#something something capitalism squashes originality

[pop-squeak]

scrap all tv shows rn we need to bring star trek tos back

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Brief history of this request! 🤡 I originally wrote this as a response to it; the original interaction went up a little while before the book 7 part 3 update was released… and that update happened to give us a lot more information about the Shroud family dynamics. It was unfortunately bad timing!

This post is a rewrite which incorporates the new Shroud family canon from the update.

***Contains major plot spoilers for book 6 of the main story!***

Family means Nobody is Left Behind or Forgotten.

The students of Night Raven College had become accustomed to rather odd sightings—so when young Ortho Shroud sailed by them with two floating tablets in tow, no one batted an eye at it. That shut-in brother of his, the rumor was, maybe he multiplied. In a sense, there was truth to that theory.

“It’s so nice to have the whole family together!” gushed a woman’s squeaky voice from one device. “Isn’t it, Papa? Everyone’s so busy, we hardly get to do these kinds of things anymore.”

Beside her, her husband cleared his throat. He replied with a blunt, somewhat stiff, “Mmm, quite. It is… certainly a different environment than the laboratory.”

Idia didn’t know which was worse—his mother’s smothering cuteness, or his father’s calculating aloofness. The love and the logic. In anime and manga, they were amusing enough archetypes. But in reality? Cringe with a capital C, especially when they were acting as a unit in public.

He could feel the heat of his peers’ gazes directed at him as they passed like phantoms trailing over a graveyard. The curiosity, the whispers, the stares. The only thing that was keeping Idia sane was the safety offered by his tablet’s screen.

Hunkered down in his Ignihyde bedroom, he was safe from direct judgment—but not free of the embarrassment his parents provided. No, that was always eternal.

“Wh-Why did you guys even bothering showing up on the NRC Family Day banner…” Idia grumbled under his breath. Man, the one time I didn’t want to pull the SSRs… and they came home anyway!

There was an appalled gasp from the end of the line. “Of course Mama and Papa came! It’s Family Day. It’s a time us parents to see what mischief our genius little boys have gotten up to while they’re away!”

Idia couldn’t see his mother’s image on her screen, but he could only imagine she was winking in a conspiring manner to Mr. Shroud. He would give an awkward smile beneath his helmet and probably say something in agreement with her.

“Ideally, we’ve have liked to come in person,” his mother continued.

Mr. Shroud cleared his voice and neatly cut in. “However, with the recent incident… well, let’s just say we’ve had to lay low and wait for the dust to settle. My staff are working overtime moderating the metrics of this situation.”

“Quite right, dear! We can’t exactly waltz into Night Raven College! It would put us at risk of being scrutinized, especially with all the viral internet rumors swirling around.”

“Shadowy secret organization puppeteers Twisted Wonderland,” Mr. Shroud recited, shaking his head in disapproval, “Lizard people real, global warming is a hoax, tap water turning the frogs gay… Where do the youths come up with such preposterous claims?”

They’re covering their bases, Idia told himself. After that incident… We never wiped the subjects’ memories with the River Lethe. It exposes a chink in our armor—they could talk, spread what they know.

Then… Th-There’s no way people wouldn’t be curious. Internet sleuths with nothing better to do will dig up dirt from the most obscure corners of the web and tout it as truth!! That’s why even STYX has been having such a hard time containing it.

“What are you gonna do? Haters gonna hate.” Idia shrugged. “… I get it. You don’t have to go explaining yourselves to us. It’s a waste of breath.”

Cynicism slipped in at the last second. A habit, hard to squash.

Ortho chimed in, clearing the air with his cheer. “Nii-san’s right! What’s important is that we get to spend time together, bonding like any other family does.”

He extended his arms to them, as if reaching for hands to hold. Bur though there was nothing for the android to grasp, there was no hiding his effervescent smile. “I’m really happy that we can do this!”

Idia’s heart, so familiar with the ice that encased the Phantoms and the chill of Tartarus, melted. “Ortho…”

An ear-splitting squeal came from one of the tablets. “Kyaaaah! You’re so cute, Or-kun!! Mama wishes she was right there on Sage’s Island to squish your little face!! You too, Idia-kun! Don’t think you can escape from your mother!”

Mr. Shroud’s voice dragged into a patient sigh. “We discussed keeping a low profile.”

“Aww, but papa!” (Idia could practically hear the pout in her tone.) “It’s a parent’s instinct to want to hug and shower her children with love~”

“Y-You’re going to attract unwanted attention though…” Idia nervously pointed out—one thing he could see eye-to-eye with his father on. They were split down the middle.

Through his camera, he could already spot passerbys slowing and staring. Sweat collected on his palms, on his forehead.

“What’s going on over there…?”

“There’s a boy with blue flames for hair.”

“Is he a Shroud?”

“He has weird things floating around him.”

Unperturbed, Ortho waved at the curious gawkers. “Hello!! I’m spending time with my family today!” he announced with his full chest out.

“Aw, what an adorable kid.”

“Are they phoning in? Gosh, they must be busy—but they still care enough to attend. That’s great!”

“Have fun with your family, champ!!”

Eh? Ehhhhh?! What’s what this after-school special I’m seeing play out?! Everyone’s so upbeat and sparkling… a-almost like one of Cater-shi’s impossible Magicam filters was just applied to the whole campus!!

Something in Idia wanted to scoff at the sight, to dismiss it outright. For as long as he could remember, the Shrouds had been shunned by the sunlight. A bloodline cursed by the gods. Never to be heroes, never normal.

But if Ortho is happy, then… this was all worth it, wasn’t it?

Yet something else, too, called out. Some small, almost forgotten, fragmented part of him. A small flower growing in the darkest pits of the Underworld.

Hope.

A zero that had suddenly turned into 0.001%. Connected again, heart to heart—even if only for a single fleeting moment.

“… Dad, mom, Ortho,” Idia said slowly, “we can’t stand around like NPCs waiting to be talked to. We’ll miss out on the limited time event. Let’s go, the whole party.”

“Nii-san…!!”

Ortho’s whole face lit up, his joy turning absolutely electric. He nearly tackled Idia’s device as he seized it and spun in a giddy circle. There was laughter from the younger Shroud, and confused sputtering from the elder one.

“Would you look at that, Papa?” Mrs. Shroud giggled softly to herself. “It looks like our boys have become such good friends.”

“… That’s good,” her husband replied. “I was concerned that Idia was still beside himself with grief—but thankfully, he’s made tremendous progress.”

“Ehehehe. It’s all thanks to Or-kun coming into our lives. He ended up being the password to unlocking Idia’s almost impenetrable fire walls.”

“Indeed. Our children have come a long way.” The corners of Mr. Shroud’s lips threatened to pull up and back. “No longer boys, but young men.”

[rosewind2007]

Ha!

Some people have asked in the last 48 hours:

“Like why the hell would anyone ship Murderbot and Gurathin?”

(I like to imagine them like ART clutching its function in Artificial Condition—“Ship Gurathin and Murderbot? That is irrational!”)

So, let me explain…no, there is too much. Let me make a few points:

This really starts out by asking the question: why did Gurathin want to know how the PresAux SecUnit was spending its time? Which is a really odd thing for him to want to know if you think about it.

The SecUnit is, as they have been told, merely a tool: it’s an adjunct to the SecSystem and HubSystem of the habitat, it’s a company device, a tool, a product of corporate surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement. Up until the worm incident some of the PresAux team didn’t even now it had a face. Mensah didn’t want to rent it as part of the bond guarantee agreement, and called it (basically) a “hellish compromise.”

So, the rest of PresAux are in varying states of awareness about what Murderbot is.

In Future of Work Compulsory we get some insight into common knowledge of SecUnits: the workers are unaware they can speak, in fact adamant they cannot:

Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She [Sekai] shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

The PresAux team know their SecUnit can talk, it gives them a security briefing. Do most of them think this is the equivalent of a recorded message, delivered rote?

Surely Mensah, having seen its face and knowing of its intelligence (that hellish compromise) can’t think it’s anything less than a slave? But that aside: I am talking about Gurathin. And what what Volescu says Gurathin wanted to know:

Then Volescu said, “Gurathin, you wanted to know how it spends its time. That was what you were originally looking for in the logs. Tell them.”

Funny thing to want to know, like do you want to know how your roomba spends its time? Okay, this is Tumblr, possibly the wrong place for this question.

So Gurathin is suspicious, apparently right from the start of the book since on page 33 he first asks it a question:

“What about your systems?”

I would note that Gurathin asks MB two questions about how it is functioning, both just after it does something that goes against its governor module:

The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company. “They’re supposed to be able to, but equipment failures aren’t unknown.”

Next thing anyone says is:

Then Gurathin said, “What about your systems?”

Later:

It was one of those impulses that comes from my organic parts that the governor is supposed to squash. I said, “As the only one here with experience in these situations, I’m your best resource.”

Gurathin said, “What situations?”

This looks to me like someone who either detects that MB is acting unlike a SecUnit should, or even that he can tell a governor module is being defied.

HOW does Gurathin do this/know this? He is after all augmented, perhaps he is detecting something in the feed? In Rogue Protocol when MB is spying on Miki via a drone it has taken over, Miki realises something is up:

Miki didn’t move, still staring into the dark with the opaque surface of its eyes. The feed was clear, it couldn’t know I was here.

Then Miki sent a directionless ping

I think Miki does know (Miki stares at the drone); and I think somehow Gurathin also knows.

This seems to indicate that Gurathin may know more about SecUnits than he’s giving away—but whatever: this is someone who has been closely watching Murderbot.

Like, really closely.

I think an absolutely reasonable reading of ASR is that Gurathin has a bit of a fixation on this SecUnit, and it’s a fixation that started before the worm incident.

He’s watching this piece of company equipment with unusual intensity.

I am happy to headcanon that this started with the security briefing, that Murderbot couldn’t keep its feelings out of its voice. I mean, can you imagine Murderbot doing the in-flight safety announcement on the plane? It brings to mind project mayhem’s replacement safety handouts…

Did Gurathin hear Murderbot’s real voice bleed through? Cynicism and sarcasm, a dose of irony?

