#I want them to both maintain their positions and have their primary conflict change and develop

[the-batacombs]

Thinking about Jason. I don't know why, he hasn't had a serious turn in my head yet, I guess. Also the half-argument from...Batman 137? where they're yelling about like, death and crime and utilitarianism -- that got stuck in my head.

Anyway it lines up with this other issue I have with DC comics, which is that the way they write Batman sometimes feels...deeply hypocritical? Other heroes kill people and fight violent criminals but aren't enmeshed in a deep dark tragic space where they're always apparently two steps away from turning into a deeply immoral/abusive/totalitarian figure. But future/AU Batmen are routinely stuck in this box. As far as I can tell, the potential reasons are

(a) there's something wrong with Gotham. (This is what's happening in the current 'Tec run, I think, and exists in all the "Gotham eats her children" headcanons.)

(b) Gotham's villain-hero landscape is uniquely disturbing and eats away at the souls of its participants. (??? I guess? This feels silly unless it's explained by (a), and fairly boring as a basis for storytelling, at least to me.)

(c) Bruce Wayne is has a uniquely sensitive empathetic response, and is probably really poorly suited to a life with this much violence, and all of it just hits him harder than it does the other heroes; people like Bruce tend to self-select out, and Bruce is just stubborn.

Wonder Woman kills people and the WW writers don't throw themselves all over the page talking about how Wonder Woman is going to succumb to a life of violence and trauma. (I mean, maybe sometimes they do. I'm woefully under-read on WW, but I'm confident enough in this assertion to put it here. Corrections welcome!)

So like...what's up with Batman? Future!Batman!Tim and future!Batman!Damian get this treatment as well, sometimes, and that's also baffling -- because Bruce Wayne, so far, hasn't succumbed to the kind of deeply immoral/abusive/totalitarian figure that DC likes to portray as just lurking around the corner. Is he uniquely able to withstand the pressure of the role? (Well, Bruce and Dick Grayson, of course.)

And with Jason...I do get Bruce's position. A death is a death is a death and at its heart (thank you Kingdom Come), Bruce is just trying to make it so that no one dies. Jason has a utilitarian point, as is sketched out in Batman 137, but it seems clear the actual issue is simply that his ethical position is different from Batman's. Jason thinks a death can be justified; Bruce doesn't.

(Are there any Cass and Jason comics? Because I would love love to see a Cass "ripped the bat off of Kate's costume" Cain and a Jason Todd ideological clash.)

(Why are Cass and Jason on the same side of Gotham War? DC, did you think this through?)

But, see: Batman works with Wonder Woman. Batman adores Wonder Woman. He may disagree with her methods, but that doesn't prevent Trinity team-up after intergalactic mission after them all showing up in each other's comics. So why are Batman and the Red Hood constantly at each other's throats? / Or -- why does DC seem to act as if there is no solution? / Why can't Batman work alongside the Red Hood? Some thoughts:

(a) The paternalism issue; Bruce considers himself uniquely responsible for Jason's actions, and his stepping aside as condoning them. The feels like an easy solution: Bruce Wayne's kid is not a kid anymore. He can make his own decisions.

(b) Gotham again. What other people do in other cities is their own business, but Gotham is Batman's city and he's not going to stand by and let Gothamites be killed. (Counterpoint: Kate? I haven't read any Batwoman but the extent to which DC keeps these separate is wild.)

(c) Jason refuses to consider a team-up without Batman's concession to his methods/refuses to change his methods in the interests of temporary peace. (Valid as an interpersonal stance but I thought we did this already in Urban Legends? Maybe not.)

Anyway I don't have a solution to this yet but I'm pretty sure Wonder Woman is the key. It'll probably come out as a fanfic by the end of the year; I've got a title already, so it had better.

[hasdrubal-gisco]

the part about the EU elections that people with green/center-left faves simply don’t understand is that people simply don’t want to vote against their self interest. i haven't talked about this much on here, but i really urge people to let go of the view politics through a "something is Left, therefore it follows that it is Good" and focus on the individual policy proposals and their outcomes. i maintain that understanding economics as a series of mediated conflicts between classes with opposing interests is the best way to understand what's going on - and solutions should be routed through this understanding as well. the fact that what has since its inception been an economic movement has been co-opted by a branch of academia that amounts to historical fiction (i will continue to refer to this as Left, leftism, etc. so as to deliberately divorce it from marxism. it admittedly also has little to do with the jacobin club of the national assembly where the L-R distinction comes from but nobody thinks about this anyway (rip)) is not my fault, but i will not cede this ground to them.

locally, the pirate party released a very embarrassing "we failed to explain the merits of our platform to voters" message regarding their relative underperformance. it's easier to believe a failure of messaging than a success in messaging an unappealing platform. the same was said by an unsuccessful presidential candidate about adopting the euro last year. do not be like this !

mucho texto warning, discussion on specific things that affected the election outcome:

the war in ukraine – putting this first because to me this is the primary fault-line between dissident (regardless of where on the L-R spectrum they aesthetically place themselves) and mainstream political movements. the consequences of the nonsensical EU sanction packages and aid deals has been completely absent from the conversation. “maybe we should put fewer ukrainians in a meat grinder” has for the past two years been a taboo stance which gets a politician derided as a far right/far left russian lickspittle. institutional commitment to the war negatively impacts people economically first directly (increase in food, energy expenses) as well as indirectly (opportunity cost, increased capital expenditure, lower market confidence - translates into increased job insecurity, suppression of wages for employees), and many simply disagree that this is a worthwhile tradeoff. whether this a majority/minority position depends country to country, but it is a very strong issue capable of changing voting patterns. another factor is the view that it as an american-russian proxy war, and europe being roped in is an erosion of both EU and national sovereignty. anyone with eyes can see ukraine simply will not win this war. if you think any month now the trident will fly over moscow you’re simply delusional. creditors like the EIB and ERBD (which are definitely not three germans, and three americans in a trench coats respectively) will spend the next 40 years smacking their lips

economic policy – europe is long overdue for a reevaluation of what left-right means. the main reason the center-left collapsed (in western europe in the ‘00s, in eastern europe in the ‘10s) is they are simply no longer parties representing a continuation of the historical fight for worker self-empowerment. simple as. some amount of this can be blamed on the american NGO industrial complex (more on this later), but most of it is just institutional rot. in every “social democratic party” there have been defectors to the “people’s democratic movement” (far right), as well as communist parties because it’s the only place where you can have actual pro-social policies. people have completely given up their right to fight for economic self-interest in exchange for adopted social struggles (again - more on this upcoming). many a “far-right” party has campaigned on lessening state surveillance, introducing the right to recall appointed political functionaries like judges, police, more public oversight over budgetary discretion, more transparency in regional governance. all hallmark traits of fascism, i suppose. nobody is interested in trillion-euro green policies that create a new tax for registering your petrol-vehicle while enriching german polycrystalline silicon manufacturers. we want to split the atom and we want it split now !

sovereignty – post-ww2, western europe fell wholly under the american sphere of influence, to an extent on par with russian influence in the warsaw pact. it is very gauche to acknowledge out loud how much influence NGOs and thinktanks based in the US have on european politics, source: look at what’s going on in georgia (country, sakartvelo). a great number of people have been elevated through conventional politicking to positions of power they cannot handle, and their responsibilities get delegated out to unelected consultancies which gain access to relatively impactful matrices of statecraft. entire social concepts are being imported and dumped onto people, and “authentic grassroots advocacy groups” are ready to receive this garbage and pretend this has always been the center of conversation here. more and more people are recognizing it and deciding to elevate sovereigntists in revolt, and it is a good thing. macron has had terrible domestic politics (except for raising retirement age), but his recent diplomatic grandstanding has been good to see. anglo-german cultural displacement of france on the european scene has been a disaster, as i have and will continue to insist on.

immigration – this one is for sure going to be popular on the “please be niceys” website. to pre-qualify, i am a resident alien in the country i live and work in, many of you are also resident aliens wherever you may be, some are intra-eu foreigners (i am not). at some point, we have to open the space for conversation enough to ask the question “is losing a doctor and gaining a bus driver overall good ?”. this point will probably go over better with europeans because they know what i mean, the american mind cannot comprehend brain-drain because it is the one place where it does not happen. americans are not finishing medical school to go move to nicaragua to make that moneyyy. america is gaining a lot of bus drivers but they’re not losing highly educated and specialized workers (except a couple chemical engineers going out to gulf states to do white collar work in oil refineries. wish that was me). it blows my mind how you can understand the concept of strike-breaking being bad, and simultaneously advocate for the import for a cheap labor force from abroad. it is doing you no favors, and it is doing the country where people come from no favors. the only people who benefit from this are those with enough capital to arbitrage this by depressing your wages or outright replacing you. you can posture and talk about inherent racism of european states all you want, but it is plainly obvious to anyone that non-european immigrants are treated by the law with a very soft hand even in cases of violent crime precisely to not seem racist. if someone’s culture has lax views on whether rape is actually bad, i personally am very comfortable saying that culture should be suppressed with the threat of force. lol ! being tolerant of indiscriminant violent crime is simply not a heckin’ wholesome leftist attitude. either you believe they are capable of not being rapists or you believe they are incapable of that. which is it ? to be clear, eastern europeans are heavily overrepresented in robbery and burglary in western europe – this is a bad thing and they should not do it, and i think it would be reasonable to have stricter controls even for them. as someone who has never robbed, burgled, killed, or raped, these policies are simply not a threat to me. sorry if robbers and burglars and murderers and rapists feel discriminated against, quite frankly they should be glad we don't do corporal punishment. you need to be sober and recognize people are coming here because they see a system easy to take advantage of, and they will be upset if it is denied to them, and you have to be comfortable making people upset. there is no argument in favor of unrestricted immigration other than "please be niceys," do not project your self-hate on a society you have to share with people who are normal.

youth – genuinely has anyone else been actively reaching out to the 35-25 demographic by offering a vision of a better future ? has any mainstream center-left or center-right party ever done any engagement that didn't amount to demanding loyalty because "that's how things are" ? do not say greens, because the vision greens offer simply is not better. sorry you will never sell someone on "please please lower your standards harder" when standards have already been decreasing anyway.

covid – this is a minor point in this round of election, but it does have to do with the overall vibe-shift. people who were skeptical of the rules imposed during covid, as well as the very rapid release of vaccinations were publicly shamed and derided as far-right, and told they deserved to not have access to any other forms of healthcare etc. establishment institutions paid a very high price in terms of their legitimacy, and now article after article is coming out walking back a lot of what was said, and admitting many decisions were made randomly and in the heat of the moment.

war in gaza – probably fairly low on most people's list of priorities, again, this war has a very predictable outcome to people looking from afar who don't care who is going to take over keren shalom border crossing or whatever. other than higher casualty count, it is simply not that different from 2014 and 2008. big deal for europe's large muslim population, along with getting exemptions from mandatory education for their daughters.

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

closing remarks; of course, nothing will happen, because nothing ever does. any political momentum can and must be squandered on infighting, and we can and will continue this managed decline for another few decades. europe is past its prime, and we're living on retirement being paid by america and china. to some this is good, but i'm just not that kinda guy, i see the missed opportunity and it bothers me.

the grounds for worker self-direction has never been moral, it has been practical. you should advocate for your own interests, and the productive labor force is the section of the population most to gain, as it carries the brunt of the burden. simple as. this thing where you have to advocate on behalf of some more-oppressed other is moralistic masturbation, and it's easy because unlike standing up for yourself, advocating for someone else asks very little of you (source: look around you)

EDIT 1: clearly this was not long enough. the moment an anti-immigration left-coded party emerges, it will win (as is the case in denmark for example). if it is possible to be a "socdem" and not advocate for social democracy, but it is not possible to be a "socdem" and advocate immigration restriction - it is reasonable to conclude "socdem" is defined as belief in more migration, rather than anything "soc" or "dem"

EDIT 2: re: covid, not that anyone has read them or cares but the declassified and unredacted contracts between the EU and pfizer/moderna/AZ are insane. really only means something to someone who already reads regulations regarding pharma but people should be barred from public service for signing some of the shit that was passed

EDIT 3: any aesthetic references to hitler & friends should be taken with the same seriousness as modern communist parties using the hammer and sickle, or government buildings flying lgbtpoc+ flags - not at all, it is aesthetic posturing, and has no practical impact. this isn't power rangers, let's be serious

[relationshipinfo]

Relationship Deal-breakers

In the 37 years that I have been counseling couples, I have discovered that there are only a few issues that are true relationship deal-breakers. Many of the issues that tear relationships apart are not actual deal-breakers. Rather, most divorces and breakups are the result of one or both partner’s unwillingness to learn from the conflicts that exist in all primary relationships. But some conflicts and differences are actual deal-breakers.

Get Free good advice for a good and long relationship help. Click Here

HAVING CHILDREN

Early in my career as a psychotherapist, I worked with Mary and Cal. Mary and Cal met when Mary was 38 and Cal was 47. Cal had been married before and had two adult children, while Mary had never been married. Cal made it very clear to Mary that he did not, under any circumstances, want more children. Mary seemed to accept this, but secretly hoped to change Cal’s mind once they were married.

A year after they were married, Mary brought up the issue of having children. Cal was appalled. He felt angry, trapped and betrayed by Mary’s secret hope, as well as by her dishonesty. Mary begged and pleaded, hoping Cal’s love for her would soften his position. But he stayed committed to his decision not to have any more children.

Get Free good advice for a good and long relationship help. Click Here

This situation has a very sad ending. Mary was devastated. She loved Cal, but having children was actually extremely important to her. She didn’t want to leave him and she couldn’t let go of wanting a child. The stress of the situation eventually eroded her immune system and she died of ovarian cancer of few years after bringing up the baby issue.

I learned a lot from Mary and Cal’s experience. I learned that the baby issue is a deal-breaker. It is not healthy for someone who really wants a baby to give that up, and it is not healthy for someone who does not want a baby to go along with having one. This deep and basic issue needs to be dealt with head-on, early in a relationship, before people move ahead with commitment and marriage.

Get Free good advice for a good and long relationship help. Click Here

WORK

Rhonda and Fred fell in love in their late 30’s. Each had jobs that they loved and that were very important to them. Fred was the vice-president of a large company, while Rhonda had a flourishing practice as a pediatrician. They both lived in Los Angeles. All seemed fine until an incredible opportunity opened up for Fred — one that he had always dreamed of. The problem was that it meant moving to New York. Fred’s work became a deal-breaker.

Some people can commute and maintain a relationship, but this was not realistic for Rhonda and Fred, since they both wanted to have children. They realized that if either of them gave up the work they loved, they would feel very resentful. They had no choice but to end the relationship. Even though they loved each other, they recognized that their relationship would soon erode if one of them gave themselves up.

Get Free good advice for a good and long relationship help. Click Here

BETRAYAL

Dishonesty and infidelity can often be deal-breakers, depending upon the situation. Some people can learn from and grow through these difficult situations, while for others the wound is too deep to repair.

Mandy and Hal were in their 50’s when they met and fell in love. Both were in unhappy long-term marriages, which they decided to leave to be with each other.

However, Hal had married when he was very young. He had spent his life working hard to support his wife and children. He had never had an opportunity to do some of the things he really wanted to do — like travel on his own or explore relationships with other women. He loved Mandy but he felt trapped. He wanted his freedom.

As a result he started to pull away from Mandy, which was very painful for her. They received counseling to try to reconcile the situation. Mandy was willing for Hal to leave and travel for six months, but Hal was reluctant to leave Mandy. Mandy had not expected a man in his 50’s to need to sow wild oats.

Then Mandy found out that Hal had slept with another woman. His pulling away was bad enough, but his infidelity was a deal-breaker. Mandy ended their relationship the day she discovered the affair. She told Hal that she still loved him but could not continue this way. She left the door open by telling him that if he ever got his wanderlust out of his system, she would consider trying again.

Dishonesty about money can also be a deal-breaker, such as finding out that your mate is earning money by selling drugs or through some other illegal operation.

