#thus the ^_^ by old radic there

[zarla-s]

I was cleaning up some broken links on my old silly Pokemon fansite, the Neglected Pokemon Lovers Unite (NPLU), and I realized that it has now been open for 25 years. TWENTY. FIVE. YEARS. That is an ASTONISHING amount of time for a site to stay open! Even if the last substantial update was like back in 2009 lol. The world around it has changed so much, but I think it's still valuable as a time capsule of a certain time on the internet. I wrote up a new essay about it on the site and did some general clean-up here and there.

Anyway to that end, since so much of the fic and art there is so old, I decided to compare Radic's oldest form to his newest! Radic was always a human boy but I just couldn't draw humans at the time so I made him a furry lol. Eventually I figured it out.

I also thought it'd be a neat challenge to mimic my own style back when it was really wonky and bad. And it was! It was kind of fun actually. I don't have too many shots of Radic from back then (it was hard to get art on the internet in the late 90's-early 00's), but I do have a few - hugging Kitsune, two old kiribans if you want to compare. I had a lot more old shots of Parasects though to reference unsurprisingly, they were very triangular lol. I think I did a pretty good job of matching what my art used to look like. I had a clear see-through Gameboy back in the day if you can't tell what Radic is holding lol.

("Isn't Radic the faceless avatar of your gamer self as depicted in Handplates-" yes, but Pokemon!Radic is the only one that actually became his own character, all the rest are shells)

If you do go poking around the NPLU, please keep in mind that almost everything there is very old and most of the fic and art is pretty bad (and shockingly violent). Plz do not judge me! My younger self was a cringey weeb but she was trying very hard. :<

[patreon]

[cvctuslesbian]

🫠

[frankingsteinery]

for some reason people seem to think that mary somehow stumbled into writing a commentary on marriage/incest accidentally, and that the themes of frankenstein are all about her trauma due to her experiences as a victim of the patriarchy, as a woman and a mother surrounded by men - as if she wasnt the child of radical liberals who publicly renounced marriage, as if she herself as well as percy shelley had similar politics on marriage, as if she would not go on to write a novel where the central theme is explicitly that of father/daughter incest years later…

the most obvious and frequent critique of victor i see is of his attempt to create life - the creature - without female presence. it’s taught in schools, wrote about by academics, talked about in fandom spaces - mary shelley was a feminist who wrote about feminism by making victor a misogynist. he’s misogynistic because he invented a method of procreation without involving women purely out of male entitlement and masculine arrogance and superiority, and shelley demonstrates the consequences of subverting women in the creation process/and by extension the patriarchy because this method fails terribly - his son in a monster, and victor is punished for his arrogance via the murder of his entire family; thus there is no place for procreation without the presence of women, right?

while this interpretation – though far from my favorite – is not without merit, i see it thrown around as The interpretation, which i feel does a great disservice to the other themes surrounding victor, the creature, the relationship between mother and child, parenthood, marriage, etc.

this argument also, ironically, tends to undermine the agency and power of frankenstein’s female characters, because it often relies on interpreting them as being solely passive, demure archetypes to establish their distinction from the 3 male narrators, who in contrast are performing violent and/or reprehensible actions while all the woman stay home (i.e., shelley paradoxically critiques the patriarchy by making all her female characters the reductive stereotypes that were enforced during her time period, so the flaws of our male narrators arise due to this social inequality).

in doing so it completely strips elizabeth (and caroline and justine to a lesser extent) of the power of the actions that she DID take — standing up in front of a corrupt court, speaking against the injustice of the system and attempting to fight against its verdict, lamenting the state of female social status that prevented her from visiting victor at ingolstadt, subverting traditional gender roles by offering victor an out to their arranged marriage as opposed to the other way around, taking part in determining ernest’s career and education in direct opposition to alphonse, etc. it also comes off as a very “i could fix him,” vibe, that is, it suggests if women were given equal social standing to men then elizabeth would have been able to rein victor in so to speak and prevent the events of the book from happening. which is a demeaning expectation/obligation in of itself and only reinforces the reductive passive, motherly archetypes that these same people are speaking against

it is also not very well supported: most of the argument rests on ignoring female character’s actual characterization and focusing one specific quote, often taken out of context (“a new species would bless me as its creator and source…no father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as i should deserve theirs”) which “proves” victor’s sense of male superiority, and on victors treatment/perception of elizabeth, primarily from a line of thinking he had at five years old, where he objectified her by thinking of her (or rather — being told so by caroline) as a gift to him. again, the morality of victor’s character is being determined by thoughts he had at five years old.

obviously this is not at all to say i think their relationship was a healthy one - i dont think victor and elizabeth’s marriage was ever intended to be perceived as good, but more importantly, writing their relationship this way was a deliberate critique of marriage culture.

[mask131]

Greek monster myths (1)

Various mini-articles loosely translated from the French « Dictionary of Feminine Myths », under the direction of Pierre Brunel. (You could also translate the title as “Dictionary of Female Myths” – the idea being all the myths centered around women)

Article 1: Gorgô

[Note: this mini-article is distinct from the mini-article about “Gorgons”]

The appearance of Gorgô, at the end of the eleventh chant of the Odyssey, is meant to cause fright – not just to Odysseus himself who is just done with invoking the dead, but also to the audience hearing this rhapsody (the Phaeacians listening to Odysseus’ tale), and to the very listener of the Homeric poem. Gorgô forms the dominant peak of this “evocation of the dead” (nekuia), she is the “chlôron déos”, the “green fear”. Odysseus’ mother, Anticleia, just disappeared back again nto the Hades – the hero wishes to summon other shades, such as those of Theseus and of his former companion Pirithous, “but before them, here is that with hellish cries the uncountable tribes of the dead gathered”. And Odysseus adds: “I felt myself becoming green with fear at the thought that, from the depths of the Hades, the noble Persephone might sent us the head of Gorgô, this terrible monster…” (633-635). It is barely an apparition, it is the possibility of an appearance, but it is enough to terrorize the living.

Jean-Pierre Vernant, in his work “La Mort dans les yeux” (Death in the eyes), establishes the link which ties together Gorgô and Medusa. Because Gorgô is more than a singular unification of the three Gorgons: she is a superlative form of Medusa, she is what happens when her petrifying gaze survives beyond death. By studying the depictions of Gorgô in ancient statues, Vernant establishes two fundamental traits: the faciality, and the monstrosity. He explains that “interferences” take place “between the human and the bestial, associated and mixed in diverse ways”. Maybe Gorgô is, as Vernant suggests, “the dark face, the sinister reverse of the Great Goddess, of which Artemis will most notably be the heir”. But Gorgô is also placed in the function of watchful guardian of the world of the dead, a world forbidden to the living. The mask of Gorgô expresses the radical alterity of Death and the dead.

Article 2: The Graeae

Daughters of Keto and Phorkys (they are thus also called “The Phorcydes”), sisters of the Gorgons, these divinities of shadows, which were born as elderly women and doomed to share one eye and one tooth for all three, appear exclusively in the tale of Perseus and Medusa.