It’s a thought. He never seems to doubt it’s a person. The fact that Rathhi says: “This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—”perhaps says something about how he sees Gurathin too.

I would note that Gurathin and Ratthi aren’t friends in All Systems Red—something which surprised me a little (I didn’t think they got along as well as they do in later books, but when I looked into it I was surprised!

Gurrathi Meta

So when the team heads off to DeltFall Gurathin is very suspicious and watching SecUnit, which it reports upon but doesn’t seem to spot the significance of—which is rather unlike our paranoid Murderbot.

Gurathin is the only member of the team not to express enthusiasm for MB going on the trip.

Gurathin was the only one staying behind who didn’t say anything

MB is actually about to start poking around to figure out what Guarthin is up to when the feed drops out (probably trying to figure out what’s wrong with it).

If anything I think Gurathin acts oddly about his rogue SecUnit suspicions.

If he knows SecUnits he will probably have heard the propaganda, which MB believes:

To quote MB: “I sure as hell would have reported me. Rogue SecUnits are fucking dangerous, trust me on that.”

I wrote a little essay on how Gurathin is right about a lot of things when it comes to Murderbot:

Gurathin was right

(It’s called that because he is)

Perhaps the strangest thing is that he just tries to immobilize it, and then makes his case. He doesn’t try and have it shut down whilst “unconscious”, and doesn’t even mention the (fairly critical information) until pushed. Gurathin’s expression was stiffer than usual. “This Unit has killed people before, people it was charged with protecting. It killed fifty-seven members of a mining operation.”

At this point MB believe this is true, and it lies to the diary about it, by omission at any rate: “What I told you before, about how I hacked my governor module but didn’t become a mass murderer? That was only sort of true. I was already a mass murderer.”

So: I honestly don’t think Gurathin’s behaviour here makes a whole lot of sense if you read it in a lot of ways—the way I think it makes more sense is that he is fixated. This could be sexual: perhaps when:

[Gurathin] said, “Why don’t you want us to look at you?”

My jaw was so tight it triggered a performance reliability alert in my feed. I said, “You don’t need to look at me. I’m not a sexbot.”

Well—perhaps MB is picking up something about the way Gurathin looks at it?

My personal reading is that Gurathin has become obsessed, an obsession perhaps sparked by MB’s anomalous behaviors? He is watching it intensely. It doesn’t have to be sexual, humans can get fixated without sexual attraction.

And then he so quickly accepts the rogue unit into his team! It holds him up against the wall by his neck (I mean, wow—one of the most intense bits of physical contact in the book). But Gurathin is rapidly team SecUnit: and he never sees it as “not a person” he isn’t kidding when he says.

(“I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.”

“Then stop being mean to it,” “Ratthi told him. “That might help.”)

Gurathin and SecUnit work together to overcome GrayCris, Murderbot even grudgingly admitting Gurathin’s help:

“Gurathin had figured out how to use the hack from their HubSystem into our HubSystem to get access, but he needed to be close to their habitat to actually trigger their beacon. ”

“(Last night Gurathin had said this was a weak point, that this was where the plan would fall apart. It was irritating that he was right.)”

So: that’s some of the reasons from the first book, All Systems Red

[gaykarstaagforever]

I just love how all our Fall / Christmas spices in North America, that we associate with cold weather and warm fires baking bread and pastries, are ALL from tropical plants.

Allspice and vanilla are Caribbean. Cloves and nutmeg are Indonesian. Sugar is Indian, and became a staple crop in the colonial Caribbean, from where brown sugar and molasses (and rum!) came to North America. Cinnamon is also Indian / Southcentral Asian.

The only inherent North American thing about any of this is maybe some of the nuts, and squashes (pumpkins), and maybe apples? Though the apples we usually eat originate from Central Asia and came here via colonization, since you're probably not using native crab apples in your baking.

Even our seasonal spice palettes are a result of racist capitalism, murder, and exploitation.

It's almost like white supremacy is an inescapable totality, or something.

[blackandredblog]

Anarchapulco 2024

I don't know what craziness I've just stepped into. But it's a rabbit hole that is fucking terrifying.

I was watching a video from More Perfect Union about how the US and Puerto Rico itself have created a wealth inequality that is as profoundly unique as it is disturbing.

In a clip from this video, I noticed something called Anarchapulco in the background. So, I paused it and looked it up.

Original More Perfect Union video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ulSk0EqX

Upon looking up this AnarchApulco nonsense, I first click to see what it costs, completely missing the fact that they have a menu at the top for NFTs.

The tickets are $600 per person.

So I click on the speaker page. It's as diverse as a Connecticut country club squash team, filled with white grifters pushing conspiracy theories, crypto, and tips to living like them (which never includes being handed their wealth or social connections to acquire wealth).

The speaker page: https://anarchapulco.com/speaker-page-2024/

The leader of this shitshow is a self-proclaimed AnCap Libertarian named Jeff Berwick. Dude pushes Crypto, NFTs, and his own newsletter called the Dollar Vigilante.

Next is Max Igan. Max Igan has links to MeWe and Rumble (far-right friendly platforms). He also uses the term "globalist" in his biography on "The Other Side of Midnight" which appears to be some sort of right-wing, online radio station.

For those unfamiliar, "Globalist" is a euphemism for Jew. It's a frequent term used by far-rights, like Alex Jones.

The biography here: https://www.theothersideofmidnight.com/bio-max-igan/

Next is Larken Rose. He's another AnCap Libertarian. He's done time for tax evasion. And is well-known enough that Wesley Snipes tried to use Rose's arguments at his own tax evasion trial.

Rose is pushing his new movie, about a plantation that likens actual slavery to wage slavery and capitalism. While there are parallels, Rose (who is white) wrote a script in which he drops the N-word in an opening scene. Beyond that, the movie is full of exposition and lacks any real talent or vision for storytelling.

I'm not going to go through every grifter on this list, because I do have actual work to do, but there are two more standouts beyond the pasty homeopaths, internet-only radio disk jockeys, and COVID deniers.

Next up is David Weiss. He's a flat earther. And I'm not just being an asshole calling him names, he RUNS the Flat Earth Podcast. He truly believes we live on a flat earth.

Worse than even being a science-denier, this dumb motherfucker has a "Flat Earth Crash Course" whose opening YouTube video features Owen Benjamin.

For those unfamiliar with Owen Benjamin. He's a failed actor and comedian that is an Olympic-level racist and antisemite. He's recently popped back up on Alex Jones' InfoWars because he needs a new audience to grift after his last scam fell through. Who'd have guessed your neighbors wouldn't let you crowd fund a members-only, "free speech" Ruby Ridge-style compound... in Idaho.

Benjamin's Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin

I was going to do one last sketch on Ian Smith, but, to be honest, he's just a gymbro science-denier that sells "water treatments" and supplements.

What's the point of all this?

These grifters are insidious and the far-right is trying to appropriate leftist terminologies and twist them.

They take small grains of truth, the base rhetoric of AnComs and grow genetically modified shitmuffins from them. If you ever doubt this is happening, remember that Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Watch yourselves out there, keep your heads on a swivel, and don't assume that people are who they say they are.

[luminull]

[Image ID: Two images, identical other than the fact that one is done in greyscale, while the other is in rainbow colors on the same grey background. It depicts a script that meanders about the canvas, flow guided by simplistic messy line drawings that reflect the text. The images start with a person and their speechbubble within a thoughtbubble, transitioning through comicbook-like pages, a spotlight, a river of blank papers, and a large dividing vertical pillar through the center of the image. Atop that pillar is the same person's silhouette, tiny and calling out, before the flow continues to an hourglass, a brain, a battery, and a collection of various shapes surrounded by the word "AND" repeatedly. At the end are two more silhouettes: the first is standing and looking upward at a large nearby "AND", with a capital "I" to their right, almost like a measuring marker; the second silhouette is sitting hunched over their knees, another smaller "I" to their left, and positioned in a similar way as to imply further-diminished measurement. /. End ID]

Transcript:

I've always WANTED to make COMICS But I kept Looking [Hoping] [Stalling] [Waiting] FOR SOMETHING to justify TRYING ... and failing... A LOT to make things WORK Because it's all so... MASSIVELY DAUNTING It takes a lot of TIME AND FOCUS AND ENERGY to figure out... [begin 12 "AND"s filling the space] Panel SIZE Story Drafting Polish Negative SPACE ... FLOW... SHAPE AND I... I

(Very long and numerous) thoughts under the cut!

I made this almost a year ago now, and I kept telling myself I would clean it up and post it one day I might still clean it up eventually, but I'm done waiting to post it

I can't begin to describe how proud I am of this, I keep reading it over and over and finding little surprises I left for myself:

The way the orange arrow makes a nice circle with the bottom lump of the thought cloud The way the tail circles of the thought bubble curve to make an arc to that circle with "COMICS" bridging the gap, moving into an image of a comic being drawn

The way the blank papers not only represent the paper I used to burn through, but when colored in all those shades of green, they remind me of the money that's gone into all of the projects I've ever attempted The way it starts with a trickle and quickly becomes chaotic, costing more and more

The way "MASSIVELY DAUNTING" lists to the side, threatening to fall over The way it's pushed from the side of Everything Art Requires towards the flow of "money", and looks about ready to squash "TRYING" and "WORK" The way it somehow furthers yet intensely interrupts the flow of everything

The way that the river of papers has three potential origin points: The taper in the middle of the arrangement under "TRYING", the drafts and attempts that happened The comic panels from the left, the theoretical comics I would have made, flowing through "TRYING" The pages and the panels from the right side of the canvas- and arguably the battery of "ENERGY" driving the flow- pushing through the practical aspects and hitting the wall of "MASSIVELY DAUNTING" before returning in a small trickle that has to pick itself back up

The way the first comic pages seem like an extension of the speechbubble, or new speechbubbles ordering themselves like stacked pages The way the comic panels on the orange page match the illuminating yellow of the spotlight, match the phrase "But I kept Looking" and getting so close to "FOR SOMETHING to justify TRYING" The way "... and failing" is green as the pages/money

They way I personally identify with cool colors, yet in all of this, the character that represents me is painted in pinks and struggling The way the "I"s look like they're measurements, with the taller one almost seeming to prop up some of the "AND"s while the smaller one seems to be weighed down heavily by the "..." above it

The way "Polish" seems to absolutely dominate the space as just a single word, which is fitting since it's probably the step I get hung up on the most The way all the things that go into a comic seem all over the place, both flowing and a disjointed jumble

Augh there's just always more to find, and I'm the one who made it!

