#dependance to other people's labor is not inherently bad (no human can do everything anyways) but that level of dependance in every area of

[samaspic31]

im so fucking mad about capitalism's devaluation of manual labor (especially financial, hi raise the fucking wages) and expectation to outsource labor, leading to dire exploitation (everyone is exploited, but manual workers especially AND don't get compensated for the toll on their body AND get looked down on unlike white collar workers, all that because making intellectual products is worth 10 times more money i fucking guess). The average person used to have so many more practicak skills and we used to know how make so much more stuff, having people cook, clean, take care of your children and sew for you was the height of luxury for a wealthy woman, depending so much on buying to substain your lifestyle was reserved to the extremely wealthy. People were expected to hold more basic skills outside of a hyperspecific field of their career like today and were allowed to spend time on broad and practical knowledge, and today schools do not even out the playing field because it's still mostly theoric regurgitation (which great, but give all the youngsters a cooking, crafting and sewing class and teach them accounting im begging) making people into highly specific tools relying on buying most of what they don't even think they can make, because disempowered. (this is linked to capitalist shaming of perceived failure and beginners and imperfection but that's a whole other can of worms)

Like for example it was just a given painters made their own paint (or started by making it for their mentor, any way they were taught how), it was considered a necessary first step, a way to understand your medium, and a way no to depend on anyone else or a corporation, and i think a lot of artists are missing that step of having to spend effort on the medium itself. I don't know how my graphic tablet works and i can't make acrylic paint and that's a shame

Like it was always normal for the already rich to leave all physical work to exploited workers but today it's everyone else's case too (at least in the economic north), making your own stuff is a counterculture thing, and even poverty or being an exploited worker eats so much of time that it makes it so buying is necessary and stuff made with exploited labor the only affordable option, fucking vicious cycle

there were deep inequalities with how the teaching of those skills were segregated, which was for which gender and social class, im not saying it was universally good, and women were expected to accumulate way more skills just to do all the managing of a household AND get that labor devalued, just, urgh, it was considered important to know at least i guess

also the birth of packaging and the rise of single use plastic+ worldwide transport of goods is heavily linked to this and a consequence of a global economic boom but it's still a fucking disaster-

anyways buy a s little new shit in as little packaging as you can and fuck corporations

[sl-walker]

All right, since I’m in the middle of a flare and have to work manual labor for the next four days despite it, I figured I would make myself -- and hopefully other people -- laugh by talking about one of my favorite OG Captain Marvel stories. Namely, from Whiz #50, with a cover date of January, 1944, meaning it was probably produced sometime in late 1943.

I want to share it because why not, this is some absurdly charming stuff.

I’ll get more into why it’s one of my favorites as we go, in the form of running commentary. So, full story (with said commentary) under the cut. If you wanna just read the story without my commentary, stick to the pictures. XD

First, let me say that the cover and splash page definitely live up to the story, though the cover’s a bit more sensationalized. But the premise is pretty damn simple: Our intrepid hero and his newsboy alter ego are on vacation. Cap decides to go swimming. It goes hilariously wrong and thus ensues a bit of a madcap adventure, no puns intended.

Second, the fact that Cap and Billy are depicted as essentially different entities makes what Billy does next the ultimate trolling:

Gee, airing out the stolen laundry on the radio? Really? I’ll leave it up to you, gentle reader, whether Billy actually was trolling his own alter-ego for ratings or whether he was just innocently sharing the story while his other-self winced quietly in whatever ether-space he exists in when not front-and-center.

Either way, I love it.

Continuing on...

I get a kick out of the fact that Billy’s monologue is that he’s no dare-devil. One, because that’s so obviously not true in any way -- (that kid is awesomely, sometimes recklessly brave on the regular even without Cap) -- but two, because the bridge is actually named Dare-Devil Bridge. We aren’t given any reason why this dangerous potential death-trap is there, hanging without so much as a gate or a warning sign or anything, because we don’t need one. It’s there specifically for what happens next.

Which, of course, is Billy calling in Captain Marvel, who does some light complaining about the situation Billy left him in. There’s no bite to it, which I find adorable -- Cap actually does get frustrated once or twice in other issues with Billy calling on him for mundane stuff, though he’s never mean about it -- but there is a bit of the sense of being put-upon there that’s just-- I dunno, cute. It’s something I miss a lot in the various post-crisis takes on the character: That duality, that difference in personality, and the way each of them responds to different situations. Often, they’re on the same page, but notably, sometimes, they aren’t.

Someday, I promise, I need to sit down and write how I think that works between those two without being a truly frightening mental illness manifested, what with them being the same person but not the same person. Because I have so many ideas, and I’ve only had since the early-2000s to percolate them. LOL! But until then, just enjoy this.

