#because that system is redundant and i fucking hate it.

[fooltofancy]

kind of past me to schedule days off around surprise disciplinary hr meetings

[system-of-a-feather]

hi!! back on my bullshit (asking for some resources if you have them and are willing to share)

would you mayhaps have some resources on non-western plurality? especially spiritual plurality but I'm curious about anything and everything

books, video essays, and other medias are very welcome too along with papers/scientific research !!

oop sorry it's a lot. also I'm 99% sure you replied to these kinds of asks multiple times I'm just not tumblr savvy (despite having been on tumblr 10+ years now)

thank you <3

@seasidewanderers

@seasidewanderers

God relatable about the "been on tumblr for 10+ years but still dont know how to use it well". I actually haven't really answered too many asks like this, at least not asking for resources and what not.

I do want to put a bit of a disclaimer about "non-western plurality" - at least from what I know from a more eastern perspective - a lot of "non-western plurality" does not actually really call itself plurality.

The concept of "plurality" in its self is a heavily western / european kind of concept, not because it only exists in those spaces, but because a lot of other spaces don't really make anything special of it so a name, community, label, etc is not exactly necessary or even particularly sensical. It's kind of like looking for "western singularity" or more accurately "western individualism". It's a bit redundant - at least in my personal perspective.

In a number of non-western cultures, the idea of having multiple selves and having that deep internal relationship isn't really anything too odd and I've heard a number of systems raised in those cultures or around cultures rooted in eastern philosophy that the people they mentioned having alters / parts / headmates to often responded POSITIVELY and casually to the concept because its generally just considered relatively normal if not a positive thing to engage with. The real question then becomes whether or not it counts as plurality or not and that's really up to the individual themselves.

It's a very western thing to really make a huge deal, spectacle and oddity out of experiencing oneself as multiple and honestly I think that can be kind of really well seen in a lot of eastern media with how much plural-adjacent themes are seen in non-DID and not-trying-to-be-DID ways. There is a large aspect of an external self and an internal self, a balancing of good and bad and opposing forces in a lot of Eastern Cultures both on religious, spiritual, philosophical, and just plain old cultural levels. Yin and Yang, Non-dualism, "Face", the general collectivist culture, Buddhism as a whole and deity yoga in particular.

Partially due to the social norms that tend to come with a highly collectivist culture and just the prominent foundational philosophies and spiritualities that are generally native to the area and the lack of a strong sense of individualism as seen in the west, it's extremely common to have strictly different modes for different situations and places as there is a strong level of conformity and respect that needs to be provided to specific locations in order to uphold the strong value of harmony that is valued heavily in collectivist cultures. People in these more collectivist cultures tend to really have to balance and make amends between these highly varied versions of themselves and so it isn't all too weird to be juggling notably different, changing and sometimes conflicting versions of selves; the version of you who is shaped to meet the communal needs and appeal / participate in sustaining harmony and the you that really fucking hates everyone here.

From talking with others who come from more eastern backgrounds, a thing we tend to kind of sigh and giggle at in the system community in terms of it being "extremely white / western" is just how overtly a lot of discussions on self, parts, and what not is EXTREMELY individualist and very much fundamentally built with a strong attachment to differentiation, defining yourself, labeling yourself, and drawing clear boxes around who you are to help understand, explore, and define your own identity. It's hard to really explain to those that are really deep into the western concept of individualism and haven't really looked into it and analyzed it, but as someone who is not exactly a fan of individualism and individualist perspectives, it's EXTREMELY loud and obvious in system communities.

And this is all a lot of preamble to really say there isn't going to really be "resources for non-western plurality" because its not anything particularly special in Eastern Cultures and cultures not built largely from a long running history of Christian / Catholic and maybe Abrahamic Roots (I don't know enough of about Islam or Judaism to say for sure but a lot of individualism does tend to stem from a cultural history and background with at least Christianity / Catholicism). Because it's not exactly special or anything particularly unique of a concept, most don't really label it or name it something or even really discuss it (also a symptom of collectivism and general Eastern cultures is not really discussing mental health or internal experiences, most of your experiences in these cultures are kept internally and dealt within yourself rather than with others) unless directly brought up by someone who DOES find it odd; ie usually a westerner or someone like me who is a first generation American from an eastern background.

So if you want "resources on non-western plurality" you won't find it looking for "plurality" as much as you would by looking into individualism vs collectivism and the cultural roots connecting to those concepts.

Of course there are also the more overt ones that talk about it, like Buddhism does because Buddhism largely serves as a way to try to teach people to find harmony within themselves AND the world to find and instill a sense of peace and serenity overall. That's added onto the fact that a lot of Buddhism is based on talking and discussing things so its an odd card out in a lot of eastern cultures in the sense they ACTIVELY like talking about how people experience themselves.

A lot of what I know comes from life experience, what I've been taught by my family and peers, and discussions with people who come from their own backgrounds; ie, most of what I know comes from anecdotal personal experience. Some I also know from some formal cultural responsivity / sensitivity / trauma informed care modules for work and during school, but most of it is honestly from personal experience and anecdotes.

Even so, I can provide some starting points to assist someone unfamiliar with the territory in investigating and learning a bit on topics relating to the normalization of plural-esque experiences in non-western cultures.

"The Concept of Self in Eastern and Western Philosophy" by Petar Radoev Dimkov is just an interesting run down of major philosophical branches of thought's perception of self

General Reading of Collectivism VS Individualism; I suggest searching up things regarding the clinical significance of understanding and acknowledging collectivism vs individualism when working with clients as well as the impact of those cultures on how one's self concept is experienced, developed and understood

General readings on the history of prominent eastern philosophies / religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Shintoism, etc) and their impacts on eastern culture / their ideas and values on the self, particularly in relation to others

And honestly? I'd suggest on actually searching and reading into the Western views of self and reading where those views and values come from as well because it will 1) likely bring up juxapositions to eastern views and 2) Its hard to truly learn and understand ANOTHER perspective if you don't first really sit and consider your OWN perspective

A lot of people think the idea that "we are one person, a unique self" is a scientific fact and in heavily white / western spaces, the way that statement is treated as fact is a very frustrating thing to see. "We are one person, a unique self" is a BELIEF that is ingrained deeply into Western Society that its treated and considered a fact despite there not really being scientific evidence to support it. (I think it also has something to do with how much "belief" is associated with religion, at least in America, rather than an opinion on something that has little scientific backing)

A lot of western psychology is also built with the assumption of a single unique self, so genuinely I think the best starting point for a white / western person to start trying to learn and understand eastern views is to first do a DEEP dive into Individualism and the Philosophy and Belief that everyone is their singular unique self.

Cause it's only when you acknowledge your own beliefs and cultural background can you actually appreciate, respect, and acknowledge another's beliefs and cultural background.

(Also just in general, learning about philosophy and following some people who just enjoy discussing philosophy can really help as well. Philosophy is the father of Science for a reason afterall. I don't know too much about him as I don't really actively follow him so he might have some bad takes or some bad history that I don't know about so take this recommendation with a grain of salt, but I really have enjoyed listening to Alex O'Connor on youtube talk about philosophy. I'm pretty sure he also engages in a lot of philosophy and religion-related debates and I think hes an Atheist? But I don't watch those so I dont know. I've only really watched his "Taking Trolley Problems Too Seriously" videos and a few one offs when I just needed something in the background while drawing, but he does know a lot of philosophical perspectives and does juggle them well enough that I honestly don't know his personal beliefs and lowkey don't really want to XD Ps: Im always hesitant to recommend youtubers cause almost all youtubers are assumed probably assholes, dicks, or Into Weird Things until proven otherwise)

[biggaybunny]

Stellaris is a fascinating mess of systems that I could talk forever about. For those unaware, it’s a grand strategy game that takes place in a galaxy filled with different alien nations. If you don’t know what a grand strategy game is then google it or something I’m not your mother.

Anyway one of my favorite little tidbits is one of the fundamental underpinnings of how diplomacy works, which is the relationship score. Your relationship with another empire is the sum of two numbers, your opinion of them (on a scale from something like -1500 to 1500 or something like that), and their opinion of you. These two numbers are themselves sums of several different factors such as diplomatic arrangements you’ve made, compatibility of political ideology, frequency with which you bathe, etcetera.

Now the part I want to talk about *specifically* is the basic diplomatic action you almost always have available to you: “Improve Relations”. It’s the most basic idea: you ship over a diplomatic envoy to shake their least slimy tendrils and say nice things about the way they’ve decorated the place. This improves their opinion of you, which as you may remember, makes your relationship as a whole go in the positive direction. Pretty simple.

Now the funny part is that. Well. The developers decided that obviously you need the opposite option. You need a way to say “I DON’T want to be friends with that alien empire, they bathe far too frequently for my tastes”. And what’s the opposite of Improving Relations, of course? Why, Harming Relations! So you. You send them an envoy. Whose entire job is to just... piss these people off. To shake the incorrect tendril and insult their aesthetic senses just because they happen to be a race of sentient cubes. You make them hate you, because you already don’t like them, and I guess you feel awkward about it not being mutual? And the funniest thing is that AI-controlled nations will, of course, use this option! If you’re trying to butter up the powerful, belligerent warmongering star empire next to you because you’re a race of peace-loving snails and you’ve spent this entire time building megamalls in fucking space instead of, like, military installations, that empire will go “oh no you don’t” and send one of their envoys over to start calling you a poopy stinky slimeball, resulting in a net zero change in your relationship score with them. Of course, this means that, technically, they have an extremely high opinion of you after a while, because the envoy you’ve sent over is affecting their opinion, and the one they’ve sent over is affecting yours, but you know, let’s not think too hard about that.

Oh, and there’s uh, already another mechanic for lowering their opinion of you. It’s the “insult” diplomacy option. So you can like, ring up the Borg or whoever, ask them if you can speak to Hugh Jass, and then hang up on them when they yell at you. So the whole system is redundant but nevermind.

Stellaris, everybody!

[spotsupstuff]

Ooh, super interested in what happened to your Sun and why he went from lying to himself to becoming an apathetic brick wall lol

well! Suns was always an apathetic brick wall. because of a design flaw. Moon has already talked about this in one of the questions we've answered:

the Iterator design evolved by the process of eliminating "redundant" things, with only their capability of figuring out the Great Problem taking priority. quite literal case of putting the evolution points into a singular specialization because of outside guidance

Gen 1s are chunky and tall as they are because they physically (with their puppets) interacted with the Ancients often- either because check ups and fixing things was often required since they were the experimental Generation OR for the sake of things like school/educational trips (citizens of Gen 3s would have road trips to Gen 1s rather than visiting their own iterators). and we end up with the lanky spiky Gen 3 design thanks to this process of elimination

the official jump from Gen 1 to Gen 2 was a BIG thing. different Gen happens when a LOT of things are eliminated to the point that the base design is more cumbersome and therefore it gets revamp to fit the systems better. the jump to Gen 2 wasn't.... the smoothest one

on a physical level everything had gone absolutely swimmingly. but some dumbfuck from the big designer/engineer/programmer team fucked up n accidentally removed the One thing that ensured the Iterators could experience emotions as fully and broadly as a normal organic. and so early Gen 2s have the reputation of being incredibly dull concerning emotional matters (some were a bit spared of this when someone from the construction team on-site noticed the flaw)

this was resolved within the same Generation and pretty quickly by reverse engineering the parts of Gen 1s that made them so capable of this. NSH specifically was very influencial in this research because, for some reason nobody could ever figure out, he was more emotion capable than most of Gen 1s (this fact got boosted cuz the reverse engineering then turned into Enhancing so they could see how far they could possibly take this. NSH does the Iterator equivalent of crying when watching movies Every Time GUARANTEED)

i already have this on hand, so here's Fish (early Gen 2) and Euros (mid Gen 2) for comparison

poor bastard Seven Red Suns drew the shortest stick possible with this design flaw n has absolutely Minimal emotional understanding and capability

the Terrible thing about this is that they are Aware of this flaw of theirs and what little spark of emotion they can surrect within themselves they dedicate to either mourning or hating it. that's the subject of their depressive "pondering" in this pic

they are *trying* so hard to have emotions and feelings. they often force fake ones into their voice and it's painfully apparent cuz they always put their all into it, no subtlety about it

the pain there is faked. they know what sounding pained means to other people, so they force their voice into such form to show to Spears that they didn't mean to be so blind to its capabilities of being a feeling, comprehending creature

their ruse of charm was put in place to make themselves... well, maybe not Feel exactly but you know what i mean- to seem better, i guess. so the other Iterators would love them, so the children wouldn't be so scared of their apparent coldness, so they wouldn't hurt anyone around them because harming people will make them go away and Suns doesn't want to be lonely and Needs other people if he wants to solve the Great Problem. more heads more smarts. "look at me, i'm alright! i feel alright! i am Well! i am happy!" and if i say that to myself enough it will Have to become true

like all Gen 1 n Gen 2 Iterators could tell they were bullshitting, though. they appreciated the effort though so most of the group accepted Suns either way. Gen 3s did not recognize it so much- that's how Pebbles ended up as their mentee rather than Moon's (as he was honestly set up to be, which just made him Not Want To take Moon on as his mentor) or some other Gen 1's (Gen 3s often search for mentors cuz there's a lot of things to catch up on in the research at this point- they often go for Gen 1s cuz naturally they have the most knowledge at hand. Innocence, for example, is Nish's mentee!!! she's his shitty little student, he wants to bonk her So much for bein disrespectful to everyone and he loves her with his entire fuckin being. his lil fucklet...)