The most ancient mention of the Graeae comes from Hesiod’s Theogony, which only counts two of them and names them Pemphredo and Enyo (Enyo was also the name of a goddess of war within Homer’s Iliad). The third of the sisters appears within a fragment of the Athenian logographer Pherecyde: Deino (“The Dreadful”), later called Persis by Hyginus (in his “Preface to fables”). Other authors, like Ovid, prefer to stick with two Graeae. Hesiod makes a quite flattering portrait of them: he makes them elegant goddesses with a “beautiful face”, even though they were “white-haired (understand “having white hair due to old age”) since birth”. And while their very name means “old women”, the Antique iconography actually follows the Hesiodic model: the depictions of the sisters as disfigured by the effects of time are quite rare… At most the artists will just put a few wrinkles. These mysterious hybrids between youth and old age, virginal seduction and sinister ugliness, finds an echo within a few lines from Aeschylus “Prometheus bound”: “Three ancient maidens, with swan bodies, that share a single eye and a single tooth, and who never receive a look from the shinng sun or the crescent of the night.” Aeschylus had an entire tragedy written about them (Phorcydes) which was unfortunately lost – but Aristotle wrote about it in his “Poetics” and implies that the play insisted on their monstrous aspect, placing them within the legendary area known as “the gorgonian fields of Kisthene”, and closely associating them with their sisters, of which they form a reversed image. Indeed, the Gorgons have a very powerful eyesight which no mortal being can face, while the Graeae have an extreme form of blindness. This trinity of women, old by nature, can also be understood as the antithesis of the three Charites, the Graces which embodied eternal youth.

The Graeae seems to have only a role within the myth of Perseus. And, outside of a few details, this legend does not change much from Pherecyde to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, passing by Lycophron, Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, and Hyginus’ Astronomy. In all those versions the Graeae are the jealous keeper of the secret path that leads to the Gorgons, and Perseus must steal their eye in order to obtain the knowledge needed to reach Medusa. However, Pherecyde did change an element: according to him the Graeae do not protect the path leading to the Gorgons, but rather the path leading to the nymphs that hold the magical items Perseus needs to fight Medusa.

Due to their limited presence in Greek mythology, the Graeae have quite a poor cultural posterity. In the 19th century Goethe will remember them: in his “Second Faust”, Mephistopheles appears under the guise of “Phorkyas”, a monster with only one eye and one tooth. In the world of paintings, Edward Burne-Jones, who created a true “Perseus cycle”, had a strong interest for them: he worked for a very long time on a painting of the Graeae. Their face is barely visible, but the cloth that wraps itself around their body is menacing ; they are within an arid desert, under a dark sky heavy with clouds – they perform a sinister dance, in a mockery of the Graces. Perseus comes to steal their eyes, and the grey color that invades all the nuances of the picture symbolizes the unique presence of those strange crones, both disquieting and pitiable.

Article 3: Echidna

Echidna, “the viper”, is according to Hesiod the daughter of Phorkys and Keto, themselves born of Pontos, the Sea, and Gaia, the Earth. Echidna’s sisters are female monsters like her: the Graeae, and the Gorgons. Hesiod describes her as having half of the body of a “fair-cheeked nymph”, while the rest of her body is the one of an enormous, big, cruel, spotted and terrible snake which “lies within the secret depths of the divine earth”. Echidna as such belongs to this large mythological family of snake-women, of which the most famous case in France is the fairy Mélusine. But unlike Mélusine, Echidna can never leave the snake-half of her body, and thus a better French heir would be Marcel Aymé’s depiction of the vouivre with her cohort of vipers.

Theodore de Banville, when he imagines Hesiod scolding him for sanitizing Classical mythology, makes of Echidna the symbol of the archaic mythology: he tells him that he is “making a toy out of the history of the gods” by depicting Love as “a sweet child, free of carnivorous appetites, ignored by the Furies and by bloody Echidna”.

Echidna precisely appears as a being led by an amorous desire within Herodotus’ tales, that he claims to have collected among the Greeks of Pontus Euxinus: as Herakles was sleeping, Echidna steals his horses away. She only agrees to give them back if he sleeps with her. When Herakles leaves her, she tells him that she will bear three sons from their union. He advises them to only keep with her one that would be able to bend a bow just like him, and to force the others to leave. She does that, and this favorite son is supposed to be the one that created the Scythian people. This meeting between Herakles and Echidna might be derived from the famous encounters between Herakles and three of Echidna’s other children: the Nemean Lion, the Hydra of Lerna, and Cerberus.

In Aeschylus, Orestes compares his mother, Clytemnestra, to “a horrible viper”. Sophocles has Creon call Ismene, which he believes to have helped Antigone, “a viper that slid in my house against my will to drink my blood”. These examples show a link between the Ancient metaphorical speech, and the mythological allusions. Indeed, only the context can allow us to determine if these authors meant “viper” as a common name, or as a proper name: as “Viper”, “Echidna”. But it confirms the idea that, in Ancient Greece, Echidna is a monster born of an archaic fear of the women, and embodying their supposed perfidy.

[longwuzhere]

Here are some cool Easter eggs that I found the newest My Adventures with Superman episode, "My Interview with Superman" Links to my first two easter egg posts for episode 1 and 2 are here and here.

Link to my episode 4 easter egg post is here

Link to my episode 5 easter eggs post is here

Link to my episode 6 easter eggs post is here

Link to my episode 7 easter eggs post is here and here

Link to my episode 8 easter eggs post is here

Link to my episode 9 easter eggs post is here

Link to my episode 10 easter eggs post is here SPOILERS if you have not seen the episode of course:

We start off the episode with an Amazo Tech blimp crashing into a building in Metropolis

You don't see a lot of blimps in Metropolis. Gotham is usually the one with a lot of blimps flying around. If you saw the episode on Adult Swim when it premiered on air you'll know that the next episode involved Professor Anthony Ivo and Amazo Tech. Throughout the previous episodes and this one, the Amazo Tech brand is shown to set up next week's episode. After the scene we go to a break in at Stryker's Island (more on that location later) as we see one of the villains for the episode Mist...

and one of his partners...

Rough House who are trying to break out...

Shiobhan McDougal. If you know your Superman comics, you'll also know here as Silver Banshee.

Kyle/Mist is a VERY old DC supervillain from the 1940s who first appeared in Adventure Comics #47 (1941) as the arch villain to Starman. Mist's design in the comics is RADICALLY different from the show.

MAwS modernized Mist's design compared to here in these comics panels (W: Alfred Bester, P&I: Jack Burnley, C: Raymond Perry, L: Betty Bentley). In the comic Mist's power allows him to turn his body into a gaseous form thus the name. MAwS uses Mist as someone who can turn himself and objects invisible (lowkey when Mist showed up I was like "is that Luminus from Superman the Animated Series?") Fun fact in the comic, we don't know what Mist's last name is. All we know is that his name is Kyle and in the show that is what Rough House calls him on accident but at least he has a last name, McDougal in MAwS.

Rough House makes his first appearance in Adventures of Superman #544 (1997) (W: Karl Kesel, P: Stuart Immonen, I: José Marzán Jr., C: Glenn Whitmore & Digital Chameleon, L: Albert DeGuzman) where we see him rip open a door with his bear hands as a member of Intergang (more on them later).

Siobhan McDougal aka Silver Banshee makes her first appearance here in Action Comics 595 (cover by John Byrne). In the comics Silver Banshee's powers are a lot different than how MAwS does it. Comics Silver Banshee has the Banshee Curse giving her powers like flight, super strength, a death stare, and of course her signature thing, the Death Wail, a sonic scream that can knock someone into a coma or it outright kills them. The version in the show gives Silver Banshee her signature sound manipulation powers through a mask...

which kind of invokes her comic counterpart's skull face design.

Mist and Rough House break into Stryker's Island to free Mist's sister Silver Banshee (in the comics Mist and Silver Banshee have no familial connection). Stryker's Island makes its first appearance in Superman #9 (1987) (W&P: John Byrne, I: Karl Kesel, C: Tom Ziuko, L: John Costanza) where Joker arrives in Metropolis to challenge Superman. Stryker's Island is supposed to be a stand in for Riker's Island in New York even though there is a Riker's Island in the DC Universe because Metropolis is often a reflection of New York City.

The next Easter egg is the scene after where Lois name drops Waid's Cafe as a reference to...