Here is another reason why I love the Golden Age Captain Marvel books and why I love this specific story: This is an absolutely normal, mundane thing to do. It’s the human thing to do. These aren’t the actions of some super-serious superdude. These are the actions of a pretty shockingly normal guy doing something mundane. And a whole story is built around that normalcy.

It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s the reader already knowing that he’s getting himself into a situation that he absolutely could have avoided, but also completely understanding how it happened anyway. It’s pretty brilliant writing: I say this as a pretty damned good writer myself.

So much of the reason why, I think, Cap was so endearing as a hero is that humanity. He’s got pretty much god-tier power in the Golden Age, once his powerset is established. He’s utterly invulnerable to all physical harm while powered up. But-- he’s human. He knows he’s human. He acts like it, and decides, “You know what? I’m going skinny-dipping.”

He and Billy are both characters it’s so easy to empathize with.

Also, a reminder that the art under Chief Artist C.C. Beck is really, really good. (He had a whole stable of artists to help produce this stuff!) Ignoring registration issues on the printing press, the actual line art is amazingly good; proportion and perspective and consistency.

But anyway--Cap does get to enjoy his swim. But, then, oh no.

I love the idea of a world where the prime hero -- and he definitely is in that world -- can take off his suit and go swimming, and where someone else is bold enough to steal the damn suit off of him. The first time I read this, I started laughing here. Not at him, but at the situation he’s found himself in. At the idea that some random passer-by saw Captain Marvel’s costume and went yoink!

Another thing I love about this particular story is how much Cap and Billy have to work together, just by necessity. Like-- it’s just really good. But anyway, thank everything Billy Batson is on the ball, coming to the rescue.

Sheer bad luck via the weather keeps this story rolling along in hilarious misdirections. Realistically, that uniform probably wouldn’t be all buttoned together (we see Cap take off pieces of it aside the pants in other issues, including socks!), but who cares? The point of the story is that giant bear rug on the floor’s gonna get put to use.

Man, when have you ever seen Superman creeping naked through some stranger’s house wearing nothing but a random polar bear because he went skinny dipping? No wonder these comics sold so well. This next panel is when I start wheezing, though, and pretty much keep wheezing.

“A lady, too! I’ve got to get away from here!”

I’m dying at this point. That’s such a characteristic response, and yet, I think that’s why it’s funny.

Anyway, because this is an excellent story (I mean this without an ounce of irony, too), our dynamic duo stumbles across a plot in play to rob the hotel they’re staying at.

Here’s a big part of why this is such a good tale: Everything fits. Even when it isn’t explained, like Dare-Devil Bridge, it still fits. Why is the tree down? Because there was just a thunder storm, the same one that blew Cap’s suit into the room with the gangsters.

I don’t know if this is Otto Binder’s story, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. It’s a complete story told in relatively few pages that accomplishes everything it’s meant to.

Anyway, using foliage as cover, Cap gets to be heroic----then Billy gets to get back to the business of trying to stop the robbery of the hotel and get his heroic alter-ego dressed again.  Which leads to a rather adorable and funny scene of Billy not only trying to describe what Captain Marvel wears, but what size it would need to be tailored in.

(Cap is supposedly a 44 for a suit coat, we find in some earlier appearance, which would refer to his chest size.  So, an XL for shirts and suit-coats.  He’s a big guy, but he’s actually not a hulking huge guy.  But more on that later.)

I love the fact Billy tries to like-- use himself as a model.  Maybe in another ten years, kiddo.  Billy’s actually pretty buff for like a 12-14 year old, he’s not a scrawny kid at this point, but yeah, no.  LOL!

Another thing I also really, really love about this style, though, is that they draw Captain Marvel as being strong, as having a powerful build-- but not as a dehydrated body-builder with deep cuts. He’s got human proportions, regardless of his strength; he’s got a human build, not a superhuman one.

C.C. Beck had a lot of things to say about superheroes who were just muscles on top of muscles, all clearly defined, and he didn’t like it.  As someone who first got into comics in the early 90s with Jim Lee’s X-Men--

I do get Beck’s point.  I not only get it, but I really highly approve of it.  He maintained to the end that he drew (and oversaw) the Marvel family to look like high school and college athletes, and I can see that.  I think the one person who’s gotten it right in the modern era is Evan “Doc” Shaner, who did Convergence: Shazam!  He not only nailed that strong-but-not-hulking build for Cap, but also how young he looked.  College-age, in fact.

But anyway, enough digression into art and why I like this better than most modern takes on the character.  Also, that’s just a cute set of panels.

I also like that there wasn’t an easy fix there.  Cap’s still in his not-birthday suit, and Billy’s still stuck running around trying to solve the issues at hand.  Next comes some other really good panels:

-snorts-  He’s locked in.  Yeah, that’ll hold him.

