#unless you were expecting people who have had issues with this campaign for years to suddenly change alll of their opinions in one episode

[brenatto-apothecary]

Strange to see multiple posts in the maintag claiming people HATE this development because THEYLL NEVER BE HAPPY WITH ANYTHING BH DO when I as someone who has been following and engaging with the critiques of this campaign have seen the people who were negative about 118 (me included) collectively go "this plan doesn't feel well set up and it's got a lot of holes but hey it could be really interesting! and this episode was really fun!" our opinions are actually leaning a lot more positive maybe try reading things before vague posting?

[deadbeatbirdmom]

Personally I don’t expect team rwby to solve all bigotry, but I’d like to see them make any sort of attempt to at least begin to change something? Even relatively small scale?

The SDC seemed like the perfect opportunity but nope,

And maybe don’t kill,of characters like sienna and have characters like Robyn hill who are actively trying to combat class inequality get competed into fighting Salem instead

Movies like nimona manage it I don’t see why rwby can’t

This is the last time I'll be answering an ask to do with these issues in RWBY. I don't feel that there's a satisfactory answer, and certainly not one that I can provide. I've mentioned something along those lines before, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not the same anon and didn't see my posted answer.

I recently reblogged a post about these issues, but that doesn't mean my answer has changed. That post basically said there is no simple fix, and that means it isn't possible to do in RWBY, unless it was a fictional fix that wouldn't work in reality, which would be disrespectful.

I'm not sure what you expect four teenagers to be able to do, even small scale. They're good at fighting Grimm, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to pay attention to them about anything else.

Ruby's lucky at least some people listened to her broadcast about Salem, but that's connected with Grimm.

Weiss was the SDC heiress but ended up having that taken away before she could do anything good with it, and actually doing anything would have had to wait until her father was no longer in control.

Blake persuaded Menagerie's faunus to form a militia and help save Haven from Adam's corrupted White Fang, but that took a serendipitous attack on her parents and their house partly burning down. She can't command that militia to do anything else.

Yang would struggle to persuade anyone to do anything. The last time Remnant at large saw her was during the Vytal tournament broadcast, apparently breaking Mercury's leg unprovoked. The CCT is still down, so chances are most people have no idea she was set up. I dunno, maybe she could intimidate some sense into people?

I'm not sure when team RWBY would have had time to do anything while in Atlas. Ironwood kept them busy. Were they supposed to take down or reform the SDC with the one night off they had? If they'd tried they might well have found themselves arrested, the SDC and its Dust is rather important to the Atlas military. And then where would they be with their goal of getting the second Relic from the Atlas vault?

As for after things fell apart with Ironwood... As important as these issues are, avoiding arrest and doing their part to help get word out about Salem, or helping Mantle and then rescuing Oscar had priority.

It's not the reason they've done it, they just happened to fall in love, but I guess it could be argued that Blake and Yang's romance is some sort of proof that faunus and humans are equal.

After Salem is eventually somehow defeated, I can imagine at least Blake working with or even leading the reformed White Fang and campaigning for faunus rights. I'm sure the rest of her team would help her if there's anything they can do.

But survival against Salem has to come first. So a huntress like Robyn Hill doesn't really have any choice. There won't be any world to improve if Salem isn't stopped.

As for Sienna, take that up with Adam. I'd much rather she hadn't been killed off too, but there was no other way that was going to end between them.

That's the best I can do, anon. I'm well aware it's not a great answer. I can't provide one. I don't think there is one.

I haven't seen Nimona, I don't have a Netflix subscription. Maybe I'll watch it the next time I want to rewatch She-Ra. I've read the Nimona graphic novel years ago, but I don't remember bigotry being solved in there. Unless you meant an attempt being made? I need to reread it.

Edit: this got long and I forgot about a read more cut until now. Apologies!

[literaryscribs]

Feeling a bit irky because of physical pain and I'm trying to do research on some stuff. I saw people being ableist about Neve over the past few days, basically calling her disability "ugly" and how she's "not a whole woman". So there's things upcoming about that when I get time between work and setting things up for other job stuff for the year. Today it's about SWTOR and namely, power. Power levels of the protagonist to be precise.

I occasionally browse around the internet since not all swtor update news gets forwarded to me, every now and again I run into topics that annoy me with how short sighted they are (or at times actively racist/sexist/ableist etc). I've got one post planned regarding Koth's character and one for Arcann/Vaylin. But after listening to someone complain about the Traveller from Genshin Impact's power level inconsistencies between what's displayed and what's stuck in a cutscene, it got me thinking to a post I ran into this morning.

Quote:

"I wonder if there is reason why my sith warrior just gets thrown around and gets sh*t thrown at him whilst hes supposed to be on a similar if not higher level of a sith compared to his enemies.

Going through KOTFE/KOTET for the first time and it also happens a bit during the normal campaign but i find it very odd he just keeps dodging these objects thrown at him instead of showing his superiority and blocking it with the force or something a bit more forcey then just dodging.

Im the emperors wrath, i supposedly have no equal as far as i understand it.

Its probably something to do with plotlines etc. but its a bit immersion breaking seeing my chad sith dodge sh*t instead of using the force for a change" Ignoring the 'chad' thing because it's kinda stupid, there's several flaws in the game's design vs player expectation. I haven't played SWTOR since vanilla, I joined during the 4.x period just after Anarchy in Paradise had been released. But I did START in with the vanilla story and progressed until that point and this's where the flaw in the game design comes in. The main issue that the original dev team faced was that the main protagonist grew in political (and to a extent physical) power too quickly. Sith Warrior started on a elevated pedestal to be an apprentice/Lord during the prologue and by the end of the arc in Act 3 they're filling a spot as the Emperor's Wrath which was abandoned by Scourge after he went rogue from the Empire. (Which ironically should have the Empire absolutely buzzing with the news but it's not). Sith Inquisitor starts from either a fallen family if human/sith iirc or is a slave and spends most of the prologue being lucky that their rivals for Zash's apprentice role were picked off long before the main showdown where your brawn and cunning wins over the overseer's favouritism. You go from apprentice to a ambiguous lord and then take over Darth Thanaton's seat by force. Only because it's a kill or be killed situation as you force yourself to be a battery of sorts via ghosts and genetic manipulation. Kinda sorta becoming akin to Vitiate himself but in a different way. Bounty Hunter already has somewhat of a track record, likewise the Agent. However other than optionally becoming a Mandalorian the only 'power gain' so to speak is taking out a Jedi with the help of a companion and either making the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic step down or killing him. The Agent spends most of their story as Cipher Nine until the very end of the third arc and from that point they don't receive any real tangible power. Even if you hand over the black box for freedom from Imperial Intelligence or retain it. Unless power of blackmail is counted. On the other end we have the Jedi Knight who was somewhat of a prodigy. They spent most of the acts being a Knight before being promoted to Master for taking out 'Vitiate' after already being taken over and doing evil acts for a unknown period of time. Jedi Consular is labelled Bar'senthor and a Jedi Master by the end of the first act and is a member of the council at the very end of Act 3. They're gifted and display immense force power pretty often in the cutscenes, particularly during act 1 despite being made 'weaker' as they shield other jedi masters from a force plague.

The trooper is promoted across all acts, including the prologue and makes it to the rank of Major at the start of Act 3 while the smuggler goes from to a privateer to eventually being the Voidwolf themselves. Which doesn't have any impact on things on the story going forward, even if you keep it for yourself. Just stuff regarding Nathema down the line.

The overall level of political or militaristic power gained within 3 years is unusually fast and left the devs in a awkward position going forward. The initial plan WAS to have act 4 continue all class stories separately but it was discovered to be too time consuming and costly to have a whole new line for 8 class stories who were already top of their classes and minimal room for more power gain in their respective spheres. Especially considering the higher up the chain you go the more paperwork, negotiations and being tied to a desk there is. It's not all sunshine and daisies. All 8 class stories had the player character start pretty high in their respective fields either by luck or skill. But in terms of raw power there were very few moments to showcase that within vanilla and even much later. Consular and I think Inquisitor got their little showboat moments but the devs at the time were careful to not display too much otherwise you'd run into a issue where powers in cutscenes didn't match what was being displayed in game. However that hasn't stopped the player base from superimposing their ideas of where the force using characters in particular 'should' be in their power level. So....lets take a number of caveats into account here.

With the exception of certain parts of the prologue chapters, none of the 8 class story characters were ever fighting alone. Even with the original system of companions being locked to certain classes at the time. Vette being dps, Dorne and Quinn being healer etc. There's only been, to my memory, one instance of the player character being 100% alone and that was during chapter 12 of Knights of the Fallen Empire where you have a backpack of healing resources and shields etc.

2. Even if you dismiss your companions to truly fight alone, the game assumes a certain canon in order to follow the story sequence.

3. With flashpoints, gsf, pvp maps, on rails space missions or operations you're fighting with other players on your side or npc crew members. It's still never you on your own.

4. As for choosing dodging instead of showing off power? it's more efficient and means you draw less attention than you would by showboating. A fair whack of KotFE and parts of KotET are supposed to be subterfuge and infiltration, not a full scale battle.

5. Baras and Thanaton were both old and egotistical sith that weren't in the best state of health and WELL past their prime. Vitiate's voice was being hampered by multiple distractions going on despite his threat, Syo as the First Son had to deal with his other consciousness banging at his mental door. Rakton wasn't really geared for a physical fight since he's a tactician and Jun Seros was also getting up there in age as well plus being hampered by emotions and the desire for revenge after the death of his friend at the hands of the Hunter. While Voidwolf was ultimately killed because of his own stupidity and ego. They're not really good measuring sticks to be used for power comparisons, raw or otherwise.

Following from point 5, what needs to be understood is that despite personal head canons, the player character themselves isn't exactly in peak physical condition either as time goes on. This can be from continued service and missions, lingering traumas (JK Rishi story), issues with their own body (Inquisitor story and to an extent Consular) or outside interference (majority of KotFE/ET)

In the case of the Inquisitor story, their body had become so messed up from a combination of genetic manipulation plus sucking up force spirits, that it was literally breaking down around them. The procedure on Belsavis merely stabilized them to enable to further use force walking without consequences, the new power so to speak still has to be actively channeled to be of any use.

It's my theory that whatever time they lost prior to the Mother Machine still remained until Rishi where the Inquisitor was investigating several machines that 'supposedly' extended their life span by one solar cycle each. Using Earth as a rough estimate and a rewatch of the quest, a solar cycle is (roughly) 11 years and Inquisitor gets zapped four times so that's 44 years regained on estimate since I'm not sure if the solar cycle is involving Rishi's sun or some other planet's. But it loosely means those solar cycles regained were simply just the Inquisitor regaining their original lifespan back. Possibly at the cost of some of their power since that's usually the case. Come the Knights arc and onwards the player character's kept on their toes a ton fighting tiring enemies that're all the same and don't suffer the same issues they do. Valkorion's also hollowing them out in the process of helping them (and probably kicked the other force ghosts out for a fresh start). They've got multiple wounds either from a lightsaber or from the repercussions of using force lightning at a extreme intensity that they aren't used to. There's also the fact (even though this's kept off screen) that they're behind a desk more often doing paperwork for the Alliance that they aren't able to actively train or look at expanding their abilities to the extent they normally would, had things been during the first acts. We don't know what Valkorion actually did to them during those 7 years of interference of him being a shoulder gremlin. You're getting kicked around a lot more in story cutscenes because your character is getting older and a certain level of balancing has to be in place to keep things fairly uniform between scenes of force users and tech. This might come to a end if my theory may possibly be correct and thanks to the Nul holocron, all classes open up to one another. Meaning no longer will there be a force/tech wall which may mean more opportunities for new classes depending on how long the story is able to keep going into future arcs besides Hidden Chain and Malgus.

No your character isn't uber powerful, no they aren't god tier. They just essentially got lucky over egotistical, conflicted, old and well out of their prime/element characters. A fancy title doesn't mean you're the most powerful being out there considering the in game canon says you've never fought alone without someone (or multiple people) helping you.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Neil Johnston

Published: Jul 6, 2023

A controversial trans group’s legal battle to get a gay rights charity struck off has been dismissed by judges.

Mermaids, a charity for transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse children and their families, had taken the unprecedented legal action to remove the LGB Alliance from the charity register, in the first case of its kind.

However, Judge Griffin and Judge Neville from the General Regulatory Chamber dismissed the appeal on Thursday to have the LGB Alliance removed from the register.

Mermaids, which itself is facing a Charity Commission investigation, had claimed the LGB Alliance was a front for transphobia and political campaigning to prevent changes in the law and took both the charity and the watchdog to court.

The judges said that the law “does not permit Mermaids to challenge the decision made by the Charity Commission to register LGB Alliance as a charity”.

They said it was important to distinguish between the LGB Alliance and “the activities of those who simply support its cause” and added that the charity could “not be held responsible for the actions of a supporter” unless they had in some way organised, endorsed or actively encouraged any such behaviour.

The judgement noted that it was not the place of the tribunal or the Charity Commission to moderate public debate or beliefs.

Judges said that charities were entitled to hold different views, but could not expect to be free from criticism.

“However, there is no legal right to be free from criticism by those who disagree with you or to prevent those who hold beliefs that the law recognises as protected from expressing themselves or seeking to persuade others to their point of view,” they said.

However, the ruling added that applying the facts on a legal basis any impact emotionally or socially “is insufficient to provide them with standing to bring this appeal, no matter the depth of the feelings resulting from the Decision or the strength of their disagreement.”

Speaking to The Telegraph, Kate Barker, chief executive officer of the LGB Alliance, said Mermaids had orchestrated a “show trial” which had tarnished her charity’s reputation and prevented them from applying for grants.

She said: “In essence, if your views are so fragile that they can absolutely be destroyed by the truth, the only option left to you is to try and crush the speaker of that truth. I suspect that they knew full well that they didn’t have standing either but wanted this to be kind of a show trial where they thought perhaps it would be an opportunity to expose us for something that didn’t exist.”

Case was ‘bruising’

She described the case as “bruising” and said there were “a few cheerleaders who are very invested in the idea of seeing us not exist anymore”.

Ms Barker added that it would have been “anti-democratic” if Mermaids succeeded, adding: “I think it’s dangerous and there is something about it which is really mean-spirited which doesn’t sit particularly well with the broader values of the Charity Commission and of the charitable sector.”

She hoped people would start asking more questions. “I think the madness that has swept over our institutions, our charities and businesses. I think people will look back quite soon in a couple of years and think goodness how was that allowed to happen.”

The LGB Alliance was launched in 2019 by lesbians Kate Harris and Bev Jackson, in opposition to Stonewall, the long-standing LGBT charity’s stance on transgender issues.

The charities ‘fundamentally disagreed on trans rights’

During seven days of hearings last year, the tribunal in central London heard that the two charities fundamentally disagreed on issues of trans rights, with the LGB Alliance taking the position that you cannot change your biological sex.

Lawyers representing Mermaids claimed that the LGB Alliance had sought to undermine trans charities but Karon Monaghan KC, representing the defendant, said that Mermaids’ efforts to get the charity struck off were “profoundly homophobic”.

