beroli - Tumblr blog

[beroli]

Unironically, vegans need to be advocating for more and better sheep, llama, and alpaca farms. Wool is one of the best fabrics we have in terms of versatility, longevity and most importantly, insulation. Even wet, it retains 80% of it's insulation potential.

AND IT DOESN'T SHED MICROPLASTICS

[beroli]

I’m dubious about this new queen

I am now envisioning a parody version of Pirates of Penzance where, at the end, the cop says "Surrender in the name of King Charles!" and the pirates hesitate for ten seconds...and then the pirate king says "Nah!" and they slaughter the police.

[beroli]

i think the world doesn’t know what it really means to live in a theocratic dictatorship. Let me tell you about our experiences living in the islamic regime of iran.

1. Your parents were born to muslim parents so they’re automatically muslim. You’re automatically a muslim too. You didn’t choose your religion and you can’t opt out of it or you will be executed.

2. The compulsory hijab law makes you a criminal if you choose not to wear hijab even tho you didn’t choose to be a muslim and you don’t consider yourself a muslim but the regime has forced you into that role whether you like it or not. And when you ‘break that law’, they can do with you as they please.

3. little girls as young as 7 yrs old are forced to wear hijab at school even tho the islam itself says the age is 9. and all the schools are gender segregated so imagine how they force you to get used to hijab even when you’re just surrounded by other girls. And all day long at school they tell you horrible stories about what will happen to you in hell if someone sees even a strand of your hair.

4. the regime modifies all the textbooks, story books, cartoons and movies to represent the ideal woman with full on hijab. The iranian media is ordered to photoshop every photo of a woman that may be showing a little skin. And if they’re iranian, no hair is supposed to be seen or that will be photoshopped away. Women are mostly excluded from billboards and tv commercials.

5. imagine going to work or meeting up with a friend when suddenly the morality police kidnap you in broad daylight and force you into a van to take you to a station where they will treat you like a criminal and if you don’t agree to get humiliated and do as they say, they will put you in prison. And in case of Mahsa Amini and so many more before her, they will beat you to death. My sister was barely 18 when she got kidnapped and they didn’t let her call home and she’d been so fucking scared and we had no idea where she was. Imagine all the psychological trauma.

6. If you’re in a car and not wearing hijab they will fine you and seize your car. So when u get into a taxi the driver will ask you to keep your hijab on otherwise they’ll get fined. And if you refuse they’ll ask you to get off the car.

7. And its not just about hijab. In Ramadan, they get even more vicious. If they catch you eating or even drinking water on the street they will give you lashes as punishment and even imprison you for breaking the law. If you work in a state-owned company it’s even worse. They will close the cafeteria and take away the water dispensers. All restaurants are banned from delivering food before iftar. It’s a fucking mess. Everyone has to pretend they’re fasting or they’ll be severely punished.

8. And how could I forget about this! iranian women are banned from singing! the islamic regime prohibits women’s singing voices to be heard by men so imagine the horror of having 50% of the population banned from ever becoming a singer. If they identify a female singer in iran, they will take her to jail and force her to repent her sins in the most humiliating way so that she will never dare sing again.

9. And every time the regime gets wind of a private gathering of men and women trying to have fun and live their fucking private lives, the police crash the party and take everyone to jail bc the Islamic regime bans iranian men and women from having fun.

So if you see Islam has become for many iranians a symbol of oppression and torture and discrimination, that’s why. The regime uses islam as a weapon to silence and punish anyone who opposes them. You can love islam all you want from the safety of your home in a free country and talk about how kind and benevolent the religion is, but in iran, it’s a whole different story.

Our economy is fucked. All govt officials are corrupt as fuck. Most websites are banned in iran. Even tumblr is banned. The world has cut the iranian ppl from many services. We don’t have intl credit cards like visa card. Amazon doesn’t do delivery to iran. We cant get netflix, spotify or even a gamepass subscription. we don’t get any Apple services here. iran isn’t listed as a country you could choose when signing up for a lot of services. and when we decide to leave iran and escape this hellhole, every country out there will make it sooo much harder for us to get a visa just bc we had the misfortune to be born in iran at the wrong time.

This is the story of iran for the past 44 years. Held hostage by a corrupt regime that uses religion to suppress and torture the people and being abandoned by the rest of the world bc our lives don’t matter.

