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signalburst · 1 year ago

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Shōgun Historical Shallow-Dive: the Final Part - The Samurai Were Assholes, When 'Accuracy' Isn't Accurate, Beautiful Art, and Where to From Here

Final part. There is an enormous cancer attached to the samurai mythos and James Clavell's orientalism that I need to address. Well, I want to, anyway. In acknowledging how great the 2024 adaptation of Shōgun is, it's important to engage with the fact that it's fiction, and that much of its marketed authenticity is fake. That doesn't take away from it being an excellent work of fiction, but it is a very important distinction to me.

If you want to engage with the cool 'honourable men with swords' trope without thinking any deeper, navigate away now. Beyond here, there are monsters - literal and figurative. If you're interested in how different forms of media are used to manufacture consent and shape national identity, please bear with me.

I think the makers of 2024's Shōgun have done a fantastic job. But there is one underlying problem they never fully wrestled with. It's one that Hiroyuki Sanada, the leading man and face of the production team, is enthusiastically supportive of. And with the recent announcement of Season 2, it's likely to return. You may disagree, but to me, ignoring this dishonours the millions of people who were killed or brutalised by either the samurai class, or people in the 20th century inspired by a constructed idea of them.

Why are we drawn to the samurai?

A pretty badly sourced, but wildly popular history podcast contends that 'The Japanese are just like everybody else, only more so.' I saw a post on here that tried to make the assertion that the show's John Blackthorne would have been exposed to as much violence as he saw in Japan, and wouldn't have found it abnormal.

This is incorrect. Obviously 16th and 17th century Europe were violent places, but they contained violence familiar to Europeans through their cultural lens. Why am I confidently asserting this? We have hundreds of letters, journals and reports from Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch and English expressing absolute horror about what they encountered. Testing swords on peasants was becoming so common that it would eventually become the law of the land. Crucifixion was enacted as a punishment for Christians - first by the Taiko, then by the Tokugawa shogunate - for irony's sake.

Before the end of the feudal period, battles would end with the taking of heads for washing and display. Depending on who was viewing them, this was either to honour them, or to gloat: 'I'm alive, you're dead.' These things were ritualised to the point of being codified when real-life Toranaga took control. Seppuku started as a cultural meme and ended up being the enforced punishment for any minor mistake for the 260 years the ruling samurai class acted as the nation's bureaucracy. It got more and more ritualised and flowery the more it got divorced from its origin: men being ordered by other men to kill themselves during a period of chaotic warfare. I've read accounts of samurai 'warriors' during the Edo period committing seppuku for being late for work. Not life-and-death warrior work - after Sekigahara, they were just book-keepers. They had desk jobs.

Since Europe's contact with Japan, the samurai myth has fascinated and appalled in equal measure. As time has gone on, the fascination has gone up and the horror has been dialled down. This is not an accident. This isn't just a change in the rest of the world's perception of the samurai. This is the result of approximately 120 years of Japanese government policies. Successive governments - nationalist, military authoritarian, and post-war democratic - began to lionize the samurai as the perfect warrior ideal, and sanitize the history of their origin and their heydey (the period Shōgun covers). It erases the fact that almost all of the fighting of the glorious samurai Sengoku Jidai was done by peasant ashigaru (levies), who had no choice.

It is important to never forget why this was done initially: to form an imagined-historical ideal of a fighting culture. An imagined fighting culture that Japanese invasion forces could emulate to take colonies and subdue foreign populations in WWI, and, much more brutally, in WWII. James Clavell came into contact with it as a Japanese Prisoner of War.

He just didn't have access to the long view, or he didn't care.

The Original Novel - How One Ayn Rand Fan Introduced Japan to America

There's a reason why 1975's Shogun novel contains so many historical anachronisms. James Clavell bought into a bunch of state-sanctioned lies, unachored in history, about the warring states period, the concept of bushido (manufactured after the samurai had stopped fighting), and the samurai class's role in Japanese history.