She said that during the hearing, Mermaids had suggested that words such as sexual orientation, sex-based rights, and lesbian, gay and bisexual were “used to signal position against trans rights”.

“This is deeply offensive, and it is profoundly homophobic, it is again the love that cannot speak its name,” Ms Monaghan told the tribunal.

She said that if that is the “stigma” attached to those words “it pushes same-sex attracted people back into the closet”.

Mermaids taking advice on appeal

A Mermaids spokesman said: “We are taking legal advice on whether to appeal the finding on standing. In the meantime, our focus remains on channelling all of our energies into the urgent, critical challenges facing trans young people today.

“This includes demanding access to timely healthcare and robustly challenging forthcoming trans guidance for schools which, if reports are true, could have devastating consequences not only for trans children and young people, but any young person who doesn’t conform to gender norms.”

Separately to the tribunal, Mermaids is subject to an investigation by the Charity Commission which opened a “regulatory compliance case” after an investigation by the Telegraph revealed safeguarding “red flags” in its dealings with children.

Iain Steele KC, representing the regulator, had argued it was up to the tribunal to decide on all the information which had come to light whether the LGB Alliance should keep its registration.

However, he said that just because the charities disagreed was not a reason to strip the LGB Alliance of its status.

The case was unusual and the first of its kind in the UK. Challenges to Charity Commission decisions are usually prompted by allegations of financial abuse or mismanagement, but this case required the judge to consider whether the purpose of LGB Alliance is “exclusively charitable for the public benefit”.

[ Via: https://archive.is/q7lSz ]

==

LGB Alliance was a front for transphobia

"Anything I don't agree with is literally Hitler transphobia."

"could have devastating consequences not only for trans children and young people, but any young person who doesn’t conform to gender norms.”

They're saying the quiet part out loud now.

Most GNC people are simply gay or bi. But this is the organization which opposed, rather than supported, an LGB charity and tried to have them shut down. It's hard, therefore, not to come to the conclusion that Mermaids has a vested interest in an unobstructed access to gay and bi people, and particularly kids, for its purposes.

Don't forget, Mermaids is under investigation for multiple ethics violations, including sending girls dangerous breast binders without their parents' knowledge. Other ethics breaches include pushing medical advice on kids, and ideologically directing the relevant health services, despite its representatives claiming under oath in the LGB Alliance hearing that they "don't do medical stuff," and having been found to have lied.

By: Katie Barker

Published: Jul 7, 2023

There’s something essentially mean-spirited about one charity attacking another. It’s not good for the sector, for the individuals or causes they support, and certainly not for public life. So we’re thankful that after almost two years of litigation and deliberation, LGB Alliance today secured its charitable status, which our opponents had sought to revoke – the first time in history that one charity has attempted to shut down another. 

We must remember that, however their respective charitable purposes are articulated, there’s no doubt they will have been set up to do good works. 

While the online attacks on LGB Alliance have been well documented in carefully crafted barbs, tweaked and refined to fit a character limit, the impact on the real world, beyond the vituperative cauldron of Twitter, is what really matters. LGB Alliance was set up by two lesbians, Kate Harris and Bev Jackson, in 2019. Seasoned campaigners for gay rights, they saw how same-sex attracted people were being disadvantaged by a new ideology which stated that gender, the way you feel inside or how you present to the world, trumps biological sex.

As people who are same-sex attracted, whose hard won rights were predicated on the understanding that our attraction is based on the biological and the physical, we believe that this is a fundamental attack on our rights. If we may not articulate our attraction or are forbidden the language to describe our unique experiences in the world, it is impossible to define or challenge the discrimination we may face. Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals have unique needs and LGB Alliance was set up to be a voice for them and to develop the services and support that meets those specific needs. 

It’s important to note that we would advocate for every individual, without exception, to have access to the support they need to thrive. And, despite being a new organisation and largely volunteer-run, we’re making impressive progress. We’re developing a Helpline for LGB young people, an LGB Archive to explore and celebrate LGB history and we’re creating Friends’ Groups, social hubs around the country to tackle isolation and loneliness. We campaign on issues that impact LGB people, with a particular focus on protecting children from the ideology that promotes unnecessary and often irreversible medicalisation.

We think most reasonable people would agree that these are worthwhile projects and aims, and would wish us well. 

The work of LGB Alliance is evidence based. We think that facts matter. Facts that just a few years ago would have been considered unremarkable are now almost unsayable. Facts such as that there are two sexes. And that homosexuals are people who are same-sex attracted. Statements like these, it seems, are an existential threat to those who would say that one should not speak the truth for fear of hurting the feelings of a person for whom the truth may be unpalatable. In our post-truth world, they would have you believe that up is down, black is white – and, yes – lesbians can have penises. 

The consequences for not believing, we discovered, are harsh. If your world is constructed around a belief system so fragile that dissent feels like an assault – not just on your opinion but on your person – it’s time to take a breath.

Our tribunal judgment makes a valuable point. Discussion and disagreement between charities isn’t just acceptable, it’s necessary. How else may we explore new ideas or wrestle with new challenges? The notion that one charity should seek to silence or shut down another charity because they disagree with them is absurd and anti-democratic and the tribunal were right to say that LGB Alliance should retain its charitable status.

We also agree with the Charity Commission that respectful debate is the key. Not just within the charity sector but across society more widely. It’s time to start talking again. We look forward to leading the way.

[ Via: https://archive.is/Mc8Cx ]

[college-girl199328]

Incumbent PC candidate Bloyce Thompson and NDP candidate Marian White are the only two candidates running in District 8: Stanhope-Marshfield, making it the only district on the Island with just two names on the ballot.

Thompson said he wasn't expecting to be running against just one other candidate.

"I was a little surprised, but I know it's a big commitment," he said. "A lot of people are surprised by it as well. But, you know, it's very positive there are two candidates on the ballot, so there is a choice."

White acknowledged it's a challenge taking on an incumbent but said Island New Democrats have already won by mounting a full slate of candidates this election.

"We're really making history here," she said. "I'm just shocked the other two parties didn't get the 27 candidates — I don't know what they've been doing for four years that they couldn't have come up with someone to put on a ballot. So my chances of winning? I think I've already won, but we'll know."

Stanhope-Marshfield is the only district left on the Island that can be considered a bellwether district, meaning the winning candidate there is always in the caucus of the winning party.

The district was realigned in 2019, absorbing the rural portions of former Tracadie-Hillsborough Park and York-Oyster Bed. Those districts were held by former Liberal premier Wade MacLauchlan and Liberal MLA Buck Watts.

In the last provincial election in 2019, Thompson defeated MacLauchlan — the sitting premier — with 39.5 percent of the vote.

But without a Liberal, Green, or Island Party candidate running this time, a vote against Dennis King's Progressive Conservative government in this district is a vote for the NDP.

"The challenge for me going up against one person and the incumbent is quite huge," White said.

"It's an opportunity for those Greens and the Liberals and others to lend me their vote if they want anyone but a Conservative … If you're not voting Tory, then come to me with your vote."

Thompson knows he won't have the advantage of multiple parties to split the vote for those who don't want to support the PCs, but says it hasn't changed how he's hitting the campaign trail. "I need 51 percent of the vote, but … we I've had some great conversations over the last couple of weeks," he said.

"We're gonna hit every door, talk to as many people as possible just to listen and hear what they have to say, and … I've got a great team around me, and it's full out."

Both candidates say they've heard similar issues out on the campaign trail. Health care is top of mind for many voters in the district, but so too are concerns around road safety and the loss of farmland in the area. "It's a bedroom community of Charlottetown almost, but we have all the three major industries — agriculture, fishing, and tourism, of course — so those three things are important," Thompson said.

"It's a growing community of those issues." But White said she's also heard from voters who weren't thrilled with the snap election call six months earlier than the fixed election date of October 2.

"People aren't with an election in the spring," she said. "Between frost and snow and mud, it's a terrible time for an election — unless you're the party in power and know for months in advance that you're calling a spring election."

Thompson said he and his rival she's a great candidate," he said. "The NDP seems to be organized and ready to go."

[darkwood-sleddog]

Ok, this is a very genuine question, but could you please list out and maybe go in a bit detail on what's wrong with the whole AKC, and history? I've very curious with wanting to know when such a stress on looks and bloodline came to be, especially when older breeds were simply bred for a job.

The AKC and kennel clubs as a concept are not inherently a bad thing. I think registries are a GREAT thing, we should be keeping track of pedigrees and accepting registrations imo. What’s frustrating to me is the closing of stud books (meaning no new blood can enter breeds) and an unrealistic expectation/desire for perfection/uniformity and the attitude that surrounds that.

Dogs shows and kennel clubs came to be because people wanted a way to exhibit their breeding stock and compare them, so they could plan their breedings, they sprung up around cattle showing (and we can see the similarities to these two venues today). There’s a pretty nice article HERE. 

In the modern day, many people believe that a breeding is only reputable if the dog is both health tested AND titled to Championship. It was not always like this in the past, just go look at pedigrees from the early and mid century 1900s. Championship and often Grand Champion in the US have become expectations to prove ones reputability instead of proving the actual quality of the dog. Breeders that breed non-championed dogs can be ripped into by many people, believing that the dog has not proven itself to be breeding quality (often completely ignoring that the dog may bring other things to the breeder’s program like a good temperament, working attitude, genetic diversity, structural fixes etc).

The sport of showing, or taking conformation as a sport to excel in rather than what it is supposed to be (an evaluation of breeding quality in dogs) creates a competitive atmosphere which means that people will be acquiring or breeding a dog that meets what is most likely to win. This causes extreme uniformity (it is not unrealistic to expect breeds to be uniform and represent breed type across a spectrum in the breed, but for them to look clone like is, imo, not it). This competitive nature has gradually grown and grown over the years, as is natural (humans love to compete with each other). 

In addition, the show world is very “who you know” so judges are not necessarily impartial (and this is not a new thing in dog shows, the partiality of judges has been questioned since the beginning lmao) and well known judges may put up dogs related to their own lines or what they desire, creating a specific ring look. In a desire to win (be it conscious or not), many people will breed towards a ring trend and this is how many breeds have changed dramatically or subtly over time in addition to actual improvements and disprovements in structure and health that may happen over time with breeding programs. This creates an exclusive club that truly feels outing to those not on the “in” and the exclusive group of people will push their agenda, therefore forcing those with slightly differing dogs to look elsewhere (truly some of these people can be so nasty and the rise of social media has not helped this). This means that dogs that don’t fit the now very narrow view of the breed are pushed out of show circles or into non AKC show circles, effectively reducing the gene pool (because often AKC folks will look down on non AKC clubs in the US and not intermingle their dogs). In addition, in AKC dogs can be handled by a professional handler, somebody who makes money specifically off handling dogs in the show ring, creating further exclusivity (handlers can be expensive and is also connected very much to “who you know”), competitive nature, and includes a bit more capitalism. 

The extreme uniformity in many show dogs we see today is the result of closed stud books. When a stud book is closed you can’t add ANY new genetics, this makes it very easy to breed true to type (meaning when you breed a border collie to a border collie you will get more border collies for example), but as dogs are culled from that gene pool (perhaps they don’t fit the ring trend or have a minor flaw like a white marking), the dogs become very closely related. Especially when you are in show circles many of the dogs are even MORE closely related. This causes extreme uniformity because the show only people are unwilling to take dogs into their gene pools they deem “lesser” for being a bit different, but no less of the breed than their own. Now many breeders are aware of the dwindling genetic diversity in their breeds and conscious do things to help this, however it’s not enough of them imo.

To fix some of these issues Champion and Grand Champion need to be reserved for truly exceptional dogs and I think for working breeds a working test prior to championship being attained would be appropriate and for companion breeds, a companion temperament test. Currently if a dog is campaigned for a length of time and the judges they are shown under are chosen carefully, they can champion (dogs need 15 points and 3 major wins for CH in AKC). Which is not necessarily then a mark of quality, just a mark of how much money/time the owner/breeder had to put towards the dog achieving points). A less exceptional dog may be campaigned for a long amount of time and a truly wonderful example of a breed may campaigned for a short amount of time and they will both be Champions (and unless you know what went on with that specific dog and aren’t very educated in that specific breed then how will you know the quality of Dog 1 is different than that of Dog 2 when they are given an equal stamp of quality from the show ring?) 

A more expansive grading of the dog’s quality (E for Exceptional through P for poor for example vs just points/Champion and above) would allow a greater diversity in the ring and a more nuanced explanation of what that judge/club thinks of the dog’s breeding quality (The Norsk Kennel Club has a system similar to this). Reduce entry fees. Ban professional handlers (reduction of capitalistic intent in the show ring), make Champion a mark of a truly exceptional dog, understand that not every dog is exceptional, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t breeding quality. Make health tests on parents mandatory for the registration of litters. Open stud books. Make registrations more easily to looked up/at. If a marking or coloring occurs naturally/historically within the breed it should be fine to show (I’m looking at YOU white shepherds). Would that make showing more complicated? Heck yeah. Would any of these changes be likely to happen? Heck no...the AKC is pretty stuck in their ways.

This is a really complex question, not one I’m able to answer in 100% accuracy in terms of why and how, other than....dog people are privileged. And they operate the AKC as such. I recommend looking into the literature from decades past and comparing them with prevailing attitudes now to get a better feel for how your breed of choice may have changed for better or for worse. Old breed literature and looking at how that literature evolves over time is a great insight into the ever morphing attitudes in the AKC.

[joachimnapoleon]

Meet the Bonapartes--Louis (3/4)

I left off with Part 2 of this an embarrassingly long time ago, but I'm trying to make it a habit of finishing more of the things I start, so I don't want to leave this hanging. So, one year later, here is Part 3 of my write-up on Louis Bonaparte, and I promise Part 4 will not have a similar gap in between.

(Part 1) (Part 2)

***

Louis had been sincere in his declaration, upon accepting the throne of Holland, that he had "become Dutch." He immersed himself in Dutch culture, encouraged his Dutch courtiers to wear their traditional clothing at court balls, and tried to learn and speak Dutch--sometimes with comedic results, such as when he declared himself the Konijn (rabbit), rather than Koning (king) of Holland. His subjects appreciated his efforts nonetheless.

They also appreciated the initiative Louis showed when tragedy struck early in his reign. On 12 January 1807, a ship bearing hundreds of barrels of gunpowder exploded in the Dutch city of Leiden, blowing up hundreds of buildings and killing 150 people, and injuring thousands. Louis immediately left for Leiden and oversaw the recovery efforts, earning him the nickname "Louis the Good" from a grateful populace.

[Aftermath of the Leiden explosion, by Johannes Jelgerhuis]

Louis began his reign with a flurry of activity, writing to Napoleon to request a number of measures intended to favor his new subjects. He requested a reduction in the number of French garrisons in the kingdom, a new treaty of commerce with France, and the right to choose his own men for his Royal Guard. Napoleon granted these, but refused his brother's request for a loan, arguing that the expenses of France were so great that he was unable to give Louis any money.

