#his stance although subtle is kind of clear especially with how often he checks on aven

[gemkun]

@defiedlife said : [ FORTY-FOUR ] : “ i don’t know what about this scares you so much. ” — Aven @ Ratio ↬ * [  DIALOGUE PROMPTS  ] :  feelings are complicated. 

      ⸻       glowering   past   documents   ,   wine   carves   to   the   director   —   responsible   for   these   abhorrent   outlines.   his   gaze   alone   ,   should   communicate   the   opinion   he   possesses   ,   towards   the   elaborate   ,   yet   ,   appalling   scheme   ,   but   it   appears   someone   wishes   to   play   the   fool.

  with   a   flick   of   a   wrist   ,   pages   straighten   ,   enabling   the   scholar   to   return   proposals   to   their   respective   desk   ,   in   a   neat   pile.   unveiling   his   disposition   for   the   strategist   to   see   in   all   its   glamour.   one   that   bores   ,   piercing   past   a   sculpted   character   ,   in   search   of   the   truth.   locked   behind   the   namesake   of   one   of   the   suits   in   his   deck   of   cards.

  ❝   you   don’t   know   ?   ❞   he   echoes.   intending   on   omitting   personal   factors   ,   his   attempt   falls   short   ,   and   irritation   broadcasts   in   his   gritted   question.   though   ,   how   can   he   steel   himself   ,   when   the   method   is   so   .   .   .   utterly   ,   outrageous.   it   is   equivalent   to   putting   himself   in   the   line   of   fire   (   as   he   already   so   imprudently   did   )   ,   no   —   it   is   a   suicide   mission.

  quite   literally.

  leaning   ,   his   fist   cushions   into   the   papers.   having   willed   himself   —   deterring   from   colliding   against   them   instead.   ❝   to   expect   me   to   go   ahead   with   this   .   .   .   gamble.   ❞   perhaps   ,   physically   ,   he   exercises   restraint   ,   but   when   it   comes   to   his   intonation   ,   he   is   anything   but   the   picture   of   serenity.   ❝   even   for   you   ,   this   is   unreasonable.   ❞   digits   splay   then   ,   pressing   to   material   beneath   before   he   alights   ,   with   only   one   idea   in   mind   :   to   dissuade   his   stubborn   partner.

  he   stalks   to   him   ,   on   instinct   ,   until   he   stands   and   towers.   but   not   to   intimidate.

  never   to   intimidate.

  ❝   there   must   be   another   way   —   we   still   have   approximately   seven   system   hours   to   construct   a   new   plan.   what   other   strategies   did   you   discuss   with   the   others   ?   tell   me   ,   i   may   be   able   to   piece   together   something.   ❞   narrowed   ,   he   drills   his   stance   into   dual   —   toned   irises.   past   the   accessories   that   sit   on   the   bridge   of   his   nose   ,   framing   the   man   with   his   foot   in   death’s   door.   ❝   you   had   best   comply   ,   or   else   you   will   be   conducting   this   task   alone.   ❞

[foreverlogical]

“LEARN THE TRUTH,” President Donald Trump’s campaign declared in a Facebook ad that launched last week. “Joe Biden PROMISED Ukraine $1 BILLION DOLLARS if they fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company.” Facebook users were outraged: “What Biden did is what Congress should be investigating,” one wrote. “Killary/Biden/Obama and their dealings for self enrichment needs to be thoroughly investigated,” added another. “Truth/facts are all that matter.”

The premise of the still-active ad is false: There’s no evidence that Trump’s potential 2020 presidential rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general for reasons relating to his son Hunter Biden.

But facts like that aren’t important — at least not to Facebook.

Late last month, as Democrats announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump over his own dealings with Ukraine, Facebook quietly tweaked the language of its misinformation policy, effectively giving political advertisers a public green light to spread blatant lies. Trump’s team, which has since been pumping big money into a barrage of Facebook ads urging people to donate to his “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force,” is doing just that: A number of its latest ads have featured calculated falsehoods — the kind that are designed to provoke people to click “Share” and pull out their wallets.

The strategy seems to be working. Over the past couple of weeks, the Trump campaign has welcomed a flood of new donors helping to bring in millions of dollars, and Trump’s approval rating recently reached its highest level this year.