Get Free good advice for a good and long relationship help. Click Here

Most conflicts — conflicts that are really about communication and control issues — can be resolved when both people are willing to learn. But some conflicts are true deal-breakers.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Serenade (Daniela Dimitrescu/Reader) Pt. 8

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language? Warnings: None? I think? Please let me know if I missed something Notes: Bit of fluff with some anxiety/update on primary conflict. Next chapter will be a cute date with Dani, the one after that will be maximum h*rny, and then what will likely be the finale. Music for this chapter here. PS this one is a bit on the shorter side, but I hope y'all still enjoy it. Past Chapters: Pt. 1: Nocturne, Pt. 2: Overture, Pt. 3: Accelerando, Pt. 4: Toccata, Pt. 5: Poco a Poco, Pt. 6: Elegy, Pt. 7: Harmony

Chapter 8: Obbligato

(Obbligato: An instrumental part which is essential in a piece of music)

“Okay, okay, serious this time, please? I’ll give you a kiss if you try hard enough,” you promised, grinning up at Daniela as you did. A week had passed since your talk in the library, with the two of you spending most days together, and you were progressing nicely with the musical lessons. Still, your girlfriend (you would never get tired of saying that word) was prone to getting a tad ‘distracted’. By you, usually. Not that it was intentional by any means. There was only so much you could do to keep her focused when the two of you were this close together.

“I could just kiss you anyway,” Daniela teased, leaning in with familiar intent. Right before your lips touch, however, she pulls back and smirks. “But if you insist, I can handle the challenge.” Then she’s turning back towards the piano, carefully finding the starting position. Even with her prior experience, you were impressed with how much she had already learned, and couldn’t help but be immensely proud of her. If anyone could meet Lady Dimitrescu’s expectations within a three month timeframe, it was the two of you. Except, of course, you still had to double-check just what her expectations were.

In the meantime, you were excited to hear your girlfriend play through the sheet music you had written up. Most of what you were working with had come from the family’s storage room, but you had also found some blank sheets, and figured it couldn’t hurt to create songs of your own. This particular one was relatively simple. It had been based on a song from a game you had played years ago, and only posed a moderate challenge due to its interesting rhythm. Daniela had seemed to enjoy playing it, with you even hearing her practice the song outside of your lessons, but had so far today refused to play it seriously.

Finally that was going to change. Once she found the starting notes, she nodded to herself, then started playing. For the first time today her expression is stern, focused. Seeing her like this was nice. She was always cute, you just thought that she was extra cute like this. But you tried not to let yourself get too distracted, knowing that you couldn’t give her feedback if you didn’t pay attention. In your head you “play along”, fingers miming the movements, knowing that it would help you catch any possible mistakes. Throughout the piece there are only a couple that you catch, none of them being severe enough to ruin the experience. Finishing with a little flourish, Daniela returns her gaze to you, grinning expectantly.

“Well? I seem to recall you promising me a reward,” she said, perking a brow. Laughing a little, you roll your eyes, before moving in to give her exactly what she wanted. Both of you are smiling into the kiss, enjoying every moment of it. Soon enough Daniela is running a hand through your hair, and pressing against you more, tilting her head just enough to deepen the kiss. You’re blushing hard now, thoughts going everywhere other than music. It’s not until you pull back for air that you remember what you’re supposed to be doing right now.

“As wonderful as this is… we still have a few more songs to go over,” you murmured, despite how much you wanted to keep kissing Daniela. By the way she groaned in frustration, you figured she felt the same way, more or less. “Hey, don’t fret too much. Think of this as an opportunity to earn a few more rewards,” you teased, gently patting her on the shoulder. For a moment she simply pouts, but eventually she sighs and gets ready to play another song…

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

Rushing up the steps, practically two at a time, you desperately hoped that you wouldn’t be late. This was your third “update meeting” with Lady Dimitrescu, which by itself was enough to make you a nervous wreck. Add in the fact that this was the first time you’d be meeting alone? And in her personal study, no less? Well, it was safe to say that you were terrified. You hadn’t even been told why things were different this time. No, you were about as clueless as could be, given the circumstances.

By the time you make it your Lady’s study, you cannot tell whether your heart is racing due to stress or physical exertion. Regardless, you make it there in short time, arriving precisely at the scheduled hour. After taking a moment to settle your nerves, you briefly knock on the chamber door. There’s the sound of movement from inside before the way opens. Lady Dimitrescu has to bend a little to see out, but quickly smiles when she meets your gaze. Which was rather unexpected. The last time you had met with her she had been distanced, although still polite. Then again, Daniela had also been with you, and the focus was, as always, on her.

“Lady Dimitrescu,” you greeted, giving a short bow per customs. Then you were being waved in, brought over to a small sitting area, where you waited for permission to sit down. Once it was given, you relaxed a little. Maybe I don’t have as much reason to be nervous as I thought, you muse.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. There are no reasons for you to be unsettled, as far as I am aware,” Lady Dimitrescu said, smile disappearing for a moment at the end. But it’s back as quickly as it had vanished. Did she suspect something? Perhaps she had seen the way Daniela looked at you, or even overheard the whisperings of your roommates. Both thoughts do little other than renew your anxiety. Noticing this, Alcina frowns and shakes her head. “I was merely joking. Now, let us get to the reason for our meeting: How are Daniela’s lessons fairing? There is only so much I can glean from listening.” Glad to have something to think about other than your secret relationship with your boss’ daughter, you nodded and began explaining.

“Lady Daniela is making outstanding progress, in my opinion. Even with her occasional… lapses in attention, once she puts her mind to something, she’s quick to master it. At this point she can sight read nearly as fast and accurately as myself. However, we’re still going over vocabulary, as well as keys and their corresponding chords,” you answered, barely able to maintain eye contact with your employer. Thankfully, she seems to have accepted the inevitability of your nervousness. You were especially thankful now that you prepared to ask her a question. “My Lady, may I inquire about what specifically you expect from my teachings? If there are certain genres you wish for Daniela to be familiar with, or techniques-... I must admit I am unsure as to how to best meet your requirements.”

Slowly reclining in her chair, Alcina appears to ponder your question. In the meantime she sips at her beverage, holding the cup as if it were a fragile heirloom (which it could very well be), eyes looking into the middle distance. Then she gives a soft hum, setting her cup down and returning her attention to you.

“I suppose I can understand your concern. In some ways you have already exceeded my expectations,” she said, expression oddly plain in comparison to her positive phrasing. “My daughter has rarely invested herself in anything as much as she has in your lessons. For this, I am left wondering what she finds so captivating- the music, or the one who pulls the strings?... But that is not the answer to your inquiry, is it?” In that moment, you are incredibly still, willing yourself to keep a straight face, despite the racing of your heart. At your silence, Alcina perks a brow, expecting you to respond. You can’t, your mouth suddenly dry. “What I expect is a passion to educate, a drive to see my daughter flourish. I expect you to teach her exactly as much as she wants you to, focusing on whatever brings her the most joy. But I expect professionalism. Your duties come first, above your health, happiness, and all other desires. Am I understood?”

“Yes, my Lady. Of course, my Lady,” you replied, stuttering, eyes wide. Did she know? Or merely suspect?... There’s another thought, one you try desperately not to voice, only to hear the words fill the room before you can stop yourself. “May I ask where Lady Daniela’s desires fit into this?” Silence hangs heavy over the room for several seconds. Your employer has narrowed her eyes, lips curled downwards into a sharp scowl, watching you with thinly-veiled anger. All you can do is gulp and wait for her response. When it comes, you are surprised by the stability of her tone. It was almost as if she respected your gall.

“She is young still, with the mind of a lovesick maiden. Daniela does not know what she wants, not really, nor does she understand what she needs. If her… flirtatious nature begins to interrupt your instruction, then your response must be swift, and uninterested. Regardless of how unkindly she takes your rejection, I will ensure that she does not harm you,” Lady Dimitrescu said, giving a stern nod at the end. Though her tone was reassuring, you hardly felt better, considering you were far past the point of turning Daniela down (if anything, you had only turned her on). “Now, with that settled, I believe I should let you return to your duties. Oh, and do tell Cynthia that the tea she brewed was perfect, should you happen to see her.”

Then she looked away, practically ignoring your continued existence. So you rose to your feet, gave another bow, and left before your panic could devolve into a breakdown. Daniela is not going to be happy about this.

[daughterofzagreus]

The Astrological Signs of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" characters

Part 1 - Team Avatar

♎ Aang - Libra

Libra is an air sign and Aang is an airbender. More than that, though, Libra (represented by the scales) is the sign of harmony and balance. As the Avatar, restoring and maintaining balance is Aang's primary duty. Aside from all that symbolism though, Aang's personality is a lot like a Libra.

Libra is the opposite compliment to Aries, a war sign. Libra don't really like discord (at least, they don't like to be IN the discord and chaos). They're lovers, not fighters, so they tend to be peacekeepers. This is Aang to a T. Aang is not only one of the youngest characters in the show (and therefore, the most likely to be uncomfortable with violence), but he is also a monk, raised by other peaceful monks.

He values peace and all life. Even his fighting styles are evasive and are more about using an opponent's strength against them, rather than attacking. It's something that is brought up in the Book 2 episode "Bitter Work", when Aang has trouble learning earthbending from Toph. Libras (depending on the rest of their chart, of course) often tend to respond to conflict in a similar manner, by being avoidant.

You see the pacifist in Aang anytime he needs to mediate a conflict. Examples include "The Great Divide" in Book 1, where Aang has to mediate between the two tribes (as well as Sokka and Katara). He does so by telling them that "Harsh words won't solve anything. Action will". Of course, when that doesn't work, he just lies and makes up the alternative story of WeiJin and JinWei. I don't think Aang is a big fan of lies, but it was for the sake of peace, a means to an end. Very Libra.

Another thing that makes Aang a Libra is the fact that 1) Libra is ruled by Venus and 2) Libra rules the 7th house, which is essentially relationships. Aang's relationships (platonic and romantic) mean EVERYTHING to him, and there's a reason why putting one of his loved ones in danger is initially the only way to activate the Avatar state. He's a very friendly, charming and loving kid (like most Libras) and he's the first one from team Avatar who believes they can make it through the secret tunnel, because of how strongly he believes in his love for Katara. The final point is Aang's reluctance (or sometimes downright refusal) to cause harm to others unless absolutely necessary. While others use violence, Aang is more likely to want to befriend his enemies, and that's actually a good thing. It's Libra's superpower.

♋ Katara - Cancer

Cancer is a water sign that is ruled by the moon, and Katara is a (very powerful) waterbender who draws her powers from the moon. In astrology, water signs are known for being on the emotional side. And with Cancer's ruling planet being the moon (the planet of emotions and also the celestial body that pushes and pulls the tides), Cancers are known to be so emotional, that they're often just archetyped by it. Katara is similarly emotional (see the Book 3 episode "Ember Island Players"). However, Katara being so in touch with her emotions also makes her extremely emotionally intelligent. Like Cancers and most other water signs, her heightened sensitivity allows her to almost psychically sense how others are feeling, and to know how exactly to respond to and comfort them. There's a reason why Katara has such great chemistry (when it comes to her one-on-one conversations) with so many people (Aang, Haru, Jet, Zuko, Toph). Her emotional intelligence also makes her very mature for her age and allow her to see things clearer than others, or to foresee things that others don't.

Cancers are often either family oriented, or they love and value their home (this can either be their childhood home, current home, or the city, country or culture that they came from). This applies with Katara. As a waterbender, being from the water tribes is a big part of who she is, and she has a deep love for her culture. We see how being the only waterbender in the South Pole and having no one to show her the ways of waterbending saddens her, and how happy she is to hear that Hama is willing to teach her (the only other waterbender from the Southern water tribes that Katara has ever met).

With regards to Katara being mature for her age, she's also very motherly. The Book 3 episode "The Runaway" (as well as most of her interactions with Toph) demonstrates this. The moon (which rules Cancer) is The Mother in astrology, and so most Cancers have a significant relationship with motherhood. Katara was very close to her late mother and her death still affects her.

Following the death of her mother, Katara has basically had to become everyone else's mother and hold things together. You see this as well (in a more positive light) in the Book 2 episode "The Desert". In this episode, Appa is missing, Aang is too upset to think or act clearly, Toph can't see properly because of the sand and Sokka is high off cactus juice. Katara is the one that is keeping everything together in this episode.

On the downside, Katara's mothering can turn to nagging sometimes, but I don't blame her. She's a child that's had to grow up way too fast. She has a lot of pressure on her. With water, that pressure can build up, until it bursts like a dam wall (which it's likely to do). It's the combination of this, as well as Katara's strong and fearless sense of right and wrong that lead to those cataclysmic outbursts that both Katara and water signs are sometimes known for.

♋♐Sokka - Cancer sun, but with a lot of Sagittarius aspects in the birth chart

Okay, let's start with the Sagittarius side of things. There are a lot of elements of the Sag personality in Sokka. For one thing, luck. Not only does he manage to survive (and thrive) in the entire series WITHOUT any bending powers, but that boomerang ALWAYS comes back! That's some Jupiter-luck energy if I've ever seen it.

Sokka was originally going to be a more serious character, but the voice actor decided to improvise and add some of his own humor to the role, which created the Sokka that we know and love now. I mention this because the voice actor (Jack De Sena) is a Sagittarius. Sokka has the kind of personality that provides humor in difficult times and can lighten up the sometimes very heavy atmosphere in the group. He doesn't just make people laugh, he likes to laugh as well (at his own jokes and even at his enemy's jokes). In the book 3 episode "The Ember Island Players", heeven goes to the effort of getting Suki to sneak him backstage, so he could give the actor playing himself some tips and extra jokes (and low and behold, the crowd actually laughs at them). In his words, he's "just a guy who loves comedy". In fact, I think he's one of the only ones there who just decides to kick his feet up and enjoy the show (by basically turning the situation into a date night for him and Suki). Sagittarians love to laugh and make people laugh. They're optimists who like to have a good time, and are likely to be the make-lemonade-out-of-lemons type.

He's also one of the smartest and most competent characters on the show. He has excellent problem solving skills, and isn't afraid to look at things through a different angle and try new things to expand his worldview and knowledge. This is relevant, as Sag rules the 9th house which includes, amoung other things, higher learning, truth and knowledge. He can be a bit tactless and insensitive...a little slick at the mouth, but it's largely ignored by others, as he is likeable and funny enough for others to let it go. That's quite a Sag trait.

The Cancerian part of Sokka's personality is less pronounced, but it's there. He's VERY protective of his loved ones, even before the situation with Princess Yue. He is family oriented in that he admires his dad and the traditions and customs of the water tribes. He loves and is just as proud of his culture and home life as Katara is, but just in a different way. He also always looks out for the other members of team Avatar. He can tell when a member of the team needs support and immediately jumps to action (for example, the way he immediately grabs Toph's hand to guide her in "The Serpent's Pass", in "The Desert" and on the air ships during the final battle in the series finale). He's also very loving and protective of his sister, despite how often they fight. Also, quiet as it's kept, Cancers are one of the funniest signs in the zodiac.

♉♈Toph - Taurus sun, but with a lot of Aries aspects in the birth chart

Let's start with the Taurus aspects. Taurus is not just an earth sign, it's FIXED earth. It embodies the firm stance and hardheadness of not just Toph, but earthbenders in general. Tauruses are very stubborn and like to do things their own way at their own pace. Combine that with the independence and confrontational nature of an Aries, and you've got Toph.

Aries value their independence, sometimes to the point of being selfish, which is what we get with Toph in the Book 2 episode "The Chase". In this episode, it's Toph's first time riding with the group, but it's also her first taste of freedom. Like an Aries, she hates the idea of seeming weak or helpless, and has to learn that freedom doesn't mean that she has to do everything alone.

As Toph shows us, there is, however, power and strength in valuing independence, so long as you're not insecure about independence or projecting. Toph is a wealthy, sheltered child who is blind, which, in most cases, would make her vulnerable. But it's not the case. Toph ran away once before when she was little, and that's where she learned earthbending from the giant blind moles. She learned earthbending not just as a martial art, but as an extension of herself and her senses, and as a way to see. She would have never been able to master doing that (nor would shehave gone on to do even greater things like train the avatar and discover metal bending), if she didn't have the will, bravery and self assurance to run away in the first place. That little pilgrimage (her life changing adventure, if you will...but still not with Zuko, I'm afraid😔) showed the value of independence. Of going out on your own journey of self-discovery. Much like how Zuko needed to be be alone for a while during Book 2 for his own journey of self-discovery.