this ruse starts to slowly slip past Suns' fingers some years after the Ancients' mass ascension. the longer the searching for solution drags on the more Iterators start giving up, becoming desperate, negative, ...insane... Suns gets affected by both the time and everyone else around them. the ruse doesn't MATTER anymore, because everyone is damaged in SOME way at some point. everyone is a little or a lot broken, what is so bad about their flaws at This point- nobody gives a shit and they sure as fuck don't have the emotional power to give a singular fuck in the first place so why not... just let go of that if it isn't so required anymore...

and so they become an apathetic brick wall openly to the whole world, "shedding" their lies, prioritizing logic and goal chasing over others' feelings and importance of the present

that's how we got here in my take on RW

Suns is fucked up, man

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

i tend to replace fear with anger so i feel insane about how scared people are of cultural diversity when it's the the technology that's going to save us all.

cultural traditions are in and of themselves a technology to cultivate the skills and values needed to meet the group's physical needs and maintain social cohesion. it's a type of accumulated knowledge, we do x thing for x reason. for example, the old testament says not to mix linen and wool not because of the moral paradigm but because it sucks ass, doesn't really work, and counteracts the benefits of each type of fabric. the heat retention and stretch of wool ❌❌ the breathability and durable, non-stretchy nature of linen. you also probably don't want to get caught outside in a partially wool garment in an arid region. keep it on and overheat and die, or take it off, dehydrate, and die anyway but also burn your skin off in the process. unpleasant results no matter what. so just don't.

the inuit teach incredible anger management skills and consider it deeply humiliating and childish to lose your temper. because they live in remote places in small dwellings and need to get along. it is a requirement to keep the peace when it's like -60 degrees out and nobody can physically leave or stray far from the fire and warmth of other bodies or they will straight up fucking die.

celtic folklore tells of kelpies, who lurk in pools and will lure you with promises of adventure before dragging you down into the depths (don't swim in pools you aren't familiar with or you will drown.) my grandma taught me to bribe the house fairies with notes and soft pieces of cloth left in nooks and crannies when you've lost something (go pay specific attention to places you usually ignore.)

the haudenosaunee (iroquois) seventh generation principle teaches environmental awareness by requiring that you protect the next seven generations of all your kin, every member of the system, animal(humans are included here) and plant alike.

the knowledge you have, the language you learned it in, and the terms and the connotations that were used to explain it all direct paths of thought and imagination that a person has. if you live in a culture that hates and fears insects, bugs are introduced to you in hostile language, conceptualized for you as pests and interlopers, and you're told that the right thing to do is get rid of them. the word "bug" is itself hostile-- "don't bug me." you have to personally really fucking love bugs to see beyond that framework and the social stigma attracted by violating it to become an entomologist. the culture that does not hate and fear insects has many more entomologists. the culture that loves them has more entomologists than anybody else. the culture that has more entomologists has a better understanding of ecosystems, and will accumulate a more comprehensive body of ecological knowledge over time. i'm using insects here as a stand-in for gross or alien aspects of the natural world and by extension the concept that the animal homo sapiens is superior to and can be separated from nature. which is a stupid ass concept that fucked western/european ecological thought from the jump.

that accumulated body of knowledge will influence other types of thought, particularly how you think of and understand systems. a vast body of ecological knowledge lends itself to understanding that a top-heavy system is unstable, that systems thrive on diversity and redundancy, that there are many ways to accomplish the same task and it's more likely the goal will be accomplished with various methods in play. you need bees and wasps and mosquitos to pollinate your plants. bees will ignore a plant that a wasp loves. the lives of both are purposeful, necessary. ecological thought tends to breed egalitarian imagination, and this is the soil from which the Seventh Generation Principle comes from. american indigenous nations do not have magic nature powers, they are descendants and inheritors of cultures that cultivated more comprehensive ecological knowledge than europeans did. much requires rebuilding, but the base assumptions of their ecological (and political) knowledge systems are not fundamentally fucked. so we should listen. landback

culture is cultivation, and cultivation bears fruit. the same way that negative attributes (kyriarchy, racism, homophobia, sexism) can be cultivated, positive attributes (anger management skills, ecological knowledge) can be cultivated, too. and here's the best fucking part, the most human of technologies: we can learn them from each other.

we can learn from each other!

we can learn how the inuit teach their children anger management and practice those skills ourselves. we can learn each other's little tricks for finding lost objects. we can learn the ecological principles that structure the Seventh Generation Principle. we can use this knowledge to change how we understand and imagine all our systems, to respect each other better, to never change a puzzle piece but recognize its curves and where they fit. to love the colors needed to make a beautiful and complex tapestry.

it's all right here. not at the tip of our fingers but already in our grasp! and it takes nothing but respect for the necessity of diversity. that others know things you don't, and that is a profoundly joyful thing.

[donnerpartyofone]

I feel like there's an epidemic of businesses trying to make customers and applicants do free data entry for them and it's driving me crazy.

I have complained many times about how seeing a doctor now involves checking in online, and then entering duplicate information into something else when you check in physically, and then answering duplicate questions once you're actually inside the exam room. Sometimes somebody addresses this in a humane way: "Sorry, we're using a new CMS and we have to do all this stuff from scratch," or "Sorry, we have to use these three different systems and they don't communicate with each other." Last time I went I did all this like research into my past appointments because I never ever remember off the cuff exactly what day I had this or that procedure, and I had every impression that the clinic was dependent on me to have all my medical records memorized...so I got in there and started rattling off information, and the nurse asked "When was your last mammogram?", and I gave her the date, and she looked at her monitor and said, "...yup, there it is!" Like WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, IF IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU WHY ARE YOU QUIZZING ME ABOUT THIS, WHY IS THIS A TEST???

I actually asked about redundant check-in procedures on Quora of all places, figuring there had to be a few cantankerous cranks on there who could at least try to explain this to me, but there were absolutely no takers at all. As far as I can see, literally no one knows why this is happening, it's just The Way It Is.

But anyway. Now I'm having this experience with job applications where they request that you upload files for your resume and cover letter in specific formats...and then they direct you to this interface where you are made to transcribe every detail from the resume you just provided by hand, one field at a time. I've been confronted with this insanity when applying for jobs whose wages weren't even worth the mind-numbing exercise of the application process. And actually this is part of my point: Data entry is a JOB. I have had this job. I was paid to examine, reformat, and transcribe data, and upload it to a database for my company to search and cross-reference in the future. If you are an employer and you absolutely require BOTH a pdf of my resume and cover letter that a human being can read and evaluate, AND each piece of data from those documents individually entered into your database for some other form of storage and review, then it is seriously fucking Up to You to pay some wage slave to enter the data. I'm looking for a job. I'm not going to do a job for you for fucking free, in order to become eligible for a job that you might consider paying me for later. Like please don't call me a fucking idiot to my face--or at least, if it's the database part that's the most important thing to you, do not also require me to create a nicely-formatted document containing my history and intentions. Let's just get right to the forced data entry part, let's start this awful relationship from a place of honesty at the very fucking least.

N.B. I realize that there are multiple reasons an employer would do this to a person, ranging from algorithmic candidate-sorting to just having outdated-ass job site shit in place that they don't feel like reviewing or revising. I don't really care why it's happening, I just hate that it is. Recently I tried to apply for some $15/hr part-time job at a local museum that a caveman could do, and I stopped cold when I realized I had to transcribe every detail of the documents I just gave them into this bullshit backend website that looked like it was about a thousand years old. No Thank You. Currently I'm all worked up because I just applied to work at a hip, culty, local theater, and I was shocked that after completing the totally normal application routine, I received an automated email directing me to "complete your profile" as "an important part of the hiring process" on the website of the company they're outsourcing all their HR and billing stuff to. And I go look at the profile thingy, and of course it's just this needlessly complicated interface where I can individually enter each and every piece of information that I just provided in my resume--no more, no less. The theater has exactly two locations and is kind of a niche operation and it is absolutely crazy to me that they think they need to pay for this extra layer of stupidly bloated and redundant "talent acquisition" processing when they're hiring for like two or three basic ass hourly roles where half the question is going to be "have you done this normal shit before" and half will be "can we stand your personality". Nobody needs this garbage at all, least of all ME.

[techtakesoff]

Since I see you haven’t been requested it, can you do a Prince of Void?

Yeah, I can.

The Prince of Void

The classpect of my favorite fankid.

Prince - one who destroys their aspect, or destroys with their aspect.

Void - control over literal nothingness and secrets.

The Prince of Void is one who destroys Void, or destroys with Void.

The opposite of a Prince of Void is a Sylph of Light.

The Prince of Void destroys nothing. And that sounds rather redundant, and useless. But that's the point of Void as an aspect. You are meant to underestimate it, because then it'll kick your fucking ass.

A Prince of Void destroys obscurity. They destroy secrets. They take things that are meant to be hidden and they tear them wide open, display all the guts out for everyone to see.

They have the power to destroy the things that hide operations. They are the spy infiltrating the castle, and it's glorious just how good at it they are.

Nothing can stay hidden from a Prince of Void. Their job is to expose it and tear it a new one, so anything that remains hidden from a Prince of Void likely won't for very long. Secrets, material objects, whatever. If the Prince of Void has their shit stolen they'll likely find it in the most obscure of places.

And they have leverage above people, too. Because they lurk in the shadows they destroy from, they have dirt on people. Exposing secrets, even if it's only to themselves, gives the Prince of Void chess pieces on the metaphorical chessboard.

Through exposing as many lies as they have, though, makes the Prince of Void an excellent liar. They know how to get away with things and hide them, despite the fact that they constantly destroy the secrets and hidden things of everyone else.

A Prince of Void would likely make videos about breaking video games to find their secrets. And I wouldn't put it past a Prince of Void to be technologically adept, too. They could be good at hacking and would be able to break their way into any system, finding the most sensitive of files and perhaps using that as leverage, too.

They use the pieces given to them as leverage because they feel like they're just a pawn. The Prince of Void hates people who live in the limelight, because they never got a taste of it. They were surrounded by so much obscurity in their life that they want to destroy all of it that they can get. They want to destroy the people who live pushing their secrets away so that they can get a taste of what it's like to be the Prince.

They don't like being mean, but they in their own mind see the idea of exposing someone as a necessary evil. They are the first person to call someone out on their bullshit, but they might also uphold their own kinds of lies to see where others trip up. I see them as a kind of person to withhold necessary information until someone coughs up the truth.

They are a bold, no nonsense kind of person. They probably really hate math word problems. The Prince of Void likes things that are simple and don't have riddles within riddles for a simple concept, and anything that doesn't follow this mentality is swiftly disposed of. They are unique in this sense.

