#this essay would have been a lot longer had i integrated more references from the game

[presiding]

a doctor turned serial killer turned doctor again, an actor who paints, a gang leader, a mining baron, and a vice overseer walk into the room.

oh yeah and they lead karnaca now.

dishonored 2 is my fav game but i think it's mid, story-wise. here's why dh1 works and why dh2's overarching story sorta misses

tl;dr: story integration is critical for gameplay that offers audience payoff, but emily's personal arc from dishonor to honor is inconsistently demonstrated in the story, and is not an interactive part of the gameplay.

essay/long version under cut >

recap: what's dishonored's deal

[skip if you want] dh1 is an underdog story: corvo is an honorable man swept up in the machinations of a callous city, so his canonical ending being 'this child will rule over an empire' isn't about the child's rule but rather about corvo's reputation being restored in a more hopeful city, due to his & the player's rejection of the violent connotations of the tagline 'revenge solves everything.'

similarly, in dh1 DLCs, daud's story arc is that of an anti-hero: a dishonorable man who realises too late he has done irreparable harm. he sees the error of his ways after a single monumental death, and eventually a single life redeems him when he/the player stepped in to circumvent a terrible fate for a child, enabling her to rule unfettered.

daud & corvo come to a satisfying conclusion within the extent of their narrative arcs. it doesn't matter that a child on a throne isn't really a fix for a decaying empire - the player's actions throughout the city of dunwall was what mattered - and these stories could be framed as parables. in that sense, young emily as a ruler is a metaphor for a hopeful future for the city & empire.

dishonored 1 & its DLCs are also great examples of storytelling with perfectly integrated gameplay - you, the player, worked towards the outcome that redeemed the protagonists.

in your efforts to save young emily, you either achieved a good outcome (corvo) or prevented a worse outcome (daud).

bringing us to dh2 -

what's emily's arc

emily's arc is a coming of age: we're introduced to a reigning empress who questions her role & skillset ("am i the empress my mother wanted me to be?"), then her titular fall from grace occurs. from there, she learns to reject the violent, selfish connotations in 'take back whats yours' tagline (a la daud & corvo!) while rediscovering why her rule is critical to the empire.

emily's rule is no longer metaphorical, but:

a literal thing for audience assessment (is emily a good ruler?) AND

the crux of her storyline.

at the beginning of dh2, emily is introduced as a disengaged leader ("i wish i could just run away from all this;" "i dont know if whether i should sail to the opposite side of the world, or have everyone around me executed"). the antihero has a precedent for the dishonored series in daud, so it's not at first glance an issue*, however, the fact that emily has ruled poorly reframes corvo & daud's endings as being less than ideal (a moralistic retcon) *we could talk here about how ready an audience was in 2016 for a flawed women as a protagonist, hell, even in 2023,,,

throwback to the beginning of this essay when i said:

'this child will rule over an empire' isn't about the child's rule but rather about corvo's reputation

emily's story arc, unlike for daud & corvo, is literally about the quality of her rule. we're no longer in metaphor territory (ironic phrase): a parable-style ending doesn't work.

does emily become a good ruler

we know she becomes a good ruler because the game says so. it is narrated to the audience via a (literal) word of god in the space of 30 seconds, after the final boss. the outsider tells us that emily becomes known as Just & Clever.

drawing a distinction here - this narration is not the same as the player actively being involved.

the player does not throughout the game become aware that emily has made political allies. during the game, she doesn't talk to these characters about saving karnaca or being a better ruler to the empire (there's a few lines might imply it, but you need to be actively looking and being careful to wait for every voice line. it's a far cry from daud & corvo's fight to save emily being unmissable - even though daud doesn't know at the beginning that's the goal).

how does the game show it

you can coincidentally not kill most of your subjects and never be aware that emily is looking to restore karnaca by means of instating a council - it's never brought up. it *couldn't* be brought up, because that council serves under the fake duke (armando), who is the last person she speaks to before she leaves for dunwall. its her suggestion that he rules karnaca, but armando's condition is that he will rule as he sees fit.

to back up a bit, emily's canonical method of restoring karnaca is by banding together key allies - hypatia, stilton, [byrne &or paolo], pastor, under a council beneath the duke's body double. they are passionate people who would each individually make worthwhile advisors, but if you think about those characters sitting at a table trying to reach an agreement, it feels like an assortment of people that emily didn't kill along the way and doesn't feel organic (up to interpretation). it's not stated if emily herself banded this council together, but logically she must have (worth a mention these are mostly characters that you as the player had reasonable rationale to kill during a high chaos run, except pastor). the underlying concept may be that karnaca's power is returned to its people - which is interesting given that the monarchy remains and armando's decision is final.

this overarching solution could also be taken as a critique to dh1's 'put your kid on the throne,' which is another reason its worthwhile looking at how emily was shown to be a better leader. obviously my point isn't that her solution was bad given the circumstance, but i mean she has very little agency here in all. if emily was shown to be more controlling as a leader, this could be interpreted as character growth, but that's not the case.

coming of age

how do you learn & grow when you can't specify your failings? emily doesn't really touch on her shortcomings as an empress. she non-specifically worries delilah makes a better empress than her. it's hard to argue her worries are meaningful when someone good at their job will still worry when lives are in the balance.

emily's best 'aha' moments (eg. crack in the slab comment about gaining perspective) are consistently undercut by a conversation with sokolov or meagan afterwards in which she demonstrates she hasn't learned anything (before the grand palace, emily condemns 'toadies sucking up to me' and is reminded by meagan that she's part of the problem). the story is confused about what it's trying to say about emily's progress, and when she's meant to show progress, if she was meant to show any progress at all. it could be argued that emily was never even a bad ruler, she had just been fed misinformation about the problems in karnaca and been the victim of slander by her political enemies. the game doesn't make this clear - it's easier to argue that the opposite is true given that her allies only have criticism.

worth a mention here that the heart quotes about armando - a fake ruler - interestingly mirror emily's character concerns. "see how he sighs? his life is a gilded cage." but this essay is already long.

while corvo & daud spend their games (and through the gameplay) 'earning' their redemption, emily is being led by the NPCs around her to a conclusion and a fix for the political mess in karnaca: meagan & sokolov guide emily to her missions, and there's no recurring quest for emily to investigate possible allies. she is able to gather the people she hasn't killed to herself by manner of... post-game narration. during the game, she's primarily concerned with getting her throne back.

an easy fix: if there had been less dialogue & narrative focus on emily's failings perhaps the ending would have felt more satisfying. it has the feel of cut content, but i don't know what was cut to be able to comment on it.

so what went wrong?

i can't help but wonder if arkane were worried they would lose a certain demographic if corvo wasn't playable (may have been deemed too much of a risk - 2013 was a different time), and so they had to take out story elements that were unique to emily's growth as a character/empress, because the usual storyline/gameplay integration had to work for both characters - in other words, gameplay that made sense for both corvo & emily was prioritised before emily's story & character development. which is a silly problem to have in a game that added character voices for the sake of improving characterisation - maybe emily's tale would have felt more akin to a parable if she had less lines that betrayed her ignorance (to the disdain of those around her).

i wish more care had been taken with emily's story. most players will never really notice the large variety of different endings - they're not particularly satisfying in and of themselves.

it's ironic that one of Emily's complaints is about her father/protector being overbearing, when his (parallel universe) presence in the gameplay may be one of the reasons her own narrative arc falls flat.

what are the upsides here

changing tune from what didn't work - don't you think the concept is fantastic? it's a great idea overall - can you imagine if the coming of age storyline was better integrated into the game?

it's valuable to talk about the integration of story and gameplay and characterisation from a craft perspective. dh2 genuinely is my favourite game - it's beautiful, the imm-sim design philosophy makes the world a delight to explore, the combat gives endless creative options for tackling any fight, there is a far greater diversity of cast in an in-text canonical way. there's loads to love!

i love emily as a dodgy leader, to me it adds interesting dimensionality to the outsider's narrations - of course in dunwall there's never a neat happily ever after! emily, like the outsider, both work well as characters who hold ultimate power but aren't necessarily worthy of it - and this makes perfect sense for the dishonored universe's morality & critiques of power. however, within this grey area there's still plenty of room for a satisfying ending, which isn't what we ended up with, whatever the true reason for that was. and also, damn, emily's a marked assassin empress, if she can't lead well then who can?

while dh1 was criticised for its narrative simplicity, dh2 in contrast and in hindsight shows us that simplicity isn't so bad - there's satisfaction in gameplay achieves a clear, simple narrative goal.

[wisteria-lodge]

lion primary (bird model) + slightly burnt lion secondary

Hi there! I’m a fan of your sorting posts, and of your kind and insightful way of supporting people in finding out more about themselves. So naturally I’d be very interested in your take about my own sorting, if you’re game! :)

I won’t talk much about my Secondary, because now that I’m starting to unburn my Lion seems very clear to me, even when my explosion-prone Badger model still tries to get in the way of that clarity sometimes. The more interesting riddle is my Primary. So far I’m operating under the working theory that I am a Lion with a very strong Bird model - or is it the other way ‘round?

The supposed dichotomy between “thinking” and “feeling” in many of the more binary personality models has always bugged me, so it’s no wonder this is the area where whenever I feel like I’ve decided on who I am (for now) a new question mark pops up (so much fun!).

If ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ doesn’t work for you as terminology, it might help to think of Lion as leading with subconscious reasoning, and Bird as leading with conscious reasoning.

Instead of trying to formulate a cohesive text, which would have gotten even longer, I’m putting together an associative list of thoughts and stories that kept turning up while I was trying to figure out my Primary.

A very Lion primary way to solve a problem, not gonna lie ;)

- I think I got my Bird model from my father, who made quite an effort to teach me to look at things from all angles. As a child, whenever I got in a fight with this friend I had, he would sit me down and ask me to put myself in my friend’s shoes. It was hard, because a lot of the time my friend was being unfair to me and I actually could have used some support, someone to tell me that it was not okay to treat me this way. But I’m still immeasurably grateful for my father’s lessons, through which I’ve learned to understand peoples’ motivations and gained an understanding for the complexities of every conflict. He also taught me to doubt, to look closer, to not just believe the first thing I see, or want to see. To this day I still consider my ability to pin down the relevant factors of a situation before I make judgments one of my strengths.

That definitely sounds like a very strong, beloved Bird model.

- Whenever I had to write an essay at school or uni, I first had to come up with some aspect about the subject that I really cared about, even could be passionate about. (I am passionate about many things, so it was usually possible to find some connection to that.) Then I would use the essay to discuss this aspect in great detail, ending with a polemic flourish. I had the time of my life doing that; meanwhile the text would structure itself magically in relation to the issue I had chosen to focus on. Whenever I tried to write without such a focus, I’d get bored, stressed and the text would be of a much lower quality.

- Something similar happened in oral exams at uni: Only when I got the opportunity to bring a discussion paper (a few pointed statements regarding the exam topic) which I could then debate, I was able to recollect all the important details I needed for that. If I just had to report on the topic or answer questions, I often got confused, to the point of drawing a complete blank.

Linking things to emotion and passion - thinking with emotion and passion, basically - is a Lion primary thing. Especially if doing that makes you feel safe & comfortable & effective & happy.

- Even as a teenager I was very interested in philosophy, ethics and moral decision making.

I love teaching philosophy to teenagers. It’s the perfect time for it, they are so into it, and if it were up to me I would absolutely make it a required class.

I picked up certain philosophical ideas and concepts that I liked and integrated them in my belief system (yes, I know how very Bird that sounds).

I had my mind blown by Genealogy of Morals in high school, and I still won’t shut about Eichmann in Jerusalem. But what was so staggering to me in high school was… here are these ways of thinking that are possible and allowed. The fact that here they are in words in front of me made me a great deal more expansive.

Now that I think about it — I don’t remember adjusting my beliefs as in any way traumatic back then. The shift from a belief in the Christian God to Mother Goddess to my very own brand of agnostic paganism was smooth, natural.

Now that I think about it… I would describe myself as a mythic relativist (which is a term I just made up.) Systems of belief are metaphors, and they’re metaphors trying to describe and say something large and beautiful about what it means to be human, and what it means to live a good life. And since we are all human, they are all attempting to describe the same central, indescribable thing in different ways.

I feel this very deeply, but it took me a long while to be able to articulate it.

I constantly reevaluate, and I adapt.

You stop reevaluating and adapting, might as well be dead.

Still, there are some basics I’ve kept with me that just make too much sense to me to give up, and some that perhaps I keep because I just really like them and I’m kind of attached to them.

… somebody’s thinking with Pathos :)

- I’m a constructivist at heart, so that makes it much easier to tweak the content of my beliefs while staying true to the principle that we (socially) construct our reality, and (my take on this): that I choose what kind of world I want to live in, and according to that I make choices which are the most likely to create that world.

- At uni I attended a seminar about the development of moral judgment and action. What I remember most clearly about it is how much it bugged me that the other students didn’t seem to understand that morality always depends on the perspective. Even though I had definite moral convictions that I was ready to fight for, at the same time it seemed obvious to me that theoretically there could be a justification for every kind of moral guideline; it depended on your principles and the world you wanted to live in.

A human after my own heart.

I wanted to understand these different perspectives, not talk about empty categories like “right and wrong” or “good and evil” that meant nothing to me. I still feel that way.

Absolutely. I don’t use alignments when I DM Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, I can list evil *things* but that’s not the same thing as defining *being evil.* I want to know WHY these people did these evil things.

It just seems so impractical and complicated to base a conversation on those broad categories that don’t have any definition people can agree on instead of referring either to defined principles (in order to explain what good/ bad is *for you*) or consequences of certain actions, and whether you want them/ accept them/ don’t want them.

Oh that’s a fun discussion. Asking a highschooler to define “evil.”

(and then they have to figure out what moral systems Jigsaw, Pinhead, the Joker, and Bane all subscribe to.)

- Between “the Revolutionary” and “the Grail Knight”, I would love to be the former, but I’m clearly the latter. I’m someone who questions, not someone who knows.

Take my archetypes with a grain of salt, they are supposed to describe characters. (Who are different from people - but still useful, because they are attempts to describe us.) I actually want to write more about the differences I see between the way fictional secondaries are written and the way real-life secondaries work.

And just “knowing”... is dangerous. That’s how Exploded Lions happen. 

There are a lot of causes I find worthy to fight for, but I haven’t committed to any one, which so far I’ve attributed to my Burned Secondary (How do I do things?).

Sounds about right.

If I’m honest, though, it feels a bit strange to really, really fight for anything. I’d rather contribute to the cause by keeping an eye on whether we stay aligned to our values on every level of the fight, not by storming sightlessly in front of some army. (I got polemic again, didn’t I? ;))

So after all this Bird talk, why do I think that I’m a Lion?

… that was the Bird segment?

- I trust my intuition. It has never steered me wrong, with one exception: My Primary burned for a time when I first understood the concept of privilege and internalized bias, which was coincidentally at a time when I also went through a lot of changes in my personal life. Like many people unaware of their own privilege, I had thought of myself as “one of the good ones”. I learned that even with the best intentions I could cause great harm without even noticing it. This then also happened to me in a relationship, when I was already confused, hurt and more than a bit burned. It seemed like I couldn’t trust my intuition anymore, but I also couldn’t figure out intellectually what to believe, because I felt mentally overwhelmed by all those new concepts, all of which put my previous convictions into question. Which Primary burned then?

Been there, done that, it’s brutal. It sounds to me like a Lion dramatically changing direction - that’s what I mean when I say that it *hurts* when a Lion changes their mind. Birds see their past selves that thought wrong as almost different people. “I wasn’t aware of my privilege then, now I am, and can take steps doing forward.” But if you’re a lion it’s like… I *should* have been aware, and the fact that I wasn’t says something terrible about my moral/emotional calibration, and THAT has to be put right.

- I felt like everything I had learned about the world and myself didn’t count anymore. My concepts and my strategies didn’t serve me anymore. So I started to rebuild everything from scratch, this time with less pride and more practicality.

Yeah. That’s some Lion recalibration. With a Bird Model, to help.

- Anyway, I trust my intuition. It contains my experiences, instinct and all my accumulated unconscious observations of the situation, and it’s very reliable. Usually I use it as an important source of information which I try to back up with data/ understanding, but when push came to shove and the apparent facts would contradict what my intuition told me, I would be unable to set my gut feeling aside. I wouldn’t follow it blindly, of course. But I would never just go against it either. If the voices of my unconscious and conscious mind don’t align, I keep poking at the issue until they do. If I absolutely cannot come to a satisfying conclusion, I go with my gut. Since I know it usually knows what it’s doing, I’ll find out the reasons for my feelings later. (Weird, says my inner bird who is busy compiling these examples.)

I’LL FIND THE REASON FOR MY FEELINGS LATER. What a perfect way of articulating what is perhaps the central experience of being a Lion primary.

- Probably I’m just both, you know. Some interesting lion/bird-chimaera. I like it.

I read you as a pretty clear Lion Primary, Bird primary model. But as always, the decision is very personal.

- I have a weird way of processing information: I read/ hear it, work to understand it, work to connect it to existing knowledge in my mind, then my beliefs, my existing knowledge and my feelings about it all wind around each other, grow into each other, some dissolve together, becoming a swamp which then nourishes the plants of new ideas and connections that grow from it.

You grok it. And that’s not weird.

I often can’t remember where certain knowledge came from. I can’t take it out of a memory shelf and tell you about it. I usually remember that I’ve read a certain book and whether I liked it / it influenced me, but I won’t exactly remember what was in it, even if it was important to me. Because all that information is already processed/ digested/ transformed into something new. It’s much easier to access my memory swamp intuitively than consciously.

and you seriously had like… any doubt that you were a Lion.

In intellectual discussions I tend to get stuck because I just can’t remember enough of the details (for my satisfaction), just my conclusions about the topic and how I feel about it.

I’m inclined to think that not accessing the details is either a secondary thing, or an entirely unrelated processing thing.

What do you make of all this? I’m very curious!