For the novel, I could go into great depth, but there are three things that stand out.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. He's a novelist, and he did what he liked. But Clavell's novel was groundbreaking in the 70's because it was sold as a lightly-fictionalised history of Japan. The unfortunate fact is the official version that was being taught at the time (and now) is horseshit, and used for far-right wing authoritarian/nationalist political projects. The Three Unifiers and the 'honour of the samurai' magnates at the time is a neat package to tell kids and adults, but it was manufactured by an early-20th century Japanese Imperial Government trying to harness nationalism for building up a war-ready population. Any slightly critical reading of the primary sources shows the samurai to be just like any ruling class - brutal, venal, self-interested, and horrifically cruel. Even to their contemporary warrior elites in Korea and China.

Fake history as propraganda. Clavell swallowed and regurgitated the 'death before dishonour', 'loyalty to the cause above all else', 'it's all for the Realm' messages that were deployed to justify Imperial Japanese Army Class-A war crimes during the war in the Pacific and the Creation of the Greater East Asian Co-Properity Sphere. This retroactive samurai ethos was used in the late Meiji restoration and early 20th century nationalist-military governments to radicalise young Japanese men into being willing to die for nothing, and kill without restraint. The best book on this is An Introduction to Japanese Society by Sugimoto Yoshio, but there is a vast corpus of scholarship to back it up.

Clavell's orientalism strays into outright racism. Despite the novel Shōgun undercutting John Blackthorne as a white savior in its final pages - showing him as just a pawn in the game - Clavell's politics come into play in every Asia Saga novel. A white man dominates an Asian culture through the power of capitalism. This is orthagonal to points 1 and 2, but Clavell was a devotee of Ayn Rand. There's a reason his protagonists all appear cut from the same cloth. They thrust their way into an unfamiliar society, they use their knowledge of trade and mercantilism to heroically save the day, they are remarked upon by the Asian characters as braver and stronger, and they are irresistible to the - mostly simpering, extremely submissive - caricatures of Asian women in his novels. Call it a product of its times or a product of Clavell's beliefs, I still find it repulsive. Clavell invents (nearly from whole cloth, actually) the idea that samurai find money repulsive and distasteful, and his Blackthorne shows them the power of commerce and markets. Plus there are numerous other stereotypes (Blackthorne's massive dick! Japanese men have tiny penises! Everyone gets naked and bathes together because they're so sexually free! White guys are automatically cool over there!) that have fuelled the fantasies of generations of non-Japanese men, usually white: Clavell's primary audience of 'dad history' buffs.

2024's Shōgun, as a television adaptation, did a far better job in almost every respect

But the show did much better, right? Yes. Unquestionably. It was an incredible achievement in bringing forward a tired, stereotypical story to add new themes of cultural encounter, questioning one's place in the broader world, and killing your ego. In many ways, the show was the antithesis to Clavell's thesis.

It drastically reigned in the anachronistic, ahistorical referencees to 'bushido' and 'samurai honor', and showed the ruling class of Japan in 1600 much more accurately. John Blackthorne (William Adams) was shown to be an extraordinary person, but he wasn't central to the outcome of the Eastern Army-Western Army civil war. There aren't scenes of him being the best lover every woman he encounters in Japan has ever had (if you haven't read the book, this is not an exaggeration). He doesn't teach Japanese warriors how to use matchlock rifles, which they had been doing for two hundred years. He doesn't change the outcome of enormous events with his thrusting, self-confident individualism. In 2024's Shōgun, Blackthorne is much like his historical counterpart. He was there for fascinating events, but not central. He wasn't teaching Japanese people basic concepts like how to make money or how to make war.

On fake history - the manufactured samurai mythos - it improved on the novel, but didn't overcome the central problems. In many ways, I can't blame the showrunners. Many of the central lies (and they are deliberate lies) constructed around the concept of samurai are hallmarks of the genre. But it's still important to me to notice when it's happening - even while enjoying some of the tropes - without passively accepting it.

