of propaganda but also assassinations and overthrows of even democratically elected regimes. Indeed, the US has a long criminal history of meddling into the political affairs of other nations -- a history that spans at least a century and, since the end of World War II, extends into all regions of the globe, including western parliamentary polities. This interview with Noam Chomsky reminds us that the United States is no stranger to election interference; in fact, it is an expert in this arena.

C. J. Polychroniou: Noam, the US intelligence agencies have accused Russia of interference in the US presidential election in order to boost Trump's chances, and some leading Democrats have actually gone on record saying that the Kremlin's canny operatives changed the election outcome. What's your reaction to all this talk in Washington and among media pundits about Russian cyber and propaganda efforts to influence the outcome of the presidential election in Donald Trump's favor?

Noam Chomsky: Much of the world must be astonished -- if they are not collapsing in laughter -- while watching the performances in high places and in media concerning Russian efforts to influence an American election, a familiar US government specialty as far back as we choose to trace the practice. There is, however, merit in the claim that this case is different in character: By US standards, the Russian efforts are so meager as to barely elicit notice.

Let's talk about the long history of US meddling in foreign political affairs, which has always been morally and politically justified as the spread of American style-democracy throughout the world.

The history of US foreign policy, especially after World War II, is pretty much defined by the subversion and overthrow of foreign regimes, including parliamentary regimes, and the resort to violence to destroy popular organizations that might offer the majority of the population an opportunity to enter the political arena.

Following the Second World War, the United States was committed to restoring the traditional conservative order. To achieve this aim, it was necessary to destroy the anti-fascist resistance, often in favor of Nazi and fascist collaborators, to weaken unions and other popular organizations, and to block the threat of radical democracy and social reform, which were live options under the conditions of the time. These policies were pursued worldwide: in Asia, including South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina and crucially, Japan; in Europe, including Greece, Italy, France and crucially, Germany; in Latin America, including what the CIA took to be the most severe threats at the time, "radical nationalism" in Guatemala and Bolivia.

Sometimes the task required considerable brutality. In South Korea, about 100,000 people were killed in the late 1940s by security forces installed and directed by the United States. This was before the Korean war, which Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings describe as "in essence" a phase -- marked by massive outside intervention -- in "a civil war fought between two domestic forces: a revolutionary nationalist movement, which had its roots in tough anti-colonial struggle, and a conservative movement tied to the status quo, especially to an unequal land system," restored to power under the US occupation. In Greece in the same years, hundreds of thousands were killed, tortured, imprisoned or expelled in the course of a counterinsurgency operation, organized and directed by the United States, which restored traditional elites to power, including Nazi collaborators, and suppressed the peasant- and worker-based communist-led forces that had fought the Nazis. In the industrial societies, the same essential goals were realized, but by less violent means.

Yet it is true that there have been cases where the US was directly involved in organizing coups even in advanced industrial democracies, such as in Australia and Italy in the mid-1970s. Correct?

Yes, there is evidence of CIA involvement in a virtual coup that overturned the Whitlam Labor government in Australia in 1975, when it was feared that Whitlam might interfere with Washington's military and intelligence bases in Australia. Large-scale CIA interference in Italian politics has been public knowledge since the congressional Pike Report was leaked in 1976, citing a figure of over $65 million to approved political parties and affiliates from 1948 through the early 1970s. In 1976, the Aldo Moro government fell in Italy after revelations that the CIA had spent $6 million to support anti-communist candidates. At the time, the European communist parties were moving towards independence of action with pluralistic and democratic tendencies (Eurocommunism), a development that in fact pleased neither Washington nor Moscow. For such reasons, both superpowers opposed the legalization of the Communist Party of Spain and the rising influence of the Communist Party in Italy, and both preferred center-right governments in France. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described the "major problem" in the Western alliance as "the domestic evolution in many European countries," which might make Western communist parties more attractive to the public, nurturing moves towards independence and threatening the NATO alliance."

US interventions in the political affairs of other nations have always been morally and politically justified as part of the faith in the doctrine of spreading American-style democracy, but the actual reason was of course the spread of capitalism and the dominance of business rule. Was faith in the spread of democracy ever tenable?

