#obviously based on real ones which are then used for cold war propaganda

[themyscirah]

Amanda... I miss her.

But I don't trust a single person to write her other than Ostrander/Yale. Like I don't trust them to do it right. Because like it's easy to write her being shady and manipulative and involved in secret government conspiracies. That's what she does. But it feels so hollow once you've seen her character in the way Ostrander describes it. Like she is a woman who is desperate and trying to do what she thinks is right. She has found a place of power (as a fat Black woman in the 1980s) and is doing anything she can to fight and hold onto it as powerful and ambitious men try and steal it from her. So she doubles down. She doubles down on the shady deals and the broken promises and the violence and she destroys her enemies, and loses a part of her soul in the process. And then some other ambitious politician rises up and the process repeats itself over and over and over again as each time she loses more of her morality and more of her soul and more of the respect her colleagues had for her. In place of that she gains more power, she gains fear, and an even more badass reputation. Until by the end of the book the villains begin to understand/sympathize with her more than the heroes ever will. Like THAT is who Amanda Waller is. It may happen subtly, it may happen over a longer period of time but that descent is a critical part of her character! She is a tragic character! And I feel like every perception of Suicide Squad I've seen outside of the original has her as this static villainous snapshot which is just untrue to her core imo. Like she is not a hero. But she is also not JUST a villain. She is a highly flawed character who is always descending farther and farther into villainy as she is led there by what she believes is right.

[souryogurt64]

never watched stranger things bc i do not care for that shit but it's so popular that i actually wanna ask what you mean abt it being propagandistic. i trust your media analysis and you've never missed so. am sitting on the floor in front of u and listening

Huge essay on stranger things and propaganda lol

I majored in Communications in college which was a lot of media studies and we did talk about this in class from time to time so I'd like to think I'm not just a looney tune whose brain is cracked from smoking too much weed in college.

Part One: Country Depiction

Obviously ST is a fun sci-fi show that takes place during the Cold War so some of this stuff is just a given. But I think it's um... a bit interesting that this massive, massive cultural phenomenon comes out during a major US election where there's accusations of election interference by a country the US has a long history of conflict and propaganda and ideological type warfare with. And then that angle of the show seems to steadily ramp up as time goes on.

With the most recent season especially, the structure of the release and the runtime of the episodes was a bit strange, and this season was released shortly after the whole thing with NATO and products made in that country being pulled from US shelves.

Obviously they had been filming for years and I think this weirdness was partially due to Covid, but also. They brought back a beloved character, who was a cop, from the dead this season with no explanation whatsoever so he and the other side characters could go on this elaborate mission.

This subplot had very little effect on the main plot of the series, and I have only watched it once, but I imagine if you removed this subplot from the show, nothing would change up until the very end when all the characters are emotionally reunited.

This entire subplot revolved around portraying this country in a very negative light in ways that were much more horrific and violent and disturbing than the content of past seasons of the show (IMO), and included some historical information about this country that was factually incorrect (peanut butter being illegal) as a main driving narrative force in this subplot. The previous season had also employed this tactic with red icees.

Part Two: Govt. Lore Retconning

A lot of the most recent season especially retconned a lot of the central lore of the show. IIRC, the first three seasons seemed to toy with the idea that the Cold War itself and the military's experiments and desire for total destruction and power had opened up this dark supernatural world by torturing children to be weapons, which is a really cool premise obviously. They were also portrayed as a primary villain and trying to kill Eleven because of the powers they had given her via horrific experimentation and training.

Yeah, there were monsters, but they were just like wild animals without true sentience, and were a side effect of the military's poor decisions. This aspect of the show was based in MKUltra. MKUltra was a real thing that happened where the military tried to develop mind control and other stuff. Obviously MKUltra didn't accomplish this, but people actually died, were tortured, and were destroyed mentally and it was illegal.

In this season. God. In this season, one of the main villains and the head of the child experimentation program, "Papa," is suddenly brought back from the dead and presented as morally gray. Basically, they retcon the previous lore of the show by creating this character named Henry, who was a child that randomly developed horrific powers and tortured and killed his parents and was adopted by Papa and studied until he grew into an adult, and the experiments on other children were to try and replicate Henry's powers.

Part Three: Henry

There is no explanation for how Henry was created whatsoever. None. Zero. He just spawned from nowhere. Papa is also weirdly somewhat redeemed before his death in the most emotional scene of the season, and several sympathetic government characters are introduced as well. Until this season, Papa had been using Eleven to attempt to retrieve monsters from the sci-fi world to use in war, but now it's revealed Papa was just driven by mad by grief and was trying to rescue Henry from the sci-fi world the whole time.

I cannot stress enough that the addition of Henry retcons the basis of the entire show and a lot of the important ideological themes within it about power and greed creating evil. It also makes no fucking narrative sense.

The explanation of Henry's backstory is that he's a young child that is angry his father is a former soldier that burned a baby to death while fighting in WW2. The father says this was a mistake. So Henry inexplicably and randomly develops superpowers and decides to torture and kill his mother and younger sister and frame his father as punishment.

Henry's backstory of being angry that innocent children die horrifically in war also resembles a lot of propaganda-type plots in sci-fi- I think Killmonger in the Black Panther series is seeking to end the oppression of Africa and Magneto in X Men is a Holocaust survivor who is concerned about mutants being killed for being different. Except these characters just start killing everybody for reasons that are kind of narratively unsound to make their whole ideology seem insane and unreasonable.

Part Four: Copaganda

Next, the first few episodes of the most recent season contained scenes that were very difficult to watch from an emotional standpoint but were completely and utterly ludicrous from a writing perspective. For background, the cop's adopted daughter and main character of the show, a 14 year old girl named Eleven, switches schools and is horrifically bullied en masse by both adults and older students because she is traumatized after her police officer father supposedly died rescuing people in a "fire." (Not a fire, sci-fi related, but that's not important lol).

The writing is so unrealistic it is almost obscene and culminates in a scene where a handful of other students take over an entire roller rink to publicly humiliate Eleven for being a "crybaby" and telling her she can't cry to her daddy because he's dead. This is in front of a million people, no one stops it, and the employees participate, but as soon as Eleven retaliates, the police are called and Eleven is taken to literal actual PRISON.

A big part of the show is Eleven having speech issues and difficulty fitting in since she was raised as an experiment in a lab, so it's... Interesting that the show chose to make the recent death of her adopted father as the reason she is singled out by her peers rather than this. It's like they wanted to attach this series of emotional scenes on the idea that people, especially young people, have no respect for cops putting their lives on the line to save people and think cops dying is the funniest thing in the world.

Conclusion

Everyone knows propaganda happens deliberately with stuff like Marvel, Top Gun, The Wire, every other cop show, etc. So I don't think this is too far fetched even if I feel a bit crazy saying this and it might not be that deep haha but I definitely thought it was kind of glaring in the most recent season to the point of being a bit distracting as the plot no longer made a lot of sense

[nicklloydnow]

“The article was published on the Kremlin's main propaganda website, RIA Novosti. It was written by Sergey Karaganov, a "Doctor of Sciences in History" and a political scientist. The article’s full title is "There is no choice: Russia will have to launch a nuclear strike on Europe".

And this is not his first such material. Less than two weeks ago, Karaganov published a similar article, the essence of which boils down to the same thing – Russia "must launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Europe." It was published in Profile, a private magazine.”

“As the video illustrates, it doesn’t matter much who starts the war: when one side launches nuclear missiles, the other side detects them and fires back before impact. Ballistic missiles from U.S. submarines west of Norway start striking Russia after about 10 minutes, and Russian ones from north of Canada start hitting the U.S. a few minutes later. The very first strikes fry electronics and power grids by creating an electro-magnetic pulse of tens of thousands of volts per meter. The next strikes target command-and-control centers and nuclear launch facilities. Land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles take about half an hour to fly from launch to target.

(…)

Unfortunately, peer-reviewed research suggests that explosions, the electromagnetic pulse, and the radioactivity aren’t the worst part: a nuclear winter is caused by the black carbon smoke from the nuclear firestorms. The Hiroshima atomic bomb caused such a firestorm, but today’s hydrogen bombs are much more powerful. A large city like Moscow, with almost 50 times more people than Hiroshima, can create much more smoke, and a firestorm that sends plumes of black smoke up into the stratosphere, far above any rain clouds that would otherwise wash out the smoke. This black smoke gets heated by sunlight, lofting it like a hot air balloon for up to a decade. High-altitude jet streams are so fast that it takes only a few days for the smoke to spread across much of the northern hemisphere.

This makes Earth freezing cold even during the summer, with farmland in Kansas cooling by about 20 degrees centigrade (about 40 degrees Fahrenheit), and other regions cooling almost twice as much. A recent scientific paper estimates that over 5 billion people could starve to death, including around 99% of those in the US, Europe, Russia, and China – because most black carbon smoke stays in the Northern hemisphere where it’s produced, and because temperature drops harm agriculture more at high latitudes.

(…)

We obviously don’t know how many people will survive a nuclear war. But if it’s even remotely as bad as this study predicts, it has no winners, merely losers. It’s easy to feel powerless, but the good news is that there is something you can do to help: please help share this video! The fact that nuclear war is likely to start via gradual escalation, perhaps combined by accident or miscalculation, means that the more people know about nuclear war, the more likely we are to avoid having one.”

“Article 92 of Russia's constitution lays down that if the head of state is 'incapable of fulfilling his duties' his temporary successor is the prime minister. That would be Mikhail Mishustin, a competent, low-key 57-year-old bureaucrat who is hardly a household name even in Russia.

But real power after a palace coup would lie elsewhere, probably with a Kremlin insider. Nikolai Patrushev, the national security adviser, is one candidate. His well-connected, fast-rising son Dmitry, currently agriculture minister, is another. Any such new leader would make Putin the scapegoat for the disastrous Ukraine war, and try to end it as quickly as possible.

A neat solution, but not a durable one.Many in Russia fear that what lies ahead is a 'Time of Troubles' (Smutnoye vremya), in which feuding clans battle for wealth and power. The phrase originally referred to the lawless period after 1598, when the tsarist throne changed hands six times in 15 years.

(…)

According to Igor Girkin, a military veteran with a wide following among nationalist Russians, last weekend's chaotic and violent events show that another 'Time of Troubles' has already started.

(…)

The state-controlled energy giant Gazprom has two militias: Potok (stream) and Fakel (torch). The defence minister Sergei Shoigu has Patriot, which hires experienced soldiers on hefty salaries of £5,000 a month or more — a fortune by Russian standards.

These legions serve many purposes. Apart from spearheading Russia's efforts in Ukraine, the Wagner Group — in particular — spreads Kremlin influence across Africa and was largely responsible for saving the brutal Assad regime in Syria. Yet the existence of these 'military contractors' is a sign of how deeply Russia has decayed. It would be inconceivable for British companies such as the energy giant BP, or the catering contractor Sodexo, to have private armies, let alone for Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State for Defence, to have his own personal fighting force.

(…)

The Kremlin is belatedly trying to rein in these legions. But the lesson of the past few days is that central power is weak. Just like the boyars [barons] who clashed in the first Time of Troubles, the big players in modern Russia know that they need their own private militias, and the bigger the better.

As these rivalries boil over, long-buried ethnic grievances could resurface too. Regional chiefs, who have long chafed at Moscow's intrusive rule, could all too easily try to assert their independence. The Muslim peoples of central Russia — Tatars, Bashkirs and others — could exploit the crisis to regain the freedom they briefly tasted more than 100 years ago.

(…)

In Britain we may have largely disconnected our oil and gas supplies from Russia, but that is no cause for complacency if the giant country spirals downwards into disorder. Perhaps the most alarming prospect is 'loose nukes': the thought of Russia's stockpile of thousands of nuclear warheads falling into the hands of terrorists.

(…)

Decision-makers in Beijing have long looked hungrily over their shared border at Russia's natural wealth: hydrocarbons, minerals, timber, water and crops. It would be ironic if Putin's attempt to rebuild the old Russian empire ended in his country becoming part of the new Chinese one. Yet these are not the worst outcomes. A post-Putin junta or strongman could turn the country into a nuclear-armed rogue state like North Korea or Iran, bristling with weapons and determined to make trouble. Given our repeated failures to contain Putin's ambitions, we will struggle to deal with a regime truly bent on nuclear confrontation.

(…)

One thing in all this is certain — change will catch us flat-footed. Over the past 30 years I have watched in dismay and anger as our governments have eviscerated Britain's expertise in understanding Russia. Spies, diplomats and analysts with lifetime experience in Kremlinology, their skills honed by the high stakes of the Cold War, were cast on to the scrap heap.

(…)

Whether we like it or not, the Putin era — with the illusions it fostered in Russia and abroad — is coming to an end. Be prepared.”

[craftypeaceturtle]

Folk Stories

Summary: Hakoda has been rescued from Boiling Rock and now has joined the little family his children have created. What a better way to warm everyone up than to tell a folk story he heard while he was in the prison?

Note: This is my first ATLA fic so feedback is crucial!!! I tried to get a grasp on the culture presented in the show but I’m not entirely sure I got everything. So please feel free to give feedback!!! A bog standard Gaang finds out about the scar fic!

Slight discussion around child abuse, no depiction but still be careful. 

.

Arriving at the Western Air Temple was bizarre. That was the only way to describe it. The air was chilling with a constant gust. It felt somehow both fresh but also deadened. Like it wasn’t a new wind but rather the same old air forever cycling through the walls. The Temple itself was crumbling to pieces. The place felt… haunted. Not that that was a very sensitive thing to say. But despite the eight children running about and claiming it as home for a couple of weeks now, the place just felt wrong. Like it was wrong to even be standing here. He couldn’t imagine what Aang felt. Maybe it only felt so bizarre because it was the exact opposite of the modern spacious war ship with his very hyperactive chatty son who remained glued to his side.

Not that Hakoda could really complain. Sokka walked away once halfway through to relieve himself and he felt like he had lost a limb.

He walked off the ship as casually as he could and stiffly walked forward to the rest of the group. Immediately, he was knocked over with Katara. He tried to laugh it off but he clutched her just as tight. It still felt weird to be able to stand and hug her rather than ducking down. Her hair was wildly wispy over his face. She smelled of the campfire smoke that was cracking nearby. That was what was probably bringing tears to his eyes. After a heartful clinging hug, he finally noticed the rest of them looking at him. Right. Other people. He sat down with a welcoming smile and beckoned them all. They all sat and chatted.

 What was made instantly clear was that all these kids were close. Like family close. Really, he should’ve saw this coming. Like when he tried to subtly ask Sokka on the warship if he was really sure he wanted to hang out with someone like Zuko and he was immediately met with a stern lecture. It almost made him laugh. His kids had the bad habit of just seeing a potential friend and deciding they would defend them to their deaths. Must have got that from their mother… probably.

 He didn’t really mean to but he was so glad he was taking the time to sit with them all. While it did feel a little awkward, it made his chest glow to finally have the chance to actually know who his kids were hanging out with.  

 Toph seemed a lot, honestly. She was firm and extremely confident in her actions and morals. Which sounds like the exact thing the group needed. A firmer hand to guide them to their goal. Someone to help point Sokka’s genius. Someone to stop Katara and Aang from getting too emotional and getting them out of bad situations. Only problem was that she was a twelve-year-old girl. Her confidence in her actions was her being absolutely certain that punching was definitely an affectionate gesture and that crime should be allowed if it’s fun. But Hakoda found himself laughing along with her so he couldn’t complain much.

Haru seemed the closest thing to an actual responsible adult the group had. But he was very quiet. Very polite. But he seemed content to live his own life and try to get back to some form of normal. He was willing to fight and help the group survive but it was clear he was never going to be involved in helping Aang defeat the Firelord. Maybe that’s a good thing. Destiny wasn’t something he tried to understand but it was obvious that Aang should be the one alone to face him.

The Duke was a child. He was very fun to joke with but then again, every now and then, he would say something make it clear he was a child who had seen the very worse parts of war. He was a child who had never experienced a moment of childhood. His heart hurt for him, but he wasn’t an idiot to say that out loud.

Teo seemed so bright and cheerful compared to the deadened temple. Even compared to his usually bright loud kids. They were so stupidly excited at his arrival, but they still seemed dimmed in comparison to the little boy who was zipping about the place and chattering about potential inventions. He seemed like Sokka but younger.

Zuko… was also a lot. He was biased against him, so it was hard to judge an opinion. Zuko was mostly silent. Sokka would occasionally joke with him and force him into the conversation and Zuko seemed like any other average awkward teenager. But mostly the others let him keep quiet and he focused on what looked like some form of meditating at the campfire.

 It was getting late. But no one dared stated this. Zuko only let the fire burn brighter or occasionally forced Aang to make the fire larger to light the room as a form of practise. Katara stood up at one point, “I’m grabbing my blanket, I’m getting cold. Does anyone else what theirs now I’m up?”

“Ooh! Me!” Aang whipped round with a sleepily excited smile.

“I’m good,” Sokka and everyone else mumbled without even turning, “So, dad, did you hear anything around the prison?”

“Hear anything?” Hakoda chuckled off but everyone turned serious. Sokka sighed and awkwardly fiddled his hands.

“Uh I mean any Fire Nation gossip? Any Firelord plans or propaganda? Anything that could help…”

Hakoda tried chuckling again but Zuko remained completely focused on the campfire. His chest slowly expanding with the flames. He didn’t even flinch. Maybe he could believe that Zuko truly wanted to help them but there was no way he’d appreciate the tiny whispers he heard about his nation. “I didn’t hear anything really useful. I heard some folk stories and a lot of twisted propaganda.”

“Hey, I’m still up for some Fire Nation camp stories!” Toph shrugged. Katara had now returned and flung Aang his blanket and draped another on Zuko’s shoulders. He finally opened his eyes and awkwardly nodded at her. Katara also stiltedly nodded back.

“It’s not a nice story…” Hakoda tried very much to hint as he looked directly at The Duke. Thankfully Haru took his hint.

“That’s fair, we should be heading to bed anyway. I’m exhausted!” He stood and pulled a half sleeping The Duke up as well. They all waved them goodnight. Their footsteps echoed across the empty stone hall as they disappeared into a room.

 “Right. Now the babies are gone. Tell us the Fire Nation horror stories!” Toph chanted way too loudly for how late it was.

“It’s not a very happy story but I guess a story is a story,” Hakoda sighed. Being honest, while it wasn’t nice, it also didn’t sound at all real. But at least it would be a good way to wind down the emotional day.

 “There’s this story about the Firelord and his sons. The younger son had grown jealous of his older sibling learning how to become a rightful heir to the nation.” Hakoda began, despite the fact he couldn’t really recall if it was the older or younger son. It made more sense if it was the younger son. But everyone was immediately clinging to his words. So, he continued, “Eventually he begged his father to attend an important meeting to gain experience and prove he could be responsible. The Firelord, well… the guard who told this story worded it that the Firelord was so gracious and kind to allow his son into the meeting but obviously… That doesn’t seem right.”