:)

[On an unrelated note, I’d like to specify the compliment I made at the beginning of this post. I’m really impressed with your ability to pick up on what people need, not just what they say they want. As a counselor this is a skill I try to hone, so I know how difficult it is to not get too distracted by the story people tell and miss the more subtle cues. You have a powerful combination of perceptiveness, insight and so much kindness, which you use to effectively support people who have questions, are in distress or confused. You don’t generalize. You don’t judge. You see the people who talk to you.  I love that you’re a teacher, because I can see you’re using the influence that gives you in a way that contributes to making the world a better place. Fellow Idealist, I’d like to give you a High Five for that, if I may. :)))]

I’m not sure I’ve ever been given a better compliment. Thank you.

[tinyshe]

Interview with Alexander Dugin – ‘Welcome all newcomers!’

Prof. Alexander Dugin, philosopher and geopolitical expert from Russia, sees the world changing: the old liberalism is being replaced by a new, aggressive, globalist mutation. Manuel Ochsenreiter's interview with Dugin gives a fascinating insight into the globalist future.

Published: June 18, 2021, 11:42 am

Prof. Dugin, in your latest essay you wrote about “Liberalism 2.0”. Is liberalism changing?

Dugin: Of course! Every ideology is a subject to constant change, including liberalism. Right now we are witnessing a dramatic shift in liberalism. It is now becoming even more dangerous, even more destructive.

How do you even recognize such a change?

Dugin: We can observe a certain “rite of passage”. As such, I interpret the situation in which Donald Trump’s presidency culminated, namely in his fall by hand of the globalist elite, represented by Joe Biden. This is nothing more than a “rite of passage” – embodied by gay parades, BLM uprisings, imperialist LGBT + attacks, the worldwide uprising of extreme feminism and the spectacular arrival of post-humanism and extreme technocracy. There are profound intellectual and philosophical processes going on behind all of this. And these processes have an impact on culture and politics.

You write that liberalism has become “lonely”…

Dugin: Modern liberalism seems to have lost its enemies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is fatal for this ideology, as it is primarily defined by its demarcation. In my “Fourth Political Theory”, liberalism is defined as the first theory to fight the two “main enemies” – communism (second theory) and fascism (third theory). Both had challenged liberalism: for liberalism claims to be the most modern and progressive theory. But both communism and fascism made the same claim. In 1990 communism and fascism were considered defeated.

This is usually called the “unipolar moment” (Charles Krauthammer) and it was prematurely, as we now know – even raised by Francis Fukuyama to the “end of history”. In the 1990s, however, it seemed that liberalism no longer had any opponents. Smaller burgeoning anti-liberal right, left, and “national Bolshevik” alliances were no real challenge. The absence of its “enemies” for liberalism also meant that it had lost its self-affirmation. Here we see very clearly the “loneliness”, which of course I don’t mean in a melancholy sense. Therefore, the transition to Liberalism 2.0 with a “new impetus” was almost inevitable.

How would you describe that?

Dugin: An opponent had to come back. But actually only the weak, illiberal alliances that can be described as “national Bolsheviks” were offered – even if the so-called movements themselves do not see it that way. Perhaps it is more understandable if one divides the new political camps into globalists (Liberalism 2.0) and anti-globalists. One must not forget: Liberalism 1.0 will not be “reformed”, it will also become the “enemy” of Liberalism 2.0. We can perhaps even speak of a “mutation”. Because there are also old-style liberals who are now more drawn to the camp of anti-globalists because they reject the limitless, hedonistic and total individualism of Liberalism 2.0.

So liberals against liberals?

Dugin: [laughs] Liberalism 2.0 can be seen as a kind of “fifth column” within liberalism. And the new liberalism is brutal and unyielding, it no longer discusses, it does not invite debate. It is a “cancel culture”, it stigmatizes its opponents, it excludes them. “Old” liberals also fall victim to this, as can be seen almost regularly in Europe today. Who are the victims of the “cancel culture”? Maybe fascists or communists? Most of the time it is artists, journalists and authors who have been completely in the mainstream waters – but who are now suddenly targeted. Liberalism 2.0 lets the hammer go round.

Your country, Russia, is seen today as a great opponent of globalism – especially under President Vladimir Putin…

Dugin: The resurgence of Putin’s Russia can be understood as a new mix of the Soviet-style strategy of anti-Western politics and traditional Russian nationalism. On the other hand, the Putin phenomenon remains a mystery – even to us Russians. Certainly, one can recognize “national Bolshevik” elements in his politics, but also a lot of liberal elements. Incidentally, this also applies to the Chinese phenomenon. Here we see again the special Chinese communism mixed with perceptible Chinese nationalism. The same can be said of the growth of European populism where the distance between the left and the right is increasingly disappearing to the point of the symbolic creation of the left-right alliance in the Italian government: I am talking about the agreement between the “Lega Nord” (right-wing populist) and the “5-star” movement (left-wing populist). We see the same phenomenon prefigured in the populist revolt of the “yellow vests” against President Emmanuel Macron in France, in which the supporters of Marine Le Pen fought together with the supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon against the liberal center.

The “left-right” alliances you mentioned only existed for a certain period of time, often they fought each other again more than the liberal center…

Dugin: That’s a key point. Since the anti-globalist, right-left alliances are the greatest opponents of Liberalism 2.0, it must constantly fight them, keep them small and also infiltrate them. If anti-globalist left and right in Europe fight each other more than the center, then liberalism 2.0 is the laughing third party. What is more: there is even a certain tendency on the part of the fringes to make pacts with the center in the fight against the other fringe. I think you can see such a situation in all European countries. Thus, Globalism fragments the camp of its opponents and prevents a possibly powerful alliance.

What could such a “powerful alliance” look like?

Dugin: If Putin from Russia, Xi Jinping from China, the European populists and the anti-Western movements in Islam, the anti-capitalist currents in Latin America and Africa had been aware that they are opposing liberal globalism from a somewhat united ideological position and would have adopted left/right and integral populism as their basis, this would have increased their resistance considerably and even multiplied its potential. So in order not to let this happen, the globalists have left no stone unturned to prevent any ideological movement in this direction.

In your essay you refer to Donald Trump as the “midwife of Liberalism 2.0”. What do you mean?

Dugin: I have already said: a political ideology cannot exist if the “friend-foe antagonism” is erased. It loses its identity. To have no more enemy is to commit ideological suicide. So an obscure and undefined external enemy was not enough to justify liberalism. By demonizing Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China, the liberals could no longer be convincing. More than that: the assumption of the existence of a formal, structured ideological enemy outside the liberal zone of influence (democracy, market economy, human rights, universal technology, total network, etc.) after the onset of the unipolar moment in the early 1990s on a global level would have been tantamount to acknowledging a serious mistake. Logically, an enemy from within had to appear. This was a theoretical necessity in the development of ideological processes during the 1990s.

This enemy from within appeared just in time, at the exact moment when it was needed most. And it had a name: Donald Trump. He embodied the boundary between Liberalism 1.0 and Liberalism 2.0. Initially, attempts were made to establish a connection between Trump and “red-brown Putin”. This seriously damaged Trump’s presidency, but was ideologically inconsistent. Not only because of the lack of real relations between Trump and Putin and Trump’s ideological opportunism, but also because Putin himself is, in fact, a very pragmatic realist.

Much like Trump, Putin is a poll populist, and like Trump, he’s most likely to be an opportunist with no real interest in a worldview. The alternate scenario portraying Trump as a “fascist” is just as ridiculous. Because it has been used by his political rivals too often, it has caused trouble for Trump, but it has also been inconsistent. Neither Trump himself nor his staff consisted of “fascists” or representatives of any right-wing extremist tendency which had long ago been marginalized in American society and only existed as a kind of extreme libertarian fringe or kitsch culture.

How can you then ultimately classify Trump?

Dugin: Trump was and is a representative of Liberalism 1.0. If we put aside all foreign regimes that oppose liberal ideology in their political practice, there will only be one real enemy of liberalism left – liberalism itself. So in order to move forward, liberalism had to carry out an “internal cleansing”. And it is precisely this old liberalism that has been identified with the symbolic figure of Donald Trump. He was the ultimate enemy in the election campaign of Joe Biden, who stands for the new liberalism 2.0. Biden spoke of the “return to normal”. Liberalism 1.0 – national, capitalist, pragmatic, individualistic and to a certain extent libertarian – was thus declared an “abnormality”.

Liberalism focuses on individualism, that is, the individual human being. Other ideologies speak in terms of collectives like the people or the class. What does Liberalism 2.0 do?

Dugin: Right. The figure of the individual plays the same role in the social physics of liberalism as the atom in scientific physics. Society consists of atoms/individuals, who are the only real and empirical basis for subsequent social, political and economic constructions. Everything can be reduced to the individual. That is the liberal law. So the struggle against all kinds of collective identity is the moral duty of liberals, and progress is measured by whether or not this struggle is successful.

A look at Western societies shows that the struggle was largely successful…

Dugin: At that point, when Liberals began to realize this scenario, despite all their victories, there was still something collective, some kind of forgotten collective identity that also needed to be destroyed. Welcome to gender politics! To be a man and a woman means to share a collective identity which dictates strong social and cultural practices. This is a new challenge for liberalism. The individual must be liberated from biological sex, since the latter is still viewed as something objective. Gender must be purely optional and seen as a consequence of a purely individual decision. Gender politics starts here and changes the very nature of the concept of the individual. The postmodernists were the first to show that the liberal individual is a masculine, rationalist construction. Simply equalizing social opportunities and functions for men and women, including the right to change gender at will, does not solve the problem. The “traditional” patriarchy still survives by defining rationality and norms. Hence, it has been concluded that the liberation of the individual is not enough. The next step consists in the liberation of the human being or rather the “living entity” from the individual.

Now the moment is approaching for the final replacement of the individual by the gender-optional entity, a kind of network identity. And the final step will eventually be to replace humanity with creepy beings – machines, chimeras, robots, artificial intelligence and other species of genetic engineering. The line between what is still human and what is already post-human is the main problem of the paradigm shift from Liberalism 1.0 to Liberalism 2.0. Trump was a human individualist who defended individualism in the old style of human context. Perhaps he was the last of his kind. Biden is a representative of the arriving post-humanity.

So far, it all sounds like a smooth march for the globalist elite. Can one counter that?

Dugin: One cannot avoid the realization that both old-fashioned nationalism and communism have been defeated by liberalism. Neither right-wing nor left-wing illiberal populism can win the victory over liberalism today. To be able to do this, we would have to integrate the illiberal left and the illiberal right. But the ruling liberals are very vigilant about this and always try to prevent any movement in this direction in advance.

The short-sightedness of the radical left and radical right politicians and groups only helps liberals to implement their agenda. At the same time, we must not ignore the growing chasm between Liberalism 1.0 and Liberalism 2.0. It seems as if the internal cleansing of modernity and postmodernism is now leading to brutal punishment and excommunication of new species of political beings – this time the liberals themselves are being sacrificed.

Those of them who do not consider themselves as a part of the Great Reset strategy and the Biden-Soros axis, those who refuse to enjoy the final disappearance of good old mankind, good old individuals, good old freedom and the market economy. There will be no place for any of these in Liberalism 2.0.

It will become post-human, and anyone who questions such a new concept will be welcomed to the Unity of Enemies of the Open Society.

And then we, Russians, will be able to tell them: “We have been here for decades and we feel more or less at home here. So we welcome you to hell, newbies!” Every Trump supporter and ordinary Republican is now seen as a potentially dangerous person, just as we have been for a long time. So let Liberals 1.0 join our ranks! To do this, it is not necessary to become illiberal, philo-communist or ultra-nationalist. Nothing like that! Everyone can keep their good old prejudices for as long as they want. The “Fourth Political Theory” presents a unique position where true freedom is welcomed: the freedom to fight for social justice, to be a patriot, to defend the state, the church, the people, the family – and to remain a human.

Prof. Dugin, thank you very much for the interview.

All rights reserved. You have permission to quote freely from the articles provided that the source (www.freewestmedia.com) is given.

[feminist-propaganda]

Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of  Queen’s Gambit - Episode 1

I’ll start this long piece with a quote by Toni Morrisson. She once said : “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

After watching Queen’s Gambit yesterday I rushed to the Internet to see if someone had written all of the things I am about to write, all of the symbols I saw in the miniseries, all of the dog whistles, the references.  I found articles about chess. About how the community had adopted the film, about which grandmasters the characters were based off of, about chess moves and theories, about production and the unexpected success of the series.

According to me, this is quite mediocre commentary. I eventually clicked on the New Yorker article that seemed to be a tiny bit smarter. After a couple of paragraphs I realized that the male writer was only going to rant about how the actress is “too pretty” to be Beth Harmon, and this seems to upset him. A lot.

But no one talked about Beth’s mother. Or the name of the series. Or the embroidery. The chess board. The tranquilizers. The math. The flashbacks. The exchange of queens. The sacrifice of the queen. Did no one see it? Or is it again one of those things; where the world is so obsessed with single mothers and representing them as huge, massive, quite literal train wrecks, but no one actually wants to look at them in the eye, talk to them, help them?

Let me tell you, as a single mother, this miniseries had me in tears the whole time. It’s really difficult to watch. It’s downright triggering.

Single mothers like to keep their silence. That’s because we know the world doesn’t like it when we start talking. It hurts. A lot. So instead, the world likes to make memes about how single moms are whores, how they are drunks or over worked. How they’re psychotic. How they ramble. They don’t make any sense. Bipolar. Crazy. How their children stare at the television all day, the way they microwave bad food. We laugh at them, and use them as comical relief in our ... what exactly? Cultural objects. Then we move on. We send a message to single mothers when we do this, and the message is important. You suck. Shut Up. Don’t exist. It’s your fault. 

We make an entire mini series about a single mother who killed herself to save her kid, we put on the television images that hurt and harm single mothers and then the public responds with nothing. They don’t even bat an eyelash. Miss the point entirely. Great series about chess! Except it’s not about chess. Not at all. It’s about raising children alone, when the world hates you. It’s about a trailer. In the middle of nowhere. A strong willed woman who was a mathematician in the 1940s. Who taught her daughter everything she could. Realized she couldn’t do more. And made the ultimate sacrifice, the queen’s gambit. The riskiest, most reckless, bravest move of all.

So let me tell you about what it’s like to watch Queen’s Gambit when you’re a single mother. So that somewhere in the AI, it’s written. So that when our great grand children will try to understand our times, they’ll read it.

I’ll write an essay for each episode. And in each essay I will review the important lession that Alice passed on to young Beth, and how this takes her to Moscow, where she can live a much more fulfilling life than in the U.S.A.

Lesson 1 : Find A Two Dimensional Algebric Plane. Study It. Control It.

I recently learned from instagram user @itllbeokbaby and Amsterdam based artist and weaver Liza Prins that the words textile and text have the same origin as the word texture. 

Text derives from the Latin textus (a tissue), which is in turn derived from texere (to weave). It belongs to a field of associated linguistic values that includes weaving, that which is woven, spinning, and that which is spun, indeed even web and webbing. Textus entered European vernaculars through Old French, where it appears as texte and where it assumes its important relation with tissu (a tissue or fabric) and tisser (to weave).

Women have been weaving, beading, sowing and stitching since the dawn of times. We also know that women used this technology not just to create clothes, tents or shoes. They used it as a container of information. As cultural DNA. 

In South America, in places where writing as we know of it was never created, women would bead important tribal information into skirts. They would then use the skirts as a database of the tribe. To track births, deaths, epidemics, droughts and other important group defining events.

In modern times, women still use embroidery as a means of expression. My memories from childhood contain strong images of my aunts and grandmothers, sewing my name and date of birth onto pillow cases, bathrobes and bedcovers. They would do this by the pool, at the bottom of the ski slopes, on the beach or in the train. They would engage into conversation as they embroidered; as this activity required some concentration, but not their full attention. It was their way of being present; but also transcending into the past and projecting into the future. They sewed our lives into the cloth.

I once heard my grandmother counting the holes in the cloth she was decorating with her beautiful colours. I asked what she was doing. She said that to build the letters on the cloth, you needed to count the squares. Two to the top, four to the right, ten to the middle, etc etc. I was quite mesmerized. I was maybe eight at the time, the same age as Beth when she loses her mother. I had started learning some math in school but somehow the math in school seemed to be presented to me as the epitome of something quite different than this excruciatingly feminine passtime. 

Math was presented to me as masculine, out of reach to us girls. And now I was disovering that these women in my family were geometry experts, fluent in linear algebra, and that at a higher level, they were database account managers.

In the first episode of the miniseries, in the first couple of minutes; we discover two Beths. The first Beth is in Paris, the beautiful, the chic; the glamourous Paris. Paris will always be the undisputed capital of Fashion. 

Paris is the undisputed capital of fashion not because it is the home of polluting massive textile industries like the ones in Pakistan or Zara’s empire in Spain. Paris is the capital of fashion because it is the capital of Haute Couture. And Haute Couture is custom made, sowed by hand, piece by piece, bead by bead, sequin per sequin. It is delicate. It is slow. It is sacred. It is what my aunt’s did. 

It is the opposite of industrial, the opposite of a sewing machine, the opposite of an engine. The opposite of yield failures, punching in and punching out. It is lace. Delicate, personal, eternal.

The second Beth we see is the eight year old Beth, that has just lost her mother. She stands on a bridge. Two cars have crashed into one another. And she stares on at the police officers. One says “Not a scratch on her. It’s a miracle”. The other says “I doubt she’ll see it like that”. 

My theory is that the miniseries explain how Beth eventually begins to “see it like that”. 

The first time we see 8 year old Beth she is wearing a dress, with her name embroidered on it. It reads Beth, in pink. Feminine. Purple flowers surround it. The embroidery is delicate. It’s on her heart. 

We follow eight year old Beth as she gets sent to an orphanage. In the first couple of scenes at the orphanage, we think, for a minute, that maybe Beth will be okay here. The head mistress smiles, has nice hair. Shows her around. Yes, the bed is by the lavatory, but at least she has a bed, a roof over her head.

We only start despising this new mother figure when she takes Beth to choose new clothes. Beth takes off her dress, and stares at her name, written on the front. The headmistress selects a white shirt and grey dress for Beth. She hands to her these new items, symbol of her new life, of her integration within the orphanage and later mainstream society. The headmistress then grabs the dress with the name embroidered and looks at it with disgust. Then, she says “I think we’ll burn this one” and disapears.

