#genuinely am too socialist for the way the world works

[jewish-sideblog]

"Both indigenous and colonizers" CAN PEOPLE STOP TALKING ABOUT SHIT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND PLEASE

This wave of antisemitism and bullshit about "indigenous vs colonizer" makes me so scared as an indigenous person in the US of what will happen when Land Back movements do result in actual sovereignty restoration and then tribes do what people do and disagree over land and resources, like we were doing for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Will we be reduced down to colonizers too??

It feels like Westerners, especially USAmericans, have such a black and white idea of what it means to be indigenous and what it means to be a colonizer/settler (because those terms are always conflated) and it makes me so angry and frustrated to see people apply those standards and lines thinking not just to complex sovereignty movements in their own countries but also to incredibly complex conflicts and wars happening on the other side of the world.

The damage I've seen done to sovereignty movements here in the US alone, people going around claiming that we want all "settlers" to go back to Europe or that we're going to start massacring people, has been horrible and the fact that it's all just to justify antisemitism makes me sick.

Genuinely. They're blocked now, but that same person said something to the effect of "Would an Iranian praying in a Mosque built on the ashes of a former synagogue be decolonization?"

And that was the point at which I was like. Ok. It seems like most people genuinely don't actually know what the terms "colonization", "colonizer" and "coloniality" mean. Obviously, that wouldn't be decolonization, because the Jews never colonized Iran. Emigration and colonization aren't the same fucking thing!

I used to have so much faith in my generation. I thought we were critical thinkers, capable of flexibility and engagement with new ideas. But I'm realizing now that we're basically just rebranded boomers. Back in the day, anybody you disagreed with was labelled as a "Communist". It didn't actually fucking matter if they were communist sympathizers, Soviet sympathizers, or even if they were remotely allied with socialist ideals. You could just call them a "Communist" and be done with it, without even understanding what that term means.

It's the same shit today. Instead of a HUAC witch hunt targeting communists, it's a social witch hunt targeting "colonizers" and "Zionists". I am terrified that the moment indigenous rights movements in the Americas and Oceania start making practical strides in Land Back, regaining rightful control over the ways your own land is used, you'll all be labelled as "colonizers" or "imperialists" or whatever the bad buzz word of the month turns out to be.

People simply can't wrap their heads around the idea that indigenous decolonization doesn't have the end goal of ethnically cleansing non-native people from the Americas. And it's because they're so absorbed in colonial thinking. They can't even fucking imagine what sovereignty could look like beyond an authoritarian structure based on control and violence. It's the same with Israel and Palestine-- they think that Jewish sovereignty must look like complete Jewish control to the detriment of Arabs, and they think Palestinian sovereignty must look like total Arab control to the detriment of Jews. The idea that a shared state or a two-state solution is "racist" stems from that false dichotomy.

Establishing an ideological binary of violence that pits "indigenous" against "colonizer", "native" against "settler", and "us" against "them" with no room for cooperation or collaboration is the core of colonialism. Because the core of colonialism is the idea that only one group can have true power at a time. And that's just not the way the world has to work.

[alfedena]

that other anon is stupid but can you explain the luxemburg response, i don’t have the time to read it but am genuinely really curious what you intended by it, i hear good things about luxemburg

i think that anon is just a certain kind of person that gets too involved in geopolitical campism rather than actually looking at what socialist anti-imperialism/decoloniality and decolonization looks like? thats why specifically why i responded with the luxemburg text. anon just seemed to me to be anti-western without critiquing the fact that other capitalist superpowers in the world are in fact too capitalist.

shes basically arguing against the vague idea of the “right of nations to self-determination” because this does not necessarily mean the workers/most subjugated in these states now have any kind of political authority. it is often the opposite and these new (capitalist) states merely represent the bourgeoisie of whatever national group they are supposed to constitute. “nations” are not homogeneous and niether are the people in them, all who have different class interests. she essentially argues that true self-determination is not possible under capitalism, not through the form of nation-/statehood, as (capitalist) states 1) represent solely the capitalist class and 2) inevitably aim to conquer other states, imperialism being the highest stage of capitalism (what happened to self-determination ???). nationhood is something based on the domination of a perceived other/the internal working class rather than being based on any real unity within a political entity.

we can see this all over the world. she points to states in the americas as a perfect example; all had independence movements on the basis of self-determination (economic, political, national, etc.) and are now by and large bourgeois liberal democracies which seek to erase indigenous people within them. she says: “But the winning of independence by the American colonies did not remove national dependence, it only transferred it to another nationality – only changed its role. Take first the United States: the element freeing itself from the scepter of England was not a foreign nation but only the same English emigrants who had settled in America on the ruins and corpses of the redskin natives […] The United States is today in the vanguard of those nations practicing imperialist conquest. In the same way, Brazil, Argentina, and the other former colonies whose leading element is immigrants – Portuguese and Spanish - won independence from the European states primarily in order to exercise control over the trade in Negroes and their use on the plantations, and to annex all the weaker colonies in the area.”

she’s not then saying “okay they should have remained colonies” but rather argues for real socialist states where people can truly have self-determination: “A socialist regime, which eliminates not only the domination of one class over another, but also the very existence of social classes and their opposition, the very division of society into classes with different interests and desires, will bring about a society which is the sum total individuals tied together by the harmony and solidarity their interests, a uniform whole with a common, organized will and the ability to satisfy it.” these states should exist with each other according to cooperation rather than with desire for dominance.

this is why geopolitical campism is unhelpful as communists. i really recommend reading her work if you have the chance.

[achilleanfemme]

Resisting DSA's Culture of Disposability to Win the World we Deserve.

It’s National Convention season in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the time when every caucus with 20 members and a twitter account pulls out the knives and the slander to win over the majority of delegates at the National Convention to their positions... only to have them promptly ignored. Accusations of bullying, harassment, targeted destruction of caucus literature are par-for-the-course if you want to be given the blessing of joining DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) and have half the organization immediately hate you.

Obviously, I am being hyperbolic, but a nugget of truth resides here: DSA has an organizational culture problem. Many of our members enter into a democratically-run, working-class political organization for the first time when they join DSA, and when they do, they bring the trappings of our oppressive, exploitative, and hyper-individualistic capitalist society with them. We come to DSA with our axes-of-oppression and axes-of-privilege along with us: those of gender, race, class, disability, neurotype, sexuality, nationality, language, etc. We come to DSA with our past wounds and the harms that we ourselves have carried out, knowingly or unknowingly. Democracy is always hard because building and exercising collective power requires trusting others. The vast majority of people who come to the Left come to our side battered, belittled, and betrayed by our imperialist-white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy and how it manifests in our day-to-day lives and interactions. Therefore, when we are wounded by someone, or someone’s, inside of our organization, we respond to that harm in the same ways that we are taught to respond to that harm in our dominant culture—in ways that dehumanize, violate, punish, belittle, shame, harm, and cage. This organizational culture of disposability cannot stand if we want our organization to persist, grow, and win.

I have been involved in my fair share of conflicts since I joined DSA in January 2017. Freshly 20 years old and full of revolutionary fervor, I was a queer kid who’d spent the better part of the previous 5 years being abused by adults in my community and my family-of-origin for being honest about who I was. I had no idea how the legacy of those very fresh inflictions of pain and isolation would manifest in my body-mind and in my relationships. Zero. I did not grow up in a home environment that encouraged emotional maturity and productive conflict. So, I did the best I could to cope and hurt a few people along the way, in my personal and organizational life. I have over-reacted and called people out on Twitter. I have gossiped about minor disagreements instead of approaching my comrade directly. I have guarded my heart from the pain of losing a difficult political fight by pointing fingers at the people organizing closest to me. I am sure that many of you have done similar things. These antisocial behaviors have never gotten me any closer to what I have ultimately wanted, which is personal healing, genuine connection, and the joy that comes from solidarity and collective action. They have lost me more than a few close relationships. They have soured promising organizing efforts. They have made me feel helpless and alone.

I have also experienced harm at the hands of people in DSA, sometimes immense harm that has lost me jobs, caused me mental anguish, and encouraged the darkest whispers in the back of my mind to grow louder. I am sure a lot of people in the organization have experienced these things too, and it sucks. I am sorry. There is no excuse. You deserved better and more. I deserved better and more, too. Ultimately, as I have moved between moments of movement activity and moments of personal rest, healing, and growth over my years in DSA, I have come to the conclusion that I am in this fight for the rest of my life. I am not, however, comfortable resigning myself to an organizational reality that our commitment to abolitionist principles of solidarity, anti-carcerality, universal dignity, and reciprocal care simply stops inside our general meetings, slack channels, signal groups, and comrade-to-comrade relationships. 

Practically this means that mandatory censure, suspensions, and organizational expulsions (including de facto expulsions), cannot be entered into without democratic oversight and under the most extreme circumstances of harm. It means that when you sign-up to join DSA that you are committing yourself to practicing transformative justice and swear to respect the rights and dignity of every person in the organization, including those you do not personally like or politically disagree with, as long as they are willing to do the same. It means committing to the work of processing your own pain and refusing to project your past onto others. It means swallowing your ego and admitting when you are wrong or you have made a mistake. It means that when you inevitably fall short of these principles, that you agree to doing the hard thing, having the tough conversations, attending the restorative circle, learning about the importance of believing that none of your comrades are disposable, and committing yourself to furthering the work of solidarity and liberation. If all of us do not do this, if we give in to the forces (state-sanctioned, societal, and personal) that seek to pit us against one another and tear our organization down (as has happened many times before on the Left in the USA and abroad) then we lose. 

Today, I invite you to lay down old grievances, dust out your mental cupboards of resentment, and recommit yourself to the work of reciprocal care, of loving your comrades more than you love being right, of embracing the blessing that is leaving that message or email in your drafts until you’ve had more time to reflect, of solidarity and liberation. We have a world to win after all. ------------------------------

Much of this essay was inspired by the work and words of the amazing folks who created or participated in the following pieces of media, please support them! 

https://truthout.org/audio/to-transform-conflict-in-movements-we-must-learn-how-to-stay-in-it-together/ 

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1922-let-this-radicalize-you 

https://www.amazon.com/Break-Every-Yoke-Religion-Abolition/dp/0190949155 

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1108-how-we-get-free 

https://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Feminism-Now-Abolitionist-Papers/dp/1642592587/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1686951405&sr=1-1 

[cryptometaphor]

Me: I've given it some thought. While Sarah isn't here, I was gonna refer to myself as a serial-killer socialist because it's fucking based

ACP cuck: It's not. Also this is recorded dumbass lol

Me: Noone gonna sit through three hours for a gotcha

ACP cuck: YOU wouldn't ya narcissist lol

Me: ANYWAY... Green-Leninism.

ACP cuck: (sighs)

Me: It sounds way nicer while still admitting that ok, there's gonna be moral disagreements that...

ACP cuck: You can't help yourself can you? Are you that worried Sarah would be abhorred by you that you gotta hide behind...

Me: Well see, it's a stated fact the cia knew the green party was a front for the Soviet Union.

ACP cuck: I don't care!

Sarah: I don't care either.

Me: Eek lol

Sarah: Babe you are the biggest most selfish asshole in the world. You think I don't know that already? lol

Me: I mean not too...

Sarah: Not to me exactly. You know Stalin believed in socialism in one country to advance communism realistically. It was admittedly a third position stance and to this day fascists clutch their pearls at it to justify themselves. You are a liberal. So you take it a step further "socialism in one person" which is of course, you. What benefits you? And you move onto "what benefits Sarah?" And if we're really lucky, "what benefits my friends and family?" I don't hate you for it. You've been hurt a lot, you've been betrayed a lot, taken advantage of a lot, you didn't have the same foundation I did and had to learn to lookout for yourself, same way I had to learn to lookout for other people. But I could never think you're a bad person and leave you. I would never, EVER do that to you. I love you. You deserve to be loved. I know you love me intensely. So much so, you'll ignore your entire upbringing and experiences. You're scared, but you try for me. I notice.

Me: So in a way, you get it. Like it's in your own rational self interest too

Sarah: Well no shit I get it lol. Like I never argued selfishness is irrational, it's just not sustainable. Societies emerge with or without us. Better we have a functioning one than a dysfunctional one.

Me: I've got a lot of job experience being in leader positions hon and I can tell you the more people in a room, the more miserable it is. Sartre pointed that out too: hell is other people.

Sarah: You're a great leader. You win second or third place in anything you do. You're a fucking Chad.

ACP cuck: Trying to butter him up too...

Sarah: Fuck you I don't need to butter up this man lol. He's strong enough to where he could live without me. I couldn't without him. I need him. At the end of the day, I'm the one whose selfish. But I accept it and improve my conditions. That's dialectical materialism. Not just be a nihilist about it. Jim takes the reactionary approach because he has no faith in other people. He's never had a reason too. But he puts his faith in me and makes me feel like the most special girl in the world. I mean I'm am little offended by him thinking he can't just be bold and blunt about how he feels sometimes, but he genuinely believes I'm the one meant for him "I don't wanna screw this up" and sees me as integral to his happiness and purpose. I see that. He doesn't even have to fucking say it. Just the way he looks at me. No girl in here knows how that feels. You cannot begin to imagine how it feels when a man just looks at you and you can feel the love. Jim is amazing.

Me: I'm only amazing because...

Sarah: Because you have me? Don't lie to me bitch. I will literally jack you off until you cry lol

Me: LOL I don't think that's how biology works babe...

Sarah: Oh it does. First time you like it, second time you still like it, third time you're like ok that's enough, by the fourth time you're saying stop, fifth time you're actually physically fighting with me to stop, oh no I ain't stopping boy. Not ever.

ACP cuck: Damn, you as psycho as he is.

Sarah: (posts the "you're God damn right" meme)

Sarah: Jim never had a chance to care about himself, I never had a chance to care about other people. That's why we complete each other. I've always had help and sympathy, it'll make you bitter and feel worthless, Jim's never had help, it'll fill you with contempt. But together, there's just genuine love.

Me: Baby you keep talking like that and imma marry you over and over again until you the one crying lol

Sarah: Do it pussy, ya won't lol. Propose to me at the bus stop, the grocery store, Target, flea market, wherever, anywhere anytime. I'm gonna say yes every single time.

ACP cuck: It's like seeing two people at the insane Asylum.

Other Sara of ACP: Joker and Harley Quinn except not toxic lol

[fluoresensitivearchived]

💖End of Year Book Rec List 💖

Hi! So, this year I’ve read over a hundred books, and I’m going to put all that reading to work by giving you all a huge ass list of books I’d like to recommend. I’ve added the content warnings best I could, courtesy of storygraph! I’ll be giving very loose summaries because I don’t do book reports. Definitely look up my recs and form your own thoughts; these are simply the books that called me to me this year!