“The Firelord let him into the meeting despite knowing his son was not ready. The younger son was very immature and spoiled. He was rude to everyone, even the fellow royals…. That was something that I found odd. The guard worded it as fellow royals rather than family...”

“Hmm,” Zuko spoke, striking lightning through the atmosphere with just that hum. Hakoda now felt awkward. While it was clear the folk story wasn’t talking about his father, how wise was it truly to retell a story based on his family. “The Fire Nation places significance in respecting your elders but there’s also significance in following your own determination.”

“What, so you don’t care for your family,” Katara frowned.

“No… Respecting and bringing pride to your elders is a huge deal but… honestly, I think the Fire Lord wanted to still get people to report any rebelling ideals that family members might have. It’s… complicated.”

“Well, either way the son was a pain in the ass by the sounds of it and he was let into the meeting under the one rule, not to talk out of order. He explained that the councillors were sensitive and easy to anger and wanted to protect his son from harm. Of course, the son then immediately talks over a general in the meeting to suggest his own plan despite having no experience and no idea of the politics.”

 At this, Zuko now frowned. Hakoda spoke slowly, fully expecting to be interrupted (maybe Zuko had heard this as well and he was telling it wrong), but he didn’t say a word. He just merely tensed his shoulders and stayed sat, frowning intensely.

 “The general was furious and the Firelord tried to calm him, but he knew there was no way words would be enough to stop this. A duel was ordered. The son agreed without pausing to think this through. The Firelord tried to explain what would happen but the son brushed him off and interrupted him from explaining what would happen. The day of the duel arrived and the son stood to face his opponent only to find his father, the Firelord, at the other side of the court.”

 Zuko’s eyes opened now. But he was now frozen facing the campfire. Hakoda paused again to let him talk but he said nothing.

 “The son then proceeded to beg for mercy. But the Firelord had enough. The son was greedy, stupid and lazy. And now here he was begging after proposing an aggressive military strategy over an experienced military general. He offered to explain how the duel would work and protect him from it but he ignored him. The Firelord then gave him a chance to fight before declaring that the son was no longer part of the royal family for his disgrace. To try and teach his son one last lesson, the Firelord battled the duel to try and teach him how to fight. But the son didn’t even try, didn’t even stand up to face him. The son walked away that day with a hardy battle scar and no family.”

 The silence in the temple felt like a presence around the campfire as well.

“Well!” Toph leaned back, “You were right. That was kinda a downer.”

“Yeah…” Aang mumbled.

“I think the point of the story is how forgiving and firm the Firelord is and how amazing he must be,” Hakoda grimaced, “But all who overheard it just thought it was more proof that the Firelord and his whole family are evil.”

“Who was it even based off?” Sokka asked.

“Two sons so maybe Firelord Azulon? But didn’t uncle Iroh leave by himself. Like he wasn’t kicked out or anything, was he?” Toph tilted her head to Zuko but he never reacted.

“Zuko?” Aang placed his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. He shot up. Like he was electrocuted.

“I am needing to go to bed.” Zuko scampered backwards. His eyes stuck on the flames. Sokka stood as well but he hovered awkwardly.

“Are you sure? Was it the story-“ Sokka tried to ask but he was immediately ignored. Zuko walked off to his room.

 But he turned just as he was about to disappear from their view, “You should never repeat that story. It’s… not good.”

 The night was just as awkward as the temple after that. A moment silently passed.

 “Maybe we should all call it a night. It’s certainly been an emotional day,” Teo explained, tilting his chair towards the rooms behind where they were all sitting. Everyone agreed and stood as well. Aang was the last to stand and took a couple of breaths before finally manipulating the campfire to fizzle out completely.

“I’ll stand guard first,” Aang said, facing away from them.

“I’ll take over for the morning half,” Sokka volunteered. Hakoda walked away with the others.

 The morning was a little better. If there was one more thing Hakoda could criticise the temple of, it was the fact that there was no way the sun could reach them on the underside of a cliff. He woke up and stretched his back, wincing at the horrible click, and stood and walked out of the room. Toph and Katara were half-heartedly arguing about how to cut some vegetables. He smiled at the quiet normalcy. You never realise how much you miss normal life until you hear people arguing about veg rather than battle strategies. “Morning everyone. The others still sleeping?”

“Hey dad! Aang is practising with Zuko, the others usually all crowd round to watch,” Katara answered, “Feel free to go watch too. It might be another twenty minutes or so for breakfast.”

“I’d go if I was you,” Toph interrupted, “It is so cool to see firebending up close without being in actual danger. And if you ever tell Sparky that then I’ll attack Sokka.”

“Yeah?” Hakoda asked, quietly ignoring the threat to his son.

“Oh yeah. The fire and the colours. It’s just mesmorising. A real sight to behold.”

“Toph,” Katara scolded and now Hakoda felt his face heat up. Right, she was joking. She was blind. “But she is right. It is impressive to see.”

 After bothering Katara by asking if she needs any help, Hakoda followed the sounds of blasts of fires to a courtyard like space. Aang was standing proudly in the middle, his chest puffed out powerfully as he took deep even breaths. His arms twirled around, almost like waterbending, with a solid stance and footing, like earthbending, with powerful flames licking along his movements. Sweeps of orange. Katara really wasn’t joking. He stopped dead in his tracks.

 Zuko was standing to the side with his fingers tapping along his chin. Aang finished whatever exercise he was doing and looked over with the proudest most childish grin ever. Hakoda found himself grinning too. Zuko stood slowly. To Hakoda, it looked flawless.

 “How’d I do Sifu!” Aang chirped.

“Your fire is steady and strong. But I really do think you need to stop puffing out your chest like that and actually breathe normally. You don’t have to puff out like an aggressive pig-chicken. Just… breathe normally! You don’t need to complete the kata strictly chest first.”

“But you said the power should come from my chest!” Aang whined.

“Yes and ever since saying that you only moved chest first! You look stupid! Like a pig-chicken!” Zuko burst out.

“But my firebending is good enough! So it doesn’t even matter!”

“Yeah Zuko, you never know, maybe his stance will throw off the Firelord,” Sokka laughed despite Aang withering glare. Zuko only sighed and approached the middle of the courtyard and quickly snapped to another stance.

“Careful Aang, you’re starting to sound like the son in Hakoda’s story. Zuko knows best. You can’t talk over him!” The Duke yelled over with a point.

 Now it felt like the atmosphere was ruined. Aang snapped to face the boy. Zuko stumbled but stepped back into position hesitatingly.

  “Uh, the Duke, h-how’d you even overhear any of that?”

“Because Haru couldn’t be more obvious if he tried!” The Duke gasped, “It wasn’t even that bad. Like what was the scary part? The scar? He didn’t even explain what it looked like!”

“The story wasn’t even accurate. Let’s move on,” Zuko snapped.

“What? He didn’t tell it properly? Well, what is it actually?” The Duke asked.

“It doesn’t matter!” Zuko shouted, his voice echoed along the walls. Hakoda finally walked forward, approaching Sokka.

“Everything okay here guys?” Hakoda put on his best dad voice and walked forward confidently. Only Sokka looked at him though.

“Why? It’s just some stupid Fire Nation story! What? You offended, Ashmaker!” The Duke screamed.

“Woah, okay now!” Hakoda raised his voice louder.

“Because it’s not some folk story. It was a real thing! You can’t just say shit like that casually!” Zuko didn’t bare Hakoda and his obvious dad attempt at taking control any attention.

“Oh boo hoo! One of your precious Fire Lords once beat up his own son to prove some stupid point! Oh no, your family is filled with abusive dicks!” Haru was now even trying to pull The Duke aside as Hakoda walked to Zuko. He placed his hands firmly on his shoulders and steered him away.

 He didn’t shout anything else but he did unleash a roar of fire before stomping just ahead of him. Sokka and Aang took one moment to swap looks before both running after Zuko. Not that he was paying any attention. Hakoda awkwardly paused, unsure which room to led Zuko to so he could obviously let out some steam, but thankfully Sokka caught up to them and led the way down the hall to the right, into the first room they found.

 It was barren and already had blackened scorches across the walls and ceilings. Hakoda didn’t at all focus on that though. Maybe they were old or maybe it was from some previous Zuko tantrums.

Zuko punched the wall with all the might of his firebending. Sokka and Aang only winced at how obviously painful that was going to be but didn’t seem at all afraid of him. So Hakoda tried to follow their lead despite his racing heart.

 “Everything okay, Sifu Hotman?” Aang joked but he toned himself down. He was only slightly a ball of blinding sunshine of happiness. Zuko tried to match his smile but it was too wobbly and fragile.

“Sorry. That story hit close to home.”

“We figured. If you want to talk about it, do you know what upset you about it?” Sokka knelt down and crossed his legs. They all followed, including Hakoda. One tiny whisper frowned at how much he was following his son’s lead. He remembered trying to convince a baby Sokka not to charge out of the tent completely naked and failing miserably as his son gave an impassioned speech about how it’ll be fun. It was that same boy that he was now following. Zuko fell to the floor deliberately harshly.

“I… I guess I hate- I don’t like what you all took from the story…” He stumbled through. Hakoda went to talk but Sokka placed a hand on his knee. A moment passed and Zuko finally found some more words, “You all took that the Fire Lord was cruel to do that. And you don’t even know the full story. Like, just the Fire Lord fighting his son was enough to mark him cruel. Even if the son was ‘a pain in the ass’?”

“Yeah,” Aang spoke unsurely but he continued saying each word carefully, “I mean, we don’t know a lot of the details about the son but I personally can’t think of any reason where I’d then fight my own son. Especially if he was a child or something!”

“Yeah, like if your son’s dismissive or rude or whatever, then you make more effort to talk to him! What would fighting him even do? It’s just more cruel than what’s needed.” Zuko looked up at Sokka as he spoke.

“It is cruel, isn’t it.”

It wasn’t a question but Hakoda tilted his head and answered, “Of course it’s cruel. I can’t imagine people hearing that and thinking the Fire Lord was in the right. As a certified dad, I don’t think there’s anything that could push me to fight Sokka. I can’t speak for the guards but… I think the reason the folk story didn’t go into any detail about the fight was so it’s easier to agree with the Fire Lord. I’m sure if the injuries were described then the guards would speak differently.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m honestly surprised the story didn’t go into any detail about the fight. That’s the most infamous part…”

“So what’s the actual story?” Sokka asked.

 Zuko looked around nervously and bit harshly on his thumb.

 “There… The son of the Fire Lord wanted to prove himself and attend a war meeting. The Fire Lord’s brother let him in but warned him that he shouldn’t talk. The generals were easy to anger. In the meeting, a general proposed the most… it was an awful plan. I uh… The son got too angry and shouted at the meeting. It was really disrespectful. It was an awful plan but, like, maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad if he just spoke normally. Or maybe his uncle would’ve spoken out anyway. A-anyway, an Agni Kai was ordered. T-that’s like a duel between two firebenders, usually it ends with either one of the people surrendering or getting injured to the point of being unable to fight. The son thought he was to fight the old general who proposed the plan. And really the plan was horrible. It was awful. So he went to fight him as I could so take him in a fight!”

 Sokka and Aang shared an uncertain look. That all seemed to align… But it was clear that this was hitting too close to Zuko. He was refusing to look at them as he spoke. His anger flared again and each word was practically growled out.

 “So the day of the fight came and the boy turned to face his opponent and instead saw father down the court. I… uh… I then fell to my knees and begged. I knew there was no use fighting. I’m not a very talented firebender, even less so at thirteen! So I thought the best thing would be to just… surrender. The Firelord usually prefers if you just surrender and admit your wrong than to fight. He liked when you made him feel… anyway I… well I fell to the floor and begged while crying. I-I can’t imagine what that must’ve looked like to the audience-“

“Wait, there were people watching!” Sokka exclaimed. Hakoda only then remembered the rest of the room. The story was too cold for him to notice anything else. Aang looked just as horrified, shifting on the spot clearly dying to launch himself at Zuko as a comfort. Zuko looked just as caught off.

“Um yeah? Like nobles and the other royal family members.”

“So Uncle was there?” Aang’s timid small voice ripped through the angry shocked words.

“Well yes. Also, he’s not your uncle!”

“He didn’t do anything?”

“No. I don’t think he could’ve.” Zuko fiddled with his hands.

 There was a beat of silence.

 “So your dad beat you up in front of everyone and then banished you? You were upset because we all saw that as cruel while you blamed yourself for that,” Sokka started strong before then realising just how insensitive he was being. Way to rub it in his face.

“He didn’t beat me up. He just burnt me,” Zuko casually motioned his to warped face and perpetually squinting eye to which everyone else in the room stopped breathing, “but yeah he then banished me. I-I… It’s… Three years is a long time to pass. I don’t really remember pretty much anything from that day really. Uncle never talked about it so I don’t know exactly what happened. I thought I got over it by now. I know it was cruel. It was wrong. But… I guess I just thought that was me making excuses… It’s weird to think other people actually think it’s wrong and cruel.”

 The dead air of the temple never felt more gross. Like a panting stranger leaning over your shoulder leering over you. A presence in the room listening in. The room looked empty even with them all sitting there. The story somehow filled the room and now it was finished. Hakoda gulped.

 “I’m so sorry Zuko,” Aang breathed out before gradually reaching over. Zuko blocked his hands from hugging him but did grip his hands instead.

“No dad should ever do that Zuko. And a journey into recovery will never have a nice easy end. But if you already know it was wrong then you’ve already made it so far. You should be proud of yourself,” Hakoda smiled warmly. Zuko still didn’t meet his eyes.

 It would probably be a while before Zuko would truly believe that it was cruel and wrong, and clearly the entire family here was willing to wait and teach that. Hakoda kept his mind from thinking how long it took for Zuko to even convince himself that maybe it was cruel and wrong. Right now, he focused on the warm, forgiving, loving family formed in the ruins of a cold temple.

[okay-victoria]

Status of Women in The Empire

Summary: LN gives some evidence women have a better status than they did in OTL Germany. It gives little to nothing in the way of evidence that we are in post-sexual-revolution territory. It presents little enough evidence generally that you can use this issue in your own story as you wish; however, using how humans actually work as your baseline, it would be a very definite handwave to think that gender equality is much more than marginally better than OTL would have been at the time, or that Tanya wouldn’t be negatively affected by it in some significant ways in daily life. On the other hand, the original story handwaves an eight year old enrolling in a modern military and getting promoted to a mid-ranking officer by age eleven, so as a reader, I’m obviously pretty down for handwaving some realism for the sake of a good story.

Evidence:

V1/C1

“The armed forces have a practical exception in place for just about everything.” <= I think in fanon the entire Empire as seen as this sort of “everything we do is logical” territory where gender discrimination would have had to be eliminated, but in reality it’s presented as the military, and they are making an exception for a rare and incredibly militarily useful type of person to be able to be put to use by them without gender discrimination stopping it.

V1/C4

“But in the far-from-gender-free world of “ladies first,” Tanya with her outwardly girlish appearance is, albeit only relatively, blessed compared to the other students” <= YMMV, but I would not describe modern society as a world of “ladies first”. Do people do/say it to hark back to pre-1960s chivalry? Sure. Is it really the standard we live by anymore? Not so much. Tanya seems to pretty definitely still be living in those days.

“Basically, apart from the mage branch, the army is a man’s world. Actually, even most of the mages are men.” <= this is notable because it is said when Tanya is in War College, at which point the war has been going on for long enough that available mages have been conscripted, so there is no selection bias that men have simply chosen to pursue a career as a mage more often than women. This is actually weirdly important because it either means:

Magic talent is like, an X chromosome trait and men are thus more likely to have it [in which case, it would probably be taken as natural evidence that men are superior and worsen the gender equality situation]; or

There in fact is a Youjo Konki-esque exception for married women and/or mothers. A nation has to still be relatively in the infancy of gender equality if Female Mage #102 has children with Infantryman #1,000,102 and the military decides that since it can’t leave these children parentless, it has to conscript the dude who is substitutable for literally anyone else and not the human weapon.

Tanya has a long-ish reflection on women in the military. Important points are, the rules have only been overhauled recently to make it practical for women to serve in combat. Women in combat didn’t really exist prior to this war, and women in the military were basically limited to noble/imperial families having their daughters serve out nominal duties. Whatever boost women as a whole get from serving in a capacity that people are used to seeing men in, it has not had time to transform society all that much.

V2/C2

“Women administrators are not uncommon, but in the Empire where gender equality still has a ways to go, their qualifications are always questioned.” <= YMMV as to what degree this is meant to be a statement on something that still troubles women in modern times, or something that indicates gender equality is not particularly close to modern.

V2/C5

“After all, now that I’ve been turned into a girl, I’m faced with this annoying military framework where men are superior. Just the thought of my promotions being blocked by an invisible glass ceiling is enough to dampen any desire I might have to act all girlish for propaganda…apart from that, the Empire’s personnel system has adapted extremely meritocratic principles for the war, in a way, so I’m more or less satisfied with it.” <= sort of same as above, YMMV on whether this is just Tanya realizing what life is like for a woman in modern society or meant as a “no, it was worse” point.

However, I will say this: I highly, highly doubt any men chosen for high military honors were photographed doing anything other than looking ultra manly in uniform. Women serving in modern militaries are not forced to put on showy dresses when they get their photos taken, they are treated, at least in photos, with the same respect as their male colleagues. The fact that anyone found it appropriate to only photograph the recipient of the highest military honor in cute girl clothes speaks to some deep discomfort with anyone outside the military seeing women not doing what they’re supposed to.

V6/C6

“The Imperial Army has already tapped all the population pools that can be mobilized, but it still has two options. One is to begin the general conscription of women. That said, they’ve already been mobilized in the industrial sector.” <= YMMV, again, on how willing a modern country would be to conscript women to fight a world war, but if you are as deep into a world war as the Empire is and no one’s trying it, at the least we can say the Empire is not the bastion of cold logic it fanonically is outside the military. Also, it pretty much seems like women working in large numbers has only become a thing because all the guys are off fighting, which very much sticks us in pre-1950s territory.

V8/C1

Andrew reacts surprised to see a female reporter from the Federation, and reflects that they are quite liberal in some ways <= while this is a non-Imperial guy, given his familiarity with the Empire, it would seem weird that if the Empire was particularly more advanced than his country that he would still be so surprised.