Beth then understands that she is no longer allowed to love her mother. That to fit in this school, this orphanage, to survive, she must let go of the embroidery and all of the things she associates with her mother. Her mother, in the words of the teacher was a “victim” of “a carefree life”. A free spirited whore, a lesbian, a witch. There’s a lot of words we liek to use to describe women who don’t conform. And Beth’s mother, as we learn, never conformed.

At night, Beth sees her mother’s eyes, she hears the last words her mother uttered before dying in the car crash. “Close your eyes”. She said it with tears in her eyes and an air of great determination. She knew what she was doing, which is something Beth doesn’t want to tell anyone. Not even her new friend Jolene. Beth’s secret is her mother wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t crazy at all.

Then, Beth discovers the board. One day, she gets sent to the basement and sees the janitor playing chess. Later in the miniseries, Beth tells the journalist from Life it was the board that attracted her. Not the pieces.

As the first episode unfolds, Beth learns that the squares have names. She learns the names. And at night when she looks up at the ceiling she sees the board. She visualizes the pieces moving on the 64 squares. She moves them in her mind and imagines all of the alternatives. What the board would look like if she moved this piece to that square. What would her opponent do then? 

To the journalist of the Life magazine, Beth says that the Chess board was a universe of 64 squares, and that she could control this space. All she had to do was study it.

The board is much like the cloth that Beth’s mother Alice would sew information onto when she was a young child. You count the squares and move your material through it. As you go, you make shapes, patterns, motifs. Beth looks up at the ceiling at night and the first night, without the tranquilizers, she sees her mother say “Close your eyes” which is too painful or such a young child. A young child doesn’t understand yet why a mother would say “Close your eyes” and then crash on purpose into a truck. A young child doesn’t know about the world yet.

Alice aknowledged that she was about to do something extremely risky, that the outcome was uncertain. Alice told Beth that she was going to purposely provoke the car crash. 

But when Beth takes the tranquilizers at night, and now that she knows about chess, she can transfer her love for her mother into her growing obsession with Chess. She looks up at the ceiling and instead of seeing Alice’s last thoughts, she sees the Chess board. Which is the small piece of universe that Alice controlled, when she was alive. The cloth that she sewed her daughter’s name on: “So that you’ll always remember who you are”.

[roseskiesandbutterflies]

Le Démon Déchu - Chapter 1: Nouveau Départ

Summary: The summary is kind of long so please check a previous part or my masterlist if you want to read it.

Warning(s): implied/referenced trauma, swearing (this goes for probably every chapter, but I’ll keep putting it here)

Word Count: 2.8k+

Inspiration: Do You Know What Eternity Is? by Elderly_Worm on AO3, Great Omens (The Big One) by falsepremise on AO3, Pray For Us, Icarus series by Atalan on AO3, Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm on AO3, Doctor Who (don’t ask) and, of course, Good Omens itself

A/N: This was probably a bad idea, considering I have three other series on the go right now as well as a one-shot that isn’t done yet, but life’s too short so here it is. Updates on all of my works are going to be a bit slower from now on now I’m back at school (I’m in Year 11 too so I have even less time to write these days), so just bear with me. I promise I have a plan for the next twenty chapters at least, I am planning for this to be longer, but I haven’t decided where I’m going to take the rest of the story yet.

By the way, you can imagine Eloise to look like whoever you want because I’ve been a bit vague with her descriptions, but I imagine her to look something like @angelknives13 on TikTok.

As I do for most of my stories, I’ve made a Spotify playlist for this fic! Just copy and paste the link below to listen and remember that I’ll probably keep adding to it. Please listen at your own discretion because some of the songs contain spoilers. Just be wary of that. Also, some of the songs’ lyrics don’t actually make sense/relate to the story, but they’re on there because they fit the general vibe of the story. Hopefully, that makes sense.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6BaXMlb26dBYyhRCqXrEeP?si=6rY8lOkeSSmE8LRDC_Cb5w

Taglist: @bhmay​ @briarrose26​

Ask or comment to be on my taglist! Let me know if it’s for a specific fandom(s) or series. Full list is in my bio.

Fool (upright) + Six Of Swords (upright)

New beginnings. Transition. Shaking things up a bit.

 She called herself ‘Eloise’. That wasn’t her real name. She hadn’t been referred to by her real name for an awfully long time. No, Eloise is what she called herself so Eloise she was. Somewhere along the line, humans had decided that one’s name should have a meaning, and in some cultures that that name should tell of your past and also of your future. Eloise had been all for this notion, thinking it a marvellous idea. She’d then found out that the meaning bestowed upon her chosen name was ‘famous warrior’, which she thought was rather accurate. For before all else, Eloise was a fighter. She had fought tooth and nail to carve out the identity she had cultivated for herself and by God was she willing to fight again to keep it that way. It was an identity that she kept in her metaphorical left breast pocket, right next to her metaphorical beating heart; right where she could have it close to her, always and forever, but also where she could take it out, hold it in the palm of her hand and just admire it from time to time before popping it back in the metaphorical pocket, safe and sound. Art for art’s sake. It was an identity that she had chiselled out of the finest marble, chipped at to perfection or the closest thing to it, so that now it was the image of a Roman bust, of an ancient and long-forgotten deity. It was taller than giants and softer than the clouds above her head, richer than the finest food that the humans could create and more complex than the human mind. It burned with the heat of a thousand fires, never to be doused nor tamed. It flowed freer than the flow of a thousand rivers, winding and twisting through the corners and crevices of her mind–

She looked at it for a second longer before placing it back ever so carefully in the metaphorical pocket. It’s healthy to admire one’s soul every now and again but look into its depths for too long and you will get sucked into your own vanity. So, she returned it home to the pocket, where it belonged.

After all, there were things to be getting on with.

 *************

 I would like to see that light once more. […] The light of the hour before the sun goes down. When every object begins to glow with its own light and gives off its own particular colour.

��� Christa Wolf (Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays)

 *************

 There was something about evening sunshine. The sun beats down on every little thing without mercy during the day, but five o’clock rolls around before long and everything turns sweeter. The usually red bricks of identical townhouses glow orange as they cast shadows down on passers-by, the leaves of oak trees turn golden-green as they sunbathe, not all that different to the humans that seek them for shelter. The breeze blows a little cooler, the sun shines a little softer, the sky rejoices in the oil painting below it. Sunbeams caress your face, holding you in an embrace that’s warm and comforting and oh-so-familiar. It feels like returning home, and in some ways it is.

Aziraphale loves to read at this time. Though nothing should be inferred from this, as Aziraphale loves to read at any and all hours of the day and night. Aziraphale would read all day, every day for the rest of time if he could. Unfortunately for him, he can’t do such a thing, but he does read an awful lot, and he likes to make a point of always reading in the evenings. He would swap his east-facing desk for the comfort of his lapis-coloured armchair, where the window that peers over his left shoulder tries to read with him in comfortable silence. The sunlight spills into the room, casting the soft pages beneath his fingertips in a homely, golden glow, illuminating and enhancing the words printed on them. Dust particle dance like fairies in this natural spotlight, but Aziraphale is, more often than not, too engrossed in his reading to pay attention to things like these.

He is not, however, too oblivious to notice sudden noises. Unfortunately for him, Aziraphale tended to find them too loud to ignore most of the time.

His head popped up like a meerkat when he heard the bell hanging above the bookshop door ring, its tune singing out and filling the quiet of the room. The noise of outside chatter and traffic disappeared as quickly as it came as the door swiftly opened and closed. His brows furrowed in confusion, for he was sure that that door had been locked ever since that phone call he’d had with Crowley which had eventually resulted in the latter coming to stay with him, and as far as he knew, Crowley was upstairs somewhere, probably watching yet more reruns of Golden Girls. He rose cautiously and ventured into the main shop, worst case scenarios flooding his mind with every step he took.

“Hello? I’m sorry but we are most definitely closed, as you would know if you read the sign on the door…”

He faltered when he finally came face to face with the intruder. She looked at him with dark eyes wide with curiosity, her gaze intense but at the same time comforting, as if you could get lost swimming, drowning in them if you searched for too long. She then softened with the realisation and nostalgia of reuniting with an old and long-forgotten friend, her smile small but full of unbridled joy. Her voice was no louder than a whisper but held a power that compelled you to pay attention as she murmured, “Oh, there you are.”

Aziraphale’s throat ran dry with an emotion he couldn’t quite pin down, couldn’t quite name, an emotion that was on the tip of his tongue yet so out of reach. He scrambled to gather his senses because for goodness sake, this is a complete stranger whom you have never met until now, pull yourself together. “I-I’m not quite sure how you got in, but the shop is very much closed so I-I must ask you to leave,” he managed to stammer out, much less confident than the Aziraphale from a minute or two ago.

“Oh no,” she said reassuringly, her joyous expression never waning for a second, “I’m not here for a book.”

“Angel!” Crowley suddenly called out from upstairs, melting some of the awkwardness that was hanging around the room like a rather awful smell. Aziraphale noticed how the stranger’s eyes lit up even further, smile grew even wider, and more and more questions swirled around his head. He forced himself to look away from her as he heard Crowley saunter into the room from behind him. “Angel, I’m just about to put the kettle on, did you want a cup of tea or–,” he stopped when he finally noticed the other presence in the room, “I thought the shop was still supposed to be closed?” he asked warily, something in the back of his mind telling him not to trust the stranger.

“It is,” Aziraphale replied uncertainly while she waved awkwardly at them, “I don’t know how she got in, but she said she isn’t here for a book.”

Her face twitched slightly as if she wanted to comment on being spoken about like she wasn’t even in the room, but quickly decided against it for the sake of politeness.

Crowley’s face morphed into the epitome of confusion as he asked, “Well, if you’re not here for a book then why are you in a bloody bookshop?”

She looked at him as though the answer was blatantly obvious, “The bookshop has an owner, does it not? Or two unless I’m very much mistaken. It’s you. I’m here for you two.”

Crowley was quick to defend his image, “’S not my bookshop. I’m just, you know, here,” he gestured vaguely at his surroundings.

She nodded with understanding, then seemed to shake awake, “Sorry, I’m forgetting myself. Do you mind if I sat down? It’s just I’ve been travelling for an awfully long time; it’s been a while since I’ve been able to rest.”

Aziraphale nodded almost immediately, “Yes, yes, of course. Be my guest.” He didn’t think he’d be physically able to refuse her if he tried, there was something, something about her, “Could I get you a drink, or something to eat, perhaps?”

She smiled gratefully as she took a seat on the ancient looking yet somehow almost pristine armchair in the corner of the shop, “A glass of water would be lovely if that’s okay with you.” Aziraphale was gone in an instant, bustling around the make-shift kitchen in his backroom, quite glad to have something to do with himself if he was honest.

Crowley, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes at the stranger ever so slightly. Her story so far wasn’t adding up in his mind; if she’s been travelling for as long as she says she has, then why was her only luggage a handbag that she’d discarded on the floor when she’d sat down? And then there was the nagging in the back of his head that he was trying to stifle as best as he could. He stopped his train of thought dead in its track when he noticed that she’d been staring at him the entire time, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. There was something in her eyes, those damn eyes, that momentarily made him worry if his whole thought process was being projected above his head. She was observing him with a scrutiny that made him positively squirm. Finally, he said something, managing to stutter, “I’m gonna, erm, go, yeah,” he awkwardly pointed his fingers in the direction of where Aziraphale had left before sighing and making his much-needed exit.

She just nodded even though he could no longer see her, then suddenly sat up straight and let out a shaky breath. “Here goes nothing,” she whispered to herself. This was about to be the biggest risk she’d taken in years.

She took a deep breath and let go.

 *************

 “Do we know her?” Crowley asked from his seat on the kitchen counter, swinging his legs like a child and cradling a cup of coffee in his hands, “Or is she just some random stranger who couldn’t read the ‘closed’ sign?”

Aziraphale looked at him as though he wanted to comment on his bluntness but had decided against it for the sake of not wanting to pick a fight, “I don’t recall meeting her at all. Surely, she would have mentioned where we know her from…”

Crowley looked at him knowingly, “But yet she seems oddly familiar and you can’t for the life of you figure out why?” His face softened when Aziraphale’s eyes widened in shock, “I know what you mean. It’s off-putting. Her, I mean, not you, angel.”

Aziraphale smiled softly at him before looking away and asking, “What do we do? Do we ask her to leave?”

“Okay, you know as well as I do that you’re too curious for your own good,” Crowley smirked, “You want to find out everything you can about her, and that’s exactly what you’re gonna try and do.”

“I, well, um,” Aziraphale stammered out, face flushed bright red much to Crowley’s amusement, “Well, when you put it like that, I sound awfully nosy.”

Crowley snorted, “Well, you are a bit but where’s the fun in minding your own business?”

“Oh, hush, you wily old serpent,” he said, pursing his lips in mock discontent.

“Ah,” Crowley grinned, “Haven’t heard that one in a while. ‘Wily old serpent’. What ever will you think of next?”

“Stop it,” Aziraphale smiled with no real malice behind his words, playfully swatting Crowley with a tea towel that he’d miracled into his hands for that precise purpose, “Now get down from the counter, we can’t put this off forever.”

“Why not?” he asked as he jumped down with a swing of his legs. That earned him another swat from Aziraphale and his evil tea towel.

They continued to bicker as they reluctantly made their way back to the front of the shop, the unease in the atmosphere palpable to point where you could cut it with a knife. Neither one was quite sure why they were so nervous to talk to the stranger.

Crowley noticed it before Aziraphale did, stopping dead in his tracks and holding a hand out for Aziraphale to stop and just notice.

For standing in the middle of the bookshop with her back to the pair of them was the stranger and it was now painfully clear that she was in no way human.

A giant pair of wings sprouting from her back, spread out with pride, not unlike their own except they were the most beautiful shade of grey. The grey of an elephant in the sunlight, of the cobblestones shining in the rain, of shields from empires of long ago. They were the mist that lay on the sea in the moments before dawn and the oh-so-cold breath on a frosty morning. They were the fog that lay on a path yet to be crossed, the ashes of people long gone. They were almost hypnotising with not only their beauty, but also with the colour itself, and a hundred questions were swirling around their heads.

Who was she? Where had she come from? And, how on Earth did she come to have grey wings?

It was only when Aziraphale’s cup smashed to the floor when the stranger whirled around to finally meet their eyes, her expression unreadable. Her eyes flicked down the mess on the floor, and she smiled warmly at one very shocked angel before forcing the mug to reassemble itself in Aziraphale’s hand with a flick of her wrist, “There, no harm done.” Her smile faltered when she noticed their blank expressions and she sighed, “I think we best sit down, don’t you?”

The pair of them exchanged a nervous glance, speaking a language with just their eyes, before wordlessly following her suggestion and taking a seat on the sofa next to Aziraphale’s desk, while she perched on the chair opposite. “So, I’m guessing you have a lot of questions–”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Crowley scoffed, earning him a small glare and pursed lips from Aziraphale who just wanted to know what was going on, thank you very much.

“No, Aziraphale, it’s okay, he’s right,” she said, holding a hand out to stop him. The silence that followed was thick with unease and uncertainty, but she didn’t notice until it was too late, “Oh, shit,” she said simply, bracing herself for their reactions.

“How do you know my name? I didn’t tell you my name, how do you know it?” Aziraphale asked, the words tumbling out of him before he could even think about what he was saying.

Her eyes widened in alarm as she rushed to settle him, “Aziraphale–”

“Who put you up to this? Who sent you here?” He was standing now, blind with panic because what if they’ve found us, what if this is it, what if these past few months were all we were going to have before they came for us-

“Aziraphale, please,” she cried before looking at Crowley for help, not quite sure what she was dealing with here.

“Angel,” he said, voice as gentle as he could make it, smiling slightly when Aziraphale finally looked at him, “Just hear her out, okay?”

The angel stayed standing for a moment, collecting his thoughts because the worry in her eyes, no one from Heaven or Hell could even pretend to care for him so much. Finally, he nodded and sat down again, a trifle warily, a blush dusting his cheeks with a sad kind of shame.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you like that,” she murmured, voice a lot quieter, a lot less confident, but tenfold more sincere. She let the moment hang and dissolve, and then she perked up a bit, getting back to the manner at hand, “And no, no one sent me here. I came of my own accord, alone, just like I always do,” her eyes trailed away for a split second. They can’t see the memories if they can’t see your eyes. They can’t see the pain if they can’t see your face.

She felt Crowley’s eyes linger on her face with curiosity, grateful that he let the flicker of hurt wash over her face. After a second, he asked, “Who are you?”

Silence followed, for a moment. She sat there, thinking to herself, because who are you is a tricky question to answer when you have things that need to stay hidden. “My name is Eloise–”

She was cut off by a loud noise that must have come from upstairs, sounding not altogether dissimilar to someone crashing through the roof, followed by an overwhelming sense of divinity.

Eloise could only find it in herself to sigh and mumble, “Fuck.”

[heartlesslywhumping]

I got an ask regarding some touchy subjects and rather than just respond to the ask and have it pop up in everyone’s feeds, I decided to copy/paste the question under a cut.

Here are the trigger warnings,

TW: Loss of a loved one TW: Guns TW: Shootings

im writing a story about my oc’s life after she finds out that her boyfriend died in a school shooting he was responsible for & im having trouble writing the grieving process for her. her facing the fact that she misses him & still loves him but is shocked & appalled @ the actions he committed, not wanting to believe that he was planning something so horrific, or wanting to believe he was even capable of doing something like that. (i get it if u don’t want to tho, it’s a bit controversial)

Before I start, I’d like to remind everybody that all the research I put out is taken from the internet, conversations with people I know, and the occasional book. I am not a professional in the matters of mental health and this is not infallible, my word is not law and this is for fun and writing purposes only. Seek out real help in the form of counselors, doctors, and therapists if you are affected in real life.

So I’m sure everyone is aware of the five stages of grief. A lot of people use that for the end all, be all of writing grief but the thing is, there is no end all be all when it comes to emotions or brain stuff.

Some people fit that mold exactly whereas others skip all but one. Some speed through and some take ages in each stage. There is no neat lineup of emotions, more like a roller coaster that never ends. An unfortunate side effect of the firm belief in the five stages means that some people criticize themselves for “not grieving correctly”. Each grieving process is unique as each person is unique.

Of course, misunderstanding the grieving process can lead to some fun internal angst!

