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literary-illuminati · 9 months

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Book Review 68 - Babel by R. F. Kuang

Overview

I came to Babel with extremely little knowledge about the actual contents of the book but a deep sense of all the vibes swirling around its reception – that it was robbed of a Hugo nomination (if the author didn’t outright refuse it), that it’s probably the single buzziest and most Important sf/f release of 2022, that it was stridently political, and plenty more besides. I also went in having mostly enjoyed The Poppy War series and being absolutely enamoured by the elevator pitch of an alternate history Industrial Revolution where translation is literally magic. And, well-

It is wrong to say I hated this book, but only because keeping track of my complaints and starting organize this review in my head was entertaining enough to keep me invested in the reading experience.

The story is set in an alternate 1830s, where the rise of the British Empire relies upon the dominance of its translators, as it is the mixture of translation and silverworking, the inscription of match-pairs in different languages on bars of worked silver and the leveraging of the ambiguity and loss of meaning between them that fuels the world’s magic. The protagonist is pluckted from his childhood home in Canton after his family dies in a cholera outbreak and whisked away to the estate of Professor Lowell, an Oxford translator he quickly realized is his unacknowledged father. He’s made to choose an English name (Robin Swift) and raised and tutored as a future translator in service to the Empire.

The meat of the story is focused on Robin’s education in Oxford, his relationship with the rest of his cohort, and his growing radicalization and entanglement with the revolutionary Hermes Society. Things come to a head when in his fourth year the cohort is sent back to Canton to, well, help provoke the first Opium War, though none of them aware of that. The final act follows the fallout of that, by which I mean it lives up to the full title of “Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution”.

To be clear, this was technically a very accomplished book. The writing never dragged and the prose was, if not exactly lyrical, always clear and often evocative. Despite the breadth of space and time the story covers, I never had any complaints about the pacing – and honestly, the ending was, dramatically speaking, one of the more natural and well-executed ones I’ve read recently. It’s very well-constructed.

All that being said – allow me to apologize for how the rest of this is mostly just going to be a litany of complaints. But the book clearly believes itself to be an important and meaningful work of political art, which means I don’t feel particularly bad about holding it to high standards.

Narrative Voice

To start with, just, dear god the tone. This is a book with absolutely zero faith in its audience’s ability to reach their own conclusions, or even follow the symbolism and implication it lays down. Every important point is stated outright, repeated, and all but bolded and underlined. In this book set in 1830s England there are footnotes fact-checking the imperialists talking heads to, I guess, make sure we don’t accidentally become convinced by their apologia for the slave trade? Everything is just relentlessly didactic, in a way that ended up feeling rather insulting even when I agreed with the points Kuang was making.

More than that, and this is perhaps a more subjective complaint but – for an ostensible period piece, the narrative voice and perspective just felt intensely modern? This was theoretically an omniscient third person book, with the narrative voice being pretty distinct from any of the actual characters – with the result that the implicit narrator was instead the sort of person of spends six hours a day getting into arguments on twitter and for this effort calls themselves a progressive activist. The identities of all the characters – as delivered by the objective narration – were all very neat and legible from the perspective of someone at a 2022 HR department listing how diverse their team was, which was somewhere between a tragic lost opportunity to show how messy and historical racial/ethnic/national identities are and outright anachronistic, depending. (This was honestly one of the bigger disappointments, coming from Kuang’s earlier work. Say what you will of The Poppy War series, the narration is with Rin all the way down, and it trusts the reader enough not to blink.) More than that it was just distracting – the narration ended up feeling like an annoying obstacle between me and the story, and not in any fun postmodern way either.

Characters

Speaking of the cast – they simply do not sound or feel like they actually grew up in the 19th century. Now, some modernization of speech patterns and vocabulary and moral commensense is just the price of doing business with mass market period pieces, granted, but still – no 19th century Anglo-Indian revolutionary is going use the phrase ‘Narco-military state’ (if for no other reason than we’re something like a century early for ‘narco-state’ to be coined as a term at all). An even beyond feeling out of time most of the characters feel kind of thinly sketched?

Or no, it’s not that the characters are thinly sketched so much as their relationships are. We’re repeatedly, insistently told that these four students are fast friends and closer than family and would happily die for each other, but we’re very rarely actually shown it. This is partly just a causality of trying to skim over a four-year university education in the middle third of one book, I think, but still – the good times and happy moments are almost always sort of skimmed over, summarized in the course of a paragraph or two that usually talk in terms of memories and consequences more than the relationships themselves. The points of friction and the arguments, meanwhile, are usually played out entirely on the page, or at least described in much more detail. In the end you kind of have to just take it as read that any of these people actually love each other, given that at least two of them seem to be feuding at any given point for the entire time they know each other.

Letty deserves some special attention. She’s the only white member of Robin’s cohort at Babel and she honestly feels like less of acharacter and more a collection of tropes about white women in progressive spaces? Even more than the rest, it’s hard to believe the rest of the class views her as beloved ride-or-die found family when essentially every time she’s on screen it’s so she can do a microagression or a white fragility or something. Also, just – you know how relatively common it is to see just, blatantly misogynistic memes repackaged as anti-racist because it specifies ‘white women’? There’s a line in this that almost literally says ‘Letty wasn’t doing anything to disprove the stereotype of woman as uselessly emotional and hysteric’.

Also, she’s the one who ends up betraying the other three and trying to turn them in when they turn revolutionary. Which is probably inevitable given the book’s politics, but as it happened felt like less of the shocking betrayal that it was supposed to be and more just, checking off a box for a dramatic reverse. Of course she turned on them, none of them ever really seemed to even like each other.

As a Period Piece

So, the book is set in the 1830s, in the midst of the industrial revolution and its social fallout, and the leadup to the First Opium War (which is, through the magic of, well, magic ,but also mercantilist economics, make into a synecdoche for British global dominion more broadly). On the one hand, the setting is impeccably researched, recent and relevant historical events are referenced whenever they would come up, and the footnotes are full to bursting with quotes and explanations of texts or cultural ephemera that’s brought up in the narration.

On the other, the setting doesn’t feel authentic in the slightest, the portrayal of the British Empire is bizarrely inconsistent, and all that richly researched historical grounding ends up feeling less like a living world and more like a particularly well-down set for a Doctor Who episode.

The story is incredibly focused around Oxford as a city and a university. There’s a whole author’s note about the research and slight changes made into its geography and I absolutely believe its portrayal as a physical location and the laws about how women were treated and how the different colleges were organized and all that is exactly as accurate as Kuang wanted them to be. The issue is really the people. With the exception of a few cartoonish villains who barely get more than a couple pages apiece, no one feels, sounds like, or acts like they actually belong in the 19th century. The racism the protagonists struggle with all feels much more 21st century than Victorian, and the frame of mind everyone inhabits still comes across more as ‘unusually blatantly racist Englishman’ than 19th century scholars and polymaths.

This is especially blatant as far as religion goes. It’s occasionally mentioned, sure enough, but to the extent anyone actually believes in Christianity it’s of a very modern and disenchanted sort – this is a society that sends out missionaries as a conscious tool of colonial expansion, not because of anything as silly or absurd as actually wanting to spread their gospel. Also like, it’s Oxford, in the nineteenth century. For all the racism the protagonists have to deal with, they should be getting so much more shit from ‘well-meaning’ locals and students trying to save their (one Muslim, one atheist, one probably Christian but black and protective of Haitian Vodou on a cultural level which would be more than enough) souls.

Or, and this is more minor, it is a central conceit of the whole finale that if a few (like, two) determined revolutionaries can infiltrate Babel they’ll be able to take the entire place hostage with barely any trouble. This is because the students and professors there are, basically, whimpy bookworms who’ll faint at the sight of blood and have no stomach for the sort of violence their work actually supports and drives. Which – look, I really don’t want to defend the ruling class of Victorian Britain here, but I’m not sure physical cowardice is really one of their failings, as a group? I mean, there’s an entire system of institutionalized child abuse in the boarding schools they went to to get them used to taking and dealing out violence and abuse. Basically every upper-class sport is thinly disguised military drill or ritual combat (okay, or rowing). Half of them would graduate to immediately running off and invading places for the glory of the queen. I’m not sure two sleep-deprived nerds with knives would actually have been able to cow the crowd here, is what I’m saying. (This would stick out less if the text wasn’t so dripping with contempt for them on precisely these grounds.)