Oil! by Upton Sinclair: The son of an oil tycoon's moral struggle against his upbringing and his father’s empire versus the bloody reality of the lives of the socialist oilfield workers.

I came into reading it thinking it would be a scene-for-scene of the movie, and was disappointed for like, ten seconds, before I realized this book was such a deep dive into the evils of the oil industry. It’s thought-provoking and tense, and there are moments that made me seethe with such rage that I needed to walk away from the book.

The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo: A traumatic event leads a young woman with a connection with the supernatural into joining a mysterious group that monitors Yale’s secret societies.

I think, other than Donna Tartt’s unfortunate curse upon this world that is The Secret History, this is the only true dark academia. There’s murder, there’s secret societies, there’s intrigue and questioning of power, elitism. It’s genuinely amazing, and I’m saying this as someone who came into it expecting YA nonsense, another Six of Crows type of situation. It’s delicious, it’s perfect, can’t wait until the second book comes out.

Content Warnings: Rape, Sexual assault, Drug use          

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer: A biologist journals her foray into Area X, an Edenic landscape that changes and destroys everything that enters into it.

Here it is ... One of the best science fiction books ever written, literally ever. I already read it once before so I knew it was going to be perfect, but like. It’s perfect. You’re in the head of this character as she’s changing and morphing into this strange, horrible version of herself. You’re watching nature become more and more unfamiliar. The lighthouse is only the beginning! You feel breathless and terrified and excited, and it eats! It fucking eats!

Farewell to My Concubine by Lillian Lee: The lives of two orphans-turned-Chinese singers are forever entwined by the events of their youth.

I am crying, I am wailing, I am punching the sky and screaming at God. I watched the movie when I was like, thirteen and way too young to have watched this movie, and it changed me. Reading this book has also changed me.

Content Warning: Addiction, Abuse, Suicide, Sexual Assault, Homophobia

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton: A mock biography about two former rock stars, and the cataclysmic event in the ‘70s that changed their careers.

And when I say this book deserves a movie, a HBO series, Grammys and Oscars and Tonys, what can you say to me except ‘Yeah, it’s a perfect fucking book and nothing will ever touch it ever’? Like what will you be able to say to me. Quickly. Truly a genius book, I’d lay down my LIFE for Opal.

Content Warnings: Racism, Racial slurs, Hate crime          

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: (Summary taken from Storygraph) The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change- in painful, devastating ways. 

I could not write my own summary for this book that would not dissolve into me blubbering like a baby and screaming. This is the blue print. This is the book that every Black person reads and is changed by. The intracommunity conversations on colorism and poverty and self-loathing, how every thread of the plot weaves into a story that will quite literally leave you fucked up for several days afterwards. Toni Morrison... Yeah, you’re going to need a therapist after you read The Bluest Eye, have BetterHelp on hold.

Content Warnings: Rape, Racism, Incest        

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillio: A story of mice, rats, a princess and a maid, fate and what you make of it.

I revisited a lot of the books I read as a child this year, and this one is really the best. It’s perfect. Despereraux is brave and strong and falls in love with a human, defying what it means to be a mouse...Roscuro is cruel and cold because that’s what he was told to be...Miggy Sow is angry and vengeful because of what’s been denied to her...When did we stop writing children’s books that SLAP? Like??

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin: A young boy learns magic, tames a whole ass dragon, and fights to restore balance between life and death.

Harold Potts who???? Jarking Rarking What??? This isn’t something they just made, this is professional, this is in different areas. I would lay down my life for Ged, I really would. I would fight to the death for Ged, and for his brilliance and perseverance, and his curiosity and—This isn’t the kind of shit where you get a wand and a book of spells, and everything turns out sweet. It’s about making things right, it’s about making mistakes, and it’s mostly about me screaming and kicking the air when Ged said, ‘Master, Gone Hunting.’ DON’T touch me, do this book.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett: A thief, a talking key, and a host of engineers pull together to kill God.

And I hear you going, ‘Yah Yah, that can’t possibly be the plot.’ But it is. But it is the plot of Foundryside. There is a talking key that used to be an angel, the main character is a thief who ‘stole herself’. There are engineers that can trick rocks into being water, and water into being stone. And yes, they are banding together, to murder God and take down a system of slavery, abuse and warmongering.

Content Warnings: Slavery, Violence      

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris: An FBI detective must seek out the help of the serial killer he caught to catch another.

Hands down the best book of the entire Hannibal series. Nothing touches it. Literally every iconic moment you remember of Hannibal, every breathtaking moment you remember from the show was ripped right from these pages. This is the only version of Will Graham that matters, this catty bitch version of Hannibal Lecter is the only one that counts. This book is a treat, it is a dessert, and boy howdy, do I like to eat while it eats.

Content Warnings: Murder, Violence, Animal Death

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal: A memoir slash deep dive into a family inheritance of Japanese netsuke and their journey through several decades of an illustrious Russian-Austrian Jewish family.

No, you don’t understand...It’s about the beauty of holding small things in your hands, the craftsmanship and love that went into each of these tiny items. It’s about generations of children playing with these netsuke. It’s about how antisemitism robbed a family of their live and culture, how it forced this family to assimilate into gentile culture only to be mocked for “mocking” gentile culture. It’s about a Polish fucking chambermaid hiding these precious family heirlooms under her mattress so that someday, after WWII, she could return these precious items to their owners. And it’s about unraveling the past, one little amber-eyed hare at a time. (weeping and sobbing and crying)

Content Warnings: Death, Genocide, Antisemitism   

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson: A wealthy and withdrawn family seclude themselves further after receiving visions from a dead relative about the end of the world.

One thing about Miss Jackson is that she doesn’t miss. She doesn’t know how to. This book is no exception. I don’t have a long drawn out thing to say, because I feel like this book speaks for itself. It’s just that tasty. It’s horror, it’s gothic, it’s intriguing, it’s stressful in that way only a Shirley Jackson novel can be, you know?

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde: a biomythology of author and poet Audre Lorde

Dare I say...thee most important piece of Black lesbian art, on par with The Color Purple? Literally and metaphorically and spiritually, Miss Lorde put her pussy into this book. It’s a dive into her life, but also into lesbianism, into gender, into gender expression and how that intersects with race, with culture, how white lesbians are viewed versus Black lesbians. It’s truly a gift, I really recommend everything WLW reads it.

Tender is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica: (summary from Storygraph)  Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans--though no one calls them that anymore.

 ... I? Um. W-... Hm. Fucking mind-blowing, though. Absolute masterpiece about the exploitation of human life, capitalistic greed, and the dangers of individualism, in my opinion at least.

Here’s all the content warnings.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson: A young woman with a difficult past nannies two very strange, very magical children.

THE KIDS CAN SET THEMSELVES ON FIRE?? Okay, like, that’s the big ticket item, but this is also a book about motherhood and taking care of people, and about warmth and connections. Like, Lillian changes from this apathetic person who cared only about the check and maybe just barely keeping these kids alive to being a mother, to loving these little creatures who set themselves on fire when they’re distressed. I love it... It’s perfect, it’s saucy.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: A young woman and her cousin, a family haunted, and a very sick, very haunted house.

shivering and crying and spitting and throwing up ... I do not have the words to describe the brilliance that is Mexican Gothic. I can only say you must read Mexican Gothic, I can only insist that you allow this book to infect you, spill its disgusting black bile down your throat. Let it infect it, let the moss and fungi grow on your heart, let it keep you alive for ages and ages, and let it purify your family tree. Yeah. That’s all I’ll say.

Severance by Ling Ma: A woman, surviving an apocalypse.

So...It is a plague book, and I’ve read a lot of plague books this year, strangely enough, and I think this is one of the best. Turns out, the real plague all along was apathy. The real plague was complacency and fear of change...Yeah.

Radium Girls by Kate Moore: nonfiction, the true story of the radium girls and their impact on worker’s rights

First of all, the writing was absolutely gorgeous. You were put into these women’s shoes, made to walk along their lives and feel their pain. You felt anguish whenever their attempts at justice were foiled, you felt rage whenever greed triumphed over good, but you also felt such relief knowing that their suffering, their deaths, made for a slightly safer environment for the worker’s of today. I just hate that it took ten-odd women to die in horrible, slow deaths for the government to go, ‘Oh wait! Maybe people shouldn’t ingest radium??’

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: A human man plays ambassador on an ice-cold planet in hopes of inviting them to a universe wide federation only to find himself thrown into a tale of politics and loyalty.

When I tell you that this book lives rent fucking free in my head. When I tell you that Estraven and Genly live in my head without even a down payment. When I say...When I say that I think of those months on the ice and compare them to the myths...I...Go pick yourself up a copy, hopefully something you don’t mind marking up to hell because there’s no other way to interact with this book, other than to ruin it with highlighters.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones: A group of Blackfeet men reckon with their shared past and the life they stole

(goofy floating in a pond meme ) It’s about ancestry, it’s about familial love, it’s about community and brotherhood and friendship, it’s about trying to reconcile the truth of the now against the facts of the past. It’s about deer elks and desperation...I am not well, by the way. I am, distraught and screaming, and awaiting a chance to get my own copy of this book.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

After the second world war, in Britain, there was this real idea that the government should look after its people.

There was the NHS, to take care of us for free if we were ill.

There were benefits, for those out of work or too disabled to work.

There were jobs in nationalised industries, offering security, and a decent wage.

There was a proper commitment to a mixed economy.

There was housing, low cost, safe and affordable, with secure tenancies.

There was a belief in equality of opportunity, and the idea that someone’s background shouldn’t hold them back from success.

Now, I’m not saying this was perfect in any way, but the point is, people believed in and agreed on a left leaning, social democratic state that looked after its people and at times was taking active steps away from colonialism.

And this was, to an extent, maintained not just by Labour but by the Tories.

And then we had Thatcher. Let’s make no mistake- Thatcher believed in capitalism. She believed in the class system. She wanted to ensure that Britain would never have a true socialist government.

She broke the working classes with active state attacks. She destroyed industry and jobs. And then she offered things like right to buy to try and persuade people that they were not working class at all- but also to break up working class communities.

Even looking back as far as the Edwardian era- possibly further, the British working class had class consciousness. They knew who they were, what their needs were and who their enemy was. And they fought their enemy usually through the means of union action and strikes. Lots of people in the UK were proudly socialist and even communist.

Thatcher destroyed this, and dragged Britain into a scary era of neo-liberal politics. And the Tories have been dragging us further right ever since.

Thatcher was evil- she knew what she was doing and she set out to do it, not to make people’s lives better, but to preserve the power of her party and the political class. Everything that has come after her that has made people’s lives worse, from university fees to asylum seeker detention centres to “generation rent” to austerity to the increasing precariousness of work- without Thatcher, it’s very likely we would have taken a very different course.

Without Thatcher, would we have Johnson fucking up the country and causing hundreds of thousands of deaths? It’s genuinely unlikely.

It’s been over 40 years since Thatcher left power, and we have yet to undo her damage.

She famously said there is no such thing as society, but we know that to be untrue. Our actions, positive and negative, affect others. Those who are struggling deserve help. Those who have should share with have nots. No-one should have extra whilst some people do not have enough.

I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t know how we reclaim what we have lost. But I am scared for our future. I am scared this country has slid even further to the right. I’m scared of a rising tide of nationalism, and yes, fascism.

Every act of solidarity is important. Every time we educate ourselves or someone else is important. Every act of protest, every time we help someone else, that matters.

We deserve better, we could have had better. It’s time to demand it.

[swan-of-sunrise]

Specs and the Flyboy (Chapter Nineteen-Part Three)

Summary: (Y/N), Jack and their friends finally face off against Leviathan and the Secret Empire.

Pairing: Jack Thompson X Reader

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings/Disclaimers:  None

A/N: Ya girl wrote this while dealing with sleep deprivation, cramps and the after effects of the vaccine, so I hope it’s good ‘cause at this point I can’t even tell lol Thank you all so much for reading! I hope that you enjoy!

Chapter Nineteen (Part III) Leviathan’s Weapons Facility, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Previous Chapter)

While the two of them were ushered down the staircase that led into the crate-filled warehouse by Michael and Dottie, (Y/N)’s mind raced as she struggled to think of a way out of their current conundrum. I’ve been in plenty of tough scrapes before but even I’ll admit that this one’s the toughest one yet, she thought to herself, her eyes rapidly scanning the large room; there were large, frost-covered windows towards the ceiling, several boarded-up skylights and the two metal doors she spotted were both guarded by Leviathan soldiers. By the time they reached the base of the stairs, (Y/N) had counted a total of twenty armed enemy operatives – seventeen Leviathan guards, Attwell, Underwood and Michael Carter – and from the brief glimpse she’d gotten of their friends hidden behind a stack of crates, it looked as though both Pinkerton and Sawyer were badly injured and the others were trying to bandage their blood-soaked wounds. So, we’re out-gunned and out-numbered, she concluded with a sinking feeling as she bit her lip in worry.

“So, Chief Thompson did survive his daring escape!” Attwell grinned, walking out into the empty space amidst the crates and standing before the two of them. “Truth be told, I was hoping that we’d meet again; I detest leaving loose ends, and killing the SSR’s golden boy once and for all would’ve been a genuine pleasure.”

Beside (Y/N), Jack’s shoulders tensed but he tilted his head to the side in mock contemplation. “What, you couldn’t do it without your Leviathan goons backing you up? What a real tough guy.”

Attwell’s fist quickly connected with Jack’s stomach and when he doubled over in pain, the man struck him across the face and sent him sprawling to the ground. “Stop it!” (Y/N) started towards her partner but the sudden feeling of a pistol barrel against the back of her neck stopped her cold; tearing her eyes away from Jack, she met Attwell’s gaze and struggled to keep her voice steady as she spoke, “He’s not the one who’s screwing up your deal with Leviathan, I am.”

“Of course, of course, the infamous codebreaker.” Attwell stepped closer but she held her ground, raising her chin in defiance and refusing to look away despite how uncomfortable his stare made her feel. After a tension-filled moment, his face broke out into a stomach-churning smirk. “It’s a shame that such promising talent’s being squandered by the SSR, by those who dismiss and condescend you at every turn. I was very much like you before joining Hydra; I was overshadowed at Cambridge by my perfect older brother and his two brilliant flatmates; while William, Michael and Adam flourished in their respective fields of study, I floundered and was subsequently expelled but as luck would have it, I was approached by Hydra and offered a chance to unlock my true potential; and here I stand before you, Agent (Y/L/N), to offer you that very-same chance. With the new Leviathan, your immeasurable skills would not only be recognized but they’d also be celebrated. You and Michael could work side-by-side in our efforts to break through as the world’s leading superpower and once we achieve our goal of fully weaponizing Zodiac, Agent (Y/L/N), you’ll have everything you’ve ever truly desired.”

