#this insane writing pivot what were you thinking half of it makes literally no sense and retcons games of lore

[ziracona]

For the record what /should/ have happened at the end of Inquisition is Solas is going to break some of the veil to restore magic and power [[not somehow inexplicably be going to nuke the world?? To death?? Like I’ve been in the fade as a human a dwarf an elf and a qunari we were all just fine??? Or letting the old gods out again??? Which was the whole reason it went up?? Like..:Anyway]], enough of it to change how the world works, which will eternally upset the power structures in Thedas, and then use that power to lead an army to restore lands to the elves, since they’ve been thrown out of even the shitty reservations Andraste gave them.

He should have been awake for centuries, trying alone to fix things in better ways and failing, driven to isolation even among his own, in the burned wreckage of his good intentions, not awake for one year and viewing everyone he sees as not a real person [[Boring and unlikable motivation??? I mean I’m glad they had him change that by the end, but? It’s like a boring ‘intellectual bro’ failing that kind of guy would give his D&D pc. Also doesn’t really fit his characterization in-game? Like damn bro for someone who didn’t see anyone as people most of the time you sure cared if we delivered flowers or made life better for the mages]]. All of that would be in line with history of the game! The knights who tried to protect the Dales during the Exalted March of the Dales were all followed by a wolf companion? Him, trying to help. Trying to save them again. Let him have lived in the ashes of every attempt for centuries. Let him have been pushed and drained, not just woken up and still somehow feeling the most qualified around for every choice after seeing his last choice broke things in half.

He should have tried everything else and given up after a string of ‘I’ll act and make it better, I’ll act, and make it better,” all falling to a memory of “he ruined it, he caused this.” Alone for centuries. Chosen to do the only thing he could and go all the way, accepted dying alone and dying as the villain as inevitable, and decided to at least make that worth it to himself once, and leaned hard into the “I’m big and bad and doing this alone.” Become an expedient force of destruction carving out lands and a chance for his people, becoming everything, to draw blame from the elves onto himself, and pursued the most expedient from A to B path forward possible, despite the carnage, to assure the results he knew would be best, even if he knew it would probably also get him killed alone, and painted the villain forever again. Because nothing else had worked, and it was too late to back up after everything lost. We could have had a fuckin Sword of Damocles and DA could have knocked it out of the park ripping off Code Geass twice in one series and they just biffed it so hard!!

EDIT: OH and I should have been able to see that if my little Qunari did nothing, the man would die alone succumbing to his eons old fate one last time and ending in his biggest fear, still trying to, and sort of doing, something deeply good, for which he will be hated for all time, while my guy had the power to save him from that. But knowing if he tried to help, he would himself be seen as a beacon of evil and all he’d sacrificed to gain, in chantry reforms, in freedom for Mages, in lives for the elves of Orlais, in perception of the Qunari, would be turned against them and called into doubt and leave them in the ashes of his good intentions. And fighting should have broken out full scale at the end of the game, and he should have been able to, instead of either choice, abominate himself into a dragon by calling on his bloodline, and go out shielding the guy from a falling mountain or something just once at the start of a war Zhuzhi Lang style and been at peace.

[amberenigma]

stream of consciousness thoughts on ( ovan’s ) will. and about graphics. this is your spoiler warning for volume 4: reconnection.

i spent too long last night playing gu for a hot second and now i have some Thoughts:tm: about plots, ovan, and the notion of will. enjoy some 2015 levels of rambling about objectively minuscule details. 

anyway literal toilet thought but the archives have a very interesting way of creating meaningful iconography using particular design elements of characters ( mainly the infinity eight ) and minimizing it to something both unique and recognizable. namely, the epitaph pattern icons used for each player in the archives---they’ve always been really neat, unique, and it’s been something that the cc2 team has always used in their archives since _02.

ovan’s has changed between trilogy/original gu and volume 4, which i always thought was pretty neat, especially in terms of what’s actually presented.

( but anyone with the book be like: okay but haseo has a different one too in volume 4!! and i say shshshshshshshh this came about purely because of unison skeith’s icon which uses haseo’s epitaph version since he’s.......you know.......skeith’s host. epitaph talk will come up later )

anyway excuse my 5 minute “slap a banner of images” but the difference here is obvious and i just have an appreciation for what it means with aida---mostly that aida was acknowledged and treated as a completely different entity, an anomaly that didn’t belong on ovan at all and depicted as such during the trilogy. but after kusabira fuses back with him as true neighbor ( which i always thought was a very interesting name to give tri-edge ), we get a spiffy new icon for big blue and wah-lah, aida is now cyan! YAAAA!!! whether or not ovan actually accepts her as part of him ( in which he at least seems reluctant in-game, not so much my main verse after 6 years of writing him lmao ) is rather up for debate, but here we can at least verify that she’s not there to be malicious per se ( but that doesn’t quite exclude her as a menace, see haseo’s “it’s kusabira, isn’t it. it’s that aida whispering in your ear.” ), and not to the extent of trying to completely fuck up his day. i found that slight change pretty interesting. this is where i get into the meat of what i wanted to talk about.

the notion of will in .hack---gu in particular.

but first i do wanna say that there’s this blaring fucking pothole when it comes to corbenik and the rebirth that i don’t know will ever be explained. like. if it’s a failsafe that was a one and done thing, then corbenik should have been......destroyed or severely damaged or something.....right...or at least that’s what kind of makes sense to me unless the product of the RA plan really makes epitaphs less prone to the crumbly wumblies like they were in imoq after being salvaged. although that doesn’t seem to be the case given unison skeith is a solid half corbenik/half skeith. it’s bothered me for years and canon doesn’t really lean one way or the other, it just is ( again, i’ve written something out for my corbi blog years ago and tl;dr ovan and azure kite go fish him out of the sea of data, put him together, but he lacks the ability to rebirth again--i need to tag that thread actually ). but maybe he’s never meant to truly disappear as his moniker implies. always coming back ( additionally fitting for ovan, but i digress ). 

will is an interesting concept in gu. and at least with ovan specifically, it’s a strangely powerful trait in him, which may be why part of why he has this sort of enigmatic sort of vibe to him to anyone---this notion of, “i don’t know what this guy wants, but whatever it is, he’ll get it one way or another.” and i think it may really be stronger than at first glance, pivotal almost. we see it twice in dire moments, even though he’s so, so tired.