As for the process behind all this, it was actually totally freeform: I sat down with the urge to make a comic, or at least vent about making comics, and I just... Started drawing The flow of the picture really follows what got made in what order- and in fact, I originally was just going to leave it as a single chunk once I wrote "WORK"

But it felt unfinished, so I added a little more: I added "Because it's all so..." And I sat on it for a bit, before deciding on "MASSIVELY DAUNTING" It filled up the space well enough, and it was accurate, but... Again, I had to figure out What Else I needed to add

I decided I was going to do a vertical arrangement- which, you may notice, didn't pan out Everything after the Leaning Tower Of Doubt was supposed to be made off to the side where I could see it when my canvas was zoomed to fit my screen, but in a way where I could easily move it into place later where it was supposed to go

And then I got attached to the horizontal spread Whoops It worked well on so many levels, so I couldn't really bring myself to rearrange it afterwards But you might notice that the left side is very rounded and full of stuff flinging off to fill space, and the right side just has a relatively flat wall

That's right, I decided I was going to do a third section: this one was going to be the Optimistic Conclusion, the cool nifty message for myself and others that if you give things a go anyways, you can succeed eventually, or maybe learn something in the process- I dunno I had ambition not thoughts

Clearly, I Ran Out Of Time, Focus, And Energy

So it's "finished" on a rather dreary note, that side shut down above a retreating shutdown But it still brings me a lot of pride, even though it's messy and unfinished It's redefined my standards when it comes to making comics- or "comics", depending on your own definition

And not only that, but it looks an awful lot like how my thoughts feel, especially with color That's something I have always longed to be able to show

[probablysomethingtm]

​Also the ai ruins the composition with these because it doesn’t have (and can’t have) a sense of why the piece was created the way that it was to begin with, what the themes of the piece are, how it’s supposed to make you feel or how to achieve that goal, etc.

Here’s a bunch of these from the Twitter thread that tech bro posted as a triumphant proof of concept:

Every single time the ai completely fucks the composition and ruins the focus of the piece and the effects it has on the viewer. There’s no creative element, no decision making, no reasoning behind what the ai did and why, just an imperative to complete implied objects and expand the scope. But that’s where the ai’s abilities and instructions end, so you get these vast empty spaces surrounding the originals.

Nighthawks is especially egregious to me because it’s one of my favorite paintings. The original is lonely, yes, but there’s also an element of comfort. The city is lonely and cold and asleep, but come on in stranger and we’ll get you something warm for a while. But even that aspect of comfort has a falsehood to it; you’re paying them for coffee and hospitality, it’s not true companionship or warmth, and even though everyone in the painting desperately wants those things (look at how the couple are almost holding hands, how the waiter is almost talking, how the waiter and man are almost meeting each others’ eyes, how the lone guest is almost looking up), the stifling nature of modernity and city life and capitalism squashes them. These layers of meaning are Beautiful, and just as applicable to life now as they were back in the 40s.

The ai-expanded version is a ghost town. Outside of the diner there’s no people, no life, no cars, no street lamps, not even trash on the ground. Even though these things are just as absent in the original, the original still feels like they could be present just “offscreen” (as the tech bro put it). The ai’s version feels uncanny, unreal, like you’re witnessing a play or a movie instead of a slice of life in a city. The door is even more noticeable in its absence now, the physical distance between the viewer and those within far greater, the isolation of both the viewer and the subjects even more pronounced, the buildings even more vast and oppressive compared to the people within. The composition is unbalanced in such a way that it is actively uncomfortable for me to look at. The original is lonely, but with a tragic warmth; the ai’s version is downright haunting.

Ironically, this might make the ai’s version of Nighthawks a perfect portrait of the kind of society these tech bros are trying to create.

There is no ‘rest of the Mona Lisa’ - it doesn’t exist.

Tech bros fundamentally don’t understand art, and it’s why all AI art looks ugly as sin.

[maguro13-2]

The Dark Picture ~ Origins of the Ink Demon : Operation Drawcia Pt.3 ~

"Somewhere in a forested area..."

"LEAF STORM ZONE..."

[Right there! Ride on! - Hideki Naganuma]

Sonic : Whoohoo!

*Sonic SFX : Boost*

Sonic : Aw yeah! This new boost system that Sega gave me is a head start! Instead of spin dashing all over the place, I can boost to anywhere where I wanted to go! So first thing's first, I gotta find Eggman to know where is he hiding at! At first, I didn't come into sudden realization that a Tear in the Space-Time Continuum would happen in 2005, Since F-Zero was lost at the time it sold the last game in Japan. Who's gonna cleanup all of Nintendo's messes? (grinds on rail and does various tricks that animals pops up from nowhere) Where did the animals come from? Oh well, it's not my concern since Eggman broke the world into seven pieces, not just the world, but the planet itself. I bet two of those Yuri mikos that discovered that Eggman broke the planet in pieces meaning that pilots of those giant machines we're easily destroyed by this particular creature that came out of the core. Yeah, it that was creature that destroyed these machines and the Ame no Murakami robot that tried to destroy this creature. When the villains of that Yuri mecha show were scolded for trying to the put in genocide, the creature killed them. It's D.Gaia with a capital D.

Tails (via radio) : Hey, Sonic. Now that you're not into that yuri stuff anymore, it's official that we're finally laying off the yuri stuff in Japan or something like that. We're not talking about, we're talking about you getting the Chaos Emeralds from those special stages.

Sonic : I know! Which is why they are hidden inside the special stage zones! They've always been hidden in each of the special stages. Feels like Cyberspace from old ancient technology could be responsible for the creation of those special stages.

Tails (via radio) : That's good! What's important is...we don't know where Eggman is and why is he suddenly hiding, but it's going to be a moment since the Dreamcast Era has entered it's final stage. Now we finally understand that Sonic Adventured 2's plot was being retconned.

Sonic : That's a mistake that I'll never forget, even though Shadow is still alive thou. I don't know why did the time that he lives for no reason.

Tails (via radio) : I wouldn't recommend you that much. But I haven't see Shadow since we first saw him back when we're at the Jungle, it was our last encounter since Emerl was with us. We don't know what happened to him, they say that he was reincarnated into some kind of machine, Gemerl was it?

Sonic : Yeah, that Gizoid. Loud and clear. Good thing that I'm into new music instead of Senoue's whatsocallit. I'm beginning that the Dreamcast era is going to become something what I understand, the Dark Age. Well, at least it's not gonna be that bad.

"One special stage later..."

Sonic : Ha! This was a good start get me one of the first of the red emeralds. Alright, where's eggman! I gotta find him somewhere. *BOOST!* This is a new start for me!

*later...*

Sonic : Gosh darn it! Where the heck could Eggman be?

Eggman : I'm right here, you blue rodent!

[Metal Scratchin' - Hideki Naganuma]

Sonic : Huh? What's this that you're controlling?

Eggman : It's called the Egg Hammer Mega!

"LEAF STORM ZONE BOSS : EGG HAMMER MEGA"

Sonic : Again with the hammers? You're lucky that you're willingly to have something creative, what's the deal with the hammers! I've using a hammer. I'm gonna fall for one of your silly tricks again!

Eggman : Whatever! This is going to take a day of defeating you in person. So hurry up so that I may defeat with this...Hammer! So take this!

Sonic : Woah! (evades) Nice try, Eggman! But it'll take more hammering than to squash me like a bug! You ought to...

Eggman : GET READY TO BE SCHOOLED!

Sonic : Huh? (shrieks like Homer and evades)

*DBZ SFX : Wall Hit/Crash*

Sonic : When did you learn to make a phrase like that?

Eggman : It's a new line, i mean it's a new phrase I invented it! It means that I'm literally going to do something for you inside these machines!

Sonic : Yeah, right! You just wanna make feel like that you're schooling me or something.

Eggman : So long as I controlling this machine, what else there is stop me?

Sonic : Yeah, that's what I thought.

*Sonic SFX : Jump*

Eggman : AAAAHHH!!!

*DBZ/One Piece SFX : Surprise*

*DBZ/One Piece SFX : Loud Explosions*

Eggman : You'll regret this!

Sonic : Eggman! Wait! I'm not done with you yet! Hmm? Is that...?

*DBZ/One Piece : Exclamation Mark*

*FLAMES WHOOSH*

Sonic : AAAH! What was that sudden fiery flash!

[Enemy or Friend/Leaf Storm - Teruhiko Nakagawa]

Sonic : It's a purple cat?

Blaze : Thanks for stopping Eggman on acquiring the Sol Emeralds, I needed those to get the other ones, that were stolen from the other Eggman.

Sonic : Other Eggman? What are you talking about?

Blaze : To save my world at least.

Sonic : Who are you and where did you come from?

Blaze : the name is Blaze, I am princess from the Sol Dimension.

"NEWCOMER : BLAZE THE CAT BLAZES FROM THE NEXT DIMENSION!"

Sonic : Blaze, you say. What a coincidence! I must thank you for stopping--(Blaze dashes) Eggman...Where is she running off to anyway? But when did she said about the Sol Emeralds stolen from the other Eggman? Just what did she meant by now? Anywho, I wonder where is Shadow?

"Meanwhile..."

Shadow : So all of that for nothing, these incidents of machines trying to destroy the planet have been driven into insanity and all of this was just a personal cover up. So after Heroes and Battle, the Dreamcast Era is never the same again after upon hearing the defeat of that other Gizoid. Now all what's left from the Professor Gerald, I can't get a single concetration on whether I can't remember anything since I am suffering amnesia in that base and how did I not know that I didn't die. I had no choice but to live. It was worth of two years of suffering and I only discovered that another that died was just a basic android. Why did Mobius suffer from this dark lore of ours. Believe it or not, I think clearly of that gruesome image of me and Maria finally happened before. Grim told me that Maria it's because of the manhunt caused by Black Doom's shenanigans.