Out of the corner of her eye, (Y/N) noticed Jack’s hand resting on his waist and while Attwell talked, her partner’s index finger had tapped away. It only took her seconds to realize he was sending out a message in Morse Code on the walkie-talkie still clipped onto his belt and once she did, she knew exactly what she needed to do.

“You know, it’s a good thing you’re decent at codebreaking, Specs, ‘cause you’d make a pretty shit spy. You fidget too much.”

If Jack can think up an off-the-cuff plan to get us out of this mess then I can buy us all a little time by being a good spy, she thought with resolve just as Attwell finished up his speech. Taking a page out of her partner’s book, (Y/N) raised an incredulous brow at the man as the corner of her mouth curled into a humorless smile. “There was a time when I would’ve given just about anything for people to recognize me and my skills, to appreciate just how hard I’ve worked to get where I am today. But then I grew up and realized that the only person whose appreciation I needed was my own. Mr. Attwell, I don’t need to be celebrated or appreciated by anyone, but especially not by a pathetic imitation of the Red Skull.”

The man’s expression instantly grew cold at the comparison. “Then it would seem that you’re of no use to us.” His gaze shifted to look at whoever was holding her at gunpoint and he nodded. “Shoot her, Michael.”

“Stop!” All of them looked over just as Peggy jumped out from behind their makeshift barricade with her rifle pointed directly at Attwell. “I’ll give you the key.”

“Peggy, no!” The barrel of the pistol pressed harder into (Y/N)’s neck and she winced in pain. However, her horror was quickly replaced with dawning comprehension when Peggy flashed her a pointed look before briefly glancing in Jack’s direction. She knows about whatever Jack’s planning, she silently realized, playing along with her old friend’s ruse by rearranging her features into a look of righteous indignation.

Moving to stand beside Attwell, Dottie raised the hand that wasn’t holding her rifle and gave the younger woman a small wave. “Hiya, Peggy. You know, you really should’ve listened to me back in New York; I told you there were currencies in the world stronger than money. I practically spelled all of this out for you! But the great Peggy Carter couldn’t figure it all out on her own, so she needed the help of…” Dottie turned to (Y/N) with a frown. “What’re those revolting nicknames you call each-? Oh, never mind, I don’t want to know.” Turning back to Peggy, the spy shrugged. “Well, I suppose not everyone’s perfect, are they?”

“No, they’re certainly not.” Attwell agreed, gesturing with his head for Peggy to lower her weapon and holding out his hand once she’d set it on the ground. “No tricks, Agent Carter. The key, and you and your friends are free to go; it appears that at least one of them is in need of medical attention, so I’d be quick about it if I were you.” When Peggy’s eyes flicked over to where Michael was standing behind (Y/N), Attwell chuckled darkly and shook his head. “No, I don’t think dear old Michael’s going anywhere but by all means, Agent, go ahead and ask him if you don’t believe me.”

For the first time since they were ushered into the warehouse, Peggy looked directly at her older brother. Her hardened expression slipped and for the briefest of moments, (Y/N) recognized the vulnerable young woman she’d known all those years ago at Bletchley Park who mourned her beloved brother’s death. While her lower lip trembled, Peggy finally addressed Michael. “Not too long ago, I had a dream about you and you told me that you’d be right alongside me if you could. I didn’t believe it was possible, even when (Y/N) and Jack told me it was, but now we have a second chance at being a family again. Michael, you can finally come home.” She blinked away her tears and gave him the ghost of an encouraging smile. “Please, Michael, come home with me.”

(Y/N) could feel the pressure on her neck ease up but just as she was beginning to think that Peggy had succeeded in getting through to him, Michael coolly replied, “This is my family, Agent, the only family I have in this world.”

Peggy’s face crumpled as Attwell laughed in amusement. “I told you so! Now, the key for your friends.”

God, I hope that whatever Jack’s planning happens sooner rather than later, (Y/N) silently prayed, sucking in a breath while the younger woman approached Attwell. Once Peggy reached into her pocket and withdrew the familiar Arena Club pin, the man looked over at Dottie and gave her a nod; the spy slung the strap of her rifle over her shoulder and made her way over to one of the many wooden crates near them, kicking the lid off of it and lifting a small metal box out of the loose excelsior. The box looked innocent enough but as Dottie walked it over to Attwell, (Y/N)’s blood ran cold and she knew that the moment Peggy handed over that key, Leviathan would possess one of the world’s deadliest weapons and they’ll have lost.

“Get up, Chief Thompson,” Michael barked and while Jack got to his feet, (Y/N) was roughly pushed towards him. “And you, stand over there with him.”

(Y/N) did as he said, standing beside Jack and keeping her eyes on the scene unfolding before them as she murmured, “You okay?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Peachy-keen.” She watched Dottie hand the metal box over to Attwell, her anxiety steadily building within her while he examined the box’s intricate lock. “Are you going to fill me in on the plan or what?”

The corner of Jack’s mouth curled upwards and he quietly replied, “Patience is a virtue, Specs, just be ready for it.”

“Be ready for wha-?”

Just then as Peggy’s hand stretched out to give Attwell the Arena Club pin, the warehouse wall opposite them exploded. Rubble and splintered pieces of crates flew through the air but before (Y/N) could fully react, gunfire broke out all around them. Amidst the chaos, Jack latched onto (Y/N)’s hand and ran, yanking her behind the nearest tower of crates as bullets whizzed past their heads; both of them crouched on the ground and peeked around the wooden crates, and her eyes widened in amazement at what she saw. The explosion that had knocked down part of the warehouse wall hadn’t been an explosion at all but rather one of the Howlies’ trucks and as (Y/N) watched, Daniel and Henry used the truck’s doors as barriers while they exchanged fire with the Leviathan guards. Moments later, she spotted Peggy dart out from one of the aisles to join her boyfriend behind the open truck door.

“Wa-Hoo!”

Dugan’s deafening war cry from across the warehouse was punctuated by a fresh barrage of gunfire, and (Y/N) couldn’t help but revel at the familiarity of it all; her eyes were suddenly drawn to two men sprinting down the aisle towards her and Jack, and it took her a tense moment to recognize them through all the chaos.

“There you guys are!” Howard exclaimed before ducking down beside them, followed closely by an anxious-looking Edwin Jarvis. Reaching into the satchel that was slung over his shoulders, the inventor withdrew two handguns and offered the weapons to them. “You know, you two’ve got a real habit of gettin’ into trouble…”

Jack rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Says the man who was mind-controlled into almost gassing all of New York last year.” Springing up, he fired off several shots before ducking back down. “How’re we looking, Jarvis?”

“Well, Chief Sousa’s dramatic entrance provided enough of a distraction for Mr. Fieldman to escort Mr. Pinkerton and Mr. Sawyer out the front; their wounds aren’t life-threatening, but Mr. Fieldman promised he’d help treat them once they reach the clearing.” The butler set another satchel on the ground in front of them. “And we’ve brought more guns and ammunition, as per your request.”

“You know, Thompson, you said in your message that you needed a big diversion, but that whole entrance was my idea; I actually took it from one of my studio’s newest scripts, where a gangster steals-”

“Of course, Mr. Stark, your genius knows no bounds.” Edwin hurriedly interrupted the inventor’s rambling, glancing over at (Y/N) with his brow furrowed in worry. “And have you broken Mr. Carter out of his brainwashing? Where is he?”

Looking around the edge of the crate, (Y/N)’s heart dropped when noticed that several important people were missing from the gunfight. “Where the hell did they go, Jack?”

Jack craned his neck to see what she was looking at and swore loudly. “Shit, I-wait, they’re on the stairs!” By the time (Y/N) spotted them, Attwell, Dottie and Michael had reached the top of the stairs and had disappeared around the corner. “Jarvis, stay here with Stark and cover us, then go help the others.” Edwin nodded and her partner turned towards her, his blue eyes scanning her face for any signs of trepidation as he asked, “Are you ready, Specs?”

“As I’ll ever be,” (Y/N) pulled an extra ammunition magazine out of the satchel and tucked it into her pocket before giving Jack a determined nod. “Let’s finish this once and for all, Flyboy.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Compared to the chaotic warehouse they’d come from, the rest of the facility was eerily silent and it wasn’t at-all difficult to follow the footsteps of the fleeing trio through the deserted hallways.

“You know that this is probably a trap, right?”

“Naturally.”

“Good. Just wanted to make sure that we’re both on the same page.”

Before (Y/N) could get another word in, a figure she soon recognized as Dottie dropped down from above them and began attacking; the spy kicked the guns out of their hands, ramming her knee into (Y/N)’s stomach and knocking the wind out of her before spinning and using her leg to slam Jack into the wall beside them. (Y/N) took advantage of Dottie’s momentary distraction and aimed a side-kick at her thigh, but the spy merely turned her sharp fall into a somersault; she stood and threw a punch that (Y/N) was quick to duck, and then she grabbed the spy’s extended arm with the intent of wrenching it behind her back. Dottie predicted the move, yanking her arm free only to wrap her hand around her throat and roughly shove her back against the wall.

The back of (Y/N)’s head erupted into a sharp pain while Dottie flashed her a condescending smile. “I already told you, you’re too easy! It’s almost pathetic to see you try so hard to be as good as Peggy.”

“Don’t need to be as good as Peggy,” (Y/N) choked out as the fingers around her throat tightened. “Just…just good enough to keep you distracted.”

Dottie frowned in confusion and that’s when Jack slammed the butt of his gun against the back of her head. The spy tumbled to the ground in an unconscious heap and (Y/N) doubled over, her hands firmly clutching her knees as she coughed and gasped for air. “(Y/N), you okay?” She nodded and allowed Jack to take hold of her shoulders, his soothing encouragements helping her finally regain her breath; once he was sure that she was fine, her partner handed over her dropped gun and rested his hand against the small of her back to urge her forward. “C’mon, let’s go…”

They left the motionless spy behind and continued down the hallway, turning the corner and finding themselves at the entrance of a dimly-lit boiler room. Beside (Y/N), Jack shuddered and she recalled the story he’d told her of the mission he and Peggy had conducted to investigate one of Leviathan’s training facilities; she nudged him with her elbow and gave him a brief smile, wishing that she could offer him more comfort but not wanting to distract them both from their mission. Jack nodded as if to say he was fine, but his shoulders remained tense while he silently gestured for her to go left into the room while he went right.

(Y/N) crept behind the various boilers and pipes, careful not to slip on the slick ground as she did. If I end up surviving all this, I think I’m going to sleep for a week straight, she thought to herself, her heart rate steadily increasing with each step she took. While she edged herself around another heavy piece of industrial furnacing, she found herself trying to think of how to break Michael out of his mind-control long enough to save him; Jack insisted that cognitive re-calibration was the only way but after being present for Peggy and Michael’s reunion, she wondered if reminding him of his past or even recent actions would also do the trick. But a sharp skid noise right behind her made her forget her train of thought and turn, dodging the knife just in time.

“You really should’ve taken my offer, Agent (Y/L/N),” Attwell spat out, slashing at her with the knife again and forcing her to stumble back into the center aisle of the boiler room; the blade sliced against her forearm and she stifled her cry of pain, dropping her gun and leaping out of the way as he aimed for her again. “Soon, you and your foolish friends will be dead and Leviathan will have more power than you could possibly imagine!”

“Don’t you ever get tired of hearing your own damn voice?” (Y/N) retorted, her hand shooting out and twisting the red-colored knob beside them; a pipe next to Attwell spewed out pressurized steam and he let out a shriek of pain as the steam enveloped the right side of his face. Not wanting to stick around, she turned and sprinted further into the vast room, a part of her hoping that she’d bought herself enough time to save Michael. Skidding around a corner, she was immediately met with the sight of Jack and Michael engaged in a vicious fight on the floor; her partner was trying to wrestle something out of the other man’s closed fist, but he was so preoccupied with his task that he didn’t see Michael’s other hand brush the handle of a nearby gun. (Y/N) kicked the gun away from him, pinning his shoulder to the ground with her knee and spoke the first thing that came to mind. “Visions, light, cheered, night, dream!”

As she finished reciting the five words he’d used to encode his final message to Peggy, something shifted in Michael’s dark eyes and his clenched fist relaxed, allowing Jack to snatch the Arena Club pin from him. Before any of them could say or do anything more, a fiery ache erupted along her shoulder blade and she cried out in pain as she pitched forward. “(Y/N)!” Jack looped his arms underneath hers and dragged her over to half-lean against a pipe; her vision was partially clouded by the pain, but she could still make out the bloody knife he’d just pulled out of her upper back and tossed onto the ground beside them. “No, no, don’t look at that, just keep your eyes on me!” He pressed his trembling hand tight against the wound and when she nearly whimpered, he held the side of her face with the other and frantically nodded, his blue eyes steadily filling with panic that he struggled to control. “I-I know it hurts, baby, but I have to keep pressure on it; it’s not very deep, but I can’t have you fainting right now so keep your eyes on me, c’mon-”

“How touching,” Both of them looked up to see Attwell and Michael standing before them, the former with a self-satisfied smirk on his half-seared face and the latter staring stonily down at them. “Let’s make a new deal, Chief Thompson: Give me the key, and I won’t let Agent (Y/L/N) slowly bleed out on the floor of this boiler room.”

“Bastard.” Jack spat back, but his hand left (Y/N)’s face long enough to retrieve the Arena Club pin from his pocket and throw it into Attwell’s waiting hand. “You better start lookin’ over your shoulder now, Attwell, ‘cause I won’t rest until I kill you myself.”

Attwell shrugged and ran his fingers over the pin, twisting it sharply to convert it into a key. “Such fiery attitude in the face of doom was precisely why I was looking forward to killing you. But then I realized, forcing a man like you to live with your mistakes is a far worse punishment than death; and to make this victory sweeter, I plan on unlocking Zodiac in front of you both, so you can see just how spectacularly you failed yourselves, your agency and your country.” He turned to Michael with his brow raised in expectation. “Are you ready to make history, old chap?”

Michael nodded. “Of course…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the metal box containing Zodiac; (Y/N) tried getting up, unwilling to sit back and let Leviathan win, but Jack’s strong arms held her in place against him. When she met his gaze, he gave her a barely-discernible head shake and with her jaw clenched tight, she watched Attwell push the key into the lock and turn it clockwise; the lid popped open and the man breathed a sigh of relief, reaching into the slightly-smoking box and holding an electric-blue colored vial with strange etchings carved into the glass.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? So much potential for war and destruction, and it fits within the palm of my hand.” Attwell looked up at Michael and continued, “My brother never appreciated such things, you know. He never truly appreciated you, either; once you were found out to be a deep-cover spy for the SOE, I saw an opportunity to mold you into the person you were always meant to be. Do you remember the first thing I told you after you came out of Hydra’s operating room?”