Other Working Knowledge Your Author Has On This Subject:

Women serving in the military, while certainly helpful to the cause of gender equality, by itself is not going to create a broad-based transformation in society. That sounds a bit like saying: As we all know, the US dropped any racist laws or regulations as soon as we started allowing non-white units in the military. After Elizabeth I serving as the Ruler of England, a very manly role that her tiny woman-brain didn’t fuck up too bad, the people who thought women were naturally stupider than men were quickly relegated to the margins and gender discrimination mostly became more of an annoyance than a real hindrance to the average woman’s goals. It just doesn’t work that way. And I’m not here to say that the US is a post-gender paradise, but the US, which has never had a woman president and is pretty slow about expanding military opportunities for women, nonetheless is a lot better on the gender equality front than some countries that have had women leaders and allow women a fuller range of military opportunities. There’s a lot more complexity to it than: My country respects military => military allows women => guess I’m going to stop being sexist

The same goes for something that isn’t about gender equality at large but how it relates to Tanya: The view that while gender equality may be non-advanced, Tanya specifically is exempt from dealing with it because she is “one of the boys”. It Does Not Work Like That. At All. And the further you go back in time, the less it worked like that. Within the military specifically Tanya will probably be alright, but society at large punishes men & women that break gender roles as brazenly as she does more than it rewards them. This is an entire essay unto itself, Google is your friend.

This is going to sound silly and facetious but I’m being dead serious, from what little we know of fashion in the YS world, it matches what would have been the case in the real world in the WW1 era. If society at large was really that different, that wouldn’t be the case.

There is no canon evidence that magic has made any scientific advancements outside the military sphere of influence. Before the advent of things like dishwashers, vacuums, microwaves, especially refrigerators, and especially laundry machines being common household items, the ideal family model was: one person makes money outside home, one person takes care of house. There wasn’t enough time in the day to work and run a household. Many women in poor households had to work, generally at the expense of being able to keep their own household running smoothly, and even then they often worked in capacities that allowed them to be at home or ones that allowed them the flexibility to take care of some of this stuff. It really just isn’t possible to have a society remotely approaching equality when one gender is automatically assigned to home unless necessary.

Same goes for something else - contraception. Women having access to a contraceptive device that they control is a major component of setting a society on a path towards equality. Birth control pills didn’t become widely available until the 1960s. Without being unable to at least kind of balance the outcome of sex (even between married couples) between men and women, women as a class have a hard time escaping from the housewife-mother archetype.

Not to get too political here, but the Empire matches OTL Germanic-Prussianness too much to ignore. Living under a military-worshipping, religiously-inclined traditional monarchy has not, in any real life example I’m aware of, gone hand-in-hand with anything other than a fairly conservative and patriarchal society, and I feel like the burden of proof is on the other side to explain why that isn’t the case in the Empire, and our original author makes approximately zero effort to do this.

Being X turns Tanya into a woman for the purpose of making her life worse. It seems simply illogical [although I guess Being X’s decision-making skills are questionable] that he would then drop her into a world that had undergone broad-based gender reform instead of a world that was just barely tweaked from our own in such a way that it would allow Tanya to serve in the military.

My conclusion: the most likely option is that gender equality is exactly enough better as it needs to be to allow the military to convince the lawmakers that they should be able to use a very rare & dangerous ability to be part of their arsenal without respect to gender, or age, and no more. That difference is not likely to make life for women significantly better than it was in the equivalent OTL time period.

[bravadoseries]

Probably weird and hard, so take you time to answer, but if Audrey was canon in the comics, what changes would be made when adapting her character into a MCU? I mean stuff like the fact that Tony built his in Afghanistan in the movie when in the comic he did it in Vietnam.

this was such a fun question thank you so much!  i’m gonna separate this into two parts: audrey’s comics storyline and how her mcu adaptation is different.  so sorry this is so long! 

audrey rogers (later audrey lange and audrey banner) was introduced in the 1950s after captain america’s popularity declined and the war ended.  her original aging thing was that she aged pretty fast and then like maxed out when she was physically 18 or 20 (like the baby from twilight).  she was originally supposed to speak to teenage girls and other women to encourage them to embrace patriotism and reject communism, and she’s mentored by her father (since peggy’s originally written in the comics as a pretty minor character).  audrey is given her batons by howard stark but in the comics they’re much more torchlike (really emphasizing the whole lady liberty moniker).  

throughout the 50s and 60s, she’s got a dual-identity thing going on.  she’s audrey lange (nee rogers), a teacher married to Joshua Lange, her high school sweetheart and a young, good-hearted, all-american politician.  nobody knows about her identity except for her father, howard stark, and howard’s son tony.  

during the 60s, lady liberty and black widow are often portrayed as character foils and enemies.  lady liberty is sweet as apple pie, she likes to kiss babies and shake hands with senators and say things like God Bless America while the black widow is seductive, brutal, and most importantly—communist.  the two are each other’s biggest rivals for the beginning of their respective comics’ histories (ok i just watched killing eve and i am obsessed with it but i think they are usually trying to track each other down similarly to eve and villanelle).  idk if you watch glow but it’s like the zoya/liberty belle characters. that’s what’s going on. 

in the comics, lady liberty is responsible for helping black widow defect from the red room and join the American cause.  their first enemy together is julian bardot, who is selling nuclear tech to the highest bidder, and both of them want to discourage their respective organizations from purchasing nuclear bombs as the comics began to go into more anti-war propaganda.  audrey teams up with tony at this point and their comics characters become friends.  

during the vietnam war, the whole american propaganda thing was declining in popularity so they sent audrey to vietnam as a spy, where she was known as the angel of mercy.  after realizing that the war was a corrupt cause, she abandoned the angel of mercy title and began working as a vigilante with civil rights activist and empire state engineering student lindsey dubois, caroline, a secretary heavily implied to be gay (living with her close female friend and unmarried) who would become the vigilante ace of spades, chinese refugee and nurse claudia liau, and delphine lamontagne, a french exchange student who came to the US looking to find a scientist to help her understand her powers.  They specifically target human traffickers.  

At this point, Josh Lange becomes mayor of New York City, and the strain of audrey’s vigilantism and her unwillingness to have children leads their marriage to crumble.  they divorce and it’s a big comics thing (later, backlash causes marvel to try to retcon their marriage at all and say they were just engaged)  

lady liberty is written into the avengers in the 1970s again because she realizes that the vigilantism was too dangerous or something (i feel like realistically it’s just that sales were low for a diverse group of female heroes but whatever).  her storylines are based around that for a few years, however, after the marvel comics watergate, captain america abandons his title and becomes nomad and audrey abandons superhero work in favor of working as a lawyer (? i think).  

in the 1980s, audrey is written as working as a law professor at culver, where she meets bruce banner.  i don’t know a ton about hulk comics but i think he was permanently hulked out for the 70s and started gaining control in the 80s? pretty sure.  anyway audrey’s never met bruce before but he’s got a dual identity thing going on and she’s like You Really Seem Familiar.  when she figures out his dual identity a) they become romantically involved and b) she tries to get into hero work again.  

there was a lack of interest in her character as more than a love interest, though, so from the late 80s to ’91, audrey is kidnapped and brainwashed by hydra.  she’s given powers through hydra experimentation but refuses to use them unless forced to because they cause her immense pain.  she is activated through trigger words and known by the name Red Scare.  During this period, she serves as one of Captain America’s primary antagonists, but he doesn’t realize that Audrey is his daughter, he just thinks she’s dead.  

When the Soviet Union falls in 1991, Audrey is returned to the united states and begins working as a shield agent because of the intelligence she’d collected while abroad.  Josh Lange, now running for president of the United States, proposes to her in the late 90s and they marry, but Audrey begins to secretly undermine his political agenda once he’s elected due to his staunch anti-gifted stance and preference for order, no matter the cost.  Audrey is portrayed as an unsatisfied First Lady until 2005, when Tony Stark starts the New Avengers to help defeat the mass breakout of the Raft, a prison holding many supervillains.  Knowing she cannot just stand by, she leaves Joshua and commits to becoming a hero full time.  

During the Civil War comics arc, Audrey opposes the mandatory federal registration of super-powered beings due to her experience with politicians.  However, many oppose her presence in the movement for that very reason.  She and Bruce Banner attempt another romantic relationship, but he favors the registration act and they soon break up.  When her father attempts to surrender in order to stop the violence, she does so instead, knowing that she will be less of a loss to the movement.  

At the same time, the United States launches Hulk into space (idk this was a real thing with the whole planet hulk arc) and Thor, wanting to help turn Hulk back into banner, breaks Audrey free from prison and brings her to Sakaar.  She helps him turn back into Bruce and the two actually begin a romantic relationship, with him seeing where the registration act got him (Launched Into Space).  When they return to Earth, Audrey and Bruce both decide to retire from hero work and open a school not for mutants but for other powered people which becomes a rival to charles xavier’s school.  

From there, it’s a bunch of sporadic storylines.  I think at some point she may become director of SHIELD when Steve is president?  Because I know that was like a thing in the 70s. audrey’s powers are connected to thanos in a way that’s spoilery so I won’t go too into detail but when he pops up with the infinity stones arc, she plays a part in that.  

anyway!

So there’s a lot of differences between the hypothetical movies and the hypothetical comics but i think obviously the biggest is Audrey’s backstory and aging.  Since she ages slowly and was without Steve’s guidance, she grew up isolated and protected from the rest of the world.  Audrey’s personality at the beginning is supposed to be reminiscent of her personality as the initial Lady Liberty—very sweet and positive and very much a character foil to Natasha, but instead of Audrey recruiting Natasha to SHIELD and helping her become a hero, it’s the other way around.  Obviously Peggy’s role is very different, too, as is Josh’s (he’s a much more minor character in the films than in the comics).  

The first Lady Liberty film adapts her transition from more of a hollow, symbolic hero to someone who is directly involved in the fight.  There’s also references to her Red Scare arc except it’s the 60s and not the 90s.  Here, we also have reference to Natasha and Audrey fighting Julian Bardot and his weapons, but removed from the Cold War context and instead shifted to the post-Chitauri circumstances.  Delphine is also introduced, though not as a vigilante at this point or as a student but as a capable DGSE agent.  The setup here is for her to have her own adventures eventually I think.  

A lot of the changes have to do with the order of things.  Because the MCU takes place over a decade and not like 50 years, things get switched around.  TWS and AOU are both more modern plotlines that got reinvented and brought into the MCU.  I think I’m probably gonna be changing the Civil War conflict to add more of the comics element to it as well.  

Audrey’s vigilante team storyline, though unpopular at the time of its original publication, works better now, so it’s brought back for the second Lady Liberty film, which is set after Civil War.  Audrey at this point is much more brutal and has lost faith in the system similarly to how she lost faith in the system because of Vietnam.  Audrey never becomes a lawyer, but she does have a reunion with Bruce post CW during the MCU equivalent of Planet Hulk because (though unlike the comics he went by choice) he got launched into space.  Audrey’s involvement in this storyline is much more accidental in the movies than in the comics.  

I think also unlike the comics, Audrey doesn’t use her powers more because she feels unnatural when she does and not because it physically hurts.  She also loses control.  The movies also more specifically detail how where her powers came from.  

The third Lady Liberty film, resurrection, is a movie that covers Audrey, Thanos, and more of her outer space adventures lol.  And the next gen TV series, which primarily just features guest appearances from the Avengers, adapts the idea of the Avengers Academy.  

thank you so much again for this ask sorry it got so long i had so much fun answering it !!!

[everydayanth]

Let’s talk about talking about politics! Yay! Everyone’s favorite!

Over the past few weeks/months/years, I have had this strange insider seat to a bunch of criminal justice/poly sci professionals (as in, they get paid as professors or scientists or compliance officers, etc.) as they talk about politics and get angry at the general public for our lack of understanding, without having the patience to teach or explain. 

Two problems: 1. the ivory tower issue of watching and not actively engaging in the social part of social science, but as their friend, I will note much of this comes from burnout through negative engagement and attacks; 2. expecting others to have had an adequate education to even know many of these tools exist in order to discuss things beyond our average public school education that cuts out Fridays and makes random half days because we can’t afford teachers or textbooks. 

As an awkward observer, here are some things I never talked about in school, despite having a better political/civil/economics education included in my curriculum than many of my friends:

1. When we vote for someone, we are voting on a trend in politics. Not as a result, but a direction to move, and most voters vote for the candidate who is closest to their current values already, rather than following the trend of voting for who would move policy to match their needs. 

2. Our values change far more than we think they do and they almost always align with a problem we require a solution to or a fear we would like to stabilize or go away, such as property taxes. Because we need to trust the person to solve our problems, especially if we are projecting large fears, candidates who are most likable. We don’t like to stir the pot, we just want it to go where we want, fighting for something is exhausting for everyone.

3. We consider political agendas to be moral agendas but do not agree on obligations. Many feel powerless, others are powerless, we talk about responsibility, but without acknowledging those first two things, it sounds more like blame. We also imagine many things to be wishful thinking that are enacted successfully elsewhere and fail to understand or use logical reasoning to really discuss issues. Anything will be an experiment because the US is so huge, but it is a scalable experiment working in other places, often we don’t understand that until we’re abroad and sick.

4. We’re not sure how to translate policy, and our country was built by and for lawyers. There are very little areas where we agree as a society on black/white right/wrong, and in many ways that’s good, but when it comes to discussing policy, it can be very confusing.

To account for these aspects, people use charts and grids. Much like personality tests, these are useful for creating a foundation upon which to debate and discuss, but are ultimately made by humans in order to generalize and will have errors and discrepancies. But the political spectrum has rarely been the single line most of us were taught. Instead, it is often a grid used to navigate the direction and preference of trends. Most people are much more moderate than they think, but have problems that need cooperative solutions, like the water crisis and fires on the west coast, disaster relief in the south, crop failure in the midwest, and ticks and diseases in the northeast. We all have huge problems and some areas are insulated from them for now, but they will come. How we navigate and demand solutions for those problems is what creates policy and the policies we agree with because of our value is what dictates our vote. 

So here’s some charts that human people made to talk about these things with and they have helped ground a lot of engaging conversations with people as I watch them argue but not get angry, because there’s a visual thing to talk around. Those kinds of tools should be everywhere. 

The political compass:

via Wikipedia: political spectrum

^

^A generalization of what different areas might look like. I’ve seen so many versions of this, but I liked the way this one because it gave me a better understanding of words I’m more familiar with and where they fall within the broad concepts. I couldn’t find the source. 

^ Here is another one from Google that took me to a shady site, so I didn’t link it, but the goal is to just be familiar with the different ways people structuralize and use definitions and terms to divide them up, in the end, the general understanding is all that matters, and our goal is to be functional, for the government to be usable by the people. Hamilton, the musical, was/is so important for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that it reminded us that this fight of trends and moving around the board has been going on since the very first election of a president to America. It’s always about one group pulling another, creating a tug-of-war that keeps us near the middle, hopefully.

This is a graph showing the individual party ideologies of past presidents by a site called Fact Myth. It is showing the party split between individuals and while we could argue and speculate about accuracies and meanings, whether a president was pushed to make a decision as a person, etc. in the end, they represent the will of the people and the trends we with to follow to solve problems at the time. 

^An outline someone made of 2020 candidates on Reddit that has been going around for a while. Jake showed this to me and while he was perfectly receptive to me saying that yeah, but a person made this and they can have agendas and just put people places, he also had some really great points on how Americans often think we’re moderates, but what we perceive to be in the middle is often skewed by capitalism. That’s not to say it’s bad, simply that if we’re talking trends and problems and solutions, we have to understand where we are on the real scale, not just our own. We will also tend to vote for those who are closest to us, rather than moving in the direction of us, so, say someone sits right where Ryan is, Ryan drops out; now, despite their personal political preference being on the edge of the middle moderate square, they move to Biden rather than Warren or Sanders because Biden is closer to their original place, even if, coming from Trump, moving to Warren/Sanders would pull the political trend back toward their moderate preference. 

Not everyone does this, obviously, but I’m fascinated by how our individual personalities affect how we decide politics. Are you a “next best thing” kind of person? Are you a “obsess relentlessly until it’s done” kind of person? Are you a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke? Or what about “out of sight out of mind, doesn’t bother me, I don’t care” kind of person? So many of the ways we solve our daily problems are reflected in the ways we move our own political affiliations during voting times. I just think that’s interesting because I’m a social science nerd though. 

A friend from Brown who is much older than us (also a social science nerd <3) pointed out that she grew up with such antagonizing propaganda during the cold war and beginnings of technological boom and peak oil, and it all said the same thing, anything outside the blue is morally wrong and heavily corrupt. I thought that was an interesting point about exposure and remembering past problems, how voting ages overlap to find new solutions or rely on old ones, and what it would cost us to see American politics on a global scale. 

^This is a global scale of values (not politics) from the wikipedia page on political spectrums, and I thought it tied into the conversation in interesting ways, especially when we look at American generation differences in individualism and social cooperation and how they are viewed by each other to both be equally negative. There’s a whole world of solutions and different ways things our done, but we’ve been taught from birth that some are bad and others are exceptions and ours is good. 

Vox has an interesting tool to figure out where abouts you would lie on the compass. I think debating it with others is a better way, since it’s a primarily relative scale (unless you prefer those structuralist ones, but keep in mind that it’s a preference, not a requirement). But I thought I’d include it for those who may not have access to that kind of conversation. 

In the end, consider your morals and how they are different from your current values, and how your current values are affected by your current problems, and how you want the world to look, how you want trends to move, and how your biases of experience or ignorance might play a role in that. I honestly didn’t really think about healthcare until I was in Ireland and saw how simple an alternative was and how freeing it felt. My parents can’t even imagine it (and they are of the class who should most desire those changes), they don’t have enough of a base knowledge to understand how it works, it’s electricity after gaslamps. 

Anyway, just thought I’d share some of those tools. As a skeptical person, I want to remind everyone that these are tools, not documented facts, and fighting about where people are on the graph and where we might be is part of how we come to conclusions about rights and wants and solutions and needs and what we actually value. Most of us, in the end, value comfort and hope, and we vote for the people we think provide that to us. The problem often lies in people misunderstanding their own comfort and relying on ignorance rather than hope. I found these graphs useful in grounding my talks with overwhelming professionals and finding some semblance of peace in what I wanted to hope for and I hope maybe for some of you they can provide that as well. ❤️

If, like me, you reached your 20s and realized a gaping hole in your education, I also recommend the Crash Course series on US Politics. It helped me understand a lot of things that were skimmed over in textbooks or left as multiple choice answers on a standardized test. Politics are a series of solutions to the problems we face as a social group, and knowing how to talk about them completely changed my own feelings of helplessness when communicating to others. 

[trashboatprince]

(People asked me to post my analysis about Bendy Land being a reality in New York, and I’ve had this in my drafts since December so it’s very out of date, especially since the Employee Handbook sorta confirmed that it was in development before JDS went bankrupt. Everything bold is new information, everything without it is the old info I was working on at the time before I got annoyed with myself for making this post

Make of it what you will, I overthought stuff from one chapter of the freaking game. Enjoy.)

-- I was looking through the Bendy wiki for images for Joey’s apartment, just to see the contents of his cork board, when I really took notice to something.

There are tickets for Bendy Land pinned to the board.

Now, I was discussing this little theory/idea with my friend the other day, what if Bendy Land had actually been a reality, not just an idea that had been stopped in it’s tracks due to a lack of budget.