Please be our voice. Once they shut down the internet completely and silence our voice, they will start slaughtering us to stifle the protests just like they did in 2019. Please help us. We want this fucking regime gone.

[beroli]

...And Now

...For Laura and me, those were the elements that truly defined Strahd von Zarovich--a selfish beast forever lurking behind a mask of tragic romance, the illusion of redemption that was ever only camouflage for his prey. Initially we were going to title the adventure Vampyr one of a series of games we called Nightventure that Laura and I were self-publishing back in 1978. The castle was called Ravenloft, and when Halloween came around each year, our friends asked us if we could play "that Ravenloft game" again ... and so the better title won out. It was, in part, because of this design that I was hired by TSR, Inc., to write DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures in 1982. Soon thereafter, 16 Ravenloft was published. Since then, fans of Ravenloft have seen many different creative perspectives on Barovia (a country which, by absolute coincidence, is featured in a 1947 Bob Hope movie called Where There's Life). It continues to be one of the most popular DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures of all time. In its various incarnations, each designer has endeavored to bring something new to the ancient legend of Strahd, and to each of them we are grateful.

But the vampire genre has taken a turn from its roots in recent years. The  vampire we so often see today exemplifies the polar opposite of the original archetype: the lie that it's okay to enter into a romance with an abusive monster because if you love it enough, it will change.

When Laura and I got a call from Christopher Perkins about revisiting Ravenloft, we hoped we could bring the message of the vampire folktale back to its original cautionary roots...

I would entirely sympathize with “people are treating or writing Strahd, this character we created, with a degree of sympathy that suggests they misunderstood the original character.” I roll my eyes at efforts to pretend that famous vampires like Dracula, Carmilla--and Strahd--can be divorced from sexual predation without ripping the core out of their myths. I have much less sympathy for “everyone must write vampires as one-dimensional monsters.” Twilight is, of course, the easiest of easy targets (and if there was any ambiguity in what Hickman was getting at, Tracy and Laura Hickman’s personal blog has an old post titled, “Will The Real Vampire Please Stay Dead?” with the caption, “VAMPIRES    real ones don’t sparkle...The End”), but older works than that have presented vampires who are not simply one-dimensional monsters. However, staying focused on this one vampire as Hickman really should have, Strahd is still the epic villain he was since he was introduced, right? Well...

The nature of Strahd’s curse and his existence were described in my last post. Strahd tried to own Tatyana because that’s the sort of person he is, alive or undead. Strahd made a pact with a mysterious entity which causes Tatyana to be brought back to him again and again, so he can fail to win her love, which is his obsession.

Curse of Strahd, on page 25, explains that Barovia is a closed system. Anyone who dies there is reincarnated. Any time an infant is born there without a formerly-dead-person’s soul waiting to inhabit the new body, that person simply has no soul, because an infant only has a soul if that soul is reincarnated from someone who died there. Tatyana is not specifically brought back because of her ties to Strahd, but reincarnated like everyone who dies in Barovia. Strahd is not obsessed with causing her to feel things for him that she never could; rather, he will tell PCs who ask that Tatyana’s soul belongs to him, and if the adventure ends with the PCs’ defeat and Tatyana’s current reincarnation without Strahd’s reach, he simply turns her into a vampire spawn and puts her in one of the crypts below Castle Ravenloft. In Vampire of the Mists, Strahd yells at his murder victim, blaming his actions on Sergei, and protests at the denouement that he loved Tatyana. In Curse of Strahd, “He feels neither pity nor remorse, neither love nor hate. He doesn't suffer anguish or wallow in indignation. He believes, and has always believed, that he is the master of his own fate. When he was alive, Strahd could admit to letting his emotions get the better of him from time to time. Now, as a vampire, he is more monster than man, with barely a hint of emotion left. He is above the concerns of the living. The only event that occasionally haunts him is the death of Tatyana, but his view of the past is bereft of romance or regret. In his mind, her death couldn't have been prevented, and what is done cannot be undone.“

Curse of Strahd describes Strahd as having made a pact with “the Dark Powers of the Shadowfel,” but it also features a section, in the Amber Temple, where the PCs can discover a number of vestiges, each offering boons at a terrible price. One of them offers the “dark gift of the Vampyr” to any humanoid creature of evil alignment, requiring that person to kill someone who loves them and drink their blood, and then be killed by someone who hates them, requirements the module writer unambiguously based on Strahd’s murder of Sergei and subsequent death at the hates of the castle guards. Thus is all the mystery dispelled. This version of Strahd did not accept a pact he did not realize would not give him his heart’s desire: far more prosaically, he followed a recipe to become immortal, knowing exactly what the result of his actions would be.