[qweerhet]

frequently, it's Exhausting being at an intersection where i have experienced both "sanist and racist Reddit Atheism lateral violence" and "anti-atheistic and racist Liberated Religion lateral violence" because of the simple fact that both camps are deathly committed to arguing that the other camp does not, in fact, exist in any meaningful way and only exists as singular rude people in individual leftist spaces.

like i truly do not enjoy how this makes me sound like an Enlightened Centrist, but quite frankly i have been in a variety of left-leaning spaces over the course of my life, and there are left-leaning spaces which are run by members of one particular religion (or even, occasionally, have power systems that privilege two, possibly three religions working in conjunction) who use systemic power within that space and use it to oppress atheists and agnostics within that space. and there are also left-leaning spaces which are run by atheists that use systemic power within that space to oppress minority religions, primarily along the axes of sanism and racism, and therefore all non-consensus-reality experiences regardless of religious status.

and like, in both cases, i've experienced institutions being utilized to enforce that oppression--the institution of the church + equivalents in the case of the religious oppression, obvs, and in the case of weaponized atheism, the mental institution and the carceral system (which are so interrelated it feels rather redundant to refer to them separately in this context tbh).

and i think it's extremely unwise to build your entire comprehension of religion + privilege + systems of power from your leftist bubbles, tbh, because that's how you get shit like "christianity is the only religion that has any problems" on the Liberated Religious side, and "anyone who has an experience outside of consensus reality is an agent of oppression" on the other side. like, hyperfocusing on your experience within left-leaning bubbles is to exclude yourself from a more holistic understanding of how religious institutions + systems of power operate worldwide, and how those systems of power are reproduced on smaller scales and within interpersonal relationships.

like, that's all awfully broad, i acknowledge, but it's difficult to get into specifics without missing the forest for the trees once again. when you're tweeting like "and where are these evil anti-atheist members of minority religions who oppress you? are they in the room with us now? you're just mad about being called antisemitic" you're Missing The Forest For The Trees in that, like, "religion" doesn't mean one specific thing and "atheism" doesn't mean one specific thing (they're both extremely general terms for extremely broad concepts that have varying relationships with the concepts of culture + consensus reality + history depending on the context they're being used in!) and maybe atheist jews are also mad at you for erasing the negative experiences atheist jews have in religious jewish spaces when you say that. and sure maybe your social context is primarily made up of dealing with antisemitic shit from white supremacist atheist leftists who utilize power structures to paint targets on the jewish members of your social bubble when religion comes up at all, but also, like, there is absolutely a social context where pretty much every discussion of religion is centered around an institutionally powerful theocracy attacking atheists and leftists utilizing that power structure to oppress atheist leftists within their social bubble.

like--again, i fucking hate how much this makes me sound like an Enlightened Centrist, and on a personal note, i do feel like there is a moral pressure to pick a side, but i really don't think there's "sides" to pick at the end of the day. i think atheist social bubbles, particularly in america, are incredibly vulnerable to hegemonic ideals of sanism and racism, and i think lefty religious social bubbles are incredibly vulnerable to hegemonic ideals of "subtle" conservatism engrained in religious institutions and racism, and i think all of these things are really fucking easy for groups to begin enforcing violently when the groups in question are both violently oppressed and under constant attack from the institutions in power in their particular areas of the world. like, it's so easy to fall back on hegemonic failsafes to protect one's own, and i think the core of this perceived divide is that these groups have high rates of people defensively and publicly participating in oppressive hegemonies to attempt to garner some form of protection from the constant oppression they face, and forming high-control social groupings based around this phenomenon.

[kingcanis]

Fuck it, a second Jurassic Park hot take: (movie) John Hammond is not a villain (Book John Hammond is an ass).

The biggest thing I've seen arguing that he's an asshole and JP was all his fault was underpayment Dennis Nedry. We have no evidence in the media itself that Dennis was being underpaid for his work. The amount that he is being paid is never named. We DO get a line from Hammond to Nedry about paying what he owes, but that always gave me more of a "I am paying you a reasonable wage for this job. The fact that you're terrible with money and can't sort your own shit out is not my fault or problem".

Which is a totally fine stance for an employer to have! Dennis complains about his pay not being enough but no one else in the entire movie seems to have an issue with their wages. In the book, once again Nedry is the only one. It seems to me that the takeway should be that "Nedry is a greedy asshole" and not "John Hammond was abusing his working class employees"

(Side note, Nedry is a greedy asshole, and is made out to be an asshole to animals and willing to let people die to make a quick buck. However his depiction on the movie as a slob, the whole falling down on the mud scene that leads to his death, and the general way he's treated in many of the writing decisions are incredibly fatphobic, and deeply not okay)

So let's go over what John Hammond DID do. He showed up to try and be present and available for the birth of each dinosaur (the fact that he didn't know about the hatching in the beginning of the film makes me think that wasn't the first time Wu "forgot" to tell him, but the man tried).

He brought back paleo-flora to go woth his dinosaurs, tried to give them as close to authentic habitats as possible.

He insisted that they'd want to keep the price if admission to the park low so that everyone could attend and see the dinosaurs. It was a vision he wanted to *share* with everyone.

He funded a first of its kind state of the art security system and isolated the park from the mainland so that in case anything catastrophic happened, the danger posed by the park would be contained.

He prioritized getting his grandchildren back once everything went to shit, and did everything in his power to help them get off the island (he's a fuddling grandpa, there's wasn't much he was ever going to be able to do).

All of this to say, that John Hammond is not a saint, but the man meant well and did his best to bring his dream to life, and then to share it with the world.

It's part of what makes me think that John, shows up for every dino birth he knows of, lovingly calls the dinos animals, clearly has this great sense of wonder about the whole thing, Hammond would have *hated* Simon, they're assets not animals, I've never seen this super traumatized death-dino before, what happened to its sibling? I have no idea what Henry Wu has been doing in the lab I put him in, I literally die playing Action Hero because I let the death-dino kill all my guys, Masrani.

Long story short, Hammond is not a villain. He's not perfect, and certainly makes some mistakes (add in some critical redundancy to your systems my dude), but he is just as much a victim as the rest of the cast.

[some-guy-on-the-web]

How The World Works

The world will teach you alot of things nobody in their right mind would want to learn, and it will go way out of it's way to prevent you from learning the things you should really want to know.

To learn the important stuff, you have to take a gamble on some guy on the web ranting into the void.

So this is an example of how the world works.

Rummy lets slip the military misplaced trillions of dollars, BOOM, government accounting office blows up, evidence destroyed, BOOM, other government accounting office blows up, but nobody talks about the accounting offices, they talk about Muslims on the other side of the planet, chaos ensues, weapons of mass distraction, sheep start bleating, sock puppets, Lambchop, social media alter the trends, censorship, manipulation, coercion, if you don't do XYZ you are a terrorist and everyone hates you, big brother loves you, cattle get steered into pens, articles disappear, people disappear, black sites, torture, slow-burn soft-kill depopulation, keep calm and carry on, all's quiet on the farm again, pay your taxes, three bags full.

I'll presume that makes no sense to most people, but I'm not giving any of you any fucks, because most people on Tumblr masturbate to cartoon animals. Fuck you all and the fascist bastards who brainwashed you.

I swear everyone in corporate media should be summarily executed for running slavery rings.

Politics is basically the same thing as corporate media, but less frantic, because it's antiquated, originally designed to operate on country time. A country minute can be a few seconds or a few days.

Education is the same thing but more obviously sex slavery. Teachers molest more kids than even politicians or priests. Did you think schools have communal showers because government cares about public hygiene? Then why communal showers for kids but not the homeless? Because nobody wants to fuck the homeless.

Employment is the same thing but more obviously sex slavery. Everyone wants to be an actor and everyone knows what happens to actors. You may think jobs are supposed to accomplish things, but you're wrong, you're all given jobs to prevent you from doing anything important. Employers are baby-sitters, and sexual predators, same as education, politics, and corporate media. Humans are horrible creatures who treat eachother very badly.

Your life is a lie. You are a chump. You were created by a hyper-redundant system of slavery that drugged you into stupidity even before you were born. You were a slave since Day 1 in the womb. Your mother was raised on GMO. You have no idea how to be human. You don't know how to eat, you barely know how to breathe. You were raised like like a robot. Your food is a science experiment. Your education is a science experiment. Your entertainment is a science experiment. Project Paperclip. Operation Mockingbird. Echelon. Stellar Wind. The End.

You may now resume masturbating to cartoon animals.

[justcallmecappy]

i don’t buy that you genuinely understand how fucked up mage oppression is. f*nris fully supports genocide and doesn’t acknowledge that anyone but him has suffered.

I originally wasn't really planning on responding to this because, 1) it's been a really long week and i'm sleep-deprived; 2) I have no idea what brought this on and I low key suspect this is just trying to bait me, but you know what, I will answer it seriously and in good faith, because there are a few things I want to say.

I wrote a bit about mage oppression, I've reblogged other people's posts discussing and advocating mage rights, I'm staunchly pro-mage, anti-Circle, and I'm aware of how fucked up the Chantry and the Circles are as institutions that perpetuate abuse and ongoing genocide of mages. However, I need to emphasize that while the plight of mages can be used as a metaphor of systematic violence and discrimination that occurs in real life, it is in and of itself a completely fictional struggle. The information that can be gathered about it exist only within and is limited to the fictional context of the Dragon Age franchise. Saying that I don't genuinely understand a fictional struggle is kind of redundant because I'm obviously not a Circle mage in real life.

But I honestly don't know why you associated Fenris with the Chantry's abuse of mages when he's just as much of a victim of systematic oppression as Anders and the mages of Southern Thedas are. I suppose you are referring to Fenris joining the Templars in 'The Last Straw' if you don't have enough friendship/rivalry points with him, but that's a totally conditional outcome based on game mechanics. It's not unavoidable, and there are plenty of players who have World States where Fenris fights alongside Hawke to defend the mages.

Fenris also carries so much guilt over the Fog Warriors, and it's a source of trauma for him. He only confides the story in Hawke in Act 2 after you unlock 50% friendship/rivalry, and it's clear when he confides the story in Hawke he sees the killing of the Fog Warriors as a mistake that he deeply regrets. He does not want to kill. But all his memories of his previous life were erased when he got the lyrium markings, and for a long time the only sense of identity he had was being Danarius' weapon and executioner. It takes him a long time and a lot of strength and hard work to build a sense of identity past what Danarius tried to make him to be, and his character arc where he heals and grows past all that, and he raises his sword to help and defend the mages of the Gallows, is all the more significant and powerful, compared to the story outcome where all his healing and growth is undone and he reverts to just becoming an executioner again.

Fenris and Anders have that in common: Anders, too, was labelled as a "monster" by the Chantry just by being born a mage, and he had to work so hard to unlearn all that hateful rhetoric, and accept that his magic was a gift and not a curse from the Maker. Both Fenris and Anders are spending so much energy in rebuilding their identity past what their abusers tried to make them to be, and they both understandably lash out from the stress of it, but that doesn't mean either of them don't care about others or are blind to others' suffering.

I think the whole "Fenris vs mages" thing is short-sighted; he's suffered just as much and has very similar experiences and struggles as the mages of Southern Thedas have. Personally, I think Fenris and Anders should have teamed up to demolish the power systems that abuse and exploit their people together, but BioWare are cowards. 🙂

[erindrifter]

My work decided to change the software we use to something ENTIRELY different, and it went into effect this week.

Holy shit this new system fucking SUCKS.

It takes MUCH longer to do my job now because there's a lot more steps to do that are almost entirely redundant. For example, if I don't drop something off for a customer, I have to use a drop-down menu to say why, and then I have to type out a reason.

The reason is almost always "the customer already has a lot of the stuff". That's not an option in the drop-down menu.

Not to mention that my supervisors have NO clue what they're doing, and that has resulted in many stops just being completely broken.

We also can't see the routes more than two weeks in advance. I hate that SO MUCH. Knowing what my routes look like in advance allows me to plan ahead.

The previous system worked just fine, FYI. This change was not only pointless, but has resulted in EVERYONE I work with hating everything about the job.

[amphtaminedreams]

General Elections & the Race to the Bottom Ft. Zionism, Transphobia, and a Shout Out to Shithead Starmer: Thoughts No.2 (it's Always & Forever, FCK THE TORIES)

I haven’t written about politics for a couple of years now I suppose because nothing, especially when it comes to the Conservatives, shocks me anymore. Anything I read about them in the news doesn’t elicit much beyond a “just as I thought, trash” kinda response. I disengaged with current events because I’ve felt defeated and like it’s all just beyond my control, like no amount of anger we express or hurt they cause seems to change anything. Even when enough of a scandal emerges that mainstream British media is forced to report on it, it seems to blow over soon enough. Don’t know if we forgive, but it seems like we definitely always forget, regardless of how vile the ethical transgressions are. 