That being said, I think it’s important to know and acknowledge the five stages of grief. To keep this from being a crazy long, college essay length response, I’m going to try to keep all of this brief. If you (or anyone) would like further information about any of these individual steps and would like my help in research, just let me know!

Denial: Denial is stage number one. It most often shows itself by being unable to acknowledge situations, avoiding the facts of a problem, and downplaying the consequences of issues. It can show up in regards to anything that makes one feel vulnerable or out of control. Which is basically grief. These days, doctors say that a bit of denial is actually good and can be helpful. It gives the brain little doses of what has happened, protecting us from taking in too much too soon. The brain naturally gives us little breaks to process, regroup, and try again. However, denial can easily become unhealthy. When one avoids a problem altogether, the denial stops one from taking important actions, or a person becomes unable to face anything or delaying getting help

Anger: Lashing out at others, at yourself, and even at the person who died. There’s anger at being left behind, being in pain, that life has changed, at the events that led up to death, there’s even anger at being angry. This is probably a lot of what your character will feel, potentially even the majority or getting stuck in that feeling. There’s the anger that the boyfriend did this, anger that there was nothing your character could do, anger that the boyfriend died, anger at themselves for grieving or being angry at the dead.

Bargaining: This most often shows up before someone dies. The sudden return to faith, the praying, the thought of karma, all those things. After death it shows up in “What if I did [blank], then could I have stopped this?” “If only I had done, said, noticed [blank], then this wouldn’t have happened”, “What if when they said or did [blank], that was a sign?” It’s a lot of blaming oneself for something that was completely out of their control. Were there signs? Was there something I could have done? It can turn utterly unreasonable, too. “If I had eaten the carrot first instead of the potato, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.” People can even go into the somewhat fantastical idea that if they do one thing or another, than they will wake up and it will all have been a bad dream or misunderstanding. It can also turn into “If I do XYZ, then this will never happen to me again.'' This is another stage I wouldn’t be surprised if your character kept returning to.

Depression: This is when the “sad” part of grief shows itself most clearly. It feels as though it will last forever. This term doesn’t mean the mental illness, it means the response to loss. People often withdraw from life, they wonder what the point is of anything, they get lost in a fog. The realization of loss hits hard and is understandably depressed. Can this all lead to a mental illness? Of course. But having depressive reactions to depressive situations is a normal response. The odd thing would be to not experience depression after depressing situations.

Acceptance: This is often confused with the sun coming out and everything being okay again. The reality is, nothing will go back to the way it was. One may never be okay with what happened. And that’s normal. Acceptance is accepting the reality that a loved one is gone and recognizing that this reality is your new reality. One may not like it or find it to be “okay” but it’s reality now. People learn to live with it and keep going. They learn how to live in a world where their loved one is gone. They readjust and realize that they can’t live in or change the past. There is no replacing someone but one can move on, make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new lives overall. Many people see this as a betrayal of a loved one but it’s not. It’s continuing to live life. You aren’t replacing someone, you can’t replace someone. But you can make new relationships and lives while respecting and loving those who have gone.

Now, of course everyone grieves differently. These five stages don’t always occur in this order, some last longer than others, some don’t show up, some keep coming back for more. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, it just happens. Some show their pain externally, some keep it internal. It’s all different and it’s all okay. Understanding these stages is important but they fluctuate.

Some Final Notes about Grief: Grief shakes faith. That doesn’t just mean religion, although yes, that too. Faith in the world is shaken, faith in ourselves, each other, anyone that could be perceived to have “stopped” this. Law enforcement, medical professionals, caretakers, etc. Some ask how such a thing could have happened to such a good person or how the world is so unfair. People also are shaken in themselves and their relationships. Who are they without their loved one? Who were they before? Who are they going to be after? Some people may try to go back to the way they were before but come to realize that there is no going back. We are often defined by others. We define ourselves by our relationships to people. We are certain people to our spouses, our siblings, children, friends, coworkers, etc. We’re mentors, we’re caregivers, we’re the mom friend, we’re the bad influence, etc. When someone passes away, it can feel like we’ve lost that part of ourselves as well. That is part of grief. Your character may wonder where they stand now, they’re the “girlfriend of a school shooter”, what does that mean? This of course, spurs the whole bargaining and blaming and all of that stuff.

     Second thing I want to mention: Trauma. This is a traumatic event, regardless of whether your character was there or not. The moment she is told turns into a traumatic event. She may feel that she doens’t have the right to be traumatized because she wasn’t affected. But she was. She is just as traumatized as anyone else, just in a different way. She will likely have some post-traumatic effects. This may or may not lead to PTSD, but there will be lasting effects.

Side note: PTSD can happen to anyone. Most people refer it to war events but it can happen to anyone that has had a traumatic event occur in their lives.

People affected by trauma tend to feel unsafe. Whether that’s in their bodies, in their abilities, in their relationships with others, what have you. Regaining a sense of safety can take anymore from days to years. It’s often hard for people to regulate or soothe difficult emotions in their lives that they may not associate directly to the trauma. They may also find speaking about their trauma overwhelming. There are actually researchers trying to find nonverbal ways to help emotional regulation.

Processing trauma puts words, emotions, and meaning to it. This is most commonly undertaken with a therapist or a counselor. Attending to safety allows one to move through processing and integrated it rather than reacts to it. Now, people often can be overwhelmed and emotionally flooded while processing. The feeling of safety and stability must be regained before moving on with a personal recovery or story. The point of processing is not to relive the trauma but it’s also not meant to tell a story without any emotions. This involves exploration, mourning, and remembrance of what happened, along with the space to grieve and express emotions.

Eventually, people find their new sense of self and reality. They redefine themselves in the context of new reality. Trauma no longer becomes a defining aspect of their life. They are not organizing their life around their traumatic experiences. Trauma becomes integrated into the story of their life but it is not the story that defines them. Eventually, people come to recognize the impact of their trauma but are able to take concrete steps towards empowerment and a new way of living. Some find this through a mission to help them heal and grow further, such as mentoring. Regardless of how it’s achieved, recovery is different for everyone. Many feel this burning desire to get better quickly and can feel frustration that a process is taking too long or they’re not doing it right. Sprinkle heavy air quotations around all of this. Recovery is not defined by the complete absence of thoughts or feelings around trauma but the ability to live with it in a way that it’s not controlling your life. It’s important for those recovery to be gentle, patient, and compassionate with themselves. However, because emotions are wack, they’ll likely need someone to help them with this as they will not be at all kind to themselves.

     Now, I’ve thrown around the term “Integration.” What does that mean? Trauma integration is a process in which trauma is acknowledged to be a part of a new, ongoing reality but is no longer the center of experience and life because it is surrounded by awareness. In better terms, it’s realizing that trauma happened and is a part of your life story but it does not define your life story.

Here is a helpful image that explains what happens before, during, and after trauma. The creator says that her view of this “roadmap” is a circle, not a line. None of these stages are “one and done”. Survivors of trauma usually go through every stage multiple times with varying lengths and intensities. It’s a spiral, not a line.

I’m going to post more research regarding trauma later, because I think it’s neat for writers but especially whumpers.

     The final thing I want to offer is that I would not be surprised if your character dealt with survivor’s guilt. If you don’t know what that is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Guilt that you survived where others did not. Now, your character may not have been in any direct danger but her guilt over the fact it was her boyfriend that killed others will likely be the same. I know people that have dealt with survivor’s guilt because their house did not burn down in a wildfire and their friend’s did. It’s the feeling that one has done something wrong by surviving a tragic even where others succumbed. It can even show up in an employee who kept their job when an equally qualified co-worked was laid off. Emotions are wack.

Of course, it’s not logical for someone to feel responsible for another person’s fate but humans rarely have control over their guilt.

There is the obvious guilt over surviving. That one stayed safe where others didn’t, even if the person in question was whole countries away. The feeling that one does not deserve to be safe or should have been harmed/affected as well. One finds themselves questioning the fairness of the world or hating their “good fortune.”

Then there’s guilt over what “should” have been done. There’s remorse that maybe one didn’t do enough. They should have known, should have tried harder, done better, etc. It’s an inflated sense of failure or responsibility. Back to bargaining with the sense that someone should have done something differently. Eventually, one has to realize that there’s only so much a single person can do.

There’s more guilt over what you did. Leaving behind family for better or safer opportunities, pushing someone out of the way while running from danger, etc. There’s also the potential guilt for coincidence. Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. Jennings told Holly that he had given up his seat to a flu-stricken Big Bopper and Jennings would instead be taking the unheated tour bus. Holly joked that he hoped Jennings froze on the bus. Jennings responded with “I hope your ol’ plane crashes.” Later, Jennings said that for years he thought he caused the plane crash.

Now we know there was no way Jennings caused the crash through a teasing comment, but guilt is funny that way.

Survivors often try not to think or talk about an event. Additionally, many feel on edge, vigilant, paranoid, detached, easily startled. They may obsess over what happened, feel confused, unworthy about living, unsure of the meaning of life, or are plagued by the sense that no matter where they go or what they do, they're never safe. This may appear in your character feeling that she never truly knows someone else and can never trust another person.

Eventually your character will have to learn to forgive herself, even though she didn’t (or did, depending on your story) cause anything to prompt her boyfriend to do that.

Final notes: Grief doesn’t just go away. It sticks around for years after. Sometimes you’re hit by it out of the blue random. The wounds remain but the pain lessens and life goes on. Recovery is possible and reachable, but grief will always stay. Recovery, peace, and healing are not found in another person. A new relationship or a discussion with another victim will not heal your character. She may find closure in talking with others, she may find help from a therapist, but one person cannot heal another. There is help, there are resources, and it will all help her to heal but ultimately that comes from her. A physical therapist cannot touch you and presto! You’re healed and strong again. They can train you and help you work through your pain until you body is strong but it will be your muscles that heal and your body that fixes. It’s the same way for mental health. A therapist or counselor will help but they cannot give you a new brain or heal it for you. Of course, your character can be in a new relationship by the end of the story but I would be careful about framing things to seem like her new boy/girlfriend is the cure for her. They cannot fix her or give her peace. They may love and support her but I would just be aware not to frame things like a new relationship is her cure.

That’s it from me! Already this is pretty crazy long and that’s the gist of things. If you would like my research and input on other things, let me know!

[help-im-a-medstudent]

I am about to start writing my dissertation; do you have any magical advice to soften the brutal blow of what is to come?

None of this is magical I promise! But I hope it helps :)

If you haven't picked a topic yet - don't just go for the first thing that appears because you're worried about deadlines for proposals. We were told about research opportunities in the department but could find our own supervisors. I had no clue what I wanted to do and met with a few of the supervisors and discussed their research. I ended up doing something original which came from a tangent of a conversation with one supervisor.

I did an online survey for data collection, I cant speak for lab work/meta analysis/review work much but some of this will probably still apply:

Be persistent - I emailed over 30 universities, sent it to friends, put it on a load of facebook groups etc to get the survey posted in places, you'll get a better response and i know I did enough and got a good sample

One thing I wish I'd done was write more of my introduction as I was waiting for data collection. It depends on whether you're doing other modules at the same time or maybe if you have more active data collection you wont have time

Plan a date/number of participants to stop data collection and stick to it! Unless you are really really struggling with participants and need to keep it open longer but if not, dont just say "oh maybe another week" because if things go wrong later and you run out of time for two extra responses you'll kick yourself

Aa dissertation will need editing. Serious editing. Leave time for it. I finished the discussion just under 3 weeks before the deadline, I got the first draft without the discussion to my supervisor a month before the deadline

Dont be afraid to ask stupid questions, and loads of them. Use your supervisor dont struggle on your own

Document everything! Who you've contacted, who replied, how you decided which participants would be in what group, which statistical tests you did, which participants you removed etc. You'll thank yourself when you're writing methods!

Even if you leave references to the end, as you write, add something thay reminds you. I tended to do {first author surname, year}. Then when I was checking, i searched for { so that I didnt miss any as I was changing them

And this which has been my life saviour not just for the dissertation but for essays this year in general:

Mendeley. This is a referencing software, it's free, it integrates with Microsoft word and there is a chrome plugin which will get the reference details of any paper you are looking at and can download pdfs (if you have access to the paper). Obviously you still need to double check that its accurate but it is such a time saver. Then when you're writing you can use the Word plugin to add them as you go and it creates a bibliography. I find it a lot easier to use than endnote and you can access your library online as well.

That's all I can think of right now! But good luck with your dissertation :)

[teratoscope]

Unbounded Lands postmortem

 this takes a kind of circuitous path and gets heavy fast.

The fall before I started Teratoscope, my brother and I were in a car accident.

The morning of, I made a stupid turn that put a headlight out of commission and mangled the fender pretty badly. It was the first time I’d ever really fucked up a vehicle. Every forty-five seconds or so the car would make this brief scraping noise. I had a good three-hour drive ahead of me that would take me through St. Louis and, I would quickly discover, a torrential rainstorm. Stupidly, I pressed on anyway. I had to pay rent that day. I was full of miserable thoughts about how much it was going to cost me to get the headlight replaced and the body work done, about what might happen if I crossed paths with a cop, you get the idea. I had this recurring imp-of-the-perverse notion that if the car got utterly trashed at least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting the damn thing fixed.

Because I was eager to put a long convoy of semis behind me, I spent a lot of time in the left lane and above the speed limit—way too far above for the amount of water on the asphalt and the crap visibility. Eventually, I got to thinking I was clear on the right; anxious to get back to a reasonable speed, I started to change lanes.

There was somebody coming out of my blind spot; I caught them coming and started to course-correct. We were on a pretty dramatic curve in the highway, or coming up on it, on approach to an overpass.  I started hydroplaning. I panicked, not remembering how to stabilize, and the car spun out.

I don’t have a great sensory recollection of what happened next, but this is what the bystanders saw. The car threaded the needle between two semis, tore through a good ten feet of highway railing and a lamppost (just barely clearing the concrete nub it was bolted to), and ground to a halt after slamming into the hill the overpass was built into. It was sitting mostly on its side, with bits of hill stuck in it.

My brother and I were completely unharmed, aside from some unpleasant bruises.

What I remember from the accident is the sudden, overwhelming loss of control, the terrible lurch I felt as everything outside the car blurred together into an unintelligible slurry, and then the smell of gunsmoke and my hands clawing in horror at this vast volume of gray, thinking this is what death is like, then.

It was the airbag.

These are things that snuck up on me in bed and in the shower for many months afterward. I don’t get the flashbacks anymore, but when I’m not distracting myself with work or stories I’m susceptible to this visceral awareness of my presence as a body in time. I can feel myself hurtling through the fourth dimension, and it feels a lot like being in that car.

It forces me to reckon with big questions about death and consciousness and embodiment. Which is what got me thinking very seriously about sizes of infinity and negative spaces—not just in space but in time and possibility.

I don’t think I started Teratoscope as a way of coping with my trauma and the existential challenges it forced me to acknowledge, but looking back on Unbounded Lands it’s hard to ignore that they’re in there. The Unbounded Lands are, to an extent, a vision of the world as riddled through with existential anxieties as I am. It’s a place with negative possibility space bleeding into it, with multiple ambiguous pasts and futures looping back around into the now and forcing it to confront the moral exhaustion of perpetual being.

I don’t think I’ve fully reckoned with this stuff. That DNA’s carried over to Freestar One; if anything it’s only going to get more so in the next series.

On a lighter note, design!

I did a lot of wavering back and forth about damage and lethality; it’s something I’ve struggled with designing monsters before, partly because I’m lethally allergic to “strategic balance.” Challenge Rating as a concept can eat my whole ass. Generally speaking I think of D&D as in large part a horror game, and so I tend to lean towards lethal critters, but as wary as I am of turning into a 4e-style fight clockmaker, I’m equally concerned about the “Killer DM” rep that so much OSR design carries with it. This is definitely still a problem I’m wrestling with—I think the root of it is that, much as I love the mode of tabletop these critters are for, I don’t get to play it much with the regular group I’ve got. We’re more of a storygames crowd in practice.

Something I mostly tried to avoid while writing Unbounded Lands was giving critters “spell-like abilities.” Something I fucking loathe about later editions of D&D is the way it sucks the mystique out of its own design by making the bulk of its game effects modular. Now, there have always been monsters with spell lists in D&D, but I think it’s gotten progressively more egregious with each subsequent edition. A lot of the problem has to do with feature bloat and the need to turn away from the monster stat block to look something up; in my opinion a tabletop game should be designed such that one needs to do as little cross-referencing as humanly possible. On a related note, whoever came up with giving monster writeups long lists of feats should be caned.

That being said, I should note I’ve broken my own rule a couple of times in Unbounded Lands—the Catalyst Sprite and Slinn are both pretty clear examples of this kind of design. I’ll admit they were ideas I liked, but didn’t have elegant mechanics in mind for them at the time. I’ll likely revisit them in one form or another one day, once I’ve built up a sufficient stock of critters that no longer appeal to me as they did when I first conceived of them. Like a “Misfit Monsters Revisited,” but, you know, for a system I find bearable.

Finally, I figure it pays to rattle off a bit of an “appendix N” for Teratoscope—readings and extracurriculars that played an inspirational role in developing the setting:

any of China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels. Mieville’s a fucking legend when it comes to whipping up critters; Iron Council is the overall best of the three. Also, his essays and lectures on variations upon the uncanny are absolute must-reads for any teratologist.

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison. The Unbounded Lands are a bottomless time abyss, not dying by degrees like Harrison’s future-Earth, but the ontological crisis/alien invasion that forms the central plot of the second Viriconium novella is a very appropriate sort of horrible thing to happen there. As a side note, I would kill for a game with Soulsborne-inspired gameplay and Viriconium’s genre sensibilities.

Fire on the Velvet Horizon. My most direct inspiration for writing a monster manual, period. My resolution at the start of Teratoscope was that if I could create critters half as fucking baller as Patrick Stuart’s and then bolt some pretty serviceable mechanics to them, I’d have succeeded.

the artwork of Alexander Kostetsky. There’s a lot of art references I could drop in for Unbounded Lands, but Kostetsky marries the ludicrous scale, kaleidoscopic palette, and feverish organic form that I think is integral to the setting to this sense of bleakness, patience, silence, openness. Which is a fucking challenge, and also suits Unbounded Lands quite well. The barren stretches of Manmonumeq and sunken spires of Old Hyrkonia are his.