What kind of man was Strahd in life? In previous works he repeatedly says that he was good and just, but of course he is always an unreliable narrator.  In the Roots of Evil module, the PCs travel through time and briefly meet the living Strahd, whose listed stats describe him as Lawful Good, but this is only one interpretation. In Curse of Strahd, there is, again, no mystery: he is repeatedly described in omnipotent voice as a brutal conquerer, and, of course, his immortality recipe would never have been offered to him if he was not evil-aligned when he came to the Amber Temple.

The Fifth Edition D&D Monster Manual entry on vampires has this to say: “Whether or not a vampire retains any memories from its former life, its emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath. Love turns into hungry obsession, while friendship becomes bitter jealousy. In place of emotion, vampires pursue physical symbols of what they crave, so that a vampire seeking love might fixate on a young beauty.”

So are all the pieces of Strahd’s dark fate separated and laid out. He is a vampire, because he followed a specific formula of which the result is becoming a vampire. Tatyana is reincarnated over and over, because people who die in Barovia are. He is incapable of love not because of the all-consuming selfishness of the choices he made previously and reaffirms every day, but because vampires are. It seems clear to me that the whole which exists in portrayals of Strahd prior to Curse of Strahd was far more than the sum of the parts which exists in Curse of Strahd. Annoyance at a vampire having too few motivations caused Tracy and Laura Hickman to turn Random Encounter #34 into an epic villain. Annoyance at other people writing vampires with too many motivations caused them to turn an epic villain into Dungeon Boss #34.

[beroli]

Strahd von Zarovich: Then...

WE TURNED THE CORNER, AND THERE WAS a vampire. I groaned and rolled my eyes. It was 1978, and I was playing in one of my first dungeon adventures. It was being run by a friend I had known in high school, John Scott Clegg, and it was typical of the type of adventure that people played in those days. It was all about exploring a hodgepodge collection of rooms connected by dungeon corridors, beating up the monsters that we encountered, searching for treasure, and gaining experience points. Now we were face to face with random encounter number thirty-four: a vampire. Not a Vampire with a capital V, but a so-many-Hit-Dice-with-such-and-such-an Armor-Class lowercase vampire. Just another monster in the dungeon. I remember thinking at the time, What are you doing here? This creature  seemed completely out of place with the kobolds, orcs, and gelatinous cubes we had seen thus far. This was a creature who deserved his own setting and to be so much more than just a wandering monster. When I came home from that game, I told all these thoughts to Laura. That was when Strahd von Zarovich was born. Strahd would be no afterthought-he demanded his own setting, his own tragic history. Laura and I launched into researching the mythology and folklore surrounding the vampire... --Tracy Hickman, introduction to Curse of Strahd Module I6, Ravenloft, for first edition AD&D, was published in October of 1983. It introduced the tragic villain Strahd von Zarovich, who made a pact with a mysterious entity because he was obsessed with his brother’s fiancee. And it introduced his supporting cast, primarily his noble brother Sergei, and Tatyana, the object of Strahd’s obsession.

As the pact Strahd had made was elaborated, it was clear that Strahd’s inability to understand Tatyana--or most people--had caused him to accept an offer which had given him nothing he actually wanted, and at the same time, the entity had not actually tricked him. Rather, he had tricked himself. The terms of his pact with the entity stated that Sergei would be removed from his path and he would no longer age. The specific things he had to do for the pact--murder Sergei with his own hand and drink his blood--left no ambiguity to what “removed from his path” meant. The entity did not see fit to spell out to Strahd that Tatyana’s lack of interest in Strahd was not because of his age, or that she would be horrified and repulsed that he had murdered her fiance, things he had no excuse for not knowing. The entity also gave Strahd one more thing which was not in the explicit terms of their pact: Tatyana is reincarnated, over and over, with none of the memories of her previous lives, and Strahd can attempt to court her however he sees fit. In what few scenes she appeared in before dying, Tatyana demonstrated a Christ-like commitment to forgiving and understanding those who hurt her. Sergei admired her wisdom; Strahd was enraged by her naivety and believed Sergei was failing a moral duty in not “protecting” (that is, controlling) her. Long before he was a vampire, Strahd’s concept of “love” for Tatyana included no respect whatsoever.