It speaks to my privilege that I’ve been able to tap out and passively hate the government; for a lot of vulnerable groups, the policies that I can sit here and criticise without consequence directly impacts them in ways that make day to day life unbearable. I’m not in that position. For sure, I’m struggling financially, and I have watched others (and myself in the past) be let down by NHS services repeatedly but like, these are circumstances I can endure because I’m not grasping at straws to survive as is the case for these groups. The increasing rate of climate change fills me with dread on a day to day basis but because the part of the world I live in is relatively untouched, this sense of detachedness allows me to delude myself into thinking that things can’t really be as bad as they seem and ya know, somebody might invent something in the meantime to reverse it. Up 'til now, it's the only thing that stops me from questioning what the point of anything is. This is possible only because I have the luxury of never being present to witness the place I’ve grown up in become inhabitable. I’ve never had to directly confront climate change in a way that is immediately threatening to my livelihood. So like I say, I am ridiculously privileged to be able to look at politicians like Rishi Sunak, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, and the rest of them, pushing us further away from commitments to slow climate change and do little beyond thinking of fucking course, what else would I expect from tight-fisted, near-sighted, arrogant and uncaring individuals as them and the rest of the upper class who all, I imagine believe that, when the time comes, they can pull a Kimberley Kardashian and hire their private firefighters, or hop on whatever new iteration there is of SpaceX a couple of decades from now, and escape from the carnage.

Anyway, going back to the point, I kinda came to the conclusion (yep, the one everyone has been screaming for years) that the entire political system in the West is kinda rigged:-)

Everything about it was making me angry. Joined the Labour Party under Corbyn, and within a few months of Starmer taking over, I left. The only sentiment I had post-Corbyn was a somewhat tepid belief that perhaps the Labour Party were the slightly lesser of 2 evils. Since then, this difference is so marginal, it is meaningless, which is no better summarised than by Keir Starmer’s refusal to condemn Israel’s actions despite their being in violation of international human rights laws against collective punishment, and moreover, DESPITE HIM BEING A FORMER HUMAN FUCKING RIGHTS LAWYER. This, along with his vocal agreement with Rishi Sunak’s public declaration of transphobia has all but confirmed his label as the “opposition” to the PM is redundant. I say this as if his contributions to both these issues are really not just the icing on the cake of his failure to hold the Conservatives responsible in any meaningful way since he was elected the Labour leader, which they 1000% are.

Where this has caused me to pretty much disengage with politics the last couple of years and instead become resigned to the declining state of the country, his outright agreement with some of the tremendously harmful stances Rishi Sunak has taken over the last month have me absolutely fucking FUMING. When the lines between the motivations of the 2 dominant political parties start to blur to this extent and the mainstream media does nothing but reinforce their ideologies, essentially nothing more than to preserve the wealth of the establishment, it starts to feel like we are heading towards what is, for all intents and purposes, a single party state. I’m sure when the next general election comes, Starmer will run a bullshit campaign on the promise of change, but so far his actions point to him being in favour of nothing of the sort. Who knows, maybe people are so sick and tired of life under the Conservatives that they will vote based on empty promises. If we can all be vocal in identifying the principles of the insidious playbook the majority of prominent politicians seem to ascribe to at present, however, and the harm and damage it does, maybe (don’t get me wrong, my hope that this will actually happen is minute) Labour MPs will realise that they need to do something fundamentally differently if they want to win an election. That means no more deflection away from the decisions politicians make to retain their status and privilege by targeting and villainising the groups that these decisions often directly threaten. IDK if it’s just that being in anorexia recovery has the cogs in my brain working efficiently enough to be able to see over the parapet of the obsessive food and body image trenches, and that this is what’s facilitating me feeling so repulsed by the stances our political leaders have taken over the last month, but regardless, something about this recent bullshit feels particularly morally reprehensible and like we all need to be talking about it. Wilful ignorance for the sake of wellbeing be damned because the normalisation of transphobia by the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition as well as their unequivocal support of the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing in the name of “self-defence” is EVIL. Never has the complete disregard of intrinsic human rights and dignity, self-determination and quality of life for all in the name of greed, pride, and ego been so clear, and it feels wrong to be complacent. The 1% believe themselves to be the only people governing this country because their threshold for competent governance is not to create and maintain a system that preserves its citizens’ wellbeing indiscriminate of demographic, which is what a government is supposed to fucking do, but instead uphold their own privilege and frequently, unearned economic advantage of the in-group they belong to. They mistake the cycle of wealth they come from given this has been the reigning doctrine for the last 40 years (though on a smaller scale it has undoubtedly occurred since the beginning of time) as proof that they earned the responsibility of their jobs. So business as usual is the bar. The rest of us can fuck off. 

But people are angry. A lot of people don’t know why they are angry, or the mental energy to know who they are angry at, they just know their money doesn’t go as far as it used to, the towns they live in are turning into shitholes, poverty is more visible than ever, and their lives are dominated by jobs which stagnated wages make increasingly soul-crushing as more and more businesses cut hours to either increase the profits of the 1% or because, especially if they belong to government funded civil services, their employers can no longer afford them. That’s why they’re angry. And let’s simplify that, because as much as the Tories like to blame it all on past governments, DESPITE being in power for 13 years now, here is a simple bit of cause and effect:

Effect: Fear of Job Security and the Lack of Viable Government Safety Nets

I think most people can agree that unemployment shouldn’t equate to starvation or homelessness. But hey! You are Sophie and the Tories Universal Credit system is here to give you the wonderful choice between one or the other. Aren’t they gracious?

Cause:

The rising cost of living in tandem with an increase in benefit sanctions, the 42 day delay in UC payment, and the decision to decrease benefits across the board means that more people than ever are finding themselves in rent arrears and using foodbanks to eat enough to survive. In recent days, the government have even planned on reforming the way that disability payments are made; the proposed new system would do away with requiring applicants to undergo an interview process (which many already report to be a distressing process where they are made to feel, despite already having provided legitimate evidence to support their claims, they must “prove” they are unwell enough to face obstacles in holding down a typical job) and instead oblige them to meet with a work coach who determines if they are “making enough effort” to find a job or else face sanctions. 

To get down to the numbers:

As of November 2023, a single person receives just £83 per week in Universal Credit. This is intended to cover everything from food and transport to bills and basic household needs. This falls short of the £120 P/W the Trussell Trust calculated as the minimum amount required to cover these things.

85.5% of foodbank users reported they rely on Universal Credit for their income; the clear implication here is that as predicted, UC payments are not enough to cover even the most basic necessities (Trussell Trust, State of Hunger survey, 2019).

The number of people who do depend on food banks has reached unparalleled numbers in recent years, steadily increasing since 2010. To put this into perspective, the number of food packages handed out per year has increased from 60,000 in 2010 to 2.5 million in 2022 (Alex Collinson, the Tribune, 2022).

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of children in food poverty doubled, with an additional 4,000,000 children now falling beneath this line. This is unsurprising, given the rate of inflation on groceries has risen to a record high of 17.1% between 2022 and 2023. UC has not been increased to reflect this (Patrick Butler, the Guardian). 

This is perhaps reflective of the fact that where only parents were using food banks before, with UC being enough to cover meals for the children if the parents sacrificed their own meals, this amount no longer even covers the nutritional requirements of a child.

So! What has changed so drastically since 2010? Crazy coincidence but that’s ALSO the year One Direction bestie David Cameron introduced the UC system as a replacement for the existing benefits system. All this to say that the government safety net, which one would think should provide the means for people to literally survive, doesn’t actually do that. Starvation tends to be a bit of a health and safety risk, babes, I would know xo

Bottom line, UC denies people access to things that should be basic human rights on the basis of what? That they don’t have a job? To quote Charlie Kelly:

Okay, assume an individual truly just can’t be fucked to get a job. Assume all jobs are fulfilling and meaningful and that the same can be said of the application process, that every job industry is a meritocracy where nepotism ceases to exist. Assume alll jobs, regardless of sklls required, pay enough on full time hours to have at least a little bit left to do a couple of nice things and treat yourself at the end of the month. Assume that we aren’t experiencing another of what we were told after 2008 would be a once in a lifetime economic recession. Assume that the majority of people who are on Jobseeker’s Allowance are not disabled and physically incapable of working (go out and get better! Lazy fucks! They say. Oh yes, hang on a minute whilst I go and put myself on the 2000 year long NHS waiting list to get the bare minimum course of treatment so I’m well enough to get a shit job which makes me too depressed to leave the house alllll over again). Does that mean they deserve to starve? Sleep in shop doorways when it's -2 degrees? And what about children of parents on UC? Do they deserve it to for the crime of being born to those “lazy fucks”? Because there are more children living in poverty in the UK than ever.

Lovely stuff:-)

Speaking of those beautiful waiting lists…

Effect: Collapse of the NHS:

-The number of people on waiting lists for non-urgent care has now bypassed 7,200,000. This refers to procedures like hip replacements, hernia repairs and cataract removal. Where the targeted referral period should be no longer than 18 weeks (a regulation that was introduced in 2004), as of 2023, 410,983 of this 720 million have been waiting over a year (Denis Campbell, the Guardian).

-The total number of excess deaths in 2022 was among the highest recorded since the aftermath of the Second World War, according to figures from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI). In December 2022, the number of people who passed away in their homes rather than in hospital care was 40% higher than the 5 year average (bearing in mind this 5 year period includes the pandemic). Though this is argued to be “speculation” as we “don’t know how many people chose to die at home rather than in hospital and left it late to seek medical help for this reason” (lmao) this figure should be considered in the context of an increase in average wait times for category 2 ambulances from 18 minutes to over an hour. Category 2 ambulances refer to those dispatched to attend to patients in need of urgent care, suffering life threatening medical crises which include  heart attack and stroke. So really. If we are honest about why more people than ever are dying at home, the answer is right there. The difference between waiting 18 minutes for an ambulance during a heart attack and over an hour is life or death. And in its current state, the outcome under NHS care is death.

-Even if you get to hospital, the roulette wheel of life or death don’t stop spinning under the Conservatives. Analysis by LCP Actuaries suggested that as many as 500 deaths a week could be caused by delays in A&E; in November 2022, the number of people who waited over 12 hours to be admitted to hospital after being seen in A&E was greater than the total number of people who waited over 12 hours to be admitted to hospital after being seen in A&E throughout the entire 9 year period between 2011 and 2020. This 500 per week figure is based on the LCP’s estimation from the data that for every 72 people waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital, one of those 72 will die in that waiting period compared to the 2010 average (Daniel Dunford for Sky News, January 2023). We can also assume that many who present at urgent care are there because non-urgent conditions have become urgent during the waiting period. 

-Is it so fucking wild that being this overstretched, seeing more suffering and having even fewer recourses to cope with it than ever, NHS workers would want a pay rise? I mean, it’s pretty fucking fair to me. At the very least, I would like to think they deserve a pay rise that even if not accounting for the added burden they’re taking on at work, does account for rising cost of living to avoid a situation where, in real terms, they’re actually making less money than they were when the job was more manageable. But no! Below inflation pay increases mean that in real terms, NHS staff have been facing consistent cuts to their wages. To produce a few specific examples, paramedics’ real pay is down by £6,700 compared to 2010, nurses’ are down by £5,200 and maternity care assistants’ are down by £4,300 (TUC report, June 2022). So yeah! Clap for the NHS guys, says the government! Just don't fucking treat them with empathy and respect for doing one of the hardest jobs a person can possibly do by rewarding them in the material terms we quite clearly know from our own pay rises (which there is conveniently always enough money for) are what make an actual difference.

-All this has resulted in a record number of healthcare professionals leaving the profession as of October 2022 according to the Health Service Journal’s report. For anyone who doubts that, I hope this quote summarising the overwhelming responses of NHS staff when an internal survey was conducted puts your mind to rest: results show "40% of staff had felt unwell because of work-related stress, 21% wanted to quit the NHS, 78% experienced unrealistic time pressures and fewer than a third felt their organisation took firm action to improve staff wellbeing.” (Mark Britnell, the Guardian)

-Of course, the party play ignorant as to why on earth this might be (those selfish doctors and nurses, am I right?) in spite of workers making the answers to this question ridiculously clear, time and time again. When Jeremy Hunt attempted to pass a bill which may somewhat remedy the issue, and called for an independent commission of ministers to estimate the number of nurses and doctors that will be needed over the next 5-20 years and how this can be done, it was blocked by the majority of MPs (Polly Toynbee, the Guardian). Yeah, the opportunity for the government to fix this staff shortage they blame the entirety of the NHS’ problems on is apparently not enough of a problem for them to actually do something about it. Shocker! It suits them perfectly well to have a ready conveyer belt of scapegoats as I will go onto in a bit and when it comes to the NHS, which the average member of the British public will agree is falling apart regardless of political leaning, NHS employees are the ones to blame. BTW, do not take the Jeremy Hunt mention as a defence of him, lmao. He has very much earned the title his critics give him.