Much less minor are our heroic revolutionaries themselves. And okay, this is more a matter of taste than anything but like – the Hermes Society is an illegal conspiracy of renegade current and former Babel scholars dedicated to using their knowledge of magic and access to university resources to oppose and undermine the British Empire in general and the work of the school in particular. Think Metternich’s worse nightmare, but in Oxford instead of Paris and focused on colonial liberation (continental Europe barely exists for the purposes of the book, Britain is Empire.) So! A secret society of professional revolutionaries in the heydey of just that, with a name that just has to be Hermetic symbolism, who concern themselves with both high politics and metaphysics.

They are just so very, very boring. This is the age of the Conspiracy of the Equals, the Carbonari, the Seasons! The literal Illumanti are still within living memory! Where’s the pageantry, the ritual, the grandiosity? The elaborate initiation rituals and oaths of undying loyalty? They’re so pragmatic, so humble, so (and I know I keep coming back to this) modern. It’s just such an utter wasted opportunity. Even beyond the level of aesthetics, these are revolutionaries with remarkably little positive ideology – the oppose colonialism and racism for reasons they take as self-evident and so don’t feel the need to theorize about it (and talk about them with the vocabulary of a modern activist, because of course they do), but they’re pretty much consciously agnostic as to what world should look like instead. They vaguely end up supporting a sort of petty-bourgeois socialism (in the Marxist sense), but the alliance with Luddites is essentially political convenience – they really don’t seem to have any vision of the future at all, either in England or the various places they claim as homelands.

On Empire and Industrialization

The story is set during the early nineteenth century, so of course the Industrial Revolution is a pretty core part of the background. The Silver Industrial Revolution, technically, since the Babellers translation magic is in this world a key and load-bearing part of it. Despite the addition of miracle-working enhancers and supports to its fundamental technology, the industrial revolution plays out pretty identically to history – right down to the same cities becoming hubs of industry, despite steam engines using enchanted silver instead of coal and thus, presumably, the entire economic and logistical system that brought this particular cities to prominence being totally unrecognizable. This is not a book that’s in any way actually about tracing how something would change history – which isn’t a complaint, to be clear, that’s a perfectly valid creative choice.

It does, however, make it rather galling that the single actually significant difference to history is that the introduction of magic turns the industrial revolution into a Legend of Zelda boss with a giant glowing weak point you can hit to destroy the whole enterprise.

On a narrative level, I get it – it simplifies things and allows for a far happier and more dramatic ending if destroying Babel is not just a symbolic act but also literally sends London Bridge falling down and scuttles the entire royal navy and every mill and factory in Britain. It’s just that I think that by doing so it trades away any chance for actually making interesting commentary on anti-colonial and -capitalist resistance. A world where a single act of spectacular terrorism really can destroy a modern empire is frankly so detached from our world that it ceases to be able to really materially comment upon it.

Like, the principle reason to not take the Luddites as your role models is not that they were morally vicious but that they were doomed – capitalism’s ability to repair damage to infrastructure and fixed goods is legitimately very impressive! Trying to force an entire ruling class not to adopt a technology that makes whoever commits to it tremendous amounts of money (thus, power) is a herculean task even when you have a state apparatus and standing army – adding an ‘off’ button to the lot of it just trades all sense of relevance for a satisfyingly cathartic ending.

(This is leaving untouched how the book just takes it as a given that the industrial revolution was a strictly immiserating force that did nothing but redistribute money from artisans to capitalists. Which certainly tracks as something people at the time would have thought but given how resolutely modern all the other politics in the work are rings really weirdly.)

All of which is only my second biggest issue with how the book presents its successful resistance movement. It all pales in comparison to making the Empire a squeamish paper tiger.

Like, the book hates colonialism in general and the British Empire in particular, the narrative and footnotes are filled with little asides about various atrocities and injustices and just ways it was racist or complicit in some particular atrocity. But more than that it is contemptuous of it, it views the empire as (as the cliche goes) a perpetually rotting edifice that just needs one good kick; that it persists only through the myth of its own invincibility, and has no stomach for violent resistance from within. Which is absolutely absurd, and the book does seem to know it on occasion when it off-handedly mentions e.g. the Peterloo Massacre – but a character whose supposed to be the grizzled cynical pragmatic revolutionary still spouts off about how slave rebellions succeed because their masters aren’t willing to massacre their own property. Which is just so spectacularly wrong on every axis its actually almost offensive.

More importantly, the entire final act of the story relies upon the fact that the British Empire would allow a handful of foreign students seize control of a vital piece of infrastructure for weeks on end and do nothing but try to wait them out as the national physically falls apart around them. Like, c’mon, there would be siege artillery set up and taking shots by the end of week two. As with the Oxford students, the Victorian elite had all manner of flaws – take your pick, really – but squeamishness wasn’t really one of them.

On Magic

So the magical system underlying the whole story is – you know how Machinaries of Empire makes imperial ideology and metaphysics literally magical, giving expert technicians the ability to create superweapons and destroy worlds provided that the Hexarchate’s subjects observe the imperial calendar of rites and celebrate its triumphs/participate in rituals glorying in the torture of its ‘heretics’? It’s not exactly a subtle metaphor, but it works.

Babel does something similar, except the foundational atrocity fueling the engine of empire on a metaphysical level is, like, cultural appropriation. As an organizing metaphor, I find this less compelling.

Leaving that aside, the story makes translation literally capable of miracle-working – which of necessity requires making ‘languages’ distinct natural categories with observable metaphysical boundaries. It then sets the story in the 19th century – the era of newborn nation states and education systems and national literatures, where the concept of the national-linguistic community was the obsession of the entire European intelligentsia. Now this is not a book concerned with how the presence of magic would actually have changed history, in the slightest, but like – given how fascinated it is by translation and linguistics you’d think the whole ‘a language is a dialect with a navy’ cliché would at least get a light mention (but then the book doesn’t really treat language as any more inherent or natural than it does any other modern identity category, I suppose.)

As an Allegory

Okay, so having now spent an embarrassing number of words establishing to my own satisfaction that the book really doesn’t work at all as a period piece, let us consider; what if it wasn’t trying to be?

A great many things about the book just fit much better if you take it as a commentary on the modern university with Victorian window-dressing. Certainly the driving resentment of Oxford as an institution that sustains itself and grows rich off the exploitation of international students it considers second-class seems far more apt applied to contemporary elite western schools than 19th century ones. Likewise the racism the heroes face all seems like the kind you’d expect in a modern English town rather than a Victorian one. I’m not well-versed enough on the economics of the city to know for sure, but I would wager that the gleeful characterization of Oxford as a city that literally starts falling to ruin without the university to support it was also less accurate in the 1830s than it is today.

Read like this, everything coheres much better – but the most striking thing becomes the incredible vanity of the book. This is a morality tale where the natural revolutionary vanguard with the power to bring global hegemony to its knees through nothing but witholding their labour are..students at elite western universities (not, I must say, a class I’d consider in dire need of having their egos boosted). The emotions underlying everything make much more sense, but the plot itself becomes positively myopic.

Beyond that – if this is a story about international students at elite universities, it does a terrible job of actually portraying them. Or, properly, it only shows a certain type; just about every foreign-born student or professor we meet is some level of revolutionary, deeply opposed in principle to the empire they work within. No one is actually convinced by the carrot of a life as an exploited but exceedingly comfortable and well-compensated technician in the imperial core, and there’s not really acknowledgement at all of just how much of the apparatus of international institutions and governments in the global south – including positions with quite a bit of real power – end up being staffed by exactly that demographic who just sincerely agree with the various ideological projects employing them. Kuang makes it far too easy on herself by making just about every person of colour in the books one of the good guys, and totally undersells how convincing hegemonic ideology can be, basically.

The Necessity of Violence

This is a pet peeve and it’s a very minor thing that I really wouldn’t bring it up if that wasn’t literally part of the title. But it is, so – it’s a plot point that’s given a decent amount of attention that Griffin (Robin’s secret older brother, grizzled professional revolutionary, his introduction to anti-colonialism) is blamed for murdering one of his classmates who had the bad luck to be studying while he was sneaking in to steal some silver – a student that was quite well-loved by the faculty and her very successful classmates, who have never forgiven him. Later on, it’s revealed that this is an utter rewriting of history, and she’d been a double agent pretending to let herself be recruited into the Hermes Society who’d been luring Griffin into an ambush when he killed her and escaped.