The Dutch climate negatively impacted Louis's perpetually delicate health from the beginning, but he rarely left the country for much-needed stays at health resorts; this was especially true later in his reign after his relationship with Napoleon had deteriorated so badly that Louis began to fear that he might be deposed in his absence.

That deterioration did not take long to commence. Napoleon began finding fault with Louis's reign almost from the beginning. Napoleon had intended for Louis to play a key role in the 1806 campaign against Prussia, and was seriously disappointed with his brother's sluggish movements and lack of cooperation with Marshal Mortier during the campaign. When, towards the end of the campaign, Louis balked at attempting to seize Hanover in spite of his greatly superior numbers, Napoleon's displeasure with his younger brother was complete. But Napoleon still took care to preserve Louis's reputation; Louis's forfeiture of his command to Mortier and subsequent return to Holland were attributed to bad health, and further territory from Napoleon's conquests was added to Louis's kingdom. Returning to his kingdom, Louis received a hero’s welcome.

If Napoleon was irritated with Louis's conduct during the campaign, Louis, in turn, was angered by the retention of Dutch troops in Germany after the war, commanded by a French general; this, in Louis's eyes, was proof that he was to be little more than a puppet-king. His flagging health notwithstanding, Louis spent the winter working to further assert his independence by implementing public works projects, reorganizing his kingdom's administration and law code, and creating his own military orders, the Order of Union and the Order of Merit. A major point of contention arose between Louis and Napoleon when Louis announced that he intended to introduce the rank of marshal into the Dutch army and navy. Napoleon wrote to him scornfully on 2 January 1807:

Do you think a French general of division would take orders from your Dutch marshals? You are aping French organization, though your circumstances are utterly different. Why not begin by establishing the conscription and having a real army?

He followed it up more bluntly and concisely a week later: "There is nobody in Holland fit to hold such high rank." Louis viewed this as an insult and persisted in implementing the rank, until Napoleon finally ordered him to abolish it as one of numerous conditions to which Louis was forced to concede in early 1810 in order to retain his kingdom. On the subject of conscription, Louis would successfully resist its implementation, despite Napoleon's repeated demands, to the end of his reign.

Louis's relationship with his wife, meanwhile, remained fraught. Hortense had stayed with her mother, the Empress Josephine, during the campaign, and did not return to the Hague until months after her husband, prompting a quarrel. Mutual recriminations abounded: Hortense was upset over Louis's attentions to a Dutch lady at court; Louis, in turn, complained of Hortense's conduct. Napoleon became aware of the conflict and wrote reprovingly to his brother:

You have the best and most virtuous of wives, and you make her miserable. Let her dance as much as she likes; it is only right at her age. I have a wife of forty, and from the battlefield I write to her that she must go to balls; and with a wife who is only twenty and naturally wishes to live her life and has still some of the illusions of youth, you want her to live as if she were in a convent, or to be busy always like a nurse with her children? You yourself are too much shut up in your study and not about enough in public business. I would not say all this unless I thought so much of you. Make the mother of your children happy. You have only one way of doing this, and that is by showing her a great deal of esteem and confidence.

Louis was stung, and protested to Napoleon that he was being misrepresented to the Emperor by rumormongers. The domestic quarrels continued, as did the gossip they inspired at the Dutch court.

The estranged royal couple suffered a severe blow with the unexpected death of their eldest son, Napoleon Charles. The boy, who had been regarded by the still childless Napoleon as the heir to the Empire, had fallen ill in late April 1807. Louis frantically summoned numerous physicians to tend to the child; multiple remedies were attempted; but all without success. The four-year-old child died at midnight on the 5th of May. Hortense was almost insensible with grief and had to be taken away from the palace. Caroline Murat arrived soon to be at Hortense's side, followed shortly thereafter by Josephine. Hortense eventually left to take the waters in the Pyrenees, and Napoleon gave Louis permission to leave his kingdom to join her in early June. At the end of the summer, Josephine arranged for Hortense, who was still very unwell, to remain with her while Louis returned to Holland. Their younger son, Napoleon Louis, remained with Josephine at Fontainebleau as well. This tragedy drew Hortense and Louis together in their shared grief, but the reunion was short-lived.

[Queen Hortense with Napoleon Charles]

Before Louis's return to Holland, he had argued over political matters with Napoleon. The Emperor wanted more troops from Holland; Louis replied that he could not afford to raise them, due to his kingdom's economy suffering from the recently enacted Berlin Decree, which prohibited all trade with England. But Napoleon was unwilling to grant any concessions on this subject, and it would ultimately be Louis's inability--which Napoleon would interpret as unwillingness--to enforce the ban on English trade, that would spell Louis's downfall.

The 1809 war brought Louis's kingdom under threat from attack by the English, who intended for an expedition to seize Antwerp. Antwerp, however, was a French fortress, and as such, Louis was technically not allowed to interfere with it; but his warnings to Napoleon of its vulnerabilities went unheeded. Louis pleaded with Napoleon that his entire kingdom was defenseless due to Napoleon sending Dutch divisions off to Spain and Westphalia; Louis was left with fewer than 9,000 soldiers in Holland. Napoleon refused to reinforce Louis and downplayed the English threat; when the invasion actually occurred, he then blamed Louis for it. Invoking his title as Grand Constable of France in order to take command of the French troops, Louis set to work arming his fortifications and extending river defenses. On the 16th of August, he handed over command of the forces at Antwerp to Marshal Bernadotte. The English expedition ultimately floundered, out of a combination of disease and incompetence.

Napoleon, rather than thanking or lauding Louis for his efforts, blasted him in his correspondence. Louis was told that his office of Grand Constable was purely civil and honorary and gave him no right to command French troops. He questioned how Louis could expect anyone to respect Holland's independence when he refused to provide a larger army and navy for its defense. Without a larger army, his kingdom was a farce.

Louis protested that he was being treated unjustly. He had already heard whispers that Napoleon was planning to annex Holland to France, and garrison it with French troops. As he would soon learn, these were more than just whispers. By late 1809, Napoleon had not only lost faith in Louis, but had come to suspect his brother of disloyalty. In the Emperor’s mind, his brother was far too sympathetic to the Dutch nobility, whom Napoleon distrusted for their ties to the English. Nor did Napoleon appreciate Louis's attachment to the Dutch people and his insistence on promoting Dutch culture at every turn. But above all, Napoleon could not abide his brother's failure to enforce the blockade against English trade; this, in the words of biographer Michael Broers, "was the issue that turned incapacity into treason in his mind." Napoleon was determined that his Continental System be upheld at all costs; he was not oblivious to the suffering this would entail, as he made it clear to Louis in one particularly menacing letter:

Make searches and seize English goods, and [then] my customs men will respect your territory. If you don't do it, I will, as is my right.... The blockade will ruin many commercial cities, Lyon, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, but this state of anxiety must be got over; it must go on to the end.

The efforts of smugglers and corrupt/patriotic police notwithstanding, the blockade wreaked havoc on the commercial cities, just as Napoleon had anticipated. Writes Broers:

Amsterdam plunged into harrowing decline in every sense. Emigration caused by the collapse of commerce was compounded by the spread of diseases related to poverty, reducing its population from 202,000 in 1808, to little more than 180,000 by 1815. Its shipyards, which had employed 2,000 men in 1800, had barely 500 by 1808. Empty towns stood in ruins, while shanty towns along the canals swelled. Poverty was manifest in the city, and even the number of taverns declined. The local system of poor relief and charity that Louis had inherited from the old republic was stretched to the breaking point by the unprecedented speed and scale of Napoleon's manufactured crisis; it is estimated that between 30 and 40 per cent of the population of Amsterdam depended on poor relief by 1809.

And yet Napoleon remained displeased with his brother's enforcement of the blockade, and was convinced that Louis was deliberately acting to thwart him. When the entire imperial family was summoned to Paris in December 1809 for what would be the announcement of Napoleon's divorce and ensuing re-marriage plans, Louis suspected--rightly--that he might be walking into an ambush. He warned his ministers that he might be coerced into signing documents against his will, and that they were to only regard documents signed with his Dutch name--Lodewijk--as valid. In the event of an attempted French occupation of the country, his commanders were to offer a passive resistance, bringing their men inside their fortresses, closing their gates, and raising their drawbridges.

Napoleon welcomed Louis to Paris coldly; at their second meeting, he told him frankly that he intended to annex Holland, and that if Louis resisted, he would find himself at war with France. "Holland," he said, "is nothing but an English colony, more hostile to France than England herself. I mean to eat up Holland!"

In a bid to keep his kingdom, Louis pleaded for a compromise, and demonstrated a willingness to make concessions, including increased enforcement of the blockade and a ceding of territory. Napoleon sent orders to suspend Oudinot's march to occupy Holland, so that negotiations could proceed. But first, there was the issue of the divorce. Louis attempted to piggyback on his brother's divorce from Josephine by petitioning the Emperor for the arrangement of a formal separation from Hortense. Napoleon, instead, decided to have the matter decided by a family council. Though the two would not be permitted to divorce, it was decided that they might live apart; Hortense was permitted to remain in Paris and given an income of half a million francs. She also retained custody of Louis's eldest son, to Louis's bitter disappointment.

During this interim, Napoleon's mind had changed about his earlier negotiations with Louis. He predicted that Louis would not be able to meet the requirements they had agreed upon, and that the annexation would only be deferred. Harsher terms were drawn up--Louis was required to cede to France all his territory up to the left bank of the Rhine; he was forbidden to trade or communicate with England; he was required to build an army of 25,000 men and increase the size of his navy; and the rank of marshal was to be eliminated from the Dutch military. Louis was prohibited from returning to his kingdom until the agreement was signed. The treaty was finally signed on the 16th of March; Louis arrived back in Amsterdam on the 11th of April. Despite his earlier agreement to let Hortense remain in Paris, Napoleon had insisted on her returning to Holland as well. Hortense dreaded the return. "I wrote the Emperor a despairing letter," she recorded in her memoirs. "He did not answer me." Upon her arrival, Hortense writes that Louis "was overjoyed to see his son again but paid little or no attention to me."

Louis's unhappy queen leaves the following portrait of her life at court during this time, on the brink of her husband's deposition:

Word would be sent me when dinner was ready that the King was waiting for me. While we were at the table he would scarcely say a word. After the meal the King would thrum on the piano, which stood open. He would take his son on his knees, kiss him and lead him out on the balcony which overlooked the square. The crowd, catching sight of them, would give a few cheers. The King would re-enter the room, return to the piano, recite some French poetry or hum an air. I would stay in an armchair, not saying a word and watching what went on in the room. When a few hours had passed, my husband, becoming conscious of the strained situation, would ring and send for the Dutch members of our household and the ladies in waiting. Card-tables would be brought out. Sometimes I played also and at nine o'clock I returned to my apartments after having said good night, the only word we had spoken to one another. This is an exact picture of how I spent my days at Amsterdam.

Hortense did not remain in the kingdom for long. Her health suffered, and it was soon determined that it would be better for her to return to France. She left her husband for the final time on 16 May 1810.

The Sword of Damocles was not long in descending on Louis. An assault on a coachman of the French ambassador gave Napoleon all the excuse he needed to finally carry out his plan to annex Holland. Napoleon demanded that the perpetrators be arrested and hanged; Louis's ministers pointed out the impossibility of identifying them. Oudinot was ordered to march on Amsterdam.

Louis briefly considered appealing to Russia or Austria for help, but it was far too late. He had word sent to Oudinot that, though his troops would receive no welcome, they would also meet no resistance. Louis made some final, hasty financial arrangements, including selling some of the Dutch estates he had acquired and transferring his diamonds out of the country.

On 1 July 1810, Louis abdicated in favor of his second son, Napoleon Louis. The following night, he boarded a carriage accompanied by his captain of the guards, an aide-de-camp, and his favorite dog, Tiel, and headed east. In one last parting blow, Tiel was hit and killed at a horse-changing station on the road. Louis was devastated. "It was," writes biographer Atteridge, "he said, part of his bad luck, that now haunted him everywhere."

For weeks, Napoleon was unable to ascertain the whereabouts of his brother. "We don't know where he has gone, and we know nothing about this lunacy." He asked Hortense if she had any word of him. Writes Hortense in her memoirs, “Real anxiety as regards what had happened to the King was my first reaction. No one knew where he had retired. I imagined that he had left for America, alone, with no one to help him, no one to console him. His fate aroused my sympathy. I almost came to believe that I had become fond of him, now that he had known misfortune." Louis finally wrote to Madame Mère from the health resort of Toeplitz, that he was "as well as can be expected, and well out of affairs to which I will never return."

Regarding Napoleon's feelings towards Louis, Broers concludes that they were

an ill-sorted mixture of piercing truth and injustice clouded by the deepest kind of hatred, rooted in love betrayed. Yet, Napoleon worried about Louis' safety once 'the business' was over. He did not harbour the fanatical hatred that leads to murder. Even after his ill treatment of Hortense, Louis was his brother, and Bonapartes did not practise 'insular vendetta.' Nevertheless, in the world of high politics, Louis' end signaled the end of his faith in his brothers.

***

Sources:

Atteridge, A. Hillard. Napoleon’s Brothers, 1909.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Spirit of the Age. 2018.

De Beauharnais, Hortense. Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol I.

Masson, Frédéric. Napoleon et sa Famille, Vol I (1796-1802), 1907.

Roberts, Andrews. Napoleon: A Life. 2014.

[utilitycaster]

You’ve talked about this subject before, so do you mind sharing your thoughts on ExUs use of rule of cool?

Hi anon,

So I have had some frustrations with EXU, specifically plot based; the vibes are immaculate, the characters are great and well served by each other and the DM-ing, and all the individual moments are fun and emotionally engaging but to me it feels like too many balls are in the air to stick the landing (this metaphor brought to you by a universe in which gymnasts also juggle while in the air I guess), unless next week’s episode is like, 7+ hours - it’s not that I can’t follow the plot so much that the pacing of said plot has felt increasingly unbalanced. I will reserve judgment until it airs, and I’m still very much looking forward to it, but for all the reasons I mentioned liking before, rather than any expectation of the mysteries being resolved. With all that said I think Aabria’s use rule of cool has been incredibly skillful and indeed I credit the immaculateness of the vibes to that*.

Now, having written more than you probably wanted to read for a mostly unrelated introduction with its own footnote: D&D actually allows a ton of agency and wiggle room, if you actually read the rules, and the idea that it doesn’t is a lie told by people who want to plug their favorite indie game. The overarching rule is “The DM has some degree of final say.” In other words, rule of cool is included in rules as written.

Anyway a lot of the “rule of cool” things, at least that I’m thinking of (also please give me examples if I’m on a totally different page than you) were boons during a tricky battle granted by a weird ancient rock, maybe, and I think that’s completely valid! Brennan Lee Mulligan does this with some frequency; Brian Murphy and Matt Mercer tend to grant things like this more formally through homebrew magical items but I think Aabria making it spontaneous fits well with her personal DM-ing style and makes more sense in the context of, well, being in the middle of the jungle.