Oh, speaking of "Zuko Alone"...

♈Zuko - Aries

Zuko's arc in the show shows us the transition from a dark-sided, low vibrational Aries, to a high-vibrational Aries at it's best: passionate, brave, protective, strong, innovative, a good leader, driven, energetic and independent. Zuko embodies many Aries (and general fire sign) traits, both good and bad. He can be impulsive, and doesn't always think things all the way through. Aries is cardinal fire, so it's about getting up and going, just DOING something. Zuko is known for never giving up. These are things that that Iroh, Sokka and Ursa have mentioned. Zuko is an impatient person and is very fiery, hot headed and reactionary even for a firebender.

His reactionary nature makes him prone to a bit of melodrama (and I imagine that's why it's so fun for Azula or even Iroh to get a rise out of him). This is definitely the case with Aries. They're not the only sign with a temper, but they are the most likey to cause a scene and storm off in a huff about it. Or challenge you to a fight. Zuko can't refuse a fight for the life of him. At least not until he evolves and figures out his ✨true destiny✨.

One the other hand, he also keeps that same fiery energy when it comes to defending those who can't defend themselves and fighting for what he believes is right. In these cases, he refuses to back down. Even if his chances of winning are low, he'll still keep pushing forward. That's the will, energy and drive of cardinal fire. Zuko just needs to chanel all that power into something useful and constructive, like creating change for the greater good, and not distraction. Like with fire in general, Aries (and Zuko) is useful and powerful, but requires direction, guidance and purpose, so as to not risk letting the fire run wild to cause destruction and devastation.

[amedetoiles]

pls tell me your thoughts about the potential for wwx-jgy friendship? i just like the idea of them having similar experiences as like: poor street kid/poor brothel kid, would kill god for the people they care about, made of knives, incredibly charming and personable. i feel like they could have Seen each other and understood each other really well, and like, things would have ended up better maybe?

Gosh. Ok, so full disclosure before I answer this: I am really not the most sympathetic towards Jin Guangyao. I am just not a fan of him in any universe where he is complicit if not directly responsible for the death of his own child to protect his own reputation (up for debate, but nonetheless Jin Rusong fucking deserved better), gaslights his wife / half-sister into committing suicide, and has a monologue meltdown about how difficult his life has been to his own orphaned and bullied nephew whose childhood he had a hand in destroying. I am glad he got kicked down the same stairs twice, and I am glad Nie Huaisang beat him at his own game. All in all to say that my thoughts on him might be colored by this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But let’s get into this! Jin Guangyao is a great character foil to Wei Wuxian. The circumstances of his life that shaped his morality (or lack thereof) and the choices he makes in response are tragic and understandable. I definitely think Jin Guangyao could have been a different person, a better person, if his father wasn’t such a trash heap, if society hadn’t been such a gigantic dick about his mother, and if he hadn’t needed to claw his way into achieving everything he did. Wei Wuxian says himself that he doesn’t consider Jin Guangyao a villain.

However, I hesitate to say that had they struck up a friendship, Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian could have understood each other easily and that this could have changed things. Don’t get me wrong! I can definitely see how influence could have been made where a friendship between these two would have fixed it all. Or at least improved things. Especially in association with Wei Wuxian, Jiang Yanli’s nonjudgemental kindness (under the condition that nobody hurts her little brothers) would have been extremely refreshing to Meng Yao.

But I also think the differences between Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao would have made it difficult for them to truly understand and agree with each other. And it’s these differences that ultimately decide each of their fates.

I will try to organize my thoughts on this. First, the discussion of privilege.

1. Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao are not on the same privilege level.

While both Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao are scorned in some way, shape, or form for their parents’ statuses, Wei Wuxian is still the son of cultivators. He is still the son of Cangse sanren, a disciple of a famed immortal. His pedigree and legacy are undeniable. Jin Guangyao, on the other hand, is the unwanted son of a lecherous sect leader and a sex worker. In a society where hierarchy and reputation is everything, this places Jin Guangyao in an entirely different pedigree in a way that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t be able to understand.

Wei Wuxian is also brought into the Jiang sect and given a chance to cultivate at an early age where Jin Guangyao doesn’t. Wei Wuxian can punch the heir of a rich sect leader, leading to the dissolution of his sister’s political marriage alliance, and still get nothing but a slap on the wrist because boys will be boys. He can interrupt important post-war celebration dinners to tell that same rich sect leader to fuck off with his marriage proposal and then promptly skip away without any real consequences. He can accidentally send his friend’s little brother into a murderous rampage, and his own little brother will apologize on his behalf and offer to pay reparations.

Wei Wuxian may not have the same privilege as sect heirs like Jiang Cheng or Lan Wangji, but he has far more privilege than Jin Guangyao and Su She. This is important because it is this privilege that Wei Wuxian sacrifices later in order to the protect the Wens. I am not saying Wei Wuxian doesn’t suffer. He does, a truly horrendous amount, but even without his golden core, even when his self-worth is at an all-time low, he is still supported and protected by his status in the Jiang sect until he gives it up to do the right thing. Despite Lan Xichen and the Nies, Jin Guangyao doesn’t have this same kind of backing.

(With that being said though, Jin Guangyao does become Chief Cultivator, so there is only so far one can fall back on their disadvantages in society when they have already reached the top. Being marginalized is not an excuse to be a jackass to your nephew whose parents you had a hand in killing, just saying.)

One can argue that had Jin Guangyao been raised in the Jiang sect while Wei Wuxian continued to scrape for food on the streets, their outlook on life would have been completely different. But even taking into account Jiang Yanli’s overwhelmingly positive influence on a young Meng Yao, I am still inclined to disagree because of my next point.

2. Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao are fundamentally different in how they respond/cope with public gossip and ridicule.

Wei Wuxian, for the most part, lets these comments roll off his back. This is not to say he doesn’t care or that they don’t affect him. They clearly do, and his actions, his self-perception, and his increasingly arrogant bravado as the story progresses reflect the deluge of verbal abuse he’s face with, largely at the hands of Madam Yu. But he copes by being loud, by being talented, by becoming even more outrageous and more unorthodox the more people criticize him. So what if people don’t approve? So what if people look down on his father and gossip about his mother’s supposed relationship with Jiang Fengmian? As long as he is true to himself and his moral convictions, he can walk this dark single plank road alone and without regrets.

Jin Guangyao, on the other hand, desperately and reverently wants to be included. He wants to be accepted, to be liked. He wants to be in the room where it happens. He takes every single comment to heart, carries every disdainful remark on his back like an open scar. He is both someone who loves and respect his mother and who hates her for the constant shadow she casts over him and his place in society. He will build a Guanyin statue in her likeness, in her honor. He will wear a hat because she once told him that a gentleman always wears hats. And yet, he will spend everyday of his life trying to rid himself of his connection to her.

Where Wei Wuxian recklessly cares too little about appearances and what people think of him, Jin Guangyao cares far too much. Wei Wuxian doesn’t give one flying iota about politics, about status and acclaim. He was perfectly fine with being a lotus farmer on a mountain. Even if Wei Wuxian had never been taken in by the Jiangs (and managed to survive the streets), I genuinely think he would still have been largely the same – a child who is kind, open, curious, and holds few grudges. I am not sure I can say that even under the best circumstances, Jin Guangyao wouldn’t have . It destroys him. .

This ties into my last point.

3. Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao have completely opposing priorities and beliefs on the worth of others.

Wei Wuxian will throw himself in front of anybody if his moral compass tells him it is the right thing to do. He is a genuinely open-hearted person who cares deeply about others and thinks it is morally corrupt to do nothing when something can be done. He is idealistic and optimistic, oftentimes to a fault. Jin Guangyao, as a result of his childhood and circumstances, is incredibly pessimistic and cynical. It is every person for themselves out here. The world is a crooked shitshow, conflict is inevitable, and he has to come out on top no matter what.

This leads to him sacrificing pretty much everyone in his life in order to maintain his own reputation. Like I do genuinely think Jin Guangyao truly cared about Jin Ling! I think he also in his own way cared about Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, and Nie Huaisang! But I also think a large portion of that is because he enjoyed how they made him feel. He enjoyed being liked and being depended upon. And we see clearly what happens when those benefits cease. Whereas Wei Wuxian would rather throw himself off a cliff than hurt any more people he loves, Jin Guangyao would rather push his own people off the cliff if it means his reputation and appearance remain intact. And if that’s not possible, he would rather set them on fire along with him.

This has become an entirely too long rambling essay to say that while Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao share similar experiences, their primary priorities are so different and opposing that it is hard for me to come up with a way in which a friendship between them could have changed things. Sure, Jin Guangyao could have benefited from Wei Wuxian’s unabashed and staunch defense of his friend. Anyone who talks shit about Jin Guangyao’s mother will get punched in the face, and it would maybe have made Jin Guangyao feel less alone in the world, less like he only had himself and his manipulative ways to seek acceptance.

But what happens when Wei Wuxian being Wei Wuxian runs around causing social and political uproar to do what he thinks is right? Is Jin Guangyao going to help and support him, or is he going to throw Wei Wuxian under the bus to protect his own reputation? Personally, I think the importance he places on public perception would ultimately be too great. It destroys his relationships, and it destroys him.

[recurring-polynya]

What comparisons can be made between renruki and Ichiruki? I often wondered about this.

This is such a hot button issue that as soon as I received this (perfectly polite) ask, my body tensed up and my brain went Am I being trolled?

It’s honestly a shame that there is so much bad blood behind this, because it is, in fact, a very interesting thing to talk about, and I am going to attempt to do so in good faith, because I love thinking about this kind of thing. Even though I am very openly a Renruki shipper, I love all three of these characters very much, and I think that Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship is very important! I am doing my best to be neutral, although I have not read very much Ichiruki fanfic/meta, so please give me a benefit of a doubt. Obviously, I can’t stop anyone from reblogging this and putting their own comments on it, but I have no interest in getting in debates over it, so don’t be surprised if I don’t engage.

This is both long, and I am sure some people don’t care, so I’m gonna put the rest under a cut. I have tried to hard to write this in a way that will not make anyone mad, but if you think it will make you mad, please give yourself the gift of not clicking on it.

So, what is the same between Ichigo and Renji? Lots, actually. Physically, they are both tall, strong, and have ridiculously colored spiky hair. They are outwardly grumpy, but secretly have soft, gooey centers. Neither one of them is dumb, but they are both dumbasses. They are protectors: they would rather take any amount of pain or damage onto themselves than see a loved one hurt. Their friends are everything to them, and that goes triple for Rukia.

How are they different, then? There are three major bullets:

- Ichigo is alive. Renji is dead. Perhaps this is a little flip, but Renji belongs to same world that Rukia does, and Ichigo does not. This is not a value judgment, it is just a fact: If Rukia ends up with Renji, she stays where she is. If she ends up with Ichigo, either Rukia or Ichigo have to make a huge change. I will get back to this.

- Youth vs. Experience. Ichigo is a 15-year old boy, as we are told about 1000 times. There is some mystery over how old Rukia and Renji are, but they have graduated from secondary education and are currently employed. I think it’s safe to assume that they are roughly close in age to each other, but I think Rukia may perceive Renji as seeming older than herself-- he graduated from school, and she didn’t; he’s on his third squad transfer, whereas she’s hasn’t budged from her initial, entry-level job, and he’s now middle management. However, the arc of the story we don’t get to see, is that over the timeskips, Rukia not only catches up to, but surpasses him. Also, not for nothing, but I think that in the same way Rukia is immediately drawn to Ichigo because of his resemblance to Kaien, I think she is also drawn to him for his resemblance to Young Renji-- a grumpy, prickly young man, leaking self-doubt from every pore, whom she is more able to be generous towards through the lens of age and experience. (And I think this comparison could support either ship)

- Ichigo is the protagonist. Rules don’t apply to him. Fate breaks on his sword. He represents the triumph of love or hard work or dreams or what have you over the cruel millstone of the world. Renji, on the other hand, is firmly bound to the rules of the world in which he inhabits. In fact, that is arguably the entire purpose of his character. Renji’s fights are often used to set the stakes of the conflict-- ah, Renji got mangled, this guy must be tough. In the Soul Society Arc, he is an antagonist because he is doing what he is supposed to. In the TYBW, Kubo literally throws the two of them in a pit to fight some asauchi just to make the point that Renji is a shinigami and Ichigo is something else.

Let’s jump over to Rukia for a moment. Rukia is a great character, one of my favorite characters in any media. Rukia contains multitudes. She is tough and strong, but often melancholy. She can be beautiful and elegant, but she also lies and breaks rules and tried to put Kon in a dead cat once. Emotionally, she likes to present a cool front, but she has a big, loving heart, and she feels deeply. As a character, all of this makes her very easy to project onto, which is why I think so many people OTP her with someone, no matter who.Some people choose to try to make her into one of these things or another, and some people try to keep her as the full bundle of contradictions that she is.

There is no romantic content in canon Bleach. There is no romantic content in canon Bleach. There are many, many scenes that can be interpreted romantically, but no one goes on a date, no one kisses. Ichigo gazes longingly into the eyes of all his friends, it’s just a thing he does. Orihime does explicitly proclaim at one point that she loves Rukia, although I suspect that in the original Japanese, it’s the word for “friendship love” and not the very-rarely-used “romantic love.” I have seen a scene-for-scene comparison of IchiHime “romantic moments” only it’s Chad and Uryuu (which I choose to believe supports IshiChad, rather than negates IchiHime, but we may all choose for ourselves!) My point is that shipping in Bleach is a DIY craft, which, when we’re all having a good time, is what makes it so fun.

So, bringing all of this together, given that Ichigo and Renji are fairly similar characters, why are the ships so different, and what makes one appeal to some people and be abhorrent to someone else?

I think about romance stories a lot. I actually took a class on romance novels in college and I just really like to think about the mechanics of stories. In the truest sense of the word, “romance” is about extremes-- about sailing the high seas and wearing ostentatious shirts and shouting off a cliff in a rainstorm. When we talk about romance as a genre, the characters tend to behave in a way that we would not prefer our actual romantic partners do, but the over-the-top nature of it makes us swoon and our hearts drop -- except when it doesn’t. What is heart-breakingly romantic to some people can be a huge turn-off to others. The biggest fight my husband and I have ever had was over a kdrama. The male lead was hiding his identity from the female lead in order to help her, and I found it all to be deeply, deeply romantic, and my husband turned to me and said “He is being dishonest with her and I think it’s morally wrong” and I almost died.

So, let’s break down some of the themes of the two ships, which I think gets at the meat of what you were asking. Now, like I said, shipping is very participatory, and anyone may have their own ideas of how these relationships would be, and I am a big fan of “a great writer can get away with anything”, but in broad strokes, I think that these are the themes of the two ships:

IchiRuki:

Love conquers all/ Love is enough to overcome differences of class, age, lifestyle, geography, etc.

Instant connections/Love at first sight

Love is a force of the universe that cannot be denied or defeated

Young love

Grand gestures

Your partner changes you (in a positive way)/You effect change in your partner

Your partner is the center of your world

Your partner is the one person who can get through to you/You are the one person who can get through to your partner

Banter

Dumbassery

RenRuki:

Love takes work

Best friends to lovers

Second chances/Broken things can be repaired

Love is a choice

You improve with age

Shared experiences build love

Pining

Working together with your partner to create a mutually satisfying life together

Your partner enriches your world, but your independence is maintained

Banter

Dumbassery

There is also some degree of character interpretation at work, too-- there seems to be a huge degree of disagreement between fans as to whether:

a) Ichigo enjoys his normal, human life, and even though he do anything to protect what he loves, he would prefer to live a human existence with his human friends and family. He credits Rukia will helping him realize his strength and powers.

b) Ichigo is unsatisfied with his human life and that meeting Rukia opened the doorway to a life of excitement and adventure, on top of being given the strength to protect his loved ones.