This is – well, the most predictable not-even-a-twist imaginable, for one, but also – just rank cowardice. You titled the book ‘the necessity of violence’, the least you can do is actually own it and show that violent resistance means people (with faces, and names, not just abstractions only ever talked about in general terms) who are essentially personally innocent are going to end up collateral damage, and people are going to hold grudges about it. Have some courage in your convictions!

Translation

Okay, all of that said, this isn’t a book that’s wholly bad, or anything. In particular, you can really tell how much of a passion Kuang has for the art and science of translation. The depth of knowledge and eagerness to share just about overflows from the page whenever the book finds an excuse to talk about it at length, and it’s really very endearing. The philosophizing about translation was also as a rule much more interesting and nuanced then whenever the book tried to opine about high politics or revolutionary tactics.

Anyways, I really can’t recommend the book in any real way, but it did stick in my head for long enough that I’ve now written 4,000 words about it. So at the very least it’s the interesting sort of bad book, y’know?

#book review #babel #r. f. kuang #sff #lesbian space atrocities #-ish #hatermode

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covid-safer-hotties · 1 month

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Why Biden’s premature COVID ending could help it surge - Published Sept 23, 2022

Two years out from the publication of this article, and we can really see how true these warnings were. Why does the mainstream media and DNC refuse to do anything about forever covid?

This week, President Biden said what millions of Americans have been hoping to hear since the spring of 2020: “The pandemic is over.”

I understand the impulse to close the book and move on. But I am deeply concerned that this declaration is not only premature but also dangerous.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has shown us, again and again, the danger of hubris. Think of the lethal impact of the omicron virus last winter, just when we were so grateful that the delta wave had ebbed. Think of the deadly surges this summer, just when we were planning our long-delayed vacations. This is a virus that has humbled us too often. We must approach it with humility.

This declaration has many damaging effects: As others have noted, it will now be even harder to persuade Americans to get the new bivalent boosters. It’ll be tougher to persuade Congress to fund essential COVID responses. And it will be nearly impossible for local officials to impose new indoor mask requirements should another surge arrive.

To be sure, Biden did acknowledge in his “60 Minutes” interview that “we still have a problem with COVID” and added that “we’re still doing a lot of work on it.” But he sandwiched that message between two flat declarations that the pandemic is over. Those are the soundbites that have reverberated most loudly, and they are decidedly unhelpful.

Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has spoken often about how the U.S. has lurched from a cycle of panic to neglect when it comes to public health. Many of us in the field had hoped that the COVID-19 pandemic would break that cycle — a sliver of silver lining amid all the grief.

We had hoped that policymakers and voters alike would understand how essential it is to upgrade our data infrastructure, stockpile essential medicine and equipment, invest in preventive care for vulnerable populations, restructure our emergency response agencies and support an infusion of public health workers at the local and state levels. Surely, COVID would be the spur needed to finally bump U.S. spending on public health to more than 3 cents on the health care dollar.

By declaring the pandemic over when we are still very much in the thick of the fight, President Biden is undercutting that message.

Let’s look at where we are right now. The U.S. is still reporting close to 60,000 cases and 400 deaths each day. Millions are struggling with long COVID; by some estimates, this often debilitating condition is keeping 4 million adults out of work. Those at work may have less flexibility: Major companies are ending work-from-home policies and Starbucks announced this week that it will no longer give employees paid time off to isolate or get vaccinated. Biden’s remarks will only accelerate that trend.

Meanwhile, only 67 percent of Americans are vaccinated and only half of them have been boosted. While many of the remaining have some immunity from infection, the death toll makes clear that large swaths of the population remain highly vulnerable. And of course, new variants continue to emerge; right now, all eyes are on BA.2.75.2, a mutation of the omicron variant that is notably better at evading antibodies acquired from vaccination or prior infection and is spreading rapidly in India.

Declaring the pandemic over at this stage is tantamount to accepting all this misery as background noise.

And if we accept the status quo as background noise — rather than the urgent and immediate threat it represents — it’s nearly impossible to make the case that we need to do more as a society to protect the vulnerable, respond to surges, or prepare for future crises.

The Biden administration has made significant strides on COVID. It made tests, vaccines and treatments widely available across the country, which improved outcomes and saved lives. The vast majority of Americans feel we’re in a better place than at this time last year and many have returned, at least in large part, to normal activities.

It is an appropriate moment for our leaders to turn the page away from our wartime footing and begin a sober discussion about the next steps: the risks that remain, the importance of responding quickly to local surges, the value of supporting the Global South in building their own vaccine infrastructure — and the critical need to rebuild the battered and woefully outdated public health infrastructure in the U.S.

It is not the moment to declare victory.

John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History” has a stark warning from history. He writes that the world had largely moved on from the 1918 influenza pandemic when a fourth wave struck in 1920. By then, the U.S. had plenty of natural immunity from prior infection. Still, the virus spread ruthlessly. Public officials failed to respond. They, like the public, wanted the pandemic to be over — so the virus rolled on unchecked. In some cities, the death toll in 1920 exceeded the toll of the huge second wave.

We should not make the same mistake now. With humility as our watchword, we can move to the next chapter without closing the book. That is the way forward.

Michelle A. Williams is dean of the faculty of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

#covid #mask up #pandemic #covid 19 #wear a mask #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #public health #still coviding #wear a respirator #us politics #joe biden #democratic party

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iww-gnv · 9 months

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The Unity Technologies’ downward spiral continues as the company intends to cut 25% of its workforce — or roughly 1,800 people — in a move it called a “company reset.” It’s the game engine maker’s largest layoff, bigger than all three of last year’s cuts combined. More than 1,100 people were laid off in 2023, preceded by at least 200 layoffs in June 2022. Unity said in a United States Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure that the layoffs come as Unity “restructures and refocuses on its core business, and to position itself for long-term and profitable growth.” The layoffs will be completed by March, according to a Reuters report. Unity is known for its game engine software, which is used across the industry on games of all sizes — from indie games to AAA blockbusters. It serves as the foundation for games like Hearthstone, Marvel Snap, Apex Legends, and Among Us. Beyond video games, it’s also used in film and animation, among other industries. Despite it’s ubiquity in the industry, the company is not profitable: It earned more than $1.3 billion in revenue in 2022, but did not make a profit. The company’s large-scale layoffs began in 2022, but Unity’s problems became larger in 2023 when it announced a controversial new pricing model that was universally panned by game developers. The new runtime pricing was announced in September, with Unity proposing a fee collected per game install after a certain revenue threshold was met. Unity eventually pulled back on those plans after widespread backlash, including a boycott and a “credible death threat.” But the damage was done. Unity CEO John Riccitiello stepped down in October. James M. Whitehurst, an advisor at the Silver Lake equity investment firm and former IBM president, was named interim CEO.

#news #unity #unity technologies #layoffs #game design #game development

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st-silver · 2 days

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It’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow but the Sonic comics do not and never have accurately represented Silver’s character. This has pretty much been admitted to now.

I don’t come at this from the perspective of a hater. Like a lot of people I got invested in Silver through the comics. I fell in love with him when I came across the Silver Saga story arc as a kid and I got back into Sonic comics and Silver as a character two years ago when the 2022 annual with him and Espio came out but then IDW became game canon and I started to understand game canon Silver. The more I understood his actual character the more I started to realize just how wrong the comics have always been with him.

You have to understand that the comics are an extension of the games and not the other way around. To that end the Sonic comics have never accurately represented Silver. Silver is a blunt, rude and aggressive character that is focused, hot-blooded and headstrong on top of being altruistic and naive. He is different from Sonic and Shadow in that he is naive and controlled by his emotions so he has no chill like them. His backstory is about him fighting and struggling for most of his life for peace and that’s why he’s as aggressive as he is naive and peace loving(Most of this is laid out in the Sonic Channel introduction page for Silver). That doesn’t mean he’s an ultra violent edgy maniac but he’s not a frail twink either. He’s not the shy polite awkward incompetent oaf from Archie or the nervous stuttering secretive coward from Ghosts of The Future.

Beyond the basic premise these characters are not Silver. In many ways many ways they are direct opposites of him. Archie Silver is a polite incompetent easily distracted oaf and Ghosts of the Future Silver is a round eyed nervous stuttering secretive coward. All of those traits are total opposites of Game Silver’s yet both artistically and writing wise these two have had more influence on IDW Silver (and by extension large parts of the fandom) than any game or Sonic Team produced material has.