the first ( and not chronologically, there’s obvious some other off-screen moments we can speculate, these are just two instances that come to mind clearly ) is with the fight with cubia in redemption, where 7 of the 8 are trying to break through ballsack cubia’s final AT field ( forgive me it looks like an AT field what can we expect from sadamoto okay ). yata says they can’t do it without “the epitaph of rebirth”, which always struck me as odd for quite awhile. what did he mean by epitaph of rebirth? didn’t haseo have all of the epitaph data in his pc? he data drained corbenik twice now, they should be okay, no?

but, yata wasn’t referring to corbenik specifically in this case. he was referring to ovan, and in that extension, corbenik as his epitaph. the remnant data skeith absorbed was essentially not enough in this case despite corbenik containing a metric fuckton of data between himself and aida. what skeith can’t devour is human will. ovan’s will.

in the archives, ovan’s specifically noted to have an extremely high mental resilience---it’s the primary trait that attracted corbenik in the first place when searching for a host. this could mean quite a few things, honestly, and taking into account what little of his past we actually know, it makes sense that his sense of direction is incredibly poignant, his will to be essentially unmatched ( although parallel to haseo’s in my opinion, just simply a different flavor ). the man’s just an absolute unit. it’s also noted that ovan didn’t really take into account the repercussions of activating the rebirth and purging the net, thus spawning our good friend cubia, so he truly was just ready to go sleep forever. paraphrasing aura here, the rest of the infinity eight’s praying for ovan to hear their collective voices ( admittedly it just boils down to ovan hearing haseo’s voice, gestures at lost files in the trilogy archives which is a hilarious conversation by the way; “leave me be, i’m tired. i just want to sleep.” ) is what gets him to muster up any remaining strength he has left to come help. 

it’s an interesting sequence of scenes with haseo’s cracked data just magically healing up once ovan enters the picture---his presence alone drives haseo. it’s his image and his voice that’s alongside haseo’s ( which is an interesting choice because it could have been all eight of them in this case ). his will is what catalyzes everything to it’s end, including himself. 

the second is the avatar fight with moralta, where haseo realizes that he can’t do it alone again---and ovan is still surprisingly able to put himself through that kind of strain despite being in the deep freeze for a year ( avatar and all! again! goddamn! ), combining into unison skeith and yeeting the shit out of giant slug baby once and for all. this particular encounter takes a different note compared to cubia considering we hear both of them synced up ( literally all of their dialogue is the same )---and beyond the fact this whole epilogue is about haseo and ovan, it really ends up being the sheer fact that it’s both of them together that overcome and stop moralta from fucking up [the world]. sheer will’s a strong motive for pretty much all of vol 4 though, so this is kinda expected. it’s haseo’s lament at the end that poses an interesting discussion---he couldn’t do it by himself again ( in this case he is referring to everyone as a whole as well before finding ovan, too ). for all of the power that he holds via skeith, kusabira, etc, he still needed ovan there to push to victory. i’ve always felt that was an interesting distinction the staff has made throughout the gu timeline ( in any retelling of it, actually ). even ovan has to let him know that it’s the fact he had a warband of support that got him that far in the first place despite the trauma ovan had pushed him through.

the series has been consistent about ovan’s ability to push things the extra mile, even for things that he may not personally want, even if there’s few people he’d undoubtedly be alongside. his involvement makes all of the difference, and that’s powerful in it’s own way ( he is the antihero after all ). we see the power ovan has by guiding the events of gu throughout all three volumes, but we really see just how strong he is when he’s actually on-screen the few times he’s there for more than 10 seconds. it’s kind of fucking insane such a laidback personality has that much influence on the outcome of incredibly dangerous/dire/important situations.

when he knows exactly what he wants, he knows exactly what makes people tick, and what makes the world around him change. ovan’s will is a terrifying weapon and it’s one of my favorite details about him. 

and last thing that just came to mind from playing around last night..

in one of the demo trailers, haseo’s monologue expresses the emotions he’s experienced throughout playing to that point---specific people embody specific emotions, and in ovan’s case, he’s associated with despair. despair drives ovan--haseo’s correct about that honestly even if the context of what he knows boils down to the fact ovan’s burdened with aida and saving his sister ( things we see in the archives explicitly point out that the indou parents are straight up dead ). this man has lost so much, is losing too much, and is on the brink of losing even more during the events of gu and it shows. despair is a powerful force, a reaction to the things one has experienced and an outlet for all of the things it can cause. a man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous and the most powerful of them all even in silence---and somehow, somehow ovan has managed to keep his edge despite being on the brink of death himself in the real world. that’s fucking scary.

[m-602]

Within the Flames

((Look... I’mma apologize. I promised a story like... almost a month ago. A little less a little more. Then I got distracted... Then I got lazy... And it just kinda... went downhill from there.))

((This changed a lot between when I first started this to now. The nature of M’s “insane state” turned into its own effing character - I loved it. There’s also the fact the M’s default appearance changed (a lot happened in Discord >.>). @astel4 decided to make a drawing of it!))

((I’m not sure what I’m going to write after this, but... I’ll figure it out. I’ll probably wait until Thanksgiving Break in a few weeks before I do, though.))

((Warning. Death, Gore, Violence, and extremely verbose writing await you. I... kind of went overboard with all the descriptive words and such. ^-^;))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Death claims everything that lives, be it at the apex of one’s journey or before it even begins. Nothing truly lasts forever. At some point or another, everything must end…

…

So what about when it doesn’t end. When something finite becomes infinite at its most pivotal moment. Where even though it reached its finale, an ongoing encore drags the faded tale further beyond. 

At this point, the story simply… is. It no longer serves meaning beyond what the protagonist decides. They trudge on through the universe - what is normally a one-shot story becomes a novel where the second chapter never ends. The pain, the joy, the woes, the celebrations, the sorrows - they pile on and on, never weighing them down, and yet draining them all the same.

Some can handle this ever increasing strain on their being. They become protectors, mediators, and teammates. The best of your friends and family despite their status. They grow wiser and wiser with every new step they take, eventually coming to terms with their fate.

And yet, their lives are not lacking in pain and strife. The ever increasing pile that their afterlives grant them affects them still, even if they manage it well. It’s sometimes obvious in subtle behaviors or reactions. But sometimes… it becomes so much that they burst in unimaginable ways.