Under the cut is a bunch of ideas as to what would have been the causes for the park to go under if it were a reality in the world outside of the studio, and why it could have helped in Joey Drew Studios’ bankruptcy. 

Now, if Joey HAD the budget to make Bendy Land a reality, obviously it would have to be within an easy access drive to the studio. So it would be located in New York, or at least within a decent driving distance to Brooklyn, if that is where the studio is supposedly located (don’t quote me on that). Turns out it is in NYC so I have that going for me

Okay, that’s not too bad, right? Well, that would mean the park would have to be a seasonal amusement park, the cold weather wouldn’t do it any good and people don’t really want to go to a theme park during a New England winter. That’s not a problem, there are a lot of parks that operate during warmer months up in this region (Coney Island being a good example), but Joey will have to deal with the upkeep during the winter, and that’s not always cheap.

You gotta pay to keep the rides from being damaged by the weather and vandals, you gotta make sure you’re prepared to open when the operating season opens, usually in May (a lot of seasonal parks open around Memorial Day). Could Joey afford this? Possibly, if he cares enough to deal with such a big oversight.

Then you have to consider sponsors, they help to pay for A LOT of content and material in parks. Disneyland was practically built on the money it got from all the sponsors that signed up with the parks. That means Joey would probably get money from Briar Label and GENT, which would make sense as to why there are official Bendy posters that show the sponsorship and why we see the brands all over the studio.

It’s possible that a lot of the money for the studio in general came from these companies. And I was right

And, of course, whatever Bertrum contributed.

After all, this was his magnum opus project! He was going to build one hell of a park!

Now we have a problem with this.

Bertrum says in his tape before you fight him that it was to be the largest park ever built. Hoo boy, there’s a big load of problems with that. 

A seasonal park that’s deemed to be that impressively large is going to fail, big time. There is no way that a park only open for a short time (usually from May to October) will not have the budget to keep running for the next season that well.

From what we see of Bertrum’s ideas, both drawn and being worked on, this project was MASSIVE. The park is huge in size from what we see with the model and designs. It looks like it would have had a large number of rides, attractions, ect. It even has it’s own railway, with actual trains!

Look, I’ve been to so many theme parks in my life, 95% of them ARE seasonal and none had full-on train engines that big. Those are practically real engines, not the small ones you normally see at amusement parks. 

There is obviously a lot of work and money put into this, and I can see why Grant went off the deep end from trying to crunch the numbers.

From Bertrum’s second tape, it clearly sounds like the park had actually been built (though in-game it appears to still be in construction), so from what we’ve seen in Storage 9 shows just a sample of what the real-world park had to offer. And judging by the giant Bendy arm in the room with the Butcher Gang... there was a lot going on.

I think the park may have ran well in its first year or two, but Joey’s spending and lack of budgeting clearly had an impact on the life of the park, and the studio.

Disneyland did well, even after the disastrous first day, because it was clearly built to adapt to new changes, it had so many sponsors and backing, and it was built in California, where it’s got way better weather to allow it to stay open all year around.

Bendy Land may have been built in a good area for just warm months in New York, but clearly from what we’ve seen with the actual Bendy cartoons, the park was probably not built to adapt to changing eras. Bendy in the cartoons is still straight up stuck in 1929 with animation. At the point of time that I assume Bendy Land would have started construction (1935-1945, a time when amusement parks were beginning to see a boom, especially AFTER the war when families were spending more time together for vacations), it was rare to find cartoons still being done in black and white, most animations studios had already shifted into using color to keep up with the competition.

But this is Joey we’re talking about, the man clearly liked to think big, but only with what he could work with. 

And now we’re gonna talk in bold cause that’s where I stopped.

So basically, the book pretty much states that the studio went bankrupt and Joey’s projects came to a halt, but this post is still about the reality of if Bendy Land became a real thing, so let’s stick with that mindset.

I feel like Joey would waste too much of the money the studio was making on the park, on trying to keep it running and functioning during the months it’s open. Clearly, this will cause issues for the studio itself.

Budgets would be slashed something awful, you’re practically working for next to nothing cause your paycheck is going into making sure some kid can get a Bendy toy from a carny.

And would Bendy still be popular? Would he and his friends still have an impact on the people? 

During WWII, if you didn’t do propaganda cartoons for the US, you were S.O.L. for your studio to stay afloat. A lot of studios who were doing decently at the time suffered for not ‘doing their patriotic duty’, which wasn’t their faults, they weren’t getting the money or viewership. Didn’t help that a lot of staff members were deployed.

Obviously the novel shows that the studio stuck around for a while, maybe they made some shorts, or Joey bribed to have Bendy cartoons play alongside Private Snafu shorts or Donald Duck episodes. I’m getting distracted, but still, the studio somehow stuck around so Bendy would still be known.

But let’s also take into account that a lot of studios have had parks themed on characters before. Hanna-Barbara has had a number of parks based on the Flintstones (that all failed), Japan has had parks based on their own characters, and English book characters, that all failed or aren’t as popular as Disney yet still kinda draw in crowds.

Bendy Land would probably last for about five or so years, give or take.

Seasonal parks are a risky move, you have to constantly make sure they are taken care of during the down seasons. You have to be able to attract big enough crowds each open season that bring in just enough money to keep going. You have to keep in good contract with sponsors or else you will lose money.

You have to have rides that people want to ride, you have to keep safety up, you have to pay your employees and give them decent privileges/bonuses/money that will want them to keep working there (Joey clearly wasn’t allowing that, according to footnotes from the handbook).

Also, you HAVE TO PAY THE CONSTRUCTION PEOPLE. Joey wasn’t really doing a great job with that either!

This park, if it had been finished, would have been the kick to the crotch during Joey’s downfall. Maybe he dodged a bullet with his studio going under, because it probably didn’t cost him as much as it would have if his theme park died on him (he could make back money by selling it/the rides, but that’s a whole other issue cause a lot of times... parks are straight up left to rot when no one wants them or their rides. Looking at you, Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach, SC. You were a sad sight to see for a while when driving past to go to the boardwalk)

But yeah, this was just me rambling, like, this was just a huge thing about the idea of Bendy Land being a reality and how it really wouldn’t have been a huge success if it had been finished. Poor Bertrum, that would have been a huge pain in the ego.

Aaaaaannnnddd... that’s all I’ve got. I can’t think of anything else right now, but I’m very sure there’s more.

Anyway, thanks for listening to a guy with too much time to think about a fictional amusement park cause he spends too much time watching theme park history videos on youtube and overthinks about Bendy.

[feynites]

Cat-Ra, Part One

Testing the waters with some She-Ra fic! Please lemme know if you enjoy it.

Standard reminder to followers on mobile, of course, to blacklist ‘long post’ so that you’re not left scrolling for infinity if tumblr eats the ‘read more’.

The sword chooses Catra.

 Let’s pretend, for a moment, that the Sword of Protection works a little differently. A stolen skiff zips through the Whispy Woods. The path its on changes course around a wide tree, and a different girl is struck by a branch. Hard enough to knock the breath from her, as she plummets towards the ground in a rush of surprise and alarm. Her best friend’s hand reaches for her…

 Catra blinks awake in the tangle of the forest floor, and sees a sword.

 It calls to her. Somehow. Shining and bright, like everything that Catra isn’t supposed to be, or want. She crawls over, already getting over the impact of her fall, and reaches a hand out. The voice calling for her grows louder. Stronger. Images flash through her mind - temples and ruins, lights and crystals, bright things that beckon until she cries out in alarm and lets go again.

 The next time she wakes, Adora is leaning over her. Concern writ large in her features.

 “Catra? Are you alright? How many fingers am I holding up?”

 She bats the fretting aside - don’t show weakness - and searches. Looking for the sword, but it’s nowhere to be found. Adora keeps worrying all the way back to the Fright Zone, convinced that Catra must have concussed herself. Putting her through stupid ‘health and safety’ tests before she finally relents.

 The Force Captain badge is still shiny and new on her lapel.

 When Catra sneaks out in the night, she is swift and silent and makes nary a sound.

 By the time Adora wakes to find her gone, she’s already back in the wood again.

  ~

  “Request permission to search for missing cadet-”

 “Denied.”

 Shadow Weaver’s tone is final. Adora tries not to bristle in place, as the third refusal in as many days sweeps over her. Something strange is going on. Even aside from Catra’s disappearance, Shadow Weaver has been behaving oddly. Adora’s not certain if it’s her promotion or not, but her attitude has changed. Something… seems to be bothering her. Eating at her, making her short-tempered and more impatient with Adora than usual.

 Dismissive, even.

 And that’s not the only thing. The mission Adora helmed was clearly awry. Their target was supposed to be a military outpost, but when they arrived, the structures were clearly civilian in nature. Adora called a full stop and demanded a review of intelligence reports, in light of the discrepancy. When she couldn’t reconcile the reports with the site their informants had given them, she ordered a full withdrawal.

 The decision earned her a reprimand. Shadow Weaver even threatened to revoke her promotion, but it made no sense! If their intelligence was bad, then what good would it do to attack a civilian installation? They would be committing a war crime, wasting troops and firearms, and killing non-combatants! Not to mention, the real installation was as yet undiscovered. Adora knew what she had seen, she had even checked the area for illusions. Holographic tech or signs of magical activity, that might be disguising a military outpost as a civilian settlement.

 Nothing.

 The intelligence was bad, and what was more, Shadow Weaver couldn’t even qualify her reprimand, in light of that fact. She wanted to take Adora to task for failing to follow orders, but Adora was given command of the mission. Which entailed the authority to withdraw if variables no longer made the objective viable.

 That was what commanders were for; why strikes were not simply led by pre-programmed drones, after all.

 And now, she has yet to be given a second mission, and Shadow Weaver refuses to even let her investigate Catra’s disappearance.

 “What is going on?” she finally asks, breaking protocol to address Shadow Weaver plainly.

 Her mentor’s eyes narrow in the slits of her mask. The dark tendrils around her furl and unfurl in agitation.

 “It is not your place to question me,” Shadow Weaver reminds her.

 “With all due respect, Shadow Weaver, if I can tell that something is wrong then I will not be the only one.”

 The comment seems to get through. At least a little. Adora relaxes her posture somewhat, and brings a hand to her chest.

 “I’m trying to help,” she says. “I want to serve. I want to bring order. I want to do what’s right-”

 “You want to find your lost stray,” Shadow Weaver snaps. Turning, she gestures, and Adora can tell by her tone that she’s frustrated. “All this time, all this energy spent on you, and for what? I have invested countless hours in your tutelage, poured years of resources into your training. The Horde is bigger than your personal attachments, Adora. Your little squad, that - that feckless cat of yours! You are supposed to be the one… you, you were supposed to be the one. The likeliest candidate. But now… I have a Force Captain who cannot take orders, and a traitor who has carried an ancient weapon right into our enemies’ hands.”

 Adora is rigid with surprise.

 “What?” she asks.

 Shadow Weaver regards her inscrutably for a moment. Then she gestures. The screen on the far side of the room lights up. Adora turns, and sees a Horde military outpost on the screen. It’s located in the midst of what seem to be some very tangled and dangerous wilds, overgrown, with the local plantlife suffering from some kind of blight. As she watches, rebel insurgents attack the outpost with plants.

 That alone is striking enough. The rebels look almost modest, in their flower-strewn clothing, but their assault is brutally effective. Horde soldiers are crushed, shredded, strangled, and facility bunkers are blown left and right. Despite this effectiveness, though, they are still attempting to thwart machines with plants. Some of the stationary guns rip through the aggressive foliage, and armoured troops begin to gain ground in defending the base…

 …Until a sword-wielding figure descends on them, and promptly starts taking them out with obvious waves of magic.

 A princess. It must be. But not any one that Adora has seen the records for. She spies a more familiar target - Bright Moon’s princess Glimmer, and a rebel cohort - following after the figure. And yet, something about the young woman’s face presses at Adora’s thoughts. She’s tall, and muscular, with feline features. I must be thinking of Catra, she decides. The woman has a bright red cape and wears a suit of golden armour. The tiara that frames her face reminds her of Catra’s headgear, too. The only article of clothing that doesn’t seem to go with the rest of her outfit is a crystal collar secured around her neck. Her hair is a massive mane, thick and dark, her tail is long, and her eyes…

 Her eyes are mismatched. Bright yellow and blue.

 If the woman wasn’t obviously much physically larger than her friend, Adora might almost think…

 “Do you recognize her?” Shadow Weaver asks, pausing the scene on the new princess’s face.

 “She’s a feline. Like Catra,” Adora says, cautiously.

 Shadow Weaver hisses, and gestures emphatically.

 “She is Catra!” her mentor exclaims. “Bearing the Sword of Protection, the- carrying a dangerous rebel weapon. A magical device. She found it in the Whispering Woods, and all but handed it over to the rebels of Bright Moon.”

 The sword-!

 Adora looks at the screen again, eyes widening. The day they went out for their joy ride, the day before Catra left, her friend had talked about seeing a sword in the woods. Only briefly, but, in that way that Catra tended to have, of mentioning things fervently, only to renounce their importance to her the next minute. And she had been so distant afterwards… she had even mentioned it again, although Adora had been more worried over potential concussions at the time.

 The sword must have been real. Catra must have gone back for it. Maybe even hoping to gain some credit for retrieving it, especially in light of Adora’s promotion. Her friend might not want the responsibilities of a Force Captain, but even Adora knew that she still wanted to gain credit and approval. Only, she must have been caught.

 “Catra’s not a traitor,” Adora says, narrowing her eyes at the screen. She looks at the mismatched item on the ‘princess’ - the collar.

 It looks more like the sort of thing one would expect to find on the Bright Moon princess. That sort of corrupt, magical aesthetic. Deceptively ‘pretty’, but rebel propaganda is only skin-deep.

 Shadow Weaver rounds on her. Quickly, Adora points.

 “Look,” she insists. “It’s a collar. The rebels are using her. Catra must have gone to retrieve the weapon - I admit, going solo was a bad decision on her part, she can be reckless - but then the rebels must have caught her. They’re using her to wield the weapon.”

 Why, though? Wouldn’t that pose a massive liability?

 But maybe something about the sword is dangerous. Too dangerous for a rebel to voluntarily wield it. Adora goes cold at the thought. What if it’s like radiation, what if the magic in it is lethal? Catra’s days could be numbered. Her health could already be in jeopardy…

 Shadow Weaver is silent for a moment.

 “You may… be onto something,” her mentor finally concedes. Adora feels her hope grow, as Shadow Weaver moves closer to the screen, and stares at the collar. “Or it may be nothing. Without the collar itself, it would be impossible to say for certain.”

 Straightening her back, Adora offers a formal salute.

 “I formally request permission to lead a strike team to attempt to retrieve Catra - and the weapon - from the enemy forces,” she says. “Shadow Weaver, I know Catra better than anyone. She did not betray the Horde. I would stake my entire career on it.”

 “...You may well have to,” Shadow Weaver decides. She draws in a long breath, and lets it out again.

 The look she gives Adora is cold. Assessing. Even… resentful, perhaps. Though Adora doesn’t know why.

 “Clearly, mistakes have been made,” she says. Another gesture, and the screen clears. “But it might be too late to rectify matters. If Catra has truly not betrayed us, then you will bring her back. Alive. With the sword, and the collar. I will need them both if I am to assess this situation appropriately.”

 Adora nods in acknowledgement. She turns swiftly, mind racing.

 “Adora,” Shadow Weaver says, before she leaves.

 She turns her head back towards the room, and waits. The atmosphere still feels… strange.

 “Do not touch the sword.”

 “It’s dangerous?” she confirms.

 “You cannot trust anything it shows you,” Shadow Weaver says. “The illusions written into these weapons are absolute. That ‘village’ you refused to destroy? One of many more lies you must learn to see through, if you are to understand the nature of this war. No more disobedience. If I cannot trust in your loyalty, then there is no place for you in the Horde.”

 So there was an illusion.

 Adora nods, shamed as comprehension dawns. There is a reason for orders, after all. And why they must be followed. And with the rebels using Catra…

 “I understand.”

 She cannot afford to fail any more of the tests set before her.

  ~

  “Okay, guys, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I really feel like these past few adventures have been a terrific bonding experience for us,” Catra says, leaning heavily against Bow and Glimmer’s shoulders. “So how about we just cut to the bit where we have a touching heart-to-heart and someone takes the magical collar off of me?”

 Glimmer snorts.

 “Nice try,” she says, as she knocks the arm off of her shoulder.

 Bow looks like he wants to fall for it, at least. He pats Catra’s back and looks at her with stupid, shiny eyes. Like some kind of baby deer.

 “I believe in you,” he assures her. “And when that day finally comes and it’s not just you trying to convince us to take off the collar so you can run back to the Horde, it’s going to be amazing!”

 Catra sighs.

 “I really… just… I’m sincerely hurt that you guys still don’t believe in me…”

 Bow’s bottom lip wobbles.

 Glimmer glares at her.

 “You tried to stab me last night!”

 “What? Oh, that? No that was a friend… stabbing. Thing. Friendly! Friend-stabbing. Don’t you guys do that sort of stuff, y’know, among… uh… chums…?”

 The three of them argue over the validity of ‘friendship stabbings’ as they make their way through Sea Worthy, until they finally reach the tavern. Catra takes it in with a little more enjoyment than she was able to spare the nightmare hippie plant village. At least until they get to the captain they’re hiring, and then she mostly just wants to punt him through a window.

 He sings.

 And over-charges.

 Catra spots the wear and tear on his boots, though, and notes the total lack of an actual crew, and while it’s tempting to let Glimmer blow a significant chunk of Bright Moon’s treasury on hiring a hack, she’d like to be able to eat on this trip, too. So she haggles the swindling buccaneer down until he’s merely fleecing them, before demanding a basket of deep-fried shrimp in repayment. Bow gets it for her.

 He’s less annoying than Kyle, she’ll give him that.

 Sea Hawk, on the other hand, takes annoying to record new heights. Catra almost doesn’t know what’s worse, being on a boat or listening to his impromptu ‘chanties’. When he tries to get her to ‘pull her weight’ aboard, she just hisses at him until he backs off.

 “Well at least you’re not all frighteningly able shipmates,” he says, with an uncomfortable laugh.

 Catra nearly feeds him to the stupid sea monster her sails them right into, just on principle.

 But they manage to make it to The Sea Gate in one piece, and without Catra drowning or choking on her own seasick vomit, which is the relevant part really. She can appreciate Princess Mermista’s apathy, but moreover, she can appreciate the fact that the Sea Gate is failing and that a Horde force is almost certainly on its way to finish the job.

 Only problem is, the Horde thinks she’s a traitor. So if the unfettered armies pour through the gate while Catra’s on the other side, there are good odds that they’ll just try and kill her on sight. She’s not an idiot. She was a barely-tolerated cadet before she left; and she doubts Shadow Weaver will even care about the particulars of whether or not she’s being controlled. Right now, she’s just another threat for the Horde to take down.