Mark Waid, one the best writers in the comic book industry. In terms of DC work, you might recognize his writing credit on Flash with artist, Brian Augustyn (we miss you Brian), Kingdom Come with painter, Alex Ross, and Superman Birthright with artist, Leinil Yu (highly recommend checking out all three titles). He's also currently writing for Batman/Superman: Worlds Finest with artist Dan Mora, which I also HIGHLY recommend reading. Fantastic writer, super nice person if you ever meet him at a convention.

Later, Jimmy is heard screaming "back you monsters" and we see some more of the Daily Planet staff...

From left to right its Cat Grant (doing the anime high society lady laugh), who runs the celebrity and gossip side of the paper, Steve Lombard, who reports on sports, and Ronnie Troupe, the investigative journalist on the team. Their names were mentioned in the previous episode after taking Lois, Jimmy, and Clark's credit for the Superman piece.

Cat Grant make her first appearance here in the Adventures of Superman #424 (1987) (W: Marv Wolfman, P: Jerry Ordway, I: Mike Machlan, C: Tom Ziuko, L: John Costanza) as a potential love interest to Clark to shake up the Clark-Lois-Superman dynamic. You might've seen her in the live action CW Supergirl show. Like in MAwS, in the comics Cat does the gossip columns writing for the Daily Planet.

Steve Lombard makes his first appearance in Superman #264 (1973) (W: Cary Bates, P: Curt Swan, I: Murphy Anderson) as a foil to Clark Kent. Steve acts very brash and rude to contrast Clark's mild manner and friendly demeanor. Later iterations of Steve give him the mustache that becomes part of his signature design.

In MAwS, Ronnie Troupe is a gender swap of Ron Troupe in the comics who makes his first appearance in the Adventures of Superman #480 (1991) (this page specifically, W: Jerry Ordway, P: Tom Grummett, I: Denis Rodier, C: Glenn Whitmore, L: Albert DeGuzman). Like his MAwS counterpart, Ron is an investigative journalist and very level headed. He was the first to break the story about Cyborg Superman meeting the then PoTUS, Bill Clinton.

A news report on TV in the Daily Planet shows Bethany Snow of Channel 52 News reporting about the break out in Stryker's Island. The logo for Channel 52 News reminds me very much DC's 2005 logo.

As for Bethany Snow and Channel 52 News, Bethany made her first appearance in the New Teen Titans #22 (1982) (W: Marv Wolfman, P: George Perez, I: Romeo Tanghal, C: Adrienne Roy, L: Ben Oda) as a news reporter and follower of the Brother Blood cult.

Later iterations and retcons had Bethany Snow as just a reporter where she does the Channel 52 news in the back end of DC comic titles in 2013.

Freddie E. Williams II is the artist for these as Channel 52 was way to let readers know what is happening in other DC titles that they might want to check out with other DC characters reporters accompanying Bethany as seen in the promotional art with Vartox, Ambush Bug, and Calendar Man. Obviously MAwS redesigned Bethany Snow but they at least kept her occupation.

A quick one but we see Lois call Clark "Smallville" a nickname that has been used in various media involving Clark and Lois.

After news report on TV, we cut to Siobhan, Kyle, and Rough House in their hide out where they name drop their group name, Intergang.

In the comics and other media, Intergang is a world wide crime syndicate who is supplied with powerful high tech weaponry from the evil New Gods of Apocalypse, if you know your DC universe, that is everyone is Darkseid's circle. Intergang first appeared in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 (1970) created by LEGENDARY artist Jack Kirby.

Here in Forever People #1 (1971) (W&P: Jack Kirby, I: Vince Coletta, L: John Costanza), you can see they have direct contact with Darkseid. Originally led by Morgan Edge, later versions of Intergang had leadership change from Joe Danton to Max Danner. Post-crisis, Intergang is led by Bruno Mannheim (the Intergang boss that I am familiar with), his father Moxie Mannheim would later lead Intergang. Current continuity in DC has Bruno still be the leader of Intergang.

In the episode we learn that MAwS version of Intergang is very small time. Siobhan, Kyle, and Rough House rob convenience stores and make smash and grab runs. But maybe MAwS will move Intergang in the criminal syndicate direction in the future who knows.

After the Intergang scene we cut to Lois, Jimmy and Clark walking up to the front of Stryker's and Jimmy mentions something interesting about convincing the warden to spill on the government's... (read Jimmys quote in the screenshot to complete the sentence)

The term meta-human has its roots in the DC Universe if you did not know! The term was first used here in Invasion #1 (1988) (W: Keith Giffen and Bill Mantlo, P: Todd McFarlane, I: P. Craig Russell, C: Carl Gafford, L: Gaspar Saladino)

In the comic, the Dominators discover that certain humans have what is known as the meta-gene which grants them powers when under a lot of duress and so to test this they rounded up a group of humans and experimented on them with only 6 surviving who gained powers. The Dominators conclude that the human population must be eliminated or there will be a rise in meta-humans on Earth.

How does the government, according to Jimmy, connect to all this. is a possible nod to one of the plot points in Doomsday Clock where the idea that 90% of DC's meta-humans are from the US and they have been engineered by the government. This conspiracy, in the comic is known as the Superman Theory.

This here is one part of the back matter you can read at the end of Doomsday Clock # 5 (2018) (W: Geoff Johns, P&I: Gary Frank, C: Brad Anderson, Back Matter Design: Amie Brockway-Metcalf). Later the trio, specifically Lois, steals the warden's ID badge and were able to access where Siobhan was kept. On the ID the warden's name is Agatha Zorbatos, who's first appearance in the comics was in Batman #23.4 (2013), as the warden of Blackgate Penitentiary in Gotham

Obviously her design in the comic is drastically different from how she looks in the show. The one on your right is from Batman Eternal #4 (2014) (Story: Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV, Script: John Layman, Consulting Writers: Tim Seeley & Ray Fawkes, P: Dustin Nguyen (my favorite comic book artist of all time), I: Derek Fridolfs, C: John Kalisz, L: Rob Leigh).

At the climax of the episode we see more of the alien crystal that Superman encountered last episode from the tech that MAwS Intergang used and it strangely looked familiar. I wouldn't be surprised if the animation team were fans of Neon Genesis Evangelion especially with the way the robots were designed in the first part of episode one and here how the crystal reshapes itself like the angel Ramiel. Also since I'm at my 30 image limit here and I can't post anymore, I also want to point out that the poster that Siobhan has in her cell was a cat with the words "Believe it" over its head I like to believe that is a Naruto reference because the dub has Naruto say "believe it" all the time. I guess I'm gonna be doing the Easter Eggs and references for each episode so expect this to be a weekly thing. I hope you all enjoy my doing this If you made it down here and want to see my first two easter eggs and reference posts for episodes one and two are here and here.

My post of episode three's easter eggs is here

My post of episode five's easter eggs is here

My post of episode six's easter eggs is here

My post of episode seven's easter eggs is here and here

My post of episode eight's easter eggs is here

My post of episode nine's easter eggs is here

My post of episode ten's easter eggs is here

[bonefall]

in the nightcloud summary post- "They'd barely settled in before Nightstar and Crookedstar turned on them, attacking to try and drive them out AGAIN." is this a typo, or is nightpelt in charge of shadowclan during this attack?

Not a typo and also COMPLETELY canon! That is not a BB addition, that happens in the book!

Fire and Ice, chapter 30:

"Fireheart skidded to a halt, reeling at the sight that greeted him in the camp clearing. Last time he’d been here, in search of the scent trail that would lead them to the missing Clan, the place had been deserted and silent. Now the clearing swarmed with writhing, screeching, fighting cats. Onewhisker had been right—the WindClan cats were hopelessly outnumbered. A fresh party of ShadowClan and RiverClan warriors waited at the edge of the clearing, but WindClan could spare no backup group. The whole Clan was fighting, apprentices and elders, warriors and queens."