In the case of one, their rage leaves nothing but fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ???, M

Them.

He thought they were gone. That they had perished along with everything they destroyed. They hurt so many, and for what reason? Paranoia. Half the towns and cities that they had ruined didn’t even pose a threat to them… It’s almost like they wanted to wipe them all out for no reason.

They were still here in this dead world. In this world that they killed. That they destroyed with little concern or conscience. How they could possibly believe they deserve to have this world for themselves baffles and beguiles him. Was it truly possible that they wanted the whole world to themselves? Was living alongside others outside of their own nation really such an impossibility?!

He still remembers all the destruction they wrought. He occasionally hears the screams of his loved ones and family, both in the waking world and the realm of slumber. Even his own powers bring reminder of the loss he’s felt.

His barriers… a representation of his futile desire to protect everyone, and the only power he could call his. The magic that would’ve developed naturally, now warped and strengthened by Death itself. His flames… a representation of the ruin he’s bore witness to. A representation of the spark of life that should’ve been extinguished - persistently, it has only blazed forth an endless path with a renewed, infinite robust. His chains… a representation of the pain he keeps within. The binding emotions that he has weaponized… His very scythe… a memento of his own demise...

These thoughts are only fuel for the raging blaze. His temper only seems to grow more and more uncontrollable as he continues forward. Towards the very people he’d have no problem torturing. The only people he would liberally shatter and tear. The only people he would grant the ultimate end, leaving nothing but their ashes.

* They’ll pay… They’ll all pay! None of them will escape!

Everything that’s happened to him. Everything he’s lost. Every problem that he’s had to deal with. Every one of his greatest sorrows. His own death!

It was all their fault.

And from the seeds of sorrow they’ve woven blooms their fiery penance. The flames of judgement that will turn upon them the pain they’ve inflicted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AoC HQ, Commander Able

For the first time in all these years, they had detected something other than one of their own. Something that shouldn’t be here. This world was theirs alone, they made sure of that decades ago! If there was someone else here, they needed to be swiftly executed!

After weeks of careful study, deliberation, and reconnaissance, they’ve finally determined their unwanted loiterers… A literally dead town. No joke! It was crawling with remnants of lives they had thought extinguished. What a revelation… And a truly embittering one considering that this world was theirs.

Not even the dead from other towns can have it. They won’t have such impure presences walk around their world - their property. This wasn’t a planet for them to share! They worked diligently to ensure this world was theirs and theirs alone. They won’t let it be all for naught.

As the Agents of Creation, and the ones designated as the world’s only residents, they wouldn’t let such trespassing go unpunished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Outside the AoC HQ, M?

There they were. After all these years, the ones who were responsible for everything - the destruction of his home, the destruction of his world, the deaths of his friends, the deaths of his family, his own death - there they were, safe and sound in their little base.

“Agents of Creation”? HA! They think life itself granted them the “okay” to tear this world and its people apart. To keep it all to themselves?! It’s a notion so ridiculous and audacious that it makes him laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh...

…

The skies darken. Dark blue flames begin to encroach upon the base. The lights within even flicker under the overwhelming power. You could practically see the world distort and waver. The sound of chains could be heard somewhere off base.

A mighty cloak to symbolize the coming disaster… A nobler crown to symbolize HIS reign… 

[FOR ONCE… WE ARE IN AGREEMENT… LET US TEAR THEM APART… THIS WORLD IS OURS TO RULE…]

The laughter was absolutely deafening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Entrance, THEM

They thought the power was faltering. That some kind of fuse was busted, or a connection line needed repair. If it weren’t for the… creepy, sinister laughter, that thought would have prevailed.

There was something… powerful outside. Its laughter seemed to echo from everywhere and anywhere. No matter what they did, the laughter invaded their senses, their minds, driving them to fear.

A surveillance camera caught a glimpse of dark blue flames encroaching upon the building before it just… gave out. They attempted to make contact with perimeter lookouts, only to be met with radio silence. Everyone flooded the entrance to the base, shaking weapons at the ready. Officers, generals, leaders, and other VIPs congregated in the center of the base. Being in the most well protected and guarded area of the complex would absolutely mean they were safe… right? Right?!

Thunder boomed from outside the building, a lightning bolt striking nearby. The wind seemed to scream at every soldier near the entrance, snapping at them with a primordial anger. The laughter seemed to grow… louder?

“Open the doors! We’ll ambush that thing!”

At the order, the massive metallic doors started to open slowly. Everyone trained their weapons on the entrance, unsure of what they’ll see when they open.

The last thing they expected was darkness to overtake the room. The last thing they expected was the sound of chains joining the echoing laugh. The last thing they expected was a dark blue fire to flood the room.

The last thing they expected was a terrifying shadow to literally tear someone into multiple small pieces, commenting only with a maniacal cackle…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AoC HQ, Ikearu

* Don’t get used to this… [HENCE WHY I’M GOING TO SAVOR EVERY MOMENT…]

There were few things the two personalities could agree on. They toil endlessly within the psyche, one trying to suppress the other and exert control. One simply wished for a peaceful existence, the other wished to drag others with them and govern their afterlives under an iron fist. Such conflicted causes could surely find naught to compromise upon. And yet, one thing they could…

Was the total annihilation of those who wronged this world. For differing reasons, that is certain, and yet here they were in total agreement.

One wished vengeance on these cretins that took away the world and forced him to wander for eternity; the other simply feels insulted at the insolence they express in his world. And that personality was now tearing the abominations in human form to shreds…

The first victim - who foolishly decided to inch himself towards the metal doors - was just a mere demonstration. Shredding him from the fingers down, letting the body parts coat the floor. His bloodied claws twitched imperceptive. He still had quite a lot of fun to be had with the rest of these fodder.

Though their piteous weaponry fired, not a single bullet made contact with the maniacal shadow. If they weren’t torn to bits by his claws, they were burned, electrocuted, crushed by chains. A dark flame would erupt from their cadavers, extinguishing any remnants of a spirit they had. Not even the chance to so much as arise as Fiends shall be sanctioned to them. A pitiful, empty existence as that is one even they aren’t worthy of.

Alarms would’ve blared if the facility wasn’t drowned in shadow. Good. The quiet suits him. Makes it easier for him to mess with his prey. It allows him to prey on their fears, their anxieties, before ending it all in the most painful of ways. To let them watch as their fellows are dragged off, incinerated, mutilated in front of them by a seemingly invisible opponent.