 In all honesty, while the collar keeps her from doing anything that Glimmer deems ‘bad’, it’s that thought more than anything that’s kept her captive.

 Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.

 “...I think the sword can probably fix the gate,” she suggests, reluctantly.

 If she’d known who the Force Captain in charge of the attack on Sea Gate was, she never would have even suggested it.

  ~

  “Focus fire on the gate,” Adora instructs. “Force Captain Scorpia, maintain steady bursts around the base of the energy field. Weaken the field enough to puncture and then widen the opening. Even if they can consolidate the gate’s power again, we might be able to get our ship through before they can close it.”

 “Aye aye, Captain!” Scorpia agrees enthusiastically. Adora appreciates her presence on the mission, truth be told. The more experienced Force Captain is cheerful and enthusiast, and she can’t fault Shadow Weaver for giving her an escort. Not after the debacle of her first assignment.

 This time is different, though.

 Adora narrows her eyes as she spots the rebels. They’ve situated themselves up at a high point, near the gate. They’re using Catra to try and regenerate it, by the looks of things - her friend is holding the sword up, shadowed by Princess Glimmer, while the rest of the rebel forces scatter to try and intercept their vessel.

 So.

 Princess Glimmer is the one holding the invisible leash, then.

 “You’re mine,” Adora vows in a whisper, as she lowers her spyglass.

 “What?” Scorpia asks.

 “Keep firing, and defend our position,” she orders. “You’re in command, while I take care of the second part of our mission.”

 With a nod, Scorpia starts recharging the canon. Adora claims a skimmer and rides out towards the external ladder of the gate. It seems like most of Sea Gate’s forces have already been depleted, though. Abandoned in preparation for defeat, most likely. It’s to her advantage, as she manages to make her way up to the platform where Glimmer and Catra are.

 “Catra!” she calls.

 Her friend turns, eyes wide.

 “Adora?!”

 She should have known better. Emotions got the best of her; the call warns Princess Glimmer, of course. Adora is forced back as the princess hurls a ball of blinding-bright sparkles at her. However pretty princess powers might look, they pack a punch. Adora is nearly knocked off the floating platforms as she deflects, and only years of training let her keep her footing.

 “Rebel witch!” she curses. “Let your captive go, or face the consequences!”

 “I don’t take orders from you, Horde scum!” Princess Glimmer shouts back. The sword wavers, and the Sea Gate darkens a little. Glimmer moves Catra’s arm back up, and Adora sees red. They are using her! Like some kind of prop, some - some mannequin, they can just parade around to get their weapon, or tool, or whatever that thing is to do what they need it to!

 She takes aim and fires. The princess teleports out of the way, but it buys her enough time to leap her way up to the platform that Catra is on.

 “Put down the sword, Catra!” she instructs, in case that might work.

 “Yeah, uh, I’d love to, but this collar is keyed to make me obey Princess Sparklepants over there, so no can do,” Catra says.

 Glimmer shoots her a glare.

 “Oh yeah, you’re so loyal and good now, how could we ever doubt it?!” the princess snaps.

 Adora takes the opening to fire off another shot. The princess teleports, but her landing brings her close enough to the edge of the platform that a swift strike has her careening down towards the water with a sharp cry.

 Quickly, she holsters her weapon, and reaches for Catra. Taking her shoulders in hand as she looks grimly at the collar.

 “...Wow, you’re really tall now,” she notes, quietly. Really tall. It’s so strange - how did that happen? It couldn’t have just been a growth spurt…

 “Only sometimes. The vertigo gets intense,” Catra says. Which doesn’t really make it less confusing.

 But they have more pressing things to deal with. Like the collar.

 “How do I get this off of you?”

 “If I knew that, I’d have gotten it off of me. Don’t-”

 Adora reaches out to try and find a latch, and then yanks her hands back as her fingers go numb. She’s expecting pain, but apart from feeling unpleasant, there doesn’t seem to be much more to it than that.

 “Yeah, don’t do that,” Catra tells her. “There’s no latch anyway. There’s some kind of trick to it; the Queen of Bright Moon knows it, and so does her daughter.”

 Determinedly, Adora starts trying to figure out how she could simply carry Catra away. Would her friend be forced to struggle.

 “Then we’ll figure it out later. I just need to get you-”

 “Hah!”

 Before she can finish her sentence, Princess Glimmer teleports back up onto the platform. Adora barely has time to register the presence before a set of shockingly strong arms close around her waist. Then there’s a feeling like she’s being rolled around in a very sparkly dryer, before open air surrounds her.

 Princess Glimmer teleports them above the ocean. She lets go of Adora, before teleporting away again. Leaving her with little more than a cheeky wave. The air whips around her ears. She braces herself and hits the water, shocking cold and hard enough to bruise. But she keeps her wits enough to avoid breathing in any mouthfuls of sea water. With a rush of anger - how could she have let her guard down so badly?! - she pushes back up to the surface.

 The princess didn’t take her far, but the situation is turning. They shouldn’t have only brought one ship. Some maniac is piloting a sailboat straight for their vessel, and it looks as if the Princess Mermista is commanding the waves. Adora has a split second to decide between heading back towards the ship or up to the platform.

 Catra…

 If they get the gate operational again, then the mission is done for. That’s not sentiment; it’s practical. Reverse course, keep away from that ship, she thinks, as if her thoughts could somehow psychically beam to Scorpia. But the other woman is an experienced Force Captain, and part of being in command is trusting to the powers of delegation. Adora swims back towards the platforms, only to find her path blocked by Mermista.

 “Yeah, I don’t think so,” the princess says, blandly, before moving her arm and washing Adora backwards onto a wave.

 No, she thinks.

 Twisting in the water, she wrenches her weapon from her holster, and fires a shot. It goes wide, but manages to hit the princess in the shoulder.

 The wave collapses.

 Adora hits the side of the Horde ship, right before a flaming sailboat crashes into the opposite end.

 Her ears are ringing, and her consciousness is flagging as she feels an exoskeletal arm close around her waist. Pulling her away from the flaming wreckage, as the rebels cheer; and Sea Gate begins to bright, closing the opening blasted through by their ship.

 No…

 At the top platform, she sees Catra’s red cape billowing.

 Dammit.

 No.

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: earlier this afternoon I managed to smash my foot into a coffee table and I’m increasingly starting to suspect that I broke at least one toe. As a result I haven’t had time to write a full edition of “The Skinny” today; in the meantime here’s a short essay on history, propaganda and the CIA.

In a recent essay about changing mainstream attitudes towards Edward Snowden and the national security state, I talked a little bit how the business of recording and analyzing history is riddled with class-based structural barriers that largely serve to protect and support establishment power and as such, elite capital. Obviously where I deal with this most in my writing is in the real-time record of history reported and analyzed by the media - after all, this type of orthodox, pro-establishment propagandizing happens every day on the evening news.

Today I'm going to switch gears and talk about books, specifically actual history books about war, foreign policy and espionage. After finishing Edward Snowden's new biography “Permanent Record” I went back to my shelf and pulled down Tim Weiner's 2007 book "Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA" - a volume I've reference many times in my writing but have never sat down to read from cover to cover until a couple of days ago.

While this isn't exactly a normal book review, I like to note up front that I’m not here to explicitly trash Legacy of Ashes - it's not like Weiner's tome is an objectively bad or horrifyingly inaccurate history book; it did after all win a Pulitzer Prize.

Based on hundreds of direct interviews and massive hordes of (then) recently declassified documents, Legacy of Ashes is mostly what it purports to be - a complete history of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency from its formation up until roughly 2006. Obviously different scholars have different primary sources but if you're in mainstream liberal media or military scholarship and you write about national security, this is a book you'll be expected by most informed observers to be familiar with; as I said, I've referenced it quite often in my work as well.

Of course, in light of the fact that the book was released right around the same time as the full exposure of CIA's staggering failure in the lead up to and aftermath of 9/11 and its complicity in Bush's secret prisons hiding America's torture program, the author understandably takes an overall "dim" view of the CIA. From cowboy covert operations in the fifties and sixties, up on through to the horrifying failures that lead to the invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction our government knew they couldn’t find (because they didn’t exist), Legacy of Ashes tells the tale of a wayward, out of control intelligence agency that has never been capable of its supposed primary function – keeping the President informed of what is happening beyond America’s borders.

In the general sense then, it’s fair to say that for the average reader the book almost certainly comes off as a shocking indictment of the Central Intelligence Agency and many of the men who have had leadership roles inside the agency - so what's the problem? It almost sounds like I'm recommending it - doesn’t it?

Unfortunately however Tim Weiner is an affluent former New York Times journalist with a Journalism degree from Colombia and a career's worth of contact with minions of the national security state; in other words Weiner is about as "establishment" as they come and the effect that has on both his overall worldview and his study of the CIA's history, screams off virtually every single page in Legacy of Ashes.

Like all too many national security "muckrakers" Weiner starts with the basic hypothesis that the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies in general are good, justified and necessary for the defense of the country - the whole mom and apple pie American feel good story. The repeated abuses and failures of the agency, from the author’s perspective, are simply an obvious byproduct of the arrogance, incompetence and personal failings of individual leaders - failings that are often magnified by the byzantine bureaucratic structures inherent to a "free" and "open liberal democracy” like the United States.

In Weiner's account the CIA itself is not the problem, but rather the faulty individuals entrusted with its sacred task. Catastrophic failures in intelligence that have all too tragic consequences are a result of individual hubris, mission drift and plain old American cultural arrogance; the question of whether or not there should have even been a Cold War for example, simply doesn’t come up - even as the author openly admits that everything the CIA and the US government thought it knew about the Soviet Union turned out to be wrong and was based on lies produced to order by, yes the CIA. Leader after leader and planner after planner are revealed to be flawed human beings consumed by petty emotions or false assumptions and thus wholly unsuited for the job. Every U.S. president is a poor helpless dupe, grasping to extend his power to protect America from harm without realizing what he's now empowered the wayward CIA, lead by "the wrong men", to do next – even as those same men continually empower the CIA to do more and more damage in the “service” of protecting American interests abroad. In this worldview American “cloak and dagger” imperialism comes off as a sort of tragic accident; rather than a purposeful activity designed to bolster American power not just in a military sense, but in a global economic sense on behalf of American corporations as well.

In particular, Weiner's curious assessment of Allen Dulles as a bumbling incompetent obsessed with reckless covert military actions and derisive of the CIA's real work, gathering intelligence, paints a very different and somehow less harmful picture of the former CIA director than previously released accounts that delve deeper into the control Dulles exhibited over American media and the ruthlessness with which he marched men to their deaths in the dubious service of the Cold War on communism. While anyone who has read Dave Talbot’s “The Devil’s Chessboard” will have no real problem accepting that Allen Dulles was an unhinged psychopath whose vision was clouded by myopic hatred of the Soviet Union (and anti-capitalism as a whole), Weiner’s portrait of a gout-ridden dilettante withdrawing into a world of public relations and spy-novel trickery doesn’t line up very well with Dulles’s staggering level of (malignant and xenophobic) influence over multiple U.S. presidents and American foreign policy. We are after all talking about a man who might have had a hand in assassinating an American head of state to not only save the CIA but also prolong the Cold War in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Another good example of how the author’s proximity to his subject influences the way he presents the history of the CIA can be found in the way Weiner's suggestive prose repeatedly implies, but does not directly state, that Fidel Castro killed John F Kennedy; an extremely unlikely if not almost impossible scenario in light of the secret peace talks the Kennedy administration has since been revealed to have been trying to conduct with both Castro and Nikita Khrushchev.

It would be one thing if Weiner were just repeating information from CIA interviewees who believed Castro had Kennedy assassinated, but the problem is that Weiner himself is clearly purposely leaving a trail of clues towards his own belief that Fidel Castro had John F. Kennedy killed in retaliation for the CIA's botched plots to assassinate Castro; clues that are scattered throughout the entire book - it comes up at least a dozen times in the first 250 pages for example.

Naturally this theory has the benefit of not only indirectly absolving the CIA itself (and shifting the blame to Robert Kennedy) but also supporting the author’s primary thesis – namely that the CIA is horribly run and has at times been completely out of control but ultimately the agency is worth salvaging; a position that undoubtedly makes Weiner’s ex-CIA friends and sources happy no matter how much they protest otherwise.

In the author’s worldview, even the existence of the CIA is an unfortunate compromise for the pure as snow “democratic” Pig Empire, a result of America’s desperate need to fight the more talented, sophisticated and ruthless Soviet intelligence machine - an admission of inferiority that may seem scandalous on its face, but likely serves the CIA and its efforts to obscure the real, decidedly imperialist purpose of the agency just fine on the whole. Weiner could have and quite probably should have named the book “Legacy of Ashes: Confessions of the real CIA” or something similar because this feels like a confessional, or perhaps national therapy more than it feels like excoriation and condemnation.

Legacy of Ashes uses the agency’s own records and officers to gleefully point out all of the CIA’s already admitted mistakes, but the larger questions of how and why the world’s only superpower keeps letting dangerous cowboy intelligence officials “lead it” by the nose into “accidental” atrocity after “accidental” atrocity is left wholly unasked and unanswered. In the end you’re left with a book that largely consists of a full and detailed chronicle of the CIA’s known public history from the perspective of an exasperated but ultimately sympathetic parent who just wishes the agency would stick with the important work of gathering intelligence. 

So that simply leaves one question; did Tim Weiner sit down to write a limited hangout for the CIA at the time of its greatest need? I can’t definitively answer that question but truthfully, I doubt it. The lens through which Legacy of Ashes views the CIA seems to me wholly a product of who the author is, or rather who he’d simply have to be to end up a world renowned national security reporter for the New York Times; an influential media figure with the resources, time and gravitas to speak to hundreds of former CIA employees.

Weiner comes from a lived experience and professional environment where American imperialism is a dirty foreign smear, the CIA’s purpose is purely defensive and questioning whether or not the problem is American global hegemony itself, as opposed to rogue cowboys running an unsupervised spy shop, is strictly verboten. If the author were the kind of guy who thought the CIA deserved to be shattered into a thousand pieces and American imperialism is a source of global suffering, not global stability - well I highly doubt you’d have ever heard of his book.

All of which isn’t to say that Legacy of Ashes is a worthless book; if like myself you’ve read dozens and dozens of other books on not only the CIA but also U.S. imperialism, it’s fairly easy to tease out the facts from Weiner’s strictly liberal orthodox opinions and desire to ultimately preserve the agency. Unfortunately however if you are not an accomplished history student or largely unfamiliar with the minutiae of CIA’s history as a whole, it’s safe to say that Legacy of Ashes is only going to tell you part of the story - the what, and not the why.

This is because if you ever did figure out the real reasons why, you’d see no justifiable reason for America to even have a CIA.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog. Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord! 

[red-stick-progressive]

A response to that racist responding repeatedly to my additions to the post on Colonial Genocide

1: “La Hispaniola, in where most if not all of the indigenous population dissapeared. I’m only agreeing partially with you, Spanish colonization was devastating, BUT that just isn’t ALL (as you dare to put, in a kinda of cospirazy-theory way): There were a lot of other factors, in were DID play a part the illnesses and the war the own indians had agaisnt others.”

(Then you talk about the Aztec, unrelated to Hispaniola)

2: “The book you provided to me has taken, unsurprisingly, the highest balance of people (8 million) it supposed to exist in the island of La Hispainola before 1492 (of course, the bigger deads, the better! gets easier to acuse of holocaust and genocide).”

(You misread Stannard, I assume in a preview or something. He mentions the population estimate considered standard by most academia for most of the history of the research of the indigenous peoples of the new world, which was the laughable 8 million in the entire western hemisphere. This is obviously an example of academia being a tool of propaganda, colonialist and yes genocidal propaganda. By diminishing the population they reduce the weight of the colonial crimes and reduce the legitimacy of contemporary peoples to the identities of their ancestors. All which benefits colonial power structures. Currently, the most conservative and still legitimate estimate of populations in Mexico before contact is 25 million. That is just in the region of Mexico. The most current and reasonable estimate for the population of Hispaniola before contact is 1.8 to 2.9 million. That many Taino people may have lived on that island when the Spanish arrived. Less than 1 generation later there were no Taino left on the island. All that survived, less than 50 thousand did so as slaves elsewhere or as refugees in other native nations.

American Holocaust by David E Stannard

https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/colonial-genocides-project/hispaniola

http://www.wou.edu/history/files/2015/08/Cain-Stoneking-HST-499.pdf )

3: “There you have the ciphers of people other specialist gives that goes from 60.000 (how they dare!) to 8 million, and the problems actual historians have to put a real number, because, as I’ve been saying, de las Casas simply exagerated the number of deads and the ways spaniards killed indians to make his point (spaniards bad, indians good). You know, census didn’t exist that time in 1492. But of course, that’s not a problem for those who’re appealed to lie. Just put the higher, albeit surreal, cypher to make it more proper to accuse of “genocide”, call you book something as “Genocide in America” or “Holocaust”, and you’ve got it.”

(This is mostly incomprehensible. First of all, no contemporary estimates are done exclusively based on personal accounts. Most population estimates are done by testable evidence like residence numbers in archeological sites compared to a standard model for what local populations looked like. This is still a flawed system constantly producing unreasonably small estimates but even this system far dwarfs what you argue. Cuz you’re a racist who is divorced from reality so much so that you are still using decades-old estimates based on nothing but propaganda.

The second point I have to address is that holocaust is a title, and genocide is a defined term. According to Google, Genocide: “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.” There is no conceivable argument against the fact that what the Dutch, the English, the Portuguese, and the Spanish did in the new world is genocide. Every single European power has dirtied hands. They stole land, erased languages and profited from other people doing the killing even if they didn’t explicitly do so at first.

https://www.google.com/search?q=genocide+define&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS750US750&oq=genocide+define&aqs=chrome..69i57.4815j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 )

4: “how in 1492-1502 spaniards AND indigenous people were both attacked by a same illness, the supposed illness spanish were “using” to kill indians (like 8 hundreds of millions of tHroUsAnDs of hundreds), per your lasts reviews… They were so smart that you know, “used” the same illness to being killed.”

(As for the idea that the same diseases killing millions of Natives were also killing the Spanish, that is very specifically not true. The diseases that the colonizers and conquistadors brought and then weaponized were more or less experientially harmless to them in context. Things like measles and the flu or malaria and typhus. Even the common cold and chickenpox killed and spread like plagues. The things that were periodic plagues in Europe such as cholera, bubonic plague, and smallpox were instantly devastating. Describing how and why is its own post and maybe I will make that post soon but I’ll just say here that Europe was a fucking dumpster fire in terms of sanitation where most cultures in the New World were so socially organized that every early encounter with any given tribe is usually followed with the Europeans marveling at how often Natives bathe and how much soap they use. Another important factor is the fact that Europe had dozens of different livestock animals that lived in immediate proximity to people often sharing water sources to defecate into and drink from. This meant diseases leaped from chickens and pigs and cows and horses to people much more frequently in the thousands of years since domestication. Native Agriculture developed along different paths and so the numerous livestock animals throughout the western hemisphere were fewer and more sanitarily maintained than in the eastern hemisphere. The only disease spread back to Europe during the Columbian exchange was syphilis, though not a plague still terrified Europe. Important detail: it also did not nearly exterminate the entire population of the entire Old World.