'Authenticity' to a precisely manufactured story, not to history

There's a core problem surrounding the promotion and manufactured discussion surrounding 2024's Shōgun. I think it's a disconnect between the creative and marketing teams, but it came up again and again in advertising and promotion for the show: 'It's authentic. It's as real as possible.'

I've only seen this brought up in one article, Shōgun Has a Japanese-Superiority Complex, by Ryu Spaeth:

'The show also valorizes a supreme military power that is tempered by the pursuit of beauty and the highest of cultures, as if that might be a formula for peace. Shōgun displays these two extremes of the Japanese self, the savagery and the refinement, but seems wholly unaware that there may be a connection between them, that the exquisite sensibility Japan is famous for may flow from, and be a mask for, its many uses of atrocious domination.'

Here we come to authenticity.

'The publicity surrounding the series has focused on its fidelity to authenticity: multiple rounds of translation to give the dialogue a “classical” feel; fastidious attention to how katana swords should be slung, how women of the nobility should fold their knees when they sit, how kimonos should be colored and styled; and, crucially, a decentralization of the narrative so that it’s not dominated by the character John Blackthorne.'

It's undeniable that the 2024 production spent enormous amounts of energy on authenticity. But authenticity to what? To traditional depictions of samurai in Japanese media, not to history itself. The experts hired for gestures, movement, costumes, buildings, and every other aspect of the show were experts with decades in experience making Japanese historical dramas 'look right', not experts in Japanese history. But this appeal to 'Japanese authenticity' was made in almost every piece of promotional material.

The show had only one historical advisor on staff, and he was Dutch. The numerous Japanese consultants, experts and specialists brought on board (talked about at length in the show's marketing and behind the scenes) were there to assist with making an accurate Japanese jidaigeki. It's the difference between hiring an experienced BBC period drama consultant, and a historian specialising in the Regency. One knows how to make things look 'right' to a British audience. The other knows what actually happened.

That's fine, but a critical viewing of the show needs to engage with this. It's a stylistically accurate Japanese period drama. It is not an accurate telling of Japanese history around the unification of Japan. If it was, the horses would be the size of ponies, there would be far more malnourished and brutalised peasants, the word samurai would have far less importance as it wasn't yet a rigidly enforced caste, seppuku wouldn't yet be ritualised and performed with as much frequency, and Toranaga - Tokugawa - would be a famously corpulently obese man, pounding the saddle of his horse in frustration at minor setbacks, as he was in history.

The noble picture of restraint, patience, refinement and honour presented by Hiroyuki Sanada as Toranaga/Tokugawa is historical sanitation at its most extreme. Despite being Sanada's personal hero, Tokugawa Ieyasu was a brutal warlord (even for the standards of the time), and he committed acts of horrific cruelty. He ordered many more after gaining ultimate power. Think a miniseries about the Founding Fathers of the United States that doesn't touch upon slavery - I'm sure there have been plenty.

The final myth that 2024's Shōgun leaves us with is that it took a man like Toranaga - Tokugawa Ieyasu - to bring peace to a land ripped assunder by chaos. This plays into 19th century notions of Great Man History, and is a neat story, but the consensus amongst historians is if it wasn't Tokugawa, it would have been some other cunt. In many cases, it very nearly was. His success was historical contingency, not 5D chess.

So how did this image get manufactured, to the point where the Japanese populace - by and large - believes it to be true? Very long story short: after a period of rapid modernisation, Japan embraced nationalism in the late 19th century. It was all the rage. Nationalism depends on a glorified past. The samurai (recently the pariahs of Japanese history) were repurposed as Japan's unique warrior heroes, and woven into state education. This was especially heated in the 1920s and 30s in the lead up to the invasion of Manchuria and Japan's war of aggression in the Pacific. Nationalism + militarism = the modern Japanese samurai myth, to prepare men to obey orders unquestioningly from a military dictatorship.