The base fell into total lock-down in an attempt to keep him - THE KING - in one place… An amusing gesture to think he could be stopped. Any doors in his way: busted open in a fiery blaze. A wall of lasers: short-circuited by a jolt of dark blue electricity. No matter the obstruction, he blasted through, leaving behind a crimson trail. As annoying as they may have been, they only made this more enjoyable to him. Sometimes, he would use the obstructions to mess with his prey further, making them believe themselves safe before reality comes to crush their dreams in the event of their demise.

The sound of rustling chains, thundering explosions, and psychopathic cackling echoed throughout the building, accompanied only by the screams of indolent soldiers. If they weren’t responsible for the death of a world - if they didn’t suffer from a lack of altruism - perhaps one could feel sympathy for them… Unlikely.

[A SHAME THEY MUST FADE INTO NOTHING - I’D HAVE NO PROBLEM RULING OVER THEIR SPIRITS AND SUBJECTING THEM TO TORTURE UNYEILDING…]

* Yet we’ve both agreed that they don’t even deserve that. To exist for even another second.

[I’VE NOT FORGOTTEN. I’M NO FOOL. IT WOULD BE INACCURATE TO SAY THAT I WOULDN’T BE TEMPTED TO DESTROY THEM ANYWAY.]

After perhaps an hour of constant carnage and massacre, he finds himself before a set of ornate, sealed doors. This is very clearly the most secure part of the base, and not a guard in sight. That’s to be expected - every other soldier in this place was dead. The building already began to crumble in a mighty conflagration. Even now, the flames rise behind him, ready to eat away at the cowards within.

He flashes a widening, sinister smile, his face looking like the creepiest jack o’ lantern to ever exist beneath his hood.

[AND NOW… THE FINALE…]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Central Control, Able

He couldn’t see what was going on outside, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put two and two together. He could hear the screams, the fire, from they’re safe zone - they were quite difficult to ignore. He knew the main defense was nothing but cinders, now.

He and the remaining guard now eyed the only entrance to the room they were in, shaking with absolute subtlety. Everything they worked for was crashing down around them. Their allies outside now lay dead, murdered by the psycho outside. If they were going down, they wanted to go down with a fight… They already had a plan to kill this thing.

The temperature in the room steadily began to rise. It rose and rose and rose until it was nearly smoldering in the room. Everyone in the room started breaking out into a sweat as they were essentially being cooked alive… Very, very slowly cooked alive.

A footstep. Another. Very slow, meticulous footsteps could be heard from beyond the doors. The maniacal laughter was heard everywhere, but felt the loudest here. The thing that was tearing their base apart was right outside, biding its time…

…

In an instant, the doors blew open. Something was in the room, dashing straight for Able.

Only to be caught in some kind of colorless sphere.

Able could now get a good look at the beast.

It was… terrifying, to say the least. It was… almost completely shadow, with some kind of blue outline or aura defining its shape. Floating directly above its head was a crown, shaped like fire, that could probably fit perfectly on its head. It wore a dark blue cloak, adorned with various black designs similar to chains, with the hood sitting upon its head perfectly shadowing its face - you could only see slitted blue eyes and a jagged, sinister grin, as if its very mouth was made of extremely sharp teeth! The ends of it cloak separated and curled similar to flames, creating a unique, jagged design. The collar around its neck opened in to the front half of its body, bearing a similar jagged design.

The… thing just smiled at him. A menacing grin that chilled him to the bone, despite the searing flames outside. It stopped laughing at least…

He decided to talk to it. It was going to be obliterated anyways. Why not gloat a little?

“Well… aren’t you a nasty abomination? You sure caused us quite a bit of strife today. However, as much as you’ve destroyed, we can rebuild. After all, we are the designated rulers of this world - it would be a shame if we fell so easily. Besides, we can’t have something as atrocious as you running around causing trouble.”

A humming sound filled the room. The device would take but a few moments to charge, but soon enough, this thing would be nothing but dust.

“Any last words before you meet oblivion?”

The thing just… chuckled at him. It was a deep, dark chuckle that seemed to reverberate around the room.

“THAT IS MY LINE, YOU WORM. THIS WORLD IS MINE, AND MINE ALONE. YOUR LIFE IS BUT AN EMPTY EXISTENCE THAT NEED BE EXTINGUISHED.”

The thing’s voice echoed throughout the room, its words evoking fear into Abel’s heart. It… wasn’t even scared. Why wasn’t it scared?! It continued.

“YOU BELIEVE THIS WORLD YOUR OWN? HA! TO THINK YOU’D BE WORTHY OF A WORLD YOU’VE ROTTED SO IS PITIABLE INDEED… I’M THE RIGHTFUL OWNER OF THIS WORLD. YOU’VE DONE NAUGHT BUT RUIN IT FOR THE SAKE OF RUIN. I SHALL RULE THOSE YOU’VE DESTROYED WITH AN IRON FIST, UNTIL ALL OF LIFE HAS KNOWN PENANCE UNDER MY REIGN.”

“YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO BE PUNISHED FOR SUCH INSOLENCE.”

In one moment it was there… and the next, nothing. The maniacal laughter returned, stronger than ever. A guard on the right burned to a crisp. A guard on the left was dragged away by a haunting chain. Another torn apart. Another completely gutted… until that sinister face now stood right in front of Abel in a suddenly darkened room. The weapon from before simply… stopped.

“FAREWELL, WORM. YOU’RE VERY EXISTENCE IRRITATES ME.”

It grabbed him by the neck, holding him up against the screen behind him. He felt his consciousness, his vision, his hearing, his memories, his personality, and everything he knew fade slowly into darkness. The temperature in the room rose drastically, until dark blue flame coated the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling. The last thing Abel would know…

…was searing, blue fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nowhere Important, The Lich King

Death claims everything that lives. Nothing lasts forever…

For one person, it was a new beginning. The extension to his story he never asked for. With literally all the time in the world, he bore a similarly heavy weight. And now at his peak, that weight has been made manifest, though an echo had always been present… That same echo now granted his killers a contrasting demise.

For them, their journeys have reached a permanent end. No memory, no body, no will, no spirit that would anchor them to the mortal coil or grant them peace in the beyond. A true death, where they only know oblivion - a nothingness that transcends abysmal. And even then… no longer do they have a consciousness for oblivion to be known to.