The specific example in the first section of American Holocaust was the first such plague event, that made many Spaniards sick and killed thousands of Natives almost immediately. The first plague, unexpected and abrupt, the Spanish took note and it informed the numerous following invasions. It was swine flu, the kind Columbus deliberately spread ahead of himself later on in his return invasions.

As for the argument that the Spanish didn’t know that spread disease and plagues was possible or that they did so accidentally… I mean, to think this you just have to deny or ignore the insurmountable volume of personal; and first-hand accounts of people saying that’s what they were doing. The compilation of accounts and historical sources that Stannard uses often is Harvest of Violence, but Robert Cormack, it is a hard read of historians primarily from Guatemala and Mexico. As opposed to the pure Spanish propaganda you seem to subscribe to, it prioritizes our own voices and is also filled with the accounts from the colonizers themselves which need no special framing to be transparent and genocidal as they discuss leaving the plagued and dead in fields to prevent healthy harvest and piling the dead and debris in the aqueducts and canals of Tenochtitlan to starve and pollute and trap civilians. Just to be clear and definitive though, Europeans definitely knew about plague bodies spreading plague, obviously, they did not understand how or why, but they did. The Spanish had weaponized blood infected with leprosy to poison wine in Naples in 1495, and there were incidents of biological warfare all throughout the Reconquista, which pointedly ended in 1492 before Columbus left Seville.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200679/ : examples of Europeans using infected cadavers to poison arrows and wells and so on many times throughout history and recorded by contemporaries.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1198743X14641744 : the Spanish blood in wine thing, as well as a long list of other biological attacks in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista : this is just a link to the Reconquista from Wikipedia in case you were unaware of the very recent and relevant Spanish relationship with ethnic cleansing and genocide.)

5: “In this article, of course, if you could read spanish,”

(I can read Spanish, and speak it. I used to be pretty fluent but now mi español es limitado y lento, pero es mejor que otras personas, ¿no?)

6: “there were indians that just went to the forest and lived there outside from the cities, and like, nobody had a problem with that. Why they didn’t dissapear? Maybe, because, you know, conquest was not a genocide?or in other words: If it can be considered a genocide, is the worst and most inneficient genocide made ever.”

(I’m going to begin with the weird racist part about living in the forest. I, honest to god, don’t know what to say to explain why that's a laughably dumb claim and fundamentally racist thing to say at all. I was shouted at by some dumb racist in a town hall for my local representative, a Republican who hates immigrants etc. One of the things the racist yelled at me was “Go back to the woods.” I don’t know, figured I’d just mention that. Also, you know, it also just didn’t work either. Natives did flee from persecution and attack, and there are many individual accounts of being hunted down by dogs and soldiers and being brutally killed for it. One of the chiefs of the Hispaniola Natives fled with the few survivors of his people to another island where he identified the wealth and valuables that the Spanish sought and threw them in a river in a desperate attempt to make the Spanish leave them alone. He was known by Hatuey, and the “ good christian” Spaniards crucified him and burned him alive.

Also, I would argue that the relative efficiency of a genocide is not super relevant when measuring its moral value. Odd metric btw.)

7: “You can accuse of spanish colonialism of sclavitude, clasism, racism (even race wasn’t a part in the idea of conquering the indians, was a religious thing) and a lot of other things, really, I’m not even doubting about that, but  “Genocide” it’s not one of them.”

(The Spanish are actually the best case for inventing the notion of race, they applied a lense that mirrors the way American white supremacists measured race and how Nazi’s determined whether someone was Jewish regardless of identity or practice. The Spanish invented “Limpieza de Sangre” during the Reconquista while expelling Jews from Spain and hunting remaining Moors. And we know that Columbus brought it to the New World during colonization.

Again just google the word genocide. https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/659/tracing-the-roots-of-discrimination/ )

8: “even in the ancient spanish colonies there still a lot of indigenous people that survived and thanks to the own spanish colonial politics, instead of being killed in the moment for being considered as “sub-humans” or put in indian reservations and being killed of drunkness or surviving by putting casinos, but it is what it seems when some anglo-american just accuse other countries of doing the same and it shows.”

(Whew boy. Where to start?

“Ancient” Spanish colonies? Ancient?

Indigenous people survived despite colonial politics.

Literally, every account dehumanizes the Natives. Every single one, even the patronizing friars and supposed benefactors who just so happened to still not do anything to help Natives.

Just gonna put this here “put in indian reservations and being killed of drunkness or surviving by putting casinos,” Jesus.

And, ding ding ding, ya fucking idiot; can’t even read. I’m not “anglo-american” I’m Lumbee/Nanticoke, an indigenous eastern woodlands Native American. The Spanish colonized the Lumbee predecessors; idiot.)

@imanopinionatedadult @givemeyourtired @roxas-has-the-stick @givemeamomentortwo @thatmidstea @padawan-thunderairborne

[ssnakey-b]

My grandpa’s experiences in a Russian POW camp have been turned into a book.

Hi everyone. Today, I’d like to talk about something very personal, yet something that I think is very important to people in general. And to do that, we need to start with a bit of a history lesson.

Most of the people reading this I probably aware that I am French. Well, I was born and still live in Alsace, the easternmost region of the country, whose Eastern border is also the border between France and Germany.

Needless to say, this means that we’ve seen our fair share of conflict, as the two nations have been fighting over us, as well as another region called Lorraine, since... pretty much these two nations have existed. So unsurprisingly, one of the conditions of France’s surrender to Germany during World War 2 was that these two regions would be annexed, meaning they were officially part of Germany, meaning that all able-bodied men in these regions could potentially be drafted in the Wehrmacht, despite not being German. I’ll let you guess what happened to those who tried to refuse, and/or their families.

This happened across multiple countries and in France, we call them the “Malgré-Nous”, which translates to “Against Our Will”, and my grandfather was one of them. And because the Germans of course would rather not risk their superior homeboys, these people forced into the army were sent to fight off the Russians.

At some point, my grandpa’s squad ended up surrounded by Russian forces. They tried to flee, but were eventually caught and taken prisoners. They were sen’t to various prisoner camps, and ended up spending most of their time in the infamous Camp 188 in Tambov.

Now, this was a POW camp, the soldiers there were a bargaining chip for Russia, so they weren’t going out of their way to make people suffer or starve them, but this was a POW camp in soviet Russia, in the middle of the most brutal conflict in human history, so as you can probably guess, the living conditions barley allowed for survival.

I’m not entirely sure why, perhaps just to fight off depression and hunger, but my grandfather decided to keep a journal of it. He even describes the almost slapsticky way in which he had to move his arms around a guard searching him so he wouldn’t see it, and he explains that he eventually sewed hidden pockets inside his coat’s sleeves so he could hide it. It contains not only descriptions of the camp, daily life inside it and the land and wildlife of the area, but he also drew many sketches of what he saw, some of which you can see in these pictures. As an artist myself, I am very proud to see that not only does it run in the family, but he made such an important use of his talent.

Obviously, the journal of a surviving soldier’s experiences in a Russian POW camp is an incredibly rare and valuable document (even my family didn’t find out about it until a few years ago), especially considering the little-known aspect of WW2 of non-German people being forced into their army. Russian people are especially fascinated by this sort of stories because of course, for most of the XXth century, they could only know what their government would allow them to know about their own history.

This is how a French-speaking Russian woman who frequently visits France ended up hearing about the journal in local publications. She had this project of writing a book about the camp, and was looking for first-hand accounts of what it was like. Naturally, as soon as she heard about this, she contacted my parents and asked if she could write about the journal and include pictures of it. It goes without saying that they accepted. In fact, my father had the entire journal scanned in high resolution for just such an occasion (we also intend to have the entire thing printed, with a copy of the letter he received to inform him he was drafted).

Well, as the title of this post says, the book is now complete and its author sent us a copy. Of course, none of us can read Russian, but the author’s daughter is working on a French translation, so I’m very anxiously looking forward to it. There are other people’s accounts as well, my grandpa’s taking up about a third of the book.

Here is the letter announcing he’s been drafted, written on October 24th, 1944. It includes a list of items to get before reporting, such as work shoes, a shovel, a mess kit, etc... notice the “Heil Hitler!” at the end. Also note that although his name was “Geoffrey Rieb”, they of course spelt his name as Gottfried. Similarly, they spelled the name of the street where they wrote this “Rue du travail” (Labour Street) in German, turning it into “Strasse der Arbeit”.

Here’s a map he drew while trying to work out where they were and how much he’d travelled (the guards only spoke a bit of German outside of Russian so they couldn’t provide much information). Oh and one thing that’s not included in the book is that he actually built a makeshift sextant to help in his calculations (note: I believe this specific sketch is from a copy of his journal which he remade more cleanly once he got back home as he clearly realized that all of this needed to be preserved).

On the left page, he specifies the many nationalities the people he met during his “stay” (as he put it) in the camps of Lobsch, Pulawy, Segesa and Tambow hailed from: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, ¨Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yougoslavia, Estonia, Lettonia, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Austria. He explains that all prisoners except for the Germans wore caps with their national colours on.

He also adds that in each camp, you had an easier time depending on your nationality: if you were Austrian in Lobsch, German in Pulawy, Polish in Segesa, and in Tambow... you had to be a teacher. It’s a bit of a joke since the camp almost exclusively included French prisoners, to the point it ended up being nicknamed “The French camp”.

On the right page is a sketch titled “Those who aren’t coming back.....” and depicts the Alsacian graveyard of Tambow. Yeah, let us not forget that around 8000 people died there. My grandpa was one of the lucky ones.

To the right is a sketch of another camp he went through, Rada. To the left is one of my favourite sketches, of which you can see a variation on the cover, of “Soup time at the Segesa train station”. These lines of people eating what little they could get is really striking. But what really stuck in my mind is an anecdote my grandpa relates. I’m not sure it was exactly at that moment, but on his way back, he mentions stopping at a train station and being so hungry he decided to trade his sweater for a sausage.

I wish nobody to ever be so desperately hungry that they are willing to literally trade the clothes on their backs for a sausage, in the middle of Northern Russia. And I wish for nobody to be desperately cold that they’re willing to trade what little food they have for a sweater.

It’s not all cold, hunger and sadness though. There are sketches of the beautiful nature, some amusing stories like the prisoners organising a football tournament, even being able to form national teams, some heartwarming moments like my grandpa making plans for renovations in their countryside home (which he eventually did make!).

And then there are also some truly incredible moments, like when the prisoners decided to take turns giving each-other lectures on their job. This is what the sketch on the left in the top picture is for, as it describes one of the machines my grandpa used for his job.

But that’s not what makes this story incredible. See, one of the people giving a lecture was a German engineer. And the sketch on right page and on the bottom pic are blueprints my grandpa was able to make based on descriptions by that engineer. You may have noticed it looks like a rocket. And if you look carefully at the top right sketch, you may have noticed the name V1.

That’s right, this guy was a military engineer, giving the prisoners a lecture on Germany’s signature weapon. now I’m going to go ahead an assume this sort of information was top secret, with major consequences should any info about it leak, and yet here it is in my grandpa’s journal. This blew my mind when I first saw it and I wondered if I was seeing this right.

This to me can only mean one of two things: either this guy expected to die in this camp, so he wasn’t scared for himself should the Russia get a hold of it and he was branded a spy and/or a traitor back in Germany, but even then you’d think he wouldn’t want to endanger his nation, or at least he’d fear for his family, or he knew that even if the Russians did find the blueprints, the Nazis would have fallen out of power by the time word got back to Germany. Either way, I’m still having a hard time comprehending that this is real and my grandfather got to hear it straight from one of the engineers.

But this also speaks volume about the situation these men were in. They were all trained, indoctrinated to hate and want to kill one-another. Propaganda was everywhere on all sides of the conflict. Just look at how hateful some of the European or American war posters were. And in Germany, we’re talking about a Nazi dictatorship, a regime raising an entire generation to believe that genocide was the right thing to do, so the incitement to blind hatred was especially strong.

And yet, here they all were, talking to each-other, educating one-another, exchanging ideas, trading as equals, ignoring nationalities, ethnicities and culture. Because when you’ve hit rockbottom, when you’re all neck-deep in the same shithole, tired, starving, and unsure if you’ll still be alive by the end of the week... who can still give a crap about such petty issues? I get the feeling that for them, the war was over long before any treaty was signed.

I hope you found this as interesting as I did and that it’s giving you a new perspective on World War 2, that conflicts are always so, so much more complicated than “good guys vs bad guys” and how the people most directly involved by it wanted nothing more than to live in peace and let their neighbours do the same.

For me, it’s also a very personal document, as my grandpa died when I was still very young and I don’t have many memories of him, so finding this helps me connect with him a little bit more. I’ll keep you posted when the French version is completed and who knows? Maybe we’ll make more. I just know I want as many people as possible to know about this. Remembering these events is our duty to the World and to future generations.

Oh and if you have any questions regarding this, feel free to ask, I’ll answer them to the best of my avbilities.

[talking-head-productions]

If I Go Back In Time Part 2

I realized that were I to actually pitch the movie, the executives and producers would probably ask about more movies going forward. After all, this is supposed to be a cinematic universe to compete with Marvel. I've given it some thought- firstly, the casting of the heroes will be the same, because as far as I'm concerned they all did okay. Secondly, here's a list of possible films in my version of the DCEU:

Man of Steel 2

Plot: See the old post.

To Be Released: Given I said I'd go back to 2012, earliest release would probably be mid 2014

Marketing Notes: Keep it to a minimum. Maybe 2 trailers and a handful of tv spots. Around 4 minutes of footage total, all of it from the first half of the movie. Lower people's expectations a little so they can be surprised if it's any good.

Wonder Woman

Plot: Mostly the same as the one we got for real, but a few significant changes...

Lois Lane is the one conversing with Diana about the photograph, not Batman.

Ares did not kill all of the gods, they simply withdrew from the world of man once humans got too violent. They're in some pocket dimension version of Mount Olympus, waiting for future movies.

Diana does not think that Danny Houston's character is Ares. But she does think he knows where Ares is, because she has a very black-and-white view of the world right now, and Steve told her that Britain and their allies were the good guys. So obviously Ares is on the side of the 'bad' guys, the Germans.

Towards the middle of the movie, when Charlie the sniper is having his breakdown, Diana takes him aside and tells him that the older Amazons still have nightmares about battles from thousands of years ago. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It tends to help them when their friends are nearby. Now, they're not going to force him to fight, but they do want him to come with them. After all, if he stays, who will sing for them? I just think that having that conversation beforehand would be a bit more respectful of his condition. Also it comes back in the climax, Diana at one point has a gun to the back of her head in the middle of a fight, and Charlie shoots the guy first.

When Ares shows up towards the climax, he's actually a good guy who's been trying to end the war peacefully. Turns out, the mythology Diana was taught was wrong. The gods withdrew towards the end of the reign of the first Amazon queen, Otrera. Otrera according to the real world myths had a fling with Ares, which probably ended badly. Here, she would have lied about the reason for the gods' leaving just because she doesn't like Ares. And turns out, mankind really are just a bunch of warmongering assholes. Sometimes.

The real big bad is Doctor Poison. She uses Diana's discarded sword to stab Ares in the back, poisons Diana to weaken her, then huffs some of her own super-serum gas to make the boss battle a fair(-ish) fight.

When Steve comes up to Diana to tell her about his plan to destroy the plane, she can hear him and actually gives him her blessing. So no more 'hung up on her ex' version! It's just not possible if she told him to do it.

There are a couple bits of set up for the next film. First, at some point underwater ruins are mentioned, and Diana asks if Atlantis has fallen in the war. Steve asks if it actually exists, to which Diana replies, “Last time I knew...” The second part is a mid-credits scene where Lois sends Diana another message, asking her to look at a video. The video is exactly the same as the one we got in BvS, of Aquaman underwater stabbing the camera with his trident. During the clip, we hear a part of what will be Aquaman's theme, same as how WW's theme played in her pre-credits scene.

To Be Released: Probably late 2015, early 2016

Marketing Notes: Nothing is released or announced regarding this film until after MoS 2 has been in theaters for a week. I want people to go absolutely fucking apeshit in theaters when they realize that Wonder Woman of all characters will be the next film. Considering how she'd been regarded by Warner Bros. in the past.

The Aquaman

Plot: It's like a crazy Star Wars/Black Panther/Moana fusion. An Operatic Superhero Political-and-Family Drama based out of a futuristic Polynesian magitek version of Atlantis, with only a few scenes above the water.

To Be Released: Mid to late 2017.

Marketing Notes: Don't have a lot of action in the trailers. There will be action in the movie, including a badass final fight, but it'll be less than most superhero films. Focus on the drama in the trailers to accurately represent the movie.

Knight of Gotham

Plot: This movie will be the smallest scale movie in the franchise. It'll focus in on Batman's detective skills more than anything (though he'll still kick major ass).When the movie begins, all of Batman's more famous foes are locked up in Arkham Asylum. He hasn't been seen much lately. So smaller criminals are starting to think it's safe to operate in Gotham again. Mob boss Don Carmine Falcone wants in on it. So he puts out a hit on Commissioner Gordon, the only non-corrupt official in the city. The first taker is Deadshot (setting him up for you-know-what, but a better version). After that a couple of small-time killers. Then Ra's Al-Ghul shows up and tells Batman that every assassin not a part of the League will likely be heading to Gotham to try and kill James Gordon. However, there's only one to really be concerned about: a man named Victor Zsasz. The rest of the film is a cat-and-mouse game between Batman (plus Jim and Batgirl) and Zsasz, culminating in a boss fight that would rival both John Wick movies put together. At the end, Zsasz is a sore loser and blows up Arkham, releasing the villains for future films. At some point, Batman talked to Deadshot in prison and got him to give up Falcone as the one who put out the hit, so Falcone goes to jail and Deadshot is placed in lesser security, with his name marked under the Task Force X label.

To Be Released: Early to mid 2018.

Marketing Notes: Give a significant amount of focus to Batgirl's involvement. People will love that, so long as there's no hint of anything between her and Bruce (there won't be).

Justice League

Plot: We introduce The Flash and Cyborg as a comedic duo of superheroes from STAR Labs, with a dynamic not too dissimilar from Deadpool and Cable, or maybe Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. The villain of the film is Abra Kadabra, a Flash villain from the distant future who uses nanomachines to do... a lot of different things. He styles himself after a stage magician. As a character in the film, he wants to shunt the Earth into a pocket dimension (make the whole world... disappear!) in order to save it from future disasters. However, the process would kill most of humanity, which is why the League have to stop him. It takes all five powered heroes to hold him down, while Batman delivers the disabling blow using one of his gadgets.