Michael’s hardened expression faltered, almost as if he was struggling to control his actions, and in an instant, he drew his gun and shot Attwell directly in the chest. There were tears in his eyes as he finally replied, “‘Michael, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’”

The box and the vial slipped out of the dying man’s hands and as he began to sway dangerously on his feet, (Y/N) lunged forward and caught both in her hands before they could hit the ground. While Attwell’s lifeless body collapsed to the ground in a heap, she and Jack hurriedly placed the deadly Zodiac back into the box and slammed the lid closed; she let out a shaky breath, unable to grasp everything that had just happened. Michael dropped to his knees, tossing his gun to the side and rubbing his head with one hand; still mindful of her now-oozing wound, Jack held her a little closer as they both warily watched the unsteady man turn away from Attwell’s body to look at them. “I-It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Agent (Y/L/N). I’m Michael Carter, SOE.”

A smile slowly stretched across (Y/N)’s face and a sense of relief was beginning to wash over her as a familiar voice called throughout the boiler room. “(Y/N)? Jack?”

“We’re back here, (Y/N) needs some medical attention but we’re okay!” Jack called back, meeting (Y/N)’s gaze and flashing her a lopsided grin. “You’re gonna be fine, Specs, you hear me?” With a relieved chuckle, Jack leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her sweat-covered brow before resting his cheek on the top of her head. “We’re all gonna be fine.”

“Hey!” The first person who rounded the corner was Daniel, whose gun was already at the ready when he pointed it at Michael. “Hey, get the hell away from them!”

Jack held out a placating hand to the chief. “Easy, Danny Boy, he’s good right now; he’s the one who killed Attwell.”

Lowering his gun, Daniel limped over to where they sat against the pipe and knelt down as best he could to examine her knife wound. “Looks like the knife missed everything important, thank goodness. What the hell happened down here?”

Jack detailed everything they’d dealt with after hurrying out of the warehouse as their friends joined them; Edwin began treating her various wounds with Henry’s assistance, Howard carefully stowed the box containing Zodiac and its key into a satchel and Dugan worked on locating a weak point in the wall to blow a quick exit for them. There was a flurry of voices and activity surrounding (Y/N), but all her attention was on Peggy and Michael; they were talking to each other in low tones, Michael looking heartbreakingly unsure and Peggy trying her hardest not to cry, until they both surged forward and hugged one another. For the second time that day, (Y/N) was reminded of Freddie but while she watched the Carter siblings finally reunite, she didn’t feel sadness or envy, but rather pride. She was proud of herself, for having helped stop Leviathan’s plans and for having made-do on her promise to reunite her oldest and dearest friend with her beloved brother. If anyone deserves a second chance at happiness it’s those two, she thought to herself, taking a deep breath and resting her head against Jack’s strong shoulder.

They did it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Only one more chapter left!! Like I said, idk how I feel about this chapter as a whole so I’m sorry if there’s mistakes/it’s bad, but next week’s is gonna be great! Thank you guys so much for reading! If you haven’t checked it out yet, I created a Spotify playlist for this series and it’s linked down below!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/21pWY7OiMFj8LaYpxhtVtW

Chapter Twenty

“Specs and the Flyboy” Masterlist

Tagging: @nnon-it-up @fluffymadamina @remmyswritings @ourstarsailor @darkusangelus @josis-teacup @marvel-jackt-loki-buck @yeetyeetchickenmeat @sameoldbaby @theserenityspace @seeing-but-not-observing @supervoldejaygent​ @momc95​ @brooke0297​ @kinda-c0nfused​ @outoftheregular

[guzhuangheaven]

As much as I am enjoying My Heroic Husband, despite the fact that it’s genuinely laugh out loud funny and the characters are endearing, I do kind of want to nitpick it a bit (a lot). The drama spends a lot of time telling you about how Tan’er is the best candidate to be the seal holder and the boss of the family business. And certainly compared to her cousin she is better because she does have integrity and dedication to the business. But the problem is that it’s episode 16 now, and the drama has yet to actually show much (any) of her ability.

All the clever business things that had happened so far in the drama has been Ning Yi’s idea. In fact, in the very second episode, where Tan’er’s warehouse flooded ruining all her inventory of fabrics, she came up with absolutely zero idea to save the opening day of her shop except to postpone the opening. In the end Ning Yi stepped in the save the day. I’m not saying that Tan’er is incompetent, because in that situation, there was very little that could be done other than postpone the opening. Ning Yi only saved the day because he has the advantage of knowledge taken from modern time and set up a gameshow to trick customers into buying fabric that did not yet exist and getting them to pay up front then pick up the product later. 

The thing is, this solution that Ning Yi came up with – along with practically all the other business models he wowed people with later like franchising, door to door shipping and customer reward cards – can only really work in our modern mass consumerism market. (Like I get that century egg is this novel thing in this world but no one needs that much century egg that it can be turned into a massive franchise a la McDonalds or Starbucks.) The drama handwaves this and assumes these sales models would work in a feudal, labour intensive world. And this makes for a genuinely funny drama because we are supposed to be aware that everything is anachronistic and unrealistic.

I get that this drama is really Ning Yi’s drama, and it’s supposed to be playing up the fact that Ning Yi has the mind and memories of a modern business man who is used to running billion dollar corporations. So the focus on Ning Yi’s business schemes is not necessarily the problem. The problem is that this set up gives Tan’er nothing to do. At this point, Ning Yi is pretty much the one doing all the business and Tan’er is just the symbolic boss walking around nodding at everybody. Yes there are hints that Ning Yi does discuss things with her and clue her in to things, but we don’t get enough of that to really be convinced that this is still Tan’er business that she is supposed to be running and is responsible for. Tan’er shows up when it’s necessary to be the face of the business, but really it’s Ning Yi pulling all the strings.

And this really sums up the problem (maybe problem is too strong a word, but certainly the weakness) in the way this drama is attempting to subvert gender roles. In fact, it’s a weakness in all cdramas I have watched so far that try to do this, The Romance of Tiger and Rose included. These dramas take a very second wave feminist approach and posits that women’s assigned reproductive roles suck and women being confined to the private sphere suck, so gender equality means that women should break out of those roles and into the public sphere and do what men do. Equality, therefore, means women should be like men and do things like men. Which is all well and good when you say that this means that women like Tan’er should be able to head the family business.

What this approach IRL usually overlooks is the fact that reproductive duties in the private sphere DO exist regardless of what women do in the public sphere, and usually women end up being tasked with the reproductive work in the private sphere anyway. This is what leads to women’s multiple labour and triple burden. To be fair, My Heroic Husband does attempt to address this by having the men at the husband school (whatever it’s called in English, I’m not watching is drama with Eng sub so have no idea…) learn things like to cook and sew and take care of children. But this attempt to challenge gender roles is undermined by the fact that 1) these husbands are still established as the minority and this is still assumed to be a patriarchal society and 2) therefore the society in My Heroic Husband still look down on these husbands who live with their wives’ family and learn/do these traditionally feminine tasks. Basically only men who are weak whatever that means/too poor/too pathetic/have no other option force themselves/choose to put themselves into this role. Moreover, Ning Yi is celebrated among the men at the husband school and in the drama in general not because he successfully embraces his reversed gender role and stays home and take care of the house/kids while Tan’er owns a business, but because he…takes over the running of the business himself so that his wife can be a token female boss???

This tokenism is very much the predictable result when the traditional constructs of “men good women bad” and the power relations between men and women are not challenged. Just because you flip the roles doesn’t mean you are challenging the power relations. This simply flipping is what The Romance of Tiger and Rose tried to do as well, and it worked even less for me in that drama. I dropped Tiger and Rose around ep 18 because I was so frustrated with the fact that it shoves in your face this supposed matriarchal society that is literally no different than IRL patriarchy just with the men and women switching places. This “IRL patriarchy but it’s women instead” approach doesn’t work because it doesn’t unpack WHY IRL patriarchy set up men in positions of power in the first place and the traditional assumptions about the biological difference between men and women that underlie patriarchal societies. It does not interest me in any way to see women oppress men in drama in the exact same way as men do women IRL, because that says nothing about…anything, other than assuming that people just suck in general. It also doesn’t offer any solution to how to undo any of that oppression and unbalance of power, which is what these thought experiments with gender roles are supposed to do.

I guess the point of this very long post is to say I’m just frustrated with how Chinese dramas are still stuck in this rather outdated approach to feminism. Throw socialist/Marxist feminist theories in and it only entrenches this approach even further. None of this surprise me, but I find it hard to ignore in dramas such as My Heroic Husband and Tiger and Rose that set out to very explicitly challenge gender roles and then kind of…don’t. Actually it’s dramas that are not so “in your face” about it like The Story of Ming Lan and to a certain extent Nothing Gold Can Stay are the ones that drives across more subtle but clearer messages about how damaging patriarchy is to women.

(Having said all of this, I still do love My Heroic Husband as a drama because it’s still very entertaining. It’s not meant to be that deep of a drama anyway, I just have too high expectations this being my field IRL and all.) -H

[undefined5posts]

Credit: Jordan J. Lloyd

I've been trying to dive deeper into politics, discover the genuine roots of our society, the origins of our beliefs, and the consequences of our economic system. It's a big, long, wide journey and through multiple sources such as articles, images, videos and multiple social media platforms, I've been trying to educate myself more on important subjects.

Communism, capitalism, libertarian, conservative, the left, the right, the history, the impact. It is scary to commit to everything because once you start, you simply cannot stop, once you start waking up your conscience about the horrible reality, the lies, the truths, you cannot put it back to sleep. You can't just ignore prejudice, especially when you're extremely conscious of it's omnipresence. I have continually tried to build my own opinions all while actively creating bullet point arguments in my mind because I just know that at some point I will have to defend my thinking, and I want to do it right.

Now, I am so far from being enlightened, I am a beginner and an amateur in all of those themes, but I am trying, which is the only way to start and grow.

So to tell you about my beliefs, I am a militant human rights activist, I believe in equal opportunities regardless of gender identity, sex, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race and disability. This is a fact, not a belief, but the system was obviously not built to protect all people, its wasn't created to serve everyone equally but to grant a privilege to some and harm others. The current state of the world is not a slip, an accident or a misfunction of our brilliant system but a testament of it operating remarkably well. I believe that equity leads to equality, and I believe that we cannot "fix" methodologies that were immorally created with absolutely no honor whatsoever. I believe in reproductive rights, in legal, safe abortions for anybody who needs one. I believe in the decriminalization of marijuana. I believe that the death penalty is a despicable punition that should be banned as soon as possible. I believe in defunding the police and the military. I believe that it is a shame that I even have to talk about police brutality, I don't want to have to say that it is one of the most horrible things our world has originated, I feel extremely dense when I do because it seems like the most obvious certitude and I refuse to believe that this is a controversial statement. I believe that everything I have just stated, along with many more, isn't anything grand but the bare minimum, the bar is low, and yet, we still have the fight for basic human decency.

Humanity has become an option. We have normalized supporting people that represent everything wrong in this world under the name of tolerance. The left has never claimed to be tolerant towards hateful beings, We have never accepted homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism and sexism. We cannot, for exemple, accept nazis, as too much tolerance inevitably leads to intolerance. This picture explains it perfectly:

I consider myself a communist/ socialist. The two terms still confuse me a little, some say they are the same, some say they differ quite a bit. What I know is that socialism is the transitional period between capitalism and communism. At the end of the day, the final result and goal is a stateless, moneyless and clasless society that will provide to each his need.

Our capitalistic society has brainwashed us way more than you may think. It is the root of so many of our issues, the underground demon of our problems. Every idea, thought, belief, and misconception of ours were all affected by our current economic system. It has sold us the billionnaire dream which is one of the most toxic things capitalism has offered. We have looked up to billionaires for way too long, why are they so idolized? Most of them come from high upper class families that can easily afford to invest in their inventions and creations. After starting up their companies and occasionnaly stealing other's people ideas to ultimately get undeserved merit, they then can start to properly exploit their hardworking employees's labour. And for unlimited hours and a minimum wage which probably won't even suffice you to survive, you will have to either pick up more shifts or a second or even third job, especially if you have a family to support. All while the CEO barely does any of the work and gets all the praise and money. So no, they don't all come from really poor families and have built everything for nothing.

The worst thing is that we've been so gaslit and brainwashed that we're proud of our own exploitation, we are wired to think that to be successful we have to suffer, work 10 jobs we all hate, constantly pick up extra hours, have 2 hours of sleep, have no free time to do anything we love, waste our entire youth, be depressed our entire adulthood, to finally have a few pennies to spend when we're eighty. We so strongly believe that this is the only right way to be successful that I don't think many of us have dared to question it's authority, and even if we do, we quickly accept that this a truth, a fact we cannot change and this is just the way things are.

We have capitalized water, food, land, forests, oceans, space, and everything in betweeen. Money is social construct and we have deliberately let it take over our lives. To think about the wasted opportunities and the misery that we have to endure so others can enjoy life truly angers me.

Also, communism is not an ideology that has every actually taken place. Despite what they say, there was never actually a communist country. However, every nation that has attempted a socialist system, for exemple Burkina Faso, has thrived. But of course, once capitalist countries noticed that, they decided to murder it's leader. So in conclusion, the only reason socialism failed is because of capitalism and it's interventions.

"As President (1983-1987), Sankara initiated economic reforms that shifted his country away from dependence on foreign aid and reduced the privileges of government officials; he cut salaries, including his own, decreed that there would be no more flying in first class or driving Mercedes as standard issue vehicles for Ministers and other government workers. He led a modest lifestyle and did not personally amass material wealth. President Sankara encouraged self-sufficiency, including the use of local resources to build clinics, schools and other needed infrastructure. [...] President Sankara promoted land reform, childhood vaccination, tree planting, communal school building, and nation-wide literacy campaigns. He was committed to gender equity and women’s rights and was the first African leader to publicly recognize the AIDS pandemic as a threat to African countries. Although Sankara became somewhat more authoritarian during his Presidency, his ideas, and the possibility that they could spread, were viewed by many as posing the greatest threat. President Sankara was assassinated during a coup led by a French-backed politician, Blaise Compaoré, in October 1987. Compaoré served as the President of Burkina Faso from October 1987 through October 2014, when he himself was overthrown."

Via:https://africandevelopmentsuccesses.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/success-story-from-burkina-faso-thomas-sankaras-legacy/

I have been reading and watching some amazing human rights activists, notably Angela Davis, Malcolm X and James Baldwin. The people that were villainized, labeled as violent and radical, when every single word that came out of their mouhs were pure facts. They are probably some of the most eloquent people I have had the pleasure of hearing. Every sentence, every argument, every single detail made so much sense and opened my mind to so many new realizations. This is the perfect exemple of how the media tarnishes the reputation of wise black women and men. I would strongly advise you to research more about them.