Anyway, what I really liked here was again that tandem working; Billy can’t punch through a wall, but Cap can.  Cap can’t crawl out while he’s au natural -- well, he could, but he’d probably rather die first -- but Billy’s got no such issue.  It’s just fun when you get to see them doing something like that.  You have to really think for a minute about the trust each of them must have in their alter-ego.

ANYWAY, we get the rare treat then--

--of Captain Marvel not only yoinking a dude into a dark room, but then stealing his clothes.  Except, not his underwear.  Because that’s nasty.  LOL!

I love that in this series, you do actually get to see him wear other stuff.  Go incognito.  Get his red suit messed up enough to take it to a dry cleaner’s, wherein he ends up dressed like a musketeer after.  Jerry Ordway’s series is, I think, the only other time we see Cap not wearing his famous suit, but it happened enough in the Golden Age that it wasn’t a shock.

Like, I hate to be the one to say this, but I do think DC drops the ball often on just how much you can do with Captain Marvel (or Shazam, depending on timeline, but that’s the wizard’s name to me so mostly I’ll stick with the original name) if you unbend enough to.  It’s not just the costume change, or the duality of him and Billy being the same but not, but also his inherent, essential humanity.

But I am digressing again, sorry. XD  I just feel strongly enough about these versions of these characters to spend hours writing this.

Anyway, only a single panel later:

And that’s that!  Billy Batson has just outed his own alter-ego’s most embarrassing moment to whomever’s listening to WHIZ radio -- thank everything podcasts and the internet weren’t available then, ha! -- and we get to see a recounting of a very fun story.

Like I said earlier, I love this one for its essential humanity.  The hero got himself into this mess, he and Billy got him out of this mess, and stopping the criminals was actually just kind of a lucky stroke thrown in there.  But even though Cap got himself into this, the story never treats him like he’s stupid.  It never treats him like he’s some kind of idiot.  You’re laughing, but-- not in a mean way.

I love how human it is.  How complete it is.  How genuinely funny it is.  It’s a thousand times more funny when you genuinely love and respect Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dissertation on a skinny-dipping hero.  LOL!  I enjoyed sharing it with you.

[swampgallows]

...

trying to think of what i want to address in therapy tomorrow

it feels like all of my ongoing issues have been rendered irrelevant because of the quarantine because ‘well, life is uncertain for EVERYONE right now”; “well, EVERYONE is having trouble adjusting to a daily schedule”; “well, EVERYONE is out of work right now” kinda shit.

i was looking at old selfies earlier trying to find a pic of my old tripps (that dont fit anymore because of my shit fucking woman hips) and man something... i dont know what happened but somethign really seemed to Happen. when i started working i got more and more depressed. i stopped smiling in pictures. i started experiencing dpdr a lot more because my days all ran together and i couldnt do anything except go to work and come home. i couldnt see my friends because i worked every single weekend. i didnt have a consistent work schedule. i wasnt eating or sleeping properly. 

i think once i see garrosh in shadowlands, if he’s there, i’m going to quit wow again. i dont know what i’ll do instead, but i want to start on doing something that’s tangible and that i can focus on and just get more absorbed in that to a point where i’m not actively interested in playing wow anymore. i sign on and do shit dailies just because i have literally nothing else occupying my time and i have no want to do anything else. but i dont even really want to play wow. i just want to be in another world. where i can travel, where i can meet people, where i can watch the wind blow tall grasses and see fireworks over the ocean. where i can go wherever i please, whenever i please, where i can feel useful, where i can make useful things. where i have bounties, where i have help, where i have love and family and friends.

i want to believe that those things are waiting for me in the real world too but it’s very hard. i feel shut out from everything. travelling is hard. getting anywhere is hard. it’s hard to make things and it’s hard to be useful. i get tired or bored or cranky or disconnected. 

my sister keeps talking about dating men and living on her own and her career. my brother is in law school working on his finals. im doing nothing. there is nothing i want to do.

i need to feel interest in my interests again. i want to want to do things. i want to feel love for myself and for things. i want to feel like there’s a point in taking care of myself or investing my future beyond “well, you’ll feel worse if you don’t.”

like, whats the point? what do i offer? what’s the point in me being alive?

thinking about quarantine and covid and all the eugenicist drivel is conjuring up old rhetoric from 4chan again, all that “modest proposal” type shit about how the neurodivergent and disabled should just be mass-exterminated, and how they crunched the numbers on the resources it would save if we did so, if the country eliminated all the accessibility programs and resources and supplies and just focused on the able-bodied and able-minded. if we could turn psych wards and rehab centers into “real hospitals”, if we could divert student aides and special education toward “real school”, shit like that. and i know that every human life is precious, blah blah, but what about when i dont see even the value of my own life? what about me feeling like my own life is worthless, useless, pointless? if i dont even stay alive for myself, then what good am I?