The Opal and Ted magic stuff is also well done. I mentioned this a couple years ago when Fjord’s powers were lost: there is not much in D&D on how to handle how issues with one’s warlock patron (or deity) may resolve and it’s really up to the DM. Tasha’s pretty much gave DMs the barest of outlines on how to handle subclass/class switches and I see this as related; everyone resorts to Rule of Cool in this space, if you think about it.

I will admit I’m not personally a big fan of granting advantage after a roll is failed, unless it was a legit error, but I will also admit both that I’m a hardass and also that I struggle with moving the plot along as a DM at times and this might be part of it; I can’t really fault a DM on an actual-play show for doing so when the alternative is “nothing happens”. Indeed, when you consider her casual portrayal of some of the deities and NPCs (a very valid and enjoyable stylistic choice) and Aabria’s greater willingness to drop not only out of character but also “DM mode”, if that makes sense, I actually think even more rule of cool might have addressed some of my frustrations with the plot. She could have revealed much more earlier on, because low level characters understandably miss a lot and the series is time-limited.

Which is a learning moment for me! I think my thoughts on rule of cool are more flexible than I’d realized! I still think most things can and should be handled within the rules but a DM with good rule of cool instincts (and I think Aabria has some of the strongest rule of cool instincts I’ve seen) can and perhaps should lean into that more heavily. It’s certainly a specific style and it might not work for everyone, but I think it works here.

*FWIW I think an 8-episode at 4-ish hours each is a really tricky length for actual play, and I think the pre-existing setting and the need to play to both long-term fans wanting an update on Tal’Dorei and new fans complicated things further and I will probably write more about this next week, when I know how things have ended and any future intentions. But just to sum up: I feel Aabria’s DM-ing has been great but far more suited to a longer, more sandbox-y campaign, and indeed if this were a 16 or even 12 episode series I’d have absolutely no concerns at this point, but right now I'm like "how are you going to resolve Myr'etta, Poska, Ted, the missing week/Thordak/whatever Fy'ra was doing, the Ash Hole, the tetrarch in the Iron Authority, and the Circlet of Barbed vision in 5 hours when I also want more Observer lore; let's go in with no expectations of most of those being resolved and be pleasantly surprised if they are."

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Pro-variation vs. pro-selection culture

Evolution requires three things: some form of information that’s inheritable, some way to create variation from that information, and some way to select what information will be passed on to future generations. In biological evolution, of, course, we all know what these three things are: genes (information) can mutate (variation) -- well, it’s more complicated than just mutation, but this isn’t a biology lesson -- and those that are worse at surviving and reproducing themselves are of course naturally weeded out through cause and effect (selection). But other things -- art, culture, language, science, technology -- evolve as well, and they all need the same three things.

When it comes to variation and selection in things like culture and politics, there’s a sliding scale of which one people think is most important -- whether they’re more pro-variation, or pro-selection.

People on the pro-variation end of the spectrum tend to view diversity as a positive thing and selection as something that will take care of itself, or even something to be actively suspicious of because of its tendency to cause harm -- a rainbow queer community, an education system available to people of all cultures and economic backgrounds, country borders that are as open as practical, and embracing a diverse array of art make a community stronger, and things like gatekeeping, means testing and heirarchies on ‘what counts as art’ should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for the selective process to exist, in which case it’s grudgingly tolerated. To pro-variation people, exclusion and oppression within a community are threatening. Pro-variation people recognise that yes, you’re going to get some freeloading drains on resources and obvious money laundering schemes masquerading as terrible art and a few people pretending to be gay for a few years to look more interesting to their straight friends, and this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a diverse and fair world.

People on the pro-selection end of the scale tend to view selection as the main means of advancing or healing a society, and see diversity as something that will take care of itself and as something to be deeply suspicious of. Gatekeeping, unequal opportunities and financial heirarchies are needed to sort the what from the chaff and make sure everyone does their best (”capitalism breeds innovation”); initiatives to redress inequality and give minorities or poor people an ‘unfair’ advantage or make it easier for outsiders to enter the country should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for their existence, as they’re dragging down the ‘deserving’ and polluting the culture. To pro-selection people, contamination or invasion from outsiders is threatening. Pro-selection people recognise that yes, you’re going to lose some talented geniuses in sweatshops and stop some deserving people from achieving success and bully some LGBT people out of the community to face abuse and oppression alone, but this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for an advanced and fair world.

“Oh, Derin, you’re just talking about left-wing vs. right-wing philosophies.” Sort of, but not really. It fits the stereotypes and common arguments to a T, but one can’t assume that all righties are pro-selection or all lefties are pro-variation. I have met pro-variation righties, although I’m not really sure how. And there are leftie TERFs out there, despite TERFism being an undeniably pro-selection philosophy. I find determining where people sit on the variation-to-selection scale to be a lot more useful for communication than left-to-right.

I say this because often I’ll see pro-selection and pro-variation people talking to each other, and notice that they’re having fundamentally different conversations. For example, let’s look at the issue of meritocracy. Most modern people would say that meritocracy is a good thing, but ’meritocracy’ means a fundamentally different thing to pro-selectionists than pro-variationists.

A pro-selectionist, when conceiving of meritocracy, tends to think in terms of, well, selection; devising a system where the strongest (those that excel in whatever the thinker thinks is important; innovation or determination or whatever) rise to the top and gain special privileges and power over others, that they can use to determine the rules and make life better for themselves and their children, elevating society as a side effect. To the pro-variationist, this is absolutely not a meritocracy. “You’ve built a system whereby those who don’t start out with more, those who are born poor or disabled or underprivileged in some way, have to work way harder and be lucky in order to get anywhere than those born lucky. People don’t get ahead on merit in this system because the playing field becomes drastically uneven after a couple of generations. This is not a meritocracy.”

A pro-variationist, on the other hand, would concentrate on making sure that everyone has a fair chance at exercising their skills and getting ahead. They’d focus on making sure that people had the space and security to exercise their skills and that, when it came to supporting the society to make that happen, those with more contributed more. To a pro-selectionist, this is absurd. “So those who have pulled ahead and succeeded are being penalised by having to give more? That’s the opposite of a meritocracy! That’s a system designed to drag the best down!”

I find this framework useful in explaining a lot of weird political quirks of certain subcultures. TERFs and tradwives, for example, are theoretically political opposites, but in practice their logic sounds almost identical to outsiders, sounding rather a lot like standard right-wing talking points and Fascism Lite. This is because they’re all using pro-selection arguments. To a pro-selectionist, the arguments of these groups look very different -- “we’re saying that X kind of people are good/virtuous/victims, and Y kind of people are bad/oppressors/sinners, which is the exact opposite of what the other group is saying!” To a pro-variationist, the fact that they are making literally the same argument makes them identical -- “you’re still putting people in your little ‘keep or cull’ boxes for exactly the same reasons, you just wrote different names on the boxes to keep or cull according to your personal taste.”

I think a lot of the things associated with right-wingers could be more accurately associated with people on the pro-selection end of the spectrum in general. It’s known, for example, that right-wingers tend to have a more sensitive disgust reflex and, as a consequence, be generally more xenophobic. You can see this in the way xenophobes talk of making room for outsiders; they talk of invasion, contamination, infection, hygeine, purity. LGBT exclusionists, lefties and righties, talk in the same sort of language. So do antis.

It’s also notable in the sorts of innocuous-seeming things that such people get really angry about. Right-wingers and authoritarians are known for their trend of an almost comical hatred of modern art. The idea that anything can be art, or that art can be measured on any level that isn’t strict complexity and realism of paint and sculpture, causes a surprising level of dislike in such groups. (See also arguments like ‘what is a video game’, ‘does this even count as a game’, althoughpeople thankfully seem to be bored of that now). Exclusionists are equally renowned for campaigns against inclusive terms like ‘queer’, and TERFs get obsessively nitpicky about people’s genitals to a really creepy degree and get very uncomfortable when you mention the ‘grey area’ in biological sex. This is normally assumed to be just dislike at people challenging their arguments, but I think it’s deeper. I think it’s like the modern art thing. Any kind of radical inclusivity is threatening to pro-selection thinkers, not because it’s a challenge to their rules and definitions -- they can have those arguments perfectly comfortably -- but because it is an attack on the very concept of meaning. “Words mean things! Groups exist! You can’t just... just get rid of groups and open up categories to include more people without putting them through a serious, rigorous proving ground first! You can’t just call anything you want to ‘art’, you can’t just call anyone outside cisheteronormative expectations part of the LGBT community, you can’t just call people men or women based on how they feel! That’s chaos! How can any progress be made if we just decide words don’t mean anything??”

(I also think this is a much-overlooked aspect of the same-sex marriage debate. Yes, most of that was garden-variety homophobia, but I’ve known a lot of people who were perfectly fine with ‘the gays having equal rights’, they just didn’t want it called marriage. To a pro-variationist, having the same legal language for partnerships regardless of the sex or gender of the participants is really important -- it’s a shield against future discrimination as the laws relating to either marriages or civil partnerships change over time. To a pro-selectionist, changing the definition of words related to fundamental cultural activities is a huge deal. “They’re eroding the very meaning of marriage! Chaos! How much more will the word change? Can people marry animals or cars next?!”)

As I said, this is a spectrum. I’ve met very few people who are on either extreme end -- even the most pro-equality liberal anarchist acknowledges that some standards of behaviour, community responses to inappropriate action and definitions of different communities do have to exist, to protect people, and the most hardocre fascist admits that there needs to be some measure of generating diversity to avoid stagnation and extinction. And people’s default reaction isn’t necessarily their position on all issues -- somebody who’s generally pro-variation might feel specifically threatened by immigration and think a strict proving ground for immigrants is necessary, or someone who is generally pro-selectionist might think that a robust social system is necessary because one’s economic status at birth has no bearing on one’s merit or value. But I’ve always found it to be a very useful general model.

[moonmultimuse]

The reader gets to experience two sides of the climate spectrum here. First, we start with Willa’s childhood. Parents, who I would say are far-right conspiracy theorists, who only view the negative that nothing can be done to stop the apocalypse and that you should only focus on yourself and your small family, when the time of the end of the world comes. In most literature that I have read, we always see things from a leftist perspective, now I may not agree with a far-right point of view, but I do want to read from all standpoints and see people who have different beliefs than my own. Later on, in Willa’s life, we see her meet Roy Adams and his local of Camp Hope, Adams is an optimist, he is trying to prevent climate change or make it easier for the people who will go through it. To Willa, this is the complete opposite of what she has known, and it intrigues her, gives her hope in the world.

Willa is a character who grew up in isolation. She seeks out other people to compensate for the lack of relationships with other people in her childhood and teenage years. Rather this be, following her cousins, with their crazy schemes throughout the city, stalking a Harvard professor until she becomes her closest companion, or flying to the Caribbean to join a somewhat cult to stop climate change. Very unique character work.

If we think back to Willa’s childhood, growing up in a secluded cabin, in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire; that makes me want a book with that atmosphere. Yes, we do get bits and pieces in flashbacks but that would play into a really cool story in itself. Boston, it was like you would expect it to be. The Bahamas, Camp Hope, very intriguing, especially as someone who had been to the Bahamas, and not for vacation purposes. It was very easy to picture and just overall fascinating at the thought of someone making a camp or compound like Camp Hope.

The writing is what I marked the most of in my experience annotating ‘Eleutheria’. There are positives and negatives. At first, I had no idea how this writing would be for me, I knew that I was either going to love it or hate it, well, I fell in the middle of that. The quotes lack actual quotation marks, but I never had a hard time telling who was speaking. This is the first time a book that I have read has been successful with that. Another thing, at the start, the author seemed so focused on making the writing sound poetic or metaphoric. I could not help but roll my eyes at some of the comparisons. However, as the book progressed, it became easier and easier to read and I started underlining more and more quotes. That being said, some of the paragraphs were beautiful and had great commentary on the society we live in and are going towards.

That leads us into the plot. The first plot point that I will focus on is how Americans view climate change and really anything in the world that is not at our front door. A lot of us, Americans, don’t seem to care what is happening in other parts of the world. We just scroll on by and say something like “Oh, that sucks.” and just go on to the next post but no, most really don't care unless it is right in their backyard threatening their actual way of life. This can be said for a lot of first world countries in the Western Hemisphere. It was just great to see this brought up and how no matter the number of protests and petitions are done, most of the time nothing is actually done to fix the issue. Hyde, the author, just goes to show the morals, or lack thereof, that go behind so many campaigns on making the world a better place or just social movements in general. Just great, great commentary on the political climate around us and how it is truly all messed up. I highly recommend picking this book up for the ideas and themes that are presented.

The reader gets to experience two sides of the climate spectrum here. Very unique character work. If we think back to Willa’s childhood, growing up in a secluded cabin, in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire; that makes me want a book with that atmosphere. The setting was very easy to picture and just overall fascinating at the thought of someone making a camp or compound like Camp Hope. The writing is what I marked the most of in my experience annotating ‘Eleutheria’. That being said, some of the paragraphs were beautiful and had great commentary on the society we live in and are going towards. I highly recommend picking this book up for the ideas and themes that are presented.

[prorevenge]

Bridezilla Karen ends up looking like a pauper at her own wedding.

I (F48) have known “Pat” (F48) for decades. As far as I can remember, she was fixated on having 5 children and a picket fence dream life. I slowly cut ties with her in college because she was an opportunist and I didn’t trust her. She is both manipulative and forceful. Her idea of cute rubs me the wrong way. Pat likes to walk like a penguin when she wants to elicit pity, and she usually does this when she wants to evoke the underdog narrative. I’ve never seen someone act so despicable and ridiculous at the same time.

I moved on with my life. Happily got rid of her for years. Pat eventually found me on facebook. I accepted her friend request out of politeness.

Pat has become the epitome of a permissive mother. Her (5) kids do as they please and she never calls them out. She tried to force a relationship between me and her daughters and made them call me Auntie. Pat tried to drop them at my house uninvited. Her phone calls were insistent, she tried to monopolize my time and she began to show up at my job. I created some boundaries so she tried to find loopholes. It was a nightmare.

My husband and I hosted a party for the community center (not the real name) new members. The community center is actually a very informal initiative and my husband and I mainly serve the homeless population. We prefer to help strangers instead of catering to potentially narcissistic acquaintances. We don't mind lending a hand but we have encountered truly dishonest choosing beggars.

There are other services, like one of the members who helps women get their wedding and prom dresses for free.The community center location “headquarters” is actually a farm owned by an elderly couple. There is a barn, a venue and a very nice green field with an artificial lake and some fowl. They charge for the use of their facilities (weddings , etc.) but not for community oriented stuff.

Pat had always been salty at her husband for demanding that she go back to work after baby #3. In the meantime, he worked three jobs. She demanded he get her pregnant to fulfill her dream of having 5 kids. He didn’t agree, because he was already nearly 45 and felt like he might never be able to retire. She got away with bringing new babies into this world anyway. Her fascination with being pregnant comes from all the attention she gets. She had at least one miscarriage in between each kid.