"Socialism & communism are demonized in the west to the point of erasing influential individuals' socialist advocacy. Heres a short list of people you may not have known were socialists/ communists:

MLK

Albert Einstein

Nelson Mandela

Frida Kahlo

Tupac Shakur

Mark Twain

Malcom X

Oscar Wilde

Bertrand Russell

Hellen Keller

Pablo Picasso

George Orwell

Shia LaBeouf

John Lennon

Woody Guthrie

Socialism & communism are not dirty words. Some of the most brilliant minds of our history were socialists and communists. Embrace it." Via @sleepisocialist on twitter

So what else can I say, capitalism has ruined our society and the way we act and think. I know a lot of people refuse to support communism because they think it's too much of a perfect ideal utopian world for it to ever actually exist. And to that I say, first of all, so you agree, it is a wonderful theory, and second of all, a world without racism, sexism, homophobia or any kind or discrimination could also be perceived as "too ideal to actually exist", but does that mean I'm giving up on talking, educating myself and others, protesting and trying to build a better future? Absolutely not. This is the objective, it would be so dumb to think that we just couldn't achieve that so let's not even try.

I want to talk more in detail about communism, theory, human rights, etc... but I don't want to make this post any longer. I will however be posting more about it soon enough.

I know this is a little different than what I usually post, but I want to speak, tell you all my own opinions, I don't want to just repost activism related stuff. I'll continue to do that, but not exclusively. I know it won't get as many interactions as my other posts, but this is what I needed at some point in my life, and if I could make understanding some basic informations easier to some people, it'll already be a great accomplishment.

Thank you for reading.

[star-anise]

I think I am having vicarious stress about how immagrint families are being treated at the American border too. Also other horrors happening in America though I live in Canada. How do you cope with that? If this question is annoying or personal you dont have to answer. Is it weird to feel post election stress after the 2016 election although I am not American? I heard American college kids had almost ptsd levels of trauamtic stress after the election in America.

It’s funny, today I was on the phone with a grad school friend who does front-line crisis mental health work in the USA, and grew up being heavily involved in the Democratic Party. She said, “I have such an issue with this rhetoric now, like, ‘don’t look away.’ Bitch, I haven’t looked away for two years. I’m fucking exhausted.” Because things like that are intended for the people who do look away, who are conservative and apathetic, but often they only reach an audience that is already engaged with the issue, and they land like hammers on people already trying their hardest.

And yes, freaking out about the shit that goes down in the USA is a fine old Canadian tradition. To quote Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 comments to the US president at the time: “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

(And Canadian politics are definitely negatively affected by the USA. My province just lost its NDP government because its Conservatives “aren’t as bad as those crazies down south!” and I have a sinking feeling the Cons will cakewalk to federal victory too in October)

You might also notice that on my blog, I post about political issues in only a small number of cases: 1) I have a unique observation I think needs to be added to the world, 2) It’s an issue I genuinely haven’t seen covered yet, and I know people who would want to know; 3) It’s a feel-good story meant to comfort people who are fighting the good fight; 4) It’s advertising an immediate, low-barrier thing people can do right away to directly affect the situation; 5) It’s a resource to help those fighters be better activists. And I do my best to always tag political posts with a standard set of tags to let people ignore them, so if somebody wants, they can follow me and just get my cats’n’fandom content.

The audience I usually have in mind when I blog are people like my friends: Smart, compassionate people committed to social activism, but without limitless amounts of money, health, time, or attention. Some of the people who follow my blog are DC lobbyists directly fighting the Trump administration’s policies. Some of them are crisis workers and EMTs and librarians and deal with the ragged edges of human existence in today’s society. I know I don’t have the nerves or capacity to be their news source; they can follow anyone else on Tumblr for that. So what I try to be is the friendly cat cafe they can go to at the end of a long shift to relax.

My response is really guided by a blog I followed a lot when 9/11 happened; I was following it to learn about getting published as a fantasy author, but its authors were New Yorkers and socialists and military veterans, and they had a lot to say about the false witch hunt for a justification for starting a war in Iraq in 2003 and the slow erosion of rights and freedoms of Americans and “enemy” POWs and the incredible damage the American war machine does when it gets going.

They’re not blogging as much now, but when Trump was elected, they released two posts that I found to be deeply useful:

Defense in Depth - Tl;dr: It is important that those of us in resistance to the world’s outrages don’t attack each other for having different priorities, because we need a diversity of targets and approaches.

Taking It Back - Tl;dr: Our enemies WANT us to be overwhelmed and horrified and frozen in shock and catatonic. That is a deliberate tactic they use. Whenever we seem to catch our breath, they create a new outrage for us to get upset over. We need to learn how to set our own pace, resist the lie that you have to be upset and horrified all the time, and focus on taking care of yourself.

I’m also really affected by Rebecca Solnit’s book “Hope in the Dark” where she points out that activist movements have two effects. The first is to influence whatever issue they’re actually agitating about. The second is to give people the tools and experience they need to become citizens who change their societies in deep and enduring ways.

One part of the problem is finding ways that you can make the world better that feel really concrete and achievable. That’s a whole other discussion, that depends a lot on what you’re good at, what your resources are, what you’re capable of. People feel a lot less terrified if there’s something they know they can do. 

But even once you’ve figured out how you’re fighting to make the world better in some small way, you probably can’t do it 24/7; you’ve got to keep mentally resilient the rest of the time.

So what do I do to cope?

I focus on easy-to-do, ordinary hobbies that bring me joy, especially ones that get me off my computer and out of my head. I garden; I just bought a bike; I’m getting my sewing room back in order so I can go back to making costumes and working on the @betterbinderproject.

I make sure I keep social connections where we can relax and enjoy each other. That means being codependent with my cat, babysitting my nieces and nephews, exploring my local bi/pan meetups, going to historical re-enactment events, texting with my friends about Tumblr drama, talking to my colleagues during slack moments at work, and enjoying the fandoms and fanworks that bring me joy.

I do my best to look after my physical wellbeing. Which for me means stretching, yoga, taking my psych meds and vitamins, taking painkillers, looking after my cuticles, using moisturizer, braiding my hair, getting massages, and always making sure there’s a cake in the kitchen. My emphasis isn’t whether I’ll get some disease 30 years from now; it’s making sure that inhabiting my body today is the least unpleasant that it has to be.

I try to look after myself; I go to therapy, look for jobs, keep up on my business paperwork, budget my money, work on upgrading my skills, and develop my 5-year plan. I work really hard on doing this without being stressed, because my habit of procrastinating and only getting around to this stuff when I’m in abject terror isn’t good.

I also, and this feels weird to say or suggest, try to educate myself on issues that are not the crisis du jour. I watch TV shows about the Russian revolution, listen to books about Indigenous language reclamation, read the diary of a World War II servicewoman. This isn’t an attempt to expand my list of crises to worry about, but because I find my ability to cope with the present immeasurably helped by knowing that people have faced other, different crises, and how they dealt with them. It’s… background research in resilience. With the added bonus that it helps me stay intersectional and aware of when we might be only seeing the most privileged part of a crisis situation.

[pilferingapples]

for @shitpostingfromthebarricade , who very nicely asked for an elaboration of my partial disagreement with the idea that Grantaire represents “the people”  of France or Paris: 

First let me say again it’s a partial  disagreement; I do think he represents a specific segment of the people. But one which is not ~~**~~ The People~~**~~  which I will hopefully be able to explain here?

- As far as “the people” goes, that term-- that specific  term, “the people” detached from other qualifiers-- especially in Hugo’s specific  political-social group-- seems to have been used mostly to mean the workers-- workers, small artisan-merchants, maybe peasants. If someone in a socialist-writer text of the period is called a “child of the people” it means they’re from the working class; if they’re a Man Of The People , ditto. Feuilly is the representative of The People in the Amis’ group-- Enjolras even specifically says so, in the middle of one of his full-on visionary speeches--Feuilly,vaillant ouvrier, homme de peuple, hommes des peuples” (valiant working-man,man of the people--and then the transition/combo that can be read as “man of all peoples”  or “men  of the people” , plural (or, actually, as “the people’s man”, depending on what you’re choosing to focus on. Lamarque song rewrite go!) .  For a guy with very few lines, Feuilly is specifically carrying a LOT of social/political representation here :P (and of course it’s even more Symbolic because Feuilly has no known human parents; his class background is also his family background, he’s of The People, full stop, not of any more specific background. )

We’re never given Grantaire’s exact socioeconomic background, and certainly working-class kids could go into art studies in certain circumstances-- but Grantaire also has no apparent job and has a lot of middle-class-kid hobbies (boxing, singlestick, dancing, etc etc). Everything about Grantaire marks him as middle-class in background, currently choosing to vie-boheme it up. He’s definitely not a representative of “the people” in this sense. 

I also can’t go with Grantaire representing Paris, at least not Full On Spirit Of Paris.  Leaving aside that Grantaire specifically disavows Paris and his own Parisian-ness in Preliminary Gayeties, Hugo sets up very specific symbolism and character for Paris in Les Mis, and he’s pretty direct about it!

 Hugo’s Paris is wild, bold, anarchic, laughing, unafraid of violence, sometimes lazy or careless but essentially generous, bold, insightful and daring, and always  inherently inclined to liberty (and also essentially Romantic at its heart, because this is a Hugo novel and anything good has to be essentially Romantic at heart:P)  (and Hugo has a Lot of Feelings about Paris). Paris in miniature--Paris Atomized, Paris made human-- is Gavroche,  not Grantaire. Even among just the Amis, the one closest to being Hugo’s Paris Avatar is Bahorel, who shares so many echoes of the gamin chapters in his intro, the group’s flâneur-- flâner est Parisien!--and connection to the city,  in the same way Feuilly is their connection to the wider world and internationalist causes.  

But like I said, I do  really think Grantaire represents a part of the population of Paris! An important part! 

Specifically, he’s representing that part of the population that wants to take a damn break.   The part that feels that “of great events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we have seen enough, we have them heaped higher than our heads”,(4.1.1) the part that having found a seat wants to sit.  The perhaps selfish, but very understandable, part of the population that is secure enough itself to feel like it will do nothing but lose in another revolution, that “some one whose name is all” that says “I am young and in love, I am old and I wish to repose, I am the father of a family, I toil, I prosper, I am successful in business, I have houses to lease, I have money in the government funds, I am happy, I have a wife and children, I have all this, I desire to live, leave me in peace.” (5.1.20)

That is to say...Grantaire is representing the apathetic, the burned out, and the bourgeoisie. 

This is certainly not the most flattering thing to be representing, but then Grantaire isn’t a particularly aspirational  character--not until the very end of his arc, when he stands up and announces himself For The Ideal. Like the people who close their doors,like the bourgeoisie who just wants to rest, he doesn’t hate the ideal, really...but he’s had Enough Trying, he wants peace and security and to not die or see his loved ones die,  and all of that is very understandable! But if he were genuinely happy  with that...well he wouldn’t be with the Amis at all. He also wants that Ideal, a better kinder world, and unfortunately to get that he’s going to have to stand up.

..Well, not him, personally,of course. When he  stands up he’s-a-gonna die, albeit in a super symbolic transformational/salvational way.  But the Not Very Subtle At All implication is that this is where the revolution wins: when the comfortable people , and especially  the bourgeoisie (well, as Hugo defines them), who have been sitting down, sleeping, wake up and take part. 

(This is of course true in a grand sense-- revolutions need mass participation! -- and it’s also true in the very specific sense of what went down in 1830 vs 1832. In 1830, a lot of the bourgeoisie did  get involved , and it’s a big part of why that went as smoothly as it did. But in 1832, by and large they said No Thanks We’re Good; a handful of students and some wild Romantics really was about all participation outside of the working/poor classes. But this is already so freaking long and this is not a Barricade Day post!) 

So: all of that very  long ramble is to say, yeah, I think Grantaire is symbolizing not The People (who are , symbolically and historically, already on the barricade)  but a specific and crucial subset of The People Of France (Or Wherever), which is why I never feel like I can go either “Yeah!!” or  “Ugh No” when I see a “Grantaire is the people” mention. :P

--sorry I can’t put them under a second cut >< , but these are relevant longer chunks of some of the quotes above!

Of great events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we have seen enough, we have them heaped higher than our heads. We would exchange Cæsar for Prusias, and Napoleon for the King of Yvetot. “What a good little king was he!” We have marched since daybreak, we have reached the evening of a long and toilsome day; we have made our first change with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with Bonaparte; we are worn out. Each one demands a bed.Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, what? A shelter.”(4.1.1, Well Cut) 

The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair is not a caste.

But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie. (4.1.2, Badly Sewed)

And it appears that they are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other’s profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their arm, to breathe the immense heaps of new-mown hay in the meadows! Really, people do commit altogether too many follies. An old broken lantern which I have just seen at a bric-à-brac merchant’s suggests a reflection to my mind; it is time to enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That’s what comes of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!

... I don’t think much of your revolution,I don’t execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton night-cap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think that to-day, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize his royalty in two directions, he might extend the tip of the sceptre end against the people, and open the umbrella end against heaven. ” - (Grantaire, from Premliminary Gayeties, 4.12.2)

What, then, is progress? We have just enunciated it; the permanent life of the peoples.

Now, it sometimes happens, that the momentary life of individuals offers resistance to the eternal life of the human race.

Let us admit without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests, and can, without forfeiture, stipulate for his interest, and defend it; the present has its pardonable dose of egotism; momentary life has its rights, and is not bound to sacrifice itself constantly to the future. The generation which is passing in its turn over the earth, is not forced to abridge it for the sake of the generations, its equal, after all, who will have their turn later on.—“I exist,” murmurs that some one whose name is All. “I am young and in love, I am old and I wish to repose, I am the father of a family, I toil, I prosper, I am successful in business, I have houses to lease, I have money in the government funds, I am happy, I have a wife and children, I have all this, I desire to live, leave me in peace.”—Hence, at certain hours, a profound cold broods over the magnanimous vanguard of the human race.  (5.1.20, The Dead Are In The Right and the Living Are Not Wrong)

[pinkysfaultorbrainsfault]

animaniacs - s1e40: puppet rulers

episode summary: after seeing how small children react to the characters on their favourite tv show, brain decides that he and pinky will be children’s tv characters, too, before cryogenically freezing themselves for long enough that nostalgia tricks everyone into loving them enough to... elect them world leaders.

because people are totally thinking about old cartoons thirty years after they came off the air, right? that’s a thing normal people do.

the rundown:

we open in 1954.

nobody knows when in 1954 though, because whoever owns this calender isn’t ticking off the days. never mind! i’m sure they have more important things to do.

like welding some shit together, or whatever, like this guy is doing. “there. albert einstien’s latest experiment will be a powerful success.” if it’s albert einstien’s experiment, i don’t know why he hired this guy to do it, but i guess that’s between the big man and himself.

turns out the experiment only needs to be “powerful enough to pull five boxcars and a little caboose”, which is fine. fair enough if albert einstien wants to outsource production of his trainset. he’s probably busy being photographed for ridiculous facebook memes that say shit like “masks give you HIV”. 🙄 

meanwhile, as the music swells and the theme tune comes into the musical layers, we see pinky walking towards brain, who is preparing his coffin. it has a little alarm clock on it so he doesn’t miss bill nye the science guy.