As far as Ichigo pairings go, I think that most IchiHime people fall in category (a) and most IchiRuki (and GrimmIchi) shippers fall in (b). In both cases, peoples’ ships align with their view of what makes Ichigo happy. Most IchiRuki content I have seen  seems to feature Ichigo moving to Soul Society, rather than Rukia moving to Karakura. Rukia pretty explicitly indicates at the end of the Soul Society Arc that she wants to stay in Soul Society, plus she’s got a pretty established life there. Contrast that to the story of Isshin and Masaki-- Isshin seems pretty flippant and disaffected about his life in Soul Society; it doesn’t seem like it was a particularly hard choice for him to give up being a shinigami. Also, it’s pretty clear that what Isshin did was illegal, and I’m not sure there would be an easy way for Rukia to just say “WELP, I’m off to live as a human, smell you jerks later.”

To try to wrap things up, I think the actual dynamics of an IchiRuki or RenRuki relationship would be very similar, actually. They would banter a lot and dive headfirst into danger and support each other no matter what. Byakuya would treat either guy with the vaguest, most grudging amount of respect. The primary perpetual, unresolved argument between Rukia and Ichigo would be “The Living World is dumb/Soul Society is dumb”, whereas with Rukia and Renji, it would be “Squad 6 is dumb/Squad 13 is dumb wait no I didn’t mean that Captain Ukitake is an angel.”

Personally, I headcanon Renji as being more able than Ichigo to step back and be the support person in the relationship (see that bullet about Ichigo being the protag), so I think that RenRuki could manage to run a functional household, whereas Ichigo and Rukia would just go on adventures until they got arrested for tax evasion.

*For the record, I am very pro-IchiRenRuki, except that they would be even worse at running a household. It’s just Renji trying to explain how a chore wheel works while Rukia and Ichigo walk out the door on him.

[multicolouredbeanbag]

pt 3 sorting characters into hogwarts houses

Part 1    Part 2

Tl;dr: April Stevens is a Hufflepuff who projects Slytherin; at her core she is a loyalist and she values community, even though her definition of a community has become GREATLY limited due to… reasons.

so here’s the thing. April looks like a Slytherin. She talks like a Slytherin. She walks like a Slytherin. But I don’t think she actually IS a Slytherin.

Today I defend the idea that April Stevens is actually a Hufflepuff (primary, ie. her motivations/values) and a Ravenclaw secondary (methods/tactics). I absolutely love this character even tho she is a lil mean, and I think that viewing her through this framework does justice to her complexities/core of who she is.

I mention the primary/secondary sorting hats system in Part 1 so feel free to google that or read my other analyses first.

Spoilers below:

Let’s talk about April’s secondary first, which addresses the HOW of person. How they approach situations, how they problem solve.

HP canon often posits Ravenclaws as the “intelligent” character, and while April IS very smart, that’s not why I consider her a Ravenclaw.

April is a HUGE planner and collector of information. She likes to be prepared because it gives her control over a situation. She’s an excellent strategizer. She’s less comfortable with improvising without having some tools/contingency plans to draw from, so when she’s stressed, she has a tendency to fall back on the tools that she’s brought with her (in contrast to Sterling, who absolutely thrives in improvisation)

My first example is the debate tournament - as team captain, she’s in it to win it. Her strategy of choice is to prepare detailed dossiers on all the other team captains. This works well enough for her, until opponent debater Craig pulls a move she couldn’t anticipate (using his own research against her), and she falls to pieces. Still, she takes some time, gathers herself again, and pressures Sterling to use the dossier on Craig to take him down (contingency plan).

Other examples:

Asked Sterling to debate her when deciding whether to come out or not - girl RUNS on logic

April’s approach to school is very organized/planning based, she’s also kind of a major nerd OBVIOUSLY, so this is a more conventional representation of her Ravenclaw-ness

S1E1, she snatches the condom wrapper but retreats with the information probably for processing purposes. She makes a plan - use threat of exposure to blackmail Sterling into giving her the fellowship position, and doesn’t deviate from it, even when the plan fails. Sterling has to save her from that situation ultimately.

This is a little more vague, but I’m thinking about how April comes off as a rigid, somewhat inflexible character. She’s not very easily persuaded to change her behavior (this, of course, makes so much sense! When you think about being gay in the south like? Her reluctance to come out is completely understandable) which contrasts very severely against Sterling’s expressive fluidity. April is a lot more static, and part of that is because it’s difficult for her to thrive when it’s an area that she hasn’t had the opportunity to prepare/plan/study.

Now for the much more interesting and complicated part, April’s PRIMARY.

Again, the Primary is all about WHY someone does something. Their motivations and values. I argue that April Stevens is a true Hufflepuff because she places utmost importance on community.

The HP canon defining qualities of being Hufflepuff are patience and loyalty. It’s the fair and inclusive house. However, it would be reductive to suggest that all Hufflepuffs are friendly, warm individuals. They are bonded together not by their shared amity, but by their value of people and groups—community.

April’s “community” on the show is unfortunately tied to her family and the Christian community. She fears not belonging (bc homophobia) so she overcompensates by conforming aggressively (see, Straight-Straight alliance S1E1).

The episode that really sold this analysis for me was S1E7, when April and Sterling had a number of conversations about April’s dad.

April: “My dad used to call my family a team. And I worked so hard to be the very best version of myself because Team Stevens wins. Teams Stevens is perfect, except that it’s not.”

With these words, we get some insight into why she’s so intense and high-achieving and obsessive all the time. It’s not so much because she wants to win for herself, it’s more the fact that she’s part of a team. She does her part for the team by excelling everywhere she thinks it counts, and of course her underlying gayness contributes to her NEED to be perfect. In practice, it comes off as personal ambition, which is why April seems, at least on the surface, pretty slytherin-y. In reality, it must be more about compensating for something she feels she lacks. Team Stevens can’t be perfect if they’re ostracized by the community due to their (only?) child being gay, so of course she has to keep it to herself, and she has to be the best on all other counts so no one can ever touch them.

Another example, S1E6, at the tournament April says, “You know what’s going on with my family right now; we have become the black sheep of the entire community. I needed a win!” She projects her personal problems onto external academic goals.

This framework of achievement as a prerequisite of community, flawed as it is, seemed to be working for her, at least up until her dad was arrested for attacking a prostitute. In a conversation with Sterl, back when April was trying to steal the fellowship title:

S: Why are you doing this? Is it because of what’s going on with your family?

A: What John did is his problem.

S: He’s still your dad.

A: I don’t care. He beat up a prostitute! I’m not a fan of sex workers but they deserve to be safe!

She obviously feels confused and hurt that her dad lied to her and was violent to women, which is something she cannot stand. For a while, she drops her father like a hot potato, throwing away his letters from jail and ignoring his calls. Hufflepuffs value people—fair is fair.

But she kind of still supports him at the end anyway, when he comes home (s1E10). She must be feeling so conflicted when this happens. Dad is a part of family (established community) therefore she has to support him. Dad possibly hurt someone, but then he did get cleared of his charges. April is essentially making a choice between Dad and Sterling, established community vs. possible (in fact PROBABLE) community alienation.

Hufflepuff and Slytherins are both loyalists because they both care about people—Hufflepuff because they’re people, Slytherin because they’re THEIR people. For all intents and purposes, by S1E10, Sterling is one of April’s “people.” So how does April choose? She goes with the established community, which is really to say she chooses culture and tradition.

April has spent her entire life locking away a significant part of herself for the sake of her family and more generally, her religious community. In S1E8/S1E9, April is almost convinced to come out—FOR Sterling. She probably would have gone through with it were it not for her dad showing up the next episode. April obviously has (justified) reservations about coming out because it’s honestly pretty dangerous to be out in the south, and these circumstances haven’t changed just because she found a girl that she likes. But she is reluctantly on board because Sterling would have been there to take the leap with her… at this point, April had expanded her definition of community to include Sterling, and for a moment Sterling’s optimism had broken past April’s defenses. Then her dad comes back, and April realizes that she has to make a choice even though this choice hurts them both terribly—Sterling is after all, one person, and what is one person in the face of boundless historical tradition and family values?

Hufflepuff morality tends to be influenced by external inputs, while Slytherin morality tends to come from the internal, the gut. Hufflepuffs can and will ignore their internal feelings when they contradict with the needs of the community. Slytherins are less easily swayed by external influences if they are sure they are right.

April has shrunk down her loyalties to a more manageable level (truly, a very LIMITED circle), but still prioritizes fairness and loyalty and of course, second chances. It’s partly why she’s open to reconnecting with her father. Maintaining these loyalties comes at the cost of her relationship with Sterling, but this is something April is willing to do: self-sacrifice for (greater) community.

Just to take a step back, April and Sterling’s relationship back in 5th grade is just… fascinating. In S1E6, we find out that April’s whole grudge against Sterling comes from when Sterling “gave her away” to another group at recess. An odd event that they both remember differently, and who can say what really happened? All we know is that April’s animosity comes from this perceived slight— the abandonment by someone she once trusted and considered part of her community. It’s very telling that their rivalry stems from this particular moment, the fracturing of a loyalty, as opposed anything else.

April: “the past is the past, we’re all adults here” but alsooo April, >:’(

Another example: at the tournament, when April is trying to convince Sterling to use the dirt on Craig to secure their win.

S: I don’t know if I can stoop that low.

A: He did it to me!

April’s first instinct was a quid pro quo, you attack me, my group will attack you. Which is why she is so offended that Sterling refuses to take the shot, because in April’s mind, it’s only fair. This exchange supports the idea that April considers community first, ambition second.

I like to think that April hides her vulnerable side, her honest hopes and dreams, behind her external perfectionism and ambition. I like to think that she cares a lot, that she’s a prickly, distrustful, kind of Hufflepuff who craves validation because she thinks it’s a substitute for connection. And I would like to see her find that type of community, that she and EVERYBODY deserves: love that doesn’t contain (in her words) “a post condition that we follow their rules for love.”

[anotherkindofmindpod]

I have now gone through all your podcasts. I'm so grateful for your perspectives! Question: We know John obsessed about Paul throughout the 70's, he was remorseful and apologized in some of his song lyrics, Linda said Paul "was desperate to write with John again", they had planned to do a reunion concert in England according to something John wrote in a document, etc. So WHY do you think the Beatles didn't reform as early as the mid- 70's, particularly after the exit of Allen Klein?

Ahh, that’s a million dollar question!  We think John and Paul were probably the ones who wanted a reunion the most, but nevertheless they likely both had major reservations. 

From our POV, Paul had the least to gain from a Beatles reunion in the mid 70s.  Wings was a roaring success by that point.  Paul had finally managed to establish an identity outside of the Beatles and, for the first time post-Beatles, was enjoying both commercial and critical success simultaneously.  George and Ringo OTOH weren’t doing great (after each had experienced much success in the early 70s).  John was coming off a pair of successful solo albums (and a #1 with Elton John) but by 1975 he was coming up dry and making an oldies album to fulfill his contract.  Paul was in a very strong position by 75-76.  

This is just our take, but we believe that while John and Paul were both tempted to revive Lennon/McCartney, we’re skeptical that either was really into the idea of a re-formed Beatles.  We think they were excited but nervous to work together again and would’ve ultimately used George and Ringo as buffers (this is not to denigrate George or Ringo, this is just our impression of how John and Paul thought).   Predictably enough, we don’t think George was EVER enthusiastic about a Beatles reunion.  Maybe if the other three applied enough peer pressure he wouldn’t want to be left out, but we don’t think he was ever eager to work with Paul again. It’s totally reasonable that Harrison would be wary of a Beatles reunion where he would get wedged between Paul and John yet again.  

It’s no secret that the major rift was between John and Paul; they were the only pair of Beatles who never again worked together after the break-up.  In 1975 John admitted (rather poignantly) that he and Paul “had a harder time” coping with their rift than any of the others did. 

We believe that Paul “desperately” wanted to work together with John because (a) he desperately wanted to repair his relationship with John throughout the 70s, and (b) he genuinely enjoyed writing with him, although AGAIN, to be clear, Paul did great in the 70s, never had a dry spell, and didn’t need John to succeed, artistically or commercially.  A reunion with John would have also surely taken some air out of the How Do You Sleep debacle. While we doubt this was the primary reason Paul wanted to reconcile, we imagine it was a factor.  And if John was truly sorry for HDYS, this would’ve been a great way for him to demonstrate it.  Publicly.

In the 70s, John made several references to Paul’s “energy” and we definitely think John missed the charge he got from Paul.  However, we believe John ultimately carried too much emotional baggage about Paul for a light-hearted reunion.  Primary amongst his reservations might be jealousy over Paul’s success and insecurity about his self-conscious “need” for Paul.  But surely there were other reservations, not the least of which was their continued business/legal battles, resentment over reaction to each others’ wives, internal fights within the band, etc. And of course, since Paul was infamously awarded the dishonor of John’s Ultimate Hurter, surely that was always looming in John’s mind as well.  How would Paul hurt him again?  Would Paul’s unique brand of insensitivity be more painful a second time around?  

Yoko is often blamed for the fizzling of reunion plans in the mid-70s, and we agree she was probably a major contributing factor.  May Pang confirms that after visiting the Dakota at a critical moment just before heading to New Orleans in early ‘75, John’s attitude towards collaborating with Paul abruptly changed from excited to sour.  There is no doubt that Yoko was against John getting back together with Paul, likely for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps most critically because it was a threat to her creative reputation; if John and Paul reunited, it might be interpreted as a creative failure of JohnandYoko and  the primacy and superiority of Lennon/McCartney, and there is no way she wanted that to happen. Yoko had invested a great deal of time and energy in creating and maintaining the Ballad of John and Yoko and wasn’t about to let that unravel. We also suspect she probably did not want John to get too under Paul's spell again as that would diminish her power over him. There are accounts of her maneuvering behind the scenes to make sure this didn’t happen, so clearly she saw their reunion as a threat to her position with John. 

Ultimately, however, we suspect it all boiled down to the same conundrum John faced in the late 60s: He could either commit to Yoko and permanently let go of Paul, or permanently break up with Yoko and commit to a professional partnership with Paul.  The problem with the latter option was that a strictly-professional partnership might not only be painfully incomplete on an emotional level for John (after having been Paul’s sole creative partner and surrogate spouse in the 60s)... but of course now Paul had his own band, three kids and a wife. John wouldn’t just be back where he left off in ‘68, he would be a much lower priority to Paul than he had been in ‘68 which put him in an even worse position.  Therefore the emotional risk appears to have been too great for John. 

All evidence points to the fact that Paul’s desire in the 70s was to maintain a friendship with John and explore rekindling their songwriting partnership.  He seems to have had fewer reservations or concerns about doing so —  perhaps because he had a functional band at the time, so was not dependent on this happening. It seems that he simply loved working with John and would have liked to have done it again as a way to reconnect, heal and spark the old magic. But he also required flexibility to perform with his band and focus on his family.  

We are less convinced that John was willing or capable to view their partnership as something casual or flexible, with no strings attached.  It was John himself who used the analogy of “one night stands” with Elton and Bowie as opposed to his marriage with Paul.  This isn’t to say we think Paul loved John less or cared about their partnership less.  It’s clear that no one has ever replaced Lennon as a complete collaborative partner to Paul (despite Paul’s demonstrated ability to collaborate with many, many artists in many different capacities) and Paul himself has said as much.  As always, we just think they had different personalities and different needs that were fairly consistent over time: Paul desired freedom and flexibility while John desired security and total commitment.

The only powers John did seem to retain were the power to seemingly “reject” Paul and/or deliberately hurt his feelings and to humiliate him in public.  John flexed both these powers periodically until he died, presumably to make himself feel better in his weaker moments or because of residual resentments towards Paul (over any number of things).  

TL;DR: Paul was open but too independent, John was open but too emotionally conflicted, George may or may not have been open but resented them both too much.

[shadowfromthestarlight]

The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news  companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that  long ago became standard in American media.

Media firms work backward. They first ask, “How does our target demographic want to  understand what’s just unfolded?” Then they pick both the words and the facts  they want to emphasize.