*flashback*

[Suspense music]

Shadow : *panting*

Heavy Pilot : Stop! Get that hedgehog! Find him! Find him where's he at! We mustn't let them escape!

Shadow : !?...(the gun soldiers stops and arrive) What the-!?

Maria : ...!!

Grim : No! What do you think you're doing!? STOOOOOP!

*Shadow/Robot Chicken SFX : Gunshot*

Shadow : MARIAAAAAAA!!!

*flashback ends*

[Prologue - Yutaka Minobe]

Shadow : (shakes head to respond) So, there's someone else that is involved of the manhunt, I can't remember anything from before, and who is this Maria shot dead.

(Thunder booming)

Shadow : ...Red Clouds? Sky's changing...

Central City Citizen : Hmmm?...Oh no...(in horror) They're back!

(Thunder crashing)

(a horde of Black Arms aliens appears dropping from the mouth of the clouds)

*DBZ SFX : Loud Explosion*

Central City Citizen A : Oh no! Not those guys again!

Central City Citizen B : They're back I tell ya!

Central City Citizen C : Get these guys away from!

Driver : Oh my God! (gets knocked over by a Black Arm Giant)

Shadow : So much for a welcoming party. Guess these humans will have to die for consequences. (before leaving)

Black Doom : Greetings Shadow, I have returned.

Shadow : !? You!

(Black Doom appears as a hologram from his eye)

Black Doom : But as you can see, I've managed to make a nuisance out of Grim as the day of reckoning will soon be here. Find the seven chaos emeralds and bring to me as promise, simple as that.

Shadow : Wait, me? How did you know that I am Shadow and what are you talking about. More importantly, what's the day of...(Black Doom leaves)

*DBZ SFX : Loud explosions*

Shadow : So...that's my beginning of this years, huh? If I believe that he will know the truth about my past, I will give them seven emeralds as he promised...To this day, 2005 will be the year of me and I will uncover the secrets of my past! Whether Grim will like it or not! (Sets off towars the city, beginning his quest to discover his true purpose. Title)

Announcer : [reading title card] THE YEAR OF SHADOW BEGINS!

~ Mission 02 : Shadow 05. ~

[stardustjessie]

THE DEVIL GEMS

Chapter 2: The Flame Monarch

They soon moved to a shop, where they would buy supplies for their trip. She was unsure to trust this man. They were haggling with the shopkeeper for a few ration packs, two bedrolls and a simple tinder box. She kept thinking about them. They didn't have a local accent. Dragonborns originating from their capital, Di'Sandre, have very heavy pronunciation, especially when it comes to "R". However, they spoke fluidly, so gracefully. It wasn't a royal accent, as far as she knew. But it wasn't a common accent either. Maybe they were northern ? Once the northern academy of Malas had invited scholars from Barcel (Where she resides) to conduct a study. They had a much more smooth pronunciation of things. She felt like a farmer talking to a king, almost. Really, what does she know about this man ? She thought about it. She didn't even know their name. How can she trust them ? Maybe joining them was an act of impulse. "Let's go" The man said, up close to her. She was so lost in thought that she didn't realise they had finished their trade and was waiting for her. How long did she stare at the wall thinking ? Regardless, they take their newly acquired supplies and take their leave. 

"Where are we headed ?" She asks, as they walk to the kingdom gates.

"Have you heard the rumours of the Earthen Pit ?" They reply.

"Earthen Pit ? Wasn't that up north, on a snowy mountain ?"

"That's the one."

They stay in silence, as they walk through a street heading to the gate. She would look around during this moment of silence. No torches were lit, even the inside of homes and shops was unlit. The sunlight was so warm and radiant today that no one seemed to feel the need to light their homes so early.

"Well, what are the rumours though ?" She asks further.

"A few months ago, there was supposedly an expedition to the mountain, where they found the Earthen Pit. The group of 8 had gone missing in that expedition, so a rescue team was dispatched. They discovered that the pit had a supernatural aura, one that would pull anything indiscriminately down to the bottom at unrecorded speeds."

She can almost recall something about that. It was the northern academy. They had caught wind of this supernatural occurrence and wanted to investigate, as it had to be some sort of magic. Could it be…?

"The rescue team realised the pulls happened in intervals." They continued. "During one of its "off hours", they rushed to the bottom. There they found the expedition team squashed to the ground. It was impossible to discern who was who from the pile of guts. But the interesting bit, it wasn't the fall that did it. They were able to deduce they were continuously pulled into the stone floor. For a man to explode hitting the bottom of a 25 metres pit, that's normal. But how would their equipment be just as squashed ? Wooden staffs broken apart like water, silver swords thinned to the size of paper. I'm sure you know what caused all that." They finish, with a smirk on their face. Almost challenging her knowledge of the arcana.

She stops to think. It isn't conventional magic. If it's a gem like her's, then it would be a sort of uncontrollable scholar magic. Pulling them down at unseen speeds… They were continuously pulled… Maybe…- Suddenly her line of thought is interrupted by a fire bolt passing next to her and hitting the ground. They were at the kingdom gate, yet under attack. Her companion would turn around to face her, knowing the danger they're in. They immediately run behind cover. She seeks cover behind the closest building, and thinks. The only thing she can think of is "Where ?" Where are they attacking them from ? She looked around the direction the shot came from. It had an upper angle. Maybe they were on top of a structure ? She couldn't find anyone on top. But something struck amiss.

"Hey, you!" She exclaims to her companion. They look back at her, confused by her sudden call.

"Can you do one of your illusions there ? Over there." She says, pointing to a lone torch on the outside of an inn. It was sunny, probably sometime past midday. Why was a single torch lit during daylight ? It doesn't make sense, the other torch next to it was unlit, and so were all the others in the street. It was obvious that the inside wasn't lit either. It stood out to her as odd, because she hadn't seen a single lit torch their entire path. She couldn't spot a single person in the exposed vicinity of their view. It was a wild shot.

"Why ?" They question. "Just do it!" She shouts. Suddenly, an illusion appears, a carbon copy of her companion. It rushes towards the torch. The enemy must be using it somehow to attack them. Maybe using the torch to form firebolts without having to expose their location ? The illusion approached. When it was a few metres away, the flame reacted. A fire bolt shot from the flame right through the illusion. It wasn't solid like they had done in her room. It kept rushing. The flame, seemingly in a panic, smoothly moved out of the torch, like a flying fireball. It would start taking the shape of a hand extruding from the flames, but it moved alongside the flame, like it was fire itself. The hand becomes a full arm and it attempts to grab the illusion, but to no avail. When it realises it, the flame seems scared, and flies away to the next curve.

"We can't let it get away!" She exclaims, about to dash forward.

"Don't!" Her companion says. She stops to listen. "If you go, you'll be entering its domain. You'll be ambushed and won't be able to win."

She thinks to herself. If they retreat, the flame will wait for a moment that their guard is down. If she follows it, she has the opportunity to strike it while it is confused by the illusion. She ignores their warning and dashes to the alleyway she saw the flame go to. Taking that turn, she didn't find a fireball. It was a humanoid monster. It seemingly had wheels for legs, and pointy fingers. Its face had a mask completely covering its eyes, only exposing its mouth. It had an odd armour of pure obsidian, perhaps the only thing that wouldn't melt on their flaming body. It was a flame monarch, she recognises it from the books. It's a monster completely made out of magical flames. It's a monarch of the reign of fire, unmatched in that regard. How can she defeat that with simple transmutation ? She had to think before it notices her. It seems like it was recovering from a scare. She crouches down and takes a rock from the ground, and transforms it into diamond. She throws it directly at the monarch, aiming at its head. It strikes! Landing on the side of its head. It was able to penetrate, but not far. Even from this distance she could see the shine of the diamond slowly melting on the surface. It turns to her direction and immediately fires a bolt blindly. It completely missed her, as it was an unaimed reactionary shot. But now she's in plain view of the monarch. It has spotted her. In quick reaction, a flaming wall seems to spawn around it. It has summoned a flame shield. "I sense it… You have taken a gem, haven't you ?" It says towards her direction. Does it know of her power ? She had no way of knowing its knowledge without taking risks. She quickly retreats behind the wall and dashed back to her companion. As she dashed, it rolled up its wheels and sped up, following her. "You! Do something!" She exclaims to her companion, which she can't see. They must be around somewhere. "Stand down!" She hears them exclaim. She throws herself to the ground, as an illusion appears before her. It looked like the man, but it was an imperfect creation. It was a quick illusion of physical matter to assist her. It grabs her hand and throws her into the air, some 10 metres. The enemy dashes into the illusion. It phases out in the process, but its physical matter was enough to make the enemy fall. Its shield was down. "This is my chance!" She thinks while still in the air. What could she even use to strike ?

I came up with the design of the monarch on the spot, I won't lie! Yes, it was inspired by the Ben 10 design. I can't remember what it was called! But it was my favourite Ben 10 design and I was obsessed with it as a kid. Where will the story go from here ? We'll see soon enough!

[eliothochberg]

A dumb idea that might save Capitalism: Meta-Capitalism

Ok, so maybe using "Meta" isn't the best branding, but it's the only way I can think of to designate the idea.

What is the main problem with Capitalism? Despite all of the good it has done for the progress of humanity, Capitalism's weak point is greed. When a successful Capitalist learns how to maximize profit for greed, a significant proportion of them push towards money for money's sake. They often lose connection with the communities they originally sought to improve, and, often from a place of fear, work to shave off every dollar they can to keep for themselves. Some do it as a trophy. Others are competing with their fellow greedy Capitalists. But the net effect is that of bringing in money without concern for the consequences.

Another problem Capitalism has is the impact of greed for money and power on government. We are in another cycle of corruption in the US, and this is a big one. So big that programs and policies a majority or even a super-majority of Americans want don't happen because one or more of them would negatively impact the bottom line of a greedy Capitalist. That person then uses their money to influence decisions and policy.