The lich rises from the burning wreckage, admiring his work. With the deed done, he makes himself scarce… before launching a powerful fireball at the wreckage. With a massive ‘boom’, the wreckage ignites in a colossal, dark blue flame, easily reaching the height and size of a skyscraper. It burned and burned, never waning in strength - such a flame would never fade so long as this world remained intact.

Before returning to the dark recesses of his counterpart’s psyche, he flashes a menacing smile on his face, leaving his other half with a message.

[ONE DAY… THIS WILL BE PERMANENT… ONE DAY… A DEAL LIKE THIS WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL… AND ON THAT DAY, I SHALL RISE A TRUE KING, AND MAKE THIS WORLD AND ALL OTHERS MY OWN… THIS FIRE… LET IT BE A REMINDER OF THE PUNISHMENT THAT AWAITS THE FOOLS WHO DEFY ME.]

And with that, the dark ego retreated to the deepest corners of the mind, saying not another word. The cloak vanished, and the crown upon his head went back to its usual size and position above his head. He sighed.

“I’m well aware, Ikearu… I’ve been aware ever since I’ve fought to keep you from getting out… So long as I exist…”

…

“I won’t let the undeserving suffer within your flames.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

((Feel free to send me ideas if you want me to write a story. I rather enjoy A Hat in Time stories, and I may dabble in a Hollow Knight story. Just maybe...))

((I do hope you enjoyed. Please, if you’re going to leave criticisms, make sure it’s constructive and not just bland hate. I want to be able to improve on my writing.))

((Have a great day! And thank you for reading!))

[rousingloki]

Human Fall Flat Review-Human Fail Flat

Can’t say I’m too proud to write this one.

You’d be forgiven thinking that Human Fall Flat is another “me-too” wonky physics game. Well I’m here to tell you that is not the case. Human Fall Flat doesn’t rely on glitches, or wacky physics to get its point across. Bear in mind it does have those, but that’s not the entire game, only part of it.

Human Fall Flat is definitely vastly more interesting when it comes to the “Physics” based games. Being miles ahead of Goat Simulator and quite literally any other “Simulator” games that can be found by the thousands on Steam. Given that context though, that doesn’t mean I’m giving it a huge compliment.

To give credit where credit is due, Human Fall Flat IS a fun, quirky, and cute game. It has a charm to it that, possibly due to its simplistic graphics and the ambiance of its music, gives it life that is usually very difficult to give to this type of genre.

Looking as if it’s powered by the bare minimum of what the Unity engine can offer, it takes this look and rolls with it the entire game, although growing in scale, and showing a moderately small but unique set of levels that will challenge your cranium and occasionally bamboozle your brain.

The premise of the game is very simple: get from the beginning to the end using both hands to push, pull, pivot, prod, and even punch your way through obstacles. Some of these can be as simple as pushing a button to open a door, or using a log to create a wedge. The puzzles are varied, and there always feels like there’s multiple ways to solve a problem. It all depends on the creativity and patience you’re willing to work with, or in later levels, put up with.

While the game starts off with the difficulty scaling relatively well, the puzzles themselves can almost begin to feel like a “Guess what the developer was thinking” game. The biggest problem here is the physics; they can be completely sporadic, and make little to no sense.

One example was me trying to make a bridge. I was able to do it right the first time, but after trying the level again to get fully acquainted with the multiple ways of completing puzzles, creating the bridge again was impossible. I went from every possible angle to do it, but no matter what I tried it just wasn’t working, and while I did find a way around the problem, it felt like the game was forcing my hand and making me do something different just for the sake of it. I know that could be considered versatile, but it felt extremely restrictive, and given that this is a physics based game, it shouldn’t have to feel that extremely precise, especially when your character is essentially the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

That leads me to another problem in this game: precision. While there are several puzzles that found the route on Super Mario 64′s non-precise control scheme to be the perfect match, some levels are just flat out obnoxious in their puzzle solving. Having to use machinery to latch onto anything is a complete crap-shoot. Either it works, or most of the time, it doesn’t, leading into a trial and error game that’s about as fun as sticking a fork in an electrical outlet.

This game also doesn’t know when to stop with tedious tasks. From having to wind up catapults, to having to fix your boat because there’s no reverse, it gets old insanely fast, and leads to frustration and contempt.

Speaking of boats, for the love of God is water truly awful in this game. It kills you, the second you go in too deep you’re dead, and that wouldn’t be such an issue if the boats actually worked half the time, but because of how your body takes up space or decides to handle boats, you won’t be able to turn quickly, properly, or sometimes not at all since your character can’t be fucked to move to get the boat moving swimmingly.

Remember how I said this game was Fun? Well I wasn’t lying, when this game is good, it’s good. Running around and solving puzzles definitely feels good. It does feel rewarding to know you’re making progress, to hear the sound of music letting you know that you’re doing well, or that you just accomplished some major milestone. When this game is not being a total pile of garbage, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

I do wish the music actually stayed around though, eventually it will pass and leave you feeling alienated in a world that almost beings to depress you as the sound effects are limp and you can only listen to your footsteps for so long before wanting to just shut the game off.

To get to a colossal problem that this game likes to pull, I absolutely must tell you about the glitches.

This was one of the killing points for me in the game. While I didn’t experience really any in the earlier stages, I kept experiencing plenty in the later stages. Sometimes late into the later stages, and these glitches weren’t just benign or could be shaken off, they’d either do one of two things: Freeze me up and I’d have to hit the buttons like a maniac just to get back control, or they’d break the game and I’d have the reset everything.

I can say right now that there is NOTHING more upsetting than getting far in a level, just to have to do the entire thing all over again, just because a lever decides to float in midair, or cause certain objects that are CRUCIAL to the game to just never appear.

That was when I about had it with the game’s nonsense.

I really wanted to enjoy this game, I really did. After playing it on PC when it was in a demo state and there were only about 3 levels to explore, there was a lot of promise. However; I really don’t think I can say I’ll be picking this one up again, this game has far too many problems for me to want to keep enduring, I wanted to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but this game forces my hand by refusing to let me pursue. So I had to call it quits there.

However, I don’t want to end this review entirely negative.