And so his curse was elegantly simple in its inescapability. Strahd might be able to win Tatyana’s love, or at least her forgiveness, if he was able to understand her at all; he does not understand her well enough to realize that he doesn’t understand her. Strahd could have redemption if he ever acknowledged he chose to do horrible things for selfish reasons; he never will. For generations  of  D&D players, Strahd has been an epic and compelling villain. (There are also novels with Strahd, but this post is long enough already and I think the multiple interpretations present in them muddy the waters somewhat, so I’m focusing on game content here.)

[beroli]

reblog this if your blog is a safe space on april fools and won’t have any jumpers, screamers, or anything scary or anxiety inducing

[beroli]

BOOST!

[beroli]

he said what he said

[beroli]

If you are American, PLEASE SUPPORT THE SSI RESTORATION ACT OF 2021

This new bill has been introduced in both the house and the Senate.

Among other things, it will:

Raise the monthly disability income by just over 30 percent - bringing it to poverty level.

Remove penalties for recieving financial help from friends and family.

Increase the amount of assets a disabled person may have from $2,000 to $10,000 (this hasn’t been updated since 1989)

Update outside income restrictions to allow disabled people to receive up to $399 a month without reducing their benefits.

REWARD, not penalize, people who want to receive additional income while on social security income.

REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT THIS WILL REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN

For those unaware current regulations do a lot to oppress disabled people. In fact marriage equality doesn’t even extend to disbled people who risk having their benefits reduced or outright taken away if they marry someone. This means that in common law states disabled people can’t even live with their significant other or they risk losing their financial independence.

Current regulations mean that if you’re disbled you can’t have so much as one penny over $2,000 to your name. So buying a car and gaining more independence or freedom is largely out of the question for disabled people.

Current regulations penalize social security recipients who receive income from outside sources, even if those sources are reimbursement. Did you get paid to babysit for a few hours? That’s income, and you get your benefits reduced. Did you loan a friend $10 and they pay you back? The government considers that $10 income, and you get your benefits reduced.

These aren’t mere anecdotes - these are all examples of actual things that have happened to disbled people I know, and if you have any disabled friends in your life I’m sure they can tell you the same stories.

If you value marriage equality, if you value financial independence, if you value the rights of disbled people, please PLEASE support this bill! Contact your reps, vote, and make noise! This is a great thing!

[beroli]

Every Attack on the Poor Must Embolden Our Agitation! | June 20th Promo *CC

https://www.june2020.org/

[beroli]

Would also be really annoying if they wore heat resistant gloves to throw back the hot tear gas canisters and if this got shared to all those protesting…

[beroli]

“A police riot is a riot carried out by the police; a riot that the police are responsible for instigating, escalating or sustaining as a violent confrontation; an event characterized by widespread police brutality; a mass police action that is violently undertaken against civilians for the purpose of political repression.”

[beroli]

FLINT: Sheriff joins protest, chants of “Walk with us!” #WalkWithUs #Geo…

[beroli]

History was full of the bones of good men who’d followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.

Terry Pratchett, Jingo (via jabberwockypie)

[beroli]

Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist

Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly.  They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

 God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.

  Wish fulfillment characters have been around since the beginning of time. The good guys tend to win, get the girl and have everything fall into place for them. It’s only when women started doing it that it became a problem.

TV Tropes on the origin of Mary Sue:

The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment.

Notice the strange emphasis on female here. TV Tropes goes on to say that is took a long time for the male counterpart “Marty Stu” to be used. “Most fanfic writers are girls” is given as the reason. So when women dominate a genre, that means people are on close watch, ready to scorn any wish fulfillment they may engage in. This term could only originate if the default was female.

 In fact, one of the CONTROVERSIES listed on the TV Tropes page is if a male sue is even possible. That’s right, it’s impossible to have an idealized male character. Men are already the ideal.