I've long thought that instead of trying to squash this sort of thing, we should give it structure. Let's face it, no matter what you do, the busybodiest and wealthiest and power-hungriest people are going to find ways to try and sway those in power in politics to do what they want. What if, instead, you organized that and tried to use it for good?

When I thought this way, I envisioned a sort of third house of Congress, call it maybe the Representariat. I don't know, I'm not nailing the naming of stuff here, but I think it will do.

In this body, if you had enough above some very small minimum of supporters with a common cause that wasn't already in, you could elect someone to represent your interests. From religions to industry groups to community action groups, every niche of people could be represented in government. This house of Congress could also propose legislation, but because it would be so large and unwieldy, their approval would not be required for passage. However, they would still vote on every piece of legislation to show how they felt about it, and have a chance to give their opinion on each one.

Most importantly, though, they would be the ONLY ones who could lobby Congress. If you wanted to be represented as a lobbyist, you'd have to be in this body.

I know, ridiculous.

But I was just trying to work out a way to allow lobbying and influence, while providing some kind of societal control and monitoring.

Meta-Capitalism is another one of these ideas.

If you play any board games, you'll know about Victory Points, or VP. These points are what you ultimately need to win the game in the vast majority of games. A lot of these games, like the classic Monopoly, use money as VP. Another large group literally uses VP. And then many games rename these to something else, but they all boil down to VP. When you play a game, your ultimate goal is to work out how to get the most VP.

That's what a lot of greedy people are doing with Capitalism. Since the VP in the game of these United States is money, at a certain point, once you've accomplished most of your dreams, when you look for what to do next in Capitalism, you often look at the VP structure and say "Well, how can I make more money?" There are other reasons, too, but the bottom line is, money becomes an end in itself.

The reason this is bad is because it actually isn't the "victory condition" that our founders wanted for the country. From stuff I've read, it seems that most states were against corporate structures, and that dislike appears in their original constitutions. It's not in the US Constitution, but in many states corporations were illegal, mostly I suspect because those structures had helped Great Britain make things unpleasant for the colonists.

When this changed, the idea was that a corporation could do more than an individual could, and that it would benefit the community. It was never done because people wanted only a few people to have money.

What, then, is our victory condition? If we go by the Constitution, it's "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Nothing in our Constitution extolls the virtues of greed. There is a bunch about property, but nowhere is it guaranteed that you can have all of it to make others destitute. To be fair, it doesn't say you *can't* do it, but we have seen that as a nation, we want to avoid that. Just look at all of the anti-trust cases there have been over the years.

Now, let's go back to our board game analogy. If money shouldn't be VP, then how do we get Life, Liberty, and Happiness to be VPs? What I've thought of is another form of currency, I'll call it LLH since I'm being bad at naming things right now.

I would define LLH as a progressive currency. That is, something you gain when you do something significant to improve society. This currency's main use would be to guarantee time with elected officials. The more good you do, the higher up the chain you can go. This LLH would be specific to a person; non-transferrable. That way, in theory, you couldn't be bought by a normal greedy person to push their views.

LLH might need to be more powerful than that, though. For instance, let's say your company raised all of its' wages to 150% of the minimum wage. Perhaps they would earn some LLH, and could use that to pay taxes or gain advantage in a government contract.

The idea would be to somehow create a VP that the wealthiest and most influential would want in order to do what they already do: tell politicians what they want them to do.

The only difference is, they would have to do something to earn it.

I know, such a thing would be almost impossible to manage. How do you value inventing a new car safety item, or helping a school get new equipment? What if you lobby for a health and safety law? How many LLH would you get? I have no idea.

But imagine a world where what people are greedy for isn't anonymous money, but the satisfaction of making the world better.

This is the best I've come up with so far.

[whatisonthemoon]

On the Unification Church Inheriting the Moral Re-Armament Movement’s Role (and Resources on the MRA)

▲ Pictured: MRA event at Madison Square Garden

It is widely believed that the Moral Re-Armament Movement, an anti-communist organization that sought moral and spiritual revival in individuals and in society. This organization was also propped up by U.S. intelligence and played a role in post-war reconstruction in Europe and Asia, including both Japan and South Korea. Both Nobusuke Kishi and Kim Jong Pil supported the MRA, likely due to the CIA’s direction. The MRA’s willingness to engage in the diplomatic interests of the U.S. and the United Kingdom, as well as other imperialist powers, and their desire to shift culture to become “God-centered,” which in its ambiguity implied conservative values grounded in the Christian faith. They pushed a politic of reconciliation between leaders of enemy nations, with the leader of the “oppressor” nation often apologizing on behalf of their people’s war crimes, and the leader representing the occupied or oppressed nation apologizing for resentment and/or rebellion. The MRA was also used to quell militant union activity, pressing against class struggle in factories and instead “industrial harmony.” 

The MRA squashed any politics of “class struggle” or “social justice” with vague rhetoric on peace and universal brotherhood.

The Christian orientation of the MRA did not quite make sense in Japan. In many ways the MRA had to obscure its Christian origins in order to successfully gain support among the political establishment. With both Kishi and the CIA’s support, this organization became an influential force in Japan. 

▲ Pictured: Frank Buchman posing with American actress and entertainer Mae West

Buchman, the founder of both the MRA and Alcoholics Anonymous, was also sympathetic to fascism. He later claimed that MRA pushed a worldview that was contrary to both fascism and communism, but in 1936 he was quoted in Time Magazine saying, “I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.”

In 1962, Buchman passed away, and the MRA lost considerable influence, though retaining many important contacts and restructuring a number of times. That said, the seeds for other similar organizations began to take shape, once again propped up by the U.S. government. This includes the Fellowship, or the Family, who run the National Prayer Breakfast (though the breakfast alleges they broke with the organization). 

In 1962, it has been said that the Unification Church experienced major internal restructuring, coming into a closer, more intimate partnership with the KCIA. 

Many believe that in 1962, the MRA’s role as a theologically-flexible, diplomatic movement that served U.S. interests through soft power, offering a third “God-centered” way beyond capitalism and communism, was taken up by the Unification Church’s network. The work of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KCFF), with Radio of Free Asia and the Little Angels, was an early example of this in the United States. Through the 70s, there were a number of Moonie bands, choirs, and other musical and creative groups, which was something that the MRA and its associated organizations were known for (”Sing Out”). 

The Unification Church network also helped bring taekwondo to the United States through the efforts of Bo Hi Pak and mainly his cousin Jhoon Rhee. Rhee was a member and in the early days of the Unification Church in the U.S., played a central figure role to some new members. He was said to have attempted recruiting members of the military to the Unification Church.

The 70s and 80s were an especially active time for the Unification Church’s political work, with tens of thousands of Japanese recruits campaigning, rallying, lobbying, working as secretaries for politicians, and even fighting communists in the streets. This was also when there was the highest number of both American and European recruits, which aided the Unification Church’s ability to organize internationally, as there was now an extensive network of multi-lingual free labor. The UC’s network had already been giving education and training to Japanese and Korean governments and militaries, and had to some degree been an influence in D.C. through Bo HI Pak’s efforts and the political Moonie cadre surrounding Freedom Foundation Leadership, but their influence and reach exploded during this period, as they consulted and organized society’s most respected and influential figures, all over the world, through different cultural and service initiatives, academic conferences.

These conferences and events had hundreds of members offering their free labor as translators and interpreters, masseuses, tour guides, aides, A/V techs, lecturers, musicians, etc.

Their work also expanded in its more explicitly “anti-communist” activity, especially as it began to take hold of the World Anti-Communist League. Though Moon formally distanced himself from the WACL, saying it was “fascist,” the Unification Church has been said to have funded 85% of their work into the 80s, including their covert actions. Under the veil of “soft power,” the Unification Church funded, organized, and armed anti-communist vigilantes and death squads all over the world. 

It is likely around 1962 that the Unification Church became formally became acquainted with the CIA, with Bo HI Pak acting as a liaison between the CIA and KCIA as the Korean Embassy’s Assistant Military Attaché. This was the year that Kim Jong Pil visited both the government and intelligence officials in D.C., organized by Moonie KCIA agents. Kim also visited the Moonies in California, assuring church members that the South Korean government supported them.

The MRA partnered with Nobusuke Kishi and Yoshio Kodama, two war criminals, CIA-connected allies of the Unification Church with considerable connections to organized crime. Kishi was even present at their headquarters’ opening in Japan. It seems that into the late 60s/1970, the Unification Church replaced the MRA’s role to these men, and Ryoichi Sasakawa. The thousands of young cadre in the Unification Church became an unending resource to the Japanese Right, which was a hot bed of wealthy, union-busting fascists, and was seen as a vital weapon in shutting down the revolutionary fervor of the 60s and 70s. 

From the 90s into the 2000s, Unification Church-organized fronts, like Women’s Federation for World Peace and Unification, Universal Peace Federation, as well as their IFVOC-type organizations, continued to influence politicians inside and outside the Liberal Democratic Party, and push grassroots organizing efforts against gay marriage and other conservative initiatives.

There’s a lot to be said about the MRA, but below there’s some posts that touch on the MRA, Frank Buchman, as well as related organizations (such as the Fellowship/The Family), and other notes.