the least i can do is be a cog, right? yet i must have enough self-respect or self-preservation (or, the curse of “intellect”, since everyone tells me i’m so fucking “smart”) to know i’m being exploited and therefore i cant even be complicit in the harvesting of my manual labor or, i dunno, flesh, i guess.

cause theyd say that too, like, the least you can do is donate your pussy, basically, a rationed comfort woman for the subsidized “quell the incel” program they all jabber about wanting so bad, their god given right to have a penis and fuck with it, or something.

i feel like it all defaults to the same thing. if i’m not being used/abused, what good am i? if i’m not being squeezed for every ounce of my sweat and tears and blood and spit, why do i even deserve oxygen? why shouldnt i be killed? what right do i have to live over anyone else? why should i be sheltered in my parents’ house as a dependent, eating food that another hungry mouth could have? 

when i dont even want it? when i cant even justify a reason to myself why i am alive?

i know it’s only my third session with my therapist tomorrow, but i feel like i need to cut to the chase. look, you cant give me that chicken soup for the soul shit about life being inherently valuable. of course it is. of course life is valuable. so why isn’t mine? how do i value myself? how do i find value in myself? how do i create value in myself? what’s the fucking point of my life being valuable anyway? 

“if youre not good at something, just get better at it.” why? what for? why use that energy when others are already better? what is the reward? how do i value my value? how do i find reward in the potential to be useful? how do i care about shit? how do i care about myself? what reward is there in being useful, in being alive, other than that i’m already here and i’m too scared to die? what’s the point? 

[eloquentdrivil]

sqokscreams reblogged your post and added:

so i noticed that when you mentioned me(here v) i noticed you pretty much say the same stuff here so im sort of gonna reply to both @veganfacts said “Meat eaters abuse their pets every day and literally pay for animals to be abused and murdered” which somehow made you feel as if they’re rude and feel morally superior and not all vegans have the same views. but the thing is, that’s not just an opinion or anything. it’s the truth that every vegan knows and agrees with. a vegan stating facts doesn’t mean they think they’re better than you fam, we’re just trying to educate. like for instance, we all know that an animal has to be killed in order to make meat, right? and major industries depend on supply and demand to exist. so if many people demand meat products, more animals will be killed, and the opposite will happen if there is less demand...

@sqokscreams

(I will touch on your major points, but I wanted to condense space by replying like this.)

I don’t need or expect you to go through the other comments and replies I’ve made on and about that post, but if you wanted to confirm what I’m about to say, you will see the evidence of this at every turn; conceptually speaking, I’m pro-vegan.

Veganism can do a lot of good things, and I always make sure I acknowledge that, because, if I’m arguing with someone, my issues never come down to the practice of, or the incentives behind veganism. Besides just animal welfare, veganism could heavily cut back our environmental impact, so even if I didn’t care about rampant animal exploitation in the meat and dairy industry, veganism would still be a quantifiably good choice.

My problem with veganfacts, and the problem I’m addressing with you now in an effort to explain, is the inflammatory language they used.

It was not a fact, it was hyperbole, and right off the bat, the framing they used showed they do not care about context. The act of stripping context and defamiliarizing a nominal task makes their own point superficial, acting as nothing more than a way to flaunt their moral superiority over people who “pay for animals to be abused.”

In that same breath, it could be said that vegans “pay people to enslave and abuse children,” because of the rampant human rights abuses the produce industry is guilty for.

But neither you, nor veganfacts are guilty of endorsing child/forced labor just because the companies that distribute your food to you are guilty of using it.

But if that had been my responding claim to the shot at non-vegans, and then proceeded to push such a claim to undermine everything else you said thereafter, would you think me a good, thoughtful, or kind person?

That framing injects violence and hate into the consumer that just doesn’t exist. It makes a rabid monster out of regular people and twists this entire issue into a moral battle between vegans and non-vegans, and takes the ultimate blame off the companies that commit these atrocities.

And in their effort to do so, it shows just how little care veganfacts has in reaching out to and educating non-vegans. There is no education to be had there. A non-vegan gleans nothing from that statement other than, “Vegans hate non-vegans. Rabidly so.”

Because that’s what you would understand in that statement if the roles were reversed. That is a hateful statement. It’s divisive and stands only to show how little regard that person has for anyone not already living a vegan lifestyle, and they do not represent a majority of vegans.

To claim that that sentiment is universal is a bastardization of what the vegan movement is trying to accomplish.

