#I too am a slave under capitalism

[allastoredeer]

Not me making an outline for a fic, knowing it's going to be a fairly long one, and expecting 2,000-3,000 words tops (maybe 4,000 if I'm being detailed. 5,000 if I'm being SUPER detailed)

ONLY TO BE AT 7,000 WORDS AND STILL GOING

This is only supposed to be the outline. Not even the rough draft. I'm just putting down the most basic series of events the stories is going to follow, and I'm still hashing this thing out at 7,000 words. I haven't even reached the middle yet.

Fuck me and my natural inclination towards long and complex plots.

But goddamn am I having fun with this.

One day I'm going to figure out how to write sweet and simple one-shots. I'm going to figure out how to make a short story.

But until then, enjoy my gigantic, monstrosity of fanworks. If you have commitment issues, unfollow me now, cuz all of my shit is long-term.

[gallopinggallifreyans]

I would love to hear your opinions about ancient currency! And any recommendations you have for learning more about the Roman economy!

oh boy i am SO glad you asked! I'm going to put everything under a readmore because it's a Lot.

I have a few opinions on Greek coinage, specifically that of the introduction of coinage to Athens, though I'm working on a proposal for studying Spartan coinage rn.

Current publications re:Athens haven't really determined For Sure who introduced coins; it's a toss-up between Solon and Pisistratus but I'm in the Pisistratus camp for reasons that I can absolutely summarize in a separate post, as I've written and published a paper in my undergrad journal that (hopefully) holds weight in the current hodgepodge of thoughts. If you'd like that, I can write it up and link it here!

Re:Spartan coinage, I think the Spartan homoioi were real idiots. Most city-states were using silver (and very occasionally gold) for their coins, but Spartan homoioi were using iron spits. The spits (obeloi) were six to a drachma, which was the exchange rate for a long time. And by long time I mean there was no such thing as a floating conversion, coins were just the most portable form of precious metal, which was intrinsically valued. Outside Sparta (even the perioikoi) most city-states would have used ingots pre-coinage and that evolved into stamped metal, i.e. coinage. The Spartans considered themselves to be very religious and followed the Great Rhetra (unsure if Lykourgos existed), which maintained that silver and gold were holy and could not be used, so they used iron.

Unfortunately, the rest of Greece didn't follow that, and used silver in their coins, especially influenced by Attic-Ionian city-states who were in regular trade with Persia and further east, i.e. regions that valued precious metal outside their religious significance. Essentially, Spartans kinda screwed themselves over re:trade outside Sparta; they couldn't even trade in contemporary currency with the rest of Lakonia and forced their subject city-states into the same position. This is supported mostly by the explosion of Messenian and other Lakonian coinages after Sparta collapsed, though I want to see if I can find more text evidence, since I (an archaeologist) tend to rely too heavily on material. It's a whole thing, personally I believe this was a significant factor in Sparta's collapse, though other things factored in as well. Sparta was incredibly insular both in its trade/economy and religious practice and that combination led to its downfall.

For the Roman sources, I recommend starting with the Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy by Walter Scheidel, and The Ancient Economy by Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden. Von Reden has excellent articles related to the ancient economy in general, and most are available on JSTOR, so I recommend giving her stuff a look.

I also highly recommend reading Moses Finley's work The Ancient Economy (no relation to Scheidel and Von Reden's work), as it lays the foundation for much of our current school of thought. Peter Temin's subsequent work, The Roman Market Economy argues against Finley and kicks off a whole debate about how to define an economy without using capitalism as the basis, because capitalism as we know and define it did not exist then, and it is incorrect to assume that. We can call it protocapitalist, but not capitalist.

Slavery in Rome is a nuanced subject that is integral to learning about its economy — I suggest keeping an open mind and treading carefully with respect to post-1492 slave trades. Noel Lenski's chapter "Framing the Question" (linked; you need access through your institution) discusses the slave trade against a Finleyan model, while Scheidel (him again) talks about how to determine the wages of slaves (JSTOR link). W. V. Harris talks about the demography and geography of slaves here (JSTOR link). These three are good starts for learning about Roman slavery, but if you want more sources, I can pull some up for you.

I don't want to overload you with sources, so in general I'll recommend anything by Scheidel, Von Reden, Nicholas Purcell and Peregrine Horden (connectivity), Seth Bernard (coins and emissions), Astrid Van Oyen (tech innovation), and Willem Jongman (economic structure). As with the slavery sources, if you want direct links I can definitely find them for you! I'm always happy to share info :)

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

OK, uh, I am, like, writing this crack fic right now, don't worry about it too much, and I was looking back up the Meta Liberation Army thing...

And, uuuuuuuh...

Can we talk for a QUICK SECOND about the ideology of BNHA villains?

OK, like, I'm trying to do this thing in the fic, where I position the Meta Liberation Army and Humarise from the Movies as two diametrically opposed ideologies for obvious reasons, and Humarise is easy as shit to write, it's just a Death Cult who believes in what is, in universe, a fringe conspiracy theory by a disgraced quork scientist from 50+ years ago, an hypocritical one at that since none of their high ranking members are Quirkless despite advocating for Quirkless rights.

Anyway, in my fic they just finance the Shie Hassaikai for now, hence the gang not going under, and and will come into play later, but I had the bullheaded idea to also tackle the Meta Liberation Army immediately for added drama, you know, the parallels, and holy shit...

The MLA are Ancaps.

This is, and I can't stress this enough, the most charitable way I can read them.

Their entire ideology is essential unregulated freedom. Everyone should use the quirk the way they see fit, with no permits or licences, always. Basically the dissolution of the social contract they are currently living in.

This is also the ideology of the League of Villains mind you, but there is a big difference there.

ReDestro is a rich fucking businessman.

The three top leaders of the Army? One controls the biggest telecommunication company in the country (Modern Media) the other their biggest publisher (Traditional Media), and the third is a GODDAMN POLITICIAN.

Do we know... ANYTHING about the Political Leanings of the Hearts and Minds party in canon? Like, I assume they'd be advocating for ways to ensure Meta Liberation Army doctrine to be upheld right? Which means tax cuts for their allies, lessening in quirk regulations, I guess some Token Heteromorph support?

Keep in mind the only Heteromorph among the MLA top ranks, as well as the only woman, is also conventionally attractive. Like, I can DEFINITELY see her as a great example of some weird Glass Ceiling "Got mine fuck you" situation, in the way her gender and quirk are ultimately secondary to her Social Class as a member of the rich elite.

Like, shit, the more I read about them the more I am amazed Horikoshi essentially wrote about how in the BNHA universe there is a secret society composed by the richest men in the country, infiltrated at the highest ranks of society, even among heroes or the commission, advocating for deregulation and zero oversight...

And then just... Did nothing with it.

Like, ReDestro straight up... Picks a fight with the league and then that's it, we doing villain shit now, time to suicide bomb the commission for no reason, the MLA could have EASILY fucked over Japan with a 10 year plan of gradual political shift, and NO ONE could have done anything about it cause they are just normal businessmen at that point.

"You don't arrest Lex Luthor for burning the rainforest you arrest him for using a giant robot to do it" sort of shit.

Like, imagine this shit is tackled with the gravitas it deserves, and Izuku has to come face to face with the fact hero society is corrupt and a slave to capital and he can't do jack shit from stopping a LITERAL POLITICIAN from spreading harmful rhetoric via social media and the traditional medias unless he goes rogue and starts car bombing people, that he can't even "vote with his wallet" cause Detnerat controls most of the market when it comes to support items?

Like, damn.

[gothhabiba]

this is not to disagree with any of your points on antipsychiatry which i 95% agree with, but to provide a data point/share something that makes my brain itch.i've been diagnosed with functional neurological disorder, which was formerly called conversion disorder, and before that hysteria. new advances in fMRI technology are showing us that there are measurable changes in brain function and stereotyped symptoms that are consistent across centuries.

many hysterics had what is now recognised as a neurological disorder that is moving away from the realm of psychiatry. FND symptoms are also remarkably consistent across cultures. ( There’s a paper called “why FND is not feigning or malingering” on Jon Stone’s twitter that discusses this. His tweet on Feb 16t has a free link - it’s not on scihub yet afaik.)

It’s odd to be someone with a disabling and contested condition that’s been turned into a punchline/gotcha (deservedly!). that makes it difficult to engage with antipsychiatry at times. Are there any writers you know of that address this? Am I being a silly little rabbit that is uncomfortable when we are not about me? Thanks for the excellent writing and nonexistent cooking blog, would truly appreciate your thoughts on this

Thanks for the compliment, though I don't see why a blog that doesn't even exist is being brought into this...?

Anyway—if you believe that this example furnishes a contradiction to the aims and claims of anti-psychiatry*, then it's likely that you have the too-narrow view of what anti-psychiatry necessarily 'says' about the purpose of psychiatry in a capitalist / imperialist state that the post you're referencing criticises.

The post asserts that it is not sufficient to claim that capitalism creates or causes certain symptoms which it then pathologises (i.e., claims is a specific 'sickness' inhering in the individual). Rather, we have to also consider how and why it constructs the idea of 'sickness' (here, "mental illness") in the first place. The claim is that it is the way that we consider symptoms, how they are sorted and classified, how they are considered "abnormal" and "disordered" because and to the extent that they are associated with an inability to work or otherwise be compliant in a capitalist society, that characterises psychiatry under capitalism.