“Facebook is the president’s platform of choice for advertising. His supporters are very much on Facebook, and his campaign has spent so much money trying to rally his base to defend him,” said Kyle Tharp, communications director of Acronym, a progressive digital political strategy organization. “It’s the M.O. of the Trump campaign to capitalize on these big, cultural breaking news moments for its own financial gain.”

Fake News Welcome

Until recently, Facebook’s misinformation policy page stated that ads with “deceptive, false, or misleading content” were prohibited, but the page has since been updated to state that only ads featuring “claims debunked by third-party fact checkers” are prohibited, as first reported by journalist Judd Legum in his newsletter Popular Info.

It’s a subtle but important distinction that now makes clear a loophole for politicians, as Facebook “exempts politicians from our third-party fact-checking program,” per the site’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg (a former politician). “We don’t believe that it’s an appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny.”

Essentially, politicians can officially lie to voters with impunity in paid ads on one of the world’s largest advertising platforms.

“By profiting off politicians selling false statements to the public, Facebook is complicit in the erosion of our civic health, discourse and democracy,” Gaurav Laroia, senior policy counsel at Free Press, said in a statement. “The company should show some courage and stand up for the truth — at least in its advertising policies.”

According to Facebook, its stance on misinformation in political ads is nothing new. The company maintains it has long sold ads to politicians without holding them to a standard of truth, and that it recently updated the language of its policy to make this clear.

Although regulations for ads in newspapers and broadcast media are often poorly enforced, news outlets have pushed back against ads containing fake news: CNN recently refused to air two of Trump’s campaign ads, including one that the network said “makes assertions that have been proven demonstrably false by various news outlets.” And, unlike some Facebook ads, those featured in newspapers and on television and radio are subject to public scrutiny by journalists and others.

Micro-targeted Facebook ads, or “dark ads,” which are tailored for specific audiences, can escape such scrutiny because they’re not always visible to or accessible by the general public. Facebook rolled out a searchable library of ads to address concerns surrounding transparency this year, but the library includes limited information, and researchers and reporters have criticized it for being incomplete. And, as the 2016 election demonstrated, print and broadcast advertising have slipped behind the remarkable reach and impact of their digital counterpart. Facebook in particular played an extraordinary role in Trump’s victory that year, in large part by housing covert disinformation campaigns by Russian operatives and by allowing Trump’s team to engage in micro-targeting and voter suppression tactics.

The Trump campaign has long used “misleading, false and defamatory” messaging in its political communications with voters, both online and offline, Tharp said. But now, with Facebook’s public blessing and an unparalleled investment in impeachment-related ads on the 2-billion-user platform, the gloves are officially off.

“The way that Facebook prioritizes content delivery makes it so that inflammatory content really works,” Tharp noted. “It spreads like wildfire on the site.”

Unbridled Propaganda — And Ad Revenue

Facebook has had a consistently troubled relationship with the truth. Despite its repeated vows to crack down on fake news, the company has maintained that demonstrably false content is not necessarily subject to deletion on its platform. Earlier this year, it let a video that was maliciously edited to make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seem drunk go viral under its watch.

Trump’s deceptive attack ad against Biden — which is one of multiple anti-impeachment ads the Trump campaign bought to push false narratives about the former vice president — was debunked by at least two Facebook-approved fact-checkers (this was done independently from Facebook’s fact-checking program, however, which does not apply to politicians). The ad has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on the site while Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, celebrates an influx of donations.

Facebook did take down an earlier version of that ad — not because it was peddling a flagrant lie but because it contained a transcription of Biden saying the phrase “son of a bitch,” which violates Facebook’s ad policy against profanity. (The new version of the ad censors the text to say “b*tch.”)

Facebook’s rising dominance as a news source also lends legitimacy to the ads it hosts, even though advertisers have been relieved of any obligation to accuracy. Sixty-seven percent of its users are exposed to news on the platform, and 43% use it to seek news out, according to a Pew Research Center study published last year.

The company’s policy to accept politicians’ money for ads promoting fake news is especially beneficial for Trump: He’s a master at spreading lies to benefit himself politically, and his presidency has demonstrated just how vulnerable American democracy is to disinformation on Facebook. The platform provides an ideal environment for incendiary, clickbait falsehoods by rewarding them with unwavering impunity.