Vegans want stricter regulations and higher sanctions against those who break them. In all sectors. They do not ostracize potential future vegans by furthering a rhetoric that sees people in a grocery store as the same level of evil and complicit as dog-fighters. 

On top of that, it’s ignorant and shows just how little that person cares about understanding or overcoming the roadblocks currently standing in the way of amassing more people to the movement.

You said this in your last reply:

i’m kind of confused about the links you posted, because most of them don’t affect the accessibility of plant foods. for example, hunger doesn’t affect what kinds of foods stores carry. of course the cost of the food effects what poor  people would be able to buy, but you can easily buy cheap plant foods. unless you mean hunger caused by food deserts or something? but anyway, i agree that veganism would be extremely difficult in food deserts, though there are many cheap junk foods that are “accidentally vegan” such as oreos and potato chips. i of course don’t blame anyone in that situation for depending on takeout and mcdonalds and stuff, though. however, i doubt someone in that kind of situation would have time to complain about veganism when they’re in a stressful environment and need to constantly worry about getting food on the table. if you could spare enough time writing that long post, i’m pretty sure you also have time to think about making different food choices. . .

Now, I don’t know your situation, I’m not going to claim I understand what you have and haven’t faced in your lifetime, but this (and the rest of that section thereafter), does shed light on what seems to be a disjointed understanding of what poverty and restricted food choice actually looks like.

First, while looking through food statistics in the US for those links, there is no statistical data on produce availability, outside of the data they have on food deserts. And not just that I couldn’t find it; there is an actual acknowledged lack of quantifiable data. People have tried, and there’s just no way to account for or normalize any sort of hard figure on these problems from an availability standpoint.

Second, “cheap” is subjective. Your idea of cheap may not be the same as mine if we have different amounts of disposable income after bills. But when it comes to cost vs. calories, non-vegan is always less expensive. Healthy foods are up-sold at a higher price because there’s a internalized notion in capitalistic culture that says “quality” justifies a higher price. It’s worth more, so it costs more, with worth describing a physical necessity, in this case.

To someone without financial security, the question becomes, “what can I buy that will stretch the length of time until my next paycheck?”

That kind of financial insecurity isn’t so stark when you look at who it’s affecting. Imagine a scenario like a family of four in a white suburban neighborhood who can feed all four of them for a days on a boneless ham at a dollar per pound, which is a whole hell of a lot less expensive that a nutritionally comparable plant-based substitute.

Veganism isn’t cost effective, and even if someone can afford the vegan options one week, they are not guaranteed that same outcome the next, so it’s not sustainable. 

For you, yeah, maybe it is, but for a majority of Americans, veganism is money and food lost. It’s getting your paycheck and attempting to cut even more room out for the added expense, without even the benefit of gaining you more food per dollar spent, and while also gambling that you’ll have the wiggle room every week to do so. What happens when that one bad week comes and the choice comes down to not being able to feed yourself for the whole week, or having to get sick when you force re-acclimation to meat-based products that’ll at least last until your next paycheck?

That’s an irresponsible risk, and that risk exists entirely because corporations stand to profit off an ideology that makes healthier lifestyle choices like veganism more expensive.

Which makes arguments like this ignorant, at best, and elitist worst:

like the entertainment thing. i know that not everyone can go vegan, but a majority of the people in the world can, so if someone chooses to eat meat when there are millions of other options, then they are doing it for their enjoyment, or as you can also say, entertainment. of course you don’t get entertainment out of what happens to the animals in factory farms, but you are still buying the meat because you enjoy how they taste. the treatment of the animals is just a factor that plays into it.

Removing this to a world-wide argument makes it even worse; 1 in 9 people in the world suffers from chronic undernourishment. And that statistic just accounts for people going hungry. 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day. That’s ten dollars spread across bills and other expenses beyond just food.

The necessity of meat-based products in most people’s lives is just that; a necessity. So long as veganism remains more expensive than the alternative, that necessity remains.

In both of their replies, veganfacts pushed an unrepentant “us vs them, and they kill animals for fun” kind of ideology. They hold themselves so high above the issue, they, again, twisted the purchase of meat products from a store to sit on par with active animal slaughter. 

And the original post was just about bunnies being a good alternative for vegans trying to figure out how to find balance between their pets dietary needs and their own ethics!

They stepped into a post completely unrelated to the point they wanted to push - a point not counter-intuitive to their own ideology - with the express purpose of demonizing non-vegans.

They’re condescending and ignorant. They don’t care about facilitating the vegan movement, because if they did, they’d look at the inaccessibility of the lifestyle and fight for that instead of vilifying non-vegans for “paying people to kill animals.”

They believe veganism makes vegans inherently morally righteous in all their pursuits to non-vegans. That’s the only reason their mind would’ve gone to that reply upon reading my original post. And that is not how veganism should be exemplified.