The fact that certain symptoms are "neurologically instantiated" doesn't 'break' this claim, then, because the claim does not rest on the idea that capitalism must necessarily create the symptoms it pathologises. Sometimes you can point to a pretty clear example of psychiatry 'making up' a disorder out of whole cloth, where the neurological component of it is unclear or irrelevant (e.g. "child is disobedient" disorder or "wife is disobedient" disorder or "slave runs away" disorder). But the claims and goals of antipsychiatry do not wholly rest on such instances, because even a disorder which is neurologically instantiated, even an instance of clear neurological or physical difference (and here the logic overlaps with that of the social model of disability), is still parsed and classified and read as deviant in a particular way according to the logic of (and in order to serve the goals of) capital and empire.

So let's say it's true that the symptoms associated with a disorder formerly commonly known as "hysteria" are neurologically instantiated. Psychiatric logic and institutions saw a variety of symptoms (of yet unclear etiology), grouped them together and classified them as a single disorder under the name "hysteria," reserved this diagnosis largely for bourgeois white women (since this kind of heightened emotionality was unexpected but 'treatable' in white women, but expected of and criminalised in 'savages'), and used that diagnosis (and its withholding) to control populations. None of this is in contradiction to any of the claims about psychiatry that this line of argument makes.

Again, we are not claiming that psychiatry always makes disorders up from nothing, or that the symptoms that it pathologises are always created by capitalism, reasonable coping behaviours in traumatic situations, reasonable actions taken against oppressive conditions, &c. Examples of this kind of thing should be read in line with claims that psychiatry is given the job of controlling populations in a capitalist state, that psychiatry gets to differentiate "normal" from "abnormal" according to its own logic in the the first place, &c. This exact idea—that thinking that psychiatry always makes disorders up from nothing is a "pitfall" in understanding what antipsychiatry is about—is in fact the central argument of the post that kicked all of this off. Plus the second bit of the post you're referencing was in direct response to the exact same sort of question (“Are you arguing that the biological processes which produce the things we call mental illnesses would themselves not exist, and/or not cause suffering, and/or not warrant description/categorization, in a non-capitalistic world?”), so I'd suggest rereading it.

Perhaps your confusion comes in with thinking that psychiatry = "mental" and thus illusory, while medicine = "physical" and thus necessarily 'real' / robust (you note that this disorder is "recognised as a neurological disorder that is moving away from the realm of psychiatry")? But the same criticisms that psychiatry comes in for apply to disorders that are thought of as "physical"—even when physical difference obviously exists (and even when it obviously causes suffering on its own), the medical model still considers "disability" as an "abnormality" defined by inability to work and otherwise be an obedient citizen of a capitalist state. Its idea of "normal" is a capitalist one that must be criticised.

*Please note that this is an oversimplification, as different people in different decades write under this banner. I'm discussing the strain of 'antipsychiatry' that's specifically at issue here, namely one that views pyschiatry and psychiatric pathologisation as one aspect of the bio-medical arm of capitalism and empire.

[peachymilkandcream]

AU idea: Evil Marleyan Levi who came to Paradis undercover and became the Captain, but Evelyn always tried to get to know more of him and accidentally found out the truth, so he kidnaps her and keeps her hidden away while continuing his mission. I was thinking he could be super mean and condescending in this 🥰 (my degradation kink is showing lmao)

The Truth About You|Levi x Evelyn AU

(A/N: Interesting idea Anon! We love a good degradation kink, it makes everything a little better. All you guys are so creative with AU ideas and I absolutely adore them! I might have to do a part 2 if anyone wants it! Hope you enjoy and thank you for the request!)

WARNINGS: implied noncon/dubcon, imprisonment, yandere behaviour/themes, misogyny, forced pregnancy, Evelyn's essentially Levi's slave and breeding machine, violence, degradation, attempted suicide, manipulation, mind breaking, forced marriage, etc.

================================================

Evelyn had never considered herself lucky. She had always had some terrible bout of misfortune following her. Whether it was the death of her parents, or her make barely passable grades in the Training Corps, or being peer pressured into the Scouts, she didn't know. But those were all manageable compared to the luck of joining the Scouts just as a new Captain was appointed.

One she got directly placed under. And she believed that his height had to go somewhere on the account of how big of a dick he was.

===============================================

Captain Levi quickly gained the reputation of being ruthless and unforgiving. If the smallest error in the code of conduct was breached the entire squad would suffer. Or even the whole division, it depended on if he got the perfect leaves to water ratio in his tea that morning.

However his record was impeccable and in the process of choosing the members of his squad they chose Evelyn. Probably because they believed Levi's strictness would whip her into a model soldier in no time. And not that she entirely minded the idea, the higher in the ranks she rose from a good record then maybe there was a chance she could push paper instead of corpses onto carts.

But she would shovel a hundred corpses to be placed under anyone but Levi.

She didn't know what made him hate her the most. But her legs were so sore from doing so many laps because she sneezed too soft or too loudly she needed to find some way to appease him. If that meant sucking up to him? Sure, if that meant borderline stalking him to find out what they could have in common? Of course. So long as she wasn't sucking him, she was happy.

================================================

Stalking seemed to the be thing she had to resort to since all other avenues were met with more punishment. She began to follow him around, take into accountability what was on his desk and what he liked to do, eat, or drink. Everything she could think of she tried. She was getting desperate to make a good impression at the cost of her morality. But it was worth it.

She seemed to be finding more and more about him, how he mysteriously bypassed the Training Corps, knew a lot about the military and knew who he had to rub shoulders with to get shot up to Captain so quickly. Apparently he had been on one or two missions tops, there was no way he could rise that fast. Her need for his favor morphed into suspicion and curiosity of what kind of man this was.

Her investigation came to a head when she following him home one night.

Levi had ducked into an alley, and while staying out of sight Evelyn overheard him talking.

"Send word to Marley. I've infiltrated their military as Captain. I have a small squad but I'll see if the Coordinate is in the ranks. Maybe at this level I can order him to come with me back home."

"And what of your cover? Has anyone suspected?"

A pause, probably a head shake. "No. Braun, and Hoover have seen to it that the Scouts don't know who I am. Leonhart is keeping the capital at bay in the MPs. I think we're close. After their failures I'm sure that through me they can redeem their embarrassment of careers."

"Very good sir. We'll be in touch."

Evelyn hurries to walk down the street when she hears footsteps approaching. Reiner and Bertholdt, they were in the newest Scout recruits, but were working together with Captain Levi? On what? And who was Marley? A division of politics? Maybe a terrorist group seeking to overthrow the government. Whatever the case she should report this to Commander Erwin, he'd know what to do.

"Cadet Glass."

Levi's voice halted her. Slowly she turned, meeting his gaze. It almost seemed disappointed with her.

"What are you doing out and about at this hour? You have a curfew."

"I'm sorry sir, I just- couldn't sleep."

"I see. You understand it's a punishable offence to be off of the grounds without leave, correct?"

She swallows. "Yes sir."

As he nears, Levi takes a hand and puts it on her shoulder, turning back to the direction she was walking. "Don't worry. You're not in trouble."

"Where are we going?"

"You wanted to get out didn't you? I'm going to buy you a drink."

Nervousness churns in her stomach. Did he know she was there? Surely not.

"I shouldn't-"

"I insist."

They continue to walk until he turns her down an alley, and before Evelyn can question she hears a metal thud before falling to the ground, the world going black as she stares at Levi's perfectly polished shoes.

================================================

When she came to, the pounding in her head was unbearable. Before her on a table was two aspirin and a glass of water. Behind that, Levi sitting in a chair, watching her.

"Captain-"

"Save it. I know what you heard. The question is how much."

"I don't know what you mean-"

"Don't play dumb with me devil. Tell me what you know and I'll let you go."

"I don't know anything! Let me go!"

She winces as the pain in her head worsens.

"Take those. They'll at least make you able to think enough to tell me the truth."

She hesitates, but takes them anyway. She needed them to think, but of how to reason with him instead of how to tell the truth.

"Now. I'll ask again. What do you know?"

"I know nothing."

"Continuing to lie are we? We'll see about that."

He stands, and she hears his belt buckle jingle, making her panic and stand to fight back. But as she's sure to hit him he's just out of reach. Her vision starts to go all weird and crazy and her mind spins. She doesn't even register him behind her, the pain, the fullness, the end.

Evelyn didn't even know what happened to her entirely save for the unending drip between her legs. She wanted to vomit, the world was spinning so much. She closed her eyes and then it just....stopped.

[nicsnort]

Trial by Fire (part 1)

A Nightcrawler/Fem!OC romance, drama, and mystery fanfic, with lots of Quicksilver thrown in for fun and even more drama.

Intro (with link to full Ao3 story)

CW: mentions of slavery, violence, and murder

‘Genosha. It has become one of the richest countries in the world over the past twenty years despite being a small island country off the coast of Honduras. A colonized land, the native inhabitants were all but wiped out by English settlers who lived a hard life in the jungle environment. Disease and wild animals plagued the colonizers who used the remaining native population as slave labor. The use of slave labor never stopped but the source has changed. Now the government of Genosha uses mutants as their labor force.