ShadowClan and RiverClan team up after Fireheart fetches them home, to try and drive WindClan out a second time. It's explicit how horrifying this is, how the battered clan is hopelessly outnumbered, and how the invaders have a backup reserve of reinforcements while WindClan is fighting tooth and nail.

He even sees a ShadowClan tom BATTERING Morningflower, a nursing queen who's trying to defend Gorsekit.

"Fireheart heard Runningwind yowl for help. The tabby warrior was grappling desperately with Nightstar, ShadowClan’s treacherous leader. Fireheart darted through the throng to Runningwind’s side. Without pausing to think, Fireheart leaped, grabbing Nightstar from behind. The black warrior howled in rage as Fireheart pulled him backward and sank his claws deep into Nightstar’s fur. He had fought side by side with this warrior only a few moons ago to help him drive out Brokenstar. Now he sank his teeth into Nightstar’s shoulder with the same ferocity he had used against the former ShadowClan leader."

I could talk about how interesting this battle is, and all of the little interactions between various warriors (my girlie Leopardfur gets another mini bossfight <3), but the bottom line is that this moment means a lot to me. I want to FRAME it in BB.

BB!Nightstar, at the end of the day, isn't principled. He is no radical. BB!Brokenstar is infamously overhauled, and the biggest part of that is that he's a reflection of Clan Culture. He's a manifested curse, which was only broken because BLUESTAR and her new philosophy are different.

If it wasn't for her and Fire Alone, the Clans were doomed to end the way that Ripplestar had seen born on the night of his death. Self-concerned and violent, blinded by their pride, ripping each other apart and letting the others fall one by one

But Nightstar just thinks Brokenstar went too far. He has no objection to honor, or the Warrior Code, you see. Stealing kits and driving Clans out of their territories is what's unacceptable. Not keeping what you already own; and certainly not the concept of violently winning land in furious battles.

He became leader because he appeals to the two "divided halves" of the Clan. Deerfoot the Rebel is too controversial for those who enjoyed Brokenstar's methods, but old, wise Nightpelt who only retired because of asthma, he's a good compromise. At first.

Power has a mind of its own. You know what Brokenstar did? He promised these cats glory. He let them fight how they please. ShadowClan HATES WindClan, they've been fighting for generations. Appealing to those cats means letting them do whatever they want, and what they want is MURDER.

So Nightstar keeps appealing to them, alienating Deerfoot and his group, causing him to appeal even harder to ShadowClan's other half. Thus, he ends up in the same position Brokenstar was in, with Downwind's blood on his hands, only this time... Runningnose holds a grudge against the little weasel who caused the death of his beloved leader, biding his time to clear the Clan of all the traitors who stood against Brokenstar.

He tried to make allies out of cats who were ALWAYS going to hate him. Power drove him towards becoming what he had previously opposed. In the end, he paid for it.

[itsclydebitches]

IT'S BEEN A DOOZY OF A DAY, FOLKS

Yeah I've got a couple asks about it lol. (Always a terrifying experience when you log onto tumblr and immediately wonder why your inbox blew up...)

Man, I don't even know how I'm feeling right now. We've spent so many months working on the semi-confident assumption that RWBY would be cancelled that on the one hand I can't feel very shocked about this. On the other hand there's definitely a wide-eyed part of my brain going, "Holy shit the 'RT is failing' theories finally came true O_O" I'm kinda devastated that a company that's been a part of my life for almost a decade (and for other fans far longer) is just up and gone, but simultaneously I don't care because what I loved about RT hasn't existed for some time now. We've already been dealing with that nostlgia for years, we just got a hell of a concentrated dose of it today. There's admittedly some level of vindication regarding those who've been pulling shit in the company for so long and empathy for those who were just getting by and are now suddenly out of a job. There's regret that (despite my tendency to fall VERY behind on projects. RIP I owe everyone in this fandom a massive apology) I'll probably never have an official end to my RWBY Recaps. And there's worry about how this will impact the fandom...

Yeah, not to jump on the pessimism train, but I feel like this is going to catapult some fans' misreadings into new territory. RWBY is now forever the show that was canonically unfinished and thus its perfection is assured. Think there are major issues in Volume 9 and earlier? Nah, that's setup for Volumes we just never got. Catch a contradition or other mistake? They would have explained that if they could. Any possible issues with the show if it gets picked up by someone else? Well, of course there are issues, RT isn't writing it! This was already a fandom where having accurate, nuanced discussions about the text was hard as hell... but it just got so much worse.

Honestly, I say let it go. If they're going to do anything I'd prefer a complete reboot/reworking so that this story might stand a chance. Airing new RWBY Volumes was already beating a dead horse. Resurrecting the horse to start beating it anew just feels ridiculous. Yes, I'm sad for those fans who wanted an official ending, but we've spent so much time waiting on RWBY, being worried about RWBY's future, and I personally have encounted so many shows lately whose finales soured my enjoyment that there's something reassuring in the combination of definitive ambuguity here: you know you're not getting an ending by RT, so just have fun imagining your own.

Overall, I feel like I've got to sit with this for a while, you know? I totally get why so many fans (partiuclarly RWDE fans) are celebrating and/or releasing a sigh of relief right now. I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen any crabs yet lol. But maybe it's just because I'm "old" my tumblr's standards, but there's something undeniably sad about losing that part of your fandom life. Or at least, losing what led to/represents that life. Getting introduced to RWBY by a friend, binging it for the first time, pulling new people in, finding like-minded friends here on tumblr, analyzing it for thousands of words, tracing its history and watching how radically it has changed... that's gone now. Not actually because RWBY still exists, as do my friends, and there's nothing stopping me from writing as much fic/meta as I want, but it still feels like someone closed a door on that part of my life. That's not wholly a bad thing given what RT has been lately, but I do think it'll take more than one post for me to unpack it all.

[adult-human-gc-female]

Hey!

I may be a terf, but a well mannered one, so here goes the pinned post :D

33 years old in fact but granny inside, neurotypical with little kwirks, 1 year of personal therapy, higher education, IT career, married, no children, post-ussr countries of origin and current residence.

Created this blog to write down thoughts I can't share in most of my pal groups because of obvious reasons.

Went a path from uneducated homophobe to bisexual radical feminist. There was a lot of mental work, so my position is well honed and isn't inherited from mainstream narrative. It would be so much easier to be woke and conforming, you can't even imagine.

My hot (not really) takes:

Woman is adult human female;

Radical feminism goes from "radix" — root, and the root of women's problems is patriarchy;

Sex is why women are opressed, gender is how women are opressed;

Gender reinforces gender stereotypes which hurt both sexes, thus we need to get rid of it;

TRAs show cult-like behavior;

Sex work is rape;

Abortion is human right;

Women's sport is females' sport;

Children can not consent to puberty blockers;

Transwomen breastfeeding is child abuse;

"Menstruator", "birthing person", "uterus owner", "cis-woman", "non man", "bonus hole" are insults;

"they/them" is horseshit;

"not all men" but somehow always a man.