-This staff shortage is further contributed to by the large portion of the NHS workforce held up by immigrants to the UK (with frontline staff from 212 nationalities consistently working harder and longer considering the salaries they are paid, Dolin Bhagawati, the Independent) who have since left the country courtesy of the hostile environment created by the government. Honestly, who can fucking blame them when Conservatives have spent the last 10 years in the blaming them for, like, every problem ever? Be it the need for excessive benefits actions, council housing waiting lists, and job shortages over the past decade-nothing to see here, it's just those pesky immigrants! It is no surprise that when Brexit came around, and this carefully cultivated culture of xenophobia mixed with outright lies about just how much our membership of the EU was “bringing us down”, that the majority vote was to leave. The result of this was a slew of deportations, refusals of settled status and a voluntary exodus in the aftermath, with the NHS being badly hit. The most fucking audacious thing about all this is whilst continuing to oust them, whilst continuing to pretend immigrants drain the recourses of this country, the truth is the polar opposite: a study conducted by Oxford University in 2015, (a University which may I remind you all was attended by several top tory ministers themselves, from which one would reasonably assume they view as a reliable source of information unless they wish for us to question their own credentials:-) ) surveying 125 million patient records found that a 10 percentage-point increase in migrants leads to reduced waiting times of nine days for outpatient referrals, with no effect on waits for A&E or elective care.

-And in spite of all of this, the pleas from both employees and the public for the government to act, in real terms, are looking at yet more NHS funding cuts of £20 billion by 2024. If that isn’t enough of a reason to demand better, and understand that these people do not give a fuck about the lives of the average human being then I do not. Know. What. Is. This is the truth of the matter. They will claim otherwise with bold face lies. Remember how “40” new hospitals turned into 6? The maths ain’t maths-ing, and all that.

Cause:

Again, I ask, what has changed in the last 10 years to see this drastic reduction in the capabilities of the NHS? Why the refusal to do anything meaningful to solve the crisis? Drum roll, please! That’s it, it’s government policy! We’re talking annual NHS budget increases being slashed by over HALF the rate they were annually increased under Tony Blair, 3.6% a year under his administration to 1.5% under David Cameron. And why? If the response of the COVID crisis is anything to go by, the dismantling of the NHS to be sold off to the highest bidders and party donors, just as Jeremy Corbyn predicted a few years ago, is not a last resort but actually, the preferable outcome. Don’t even get me started about the mental health treatment crisis in the NHS. For real. That’s a whole new post in and of itself, from waiting lists that stretch to upwards of 6 months even for those experiencing a mental health crisis, less inpatient beds than ever, and the increasing number of professionals leaving the job. 

Effect: Your hometown’s gotten GRIM

Funding for publicly accessible infrastructure is lower than ever. It’s not limited to the NHS either. This is despite a growing population. You could take my anecdotal evidence of how the police put me on hold like I’m on the phone to the fucking Ryanair refund devision when I called 999 from work the other day to attempt to get them to come to intervene in a quickly escalating altercation between one of the many crack addicts who steal from the store and the security guard, or how they’ve taken about 2-3 hours to arrive when I’ve had to call them to help with situations there before BUT as a fan of numbers myself, here are some to paint a clear picture of how and why all public sector services from the police force and the legal system, to local libraries, parks, state schools (guess where the money they so desperately need are being diverted to tehe) are all being similarly drained, i.e why everywhere outside central London is turning into a shithole.

Cause:

-Between 2010 and 2020, funding for public libraries reduced from £1 billion to £750,000,000. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in upwards of 700 libraries being forced to shut during this period. Some people may not see the significance of this but it can’t be understated how many depend on libraries to access services they can’t otherwise afford, whether it’s to support their education and level a playing field which increasingly demands students self-fund various elements of their curriculum or degree/qualification, use IT facilities to apply for jobs, pay bills etc. or even just to read to give themselves a bit of joy in life! Any one of these things could be vital to someone trying to grow and develop. How can we expect someone who’s recovering from addiction, and experiencing homelessness, or who is trying to rehabilitate themselves after a stint in prison, for example, to build themselves a fulfilling life if everything that gives the average person joy, and provides healthy and enriching social support, is kept behind a paywall?

-City councils, responsible for the management and maintenance of a multitude of areas and services (e.g. open green spaces, rubbish collection and recycling, parks, and leisure centres to name a few) throughout the region they cover, have faced real term reductions in government funding of £15 billion between 2010 and 2020. This has led to increases in council tax to plug this gap. Youth services, which are absolutely vital to ensure equal opportunities for young people going through arguably the most influential stage of their life, in terms for how they’re set up for the future, have been particularly badly hit. To illustrate the point, the YMCA reported in November  2022 that the government expenditure diverted to local authorities specifically for Youth Services has decreased in real terms from £1.48 billion in 2010 to £379m in 2020, which represents a decrease in funding of 74%.

-Education has faced huge cuts, £10 billion in real terms between 2010 and 2020, and it’s absolutely no fucking surprise whatsoever that schools in the most disadvantaged areas have been hit hardest; the Institute of Fiscal Studies reported a 14 per cent real-terms fall in spending per pupil between 2009/10 and 2019/20 for those studying at schools with the highest levels of deprivation compared with a 9 per cent drop for the least deprived schools (all figures from Sam Gelder for the Big issue). This translates to higher numbers of pupils per teacher, fewer teaching assistants, fewer recourses to support special educational needs, and outdated curriculums and technology, which has a knock on effect on pupils’ ability to deal with the demands of higher education and the workplace. The decreased quality of learning those already experiencing the effects of food poverty or falling through the social services nets which are intended to protect children from harm and uphold safe home environments fails young people in setting them up for the their future. I could go all psychology undergrad here and waffle on about the effects of growing up around parental stress as a result of financial strain, illness, absenteeism due to long work hours and necessary overtime just to provide for the family, and harmful gene-environment interactions, and how this has consistently shown to have statistically significant negative effects on long term outcomes but I think we all have enough anecdotal evidence to know that our relationships with our parents, the safety of our home environment, our leisure opportunities and all that jazz are massively influential in our life paths. Bearing in mind I went to a good state school and am generalising to those in a similar average, middle class neighbourhood, I think most of us knew people in school who weren’t necessarily suited to traditional ways of learning and assessment but worked their fucking arse off and wanted to learn, and have done well for themselves because of that. But imagine if you’re in a class where teachers are too overstretched to do anything other than recycle the same PowerPoints they’ve used for 10 years, have too many students to provide one to one support, and are practically inaudible amongst a bunch of noisy other kids who may see the opportunity to socialise as the highlight of their day if they have a crap home life. I have been in the situation where the teacher is genuinely giving a good lesson but cannot hold the room because there’s so much disruption on account of numbers and reciprocal distraction going on amongst classmates-that may be the nerdiest statement I’ve ever come out with but it genuinely used to make me sad seeing them properly try only for it to fall on deaf ears. When learning is taught in a way presuming one size fits all due to teachers deprived of the time or energy to be flexible and attentive, those who don’t learn in that very rigid way are bound to struggle. When we look at how all these factors borne of reduced government funding can accumulate to limit the ability of young people to succeed and get where they want to be in life, to be inspired and encouraged to learn regardless of external influences, falling GCSE and A-level results running parallel to funding cuts paint a clear picture of the claims of economic mobility for the "hard working" and this country being a "true meritocracy" by the Tories is a load of shite. Though it appears the attainment gap between private and public schools may actually be narrowing in recent years, the attainment gap over the last 20 years pertaining to the students from high-income households vs. low-income remains unchanged. This is best summarised by the following quote from the Institute for Fiscal Studies: “While GCSE attainment has been increasing over time, 16-year-olds who are eligible for free school meals are still around 27 percentage points less likely to earn good GCSEs than less disadvantaged peers.” (Sally Weale, the Guardian).

Effect: We’re all broke asf and it feels like we always will be

Rent, bills, fuel, groceries, pretty much everything is more expensive than ever, and for young people especially, it feels as though even the guarantee of a roof over our heads let alone owning property is tenuous. A recent survey Together Through This Crisis initiative revealed that nearly 40% of people end the month with no money left, while 24% run out of money for essentials either most months or most days. And yep, can confirm, at least on my end anyway. The Gym Group just slid into my text messages for the second month in a row to let me know my direct debit payment bounced and that I will consequently be charged an extra £15 admin fee when they attempt to charge me again in 10 days. Thankfully, payday will have come by then but given I haven’t been able to afford Christmas presents yet, I imagine it’ll be a similar situation next month. It probably doesn’t count as the kind of essential these kinds of surveys are talking about but anorexia recovery weight restoration (and then some) has me truly on the struggle bus and the gym is absolutely critical in getting me through that. Sure, I probably spend way too much on vaping too. All that being said, I have had to borrow money until payday to do my weekly food shop far more times than I'd like to this year. Fuck getting my eyelashes done or fixing my godawful roots or any vanity costs or anything like that being within budget rn. I’m trying to lean into being in my ugly era but honestly, it fucking sucks stressing about being able to afford day to day life, let alone thinking about spending money on stuff just for my own leisure or happiness. I work 30+ hours most weeks, which I don’t expect to let me live a life of luxury when it’s a retail line management job, but we’re understaffed AF, you rarely have time for a proper break in a 9 hour shift, and you’re running around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done the whole time. You’d think for the amount of stress the salary would at least cover the cheapest gym membership on offer but not in this economy fellas:-)

With that little self-indulgent ramble off my chest, let’s get back to the facts.

Cause:

Though the sharp increase in cost of living was arguably not necessarily intended, because ya know, like everyone is pissed about this, including the people who would overlook the other things to vote conservative, and they need the votes, it has been a long time coming given the way the Conservatives have 1). failed to plan for anything beyond coming out on top in their ongoing power struggles and 2). promoted corporate greed, for the last 10 years. The tories would like people to believe that they are prioritising the housing crisis, rising rent, inflation etc. because they want to honour the average person’s grievances but let’s be clear, their priority is and always has been the preservation of wealth within a certain subsection of society, and anything they do outside of that to address the issues this has created is damage control. Empty promises and inaction, essentially. This includes: 

Failure to act on Legislation to Restore the Balance Between Tenants and Landlords: Whilst the waters are slightly murkier when it comes to capping rent increases by social housing landlords (caps on rent increases have been proposed but in real terms, this is going to make little difference given years of neglecting the issue of affordable housing by the Conservatives), private landlords continue to get away with whatever the hell they want, and yep, can personally vouch for that one too. The desperate attempt to paint over black mould that our landlord claimed had 0 to do with structural issues and allll to do with our “not heating the flat properly” (the multiple plumbing problems over the past 2 years, the numerous tins of identical solidified white paint previous tenants had brought stored in the outside cupboard, and evidence of previous coats of paint over the same area suggest otherwise but hey ho, don't you just love the burden of proof being on the tenant!) in our last few hours left in the place after the new proposed rental contract increased the monthly cost for my 2 flatmates and I by £150 each due to the “cost of living” and we had to move out, because he wouldn’t tell me how much he’d deduct from the deposit because of the problem…that was fun! I hope he really enjoys all the money he got from selling the property once we were gone. Hope that covers your cost of living, buddy:-) But anyway, it’s illustrative of a larger issue, where most of us are out of options, and have to just put up with this kind of thing, because the situation isn’t any better elsewhere. An early 2023 poll by YouGov indicated millions of private tenants in England were “stretched to breaking point”, with almost 2.5 million renters either behind or constantly struggling to pay rent, a number which had increased by 45% since April 2022.

Despite repeatedly claiming that restoring tenant rights was a key party objective, even including an end to Section 21 in their 2019 Manifesto and sparking a degree of backlash from Landlords in return, as of October 2023 the Conservative Government have further delayed legislation banning no-fault evictions. Coincidentally (so by absolutely no coincidences whatsoever), 68 sitting conservative MPs act as landlords for multiple properties, constituting 1/5 of their majority (John Stevens, the Mirror). This has been blamed on the need to clear court backlogs which have increasingly become an issue in the context of yet more funding cuts being faced throughout the criminal justice system. 