This persists in the postwar period. Every year since 1963, Japan's state broadcaster NHK commissions a historical drama - a Taiga Drama, where many of this show's actors got their starts - that manufactures and re-enforces the idea of samurai as noble, artful, honourable people. Read a book - read a Wikipedia article! - and you'll see that most of it stems from Tokugawa-shogunate era self-propaganda. It's much like the European re-interpretation of chivalry. In Europe's case, chivalry in actual history was a set of guidelines that allowed for the sanctioned mass-rape and murder of civilians, with a side of rules regarding the ransoming of nobles in scorched-earth military campaigns. In Japan's case, historical figures that regularly backstabbed each other, tortured rival warriors and their lessers, and inflicted horrific casualties on the peasants that they owned (we have a term for that) are cast as noble, honourable, dedicated servants of the Empire.

Why does this matter to me? Samurai movies and TV shows are just media, after all. The issue, for me, is that the actors, the producers - including Hiroyuki Sanada - passionately extoll 'accuracy' as if they genuinely believe they're telling history. They talk emotionally about bushido and its special place in Japanese society.

But the entire concept of bushido is a retroactive, post-conflict, samurai construction. Bushio is bullshit. Despite being spoken of as the central tenet of 2024's Shōgun by actors like Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, and Tokuma Nishioka, it simply didn't exist at the time. It was made up after the advent of modern nationalism.

It was used to justify horrendous acts during the late Edo period, the Meiji restoration, and the years leading up to the conclusion of Japan's war of aggression in the Pacific. It's still used now by Japan's primarily right-wing government to deny war crimes and justify the horrors unleashed on Asia and the Pacific during World War II as some kind of noble warrior crusade. If you ever want your stomach turned, visit the museum attached to Yasukuni Shrine. It's a theme park dedicated to war crimes denial, linked intimately to Japan's imagined warrior past. Whether or not the production staff, cast, and marketing team of 2024's Shōgun knew they were engaging with a long line of ahistorical bullshit is unknown, but it is important.

It's also important to acknowledge that, having listened to many interviews with Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, they were acutely aware that they weren't Japanese, to claim to be telling an authentically Japanese story would be wrong, and that all they could do was do their best to make an engaging work that plays on ideas of cultural encounter and letting go. I think the 'authenticity!' thing is mostly marketing, and judicious editing of what the creators and writers actually said in interviews.

So... you hate the show, then? What the hell is this all about?

No, I love the show. It's beautiful. But it's a beautiful artwork.

Just as the noh theatre in the show was a twisting of events within the show, so are all works of fiction that take inspiration from history. Some do it better than others. And on balance, in the show, Shōgun did it better than most. But so much of the marketing and the discussion of this adaptation has been on its accuracy. This has been by design - it was the strategy Disney adopted to market the show and give it a unique viewing proposition.

'This time, Shōgun is authentic!*

*an authentic Japanese period drama, but we won't mention that part.

And audiences have conflated that with what actually happened, as opposed to accuracy to a particular form of Japanese propaganda that has been honed over a century. This difference is crucial.

It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of it. Where I view James Clavell's novel as a horrid remnant of an orientalist, racist past, I believe the showrunners of 2024's Shōgun have updated that story to put Japanese characters front and centre, to decentralise the white protagonist to a more accurate place of observation and interest, and do their best to make a compelling subversion of the 'stranger in a strange land' tale.

But I don't want anyone who reads my words or has followed this series to think that the samurai were better than the armed thugs of any society. They weren't more noble, they weren't more honourable, they weren't more restrained. They just had 260 years in which they worked desk-jobs while wearing two swords to write stories about how glorious the good old days were, and how great people were.

Well... that's a bleak note to end on. Where to from here?

There are beautiful works of fiction that engage much closer with the actual truth of the samurai class that I'd recommend. One even stars Hiroyuki Sanada, and is (I think) his finest role.