They advertise themselves as a place where any mutant can find a job. This is true. When a mutant from abroad arrives the government takes them into custody and with the aid of power suppressing collars put them to work. All to enrich Genosha. Their largest company is the government. This is the source of their wealth.

I am unsure who has it worse: the refugee mutants tricked into going there or the ones that grow up here. All children undergo genetic tests at the age of thirteen. If a child tests positive for the X-gene they are taken into the custody of the government. The parents receive approximately 2000 Genoshian dollars (4398 USD) and 0.5% of the wealth generated by their children when they are put to work. This usually puts the parents and any human children in a position of comfort for many years - until the payments stop coming.

Life in the work camps is harsh. Mining, construction, hand-farming, and other forms of hard labor. If a mutant can survive past the first few years they often live to their mid-thirties before the toll on their body is too much. However, many do not survive the first few years. It is not hard labor that takes these children, it is often the experiments. Awful genetic experiments that most say have no purpose, equal with Mengele’s work on Jews.

This is the source of Genosha’s wealth, dear reader. I hope you are enjoying your Genosha-grown coffee this morning - sold at all Starbucks. It is the product of a country that is on par with Nazi Germany, Mao’s China, and Apartied South Africa. I know you must be surprised, perhaps disgusted, perhaps disbelieving. Genosha has kept the source of their wealth a well-guarded secret but I was able to enter this country under the guise of being a mutant refugee. What happened inside, dear reader...well, I haven’t quite gotten all the way through it.’

Bedelia Hayes stopped her inner monologue as the sealed truck holding her and three mutant refugees came to a halt. The heavily armed guards gestured them out with guns and slurs. Her monologuing she would call writing. It helped to calm her mind in stressful situations. Bedelia was a freelance investigative journalist. She was here to uncover Genosha’s best-kept secret.

Oh, there were rumors of what happened in the dictatorship held by David Moreau, who had been the ‘elected’ prime minister for the past twenty-one years. But it was not until she met a runaway hiding in Texas that she found out the truth or at least some of it. The Genoshan government had recaptured the mutant before Bedelia had the chance to properly interview him. So, she came to Genosha to investigate what she had heard. Already it was worse than she imagined.

Honestly, for all the secrecy, it was disappointingly easy to enter. When she arrived in the capital, Hammer City, they had not even tested her genetics beyond a pinprick of her finger. Her dyed bright green hair, bright green contact lenses, and her words were evidence enough. They hadn’t even asked what her power was. While Bedelia had answers prepared, she was glad for the lack of inquiry - because Bedelia was not actually a mutant. The blood they took was of an acquaintance of hers in Mexico, a mutant who could control ink, but who she knew as a fellow journalist. Genosha did not allow non-mutants - especially journalists - into their country, so the subterfuge was necessary.

Bedelia and the fellow refugees were forced into a corridor and resting chambers. Bunk beds were stacked four high and assigned with numbers. There were a few other mutants in here already, likely given a small reprieve due to good work, or it was not their shift. Finding her bed, Bedelia saw it was under a bunk where a woman currently sat, leaning against the wall. She had brown hair, long and matted, and heavily tanned skin. From here Bedelia could see the scars on her arms. Bedelia was number 413, she was 415, but Bedelia was interested in her story.

Climbing up the ladder, Bedelia popped her head over the top bunk. “Hey, looks like I’m under you. Name is Sarah.” It was a false name that she had given to the government here. Her tone was neutral, careful. For Bedelia, it would not do to act scared or depressed, but she could not let her curiosity show completely. It would put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and make her an object of suspicion.

The woman opened her green eyes and focused them on the woman with vivid green hair. “Hello, I’m Trance.” Trance studied Bedelia closely, her eyes lit with suspicion suddenly. Bedelia kept calm and kept her expression neutral at the woman’s next question. “What’s your power?” 

“Ability to get myself into shitty situations,” Bedelia said with a sad chuckle, looking down before sighing. “Hypercognition...I make connections where others cannot, though sometimes when critical information is missing...” She gestured around as the sentence trailed off.

It was a benign ability with no way to actually test it, yet something she could perform to a satisfactory level. Bedelia had learned a wide variety of skills before deciding on her current path, but the skills had passed on. She could hack basic systems, was excellent with disguises and could sneak in places she was not supposed to be - here, for example. While she was not a genius in any regard, all these skills combined could pass, to the untrained eye, as a hyperintelligent mutant ability.

“May I ask what you can do?”

A thin smirk on Trance’s lips didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her eyes were calculating, if not a bit cruel. Bedelia now eyed the woman with caution. “I toy with visions.” She said cryptically. “Why did you come here?”

Bedelia could sense distrust. It was natural. But she was an expert at getting others to open up to her. It was critical in her line of work. “Why do you think? Heard all the things about this place and wanted to see it for myself.” It wasn’t technically a lie. It was important that she not lie to the mutants about anything other than her name.

From outside the barracks, three men entered. Two were heavily kitted out with guns and gear, and another was less heavily dressed but obviously more important. “All right, you mutant scumbags,” he shouted, his eyes immediately targeting the three new arrivals. They narrowed harshly at the sight of Bedelia, who instantly scrambled off the bunk. The immediate compliance seemed to quell his gaze, for now.

“You have fresh faces among you. I am not going to explain what you need to know. If your fellows feel generous, they might tell you; if not, you will learn quickly enough. I will tell you that any thought of escaping, of returning to your old country, your old life, crush it. You Muties wanted a job, well you got one.” He looked around the room again. “You're going to the fields. 2 bushels each.”

The guns were raised, making it obvious they were all to follow.

“You picked an interesting day,” Trance murmured to “Sarah,” speaking from the corner of her lips to keep it secret that she was speaking at all. Given the silence in the room, it was easy enough to have mistaken her murmur as a buzz of a fly.

Bedelia heard Trance take a slow, deep breath as she watched the three mutants start to walk around the aimed guns. The space in the barracks wasn’t large, giving them a brush against the barrels if they weren’t careful. 

And just like that, bad luck came in the sound of a cat screeching down the hall outside. The three soldiers paused, looking up in confusion. It wasn’t a yell, a shout, or a word...just a cat screeching. It was enough, however, to give Trance and four others an advantage. “Get down!” 

The brunette woman shouted, her voice rough and sharp to the three new mutants as two from the top bunks made a run and a jump on two soldiers. Trance grabbed ahold of a shiv made from a comb and jammed it into the third man’s neck while she took hold of his gun and raised it. There was a single shot -- far too much, too loud, as it would likely set off alarms from outside. As his blood painted the nearby beds, the woman cursed and twisted the gun from his hands. 

“Follow us!” The fourth mutant called out, three holding the weapons as they started their way to the door. 

Trance looked at the three mutants who had fallen to the ground at her order, a dry grin on her lips. “A hell of a day to show up.”

Bedelia’s eyes widened as the woman she had just been talking to killed a guard. Well fuck. There goes all her time to gather information...and possibly her life if this didn’t work out in their favor. “God damn it,” she hissed under her breath.

Grabbing the stun stick off the dead higher up, she tossed it to one of the other mutants that had come with her and then picked up the tablet at his waist. “Well, this was far sooner than I expected,” she stated, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

Her keen eyes moved over the tablet. Picking up the dead man’s hand, she pressed it against the bioscanner. It unlocked with a ding, and she smirked. Essex Corporation. That was not the first time the name had come up, and their involvement here was beyond disturbing in its implications. But now was not the time for that.

“Let’s see….” The collars were welded together. There was no option to take them off, but there were a couple of highly guarded mutants Bedelia saw using their physical powers for hard labor. So there was a way to turn them off. She gazed across the applications before seeing what she needed. Holding open the eye of the guard, she let the prompted scanner do its work. “And collars off.”

“Pattern seeking worked out in more than math class.” Trance remarked approvingly as she watched the woman work. The others had started to file out with the guns in hand, alert and aware of how there would no doubt be others coming at the sound of the gun going off. They still had some time due to the element of surprise, but they couldn’t lose that momentum. 

Trance gestured towards the door with her head, indicating for Bedelia to follow. “You’ll remain hidden as long as you don’t go too far away.” 

Bedelia followed her sudden ally carrying the tablet with her. She kept close to the woman, knowing that she had very few ways of defending herself, but kept a close eye out for anything of use. If she could not spend more than the few days she had already spent here, she needed to bring as much as she could with her.

They passed a dead guard, and she spotted a camera phone in his pocket. “Perfect,” she muttered as she picked it off the corpse. Others passed by them but did not look. Her eyes flitted to Trance - she must be hiding them somehow. The cell phone was unlocked after giving it a once over and seeing the sliding pattern on the glass. People need to learn to wipe their phone screens down to prevent such easy access. Opening the camera app, she began taking photos of the events around her.

_____

Next

Bio for Bedelia Hayes

Fanfic Masterlist

[thornfield13713]

So, Ahzrukhal is spectacularly full of shit here. However someone ends up in chains...they're still in chains at the end of the day, and clearly Charon is not here of his own free will. Which- I do wonder why he's making excuses. He doesn't seem to have any particular delusions of not being an arsehole, what with describing himself as corrupt. So, a personal moral line he's pretending he's still clinging to even when that's clearly not the case, or are there just enough rules in Underworld that if he were openly keeping a slave he might find himself out on his ear?