MRA / Oxford Group / Frank Buchman

On Frank Buchman and Fascism

The Imperial Ghost in the Neoliberal Machine (Figuring the CIA) by Koichiro Osaka (2019)

Religion: God-Controlled Dictatorship (1936) MRA and the politics of reconciliation - excerpted from “The conservative imaginary: moral re-armament and the internationalism of the Japanese right, 1945–1962” by Reto Hofmann

On the MRA’s Ideology, its influence on Kishi and potentially Moon

On the alleged “naive” fascism of the MRA

Rev. Moon Goes to College by Daniel Junas

Happiness ginseng from earth-conquering Moonies – Japan (1978)

The Family/The Fellowship/The National Prayer Breakfast

Steve Hassan on the National Prayer Breakfast (twitter thread)

The Moonies, The Family, the MRA

On the Connections Between the MRA and the Fellowship

Internal Email Reveals The Family Still Involved in "New" Prayer Breakfast

Moon at the 1974 National Prayer Breakfast

How Rev. Moon’s ‘Snakes’ Infested the US by Robert Parry (Consortium News)

Exposé: The Christian Mafia (Where Those Who Now Run the U.S. Government Came From and Where They Are Taking Us) By Wayne Madsen

How the National Prayer Breakfast became an opportunity for presidents and faith leaders alike to push their political agendas

On “The Family” or “The Fellowship” - Excerpted from ‘C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy’

Related

More Questions about Young Oon Kim, and What is Clear

US-Funding in Post-War Japan

More Testimonies - Frank Frivolous on Sun Ae Kang’s mention of the MRA

Did Young Oon Kim become an asset? - questions on Young Oon Kim’s potential MRA activity

MRA-associated Weatherhead’s Influence of Young On Kim and Unification Theology

What Can We Learn From the Uncanny Parallels Between the Moonies and the Cult of Trump?

Confession in the Unification Church

Notes

Bo Hi Pak was connected to the controversial DC-based Family or the Fellowship soon after coming to the US. This group, founded by Abraham Vereide, continues to run the National Prayer Breakfasts, and can be linked to the Moral Re-Armament Movement. This group was where Pak was seeking to make anti-communist, Republican allies, when he first came to Virginia from the Republic of Korea.

Japanese Religions, Vol. 9, July 1976, No. 2:

According to the followers of the Unification Church, President Nixon was the greatest President to be known as ardently anti-Communist. However, the Communist-influenced politicians are destroying the President with the Watergate issue. At the national Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 1973 over 1000 followers of the Unification Church turned out to “cheer President Nixon,” carrying signs like “God loves Nixon” and “Support the President.” Not long after this “cheering of the President,” Moon was invited to the twenty-second annual National Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton Hotel. On the following day the President invited him to an unscheduled meeting.

Bad Moon Rising by John Gorenfeld:

“I must lay a firm foundation for Master by making influential political and social contacts,” Pak explained one night over dinner to Bob and Betty Roland, whom he had finally won over as friends despite repeated rejections. They dined at Pak’s house in a middle-class neighborhood on Utah Street in Arlington, which by evenings were awhirl with guests—not just Pak’s fellow Moonies but new potential friends—other figures in the northern Virginia suburbs drawn, like the Rolands, to his hospitality. Pak hadn’t mentioned Moon until months after their first dinner. He was combing Washington for anti-Communists and Christians with whom he could find common goals, while presenting a mainstream image. The country club luncheon had been a good lead. Started in the Depression, the cozy atmosphere of men’s fellowship was intended by Republican founders of the International Christian Leadership (ICL) to combat labor unions with the new fusion of Jesus and American enterprise. ICL soon found friends on Capitol Hill, and from 1953 onward, it hosted the presidential National Prayer Breakfast. The Senate chaplain hailed the new tradition as a sign of a “Return-to-God movement” in America.

[birindale]

I'm curious to hear your overall thoughts on the original Princess of Power.

While Filmation's He-Man had to come to an end, due to TV stations not being willing to pay for TV show episodes beyond 100, it was still a bold move to carry on Masters of the Universe in a girl-centric show.

From some of the interviews you've posted, it doesn't sound like Mattel Marketing had much faith in PoP, saying things like "Oh, she's a flanker brand: she'll succeed, increase gross doll sales, and when she stops selling after a couple of years Barbie will gobble up the increase."

It especially struck me in the interviews about the Star Sisters engineering how much more creativity and tooling money "action dolls" took than fashion dolls. It's a bummer to think of so much heart and intellect was being poured into something doomed to be short-lived.

She-Ra has of course had two limited revivals, in a (predominantly male) adult collector form for MotU Classics, with no action features and sculpted hair, and then as more conventional dolls when SPOP debuted, but being canceled after only a few characters.

So what do you think would be the ideal way to handle these characters?

my thoughts on the original? six words:

capitalism is the death of art.

i wrote like four thousand words about it but ultimately it boils down to Mattel ignoring market research because doing so was cheaper in the short term, which killed the original toylines & had already squashed Janice Varney-Hamlin’s original pitch for an action doll.

the same 1984 FCC repeal which allowed He-Man and She-Ra to have tv shows at all marked a sharp decline in 'gender neutral' toy advertising, which had been on the rise since the early 70s. In 1975, <2% of the Sears toy catalog was marketed to a specific gender. By 1995, it was nearly half--numbers that hadn't been seen since WWII.

By reinforcing binary gender norms, the toy industry is able to capitalize on specific play patterns (what was once ‘homemaking’ is now ‘disney princess’) and condition the market to accept pink taxes, and.

Okay I’m starting to rant again. Reining it in. No death threats this draft. Anyway Mattel killed both toylines by trying to maximize their profits & Filmation was doomed from the moment RankinBass realized it was cheaper to outsource animation to other countries. Hell, from the moment the SCG was formed. It’s so much cheaper to extract value from people you’ve fucking colonized and. uh.

No. okay I’m fine. I’m fine. We’re just gonna move onto the modern toys now.

MOTUC is its own can of worms for me. On the one hand, they didn't have the Filmation design rights until like 2012, so there are a lot of things they couldn't do, but the number of MOTU vs POP figures has always been disheartening. And the bios... it's gotten better since Penny Dreadful & gbagok have come aboard, since they're like human encyclopedia for MOTU lore, but in the early days, when Toyguru was in charge?

I should be nice but i’m still annoyed he’s making me check his youtube channel instead of just answering my questions like a normal person. what does “near future” even mean. When is “soon”??  i am currently disinclined to be charitable towards your lore, Scott! answer my riddles three or i start listing grievances!!!

The Dreamworks toys... honestly, I think the big failure there was marketing. For one thing, I never saw a single advertisement for them until I went trawling through the official Youtube channel (and that video put me off very quickly). And I can recognize that I'm not the intended demographic, you know? I’m like thirty years old & i’ve never been into dolls. Did kids like them?

My ideal toyline would have an emphasis on accuracy. Looking as on-model as possible. When I was a kid my favorite (non-stuffed) toys were those little pokemon figurines; articulation isn't really necessary for me as long as the figures can stand up by themselves. The Super7 toys were pretty good, I just wish they had more of them--or that they were sculpted in more interesting poses. But that line, too, suffered from a dearth of advertising. Who can buy these toys if they don't know they exist? Especially during the pandemic, when fewer people were willing to linger in the toy aisle and happen upon things--that's when you should be promoting shit. hell, put a bumper at the end of the episodes if you have to. as long as it was skippable idt there would be much flak for that, given we all signed up to watch a toy-based cartoon in the first place.

the type of toy i prize above all others, though? the kind of shit i went bananas for as a child & still delight in to this day?

toysets.

give me a crystal castle toyset with a little pocket guide on reading first ones' script. give me castle bright moon (WITH A MAP. PLEASE). a hordak's sanctum set that's the only way to get an imp figurine--kids love evil lairs & adults love collecting. a little Darla set that comes with spacesuits if the toys themselves are still Dolls.

but that’s not cost-effective. so. yeah

[theprissythumbelina]

Hi, I'm back!!!

Hit me with a piece of Military Hardware, which doesn't necessarily have to be a weapon, that caused a massive change in tactics and doctrine across militaries when it was released?

Hello! I do love your asks, somehow they always managed to hit on something I was trying to work out already.

I have two actually, the aeroplane and the expulsor. Both are used in conjunction with a witch's natural talents.

The aeroplane is a construction of metal and magic, more of a vehicle than a weapon. These planes are capable of powered flight, with a tiny pair of jets and limited fuel supply. Originally developed as recreation, the Ritanian military quickly realized that the barely-useful aeroplanes became swift, agile, long-ranged tools when paired with a wind mage. The witch sits in the second seat, manipulating currents and drafts in conjunction with the pilot's control of the plane. The distance and speed of an aeroplane depends on the strength of the witch inside, with some rumored to have flown over the capital city of Bresia. Unfortunately, aeroplane pairs have high attrition rates, since most any impact with the ground tends to be fatal.

The aeroplane is responsible for major advancements in intelligence, as pilots are able to scout behind enemy lines, directing the field of battle and cutting off supply lines with precision. Areoplane squadrons are usually the first to enter an area, and the resulting dogfights are fierce, brief, and bloody. Since wind witches can sense another manipulating the winds currents, they hunt down each other, sending other planes crashing to the ground with a sudden downdraft. By the time ground troops move in, the field of battle may be littered with remains of both sides, slowing movement, but giving the air victor a huge advantage.

The expulsor is a weapon, through and through. Fire mages are outfitted with these packs of fuel and combustible gases for disastrous effect in close combat situations. The pack is worn on the witch's back, with a heat-resistant tubing linked to their dominant arm below the elbow, ending just past the wrist. In the non-dominant hand, the witch wears a button that pushes fuel out from the pack, and literally into the witch's waiting hand. Depending on the mixtures used, fire from this weapon can soften metal, or spark the explosion of an entire building. Witches with a touch of finess can control the blast as if it were a part of them, directing fire around allies and into the barrels of rapidguns, but only so long as the fuel burns.

Fire witches and their expulsors are exterminators on the battlefield. Expulsors took a dangerous type of witch and made them nearly atomic. Entire trench lines can be pumped full of oderless fuel, only to light with a snap of the fire witch's fingers. In urban warfare a fire mage can roast entire platoons without ever being seen. As the war rages on and supplies back home begin to dwindle, fire witches are used more and more to decimate urban battlefields, with high civilian casualties and the leveling of cities. The use of the expulsor has given new meaning to the term "scorched earth". However, this power comes at a high cost. Fire witches are second only to air mages in casualty rates, but by far the leader in combat fatigue. The power generated from the expulsor can easily overwhelm a witch. When a fire witch loses control, everything and everyone nearby burns. There are rumors on all sides of witches being used as walking explosives, but platoon commanders squash these whenever they are heard.

Incidentally, Alyss is a fire witch, and was outfitted with an expulsor during her service. She will tell you that, while sitting in a metal cockpit in the sky seems like torture, air mages have the luxury of never seeing their enemies' faces; fire witches do not.