It’s why  Fox News uses the term, “Pro-Trump protesters,” while New York and The Atlantic use “Insurrectionists.” It’s why conservative media today is stressing how Apple, Google, and Amazon shut down the “Free Speech” platform Parler over  the weekend, while mainstream outlets are emphasizing a new round of  potentially armed protests reportedly planned for January 19th or 20th.

What happened last Wednesday was the apotheosis of the Hate Inc. era, when this  audience-first model became the primary means of communicating facts to the population. For a hundred reasons dating back to the mid-eighties, from the advent of the Internet to the development of the 24-hour news cycle to the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the Fox-led  discovery that news can be sold as character-driven, episodic TV in the  manner of soap operas, the concept of a “Just the facts” newscast designed to  be consumed by everyone died out.

News companies now clean world events like whalers, using every part of the  animal, funneling different facts to different consumers based upon  calculations about what will bring back the biggest engagement kick. The  Migrant Caravan? Fox slices  off comments from a Homeland Security official describing most of the  border-crossers as single adults coming for “economic reasons.” The New York Times counters  by running a story about how the caravan was deployed as a political issue by a Trump White  House staring at poor results in midterm elections.

Repeat this info-sifting process a few billion times and this is how we became, as none other than Mitch McConnell put it last week, a country:

Drifting apart into two separate tribes, with a separate set of facts and separate realities, with nothing in common except our hostility towards each other and mistrust for the few national institutions that we all still share.

The flaw in the system is that even the biggest news companies now operate under the assumption that at least half their potential audience isn’t listening. This leads to all sorts of problems, and the fact that the easiest way to keep your own demographic is to feed it negative stories about others is only the most  obvious. On all sides, we now lean into inflammatory caricatures, because the  financial incentives encourage it.

Everyone monetized Trump. The Fox  wing surrendered to the Trump phenomenon from the start, abandoning its  supposed fealty to “family values” from the Megyn Kelly incident on. Without  a thought, Rupert Murdoch sacrificed the paper-thin veneer of  pseudo-respectability Fox  had always maintained up to a point (that point being the moment advertisers  started to bail in horror, as they did with Glenn Beck). He reinvented Fox as a platform for  Trump’s conspiratorial brand of cartoon populism, rather than let some more-Fox-than-Fox imitator like OAN sell the  ads to Trump’s voters for four years.

In between its titillating quasi-porn headlines (“Lesbian Prison Gangs Waiting To Get Hands on Lindsay  Lohan, Inmate Says” is one from years ago that stuck in my mind), Fox’s business model has  long been based on scaring the crap out of aging Silent Majority viewers with  a parade of anything-but-the-truth explanations for America’s decline. It  villainized immigrants, Muslims, the new Black Panthers, environmentalists —  anyone but ADM, Wal-Mart, Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase, and other sponsors of  Fortress America. Donald Trump was one of the people who got hooked on Fox’s  narrative.

The rival media ecosystem chose cash over truth also. It could have responded to  the last election by looking harder at the tensions they didn’t see coming in  Trump’s America, which might have meant a more intense examination of the  problems that gave Trump his opening: the jobs that never came back after  bankers and retailers decided to move them to unfree labor zones in places  like China, the severe debt and addiction crises, the ridiculous  contradiction of an expanding international military garrison manned by a  population fast losing belief in the mission, etc., etc.

Instead, outlets like CNN and MSNBC took a Fox-like approach, downplaying issues in  favor of shoving Trump’s agitating personality in the faces of audiences over  and over, to the point where many people could no longer think about anything  else. To juice ratings, the Trump story — which didn’t need the slightest  exaggeration to be fantastic — was more or less constantly distorted.

Trump  began to be described as a cause of America’s problems, rather than a symptom,  and his followers, every last one, were demonized right along with him, in  caricatures that tickled the urbane audiences of channels like CNN but made  conservatives want to reach for something sharp. This technique was borrowed  from Fox,  which learned in the Bush years that you could boost ratings by selling  audiences on the idea that their liberal neighbors were terrorist traitors.  Such messaging worked better by far than bashing al-Qaeda, because this enemy  was closer, making the hate more real.

I came  into the news business convinced that the traditional “objective” style of  reporting was boring, deceptive, and deserving of mockery. I used to laugh at  the parade of “above the fray” columnists and stone-dull house editorials  that took no position on anything and always ended, “Only one thing’s for  sure: time will tell.” As a teenager I was struck by a passage in Tim  Crouse’s book about the 1972 presidential campaign, The Boys in the Bus, describing  the work of Hunter Thompson:

Thompson  had the freedom to describe the campaign as he actually experienced it: the  crummy hotels, the tedium of the press bus, the calculated lies of the press  secretaries, the agony of writing about the campaign when it seemed dull and  meaningless, the hopeless fatigue. When other reporters went home, their  wives asked them, “What was it really like?” Thompson’s wife knew from  reading his pieces.

What Rolling Stone did in  giving a political reporter the freedom to write about the banalities of the  system was revolutionary at the time. They also allowed their writer to be a  sides-taker and a rooter, which seemed natural and appropriate because biases  end up in media anyway. They were just hidden in the traditional dull  “objective” format.

The  problem is that the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction of  politicized hot-taking that reporters now lack freedom in the opposite  direction, i.e. the freedom to mitigate.

If you  work in conservative media, you probably felt tremendous pressure all  November to stay away from information suggesting Trump lost the election. If  you work in the other ecosystem, you probably feel right now that even  suggesting what happened last Wednesday was not a coup in the literal sense  of the word (e.g. an attempt at seizing power with an actual chance of  success) not only wouldn’t clear an editor, but might make you suspect in the  eyes of co-workers, a potentially job-imperiling problem in this environment.  

We need  a new media channel, the press version of a third party, where those  financial pressures to maintain audience are absent. Ideally, it would:

not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans;

employ a Fairness Doctrine-inspired approach that discourages       groupthink and requires at  least occasional explorations of alternative points of view;

embrace a utilitarian mission stressing credibility over ratings, including by;

operating on a distribution model that as  much as possible doesn’t depend upon the indulgence of Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Innovations like Substack are great for opinionated individual voices like me, but what’s  desperately needed is an institutional reporting mechanism that has credibility with the whole population. That means a channel that sees its mission as something separate from politics, or at least as separate from politics as possible.

The media used to derive its institutional power from this perception of separateness. Politicians feared investigation by the news media precisely because they knew audiences perceived them as neutral arbiters.

Now there are no major commercial outlets not firmly associated with one or the other political party. Criticism of Republicans is as baked into New York Times coverage as the lambasting of Democrats is at Fox, and politicians don’t fear them as much because they know their  constituents do not consider rival media sources credible. Probably, they  don’t even read them. Echo chambers have limited utility in changing minds.

Media companies need to get out of the audience-stroking business, and by extension  the politics business. They’d then be more likely to be believed when making  pronouncements about elections or masks or anything else, for that matter.  Creating that kind of outlet also has a much better shot of restoring sanity  to the country than the current strategy, which seems based on stamping out  access to “wrong” information.

What we’ve been watching for four years, and what we saw explode last week, is a paradox: a political and informational system that profits from division and  conflict, and uses a factory-style process to stimulate it, but professes  shock and horror when real conflict happens. It’s time to admit this is a  failed system. You can’t sell hatred and seriously expect it to end.

Matt Taibbi is one of the only people I subscribe to. He’s one of the few journalists I like because I actually believe he’s genuine.

[handball-tatsumichi]

I took Rep’s test an’ here are my results!!! I think they’re real fittin’!!! I hate fightin’ an stuff!!!

Primary Type Wiring

9

Starring Roles

Mediator, Peacekeeper, Diplomat, Pleasant Person, Modest Person, Humble Person, Pacifist

TrueType Wiring

9-7-2

Personality Type

The Peacemaker

Instinctual Wiring

Social

Instinctual Stack

Social, Intimate, Self-Preserving

Overview

You are an easy-going, kind, and accepting person who strives to be in harmony by accommodating and supporting what is essential to others. Your gift for seeing many sides of an issue enables you to mediate differences and bring peace to people around you.

On the other hand, your desire to remain comfortable and “ok” can cause complacency, inactivity, and difficulty making and voicing personal decisions. Your keys to growth include seeing that your opinions, needs and desires are just as valid as anyone else’s, and taking a stand for your own preferences in the present moment.

What You are Great At

Coming forward to mediate when people are in conflict.

Being accepting, trusting, all-embracing, and receptive.

Being creative, fanciful, and entertaining.

Being optimistic, unflappable, adaptable and steady.

Good listener, making everyone feel honored.

Seeing and supporting others’ perspectives and points of view.

Bringing about harmony, wholeness, and connection.

Finding points of agreement and achieving unity with others.

Being supremely unselfish and working hard for a good cause and to keep peace.

Being good-natured, kind, friendly, sweet, innocent.

Bringing a healing and calming influence to others.

Being humble, unpretentious, genuine, trusting, simple, likable.

Core Wiring

You want to be peaceful, relaxed, comfortable and natural; but most importantly, you want to be agreeable and avoid conflict at all costs. You are a nice person and go along to get along. You want harmonious relationships.

You are very receptive and a good listener. You are patient and prefer to take your time in whatever you do. You may have problems with inaction.

Under stress, you may be passive-aggressive, neglectful, unresponsive, and indifferent to the needs of others. At your best, you are steady, kind, accepting, and possessive of the universal connectedness necessary to restore harmony.

What Drives You

Driven by core fears of loss and separation from others, you seek to achieve feelings of wholeness, union, inner stability, and peace of mind. You are highly motivated by what you don’t want-- which is conflict, tension, disharmony, disagreement, pressure, discomfort or complications with others. Striving to create a harmonious, stable, peaceful and comfortable environment, you minimize your own needs and try to create and maintain trouble-free relationships.

Inner World of Type 9

Core Fears

Your core fears are related to loss, separation and being overlooked which can lead to a fear of being “loveless”- both because your feel others might ignore or neglect you, and because you might shut yourself off to such a degree that you can no longer feel love or let it in. You might start to feel unimportant, or less valuable relative to others-- especially if others around you are strong, dramatic, needy, or demanding.

This leads to your conflict avoidance. You also fear complication because when things are complicated, more things can go wrong which can cause discord and disharmony, which is uncomfortable.

Core Desires

To be comfortable, harmonious, peaceful, whole, complete, and feeling at-ease with others.

Core Needs

You need simplicity, harmony, and the appreciation of others. Because you are highly empathetic, you need to know that the people around you are relaxed to relax, yourself. To truly be at-ease, you need your creature comforts and are likely unwilling go without them. Publicly, you may go along to get along, but when in private you make sure that you have what makes you feel happy and comfortable.

Core Beliefs

The world, people and situations can be demanding and divisive. In most situations, it is best to avoid conflict and look for middle ground rather than to take a solid stance: that might create problems and disrupt my peace. Everything will work out if I stay calm, amiable, and connected.

Likes

Agreement, peace and harmony.

Unity, merger, and togetherness.

Comfort and ease.

Being in intimate relationship.

Distractions (e.g., romance novels, college football, social media).

Connection.

Feeling included, loved and accepted as you are.

Familiar routines and activities with clear structure.

Holding many sides of an issue open.

Reflecting, musing, and considering things.

Having your position acknowledged.

Satisfaction in accomplishments and jobs well done.

Dislikes

Conflict, confrontation, and disagreement.

Anger and disturbance.

Change, making personal decisions, saying “no”.

Separation.

Independence.

Feeling discounted or overlooked.

Being forced to take sides on an issue.

Unknown, unfamiliar, or unpredictable situations.

Emotional intensity, controversy, drama, chaos.

Having your opinion or position opposed.

Loneliness, ending a relationship.

Discomfort, looming deadlines.

Outer World of Type 9

Strategies

You seek to avoid conflict, asserting yourself, or taking a stand. You "go along to get along," sublimating your own needs and preferences to create a sense of peace and harmony.

Impact of Strategies

When there is no pressure, conflict or discomfort, you have neither deadlines nor demands. For you, it's just peace and harmony.

What's Great About You

You are warm, gentle, humble, agreeable, kind, pleasant and enduring.  You are the calm in the storm.

Attention goes to...

Your attention goes to identifying with and merging with others. You look for what others want and need in an effort to keep the peace. Your soft, pillowy energy tends to spread outwards and become diffuse.

Because you sense and champion the needs and feelings of whatever group you are in, you are a natural group anchor. To avoid feeling tension and conflict, you may reach for substitutes for love by eating, focusing on the minutia or getting lost in unimportant tasks.

Operating System of Type 9

At Your Best

You are a humble, patient, allowing and permissive diplomat who focuses on keeping the peace in any given situation. Because you strongly value connection, agreement, and unity with others, you like to keep things harmonious, stable and comfortable. When you are tuned in to what others want, you easily set aside your own needs to accommodate, appease or satisfy them.

You have a natural gift for patiently listening to all points of view and building consensus before making decisions. Most people feel heard, understood, accepted, included, nurtured, and valued in your presence.

You can be a wonderful mediator, naturally bringing people together by genuinely seeing, acknowledging, and honoring each person’s perspective. This makes you an asset to any team in the areas of listening, shared vision, consensus, healthy conflict, trust, appreciation, collaboration and support.

Under Stress

When you feel separate from others, you may go to sleep to your own needs and focus on the needs of others. You may feel the need to maintain a sense of connection, peace, comfort, and stability at all costs but in so doing may undermine your own value and worth. Your need for “okness” can at times cause you to minimize problems which can be interpreted as calloused, insensitive or indifferent.

You may numb yourself to the realities of your situation at home or work and fall into inertia rather than focus on what is important. In an attempt to have “peace at any price,” you may actually become resentful, stubborn, and resigned, feeling powerless to change anything.

You may resort to appeasing others on the surface but objecting in passive-aggressive ways that leave others frustrated, neglected and angry. You may appear disengaged, inattentive, unresponsive and complacent. You may lose focus and initiative, escape into a mental world of fantasy, or zone out with any number of numbing, mindless activities.

What Holds You Back

Avoiding conflicts and potential backlash of your own self-assertions. Wanting “peace at any price”. Going along with others to get along and losing your own voice.

Oversimplifying problems to minimize what is upsetting. Becoming stubborn and slow-moving when in disagreement. Being neglectful, passive and self-effacing.

Shutting down and imploding when threatened/ afraid. Merging with others and losing touch with who you are. Numbing out and being a creature of habit or ritual – repeating familiar solutions.

Escaping into comfort and ease; going on “autopilot”. Becoming disengaged, inattentive, and unreflective. Being indecisive; saying “yes” when you want to say “no”.

Coping Strategy

In order to cope with underlying fears of being disconnected from others, you may minimize your own needs and focus on others. This can take many forms: “forgetting yourself;” distracting yourself with routines and mindless activities; accommodating others; and putting your own needs aside to be accepted and comfortable in relationship with others.

You may keep fears at bay by seeking to maintain peace at any price and being seen as the easy-going, “nice guy or gal”. You may also avoid conflict or loss by suppressing your own opinions, “going along to get along,” or being pleasant and agreeable. You use patience, persistence and resistance to handle problems and might “check out” or become unresponsive if you fear it will cause separation from another.

Defense Strategy

Your primary defense mechanism is a form of “dissociation” which can be any strategy that cuts you off from feelings that seems overwhelming and intolerable. This may be as subtle as escaping into seemingly safe or pleasant feelings, or in more obvious ways such as using comforts and distractions to “wind down” or relax. A secondary strategy is “diversion”.

When something important feels overwhelming, you may distract your attention with something easier and less stressful. You may also “numb out” by throwing yourself into work or projects or escaping into unproductive or unimportant activities-- anything that distracts you from negative feelings and needs. You don’t like being direct and tend to obfuscate to avoid naming any differences or preferences that can cause conflict or dispute.

Hot Buttons & Triggers

Feeling overlooked, not seen, or irrelevant.

Others being recognized or validated in ways you crave but would never want to draw attention to for yourself.

People being treated unkindly or unfairly.

Feeling pressured to make a decision without knowing the whole landscape, different options, or all of the key details.

Being pushed to reveal your own feelings or desires when you are unsure or don’t feel safe with the other person.

Being in a tense, highly emotional, or volatile atmosphere.

Feeling under-appreciated or undervalued.