Pat latched on to our group. She never missed any of our activities. I hated having her in my house, but it was an open invitation that included virtually everyone and she was very active as an event organizer. I didn’t like the way her kids behaved. We have a designated area for parties and entertainment, but her kids ended up inside my bedroom. We ended up having to keep watch of them and enjoyed zero of our own party.

I called her days later to get my point across (regarding their overall behavior) but she completely cut me off and began talking about herself and said her kids wanted to come visit again and use our pool. I never answered that. I didn't want to say “no, I will not have your brats over”.

She also called me as summer was approaching specifically to let me know her middle daughter was bored and wanted to spend a WEEK at our home. I politely declined, citing that me and my husband have to work and cannot entertain guests. .

Pat paid no heed. Her kid called me on the weekend,calling me “auntie” and attempted to coax me by saying “Mom says you invited me to spend SUMMER with you”. I quickly clarified, and offered an explanation to avoid hurting a kid’s self esteem. Nevermind. Her daughter just hung up on me.

Pat’s facebook also showed some red flags. Some cryptic rants here and there were visible, along with friends’ comments and complaints on how she asked a particular person to watch her kids only for a couple of hours and ended up leaving them all day. Another of her friends criticized her “girls night out “ because Pat had just asked them to be patient and wait until she could pay back some money that she owed them, yet she had money to spend on Friday night outings. I thought those very public comments on private matters were more like a cry of lost patience.

Unpleasant things began to happen. Like the time she volunteered to wrap the Xmas presents for underprivileged kids. We all wanted to create a mix of less costly gifts with really nice ones. Surprisingly, some nice and eye-catching toys and games went missing but turned up under her Christmas Tree (courtesy of her mother in law’s FB posts). No one could prove anything but it was hate-inducing. Or the time my daughter called me in tears to pick her up after she attended Pat’s daughter’s birthday (Casey). My daughter had been ignored all night because she didn’t gift her the expensive gaming stuff Casey practically demanded. My daughter did ask, but I said no. We would buy her a very nice and thoughtful present according to her taste. So when I went to pick her up my daughter was sitting alone in the living room while Casey and her friends stayed outside.

Stories about Pat and her family multiplied. The owners at the farm (community center) decided keep their their gates locked unless they had guests or events because Pat got in the habit of driving in whenever she pleased and it was either her kids screaming and disturbing on-going weddings, throwing rocks at the koi in the lake or harassing the geese in the yard. Or how she stiffed another soccer mom with the lunch bill and then pulled the struggling financially card. Or how other parents hated her because she created unnecessary hostile competition.

When my daughter turned 13, I allowed her to wear my grandma’s ring. It's not an expensive piece of jewelry, but it's vintage and girls nowadays wanna look boho. My Granny gave it to me when I became a teenager so I passed it on to my kid so she could wear it on her birthweek.

It was weird that she became quiet and distracted after that. She also didn’t want to go to school and my husband and I became suspicious. She never opened up, and my other kids had no clue.

We went to her school but her teachers assured us nothing had changed in her environment. My husband and I suspected she was being bullied but our kid gave us no tools to support her. My kid is very sunny, and very compassionate. She has never had any problems with other kids. I called her best friend’s mom. Natalie, my kid’s BFF, told us what was going on. Casey (Pat’s eldest) and my daughter had become “close”. I knew this and wasn’t too thrilled. I found the age (Casey was 17) gap not exactly inappropriate but I’d rather see my daughter spend time with friends in the same age range. Casey is very beautiful and a gifted student. She is also very conceited. To make this story short, she asked my daughter if she could try on the ring and refused to give it back. She later claimed that she lost it but “would look for it” so my daughter was distraught. My daughter kept asking for her ring and as a result, Casey shunned her and spread the word that my kid was trying to steal HER ring. Some kids at school took Casey’s side. So now Casey just wore my kid’s jewelry to school like nothing happened. If that doesn’t qualify as taunting I don't know what does.

My guilt comes from not being able to get my daughter to open up and feel safe telling me the truth. I talked to her and she burst into tears. I was both pained as a mother and furious that some teenage b!tch was doing this under our noses.

I went straight to Pat’s car after school. I asked to talk as Casey was about to go in. So I grabbed Casey’s hand and asked to see her jewelry. Casey froze and she tried to make a fist, so I became relentless. Casey yelled “Mom!” and Pat struggled to get out of the car. I slid the ring off (Casey has tiny hands and wore the ring on her index finger). First Pat yelled at me. After I confronted her with the engraving on the band (my grandma's maiden name), she argued it was loaned to her daughter by my kid. Then she said she bought it. I paid no heed. I did warn them that I knew Casey had become an abusive friend to my daughter.

Pat called me to tell me off. She said she was trying to raise an assertive young woman and I had just messed that up by being “overbearing”. She never apologized for her thief of a child.

Pat's husband ( Hank) is what can be described as a doormat. Pat wore him down to a knob. He had no choice but to “obey” her to keep the peace. She was a bully who actively withdrew affection when he didn’t follow her wishes, even in public. So she got kids #4 and #5 after a relentless campaign that included leaving him for two months. Her pregnancies were a nuisance because she expected to be treated like the only lady who has even been pregnant. She strolled around in a wheelchair almost immediately after getting pregnant and she would “get very sick” on weekends, so her kids were often sent to friends and family so that she could “rest”.

Pat systematically bullied Hank. She would leave town and take the kids with her. Poor Hank would look distraught, drinking on his porch or just looking really lonely. This is how she got off the hook and was able to leave her job. Hank had virtually no voice, so he struggled to keep the marriage together. Everyone liked him, but hated her equally. Hank loved to talk to other people but seemed concerned that Pat would be upset. Over time, according to my husband, Hank began to show signs of depression and mental distress.

Our friend, Lenah, runs the wedding/prom dress initiative. It's not complicated. Dresses are sourced from donations, ebay, trunk shows, etc. Unusually beautiful dresses are retained so that more than one bride gets to wear them. In some cases, a bride will pay 50 bucks, but most of the time, the dresses are donated to the bride.

Pat was involved in this. Lenah kept her in because they never had any issues and her task was limited to just shipping the dresses out.

Pat decided to renew her vows and her bridezilla Karenzilla attitude became the icing on the cake. For starters, she bullied another couple into giving up their wedding date at the farm because she “needed her renewal to match her exact wedding date”. They were not impressed with her harassment, so they booked another venue. As a result, the farm owners were pissed because Pat was already costing them money after she had successfully negotiated a cut in their rate “because she couldn't afford it but will repay by doing maintenance work around the venue” (she never made good on her word).

Pat became attached to a particular dress that was already assigned to another bride. Lenah made it clear that she would need to pay for her own dress. So Pat played it cool and shipped the wrong gown instead. She was adamant that it was the right dress, despite all the notes on Leah’s agenda. The other bride was truly gracious about it. She was obviously disappointed, but never made a scene.

What bothered me most is that I picked that dress and bought it for 40 bucks at a garage sale (not my money, Leah’s money). It was a vintage dress, ankle length, white with lots of lace and a huge bargain. Again, when confronted, Pat “did a Casey” and used the “this is mine” strategy. We felt so bad for the other bride that we did our best to get her something nice to wear. The other bride was a true fighter, she had pulled out of welfare, earned her high school diploma and was working to get on her feet by trying to earn a certificate as an acrylic nail technician. So, her reward was to have some Karen steal her dress? Pat never admitted to messing up, but just by the fact that she claimed it was her dress, we knew.

Lenah never allowed her in her warehouse again. Their last phone fight ended with Pat bringing up the other bride’s past (like it mattered) and “this conversation is over, it's my dress and you are mistaken”. That was weeks before the other bride’s wedding.

Pat went all out on her wedding decor. She spent way too much. She hired a caterer for some food (mainly mimosas and appetizers), but the wedding invitation included a request for specific dishes for her Sunday brunch wedding. Either she ran out of banquet money or was on a complete moocher mode.I picture the penguin walking upon practically asking everyone to supply her wedding reception grub and I cringe.

There is nothing wrong with potluck weddings. In fact, they can be a nice addition to a very cozy and family oriented wedding reception. But, don’t you need to at least be close to your guests in order to ask for such a thing? Even I got an invitation. I told everyone I wasn’t going because I was very uncomfortable being told what to bring and was probably expected to give them a cash gift on top of that. Some of the older ladies in our group agreed. Some said they would not decline in advance because she is a bully and they didn’t want a confrontation.

Lenah called me the night before Pat’s re-wedding. Lenah was there to close the Saturday night bingo and Pat was awfully friendly, but that’s what she does whenever things are going her way. Lenah peeked into the garment bag and saw the exact same dress while Pat was caught up supervising the wedding decoration.

The thing with Karens is that they expect everyone to suck it up, or make their dreams come true, or they simply underestimate everyone and think we are all fools.

Lenah is a very straightforward person with a “so sue me” attitude. She told me she would just ruin the dress. After all, it was hers, so she could do whatever she wanted. If Pat wanted to take legal action, and should things get ugly, she needed to prove ownership. However, the dress was the same, the marks inside the hem and the tags were the same. Even the tag numbers that were punched to identify each dress for logistics purposes matched.

Pat had the dress altered, with some extra beading and dyed to a deep cream color. But it was obviously the same garment. Lenah and I snuck in before the venue was closed for the night. All brides are allowed to stay in a small bedroom for a small charge, so that they don’t need to drive in on their wedding day. Honestly, the makeshift chapel was gorgeous, I don’t know how she paid for it but it was full of flowers and presumptuous details. I naively brought in some ink to spill on the dress, but Lenah said she wanted “something more awful, like a nasty surprise”. Ink would be too obvious and if she saw it ahead, she may be able to snag another gown from somewhere. No, the ideal thing was to have her trust the dress was fine. So Lenah locked herself in a bathroom stall and completely cut out the back panel. She patiently put it back on its hanger and zipped the bag. We left through the emergency door with the back of the dress stuffed inside Lenah's purse. I completely hate people who target and steal from anyone they (Pat and her kid) calculate to be in a weaker position.

The wedding was scheduled at 9 AM. Pat called me at 7 AM, but I ignored her calls. I picked up by 8 AM, both curious and wondering if she suspected anything. Pat was frantic.She was crying that her dress was “missing by half”. I purposely made her explain, being annoyingly dense and continually interrupting like she does, and stalling the conversation. She asked me if I could lend her my wedding dress. I said no, sorry. She then asked me if I would help her get a dress. I was satisfied to remind her that the town's bridal shops were closed on Sunday and the others that would open were almost an hour away. The farm is already almost one hour away from our town.

If Pat could get a shop to rent a dress, she would need to try the dress on, and get it steamed. Even if the dress was ready to wear, it would easily take more than two hours (roundtrip). She tried to ask me to go pick a dress (who would pay for this??). Even if a shop were open and brought her a dress, it would add to the cost. Also, these shops open at 10 or 9:30 at earliest. By time they got to her, it would be time to wrap up the wedding because she needed to clear the venue by 12:00 for the next event.

She broke down and mumbled some stupid stuff I didn't understand. So Pat hung up on me and called Lenah instead.. She asked Lenah to bring her “anything she had available”. Lenah and I ended up delivering the most outdated, moss smelling, oversized dressed. Pat’s disappointment was a mix between angry and emotional. She also tried to wear her knee length silk bridal slip as a wedding dress but it was too obvious and it really looked cheap. She tried to get her daughter to give her her own dress to wear with an open back zipper (due to fitting issues) but Casey refused, asking if she was supposed to attend the wedding naked (she got a point, plus Casey is petite).

The dress needed a petticoat to plump up the skirt, which wasn’t available. So it dragged all over the floor and Pat had to keep pulling it up. Pat walked down the aisle with one hand on her bouquet and another one grabbing her dress. The dress looked limp and weird with the arrangements of pins (they didn’t show) that caused the sleeves and neckline to pucker into messy rims. She spent the ceremony looking uncomfortable and out of place. Very few people attended but that was not part of any revenge, that was just how people reacted to her entitled attitude.

The dress looked awful. The reception portion of the wedding had all this princely decoration, a very nice cake and a bridezilla with a dress from hell. I didn’t stay, but I was told, she was so disappointed she spent her wedding sulking. There was no dance, no actual speech. She had to change into a shirt and leggings because the dress was too uncomfortable. Everyone talked about how Pat put on her flip flops and walked around aimlessly until she ordered the ushers to start folding up the chairs within one hour of the reception. So she practically kicked everyone out and the cake was never cut.

Pat wasn’t the same after this.She was not as loud and avoided everyone. I think she was disappointed that nobody ran to her rescue, not even her family who came from out of town.

Her husband finally cracked under all the pressure and sought some help. He was slaving away and coming home to clean the house while Pat used her kids as an excuse to spend like crazy. Hank also had to do kid homework because Pat never had time or never had patience. She also refused to get a partime job so her kids could attend an afterschool and get help with their school stuff. Therapy seemed to help Hank because the last time Pat left with her kids, he didn't seem distraught. He would be riding his bicycle and could be seen more relaxed while mowing his lawn. Hank told my husband that he had contemplated suicide after their third kid. When Pat returned, he maintained the routine but was interested in going out by himself and doing things for himself. We began to see Pat alone all the time. Hank was seen less and less in the same car and eventually moved in with his parents. He filed for divorce on the grounds of emotional cruelty and I don't think he won. Instead (I’m not sure of this because this is what I was told) there was some sort of a settlement or agreement that she would not get close or interact with him unless it has to do with the kids).

I also don’t know if Pat even actually suspected who/what happened to her dress. She slowly pulled away from the community center and became less active in social gatherings. Pat also removed me from her facebook as well as mostly everyone else from school and the center.

TLDR

Bridezilla stole a wedding dress from an underprivileged woman. The actual dress owner destroys her big day.

(source) story by (/u/forestcabin123k)

[daydreamreality]

Thinking about actor availability, and how that affects my perception of Jess and how strongly I feel about shipping Literati.

Really thought this would only be a few paragraphs going over the points where Jess could have disappeared never to be seen again, but it turned into a freaking essay so LONG POST warning if you decide to click ahead. 

If the last we saw of Jess was hanging up the phone in the season 3 finale: "Well, it was fun ride while it lasted. That's about how I thought this would end." Still have a lot empathy for this kid and wish him well, but you screwed with Rory's heart like I knew would happen. Was that intentional? No. But he was so immature, out of control with his emotions, zero communication skills, not trusting in others...the list of reasons why he wasn't ready for a serious relationship, even if the feelings were serious, goes on. There was no way Rory wasn't going to end up as collateral damage in his personal breakdown that I could feel was going to happen. And this is the thought I had as a teenager with no dating experience watching this show for the first time. Did I want to date him? Hell no! I could see that trainwreck from a mile away. Rory was naïve to put her heart in his trust but that's part of her good qualities - she's sees the best in people and champions for them. I could go on a tangent about why exactly Jess was such an important character to me when I first watched the show (and probably why he stuck around unconsciously until I decided on a whim to rewatch GG in lockdown) but...I don't know, maybe some other time.

In the context of the entire show, I would look back at the relationship as my favorite one to watch of Rory's in the series (The build-up! The connection! Their deep belief in and respect for each other! The angst!) and Jess being a really fun character to root for (and yell at) but endgame? It was a short lived but important relationship. It’s fun to think about what ifs and how circumstances could have changed to make it work, but we can move on.