To give the game a bit of a lifesaver, or to those who think they’d enjoy it still, I can tell you right now that the game is infinitely better with friends. Whether it be local, or online, having more friends to play this game makes it far more enjoyable. Whether you’re actually trying to beat the level, or just going Gang Beasts on each other, there’s a lot more fun to be had if you’re getting absolutely sick of the single player game.

This isn’t a game changer to me though, the game has left a very sour taste in my mouth, and it’s unlikely that I’m going to pick it up again. In game they say Humans must push every button they see. Well they’re right, because they definitely pushed all of mine.

3/10 Poor

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Patriarchy and toxic masculinity are dominating America under Trump

(Credit: Getty/Rick Wilking)

Donald Trump’s election was a victory for toxic masculinity and patriarchy, two issues psychologist Terry Real has spent a career exploring. Since the 1998 publication of his groundbreaking book “I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression,” Real has been one of the most incisive voices on men’s issues, with an emphasis on the destructive effects of male trauma. With Trump’s ascension to the White House, Real sees the re-emergence of a dangerous form of masculinity with potentially far-reaching psychic and emotional consequences. He argues that recognizing and addressing our personal and collective trauma — much of which was inflicted even before Trump entered the political arena — is the only way to heal.

AlterNet publisher Don Hazen and associate editor/senior writer Kali Holloway sat down with Real to discuss the role of toxic masculinity in Trump’s presidential win; “blue” and “red” masculinity; the destructive notion of intimacy as a gendered trait; and the trauma created by psychological patriarchy.

Kali Holloway: Can we start by discussing what toxic masculinity is, how damaging it is and how exactly we got here?

Terry Real: Sure. About Trump — someone in the Trump campaign spoke to me off the record and said that every time Trump did something outrageous and the Democrats and liberals would be up in arms, [the Trump team] was happy because they would watch his numbers dip momentarily and then come roaring back. The chilling thought is that for at least a sizeable part of the population, Trump wasn’t elected despite his horrible misogynist behavior, but to some degree because of it, and that what America seems to be after is an old-style masculinity. Of course, men and women both can participate in patriarchy.

Let me say something about patriarchy. I distinguish between what I call political patriarchy and psychological patriarchy. Political patriarchy is very straightforward. It’s the oppression of one cohort, women, by another cohort, men. It’s about sexism. Of course, it’s still going on in America and all over the world. As a psychotherapist, what caught my eye was not so much the politics of sexism, but a dynamic that exists at the core of the patriarchal system that I see as a psychological dynamic, but I’d like to spell it out.

I like to think of psychological patriarchy as occurring in three rings. Think about it as three concentric rings, three processes. The first ring I call the Great Divide. It’s when you take the quality of your androgynous self — the qualities of one whole human being — and you draw a line down the center. You say all the qualities to the right are masculine, and all the qualities to the left are feminine. We all know what the breakdown is. It’s what [renowned family therapist] Olga Silverstein called halving, or the halving process. Halving a human being is intrinsically traumatic.

Don, as you know, this halving process is traumatic and is imposed by violence. If anybody dares to step outside of the box, the retaliation is swift. I have to say, after 50 years of feminism, the retaliation against “tomboy” girls has softened some over the years. The retaliation to “mama’s boys” and “sissy boys” is just as violent now among peers as it has always been. This halving process takes place whether you want it to or not.

The other thing I want to say about the halving process — when boys learn to suppress half of who they are — is that it takes place between the ages of three and five. It’s very young, almost preverbal.

The second concentric ring is what I call the Dance of Contempt, and that is simply that these in traditional patriarchy, these two halves of masculine and feminine are not held as separate but equal. The masculine qualities are exalted. The feminine qualities are reviled. The essential nature, the dynamic between these two halves, is contempt: contempt for the feminine.

Don Hazen: Contempt is one of the worst elements of any kind in a personal relationship.

TR: I agree. It’s like cancer. It’s toxic. That’s the dance of contempt.

The third concentric ring is one of the unsung great psychological forces in the world. It’s important to remember that the feminine side of the equation can be man, woman, boy or girl. This equation can play out between a man and a woman, but it’s not embodied; it can play out between a man and a woman, it can play out between two men, it can play out between a mother and a child, it can play out between two races, it can play out between two cultures, it can play out in your head.

The point is, whoever inhabits the feminine side of the equation has a deep compulsion to protect the disowned fragility of whoever is on the masculine side of the equation, even while being hurt by that person. Whoever is on the feminine side protects the masculine side from its own disowned fragility. You don’t speak truth to power. You protect the perpetrator. You protect power.

DH: Does that have anything to do with why so many women voted for Trump?

TR: Yes, I think that has a lot to do with it, in the sense that the offensive and perpetrating behaviors were minimized. But I think there’s a simpler answer, actually. I think that what has more do with it is a resurgence of the traditional vision of patriarchy, which is appealing to some, both men and women. To understand that appeal, I’d like to talk to you about a couple of apes, if I could.

You know the whole thing about the alpha male. Everybody’s heard about the alpha male who gets all the females, and the biggest and strongest and toughest gets access to mating. Well, that is a narrative that it turns out was spun by alpha anthropologists who were all male. When women were allowed into the field of anthropology, they discovered a very different kind of male. They call it, lo and behold, the relational ape, or the relational male. That male spends a lot of time grooming the females and is good with their kids and is a nice guy.

DH: Is this the beta male model?

TR: I don’t know what you would call it. We’ll call it “factor R,” for relationship. Anyway, it turns out that the relational male gets as many females as the alpha male does, and they take turns. It’s really very straightforward, and it doesn’t take Darwin to figure this out. In times of peril or scarcity, females tend to favor the alpha male. In times of prosperity and peace, females tend to favor the relational male.

What’s happened, if you have been alive on this planet, is that at 9/11 we were attacked on American soil, and that was trauma. Let me tell you about masculinity and trauma: I wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, which never got published, right after 9/11. I said there are two ways to respond to trauma. You can embrace your own vulnerability and deal with the reality of what happened to you and start to put it together piece by piece. Or you can deny your vulnerability and fly into grandiosity. The flight from shame to grandiosity is central to masculinity.

James Gilligan, [psychologist] Carol Gilligan’s husband, wrote a brilliant book 25 years ago called Violence. Jim was the medical director of Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane for 25 years. He writes about himself as a young resident going into this place for the first time. He says to himself, “If I can figure out the mind of a serial killer, I can figure out the mind of any violent person to the most extreme.” What he comes up with is the role of humiliation and self-esteem.