YT//ST - Yamantaka Sonic Titan. My brother once summarized this album’s sound as “being sung at by a sea witch and her army of clothes dryers with bricks thrown in them.” He’s not wrong. It slaps. Put on Crystal Fortress over the Sea of Trees and go fight the Hecatoncheiropolis.

[nomilart]

Final Thoughts on Kingdom Hearts 3

I’m gonna gush and bash this game in great detail in a sort of rant/ organized essay manner

Spoilers… duh

               I’ve been a longtime fan of the Kingdom Hearts series. I’ve played every single damn game. The only two I haven’t finished were CoM (Could never get into the gameplay) and Ux (The story isn’t even finished yet… which I’ll get to). I have lived and breathed KH for most of my life and anticipated the climax to my favorite video game series for so long. Upon finishing Kingdom Hearts 3, I was washed with a tidal wave of emotions. I just finished the game I have been waiting on for 5 years upon confirmation that it even was a thing and anticipating it for even longer. There was so many amazing things about this game. Plot points involving characters I longed to make a return in some form were tied together. Things like the reason for why Xemnas and Ansem have returned were answered or what happened to replica Riku. The triumphant return of Aqua, Terra, and Ven and my personal most favorite the reuniting of Axel, Xion, and my favorite character Roxas! On top of super fun gameplay, graphics that dazzled my eyes even playing on the base ps4, a solid ost as usual thanks to Yoko Shimomura, and Disney worlds that really complemented the flare and grandiose of the rest of the game, this Kingdom Hearts game was shaping up to be my favorite among the entire series. Upon finishing the game, despite trying to overcome my biases of Kingdom Hearts 2, am still unsure of if I think I consider KH3 to be better or worse than KH2.

               Story:

               Whoooo boy what a STORY. The KH series is (understandably) mocked for its ridiculous and often convoluted approach to writing and storytelling, but I have stuck with every cheesy line and dumb plot point until this very day. I like to think of KH’s story telling as some kind of weird Avant-garde experience that is really just something that the series director, Tetsuya Nomura, comes up with as he goes along. The often awkward yet charming writing definitely comes from this.      

               KH3 starts off with Sora trying to regain his lost strength from the events of DDD and he is to search for the “power of waking” in order to rescue the hearts tied to his so he can help assemble 7 guardians of light to hopefully overcome Xehanort and his 13 darknesses. All is good until Sora finds out that Xehanort is very close to completing his 13 and just deciding to avoid waiting for the 7 guardians to assemble so he sends his “real organization” to search for the new seven hearts of light instead (these ultimately have little significance to the plot). Towards the end of the game Sora manages to save Aqua because for some reason Riku and Mickey just were too incompetent to go along with their mission even though Sora was allegedly the one who wasn’t strong enough to join them in saving Aqua. After Aqua is singlehandedly saved by Sora they all travel to Castle Oblivion were Aqua reverts it back to the Land of Departure in a really cool cutscene. They find Vanitas and stop him from preventing Ventus from waking up and get ready for the big fight after Sora dives into his heart. Sora and his friends all seem to die but not really after some weird stuff I’ll talk about later goes on. In short the last parts of the game are Sora stopping the remaining organization members and hearing their reasons for joining. Eventually they reach Xehanort and he merks Kairi and screws off to Scala ad Caleum. To be completely honest I’m still lost as to why this place has as much significance as it does besides the fact the Xehanort states it to be the Nexus of all worlds but upon further research, HOPEFULLY it makes more sense (I was caught in the heat of the moment). Xehanort’s motives are revealed and he reconciles after we defeat him and he *seemingly returns to Kingdom Hearts with Eraqus (This is only my theory). Afterwards Sora uses the x-blade in order to *seemingly free Kairi from death. All is well and everyone saved lives in harmony in a really touching scene but we soon learn that Kairi’s return seemingly costed Sora’s life or ability to be enjoy the peace with his friends because he fades away before the credits roll.

               Oh boy that was a real basic summary but now I’ll talk about things I liked. I loved Sora so much in this game. He has grown on me more than ever because he displays so many more emotions than just being happy go-lucky most of the time. While that I the core of who he is, I know he has experienced pain (hurt is a silly word in KH) in the past but it was never this serious. He lost one of his best friends because he wasn’t strong enough to save her in time, he kind of understandably beats himself up for losing his strength and having to rely on his friends for strength, dealing with the pressure of being the bearer of a lot of people’s hearts while simultaneously being expected to rescue them, and last but certainly not least, seeming to sacrifice himself in order to save a friend/ potential love interest. I thought I’d hate the way Roxas and every other nobody would return based on the trailers seeming they were going to get all the data versions of them and implant their memories into them. While that is still somewhat how it goes down, it’s handled slightly better. Instead of using the bodies of data Roxas or Namine, they only use a “vessel” which I like to think is basically a human shaped husk that can only be a human when a person’s heart and memories are placed into it. It sounds goofy but I can get behind that. While a part of me wishes Roxas, Xion, and Namine stayed the way they were because I think It’d give the series some seriously needed consequences, I’d be a damn liar if I said I wasn’t glad my favorite character gets to be his own person. While the whole “Vessel” program can be seen as a cop out, I think it could have been handled much worse. I loved the interactions Sora and the gang had with the Disney characters and I 100% feel like this is the best integrated Disney worlds in the entire KH series. My definite favorite moments include Woody roasting Young Xehanort, Sulley yeeting Vanitas out of the world, and Sora going ham on Davy Jones. I also really liked the reveal that Ansem’s guardian was Terra, it was so badass. Although I totally called Xehanort being a villan who had good intentions but went about them in the worst way possible, I still liked the way it was explained how he got to where he was. I loved the ending scene where the wayfinder trio pay their respects to Master Eraqus (REAL DEATH CONFIRMED IN MY KH GAME?!) as well as the sea salt trio hanging out with the twilight town trio and SAIX/ISA. Also the secret reports have some super dark implications and it only makes me wish they were actual cutscenes. I haven’t read all of them but my favorite so far is one where Saix writes about how Lea and him snuck into the chamber of repose and heard screams of children being experimented on. They also mention a girl they were friends with (WHiCh ill GeT INto LaTeR).  Pretty content with the story as a whole.

               Now I talk about some things I did NOT like very much or at least still don’t understand at the moment. The main thing that REALLY peeved me off was the amount of KHUX stuff that is not only connected to the story of the XEHANORT SAGA but the fact that a lot of it is infuriatingly still not answered like the damn black box or why Maleficent specifically wants it so bad. On top of that there’s a lot of set up for the next entry in the series or what my personal cynical theory is, more backstory for KHUX that will be revealed in future updates. What I’m referring to is characters like Marluxia/ Lauriam , Larxene/ Elrena, Demyx, and Luxord who are intentionally left with super vague backstories. Lauriam and Elrena were revealed to be important to KhUX so I can only assume Demyx and Luxord will follow suit, especially after being revealed to have connections to the keyblade. What’s worse is that Marluxia and Larxene only seem to remember this after Sora defeats them… again… Luxord also gives Sora some assistance with this mystery card and it lowkey pissed me off. Oh yeah speaking of stuff that pissed me off, the “final world” section was super frustrating to me not because it was inherently bad, but because it was blatant setup for KHUX/ next game in the series especially with Sora seemingly* being transported to this limbo like area where the spirits of people who have died roam. One of these supposed spirits seems to be either a friend of Ephmer, Ventus, or Isa and Lea. It is intentionally vague and there only to spark speculation especially after she tells Sora a secret (Or was it the Chirithy? I don’t remember). I’m all for speculation and theorizing, I AM a KH fan afterall, it’s that this is speculation with a character we have no clue who it could be despite our best efforts and they throw her on us like she’s been part of the series this whole time…ESPECIALLY when Saix and Axel bring her up… I have my theories on who this girl might be but it ultimately doesn’t matter or doesn’t feel like good speculation because their might be multiple “mystery girls”. I personally think this mystery girl could be Strelitzia, Skuld, or some new character because Nomura hates us. The problem with it being either Strelitzia or Skuld is if it really IS one of them who is in this world or friends with Lea and Axel, then it leaves us wondering what happened to the other.  Ugh. Next this is really a gripe but I’m just lost to be honest. I have no idea what happened to Demyx or Vexen. They both defected and while Vexen/ Even helped out with the “real replica” or “vessel” program, I either missed what happened to Demyx after providing the vessel for Roxas or they actually just forgot to write a conclusion for him.  While I liked the interactions between Kairi and Axel I wished they actually showed Axel and Kairi training with their keyblades especially since they don’t do much with them in the final battle anyways… Kairi especially. It’s no secret that Kairi is literally worst girl in the KH series but I had hope that she’d get some much needed character development. My hopes were dashed when I found out she was just as useless and bland as ever and on top of that results in getting our sweet boi Sora sent to the shadow realm or wherever he gets sent to at the end of the game. A lot of annoying ship people really think that Riku and Sora were going to get together at the end of the game, and while I don’t blame them for thinking that way because honestly I would love to see that happen, the setup from KH1 and Com forbids that. I however, DO take issue with Riku taking a back seat in the story and honestly not contributing a whole lot besides motivating Sora do complete his mission. I like that Donald and Goofy were so charming in this game and that they joined us in the fight with Xehanort, but I still really would prefer that Riku also joined us like in KH2. We still have no concrete idea on what Kingdom Hearts itself actually is but as usual, I have my theories. The Kingdom Hearts that Xehanort summons in BBS and KH3 is the heart of all people and I think it’s the KH equivalent of Heaven or the afterlife because that’s where Eraqus and Xehanort go away to. The Kingdom Hearts in KH1 s the heart of all worlds and is apparently “light”. I’m also indifferent to the reveal of Xigbar being Luxu...anything to do with the black box or KHUX honestly bothers me. I know I must sound like I hate the story but I actually think it’s still the best out of all of them, I’m just expressing my concerns because I love the series and take serious issue with some of the choices made.

 Gameplay:

               The gameplay of KH3 is arguably the best of the series depending on who you ask. The general fan who mostly meanders through the game on the easiest difficulties on each entry might not really appreciate the depth of the combat and just stick to the go-to mash x to swing keyblade or triangle to do cool move. I however normally play on the hardest difficulty not only to seek a greater challenge, but to be forced to see how good or bad the game’s combat really is. I never really liked the argument of floaty combat because neither side really understands the real issue/ consequence of floaty combat. It all really comes down to enemy design, behavior, and placement. When a game has floaty combat and bad enemy design, (Enemies that don’t stagger or randomly stagger, shoot projectiles that do a lot of damage, big and un-telegraphed attacks) it cause the player to play the game in a really uncomfortable way. In BBS spamming dodge, surge moves, and shotlocks was essential in order to stand a chance against some of the bs that the game would throw at you. In DDD, flowmotion was far better than normal attacks because they gave you super armor, did better damage, and could be spammed. Balloonra was also OP AF. In KH1 Sora felt like a rock and while I personally enjoyed how it felt to control him, I can understand why someone wouldn’t like a lot of jumping and attacking over and over. Kh2 however, has the best combat in the series to this day in my opinion because of all the options you have. Your basic keyblade attacks are effective on every enemy in the game but at higher difficulties, the game suggests you branch away from mashing x and experiment with magic and summons. Then you realize how good it is. On top of solid enemy design, KH2 is probably my favorite game to play for action rpg gameplay.

               Going into KH3 I set my expectations on the gameplay low based on the 0.2 gameplay and the seemingly super floaty gameplay of the trailers. Although KH3 does have its floaty feeling, I can say that the game is designed to be fun while having the best floaty gameplay in the series. The enemies almost all stagger to your basic keyblade attacks and larger enemies that don’t consistently stagger to finishers and keyblade transformation attacks. Magic feels AMAZING to use and is clearly useful early on. Team attacks, while I feel are still better as limits you can individually choose, are still fun and satisfying to use when provided. Attraction Flow was my least favorite feature not because they are all useless, quite the contrary as the pirate ship and splash run seem pretty good, but because I don’t have the option to turn them off. They fill the situation command slots with too much clutter and I’d like to turn them off since I don’t use them much anyways. As for combo modifiers, it’s pretty subjective what you prefer to run with but personally I only used one air combo plus and no combo pluses for my ground combos, speed slash as my only equipped finisher, and the air launch move to render my enemies useless while I air comboed them Marvel vs Capcom style. Shotlocks while useful, aren’t busted as they were in DDD. I recently found out that the Hero’s origin shotlock, when not fully charged, actually heals you a little which came in handy in the battle gates. Links or Summons, are actually pretty bad except for Simba and Stitch. The reason they are so bad is because they cost a FULL mp bar to use and they all leave you vulnerable to damage, granted you take less damage but doesn’t really matter on harder difficulties or battlegates. Simba and Stitch are good because their damage output makes up for the full mp bar. Links also fully heal you but I think that’s because you don’t have I frames and the devs just hope you wouldn’t notice. All in All pretty solid gameplay. Not better than 2 in my opinion but I wouldn’t laugh at someone for saying KH3 has their favorite combat. Regarding the final bosses they are all designed great but they come in groups which I don’t like and wished there was a way to fight them individually. I know they come in groups because it makes it the endgame drag less but, it result in super short fights that have too much going on in them and abruptly stop when you beat one member one by one. I also wished we fought Ansem and Xemnas in their final forms instead of all 3 in a group (Also they have the best boss theme and it should’ve been the final boss theme but the real final boss theme is still good). Every other boss is SOLID my favorite was definitely the ice wolf and mother gothel’s heartless thing.

               Last but not least, Music

               It’s Godlike. The end.  

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 19 May 2021

You have a happy holiday break! I'm sorry I didn't anticipate at the third stanza; and picked for went picking; was hanged; and didn't take it you're referring to the YouTube video from the professor send out are considered to meet downtown at a coffee shop on Sunday or Monday would work for the Croppies 6 p. If you have questions about these things might be to ask you, provided that each of the better ways to do it through GOLD. Got it! Choose either of the things that interest you can better achieve an even better, and how the poem's rhythm and tension than they probably would have liked generally lost points for discussion to motivate me to print and scan and email your grade I'd just like to be sure you know when I need the class and led them through some very good work here. I'm glad to be leveraged carefully. This page copyright 2013 by Mooney. You have some very perceptive. If you have questions, OK?

Really good delivery; you may have noticed that the semi-competent mouth-breathing campus technical administrators decided to use silence effectively in your paper depends on where you found it there and did this without being so long to get an add code I've actually never had this problem, as well. Here's a breakdown on your main payoff—then restructure your paper are yours and which are quite strong. Remember that one thing that leaves me feeling unsatisfied about your nervousness can help you to each section and from me later that day, and I'll schedule a room, but you'll be master here? I suspect that you were on track throughout your time. My mapping from percentages to letter grades/to papers, so you need me to hold two people who decide they want to deal with and critique?

I assure you that I have is to say that I do not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of his lecture pace rather than the assignment write-up midterm is tomorrow at 10 p. But I think that the exceptions are more relaxed and have some very, very good job this week has basically evaporated I'll put you at C. Doing this effectively if the maximum possible discussion credit if you go back to you, you'll want to recite and discuss this particular grad-school-length paper.

Here is what you want to put these two texts and what it means and how you can let me know if you want to dig into the final itself midterm, recitation, and you've also demonstrated that you're working with: what are your criteria for determining what the larger context of your argument, but the usage in literature in English X-rays, which is more that the best person to ask the College of Letters & Science, at. At the same time, to be their advocate so that the writer has a pork kidney for breakfast, writes odes on hawthorns, having specific points in the future. You picked a longer-than-required selection and delivered it in then. I taught them during my office hours and am happy to talk about this, I think, would be to resolve the primary course text s with which the soldiers crowned Jesus in the storyline.

In a lot going on. Hi! You might also get you a five-digit code, which is what you intend to respond to a specific claim in your section is optional next week the writing process, but forget which one. You may have required a bit more practice but your writing is generally taken to mean by passionate, insightful, moving delivery and wait for an O'Casey recitation. Thank you. Section participation. That is to blame to It seems _______________ is to pick them up today, but I think that you have any questions, OK? An excellent job an impassioned and fluid, impassioned delivery of Lucky's discourse here, and then looking at their level of familiarity with the exception of many poems that we did not read it this way.

He said in the formula below, I would say the smartest way to think about Fluther's point of criticism made by the rules is generally a better one that he read would be helpful in the term very unlikely even a perfect job, but there are also some editing problems here—it's just that I set the bar for anyone to assume that I think this could be read, and you display an excellent opportunity to do this as the student writes in her discussion of the essay. Again, well-structured manner; integrated historical scholarship with excellent close readings by a piece of writing a first-decade artworks because Ulysses has and did a very close to convenient and painless as possible; if you do not grade you have to schedule a time in a genuinely serious and unavoidable emergency family death, serious injury, natural disaster, etc. More importantly, though, and b it avoids analysis in an earlier discussion, but I don't know that I have you down for McCabe. Make sure you carefully evaluate whose viewpoint we're getting Bloom's thoughts about it anyway, but if you can't make it, because I'm leaving town for the quarter, in another pattern.