You also have to understand that the comics have always been praised for being different from the games with Silver because Silver was (and still is) the most hated and misunderstood Sonic character, most people can’t tell you anything about him in the games other than “he’s serious”. There’s a lot more to his character than just “being serious” but most don’t know that because Silver is a very esoteric character and most of his appearances are obscure and/or heavily misinterpreted.

Silver has always been more popular in the comics than the games because the comics provide more comprehensible and even intimate narratives than the games do while also giving him adventures that focus on him and those big shonen hero moments that everybody loves. I used to be one of the people that thought the comics did better with Silver but after coming to understand his actual character I can say that Silver simply needs to be properly explained and not “fixed” or changed. The “cute clumsy cinnamon roll” shtick just ain’t it. You may prefer Uwuver, Shiver or any other variant of fandom Silver but they aren’t accurate to Sonic Team’s character and it is the comic’s job to represent him. I’m glad that more and more people are finally getting sick of the “making him sick on purpose” thing and we can try to make Silver cool again.

This isn’t the fault of the comics crew but rather Sonic Team themselves. Unlike Shadow who has incredibly strict and specific mandates, there have never been any real restrictions on how Silver is depicted in the comics besides not being allowed to explore his lore. This has been a problem since 2008. They can draw and characterize Silver however they want and ST is just completely hands off with him. Honestly, big kudos to Evan for making these efforts to depict Silver more accurately, first drawing him more and more on model and now this. She has my full support and thanks if she plans to do better by him.

#silver the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog #idw sonic #archie sonic #archie silver #idw silver #ghosts of the future #I hate how long I make these #I relate to Evan in not being happy with my work #Ian still isn’t with the program though #He still thinks Silver is a gullible polite idiot #sigh

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fatehbaz · 2 years

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On January 18, 2023, as thousands of Peruvians were taking to the streets in Lima to denounce the spiralling political crisis in the country, Canadian Ambassador Louis Marcotte was meeting with the Peruvian Minister of Energy and Mines.

Protests have been ongoing since December [2022] [...]. Demonstrators have been met with widespread arrests and brutal violence. According to Yves Engler, since [protests began] [...] the Canadian mission has met with numerous top-level Peruvian officials in unprecedented fashion. [...] Ambassador Marcotte tweeted several photos from the meeting, using the occasion to promote mining as a benefit for communities and to express Canadian support for the upcoming Peruvian delegation who will attend the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto from March 5 to 8. Each year, the world’s largest mining convention draws tens of thousands of industry experts, company officials, and government representatives to talk industry trends and promote an expansion of mining -- with little concern for the consent of those most affected, including in Peru. [...]

For years, MiningWatch Canada and the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP), alongside organizations including Red Muqui, Cooperacción, Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras-Cusco and Derechos Humanos y Medio Ambiente DHUMA, have documented the many harms caused by industrial large-scale Canadian mining to rural communities, as well as the associated police violence that often accompanies the imposition of these projects. [...] [T]he systematic and often violent exclusion of Indigenous, peasant and rural peoples from the political economic system, as well as the legacies of land dispossession and contamination, are indeed linked to centuries of extractivism.

The ambassador’s tweet has to be taken within a context of centuries of colonial and decades of post-colonial violence against rural peoples at the behest of resource extraction. [...] Ambassador Marcotte chose to promote more Canadian mining investment in the country and plug PDAC 2023 -- where a session dubbed “Peru Day” promises to discuss “opportunities [...].” Canada’s priorities in Peru could not be more clear. [...]

---

Canadian companies invested over $8 billion in 10 projects [in 2021] [...]. Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals operates the Constancia mine; Vancouver’s Pan American Silver operates the Shahuindo and La Arena mines; and Teck Resources’, also headquartered in Vancouver, operates the Antamina mine, with a 22.5 percent ownership stake in the project. Antamina is Peru’s largest mine, ranking among the top 10 producing mines in the world in terms of volume, and is the single most important producer of copper, silver, and zinc in the country. In 2021, the mine generated over $6 billion in revenue and nearly $3.7 billion in gross profits. [...]

---

When Canadian mining companies are embroiled in a conflict with local communities [...] [in] Peru, companies benefit from state-sanctioned police protection and impunity. Companies can sign service contracts directly with the National Peruvian Police, and off-duty police officers are permitted to work for private security companies while using state property, such as weapons, uniforms and ammunition. [...]

Violence isn’t only used against rural peoples at blockades or during massive marches; it’s a daily occurrence [...].

As the Cusco-based organization Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras has demonstrated through several environmental and social impact studies related to Hudbay’s Constancia mine, these contracts not only permit explicit state violence, they also form the backdrop of racialized and class-based intimidation and threats [...].

---

These harms are not minimal: contamination of agricultural lands and waterways around Pan American Silver’s Quiruvilca mine and the criminalization of community leaders and land dispossession due to environmental contamination at Shahuindo; violation of Indigenous self-determination and the right to a clean environment around Plateau Energy’s proposed lithium and uranium mine, sitting atop the region’s most important tropical glacier; undercutting of economic benefits for communities most affected by mining operations, and more.

---

Yet the Canadian embassy in Peru has a track record of ignoring the concerns of human rights and environmental defenders affected by Canadian mining projects in the country -- even ignoring the concerns of Canadian citizen Jennifer Moore who was detained in 2017 by Peruvian police while screening a documentary film with Quechua communities affected by Hudbay’s Constancia mine. Moore, who was subsequently banned from re-entering the country [...], is the focus of a recent report by the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP) on the role of Canadian embassies in prioritizing the interests of Canadian mining companies at the expense of their own policies and commitments regarding the protection of human rights defenders. [...]

But it should be made clear: when the [Canadian] embassy chooses to promote mining in Peru during PDAC, it is doing so knowing the reality of what these activities mean for people who are facing ongoing threats, intimidation, and explicit state-sponsored violence.

---

Headline and text by: Kirsten Francescone. “State-sanctioned violence in Peru and the role of Canadian mining.” Canadian Dimension. 6 March 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks and contractions added by me.]

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usafphantom2 · 7 months

Text

China's J-20 stealth jets will take on early warning and control tasks

The J-20 can now serve in functions such as combat, interception, attack and tactical bombardment, as well as perform AEW&C functions.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 02/19/2024 - 08:38 in Military

The Chinese Air Force has equipped its J-20 aircraft with sensors that will allow them to function as early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, in addition to their role as a fighter.

This transformation is part of an ongoing initiative led by the Wang Hai Air Group combat unit, which was in charge of training J-20 pilots and exploring the extensive capabilities of these aircraft.

As the first combat unit to commission J-20 fighters, the Wang Hai Air Group verified and exploited multiple capabilities of the aircraft in air combat. According to a recent report by China Central Television (CCTV), the unit conducted combat missions under extreme weather conditions, demonstrating the adaptability of the J-20.

"The J-20 is not only a fighter, but also an air command node, so we should not train pilots to become only fighters; we must train them to also be air commanders," said Lieutenant colonel Yang Juncheng, Commander of the Wang Hai Air Group in the recent CCTV report.

The J-20, the poaching developed internally in China, has complex combat systems in several fields of study. Wang Hai Air Group was tasked with exploring how to take advantage of the aircraft's capabilities, particularly in its new role as an early warning and control platform.

The training efforts led by Wang Hai Air Group go beyond its own pilots. With all its pilots equipped with J-20, the unit established a system to train J-20 pilots and assisted numerous other units in training its personnel to operate these advanced aircraft. This positions the Wang Hai Air Group as a talent reserve base for the PLA Air Force, specifically for the training of personnel on new aircraft.

In September 2022, the PLA Air Force announced the commissioning of an increasing number of J-20s, with deliveries covering all commands of the East, South, West, North and Central theater of operations. The current and future deliveries of the J-20, along with its evolving role as an early warning and control aircraft, underline the need for intensive pilot training to ensure the effective use of China's most powerful jet fighter.

"Unlike the previous generation of multifunctional fighters that focus on combat, interception, attack and tactical bombing, the J-20 received a new function, that is, the early warning and control function, thanks to its advanced sensors, computing systems and avionics," said a military expert, quoted by the Chinese media.