No belief concerning US foreign policy is more deeply entrenched than the one regarding the spread of American-style democracy. The thesis is commonly not even expressed, merely presupposed as the basis for reasonable discourse on the US role in the world.

The faith in this doctrine may seem surprising. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the conventional doctrine is tenable. If by "American-style democracy," we mean a political system with regular elections but no serious challenge to business rule, then US policymakers doubtless yearn to see it established throughout the world. The doctrine is therefore not undermined by the fact that it is consistently violated under a different interpretation of the concept of democracy: as a system in which citizens may play some meaningful part in the management of public affairs.

So, what lessons can be drawn from all this about the concept of democracy as understood by US policy planners in their effort to create a new world order?

One problem that arose as areas were liberated from fascism [after World War II] was that traditional elites had been discredited, while prestige and influence had been gained by the resistance movement, based largely on groups responsive to the working class and poor, and often committed to some version of radical democracy. The basic quandary was articulated by Churchill's trusted adviser, South African Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts, in 1943, with regard to southern Europe: "With politics let loose among those peoples," he said, "we might have a wave of disorder and wholesale Communism." Here the term "disorder" is understood as threat to the interests of the privileged, and "Communism," in accordance with usual convention, refers to failure to interpret "democracy" as elite dominance, whatever the other commitments of the "Communists" may be. With politics let loose, we face a "crisis of democracy," as privileged sectors have always understood.

In brief, at that moment in history, the United States faced the classic dilemma of Third World intervention in large parts of the industrial world as well. The US position was "politically weak" though militarily and economically strong. Tactical choices are determined by an assessment of strengths and weaknesses. The preference has, quite naturally, been for the arena of force and for measures of economic warfare and strangulation, where the US has ruled supreme.

Wasn't the Marshall Plan a tool for consolidating capitalism and spreading business rule throughout Europe after World War II?

Very much so. For example, the extension of Marshall Plan aid in countries like France and Italy was strictly contingent on exclusion of communists -- including major elements of the anti-fascist resistance and labor -- from the government; "democracy," in the usual sense. US aid was critically important in early years for suffering people in Europe and was therefore a powerful lever of control, a matter of much significance for US business interests and longer term planning. The fear in Washington was that the communist left would emerge victorious in Italy and France without massive financial assistance.

On the eve of the announcement of the Marshall Plan, Ambassador to France Jefferson Caffery warned Secretary of State Marshall of grim consequences if the communists won the elections in France: "Soviet penetration of Western Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East would be greatly facilitated" (May 12, 1947). The dominoes were ready to fall. During May, the US pressured political leaders in France and Italy to form coalition governments excluding the communists. It was made clear and explicit that aid was contingent on preventing an open political competition, in which left and labor might dominate. Through 1948, Secretary of State Marshall and others publicly emphasized that if communists were voted into power, US aid would be terminated; no small threat, given the state of Europe at the time.

In France, the postwar destitution was exploited to undermine the French labor movement, along with direct violence. Desperately needed food supplies were withheld to coerce obedience, and gangsters were organized to provide goon squads and strike breakers, a matter that is described with some pride in semi-official US labor histories, which praise the AFL [American Federation of Labor] for its achievements in helping to save Europe by splitting and weakening the labor movement (thus frustrating alleged Soviet designs) and safeguarding the flow of arms to Indochina for the French war of re-conquest, another prime goal of the US labor bureaucracy. The CIA reconstituted the mafia for these purposes, in one of its early operations. The quid pro quo was restoration of the heroin trade. The US government connection to the drug boom continued for many decades.

US policies toward Italy basically picked up where they had been broken off by World War II. The United States had supported Mussolini's Fascism from the 1922 takeover through the 1930s. Mussolini's wartime alliance with Hitler terminated these friendly relations, but they were reconstituted as US forces liberated southern Italy in 1943, establishing the rule of Field Marshall [Pietro] Badoglio and the royal family that had collaborated with the Fascist government. As Allied forces drove towards the north, they dispersed the anti-fascist resistance along with local governing bodies it had formed in its attempt to establish a new democratic state in the zones it had liberated from Germany. Eventually, a center-right government was established with neo-fascist participation and the left soon excluded.