By paying Facebook millions of dollars to run an onslaught of anti-impeachment ads — including ones promoting blatant lies — Trump’s campaign “has been able to really adeptly take advantage of [the impeachment news] for fundraising purposes,” said Tharp. “This election is going to be one in the margins, and whoever can really engage their base is going to have the advantage.”

[mllemaenad]

How to make a slave class: an essay on evil

Hawke: Why does Meredith have a Tranquil assistant?

Anders: She flaunts what she can do to mages. She likes to rub our faces in it.

Elsa: The knight-commander believes Tranquil mages to be efficient and single-minded. I, in particular, am extremely organised.

It is insidious. It is vile. It is the work of centuries. The Chantry has created a class of utter non-persons, whom even their fellow prisoners in the Circles of Thedas do not think to defend.

Look at Anders, here. In Dragon Age 2, Anders is the voice of mage freedom. There are others in the world, of course: Fiona has been fighting for her people for some time, and the Resolutionists are out there – somewhere – striving to break free of the Chantry. But they’re not here now, in Hawke’s story. Here, Anders is the one who reminds Hawke and the player of the suffering in the Gallows, and that it is not just in the Gallows: in Circles all over the continent, many mages suffer as the Kirkwall ones do, if not quite so publicly and with such startling frequency.

But here? He does not talk to Elsa. He does not engage with her. He talks about her to Hawke, and he makes it clear that he regards her position as both a threat and an insult to the mages. He’s probably right. Meredith is like that.

Elsa is not a person to Anders. She is, at best, a walking corpse – the shadow of whoever she used to be. At worst she is a psychological weapon, who can do nothing but harm the survivors in the Gallows: those mages who have not yet been given the brand. Anders has given up on Elsa.

And that’s exactly what the bastards want.

The Tranquil are the least understood but most visible members of the Circle. Every city of respectable size boasts a Circle of Magi shop, and every one of these shops is run by a Tranquil proprietor.

The name is a misnomer, for they are not tranquil at all; rather, they are like inanimate objects that speak. If a table wished to sell you an enchanted penknife, it could pass as one of these people. Their eyes are expressionless, their voices monotone. Incomparable craftsmen they might be, but they are hardly the sort of mages to put ordinary folk at ease.

– In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of A Chantry Scholar

Genitivi is undeniably among the less hostile Chantry scholars. While certainly true to his faith, he tries to be aware of his biases and his interest in other cultures is genuine. Nevertheless, he is a product of Chantry indoctrination. Look how easily, how comfortably, he assures you that the Tranquil are not people. They are not humans or elves. They are furniture, to be used and discarded.

Genitivi’s books are popular: there’s a reason he pops up so often in the Codex. Think of all the people who read this, and then ignored bruises they saw on Tranquil faces, ignored Tranquil voices that described beatings and other abuse. Think of the ones who went further – who understood that peasants, elves and mages might be lowly people, but if cornered they might still fight back ... but that the Tranquil would not. And really, if you break a table you can just get a new one.

The Templars gathered you for your Harrowing in the middle of the night, without warning. Succeed at the test and you were a mage in full. Fail and you were dead. If you refused the test, you were put through the Rite of Tranquillity and rendered an emotionless neuter. It was a preferable fate for some, but Rhys found that hard to believe – he couldn’t get near a Tranquil without shuddering. He would rather be dead than spend the rest of his life looking at the world through those dead eyes.

– Dragon Age: Asunder

The amount of terror and loathing the Circle has instilled in mages for the Tranquil is appalling. Consider Rhys’s word choice here: emotionless neuter,  shuddering, dead eyes. He is afraid of the Tranquil, yes, but they also disgust him. They symbolise failure and hopelessness to him. In theory, a mage’s greatest fear is becoming possessed by demons. But in practice, they mostly fear being made Tranquil.

Imagine being an apprentice mage. Say – eighteen or nineteen. You’re anxious perhaps, or not especially skilled at magic. You don’t want to fight anything, and your teachers and your fellow apprentices do nothing but remind you, whether they mean to or not, that your Harrowing must come soon ... and you’re not going to make it.

So when the Templars come, you tell them no. You won’t take this terrible, mysterious test of theirs. They can’t make you. And no – they really can’t. So they drag you away to wherever they keep that lyrium brand of theirs, and they do what they do with it.