He tells the story of a serial killer who killed women, and usually upper-middle-class, attractive women. He would sew their eyes and sew their mouths. The analysis of this man revealed that there was a pivotal moment where some pretty young women of some prosperity were laughing at a street corner, and in his paranoia he imagined they were laughing at him. He was humiliated, and he righted his humiliation by closing the eyes that were gazing at him and closing the mouth that was laughing at him.

It’s this shift from inferiority to superiority, from inadequacy to attack, which is central to masculinity. I wrote in the piece, if we don’t deal with our trauma, we’re going to find somebody to go attack.

DH: It didn’t take long.

TR: It certainly didn’t. Women are no less prone to this than men are, but they’ll do it vicariously. In times of stress, they turn to that grandiose, powerful, strong, protective man, which Trump clearly positioned himself as being. His rhetoric was very clear about women needing to be protected. He says this explicitly, “And I’ll protect them.” The only difference is that apes don’t generate or amplify times of scarcity or threat in order to make a political point, but Republicans do. You exaggerate the “bad hombres” flooding in from Mexico, and you exaggerate the terrorist on every street corner. You generate the need for that strong alpha male, and that’s part of the machinery.

KH: Trump functions as a man in what you call the ‘one-up position,’ right?

TR: Yes. He’s one-up and boundary-less. You can be one-up and boundary-less, one-down and boundary-less, one-down and walled-off, or one-up and walled-off. Trump is one-up and boundary-less.

DH: What does it mean to be boundary-less?

TR: That he’s uncontained.

DH: Literally, there’s no constraints on him.

TR: Little to none. Certainly less than one would imagine. I’m writing a piece right now and tentatively titling it “Patriarchy Under the Age of Trump.” I start off by saying that as a family therapist, I’m preaching to the saved. You guys are already progressive, but as a couples and family therapist, I’m terribly concerned about the rise of traditional masculinity and traditional patriarchy. Not just in America, but around the world.

One of the ways I describe this is “an ill tide floats all boats.” There’s no surprise that with inflamed rhetoric follows violent actions. I think that traditional masculinity, or toxic masculinity, is dangerous. It’s dangerous to the man, and it’s dangerous to the people around the man.

DH: How much reemergence of this toxic masculinity has there been since Trump, or even before? Is this a trending thing, or is it always true?

TR: No. Ask the Republican baseball players [who were shot by a gunman in Virginia] whether there’s been a reemergence of this kind of toxic masculinity. The most extreme version of this masculinity is a gun.

There’s a great trilogy which has influenced my thinking enormously. It’s by a cultural historian, literary historian Richard Slotkin. It’s a cultural history of America in three volumes. The name of the trilogy, the name of the whole history of America, he sums up as “Regeneration Through Violence.”

DH: Wow. Powerful.

TR: I wrote about this in my book on men and depression, “I Don’t Want to Talk About It.” I wrote about the myth that you find in almost every boys’ adventure story or movie. The myth of the good man, the innocent man, who’s pressed to the wall unfairly. It’s Rambo just walking through town and getting picked on by people. It’s Dustin Hoffman in “Straw Dogs.” There are a million of them.

Somebody gets pressed. At first they don’t do anything, and then the worm turns. They pick up an Uzi and they start blowing people away. The audience cheers. This is a celebration of regeneration through violence, the central theme in masculinity, from one-down to the one-up.

DH: Which can be enabled by many people, including women and mothers, because everybody wants protection, right?

TR: You can have women who inhabit the masculine side of the equation, and you can have men on the feminine side of the equation. You can have women on the feminine side of the equation who buy into the alpha male and think that someone like Trump really will be strong and protect them, and that somebody like Obama was Hamlet-like and too indecisive and weak. That’s the narrative: Trump is a real man.

KH: For Trump’s base, this is the offending from the victim position.

TR: Yes. That’s from one of my mentors, Pia Mellody. Offending from the victim position is, “I’m your victim, you hurt me, and so therefore I have the right to hurt you twice as hard back. I have no shame or compunction about retaliating because I’m your victim.” It’s that righteous indignation, that righteous anger.

I believe that offending from the victim position accounts for 90 percent of the world’s violence. The rest is a scramble for resources. You killed my brother, I’ll kill your family. You kill my family, I’ll rape your grandmother. You rape my grandmother, I’ll burn down your village. And on and on and on. Yes, there’s a resurgence of hate crime, and yes, there is a continuing trend toward increased violence.

DH: Do you also find this true in male/female relationships: husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend? There just seems to be constant case studies of murder, of men stalking women they are in relationships with — finding them, shooting them and then often killing themselves.

TR: Yes.

DH: How does that dynamic work?

TR: Abusive men inhabit the same quadrant that I was just speaking about, one-up and boundary-less. They’re love dependent. One of the few characteristics that distinguishes a normal cohort of men from a cohort of abusers is increased sensitivity to the issue of abandonment. You show film clips and the batterers will pick out themes of abandonment much more readily than normal people. They’re boundary-less and they’re dependent.

DH: Are there biochemical things that go on when that abandonment happens?

TR: What being a love addict means is that you’re an addict. If the drug is flowing — and for a love addict the drug is the woman’s warm regard — if her warm regard is flowing, then I have warm regard for myself. I supplement my bad self-esteem for her esteem of me. When she separates from me or disappoints me in any way, I go into withdrawal. I go into a crash, and it feels ugly to be in that crash.

DH: We’ve all experienced that.

TR: We have. It feels dark and jagged and cold and lonely. When you’re one-up and a love addict, you have about two seconds’ worth of tolerance for those feelings, and then you go up from shame into grandiosity. You bounce up into grandiosity. Now you’re an angry victim. Now you’re a self-righteous victim. Now you’re a revenging angel, and you’re going to get that mother.

I write about this extensively. The problem with shifting from shame into grandiosity is that it works. It’s a great self-medicator. It takes away the depression, takes away the impotence, rights the injustice, does it all. It will create utter havoc in your life, but it does pump up your flagging self-esteem. And so you lash out. Then there’s remorse and shame, and the cycle just continues.

DH: What do you imagine is going to happen going forward, assuming Trump continues to be president and act in the ways he does, looking for wars, destroying people’s safety nets, the kinds of things we’re increasingly aware of. Are we going to see more and more of this kind of masculinity? Is there an antidote for it?