I'd really encourage anyone who enjoyed Shōgun to check out The Twilight Samurai. That was the reality for the vast majority of post-Sekigahara samurai

For something closer to the period that Shogun is set, the best film is Seppuku (Hara-Kiri in English releases). It is a post-war Japanese film that engages both with the reality of samurai rule, and, through its central themes, how that created mythos was used to radicalise millions of Japanese into senseless death during the war. It is the best possible response to a romanticisation of a brutal, hateful period of history, dominated by cruel men who put power first, every single time.

I want to end this series, if I can, with hope. I hope that reading the novel or watching the 1980 show or the 2024 show has ignited in people an interest in Japanese culture, or society, or history. But don't let that be an end. Go further. There are so many things that aren't whitewashed warlords nobly killing - the social history of Japan is amazing, as is the women's history. A great book for getting an introduction to this is The Japanese: A History in 20 Lives.

And outside of that, there are so many beautiful Japanese movies and shows that don't deal with glorified violence and death. In fact, it makes up the vast majority of Japanese media! Who would have thought! Your Name was the first major work of art to bridge some of the cultural animosity between China and Japan stemming from WW2, and is a goofy time travel love story. Perfect Days is a beautiful movie about the simple joy of living, and it's about the most Tokyo story you can get.

Please go out, read more, watch more. If you can, try and find your way to Japan. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth. The people are kind, the food is delicious, and the culture is very welcoming to foreigners.

2024's Shōgun was great, but please don't let that be the end. Let it be the beginning, and I hope it serves as a gateway for you.

And I hope our little fandom on here remembers this show as a special time, where we came together to talk about something we loved. I'll miss you all.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months ago

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Barry Blitt, The Kvetchbook

* * * * *

A suggested approach for dealing with the news.

February 7, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

If you are struggling to make sense of the torrent of seemingly inconsistent news alerts pummeling you every 15 minutes, welcome to the club! One minute, things seem to be improving; the next minute, they are getting worse. I find the situation horribly disorienting and stressful.

Here is the mental construct I am employing to help me digest the news:

Two things are happening at once. Both are true. They are in opposition.

Thing one: Democrats are gaining a foothold in opposing Trump's coup—through the courts, through public opinion, and through legislative stalling tactics. Those are not complete defenses, and they take time. But they are the tools we have.

Thing two: Musk and Trump are accelerating their efforts to infect the federal government with AI computer viruses to assist in making drastic workforce and budget cuts in intelligence, law enforcement, health, science, and foreign aid. The sting of thing two is compounded by the complicity of congressional Republicans and the willingness of Trump supporters to lie with aplomb and feigned indignation

Thing one—the resistance—is trailing behind thing two—the pillaging and burning. To be sure, the resistance is catching up to the vandals. But playing “catch up” feels bad. It feels like we are losing and that there is no accountability. The sense of being “behind” is a temporary illusion created by the First Law of the Universe: It is easier to break things than to fix them.

Moreover, the velocity of the news combined with its jaw-dropping implausibility makes the tension between thing one and thing two difficult to track and comprehend. Well-meaning writers—like me—are creating a flood of content that attempts to keep track of important and urgent developments. The mere act of reading the list of “The Top 36 things that happened today” can be overwhelming.

I get it. I read many other newsletters written by smart and well-meaning people, and I often feel overwhelmed by the end of such articles. Why? I believe that the constant re-telling of the crises triggers our “fight or flight” sensors until they are saturated and shut down. We are left exhausted.

The comforting news is that we have all been here before in our personal lives, albeit in different circumstances. A car accident while unemployed. Battling cancer and experiencing the sudden death of a loved one. A hurricane followed by a once-in-a-thousand-year flood. A sexual assault and doubting police officers. Being bullied and harassed by a co-worker under a boss who doesn’t want to get involved.

Somehow, we managed to survive those crises. We put one foot in front of the other. We dealt with the circumstances we faced with the tools we had. And we have managed to make it to this point successfully.