On this note, it’s worth taking you on a little side quest here to give you this fun fact:

There is a backlog of 60,000 criminal court cases, with 75% of individuals under the care of the criminal justice system still awaiting sentencing (Catherine West for HamHigh, October 2023). I don’t state this for the sake of scaremongering and spreading a “more criminals than ever are running loose on your streets! Beware, feeble citizen!” Rhetoric because yes, whilst it is true there are a number of dangerous individuals who have not yet been prosecuted due to the collapsing criminal justice system (I’m not going to list all the reported cases of sexual predators who have fallen through the net of just sentencing due to this chaos and gone onto reoffend but they’re out there if you wish to read up on it for yourself), we have plenty of dangerous individuals also presiding over our country who will never see any kind of sentence not because of the justice system their complacency and greed has helped destroy but because they got cash moneys! The point in this is that prisons are intended to rehabilitate. There is a good chance that many repeat offenders would never have reoffended if prisons were fit for their intended purpose. Instead, given a lack of substantial wider investment, reform, and strain on court and community services to support rehabilitation post-imprisonment, the issue of severe overcrowding (which was reportedly the case in over 60% of UK prisons in 2015 according to a report published as part of a parliamentary inquiry) and staff resignations create an environment which is at best chaotic, and at worst, traumatising for all those incarcerated, reflected by incidences of self-harm and violence being higher than ever. This points to a system which operated in a way completely antithetical to the aim of aiding reintegration of offenders to their communities. Despite a pledge of £1.3 billion to create 10,000 new prison places by 2020, the Public Accounts Committee reported in September of that year that just 206 of these have been fulfilled. In fact, a £900 million maintenance backlog to Victorian era prisons results in a loss of 500 prison placements each year. 

If the knock on the effect of the £18 billion cost by reoffending doesn’t summarise the complete lack of foresight on the part of Conservative ministers, I don’t know what does. You would think anyone with a single oxygenated brain cell would predict this being an outcome of court closures, reduced numbers of judges, police and local authority cut backs etc. etc. but nope! The solution is outsourcing incarceration overseas? Yep. Don’t let immigrants into the country but demand that the simultaneously most vulnerable and dangerous individuals, not uncommonly in that predicament because of a Conservative Party engineered absence of opportunities, guidance, and safety within their communities, become their problem. Sounds fair. 

Anyway! To get back to the cost-of-living crisis, starting with: 

-Housing: Despite demand for social housing increasing drastically over the last 10 years (homelessness reportedly doubled between 2010 and 2018, with a February 2023 report by the Metro revealing a 74% increase in rough sleeping since the Conservative Government took power), there are now 200,000 fewer council homes available than there were in 2010, and the building of new houses has fallen by 80% (John Healy, Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Housing). In efforts to meet targets set for the development of what constitutes “affordable housing”, this threshold was increased to include houses up to £450,000, at which price the corresponding deposits and mortgage payments are realistically within the budget of a fractional portion of first time buyers; consequently, 800,000 fewer households under 45 own their home than was reported in 2010.

-According to a report by the National Audit Office in 2019, not one of the 200,000 “starter homes” promised in 2015 by Conservative Ministers have been built. Instead, the £151 million set aside for this project has been used to buy and remediate land which has been sold to developers. In this context, it is no surprise that the number of households which fall under the privately rented sector have increased by over one million since 2010. 

-Let’s talk about the BILLS too: Britiain has always been in a vulnerable spot when it comes to energy, with our domestic gas storage levels significantly lower than many other countries at comparative levels of economic development. Successive Conservative government ministers’ lack of impetus to invest in this, including their complete refusal to listen when existing structures began to fail and warn of further significant depletion to our energy supply, as well as their lackadaisical approach to developing a way of utilising efficient forms of renewable energy has left the country dependent on external global forces, without any back-up plan (where other European countries have internal energy stores to supply consumers for weeks if shipments were to be ceased, Britain has only 4 days worth; The Spectator, September 2021), whilst simultaneously allowing those who make their money through the exploitation of natural recourses to sit on ever-increasing mounds of wealth; the consumer, not those who have failed to focus on the shift away from processes which serve only to pollute or planet and adapt, is forced to take on the burden of maintaining the level of profit those with stakes in such companies have become accustomed to by subsidising the overheads with our money (Ed Miliband, the Independent). Of course the pandemic meant that energy was in short supply on a global level-the reason that average energy prices for US consumers has only doubled whilst it has increased almost fivefold here is because the government do not value any system in which they do not themselves stand to benefit, even if that is the source of immense hardship for the average British person. 

-So what the hell are all our taxes going towards I hear you asking. Well, they’re footing the bill of the people who need financial relief least of all who themselves are making bigger profits than ever on the backs of the increasing number of British people whose quality of life has sharply declined, even to the extent that civil servants in full time employment, NHS employees ffs (again, who wouldn’t want to work there!!! What are those nurses THINKING), are accessing services established for those falling beneath the poverty line. They’re the fucking catalyst for this cost of living that is making people more dependent on increasingly non-existent public services than ever.

When I say this, I mean corporate profits are higher than ever, even after last few years of global events which have impacted on the prices of imports, exports, and consumer habits, all of which should suggest higher expenses and lower sales. Rather than take a small hit to corporate profits in order to absorb the additional expenses on trade with foreign entities, or raise the wages of workers to encourage household spending across the economic landscape, shareholders with management roles in their respective mega corporations have decided to raise prices of their goods. This is not just rhetoric; profit margins for the biggest British companies were 73% higher in 2021 on 2019, pre-Covid, even though sales had fallen (Owen Jones, the Guardian).

Consider Shell, a company directly responsible for the continued destruction of our eco-system, and their reported adjusted profits of $11.5bn during the second quarter of 2022, even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global energy markets to soar, and gas and electric prices for consumers in the UK increased by astronomical amounts (Jillian Ambrose, the Guardian).

Shell are a clear cut example of how big business owners, as well as the managers and directors who more often than not represent major shareholders, would rather consumers foot the bill of their own expenses and spread their household income even thinner, to fund the lifestyles they’ve become accustomed to as well as their reinvestments to facilitate the growth of even more wealth, rather than themselves take a minimally smaller chunk of the pie. This same approach is not taken when it comes to preserving the lifestyles of actual employees mind you, whose wages remain stagnated, declining in terms of the actual purchasing power afforded to these employees by their salary. This decision to preserve shareholder returns at any cost to the consumer is particularly insidious when we think about the businesses that monopolise industries specialising in goods completely necessary to decent quality of life and basic human necessities like Shell.

And where do the Conservatives come into this? Well, because where they shove austerity down the throat of the ordinary British person, tell us to reduce our spending, the same cannot be said for their instructions to corporate shareholders. Where our taxes have risen, the declaration that the surcharge on bank profits (i.e. the extra they pay in corporation tax) would be raised by 6% is no longer going ahead. The amount above which these banks must pay the surcharge has similarly been raised from £75,000,000 to £100,000,000. That’s an extra £25,000,000 they will no longer be taxed on (Taxscape, Deloitte, November 2023).

We are told that if we want to live in this country, we must pay our taxes to contribute to its smooth governance, even as these increase. They are told the exact opposite, despite their businesses not only residing here, but actually making coin off the country’s inhabitants. Individuals pay to be in this country, and when you look at the average person, the more we make, the more we have to pay. If you dare not to pay your taxes, or if you’re self-employed and misreport them in any way, you are a criminal. It seems the rule of make more, pay more, or be prosecuted for it, only applies up to a certain threshold.

If you are a mega-corporation, you are perfectly welcome to evade paying taxes. Whoops, did I say evade? I meant avoid, soz. Only I still don’t know exactly what the difference is apart from the latter being the label given to the activities of big business, legal on the basis they spend extortionate amounts of money for legal representation to poke holes in the famously holey regulations about these kinds of things.

The Conservatives have presided over a legal system filled with loopholes that practically encourage it, and have made the Britain a haven for tax avoidance. Deregulation of the financial market in the  City of London means that what counts as tax avoidance vs. Evasion, illegally vs. simply immoral, is decided on a case-by-case basis (John Warren, Bella Caledonia), and as is previously established, what kind of a public court system do we even have right now anyway? Under a fair system where big business, and those who profit from it, are held to the same standard as the actual people living in this country, we could develop and implement solutions to an astonishing number of social ills. Instead, wealth is saturated further still at the top, and the financial burdens continue to pile on and are exacerbated for those at the bottom. UK Uncut’s estimates of lost tax revenue come to some £100 billion over four years-and the National Audit Office finding in 2007 was that a third of the UK’s biggest companies paid no tax at all in this country in the previous boom year. 

I’m not arguing the City being used as a way to conduct business in overseas territories to avoid tax is a phenomena borne of the current government. What I’m saying is that where that might have flown without causing much damage to the British people prior to the 2008 financial crash, the subsequent increase in the national deficit to bail out the same companies which participate in this tax avoidance and whose activities were behind the global economic crisis has been framed as a burden the average individual has to now shoulder through the Conservative’s policy of “austerity” and the increased taxes and cost of living that come as a part of this. Meanwhile, the big businesses responsible for this financial crisis are allowed to continue as they always have despite their refusal to take responsibility for the crisis, and avoid being subject to the same austerity, due to the desire of many Conservative MPs to continue to benefit from these activities and retain the power afforded to them by donations from these companies. Take Lycamobile, the UK-headquartered international mobile virtual network operator, who have been in the news this week. We’re talking a company who gifted £2.15mn to the Tories between 2011 and 2016, according to the Electoral Commission database, without paying a penny of tax in this country since 2007. Unethical but based on technicalities, not illegal. The Paris criminal court, however, have just this past October convicted Lycamobile’s French corporate entities of committing fraud with respect to value added tax and money laundering (Lucy Fisher, Jim Pickard and Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu in London and Leila Abboud and Sarah White in Paris, Financial Times, October 2023). Turns out in countries where firms like Lycamobile can be held accountable, they are. Sunak is being pressured to return donations, which I’m sure he would do if he stood for anything, and thus was suitably horrified by this revelation. Unsurprisingly, he hasn’t yet returned anything. Maybe he will to save face, who knows. What is for certain is that it was public knowledge that Lycamobile were doing what they could to avoid tax here for over a decade and concerns about financial fraud had already been raised in October 2015, and given the Conservative government had no problem with that if their acceptance of a £600,000 donation following this revelation is anything to go by, they likely would have had no problem with this if it hadn’t be called to international attention. In fact, reports that in 2017 HMRC rejected a request from French officials to raid Lycamobile’s London offices suggests that tax cheats are actively encouraged in their activities under the current government, which, well, we been knew. Conservative ministers like to talk a big game about challenging tax evasion, but the evidence, the leak of the Pandora Papers just to give one example (the largest ever such leak exposed the secret offshore holdings and finances of several wealthy donors to the Tory party), suggests otherwise. Whilst David Cameron promised the development of a register identifying people who own UK property through offshore companies, allll the way back in 2015 (David Conn, the Guardian), we’ve seen crickets on this front.

So yah. It’s the hypocrisy for me, the throwing of the people for whom the concept of government was formed under the proverbial bus, all whilst lying to our faces. This doesn’t stop at accepting donations from shadowy companies. Remember the reports about the land purchased under the guise of being designated for starter homes? Makes a lot more sense that it was sold off to developers when you consider that Anthony Bamford, who runs JC Bamford Excavators, the yellow digger company founded by his father, Joseph Cyril Bamford, was the fourth most important source of political party donations for any party in the 2019 election and the Tories’ top donor that year, according to a 2022 study by the University of Warwick. 

They say that wealth is self-creating but the same is infinitely true of poverty. The inability to plan ahead, the short-term need to borrow money, the volatile environment financial stress creates for a household, it all contributes to long-term negative financial outlooks that outlast temporary financial difficulties on a national, global scale, without genuine, sincere efforts by the government to level the playing field. Whatever the Conservatives say about doing this to win votes, they rarely follow through-that they remain themselves part of the 1%, the elite, privileged circle they have gotten used to, requires they do not bite the hand that feeds them, instead that they lap it up eagerly, and ethics can get fucked. It has been established time and time again that a number of Conservative MPs themselves have stakes in businesses using offshore tax havens (Geoffrey Cox, the Independent). This points to the fact that they see their roles as nothing more than a means of preserving their own status, and that is the only thing of value to them when they are conducting themselves within the political sphere, rather than the pursuit of the intended goal of a representative system which is to serve the best interests of the people.