The ill-fated spin-off: I have no idea what this show would have been about except focusing on Jess and Jimmy and I’m not about to theorize. I still like Jess at this point so it would probably make me like him more since we’re getting a deeper dive into his character, but in regard to shipping him with Rory, this opinion would not change unless he all of sudden showed some great maturity. But I doubt this show would have even gotten a whole season so that probably wouldn’t happen. And then he’s living in California…this is too much, moving on.

If the last we see of Jess is in season 4: About the same feeling as above. Life, as expected, has not been treating Jess well. At all. His jadedness and hostility is at an all-time high when he shows up to get his car. Do I see the reasons informing his behavior and have empathy (once again, for a KID)? Yes, but he's also being a jerk. "The years don't seem to have hardened you." Well this year sure has!

I love the "I love you" scene but too little too late, buddy. That's probably why I love it, it's all a bit hopeless. Just keep shoveling the angst at me. I do like fics where this scene is reimagined with Rory running after him to give him a piece of her mind or Jess finding some other words to say (I really feel like he had more to say there but got overwhelmed), and coming to a tentative reconciliation: exchanging numbers, "don't fall off the face of the earth," but getting back together? No. You hurt her and you're feeling the consequences. Rory is not obligated or responsible to reciprocate those feelings, nor is she in a place to do that right now. 

But season 4 does cement that Luke and Jess's relationship is one of my favorites in the entire show. There's probably a whole other post in me regarding that so I'll keep it brief. Because of his respect for Luke, Jess makes tentative steps towards maturing in interpersonal relationships. He shows some vulnerability and honesty with a veil of sarcasm and awkwardness because, well, it's JESS.

But then of course this all goes to hell when applied to Rory. Sometimes I like to think how this dorm scene would have gone down if Rory stepped back for a second and went, "Hold on. You're not making any sense, chill out," and they could have talked a bit and had a similar reconciliation like I said above because I really think that’s all he was going for - to talk to her, apologize, and make an attempt at reciprocation like he did with Luke. But getting back together here? Canonically, he hasn't made enough progress. He set aside his personal feelings to be in his mother's wedding and used the knowledge from the self-help book to apologize to Luke, but I don't think the book's message has sunk in all the way yet and he’s still got a massive chip on his shoulder preventing him from making a good life for himself. Getting rejected by Rory here is an important moment and I really like it. It's fun to think about the AU if Rory had said yes (hello road trip!), but it's very in-character for her to not be able to handle Jess's crisis and just shouting "NO, make it stop." This is one of my proudest of Rory moments: Protect your heart girl, he ain't ready. The seeds have been planted that Jess will continue to grow and I wish him well on his journey. Endgame material? Nah. Goodbye forever, take care my friend...

Even though this scene doesn't feel like closure at all, I really thought this was the end of Jess Mariano. So imagine my surprise when -

SEASON 6: HE'S BACK. Coming out of the shadows, [literally] it's Jess Marianoooo *air horns* *confetti* *jazz hands* *Jess rolls his eyes at the fanfare*

Alright, that's out of my system. But for real that's what my mind did at this point. For context, the way I watched this show for the first time was getting the DVDs from the library while a couple of seasons were still on the air; when a new season was available to borrow, I would rewatch all the seasons up to the current point so my memories and favorite parts of the show are seasons 1-4. Because I was not bingeing the show all the way through, seeing Jess here seemingly so different didn’t feel out of place. A shock, yes! A happy surprise. But nothing about him seemed OOC. A year had gone by, we’d seen some signs of maturity in him, and getting rejected by Rory was a big kick in the ass for him to start making bigger changes in his life. I really cannot emphasize how satisfying and sensical his positive character development felt to me. 

The slight maturity we see in season 4 in its full potential. Jess is still Jess: guarded, self-deprecating, and a bit prickly but he shows a sense of calm and feeling more comfortable in his skin. This is really satisfying to see as someone who always "knew" there was a kind and capable heart underneath the exterior just like Rory did, and that tough guy, must protect myself at all costs posturing has melted away. But that side of him isn't gone, it's not like the writing did a complete 180 on his character. I love this. He's just...more at peace with himself but he's not a different person, and he's found something to direct his focus and intellect on. He's made his peace with Luke, and now he has something of worth to show Rory to try to mend that hurt as well.

Yes, it would have been nice to see how and why he decided to write a book and work in publishing but this course of events is not out of left field, nor is Jess enough of a main character at this point for scenes like this to be necessary to the show unless they were tied to Luke and showing another side of him. Jess has shown in the past that he has a good work ethic if he feels it is worth it. The problem wasn't him being lazy, just poor decision making and focusing on RIGHT NOW, "I need to get out of Stars Hollow and live my life," and not considering the consequences of his actions. Which as an immature kid whose life had told him he can only depend on himself...not out of the ordinary. The dude’s life passion is literature and has probably read every book he can get his hands on, it’s not crazy that he had his own story in him. 

Here is where Literati becomes endgame material for me. Prior to the revival it was always my feeling that post-series they would reconnect while Rory was on the campaign or afterwards. It would be low drama (except for Lorelai criticism), slowly gaining trust in each other again, and eventually starting a committed relationship within a year or two of being friends with sexual tension (lol). They made their adolescent mistakes, hurt each other, but learned from it and started over on infinitely better footing.

The match just makes sense to me at this point for many reasons; I don't feel like I need to list them all out because you can go to any pro-Literati post and I'll probably agree with the majority of the points. The biggest issue they had was timing: “Right heart, wrong time.” I like especially how they even out each other's more extreme personality traits. For example, Rory learning from Jess to consider her own feelings instead of sacrificing herself for others, and Jess considering others before himself all the time. Or professionally, I can see Jess encouraging her to step away from her ultra-organized, “everything has to be just so” ways when it benefits her to seize an opportunity right now, don’t worry about the details, you got this. Maybe Jess has another book in him, but his self-deprecation and disorganization prevent him from getting it done but Rory helps him be more objective and focused. There’s this…synergistic energy I feel with the two of them: they’re great by themselves, but form something better together.

Judging from Rory's reactions towards him in this season, I don't think it's OOC for her to have romantic feelings for him again. She's extremely proud of his accomplishments and not unhappy to see him (not holding a grudge). They fall back into their comfortable dynamic even if it makes them both a bit nervous. Now some could argue that this means that Rory only wants to be friends with him but...when have Jess and Rory ever been just friends? If "Another Year in the Life" comes out (I've got serious doubts but would love to be proved wrong) and Rory rejects him or he's not even a part of it, fine! But I just don't see anything in canon that says explicitly she'll never feel romantic towards him again.

Now the kiss...there's a lot of ways to read that scene. Do I think Jess was in the right to assume "everything is fixed" as a go ahead? No. But that's part of why he is such an engaging character: he's impulsive and acts in accordance to his feelings, and yes, this gets himself and others in trouble. 

Do I think Rory purposefully went to the open house to "use" Jess to get back at Logan? No. I think she genuinely wanted to support him, and Logan being out of town meant she wouldn't have to explain why it was important for her to go. I see the kiss paralleling the one in 2x22 but instead of Rory not being able to hold her feelings in any longer, Jess initiates. The way I see it is she was unaware she still had lingering feelings towards him (not out of nowhere, I mean their relationship has "unfinished business" written all over it) and that scared the crap out of her, just like at the end of season 2. So she runs away to the "safe space" that is being with Logan. Because she's in love with Logan, she has a sense of obligation towards him, and Rory has shown many times that she does not react well to change and highly emotional situations.

Is this scene a deal breaker for a future relationship between them? I don't think so. Jess says that he isn't sorry she came, which I take as "I'll never be sorry to see you no matter the context." Yes, this hurt him and made him pretty mad, but I don't think he's holding a grudge against her for this; even in the moment he's more concerned that someone cheated on her and her safety getting to her car. He sets a boundary that he doesn't deserve his feelings to be pushed around like this and Rory agrees. Not that I condone this sort of tit-for-tat hurting of each other (which I don't think Rory was going for in the first place) but it's almost like...that cycle is now broken. The whole scene is so open ended, it doesn't feel like a "good bye forever" to Jess.

"But Rory is so in love with Logan!" I don't know about you, but that "I'm in love with him despite all the bad he's done..." sounds so defeated and sad. It's almost like she's resigned herself to being in love with Logan. The first time I watched this, I thought this was foreshadowing that the relationship was on its last legs. To keep them together, Logan almost dies so Rory will bury her hurt out of guilt for holding a grudge against him. She is completely entitled to feeling hurt by Logan's actions, and I hate that she feels like she has to do this. But it happened, moving on.

"But Rory is a cheater!" When I think about Rory's characteristics, "cheater" doesn't make the list. She feels entitled to the men that she's loved and this isn’t super great behavior, but I don't view her as inherently unfaithful or okay with cheating. I give her leeway on the season 2 Jess kiss because she was a teenager with a lot of conflicting emotions and everything around her was pushing her to stay with Dean. The season 4 Dean debacle...she was still very young and naïve. I put most of the blame on Dean for manipulating her; I say most because if Rory really wanted to be with him, she should have been more sure of the status of his marriage, but I repeat: he manipulated her and she was very young and naïve. I dare to say she has been conditioned to view Dean as nothing but safe and trustworthy so why wouldn't she believe him... Season 4 was all about her being out of sorts when away from the Stars Hollow bubble and trying to reclaim some normalcy. Narratively, I see why this makes sense and I don't think the intention was to say “Rory is okay with cheating,” but to show very explicitly that Rory isn't perfect. This show goes to extremes, at this point I kind of just accept it and don't jump to "this person/character is terrible!" Certain characteristics and behaviors I have less patience for (mild) or will make me lose all respect for a character (extreme - honestly very few GG characters fall into this category for me); you may feel differently and that's fine. When other plot points in this series are much more bizarre and OOC, while this turn of events makes me uncomfortable and angry, at least it makes sense to me.

The 6x18 kiss I've already said that I don't think Rory had premeditated intent to cheat on Logan judging from the fact that Jess initiated it; yes, she went with it nor was it a complete surprise, I get this. The "I couldn't even cheat on him..." line I think is an outburst of guilt and regret, not her saying she had a plan in mind. Maybe I'm being too soft on her, I don't know...she did stay there late but maybe she just got lost in the book while waiting to say bye. We've seen her not know how to deal with conflicting emotions and change to her status quo, and attempt to distract herself when life isn't panning out the way she wants and not think about the consequences in the moment, so I don't find this scene OOC or intentionally cruel. The revival...I don’t think I can even go there right now because it would just be me screaming incoherently about how much I hate "full circle" and how bizarre the entire thing was. Maybe something of value would eventually come out with a lot of editing. XD

This isn’t to say I’m 100% on Rory’s side all the time. Pretty much every character in this show has at some point made me smile, made me laugh (generally with them, but some characters it’s more like at), made me want to give them a hug, made me roll my eyes, and made me want to throw something at them. That’s why I love it so much! Even if the drama is turned up to 1000, I still get the sense that these characters are human. My favs end up on my “will protect at all costs” and “shit” lists throughout the series, no one is immune. Except Lane. She really is the best person in this entire show. #JusticeForLaneKim

If ASP had written season 7: (Remember there being some sort of theme to this post? Only two episodes in s6, but Jess sure does make an impact.) I bet Jess would show up at some point. MV is loyal to the creators and not the show, if it was important for Jess to be there I’m sure his shooting schedule would have been accounted for. Storyline would have been similar to the revival because AYITL is ASPs season she didn’t get to do without considering how time passing affects the characters (I’M STILL SALTY) except Rory is at Yale and I think the book was a new idea. Shipping as endgame doesn’t change, and I bet there wouldn’t be a nice little Literati ending because we’ve got to end it the same way, right? I don't even need them to be together at the end because Rory has greater plans to focus on, but just a moment! One moment is all I asked for... I don’t know if this makes me mad because I felt like the narrative had been pushing us along this path for so long even if actual "endgame" was going to be offscreen or if I kind of like just having it in my imagination. Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. In any case, it could have been cool to see Jess present for the birth of his half-sister and giving Luke some support. 

Like I said, I'm not touching AYITL right now. The whole starting point of this was, "huh, if MV never came back to the show, how would I feel about Jess and Literati?" And he was in it so it doesn't really fit into this even though we've gone on a meandering journey as pieces of discourse that have never sat right with me but didn't quite know how to express that disagreement until now popped in my mind. So there you go. If you’ve made it to end, claps to you, what a champ.

At the end of the day, Literati is the ship that makes me feel the most things, it's kind of just a gut thing. This really isn't any sort of argument just an outpouring of love for the show and these characters. I don't know how well that's communicated, but hey, I try. I’ve got a lot of nostalgia for the pairing and I always viewed Jess as being Rory’s, and only Rory’s, choice.

[snarkesthour]

Happy St George's Day!

· In the midst of a pandemic when schools are all closed, the government votes to not allow free school meals to schoolchildren during school holidays, despite this being the only meal many of them have each day

· Marcus Rashford, a footballer, led the drive to feed the nation’s children, 49% of which live in poverty, and forced the government to provide food for them during the school holidays

· Instead of previous years when vouchers were given to parents that can only be spent on nutritious food, members of government give contracts to friends to provide a week’s work of food costing £5 to schoolchildren for a price of £30. Food is unhealthy and would not last a week

· Parcels also expect parents to cook two tablespoons of rice at a time in the oven and bake their own bread every day, ignoring poverty-stricken families possible lack of access to such equipment

· Wife of conservative MP attacks poor families for eating unhealthy food when healthy food is cheaper, ignoring the fact that not all families have access to equipment needed to store and cook it

· Nigel Farage, head of the Brexit party came out strongly against the government for their stance on starving schoolchildren. Not a good look.

· Another MP came out and said that poor families should not receive government assistance because the money would be going direct to brothels and crackhouses and the parents would spend it on drink and drugs instead of feeding their kids, a dangerous and persistent stereotype of working class people

· For the first time in its history, UNICEF is feeding kids in the UK – the 5th richest country in the world – and the head of the House of Commons accused them of “playing politics” and said they should “be ashamed of themselves”

· J.K. Rowling came out hard as a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), writing a book about a serial killer that dresses up as a Muslim woman, which isn’t subtle when you look at her history of transphobia and other “-isms”

She also publicly supported an author who wrote a book about the destruction of Europe by waves of Muslim immigration

· Speaking of J.K. Rowling, the government’s response to the Gender Recognition Act.

· It is now impossible for under 16s to receive reversible puberty blockers

· Wait times at NHS Gender Clinics, of which there are only 7 in the country, have doubled, with wait times now up to 60+ months (5+ years)

· Keir Starmer, head of the Labour (left wing) party says he doesn’t want to get involved in trans issues

· With the loss of Labour, no major party supports trans rights

· Self ID is no longer allowed, meaning every step of transition is medicalised and involves the trans person having to prove that they are “trans enough” at every stage to panels of cis people

· Government wants to invalidate non-enrolled deed polls, essentially making available a public list of every trans person in the UK

· Hate crimes have quadrupled

· Anti-trans campaigners are now setting their sights on trans adults’ access to hormones

· A petition was formed to counter this and was reviewed by the government, who determined that nothing was wrong with the GRA except that it might have been a bit lax.