We need to employ those same coping skills to deal with the political crises confronting us. Put one foot in front of the other. Deal with the circumstances we face with the tools we have. Fight in the present but take confidence from the long-term inevitability that we will prevail if we do not give up. Trump is an aberration whose time will pass.

Recognize that the cognitive dissonance of this moment is caused by two things being true at once: Democrats are gaining a foothold in opposing Trump's coup, and Trump is accelerating the chaos.

Do not be troubled by the inconsistent, see-saw nature of the news. That tension is a sign that we are beginning our long road to victory.

To help ease the cognitive load, I will reduce my commentary in this newsletter and categorize today’s news into comprehensible themes. I hope this helps!

All readers are welcome to join me on Saturday, February 8, at 9:00 a.m. PST / 12:00 noon EST for a Substack livestream session. Download and open the Substack App at the appointed time. I will send a reminder email 30 minutes in advance on Saturday morning.

Thing One—Democrats are gaining a foothold in opposing Trump's coup

Senate Democrats filibuster confirmation of OMB Director Russell T. Vought

See NYTimes, (accessible to all), Senate Democrats Hold the Floor in Overnight Protest of Trump Nominee. Democratic Senators heard their constituents, located their spines, and went down swinging. That outcome is far superior to losing on perfunctory votes that signal surrender. Keep it up!

Federal Judge delays Trump's deadline to federal workers to accept “Fork in the road” deferred terminations.

See Business Insider, Judge delays Trump's federal employee buyout deadline. To date, every time a judge has ruled on a lawsuit against a Trump executive order or illegal terminations, Trump has lost.

Labor Department barred from sharing information on employees with DOGE team

See Latin Times, Elon Musk's DOGE Blocked from Accessing Labor Department Data in Stunning Win for Unions

Employee unions sue to prevent termination of USAID workers

Two labor groups sued to prevent the Trump administration from invoking mass layoffs of USAID workers. See CNN Politics, Labor groups sue to halt Trump admin’s dismantling of USAID as workforce is expected to be slashed to under 300

Thirteen states plan to sue DOGE to prevent access to personal information about citizens

“Democratic attorneys general in several states vowed Thursday to file a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal payment systems containing Americans’ sensitive personal information.” See AP News, 13 states to sue over DOGE access to government payment systems containing personal data.

House Democrats apparently secure agreement from Speaker Johnson to hold hearing on DOGE hacking of Treasury data

A letter released by two Democrats on the House Ways & Means Committee says that Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to hold a hearing on DOGE’s access to Treasury Department data. See Talking Points Memo, Dems Suggest They Got Johnson To Commit To Hearing On Elon’s Treasury Break-In

Senate Democrats demand VA Secretary deny DOGE access to veterans’ records.

See HuffPo, Democrats Demand VA Secretary Deny Elon Musk Access To Veterans' Private Records.

Disciplinary complaint filed against acting US Attorney in DC, Ed Martin

Acting US Attorney in DC, Ed Martin, represented one of the January 6 defendants. As acting US Attorney Martin just filed a request for dismissal of the case against his client—while he was still counsel of record for that client in a criminal proceeding. A legal advocacy group filed a disciplinary complaint against Martin in Missouri, where he is licensed. Martin tried to file a motion to withdraw as attorney for his client. The motion was rejected because he had allowed his membership in the DC bar to lapse. See Top Trump prosecutor in DC faces bar complaint for dismissing January 6 charges against client.

DOGE employee who posted racist statement resigns

Proving that public shaming can still work, the WSJ reported that one of Musk’s cadre of engineers had made vile racist posts, which he had attempted to remove. But the internet is forever and the posts were archived. When they were published on Wednesday, the employee resigned immediately. See The Independent, DOGE staffer quits after exposure of racist social media posts.

Thing Two-- Musk and Trump are accelerating their efforts

Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Attorney General Pam Bondi went on a legal terror campaign within the DOJ on Thursday. She did the following:

Disbanded a group of prosecutors assigned to prevent foreign interference in US elections. NBC News, Bondi ends FBI effort to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics.