I'm also very curious about Charon's background - is he pre-war, post-war? Who were these people who raised him? Why did they want to brainwash a child into unquestioning loyalty to the holder of a contract? And the phrasing here definitely implies he was a child at the time. Again, so much material that it feels like a terrible waste not to have character quests that might allow a player to explore it all. And, you know, find a way to break Charon's programming so that he can, for the first time in his life, decide what he wants to do with that life for himself. That would be my pick for a companion quest for him, if he got one, which he doesn't.

...as companion recruitments go, this one is...dodgy. Spectacularly so. I'm...probably going to have Maris misunderstand a few things to justify this, or perhaps be a bit too blinded by the need for someone at her back to really think the situation through - after all, plenty of people in the Vault worked jobs they never wanted under employers they disliked and didn't get any choice in the matter. And clearly Charon is getting paid, right? It's an employment contract, so there must be something in it about how much his pay is, mustn't there? Even if it still dictates he has to be paid in pre-war currency, which nobody out here is using for anything but toilet paper.

...she's probably going to have a moral crisis about it when she learns how it actually works, but I don't think there's any in-game way of breaking the contract and setting Charon free. I am going to headcanon in an attempt or two, though.

Although I do now have a rather fun idea for a crossover. Because who better to break through mental conditioning than an expert neurologist with a top-flight set-up? Doctor Amari seems a logical candidate for someone to go to to get Charon free, which might allow for some fun interactions and character dynamics with the Fallout 4 crew. Something to consider. Particularly as half the Capital Wasteland seems to have turned up in the Commonwealth anyway.

[tea-with-cinnamontoast]

so, we’ve all at least heard of the iron fist, right? whether it’s from the comics or netflix show, i am 90% sure you’ve at least heard about him! well, i’m here to tell you that there’s more that meets the eye! :)

the netflix show doesn’t flesh out danny as a character that well and some of you probably despise him (...i do too) but his comic self is waaay different. if nmcu danny is whiny and all "because im the iron fist" every five minutes, then comics danny is a mix of a silly little guy, dumbass (affectionate), and a walking sunshine.

of course, there are some comics where he may act a lot different, but he is just a green flag—albeit traumatised—little guy!

the iron fist show itself MESSES UP the lore so badly that i literally do not know what’s so special about the iron fist. so here’s a (not so) deep dive into the lore of the iron fist mantle until lin lie! and some comic recommendations of danny :D

(open the cut for more 💖)

let’s start with the basics, shall we?

What is the Iron Fist? Who is the Iron Fist?

the iron fist is a power that comes from a dragon named shou-lao. this power is the dragon’s chi—or the soul, according to chinese belief. this chi allows them to access the dragon’s powers and unlock different ways of using said powers! the most common was is to turn their fists into "things of unto iron"!

however, the iron fist is not just a power, it’s a mantle given to those who can defeat the dragon themselves. these candidates are trained in k’un lun and if they do win, they will be named the champion of k’un lun. the first iron fist is quan yaozu.

What? What the hell is K’un Lun? What do you mean ‘champion’?

i’m glad you asked! k’un lun is one of the capital cities of heaven! there are 7 capital cities of heaven, according to iron fist lore, each with their own champions who possesses different abilities. they are also called the immortal weapons.

(note that the new weapon in this picture is davos, a long time nemesis of danny, because of circumstances. the actual weapon is the crane mother’s child.)

the fat cobra is from peng lai, a child of a pig farmer raised in abandonment. he was an opera singer as a child and fought in both sides of the world war.

the bride of nine spiders is from the kingdom of spiders, yet her origins are unknown.

dog brother comes from the under city and used to be a poor street orphan with an adoptive brother to protect. he was a slave, too.

tiger’s beautiful daughter is a strong woman from tiger island, an island where women ruled over men. i’m not kidding, in the one chapter where her origins are introduced, she literally destroyed the patriarchy. we stan.

prince of orphans is from z’gambo. unfortunately, we do not know his origins, but he is powerful. like necromancer powerful.

read more about them in ‘the immortal weapons’! absolutely worth it.

Wait, wait, wait. The Immortal Weapons? Are they immortal or just the mantle? Is Danny immortal?

...yes and no.

they are immortal until they die in battle. in a sense where the immortality only applies to their age not their whole body. however, this is highly speculation, since we do not actually know if the term ‘immortal’ refers to them or their title. what we do know is that danny refused to eat the apple of immortality, making him more or less fully human. and he dies multiple times. sort of.

Ooookay... How do you become the Iron Fist?

to become the iron fist, you must be trained in k’un lun as a child of k’un lun. these trainings are watched under lei kung, the thunderer, who is immortal. those who want to challenge shou-lao has to fight each other and win before they are allowed to fight the dragon. these fights are a test of not only physical strength, but spiritual strength, too. chi is like... an inner power. a part of your soul.

then, they fight the dragon. if they figure out how to and win, they will be given the mark of the dragon (the iconic iron fist logo) and they must plunge their fists into the dragon’s molten heart. survive.

Wait, if only a child of K’un Lun is allowed to be the Iron Fist, why does Danny become one? Isn’t he American?

orientalism

well, he was raised there, i guess. dunno. in orson randall’s case, though, it works because he was born in k’un lun despite his parents being american.

Who’s Orson Randall?

orson randall is danny’s predecessor. he’s the iron fist of the 1900s. he had fought in both world wars and more. tired old man. also a mentor of danny’s dad (whoopee). really a fucking cool character to read about definitely check out the orson oneshots.

Who’s Danny’s successor, then?

a chinese kid named lin lie! formerly the sword master, lie was last seen in death of doctor strange: white fox. he sort of died in that comic but SIKE! he’s back as the iron fist babyyyy !!!!!

Who’s my favourite Iron Fist?

it’s danny rand, duh. 🙄 (it’s wu ao-shi. what a girlboss).

What the hell.

hey man you’re gonna love danny and his tragic but interesting backstories i swear it’s just weird to summarize/say out loud 😮‍💨

anyway! some recommendations:

the immortal iron fist - start with this one, basics and a rework of his older comics history !!!

the immortal weapons + orson randall oneshots - just fun as fuck

avengers volume 2 (i think it was 2012)

defenders (2018) - if you like the nmcu this one is for you!

iron fist: living weapon

iron fist: phantom limb - blood, gore, and body horror warning!

immortal iron fists - girl dad danny rand im not kidding he’s so silly here

heart of the dragon

iron fist (2020) - lin lie !!

that’s it thank you for listening to me autistic rambling

[wonderlandmoonrose7]

Hogwarts Legacy

Let me preface this by saying that if you are a TERF, antisemite, or any other form of bigot, my blog is not safe for you. You will be blocked and reported. Now.

Discussion of the new Hogwarts Legacy game has really heated up over the past couple of weeks, and I want to make it crystal clear where I stand. If you buy this game, if you play it at all, you have no right to call yourself an ally. If you were really an ally, you would listen to the voices of all the marginalized people targeted by this game and franchise and NOT BUY IT. I don't care if Harry Potter was your childhood—it was mine too! But I can realize that whatever Harry Potter does for me does in no way outweigh the harm that it does to marginalized communities.

(More under the cut)

Rowling has outright said that she views any support of her work as support of her views. Any Harry Potter product you buy, including the game, is going to go directly into her pockets so she can continue to fund anti-trans legislation. Even if she isn't directly profiting from sales, she was definitely paid in order to use Harry Potter, and making this game profitable just signals that corporations can continue to support her and face no backlash. You cannot separate the art from the artist when they are still actively profiting from their art and using it to make people's lives miserable. Reading Shakespeare and recognizing the problematic elements is nowhere near the same level as funding one of the world's most famous TERFs.

Even beyond that, the content of Hogwarts Legacy is so blatantly antisemitic that I truly cannot fathom why anyone would want to play it in the first place. Putting down a rebellion of Jewish-coded characters who are sick of being treated like slaves???? Are you insane?? I see people claiming that they're trans or their friend is trans and they said it was okay as if there are not multiple other marginalized groups being affected by this! Learn some intersectionality!

The other thing I keep seeing is the phrase "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" and it just does not fucking apply. That phrase applies to when people must buy necessities like food or toiletries or bottled water and can't avoid buying from unethical businesses because five corporations have mini monopolies over the market. It does not apply to a single video game full of antisemitic rhetoric that goes into the pockets of a TERF. You will not die if you don't buy this stupid game.

If you want to engage with Harry Potter content, support fan creators; read fanfiction and headcanons, look at fanart, and maybe even make some yourself. But do not promote or financially support the official content, especially when trans people, Jewish people, and POC are literally begging you to listen to them and show some degree of respect for their issues. I'll say this right now; if I see anyone interacting with or promoting this game, it's an immediate block. Do better.

(Note: I am not a member of any of the communities affected by JKR and this game's blatant bigotry. I would recommend seeking out trans, Jewish, and POC users and supporting them during this mess.)

[calypsopoet2003]

The Donna Chronicles, Volume: IV

My Life as Donna's Loving Hypnotized Pantyhose Slave...

School had started, & I had neither seen nor heard from Donna or her son for a couple of months. So, imagine my surprise when I had come home from school one Friday afternoon, & when I stepped in the house I was greeted by Donna who was sitting in the living room with my Mom!