[transmutationisms]

sorry to go back to the succession asks, but what do you make of the fact that a major part of the horror of what kendall did to the waiter is that he got away with it? i‘m never quite sure what to think, especially in reference to the real not real and making him fundamentally unable to be as much of a person as everyone else of it all + him ultimately denying it ever happened and this sort of dooming him in the finale

dodds dies because kendall, like the other characters of his social class, doesn't view those below them as real people with lives that matter. after the fact, kendall certainly experiences regret and guilt, but as long as logan is alive, kendall can't come clean (publicly) and so he can't get the catharsis of punishment. this is why he compulsively shoplifts in season 2. fundamentally the tension here is between the class position kendall was born into (culminating in ascension to the ceo position) and the idea of respecting or valuing waitstaff (& other service workers). kendall can do what his father demands of him to become ceo, or he could radically upend his life by, say, confessing to the manslaughter---but he can't do both. so, for seasons 2 and 3 he's walking around with a tormented conscience, though ofc not tormented enough to take precedence over his desire to impress logan and ultimately become ceo.

after he confesses to his siblings, we see in season 4 that this seems to assuage his guilt: if they can forgive him, he must not be that bad a person (again, this goes back to how he values the opinions of others in his class over the actual life of a waiter). so when shiv finally brings up dodds in the finale, it resurrects the old conflict: what she's saying is that kendall did a bad thing, and that this should prevent him from being ceo (this also shows how shiv has faith in the morals of capitalist institutions & power). kendall's response finally settles the conflict. he can't be a person who seeks the ceo role and also be a person who wrestles wirh the moral weight of having killed a waiter; it's a crossroads for him. he sides with his class, throws his hat in the ceo ring, and finally disavows any care or compassion for dodds by simply blocking out the merest acknowledgment of his death.

big-picture, the suggestion here is that no one can become ceo of waystar (which is ofc a metonymic position) without embracing & benefitting from the sort of calculus kendall makes: capitalists' lives matter, workers' lives do not. thus, the roys' persistent mistreatment or (at best) invisibilisation of their staff, servants, &c throughout the series is not some kind of unique moral failing of theirs---it is simply an outcome of the structural factors that create their massive wealth. waystar, which again is standing in for capitalism more broadly, can exist only as a consequence of labour exploitation and expropriation, which is to say that devaluing the lives of workers starts long before kendall's chappaquiddick incident. as long as kendall keeps his class position he will get away with the killing, even though he loses the ultimate crown of becoming ceo. there is no way for kendall to be 'moral' and retain his social power and privileges, because that arrangement is predicated on exploitation and the social logic that rendered dodds disposable in the first place.

[la-pheacienne]

There is something that has always rubbed the wrong way about the terms of the hotd/fire and blood discourse and particularly how political it always is. Misogyny accusations are super popular and they are being thrown by both sides because they are faster, they are catchy and it's a lot easier to do that than sit down and talk about themes, narrative and consistency under a neutral light. The problem is they often get in the way of a more in depth analysis of media and I say that to myself first and foremost because I do it too. When I say misogyny accusations, I am not only talking about literal accusations (aka if you support team green/black you are a misogynist), I also include all the takes that resemble the following: "my take is better/more accurate than yours because it is more politically progressive/radical/revolutionary/healthy/enlightened/yadayada than yours". Both sides use this, and they use this A LOT. It is almost impossible to take part in discourse over fire and blood/hotd/asoiaf without including this perspective. I'm not saying we should abolish this perspective and never talk about it again, it is always interesting to take this into account. But let's pause for a second and just try to put this on the side just for a little bit. What are we left with? Oh yeah. We are left with the raw materials of the story. Let's talk about that, and only that, just for a little while.

Yes, fire and blood includes a dichotomy between a good woman and a bad woman (although it doesn't exactly do that and this is a very simplistic way of looking at the story). Yes this dichotomy is an old concept. Yes the wicked stepmother is an old concept as well, rooted in ancient patriarcal societal norms and dynamics we are all more or less familiar with, some less than others.

Is this dynamic, which is at the core of fire and blood, politically progressive/radical/subversive? Probably not (huge objection there but I said I will not talk about politics in this post).

Is it a better story than hotd? Yes. It is.

Does it make more sense than hotd? Yes. It does.

I am sorry. There is absolutely no way hotd has more sense than fire and blood. Even if one qualifies it as a more inspired, progressive, unexpected, intresting retelling/revisiting of the original, this will never, ever make it a good story in an organic way.

There is absolutely no way to seriously, unironically argue that going from "we play an ugly game. i see you have the determination to win it" to Alicent usurping Rhaenyra because of a misunderstanding in the span of one episode is a better narrative and makes more sense than whatever happened in fire and blood. It makes Alicent a victim of circumstances, it breaks the dichotomy or the wicked stepmother trope or whatever you want it to break, and all that is cool, but it doesn't make a better story than the one we got in fire and blood.

There is absolutely no way to seriously claim that Alicent being sexually harassed by her servant makes a better story than her controlling her servant. It is not something that would actually happen in real life under any circumstances whatsoever. It is extremely forced, weird and overall nonsensical (not to mention politically problematic for 100 reasons because again, I will not talk politics in this post). The average viewer that does not wish to write essays about how politically enlightened it is to "break the dichotomy" will look at this scene and say "what the fuck is that". Would showing Alicent owning her role as QUEEN and playing the game be reminiscent of Cersei and thus "repetitive"? Yes. Would it make a better story? Yes. I'm sorry, but it is the truth.

There is absolutely no fucking way to make the page scene make sense. It will never make sense. A ruler that has just been usurped has the chance to execute the traitor and doesn't do it because the traitor shows her a page of a book. Right. She has just lost her baby because of them, she has lost her father, she has lost her throne, she has lost everything that was important to the life she has been sharing for ages with a man and their 20 children but a page would matter to her more than all of these things put together. Right. You can call this an uber sophisticated/inspired lesbian drama/women being caught in the crossfire of men's wars or whatever you want it to call it but it will never, ever be a better moment than "Tell my half-brother I'll have my throne or I'll have his head". It will never be a better story, not because it is more or less politically conservative/progessive, but for the simple reason that it is nonsensical. Whether a story makes sense or not has absolutely nothing to do with ideology. This particular moment does not resonate with basic human experience, it does not resonate with how female rulers behaved in history. It is bad, very bad writing. Daemon's "the fuck is this" is the only logical reaction to this and it is the reaction shared by the average viewer. Indeed, the fuck is this.

Thing is, you might wanna twist the raw materials of a story you consider boring/conservative/repetitive but that will never make for a better story, because there is no truth in it. """Wicked stepmothers""" existed and still exist. Good women vs bad women exist because good people vs bad people exist and women are people. Their honest confrontation rings true to the viewer in a way hotd's narrative never will. Because it makes sense. It is organic. It has a truth hotd doesn't have. And again I use this supposed dichotomy of fire and blood with a huge asterisk because Rhaenyra is not that pure perfect unfallible character. Alicent being Alicent would perhaps be a repetitive Cersei copy but she would still make a better character than whatever we got. She would perhaps have less importance in the narrative but it's okay because the story doesn't need Alicent to have that much of an importance. It is a good story regardless.

You can preach about how inspired/progressive it is to have women be forcefully carried in the middle of a men's war that they never wanted but that will never make it a better story than a Targaryen woman fighting with her half-brothers for her throne, her life and the life of her children and her husband she has spent a lifetime with.

I got this from David Mamet, On directing film, p. 60 and I think it applies well.