“i’m finished, pinky.” he proclaims. he sure is. “with this cryonic capsule, we shall freeze ourselves and awaken fourty years in the future.” which i suppose is a little less morbid than, yknow, being dead. and bill nye should still be on tv, so it isn’t all bad.+

“egad, brain. what will we do in the future?”

“i don’t know, pinky, but it has to be better than what we’re doing now.”

i feel for him. i have never seen these mice in a well equipped cage. would it kill y’all to put some fucking climbers in there??? jesus.

suddenly, some children appear.

“uncle albert,” they cry. “uncle albert, it’s time.” ominous.

“but kiddies, uncle albert is doing an experiment and did you say it’s time.”

ominous! fortunately, “time” here means “time to sit down and watch tv.”

“hey kids!” says the friendly propellor worm on screen. “what time is it?” it is in fact “TIME FOR MEANIE!” as uncle albert and his fluffy brood proudly complain. yaaaay!

YAAAAAAAAAY.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

anyway turns out meany’s a bit of a dick.

pinky and brain watch on as the worm gets beaten to death. they are not particularly interested in the violence taking place, until Tiny Einstien Boy Edition (tinestien?) mentions that he wishes “treacle and meanie was president.”

to which brain makes this face.

hm. this is the face i make at my dentist when he asks to see if i’ve been maintaining my crown. sorry that my last dentist exploded my teeth or whatever. that’s kind of why i’m here.

“pinky, are you pondering what i’m pondering?” i want to take a moment out here to point out how fucking tiny brain is pinky is laying on his chest. horizontal and he is still taller than brain i just/?? he’s so fucking small. pinky could just pick him up. he couldn’t do anything. pinky could fucking yeet him like a basketball. or maybe just give him a nice hug.

anyway it turns out brain finally has a use for his cryochamber! he wants to get himself on Time For Meany and “endear himself in the hearts of children.”

anyway so once those kids grow up and become world leaders, they will remember brain fondly enough in their hearts so that... when he thaws out, they’ll, uh, elect him president. not entirely... foolproof, perhaps? but on the other hand if the nice couple from out of the box ran for joint prime minister i’d be pretty hype about it. out of the box doot doot out of the box.

pinky wants his show name to be “big ears.”

brain is more into the idea of being The Iconoclast, an Unconventional Eccentric Who Marches To A Different Drummer. privately that sounds like every single half-bearded nerd man at uni who basically accused me of having my boyfriend do all my coursework for me. does brain intend to hang around cardboard forbidden planet and tell the puppet girls that they don’t have the right to be into guardians of the galaxy? is brain going to be passive aggressive about that 2:2 i got in sculpting and rigging, thomas?????

“oh. i thought maybe you could be noodle noggin.”

we then cut to the studio, where the Fat Ceo Man wants the puppeteer to come up with new puppet characters for the next show. unfortunately, the next show is in three minutes, so he’s not very happy.

good thing he gets this suspicious package in the mail, eh?

as expected, it’s full of mice.

“oh my gosh!” cries our man, who has never seen a mouse before, apparently. “talking puppets!”

“actually we are two laboratory mice who wish to be on your show as part of an intricate plan to take over the world.”

“oh, wow, these are really good.”

so the boys make it on! they probably gave mr puppet man a religious experience, but we don’t see him again, so it’s fine.

“hold it, meany! everyone must meet our two new friends! this is big ears! take a bow, big ears!”

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

“and i am the iconoclast, an unconventional eccentric who marches to a different drummer--”

“but you may call me noodle noggin.”

you can’t see it very well in the last image, because uncle albert’s calender is in the way, but this is basically every episode. big ears says something, noodle noggin says something else that’s slightly more pretentious, meany hits him with a big stick.

everyone fucking loves it.

(fuck me. i never actually looked at this screencap close up before. why is pinky in a mousetrap?? why does it have their real names on it???? and why the FUCK do i not have a little brain toy in his own tiny wagon??? hello??? socialist police????)

unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and all projects with talking mice in it must be cancelled absurdly early. and an elmyra reboot of big ears and noodle noggin would be pointless, because brain already gets hit on the head in every episode, so eventually brain has to make the announcement.

“this program has been our last show.” he just sort of... says it, and you can tell pinky definitely wasn’t expecting it. he looks genuinely sad.

but not as sad as the children. even mousetrap pinky looks distraught.

the mice don’t care, obviously, and waste no time in jetting back to the Studio Fridge to activate their cryonic chamber, where pinky makes a very interesting point.

“but brain, why are we freezing ourselves at the height of our popularity?

“to stay fresh in their memory, pinky. we must, to paraphrase milton berle, ‘leave them wanting more’. i’ll see you in the future, pinky.”

there are no good frames for that portion of dialogue but whatever! let’s see how well that goes for them.

conclusion:

so the first thing the boys do upon waking up from ice and dust is to broadcast themselves on tv. “remember me?” asks brain. “it’s your old pal, the iconoclast.”

“and his old pal! zort! big ears!”

it’s very cute.

unfortunately these people are less impressed. they just sort of point, in a scary way. brain invites them all down to the tv station to “shower us in praise and material gifts,” and waits for the fans’ inevitable arrival.

“at last, we can write our own ticket, pinky. no longer in glorious suffering.” alright, hubert von vestra! calm down.

which is when the fans show up. hopefully the fact that they are all morbidly obese is like... coincidental, or to show off the fact that they’re all wearing kid tshirts, right? surely pinky and the brain wouldn’t tell me, a disabled person, that fat people are Bad And Losers? surely not.

“at last, my public has come to shower me with gifts.”

“guess again, noodle noggin!”

“huh.”

“you abandoned us!” cries the crowd. “you went away! you ruined our lives!” as brain tries to grapple with the fact that they are not, in fact, worshipping his image (and uploading pictures of him in the garden of mindy dress to e621) they present him with inordinately expensive therapy bills, because america be that way.

“PAY EM.” yells a gruff man with terrible facial hair. pinky and brain decide they would rather not.

honestly, i’m going to have to give this one to brain. sorry, brain. pinky did make the point earlier, and maybe if brain had thought about it, they might have been able to edit the plan a little and have things work out differently?

or maybe he was just tired of getting hit on the head all the time. ask pinky about that one, b.

brain: 3 pinky: 3 outside influence: 5

“quickly, pinky, we have work to do.”

“you mean taking over the world?”

“no. like finding a good hiding place.”

[canchewread]

Editor's note: The War on Sharing is an informal journal about my life as an anti-capitalist dissident in a burgeoning Pig Empire police state, during a time of normalized fascist reaction. Given the deeply personal nature of this writing, please consider citations to be arbitrary, profanity to be praxis, and slang to be artisanal.

 Those who control the present take great pains to control our understanding of the past." - Michael Parenti, History as Mystery (City Lights Books, 1999)

  The War On Sharing: Thunderheads

  So why the fuck am I starting an informal meme blog? It's complicated.

If I'm being completely honest in this space, I should start by confessing that I don't know how to tell you the things I need you to hear. That is of course a terrifying thing for a writer to admit openly, but recent events in both my personal life, and the world at large have convinced me that I might not have as much time to perfect my revolutionary rhetoric as I had previously believed. What I have come to understand as the global capitalist war on sharing is clearly escalating; in both scope and violence. In light of a recent illness, and my own personal brush with a burgeoning Pig Empire police state, I find myself questioning the value of debunking the individual lies of the capitalist order, and the wisdom of exhausting myself in a hopeless battle against both the neoliberal, and modern fascist propaganda arms of said order. I feel a desperate, almost primary need to put these events into their proper context and reveal the larger picture, but the plain truth of it is that I'm beat up, exhausted, and frankly I don't know how.

Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not as if I haven't tried to communicate the horror of what our capitalist society really is and where it's clearly heading; I most certainly have, by means both painfully earnest, and humorously circuitous as it happens. Unfortunately I am an imperfect messenger, and I have never quite mastered the trick of getting folks to understand something they know is true, but do not want to believe because it's simply too horrible to bear. Faced with the reality that possessing a library with hundreds of books cataloguing the monstrous functions of capitalism, and the historically verified crimes, deceptions, and outrageous abuses of its enforcers, isn't very useful if nobody who hasn't also read those books is even willing to believe you about the established facts of history, I find my academic writing wholly insufficient to properly communicate this larger, and admittedly quite terrifying picture of the reality my studies have revealed to me.

Therefore, I need a blog, or a journal if you'll humor my vanity, because I don't know how to artfully tell you there's a storm coming, or perhaps more accurately, already in progress; a violent pincer "reaction" that's as predictable as rain after thunder, driven by the multiplying crises of capitalism and the rising public embrace of socialist alternatives. I need to tell you these things in plain language because this phase of the class war is going to be hard on folks who sincerely believe you can't get in trouble for having ideas and I cannot allow myself to be misunderstood; the reality is that under the thumb of Pig Empire capitalism, the only truly outrageous crime is having ideas that threaten the continued dominance of capitalist extractivism, and the ruling classes it benefits. 

Like clockwork the emergence of an even vaguely cohesive Pig Empire left, has already resulted in the unleashing of yet another flavor of fascist political violence, and legalized oppression by the bourgeoisie capitalist state. As we literally run out of planet to pillage, rising global inequality leads to what amounts the mass murder of the poor, and the bald-faced inhuman monstrosity of our ruling ideology (and the classes of folks who benefit from it) forces the protesting masses into the streets, there is no reason whatsoever to believe this situation is going to improve. Indeed, history says that both the reactionary right, and neoliberal police states in the Pig Empire, are quite capable of inflicting far more violence and terror in the service of protecting the capitalist order than we've seen so far in this particular round of the endless struggle.

The knives are out lads, and reality doesn't actually give a fuck if you feel a way about what is and isn't possible in a so-called "liberal democracy." The simple truth is that the world does not work the way we have all been led to believe, and perhaps more importantly, trained to uphold. Capitalism is not an economic system; it's a hierarchal social order, an ideological prison, and (particularly as expressed in the Anglo-American sphere of influence) a predatory cult. The extraction of wealth from the underclasses, at bayonet point if necessary, is not only the driving force of the last five centuries (and counting) of Pig Empire history, but maintaining, strengthening and obfuscating that primitive accumulation through legalized violence, is ultimately the very reason most "liberal democratic" institutions exist in the first place; from media and politics, to policing and the military. 

Does that sound like a conspiracy theory to you? Well let me inform you that it's a simplified Marxist historiographic analysis of modern society, but the fact your brain immediately told you to question my sanity demonstrates the effectiveness of the explicitly capitalist propaganda model that utterly dominates our educational and media environments - does it not? “All that is solid melts into air,” indeed.

So I'm starting a journal, because there are some things I still need to say and don't feel I can express any other way. I'm starting it because there are some nights that I'm just too damn broken and tired to keep proving basic Marxist analysis is not a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to folks who genuinely want to believe you can topple capitalism at the ballot box. And I’m starting it because I still don't know how to tell you the world is a fucking vampire in the proper Oxford vernacular. As it turns out, life during wartime is no place for meticulous footnotes.

This irregular feature won't replace my regular writing, but given that I'm currently stone incapable of engaging with polite fictions and necessary illusions, it is a vital activity for the preservation of my sanity; if not other's perceptions of the same. If I'm lucky, we'll never do this again; but given that the other option is literally staring at a blank page with tears of frustration welling in my eyes for what feels like the fifth consecutive night, I assumed readers would prefer my emo ravings to continued radio silence.

Additional Reading:

Manufacturing Consent – Chomsky, Herman – Review – Margin Notes

Necessary Illusions – Noam Chomsky – Review 

Political Mind Games – Roy Eidelson – Review – Margin Notes

History as Mystery – Michael Parenti – Review  

Inventing Reality – Michael Parenti – Review – Margin Notes

Propaganda, Inc – Nancy Snow – Review 

Debt: the First 5,000 Years – David Graeber – Review 

A Brief History of Neoliberalism – David Harvey – Review 

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

[cathkaesque]

Given that the Tories have still won a majority despite several days of trying to remove my mind from my body, I bring Discourse. Please let me know if it is nonsense/unclear because I am quite tired.

A lot of commentators have been pinning the loss of working class heartlands to the Tories on Labour’s left turn, but this is a process that was already ongoing before this. People in these areas have been promised the world by Labour MPs over and over again, who’ve then gone on to betray their trust over and over again. People are sick of technocratic politics and being told they should be grateful for the screwing over they’re about to receive from Blairite MPs and councillors. Corbyn’s leadership was the last chance to rescue the party from the fate that has fallen most other social democratic parties in Europe, but ultimately I don’t think it has. Instead, the problem lies in some of the fundamental tenets of Labour’s political approach.

Labour’s fundamental ideology is based on a redistribution of wealth towards public services and welfare mediated in parliament by a Labour government. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s an ideology that gives Labour a paternalistic and managerial edge. It is an ideology that doesn’t see working class people as subjects, but rather vulnerable victims that need public support. Labour see no agency for anyone asides from parliamentary repesentatives, who are saviours of a poor and defeated working class.

It also means that social democrats are unwilling to upset or disrupt the existing capitalist economy, but rather manage it. They wish to see a greater share of the profits of capitalism go towards ameliorating poverty and improving public services. This however means Labour’s room for maneuver is dependent on the profitability of the capitalist economy and what the system allows for. When the system does not any room for maneuver, such as council cuts mandated by central government, Labour councillors offer nothing but apologies and brutal enforcement.

They also see austerity as political choice and not an economic necessity. While this is true to an extent, it is wrong to see austerity as an ideological ploy by the Tory Party, which is different and separate from the motions of the capitalist economy. Austerity doesn’t come from capitalism, but from Tory mismanagement - if the system was managed rationally by Labour, there would be no need for this unnecessary austerity. Their plan is ultimately to rescue capitalism from itself.

Austerity is a political choice, but it’s the political choice to continue an economic system that demands austerity in times of crisis. What happens when the system goes into crisis under their management? What happens when stock market financiers spirit their money out of the country, orchestrate a run on the pound to sabotage their taxation plans? Their economic programme depends on the cooperation and continued health of British capitalism and that’s something they won’t get.