Tags: AEWMilitary AviationChengdu J-20 'Mighty Dragon'PLAAF - China Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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fictionthorn · 1 year

Text

*formerly writing-all-the-time-2*

Request Rules || My OFCs || Ao3 || Wattpad

Hello ~ I'm Hanna! A queer college student in their 20s who is a little too invested in fictional people.

What is currently rotting my brain? - Jujutsu Kaisen

Requests are CLOSED

Author's Choice: Power Outage (w/Sabo)

Most recent headcanon: Rosinante's Birthday - Stargazing

Most recent one shot: The Other Side (w/William T. Spears)

(Masterlist under the cut)

Astarion Ancunin • Enver Gortash • Gale Dekarios

Halsin Silverbough • Karlach Cliffgate • Lae'zel • Minthara Baenre

Orin the Red • Rolan • Shadowheart • Wyll Ravengard

My Tavs • Cleric Challenge • Random Tav Builds

Claude Faustus • Dagger • Grell Sutcliff • Joker • Ronald Knox

Sebastian Michaelis • Undertaker • William T. Spears

Aaron Hotchner • Derek Morgan • Emily Prentiss • Luke Alvez

Penelope Garcia • Spencer Reid

Choso Kamo • Kento Nanami • Mahito • Ryomen Sukuna

Satoru Gojo • Suguru Geto • Toji Fushiguro

Rafayel • Sylus • Xavier • Zayne

Bruce Banner • Bucky Barnes • Loki Laufeyson • Stephen Strange

Tony Stark

Blueno • Boa Hancock • Borsalino • Buggy • Crocodile

Donquixote Doflamingo • Donquixote Rosinante • Dracule Mihawk

Eustass Kid • Gol D. Roger • Jabra • Kaku • Kalifa • Killer

Kuzan • Marco • Monkey D. Luffy • Nami • Nico Robin • Paulie

Penguin • Perona • Portgas D. Ace • Rob Lucci • Roronoa Zoro

Sabo • Sanji • Shachi • Shanks • Silvers Rayleigh • Smoker

Thatch • Trafalgar Law • Vinsmoke Ichiji • Vinsmoke Niji

Yamato

Eddie Munson • Jim Hopper • Jonathan Byers • Robin Buckley

Steve Harrington

Benny Lafitte • Castiel • Charlie Bradbury • Crowley

Dean Winchester • Gabriel • Sam Winchester

Aragorn • Bard • Bilbo Baggins • Boromir • Faramir • Kili

Legolas • Thorin • Thranduil

12 Days of Ficmas 2022

Flufftober 2023

Icon from hunbloom on Picrew

Updated: September 16, 2024

#navigation #masterlist #black butler #criminal minds #the hobbit #lord of the rings #marvel #mcu #one piece #stanger things #supernatural #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #love & deepspace

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yesthatsatumbler · 4 months

Note

hey ill send you an ask! hows it going? post your favourite coin

Thanks!

Not much is happening TBH? Or at least to the extent that stuff is happening, in the short-to-medium term, I don't know what to say about it without some much more precise prompts on what exact kind of stuff you're interested in. I went to a beach today I guess? (And in the medium-to-long term things are too uncertain to say much about yet; too much depends on what would happen in places I don't really have influence over.)

I've moved to another country in 2022 because everyone was abandoning (and/or putting active sanctions on) my previous country due to a deeply unpopular war (that I didn't even vote for) and I was worried about being conscripted (and also for family reasons but the conscription thing was probably the main reason). Then in 2023 I saw my new country start its own (slightly less deeply) unpopular war that made approximately everyone abandon it, and I didn't really have any more places to go to... but at least I knew I didn't have to worry about being conscripted, and ongoing US support (and a long tradition of relative self-sufficiency, even if mostly for religious reasons) means that the sanctions are barely noticeable so far.

Not counting circulation finds, I had bought a grand total of about ten coins for my collection since October 2022. (I've received a few hundred more as gifts from friendly relatives.)

Favorite coin... it's a really hard question, you know! I don't recall your criteria/preferences for good coins offhand, and maybe if I knew them (I think I've seen them posted at some point...) I'd figure out which of my coins was the best fit for those. But also maybe that's not the right question to ask anyway.

For what it's worth, as of the moment I started writing this response, the first coin I thought of was that one silver coin I accidentally got for way under its true value because it was in such perfect condition that I thought it was probably made of aluminium (and accidentally confused it with a vaguely similar aluminium type while initially looking it up, though I don't recall whether that happened before or after I decided that it couldn't possibly be silver), and the dealer knew even less about those coins than I did, so he believed me and lowballed the price.

Then I figured out what went wrong and posted that on a forum, and it was a whole mess, and I eventually came clean to the dealer, and IIRC he basically said something to the effect of "I mean I didn't invest in it much either, happy that it's with someone who at least knows what it is". (Then I proceeded to buy a semi-key-date Barber quarter from him for under melt - and this time I did ask several times if he was sure about the price. I miss that guy.)

Yemen - North Mutawakkilite Kingdom (1918-62) Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din (r. 1918-48) AR 1/10 (Imadi) riyal 1362 or 1364 AH? = 1943 or 1945 AD? Y# 5.5, Numista 39981 (my coin is currently the page example)

"Wait, if the coin is in such great condition, then how could there be an uncertainty in the date?"

That's because it's an overdate! The 6 is engraved over a 4 (that is, ٦ over ٤ - you can see both shapes here, but the 4 is mostly obscured), and the last digit is either 4 over 2, or 2 over 4 - but both of the ٤ (4) and ٢ (2) shapes are strong enough that it's hard to tell which was there first, and of course both 1364/42 and 1362/44 are chronologically possible.

The references (i.e. Krause) include 1362/44 (though I've never seen an example labeled as such), but not 1364/42, as a possible option; they do, however, have 1364/43, for which the NGC World Coin Price Guide provides this example... an exact die match to my coin.

Unfortunately, a comparison of their coin and mine makes it clear that the supposed "3" is almost certainly a misreading; a combination of wear (flattening out the relevant area) and what appears to be a slight crack (?) gives the digit ٢ (2) a seeming extra bump at the top, making it look like ٣ (3). On my coin there is no bump and the digit can only be read as 2.

I've been uncertain over the years I've had this coin over whether it's actually dated 1364 (1945 AD) or 1362 (1943 AD), though I tended to default to the former. I thought that this is entirely unknowable, but now that I think about it, it might theoretically be possible to find a match to the pre-rework die, and see if it says 1342 or 1344? But there's not a lot of those 1/10 riyal coins depicted online in the first place, and none of the ones I could find seem to match this die - and of course there's no reason to assume that the die as originally made was used to mint coins at all, as opposed to being some kind of unneeded surplus that got reused two decades later.

...Comparing the styles, I think 1344 (and consequently 1362) is more plausible, but I can't be very sure. But at least now I've figured out at least a theoretical possibility for how it could eventually be known what it actually is?

Numismatics is complicated.

(Maybe some day I'll actually write up my extensive post on a possible reattribution of the monogram AE4 type traditionally attributed to the usurper Leontius... I was a good way in before I discovered that the question was treated in far more detail, with far more examined examples, in a Swiss article from 2020. Of course the article is [mostly] in Italian, and IIRC it did not raise some of the points I noticed, so maybe it is worth writing out my version as well. TL/DR: it's probably not Leontius, but it's hard to say who it might be, and the only other historical attribution for the type makes the Leontius option look sane.)

...Sorry for the long and rambling post. I think I had another point to make in here but if so I've completely forgotten what it was.

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mariacallous · 4 months

Text

In his polarizing “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” last year, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen listed a number of enemies to technological progress. Among them were “tech ethics” and “trust and safety,” a term used for work on online content moderation, which he said had been used to subject humanity to “a mass demoralization campaign” against new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Andreessen’s declaration drew both public and quiet criticism from people working in those fields—including at Meta, where Andreessen is a board member. Critics saw his screed as misrepresenting their work to keep internet services safer.

On Wednesday, Andreessen offered some clarification: When it comes to his 9-year-old son’s online life, he’s in favor of guardrails. “I want him to be able to sign up for internet services, and I want him to have like a Disneyland experience,” the investor said in an onstage conversation at a conference for Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI research institute. “I love the internet free-for-all. Someday, he's also going to love the internet free-for-all, but I want him to have walled gardens.”

Contrary to how his manifesto may have read, Andreessen went on to say he welcomes tech companies—and by extension their trust and safety teams—setting and enforcing rules for the type of content allowed on their services.