Doing so frames veganism as an elitist movement that cares more about mocking non-vegans than it does about making sure it has the populous support to take on the animal cruelty in the animal food industry that it currently doesn’t have.

More vegans means more power against the people committing these crimes, but the more vegans there are, the less impact that “non-vegans pay people to kill animals for them to enjoy” kind of rhetoric actually has.

That’s a rhetoric veganfacts pushes. That’s why they jump down the throats of people discussing vegans as morally level with non-vegans. They were defending their own moral righteousness, not a movement that seeks to foster education toward better lives for the people they vilify.

Other vegans are doing that though. They educate. They facilitate and they’re tackling the issue of food availability, and they are honestly working their asses off to make a real change in the world.

And you’ll recognize those people when you start looking for the pattern. They’re the ones who acknowledge and understand why the vegan movement stalls the way it does. They’re the ones building community vegetable gardens and making sure people have food on their table before they even begin worrying about making sure that food is cruelty free.

They don’t use divisive or inflammatory language, and the word carnist is the last thing they’d think to call someone because they know that word mocks basic human needs and makes monsters out of people just so they can justify the claim that that’s what’s wrong with the world.

Veganfacts is not how veganism should look. Their rhetoric is not universal, and they do not deserve to be exemplified.

Veganism is good.

That person is not.

[dandelionpie]

PORTIA

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much

To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice

Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

I shouldn’t argue with this, but like...I can’t not? Idk idk I’m prolly not gonna say anything very new but FUCK this makes me SO ANGRY and I will TELL YOU WHY.

DISCLAIMER: I can only speak from my own half-breed perspective; Christianity and Judaism are both perfectly valid forms of spirituality; I don’t have any problem with Christianity as most people practice it today. That said, Christians have oppressed Jews throughout history, and it’s that historical oppression that I wanna talk about now. Also, I’m still educating myself about a lot of these Jewish concepts, and I have a complicated relationship with my Jewish heritage and if you wanna read about that you can hop on over to @thedreideldiaries. Finally, I obviously don’t speak for all Jews - I’m not a religious scholar or a rabbi - just a kid who’s been reading a lot of books lately. Between two Jews there are three opinions, and here’s mine.

ANYWAY THIS SPEECH

First of all, even I have to admit that this is a beautiful monologue in terms of imagery. Mercy dripping down from Heaven, etc...it’s one of the things I love most about Shakespeare - the metaphor extended, but not overextended. To the surprise of no one, Shakespeare has a beautiful knack for poetry. He has a TERRIBLE grasp of Jewish morality.

So, The Merchant of Venice  is constantly exploring the tension between Christian “mercy” and Jewish “justice.” The courtroom scene is where that tension finally snaps. Advocating for Antonio, Portia tells Shylock, “Though justice be thy plea, consider this,/that in the course of justice none of us/should see salvation: we do pray for mercy...” 

So, I think what Portia is goysplaining here is that in Christianity, salvation (escape from damnation; heavenly reward) depends on the sacrifice of Jesus and his forgiveness of sins (i.e. mercy). Which works great if you accept the premise that humanity is inherently damned*. But to vastly oversimplify that theology: Justice = eternal damnation; mercy = salvation from that damnation → mercy>justice** (assuming you don’t want to go to Hell)

BUT BUT BUT Judaism has an entirely different way of looking at justice.

Judaism does have an afterlife of sorts, but it’s kept fairly vague (and if I get into Yom Kippur or sins or forgiveness I’ll never stop so I’ll just cut myself off right here). Justice on Earth is often viewed as a prerequisite for heavenly justice.

There’s this Hebrew word, tzedakah, that means...well, “charity” is how it’s used in most contexts. Jews are required to give 10% of their income to other people who need it. Everyone has to give tzedakah, even if they’re receiving it themselves. Or, as Jerrry Bock and Sheldon Harnick say in “Letters From America” (a number that unfortunately got cut from Fiddler on the Roof), “Poor as we are we give freely to charity here / We give so others should not be as bad off as we’re.” It’s this paradoxical way of making sure there’s enough to go around.    

But tzedakah more literally translates to “justice.”

Jewish justice isn’t about revenge. Has brutal retribution occurred in Jewish communities? Indubitably, but even the whole “an eye for an eye” thing was interpreted by medieval Talmudic sages to mean monetary compensation, rather than a one-to-one ratio of gory retribution. You can’t put the eye back, but you can try to mitigate the harm by making it easier for the dude to live without his eye***

Tzedakah recognizes that you can’t have a just society without wealth redistribution. I used to wonder why so many Jews in history have been socialists despite overwhelming antisemitism in Soviet Russia, but I think it’s at least partly because of this, and it’s the same reason Jews have often led labor unions or fought to alleviate poverty in any number of ways****: Righteousness isn’t worth much if people in your community can’t afford to eat.