To Be Released: Day after New Year's, 2019.

Marketing Notes: In the film, Abra Kadabra will use his powers to shape shift into the heroes at multiple points. We can use this to run a “Who can you trust?” tagline, with emphasis on the fights, because this movie is spectacle incarnate. With a simple plot.

Man of Steel 3

Plot: This is the one where Lex Luthor reveals his true nature. The big fight will be Warsuit Lex vs Superman. Kryptonite will be introduced here. Other than that, I'm not sure.

To Be Released: Fall 2019.

Marketing Notes: Fake anti-Superman propaganda clips put out by Lex Corp.

Wonder Woman 2

Plot: Villain will probably be Cheetah, since she's the one of the most popular. Might be good to have Diana team up with Flash, just to bring that fun element in, and maybe some time travel stuff. Possibly bringing Steve Trevor back.

To Be Released: Late spring 2020.

Marketing Notes: If Flash is involved, focus on his and Diana's dynamic.

Gotham Sirens

Plot: Catwoman and Lady Shiva have been partners in thievery for a while now. They're hired by Silver St Cloud to steal a sacred amulet (it's actually magic), and they decide to team up with Arkham escapees Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn for the extra muscle. Ivy has her own plans, however, and it involves using the amulet to turn the whole city into a jungle.The reason they needed the extra muscle to steal the amulet is because it was guarded by a private security firm named Grayson and Sons. One guess to who the survivor of the Siren's attack is. Yeah, this movie introduces Nightwing (he skips the Robin identity). He teams up with Batman, Batgirl, and most likely our two thieves to stop Poison Ivy.

To Be Released: Mid fall 2020. Hitting a rhythm now.

Marketing Notes: One half of the material is about the all-girl villain team, the other half is about the growing Bat Family.

Fall of Justice: Tower of Babel

Plot: After Abra Kadabra's tricks, Batman realized how dangerous the rest of the League were and created weapons to stop them if they ever went bad. Unfortunately, someone (maybe Joker? Who would not be played by Jared Leto- I'm thinking Nicholas Hoult, considering his performance as Nux in Mad Max Fury Road) has stolen those weapons and the League is in genuine danger. If not the Joker, perhaps The Rogues came over from Central City and this is Leonard Snart's origin as Captain Cold (the cold gun is in the weapon cache).

To Be Released: Spring 2021.

Marketing Notes: This'll be the darkest entry in the canon so far. Someone will probably die, though who I don't know. Probably a supporting character, but an important one.

There will of course be more movies, but I'm not sure of the order or most of the details. Here's a really quick list:

Constantine (introduce the weird mythos of Dream and the Endless)

Dark Justice (aka, Justice League Dark- the villain will be Enchantress)

Titans (a second superhero team is started by Nightwing and includes Beast Boy, Starfire, and a couple others, and Deathstroke is the villain)

Crisis on Infinite Earths (eventually)

Fall of Justice: The Crime Syndicate (evil versions of our heroes from another Earth)

Flashpoint (without the major reboot aspect)

An Untitled Green Lantern Film (used to introduce planets like Thanagar and Tamaran, as well as the Manhunters)

Identity Crisis (without the “Doctor Light is a serial rapist” part)

Final Crisis (not the last movie)

Suicide Squad (alternately titled “Task Force X”, with a different villain)

Untitled Justice League Sequel (with the Legion of Doom as the bad guys)

Untitled Titans Sequel (with Brother Blood as the villain)

New Gods (I don't know enough about them to even speculate, but this oughta be cool)

Untitled Man of Steel Sequel (uses “Death of Superman” plot)

The Dark Knight Lives (at some point, probably in a League film, Bruce Wayne retired and Batman was believed to be dead. Now he comes back, because Gotham City truly does need him)

Batman Beyond (so it turns out Bruce needs to retire, too, so he finds a protege to take his place)

Justice League Kingdom Come

Man of Steel: Rising Son (deals with the “multiple heroes trying to be Superman” scenario from the comics, before bringing Kal-El himself back)

Shazam

Green Arrow

Untitled Flash Movie

Untitled Green Lantern Sequel

Untitled Justice League Dark Sequel

Blue and Gold (Blue Beetle and Booster Gold buddy comedy film)

All Female Justice League Film

The final film in the entire universe would be titled Fall of Justice: Blackest Night (the “FoJ” title is applied to all the truly dark entries). This is the finale because it would include every character ever introduced in all the films, at least as a cameo; even the dead ones would return as Black Lanterns.

[aion-rsa]

How Loki and Fallout Use Retrofuturism to Unnerve Us

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While Loki has proven to be a somewhat divisive show at times, the one thing that most people seem to agree on is that the series boasts an incredible sense of style.

The same could certainly be said of WandaVision, but unlike that series which wore its sitcom influences on its sleeve, Loki‘s stylistic influences are a bit more varied and complex. Watch Loki close enough, and you’ll spot references and callbacks to everything from Blade Runner and Mad Men to Jurassic Park and Atomic Blonde. All of those styles come together to form a fascinating universe (perhaps multiverse?) where cosmic sci-fi, comic book adventures, and Western action somehow manage to coexist and form a strangely cohesive vision.

Then there’s Fallout. While the video game series that changed CRPGs forever is rarely referred to as one of Loki‘s most pronounced stylistic influences, the two are fascinatingly united by the ways that they use retrofuturism to unnerve us and leave us with the feeling that there’s something so much darker happening in their worlds than the actions of the usual collection of villains.

Retrofuturism: The Advances of Technology With The Comforts of Nostalgia

What is retrofuturism? The technical definition of the term is “the use of a style or aesthetic considered futuristic in an earlier era,” but it’s important to realize that particular definition is based on the idea of looking back. While the “retro” part of retrofuturism obviously implies a look back, many of the most iconic retrofuturistic visuals were actually imagined by those who were, at the time, were trying to predict the future through the concept most commonly referred to as “futurism.” It’s a practice that has existed for centuries even though the idea of retrofuturism wasn’t really popularized until later in the 20th century.

For instance, in the late 1800s/early 1900s, French artists making postcards for tobacco products and a German chocolate manufacturing company took a shot at predicting what the world would look like in the year 2000. As you can see below, their predictions included everything from surprisingly forward-thinking portrayals of automation to utterly bizarre images that make you appreciate just how long opium has been readily available:

When we think of retrofuturism today, though, we often think back to Americana images from the 1950s and 1960s. That’s when a potent combination of post-war optimism and rapidly advancing technology (especially technology related to the emerging space race) led to widespread interest in predicting just how great the future would be and what it would all look like. While that style can obviously be seen in movies like Forbidden Planet or shows like The Jetsons, some of the most definitive examples of those often misguided glimpses into the future can be found in the old Sunday paper comic strip, “Closer Than We Think.”

It wasn’t just artists having a bit of fun who were trying to predict the future at that time. There were more than a few manufacturers who were interested in not just trying to advance technology by 30+ years as soon as possible but crafting designs they felt represented what the future looked like. There is perhaps no better visual of this concept than the design of the Ford Nucleon: a 1957 concept for a nuclear-powered commercial car. 

In fact, the whole idea of nuclear-powered vehicles was so popular at one point that the United States and Soviet Union each began to research the possibility of designing nuclear-powered jet fighters. The idea didn’t make it far off the ground (quite literally) due to, among many other problems, the realization it would be nearly impossible to shield the plane’s crew from the radiation produced by the engine. Remarkably, the U.S. was so desperate to make the idea work that at least one engineer reportedly suggested recruiting elderly pilots who were going to die soon anyway of natural causes to fly the nuclear planes during the testing phases. The idea was shot down and seemed to be a sobering wake-up call to the realities of the whole idea.

That’s the thing you have to understand about futurism and what eventually becomes retrofuturism. From balloon-powered carriages that won’t break your monocle to the plane of the future that most people of the time would live to fly in only once, the concepts are based on the often mistaken idea that some tenants of society (notably fashion and certain cultural concepts) are going to be roughly the same in 100 years but technology will be significantly improved. The aspects of life that you’re comfortable with now will still be there, but you’ll now have access to an array of conveniences you otherwise couldn’t imagine. It’s all the benefits of technology with the comforts of nostalgia.

Loki and Fallout not only understand the depth of that concept but use it as the basis for horrors that keep us fascinated in their stories and worlds even as we harbor an uncomfortable feeling that we can’t quite explain.

Loki and Fallouts Retorfurism Design Styles

According to Fallout lore, the world existed pretty much as we know it now until sometime around World War 2. That’s when an event known as “The Great Divergence” occurred.

The basic version of this story sees The United States enter a prolonged period of hostility with China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s as part of a cultural battle against the perceived threat of communism. Much like we saw during our timeline’s version of the Cold War, that period results in fantastic technological advancements born out of both necessity and one-upmanship. An increased desire (some would argue “need”) to harness nuclear power eventually leads to the creation of fantastic machines, incredible weaponry, cybernetics, and advanced supercomputers. It was a kind of new industrial revolution.

However, because these countries were devoting so much of their time and resources to war, their cultures didn’t have a chance to advance far beyond what they were in the 1950s. Even new media that was created beyond that point (mostly comics and radio shows) often drew upon the established style of that era. More importantly, propaganda art remained in vogue as nations constantly encouraged their citizens to join the fight, donate, or do whatever they can in the name of hating and fearing their enemies.

While the early Fallout games played with a somewhat muted version of that concept that accounted for other timeline possibilities, that’s roughly how we arrived at the world that was prominently featured in Fallout 3: a nuclear wasteland where culture and ideas are permanently stuck in the 1950s but technology obviously advanced beyond that time despite looking like it also came from that era (or a vision of the future popular during that time period).

What about Loki, though? Well, while we still have a lot to learn about that show’s lore, there’s no denying that the TVA utilizes a distinct retrofuturistic style where unbelievable technological advances clash with surprisingly outdated hardware and cultural concepts. From a lore perspective, Loki director Kate Herron has noted that the design is meant to convey the idea that the TVA is stuck outside of our ideas of a traditional timeline and pull from both the past and future due to the constant chronological confusion they inhabit. From a style standpoint, Herron has also cited titles like Blade Runner and Metropolis as some of the series’ biggest influences when it comes to the retrofuturism look of the TVA offices.

Herron has seemingly never referenced Fallout as one of Loki‘s major stylistic influences, which is actually quite surprising given some of the design similarities the two series sometimes share.

Mind you, none of this is meant to suggest that Loki somehow “rips off” Fallout or that the series’ showrunners owe the game series any kind of acknowledgment. In fact, both draw from the same well of cultural influences, which happen to include those real-world retrofuturistic designs that helped popularize the concept in the first place.

No, what really interesting about Loki and Fallout’s retrofuturistic connection isn’t their shared visuals but how each uses this concept to create a world that is strangely alluring even as we realize the whole thing is built on lies.

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Vault Boy and Miss Minutes: The Smiling Faces of Bureaucracy, Corruption, and Propaganda

In the world of Fallout, we have the “advantage” of coming into its retrofuturistic world at the end. When you see an old drawing of a smiling family asking you to buy war bonds as it’s being stepped on by a super mutant created from the fallout of the nuclear war those bonds were used to fund, it’s hard to miss the social commentary.

Yet, Fallout’s design isn’t solely intended to be an ironic backdrop to the apocalypse. Actually, Fallout‘s vision of the end of the world can be traced back to the cultural institutions that popularized that retrofuturistic style that initially seems to clash with the game’s vision of the apocalypse.

There are few better examples of that idea than Fallout’s mascot: Vault Boy. Designed to be the poster child of the Vault-Tec Corporation, Vault Boy was supposed to be a friendly face that distracted people from the fact that one of the largest companies in the world only exists because a never-ending war necessitated the privatization of fallout shelter creation. Vault-Tec was given the power to do pretty much whatever they wanted in the name of rapidly advancing the development of technology that was supposed to help people. Mostly, though, they want you to remember them for that smiling character that assures you that everything will be fine, despite the fact that everything can’t be fine if a company that offers such a service has already become as powerful as they were. 

Well, Loki has its own Vault Boy in the form of Miss Minutes. We first meet this cartoon clock when Loki watches an instructional video designed to help inform variants what the TVA is and why they are there. The video (which was clearly inspired by retro PSAs and commercials) is a horrifying revelation that strongly suggests that free will may not exist just as it implies that the universe is only being held together by largely absentee gods and the bureaucrats that serve them. Who better to deliver that kind of information than a cartoon character designed to make you remember times when you never thought about fate and the finite nature of life?

In both cases, retrofuturistic design principles are used to shield people from the harsh realities that birthed them. Vault Boy isn’t worried about nuclear war, so why should you be? Miss Minutes isn’t suffering from existential dread, so why should you? They’re creations pulled from a different era as a way to say “Hey, if this whole situation is as bad as you think it is, then what is this smiling character from a simpler time still around?” 

Of course, it’s all a facade. Fallout and Loki (and Terry Gilliam’s brilliant Brazil, for that matter) show us worlds where the bureaucracies and corporations wear the faces of our own nostalgia. They have successfully harnessed the optimism of a more innocent time that never really existed in the way they suggest it did. That image they created only becomes stronger as it is reinforced by a new generation that defends a time and ideas they never knew because they were raised to believe in a carefully crafted version of them.

Again, though, in both Loki and Fallout, we have the advantage of coming into these worlds from the outside. We know they can’t exist because they’re not our own. Yet, there is something deeper and more sinister about the use of retrofuturism as a thematic whistle that goes well beyond the borders of fictional worlds and makes us reexamine how we view our own. 

Retrofuturism Tells Us That We’re Somewhere We Don’t Belong

There is a genuine appeal to retrofuturism from a sheer stylistic standpoint. There’s something strangely satisfying about watching complex tasks be performed by old computers or seeing one of the cars that defined Americana be launched into the sky as a family prepares for their vacation to the moon. It’s wonderfully absurd and, especially in the case of Loki, it gives personality to what may otherwise be a dry and lifeless office environment.

Yet, retrofuturistic design is still based on the idea that the scary and uncharted world of tomorrow and all the technological advances that come with it can be tempered by a dose of nostalgia. It tells us “the future will be the best of all worlds” when we know (or should know) that technological advances change society in ways both good, bad, and, most often, something in between. In the 1950s and late 1800s, people used futurism to dream of what wonders the future will hold. In 2021, we often use retrofuturism as a way to mock some of those predictions while still sometimes fantasizing about this time when there seemed to be widespread cultural optimism about the future.

It’s hubris that leads us to believe we can predict or control the future, and it’s hubris that’s at the heart of retrofuturistic design. While there are some who would undoubtedly want to live in a world filled with ‘50s/’60s designs and cultural values where they are still able to enjoy certain modern technological conveniences, even the most hopelessly nostalgic must see the retrofuturistic worlds of Loki and Fallout and think “this isn’t right.” Retrofuturistic design done well is one of the best ways to convey that something has gone horribly wrong before we even know what that something is. Loki and Fallout happen to be two of the better examples of retrofuturistic design utilized exactly for that purpose.

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As writer Bruce McCall once put it, retrofuturism is sometimes nostalgia for a future that never happened. It’s that old Air Force engineer looking at a black and white photo and thinking “If they had just let us put senior citizens next to nuclear reactors, we’d have better planes by now.” It’s fascinating to look at, it’s interesting to think about, but as Loki and Fallout show us, it’s nearly impossible to spend any time in such worlds without realizing that they’re rarely more than pretty lies.

The post How Loki and Fallout Use Retrofuturism to Unnerve Us appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[corvinusgenesis]

Underworld Characters & Their Hogwarts Houses

Selene - Gryffindor:  Selene is a stoic and aloof figure, though exceptionally courageous which is predominantly a Gryffindor trait. Though more withdrawn and reserved than most Gryffindors, Selene prefers to remain solitary - only letting a select few in. Initially, Selene appears emotionally closed off, to the point were it seems that she has no emotions at all and is just a mean, lean, killing machine. On the contrary, when established a bond with Michael, Selene is seen to quickly open up to Michael, trusting him and being able to show her vunreble side - a side of herself that most have not seen. Like many Gryffindors, Selene is loyal and protective over her loved ones, almost to a default. Some Gryffindors have a habit of establishing role models and idealizing these figures - and Selene is no exception with regards to Viktor.  But once Selene’s own beliefs and trust has been betrayed, no one stands a chance against the Death Dealer’s wrath. Selene possesses a defiant streak and tends to do the opposite of what she is told to do and does not take “no” for an answer. She is stubborn and has a mind of her own. Selene does tend to act impulsively at times and will go against the status quo while in pursuit of her goals. Selene is exceptionally quick and does not hesitate to act on instinct. Selene possesses leadership qualities that attracts others to her - despite her own reluctance on the matter and beliefs that she is no leader. With Selene’s competence and experience, Gryffindor holds a formidable asset that will not hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later. 

Michael - Gryffindor: Much like Selene, Michael is a noble Gryffindor. Brave - bordering to the line of stupid - Michael faces most challenges head on, readily standing his ground. Michael displays deep affections and loyalty towards Selene, which he is easily open about and has no trouble expressing. Michael wears his heart on his sleeve and is lead by his instincts - like most Gryffindors. Michael has displayed a concern to help and protect those around him, including unknown innocents, readily willing to offer a helping hand. Michael exhibits a sort of innocence and naivety to the world around him, though this can be accounted to the fact that Michael was unexpectedly thrust into a centuries old war, which would leave anyone confused and questioning. Michael does possess strong morals and a righteous streak which is a stark contrast to the world around him. Michael is steadfast and is resilient. Quick on his feet, Michael possesses both brains and brawn to aid him in battle and other situations. Like other Gryffindors, Michael exhibits a compassionate and chivalrous side.

Eve - Ravenclaw: Eve is harbors characteristics that places her in Ravenclaw. Eve has shown to be highly intelligent, observant and mature for her age and has a questioning and curious nature to her despite her past circumstances that attempted to repress these mannerisms. Though Eve is somewhat reserved (which could be credited to her being raised in captivity), Eve has displayed an ability to learn and adapt quickly, easily engaging with others - both mentally and physically. Eve idolizes the idea of her family and to be free and with her family above all. Wise beyond her years - like some Ravenclaws - Eve knows that her being puts her loved ones in danger, thus removing herself from the situation to protect them. Eve is courageous and stands her own in a fight, using her abilities of inherent strength and her natural abilities to adapt to aid her. 