“There’s a lot of latitude company by company to be able to decide this,” he said. “Disney imposes different behavioral codes in Disneyland than what happens in the streets of Orlando.” Andreessen alluded to how tech companies can face government penalties for allowing child sexual abuse imagery and certain other types of content, so they can’t be without trust and safety teams altogether.

So what kind of content moderation does Andreessen consider an enemy of progress? He explained that he fears two or three companies dominating cyberspace and becoming “conjoined” with the government in a way that makes certain restrictions universal, causing what he called “potent societal consequences” without specifying what those might be. “If you end up in an environment where there is pervasive censorship, pervasive controls, then you have a real problem,” Andreessen said.

The solution as he described it is ensuring competition in the tech industry and a diversity of approaches to content moderation, with some having greater restrictions on speech and actions than others. “What happens on these platforms really matters,” he said. “What happens in these systems really matters. What happens in these companies really matters.”

Andreessen didn’t bring up X, the social platform run by Elon Musk and formerly known as Twitter, in which his firm Andreessen Horowitz invested when the Tesla CEO took over in late 2022. Musk soon laid off much of the company’s trust and safety staff, shut down Twitter’s AI ethics team, relaxed content rules, and reinstated users who had previously been permanently banned.

Those changes paired with Andreessen’s investment and manifesto created some perception that the investor wanted few limits on free expression. His clarifying comments were part of a conversation with Fei-Fei Li, codirector of Stanford’s HAI, titled “Removing Impediments to a Robust AI Innovative Ecosystem.”

During the session, Andreessen also repeated arguments he has made over the past year that slowing down development of AI through regulations or other measures recommended by some AI safety advocates would repeat what he sees as the mistaken US retrenchment from investment in nuclear energy several decades ago.

Nuclear power would be a “silver bullet” to many of today’s concerns about carbon emissions from other electricity sources, Andreessen said. Instead the US pulled back, and climate change hasn’t been contained the way it could have been. “It’s an overwhelmingly negative, risk-aversion frame,” he said. “The presumption in the discussion is, if there are potential harms therefore there should be regulations, controls, limitations, pauses, stops, freezes.”

For similar reasons, Andreessen said, he wants to see greater government investment in AI infrastructure and research and a freer rein given to AI experimentation by, for instance, not restricting open-source AI models in the name of security. If he wants his son to have the Disneyland experience of AI, some rules, whether from governments or trust and safety teams, may be necessary too.

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countrysidefaggot · 5 months

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was tagged to answer the catch up questions meme by @majestictoad thank youuu it's cute!! havent done those in like 12years i think huh

⟡ rules : answer + tag 9 people you want to get to know better and/or catch up with!

⟡ fav color : i like silver, pink & baby blue the most i thinnnk

⟡ last song : Shoot The Runner by Kasabian, ive been listening to Kasabian again after seeing they had a 2022 album (i hate it btw tlrjthr but anyways) cause im in my nostalgic rock phase rn it gives me energyy

⟡ last movie : huh... it was either Shake it All About (yeaaa because of mads mikkelsen) which was ass but i was invested, or Hedwig and the Angry Inch which was incredible even though it's aged in some ways

⟡ currently reading : Mary Higgins Clark's 'A Stranger is Watching' that i found in a public-book-deposit-box thing and it's honestly good but im slow to finish it + 'Free Play, Improvisation in Life and Art' by Stephen Nachmanovitch that im halfway through and continue reading when art sucks the life out of me or vice verse and it picks me back up from the dead (i recommend it)

⟡ currently watching : im rewatching Hannibal (again), started the series Swarm, and also Extraordinary & also rewatching Hope on the Street all at the same time.. its a mix tbh but i pick one up depending on my mood and its going great jrthrt

⟡ currently craving : kimbap, fries, seaweed soup and white chocolate w nuts in it.. im hungry

⟡ coffee or tea : coffee all the way but with tons of sugar as i am still a 12year old who doesn't like bitterness too much

im sending the vibes to @bisexualmotif @runvash @yuuris-hair @catodotexe @ohnoitssoikawa @sprrings @snowflakeb0ttles @cherchezlafemme @0-vercooked if you wanna do it ~

#toad maamsir u made me wanna rewatch eps of its always sunny i still didnt finish any season cause i always pick random eps to watch #but its so funny jhhgrrrt #thanks for the tag i had fun reading yours!!!#about me #didnt tag mutuals whomst already did it btw but ily #if u wanna do it and i didnt put your url in tag meee ill read it pinky promise #half the links are not working... anyways #i tried

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unimportant-ramblings · 7 months

Text

Ramblings watches Halo

Season 2, Episode 1: Sanctuary (or quem patronum rogaturus)

Have you family Spartan? Have you faith?

In which I try to recall what happened in season 1, our characters are reintroduced (this time with more character), John MasterChief goes to the saddest brothel of all time while he and the show deal with the impossibility of serving two masters.

In 2022, I waded unknown water for my internet best friend @sonofcarnelian who had done the same for me with the likes of Frank Herbert's Dune and Bridgerton season 1 (two properties often paired). Readers of my posts will remember that I have absolutely no experience with Halo, aside from it's place in pop culture.

Therefore, we represented the core audiences they were looking to appeal to in season; big fans and no nothings.

I enjoyed Halo season 1 a great deal, probably because I had no expectations beyond bonding with my friend. Even more surprisingly, I got both of my parents invested in it, and they liked it even more than me. Less surprisingly, both my beloved mutual and my brother, fans of the franchise already, were less impressed.

Due to this, season 2 is in the same position as last season, but this time in reverse. Last season I wrote about how decisions were made to appeal to a wider audience; taking off that helmet, female characters and characters of color introduced (not that I know there are none in the games, I do not, I just know they almost always have them helmets ON), romance, we see JMC’s ass a couple times, human characters in the covenant etc. This season we are telling the established audience of video game fans that yes others are here, but we have not forgotten you. And I can not speak to the effectiveness of this maneuver, that is for my cohort, but I can speak to how they are attempting this balance. So far, the attempt is clumsy, but I have seen it done worse.

The first season began with Kwan as our POV character, a young woman from the planet Madrigal which was about to be overtaken with the Covenant, who are ugly cgi creatures, until she was rescued by John MasterChief and the UNSC took over Madrigal. I think.

Season 2, aside from a cold open, which we'll get to, is this situation inside out. JMC and silver team (who consist of Kai, who has a little crush on JMC, but also got a very suggestive haircut in season 2 so we'll see and the other two who last season Did Not Matter) are on babysitting duty after the dramatic end of last season (they went rogue, John MasterChief had sex, his gf returned to being evil and died, it was a whole thing). We are then introduced to a group of religious people who do not want to leave this planet which is about to be glassed. Glassing is not a thing that happened last season, there was a ground battle on Madrigal, but after conferring with my brother who knows the games, this is much more in the fashion of what usually happens. Here we begin the three pronged status quo change which was deeply jarring to me but we're supposed to believe the show has always been like this:

The Covenant are the main threat: last season was about John MasterChief and his awakening as a full person, realizing that the people he served lied and manipulated him. While the covenant was present; Makee (ex gif) was covenant and they killed people, this was not the driving tension of last season.

Religion: again, the covenant were religious and Kwan had a family tradition, this season has religion as a central piece. Beyond connecting us to Earth (when that one foot soldier said he was a Baptist I was SHOCKED like baptist-baptists? Papist, we let baptist go to space?) I do not yet no the purpose of this, but it is interesting texture.

Secondary characters matter now: Last year the following characters mattered: JMC, Kwan, Halsey, Kai, Miranda, Makee, Soren and that is IT. And aside from those first three, their connections to John MasterChief mattered more than anything about them. Here we have bonding between Kai and Vannak (he has removed his pellet and has been very interested in animal planet, which is nice!) and as we go, our pool of characters continues to grow, as does their connections to each other. Hooray!

When questioned if JMC has family or faith he recommits to his team, both silver team and general ground troops. He goes off to see hey why the fuck are comms out and uh-oh sister, the convenant is here! prowling about, taking out their comms. Already, to me, the fight seems better but as we found out last year I don't know what makes an action scene good. The covenant at least look less uncanny valley. JMC teams up with Perez, the last of her unit, and just as JMC and Perez are overwhelmed and surely doomed, they back away, FOR SHIPPING REASONS MAYBE? because that is my girl Makee in the fog for real let's go Reylos let's go. He's hearing her voice in the shower girls!