As soon as I had entered, Donna jumped up from where she had been seated on the couch with my Mom, moved to the hassock over by me, & said...

"Welcome Home, Sweetie! I am so happy to see you! I just came by on my way home from work to visit with your Mum! I was hoping I would get to see you! I have missed you so much!"

The sheer force of Donna's presence was, as always completely overwhelming to me... Especially when she was shoeless, in her silky white pantyhose, & a short skirted nurse's uniform showing off amazing hypnotically perfect legs & feet...

The shock of looking into Donna's beautiful smiling face made it so I couldn't help dropping my gaze to fixate on her perfect legs & feet... They were all that I wanted to see, all I could see, & all I could focus on...

I was very excited to see her, getting more, & more excited & aroused by the second. Before I was too far gone to notice, as I could feel myself starting to fall into a deep hypnotic trance for her... I had just managed to glance over at my Mom, & noticed she hadn't even looked in my direction... She just kept her vacant gaze on Donna with a small beatific smile on her face... Like Donna, she was shoeless wearing silky white pantyhose under her slacks.

I was now completely under Donna's hypnotic sway, but I realized that so my Mom... There was nothing I could do, or think about except to gleefully accept, embrace, & love anything & everything that Donna decided to do... She knew that will was my will, & seeing for herself that was the case, she smiled, & continued...

"Sweetie, your Mum & I have had a wonderful visit... We have been talking about it being such a shame that our boys don't see each other like you all used to... As we talked, your Mum really started to see things through my eyes, & started to see things exactly the way I do... In fact, like you she now sees everything exactly the way I do..."

What Donna said made me look away from her to briefly shift my gaze, glancing once again over at my Mom... I noticed that her gaze wasn't at all vacant, it was the same absolute loving adoration in her eyes, that mirrored how I felt when I gazed at Donna... She continued...

"It just made perfect sense to make her completely mine, just the way you are... Especially since I have been hypnotizing her over, & over again for so many years now... Not to mention that like you, she has always been such a wonderful subject, is so much happier now that she allows herself to truly love me, & belonging to me completely just like you!"

I was so deeply hypnotized at this point, that I didn't notice that my shoes & socks had also come off at some point exposing my silky white pantyhosed feet... All I could say in response was...

"Yes, Donna... Mmmumm looks so much happier now... You are our Hypnotic Pantyhose Mistress, & we are your Hypnotized Pantyhose Slaves..."

Donna smiled widely, & said...

"I am so glad that you approve & embrace me taking your Mum... The two of you are the perfect start of my harem of loving Hypnotized Pantyhose Slaves..."

In the throws of absolute hypnotic pantyhose bliss, I was lost in a sense of sexual euphoria, & was unable to form any coherent thoughts of my own. Donna capitalized on this, saying...

"So, my Love... You want so very badly to come with me... You cannot resist, & come to my home with me to spend the weekend... You have no choice really... Your Mum approves, & has already packed a bag for you... In fact, all you want to do is follow me around in your silky white pantyhosed feet andwherever I go... You can't help yourself... You MUST come with me..."

Deeply under Donna's thrall, & completely lost in the fuge of pleasure emanating from her beautiful silky white pantyhosed feet & toes... I could only respond...

"Yesssss, Donna... I... I want to come home with you... I musssst come home with you & obeyyyy..."

Donna continued to beam at us, reaching forward to lovingly pet us each on our deeply hypnotized heads, then she said to my Mom...

"...Now, Joanne... Thank you for packing our lovely boy's bag for him... You may now go to your bed for me, & lay down under the covers wearing only my beautiful silky white pantyhose... I want you to luxuriate in how wonderful they feel, in how much you love me, & how much you love being one of my Hypnotized Pantyhose Slaves just like your lovely son is... You will go to sleep & will dream of loving, obeying, & worshiping me..."

My Mom beamed lovingly at Donna, & responded...

"Yesssss, Mistressss... I love you, & I obeyyyy..."

...& then she slowly padded off to her bedroom. Then Donna continued to me...

"...& as for you, my Sweet Boy... You will rise, grab your sneakers & follow me. Your Mum has already packed your bag for me, & it is already in my car. All you have to do... All you want to do is follow me wherever I go, obey me without hesitation, & to love & worship every chance you get..."

I responded the only way I could...

"Yessss, Mistressssss...follow you wherever you go...obey you without hesitation...love & worship you every chance I get... I love you, & I obeyyyy..."

I had no choice, nor any thought except obeying my Hypnotic Pantyhose Mistress's commands. I then picked up my sneakers, & slowly followed her to her car... Neither of us had put our shoes back on, & I couldn't help but be transfixed by her beautiful silky white pantyhosed legs, feet, & toes as I followed her to her side of the car...

"Yesssss, Misstressss!!!"

Completely oblivious to everything but for Donna's silky white pantyhosed assets, I simply obeyed & was treated to a few minutes of worshiping her, before she drove us home.

She continued to speak to me on the ride, & I heard every single word she said, but I was in such a deep hypnotic trance for her that it is if everything she had said to me just took root in my subconscious, sort of like programming a computer.

When we got to her new place, we got out of her car, & still very deeply hypnotized I followed her inside. On our way to the house from the car, she told me that this house was just a temporary place for them to stay while they were waiting for their permanent home to finish being renovated & remodeled. Once we were inside, & got ourselves settled, she said...

"Sweetie, I want you to disrobe down to just your beautiful pantyhose, & put this on for me..."

She handed me a silky white shift that nicely & flatteringly contoured me, & went down to my upper mid thighs showing off my beautiful white silky pantyhosed legs, feet, & toes... I could see that Donna was putting on an identical garment, & that seeing her in that ensemble was strengthening her hypnotic, as well as her sexual hold over me...

Once we were dressed as Donna wished, she smiled at me, & said...

"...How does THAT feel, Honey? I wanted everything to be as perfect as we could manage to greet our guests... Patricia is bringing over a new recruit to submit herself to me, pledge herself to us, & to be fitted for her pair of my silky white pantyhose to bind her to me, & to us..."

Pat showed up that evening with a woman named Denise in tow... I had come to realize that both these women had a connection to my Mom... As it turns out, Pat used to work with my Mom at the Dentist she currently worked for, & Denise was engaged to that same Dentist, & was working with my Mom there. It was a trifecta over there at Dr. Montmony's office between Pat, my Mom, & Denise all belonging to Donna as her Hypnotized Pantyhose Slaves...

Pat was relegated to record keeping duties, as she specializes in this skill in her secular life.

As I was commanded to our Hypnotic Pantyhose Mistress with presenting Denise's with a pair of Donna's silky white pantyhose... Donna puts in a great deal of effort bringing a subject down deep enough to truly enslave them to her. She had to remove her shift, as her concentration may slip if she overheats during the session.

However, once Denise was completely enslaved to Donna, & wearing her new pair of Donna's silky white pantyhose... Donna took great pride in her newest lovely thrall...

Every one of us, Donna included worshipped each other's feet with wild abandon. It was such a lovely night, & it went later than Donna had either planned or expected. As such, the other ladies were still there when my nightly devotional hit me while we were all in Donna's bedroom together. Apparently,I provided the end of the night entertainment for the evening.

The rest of my weekend with Donna was just as lovely, though it was just us... We had a variety of hypnosis related fun & games, as well as ordinary board games, cooking together, long discussions, completing a few household chores together, etc. All of which were done with us wearing our white pantyhose & shifts...

When Donna took me home, I was still wearing my pantyhose & the shift she gave me under my street clothes... I was wide awake for the ride, & deliriously happy... We got back to Mom & Dad's house, & Donna helped me inside with my things... I looked down & realized that I was still shoeless, & showing my pantyhosed feet...

I started to panic, but I was suddenly snapped into a deep hypnotic trance for her, & calmed down... Donna was going barefoot as well... We approached the front door, & before we went in she said...

"... That's right, relax... It's fine... Only your Mum is home... When we go in, I want you to bring your things to your room, & then come back out to me in the living room so you can say goodbye to me..."

I responded...

"Yesssss, Misstressss... I love you, & I obeyyyy..."

I padded to my bedroom with my things for my Hypnotic Pantyhose Mistress, & headed back out to her when I finished. When I got out to the living room, Donna & my Mom were sitting on the couch together...

Donna & I had only a precious few encounters before they moved into their permanent place... They were abridged, but lovely. One such encounter was in the basement of their second temporary place... I was sleeping over as Mike's guest, & was sleeping on the couch in the pavement. I woke in the middle of the night with a face full of Donna's lovely silky white pantyhosed feet & toes to nuzzle & worship. She had worked the evening shift & was in her nurse's whites. As soon as she got home, she ran down to the basement to drop me & have me worship her thoroughly before turning in herself...

Another such encounter was on Christmas Eve at my parents'house... I was in my room playing guitar while staying out of my folk's way, & waiting for the guests to arrive. Suddenly there was a knock on my door, & it immediately opened to Donna rushing in, again barefoot in her nurse's whites... She said...

"...Hi Buddy! Merry Christmas! Now Sleep! Remove your shoes & socks for me, & devour my feet!"

Completely stunned, & equally deeply hypnotized, I responded...

"Yessssssss, Misstressss... I love you, & I obeyyyy..."