Here too, the plan was for the working classes and the poor to bear the burden of reconstruction, with lowered wages and extensive firing. Aid was contingent on removing communists and left socialists from office, because they defended workers' interests and thus posed a barrier to the intended style of recovery, in the view of the State Department. The Communist Party was collaborationist; its position "fundamentally meant the subordination of all reforms to the liberation of Italy and effectively discouraged any attempt in northern areas to introduce irreversible political changes as well as changes in the ownership of the industrial companies ... disavowing and discouraging those workers' groups that wanted to expropriate some factories," as Gianfranco Pasquino put it. But the Party did try to defend jobs, wages and living standards for the poor and thus "constituted a political and psychological barrier to a potential European recovery program," historian John Harper comments, reviewing the insistence of Kennan and others that communists be excluded from government though agreeing that it would be "desirable" to include representatives of what Harper calls "the democratic working class." The recovery, it was understood, was to be at the expense of the working class and the poor.

Because of its responsiveness to the needs of these social sectors, the Communist Party was labelled "extremist" and "undemocratic" by US propaganda, which also skillfully manipulated the alleged Soviet threat. Under US pressure, the Christian Democrats abandoned wartime promises about workplace democracy and the police, sometimes under the control of ex-fascists, were encouraged to suppress labor activities. The Vatican announced that anyone who voted for the communists in the 1948 election would be denied sacraments, and backed the conservative Christian Democrats under the slogan: "O con Cristo o contro Cristo" ("Either with Christ or against Christ"). A year later, Pope Pius excommunicated all Italian communists.

A combination of violence, manipulation of aid and other threats, and a huge propaganda campaign sufficed to determine the outcome of the critical 1948 election, essentially bought by US intervention and pressures.

The CIA operations to control the Italian elections, authorized by the National Security Council in December 1947, were the first major clandestine operation of the newly formed agency. CIA operations to subvert Italian democracy continued into the 1970s at a substantial scale.

In Italy, as well as elsewhere, US labor leaders, primarily from the AFL, played an active role in splitting and weakening the labor movement, and inducing workers to accept austerity measures while employers reaped rich profits. In France, the AFL had broken dock strikes by importing Italian scab labor paid by US businesses. The State Department called on the Federation's leadership to exercise their talents in union-busting in Italy as well, and they were happy to oblige. The business sector, formerly discredited by its association with Italian fascism, undertook a vigorous class war with renewed confidence. The end result was the subordination of the working class and the poor to the traditional rulers.

Later commentators tend to see the US subversion of democracy in France and Italy as a defense of democracy. In a highly-regarded study of the CIA and American democracy, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones describes "the CIA's Italian venture," along with its similar efforts in France, as "a democracy-propping operation," though he concedes that "the selection of Italy for special attention ... was by no means a matter of democratic principle alone;" our passion for democracy was reinforced by the strategic importance of the country. But it was a commitment to "democratic principle" that inspired the US government to impose the social and political regimes of its choice, using the enormous power at its command and exploiting the privation and distress of the victims of the war, who must be taught not to raise their heads if we are to have true democracy.

A more nuanced position is taken by James Miller in his monograph on US policies towards Italy. Summarizing the record, he concludes that "in retrospect, American involvement in the stabilization of Italy was a significant, if troubling, achievement. American power assured Italians the right to choose their future form of government and also was employed to ensure that they chose democracy. In defense of that democracy against real but probably overestimated foreign and domestic threats, the United States used undemocratic tactics that tended to undermine the legitimacy of the Italian state."

The "foreign threats," as he had already discussed, were hardly real; the Soviet Union watched from a distance as the US subverted the 1948 election and restored the traditional conservative order, keeping to its wartime agreement with Churchill that left Italy in the Western zone. The "domestic threat" was the threat of democracy.

The idea that US intervention provided Italians with freedom of choice while ensuring that they chose "democracy" (in our special sense of the term) is reminiscent of the attitude of the extreme doves towards Latin America: that its people should choose freely and independently -- as long as doing so did not impact US interests adversely.

The democratic ideal, at home and abroad, is simple and straightforward: You are free to do what you want, as long as it is what we want you to do.