Being in an unfamiliar, new, or uncomfortable environment.

Having to choose sides between important people in your life who are not in agreement (e.g., your mother and your spouse, your children, or valued people on your work team).

Others seeming to move away or withdraw in relationship.

Others demanding your attention or response and not being able to zone out or numb out in comfortable/typical ways.

Not being validated, supported, or backed up when you take the risk to voice your own perspective, feeling, or opinion.

Blind Spots

By shutting yourself off from your preferences, you can lose sight of yourself in many important ways. You may negate or be unaware of your own preferences, positions, needs and desires, and not realize that you’ve “gone to sleep to your true yourself.” You may identify with being agreeable and easy to get along with, so you may not recognize when you are withholding or being passive-aggressive or stubborn.

You may also see yourself as humble and disown your desire for attention. You enjoy your habits and routines and may not see when change is called for in relationships or work. You prefer to maintain the status quo to keep things feeling stable and comfortable.

Mistaken Beliefs / Trap

It is a cognitive mistake to believe that if you avoid conflict, you won’t have any or that you won’t be disconnected from others. Ultimately, ignoring conflict will cause additional conflict and greater disconnection. It’s also a mistake to believe that if you convince yourself that you don’t matter, that others don’t matter, or that actually nothing really matters, you will avoid emotional pain.

Seeking a sense of ease and comfort can be a trap because your own truth and your own needs will not be suppressed forever and you’ll eventually become angry and irritable. Another mistake is believing that not taking action isn’t an action and not making a decision isn’t a decision.

In reality, taking no action is an action and making no decision is a decision. And finally, maintaining “peace at any price” is a trap because it can never bring real, lasting peace.

Growth Journey of Type 9

Transformation Journey

Your transformation journey involves: 1. Realizing that you are important and that you matter. 2. Letting go of the fear of conflict, speaking your truth, and experiencing your sense of being. 3. Taking the time to tune into your heart, discovering your preferences, deciding what you really want and actually going for it!

Under Stress

When you feel separate from others, you may go to sleep to your own needs and focus on the needs of others. You may feel the need to maintain a sense of connection, peace, comfort, and stability at all costs but in so doing may undermine your own value and worth. Your need for “okness” can at times cause you to minimize problems which can be interpreted as calloused, insensitive or indifferent.

You may numb yourself to the realities of your situation at home or work and fall into inertia rather than focus on what is important. In an attempt to have “peace at any price,” you may actually become resentful, stubborn, and resigned, feeling powerless to change anything.

You may resort to appeasing others on the surface but objecting in passive-aggressive ways that leave others frustrated, neglected and angry. You may appear disengaged, inattentive, unresponsive and complacent. You may lose focus and initiative, escape into a mental world of fantasy, or zone out with any number of numbing, mindless activities.

An Average Day

As you begin to see that tuning out from yourself and life to try to stay comfortable can only bring discomfort, you start to “wake up to yourself” and find your own voice. Realizing the trap of forgetting yourself to try to stay in peaceful relationship with others, you now see that deep and lasting connection requires your authentic presence and may involve moments of tension and disagreement. You are less self-effacing and accommodating, and less prone to idealizing others and automatically going along with their agendas.

You think carefully before saying “yes,” and practice saying “no” when you don’t agree. Your natural affinity for mediating and dispelling disagreement is able to truly connect and unite others in your community, family, and work environments. You are genuinely positive, reassuring, and supportive to others, bringing a healing, harmonizing, and calming influence and greater understanding to any team or group you are connected with.

In The Zone

Seeing through the false beliefs that numbness brings connection and that your own humanity can possibly be less valuable or important than others’, you are now deeply attuned to yourself and come into an even greater harmony with others. Spontaneous and present in each moment, you are truly accommodating and flexible to life as a whole, rather than to the whims of others. You become a powerful force for others with your immense acceptance, compassion, stability and serenity.

You now trust all of life, and see your own feelings, intuitions, and intentions as keys to establishing deeper connection with others. You no longer take yourself out of the equation but put yourself in the middle of the flow of life.

Others feel at ease with your innocence, simplicity, patience, sincerity, and kindness. You are self-accountable, autonomous and content with yourself and relationships. You become a great healing presence in the world, able to be profoundly present, validate divergent perspectives, and resolve conflict in a spirit of real peace.

Keys to Growth

Pay more attention to yourself and develop greater attunement to what you actually feel, want, think, and need.

Practice expressing your feelings, needs, and ideas even when they may be in opposition to others; take risks and notice how authenticity (not self-forgetting) brings connection.

When tempted to zone out, consciously become more dynamic, active and assertive rather than escaping into numbing activities or being passive with others.

Notice yourself not agreeing with others and how you handle this uncomfortable energy internally before speaking/acting.

Practice saying “maybe” before making commitments you may regret later, and become more comfortable saying “no”.

Become more aware of your fears around conflict and disagreement and tune into your own energy when facing tense people or situations; breathe and let it move through.

Use your natural abilities to mediate and validate divergent views to appreciate conflict and deal with it directly, seeing that embracing differences actually brings people together.

Become more aware of and comfortable with the natural movement of “negative” emotions and energies, such as aggression and conflict; open and allow them to pass through.

Ground yourself in your body and become more active physically in whatever way feels natural (exercise, walking); more rigorous activity can help fear and conflict move through.

Practice “radical self-care” and place your needs before others (perhaps in ways that seem extravagant to you at first).

Watch the tendency to deflect praise or attention and try to take it in positive regard, even if uncomfortable at first.

Notice wanting to merge with others and any dependencies, resentments, or tendencies to blame that arise.

Type 9 In the Workplace

Working with Others

You can be dedicated, hard-working and very productive in a supportive environment with clear expectations and the flexibility to work at your own pace. You tend to “go along to get along” and avoid making waves. You are very approachable and enjoy camaraderie and pleasant exchanges with coworkers.

You help your team to stay positive and to consider or embrace diverse opinions and alternative viewpoints and you are able to add a meaningful perspective. On the other hand, you tend to hesitate in making decisions. Your ability to listen and understand people’s positions can often lead them to believe that you agree with them and will back them up.

They are then surprised and disappointed when they discover you were just listening, not actively agreeing. You are good at mediating and helping to mend fences when others disagree, but have a harder time mending your own. You might secretly want recognition, but you avoid bringing attention to yourself and may appear uncomfortable and become self-effacing when it comes.

Ideal Environment

Your ideal work environment is calm, predictable, and harmonious. You relax and work well when the team is getting along and things are running smoothly. You thrive with familiar routines, regularly scheduled meetings, and clear deadlines that give you plenty of time to work steadily at your own pace.

Not wanting to ask for validation, you expect rewards and promotions to be fairly given and clearly contingent upon merit and productivity. In the flow of a project, you readily put your own needs aside to work for the greater good of the team or organization. It is particularly important for you to feel good about your job and the work you do.

Typical Challenges

Because you like the familiar, you may get thrown off course if things change rapidly and unpredictably with no time to adjust. You may not like having to make decisions yourself, but you don’t want decisions or changes forced upon you either--especially if they feel arbitrary. You may procrastinate and struggle with inaction when you need to make a decision that impacts others or might trigger a reaction in them.

You would rather wait for agreement and consensus. Feeling overlooked or discounted at work may trigger your fear of being unimportant, and cause you to act as if the opinions, ideas, and agendas of others are more important than yours. When upset at work, you are unlikely to voice your concerns, but may instead slow your pace in silent and stubborn objection that can frustrate others.

 Taking Guidance

You appreciate a collaborative mentoring relationship and work well under well-defined lines of leadership because you tend not to like the pressure of decision-making. You may be particularly responsive to, and work well with, a dynamic and charismatic boss who values your contributions. You also appreciate a manager that is congenial and brings a sense of connection and synergy to the team.

Carried by the energy and enthusiasm of a strong supervisor, you will work tirelessly with little consideration of your own needs. At times you may feel ambivalent about authority.

You may have trouble self-starting or staying on task and resent feeling pressured to make a decision or take an action before you feel comfortable to do so. You may become inactive or stubborn and become resistant to authority.

Leadership Style

As a leader, you have the ability to see all points of view and are adept at mediating differences and settling disputes when there are difficulties between team members. You also engender a naturally kind, accepting, and inclusive atmosphere on the team. You are careful, thoughtful, thorough, and able to weigh many sides of any issue presented, but you can get stuck in needing extensive data and wanting to think too broadly before making a decision.

To avoid conflict, you may announce major decisions without warning or sufficient discussion, which can evoke confusion and resentment. You may have difficulty managing distractions, and might be prone to getting caught up in unimportant tasks, which can make setting priorities and deciding what is most essential difficult. Other challenges you may face in leadership include not wanting to take sides, having “peace at any cost,” being vague or obfuscating in strategic planning, wanting to stay in the comfort zone or the familiar, and avoiding taking risks.

Famous 9s

Famous People with Your Type

Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Beyoncé, Loni Anderson, Annette Bening, Tony Bennett, Matthew Broderick, Sandra Bullock, George Burns, Kate Bush, Art Carney, Julia Child, Gary Cooper, Kevin Costner, The Dalai Lama, Jeff Daniels, Clint Eastwood, Dwight Eisenhower, Queen Elizabeth II, Gerald Ford, Mahatma Gandhi, John Goodman, Tipper Gore, Elliott Gould, Charles Grodin, Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Audrey Hepburn, Anjelica Huston, C.G. Jung, Grace Kelly, Nancy Kerrigan, Lisa Kudrow, Abraham Lincoln, Andie MacDowell, Mr. Magoo, Dean Martin, Jerry Mathers, Dan Quayle, James Earl Ray, Ronald Reagan, Ralph Richardson, Carl Rogers, Roy Rogers, Martin Sheen, Ringo Starr, Mary Steenburgen, Daniel Stern, James Stewart, Billy Bob Thornton, Andy Williams, Renee Zellweger, Joe DiMaggio,George Lucas.

[flavoracle]

Why I'm Always Suspicious of Limits on Legal Immigration

Here's something of a history lesson that illustrates one of the reasons I am highly skeptical of the justifications that politicians give for immigration laws that limit who is allowed and who isn't based on who they believe the "right kinds of people" are...

As many of you know, I'm a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (historically known as "Mormon," and since I'll be referencing a period of their early history, that's the term I'll use here.)

All throughout growing up I learned how early settlements of Mormons were persecuted and driven from their homes in Missouri because of religious persecution and bigotry. Eventually it even lead to the "Mormon Extermination Order," which made it legal to drive Mormons from Missouri by deadly force if necessary.

The other side of this history that I've heard is that the people already living in Missouri at that time were opposed to their Mormon neighbors because the incoming Mormons claimed that the land was theirs by divine right, and the citizens of Missouri were afraid that they might be the ones driven off if the Mormons were allowed to gather in large enough numbers.

At this point in my life, I’ve come to the conclusion that I think the truth is a little more subtle than either narrative alone, and requires some historical context to understand.

See, in the decades leading up to the Civil War, there was a lot of tension going on. A lot of people thought that slavery was bad and should be abolished, and a lot of other people (wrongly) thought that slavery should stick around. Despite how strongly the two sides disagreed about this, the majority of people really wanted to avoid fighting a war over it, so there was a lot of effort put into maintaining the status quo.

One of the strategies to keep things stable was to give the impression that the conflict was even on both sides by making sure the number of free states in the Union was equal to the number of slave states. (This was somewhat misleading because the population of citizens in the free states was much higher than the slave states, but I digress.)

That's why there was a period in U.S. history where it seems like states were always added in pairs. Because whenever a new free state was added, a new slave state was also added to maintain the balance, and vice versa. Missouri was one of these newly added states, and it was a slave state.

OK, that brings us back to Missouri and Mormons. Although Missouri was a slave state, it was also a slave state that bordered free states and had a bit more tenuous situation than the firmly established slave states in the deep South. People were nervous about this, and nobody wanted anything to go rocking the boat.

Well, then there's the Mormons. Very anti-slavery and not a high abundance of "chill," if you know what I mean. They were more interested in sticking to their principles and being overt about it than they were with being diplomatic or subtle.

Including being subtle with the idea that there were plenty more Mormons coming, so play nice. That worried the political leaders already in power because if every single Mormon at that time mass immigrated to Missouri, they'd pretty handedly outnumber the existing voter population.

So how do you keep your precariously (and politically sensitive and relevant) slave state from suddenly voting to abolish slavery? By hastily passing laws to stop more Mormons from coming. But what happens if they STILL keep coming?

Violence. Violence is what happened. Mob violence legitimized by an official "extermination order," signed into law by the governor.

And that's what happens when a society passes immigration laws and policies aimed at maintaining the political status quo, or even worse, manipulating the political climate of the future by making sure only the "right kind of people" can move in.

It's my strongly held belief that diversity in political discource is like diversity in a gene pool: IT'S HEALTHY.

Available access to legal immigration and nationalization is a vital part of that healthy diversity. Meanwhile, limiting that access based on birthplace, race, religion, or culture is antithetical to that diversity, and should be rejected by honest people who oppose political manipulation and stacking the deck.

Now I know this is already REALLY long, but there's one more thing I wanted to add. For the majority of people involved in the Missouri conflict, I don't believe they were motivated by politics. The Mormons were just seeking a place to live and congregate without harassment. The mobs of Missouri citizens who terrorized the Mormon settlers justified their behavior with numerous accusations against the Mormons, including blasphemy, conspiracy, fraud, and more.

But when it comes to those in power, the politicians and elected officials who allowed and enabled such mob violence to happen, it seems clear to me that political manipulation and vote suppression was their primary goal. And unfortunately, it worked.

I say all of this because throughout the years, politicians have given excuse after excuse to justify their positions on immigration restrictions. Crime. Disease. Terrorism. Overwhelming social services. Undermining cultural integrity (if that even means anything in the U.S.) The list goes on. But when each of these excuses is examined critically, I believe each of them falls apart.

I'm not trying to change anybody's stance on legal immigration. But what I DO want to encourage everyone to do is challenge the assumptions that are passed around as "common knowledge," when it comes to justifying immigration limitations.

And the next time you hear a politician talking about why immigration needs to be carefully controlled, just ask yourself, "Is this REALLY what they're worried about? Or are they actually concerned with maintaining the status quo?"

[cardedge7]

Workplace Mediation Solution.

Workplace Mediation, Manchester, Cheshire & North West.

Content

Service.

Speak With Those Who Have Utilized The Solution.

It can be viewed as an expensive process if an end result can not be gotten to. It is consequently just beneficial if both events are prepared to endanger.

These issues are gone over and also if you reach a contract the mediator will certainly write it down for you and also make sure it states what you both desire it to say. Everybody indicators the agreement and also you decide who else, if any person, need to see a duplicate. If you are unpleasant with sharing the joint arrangement with people who are not in the area after that a decision is made about what, if anything, to show the person or individuals that referred you to mediation. The major drawback of mediation is that there is no warranty of a resolution.

Company.

That usually leaves a circumstance where both individuals associated with the grievance need to proceed working together. Mediation can aid there by repairing the relationships so that the two can find a way to co-work efficiently. The mediation enabled both celebrations to explore where their working partnership was going wrong, as well as review what they both gotten out of each other. With their new understanding of the other events' viewpoint two contracts were drawn up. The 2nd agreement was for circulation to their supervisor and also it set out modifications in work techniques that they both wanted to see for the future. They remained in the same division and reported to the same department manager. Fiona had actually really felt under pressure from Jenni since she joined the company.

What can I expect at mediation?

The mediator does not take sides, make decisions, or give legal advice; their only role is to facilitate respectful conversation. The parties' lawyer may participate in the process and attend mediation meetings. Before the mediation process commences, parties may draft and sign a mediation agreement.

Some people wish to 'have their day in court' as well as feel a sense of injustice if the process is not translucented until completion. Although, an increasing number of of our consumers are making it clear that they anticipate their workers to act in a practical method to secure a positive resolution to a complaint or a complaint. If an agreement is gotten to through the mediation procedure, then a binding paper can be created for both events to participate in. The best-case circumstance in mediation is that all events concern a mutually concurred option to resolve the conflict, which will permit a good working relationship to be brought back.