· The Guardian newspaper ran child labour and child starvation supporting stories

· Internal border now along the border of Kent and lorry drivers must produce travel papers (Brexit Passport) to cross it, placing the county of Kent in a state of “no man’s land”

· Government fails to lockdown on time, every time

· Government refuses to ban conversion therapy in the UK

· Scotland adopts Human Rights of Children, which requires the government to better support children and families, especially those who are poor, disabled, minorities or young carers. England does not

· The government declared that sleeping rough is now grounds for deportation

· Schools reopened several times despite being warned not safe to do so

· The government banned NHS workers from speaking out about COVID

· Do Not Resuscitate orders proposed for those in care homes, with learning disabilities and who are autistic

· The government cut pensions as the COVID death toll rose

· The government learnt about new South-East COVID strain in September and didn’t come forwards until December

· New COVID strain targets kids, teens, and young adults, and yet none of those groups are allowed vaccination unless a serious pre-existing condition is had, even if they are key workers

· Downing Street says UK should be model of racial equality because government report says no institutional racism in the UK

· Report also says young people are young and foolish for thinking it exists and that minorities are superstitious and irrational and are sabotaging themselves out of success

· It came out that the government was given the independent report and rewrote it to the version that was released to the public – the version that says racism doesn’t exist in the UK

· The rewritten report also refers to the slave trade as the “Caribbean experience”, like those enslaved were on holiday

· Woman in London abducted, murdered and dismembered by off-duty cop and when socially distanced vigil goes ahead, police wait until dark before trapping women, arresting them, using excessive force on them, and also destroying memorial

· Bill passed in government that allows undercover officers to commit serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape

· Plainclothes police to now patrol nightclubs and bars due to aforementioned murder by police officer

· Bill passed that bans any protest at all, no matter how quiet, unobstructive or small it is, including single-person protests. Bill also includes a 10 year sentence for damaging a statue, which is a longer sentence than for rape

· TV programmes critical of the government have been cancelled

· Universities have been told what to platform and schools have been told what to teach, including banning material speaking about BLM and calling for “overthrow” of capitalism

· Voting has been supressed, mainly those who are working class or POC

· During protests in Bristol, press was assaulted and pepper sprayed by police and two legal observers were arrested

· Being Roma/Traveller and living the traditional Roma/Traveller lifestyle is now illegal under that same bill that bans protests. They also have to register as such and receive a licence or risk losing their vehicles

· Hours before Eid, lockdown across the UK with no warning whatsoever, meaning people woke up the next morning after visiting relatives to find themselves “criminals”. The country was opened up specifically for Christmas though

· Conservative (right wing) party blamed BAME (Black And Minority Ethnic) communities for dying of COVID more than white people

· Landlords have been protected extensively and renters blamed for living in close quarters or having to take public transport to work

· Conservatives have launched investigation into possible corruption in Liverpool Council. Liverpool is a Labour stronghold and if corruption is found then the Conservatives can seize control of the council. No evidence of corruption is present as of yet

· Military threatened to stage a coup if Corbyn (then head of the labour party) became Prime Minister

· Government orders all government buildings in England, Wales and Scotland to fly the Union Flag every day to boost patriotism

· MPs call for the curriculum to require teaching the history of the Union Flag rather than Britain’s many atrocities

· The first fortnight of April saw a mini heatwave with temperatures up to 20°C immediately followed by snow, and this is ignored in favour of debating “vaccine passports” in order to visit the pub

· UK allows for international summer holidays despite being warned it will cause a third wave, such as the situation in Germany

· Government placed asylum seekers arriving in the UK in army barracks where they were to sleep 24 to a room with no open windows or air circulation, and when COVID inevitably ran rampant, the Home Secretary accused the asylum seekers of not following COVID protocol, such as social distancing

· Several accounts of self-harm and suicide attempts were reported from the asylum barracks and were dismissed

· UK to deport unaccompanied minor asylum seekers

· UK refuses entry into the UK for radicalised teen failed by system who joined ISIS. Case is difficult and controversial because teen wishes to return to the UK temporarily to fight for her citizenship after the UK broke international law by stripping it from her, despite her not having dual citizenship. Argument given was that her parents were from Bangladesh and so she could apply for citizenship there. Bangladesh refused. Teen is now stateless and living in a refugee camp after losing several children, unable to fight for her citizenship to be reinstated.

· Rioting in Northern Ireland, which included the first use of water cannons in 6 years, a bus being hijacked and burnt, a press photographer attacked, and people throwing bricks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police, not to mention some of the clashes happening over a peace wall in west Belfast, completely ignored in British media and then later drowned out by non-stop news of Prince Phillip’s death, obscuring any important news from being heard. Riots were over Northern Ireland’s being a part of the UK

· MPs take vote on whether China’s treatment of Uighurs constitutes genocide. They decide it does, but that it isn’t their job to do anything further

· Home Office released their spending for the 2020 fiscal year. It’s a mess, including over £77,000 at an eyebrow salon in March alone, and £6,000+ in Pollyanna Restaurant which doesn't appear to exist.

· When people started questioning the spending, the Home Office sent a tweet fact checking themselves

· Country reopened over the summer for Eat Out To Help Out, a scheme to boost the economy. COVID cases rose sharply and the government then blamed people, but mostly working class people, for not following restrictions such as only leaving the house when absolutely necessary, after telling them it was safe

· Foreign NHS workers denied COVID vaccinations

· GCSEs and A-Levels were cancelled due to COVID-19 and expected exam grades were to be used instead. Private school students received grades much higher than they were expecting, and state school students received grades much lower, some grades falling as far as an A to an E. This was because the government couldn’t imagine state school students being smart enough to receive the high grades they were predicted to get; after much uproar the grades were scrapped, and a new method was introduced

· BBC offered staff grief counselling following Prince Philip’s death, but not after having to report on the ever-rising COVID death toll

· The COVID-19 Infection Survey closed in mourning for Prince Philip, with workers to contact participants to reschedule visits for “as soon as possible” when they return to work

· Census workers told to pack up and go home and were placed on immediate unpaid leave due to the death of Prince Philip, but told they must make up the hours later

· Conservative MPs lobbied for a new royal yacht after voting to keep schoolchildren hungry (see first points)

· The BBC’s complaint page crashed over the amount of complaints they got of their coverage of Prince Philip’s death. It was covered non-stop for over 24 hours and the page came in at over 100,000 complaints before going down

· BBC also fast becoming politically biased despite their requirement to be apolitical, after cutting out the audience laughing at Boris Johnson on Question Time, displaying Corbyn as a communist figure in front of a prominent piece of Russian architecture, and providing a platform for a Conservative MP to tell a stage 4 bowl cancer patient that her life wasn’t valuable on live television

· On the COVID-19 pandemic, the BMJ, (British Medical Journal) said about the government that “science was being suppressed for political and financial gain” by “some of history’s worst autocrats and dictators”

· Not only did Boris Johnson launch Eat Out To Help Out when he was warned it was dangerous, lifted lockdowns too early when he was warned it was too dangerous, reopened schools when he was warned it was too dangerous, but when scientists said the second COVID jab should be delivered within 3 weeks he decided that was too tall an order and it should be within 12 weeks – after a period of radio silence, suddenly the science fit his plan. No scientists came forwards to defend it

· The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, blamed protestors for protests that became violent from police attacking protestors, bullied staff members under her, bought members of staff in her department, said it was “disgraceful” to topple the statue of Edward Colson, a slave trader, in Brighton because it undermined anti-racism protests, held treasonous meetings with Israel with the plan to divert aid money, and threatened to starve Ireland in order to get them to agree to Brexit

· She also wants to set up Australian-style asylum processing centres on British islands, but the islands she wants are in the Atlantic ocean and over 4000 miles away from the UK. This is because she wants to help asylum seekers enter the UK legally, completed ignoring or oblivious to all the reasons that asylum seekers might not be able to do that, and for the fact that to seek asylum you must essentially walk up the border and ask for it

· The bungling of the Track and Trace system – the government spent £10bn on a system to track and trace the spread of COVID-19. All data was stored on an Excel spreadsheet which developed a technical glitch and many results were lost before the system was scrapped

· As Autism Acceptance month began, the BBC ran a story saying the autism causes fascism, and that an autistic person who had chosen to embrace the ideology was incapable of seeing that a neo-Nazi group he joined was morally bad because he was autistic

[gatheringbones]

Denise Kulp, “On Working with My Brothers: Why a Lesbian Does AIDS Work.” Off Our Backs, vol. 18, no. 8, 1988, pp. 22–22:

["A few weeks ago, on my day off, I got up early, jumped in the car, drove to another part of the city, and went to a demonstration. A little while later, I grabbed the hand of a man who has been my best friend in the world for twelve years, and the hand of a woman who has become a close friend over the last several months, and ran out into the street. Six people went with us. We sat, holding hands and chanting, for over three hours. And then we were arrested. It was my first act of civil disobedience. I was arrested for demonstrating about AIDS.

It seems strange that it's taken me so long to be arrested. I've spent twelve years being politically active, and there have been many actions and issues about which I've felt strongly enough to consider CD, but I've always decided it was inconvenient. But when the idea of committing this CD arose, I decided immediately. I planned ahead to take the day off. I made financial arrangements. I made sure at least one other woman would get arrested with me (and there were four of us, finally). And then I did it. 

I come to my work as an AIDS activist full of anger, and with a long-held commitment to change. Recently I had a disagreement with a gay man who said that action born of anger was ineffective, while action born of love was positive. My position is that people I love are dying, and that makes me angry. I am making my anger powerful by turning it into action, to change the way things are. And the people I love are dying. At least part of my definition of feminism is that I love women. And AIDS is killing women. Especially it is killing black women. And it is killing prostitutes, who are being blamed for spreading AIDS into the heterosexual community when in fact they are more likely to get it than to pass it on. 

But I came to AIDS work through my concern for gay men. I have never called myself a separatist, and the major reason for that is because I love gay men. Part of the reason I love them is because so many of them were kind to me when I was coming out. I've always felt a kinship with gay men, an understanding; and I've always responded to a certain joy in life which many of the men I've known have shared. But the primary reason for my love of gay men is the very significant relationship I've had with Tim. We have been each other's closest friend since we were seventeen. We give each other emotional support; we hold each other; we cry; we laugh, a lot. We want to have a child together. The thought of Tim dying, of anything happening to him, terrifies me. And so the threat of AIDS, originally, was brought home to me in a very personal way. But it didn't stay personal. It expanded to the whole community of gay men. And then, of course, it expanded past that. 

For the most part, I work on AIDS with gay men and lesbians. I share ideas, energy, and politics with gay men, and I have not had conversations with other friends about my work, but I've heard what they've said. (I am much happier when my friends talk to me). There seems to be a concern that women, feminists, lesbians especially, are going to forget about doing "our" own work and give most of our energy to gay men. There seems, further, to be some concern that in the focus on AIDS, lesbian issues and concerns are going to be waylaid, forgotten, buried. There seems, in fact, to be anger and resentment about this, and a belief that when it turns out that when lesbians are up against a wall, gay men will just walk away and forget all about us. They've never really been concerned with our issues anyway, right? What makes us (lesbians who work on AIDS issues) think gay men will change? 

Okay. Fine. I never said that all gay men are non-sexist and perfect (although I do think Tim is perfect). I never said that I expected all relationships between gay men and lesbians to change over night. But I will say other things.

First off, why do we say that gay men never cared about our issues? We seem to be thinking of gay men as a monolith (which is almost as bad as thinking of them generically, as I have, above). There have always been some gay men who have understood and supported our issues, as there have also been gay men who have totally different politics, as there have always been Lesbians who don't agree with "our" politics. (Now who's the monolith?) (And besides, don't you believe there are lesbian anti-abortion Reagan supporters?) But, more importantly, when have we asked gay men to support our issues? Almost every political group I've been a member of has been women only. We haven't wanted men involved. We've wanted to develop our own sense of power, our own way of doing politics. Men, if they like, can do child care at women only events. But we want our own space. There are all things I support.  But we can't really expect gay men to understand lesbian issues unless we take the time to explain, and to ask for their support. We haven't done that.

There is an assumption that because some lesbians are working on AIDS issues with gay men that we are giving all our energy, emotional, political energy only to gay men. This isn't true. Women are dying. WOMEN ARE DYING. When I do political work, I think of the gay men I know who have died, the men I know now who have AIDS, of the friends of my friends. But I also think of the seventeen year old black prostitute who died blind, who was the buddy of a friend of mine. I remember that there are recorded cases of lesbian-to-lesbian transmission. I know who's dying. And I know that it's because of who was dying first that so little government money has been spent on this disease, that it has taken so long for people to be concerned. Public hysteria didn't start when faggots were dying; it started out when we found out AIDS passes through blood, and that straight men can die too. And when faggots started dying, it was other faggots, and some lesbians, and some straight women who took care of them. I feel fine about giving my energy to those faggots. I'm just mad it took me so damn long.

Will those gay men stand up for me when lesbians are against the wall? Yes. I am trusting them. I look at these men I'm working with, and I see a facilitator who actually tries to facilitate, men who support an anti-sexist, anti-racist statement as soon as it's suggested, men who want to be told when they do or say something sexist, men who choose a lesbian as a spokesperson when they go to trial, men who actually listen to the lesbians they're working with because maybe these women have some more political experience than they do. Yes, I am trusting these men.

I look at the lesbian and gay movement as it has developed over the last twenty years, and I see it as dichotomized. There is the mainstream lesbian and gay movement— Democrats and Republicans, task forces, advocates, defense funds, and campaign funds— and I see it as a meeting place where lesbians and gay men come together, but as a place where mostly men are involved. More men have traditionally been invested in that game. But right-on radical lesbians have played that game, too. (Heavens, I even dated one!) (Wait! I think I was one!) It's one way of doing things, and it gets things done— anti-discrimination laws, for example, at least sometimes, at least some places.

And then there's "our" movement, the lesbian-feminist one. We're national, certainly, but more grass-roots, or even closer to the ground/land. And we have always been more radical. We have a different culture, a different vision, an analysis. In college I did a big paper on the gay rights movement, and I remember feeling so superior when I realized that lesbians have a theory (tons of them, actually) and gay men don't. Historically, lesbians and gay men have looked at the world separately and differently. We haven't tried to engage them in our struggle, and they haven't a clue about how to engage us in theirs. But a lot of things are changing that, and AIDS is one of them. If we can keep down the barriers that some of us are breaking through, maybe, when the immediate crisis is over, we can work together, carefully, to a new place.

Like I said, I'm trusting the gay men.”]