And when it’s done, you have no friends. No one wants to look at you. Any friend you had among the apprentices will shy away, sickened and horrified: they know that any day now, they might be mutilated like you. No one wants to talk to you. No one wants to hear about what you do – or what has been done to you. But it doesn’t matter, right? You’re just furniture now. Nothing could possibly be wrong with you. Even if you are a bit battered around the edges, it couldn’t bother you any more than a dent would bother a table.

Avexis, in Haven, says she would not accept the cure for Tranquillity because she does not believe she would survive it, given the terrible things that have happened to her while Tranquil. This young elven woman was once perhaps the most visible mage in Thedas (I mean, talking to dragons is pretty noticeable) and the Right Hand of the Divine should have had an eye on her. But she was made Tranquil, and no one noticed her enough to even stop people hurting her. In Inquisition she isn’t even named; you have to infer her identity from her damn ambient dialogue. The girl who could talk to dragons is rendered invisible by her Tranquillity.

It is even dubious whether Tranquil actually count as mages. Certainly the official stance seems to be yes:

The Tranquil, ironically, resemble sleepwalkers, never entirely awake nor asleep. They are still part of our Circle, however, and some might say they are the most critical part. They have incredible powers of concentration, for it is simply impossible to distract a Tranquil mage, and this makes them capable of becoming craftsmen of such skill that they rival even the adeptness of the dwarves. The Formari, the branch of the Circle devoted to item enchantment, is made up exclusively of Tranquil, and is the source of all the wealth that sustains our towers.

– On Tranquillity and the Role of the Fade in Human Society

... but the general feeling seems to be no:

“Yet here I am. Ask yourself which possibility is more likely.” It chuckled at her grim expression. “Ah, yes. If the Rite of Tranquillity can be undone, Templars would have to watch over the Tranquil as well as the mages. Suddenly no one is safe.”

The commons was crowded, just as Adrian had often seen it before. People stood in clumps, speaking of things in calm whispers. None of them were mages, however. They were all Tranquil. All of them.

– Dragon Age: Asunder

Notably, waaaay up at the top of this post, Elsa takes a stand on this: Tranquil mages, she says. It’s a subtle rebuke and I doubt Anders picks it up, but it’s there. She is a mage, and she is of the Circle. And right now she’s facing the possibility of an Annulment just like everyone else.

Mages are stateless persons: they are Chantry wards, and may be transferred between Circles without their consent. No government has the right to protect its mage citizens – although some do try. But the Tranquil don’t belong even among mages. Damn near no one is listening to the mages’ cries for help – but no one can even grasp that a Tranquil might ever need help.

So, we have established that the Tranquil are people to whom you can do anything, and it doesn’t matter because they won’t feel it anyway. But it does not follow from there that they will do anything:

Ser Alrik: That’s right. Once you’re Tranquil you’ll do anything I ask.

This is the Chantry’s great lie. If the Chantry has said a thing is true, triple check it to be sure – because most of what they say is an ugly lie. They have said these people are furniture to prevent you from appreciating that they’re slaves. Pharamond is quite vehement in his insistence that the Tranquil sometimes do things because they think they’re a good idea:

“The Tranquil do nothing they’re not asked to.”

“That’s not true! We have free will. We just ... desire nothing, we strive for nothing.”

– Dragon Age: Asunder

There is no denying that Tranquillity changes the way the mind works. But if part one of this plan is creating invisible non-persons, part two is then using that invisibility to force them to do your bidding. Let’s consider Karl Thekla:

Karl: I was too rebellious. Like you. The Templars knew I had to be ... made an example of.

We’ll probably never know exactly why Karl betrayed Anders. He simply isn’t around long enough for anyone to talk about it properly. And the Tranquillity itself is clearly a part of it: Karl is distressed by that state, and regards it as a kind of torture in itself. But when he asks to die, his last, desperate argument is that he cannot bear to fall back into Templar hands:

Karl: I would rather die a mage than live as a Templar puppet.

We know, indisputably, that they are beating the Tranquil in the Gallows:

Tranquil mage: Please do not steal the merchandise. I will be beaten if you do.

There is also, disturbingly, this:

A ball of white fire soared toward him, everything she had poured into it, and when it struck him it exploded into an inferno.

He was engulfed, as were the Tranquil nearest to him. They shrieked as they lit up, trying in futility to run away.