Disbanded a group of prosecutors who targeted criminal activities by Russian oligarchs. Reuters, Trump administration disbands task force targeting Russian oligarchs.

Instructed the DOJ to investigate companies that promote diversity and inclusion through hiring and retention. Slate, Pam Bondi instructs Trump DOJ to investigate companies that do DEI.

Trump executive orders:

Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court for “targeting Israel.” Trump signs executive order to sanction ICC, accusing court of targeting US and its ‘close ally’ Israel – live

NCAA bans transgender athletes after Trump signs executive order. Reuters, NCAA bans transgender women from sports a day after Trump executive order.

Foreign policy

Trump doubles down on Gaza takeover proposal despite bipartisan opposition | Donald Trump | The Guardian

Concluding Thoughts

Calls from constituents are overwhelming the staff of most members of Congress. Good! Keep it up—even if you have a Republican representative or Senator! Democrats appear to have received the message (finally) and are opposing / delaying confirmations of Trump's nominees. See The New Republic, “Disgusted” Democratic Voters Are Blowing Up Congress’s Phones.

Regardless of whether Senate Democrats can stop the confirmations, we need to know that they understand the depth of the crisis and will not cooperate with the party that is facilitating the coup.

And the calls to Republican members of Congress are also worthwhile—even if they do not succeed in changing the views of the GOP member of Congress. About 200 protesters showed up to protest outside Senator John Cornyn’s office. Cornyn sent a snide tweet that said,

Sorry to miss these folks from @IndivisibleTeam + @MoveOn protesting my state offices over my support of @realDonaldTrump’s nominees & all the good work @ElonMusk is doing with @DOGE," the senator said, sharing photos of protests outside his other Texas offices. "I hate to break it to them, but we are just getting started," Cornyn continued. "These people are really going to lose it when we extend the Trump tax cuts."

Although Cornyn blamed Indivisible and MoveOn for the protest, neither organization was involved. The protesters were Cornyn constituents who are dependent on military contracts for their livelihood and are terrified of the chaos Musk and Trump are causing.

Here’s the point: Cornyn took notice and sent a boastful tweet worthy of every schoolyard bully who feels his dominance is threatened. Cornyn is frightened, and his Freudian slip is showing.

Multiply that single protest by hundreds more, and it is clear that the emerging resistance is penetrating the consciousness of MAGA members of Congress. It is just a start, but it is a good one. Keep it up!!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell newsletter #DOGE #lawlessness #rule of law #illegal orders #criminal trespass #Indivisible #MAGA overreach #Barry Blitt #Robert B. Hubbell Newletter

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handweavers · 1 year ago

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as an aside it's interesting how the word 'indian' is used in malaysia vs elsewhere because in malaysia it functions as a specific class of people as enshrined in malaysian law and government, as well as being used colloquially to refer to anyone of south asian origin. my family are punjabis who immigrated to malaya in the 1890s before there was such a thing as india (or pakistan) as a state, but we are legally considered to be racially 'indian' and that 'racial category' is listed on all of my family's government documents including my birth certificate. even if you are a tamil whose family is technically from sri lanka you are called an 'indian' in malaysia because it is a specific racial category there, and it's not considered politically incorrect, because the word 'indian' is not necessarily an ethnic or national one if that makes sense. i am racially 'indian' as a Specific Class within the malaysian framework - and this isn't an ontological thing, it's socially and materially constructed

to put it another way, i don't consider myself indian outside of malaysia, i am specifically punjabi, i have no ties to the state of india at all and reject the partitioning of punjab - 'india' as a specific entity did not exist the last time any of my ancestors lived in that region, calling myself 'indian' would be incorrect. my family doesn't say "we are from india" we say we are from punjab. but i refer to myself as indian in the malaysian context or 'malaysian indian' because in malaysia that is what i am.