SYRIZA faced a similar dilemma. They thought that the EU’s austerity was economically irrational and that the system would relax if Yanis Varoufakis explained to them otherwise. But that wasn’t the case - revenue from Greek privatisations and debt payoffs were a major source of profit for German and French banks still reeling from the 2008 crash, and if Greece was allowed relief from austerity it would question many of the fundamentals of the European project (if Greece got relief from austerity, why shouldn’t all the other 26 memberstates who have been subject to an Excessive Debt Procedure?). When the EU said no, the only other way to end austerity would have been to crash out and completely reorganise the Greek economy, something that SYRIZA was not prepared to do, politically or practically, so they capitulated. Should Labour come to power in the middle of an economic crisis, where the leftover profits for more nurses and reversing cuts have vanished, we would probably face a SYRIZA style capitulation.

Corbyn’s leadership was a genuine opportunity to change this style of politics and I think in 2017 it was a very different kind of leadership with a large base in a vibrant anti-austerity movement. But since then the Corbyn leadership largely adopted everything that was wrong with the Labour approach to politics, namely an obsession with parliamentary games and electioneering which has lead them to take shortcuts and abandon their bases of support. The 2017 election brought them within an inch of power, and they have spent the last 2 years immersing themselves in trying to win just a few more seats to get themselves. The fruit of this opportunism has been extreme political inconsistency.

The flip flop on Brexit is the perfect example of this - Corbynites have taken these areas for granted, thinking they can win them over by promising them economic concessions, while trying to woo middle class voters in Tory constituencies through promising a second referendum. Living in a London bubble, surrounded by middle class remainers, they were completely removed from the reality in deindustrialised areas.

It was perfectly possible to put forward a left wing case for leaving the EU, and by doing so Labour would have been able to shape the kind of Brexit that took place. It could have been a debate where every aspect of the UK’s economic structure would have been up for debate. It would have deepened Labour’s radicalism, allowing it to say much more about the way our economy and society is run.  Anger which is being misdirected at migrants could have been redirected towards the system itself and the Conservative plans for Brexit could have been put under scrutiny rather than left as something vague  But that wasn’t a debate the Labour Party was ever capable of waging, and they had never cleared their party out of Blairite representatives more loyal to the management of the system than to winning an election.

When it comes to Brexit, I think it should be understood as something of an electoral riot. A lot of the areas that voted for Brexit have intentionally been left with no means of influencing politics. Industries like the mines and steelworks were destroyed precisely because the unions had the ability to bring down Tory governments in the 1970s. For a lot of the areas that voted for it, they saw it as their chance to actually have a say on something, even if that something is “economically damaging.” It was a chance to through a spanner in the works of the system. And instead of seeing that as a chance to fight that system, Labour, dependent on the success of that system for its plans for more money for the NHS and social services, saw it as a threat to their project.

I think a better way to view socialism is not as a set of policy flavours or something that a Labour government does from above, but something that has to be built from the ground up by the people themselves. Socialism doesn’t come from parliament but it comes from working class people fighting back for themselves, through the construction of community campaigns, self help and mutual aid organisations, workplace unions, tenants unions and through organisation at the base. Socialist progress is a reflection of class struggle. That is not something that Labour can ever really deliver, as any class struggle in working class constituencies would immediately come up against the Labour councillors and politicians who are responsible for and see no alternative cuts to council services.

Fundamentally we need a new kind of political party. Labour is too tied to the system, too concerned about electoral jostling, and is too patronising to deliver what socialists are after. We need a mass working class political party which is dedicated to organising working class areas, to putting forward genuine, local level alternatives to austerity and demanding that politicians fulfill them, which sees politics as way more than just winning elections and position in a parliamentary apparatus that most people see no legitimacy in. Whether Labour, even with its very large membership, could become that is doubtful. But a left split from the party, taking with it the best trade unions and members, could be a worthwhile start.

[drmedicsgamesurgery]

Danganronpa Togami Volume 3 Part 6 (Summary)

Time for more good weirdness.

Thanks to @enoshima-pyon @shockersalvage​ @jinjojess​ @hopeymchope​ for helping out!

CHAPTER 13- The Ascension of K

 1.

 Karel Čapek [0] wrote, "I don't need any masters, I know what I should do."

Franz Kafka [1] wrote, "‘What’s happened to me,’ he thought. It was no dream."

Milan Kundera [2] wrote, "Kafka learned to kill Kafka because of his insistence on deciphering."

Even with losing Borges, I can still quote the words of the Czech writers. As for why, well, that was a good thing to ask K.

 > Go to the city

> Climb the mountain

 Shinobu decides to climb the mountain where the sniper is supposed to be. It’s dangerous, but she believes that it’s not as dangerous as wandering around in the city while being wanted.

She starts climbing the mountain, but with only one eye, it's difficult to estimate the distance between her and the trees so she stumbled upon them several times.

Suddenly she find an open space right before her. There was an old log cabin, which looked like a restaurant, with tables and open air seating. A sign said “Temporarily closed for business”.

An old man stood there. Although it was summer, the old man wore a black hat and a black coat. It might be a bit redundant to say that he was a Westerner. From his sharp blue eyes, she couldn't see anything like sociality and friendliness.

"Have you gotten rid of Borges?" the old man said. "Follow me, Shinobu Togami."

2.

 She follows the old man to his house on the mountain. He hangs his coat and his hat on the coat rack and boils the kettle. Shinobu notes that the place has a low ceiling but the door is big enough not to be claustrophobic, and she sits at a table.

As I watched his movements with the corner of my eye, I watched the tableware placed on the homemade bar and the woodworking tools piled near the doorway. A picture hanging on the wall came into my eyes.

It was a weird painting.

A small animal that looked like a rat with a scary nose, where its nose supported its body like a leg. There was a certain factor in the painting that made it sinister, which caused my interest and anxiety. [3]

The old man, who has beautiful silver hair, puts two cups of coffee on a table and asks Shinobu to sit down and drink. Then he hands her an eyepatch saying her face looks scary with a hole in it.

"I have already understood the situation. That fake’s ‘World Domination Proclamation', even if I don't want to hear it, has been ringing in my ears. Others call me K."

"K?"

"Thirteenth in Latin, the thirteenth in poker."

“Speaking of K, that is the protagonist of “A Hunger Artist”, right?” [4]

K says that is incorrect and is the name of the protagonist from various other stories. Shinobu apologies, but admits to herself she didn’t come across as genuine.

"Forget it, as long as you say it is white, then black can also turn white," the old man who claimed to be called K snorted. "The initial letter of Kafka is also K."

"Are you...?"

"The reason why people call me K is many, but the most common one is KLAMM [5]. In the era of the Czech Republic and the socialist countries, that was what everyone was secretly calling the official of the Secretariat."

"I don't know Czech at all."

"It means 'fraud'."

Shinobu shows him the piece of paper that Hiroyuki gave her. She says that it’s too much of a coincidence that she met K right after getting the note, so she asks who is he.

"So, please, tell me. Who are you? Why do you know me?" asks Shinobu.

"Who are you? If you want to use that question to figure out my career and position, then it is still a little troubling to answer you. If you want to talk about the why, it is because I am an alumnus of Hope’s Peak Academy. I participated in the development of the Bible Plan. That project and later in the participation in the development of Borges with the Togami Family." says K.

When Shinobu brings up the Hasegawa Institute and if he has any relation to the Ketouin Conglomerate, K has no idea what she’s talking about. K goes on to talk about an interview with a writer who was questioned as to why he didn’t go into detail about a character’s past or appearance. His response? 

“'You dare to ask this in front of Kafka? What color is the character's hair, and whether this person's father has money, you should decide it yourself!'"

K delves into what is important or not, is dependant one what one’s worldview is, using several books as an example and asks if what she sees as her reality is different. 

"Enough."

"Enough what?"

"I understand it, all these things. Please don't say these words. This is the right thing, only..."

"Only the reality I see is different, right?"

I have been vaguely aware of it. And now that I think about it, even though others have pointed this out to me again and again, I pretended not to notice it. In order for me to be me, in order for me to be a secretary, I can't admit it. However, after losing Borges and "Journey Under The Midnight Sun" and my identity...now I have that idea in my heart.

Do I want to admit it? 

That Borges, as an irreplaceable right eye, as a vital signpost, that has always been with me...it has been lying to me, in a rather obvious manner. 

In this case, I don't have to be so stubborn. I firmly believe that I am not wrong.

K quietly drank coffee for a while, before suddenly the wrinkles in his eyes trembled and he whispered.

"The cause of this is Borges." he said before continuing. "You use Borges in order to master the situation in this world. It makes the scene you see different from the reality in the eyes of ordinary people."

"I don't understand."

"The writer that I mentioned said that when he translated his work into other languages, he was shocked because the translation was too casual.The French version changed, the English version changed, as for the Spanish version, I heard that the translator didn’t even understand Czech at all. So the question is, how faithful was Borges translation from the original, or to be precise, how shameless was its adaptation of it?”

3.

K explains that he, alongside other graduates, were contacted by Hope’s Peak Academy’s Steering Committee and given an outline of the Bible Plan. After being pressured by the committee, he joined their research team alongside other former Super High School level students who shared similar writing abilities (such the former SHSL Literary Critic, Poet, Writer, Suspense novelist, Children's Literature Writer, Essayist) and was the head of the software department where he collected talent data from the students in the school who had similar abilities. From there, the data is placed into the automatic writing system that was created by the hardware department. Thus, the creation of the Story AI was born.

K then continues on to explain his hand in creating the AI’s method of writing stories program since, as he puts it, it’s like the difference between using AI for novels and chess.

"To let AI play chess, just tell it the rules, let it read the past chess scores. But novels have no rules. If there are no rules, the AI can't write novels. So, as well for 'story data' I also wrote the 'method of writing stories'." says K.

“Don't you let it learn writing skills?” asks Shinobu.

K explains that the meaning of it is different, although it has methods of writing stories, it has many differences in writing technique then just what he fed into the system. He explains what he means by quoting Čapek and Rousseau [6], who all have different styles of writing, logic, techniques and the like. He mentions that Karel Čapek is also a K.

“What you are saying feels a bit complicated.”

“I’ll tell you an analogy. For example, there is such an experiment where a mathematician and a writer live on an uninhabited island. The condition is that the two islands have the same area and have the same problem. They can be escaped the same way. However, at this time, the two people may take completely different actions, and the method of fleeing may be different. Since their occupation is different, there is no common ground for the two people's actions or principles. Thus, as a result, the actions that they take are different."

So, the difference between the actions taken by mathematicians and writers against uninhabited islands serves as the differences in the novel? And that’s the "method of writing stories"? Is that really the case? I doubt very much how much I understand K.

"In any case, the 'Bible Plan' started like this. Then it failed."

"Failed?"

"It takes a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of manpower, and the story generated by AI is not that great. At least this thing can only be judged after I read it with the team members."

“Why would it fail?”

"Of course it would."

“How can you write a story that anyone can recover hope on first reading?”

"You said it yourself so clearly that I don't know what to say..."

"'A life changing book', there is such a saying. Some books can make people immersed in it, and some books can change one's outlook on life. But I want a book that can have an effect on all humans. To get this effect is simply an idiotic dream. To make readers with different ages, genders, nationalities, and political positions have the same opinion after reading, how can such a book be written?"

"So because humans can't write it, so let AI write it?"

"In fact, the Story AI has done a good job. It responds brilliantly to the requirements of human selfishness. However, the result is terrible. The story AI has written a Bible-like thing... a fake Bible. This is also a matter of course. For now, to say which book is the best book that can bring hope to despairing people, a Bible is certainly the best choice."

"What……"

This is true, that's it.

"The 'Bible Plan' shamelessly carried out the biblical reproduction, which is really boring. This is no different from the shameful behavior of other cults around the world. To transcend the Bible, creativity is indispensable, because if there is no creation, then it cannot be broken. It's at the forefront."

"If you don't have the ability to create, you can't write a story."

Shinobu thinks to what Byakuya had said previously, being similar to this. Using the database to write stories is too limiting as it can only create stories similar to the existing story. The essence of creation is indispensable for a truly new story to be born. The story needs originality, as well as ancient and modern writing technique.

Silence. When I was with K, I had a few coffees from time to time and spent a period of speechless time together. My gaze naturally turned to the painting of the small animal hanging on the wall. The animal that stands with a surprisingly small nose should be a fictional animal, but it has eyes, ears, and legs. If a painter with the essence of creation draws something new, I don't think it will be a creature at all. Creation is such greatness, and it is such a deformity, therefore it must be.

K reckons that even though the Bible Plan was frozen, that the rumoured Despair novel was a product created with the same Bible Plan technique, but it’s difficult for him to tell. It’s possible the Story AI may or may not be involved with the Despair Disease, as well.

“Is there someone who supplements it, like someone other than you?”

"It shouldn't be possible, but I have a hypothesis. If it can make it work, it's just as good as the effect that Borges has on you, or maybe not."

"What's the matter?"

"Don't worry, I’ll explain it one by one. Although the 'Bible Plan' is frozen, as a matter of course, the story AI shows a very intriguing tendency."

"That is……"

“With just one story, it can produce different research ideas from multiple different perspectives.”

“Can you please tell me something more straightforward?”

"Do you know the Mona Lisa?"

"Of course I know it."

“Have you actually seen it?”

"No."

"Since you haven’t actually seen it, how can you say that you know it!"

He seemed to be suddenly angry.

"Because there are textbooks or on TV, I can see it whenever I want..."

"Since there it’s in a textbook, who photographed the Mona Lisa with a camera? Since it is on the TV, who recorded it with video? This is what the story AI can do. Do you understand?"

"I don’t understand."

"Because we are not Da Vinci, it is impossible for us to draw the Mona Lisa in principle. However, we can create the back or the lower body of the Mona Lisa, we can use Mona Lisa's portrait data for use in collage art creation, or writing about the Mona Lisa in a woman's novel. In fact, there are such works of art and books. According to this current statement, it’s secondary creation... Combining or deriving something from that work."

"Secondary creation?" [7]

Suddenly a modern vocabulary emerged, and I was somewhat unprepared.

“The Story AI has become an expert in 'fiction techniques'. Although there are no rules in the novel, there are some things that are customary. It must show the characters, tell the background, and let the plot blend into the historical situation. It must be empty when the scene is converted. Lines, must be numbered, must add a new description, new description texts..."

Shinobu thinks that this premise is too big, which justs makes K more upset that she doesn’t understand. He uses examples of various authors which all come to the main point that while you think these books would be based in realism because they are about real events and real people, but they also have the freedom to blend in things like jokes which never happened at the real event, only added later. He also talks about how many of these realist authors too have a K in their name.