– Dragon Age: Asunder

To be fair, these aren’t real Tranquil: they are dream Tranquil. But they are Pharamond’s dream Tranquil, and if anyone gets to decide how the Tranquil respond to pain, it’s the guy who cured his own Tranquillity.

The Chantry claims that the Tranquil don’t feel, but they also know that beatings work. Tranquil scream. And so they have fear. Not as a non-Tranquil person would experience it, no, and they certainly are not able to express it in any ‘conventional’ sense. But they have it. Avexis was hurt so badly she does not believe she would survive the cure for Tranquillity. The woman selling Circle wares in the Gallows courtyard fears being beaten for others’ crimes.

Karl has free will, as a Tranquil, but has no expectation of being able to use it. What was done to him, to make him betray his principles so thoroughly?

They do have principles. The Tranquil may not strive for anything, but they will damn well take a stand for it, when the opportunity arises. The taboo against discussing the Rite of Tranquillity is broken twice in Asunder. Once is by Pharamond, who delivers a haunting description of the experience of being Tranquil. The other is by an unnamed elven woman, who draws Rhys a bath:

She stopped and turned to look at him. “If I felt pain,” she said softly, “it is meaningless to me now. Once I knew only fear, but now I know only service. Whatever pain there was, I believe it an acceptable trade.”

The Tranquil left. Though Rhys sat in near-scalding water, he felt a chill race through his heart.

– Dragon Age: Asunder

Poor Rhys spends most of the damn novel terrified the Templars are going to either kill him or make him Tranquil. This woman knows this – he initially believed she was taking him to have the Rite performed – and talked to him because she thought he needed an answer. She spoke out of compassion. And if the answer she gave him was somewhat unsettling – well, that’s the least that could be said of being made Tranquil.

This same woman turns up again later, and provides intelligence on the Lord Seeker to Wynne, Evangeline and Shale as they go to destroy the phylacteries:

“Why are you telling us this?” she asked. I’ve never known the Tranquil to do anything but what they’re told.”

The woman tilted her head curiously, as if the answer should be obvious. “Obedience is prudent. To interpret it as a lack of free will would be an error.” She turned to leave, and then paused. “Good luck, Knight-Captain.” And with that she walked away, vanishing into the shadows.

– Dragon Age: Asunder

This is a nameless elven Tranquil mage – a person with literally no identity, and zero social status. She is the least of all people in Thedas. And she twice defies what ‘everyone knows’ about the Tranquil to aid Asunder’s protagonists. History will likely forget her, but she is remarkable all the same.

And in all of this, I cannot forget Maddox.

Maddox: Samson saved me even before he needed me. He gave me purpose again.

Maddox: I ... wanted to help ...

Maddox loved Samson. What other words could you use for it? Cullen refers to him as ‘Samson’s Tranquil’ because, frankly, Cullen has about as much humanity and compassion as the giant scorpions in the Fallout games – but the truth is that Maddox was Samson’s friend.

Yes, they are fucked up: they are the survivors of Meredith’s regime in Kirkwall, and pretty well no one got out of that shitshow in one piece. There’s no way to argue that Samson is doing the right thing here. Samson isn’t even really trying to win: at his trial he frames it all as a means of taking the Templar Order out with one last bang. And Maddox, here, emulates that: his suicide is not practical, but a tragic act of loyalty; an effort to save Samson as Samson saved him.

I can’t applaud the pair of them for running around with Corypheus, but I can’t help but compare Maddox with Genitivi:

The name is a misnomer, for they are not tranquil at all; rather, they are like inanimate objects that speak. If a table wished to sell you an enchanted penknife, it could pass as one of these people.

That genial lie. That gentle insistence that everything is fine: these are not people, and they are not hurting; it isn’t even possible to hurt them. If they are beaten and that keeps them in line, that’s nothing to be concerned about. They don’t really feel it. Even the mages give up on those of their people who are made Tranquil. Even Anders doesn’t think to fight for the Tranquil.

But look at Maddox there, who loved Samson. Tell me he’s a fucking table.

That is how the Chantry made these people slaves.

I am very sorry that Inquisition blew up the mage rebellion and flushed its remains down the toilet. I am distressed that it chose to carve out Tranquil skulls to make magical telescopes. I hope we come back to them, next time there’s a game.

It’s time these people got their place in the world back.