 In our culture, male tends to be the default. Women take on the distaff parts. “Him” and “mankind” are what humanity are, “her” and “womankind” are secondary. Yet this isn’t true for Mary Sue as a term. That name was created first. It was a Star Trek fic that coined it and the female designation was likely a big reason it caught on. Thus, a female name is the default to use when describing idealized characters. Marty Stu and Gary Stu are only to be used if you’re discussing men specifically.  Heck, there isn’t even an agreed upon term for them. So the only time female can be default is when discussing a badly written character, someone who is more powerful or important or liked than they should be allowed to be, someone the plot focuses on more than you would like, someone you don’t want to read about. Hmmm.

 What’s really wrong with a thirteen year old girl having a power fantasy, even if it’s badly written?  Who is it hurting? Men have baldly admitted to writing power fantasies and self inserts since the beginning of time. How many nerdy, schlubby guys suddenly become badasses and have hot girls chasing after them in fiction? See: Spiderman- blatant everyman who happens to  stumble across amazing powers and catch the eye of a supermodel.  Mary Sue is considered the worst insult to throw at a character as it renders them worthless. But since when are idealized characters automatically worthless? Aren’t all heroes idealized in some way? Don’t all heroes represent the author in some way? Aren’t these characters supposed to be people we look up to, people who represent human potential, the goodness that we strive for? Fantasy by nature is idealized, even the tragic ones.

 If you look at the TV Tropes page for Mary Sue, it’s ridiculous. You can be a sue for having too many flaws, or not enough, for fixing things or messing things up, for being a hero or a villain. And of course, this is specifically pointed out as a trope related to the Princess and Magical Girl genres- genres aimed towards women are naturally full of Mary Sues.  Magical girls are powerful and heroic and actually flaunt femininity as a good thing. They are a power fantasy designed for girls. So of course, a girl using traditionally feminine traits to dominate and triumph means she’s a sickeningly pure Mary Sue who makes everything go their way. Feminine traits are disdained and look down on, so when the positive feminine traits are prominent, the reader has an aversive reaction. How can a character be so feminine and triumph? She must be unrealistic, she must be badly written, because everyone knows it is impossible to be feminine and powerful.

 Let’s look at what kinds of Mary Sues people will point to. People will claim a female character is a Mary Sue if she is a love interest. Put a female character within a foot of a male character, and people will scream “Mary Sue!” Why does someone falling in love with her make her a Mary Sue? Well, she hasn’t “earned” this awesome dude character’s love. What has she done to show she’s worthy of him? Fans miss the irony that this line of logic makes the male character seem more like the Sue in Question, as he’s apparently so perfect one has work for his coveted love and praise.

  The idea that woman has to “earn” any power, praise, love, or plot prominence is central to Mary Sue.  Men do not have to do this, they are naturally assumed to be powerful, central and loveable. That’s why it’s the first thing thrown at a female character- what has she done to be given the same consideration as a male character? Why is she suddenly usurping a male role? “Mary Sue” is the easiest way to dismiss a character. It sounds bad to say “I don’t like this female character. I don’t like that this woman is powerful. I don’t like it when the plot focuses on her. I don’t like that a character I like has affections for her.”  But “Mary Sue” is a way to say these things without really saying them. It gives you legitimacy.

 If a character is badly written, there’s generally something much more problematic than idealization going on. The plot will be dull and the character will perpetuate harmful stereotypes while other characters act oddly.  For instance, Bella Swan is one of the only characters I’d even begin to classify as a Mary Sue, yet it’s not really her supposed Mary Sue traits that bother me. I don’t mind that she gets what she wants and everyone loves her, that she’s Meyer’s power fantasy. What I actually mind is that Stephenie Meyer has her perpetuate harmful anti-woman stereotypes- women need to be protected, women are shallow, women’s worth rests in desirability. That’s what’s actually harmful about her and worth discussing. I would criticize that rather than even get to the fact Bella got to be “too perfect and powerful”- that’s just a tiny, insignificant thing not worth mentioning in a huge pile of problems.

 And that’s why I don’t call characters Mary Sue anymore. There’s really nothing bad about a power fantasy or wish fulfillment. It’s what’s fiction’s about.  If one of my characters is called a Sue, I’ll proudly say “yep”, because that must mean that she broke out of that box a female character is supposed to be in.  So I’ll go and say it: I love me some Mary Sues.

[beroli]

[beroli]