[boyfridged]

pls expand more on the rehabilitationist v abolitionist dispute comment!

as a preface of sorts: this post is written with marxist theory of criminology in mind, and i relate to many concepts that stem from it. i consider batman as a series to be one of the most politically inclined texts when it comes to superhero comics as a whole, so imo it is imperative that it introduces many different outlooks on the topic of jurisprudence. and it is an approach that used to be pretty popular.

btw. if anything is unclear in terms of theory –– ask.

okay so, to answer the question: there's so much that contributed to this stray thought, and i think i hinted at a lot of it before on this blog, but let me just dump some of my thoughts in a disorganized manner... (maybe one day i will write about it in a more coherent way):

batman as the title needs an actual genuine counterweight to bruce's worldview, one that does not target the no-kill rule. enough with the no-kill discourse, really, i think in many ways it's almost... a detail, and i think the fixation on that detail leads to watering down the whole dilemma. (especially that bruce did not always treat is as a complete dogma and i preferred it that way.) what is more interesting i believe, is that bruce is a rehabilitationist – despite his vigilante work, he is dedicated to the idea of the legal system being a viable solution to crime. and, what is even more important, in his mind, crime is equal to a moral failure. i talked about it at length in my post about eoc, but let me just copy the relevant fragment in here:

bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime.

and of course, criminals need to be "corrected" and rehabilitated in order to be able to function in society again. the deviant behavior has to be eliminated.

i don't doubt that at the time when it was introduced, bruce's rehabilitationist philosophy was a radical one when compared with the prevailing popularity of the concept of retributive justice. but in the year of our lord 2023? the view that you can simply "fix" the system by aiding it in some ways is not radical at all. the system in question was mostly built around sustaining that corruption as a goal. and there are (or used to be) some characters, like leslie, who are “vigilante-critical” (among others) because of that reason.

enter jay. jay is very much in a position that makes it clear that the law is not usually on the side of the poor and marginalized. of course, he is only an ~11 year old, so of course he has no language to express most of these worries; he probably does not know anything about the rehabilitationist vs retributive vs reperative justice in a theoretical sense anyway. i doubt he knows that abolition exists as a concept; he might be well-read, but probably not in these categories. but he has certain intuitions; intuitions that i already talked about in the earlier mentioned eoc post. and these intuitions are that crime does not define morality. he does not consider himself wrong for stealing; he is not conflicted about willis being a criminal and grieves him easily; there’s no word of him being resentful to dealers. he has his own idea of justice that seems to be very much affected by his trouble with authority, the intention behind the crime, and perceived harm (this is imo one of the reasons he takes issue with ma gunn specifically). i think this setup is something that could lead to him taking an abolitionist point of view later on, since he seems frustrated with the label of “crime.”

obviously, at this point, jason’s disinterest in crime as something to contempt is seen as a problem (both by the editorial and in-universe); a problem that has to be fixed. and within his tenure of robin, we see him “learning” to ascribe to bruce’s moral code; which makes sense, because he is a kid, and because he trusts bruce. and so, i think his perception in this period does shift to accommodate the rehabilitationist outlook.

the garzonas’ incident, jay’s growing cynicism at the end of his robin run, and the red hood era altogether might suggest that jason, disappointed in the limits of this approach actively takes to the retributive standpoint instead. it’s def true insofar that the writers are not politically educated enough to understand the nuance that (imo) should naturally arise in his storyline. for example: the particular caveat in garzonas’ case is the position of power that felipe occupies and that grants him immunity. bruce, naturally, looks for the ways to bring justice by exploring other legal paths to solve the issue. jay goes with it despite being visibly unhappy. and i think this gets us to the core of the issue which is power and the system– the fact that the system is simply built to make it difficult to incarnate the higher-ups. diplomatic immunity exists for a reason, sure, but the fact that it allows people to get away with wrong-doing is not a side-effect; it's the goal. and so, felipe garzonas cannot be deemed a criminal, but willis and even jay at age of 11 were. the pattern repeats when it comes to the joker, who later uses diplomatic immunity to exploit the role to continue fucking with bruce. so the issue is not that the system does not work. the issue is that the system was built not to work.

another tangent: of course, you may note that the concept of the separation of powers (the judge, the jury, and the executioner) that bruce is so fond of is supposed to remedy the problem of the abuse of power. and it is, without a doubt, something necessary within the democratic system. still, i believe jason quoting arendt explains why he doesn't care for it in the slightest; in the man who stopped laughing #8 jay says: “you familiar with hannah arendt’s concept of schreibtischtäter? desk murderers? it’s people who use the state to kill for them, so they don’t have to get their hands dirty. you should read up on it. i think you’d find it very relatable.” arendt's work emerged in a very specific context, but jay makes it into something more definitive; a trait of the penal system as a whole; you can bring as many people into the workings of the justice system as you want to; but ultimately, most of them will act in the interest of authority, without a second thought (this also explains why he considers that making decisions on who lives and dies yourself is better than blindly following the rule of law.) (<- btw it links very well with the idea of autonomy as a predisposition to be moral since you need it to be an active member of the society. anarchists such as wolff have written lots of that.)

i'd say all of this leads us to the point where jason has great potential to come to the conclusion that abolition is the way to go. the ones in power will not get punished within that framework anyway, and the ones at the "bottom" of the socioeconomic ladder remain victims of it. months, months ago i had anons arguing with me, saying that comicbook characters don't have to be so socially aware and that even people irl rarely are; and i am also willing to indulge the narrative and say that jason is terribly confused regarding it all for now, because of how his childhood went and as a result of his personal trauma. nevertheless, characters are often vessels for ideas, especially in titles like batman; and bruce, for example, is allowed to have a developed a sound ideology on jurisprudence. why not jason? especially that all the motivations are there; the setup is there too. that's just another great incentive to actually make use of his origin story.

an extra disclaimer is that abolition is not the answer to all and that it requires so many reforms on all levels... and i don't think jay would be satiated with the mere idea of restorative justice that usually accompanies it, because that still leaves us with the problem of those in power maintaining it and (in the fictional context) supervillains (who very often do occupy those spaces) prevailing... but you know. abolition is very compatible with general revolutionary principles. who says he can't kill in that name if retiring is not a way to go (though my preferred timeline would include retirement for jay at least for a while... but i digress!)

to conclude, i think it's a conflict much needed not just for the sake of any progression of batman in terms of philosophy, but also because the ways jason was initially introduced (even pre-crisis) suggested that he was supposed to grow to be critical of bruce even as robin, while being on good terms with him too. and that's definitely a kind of dispute that is much more productive and nuanced than just going back to the no-kill rule over and over and over again when the source of it is much more interesting.

i hope you got anything out of my rambling. i rest my case for now:)

[baeddel-txt]

Hey, just ran across one of your posts. At the beginning I was startled. Couldn't understand how a transandrophobic post got on my Tumblr. Then I looked in to more of your posts, and the description of your blog.

I wanted to make sure I understand your blog. You find transandrophobic posts, and post images of them? I assume so others don't need to interact with them?

These are genuine questions. Thanks!

More or less.

Specifically, it's to archive all kinds of bigotry from the original incarnation of what was known as the "Baeddel Crew", or just simply the "baeddels". This blog is primarily for people who just weren't around when the Baeddel Crew was still active, and thus were unaware of just how awful their ideology was.

Basically, the Baeddel Crew were a group of radical feminist trans women formed in late 2013. They took all trappings of TERF ideology (all men are rapists, trans women are just men pretending to be women so they can assault cis women, etc.) and flipped it to be about trans people instead (eg: all trans men are rapists, afab non-binary people are just trans men pretending to be trans women to assault trans women, etc.). The group fractured in 2015 after who was essentially their leader raped her girlfriend.

In 2021 there was a baeddel resurgence. A new extraneous group of radical feminist poisoned trans women were taking on "baeddel" URLs, venerating the original Baeddel Crew, and posting radscummy takes. Of course, people talked about this and talked about how horrible the original crop of baeddels were.

One of the people talking about this was [redacted]. Someone had sent him an anon ask complaining how everyone always ignore the harm the baeddels did to non-binary people. [redacted] asked for anon to clarify, but anon never did, so I took it upon myself to answer his question. I started to draft an ask detailing how the baeddels treated non-binary people, and while doing so I searched old baeddel blogs to corroborate my memories, and also to grab screenshots in case he asked for some. [redacted] never did ask for them, but I didn't just want to delete all the screenshots I took, so I created this blog to post them to. Things just kind of exploded from there.