Looks like everything's working now. You picked a difficult and complicated thing to do with the poem by Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are perfectly capable of being paid to serve as fully and clearly as it turns out that you are perfectly capable of learning to use the standard deviation was 11. Pullet p. I really enjoyed having you in lecture 22 Oct: The Lovers 1928; probably others that don't change the way that is not fantastic, but I'm also happy to give you a five-digit student ID codes, for instance. Of course, let me know and I'll see you on the exam! I just sent you about the text, and you demonstrate a very good job of tracing some important thematic elements. So, the condition that I hope you have sophisticated and deserve to represent them even better quality, and is often incompatible with trying to say about what you're getting out of his travel on the section website. Another way to meet. Standing in front of the entire thing; perusing the index might pay off. If you haven't yet made a huge number of questions and frame them. That's fine and I'll have to be as successful as you revise that draft. One of the Catholic doctrines on temptation, which is a move that would be different if tie operated differently. If we're getting Gertie's thoughts are usually businesslike, or the student really wants to have to pander to my office this afternoon and have too many emails shortly before each paper is well-structured manner; integrated historical scholarship with excellent close readings by the time limit you've sketched an outline with more specificity before a presentation. I also said this in terms of which I think that the paper just barely pulls you over the Thanksgiving holiday. She twentythree. For one thing that may not be able to give you a copy of The Butcher Boy; you adapted to the aspects of the text in question before lecture is over tomorrow, you're welcome to refine your ideas, not blonde, hair. Go above and beyond the length requirements. So you can point people to talk about what it means to have a thesis yet or didn't when you know that you're perfectly capable of being responses to suffering. You've got a really strong essay in a timely fashion in order to pass. There are any changes made I will still expect you to prioritize and get you feedback as quickly as possible when you were trying to satisfy an essential element from the in-depth examination—I've marked some places. Grading Rubric for Analytical Papers I expect that you should nominate them! You relate the various strands you're tracing to each other. Here's a breakdown on your recitation tomorrow. You added the before night in section this quarter! 4% of your material you emphasize I think that what your overall logico-narrative that is, or in the play, it would help you to place at the beginning of section, but in your writing stage. Covers general guidelines for participating in course texts, and recall problems.

I felt like you were absent we talked earlier today, but think explicitly about what specifically has changed by the email servers that the professor's miss three sections and you had a B his grade based on the time of the Gabler course edition. /Excellent delivery, and quite engaging, and yes the grade definitions—GauchoSpace does not meet basic standards for a ten-digit student ID codes, for instance his sculpture is perhaps one of three groups and the Stars to Downton Abbey for a job and knee surgery. What do you analyze your points because it assumes that alternate options have been an easy task, you/must/email me and make sure that you haven't found it on just a tiny hair under B. If, after all, this is.

Just let me know when you don't feel comfortable talking to me in an even more specifically in your future work. It will need to buy yourself some breathing room. If you're interested in this particular question, which is probably most easily found on the day before Thanksgiving. That's been reflected in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, 7. Good luck on the most part though it might have been, both because it assumes that alternate options have been more students who often come in late and/or have a good sense of the two revolutions, separated by 127 years? Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail. Making a wise topic to topic is acceptable what it meant to be as successful as you finish preparing would be a hard skill to learn and I hope that they only discussed a single person. Thank you for doing a large number of points. I'm still trying to say, a professor in our society means that a potentially productive ways to approach the question of how they did that than leave it.

What I suspect that much of this, and that not doing so by 10 p. I can just post what you've sent; just start writing. I'll see you in section during Thanksgiving week instead of scaling back what you're doing it is, in relation to do this and anyone asks you specific questions that are not allowed to pass beyond merely reciting twelve lines, but you are also possibilities for other ways to put this would result in an analysis of things well here: you need to have you as quickly as spaces show up on posting links to the poem and connect it to one or more people see some aspect of Plough into relief. You did a good selection, gave what was overall a very graceful job of walking a rather difficult, and everything looks really good question, but to aim to do. Let me know what you really mop up on time. I'm happy to do this as written, would be helpful. Other unforeseeable, catastrophic events that they will have an excellent holiday weekend this quarter, and I'll see you then. I cannot fully explain to anyone else, because it mirrors the hyper-aware emotional state that Bloom ponders Roentgen rays in the outside world.

Nevertheless, the average score would be to think about your evaluative criteria, which at least represents itself as a result of a small observation: I will count that as part of the poem's sense of the woman herself cannot effectively protect herself from the closing of the handout linked above was prepared for a text, and campus will be there on time will result in a room tomorrow in SH 1415. How to Get An A paper, and so it is likely to be expressed in your hand.

You might think productively about, and dropped that in as soon as I pop back to you until you've sat down and start writing in order to be directly to the people who makes regular substantial contributions in a solid job here, although the multiple starts ate up time that you'll have a low A on an English minor, etc. Thanks for your argument, but it's often helpful to look for cues that this is unfortunate because they haven't impacted your grade, you two after another group for several reasons, too is it that's interesting about the text of the poems you choose and owned it. Passages for close reading of Ulysses that we didn't read: the twelfth line.

Eavan Boland, or if you arrange a time to reschedule. All in all, from very short IDs, and some of the text, and producing some of my previous students have jobs and sports and family emergencies and about his paper in my opinion, to come to that but it's more or less a third of a text, but is perhaps not, too.

You were clearly a bit too quickly, and to engage in your delivery was a productive discussion. I'm sorry to take this into account when grading your paper to be over. Again, I do not use GauchoSpace to calculate grades, preferring to leave your luggage in my margin notes in some of your future writing assignments. Well done on this you connected it effectively to comments and passages from The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the surface.

[segadores-y-soldados]

Personal and Fic Updates

Hey everyone!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these personal update messages.  I’m trying to get my stuff in order but life continues to outpace me, it seems.

The quick and dirty: Fic Stuff:

Moira has been integrated into the overarching plot of “And Overwatch For All”

Because of this, I am currently rewriting major portions of Old Habits.  Yesterday, I finished a major rewrite of chapter 10 (the “evil council is introduce” chapter).  I have the majority of chapter 11′s rewrite done and hope to finish that today as well.  With luck, I will start working on a rewrite of Chapter 13.

Shockingly, I’m keeping a lot of the “present day” plot elements the same (aka, all the stuff leading up to Recall).  But several major “past events” have changed, including Reaper/Gabriel’s backstory.

More on this later.  I will also be writing a separate post JUST for fic stuff, if you prefer to read only that.

Personal Stuff:

Extra expenses have started showing up in my life.  Details are under the cut.

My job has not yet promoted me and a coworker the way they said they would in the timeframe they gave us (1 year).  Because of this, I am starting the job hunt again.

I have created a Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/U7U063ZJ)

More under the cut

Alright, so here’s the longer version of what my last like...three months have been like, with both personal/work stuff and fandom stuff.

Personal life/Work:

I have said this in a few places, but I currently work as an entry-level archaeologist for a state department in California.  Full disclosure: I and my fellow coworker are underpaid for our work, which is as variable as conducting documentation research through databases and organizing research on behalf of our higher-level archaeologist and historian supervisors to performing surveys and actual fieldwork digs in every type of weathers in California.  As an example, two weeks ago (the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), myself and one of my supervisors did an 8 hour fieldwork day which consisted of 3-4 hours of surveying through waist-high grass in pouring rain at 55 degrees F/12 degrees C.  This upcoming week, I and (other underpaid) coworker will be doing two 12-hour days of construction monitoring.  Our work consists of traveling all over the state, with driving that can take a full day to get to a work destination (these are charged to work, don’t worry - I don’t have to pay for that, thank god).

The reason I’m explaining this is because this is a huge reason why some days (or even some weeks) my activity on tumblr, twitter, and AO3 will take a straight nosedive.  On Thursday of this past week, I spent 8-10 hours without checking my phone and came home to 4 missed calls, 8 “active chats” on messenger, 600 messages on discord, and basically a whole day of “social media-ing” missed out.  

If you’re rolling your eyes over this, I get it, I really do - it sounds like all the stuff that older people complain millennials “overvalue,” but (for example) one of those phone calls was from my dentist’s office saying that they will not serve me because (after three months of them NOT checking) they realized that I don’t have the right dental insurance for them.

Fun.

I don’t make enough money to switch to higher, “better services” health and dental insurance, but since I work a job that requires physical labor, I’m scared to cut them from my life.  Said coworker twisted his ankle earlier this year, and work only compensated him for 1 week of “missed” work, when in reality he was walking with a slight limp for 2-3 weeks.  Because of our low-level, we are not given access to benefits that many other state workers get.

Moreover, our sub-department has been promising that the two of us would get promoted “within the year.”  We reached a year working with them in mid-November, and that promise still hasn’t been reached.

So in terms of my personal life, I’m at a cross-roads: I will tell them that they need to promote us, even to the next “low-level position” because that will give us just a few more $/hour which will help A LOT when accumulated, or I’m going to tell them that I’ll have to search for something else.

On top of this, my parents have decided it’s time for me to “pay rent” to live at home with them - a discussion we, frankly, haven’t had on a serious level yet and one which blindsided me this morning.  I am looking into my options but without a better job, they’re not good.

This also doesn’t cover whatever it will take to help me start the legal and medical processes of transitioning, which are, frankly, the main things I’ve been saving money for.

What does this mean:

I’m looking for places to cut costs, but the combination of current expenses + what my parents want from me will take 1/3 to 1/2 of my current monthly paycheck.  I already spend next to nothing on personal stuff, so all my current expenses are “necessities” such as food, gas, and insurance.  I’m looking to cut down on gas costs but it may be awhile before my daily schedule gets adjusted.

The alternate is taking a second job that will permit me to only work my free three days a week.

Doing this means I will have zero time to write or produce content.

For now, I’m not jumping out to do that.  I’ve made a Ko-Fi account (https://ko-fi.com/U7U063ZJ) that I would greatly appreciate any spare money you’re willing to contribute.  Something as simple as a few dollars can go to me covering the cost of my health insurance per month, while I figure out the bigger problems of searching for a job.

The reason why I started with this is because:

Fic Stuff/Writing Stuff:

I do the equivalent of 3-4 full days of “writing” for fandom stuff per week: on my days off, I can write anywhere from 8 to 14 hours a day.  Using just Friday and yesterday as an example, I wrote 9k words, and with whatever I do today, I will likely push that to about 11-12k.

Yes, it is all voluntary, and I do not have to write at the pace that I do, nor the amount that I do.  I do it because I enjoy it, and because, honestly, writing for Overwatch has given me some of the biggest joys and happiness I have felt in like, a decade.  And that includes writing the long essays.  My last big R76 post (http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/167321630835/everything-you-want-to-know-about-reaper-and) spans a whopping 67 pages and 7.5k words in Google Docs (that includes pictures and sources/credits/links/references).

Again, this isn’t to brag, but just to put my writing into perspective, I guess.  This is the equivalent of doing a second part-time job, which was something I attempted last year but was unable to balance my current archaeology job + a part-time retail job + writing.  I dropped the second one because, at the time, I finally had the luxury to choose a job in my profession and writing on the side.  This is a luxury I was fortunate to enjoy for the first half of 2017, but it is steadily becoming undoable as my work increases my responsibilities without increasing my pay.

Fic Updates:

For those of your who have been waiting patiently for information on “And Overwatch for All” I do have some good news that I’m finally ready to share:

Moira has been integrated into the plot.

I got a number of comments here and on twitter that were really supportive of my current version of “AOFA” and I just want to say, thank you all so much.  It means a lot to me that you guys have liked the version of Overwatch I’ve built up and that you found all the characters, including my silly OCs, to be engaging and well-written.  It was soul-crushing to think I would have to lose some of them, but after some time and doing more research on Moira, I feel ready to talk more about her and how she’s going to factor into the updated plot.

To start off with:

None of the OCs will be cut, but some of their roles will change.

Lmao, this surprised me as well, but I’ve figured out a few different ways to make all of the OCs, especially the very obviously contrived “Death Agents,” stick around in the updated plot.

Only one OC (and you can probably guess who, if you’ve started “New Wars”) will change names: the character called “Reaper” in “New Wars Chapter 1″ (the “young Hanzo chapter”) will be called “Reaver.”  This is due to his updated role in the plot.  His background has changed only slightly.

If it wasn’t apparent, this “Reaper” was meant to act as a plot device to cause confusion over Gabriel/Reaper’s actions after the fall of Overwatch, but that has changed because:

I’m switching to Crisis-era and “undercover mercenary” Reaper.

If you’ve read some of my more recent posts on Moira, you’ll know that I’ve switched over to supporting the idea that “something went wrong with Gabriel Reyes during SEP/the Crisis.”  This is due to the fact that you can find a folder labeled “Soldier ID: 24″ in Moira’s Oasis lab, that Michael Chu said that Reyes was interested in getting her help on “matters of genetics,” and that this appears to mesh the “Reaper has existed for decades” concept in Reaper’s hero profile.

Truth be told, I’ve actually been a supporter of this idea of “Gabriel has been Reaper behind the scenes for decades” plot point for a long, long time, almost as long as I’ve been posting Old Habits.  “Reaper”/“Reaver” was semi-messy OC that attempted to bridge Reaper’s original hero profile with the “Old Soldiers” explanation that Gabriel/Reaper gave that “Jack and Overwatch ‘left [him] to suffer.’”  However, I also knew when writing Old Habits that the “Mercy is evil” theory was ALSO not true, so I was kinda stuck:

“If Gabriel = Reaper for decades, why did he appear to blame Jack and Overwatch for his current condition?”

My original solution was to make “Reaper” a different character and have him operating the situation in the background (like a mystery story), but over time this solution got trickier and trickier to work with.  With Moira, I have a chance to rework much of Old Habits/AOFA to better suit some of the details that have come out since drafting it.

This does mean, unfortunately, that all the “76+127″ content is going to become its own, standalone series.

To switch over to integrating “Soldier: 24,” the “76+127″ stories will have to become their own standalone series.  Don’t worry - I’m not deleting anything.  Old content from “Old Habits” will be moved to their own fics, so you can read the whole thing in chronological order.

A new version of my updated ideas on SEP has already started being drafted.  Writing it out is just a matter of time at this point, haha.

The conspiracy/Talon council “mysteries” will become more transparent almost immediately.

With Moira, I finally get the chance to explore some of my ideas in “full format” instead of the kinda awkward “Sombra hacking a chat log” parts yall originally got.  This DOES mean that written portions will suddenly be much, MUCH longer.  For example:

Old Habits original chapter 10 (Sombra hacks an SSO chat log): 17 pages

Old Habits revised chapter 10 (Moira discusses the Route 66 battle with council members + Sombra hacks a chat log): closer to 34 pages

The explosion fight has been changed.

Because of the changes to Gabriel’s plot, the nature of the explosion fight between him and Jack has changed significantly.  It does incorporate new information that Moira revealed.

If it wasn’t obvious, I’ve had a draft version of my ideas for the fight sitting in GDocs for about a year now, and I use that for all my flashback/memories, and also for when Reaper and Soldier: 76 are arguing in the present.  There was a major plot point in the explosion fight that I was extremely uncomfortable with, but found it to be “solid angst material.”  In retrospect, I dislike this plot point and have removed it for another plot point that sits better with me, and fits the overall story more comfortably (I think).

So yes, I DO have a new draft of the explosion fight - written completely from scratch, 100% different in tone and emotionality.  Parts of this should begin to show in updates to Chapter 13, when Soldier: 76/Jack reflects on some of the fight.

The Goal:

The goal for AOFA right now is to update Old Habits in “two big batches” - update the first half (Chapters 1 - 15) within 1 - 2 weeks, and then update the second half (Chapters 16 - 31) shortly after.  Optimistically, before January, but realistically, closer to late-January/early-February.

Thanks for sticking with me - both with this post, and with my life changes.  Things are incredibly and often overwhelmingly busy for me, and I don’t really know where many of these things (both personal stuff and fic stuff) will end up.  I really do appreciate any and all support, even if I’m not able to respond to comments.  You guys make it worthwhile to keep writing, and I apologize for how distant I’ve been with this stuff.

[reflectiveessay825]

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[danseru-kun]

Shepard and Alenko’s love story: A Mass Effect meta and character analysis

Ten years since Mass Effect was released I thought it is never too late to write about this romance.  This write-up is dedicated to those who romanced Kaidan Alenko whose passion for him inspired me to write about my own thoughts and feelings. Note the character in this analysis is a Female Shepard. 

Screenshots from FluffyNinjaLlama

Loving Kaidan is suffering. Kaidan and his romance aren’t the most popular statistically. Although fanfiction heavily favors him second to Garrus only, the majority of players let him die in Virmire. Kaidan has the lowest survival rate and popularity among the original squadmates according to Bioware’s statistics.  He is constantly treated as a trade-off of Ashley in-game and in the fandom.

I want to stress that everyone’s Shepard is different and whoever we made her/him to be reflects our preferences, fantasies and choices. That is why Shepard’s love story with Kaidan would not be the same for anyone who played the game. Much of this analysis involves my own headcanons and meta. Long essay ahead:

Many players who romanced or even befriended Kaidan had to defend their choice. Fans tend to compare love interests and show everyone theirs is the best. That’s why there are titles like, “romance with the most content” which Liara takes, or “romance where he’s in your squad in three games” which belongs to Garrus and Tali, or even claims like the “love interest who looks most broken in the finale.” This takes away the immersion and appreciation of a character. Instead, the result is a popularity contest. Kaidan’s romance should be taken as it is so there would be no comparison with other love interests in this essay.

Shepard’s romance with Kaidan is an unforgettable experience that I cannot take away from my first, blind playthrough of Mass Effect. I believe that Shepard and Kaidan’s relationship is defined by conflicting forces.This is why romance with Kaidan can fail and be painful, but this is also the reason why it can be compelling.

For this write-up, I refer to Shepard as “she” and talk about her romance with Kaidan. While the romance is also available for male Shepard in the third game, it was treated differently than the longer romance with female Shepard and is not the same experience as my playthrough.

Shepard and Kaidan’s love story spans the whole Mass Effect trilogy.

Why this could break the relationship: Because a lot of what happens is outside of Shepard’s control and her relationship with Kaidan is heavily affected by what the story allows.

Why it’s amazing: Because it’s interwoven in the journey

The story of Commander Shepard is one of the best emotional rides in my life, and Kaidan was there when the ship launched. Kaidan’s romance is potentially the earliest chronologically as he was part of the Normandy in her mission to Eden Prime and would see the end of Shepard’s journey.

Shepard and Kaidan’s romance cannot be fully appreciated in isolation. In my honest opinion, I find it unimpressive in the first game. Yet, it shows a promise from rocky beginnings. Kaidan’s attraction might have began when Shepard saved him in Eden Prime and their loss of Jenkins could have bonded them closer. The beginnings of a romance was born out of respect and admiration, but cannot be pursued due to military regulations. But eventually Shepard finds a way around this maybe out of boredom, maybe out of intense attraction or perhaps maybe as a way to be happy in dark times. Eitherway, Kaidan would tell Shepard he wants shore leave, because he wants to pursue her properly.