TR: I really feel, what is absolutely not in doubt is that we’re at war. There are two halves to this country. There is a blue masculinity and a red masculinity and they don’t get along.

DH: I’ve felt that so many times, but I’ve never quite heard it expressed that way. In fact, one of the things that seems to be Trump’s most potent weapon is to demonize us, make fun of us, poke at us.

TR: Yes. One of the things that he’s tapped into, as several people on the left have written about, is the humiliation of that group at the hands of our contempt for them for years. These are the deplorables. These are the unwashed masses. We have been elitist. We’ve been culturally elitist, and we have looked down our noses at them. Meanwhile, they’re struggling to put food on the table, and they don’t like it.

DH: Do you see any relationship between the opioid crisis and the toxic masculinity crisis?

TR: I do, for young people in particular. Not in Europe or Mexico or South America or Canada do young people, college-age people, get together and socialize by getting shit-faced. That’s not how it’s done in other countries. I think the reason why our young people socialize through extreme intoxication is because they have trouble relating to each other and they have difficulty knowing how to be with each other without getting smashed. They learn over time. Millennials are a mixed bag. I have great faith in the millennials. They will take over, and that Trumpian masculinity will decline when they do.

Millennial men are hands down the most gender-progressive men on the face of the planet, for all their narcissism and all their immaturity. Part of it is economic. Millennial men expect that they’ll be dual career families. They expect that the women will work. They expect to divvy up the housework. That doesn’t mean they always do it, but they expect it. They expect to share decision-making.

I’m writing a piece now about how we therapists cannot be neutral on this issue. We must stand for moving beyond these patriarchal norms. They’re bad for everybody. We know, for instance, that egalitarian marriages breed substantially greater rates of marital satisfaction and happiness, and that traditional marriages breed greater rates of anxiety and depression and dissatisfaction. We as therapists knowing that cannot say, well, you want a traditional marriage, you want a more modern marriage, this is a matter of opinion between the two of you. No, this is a matter of health.

DH: There’s a great book called “The Mirages of Marriage” about systems and relationships. And the secret was the quid pro quo — that if two people could agree that they were both treated fairly, whether one took out the garbage and the other did the dishes or vice-versa, that sense of equality was what kept the relationship going and solid. It’s when one person was exploited that the relationship failed mostly.

TR: Yeah. That’s a relational point of view, one of the things I teach people. It’s really something we’re all concerned about.

KH: We know what the wages of toxic masculinity are: shortened lifespans for men, and often covert depression. We also know more than 60 percent of white men voted for Trump. They’re also the people dying off at increased rates; they’re the only group that for a while there, was seeing increased mortality, often because of reasons that were self-caused: suicide, the kind of self-medication that leads to death. What does that mean, in terms of the kind of toxic masculinity being replicated because of Trump, for his base? Isn’t it likely to exacerbate that stuff among his supporters?

TR: It’s not even a question, absolutely. Trump has been at rallies and has said somebody should punch people’s lights out. I don’t know of more direct inciting than something like that. Absolutely.

It shows up in my office in terms of vulnerability. I had a woman in my office who was crying. She wouldn’t let her husband near her physically, sexually. Since the election, she’s just been in a state. It turns out her father was one-up and boundary-less, and maybe a sex addict, and was very sexual with her. [After the election] she just started crying, and I said, “You know, your father’s now in the White House.” She said, “I know. I feel so unsafe. I just feel safe in my own skin.”

DH: Wow. This is exactly what we’re talking about. (And what we’re writing about with our Trump Trauma project.) The men’s group I was in back in the early ’70s was set up so there was a women’s group that we had to meet with once a month to hold us accountable. We all thought that was great. But we discovered that the problem was we couldn’t be intimate with each other as men. That causes a lot of the sexism because as soon as you get intimate, you feel you’re becoming your feminine part.

TR: One of the great paradoxes is that in the rubric of patriarchy, intimacy is feminine. Closeness, relationship itself is feminine — it’s a chick flick, and we devalue it. We idealize it in principle and devalue it in fact, which is what we do with things we deem feminine. Yeah, you’re right there. Of course we have to learn to be vulnerable and talk to each other.

KH: The last time I spoke to you, you said something that stood out for me, which is, ‘So many men fear intimacy. I think that those men don’t actually know what intimacy is. What they fear is subjugation.’

TR: What they fear is being dominated. What they fear is being overrun. In the one-up, one-down world of men, you’re either in control or being controlled. So men don’t know much about what [author and cultural historian] Riane Eisler calls “power with.” Instead, it’s always power over, and you’re either up or down, one or the other. When women come in, particularly if they’re critical or controlling in any way, men are really phobic about that. They’re really paranoid about being controlled, and paranoid and phobic about being criticized, which doesn’t make them very good listeners.

There’s work that women can do about how to speak with more skill, to be honest. I talk to people in general and women in particular about what I call standing up for yourself with love; cherishing your relationship and your partner and standing up for yourself all in the same breath. It’s very powerful. I really am angry at my brethren in the therapy world, because all over America women drag men into therapy so that the therapist can make them more relational, more responsible, more open, and more open-hearted. The therapist, under the rubric of neutrality, throws the woman under the bus.

I know you are aware of [poet and leader of the men’s movement] Robert Bly. On YouTube, evidently somebody recorded a talk. Bly asked me to teach with him, and I went to Moose Lake. We did the drumming and the Sufi dancing and the whole thing, and I gave a talk to the men. Funny thing, you’re in these cabins in the woods, and whenever anybody would want me, Bly would say, “Get the feminist out here.”

I gave a talk to the guys. It was very well received, and I said, “Look, it’s great that we’re opening our hearts to each other off away from life and our families like this, but when we go home we have to treat our wives and kids well, and we have to bring this back to our families.” They really responded to that message. It was lovely.

DH: There are many millions of men who need to go through that experience. It’s too bad it’s not available to them.

TR: I talk to parents, in particular, about forming relationship subcultures around their families and generating the values that are relationship cherishing instead of relationship despising. This interview is part of that, and you guys are lights in that string of lights, so thank you for your work.

DH: Thank you. We need your inspiration and your analysis. A lot of us don’t fully understand this stuff, and it’s enlightening to have a theory that makes sense and is useful.

Source: Patriarchy and toxic masculinity are dominating America under Trump Source: Patriarchy and toxic masculinity are dominating America under Trump