So...mercy isn’t inherently contrary to justice. They’re not opposites, they’re not even complementary sides of the same coin - they’re the same thing. Justice doesn’t oppose mercy - it encompasses it.

And this passage illustrates such a profound ignorance of that concept, and, of what justice really means - it’s not about punishment, divine or earthly. It’s about creating a society where everyone has their basic needs met, so that everyone in that society can work together to create a better world.

Okay wow I wish I’d been this into essay-writing in college. ANYway, thanks for reading; now it’s back to your regularly scheduled snarky liveblogging. I promise.

*Which is where it gets complicated with Catholicism and a bunch of different Christian sects and I’m not a religious historian but from what I understand, this is by no means the only Christian perspective and I know a lot of Christians who don’t spend much time thinking about Hell.

**How you get “let’s kick all the Jews out of England because our king owes some money” out of that, I’m really not sure.

***Which, you know, renders the whole “pound of flesh” thing particularly annoying, but I digress.

****Which again! Is not to say that there aren’t a ton of wonderful Christians who also fight for these things! And Jesus had a lot of really interesting things to say about how we should treat the poor and the true test of faith being mercy to the downtrodden in society and everything - just...that doesn’t seem to come up in this particular play.

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 4/5 (episodes 55-63)

55-56

Ha, Austin rereads the passage I just came back to relisten 

Yeah, this only proves the point that you can't put the wellbeing and infrastructure of an entire society on the shoulders of 300 people with superpowers, and the warmth of their personal relationship with the rest ot the people! Sorry, I can't make myself sad about this system that was ridiculous and inherently unsustainable from the start!

But how about… Not mean humans ~enslaving innocent Divines~ because they're not idealistic enough or too utilitarian or w/e… not the Divines going “Oh no the 30k years of our love weren't real! You only want us for our bodies! Guess we'll die” and flopping over… How about Divines actually step up and sacrifice themselves willingly for the common good, you know, the way countless humans have done in this universe across both arcs?! “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” Oh boo fucking hoo!

I'm just. Thinking of C/w finale and how unnecessarily brutal it was and how many people sacrificed themselves and others for the greater good. And you're telling me that the Divines and the entire Fleet as a society are too precious for that? And I don't mean sacrifice yourself like Belgard, I mean the bigger picture. A utopia that isn't for everyone isn't a utopia, etc, see that post about The Good Place that got a surprising amount of notes lol

Also count me as an Independence kin still. I would absolutely break up with someone over the right to die (then run away and make everyone really upset by my mere presence then behave in such a way they have to kill me, twice. Okay maybe not this part)

Honestly the whole concept of the Fleet sounds so toxic. It's like being fully financially dependent on your beloved parents forever.

Oh wait here's another thing I must rage about: they stopped making new Divines so that they wouldn't be enslaved! Here's a novel idea: how about instead making a Divine that could be turned into a more productive machine… you make that machine in the first place??? You know, how people in real life make machines to use instead of manual labor??

Like, the problem with Divines is a two-sided coin:

Flawed individuals should not possess inordinate amounts of power. They might abuse it, misuse or just use with good intentions but in controversial or questionable ways (see: the Divines in Counter/weight).

As a flip side, making an entire community almost fully dependent on labor of a small group of sentient beings of a separate species is an unfair burden to them, and even if it is provided willingly. The benefitters become dependent on providers, which is exacerbated by the latter's small numbers (the Fleet being thrown into a crisis by the loss of the final Divines and only coming out of it fine because another superpowered being happened to be nearby). The providers are put at risk of exploitation (the Divines of being “enslaved/killed”), especially since they are outnumbered. The benefitters’ genuine love for the providers is undermined and may eventually be corrupted and superseded by their vested interest in maintaining this arrangement -- but at the same time, wanting more resources is a natural thing and people cannot and should not be blamed for it. This relationship may be mutually beneficial (and it was for an astonishingly long time) but carries an inherent risk.

So Divines potentially have too much and too little power at the same time. Both of these problems could have been avoided if “a special kind of synthetic beings” and “algorithms and robots that provide unique services that form the backbone of society” were two separate things in the first place! Fine, you can't undo what happened tens of thousands of years ago under very specific circumstances and specific threat, but you could try to recognize the problem instead of building a community whose structure is bound to bring that problem to the forefront sooner or later. 

Okaaay, so where did the Divines that “didn't make the cut”, other than Independence, go? Is there a club of really bitter superpowered rejects somewhere?