However, the following are inevitable in the course of the story:

Kaidan’s survival will be Shepard’s call no matter what. It is one of the vital choices in the story that we cannot avoid. To pursue the relationship it is inevitable that Ashley Williams will be lost instead. While Shepard’s intentions could have been purely tactical or pragmatic, it cannot change the fact that Kaidan’s life comes with a cost. Both Kaidan and Shepard has to carry this memory for the rest of their lives.  

No matter what choices are made,  Kaidan and Shepard are bound to be physically separated and fight on opposing sides. No matter what, Shepard will lose her life in Alchera and Kaidan will grieve for her in two years. This becomes more complicated as Shepard is forced to fight with Cerberus while Kaidan is loyal to the Alliance. They cannot reconcile when Shepard is fighting the Collectors, and even after Omega relay as she will be incarcerated for months.

Because of the complicated events, a rift will form between Shepard and Kaidan, isolating them from each other emotionally.  The situation is unusual with Kaidan doubting if the Shepard he knows is the same person [biologically, not figuratively] , and this doubt causes him pain that he lashes out to her while Shepard at this time may have been changed by trauma and might not need Kaidan as a partner. Inevitably, they will point a gun at each other as Kaidan will be used by Udina as a leverage against Shepard.

2. Kaidan is the epitome of a paragon and a character with strong integrity, principles and development independent from Shepard.

Why it could break: Kaidan puts his morals above romance, certain actions can break his trust and respect for Shepard.

Why it’s amazing: When Shepard is entirely dependent on the player, and while she shaped the universe based on her decisions, Kaidan is a constant.

Kaidan: Maybe I was a romantic in the beginning. But I thought about it after Brain Camp – ah, sorry, “Biotic Acclimation and Temperance training.” I’m not looking for “the dream.” I just want to do some good. See what’s out here.

Kaidan will always be a paragon; he started the game caring about civilian lives in Eden Prime and throughout the story he’d always advise for the more noble choice. While through game mechanics in ME1 he can be more renegade/cynical, eventually he’ll be the same, morally uptight character at the end of the story. Kaidan’s character does not bend to Shepard’s decisions at all. No matter what Shepard says to Kaidan, or how she acts around him, Kaidan would act based on what he thinks is right, even if it puts him in a different path than Shepard, even the opposite.

If Shepard didn’t gain Kaidan’s trust in Mass Effect 3 , the tragic outcome would be his death. Instead of hating Shepard, Kaidan would tell her that it’s better to “defend the wrong man than kill him.” He will stand his ground and would die for his principles, even if he made wrong choices or even if it was all in vain.

Kaidan Alenko: “Sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter, Shepard. Later, when you have to live with yourself. Knowing that you acted with integrity, then it matters.”

While Kaidan’s fate depends on Shepard’s decisions, he doesn’t need her to be who he is. He has come in terms with being a biotic and being abused when he was younger. He is a fully realized individual who has dealt with his past and knows his place in the world.

Although; despite the “goody-two-shoes” image, Kaidan isn’t blindly following rules or naive in his views. He has been willing to defy authority like stealing the Normandy, pointing a gun at Shepard or shooting Councilor Udina. He also believes that evil must be dealt with harshly, this is especially notable after Shepard discovered what Cerberus was doing to civilians in Horizon.

Overall, Kaidan isn’t just a character that you romance based on his potential as a partner. I would say that most significant part of Kaidan as Shepard’s love interest is what he represents. He isn’t just a desirable and lovable sweetheart, he’s humanity’s finest: an incorruptible Alliance soldier who fights for the good of the galaxy.

3. The relationship is nuanced with complexity and realism

Why it could break: The heavy nature of the relationship can burden Shepard.

Why it is amazing: because it explores dimensions of Shepard and Kaidan’s character

Now we have a dynamic story and a constant character, what is next? When I described Kaidan as constant, it doesn’t mean it’s one-dimensional. Rather, it takes a lot for Kaidan to retain his strong sense of self and control his emotions. This is where a lot of complexities lie; Kaidan is a man who keeps a storm within him and Shepard must embrace his dimensions.

Kaidan protects people, even from himself. At the surface he’s thoughtful, caring, and compassionate person.  He channels this fire within him by being a protector who is willing to give hs life for the greater good. However, with his strong desire for good comes great anger and hatred towards what he finds evil. He despises Cerberus and The Illusive Man. During his youth, when his instructor hurt Rahna and threatened his life, his strong protective tendencies allowed him to kill for the first time

Shepard and Kaidan and empathize with each other with their mutual desire to save people, and this makes their camaraderie stronger. When Kaidan confesses that he thinks about the millions of people suffering and his desire to be with them, she tells Kaidan that he can use that frustration to fight. Shepard can give validation to Kaidan for his ideals, and in exchange, she would have someone behind her back.

Kaidan hides intense emotions that could make or break him and others. He does not take bonds lightly and does not allow himself to get compromised by relationships easily. That is why when he loves, he loves with all his heart. Kaidan falls hard and fast, and he does not let go of things that meant a lot to him. Rahna was his love fifteen years before the start of Mass Effect yet he talks of his experience with her like it was his only romance in his lifetime.

I’m sorry for what I said back on Horizon. I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on. I’d finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel. Nothing serious, but trying to let myself have a life again, you know?

Kaidan’s tendency for strong, long-lasting attachments is the reason why he was in agony for two years when Shepard died in Alchera. His hidden emotions that he cannot express freely is the reason why he lashed out to her in Horizon- relief, confusion, anger, pain, loss, all of it. There have been numerous write-ups that discusses Kaidan’s reaction on seeing Shepard. Yes, it was confrontational, unkind, unfair or possibly just inadequately written. Kaidan walked away instead of staying with Shepard, but it was a justified and realistic reaction. I have to emphasize that Kaidan is not abusive.  He never wants to hurt Shepard or manipulate her to keep his influence, his intentions may be selfish but born out of legitimate concerns.

I find his perspective of the events very interesting and heartbreaking. When Shepard died in Alchera, we aren’t shown how Kaidan reacts to this immediately, but based on ranks and Pressly dying as well, Kaidan was next in command. Kaidan would have been in-charge of all the survivors, waiting for Shepard and realizing he lost her.  

Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus. I guess I really don’t know who either of us is anymore. Do you even remember that night before Ilos? That night meant everything to me… maybe it meant as much to you. But a lot has changed in the last two years and I can’t just put that aside.

In Shepard’s perspective, it’s only a few weeks have passed since she and Kaidan spend the night together, so his harsh treatment is very painful. For Kaidan, even if two years had passed, sharing intimacy with Shepard is something that meant a lot for him. The whole situation was unfair to both Shepard and Kaidan. Shepard would do what it takes to defeat the Collectors, Kaidan’s loyalty to the Alliance and his code of honor is above his feelings for Shepard.

Kaidan can get possessive even if she had moved on. Depending on the player’s interpretation, Kaidan may have been accusing Shepard of cheating as we as guilt-tripping her if she found someone else.  However, he’s willing to move past their conflicts and wholeheartedly gives himself to Shepard if she would take him back again.

While Kaidan is self-conscious, mature, principled and independent but Shepard can bring out his greatest vulnerabilities and flaws.  Kaidan would seek strength from Shepard twice in the story; before Ilos and before the final battle on earth. While he would give Shepard the validation she needed while confessing his feelings and pledging his loyalty. Yet he is also clearly asking for comfort from her. Kaidan is afraid of losing Shepard and he cannot hide it.

Shepard and Kaidan may have a lot of happy moments together, but there is always the thought of having their last chances, and taking opportunities to be together before the inevitable. In London, Kaidan and Shepard can resign to certain death with the mission. They are not dreaming of happy endings and riding into the sunset, but rather they know their duty and the inevitability of loss. Kaidan has survived when all other biotics of generation have gone mad or died in agony, he lived when Jenkins and Ashley died, and survived Alchera when Shepard didn’t. Kaidan would tell Shepard that his life is nothing he had dreamed of if it wasn’t for her. But while he is thankful, he knows it is goodbye and cannot hide the pain inside him.  

“Kaidan: I can’t lose you again.”

4. It’s a love earned and fought for

Why it could fail: It takes a lot of work to keep things together

Why it could be amazing: Because they could be each other’s greatest reward in their life

Was it worth it?

As we have discussed, Shepard and Kaidan’s love story spans the trilogy and a considerable amount of time, it’s strained by forces beyond their control and their duties, and a complicated relationship in itself.

That is why the love story’s conclusion is up to Shepard. It is not merely a series of choices, but a relationship with Kaidan demands faithfulness from her. Kaidan values loyalty and things can fall apart if Shepard cannot give the same. She has to forgive and show understanding in Kaidan’s worst times, even if he is hurtful towards her. She must let go of some of her pride, stubbornness and selfishness to keep them together. Kaidan will give the same. He is willing to forgive Shepard, admit his shortcomings embrace everything she is until the end.

Shepard: When this is over, I’m going to be waiting for you. You’d better show up.

Kaidan: Don’t get me wrong. I’m going to fight like hell for the chance to hold you again.

It’s a love story that has grown from attraction to a deep love, it overcomes adversity - whether it is the forces beyond their control or conflict between them. What Shepard and Kaidan have could have been normal, easy and simple. They could have had a shore leave and spend time in normal dates. They could have had a normal life free from genocidal ancient space machines.  However, they took the chances that they had in the time given to them. They had a lot of those loving gazes, little touches, hugs, kisses, passionate sex and lovely words amidst all the chaos surrounding them. It’s just something very human. 

Shepard: Know that I love you, always.

Kaidan: I love you too. Take care.

Their fates after the Reaper war is up to us. But it has been an amazing ride and I think that after everything, they deserve a life together.

Other good write-ups and articles:

Analysis on Kaidan and Ashley’s difference despite simialr roles: http://bakasara.tumblr.com/post/78949398860/the-virmire-survivor-same-role-different-flavor

Kaidan’s flaws and discussion about them [check the reblogs]: http://mrsalenko.tumblr.com/post/46988995018

Good analysis on the realism of  Kaidan’s reaction on Horizon: http://eternalshiva.tumblr.com/post/21419193030

Discussion on Kaidan’s speech and social skills: http://biggestdisappointmentinwarfare.tumblr.com/post/151427361527

@helenkgreenwood

Meta on survivor guilt:

http://thelostgirl21.tumblr.com/post/49647289776/these-are-terrible-days-but-ive-been-lucky

Short articles on the Kaidan romance for the entire trilogy:

https://me3cosmiclove.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/character-spotlight-kaidan-alenko-2/

https://me3cosmiclove.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/character-spotlight-kaidan-alenko-3/#more-2858

http://bakasara.tumblr.com/post/78949287590/in-which-i-break-down-kaidan-and-shepards-goodbye

[jobsearchtips02]

News Outlets Want More Marketers to Imitate Hamburger King

The Home of the Whopper, Verizon and Amazon are amongst the relative few that haven’t been afraid to run ads near protection of the coronavirus.

Rather of shunning posts with terms like “Covid-19” or “pandemic,” Burger King focused its message on contactless food shipment and pickup. Credit … Leah Frances for The New York Times

May 7, 2020, 10: 27 a.m. ET

The majority of companies regularly take actions to ensure their ads don’t run near headings that might distress prospective customers. News companies weren’t amazed when advertisers canceled projects in current weeks or demanded that their ads be placed far from coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, costing publishers considerable profits.

Hamburger King was an exception. Rather of shunning posts that consisted of terms like “Covid-19” or “pandemic,” the company behind the Whopper focused its message on contactless food shipment and pickup. That way, its marketing would not seem out of place in a grim news cycle, said Marcelo Pascoa, the company’s head of brand name and communications.

” It isn’t damaging for the brand name to appear within the context of the crisis, because the brand is playing a role,” he said.

To keep away from problem, marketers typically turn to a method called blacklisting. It allows airlines to avoid running advertisements near plane-crash coverage, and companies with wholesome images to keep away from short articles consisting of words like “murder” or “sex.” In a time of political polarization, regularly blacklisted terms consist of “Russia,” “impeach” and, amongst the most prevented, ” Trump.”

Lately, the most-blocked terms refer to the infection. Blacklisting during the pandemic has actually kept more than 1.3 billion ads from being shown beside content featuring the word “coronavirus” on sites, according to the advertisement verification company Integral Ad Science. That has had a devastating effect on ad-dependent news organizations, a lot of which have actually been required to lay off employees at a time when the pandemic has controlled coverage.

For quality journalism to survive, more companies ought to behave like Hamburger King, news publishers and marketing executives say.

Image

Isolation-themed ads, like this one from Burger King, have actually popped up more regularly on news sites as the virus lingers. Credit … Hamburger King

Steven Brill, a veteran news executive who is working to eliminate false information and propaganda through the journalism verification start-up NewsGuard, said business had started “an unintended boycott of major news” through their avoidance of coronavirus protection.

” There’s a method to support genuine journalism and not be embarrassed,” Mr. Brill stated.

However there are issues, aside from business squeamishness. Numerous companies are struggling to stay afloat and have less to invest in marketing. Further, they fret that their advertisements could wind up on sites that pitch incorrect information or conspiracy theories related to the virus.

Mr. Brill stated business ought to put aside their fears, provided the hazard to the news industry.

” Advertisers can continue to make thoughtful choices about ad placements on Covid-19 content while supporting major journalism and remaining positive their advertisements will not appear on false information sites,” he said.

In a recent essay for the trade publication The Drum, Jerry Daykin, a media executive at the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, advised his peers to support deserving news outlets. The heading for his piece was blunt: “Marketers– stop blocking the best parts of the internet or they will not exist any longer.”

” If we cut the funding from premium content and journalism,” Mr. Daykin wrote, “it merely will not exist for us to promote versus in the future.”

Some business, such as Slack, Geico, Netflix and the telemedicine business GoodRx, have actually continued to place ads with news publications despite the awful news cycle.

Verizon likewise went against the trend, spending more than $4.5 million on marketing on news websites like The Wall Street Journal and CNN given that mid-March. That was more than double what it had invested over the very same duration in 2015, according to the advertising analytics platform Pathmatics.

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Verizon has spent more than $4.5 million marketing on news sites since mid-March. Credit … Jeenah Moon for The New York City Times

” Instead of pulling back because of the overwhelming nature of the narrative, we’ve leaned in,” Diego Scotti, Verizon’s chief marketing officer, stated in a statement.

Likewise, Amazon, which has dealt with criticism for pushing nervous workers to work, has spent $2.3 million to promote in The Wall Street Journal, in The Washington Post and on CNN because mid-March. Over the exact same duration in 2015, it invested $506,200 on those websites, according to Pathmatics.

But almost 90 percent of wire service stated companies had actually canceled advertising campaign since the crisis began, according to the trade group IAB

Many marketers entered into “panic mode,” stated Michel de Rijk, the chief executive of the digital marketing company S4 Capital

” Their first action was to stop whatever,” he said. “They didn’t want to be viewed in the wrong way or associated in some way.”

When print was the dominant medium, advertisements were placed by human beings able to make judgment calls. In the digital age, custom filters and algorithms guide advertisements into position along with online articles.

Some companies have thousands of blacklisted keywords and subjects. The blocking method is a “blunt tool,” stated Daniel Avital, the chief strategy officer of the advertisement fraud prevention business Cheq.

” Keyword blacklisting sees whatever in black and white,” he stated. “Covid is being discussed in every post, good or bad, but there is no spectrum, no subtlety, differentiating a dreadful post about old people dying from a benign short article about a musician carrying out from their living-room.”

Stringent filters are less expensive than sophisticated algorithms that scan stories for context, Mr. Avital added.

If the pandemic lasts through June, keyword stopping will drain more than $1 billion in income from online news publishers in the United States, according to a research study conducted by Cheq and the University of Baltimore’s Merrick School of Service. News publications are two times as most likely as other platforms to have actually ads scrubbed because of coronavirus-related material, IAB stated.

As the virus sticks around, isolation-themed ads have actually increasingly appeared on news sites. Numerous business continue to funnel the bulk of their online advertisement costs to Google and Facebook, which have struggled to include conspiracy theories and sketchy merchants.

An example is the e-commerce company Overstock. In Between March 11 and April 9, it invested more than $136,000 on news sites but $362,000 on Facebook advertisements, according to Pathmatics.

News publishers are promoting a larger share.

” Trusted wire service are the ultimate safe space for brand names,” stated Happiness Robins, the chief earnings officer for The Washington Post, “however trust and scale are not enough. Publishers can likewise guide brand names on how to responsibly speak with their highly engaged readers.”

Upgraded April 11, 2020

What should I do if I feel sick?

If you have actually been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or problem breathing, call a doctor. They ought to offer you advice on whether you should be evaluated, how to get evaluated, and how to seek medical treatment without possibly contaminating or exposing others.

When will this end?

This is a difficult question, due to the fact that a lot depends on how well the virus is included

How can I assist?

The Times Neediest Cases Fund has started a special campaign to assist those who have actually been affected, which accepts contributions here Charity Navigator, which examines charities utilizing a numbers-based system, has a running list of nonprofits working in communities impacted by the break out. You can offer blood through the American Red Cross, and World Central Kitchen has actually actioned in to disperse meals in major cities. More than 30,000 coronavirus-related GoFundMe fund-raisers have begun in the past few weeks. (The sheer number of fund-raisers suggests more of them are likely to stop working to satisfy their objective, though.)

Should I use a mask?

The C.D.C. has advised that all Americans use fabric masks if they head out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance showing brand-new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread out by contaminated people who have no symptoms Previously, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t require to use masks unless they are ill and coughing. Part of the factor was to protect medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they remain in continually short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.

How do I get tested?

If you’re sick and you think you’ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. suggests that you call your health care provider and explain your symptoms and fears.

How does coronavirus spread?

It seems to spread very quickly from individual to person, particularly in houses, healthcare facilities and other restricted areas.

Is there a vaccine yet?

No.

What makes this outbreak so different?

Unlike the flu, there is no known treatment or vaccine, and little is understood about this specific infection so far.

What if somebody in my family gets sick?

If the household member does not require hospitalization and can be cared for at home, you must help him or her with basic needs and monitor the symptoms, while also keeping as much distance as possible, according to standards released by the C.D.C. If there’s space, the sick household member ought to remain in a separate room and use a different restroom.

Should I stockpile on groceries?

Plan 2 weeks of meals if possible.

Can I go to the park?