...& I obeyed my Hypnotic Pantyhose Mistress without hesitation! Later when I finally left my room once I composed myself, I had the shock of my life... Everyone at the party, male & female alike were shoeless, showing white pantyhosed feet, & when I looked down, so was I!!!

...& the world may have continued to spin, but as always it continues to revolve around Donna, our beyond beautiful Hypnotic Pantyhaose Mistress!

Look for "The Donna Chronicles V" to continue my Story as Donna's Only Male Hypnotized Pantyhose Slave...

[humanperson105]

Mikhail Lifshitz: Marxist Aesthetics and a Critique of Modern Art

What is important to me is to mark the main features of the worldview we are offered as the lodestar of the future art – the renunciation of realistic pictures, which Picasso sees as an empty illusion, that is, deception, and the affirmation of a wilful fiction, designed to spark enthusiasm, that is, the conscious deception of mythmaking. [...] Let’s just say that the main inner goal of such art lies in suppressing the consciousness of the conscious mind. A flight into superstition is the very minimum. Even better is a flight into an unimaginable world. Hence, the constant effort to shatter the mirror of life or at least to make it muddy and unseeing. Any image must now be given qualities of ‘unlikeness’. In the way, pictoriality recedes, eventually becoming something free of any association with real life. [...] Once it was enough to present a few geometrical figures on the canvas to avoid any associations. Now this is too little. The self-defences of consciousness are so refined that even abstract forms are reminiscent of something real. That requires an even greater degree of detachment. Hence, there appears anti-art, Pop Art, which largely consists of the demonstration of real things, enclosed in an invisible frame. In a sense, this is the end of a long evolution from real depictions to the reality of bare facts. It might seem we’ve already achieved that goal: the life of the spirit has ended, the worm of consciousness has been crushed. Still, that is an empty illusion. The ailing spirit’s attempts to jump out of its own skin are senseless and hopeless. When reflection revolves around itself endlessly, it only gives rise to ‘boring infinity’ and an insatiable thirst for the other. [...] Yes, ‘modern art’ is more philosophy than art. It is a philosophy expressing the dominance of power and facts on lucid thinking and poetic contemplation of the world. The brutal demolition of real forms stands for an outburst of blind embittered volition. It is the slave’s revenge, his make-believe liberation from the yoke of necessity, a simple pressure valve. If it were only a pressure valve! There is a fatal connection between the slavish form of protest and oppression itself. According to all the newest aesthetic theories, art’s effect is hypnotic: it traumatises or on the contrary blunts or calms a consciousness that no longer has any life of its own. In short, it is the art of a suggestible crowd at the ready to run after the emperor’s chariot. Why am I Not a Modernist? - Mikhail Lifshitz

Lifshitz's critique of modern art and its "hypnotic effect" targets modernism's romantic heritage and its animating desire for art to redeem what it sees as a fallen world through acts of a sovereign will possessed by a singular genius (hence the reference to the "emperors chariot"). Its no coincidence the notion of the genius is a quintessentially Roman notion that Walter Benjamin found in the works of none other than Goethe that entailed "the patriarchal idea that every culture, including bourgeois culture, could only thrive under the protection of and in the shadow of the absolute state." (Benjamin - Goethe: the Reluctant Bourgeois) Hitler's status as a failed artist, by now such a trite fact as to be included in the encyclopedia that is middle-brow pop historical consciousness, is a testament to the prevalence of this desire for a despot-as-artist that romanticism, among other things, has left in its wake. Fredric Jameson's antidote to the culture of the crowd seeking a new art school Ceasar is “a pedagogical political culture which seeks to endow the individual subject with some new heightened sense of its place in the global system…” (Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. pg. 54). Lifshitz and Jameson endorse a realism that attempts to allow the masses to understand the world so they may one day change it.

[alicethemasked]

Alice’s adventures on Cheshire Farm. Entry 1 (Minors do not interact)

Spring 1st year 1

I decided to make a weekly journal for my new adventure, but as I write into it I am about to pass out.

My name is Alice and I just moved into Cheshire farm, which once belonged to my grandfather who sadly passed away a few years ago… now I’m a city girl trough and trough but I was so tired of life there, stuck under the heavy restraints of capitalism, working day and night slaving away, I needed to escape and I remembered that my grandfather left me this place

Now I am rambling, in text form at that, I guess today really took it out of me. Anyway, today I can be proud of myself, I managed to chop down some trees and clean up an area of this 

overgrown mess this farm has become, maybe I should’ve come here earlier? And managed to plant a little. The Mayor, Lewis, gave me some parsnip seeds which was such a nice welcome gift. This community seems to be really nice from what I’ve seen… well mostly

Now after I almost broke my back cleaning up around the farm I went into Pelican Town, the town that is just right of the farm, I mean Lewis needs to be the mayor of somewhere after all. And the people I’ve met so far are… mostly… fine. 

I met a boy around my age named Sam, who seems like a nice dude to befriend. I also met 

what i can only describe as the most stereotypical Jock I’ve ever seen, I believe he leered at me as I approached, but I might just be judging him too hard. I decided to enter the local store owned by some dude named Pierre, which… he is the only normal looking person in his family, his wife who’s name I didn’t get and his daughter Abigail have funky coloured hair, the Wife’s hair is green and Abigails is purple, though I think I saw some roots in her hair honestly I didn’t know they lived together I wouldn’t guess they were family. 

After buying some extra seeds, all parsnips for the sake of ease, I ran into a man my age who looked at me with recognition. now note I had never seen this dude in my life so I was uncomfortable. His name is Harvey and he talked about how we were lovers in a past life and all that stuff and… I guess every town has its weirdos. This is hopefully just a passing fancy, I mean he might’ve just dreamt about a blue haired woman or something, but I will be avoiding him for a while.

This entry is getting way too long, wow, but yea, I planted some of the seeds and watered them to the point I had to crawl back home and write this, now I feel the sleep take over me so, see you next week.

- Alice, city girl turned farmer

(so this is my first post of a playthrough with all of the yandere mods available, I as I finish a week in game I will be posting a new entry in the journal of our heroine [or victim] Alice I hope all of you will be happy with this adventure :) )

[rollercoasterwords]

#do not even get me STARTED on the overlap w zombie media godddds

I for one am very here to get you started on the overlap with zombie media if you’d like 👀 I love your meta and I think you’d have some really interesting thoughts!

omg omg omg ok kissing u on the mouth first of all second of all i don't even think this is going to be coherent it's just gonna be me rambling but it'll probably get way too fucking long so i'm gonna put it under a cut

okay so the thing about zombies is that they are the perennial "other," right, even more so than most other types of monsters, because the defining feature of the zombie is ego death. like--werewolves, vampires, frankenstein's monster...even creature features like alien or the thing, all these horror movie monsters still have some form of subjective identity, some sense of self, and usually the conflict comes because these monsters live in ways that cannot coexist with human life.

zombies have no identity beyond consumption. like, i would argue that the core feature of a zombie even moreso than just "reanimated corpses" is this violent need to consume--and, in that consumption, to reproduce, to create more zombies. (this gets played around with in a lot of more recent films but i'll get into that later). so, in a way zombies are the antithesis to humanity, because humanity requires coherent identity, and zombies do not have that. in a way, it's almost utopic; zombies are genderless, sexless, without race or capital or religion or politics or any of the things that creates conflict between humans. zombies typically have no issues with each other; theoretically, in a world with no humans and only zombies, there would be absolute peace.

but, ok. hang on. let me back up a bit. because the thing about trends in horror is that they reflect societal fears of the time, and zombies have changed quite a bit throughout history. like, most people agree that the original zombie movie was White Zombie in 1932, which i haven't personally watched but i have read about and like. my interpretation is that a lot of the fear the movie speaks to is fear of the foreign, particularly foreign men/the masculinized foreigner, and as much as i want to go on a rant about like the historical context surrounding that and the gendered dynamics that arise from the movie and how it can be read onto a war story (particularly since we're dealing with the lost generation here, like all these young people who are traumatized from wwi), i am going to reign myself in. and just say: in the original zombie movie the core focus of the zombie was not consumption--in fact, as far as i'm aware (again, haven't actually watched the movie), eating people wasn't even part of it. instead, the zombie was just a mindless puppet being controlled by somebody else, and this is because the zombie mythology that White Zombie was drawing from originated in Haiti, where the zombi was a reanimated dead body that was used as a slave (which really illustrates like. the colonial overtones of White Zombie, where a cultural figure representing the fear and pain of slavery was essentially taken and pasted into a story where the primary monster is the foreign threat to white americans).