I really don't get why Tender is having such a crisis

Austin and Janine are a pair of sadistic bastards lmao

I can't believe it's only been an hour into the episode, feels like an eternity (in a good way)        

On the one hand, it's nice that at least Anticipation was thinking about the things I wrote above. On the other, “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” becomes even more ridiculous, because Anticipation is using her excerpt like a candidate Right Now! In order to determine whether she and her kin should be used! 

Tender gets her own version of the “Independence makes Grand an offer he can't refuse” scene :D 

Okay, my first objection to “giving it to Sho” was “um, you want to waste that resource on becoming a museum piece?!” but my current one is, unlike the players' “Anticipation would hurt Sho”, is “do you really want to combine this with Sho's high-strung personality?”

Aaand Tender makes the right choice :D I'm glad.

Wow! This second episode has wildly exceeded all my expectations. What a ride

57-59 

No offense, but I wish the three episodes of “everything is Advent's fault somehow, again” didn't stand in my way to the much superior premise of “Grand Magnificent and Waltz Tango Cache rescue Fouteen from a newly arrived rival faction's flagship”. God, I hope this goes in some interesting unexpecting direction asap. 

Wait, was it ever mentioned that Echo's family is also separated onto the two planets? That's new to me, and it would have been relevant to the first post-Miracle arc. 

Gig making a bold move, getting hit with 4 stress at once and gaining a status at the beginning of the mission: 

Blease tell me someone has redrawn that Community gif with Echo entering the completely trashed ship. That's such a good image

The entire throwing maneuver and the rolls they got… Absolutely fucking crazy

I actually yelped out loud when Echo failed a fucking desperate roll inside the light beam

How come Echo's nanites were inactive before but got activated now? How does that work? 

It's strange how suddenly the show got intense again! The missions after the Miracle felt fun but unengaging for me, and I didn't expected it to pick up until the finale. So many ups and downs in this arc! Can't believe how quickly and often it went from “we basically won” to mortal danger in about one turn. The title should have been “Echo Reverie's Terrible, Bad, No Good Day”… Glad to see the theme of the weight of violence back. It feels very natural as a conflict between Even and Echo, but I wonder if later it would involve Grand Magnificent too – the discussion during Even's message for Cascabel reminded me of what I wrote after the holiday special.

60-61 

Being one of the only two party members doesn't suit Waltz, he has to act dumb for the sake of player agency 

I understand why Jack wants to see what the “new job” is about, but not why Fourteen does!

Ending the recap on “Now you're gonna go your separate ways, and everything's gonna fall apart” is, um, nice

Wait, why is Fourteen on their last life? And how would they know that?

Oh, here's the arms dealer Grand Magnificent I was waiting for lmao Although to be honest… That design wasn't that special in terms of military power, right? I remember the disussions of its complex appearance and the difficulty of shaping the material into this multifaceted sculpture, but it didn't have any innovative armor or weaponry, right? It's not like it's the first and only q-glass mech. I mean, setting aside the base problem that it might not be the most wise and ethical idea to give weapons to the amoral people for whom you just delivered a bomb (and are trying to ignore that fact) while they're tearing your friend's body apart, and that they would have settled for less… it's not like he gave them the part of the actual Divine Independence. I guess we'll see what Advent will do…

At some point Jack, I think, said that Grand is acting like Lem and I was like. Please don't. Can you not go into that direction in the future too please. I've already been concerned about his character arc since finishing Winter and this isn't helping!

Anyways today I had enough free time to listen to five episodes and now I'm hungover and also sad. I'm glad Grand Magnificent didn't suddenly become heroic but also this is depressing. Can't wait for everyone (minus him posssibly?) to finally meet and share the wild shit that happened to them recently. Tender is an excerpt! Fourteen is a knight and also on the brink of dying forever for some reason! Echo has fought in a civil war against their brother! Grand sold out to everyone's #1 enemy and left!

I don't really get ending episode on so much exposition… I understand the awkwardness of retelling an event that was intended to happen onscreen, but when Schism attacked, I assumed that fighting it would be the finale. On the other hand, I thought the same about the September Incident, and how happy I was to be wrong!

62-63

The downtime episode was excellent – exactly the thing I like! Two notes:

I can't be the only one bothered by the use of the word “fascist”, right? Greedy cynical bandits and graverobbers, capitalists, terrorists, whatever… but what does fascism do with any of that?

Everyone's plans for the future were pretty vague, but what I really didn't get was the heart of the debate between Signet and the Cadent. It sounded as if they were talking about the same thing with different words sometimes…

The doctor is Jace, correct? Rapid Evening, academic career, stratis, husband and wife, used to be rivals with someone named Rose? I had to relisten to the entire vignette looking for clues and trying to rememer anyone who would fit all of these descriptors.