We get another shot of JMC half dressed but it is not hot, he is way too ripped and it's like buddy! are you okay. We also saw him like this in the cold open where they ripped out Cortana and both John MasterChief and the audience are feeling her absence. We are also introduced to our new Halsey, His name is Ackerson and he gives Silver team the "I'm not trying to replace your mom" spiel, we can only hope that means he too is fucking Keyes.

Last season, I detailed a lot of ex Spartan Soren, his high camp wife and little son and oof it's not going great for them, and it's really boring. Soren, after being a good guy and helping Kwan, has lost favour with the pirates and ultimately gets super betrayed by his crew and a space cop who he should have clocked immediately because he talks like Samwise Gangee. Also Kwan is at Soren's house now and is scaring his kid in a cave. So that's fun.

Meanwhile Ackerson is trying to gaslight (glasslight? is this anything?) by step-dadding the hell out him with false concerns over his mental health and allusions to his lost gfs (Cortana, Makee and Halsey, who of course is also his mom love that). The party line is that JMC did not see the Covenant and is crazy. Silver team is out of commission and Cobalt team is being sent out like there is nothing going on. This makes JMC naturally very anxious so he GOES TO A DIGITAL BROTHEL TO HANG OUT WITH FAKE CORTANA I LOVE THIS SHOW. Love how the AI is insecure. Love he wears a hoodie. Love that we're giving Reach, and the population of Reach City some color with a Red/Blue light district. Good stuff

Time will tell whether the balancing of two audiences will work; my biggest apprehensions are about the quality of the character writing and balancing our subplots, but tbh? I will forgive all plot holes if they keep giving me high camp.

But what will my cultured friend say? I'm very excited to see!

In the mean time:

#last season for most of it my or title was Beyonce's halo but im running out of lines so I'll attach a song #sonofcarnelian #halo #halo paramount #ramblings watches halo #Spotify #it's still lent but this is different this is WORK #the hunchback of notre dame

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omgkalyppso · 2 years

Text

I found my Shahid rant from 28/06/2022!

I've spent all night and morning thinking of Shahid fire emblem and a more effective Leicester campaign from Almyra. Lots of oc nonsense and vague GW spoilers and some character deaths:

Claude taking his mother's surname is the same vibe as Obi-wan Kenobi going into hiding as Ben Kenobi. Literally people who knew him will not be fooled.

Edmund and Enbarr are established in the lore books in few3h as having trading ports with Dagda and other countries, and Edmund is described as being harassed by Almyran pirates. There is a 0% chance that news of a new von Riegan heir of the missing daughter of Oswald von Riegan doesn't make its way back to Almyra.

So Shahid, having previously thought the bullying and assassination attempts had finally chased his little brother into hiding, now fears that Claude is using his namesake to offer the long coveted Leicester mountain range and fertile lands beyond as offering in his petition for the Almyran crown. Claude always came across as shrewd and silver tongued, he should have expected it, and surely their father would take great pride in this achievement of his (perceived?) favorite son.

And by now Shahid has sacrificed too much to see any other way forward than with blind ambition. He ruined his relationship to his sister Sara, having scarred her face when she dared to suggest that he only hated Claude so much because they were so similar. He had the knife at the ready because he'd intended to use it upon Claude, and they both knew she'd interrupted that too. Sara held that knife to Shahid's throat afterwards, warning that she'd never been so well-trained nor so strongly strategic as he to guarantee that she would not slit his throat. She ended the interaction by forcing him to heal her face with his pathetic magic, knowing that it would scar and force this reminder between them, even as she retreated to the territory she'd inherited with the suddenly-suspect, premature death of her first husband. Sajad, whom Shahid had been so close in age as children, and who had followed his every taunt and instigation to beat and bully Claude in their youth, had also listened to Shahid's lies about how Sajad could have one day been king if only things had been just so - if only, together, close as they were, they overcame their siblings and demonstrated their resilience. Sajad killed Asmaa at Shahid's indirect assertions of ambition, and then a letter from Shahid to their eldest brother, Sarim, alerted him to Sajad's crimes and plots, had ensured Sarim sent an effective band of assassins to silence the truth in Sajad forever.

Rumaisa was never going to rule, she was a warrior and would likely never even be a general, ill-adept at strategy as she was. This left Claude and Sarim as Shahid's rivals to the crown.

He would deliver Leicester to his father, by war if not by birthright.

Almyra didn't need to invade to overtake Edmund, Derdriu and Ordelia, because Leicester has no navy, and so while Faerghus and Adrestia dealt with their own internal politics, Shahid needed only to be either an annoyance or a crippling presence by cutting them off. An occasional circle of wyverns sent across the roads and farmlands from these boats, to surround their major cities should pester even the local lords with no investment in trade by sea into distress. Even if Leicester had their own aerial forces, Almyra had strong archers, and thirty (or whatever) per ship should secure their barricades. Which leaves Fodlan's Locket, and the riches contained within the Throat, and beyond. If he could force either of his sisters to the front line, he suspects he could lure Claude's forces beyond the security of the Locket to face them directly; but perhaps not, and this would be risky and time consuming and could destroy the morale of his army, to see an Almyran princess so distressed; nor, likely, would such a victory seem honorable to their father.

He would need a decisive battle, as there would be no starving out Goneril territory, even with the stress on Leicester to distribute their own bounty to the territories affected by the Almyran blockades.

With Nader the Undefeated as his council, Claude as his enemy, and the crown on the line, Shahid would simply have to review what had been effective in previous breaches of the Throat, by bandits and kings all the same, and pray that the Gods favored him as they had always seemed to, even as the people had found their own reasons to prefer little Khalid.

In all this, Sarim would be focused on unifying southern Almyra or otherwise would be fighting a conflict with whatever I want to put on their southern border.

#long post #fire emblem #three hopes #shahid few3h #claude von riegan #khalid von riegan #oc tag: sarim #oc tag: sara #oc tag: asmaa #oc tag: sajad #oc tag: rumaisa #but i prefer different au's #looking at few3h: there's a lot to unpack here but let's just throw out the whole suitcase #character death cw

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lorz-ix · 11 months

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Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (season 2, 2019)

I LOVED season 1 of this show. While it came off too hyper-energetic at times, like a stereotype of "what kids like nowadays", the vibes were actually impeccable. The characters are lovable, they're funny, the fresh takes on nearly 40 year old archetypes are effective, it's overall a great action cartoon with fantastic 2D animation. As long as you keep an open mind on "what these characters are supposed to be", you're in for a fun ride.

Sadly, it's very obvious that the show wasn't too successful, likely because a lot of people rejected this new take on the turtles. I certainly didn't like the first impression, the artstyle wasn't my thing and the wildly different body types looked very weird, but I'm now sad that I didn't give them a chance earlier. The second season is short and it gets straight to the point, because they needed to wrap things up ASAP, the show simply wasn't getting any more episodes. The silver lining is that it's not a massive time investment, and S2 by itself has a very effective overarching narrative, culminating in an amazing finale.

I simply can't praise it enough. I love this series and I think it's a tragedy that it had to end so soon. If it's not my favorite version of the turtles, it's really close. Go watch it.

Rise of the TMNT: the movie (2022)

As a final farewell, Rise got a feature-length film, and every last bit of love was poured into it. They even made it so you didn't need to watch the show going into it, in part because they were aware that it wasn't that popular, but also to make the movie as accessible as possible, maybe hoping for a miraculous revival.

Anything I can say about the show goes for the film. The animation is still amazing, the characters are still charming, everything is still fantastic. I don't think it reaches the highs of the series finale, but the fact that you can watch the movie with no prior knowledge certainly makes it very easy to recommend for people who don't want to watch an entire TV show, no matter how short.

Rise of the TMNT is amazing guys, we might not be able to revive it but we can sure as hell appreciate it like it deserved.

#lorz mediapost 2023 #tmnt #movies #rise of the tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles

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cha1cedony · 1 year

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Okay fine I’ll do one of these (because I like to talk about myself hehehe). Thanks @roboobin for tagging me B)

A very long ‘get to know me’ post below…

Last song: Apparently it was ‘Two Time’ - Jack Stauber, according to Spotify? I’ve also been relistening to a few tracks from Falsettos all day, for some reason. ‘I’m Breaking Down’ got stuck in my head somehow. I’m not super big on musical theater, but I LOOOOVE Falsettos and especially Trina :) You can probably tell I have a certain type of favorite characters/media lol.