SO it's not until 1968, Night of the Living Dead, that romero introduces cannibalism to zombies, and also introduces like...the concept of The Horde. like, in White Zombie, the focus is really just on a single zombie (although there are a few more), but i don't think it's until romero that we get this like cultural image of a horde of cannibalistic ghouls crowding in and attacking.

and so like--this is 1968, right? fear of the Other looks a bit different but is still very much swirling in U.S. politics--like, we've got the cold war, the civil rights movement, the vietnam war, the space race. and the monsters in Night of the Living Dead are actually tied to both fears about aliens and nuclear radiation--supposedly they were created by the radiation from an exploding space probe or something. so in a lot of ways, these mindless hungry monsters are standing in for any number of broad, "evil" forces that the American public is being constantly warned about. but at the same time, there is an argument to be made that romero critiques that fear in the survivor dynamics he portrays and especially in the way he ends the film with Ben's character (again, refraining from another sub-rant within my rant).

okay so THEN after Night of the Living Dead we see the rise in this cultural figure of the zombie, and in the later half of the twentieth century the zombie is normally portrayed as these hordes of reanimated, cannibalistic corpses. but we don't really get this boom in zombie media until the late 90s/early 21st century, particularly post 9/11 with the rise of the war on terror. once again, a lot of these nebulous fears about the "Other" are in the foreground--we've got the advent of the internet, which begins to globalize and connect the world in unprecedented ways; we've got the AIDs crisis and fear of disease and contagion; we've got the war on terror and fear of the cultural Other who takes the form of violent, mindless hordes in the american imagination. and we get not just movies like the 28 Days Later franchise but also other media like The Walking Dead comics (debuted in 2003) which will eventually become staples of the zombie genre.

and so by the early 2000s we've got the zombie established as a horror monster + cultural figure, which opens things up to start pushing the borders of what makes a zombie a zombie and sort of exploring with new forms of zombiism. and we start to see this more in a few different ways--one is the simple physical conventions, which i'm less concerned with, but i think 28 Days Later is the best example of this--suddenly, you not only have fast zombies, but also zombies that haven't died and come back to life at all, but rather have a monstrosity rooted in disease. but then you also have movies like I Am Legend, where we're starting to explore not only different physical forms of zombiism, but also the possibility of sentient zombies.

(sidenote--i know that we saw sentient zombiism explored somewhat before the 21st century, with movies like Day of the Dead, but i feel like it wasn't really until the 21st century that the concept started to take root. just let me have this one lmao)

and now the thing is--remember what i said earlier? a core feature of zombiism is ego death, and it's that ego death that is key to making a zombie a zombie and separating them from humans. so what does it mean when zombies suddenly become sentient--when they can communicate and form their own societies? where is the new line between human and zombie?

we start to see the sentient zombie really take root in the 2010s--2013 is a big year, with both the release of Warm Bodies and the initial air date of In The Flesh (an AMAZING show if you haven't watched it you should. i will forever be bitter that it was canceled). and we start to get a lot of movies that really, really blur this boundary between zombie and non-zombie. a non-comprehensive list of just ones i've seen that come to mind: All Cheerleaders Die (2013), Raw (2016), The Girl With All the Gifts (2016), Zombie For Sale (2019), and now, most recently, if you think about Netflix's Army of the Dead (2021), we see this growing trend of zombie media blurring the boundaries between human and zombie. and i've limited myself to movies for the most part here--this trend can also be found in zombie TV shows (think Santa Clarita Diet or even Z Nation--one of the most atrocious shows ever made which i think absolutely everyone should watch), books, probably even video games (although that's one area of zombie media i really haven't consumed, so honestly i'm not sure). like, at this point we've got zombies that can fall in love (I Am Legend, Warm Bodies, In the Flesh, All Cheerleaders Die, Zombie for Sale, Santa Clarita Diet), zombies that can build their own societies that mirror human ones (The Girl With All The Gifts, Army of the Dead), zombies that literally live and function alongside humans (Santa Clarita Diet, In the Flesh, The Girl With All the Gifts), even zombies that sire or give birth to children (Z Nation, Army of the Dead).

of course, there's still an abundance of zombie media making use of more "traditional" zombie monsters, too. but i think this steady increase in zombie media eroding the boundary between zombie and human has ultimately left zombies with only one uniting feature that holds true across almost every distinct form of zombie media from the latter half of the 20th century onwards (at least, i can't think of any exceptions): their cannibalistic hunger.

and so like this is where we start to hit the sweet spot of crossover with cannibal movies and zombie movies, because not all cannibals are zombies, but all zombies seem to be cannibals. and what does it mean that zombies, over the past fifteen years or so, have become monstrous less for their mindlessness and ego death and more for their violent consumption?

like, at the end of the day i feel like what's happening with the zombie genre and also the growing popularity of cannibalism as a horror trope (and the changing form it's taken--oh i could write a whole 'nother essay about the sexification of cannibalism. like, remember when cannibalism was very much "the hills have eyes" grossness? and now it's timothee chalamet in a romance movie?) are both spinning around this centerpoint of our own growing horror with the culture of consumption that late-stage capitalism has trapped us all in, where we are no longer individuals but instead only consumers. and, simultaneously, products to be consumed. and we are beginning to see more and more that the only forms of connection available to us are through consumption, and just like sentient zombies, we might be horrified of what we're becoming, but we cannot rid ourselves of this hunger for connection, even if the only avenues left to seek it are by consuming or being consumed.

so like, to summarize, i sort of see the evolution of the zombie as: monster representing fear of slavery -> monster representing fear of the proverbial Other -> monster representing fear of ourselves

like i think we are beginning to see a cultural shift in zombie media where it's less blatantly nationalist propaganda (or propaganda against whatever x group is being Othered in the cultural consciousness of the moment) and starting to turn towards these questions about the blurry lines of humanity as late-stage capitalism looms larger as like the Monster of Cultural Consciousness. which is!!!! so interesting to me!!!!

[westshellos]

preface to “a few of my favourite things”

coming across @/dieworkwear’s tweets on ethical fashion while coming home to a perpetually-full wardrobe everyday really made me reconsider some of my sartorial purchases. 

one thing he pointed out was the fact that the average american spends $600 on clothes a year. with that kind of money, he argued, you could buy a good piece of quality clothing that would undoubtedly last you more than a year and that didn’t involve slave wages and inhumane working conditions in the production process. this was in response to somebody defending SHEIN—what i like to call TaoBao lite for people who can’t read chinese—an ecommerce website that was recently crowned 2022′s most popular fashion brand. with the countless number of labor law violations we’ve seen from other brands (nike, zara, h&m, or most of what’s on the market right now) over the years, it’s no surprise that SHEIN too was found guilty of all these violations and more. 

this isn’t news to anyone. if anything it’s become something that’s almost a given for any fashion brand that’s able to put out new stuff on their website every week (or day). as someone who knows how sewing works (sort of), i of all people should know that ethical fashion is expensive fashion: clothes aren’t easy to make, and sewing is one of the few things left that hasn’t been fully automated because it’s a meticulous, arduous process that takes immense skill and dexterity. the closest we’ve come are automatic electric sewing machines that still have to be operated by skilled tailors. it’s why clothes from a label like los angeles apparel (not the best example for dov charney reasons, but that’s a whole other topic that i don’t have the space to get into here; point is, they pay their workers a living wage of US$20-35/hour) charges US$24 for a plain cotton t-shirt and not $2. it’s why a hand knit sweater from a small business on instagram costs US$300 and not $30. making clothes is hard, and when SHEIN charges a suspiciously low amount of money for clothing, it’s because it is suspicious. 

a common defense for buying from SHEIN is that it’s one of the only options for people who can’t afford to buy from ethical brands. but as @/dieworkwear has already pointed out, the average american (and arguably, singaporean in my context) probably has enough money to buy what they need (good quality things, too) and have it last for a year or more. this “defense” is, more often than not, a thinly veiled excuse for people who want to do $1000 SHEIN hauls without feeling guilty. using “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” as a reason is arguably even worse, as it’s co-opting a phrase that’s supposed to describe the unethical nature of capitalism as a whole. it’s not something you say when you want to consume as unethically and freely as you want. 

the point is that despite there being no ethical consumption under capitalism, we still have the ability to make it as ethical as we possibly can. working on an honor’s thesis on labor, capital and the ethics of care, it’s become increasingly clear to me that this tweet (pictured below) was exactly right. capitalism would want you to care less, because pessimism and resignation paves the way for compliance. they would want you to say “screw it, i’m going to do that $1000 SHEIN haul because nothing i do matters” because then you’d be doing exactly what they want: buying stuff you don’t need to line the pockets of gajillionaires. 

drawing from many feminist philosophers and scholars, i wrote (or rather, am intending to write at this point in time) that love and care, under a system that promotes and reproduces itself through carelessness, is inherently radical. apart from loving and caring for the people around you, i’d say loving and caring for the things you have now can be an act of resistance too: after all, what’s not anti-capitalist about refusing to participate in the cycle of endless consumption? 

despite knowing all of this for a long, long time, i was, sadly, a culprit of all these things i’ve listed. in the past, i’ve been guilty of buying way too many things when i didn’t need to. i’ve also been guilty of buying things from places with more-than-questionable ethics (i’m looking at you, TaoBao). reading these tweets and working on my thesis has imbued me with some sort of hope—that even if i don’t manage to lead the proletariat to revolution and dismantle the system from top to bottom, there’s still some point in trying. that the little things do count. so to atone for my previous sins and to help me buy less and more ethically, i’m going to start a series titled “a few of my favourite things” to appreciate the things i already have rather than feel the need to buy more. this is just the preface. 

[nibwhipdragon]

Joseph.