Human life does not factor into the equation, and consequently, neither do our interests if they do not serve the elite in some way. This is never clearer than in times of crisis: see the way contracts for emergency medical supplies were handed to tory donors left right and centre rather who wasted time analysing how to make a profit rather than actually respond to said emergency, and how lower-level employees at big businesses were forced to reopen doors far earlier than was safe to do so given the fears of redundancy, which reached an all time high during COVID. Had the government response (let us all remember Boris Johnson failed to attend several meetings designated to address the pandemic and simply advised us all to “wash our hands” prior to the rapid increase in case numbers but yeah, the shite response of the UK government to COVID really isn’t one I need to go over again) not been one of such incompetency, businesses may not have been forced to keep their doors closed as long as they did. The threat of losing their jobs during the pandemic lead to many British workers feeling overstretched and overworked: almost half (46 per cent) of those who began working remotely during lockdown reported feeling more pressure to be ‘present’ for their employer and colleagues, with more than a third (35 per cent) saying they had continued to work despite feeling unwell (Siobhan Palmer, People Management). The impact of this is still felt even as redundancy figures begin to drop off from their all-time high in 2020. According to data from employee review site Glassdoor, talk of layoffs and redundancies has increased by 185 per cent from March to June 2022 in employee reviews, indicating that it is top of mind for many individuals (Dan Cave, People Management). The cost of living crisis continues to see the threat of redundancy held over the heads of British workers. Increases in interest rates, energy prices, and National Insurance are reported to be behind the sentiment of upper-level management that redundancies may be necessary to combat profit losses: data from the Office for National Statistics shows the number of redundancies planned by businesses increased by 103 per cent between January and February of 2022. Unsurprisingly, 18% of employers, particularly those heading up big businesses (shocker) reported they were considering even more planned redundancies before March 2023 in June of the previous year (Damian Kelly, People Management). Given that the first quarter of 2023 saw the number of business closures top the number of businesses created by record amounts (Katharine Swindells, City Monitor), that unemployment overall increased by 274,000 between April and May this year isn’t wild but rather, a reasonable deduction. What is shocking is that this period saw the steepest rise in unemployment month on month since modern records began, according to separate figures from the Office for National Statistics (HR Magazine, Millicent Machell). Redundancy is a significant and pressing fear, and a lack of job security leaves more and more people feeling obligated to overextend themselves for employers to avoid such financial situations; a report from HR software Employment Hero, found 42% of those who want to quit cited redundancy rounds or headcount changes as their top reason. All the while, mega-corporations like Amazon, Microsoft and Meta (I.e Facebook) actually make profit for layoffs (Chad Brooks, business.com).

The precedent, that business executives will largely layoff low level employees before they lose profit, is firmly established. During COVID, however, the UK government agreed to relax rules against all expert advice rather than providing sufficient aid themselves. They hate listening to people who know better. We see that time and time again.

Now, despite factual accounts of innocent people being killed in their thousands in Gaza, Rishi Sunak continues to support Israel. It is a blatant violation of international law and flagrantly immoral. A majority of Israel’s supposed justifications to do with the Hamas attack have been debunked, not that the terrorist attack of a radical group, even if the situation were that simple (I ask exactly what gives the IDF and the armed settlers who have treated Palestinians with such cruelty in their own homelands for several decades now immunity from the terrorist label anyway) should automatically justify the genocide of the group they emerged from anyway. So why is Sunak in support of it, in spite of all logic? I imagine his wife's family owning a company partenered with BP, major dependents on Israel's go-ahead to drill for oil on Palestinian land has something to do with it. 

I implied earlier that the Conservatives lack brain cells and that this is what drives their apparent lack of foresight, but their educations and credentials would argue against this, no matter the degree of privilege which helped them get there. What I suspect is actually the case, based on the evidence, is that their empathy for anyone not like them is so low, anything that appears to serve us is nothing more than political strategy, rather than an actual goal they are willing to exert themselves towards the fulfilment of. If anything else which appeals more to their self-interest intervenes in the half-arsed fulfilment of these speculative plans? Well, cya later public good. We’ll deal with the fallout later.

Now, herein lies the central issue, the repugnant display of their favoured tactics despite the consequences over the last month. The Conservatives, and the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, who has been willingly complicit throughout his entire tenure so as to appear not “too radical”, have pulled out that treasured old chestnut of the blame game to 1). Divert attention away from their own failures and moral transgressions and 2). Win the populist vote without making any real, meaningful changes (because they of course threaten their own positions).

Every now and again, the scapegoat is one of their own, and that, I welcome-Nadhim Zahawi, for example. But more often than not, the girlies at Westminster go for the lowest hanging fruit of some marginalised, broadly misunderstood group, pointing the finger at some facet of their identity that unites them as if they are not complex individuals but instead, a homogenous population, reduced to a dehumanised entity of opposition whose mere existence threatens the very thread of to the neurotypical, gender typical, etc. etc. prototypical British individual’s life. Like I said, we live in uncertain times, where an undercurrent of fear for the future brews at the back of most people’s minds. This exists because we see things getting worse and nothing being done about it right in front of our eyes. The tories, along with several other notable politicians across party lines, and the inaction borne from their selfishness, are at the root of this. But they don’t want to lose the positions providing them access to the recourses granting them further wealth and status. That is why they point the finger elsewhere. The way you feel is not because the country is a shitshow. It’s because change is coming, and you anticipate yourself being villainised for living the way of life you’ve become accustomed to, as well as the repercussions of that. The tories pose themselves as the solution to this, the ones who “stick to the facts”, who are the only buffer against this “woke madness” as if it’s some real, aggressive force which is going to come along and destroy your life. They appeal to the “WHAt HAppEned to FREe SpEEch?!” screechers, and fan the flames of that very valued argument. What happened to free speech? Nothing, fuckface, and that is exactly why I have to read your bullshit all over the internet and also why Rishi Sunak is allowed to stand behind a podium and say something as scientifically reductive and divisive as “we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.” with impunity. 

Gender isn’t a "common sense” thing, Rishi Sunak knows that, and so do the politicians who spout the same rhetoric. I don’t doubt that transgender individuals, for them, symbolise their left-wing critics, ya know, the old “woke mob”. I don’t know the statistics on the political orientations of trans individuals in Britain-what I do know, is that if they do tend to largely associate with the left, it’s not because they wish to use the guise of political change to infiltrate the movement and establish a new world order where people are imprisoned for innocently misgendering, for being undereducated, and where sex offenders who transition to allow them to more easily abuse individuals of the sex they have transitioned to is permitted. And can we just acknowledge, on the record here, how utterly fucking ludicrous this last dogwhistle is. As if it’s a wide spread phenomenon like???? As if people commonly transition to commit sex crimes?? As if Rishi Sunak repeating this crap isn’t wildly hypocritical when his party’s underfunding of the criminal justice system has quite literally allowed actual sex offenders to go free and reoffend?? Please worry about them, not the unicorn cases of individuals transitioning for the purpose of sneaking into women’s toilets.

But yeah, the left is not some group of sexual predators who push the “trans issue” so that they can “get away” with their crimes. If it seems to be the case that trans or gender nonconforming individuals associate with the left, it’s probably because 1). Rishi Sunak is hardly the first Conservative MP to be transphobic, 2). this government continues to push back against legislation advancing trans rights, including their recent attempts to block Scotland's gender recognition law and 3). because the waiting list for gender affirming surgery is a million fucking years long as a result of the same conservative engineered NHS underfunding that hurts all of us. To be precise, here are the non-hyperbolic numbers:

The second longest average waiting times - after those at the Laurels Exeter Specialist Gender Identity Clinic in Devon (90 months) - were seen at the recently closed Tavistock gender clinic in London, at 54 months. 

Even the lowest average wait at the Nottingham Centre for Transgender Health was 28 months.

(Clara Bullock, BBC News)

All trans individuals want is to be respected and treated with empathy, and to push the narrative they are “bullying” the majority into accepting pseudoscience whilst they are one of the most marginalised groups in this country, commonly the target of harmful legislation when the tories can actually be arsed to get off their money-hungry backsides and implement change, is vile. They want to look like they’re helping. So what they do is create a new, politically weaker group to target, and take fire, and let the public marvel at the spectacle of their missiles believing it represents their “strength”. 

Keir Starmer is fully aware of the same tactics, btw, and capitalises upon it just as much, conducting himself in a way that those with a conscience will see as guided by complicity and cowardice. This solidifies to me he has little in the way of meaningful, implementable plans to fix the social issues catalysed and created by the tories. If he did, he wouldn't be so afraid to criticise them and be labelled as Corbyn reincarnate, directly aligning himself with the "woke left", because his policies would speak for themselves. He is counting on the vote from those dissatisfied with their life under the current Conservative government, who want to go back to the way things "used to be", and is complacent in achieving votes that way. That he refuses to take a stance against the evil bullshit that the tories facilitate speaks volumes about how much trust we should put in him to do the right thing. 

To go back to the Palestine/Israel situation, because I know that is at the forefront of so many of our minds right now, the major figures in British parliament refusing to call for a ceasefire are not doing so because they are as stupid as to believe that what the Israeli government is doing is within reason. All they are doing is doubling down on the version of events which villainises all Palestinian people as harbouring a terrorist group hellbent on taking over not just Israel, but the world, against which Netanyahu and his government are acting out of necessity to be the moral buffer protecting us all, because that’s the only version of events that would supposedly justify their actions. In reality, it’s an attempt by our government leaders to wash their hands of their own complicity of these crimes, because they themselves are benefitting from them. 

Realistically, Hamas are the inevitable product of the Israeli government’s view of the Palestinian people as a subhuman group who will take mistreatment within, and displacement from, their own homeland, but the truth is, Hamas represent to Israel a threat to the delusion of Palestinians being a dehumanised population who are just a problem they can slowly eradicate. Not one to miss making lemonade from lemons, they have become an opportunity to twist the reality into something justifying the more aggressive, but faster, and easier solution of genocide, so grotesquely as to overshadow the very basic fact that their actions right now, even in a vacuum which ignores the immorality of their expansion over the past half century, contravenes international law forbidding collective punishment. Criticise it, and it’s antisemitism, because what they are doing is “for the Jewish people” in spite of the harm they are themselves subjecting normal, everyday Jewish people to, by perpetuating the falsehood that this is something they all condone purely because they are Jewish. Again, this is something our government leaders are complicit in. Yet, again, when peaceful protest occurs against the slaughter in Gaza, Conservative politicians point fingers at protestors and paint them as the antisemitic mob.

Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, every politician sitting in UK parliament who refuses to acknowledge this, points to what should be clear from the Conservative Party’s actions, and in Starmer’s case, his complacency with these moves, which is that they think 1). The majority of the British public are a bunch of fucking idiots and 2). Their entitlement to their positions affords them a sense of invincibility. They would not be repeating this bullshit narrative with their chest if  they had any respect for any of us or believed that the dominant sources of information we have access to would ever hold them accountable. And the actions resulting from this belief of theirs have consequences more devastating than ever. They have 0 empathy, and it is for that reason that we can never trust or depend on them. TO REPEAT, these are the people egging on the Israeli government’s genocide of the Palestinian people. These are the people who refuse to call for a ceasefire when the death toll since October 7th now exceeds 11,000 (Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Maytaal Angel, Reuters, November 2023).

There is a general election coming up before 2025 and as the Tories become more and more extreme in their efforts to distract, with more harmful consequences than ever, we really have to do our research, talk to everyone we know about our local candidates, get involved with our local party groups if we can, speak up. I don’t necessarily think it’s a case of the lesser of two evils anymore on a national level-when it comes down to who ends up as our “Prime Minister” and the cabinet, it can feel like a game played by the upper echelons grappling for the ultimate ego boost. Look at the year we’ve had. As much as I’d like to say to anyone who voted Conservative primarily for Boris Johnson, you deserve this chaos for making such a garbage decision in the first place, you probably didn’t think you’d end the year with Rishi Sunak in charge of the country, and David Cameron, who wasn’t even bloody elected, by his side. It’s easy to feel hopeless, 1000%, when who’s in control of the country appears to be a matter so far removed from everyday people but it’s important not to forget elections are about more than just who ends up being PM, which if anything is a distraction to reduce the complex matter of representation and lawmaking down to a binary situation. Mainstream media are all game for an oversimplification of the choice we have because it makes developing straw-man arguments to push their favoured narrative even easier.