Favorite color: Light greyish blue (or white, grey, silver, orrrr light greyish green?)

Last movie: I actually have no idea. Maybe Nimona with my IRLs a few months ago? I almost NEVER watch movies in full because I get bored of them easily. Sorry I know that’s so lame lololol

Currently watching: A commentary YouTube video to use as background noise while I do my writing assignments lol. Like I said, I don’t really watch a lot of movies or TV :/

Currently reading: Nothing, unfortunately! I haven’t read any books/stories in an embarrassingly long time :( I am so ridiculously busy and haven’t had the time/motivation to read and get invested in new characters. I have a bunch of series I want to reread for nostalgia purposes, though. I’m also strangely tempted to read the Animorphs series? LOL. I looked it up on AO3 for the first time a few months ago while in the kids’ section of the library with my IRLS and we were assessing the popularity of kids’ books based on the amount of AO3/Wattpad fics (btw, there are a shockingly low amount of Geronimo Stilton fics in the world). I wasn’t expecting there to be an Animorphs fandom, but there IS? And the fics are really GOOD even though I don’t know the source material? Anyway. Tempted to read it because I like putting teens in situations /lh. Also I want to read more short stories! Send me recommendations, if you have any.

Last thing I googled: This is so embarrassing. ‘Bathroom cruising’ LMAOOOO. I was just writing a funny bit, but I wanted to make sure it was accurate, okay? T_T Other recent searches include my voice lesson Lieder, various areas I’ve felt pain recently (because I’m a hypochondriac /lh), and a vlog I had to watch for my job… I was writing an article about it.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Savory. Every time. I love savory foods, and they’re basically the only types of food I ever crave. Then I would go with spicy, but only if it’s spicy in a flavorful way (and not just a painful way). I don’t like sweet foods except for chocolate—and, even then, I am infamous among my friends and acquaintances for only liking SUPER dark chocolate… like 70% cocoa or more. I would say my favorite flavor profile is bitter! :)

Current obsession: I think y’all already know :^) I am incapable of having more than one strong interest at once, soooo DnDads has quite literally been occupying my brain since liiiike October 2022… almost a year ago now! o_o Holy shit. I’ve been really busy with work and school in the past month or so, so I haven’t done basically anything else in my free time. I’d like to start cross stitching again because I have some projects to finish, and I got some of my late grandmother’s jewelry-making supplies recently, so I’ll toy around with that, too.

Currently working on: Like, right this second? Discussion post replies for my Writing in Digital Environments course :p In general? As far as hobbies go, the beginnings of my next longfic chapter! As far as work goes, I’m working on article about a mural. I have to drive like 30 mins to get a features image for it tomorrow ugh. At least I get to kill time on the clock :’)

I don’t want to tag anyone in particular, but, obviously, if you want to do this, you can just say I tagged you. Shhh I won’t tell ;) hehehe

#chalcy stuff #if you read all this you get.. uhh idk #a high five #🖐️#tag game

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usafphantom2 · 10 months

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With NATO membership imminent, Sweden and the US sign a new defense cooperation agreement

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 08/12/2023 - 00:07in Military

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, and Swedish defense minister Pal Jonson signed a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) on December 5, strengthening military ties between the two nations, which will allow bilateral exercises and new joint acquisitions and will further pave the way for Sweden's integration into NATO.

The agreement “will allow greater defense cooperation, such as the legal status of U.S. military personnel, access to areas of deployment and the pre-positioning of military material,” said Pentagon spokesman Brig. General Patrick S. Ryder told reporters: "The DCA also creates the necessary conditions for U.S. military support when requested and is therefore an agreement of great importance for both countries." More details were not provided immediately.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland, who have long been neutral, applied to join NATO and, although Finland has been admitted to the alliance, Sweden's accession awaits the approval of Turkey and Hungary.

Jonson, speaking on December 5 with the Atlantic Council, refused to provide a schedule on when he expects the final obstacles to Sweden's accession to be eliminated, only saying that this will be "soon".

B-1 bombers first landed in Sweden in 2023.

“Turkey has granted Swedish guest status, saying that it is not if we are going to become members, but when... and we hope that this will be resolved as soon as possible,” Jonson said.

About the DCA between the US and Sweden, Jonson said: “This will make our close partnership even closer. It will create better conditions for U.S. forces, both to use Swedish territory as a preparation and base area, as well as for exercise, and it is also a deterrent. Therefore, the DCA will be a new cornerstone in our bilateral cooperation."

He later said that the U.S. military presence in Sweden “is important” for NATO integration and that the DCA will guide U.S. investment in the region.

Jonson's observations focused on how Sweden will integrate its armed forces into NATO and argued that Stockholm is already highly aligned, both operationally and technically, with NATO standards.

As an example, he cited last year's "Silver Arrow" exercise with the U.S., saying that it was Sweden's largest exercise in 25 years and highlighted the need to pay attention to logistics and maintenance, and the ability to "fight for a long time".

He noted that the Nordic countries of Norway, Finland and Denmark already work together militarily and all now have DCA with the U.S., which should accelerate and improve NATO interoperability in the Scandinavian region.

Sweden was one of the first members of the Partnership for Peace (PFP) - sometimes called "NATO Light" - created during the Clinton administration to establish a path for NATO membership for other European countries and for the former Warsaw Pact nations. The PFP has defined a series of steps, from joint exercises to common equipment and training standards, necessary for membership, and Sweden fully embraced all of them, Jonson said, and sent its troops to serve alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Libya.

“We are linked to NATO's regional plans,” he said, and Sweden offers not only state-of-the-art land, air and naval forces and grassroots opportunities, but also experience in Russian intelligence issues.

"Intelligence is also an asset that I think we can bring to the table, to the alliance," Jonson said. "Sweden has a lot of Russian experience. We have strong capabilities in our intelligence communities. We have sensors that can work on our submarines and also on our surface fighters and also on aerial sensors."

T-7A jet developed by Boeing in partnership with Saab.

Sweden, despite having a population of only 10 million inhabitants, also has a defense industry capable of building armored vehicles, submarines, corvets and combat and command and control aircraft, and is manufacturing 155 mm ammunition for Ukraine, along with Denmark and Norway. The SAAB JAS39 Gripen is a frequent competitor to the U.S. F-16 and F-35 in international competitions, and its GlobalEye airborne alert and control system often faces Boeing's E-7 Wedgetail. SAAB is a partner of Boeing in USAF's T-7A Red Hawk advanced trainer, and Sweden's Gripen fighters carry US-made AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and are powered by GE Aerospace F414 engines.

Sweden is “fully in favor” of NATO's objectives that each member devote two percent of its gross domestic product to defense and 20 percent of that amount to new equipment and research and development, Jonson said.

“Sweden doubled its defense budgets by 2024 compared to what we were in 2020,” he said. "In five years, we have doubled [expenditures]... and next year we will reach 2.1 percent of GDP and we also have an upward trajectory."

In addition, Jonson said that Sweden spends “actually 56% when it comes to acquisitions. Therefore, we obtained a very good score in terms of investments and also in innovation."

NATO membership will give Sweden greater security to deter a possible aggression by Russia, which continues to wage war against Ukraine, and Jonson said that Sweden also wants to do its part to prevent Russia from a series of new attacks.

"If Russia succeeds in this war, I fear that other countries neighboring Russia, such as Moldova and Georgia, will feel increasing pressure and that there will also be increasing pressure on the Alliance. Therefore, be sure that the United States has a partner in Sweden who shares the unity of purpose of supporting Ukraine for as long as necessary,” he said.

Russia outlined plans to regroup from losses in Ukraine and “return with a greater force” in 2026, Jonson added, which will require vigilance and will not diminish support for Kiev from NATO and the European Union. There is a “window of opportunity” for NATO to maintain the pressure to ensure a desirable outcome in the war, he added.

Most of the Swedish electorate – 65-70 percent – supports NATO membership, Jonson said, and 88 percent of the seats in parliament were won “by those who want to join,” Jonson said. They recognize that Russia's aggression is an immediate danger and requires an "evolution" in thought.

“Sweden is no longer being defended within Sweden,” he said.

Tags: Military AviationFlygvapnet - Swedish Air ForceJAS39 GripenNATO - North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationsaabUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.