[nothingunrealistic]

review roundup: billions 6x07 “napoleon’s hat”

great episode for taylor doing things on the few occasions when they got to do things! what do the critics think?

New York Times: ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 7 Recap: Let the Games Begin

the header image for this article is wags making a phone call, and is amusingly captioned “Wags (David Costabile) making what probably wasn’t his first panicked phone call to a brothel.”

You know, it’s funny: Before I watched this episode of “Billions,” I’d been thinking to myself, “It’s been too long since Chuck Rhoades went to a dungeon.”

can’t relate!

Even Chuck’s Plan B winds up D.O.A. With the help of his lieutenants, Dave and Karl (who’s been increasingly entertaining), Rhoades pinpoints the Olympic “fixer” Colin Drache as the recipient of a $5 million bribe, presumably from Prince. (Even Wags, of all people, is aghast at the brazen nature of the graft, at least as it pertains to a self-conceptualized straight arrow like Prince.) But just when he’s ready to make an arrest amid New York City’s celebration for securing the games, Drache simply vanishes, like Keyser Soze.

In a way, watching this season of “Billions” is like watching some kind of ethical disease spread. Taylor Mason, head of the Prince Capital subsidiary Mase Carb, could well be patient zero.

how do you devote a whole paragraph to prince outright bribing someone to close the olympics, after he’s slipped a hundred different incentives to a hundred different people to get 99% of the way there, and then conclude that taylor’s the origin of unethical behavior here? all their moves in the past two episodes were made to serve him!

The one-time wunderkind spends this episode setting up a crowdsourced algorithm for investment ratings, then lording it over an established ratings agency in order to force them to downgrade the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

what do you mean, one-time?

Prince is upset that Taylor and his own right-hand man, Scooter, went behind his back with the plan, but he knows how to take a W. Still, he insists he’s not like some drunk dad from whom the booze needs to be hidden at Christmas; he wants to be included in future maneuvers of this sort.

shouldn’t it say something about prince’s ethics, and his effect on others, that his objection is to being kept out of the maneuvering and not to the maneuvers happening?

Meanwhile, Rian, who has been spending the season as a sort of Jiminy Cricket-style externalization of Taylor’s conscience, rues handing over the spiffy new ratings algorithm to the corrupt old guard just to have it squashed. The Rian-Taylor dynamic is one of the show’s most intriguing at this point; I have no idea where the endgame is with these two.

once again i must make fun of sean for predicting romantic developments between taylor and rian for three recaps in a row last season. i also don’t know what the endgame is here, beyond suspecting some kind of permanent fracture in their relationship, but i could be doing worse!

Still no clues as to whatever Mike’s secret agenda may be, beyond his vaguely proclaiming, “I plan on having a lifetime of grand projects.”

me neither, except that i disagree with the theory i’ve seen most commonly (i.e. more than once on twitter), which is “he’s gonna run for president.”

Wendy is decidedly sour on her son’s private-school upbringing after she and Chuck are confronted by an obnoxious parent at the carnival, who calls Chuck a communist and Wendy a Karen. As an aside, the way they ferociously stick up for each other makes me think there’s still dramatic juice to be squeezed from their relationship.

unfortunately, i agree. i did wonder at the start of the season if wendy would end up on team chuck, based on the official poster putting her closer to chuck than to prince, and i’m still wondering.

Vulture: Billions Recap: Strings Attached

You know you’ve crossed pretty damn far into the dark side when Wags, the king of debauchery, is warning you against the dangers of, to use Drache’s term, financial “inspiration.” The same guy who spends a good portion of the episode helping sex workers evade Chuck’s raids cautions Prince not to bribe Drache to get the Olympics, saying the billionaire will “wake up a very different person.” For all his hedonistic tendencies, we do know that Wags is aware of life’s limits, making me wonder if there will come a time when he can no longer back his current boss.

raising the ultimate question about that scene: is wags warning prince against paying a bribe to get the olympics because he thinks no one should make that kind of move, or because he thinks prince possesses some unique moral purity that needs to remain unsullied?

More likely, if Wags ever does betray Prince, it will be because he has been kept out of the inner, inner circle: In last week’s episode, there was an ambiguous exchange between Prince and Scooter, where they discussed the reason why Prince is so keen to groom Scooter’s nephew Philip. From what I could gather, Prince wants Philip to take over MPC one day — because he and Scooter are planning something even more monumental than the Olympics. What that is, we don’t know, but it’s so top secret that it’s apparently the reason why Scooter returned to his office with no questions asked when it became clear corruption was about to go down.

intriguing theory! wags isn’t used to having a leader whose plans are above his security clearance. (but i assumed scooter returned to his office with no questions asked because he knows prince well enough to know he won’t be Fundamentally Changed by bribing someone.)

Chuck forges ahead with his bordello search, not without revealing to Dave — and the audience — that he’s no longer engaging in BDSM. No reason is given, though maybe the pandemic caused an involuntary abstinence.

do we need a reason beyond the implied “he’s changed as a person”? maybe finally dispatching axe and shifting focus to prince / All Billionaires has sated his need to get the crap beaten out of him.

The hinted rekindling of Chuck and Wendy’s relationship was a nice red herring, but getting them back together is just a bad idea all around. I’m sure their babysitter is exceedingly grateful that their renewed mutual disdain netted her a private dinner with chef Daniel Boulud.

and i’m grateful too! “mutual disdain” is the ideal state of the chuck-wendy relationship.

Entertainment Weekly: Billions recap: Michael Prince, the new King of New York

the one-sentence synopsis of this recap is “It’s finally time for the Olympics host city to be announced, and Chuck makes one final attempt at ruining Prince’s bid.” did you miss that there were *three* failed attempts to ruin prince’s bid — going after the scholarships, the sex club, and drache — in this episode?

Chuck is convinced that Prince can't be the leader in the Olympics bid without greasing some wheels along the way, and when he subpoenas the manifests of the IOC's helicopter trip to a U2 concert and sees Wags and Drache on the list, he figures that some sort of illegal bribery is going on between the two of them.

you mean the ICS’s trip to a bruce springsteen & bon jovi concert? where the hell did you get U2 from?

The B-story sees Taylor creating an algorithm that can rate stocks more precisely, using it as a wedge against the MTA when they sell the algo to a bigger company and ask for a favor in downgrading the MTA. That gives Prince some leverage to get his subway tech back in play, all but securing that the Olympics will come to New York.

wow! a whole paragraph about what taylor’s up to! you’re making such good progress!

[goneseriesanalysis]

Sam Temple

Ok, so I’m going to start by working through my opinions on the different characters of the series before I delve into other topics such as representation and plot. Here are my opinions on your main man Sam (I’ve only re-read Gone so far and will be doing a new one for each of the books). 

Also I feel like this goes without saying, but just in case: Spoiler warning for Gone down below

Original Opinion: I thought Sam was a boring protagonist with little to no personality asides from surfing and being ‘in love’ with Astrid.

New Opinion: While I still think Sam is an underdeveloped protagonist, I enjoyed his character much more than I remember, and have more thoughts on him than I realised. 

1.) SAM’S APPEARENCE AND CHARACTER: We get some indication of who Sam is, and his role in the story, in the first chapter. He describes himself as sticking “to jeans and understated t-shirts, nothing that drew to much attention to himself.” While this description is reflective of Sam’s reluctance to become a leader later in the books, it kind of reminds me of every boring protagonist of every ya book/film/tv show ever. It’s a little cliché and as soon as I read this I groaned out loud and prepared myself for the most basic protagonist to ever grace the page. 

 We then get a little insight into his personality and his relationship with the citizens of Perdido Beach:

“everybody knew who he was, but few people were quite sure what he was.”

“He was a surfer who didn’t hang out with surfers. He was bright but not a brain. He was good-looking, but not so that girls thought of him as a hottie.”

We get the idea that Sam is the underdog. Nobody really knows him, but they all expect him to be there when something goes wrong. This is a really good indictor for his role in the rest of the story, but the description still gives us almost no insight into who Sam is as a person. The best word I can think of to describe his personality is ‘protagonist’ - he could have been so much more if he had been given just a little bit more development. 

The next paragraph explains the school bus incident, where we again get absolutely no information on his personality. It’s almost as if Michael forgot that the hero had to be an actual person too. We get told that Sam has one heroic moment and then goes back to being his normal self, but what is his normal self?? I still have no idea. 

We get some more description of Sam when Caine is introduced in Chapter 14 “He had dark hair and dark eyes, not much different from Sam himself” - and this is reiterated by Astrid in Chapter 38 “Astrid was struck by how alike the two boys looked superficially.”                                                                                     “Where Caine hid his arrogance and cruelty behind a smooth, controlled surface, Sam let his emotions play out on his face.” But even here we still get very little idea as to what he actually does look like, a weak point I have noticed in Michael’s writing is his vague descriptions. I do really like Astrid’s comment on how they display their respective emotions. Sam’s strength in morality, his lack of deception, is also a weak point in his leadership - he is too easy to read and therefore manipulate (this isn’t really shown in this book but I remember this becoming apparent with the town council). Caine’s weakness in morality saves him from this weakness but leaves him open to betrayal and mistrust (and rightfully so). 

2.) SAM’S HOME: We next get to see Sam’s house in Chapter 3, which is described as being a “small squashed-looking one-story house with a tiny, fenced backyard and no real front yard.” From this description, and other information throughout the book, we get the idea that Sam and his mother are relatively poor. However, I would prefer to have been shown this instead of being told. Sam’s monetary situation never seems to affect his decisions and opinions which is a little disappointing as, from someone who has grown up poor, I know that it is something that really does affect your whole worldview. The only indicator we get that this situation has affected Sam in any way, is his comment on how wasteful the kids are being with food during the first night at the plaza - but he never actually acts on this - that job falls to Caine and later Albert.