[syrupsyche]

Instead of working on the actual fic, I'm going to be sharing headcanons on my canon era Enjsette siblings au. I would probably mention some parts of it in the fic(s) I'll be sharing but if they never see the light of day, here are some of them! Shoutout to @pumpkinspice-prouvaire for inspiring this post <3

Fantine absolutely adored getting matching EVERYTHING for her kids: that goes for their names (Eugène and Euphrasie), their outfits, and even their hairstyles. She likes to match her hairstyles with them as well :')

Speaking of hair, since Enjolras has the same hair as her, she lets it grow out so that she can comb and style it. He may be 3 years old but he sure has a ton of hair

When they get placed with the Thenardiers, just as how Mme. Thenardier was Cosette's main tormentor, M. Thenardier would be Enjolras'

Other than the canonical heavy labour Cosette had to do, Enjolras would be sent out to pickpocket from the inn's customers and the rest of the town's inhabitants as well

Whenever Enjolras got caught, Thenardier would put on a big act and punish him in front of whoever was the victim ("My sincerest apologies, good monsieur/madame! He must have gotten his nastiness from his good-for-nothing mother.") before taking him away and just punishing him once more for getting caught

(And I'm not saying this is where Enj would get his immensely deep-rooted sense of injustice from but im NOT not saying that either :))

Cosette and Enjolras would try to take the brunt of the punishments for each other but that just became getting twice the punishment. Eventually, they learnt to just rely and comfort each other afterwards

When Valjean comes to find them, he buys Catherine for Cosette and a toy soldier for Enjolras. He named him Jacques.

Enjolras took longer than Cosette to warm up to Valjean (M. Thenardier was his tormentor after all, so his trust in male authority figures was already low), but eventually grew to trust him once his sister did

Enjolras especially loved hearing Valjean read to him. Valjean read the usual children's books and fairytales but when Enjolras began begging for more, he just gave up and started reading anything he could get his hands on: history, philosophy, etc. (which is why Enjolras turned out Like That)

When they move to the convent, while Cosette went to school, Enjolras stayed in the hut and continued being taught by Valjean (and Fauchelevent!) While Cosette was intended to become a nun, Enjolras was to take over as the convent gardener

Cosette would run up to the hut and chat with Enjolras whenever it was playtime- they would exchange whatever they had learnt during the day

Slowly, Enjolras got his hands on more and more radical books, teaching himself about the current political climate of France and devoting all his time to reading and (attempting to) write his own essays

Eventually, when the family left the convent, it was partially to allow Enjolras to pursue his new-found interest in politics as well as the canonical reason of letting Cosette explore society.

Due to their difference in interests, Enjolras and Cosette grew apart, though all 3 family members clearly still cared for one another deeply

Understanding the dangers of dabbling in politics, he decided to go by a moniker in order to keep his private family away from his public affairs. Thus, Enjolras was born.

This is where my fics begin to pick up from so I guess no more spoilers (??) Hope this made some bit of sense or at the very least, the drawings were enjoyable! :D

[danvolodar]

Pathologic and the Town's Russianness: 2

In part 2, let's explore the Town's social structure, compare it to what Russian Empire had before the Revolution, and see if the two are alike.

Two warnings have to be kept in mind when exploring this topic.

First, of course, the Kin are outside its scope, because they're a society quite apart from the real steppe nomads the Russian state had struggled against since before it became an Empire. So it'd be senseless to say "oh, but we can't really hear any Kin mentioned among the nobility in the Capital the way Apraksins, Arakcheevs, Yusupovs, or any number of other noble families were, thus the Capital is nothing like St.Petersburg!"

Second, when comparing the social structure shown in the game, we have to use the Imperial society as a yardstick, and not just because there's said to be an Emperor in the Capital, but because after the Empire fell, the Russian society changed quite radically, guided by purely ideological concepts, so the comparison would be meaningless from the start.

Now, that said, the society of Imperial Russia was explicitly a class-based one. There was some class mobility, and in the timeframe the game is set in the whole structure was under pressure of the new economic realities (as shown in quite a number of classical pieces, starting with, say, Checkhov's Cherry Orchard), but still, it was rigid enough.

And the Town's ruling families fit into said structure well enough.

The Kains could well be Russian nobility of the high noble stock. That works well with what the game tells us of the "blood of heroes" flowing in their veins; and it explains the source of their wealth, too.

Similarly, the Saburovs fit the mold quite well, as a nobility-for-service family. Alexander in particular is a match, with his inflexible values in his P2 depiction.

Now, the Empire had formally codified forms of address for high nobility and top-ranked officials (think "your Highness" or "your Excellency"), and our marry gang of healers, despite all being commoners, do not follow these, but it's nothing but a nitpick, since doing otherwise could've made the likeness of the Empire all too close.

The Olgimskys are a bit more of a mixed bag. They're clearly rich merchants, but they don't exactly fit the stereotypical depiction to a T, starting with Big Vlad's clean-shaven visage (compare him to the Morozovs or the Ryabushinskys, for instance). Beard fashions differed between classes, and with the number of Old Believers among the merchants (who considered shaving blasphemous), full beards were ever in style among that class - even Peter I's laws that leavied taxes on beards did little to change that. But then again, Olgimskys have a Western Slav surname, who's to tell, perhaps they come from Polish or Jewish stock, like the historical Poliyakovs.

A much more significant difference would be their apparent irreligiousity. The way religion in Pathologic 2 differs from what happened in the Russian Empire deserves its own post, I think, so I'll just note that the Olgimskys as merchants not using their religion (whatever it might be: Old Believer or mainstream Orthodox Christianity, Judaism or even Catholicism) at least as an ostentatious outlet for charity differentiates the game's setting from the Empire; same as, of course, the lack of priesthood class in its entirety.

There are other classes missing, naturally, but the reasons for that, I believe, have more to do with establishing the game's themes, as discussed in the intro part of my blog post series. Peasants cannot be shown, because fields, gardens and orchards stretching for kilometers around the Town-on-Gorkhon would undermine the theme of contraposition between the Town and the Steppe, removing the latter physically well out ofsight. Similarly, cossacks, ever present during the Empire's forays into the Eurasian steppes, cannot be present in the game: they did agriculture just as much as peasants; their presence as an organized fighting force in the Town would undermine the othering of the Army; and their styles would be too distinctive to maintain plausible difference from the historical Russian Empire.

The one class that's left to discuss are the commoners: the townsfolk and the factory workers. And they look and feel passably close to the commoners in the Empire, to a surprising degree; except, perhaps, for the shortage of facial hair and headwear. Perhaps they're even a bit too well-off for the underclass in the times when its exploitation was at its worst. Then again, the game design documents state they're meant to be "depersonalized in the utmost, a many-headed hivemind. Not a collection of individuals but a mass, devoid of color and personality. Soulless". Which is an impression of the common man normal enough for the Russian intelligentsia throughout time, yet one that I personally deeply despise, due to being a morlock myself (see also Lev Gumilev with his "what kind of intelligenstia am I when I have a profession").

So, to sum this part up: the social structure of the Town is passably Russian, the most significant difference being the lack of priesthood. The lack of the more distinctive classes, the ones that most differentiated Russia in the early XX century from the other European states of the time, can mostly be explained away by the game needing to maintain is themes and creative vision in the areas well outside of sociology.

[andrew-ism]

Hey, I just wanted to ask as a person from the Caribbean also. What got you so passionate about, or I guess got you into the political sphere. A lot of the things you speak about aren't typical of a lot of Caribbean YouTubers one of the reasons your content stood out to me.

From a very young age, I noticed the problems in my country (Trinidad & Tobago) just from looking around and I wanted to change things. Many of my old drawing and writing books were thus filled with ideas for change or worldbuilding fantasies. I've always loved writing and seen it as my way of shaping the world. As I got older, I spent more time trying to understand the issues, the history, and the contemporary situation by reading, chatting with folks in person and online, and consuming edutainment. My passion for learning was also helped by my homeschooling experience.