Hear From Those Who Have Used The Service.

Generally, we would permit someday for every mediation session as well as there is likewise additional contact made with all parties, in the lead as much as and also adhering to mediation. It is vital that all individuals agree to join the mediation process, in order for mediation to take place. The dominating purpose of workplace mediation is to restore and maintain excellent and effective functioning relationships. The dispute centred around promo possibilities as well as arrangements between a manger and her supervisor.

The moderator will bring the conferences to a close, give a duplicate of the concurred statement to those involved and explain their duties for its application. If mediation services norwich is reached, various other treatments might later be utilized to attempt to solve the conflict.

Work Regulation.

To start with, the mediator meets with each celebration independently to comprehend their experience of the problem, their setting as well as interests and also what they wish to happen following. During these meetings, the arbitrator will certainly likewise look for arrangement from the celebrations to an assisted in joint conference. A qualified conciliator's function is to function as an unbiased 3rd party who helps with a meeting in between two or more individuals in disagreement to aid them get to an agreement. Although the arbitrator is in charge of the procedure, any kind of agreement originates from those in dispute.

Augsburg Staff Vote for a Union - Workday Minnesota

Augsburg Staff Vote for a Union.

Posted: Fri, 08 Jan 2021 17:24:00 GMT [source]

Every person will have had a possibility to be heard, which can assist to boost the understanding of both sides moving forward. Workplace mediation is an increasingly preferred technique embraced by several organisations as an alternative means of solving workplace disputes.

The moderator holds both of you to the ground rules and makes sure you have equal time to speak as well as to listen to every other. You will be advised by the arbitrator regarding the procedure as well as just how much time to publication out of your journal. Typically, for a two-person mediation you will be asked to allot a complete day for the mediation session. Private meetings usually begin at 9.30 am or 11am, the joint meeting usually start at 1pm and also continues till 4pm, nevertheless, timings can be versatile on the day. At the beginning of the mediation you are asked to authorize a Privacy and also Responsibility Arrangement. This record likewise advises you that the mediator can not provide legal suggestions which the material of the mediation conversation is personal, it can not be utilized in any future procedures or procedures that you might be associated with.

How do you talk during mediation?

How to Talk and Listen Effectively in Mediation 1. Strive to understand through active listening. In trial, litigants address juries in their opening statements and final arguments. 2. Avoid communication barriers. 3. Watch your nonverbal communication. 4. Be ready to deal with emotions at mediation. 5. Focus on the facts. 6. Use your mediator and limit caucuses. 7. Conclusion.

She increased the problem with her department manager; however, she really felt that absolutely nothing had actually changed. When both parties consented to mediation they were both charging the various other of bullying and harassment. Work Law Updates for very early is set to be a fascinating year, not the very least with Brexit day fast coming close to. In spite of the uncertainty that Brexit has created, HR specialists as well as entrepreneur still have to guarantee they are up-to-date with what's in store in employment law adjustments that we do recognize will certainly occur.

Following the exchange of the statements, the moderators facilitate private conversations between the celebrations. There are various designs or approaches of mediation that might appropriate relying on the context as well as organisational society. These array from a casual peer-based mediation to a more official mediation procedure with an independent mediator. If business mediation services portsmouth would certainly such as more information on workplace mediation, or to discuss a scenario that you really feel mediation might help in, please call Åsa Waring. The future has actually never ever been more unforeseeable, demanding or challenging.

HR experts, employment lawyers, trade union representatives, elderly and middle supervisors, team leaders and also people managing difficult and also sensitive concerns. Workplace Mediation is the procedure in which a mediator aids conversations in between a company, administration or employees, to get to an option that works for everybody. Mediation aids individuals solve distinctions to their common complete satisfaction and also to the fulfillment of the business making sure efficient teamwork going forward raising performance and lowering administration time. Mediation is cost and time effective and also generates lasting remedies to conflict. Workplace conflict can have a significant influence on your service, both in regards to monitoring time as well as efficiency. Being equipped with the best approach to take on these high-emotion as well as often multi-party cases can provide mediators an edge and also the appropriate method to support organisations in their times of problem. Workplace mediation can help to solve the position for example where a grievance has actually been handled.

The dispute had actually intensified to a factor where the department was no more able to operate successfully, as well as the manager was being paid to continue to be in your home pending further examination right into the issue. Mediation is a procedure designed to put the parties back in charge of the circumstance and also to choose based on the fullness of the circumstances. An expert conciliator's primary inspiration will certainly be guarantee that the process works by upholding the concepts of impartiality and also privacy, and that the celebrations are provided every possibility to get the most out of it. We will certainly be on your side through every step of a workplace conflict to help you solve the problem as promptly and friendly as possible, call us today on for more info.

The court supplied mediation service is complimentary and also you do not require to execute a great deal of preparation before the mediation occurs.

Generally the parties split the price of the conciliator as well as this joint investment in seeking a resolution includes in each event's dedication to the procedure.

Mediation has a superb success price implying that any type of party choosing to moderate has an excellent opportunity of the disagreement being settled there and afterwards.

If the case settles, you can prevent the anxiety and also time of the test and also preparing for it.

Never prior to has there been so much details to absorb, so many social and company networks to navigate, therefore several economic, political and social concerns to confront. Any documents of the conversations that take place during mediation are destroyed and remain confidential in between those taking part in the mediation unless they otherwise mutually accept share the activity plan with their manager. desires to provide a possibility to fix any concerns that arise with mediation. The second component of the certification requirements consists of written tasks. Delegates are called for to submit a thorough portfolio in feedback to set inquiries that cover a variety of concepts covered in the course. Locations covered include dispute theory in mediation, transformative mediation, individuals abilities in the mediation process and also assisting in mediation. Delegates have 14 days from completion of the fifth day of the training course to finish the composed jobs.

[astrochats]

Astro Scales: an overview

The basic premise of the Astro Scales system assumes that each astrological element (fire, water, earth, and air) is defined through two competing values. Of these two values, one represents the needs of the heart, while the other represents the logic of the head. Although the head/heart values come from different places, both of these values feel instinctual and fundamentally necessary to that element. Because these values are so instinctual, it can be easy for each element to assume that everyone else shares the same primary values as themselves.

Each of the elements has a different set of head/heart values. They are as follows:

***

Fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius)

now vs. later

Fire is a highly instinctual element. A flame doesn’t know why it burns, just that it must continue to burn bright. Fire signs are instinctively attuned to their desires, and fulfilling those desires can feel like a matter of life and death. This results in the fire sign’s primary conflict between fulfilling their desires immediately and realizing that other considerations may force them to wait; in other words, a fire sign wants to have their cake and eat it too. If left to its own devices, a fire sign’s heart tells them to go after what they want in the most direct way possible (now). The conflicting head value is the fire sign’s awareness that immediate gratification may have consequences that prevent later gratification (later). 

Imagine the scenario of deciding whether or not to confront a friend whose behavior has hurt you in some way. For a fire sign in this situation, their heart value tells them to express their hurt right away, in the most direct manner. The conflicting head value, which might prevent them from taking this action, tells them to consider the potential consequences: perhaps confronting the friend will cause them to lose that friendship, to weaken their social network, or to miss out on later opportunities this friendship could bring them. The fire sign’s ultimate action will depend on whether the head or heart wins out in this particular scenario. Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius place differing weights on head vs. heart values; this is true of the three signs in each element, and we will discuss each sign’s specific scale breakdown in our next post.

***

Water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces)

feeling vs. fantasy

Water is the domain of intuition, emotions, and the unconscious. Water signs are known to have powerful gut instincts; while they are generally less interested in analyzing the reasons why they do something, they know what feels right to them. For water signs, what they feel and what is real are one and the same. Thus we use the term “feeling” to encompass the unfiltered emotional sensation at the core of water signs’ heart value. If the heart value of feeling represents water signs’ raw emotions when meeting the world, their head value of fantasy reflects their need to filter mundane or senseless realities through the rose-tinted lens of a meaning-filled narrative. Water signs can grow very attached to the fantasies they create, even to the point of denying their true feelings in order to sustain a fantasy; therefore, breaking that fantasy can manifest as a real emotional loss. 

A water sign in the same scenario described above will behave differently than a fire sign. Led by their heart value of feeling, a water sign’s first instinct is to respond with their authentic emotions. This may look like lashing out -- purely venting their feelings rather than attempting to start a dialogue or solicit a response from the other party. It may be difficult for the water sign to suppress the overwhelming, even physiological response their emotions generate. The head value of fantasy can play out in multiple ways. For one, the water sign’s prevailing ideal of the friendship or friend in question may lead them to hold back their feelings out of fear that a confrontation would lead to the end of the friendship, and consequently their fantasy. They may think, “This person is my closest, dearest friend. I’m nothing without them.” However, fantasy could also lead the water sign to cast themselves as a victim and their friend as a villain, and they may even carry out this new narrative through a dramatic confrontation that seems disproportionate to the initial offense.

***

Earth (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn)

conviction vs. compromise

Earth signs are unshakeable in their principles: “No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.” Just as the mountain will not bend to outside forces, earth signs’ heart value of conviction in what they know to be true gives them a strong sense of self. An earth sign will not violate their principles unless their competing head value of compromise overrules the heart. For an earth sign, the idea of compromise is based in an understanding that we all have our own convictions; in order to be fair to everyone’s convictions, some small sacrifices or concessions must be made. This may be why earth is known to be a more practical and worldly element. 

An earth sign in the scenario described above would feel compelled to confront their friend if the friend had offended their principles. They might not be led so much by their feelings of hurt, as a water sign would, but rather by a righteous sense that the friend wronged them. The value of compromise might come into play if the earth sign realized that speaking their mind would not result in a better outcome for all parties: perhaps the confrontation would make things awkward in the future, create unnecessary drama, or seem inappropriately timed. If the earth sign’s desire to maintain stability overruled their trust that their friend would be receptive to their concerns and change the hurtful behavior, the earth sign would feel disinclined to make trouble by confronting the friend, and might instead avoid them or keep them at a distance.

***

Air (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius)

knowledge vs. faith  

A keyword for air signs is “systems”. Air signs enter the world as a blank slate, and build their understanding of the world through logic, reason, and systems of their own creation. This is why air signs’ heart value is knowledge: their trust in the logical process through which they have come to understand the world. Anything that defies logic can feel incomprehensible to an air sign and make them feel lost – this is when they lean on their head value of faith in others, trusting that someone else’s knowledge or beliefs can guide them in the absence of their own knowledge. Ironically, the realm of feeling and emotion (which necessarily defies logic) is often where air signs rely on their head value the most. 

An air sign in the scenario described above would wait to confront a friend until they were able to understand their own feelings/position in a very systematic way -- they might prefer to write down their feelings in a letter or a list, and might even consult with other friends to confirm their own position before having the confrontation. They would choose not to confront the friend if they still had enough faith in that person to give them the benefit of the doubt, or if they thought that the friend in question was immovable. Regardless, air signs would aim to resolve the situation without being overly emotional or talking about how it made them feel, unless they could be relatively objective about it. 

***

Final notes

After reading through this post, you may be thinking, “But I can relate to many/all of these values and conflicts. How is it possible for anyone to only hold one pair of these values?” Indeed, most people will relate to experiencing all four of these head/heart conflicts at one time or another -- all of these pairs of values speak to universal facets of the human condition, and all four speak to a crucial tension between the self (heart) and others (head). But our theory posits that an element’s head/heart values are not just “important” or “relatable” to that element -- they in fact reveal the element’s very essence, the basic matter that joins together and comprises all three signs of that element.

You may also be wondering how the Astro Scales system takes into account the many planets and signs that comprise a person’s entire natal chart. Generally, we feel that since the sun sign represents a person’s ego or soul, most people’s values will align with the element of their sun sign (so a person whose sun is in Aries will be defined through the now vs. later values of fire). However, if you have a strong influence of another element(s) in other areas of your chart, that element’s values will also likely play a role in your overall value system.

Look forward to our next post, where we will break down all four elements by sign and explain how the scales are balanced differently for the three signs within each element.

[neven-ebrez]

15x01, a look at the future through the past

Back home! I watched the episode last night and rewatched it just now. I’m sorry to say that I was baseline bored on most levels but the second time through things felt better (yay!) even if the bland factor was still there for me personally (I’m bored with most ghost stuff from SPN these days). Imo the characters basically served the plot of 15x01 instead of the other way around which is very Game of Thrones-y and 1000% not what I’m here for but I won’t talk about the details of that because I’m sure no one wants to hear that and I’m also sure things won’t stay that way long so I’ll talk about some other things instead. There are some things I can tell are a thing but I don’t know exactly what the shows means in depicting them, and others where I’m more confident in my interpretation so here we go.

I’m like 99% sure the demon in Jack is actually Chuck and that he’s basically trying to maintain his torture (I mean... the guy admitted to being a torturer ffs) of the Winchesters with the best viewing seat possible as it were (he even tells Dean point blank he’s a “fan”). For some reason only Dean and Cas got the focus for this (torture) tho and not Sam. With Dean it was the demon reminding him of how dark and brutal Dean can be himself (via his time with Alastair). Dean blows that off pretty quick and isn’t too visibly effected, commenting that it was a long time ago. With Cas the torture came in the demon’s possession of Jack himself, Cas saying bluntly that he can’t even look at Jack and that demonic possession is basically defilement. Cas is clearly more effected and Dean’s harsh “Jack is DEAD!” tonally recalled S13 in many ways. Also oddly the demon admits Dean is gorgeous but not the same is said of Cas, with the demon insulting him instead. Two interactions. Two wildly different responses. It’s the demon putting Dean and Cas at odds without any interaction needed from them themselves, though the latter comes in spades and is the only focused on “true” conflict of the episode, set against soft Sam/Dean exchanges.

The blend of Cas’ angelic nature along with his human nature was also heavily, heavily highlighted in the episode. It was probably the most highlighted thing in fact. Cas smiting and healing. Cas shooting a gun and throwing rocks. Cas tells Dean he wouldn’t starve to death in the crypt (which, on a side note, has huge Buffy vibes for me, along with Belphogor (sp?) calling the Hell rip or whatever the “Hellmouth”). Cas can see the demon’s demonic face easily despite episodes like 14x01 (also written by Dabb) where he can’t see a room full of them (I think I argued back then that Cas was willingfully trying to ignore and was annoyed with his angelic nature). Cas’ angelic side gets another highlight when Sam accidentally shoots Cas and he doesn’t get truly injured. This particular scene seemingly serves no other purpose other than to highlight Cas’ difference (as non-human) in general. Emotionally tho, Cas’ human side is on full display. He’s worried about the town’s people. He’s annoyed with both Sam and Dean for different reasons at different points. Cas bodily removes the demon from sharing the same space as him because the demon upsets him. Cas can not even LOOK at “Jack” but Dean (and Sam) can. As I said, it’s similar structurally to how S13 handled Dean dealing with Cas’ death in comparison to Sam moving on from it. It functions to show that for Cas his relationship with Jack is different from Sam and Dean’s, however otherwise similar in the fact that TFW all see Jack as their child, their family. It’s exactly like how Cas is different to Dean as compared to Sam.

Back onto demon “B” whatever tho. Interestingly, we never see the demon smoke into Jack. Then he just “”happens”” to know every spell needed to help the Winchesters but for Dean and Cas two things are required for sacrifice/gathering. In each, one component is dead-like and protecting (salt, goofer dust) and the other channels life/creation (a heart and angel blood). Each time there’s a duality in play. Curiously Sam is not involved in any of this with the demon for whatever reason, making the demon (within the season’s structure as presented so far) a primary component of Dean and Cas’ differences. They are tests of free will for them specifically in a way. What will each person “freely” give/obtain for the demon? To me, it just all screams this thing/demon is really just God fucking with them in every way he can but while maintaining some ally aligned position physically. It’s Chuck’s literal MO.