It would have been interesting to explore how Sam could have reacted to Caine’s wealthy upbringing as opposed to his own. Them both being jealous of each other’s lives for different reasons (Caine for his lack of parental love, Sam for his lack of financial security) would have added depth to their relationship as well as Sam’s character. I’m also interested to see how Sam reacts to Albert basically reinstating capitalism in later books. As I remember, he was never overly opposed to it, but it will be interesting to see if his reaction is a direct result of his childhood.

3.) SAM’S FEAR OF THE DARK: This is plot point that is introduced to establish Sam’s powers, and it doesn’t have any other relevance in the story. This is disappointing as, with the final villain being nicknamed “the darkness” it could have been a really poetic and fitting ending for Sam to conquer both his innate fear and the villain at the same time. However as I remember it (possible spoilers for fear and light), Sam has very little to do with Gaia - Gaia mostly interacting with Diana, Caine, Drake and Lana. His ability to produce light in order to counter act this fear is a really nice inclusion though, and reflects how Sam’s leadership is a safety net to those living in the FAYZ. 

4.) SAM MOTIVATIONS: We first get an idea of what it is that motivates Sam when he talks about attacking Tom in Chapter 13, “I thought he was trying to hurt my mom.” Sam’s powers are triggered by fear, his first instinct is to protect those that he loves, and he will resort to violence if it is necessary. This idea is shown again when Sam steps in to protect Bette. His first instinct is to de-escalate the situation (and, interestingly, he looks to Howard to help him with this), but, when that fails, he resorts to violence. I really like this inclusion as it gives insight into Sam’s basic motivations and also explains how he was so quickly willing to murder Drake after Drake went after Astrid. Sam’s attack on Tom is heavily reflective of Sam’s relationship with Drake in the first book - Sam burning Tom’s hand foreshadows him burning Drake’s arm. 

One thing that bothers me with this scene, however, is that Sam shows little to no emotion when talking about his stepfather - and this is never expanded on. It seems out of character for Sam, one of the kindest characters in the book, to feel almost nothing towards his stepfather, and with no explanation as to why this might be. We get no indication of their relationship prior to the incident, which would have been a good chance to further develop Sam. 

Later in the book, when Tom is brought up again Sam says that he felt a rush “I thought, oh, my God, look at the power I have.” - And this again is never expanded on. Sam’s main fault is his unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility of being a leader, and he never really experiences a corruption of power in the way that this line hints. I think Michael may have just added this is to highlight the differences between Sam and Caine, but it feels out of character, especially seen as it is never brought up again (at least in this book, I can’t remember if this is featured later on in the series) 

5.) SAM’S POWERS: I mentioned before how Sam’s powers are first introduced to us through the flashback to Tom and his fear of the dark. But the first time we actively see him use them in the book is during The Fire and later at the powerplant. During both of these situations, Sam is unable to fully control his power and can only summon them through fear. His core motivation is to protect rather than attack. I also find it interesting that Sam is technically the first person to kill someone in the FAYZ, but I don't really have anything else to say about it :/

The first time we see Sam voluntarily use his powers in in Chapter 28, when Astrid manipulates him into using his anger instead of his fear. I find this interesting, because, despite the change in emotion, Sam’s motivation largely remains the same. The use of his power here comes from his anger at Drake having hurt Astrid, his anger that he wasn’t there to protect her. 

This then changes in chapter 33, when Sam seems to gain full control over his powers. This time, when he summons his anger he focuses on his mother. I have a few issues with this. Firstly, Sam gaining control of his powers seems rushed for plot convenience, especially when you compare him to Caine, who was more willing to use his powers and yet took months to master them?? Is this a hint that, if Sam were willing to go as far as Caine, he would be the more powerful one - or is it just lazy writing?? It seems that Sam and his powers were pushed aside for other storylines, which is troubling considering he is the main character. The other thing that bothers me about this scene is that Sam’s anger at his mother is not further developed (are you noticing a theme??) It would have been nice if this had come up again properly in the poof scene.

The poof scene would have been an excellent scene to develop Sam’s character, instead, for me, it fell flat. We don’t get much perception into Sam’s thoughts other than that his first instinct is to reach out to his mother, but this provides us with very little indication about who he is as we know that this has also been every other child’s first instinct. Him being the first one to refuse is indicative of his strength and hints that the anger he felt at his mother was more than a fleeting emotion, but it would have been nice to go into more depth on his feelings about his mother and Caine. A strong, emotionally charged verbal stand-off where Sam and Caine both vent their feelings towards their mother/the gaiphage would have been an excellent ending to the big fight - as Sam’s true strength is his compassion as opposed to his use of his powers. This could have also had a fantastic payoff in later books, where Gaia could have used this moment against the boys. 

6.) WHAT MAKES SAM A HERO:  I’ve already mentioned that Sam’s main strength is his kindness and compassion, which is nice to see - especially in a male protagonist (whether this continues in later books I can’t remember). His adversity to becoming the leader is his biggest weakness, as it often prevents him from doing the right thing in time sensitive situations. I found that this line from chapter 11 nicely sums this idea up “In a closet off the main room he found a grey-green military shirt, many sizes too large.” - possibly referring the idea that Sam is not ready to become the leader/ hero just yet. His hesitance, his insecurities, making him unfit to lead as of yet. Also nicely reminds you how he is just a child.

Then, there are multiple moments throughout the book where Sam is just shown to be the sweetest person and these are my two favourites:

“I’m not supposed to cross the street. // It’s ok. I’ll watch while you do, ok?” - Chapter 5

“Astrid, tell me if this is crazy: I’m thinking if there are any leftovers, we could send them up to Coates.” - Final

The reason people follow him is because in a world where he could be anything, where the old rules just don’t apply anymore, he still chooses to be kind and honestly I love him for it. His line  “It is our world. So let’s make it a good one” contrasts Diana’s line “We didn’t make this world, we’re just the poor fools who are living in it.” And really just highlights how good he is. He deserves so much more credit than he gets from the ungrateful cretins whose lives he saves on a daily basis. I just wish Michael had developed him further past being the protagonist. 

Another fantastic Sam moment is the bit where he escapes from the collapsed apartment building. If you are ever re-reading the series and wondering why Sam is the protagonist, please just read this moment again and tell me you don’t get chills

“Diana tripped backwards from the blow and sat down hard on the stone steps.

Caine could see her face with a sudden, terrible clarity by the glow of a brilliant column of blinding, green-white light.

That light could only have one source.

He lights was light a spear aimed at the sky. It arced upwards from the midst of the rubble of the apartment building.

‘No,’ Caine said.” Chapter 45

7.) OTHER:

These are just a couple of things I noticed, but can’t really make an infirmed point about

Is Sam’s light being green a reference to the gaiphage, or just a random addition??

I noticed that the first few freaks we learn about other than Sam just have a variation of his power. Is this lazy writing or does it have some significance that I missed??

So there are my opinions on Sam from the first book. I’m sorry that this was so long but I have just so many thoughts. I think I’m going to do separate posts for Astrid, Caine, Diana and Drake and then I’ll pair up the others before moving onto relationships, representation and my likes/ dislikes. 

Thank you so much if you read this, and please feel free to give me your own opinions and interpretations :) 

[paperwick]

So I watched Picard, here’s my spoiler-free take on it.

Overall, it was overproduced and lacked either the momentum that carries an action film or the meandering thoughtfulness that worked so well for both Star Trek the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. That said I liked it alright. 

Whenever Patrick Stewart or Brent Spiner was on screen, I was captivated. P.Stew is still one of the very best actors I’ve had the pleasure of watching and once again, he carries this show a great deal of the way. Michelle Herd was fantastic, Santiago Cabrera was a dream, but that’s where the show stops holding strong for me. Those four actors made the show. 

The cinematography was excessive. It was artistic with its ultra quick cuts when we needed space to breath, it was chaotic in fight scenes where we needed to pull back to actually understand how cool the action really is. You never really get the full scope of whats happening, it’s all sacrificed for the shaky-cam, quick-fire cuts. Scenes where you don’t need to cut at all, where you could let the camera sit and really take in the scene at the same rate as the character are often over-saturated with cut-ins, montage shots, and just... just a ton of visual garbage. 

There were shots that drove me a little crazy where they wanted to show “symbolism”. There’s a shot in particular that gets recycled several times throughout the show, where you see the character from behind a holographic screen with faces overlaid on their own, and one particularly with Picard touching the wrong side of his head to make the shot “work”. It all pulled me out of the show, brought me back to reality enough to critique every third scene. 

There’s a montage sequence they do every other episode, where they “heist-plan” scenes together. They’ll be talking about science in the “planning-scene” and cut to the “action-scene” in the future back and forth. I didn’t love it, and it happened constantly. It was chaos and once again it just butchered the pacing of the show. 

The other thing I had the most trouble with was the writing. There’s a lot of weak points in the plot, and things touched on that are only there once so a character can be like “AHA”. A character’s mannerisms show up once mid-season, something that hasn’t happened before this moment, and doesn’t happen after, JUST for a quippy scene of dialogue. It was strung together very poorly.

And really, what was worse for me, Star Trek hasn’t asked the “bigger” questions in a long time. It’s just entertainment, generally mindless entertainment. If it asks a question, it’s a simple one. I want Star Trek to challenge us again.

We’re living in a world that is so close, so overwhelmingly close to developing synthetic life, and I would love for them to explore at what point we stop treating AI as a commodity, as something owned by a corporation, as a tool. At what point does AI become a lifeform? 

But instead of pursuing contemporary problems, of any kind really, it goes with the quick-paced action film route of the JJ Abrams films. It did some interesting things with the morality of resigning from power in protest, but it never really capitalized on it. It was just touched on here and there. There was also something really interesting in the morality of killing for a cause, which came up CONSTANTLY, but once again was never really explored. So much was just squashed into the show and didn’t really matter over the course of it. 

Still, seeing Picard and Data interacting soothed my aching heart. I was underwhelmed by the show, I don’t think they should make a second season. I think they misstepped hard at the end by going with the gutsy play and then magicking themselves out of it. 

But the opening music is lovely, so there’s that. 

I give it a... 7/10. Not terrible, lacking in charm, but you can’t deny how incredible Patrick Stewart’s performance is. The show’s greatest sin is not living up to its potential.