Ok I felt bad leaving one of my mutual out so I'm doing this one for Breadcrust Crusaders Joseph. God there is so much wrong with him

As you can tell, I'm uh...less violent with him than canon Joseph. Just like Icarus I flew to close to the sun with him, gave him so much angst even I can't handle it

A great trade. Gave him canonically massive tiddies and sacrificed his mental health for it

You know what's under the cut. I am going to go insane. Spoilers for Breadcrust Crusaders/The McDonald's Crisis of 1999. Spoilers for the main antagonist of the series too btw, and for stuff that happens to Kakyoin. Adding that last part specifically for you wifey <3

Literally what the fuck. Breadcrust Crusaders started out as just a story about Joseph really wanting the McRib. And at the end of The McDonald's Crisis of 1999 it ended up being about how trauma fundamentally changes you as a person but despite being so heavily scarred from it you can move on, you can heal, you can get better, it ended up being about how love (familial and platonic mostly) is a powerful force, that it can make or break you, that it gives you a reason to keep going, that it'll eat you up from the inside out until it kills you (not in the romanticised way though). It's about how I hate McDonald's and capitalism so fucking much

And Joseph is the main character of the fic, it's his story told through Jotaro/ Josuke's eyes, so of course he'd get fundamentally changed as a character as the overall gist of the story changed. And boy. He is so fucked up.

Like I am about to go English literature class level of analysis here on my own fanfic like damn I'm normal

Like for example. The Hermit Purple change from what it canonically is to the "bloomed form" in The McDonald's Crisis of 1999. At first I just made it red because Dio's Hermit Purple was more red, so it's like a little headcanon of mine that hamon users have Hermit Purple and it can "develop" the more the hamon user practices hamon, and it'll change to red and grow flowers. And ofc that's literally just bloomed form Hermit Purple in the fic. The flowers were hard to choose a colour for and I eventually landed on yellow as I didn't want the flowers to clash with the vine colour and. Just. Everything else fell into place after that

Like holy shit red and yellow? Like the fucking McDonald's colours? Like the colours of the company that created an abomination of nature using black magic that Joseph accidentally revived from loving McDonald's that much? The abomination of nature that quite literally was nestled away in his soul, dormant?

Holy shit red and yellow? Like the coral snake? The snake that's the part of the "Red on yellow, kill a fellow" snake rhyme used to identify venomous snakes from similar looking non venomous snakes? Holy shit Hermit Purple is also referred to as serpentine as well? Holy shit this is about the character that (arguably) caused all the fucking character deaths in the entire duology?

Holy shit red? And Hermit Purple is sort of like a rope? Or a string? Red string of fate? The thing that ties fated lovers together? Love? The thing Joseph had too much of, for McDonald's, for Jotaro, for everyone else, to the point he was straight up slowly killing himself for everyone else's sakes? Hermit Purple? The stand that actively harmed Joseph the more he used it as the plot progressed? Like the actual red strings of fate were harming him?

Strings? Like the things on puppets? Damn bro, that's so funky, it mirrors how Joseph tries his hardest to break free of the narrative's cage but in reality plays into the narrative even more, as if no matter how much he tries to alter the narrative he'll always be a puppet, a toy to tell a story with. Damn it mirrors how he's a puppet, a slave to his own feelings with how he tends to jump the gun based on feelings before thinking about it first

Just. How the fuck did I manage to make a stand design so similar to the canon design that tells you so much about a character the hell

I know I wrote all that fucked up stuff he goes through but I genuinely want him to have a better time. Like jeez bro you live like this? He has Jotaro literally die in his arms. He ends up getting Kakyoin murdered. The whole cult thing. The whole getting lost in the middle of nowhere for about 3 days. The whole getting his head shot clean off. Yes yes I know I wrote all of that but that's not the point I did that because the narrative needed me to, genuinely this was so much angst even for ME. And I LOVE angst! That says a lot! He does get a better life and a better time eventually but like holy shit dude please go get therapy

Actually no with the therapy bit there that just makes him even more fucked because he DOESN'T go therapy for all he went through! He doesn't even consider it! His reaction to trauma is so different from Jotaro's/ typical PTSD symptoms that everyone literally doesn't see anything wrong with him and so he just goes about his day not getting treated for something he really should be getting treated for! Babygirl! The trauma doesn't "bounce off your brain"! You've developed complete apathy to things that would be traumatic as a way to cope! That's not healthy! Learning that Kakyoin, a close friend of yours, was murdered shouldn't have been something you brushed off so quickly! Learning that you were slowly being destroyed from the inside out by an abomination of nature shouldn't be something you brush off either, let alone laugh about! And now that I'm thinking about this facet of his character more I'm just realising he actually gets progressively worse as time goes on. Caesar's death absolutely breaks him, Avdol and Iggy's death upset him but he didn't outwardly grieve, he broke down when it came to Jotaro but that was his grandson dying in his arms even though he was helping as much as he could so like. That one can slide. Then he's just completely uncaring in The McDonald's Crisis of 1999, so uncaring even, that one of my friends found it straight up disturbing! God why aren't you going to therapyyyy (<– wrote the character)

Yes, he does start healing from trauma on his own, but he should still go to a professional for something that severe.

Ok I actually want to talk about his fourth wall breaking and how he heals from his trauma hold on buckle up everyone

The way at the end of the fic where he sorta almost just talks directly to the writer/reader about the future...my god. Holy shit. I wrote that chapter. I wrote that chapter and made 3 people (to my knowledge) cry over it. I actually wrote that. He. He is aware he's in a story, aware that there are readers. He's aware that there are readers that have him as their favourite character, possibly to the point where they'd never want to let him go, never let the story rest. Just continue the story past Dio and Seph because he knows that we'd want more of him, possibly to the point where we wouldn't mind if he went through more hell for the sake of more content, more Joseph. Despite all that he trusts us not to continue/ask for the story to continue because we love him. Love is a double-edged sword and he's trusting us with that sword, trusting that we'll use it in not just his favour, but everyone else's too. He trusts us, believes in us (and so far, that trust hasn't been broken) and because of that he believes that the future will be good, that things will get better. And with just believing it will get better that strongly, he's one step in the direction of healing his trauma.

Fruity bar is still at max bc he is bi + genderfluid in the fic. Literally ticked every box involving gender in any shape or form

Ok I think I'm done now. I've dumped enough thoughts here for today. If anything else comes to mind I'll add it as this is scheduled but uh. If you got to the end of this how you doing

[congregamus]

TW: CHRIST-BLOGGING ON MAIN

The following is a response to the prompt my personal journal/digital archive provided, which was:

How are you celebrating the holidays this year?

From the look back on the last twelve years, the answer is: "The Way I Always Do™." Which is to say "Not very much."

I loved Christmas as a kid, but in a flash of realization, I understand that it was the Christmas play that I loved (which is to ignore mostly the Christmas acquisition). I loved rehearsals because it was a chance to show how little rehearsal I needed before I was "show-ready." And, of course, at the end of it all, there was a chance to obtain the only thing I have ever really wanted: mass-approval as evidenced by ovation (insomuch as a country Baptist church can provide that). Turns out, the size of the house doesn't matter so long as they all agree to clap as loudly as they can.

Whatever it might have meant to keep Christmas before Ch@nt1c33lr is long gone from my practice, such as it is. I am not a Christian in the soteriological sense, but I definitely participate in Incarnational discourse. I have not come to any Incarnational conclusions. I note, however, that the body is a reality beyond theology, while it is also and at the same time a metaphor itself, the consideration of which is of great poetic significance*.

All of my difficulties with Incarnationism (read: my fantasy of a Christianity both original and redeemed) arise from my own tendency towards disembodiment, resultant from what seems like a pretty rough coming up, though (luckily?) I don't remember very much of it.

In the same way that the body, in the ground of its reality, resists-inspires metaphor, so too does the natural world, now frozen. The exterior world is so completely inhospitable to life at the moment. (Well, it is inhopsitable to the life I identify as mine. Plenty of living things do not struggle so to survive in these conditions.)

Likewise in its cycles and conjunctions, this Solstice, this Feast of the Incarnation. To ground myself in the body is not to ask What might I read into and out of these events?; rather, it is to ask What is it essential to take away from any reading of the external poem?

A compelling hermeneutic, Death of God (or, Death of The Author as expressed in the literary register), finds suspects any desire "to read" the Book of Life through a teleological lens. The only response that makes any sense to me is the one that acknowledges that the play between interiority and extroversion that I experience is self-generated, and that while the material and medium of that experience (which I describe as "outside") may not experience desire for meaning as “I” do, it is yet in its fluidity able to accomodate, or not accomodate "purpose" or "meaning."

Tomorrow is the great vigil of The Incarnation, though it has, in this land, been repurposed towards an avatar of our capitalistic state religion. Were I "to read" that irony, I would seek a "Holy Clause" [fragment?] where otherwise I find a demigod of gluttony, slavery, and surveilance**.

Christmas, under capitalism, is at last bout acquisition of goods, displays of wealth, and, contemporarily, culture wars.

To return to the question prompt, and to conclude: "Not like the rest of the country."

____________________________________ FOOTNOTES

*This is kind of like peasant food tasting like peasant food, and otherwise disparate poor people recognizing themselves in the dishes that strangers made without prior contact. (One thinks especially of the dumpling, which was realized so widely.) The word salad above is different, but it's still talking about the basic ingredients of a Christological dumpling: the relationship and mixture of spirit/matter, the question of their legitimate supremacy, and the refusal of either in favor of a non-dual "both."

**I confess my intention to participate in the gluttony part. There is very little I can do about being a surveilled wage-slave. I try to be a jolly elf, but I do not begrudge anyone who can't.