Local representation, which is what it becomes easy to forget we're actually voting for in a general election, still offers a way to exert some degree of influence over policy in parliament. I don’t like Keir Starmer but that doesn’t mean I’m against people voting for their Labour MP if their voting record is sound; the resistance of a number of party members to Starmer’s line on Palestine, which went so far as to him vowing to sack any of his shadow ministers that go against the whip, perhaps shows that not all hope is lost, and that there are still some good eggs out there. In that same vein, this has really driven home that you can’t assume party line/ethos will translate to actual policy; though if you’d asked me a few years ago, I'd have probably assumed most Labour MPs would vote for a ceasefire, this truly wasn’t the case.

I wished that when the vote to call for a ceasefire happened yesterday, more of them would’ve been heard, even though the ceasefire is really the very least that can be done for the people in Gaza after all of this. In case you missed it, here are the list of MPs who defied the whip and showed some human decency, including several who have lost their place in Keir Starmer’s shade cabinet as a result:

Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)

Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)

Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)

Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)

Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)

Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire South)

Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Steven Bonnar (Scottish National Party - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)

Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)

Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)

Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent Central)

Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool, West Derby)

Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

Amy Callaghan (Scottish National Party - East Dunbartonshire) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)

Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)

Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh South West)

Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Jeremy Corbyn (Independent - Islington North)

Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)

Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)

Stella Creasy (Labour - Walthamstow)

Jon Cruddas (Labour - Dagenham and Rainham)

Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)

Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)

Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)

Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)

Martin Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party - West Dunbartonshire)

Allan Dorans (Scottish National Party - Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)

Sarah Dyke  (Liberal Democrat - Somerton and Frome)

Colum Eastwood (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)

Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)

Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)

Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)

Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen South)

Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)

Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)

Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)

Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)

Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)

Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)

Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)

Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)

Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)

Neale Hanvey (Alba Party - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)

Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)

Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)

Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)

Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)

Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)

Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)

Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)

Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)

Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)

Chris Law (Scottish National Party - Dundee West)

Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)

David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)

Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)

Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)

Khalid Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Perry Barr)

Rachael Maskell (Labour - York Central)

Andy McDonald (Independent - Middlesbrough)

Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South)

Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)

Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)

John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)

Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)

Carol Monaghan (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North West)

Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)

Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

John Nicolson (Scottish National Party - Ochil and South Perthshire) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Brendan O’Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)

Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)

Kate Osamor (Labour - Edmonton)

Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow)

Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)

Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)

Jess Phillips (Labour - Birmingham, Yardley)

Anum Qaisar (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)

Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)

Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour - Brighton, Kemptown)

Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)

Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)

Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)

Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Alex Sobel (Labour - Leeds North West)

Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)

Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)

Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central)

Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)

Richard Thomson (Scottish National Party - Gordon)

Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)

Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)

Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)

Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)

Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)

Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)

Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)

Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party - Perth and North Perthshire)

Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)

As for the rest of them, I don’t understand where on earth their humanity is gone. I know I’m not alone in thinking there is 0 justification, EVER, for murdering thousands of innocent people, fucking CHILDREN!! Day after day after day. It makes me feel sick that there are sitting MPs who are so devoid of a conscience. It is properly just horrific. They are fucking dangerous and should be far FAR FAR away from government. 

This country needs to be run for its PEOPLE. There is more than enough money out there to make sure everyone has at the very least the bare necessities of survival, and politicians need to stop throwing vulnerable people like lambs to the slaughter to distract from this truth. We need to elect representatives with real principles, who are against the continuation of the status quo, which is to encourage greed and the belief that the greediest of us are above the rules. That’s why they end up with such detachedness from real every day people, and this comes at the cost of adapting the government safety nets to be appropriate for the current economic climate, and on a bigger scale, failing to tackle the most important issue 99% of the fucking human race should be concerned by. The emergence of an “anti-green” group amongst MPs has undoubtedly influenced Rishi Sunak’s rhetoric on the “cost” of net-zero. Anyone listening to this and nodding their heads in agreement, firstly please refer to how our refusal to invest in renewable energy is hurting us, and secondly, listen to me when an fucking BEG you remember that money won’t matter when viruses completely alien to the modern human body make their way into the water cycle because rising sea temperatures are melting the glaciers they’ve been trapped in for thousands of years:)

These people are literally willing to let the world burn as long as it lines their pockets with the knowledge they’re sitting pretty. Whilst the rich get richer, in spite of the rest of us being told to cut down, the poor stay exactly where they are, and many suffer completely needlessly. There are a shit tonne of British politicians who don’t want us to notice that this is their best case scenario, and that it’s all by their design. But we need to let them know we do and that they are just as human as us. In the spirit of the new Hunger Games sequel film, with Hunter Schafer’s Schiaparelli red carpet look on my mind, I end this post with the words of Katniss Everdeen: 

If we burn, you burn with us babes xoxo

Even if it's just your pathetic, hollow career in politics, and the expense of those GARGANTUAN egos:-)

[eddie-brii]

Okay, after playing through it a few times, is it weird I'm finding there's a lot I'd like to change or rewrite in fics as far as character interactions in HoA? Like I really like Salim and Jason's relationship and how it evolved. But..... Rachel, Eric and Nick just don't have that much charm to me???

I like Rachel to some degree as I know what it feels like to be a woman in a field where you have to have balls bigger than the guys but I feel like she got reduced down for the whole love triangle thing, I honestly really only enjoyed the interaction she had with Clarice, Joey and Merwin. I feel like even Jason got a little more interesting dialogue with her than the main two that her interactions are focused with, but that's only if you bring Clarice with her from the Blood bit and towards the end when they find out she is infected too. I mean they're supposed to have worked together for at least a few months before the whole incident occurs and you do see a portion of mutual respect that I really wish they expanded upon.

I understand why Eric wouldn't be as open about things with anyone other than Rachel but it feels like he's only there to be the reason they're there to begin with and pine for Rachel. He gets a bit of hate from the fandom but I feel like it's a little unfair as I don't think we get to fully see Eric. Like, I hate how his dialogue was written as I feel like the only reason he has any meaningful interactions is because of something to do with Rachel, the conversation with him and Salim for instance, you could have still had that relationship building without her being the reason for it.

I'm not even sure if I want to get fully started on Nick as I really feel like he got dealt dirty, he's almost always the antagonizer in the relationships he's in when some of those moments could have been spread around to other members of the five. The checkpoint talk, the constantly wanting to leave people behind, the over attachment to Rachael that can be a sign of obsession due to him going through a traumatic event making him latch on hard to anyone even remotely emotionally available to him (it's honestly probably a good thing Jason was better at compartmentalizing as Nicky could have latched onto him instead, though I feel that would have been more interesting) I get it, he's not in a good head space but it gets ridiculous at some points, ie wanting to leave Salim behind after having the relationship building with him. You could probably argue the same for Jason wanting to shoot Clarice and Rachel but in he's defense the idea that the UV light could work to save them is on the far fetched side.

I have literally found through my playthroughs I couldn't care less if Nick, Eric or Rachel died but heaven help me if I fuck up and get Salim or Jason killed, then I'm just going throw the whole game system away at that point. Not really but you get the sentiment. There's so much I'd like to change, not even counting the development of other characters that I feel literally got hit for no reason other than plot (I'm looking at you Joey, Clarice and Merwin) that could have made the story more interesting.

Plus, does anyone else feel like the eclipse part was a little ridiculous or redundant? I get it's supposed to be the big finale but..... not going to lie it felt unnecessary from a story point of view for me.....

Sorry for the random rant but I'm actually trying to write something while expanding on certain things and the more I delve into the characters, the more I want to develop them more than what SMG did to begin with.

[azure-clockwork]

Late Night Book Reviews with Bluejay — the Night and its Moon

Time: 1:43 pm

Regret: low. I was able to put this book down and finish it during the daytime

Summary: I’m honestly not sure why people like this. I’m not sold on the prose nor on the world building nor on the characters nor on the plot. If you’re one of the people who likes this novel, I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I really don’t understand why. Perhaps it will inspire me to create some stuff of my own.

Full thoughts:

I’m really sorry; I don’t want to be critical of this book, especially since I know people like it. I hope this doesn’t come off too mean spirited.

In theory I should have loved this thing. Two orphans, Nox and Amaris, experience trauma and then get shipped off to learn about their magic powers and become badass. Also, they’re gay for each other. Fantasy, magic, queer female leads, hell yeah!

The only problem was that it lowkey sucked.

One of my biggest problems with this book is its prose. It’s overly wordy, does not flow very well, and frequently is either redundant or confusing. The book will frequently spend two paragraphs hammering in a point that could be told in a sentence and then jump to another action so abruptly I keep thinking I’ve missed a detail. I was often left wondering where hands or weapons or people were located because it just wasn’t mentioned that character X picked up Y and then the next paragraph begins “Using the Y in her right hand, X began to…”.

I was also frequently bothered by the word choice. Most of the sex scenes have lines like “his stick of serotonin and dopamine entered her” and I gotta say, please just say “dick”. Please. Stop listing neurotransmitters. This is fantasy and also the bedroom. Why do these characters know what oxytocin is and why are they bringing it up now. I’m not kidding when I say that multiple sex scenes used specific neurotransmitter names. It doesn’t sound fancy, it just sounds strange. Also, ‘guise’ doesn’t mean that at all. Please get an editor.

I think a lot of other people have talked about how Nox being written as one of the only dark skinned characters and also being a succubus who kills/puppets men around after fucking then is A Choice, and I gotta say, I liked young Nox’s POV a lot, but once the book gets to the succubus section of her life I just fell off. It feels like the book is trying to be very ‘girl power’ and ‘look at this woman weaponizing her sexuality’ and it all falls very flat for me. “She’s so hot and can manipulate any man” ok please tell me something interesting. In general, I felt like both main characters were a bit like this, with Amaris being so badass and good with a sword and having powers and clearly being somewhat of a chosen one, but tbh, I have a lot more tolerance for montages about how Amaris knows lots of demon facts cuz she studies hard than I do for poorly written seduction.

One thing I really crave from stories like this, especially if I don’t love the characters, is a cool magic system. I’m a sucker for hard magic, but I also love soft, emotional magic that erupts at a dramatic moment. And I think that would work much better here in the story. Instead, this book delivers a magic system that I really can’t tell you about because it’s not really fleshed out, and what is told doesn’t seem to gel neatly into a single Thing. I feel like the magic (and more broadly, the world building in general) is just cobbled together from the leftovers of a few different other fantasy stories. Do people hate the fae or not? Is magic taboo or not? What gifts are possible? What the hell are demons? I’m really not sure. And more broadly, the map feels very empty and like it was concocted from tropes and not much else.

I just want this thing to be good. I really do. And it’s just. Not. I was at turns bored and annoyed by it and I still don’t get what I was supposed to love. I would honestly rather reread ACoTaR.

[feral-lore-creature]

People (presumptiously) think Teshin hates cephalons because of his interaction with Ordis during The New War.

Teshin's irritation with Ordis during his Murex infiltration is obviously related to the fact that Teshin doesn't want help during this mission, and finds Ordis to be an unnecessary distraction. They are literally in the midst of an all-out war in the solar system. Having a redundant voice echoing in your head telling you what you already know during a high stress mission would (fairly) elicit a curt response from the listener.

Teshin is a capable warrior who has been alive in the origin system for longer than any other allied character *(probably even longer than Lotus, as she was the last of Hunhow's womb‚ born in the middle of The Old War). Ordis may be helpful as a mission director for the Tenno‚ but his presence could understandably be seen as a nuisance to a no nonsense Dax well-versed in the art of the conclave combat.

People interpreting this as Teshin hating cephalons (not even just Ordis, but Cephalons™ period) is such a huge stretch that has no backing. I will not let people malign Teshin the way people tried to do to Lotus! That's my uncle!!

*excluding Varzia

THANK YOU FOR THIS, STUNNING ANON!

But yeah, I figured it was heavily embellished. It simply seemed out of character for Teshin to just straight up hate Cephalons as a whole. It seems to take A FUCK TON to piss off Teshin openly.

Like... Seriously, it's ridiculous how patient that man is. (All the more reason to love him, but I digress-)

You're so right, btw! Teshin deserves BETTER from this fandom! Do people even realize how important this man is?! The Tenno would be dead without him, and he's been nothing but grateful since his release from servitude.