Lucian - Slytherin: Like those of the house of Slytherin, Lucian is ambitious and cunning. He is shrewd and scrutinizes everything before him. Always plotting his next move, with the bigger picture in mind, Lucian is persistent and resilient in his pursuit to achieve his goals. Lucian has a definite charm and wit that easily captures the attention of many - which the lycan lord subtly uses to manipulate those around him , mainly to achieve his ends that will benefit everyone, of course. Knowing the taste of cruelty, pain and loss, Lucian patiently plots his revenge against those who has done him and his loved one(s) wrong. Diplomatic and firm, Lucian knows the art to working with questionable alliances that will ultimately (hopefully), mutually benefit all in the end. Like many Slytherins, Lucian’s charisma and strength draws many to him, naturally placing him in a leadership role where those look up to him for orders and guidance. Unlike the stigma that Slytherin holds for producing selfish members, all that Lucian does is in pursuit to better the position of his people (lycans), in hopes of a better future. Perhaps Lucian being in Slytherin is a product of his upbringing, growing up in servitude taught the lycan lord to be smart and cunning to keep his own hide free of gashes, to keep and protect secrets and where hopes and dreams turned into ambitions for a better future. 

Sonja - Gryffindor: There is a reason that Selene reminded Viktor so much of Sonja - and it is not just for the unmistakable resemblance and beauty that the two share. No, it is because like Selene, Sonja is bold in her defiance. Strong - willed and courageous, Sonja does not think twice about joining her fellow Death Dealers in pursuit of hunting down and fending off William’s lycans. Sonja acts on her impulses that sometimes puts her own life in danger. Rebellious at heart, Sonja aims to prove those around her all wrong, seeking to display her competence and to follow her own ideals. Despite the enforced notion that lycans are lesser than vampires, Sonja does not display this belief and treats lycans much the same as she treats vampires, though in a much subtler manner - to keep appearances up of course - obviously knowing that Viktor would object to her revealing any inclination towards Lucian. Sonja is stubborn and unrelenting, despite her father’s wishes. Sonja follows her heart and goes against everything that she was taught to believe about lycans when falling in love with Lucian. The most brazenly Gryffindor act of all, was Sonja’s fearlessness while fighting against her own father, standing before the council and ultimately, her own death. 

Viktor - Slytherin: Unlike Lucian (the anti-hero figure that brings the real villain great distress), Viktor is characteristically a Slytherin villian. Notably, Viktor’s ruthlessness and pursuit of power is much like that of a Slytherin (villian). Viktor is conniving and cunning, seeking to establish himself as the ultimate vampire elder, the first and the most powerful, despite the truth of the matter. Going as far as to erase history and rewriting his own version of it to suit his own ambition (after all, it is the victors who write the history). Manipulative and tactful, Viktor quickly discerns to what weaknesses one possesses and in turn uses that against them - either rendering the other dead or under control of the vampire elder. Viktor has a natural knack for politics and war which places him with a great advantage over declared enemies. Like some Slytherins that holds beliefs of superiority and purity, Viktor holds a deep belief that vampires are superior to all and has exhibited his willingness to go to the extremes to protect the purity of the vampire bloodline. Despite Viktor’s definite love for Sonja and then Selene, the cold and callous vampire elder would willingly sacrifice his loved ones to protect his own power and misplaced ideals. Spewing out propaganda and instilling hate, Viktor knows how to control his followers and to keep them in line in pursuit of his ultimate goals. Viktor, the ever bloodthirsty warlord, is much like other notable Slytherin villains (e.i. Voldemort)  - the lure of power and control never ceasing, where even all is not enough. 

Marcus - Gryffindor/Slytherin: Marcus is a bit more harder to sort than his predecessors. Like a Gryffindor, Marcus is impulsive and lets his emotions rule him, but, like a Slytherin, Marcus has bided his time for the right moment to act and has cunningly held a degree of power over Viktor by stating that without him, all vampires would die - thus managing to hold a degree power within the vampire coven despite Viktor’s power over Marcus through William’s imprisonment. Marcus holds no loyalty to anyone - including his own vampire species - aside to his own twin, William. Once Marcus possessed the power to free his brother, Marcus is persistent and relentless, doing anything in his power to achieve this. Not letting anyone stand in his way, Marcus willingly kills those without a second thought. Too impulsive to be a Slytherin and too cunning to be a Gryffindor, Marcus is perhaps a culmination of the two. 

Amelia - Slytherin: There is very little to base this sorting on, but with the few facts that is known, Amelia could possibly be a Slytherin. Amelia was obviously ambitious - for she as one of three vampire elders. Amelia was pioneering in establishing various covens - including the New World coven and was highly regarded as a leader. Amelia displays her ability to see the bigger picture and sort progressive ways to better the vampires.  Slytherin’s are known to do anything in their means to keep their loved ones safe, which Amelia exhibited through the lengths she took to keep her son, David, safe. Strategically covering up her son’s birth and David’s ties towards her, Amelia managed to keep David safe away from any of her enemies and any impending threats. It is suggested that Amelia was a natural at politics and warfare, a great warrior and a powerful leader. Amelia was loyal to her followers and would do anything to protect them. Like many Slytherin’s, Amelia is tactful and resourceful in her means. A powerful Slytherin woman, Amelia stands tall and proud as the only woman next to her male elders. 

David - Gryffindor: Unlike his mother Amelia, David is a Gryffindor. David has exhibited tendencies to act instinctively and defiantly. David has no qualms of following his gut instinct - as seen when David followed Selene and extended a helping hand to the Death Dealer upon meeting. Loyal and protective by nature, David is willing to fight side by side with his loved ones. David is outspoken and stands firm on his beliefs. David possesses a natural strength and is skilled with defense and weaponry despite the initial lack of experience he had on the matter. David is willing to learn and idealizes Selene as he knows he has much to gain through her knowledge - again, the Gryffindors and their knack for idealizing their mentors. A natural leader himself, David is quick to rally others to his cause and has no qualms of taking the lead in various situations. As the Gryffindor house is known for chivalry, David too has shown to be chivalrous and charming. 

[i-amateur]

Dr. Éric Denécé: “The Americans, the British and the French, Through Their Special Services, Supported Terrorists Who, Moreover, Organized Attacks on Our Soil”

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Why does France tolerate on its soil the presence of different jihadist movements and terrorists? Dr. Éric Denécé: You are asking an essential question for which I am unable to find a valid answer. Indeed, France officially fights against extremists and Islamist terrorists... but lets them develop their activities on our soil. There are probably several explanations. First of all, the poor knowledge of Islam among the vast majority of our political leaders, who do not know the difference between its different tendencies, those that are respectable and those that represent a danger. Then, one should not neglect the strategy of entryism and skillful propaganda which the Muslim Brotherhood leads and which partly shows results, in particular because of the naivety of our elites, who think that by allying themselves with them they will have "peace" in our suburbs. Finally, post-colonial guilt is another element that is increasingly holding back a society that doubts its values and no longer knows how to react to some developments that threaten its national cohesion and its future. In one of your editorials, you referred to Turkey as a rogue State. How do you explain the Western alliance with this rogue State, when Turkey has armed and financed terrorist groups that have destroyed Syria and Iraq? Don't you think that the Westerners have played with fire by allying themselves with Erdogan, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who has only one objective: to establish a caliphate? And how do you explain the troubled game Erdogan is playing in Libya? Turkey, not just Erdogan's - which is certainly by far the worst - is a State that has flouted international law since 1974, when it invaded part of the island of Cyprus. At the time, the Turks should have been expelled from NATO for invading another member State. But we were in the middle of the Cold War and we did nothing because the Atlantic Alliance, under American leadership, focused on the Soviet threat. This first cowardice was a real betrayal to our Greek friends and began to make the Turks think that anything was possible. Since the arrival of Erdogan, a totally megalomaniac leader and member of the international bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ankara has not ceased to pursue an aggressive and neo-Ottoman policy: erasing all traces of the Kemalist legacy, attacking non-Muslims in Turkey, illegally invading - without any protest from the international community - part of Syrian territory, support ultra-radical jihadist and terrorist groups, supplying arms to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (whose accession to power was undemocratic, contrary to what is still believed in the West) and now supporting and arming a Libyan regime linked to the terrorist brotherhood and intervening militarily at its side, by sending it, in particular, jihadist mercenaries who have already worked under its control in Syria. Turkey today is an evil State and constitutes a real risk to peace and stability in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. But once again, Westerners are refusing to take the necessary decisions, still under the influence of the Americans and the British, who continue to see Moscow as a threat and fear that if Turkey were ostracized from the West - which must be done - it might throw itself into the arms of Russia. Some of our sources mention a movement of jihadists from Syria and Iraq to Libya, which has become a terrorist sanctuary. Do not you think that what is happening in Libya threatens the stability of the entire Mediterranean basin, if not the world? Wasn't the intervention in Libya by Sarkozy and his ally Cameron under the aegis of NATO a serious political mistake for which we are currently suffering the consequences? Obviously, the current situation has its origins in the Western intervention of 2011, which is totally unjustified, unproductive and in some aspects illegal (exceeding UN Resolution 1973). Sarkozy, Cameron but also Obama bear full responsibility of it. They all three have played sorcerers' apprentices and have destabilized North Africa and the Sahel... and now the Mediterranean. The destruction of Libya has created a real terrorist and criminal hotbed (smugglers and migrants) which is growing steadily and which we will take years to eliminate. And more worryingly, it could become a theatre of confrontation between regional powers: Egypt and the Emirates, Turkey and Qatar... As early as spring 2011, back from Libya where we had visited both camps (Tripoli and the NTC), we never stopped warning about the irresponsible and deplorable policy that the West was conducting and about its foreseeable effects. Unfortunately, we were right… I saw one of your interviews where you talked about a group you formed after the Arab springs and I read your collective book "La face cachée des révolutions arabes" (The Hidden Face of the Arab Revolutions) published by the CF2R and dedicated to the Arab spring, which became an Islamist winter. You mentioned names such as those of our friend the late Anne-Marie Lizin, whom I interviewed several times, and Madame Saïda Benhabylès. This latter was attacked and accused of being an agent of the French and the name of the Benhabylès family was dragged through the mud on social media by Islamist organizations activating in Europe and by individuals linked to terrorism and to the "Who Kills Whom" thesis, thesis which targets the Algerian army and the Algerian intelligence services. How do you explain that dubious individuals can afford to attack a personality of your group and distort your words, knowing that these dubious individuals themselves have links with Western, Saudi, Moroccan, Qatari and Turkish intelligence services? Madame Saïda Benhabylès is a woman for whom I have great respect and a friend whom I appreciate very much. In recent weeks she has been the victim of destabilizing actions orchestrated by individuals who are members or close to the Muslim Brotherhood, with an objective that I do not yet fully perceive. Naturally, this is all slander and lies. I was able to observe how these Islamists falsified some of my interviews, translating them into Arabic with totally false or fanciful statements. I confess that I do not measure the links between these individuals and the "promoters" of "Who Kills Whom". But they remain active in France, after having managed to give a totally distorted view of the Algerian reality of the "black decade". It is, of course, obvious that the most radical Islamists, seeking to impose their stupid and unfounded "values" on other Muslims, have always sought to seize power and thus to attack all those who were an obstacle to their strategy. Fortunately, Algeria did not fall, neither did Syria, and Egypt, thanks to Marshal Sissi, was able to drive them out of power. But they are in power in Turkey and in the Gulf monarchies - despite their doctrinal differences - and continue to spread their deadly ideology throughout the world. Elements of the Rachad organization, an organization affiliated to the Ummah congress linked to the Muslim Brotherhood of Erdogan and based in Istanbul, did not hesitate to incite the Algerians to take up arms against their army and their State. And Mohamed Larbi Zitout, one of Rachad's leaders, calls the terrorist groups active in the Sahel "national liberation groups". These individuals live in countries such as Great Britain and France. How do you explain the fact that they are not prosecuted, despite their proselytizing for the benefit of Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood? Are not these individuals linked to terrorism using your "democratic" system to spread their terrorist ideas? You give a very clear example of their strategy: proselytism, propaganda and deception, calls for armed struggle and murder, all with the support of the above-mentioned Islamist States... and the total passivity of the West. The European "elites" - and this is particularly true in France - are without reaction for several reasons: - they do not know how to act in the face of this phenomenon, as they are characterized by their lack of vision, culture, courage and mediocrity - they are "asleep" by the money, promises and lies of the Gulf monarchies... and the Americans who persist in supporting them. - they want to stay in power and tell themselves that if they get the "Muslim vote" (5 to 10 % on average in Europe), they are likely to succeed. Thus, they turn a blind eye or accept behavior that contravenes our rules, values and laws. - they are obsessed with the risk of the extreme right, which in reality has much less foundation than one might imagine, because the parties that embody it would be incapable of governing. But on the other hand, at each election, they attract more votes from all those who are outraged by the authorities' inaction. These are the ingredients of an explosive situation. Didn't the individuals who sold the “who kills whom” thesis to Western intelligence services concerning Algeria have several strategic objectives including, among other things, using Taqiya and hiding the true nuisance potential of jihadists in the West, knowing that afterwards we have seen the attacks in Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin, etc., which contradict the theses of "Who kills whom"? Is it not time to reveal the truth to your peoples that jihadism and its ideology exist in your society and that they are fed by different countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey? For at least a decade, more and more voices have been raised to denounce these dangers and the true ideology of these sectarian and harmful movements. But the politicians, for the reasons I have just mentioned, do not want to hear it. I will give you two edifying examples: in the summer of 2016, François Fillon, the future presidential candidate of the right, opposed, during a vote in the National Assembly, the taking of measures against the Muslim Brotherhood in France. And also in 2016, Jean-Yves Le Drian, then Minister of Defense in a Left-wing government, published a book entitled “Qui est l’ennemi?” (Who is the Enemy?), in which he wonders if France is at war but does not denounce radical Islamism or the archaic monarchies of the Gulf... he doesn't even talk about it!  Is it blindness, complicity, stupidity? That's where France is today... Don't the intelligence services, whether French, Algerian or other, have the same enemy, namely Jihadism and its deadly ideology, whether it comes from the Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood? Don't you think that cooperation between intelligence services needs to be improved on a win-win basis? Of course, I do. Moreover, they cooperate closely on this matter... but not in all areas or on all subjects. This is normal because national interests remain different. Counter-terrorism is the area in which cooperation is most advanced, not only between Western countries, but also with Arab countries, including the Gulf States. This may mean that some of the information exchanged is biased. Indeed, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey will never give any information about "their" terrorists, given that these regimes themselves adhere to Salafism or the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood. They will only provide information on groups that threaten their regime. You are an intelligence expert and a geopolitical connoisseur. Weren't Western governments wrong in their handling of the Syrian file? Totally. There's been a major misjudgment of the situation: thinking that Bashar was going to fall quickly in 2011 showed a lack of knowledge of the Syrian reality. There has also been a major influence from the Gulf States wanting to bring down "secular" Syria, a country in which the cohabitation of religions was intolerable for the radical Islamist regimes of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Thus, the Americans, the British and the French, through their special services, supported terrorists who, moreover, organized attacks on our soil or fought against our forces in Mali. A good example of political coherence... Fortunately, the Russian intervention made it possible to defeat this delusional strategy. Don't you think that the solution in Libya must be political and that if there is ever a war, everyone will lose? That would of course be ideal, but I hardly see us going down that road. This would require the belligerents to agree to negotiate... as well as their external supports. However, neither the Libyan Islamists nor Turkey which supports these latter, want this, and the militias and criminal networks in Misrata and elsewhere have a vested interest in keeping the situation chaotic, allowing their "business" to flourish. And Egypt cannot accept that an Islamist regime, a refuge for terrorists and criminals, should settle on its borders... any more than Algeria, of course. Shouldn't the West, led by the United States, reconsider its alliance with the Saudis, Qataris and Turks? Absolutely, our foreign policy and our alliances need to be totally reconsidered. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Turkey are all States whose values and politics are diametrically opposed to those of France. They are neither our friends nor our allies, contrary to what a part of our leaders persist in believing, hoping for big contracts for our defense industry... Fortunately, Turkey has not been able to join the European Union and everything must be done to ensure that this never happens. If it remains in NATO, I think it is essential that we question the usefulness of this alliance ... which no longer has anything Atlantic ... nor Pacific! Don't you think that Europeans should stop aligning with American policy? In your opinion, hasn't NATO become an empty shell that no longer serves any purpose? NATO has no longer had a reason to exist since the end of the Cold War and should have been disbanded, that is obvious. For the Americans, however, this remains an essential means of influence, control and pressure on Europeans who do not want to bear the cost of their own defense. Above all, it is a godsend for the American defense industry, which can impose its armaments on its allies and kill off any European competition in this area. But this would not be possible without the complicity of Europeans, who have, for the most part, accepted major losses of political and economic sovereignty. For several decades, France was the only "itchy" nation in this alliance. But Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to join NATO's integrated military organization sounded the death knell for true independence. But today, NATO should either be dissolved or France should withdraw from it. As an intelligence professional, what is your analysis of Operation Rubicon where the CIA and the BND spied on the whole world, including their European allies? In your opinion, is mass espionage useful in the fight against terrorism, or is it rather, as Snowden revealed, a tool for mass control? There are two aspects to consider. On the one hand, the external espionage practiced by all States. I would dare to say that it remains legitimate, in any case that it will never disappear because it allows one to read the game of others (friends, allies, opponents) to conduct its international policy and defend national interests (political, economic, military). That's the way it is. On the other hand, there are the "alliances". The fact that the United States spies so relentlessly on its own allies, and that the European States themselves agree to cooperate with Washington in intercepting their neighbors’ communications, is a contradiction that shows that Europe does not exist, that there's no awareness of a common interest. Let us remember in this respect the attitude of the Europeans during the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the Americans. France, which has opposed to this operation - and Germany, which did not support it - have been betrayed by all their other European partners. Finally, there is the myth of global data control. I speak of myth because today, the growth of data is infinitely faster than the progress of processing methods, which are already extremely efficient. The Americans are spending considerable sums of money, have achieved undeniable results, but are only able to process a tiny part of the information they have gathered. But that doesn't mean there's no danger. This is where we cannot thank Edward Snowden enough for what he did. Moreover, the obsession of the American authorities with him illustrates perfectly the embarrassment of Washington with regard to the electronic espionage practices which Snowden has not yet all revealed … Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen Who is Dr. Éric Denécé? Éric Denécé, PhD in Political Science, authorized to direct research, is director of the French Intelligence Research Center (CF2R) and its Risk Management consulting firm (CF2R Services). Previously, he was successively: Officer-analyst at the Directorate of Evaluation and Strategic Documentation of the General Secretariat of National Defense (SGDN); Export sales engineer at Matra Defense; In charge of communications for NAVFCO, a subsidiary of the DCI (Defense Council International) group; Director of Studies at the Centre for Strategic Studies and Prospective (CEPS); Founder and managing director of the economic intelligence firm ARGOS; Creator and Director of the Business Intelligence Department of the GEOS Group. Éric Denécé has long taught intelligence or economic intelligence in several French and foreign business schools and universities (ENA, War School,) University of Bordeaux IV-Montesquieu, University of Picardy-Jules Vernes, Bordeaux School of Management). He is the author of numerous books, articles and reports on intelligence, economic intelligence, terrorism and special operations. His work has earned him the 1996 Prize of the Foundation for Defense Studies (FED) and the 2009 Akropolis Prize (Institute for Advanced Studies in Internal Security).