"Hey, although the tangent you are talking about is very interesting, can we get back to the main focus of topic?" Shinobu cuts in.

"This is also the topic, but forget it," K nearly retching said, using his coffee to moisten his throat. "We let the Story AI swallow a lot of data, and as a result, it has the kind of tendency I just stated prior... For a story, it can produce different research ideas from multiple different perspectives... We did an experiment on it. Do you know Metamorphosis?" [8]

"I’ve read it."

K explains that by feeding the story Metamorphosis to the Story AI, that it was able to study that data, and then write many different versions of the story with many different and altered scenarios. It even created stage play and comic book versions as well. Shinobu sounds like it became a light novelist who specializes in Metamorphosis. 

"It wasn’t only limited to "Metamorphosis", even if other works of other writers are given to it, it can also be used for secondary creation and writing fake books. We named the story AI “the K2K system” and decided to let it evolve on its own."

"The K2K system." [9]

It seems that the letter K also appears here, two of them even.

"The Bible Plan ran out of funding, but even so we didn’t think failure was important. We were obsessed with the K2K system and even developed up to version 2.3.[9] The K2K system began writing and kept writing, it turned into a writing a machine, a writing robot."

K's words made me feel shocked. I am a writing machine, a word puppet, just a note-taking tool for writing "Journey Under The Midnight Sun". Now, after losing Borges and "Journey Under The Midnight Sun", can I still be so sure of myself?

K continues by saying that the word robot was developed in Czech as forced labour, which was widely known at the time due to Čapek’s writings. He states that propositions like robots gaining the same dignity as humans is dying due to the fact of what the K2K systems can manufacture. Basically, because the K2K system can now go beyond human authors, they will have a sense of crisis in their own dignity as writers. Shinobu says that it would be fairly unbearable if robots were to really take over the artform.

K says "However, this is the reality. In this way, after becoming the perfect pen machine, the K2K system soon triggered an incident. It destroyed a person in the research team."

4.

 It created interference, K says.

"“This book changed my life.” One of the people in the group collapsed after seeing it as required."

"Is that person dead?"

"From that point of view, the opposite is true. That person has become a murderer."

“Wait, you just said interference, right."

"Oh."

"So what you are saying is the Story AI... the K2K system can write something that affects human thoughts, but the 'Bible Plan' has not been successful?"

"In the end, it was just interference with an individual. Didn't I just say it, 'This book changed my life', not 'our lives'. The K2K system wrote a story for that person."

"Does the K2K system have the will to do this kind of thing?"

"The K2K system has no will. Even if there is no will, AI ​​can get a car to a destination, and you can talk to AI ​​on the phone. Now in schools, AI has become the secretary of most people. It can recommend things to you, a book you'd like, help you pick the hotel you want to stay in, and tell you the symptoms of your sickness. It can also give you the most suitable medicine. The K2K system is no different from that, just that it mechanically makes a 'recommended book for you'. However, its destructive power is enormous, just like recommending "The Sorrows of Young Werther" [10] to a person who is troubled by love."

Not long ago, I couldn't do anything without Borges, but this interpretation made me feel scared. Among the things recommended by AI, if something intense and full of charm has the ability to destroy the human spirit, can I refuse it at that time? No, maybe I have already seen it before I even noticed it.

"Because that person took the data, what kind of story he saw was unknown, but only from the results, that person became a murderer. Nearly half of the research team was killed, and because of this After the storm, Hope’s Peak Academy learned about the existence of the K2K system. After understanding the situation, the steering committee intended to freeze the entire K2K system, and we took it away, because after the data was separated from it, the capacity of a disk was enough to accommodate, the system is always as simple as possible."

"Then there is actually no K2K system in the school, right?"

"Because we are also worried that the steering committee would use it for other purposes. That school was like this before, they can't be trusted at all."

"Then Despair High School grabbed it from the team members who fled with the K2K system..."

"I have never heard of a stupid organization with that name, but I don't rule out this possibility. There is also one possibility that is the most terrible. I also said that the research group of the 'Bible Plan' had data from many super high school level students. If these people are trying to take their talents, it would be easy to embark on the path to evil."

"Used to do evil, huh?"

"They probably don't think it's evil at all."

It may be that someone leaked the K2K system to Despair High School. Although I am very reluctant to think so, it is not impossible to see that the current "Despair Novel" has actually spread throughout the world. We may face countless enemies. This kind of uneasiness makes a chill crawl up my spine.

"Listen to what I say next and then tremble."

K's blue eyes turned to my right half of the face, so I noticed that the topic finally turned to this point.

 "I was trying to hide Borges and finally found a suitable vault. That is you, Shinobu Togami." K said, "Borges is controlled by the K2K System."

 Translation Notes:

[0] Karel Čapek was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel War with the Newts (1936) and play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920), which introduced the word robot. He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism, he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe.

[1] Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those found in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the capital of the Czech Republic.

[2] Milan Kundera is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera’s Czech citizenship was revoked in 1979 and was not restored until 2019. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in bookstores". He is known for his beautiful silver hair and blue eyes, which contrast the black outfits he enjoys wearing. As of 2020, he is the only author mentioned in Danganronpa to be still alive. Whether or not you understand what I am saying, well i guess is up for interpretation. 

[3] If you are a fan of the other Danganronpa spin-offs you should know exactly where this is going. If not, I highly recommend reading Kirigiri Sou before the next part releases. Link can be found here.

[4] "A Hunger Artist" (German: "Ein Hungerkünstler") is a short story by Franz Kafka first published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), the last book Kafka prepared for publication, printed by Verlag Die Schmiede after Kafka's death. The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation of his craft, is typically Kafkaesque: an individual marginalized and victimized by society at large. "A Hunger Artist" explores themes such as death, art, isolation, asceticism, spiritual poverty, futility, personal failure and the corruption of human relationships. The title of the story has been translated also to "A Fasting Artist" and "A Starvation Artist". 

[5] KLAMM refers to the short story by Kafka “The Castle”. The german title Das Schloss may be translated as "the castle" or "the palace", but the German word is a homonym that can also refer to a lock. It is also phonetically close to der Schluss ("conclusion" or "end"). The castle is locked and closed to K (The protagonist of the Castle, whose name is K). and the townspeople; neither can gain access. The name of the character Klamm is similar to "Klammer" in German, which means "clip, brace, peg, fastener" and may hold a double meaning; for Klamm is essentially the lock that locks away the secrets of the Castle and the salvation of K. In ordinary usage, "klamm" is an adjective that denotes a combination of dampness and chill and can be used in reference both to weather and clothing, which inscribes a sense of unease into the main character's name. In Czech, "klam" means delusion, deceit. 

[6] Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought. 

[7] “Secondary creation” is not a term commonly used in copyright jurisprudence and it is difficult to ascertain its actual coverage. For instance, there are views suggesting that “secondary creation” should include translations and adaptations, or should be treated as “derivative works”. However, the concepts of translation and adaptation, both being derivative works, are clear under international copyright treaties and copyright laws in different jurisdictions. In particular, the owner of the copyright in a work has the exclusive right to make a translation or an adaptation of the same. Although there may be original elements in the later work itself, it may not be appropriate to take this as the sole basis in considering any copyright exception.The provision of a copyright exception solely based on the rather ambiguous concept of “secondary creation” may blur the line between infringing and non-infringing works, create uncertainty and increase opportunities for abuse.

[8] The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect (German ungeheures Ungeziefer, literally "monstrous vermin"), subsequently struggling to adjust to this new condition. The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered. 

[9] Yep, so this is what is speaking to “the reader” during the books openings, and that one interlude. Not Yuya Sato. So suck it TV Tropes and your bullshit misinformation.

[10] The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a loosely autobiographical epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. A revised edition followed in 1787. It was one of the most important novels in the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement. Goethe, aged 24 at the time, finished Werther in five-and-a-half weeks of intensive writing in January–March 1774. The book's publication instantly placed the author among the foremost international literary celebrities, and was among the best known of his works. It is written in the form of Letters, and is basically a depressing love story.

 To be continued.

https://drmedicsgamesurgery.tumblr.com/GameSurgeryDRTranslations

[elopez7228]

Scenic Route 42/47

”Read on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268208/chapters/43229774

Start over : https://elopez7228.tumblr.com/post/620919089893933056/scenic-route-0147

***

The week had been a nightmare for Phasma, who retired to bed with a terrible migraine. It was Tuesday, July 9th.

The last few days had been spent hunting down the mole (or moles) that Hux suspected were operating within FORCE. She’d started by firing trainees and interns, as well as all temporary contract workers. Then it was time to cast a wider net: which employees were most likely to sell confidential information to the enemy? Obviously, employees with two things, access and incentive.

Which departments had access to sensitive files? Legal and Accounting came to mind, as well as the Sales and Marketing departments, to a lesser extent. And of course there were employees who had access by overriding authorization—IT, computer scientists, developers, and certain engineers. Now it became a game of duck duck goose to see who had the guts and the ideological motivation to betray FORCE.

To that end, Phasma spent hours knee-deep in social networks and company email servers tracking various conversations and file uploads. Her goal was to find the right circle—employees who were passionate about leftist political causes, social activism, and global warming. She made a folder for everyone at FORCE with a left-wing bent: registered Democrats, Socialists, 99-percenters, Women’s March organizers, pro-choicers, anti-NRAs, vegetarians, vegans, anti-capitalists, social justice warriors, queers and their allies, first and second generation immigrants, Native Americans, non-Christians and atheists...the list was endless.

Eons later, she had a beautifully organized database that was split between mostly-Republican WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) and...practically everyone else. Finally, she had a place to begin digging deeper.

To start, she sent a discreet memo to the potential allies in the first group.

“Following a confidential data leak within the company, we are offering rewards to those who report suspicious behavior. Examples include reporting on colleagues who work abnormally late, finish tasks later than expected, take frequent private calls or smoke breaks, or appear “burned out”. Signs of burnout can include excessive  fatigue, high caffeine consumption, dress code violations such as coming to work with dirty or disheveled clothing, and falling asleep during work hours. We also encourage you to report anyone with obvious signs of mental distress such as nail biting or other nervous tics, excessive smoking or drinking, and aggressive or depressive episodes.”

The memo she sent to the second group of potential suspects was decidedly different.

"The resale of critical business information by an unidentified employee has endangered the well-being of the company. Due to the financial implications of such a large data breach, management is considering immediately eliminating optional employee benefits. Funding for mandatory employee benefits such as health insurance will likely be reduced but not entirely eliminated over the next three months. A wave of necessary layoffs is also being discussed. The only way to prevent the above losses is to mitigate the damage of the data breach. We encourage you to reach out to your supervisor with any relevant information.”

Barely a day later, she had collected all sorts of useful information. Hell, she made a note to follow up with HR. The company was always rife with competition but she hadn’t expected to collect this much dirt on so many other issues. Still, her preliminary results led to one department in particular: IT.

The IT department was a strange conundrum. Half a dozen people had the level of access she was looking for—senior engineers who reported directly to Snoke and Hux, the holiest of the holy. But all of them were Category One WASPs. Why would any of them need to sell secrets to the enemy? The reasons were most likely financial instead of political. Loans, medical debt, kids to send to college, etcetera. She created a separate task force to peel back their personal lives and follow them around the clock.

She smiled. Finally, the Knights of Phasma. No wonder Kylo Ren had such a massive ego, pompous ass that he was.

It proved to be a largely fruitless task. Her agents found no evidence of both access to sensitive information and financial woes in any of the employees’ lives. If anything, their existence was frighteningly monotonous.

That finding narrowed down her list of suspects in IT to one. One Galen Erso, who had been reported by several of his coworkers for insomnia, irritability, moodswings, and borderline paranoia. It was a recurring issue with his supervisors. The man fit the description of train wreck to a tee.

A full background check revealed that he had severely underplayed his technical abilities when he was interviewed. Although he was currently a network engineer, he had enjoyed a long and successful stint as a freelance white-hat hacker, defying some of the toughest corporate security systems and even appearing on the cover of WIRED Magazine. Unsurprisingly, his transition to a salaried job came shortly after the birth of his first child. He didn’t do very much hacking after that, probably embracing the 9-to-5 life to provide a stable means of income for his family. Phasma marked his file with a red sticky note.

She had another suspect, an older woman named Mara Jade who had been radicalized since the last election. Apparently she had participated in all the protests that followed, suddenly posting a steady stream of “urgent climate action” content to her Twitter account. She was a legal assistant with access to several sealed case files. This called for another red sticker.

The tall woman sprayed her face with cool water, observing her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. She had two suspects, out of thousands of employees. What if her instincts were wrong? What if she had overlooked better leads? She only had a few days to carry out this massive task...if she wasn’t careful—or worse, if  the whistleblower got away—Earth Soldiers would be one step closer to winning this trial.

Galen Erso's professional background check had put her on edge. If this guy was a genuine professional hacker, how could she be sure that he wasn’t spying on the contents of her computer as soon as she logged on? He was also a network engineer, after all.

In doubt, she had printed hard copies of all the available information and reimaged her laptop.

The computer now sat uselessly on her nightstand. She didn't dare turn it on again. Yet she continued to check emails from her phone. What difference was there? Could she still be monitored? She would have had to ask the head of network security...Galen Erso. No, she wasn’t about to do that.

In her bag, she carried an unmarked leather folder containing the results of her investigation. She was going to deliver it to Armitage Hux with her own hands, and have Jade and Erso arrested. Both would be under close surveillance until the trial ended. They would have no contact with the outside world, interrogated if necessary. They would crack one way or another.

The most infuriating part of Phasma’s job was driving all the way to Bozeman and back  to retrieve Skylar Ren. Did they really think it was a better idea to waste her time than to have the moron hike for a few miles and take a cab? It took her over fifteen hours to get there, pick up his sorry ass and slap his stupid face, and then another fifteen or so to get back. Almost two days down the drain.

At least they were sure he was a mole. A pathetic loner who wanted to fill his own bank account through blackmail. He made the fatal mistake of biting the hand that fed him. The last she heard, he was somewhere in FORCE’s underground compound, where Hux had no doubt sent someone to take care of him.

Barely able to sleep, Phasma grabbed the suspect folder and emptied its contents on to her duvet. Her fingers slid over the hundreds of pages of emails, photographs and testimonies that she had carefully collected and printed.

She was supposed to report her findings to Hux the next morning, in person. It was too sensitive to do over the phone. She had an appointment in his office at 8 AM sharp.

Ding.

It took a few seconds for her to realize that it wasn't her phone. It was the front door.

At 11 PM?

Heart pounding, she grabbed the handgun that she kept under her pillow, her bare feet cautiously approaching the door. Silently, she glanced through the peephole.

It was Kylo Ren.