Without getting deep into my whole life story and political journey, this pursuit of knowledge and solutions was kicked into overdrive in 2019 as I was introduced to the ideas of socialism and anarchism and later in that same year experienced the depressing and life-draining nature of full-time work for the first time (previously I had done a few part-time internships, short-term contracts, and sole trade work). While in the office, I read digital copies of both The Communist Manifesto and The Conquest of Bread, which led me to start a blog in 2020 where I would be able to publicly share what I had been thinking about and learning about for so long. That was on Medium.com. At that point, I wanted to be an art journalist.

Before long, radical ideas explored through a local lens became the prime focus. But due to low readership over months of consistent effort, I came to see blogging as a medium with limited opportunity for reach in our increasingly video-dominated age, which culminated with the creation of my YouTube channel.

However, as much as I wanted to keep my focus on the country and the region, I couldn't limit my message. I don't tailor my voice and message to either a local audience or an American audience. I grew up on content that acted like America was the only country and audience in the world, but I knew there were people like me globally going through the same issues who didn't want to hear every message filtered through the American lens.

I think both globally and locally when I make my videos, and I believe my approach has allowed me to reach folks internationally, which has gotten me to a size where people across the islands can now more easily take notice of my work and hopefully get some good out of it. My heart remains here in the region, and I would like to expand my reach here in the region, but it's easier said than done. I've seen an opportunity in TikTok, but I really can't add more to my plate at this point. A burning passion for learning combined with consistent effort, the help of various folks, and luck sprinkled in has brought me to where I am now, and that's what I'm trying to maintain going forward.

[mariacallous]

British exceptionalism means that we do not like to think of our politicians as extremists. Official paranoia, state-sponsored lying, half-mad ideas that play to bigoted prejudices: these evils do not afflict dear, sweet, safe old Blighty.

You need only glance at the press or watch the BBC to know that policies and politicians we would have no problem identifying as radical right if they appeared in Europe or the Trumpian corners of the United States, are treated as mainstream here in the UK.

To be fair, Rishi Sunak is not a typical strongman leader. He is small (5ft 5in) and without physical presence, oratorical skill, or a definable sense of purpose.

Sunak’s manner varies from  wide-eyed chirpiness when discussing his strangely marginal political passions – banning smoking, recruiting more maths teachers – to petulance when confronted with difficulties: “He comes across as snippy, and comes across as thin-skinned — which he is, when people challenge him,” said one former minister.

Labour politicians believe he will fall apart under the scrutiny of a general election campaign.

And yet this mediocre member of the superrich (our modern Malvolio married rather than earned his wealth) who received the best education the Western world can offer at Winchester college and Oxford and Stanford universities, is by any reasonable definition an extremist.

Sunak’s only saving grace is that he is as useless at extremism as he is at everything else and thus there is a limit to how much damage he can cause.

Within the past few hours Sunak passed into law the power to send asylum seekers to the quasi-dictatorship of Rwanda. The deportees will include genuine refugees, the victims of human trafficking, and Afghans who risked their lives serving the British armed forces in the war against the Taliban.

I have no doubt that radical right politicians across Europe would like to possess the same powers. But as things stand only Rishi Sunak has them and is able to set them to the Orwellian task of remoulding reality.

The UK Supreme Court ruled that the government could not deport people to Rwanda because it is not a safe country. It’s a quasi-dictatorship under Paul Kagame, a genuine and genuinely frightening strongman, who is engaged in covert warfare against neighbouring states. There’s no real judicial independence and the Rwandan government breached the terms of a previous asylum deal it had entered into with Israel.

The UK government has got round these objections by announcing that reality is now what Rishi Sunak says it is.

Sunak’s legislation declares that Rwanda is a safe country, even though it isn’t. From now on, an asylum seeker trying to stop the UK deporting him cannot use the actual existing repressions on the ground in Rwanda to challenge the government in UK courts.

Sunak says Rwanda is safe so it must be so. Maybe Sunak will move on to declare that black is white and 2+2=5, but for the time being he is limiting himself to creating an imaginary African republic where all is peace and light.

Lord Anderson, who as a former adviser to the UK state on terrorism is hardly a knee-jerk softie, put it well when he said of the government’s plans to end judicial oversight

“If Rwanda is safe as the government would have us declare, it has nothing to fear from such scrutiny. “Yet we are invited to adopt a fiction, to wrap it in the cloak of parliamentary sovereignty and to grant it permanent immunity from challenge. To tell an untruth and call it truth.”

To insist that lies are the truth is extreme. It is also the logical conclusion of the Brexit policy of concerted lying in the service of political ends, which has been running since 2016.

And speaking of Brexit and before I go any further, I should note that, with the exception of Geert Wilders, no European far-right leader advocates taking his or her country out of the EU. But Rishi Sunak was all for Brexit, and promised that “our nation would be freer, fairer and more prosperous outside the EU”.

We know how that went.

And we almost certainly know how the Rwanda deportations will go. They will fail, and Sunak will be a failed extremist because what he wants is impossible.

Look at it from the point of view of a right-winger who is furious that tens of thousands are crossing the English Channel and entering the country illegally. Throughout his life the Conservatives have betrayed him.  

David Cameron promised to reduce migration from the hundreds to tens of thousands, and failed to deliver. Brexit promised to return control of our borders. Instead, small boats cross the channel in a parody of the Dunkirk evacuation, while legal immigration has gone through the roof.

No pro-European politician would ever say this, but it does not mean that people have not noticed. By leaving the EU, the UK swapped European migrants who were largely white and, if they had a religion, it was Christianity, for migrants from the rest of the world who are largely not white and, if they have a religion, it is unlikely to be Christianity.

Despite all this Sunak is still bellowing that he will stop all the boats, which is as impossible as David Cameron’s fake promise to reduce migration to the tens of thousands.

He is bellowing because Conservatives are terrified that Reform (the latest Farage party) will send the Tories down to a landslide defeat.

They are trying to unite the right by assuming that right-wing and radical-wing voters are stupid, and won’t notice the attempt to con them with impossible promises.

It’s not working. At the moment we are in an unprecedented situation, where Labour enjoys a poll lead on immigration.

For those on left who say there is no difference between Starmer’s Labour and the Tories ought to notice that Labour holds that lead even though it is absolutely opposed to the Rwanda obscenity, when Tony Blair’s Labour party would probably have gone along with it.

In the Commons yesterday, Stephen Kinnock, Labour’s shadow immigration minister, tore into the government.

He pointed out that the cost of the vain attempt to save Sunak’s skin – will be about “£2 million per deportee”. As only a few hundred are ever likely to go, tens of thousands more will be left “in expensive hotels, stuck in a perma-backlog at a staggering cost to the taxpayer.”

Assuming, that is, anyone goes at all.

 Yesterday Sunak made a rather pathetic admission that no plane will leave for 12 weeks. We shall see. Despite the government’s best efforts to rewrite the law and threaten the European Court of Human Rights, there can still be legal challenges which may last until the next election.

Cynics say the government would like nothing better than the flights to be stopped so it can blame left-wing lawyers in the campaign. I think they are attributing intelligence to the prime minister he does not possess.

Put like this, the UK’s failed extremists do not seem so reprehensible.  But look at what they have done. Since David Cameron in 2010 they have never explained the necessity for immigration in an honest conversation with the public.

They have pandered to right-wing and radical right-wing sentiment and then infuriated voters by making promises they could never keep. In doing so they have prepared the ground for genuinely extremist politicians.

We have already paid a price for their trickery with Brexit and I doubt the full bill is in yet.

We are fortunate that Rishi Sunak is too hopeless to be dangerous. We may not be so lucky in the future.