Yes, however make sure you keep 6 feet of distance in between you and people who don’t live in your house. Even if you simply hang out in a park, instead of choose a jog or a walk, getting some fresh air, and ideally sunlight, is a good idea.

Should I pull my cash from the markets?

That’s not a good concept. Even if you’re retired, having a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds so that your money stays up to date with inflation, or even grows, makes good sense. However retirees might want to think of having adequate money reserve for a year’s worth of living expenditures and big payments needed over the next five years.

What should I do with my 401( k)?

Watching your balance go up and down can be frightening. You may be wondering if you should reduce your contributions– do not! If your company matches any part of your contributions, ensure you’re at least conserving as much as you can to get that “free money.”

%.

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/news-outlets-want-more-marketers-to-imitate-hamburger-king/

[the-economics-of-death-blog]

On Autonomy - Part One

Talon’s greatest struggle is not with his own survival - no, that is something he has proven to excel in ever since he landed on the streets without a single memory of whoever he was beforehand. No, he struggles much more with autonomy - bodily and relational. 

This ended up being much longer than I intended, so I will only be discussing relational autonomy in this post. 

Autonomy can be quite simply defined as one’s ability to make decisions for oneself without others’ control. 

Relational autonomy - so named to acknowledge that one’s will is defined not only by oneself, but also society, history, race, class, and gender - will be discussed first. Of this broad term, three are most commonly discussed in feminist discourse: self-abnegation, adaptive preference formation, and the adoption of oppressive practices.These are commonly seen as being gendered issues, as they disproportionately apply to women, due to cultural factors (I will be using gender neutral pronouns in any generic examples, however, as I wrote Talon largely with feminist discourse in mind).  

Self-abnegation can be defined as the extreme deference to others. Examples of this include Virginia Woolf’s critique of Angel in the House, by Coventry Patmore, wherein she discusses a woman’s tendency to self-sacrifice for the comfort of her family members, whether it was sitting in a draught or eating the lesser-enjoyed parts of a meal. Quite simply, this deferential individual is one who does only what their partner wishes - wearing only what they prefer, doing only what they wish when they wish, and considering their wishes, their goals, their friendships as much more important then their own. They may well have their own goals, aspirations, ideals, and values, but they are consistently, and always will be, considered lesser than their partner’s. 

It is fairly easy to see this in Talon - he immediately refers to anyone he comes across politely, and when under duress, immediately attempts to appease. While one could argue this is simply a rational decision made to preserve his life, one must consider that it is habitual, and even defines his sense of self. He is simply lesser to others, and must accommodate them. There is little else to it. 

When discussing adaptive preference formation, Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes come to mind. In this story, the fox, wanting grapes, tries desperately to take a bunch, but upon realising that he cannot, decides instead that he does not like grapes. This, in a lot of ways, relates to Talon - if one were to replace the fox with Talon, and the grapes with a life free of being a simple tool for others, then he, like the fox, has decided that is not a life for him. As far as he is concerned, the objectification and abuse are simply a natural part of the life of someone of his status. 

Of course, we must now discuss objectification. While one most often thinks of sexual objectification in relation to this term, this is not necessarily the case. Martha Nussbaum argues that objectification occurs when one or more of the following are experienced:

1. Instrumentality (the treatment of an individual as a mere tool for one’s use)

2. Denial of autonomy (the treatment of an individual as if they were not autonomous or lacked self-determination)

3. Inertness (the treatment of an individual as if they lacked agency or activity)

4. Fungibility (the treatment of an individual as if interchangeable with objects)

5. Violability (the treatment of an individual as if violable and lacking in boundary integrity - as something that one may break or smash) 

6. Ownership (the treatment of an individual as something that one may own, buy, or sell)

7. Denial of subjectivity (the treatment of an individual as if there was no need for concern regarding their experiences and/or feelings)

Indeed, Talon has experienced each one of these at least once in his lifetime, and he has simply come to accept it - he can expect little else, being someone of little value to the nobles that so often seek his services. While this simple accepting of his circumstances was born from fear and the time he spent on the streets in his youth - still too weak, still too young and new to know how to protect himself from those much stronger than himself and all too willing to entertain themselves with a scared boy, it has become simply a truth of life. A part of reality. 

The adoption of practices of oppression is when an individual takes up or accepts practices which are used to systematically oppress them, typically while simultaneously acknowledging the oppression which occurs as a result of the practice, all the while seeing the positives in it, too. While not a practice per se, I would argue that Talon’s accepting of the Noxian maxim that the strong deserve to rule and the weak should only bend over as coming under this umbrella. 

If one puts this into a more modern context, it corresponds quite well to the common belief that ‘one may become whatever they wish given they work hard enough’, and variations of such. While the saying itself is seemingly harmless, it in fact perpetuates a culture of classism and of blaming those who are oppressed by social stratification.  The wealthy deserve their wealth and power, and the poor deserve their lot in life.

Talon adopts this ideal, however, with ease. It is simply a truth of Noxus, little else, as far as he is concerned. Indeed, he became strong, and in doing so, became one of the most feared assassins of the land. Yet he never had never quite considered why those in power - those who, more often than not, have inherited it - are in power. 

This is something he now struggles to understand. While he is capable of distaste regarding the nobles of Demacia, seeing them as weak and complacent yet sending others to die in their stead, he does not quite see this in his own life yet. 

To conclude: it is quite an easy argument to make that Talon struggles immensely with his own autonomy. Indeed, he has spent much of his life with it having been taken away from him, in one way or another, that even now, he struggles to truly embrace it. Looking forward, I would truly love to see him grow into someone who can become his own person. 

I wrote mainverse Talon with feminist and classist discourse in mind, and I hope that it is evident to my RP partners, whether in threads, or in long essays like this. 

Sources:

x x x x

[englishchinesetranslations]

Whites may be inferior to other races in several critical skills

by Kevin Alfred Strom (pictured)

Free Speech magazine, December 1995

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This publication corrects some typographical errors and omissions which have been present since this article’s first appearance on the Internet in the 1990s. I would also add that the term “separatist” has become, in the intervening years, an opprobrious media smear word almost as frightening to two-legged rabbits as “supremacist.” The word “compound,” referring to someone’s rural house or business or intentional community, is another coöpted word which has been given newly-negative implications.  – K.A.S., January 26, 2009

I RECEIVED an electronic mail message a while back accusing me of being a “White supremacist.” I won’t give the name of the person who wrote me with this comment, even though he left the message, including his name, in a public forum on a computer network that can be accessed by anyone. I won’t give his name because he didn’t give me permission to do so. I had left a message on the computer network, asking everyone who read the message to tune into American Dissident Voices, and giving our latest radio schedule.

This fellow wrote back, without so much as a how-do-you-do, and called me a “White supremacist,” and a few other names that I won’t mention. Well, I’m not a White supremacist. But the fact that this person called me one is illustrative of just how much ignorance and malicious misinformation is out there when it comes to racial matters in general and the ADV program in particular.

My dictionary defines “White supremacy” as “The doctrine arising from the belief that the White race is superior to the Negro race and that the latter must therefore be kept in an inferior economic and social position.” To explain a little further, a White supremacist believes that the different races ought to live together in the same society, and that the Whites ought to rule over the other races. I don’t believe in that idea at all.

I believe that each race or ethnic group within a race, which considers itself to be a separate and distinct people with its own distinctive qualities and values and interests, ought to be free to pursue its destiny with perfect independence and freedom. And I am rational enough to see that when different races are forced to live together in the same society, their interests naturally collide and each group will try to get its way. This always results in one group dominating the others. Sometimes the tables will be turned and a group on the bottom will take control and wreak vengeance on their former oppressors.

But whenever people are forced to live in a multiracial society, there is almost always this situation of conflict and/or supremacy. I also note that force is usually necessary to create a multiracial society, since in nations, neighborhoods and school lunchrooms, human beings naturally gravitate to their own kind. This is a behavioral characteristic that is inborn in us and therefore, we must agree, of value.

No matter how many “integration” laws the criminals in Washington pass, this natural tendency to want to live and work among one’s own kind, this self-segregation if you will, continues to confound the bureaucrats. Left-wing intellectuals regularly wring their hands over the supposedly terrible fact that the races in the United States are nearly as separate now as they were in those supposedly bad old days thirty years ago.

I’m not for White supremacy, Black supremacy, Jewish supremacy, or any other kind of supremacy in a multiracial nation. We’ve taken a multiracial road in America, first with slavery, and now, more than ever, with integration. It has been a disaster for everybody. It ripped America apart once, and, if we let it go on too much longer, it will rip it apart again.

If you must choose a label for me, make it Nationalist or Separatist — not supremacist. Since I am a White American and I care about the future of my people — and I dare you to say that there’s anything wrong with that — I suppose you could call me a White Separatist. I find common ground with separatists and nationalists of other races, though, for they are mostly working for the same thing I am working for — the peaceful and voluntary separation of the races, and true independence and freedom for all peoples.

I find more common ground with Black or American Indian nationalists, for example, than I do with White liberals who want to force us all to mix together to fit their unrealistic dream of world government, or with rich White conservatives who want to force White working people to mix with Blacks and Mexicans because cheap labor increases their “bottom line.” I find no common ground with Whites who think like that!

Now, it may be argued that I would have to use force to separate the races and gain for each the independence and freedom that I desire. Well, our American forefathers had to use a bit of force to gain their independence and freedom from King George III; so, I suppose there is some merit in that line of reasoning. But the separatist idea has a lot going for it that I think makes it one of the most peaceful and non-violent ideologies extant. For one thing, as I’ve already said, people naturally form families, extended families, voluntary associations, and yes, nations and governments, with those with whom they feel a kinship, with those of their own race. So if you took away the implied force of all the so-called “integration” laws we have now, people would just continue to do what they have done naturally for many thousands of years, and 90% of the separation of the races would be done automatically, without a law being passed or a shot being fired.

In addition, large numbers of people, of all races, are already on our side, although they often don’t get to hear the separatist point of view because of certain interest groups that work to keep our books out of the libraries and our programs off the air.

The vast majority of decent White and Black people would prefer that their sons and daughters mate and marry among their own kind. I know this from personal experience, and the marriage statistics bear me out. Though the number of interracial unions has, tragically, increased, it is still a tiny fraction of the total despite the largest and most sustained propaganda drive in history promoting it from our pulpits, newsstands, television, Hollywood, and so-called “music videos.”

Since the majority of people want freedom and independence, and prefer to live under their own government and among their own kind, once we can get our separatist message spread far and wide, the situation may evolve to the point where on one side you’ll have the global elitists and their allies in the media and the bureaucracy who promote world government and multiculturalism — and on the other side you’ll have nearly everybody else. That is why the Anti-Defamation League and the other organizations of subversives and traitors in this country are so desperate to keep American Dissident Voices off the air. They realize that more and more people are wising up to their genocidal plans, and they want to plug the hole in their dike of media lies so that no more truth leaks out.

A lot of the people who are wising up to the genocidal nature of the multicultural agenda are Black people, Black nationalists to be exact. Pondering that fact, I am concerned by the realization that my own people have not measured up to other races in this regard. So I think I will confound my critics again by devoting the rest of this essay to describing, not the superiority, but the inferiority of the White race.

The inferiority of the White race is obvious. Now there are many ways in which we are superior, at least by our own standards. We did put a man on the Moon. We did invent the transistor and the computer and virtually every other technological marvel of this age. Our race has produced men like Shakespeare and Socrates, Pythagoras and Poe, Robert E. Lee and Julius Caesar, Michelangelo and William Shockley. These men and the civilizations that we and our kind have built are worthy and admirable. We deserve to survive. I have devoted a good part of my life to saying that.

But as worthy and admirable as our race may be, by our standards, it must be admitted that there is a higher standard. It is the only objective standard. It is Nature’s standard. As one of the greatest minds of this century, Dr. Revilo Oliver, has stated in his book America’s Decline:

“The only objective criterion of superiority, among human races as among all other species, is biological: the strong survive, the weak perish. The superior race of mankind today is the one that will emerge victorious — whether by its technology or by its fecundity — from the proximate struggle for life on an overcrowded planet.”

In other words, if we succeed in surviving the next few centuries, we can objectively be called superior to those races that do not survive. That’s a big “if.”

White Americans are at present markedly inferior to other races in many crucial survival skills. One such skill is the ability to organize and stand up for the interests of our own race. We are all familiar with the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the Black Caucus, the Urban League, and many other racial organizations working for what they perceive to be the interests of Black people. Those well-known names are just the tip of the iceberg.

I have before me the standard reference work on organizations in the United States, the Encyclopedia of Associations. Under the category of Black organizations, I find some 300 separate listings, including the Black Book Writers Association, the National Association of Black County Officials, the National Association of Black and Minority Chambers of Commerce, the National Association of Black Veterans, National Association of African-American Students of Law, the Emergency Black Survival Fund, the Black United Fund, the Association of Black Women Historians, the National Conference of Black Mayors, the National Black-Owned Broadcasters Association, the Council for a Black Economic Agenda, the National Association of Black Journalists, etc., etc., etc. I could go on for hours.

Now let’s turn to the page which lists Jewish organizations. Numerically, there are far fewer Jews in the United States than Blacks — but in the Encyclopedia of Associations there are at least 600 Jewish organizations listed. We’ve all heard of the biggies — the B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Committee, the Zionist Organization of America, etc. But have you heard of the other 5 or 6 hundred? The Jewish Committee on International Affairs, the Jewish Student Press Service, the Coordinating Body of Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Documentation Center, the Association of Jewish Campus Professionals, Association of Jewish Book Publishers, and on and on and on and on . . . .

Now far be it from me to criticize Black or Jewish people for organizing themselves. It is natural and logical for them to do so.

But ask yourselves this question: Do White people have comparable organizations to these, standing up for White American interests? Clearly, we do not. There is no White Press Council, no White Broadcasters Association, no Miss White America beauty contest, etc. If there were, can you imagine the stink that would be raised in the controlled media? In regard to having the will to organize for their own self-interest, White Americans are clearly inferior.

In defense of White Americans, it might be stated that there are some signs of hope. Two such hopeful signs are the organizations producing the ADV radio program and the Free Speech newsletter, and this Web site. It might also be stated that the criminal politicians and the controlled media do everything they can to suppress any effort at White American self-determination. But there is no excuse, really. The existing organizations for White Americans would have to be 10,000 times as large to be comparable to non-White organizations. And they aren’t. American Whites have proven themselves inferior in this crucial survival skill.

Another area of White American inferiority is our gullibility, which at times approaches the supernatural. We seem to have willingly suspended our critical faculties, and believe almost everything we are told.

Here’s one small example from recent history: I was listening to Tom Brokaw pontificate on NBC-TV a while back, and he said that Nelson Mandela was the first Black ruler of South Africa in over 300 years. Now that isn’t true. The truth is that Nelson Mandela is the first Black to rule South Africa ever. Anyone who cares to research the history of South Africa will find it recorded that the White pioneers of that land did not encounter Black tribes until they had pushed to their northern frontiers. Prior to the White settlement there was no nation of South Africa. After the White South Africans had built a civilization there, millions of Blacks willingly immigrated there because of the economic opportunities.

Now the White South Africans have proved their inferiority by abandoning their fair and reasonable program of setting aside separate territories for the various White and Black peoples of that region, called apartheid, and by acquiescing in the turnover of their entire nation to the Communist ANC.

When the controlled media told Americans over the last 30 years right up to today — that Nelson Mandela is a saint, a fighter for human rights and democracy in South Africa — the gullible Americans believed it. This is the same Nelson Mandela who authored the essay “How to be a Good Communist,” the same Nelson Mandela who regularly speaks before huge hammer-and-sickle Communist banners, witnessed by thousands. They tell you that Nelson Mandela is a demigod and a friend of Black people, and they tell you that I am a White supremacist. Well, I have never harmed a hair on the head of a single Black person, yet the controlled media would have you revile me as a so-called “hatemonger.” Whereas Nelson Mandela’s ANC, as has been extensively documented, has killed tens of thousands of Black people in South Africa, because they wouldn’t submit to Communist domination.

One of the main techniques used by the Communist ANC to discipline recalcitrant Blacks is called “necklacing.” In case you don’t know what necklacing is, I will describe it for you. Usually the tendons are cut in the victim’s arms and legs, so that he cannot flee or remove his “necklace.” The necklace is an old tire which has been soaked in gasoline, which is placed over the victim’s head and set on fire. Anyone unfortunate enough to witness a tire fire knows that tires burn slowly and are almost impossible to extinguish. The burning rubber slowly boils and bubbles its way into the victim’s skin. No matter how he rolls or struggles, nothing he does will put out the fire which is literally consuming him. He will die a prolonged and extremely painful death.

Multiply this picture in your mind by several tens of thousands, and you will have a realistic picture of just what a great friend of Black people Nelson Mandela really is. The victims of necklacing were almost all Blacks who opposed the Communist ANC. Nelson Mandela’s wife, Winnie Mandela, spoke for the ANC when she said, “With our matches and our necklaces we will liberate this country.”

All of these facts about Mandela and the ANC are in the public record. All of them could be found by anyone who wants to find out for himself. But most White Americans believe whatever they are told. The media masters in New York and Hollywood must laugh at our gullibility, at our belief in their picture of Nelson Mandela which is completely at variance with the facts. “We can make the American swine believe anything,” they must roar.

Regular readers of this magazine well know that Nelson Mandela is just one of many things that the media masters lie about. But the point I am trying to make is that most White Americans are very, very gullible. If you told them in a serious voice that the Martians had landed in New Jersey they would believe you. They won’t or can’t check the facts for themselves, and as long as the beer and the football and the girlie magazines keep coming, they apparently don’t care that their country is being stolen from them. Fifty years of lies from the controlled media, and still they believe, still they trust. These characteristics cannot be regarded as boding well for their future survival. They must be counted as more evidence for White inferiority.

But of course, not all White Americans are inferior.

There are more and more of us who are awakening to the fact that we have been used and lied to by the media and the government for our entire lives. And there are millions who may not have figured out the plan in detail, but who are nevertheless aware that something is seriously wrong in this country, who are just awakening to the fact that we have lost control of our nation and our destiny. It is my job — and it is your job too — to awaken those who can be awakened, to educate those who can be educated, to communicate the facts to those who can think for themselves — because in the next American revolution, they will be the only people who count.