[jeannereames]

Would Alexander and Hephaistion have been openly affectionate? I understand that physical affectionate isn't necessarily indicative of romantic/sexual connection, and that back then men often kissed and hugged without it meaning anything, had they, would it have been picked up on? Sidenote: do you think any of the other generals may have had affairs with eachother and been in love? People aren't pottery, and it's hard to believe that Alexander and Hephaistion were the only 'unconventional' ones.

The ancient Greeks, not unlike modern Greeks, were enormously affectionate, although “who” and “where” mattered. Greek men who’re strangers don’t kiss each other on the cheek, but family and close friends do. Women are a little freer.

In antiquity, Alexander and Hephaistion would almost certainly have been openly affectionate both physically and verbally … quite apart from any sexual relationship, as you noted.

THAT’S IMPORTANT. In order to understand the right social cues, we have to understand “normal” interaction for the culture and time. It keeps us from “reading into” behaviors because there’s a cultural difference (then getting mad when accused of doing just that).

Of course EVERYbody in all times and places, think and behave Just Like Me.

(Gag)

Maybe I’m in my “piss off everybody” mood tonight, but really, this is a personal pet peeve with me over non-specialist assumptions about ancient cultures. Just because you think so-and-so is doing so-and-so because—OBVIOUSLY…. Um… how much do you know about that culture to issue pronouncements from on high?

Some human behaviors and gestures are pretty universal. A smile is a smile all over the world. A scrunched up angry face and closed fists usually means RUN all over the world. But giving somebody a victory sign or just waving in “thank you” to the nice taxi driver who let you cut in could go really badly for you, depending on where you are in the world.

So yeah. Here’s my warning. Greek men were openly affectionate, both physically and verbally. Don’t assume close friends holding each other are gay for each other. That’s exactly WHY it’s so hard to be sure Alexander and Hephaistion were lovers. Pronouncements of love and deep affection didn’t indicate sexual attraction. At all.

As for other generals (marshals might be a better term for the highest ranking)…we just don’t have the evidence. I can say that if Alexander and Hephaistion were still active lovers (as opposed to lovers as teens in the past), they would be highly atypical. I think it possible they were.

But again…highly atypical.

Other marshals likely had “boyfriends” (e.g., eromenoi) who were younger than them, possibly even under their command. That was normal. “Younger” might not even be by that much. But with each other? No, I don’t find any such evidence in the sources. Remember, most ANY such male-male relationship was unequal. POWER mattered. Between Alexander and Hephaistion there WAS a hierarchy. Alexander was king; Hephaistion wasn’t. But between other generals, such hierarchies were fluid, unless between, say, Parmenion and one of his understudies. But I find that unlikely. Remember after about 30, Greek/Macedonian men were expected to settle down and get married, or, if on campaign, settle on a mistress. Men still “chasing cute twinks” after 35-/40 would be looked down on for sure. They saw attraction as a progression from stage to stage, as one aged, even if we might not today.

So I’m afraid I DO think Alexander and Hephaistion were “onlies.” At that level, power was too precarious. If you want to delve down further in army hierarchy, you might find other lower officers more coeval in age who formed bonds.

But among the Marshals? No. Too competitive/combative. This is why I warn people not to “backread” later conflicts into earlier times. Ptolemy and Perdikkas HATED each other in the Era of the Diadochoi. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been drinking buddies 5 years earlier. Same with Hephaistion and Krateros. In fact, I kinda suspect an alliance to take down Philotas earlier. Two years (and Hephaistion’s elevation) later, they pulled swords on each other.

Remember, these guys are SHARKS. Alexander is the just Great White. Don’t make them “nice.” They’re manifestly not.

[neverdoingmuch]

a superhero au from this ask.

okay so in this au superheroes join different sects as disciples and go through a superhero training program and then if they pass they become official superheroes for the sect

for the most part things stay the same, your good guys go out and defeat evil and save the day but there’s also a bunch of extra stuff bc they’re in a sect

the extra stuff is mostly legal stuff like if you destroy a building in a fight, who pays for it and what happens if a superhero goes rogue, who stops them?

so the sects are good bc they give that security and also make sure things run smoothly, so you don’t end up with three superheroes in the one area

obviously you still have independent superheroes but they usually get picked up by a sect pretty quickly (or join the wens who are just the bad guys i guess but shh they’re hiding it,, badly)

for the most part though, new heroes realise they can’t cut it and quit

notice the most, because there are a few people who don’t, including people like the yiling patriarch 

so, worldbuilding aside, let’s start with lwj

bc we still have sects, lwj and lxc both went through the training program together and even graduated a few years early, meaning they debuted pretty young

they were both way too powerful to actually be needed in the field most of the time so lxc ended up helping his uncle and lwj started teaching at the training program (and even when he is needed, it’s usually enough just to send lxc, so he hasn’t been active in like five years)

life is going pretty okay for lwj but then there’s a fight between some wens and yllz and a building ends up being destroyed - lwj’s apartment building

at first he’s like whatever i’ll just stay at a hotel till it gets fixed but then he gets told that there’s some issue with the building regulations so it’ll be more than a year

lwj goes apartment hunting and ends up finding the perfect apartment. it’s spacious and convenient and looks really nice and the only drawback is his neighbour (spoiler: it’s wwx)

now we have wwx

he used to be a disciple with the jiang sect and was on track to graduate their training program probably even younger than the twin jades but then he dropped out suddenly. no one knows why 

what happened was that wwx had befriended wen ning at an intersect meeting thing where the training heroes could compete against each other 

when wen ning found out the truth about the wens being evil, he begged wen qing to take their family and leave the wens to get to safety. wen qing refused bc who would they go to? who would risk everything they had to keep them safe?

wei wuxian would. 

and he did!! when he found out what the wens had gone through, he immediately quit the jiang sect and spent the next four years helping them go in hiding, making fake identities etc. 

the only people who refused to leave were wen qing and wen ning and a-yuan so wwx was like i’ve done my best now we gotta live and ends up buying an apartment for the four of them and gets a job

at night he goes out as yllz and tries to bring the wens down. it’s slow-going at first and he’s just busting minor crimes and not really gathering any useful information but he keeps going bc a-yuan and the others will never be safe for as long as the wens are able to keep hurting people

he works a full-time job during the day and spends his nights fighting crime and he’s always tired and sore but it’s fine because he needs to do this but then one day his new neighbour moves in next door

the first time he meets him, he’s come back from work and by the time he bakes a welcome cake it’s like 10:40 and he goes over and knocks on his neighbour’s door and the guy eventually answers and holy fuck he’s hot (also grumpy bc lwj does not appreciate being woken up)

lwj slams the door in his face without even taking it from him, so wwx just leaves it on his doorstep and goes back home to nap for a few hours before going on patrol

the next day when he gets home from work there’s a letter in front of his door and when he opens it it just says thanks for the cake it was very delicious if unnecessary

wwx writes on the back: it’s all fine! i’m glad you liked it. if you need any help settling in, i’d be more than happy to help. he adds his phone number and then he leaves the note on lwj’s door and that’s where it all starts

the next morning he wakes up to a text from lwj saying that he appreciates the offer & his name. it’s short and kind of rude but wwx is lying there going lan zhan, lan zhaaaan, his name is lan zhan 

they run into each other in the morning a few times and take the elevator down together and wwx always chatters at him. lwj doesnt really respond but he doesn’t tell him to shut up either so that’s practically permission

and wwx is no idiot. he knows that hot neighbour + texting ability = potential romance so he makes sure to text lwj a lot 

and by a lot, i mean a lot. lwj is sitting in a meeting with his brother and by the time he finishes he has fifty new messages

but that’s okay bc lwj kinda likes the attention he thinks? lwj’s neighbour is funny and cute 

and after a while, lwj starts responding properly. it’s not like he’s sending 50 messages back but he’s engaging wwx in conversation and sometimes they call and once, when wwx was coming back from work, lwj had invited him in for tea

when lwj realises that wwx goes to work early and gets home late he starts inviting wwx over for dinner. wwx doesn’t mention that wen ning is more than able to cook dinner (if he ever mentioned that he was living with him at all) and they start having dinner not-dates and sometimes wwx falls asleep on lwj’s couch

the first few times wwx always felt really guilty bc lwj doesn’t want to put up with that and he’s letting down the wens but wen qing is like no, it’s good, you need to take some time for yourself and lwj is like it’s fine so whatever, wwx can sleep on lwj’s couch now

except it’s not just lwj’s couch bc wwx keeps waking up leaning on lwj and it’s very embarrassing bc he’s starting to find that he has difficulties sleeping without being able to hear lwj’s heartbeat 

so wwx is falling in love. wen ning is supportive and wen qing is probably laughing at him but wwx is so conflicted

on one hand, wwx’s entire life revolves around the wens and trying to stop them or protect them, and here lwj is, a completely normal man, who has no expectations about wwx. he doesn’t need to be a guardian for lwj, he doesn’t need to be the terrifying yiling patriarch, he can just be wwx

on the other hand, lwj is a civilian and wwx doesn’t want to drag lwj down with him and risk him getting hurt or killed

so he decides to stay as friends. he won’t give lwj up but he won’t tell him he loves him (unless something happens to make wwx need to give lwj up, in which case he will)

around this time lwj gets a call from his uncle asking for help with the yllz

he’s never met him before but lwj does not like the yllz 

like yes he’s taking down the wens which probably makes him good but he’s also taking what the wens had stolen for himself

so no one knows whether he’s a villain stealing from the wens or a hero who doesn’t trust the official means

Either way it’s a bad look for lwj & co bc they either look incompetent for not knowing about this guy & not being able to stop him or untrustworthy and maybe even corrupt 

but lqr wants lwj to either bring him in as a disciple or as a criminal. whichever is easier

the first time hanguang-jun shows up to a fight wwx is completely shocked bc he vaguely remembers seeing hanguang-jun fight at the practise matches and he was good, definitely on par with wwx so if hanguang-jun were to fight him he isn’t sure that he’d win. 

wwx quickly finishes off the wens and then turns to lwj, refusing to let his guard down but hanguang-jun just asks what he’s doing

wwx is cagey at first but eventually reveals the truth (or as much as he can tell) and hanguang-jun is like i don’t like your methods but what you’re doing is just, so i’ll help you and so commences the most awkward team up ever

wwx had expected to have to carry most of the weight but hanguang-jun is there defending him and helping him fight the wens and he can’t help but start to trust hanguang-jun.

hanguang-jun blocks a hit meant for wwx and wwx spends like half an hour carefully cleaning the wound on his arm and bandaging it up and at the end he presses a kiss to it and he immediately goes bright red but it’s okay bc hgj’s ear are red too

wwx slips on a roof and hgj ends up catching him and damn he’s strong and the look of concern on his face is almost making wwx think hgj doesn’t hate him

hgj brings in some intel once and wwx automatically goes damn i could kiss you right now and then decides to just become one with the floor

not only that but wwx talks a lot. when he’s patrolling, when he’s fighting, when he’s waiting,, he never shuts up and hanguang-jun listens to him every time and, just as wwx fell for lwj, he starts falling for hanguang-jun

it’s even worse in this case bc hanguang-jun is all righteous and good and here wwx is using the superhero equivalent of demonic cultivation (has he perverted his own powers or did he always have necromancy powers? up to you)

so here wwx is falling in love with hanguang-jun and lwj and he feels terrible about it

there is definitely a case going on in the background but it’s basically just the sunshot campaign if only lwj and wwx were fighting it for the most part

eventually he complains to wq about his feelings and she’s like just try confessing! so the next time he and hanguang-jun team up he tells him that he loves him

 lwj is 100% in love wwx and semi in love with yllz. for the most part, the things he loves about yllz all remind him of wwx so he doesn’t really see it as a crush as much as more yearning for wwx

but lwj is very awkward so he gives this kinda terrible rejection? he’s like im sorry, i don’t return your feelings maybe we should work apart for a while?

from his pov he’s giving yllz room to deal w/ his emotions alone and they’ll team up later but from wwx’s pov hanguang-jun is so disgusted he never wants to work with him again

so they go their separate ways and when wwx gets a tip-off about some weird shit about to go down at nightless city so he sneaks in by himself bc hanguang-jun definitely wouldn’t want to help him and ends up getting captured by wen ruohan

lwj, for his part, is freaking out bc wwx hasn’t responded to his texts in over a week and maybe he’s come on too strong and wwx has figured out his feelings and is letting him down gently? (by disappearing??)

but then wq comes banging on his door and asks to come in. he lets her in and she immediately tells him i know you’re hanguang-jun

lwj is defensive and ready to be blackmailed or something but she just explains that wwx has gone missing and he’d received a tip the day before he disappeared and when lwj sees the message wwx had got he’s just like why is wwx involved with the wens?

because he’s yllz, wen qing tells him and lwj is Buffering

reason 1: yllz wasn’t meant to be someone he liked and lwj had definitely been feeling guilty about the fact that he would need to be brought in bc he is morally dubious on main & he can’t reconcile that with the sweet and kind wwx 

reason 2: holy shit does wwx like me?

bc lwj is a disaster he only ends up asking about the latter and wq stares at him, dead-eyed and exhausted, and tells him wwx is in love with lwj and hanguang-jun

commence lwj’s plan to get wwx back and confess to him and hopefully get married but he’ll be happy if they just kiss and/or hold hands

 he starts off by explaining most of the stuff to his brother who ends up calling jyl (bc they have to be friends, i’ll cry if they’re not) who is like my brother?!! and decides to help. also probably nhs bc friends who share porn definitely save each other from wen ruohan

so they attack the wens. for most of the heroes it’s bc they finally have proof of wen ruohan being evil (helpfully collated in a colour-coordinated binder by wwx) but lwj is just there for wwx

he finds him in the dungeons or something and wwx is hurt kind of badly and lwj collapses beside him and presses down on the main wound, trying to stop the bleeding

and wwx goes hanguang-jun? what are you doing here? and lwj says nothing just pushing down harder bc he’s losing too much blood and wwx is like oh, do you hate me that much that you won’t even speak to me anymore?

lwj can’t bear it for another second and rips his mask off and wwx just gawks at him. lan zhan? you’re hanguang-jun? wwx stammers and lwj just nods and rips some fabric from his cape (would he have a cape?) and tries to bandage the wound

wwx asks him why he’s here, why he bothered to come for wwx when he doesn’t care for him but he passes out before lwj can actually say anything

he wakes up in hospital and lwj is sleeping in the chair beside him and the second wwx twitches he jolts up and stares at wwx with such relief that wwx wants to blush

i love you, lwj says, not waiting for another second. the reason i didnt accept your confession was because i loved you. i didnt know you were yllz 

and wwx is like and i didnt know you were hanguang-jun!! and lwj is like yeah but wen qing did /:

and wwx is like yeah but she’s smart & they kinda fall quiet for a few moments before wwx is like did you know i think hanguang-jun is very handsome and lwj is like yes? and wwx is like good! lwj is also handsome!

and lwj is like yllz and wwx are attractive to me and they finally kiss and it’s not a complete disaster thankfully

after that lwj goes back to his semi-retirement bc he doesn’t need to catch yllz anymore and sometimes wwx comes in to help teach a class with him and they’ll go home to lwj’s apartment after and watch movies together and not once do they comment on the miscommunication between love interests