Also. The show is back to Dean blanketly treating Cas like shit. Which we know happens in waves constantly but as a Cas fan it’s still annoying to watch for the umpteenth fucking time. And they haven’t even pinpointed the *exact* reason here for all the snapping (yeah, pacing, I know). The audience has to do some connecting the dots here I feel. They have to have a certain understanding of how Dean needs Cas. I *think* the takeaway is that Dean uses Cas as an emotional punching bag when he’s actually mad at himself and that instead of getting so angry with himself these days that Dean’s decided yelling at Cas is a better/healthier way for him to deal with himself. Which is absolutely unfair and devastating to Cas, but it’s what Cas (unfortunately) has become to Dean. It’s like when he told Cas he was dead to him at the end of S14 because of Jack killing Mary. Dean’s really mad at he, himself, for ignoring the warning that was always there. Not really Cas. But Dean has yet to apologize and/or rectify this. This is the (ongoing) problem for Dean and Cas. Point blank.

At this point if I was Cas I’d just leave and not come back. He doesn’t deserve the way Dean constantly treats him. Dean doesn’t “need” Cas like this but he’s become comfortable using him like this. This is so jarring from the understanding Dean shows Cas in late S12. And from the grief arc he has in S13, followed by the relief he shows when Cas returns. Dean never learns how to properly “claim” Cas, however. Looks like this time instead of killing Cas the show (like in S8) is gonna have Cas choose to stay away (after 15x03?) I guess, prompting Dean to do some reflecting or whatever following this (What is Cas to me? Why do I actually need him? How should I treat him?). But honestly I’m not thinking of the reflecting right now. Or the “after” or whatever. I’m just thinking about how shitty Cas is being treated RIGHT NOW and it 1000% makes me wanna just drop the show and not watch anymore until it’s over. I’m just not interested in torturing myself for months watching this slowly drag out but apparently I’m so masochistic and love Cas so fucking much that I will. GODDAMMIT

Onto “pipes” I guess. This is where I point out that I don’t know what the show is going for here but I’ll throw around some ideas. Pipes had a lot to do with the episode. Sam thinks he hears water flowing in a pipe in the crypt and they think they can escape through the sewers. Wrong. Later, Sam tells the sheriff that a pipeline burst near the town. Lies. And lastly there’s a plumbing truck outside the home where the clown ghost slaughtered the birthday party (uh... where’s the bodies btw?). So everywhere we have the imagery of pipes bursting and needing to be fixed. Which, water has nothing to do with Hell, not really. I guess the Hell “rip” is kinda acting like a burst pipe?? Water is usually associated with angels/Cas/change tho. My best guess is that it’s repurposed Michael imagery since good ol’ Bel-whatever let us know Michael’s cage door is busted open and he’s just sitting there for now apparently. I’m not confident in my interpretation here at all though. All I can tell is that busted pipes as imagery (something likely associated with lying/wrong) for something is a thing.

In general I’m going to say 15x01 didn’t even feel like a Dabb episode to me. I honestly wouldn’t have guessed he wrote it. Since I didn’t care about the random people under attack (women running and scared and not tougher is always a hard sell for me personally) I found myself frequently saying “why aren’t they doing _______?” a lot during the episode. Ghosts needing to run? Why? I mean, I get the show wanted to show how the magical border worked but this could have been done in many other more effective ways utilizing tension more. It almost felt like the show didn’t know what to do with its S1 self and so visually everything ended up looking so very incredibly cheesy and not just in the way the colors are no longer desaturated. It literally looks like the show can’t go back into what it was. We saw this visually with a sign that cropped up in several shots as Sam and Cas tried to get the girl and her mom to safety. It was a cul de sac sign.

Here’s a video on why cul de sacs as a design became popular. In short, following the rise in popularity of the automobile neighborhoods are designed for safe car use, above all else. They don’t want outsiders passing through and they want things to be slower. When cars got popular streets were redesigned away from the traditional city “grid” (where accidents happened at intersections most commonly) with features that instead had safety in mind. I choose to interpret this as a visual comment on the show’s design. The Sam n Dean show is like a city grid, dangerous, while the Sam, Dean, Cas, Rowena, and Jack show offers more “safety”. That’s why we get it framed like this imo, between Sam and Cas. Things looked one way before Cas, and another after. Things have changed from the grid and they aren’t going back, for a variety of reasons.

Since the episode title recalls the movie Back to the Future I thought we’d have more of a visual/dialogue tie in tbh. I’ll try to talk about what we thematically did tho. BTTF is a movie about a boy overcoming his impulsiveness to be an alpha male who isn’t scared. This wasn’t a goal of the boy himself necessarily but it was an effect had upon him just the same by the story and his experiences. The movie bookends on this character development. In between the movie is about the disconnect of generations, how kids don’t see their parents in the way they see themselves and vice versa. It’s also about trying to set right familial relationships into proper categories. Marty’s mom, Lorene, accidentally falls in love with her own son instead of Marty’s father, George. Marty’s existence is then threatened and he must spend the movie trying to understand his parents and help them fall properly in love, thus saving and changing himself and them. We only get shades of these themes in the episode, like when the demon (in Jack’s body) calls Dean gorgeous and it makes him uncomfortable. Divorce (unhappy marriage) is also touched upon with the sleepover/makeover girls. In BTTF Lorene and George do not have a great marriage as George lacks confidence but Marty’s interactions with George in the past help change this in the future and their family is much better for it.

We are told in PR that Dean’s “conditioning” and him changing from that is a big part of what SPN is and has always been about. This is similar to how Marty must learn to properly deal with bullies (as he sees his father as weak and overcompensates to distinguish himself from him) and not letting them have power over you. Chuck is like Biff in this structural comparison. Biff is someone we watch become depowered over the course of the movie and I feel this is similar to what the show will likely do regarding Chuck. I could go further in depth here but these are the general thematic points this episode alone addresses. Only with Marty’s character development does he stand to have a happy life with his girlfriend, Jennifer. Back to the Future ends with another call to adventure and its script is widely regarded as “perfect” by many. Quite the structural comparison for SPN to be making. We’ll see. We’re currently stuck in the past for now. Onward, to the future...

[xtruss]

VOICE

Everyone Misunderstands the Reason for the U.S.-China Cold War

The left says it’s U.S. arrogance. The right says it’s Chinese malevolence. Both are wrong.

— B yStephen M. Walt | June 30, 2020 Foreign Policy

Flags of the United States and China are placed ahead of a meeting between U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his Chinese counterpart, Han Changfu, at the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing on June 30, 2017. JASON LEE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The United States is pretty polarized these days, but nearly everyone seems to agree that China is a big problem. The Trump administration has been at odds with China on trade issues since day one, and its 2017 National Security Strategy labeled China a “revisionist power” and major strategic rival. (President Donald Trump himself seems to have been willing to give Beijing a free pass if it would help him get reelected, but that’s just a sign of his own venality and inconsistent with the administration’s other policies.) Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden may have started his campaign in 2019 downplaying fears that China was going to “eat our lunch,” but his campaign has grown increasingly hawkish over time.

Not surprisingly, hard-line Republican members of Congress like Josh Hawley and Matt Gaetz have been sounding the alarm as well, while progressives and moderates warn of a “new cold war” and call for renewed dialogue to manage the relationship. Despite their differing prescriptions, all of these groups see the state of Sino-American relations as of vital importance.

Unfortunately, discussion of the Sino-American rivalry is also succumbing to a familiar tendency to attribute conflict to our opponents’ internal characteristics: their ruling ideology, domestic institutions, or the personalities of particular leaders. This tendency has a long history in the United States: The country entered World War I in order to defeat German militarism and make the world safe for democracy, and later it fought World War II to defeat fascism. At the dawn of the Cold War, George Kennan’s infamous “X” article (“The Sources of Soviet Conduct”) argued that Moscow had a relentless and internally motivated urge to expand, driven by the need for foreign enemies to justify the Communist Party’s authoritarian rule. Appeasement would not work, he argued, and the only choice was to contain the Soviet Union until its internal system “mellowed.” More recently, U.S. leaders blamed America’s problems with Iraq on Saddam Hussein’s recklessly evil ambitions and portrayed Iran’s leaders as irrational religious fanatics whose foreign-policy behavior is driven solely by ideological beliefs.

In all of these conflicts, trouble arose from the basic nature of these adversaries, not from the circumstances they found themselves in or the inherently competitive nature of international politics itself.

And so it is with China today. Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster maintains that China is a threat “because its leaders are promoting a closed, authoritarian model as an alternative to democratic governance and free-market economics.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agrees: In his view, relations have deteriorated because “it’s a different Chinese Communist Party today than it was 10 years ago. … This is a Chinese Communist Party that has come to view itself as intent upon the destruction of Western ideas, Western democracies, Western values.” According to Sen. Marco Rubio: “Chinese Communist Party power serves no purpose but to strengthen the party’s rule and to spread its influence around the world. … China is an untrustworthy partner in any endeavor whether it’s a nation-state project, an industrial capacity, or financial integration.” The only way to avoid a conflict, Vice President Mike Pence said, is for China’s rulers to “change course and return to the spirit of ‘reform and opening’ and greater freedom.”

Even far more sophisticated China watchers, such as former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, attribute much of China’s increasingly assertive stance to President Xi Jinping’s centralization of power, and Rudd sees this behavior as “an expression of Xi Jinping’s personal leadership temperament, which is impatient with the incremental bureaucratism endemic to the Chinese system, and with which the international community had become relaxed, comfortable, and thoroughly accustomed.” The implication is that a different Chinese leader would be a much less serious problem. Similarly, Timothy Garton Ash believes that the “primary cause of this new cold war is the turn taken by the Chinese communist party leadership under Xi Jinping since 2012: more oppressive at home, more aggressive abroad.” Other observers point to rising nationalism (whether spontaneous or government-sponsored) as another key factor in China’s greater foreign-policy assertiveness.

Relying on categories originally conceived by the late Kenneth Waltz, international relations scholars variously refer to such accounts as “unit-level,” “reductionist,” or “second-image” explanations. The many variations within this broad family of theories all view a country’s foreign-policy behavior as primarily the result of its internal characteristics. Thus, U.S. foreign policy is sometimes attributed to its democratic system, liberal values, or capitalist economic order, just as the behavior of other states is said to derive from the nature of their domestic regime, ruling ideology, “strategic culture,” or leaders’ personalities.

Explanations based on domestic characteristics are appealing in part because they seem so simple and straightforward: Peace-loving democracies act that way because they are (supposedly) based on norms of tolerance; by contrast, aggressors act aggressively because they are based on domination or coercion or because there are fewer constraints on what leaders can do.

Focusing on the internal characteristics of other states is also tempting because it absolves us of responsibility for conflict and allows us to pin the blame on others. If we are on the side of the angels and our own political system is based on sound and just principles, then when trouble arises, it must be because Bad States or Bad Leaders are out there doing Bad Things. This perspective also provides a ready solution: Get rid of those Bad States or those Bad Leaders! Demonizing one’s opponents is also a time-honored way of rallying public support in the face of an international challenge, and that requires highlighting the negative qualities that are supposedly making one’s rivals act as they are.

Unfortunately, pinning most of the blame for conflict on an opponent’s domestic characteristics is also dangerous. For starters, if conflict is due primarily to the nature of the opposing regime(s), then the only long-term solution is to overthrow them. Accommodation, mutual coexistence, or even extensive cooperation on matters of mutual interest are for the most part ruled out, with potentially catastrophic consequences. When rivals see the nature of the other side as a threat in itself, a struggle to the death becomes the only alternative.

What unit-level explanations either overlook or downplay are the broader structural factors that have made Sino-American rivalry inevitable. First and foremost, the two most powerful countries in the international system are overwhelmingly likely to be at odds with each other. Because each is the other’s greatest potential threat, they will inevitably eye each other warily, go to considerable lengths to reduce the other’s ability to threaten their core interests, and constantly look for ways to gain an advantage, if only to ensure that the other side does not gain an advantage over them.

Even if it were possible (or worth the risk), internal changes in either the United States or China are unlikely to eliminate these incentives (or at least not anytime soon). Each country is trying—with varying degrees of skill and success—to avoid being in a position where the other can threaten its security, prosperity, or domestic way of life. And because neither can be completely sure what the other might do in the future—a reality amply demonstrated by the erratic course of U.S. foreign policy in recent years—both are actively competing for power and influence in a variety of domains.

This troubling situation is exacerbated by the incompatibility of their respective strategic objectives, which derive in part from geography and from the legacies of the past century. Quite understandably, China’s leaders would like to live in as secure a neighborhood as possible, for the same reasons that the United States formulated and eventually enforced the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere. Beijing need not impose one-party state capitalist regimes around its periphery; it just wants all of its neighbors to be mindful of its interests and does not want any of them to pose a significant threat. Toward that end, it would like to push the United States out of the region so that it no longer has to worry as much about U.S. military power and so that its neighbors cannot count on American help. This goal is hardly mystifying or irrational: Would any great power be happy if the world’s most powerful country had significant military forces arrayed nearby and had close military alliances with many of its immediate neighbors?

The United States has good reasons to remain in Asia, however. As John Mearsheimer and I have explained elsewhere, preventing China from establishing a dominant position in Asia strengthens U.S. security by forcing China to focus more attention closer to home and making it harder (though of course not impossible) for China to project power elsewhere in the world (including areas closer to the United States itself). This strategic logic would still apply if China were to liberalize or if America were to adopt Chinese-style state capitalism. The result, unfortunately, is a zero-sum conflict: Neither side can get what it wants without depriving the other.

Thus, the roots of the present Sino-American rivalry have less to do with particular leaders or regime types and more to do with the distribution of power and the particular strategies that the two sides are pursuing. This is not to say that domestic politics or individual leadership do not matter at all, either in influencing the intensity of the competition or the skill with which each side wages it. Some leaders are more (or less) risk acceptant, and Americans are currently getting (another) painful demonstration of the harm that incompetent leadership can inflict. But the more important point is that new leaders or profound domestic changes are not going to alter the inherently competitive nature of U.S.-Chinese relations.

From this perspective, both progressives and hard-liners in the United States are getting it wrong. The former believe that China poses at most a modest threat to U.S. interests and that some combination of accommodation and skillful diplomacy can eliminate most if not all of the friction and head off a new cold war. I’m all for skillful diplomacy, but I do not believe it will suffice to prevent an intense competition that is primarily rooted in the distribution of power.

As Trump said of his trade war, hard-liners think a competition with China will be “good and easy to win.” In their view, all it takes is more and tougher sanctions, a decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies, a big increase in U.S. defense spending, and a rallying of like-minded democracies to the U.S. side, with the ultimate goal of ending Chinese Communist Party rule. Apart from the obvious costs and risks of this course of action, this view overstates Chinese vulnerabilities, understates the costs to the United States, and greatly exaggerates other states’ willingness to join an anti-Beijing crusade. China’s neighbors do not want it to dominate them and are eager to maintain ties with Washington, but they have no desire to get dragged into a violent conflict. And there is little reason to believe that a supposedly more liberal China would be any less interested in defending its own interests and any more willing to accept permanent inferiority to the United States.

So what does a more structural view of this situation imply?

First, it tells us that we are in it for the long haul; no clever strategy or bold stroke of genius is going to solve this conflict once and for all—at least not anytime soon.

Second, it is a serious rivalry, and the United States should conduct in a serious way. You don’t deal with an ambitious peer competitor with a bunch of amateurs in charge or with a president who puts his personal agenda ahead of the country’s. It will take intelligent military investments, to be sure, but a major diplomatic effort by knowledgeable and well-trained officials is going to be of equal if not greater importance. Maintaining a healthy set of Asian alliances is essential because the United States simply cannot remain an influential power in Asia without a lot of local support. The bottom line: America cannot entrust the care and feeding of those relationships to campaign contributors, party hacks, or dilettantes.

Third, and perhaps most important, both sides have a genuine and shared interest in keeping their rivalry within boundaries, both to avoid unnecessary clashes and to facilitate cooperation on issues where U.S. and Chinese interests overlap (climate change, pandemic prevention, etc.). One cannot eliminate all risks and prevent future crises, but Washington must be clear about its own red lines and make sure it understands Beijing’s. This is where unit-level factors kick in: The rivalry may be hard-wired into today’s international system, but how each side handles the competition will be determined by who is in charge and by the quality of their domestic institutions. I would not assume that America’s will fall short, but I wouldn’t be complacent about that either.

— Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.