#being indian in malaysia is a specific class that is assigned to you

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carafell · 3 months ago

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The year is 1964. The world now finds itself under control of RED and BLU, two rival international mega-congolmerates that through almost 100 restless years of acquisitions, merges, paid assasinations and innumerable bribes rose from humble construction & demolition businnesses to global hegemons, infiltrating nearly all areas of life.

World governments exist only in theory, split evenly between RED and BLU. All known laws and systems of government have been effectively replaced by the rule of capitalism and corporate bureaucracy, which now arranges the lives of billions of people across all continents. Branded, color coded products fill store shelves stores and seep from omnipresent advertisements. Decadent politicans have completely surrendered to branch executives, ready to fulfill their every order. Mercenary teams have become common sight across all major metropolies of the world, fighting for control when victory cannot be achieved through economic means.

Throughout their lives Redmond and Blutarch Mann have went to unimaginable lengths, overcoming death itself and dragging the whole humankind into their war, desperate to prove themselves and their way better.

To live in a world created by them, is to be a faceless statistic of consumer preference on a company spreasheet, constantly fluctuating between the two extremes. It is to live in a world of uncertainty and rising tensions, where the seemingly endless abundance of capitalist production can implode at any time. It is a world with no hope for a change, where one has only 2 choices: RED and BLU. I finally wrote something longer. I consider making a sideblog for it and making it a regular AU, but am not sure. Honestly I never did fandom stuff, dropping all this publcily feels so weird to me. Anyway, enjoy. Its supposed to be an intro post to a more realistic take on TF2 lore that lived rent free in my head for years. I gave it a work name "TF2 64", but I guess we'll see what comes out of it.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 headcanons #redmond mann #blutarch mann #tf2 au #tf2 64 au

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thatsoheeron · 5 months ago

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Yesterdays Paper: A look at a (bad) reaction to Brown Vs. the Board of Education TW: Racists from 1955 in Richmond, Virgina

So the powers that be have decided to put an "end" to Black History Month, which is obviously unambiguously awful. I deeply care about history and have for the entirety of my life, and I also happen to have a podcast. So I decided to take one integral moment in Black History and look up what was being published in the newspaper at that time.

This week I chose Brown Vs. the Board of Education (1954) and some articles from The Richmond News Leader in Richmond Virginia (Thursday, June 2nd, 1955) and the narrative described was something I found incredibly interesting.

In reaction to the Supreme Court's decision to integrate all segregated schools, bonds already donated to Richmond schools were revoked on the simple premise that they did not want to pay for integration. What was once $600,000 to be donated to new school constructions had dropped to a measly $150,000, and many individuals called the ruling "vague" in it's wording, a sentiment reflected on the ruling's archive.gov page.

They also criticized the "social psychologists" of which they claimed the ruling was based off of. Which I am assuming is because of the idea that *shocker* black people are not inherently inferior. They also commonly cite Plessy Vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruling that claimed that Black Americans were inferior to the white race, and also set the precedent for Jim Crow laws.

Something I found interesting was a small article claiming that a few teachers did not return to their positions and instead decided to leave the profession, which will come up later, of course.

Then the editor of the Richmond News Leader essentially puts it all out there, and writes up a dissertation about what segregationists have to do to keep segregation in schools. Either the government needs to comply with segregationists or there will be no school. At all.

But no school for whom? The entirety of Prince Edward County in Richmond, Virginia? No!

Otherwise he claims that they need to force the Public Schools to sell the buildings for pennies on the dollar and then white benefactors will rebuild private schools for their children to learn.

Huh. So... segregation.

There's also another editor who expands upon the school board meeting and his similarly racist thoughts as well as an article I couldn't even read entitled "The White Race Has Built Great Civilizations," (read at your own risk)

Oh also, the teachers are quitting because they do not want to teach black students, and this complete racist cowardice is being used by politicians to dig their claws into and tear apart integration.

But Sarah why the hell would you do this weird thing? You may be asking yourself, well I believe as a white person that we shouldn't just be fed a white-washed child-friendly version of America's horrible racist past and move on about our lives. That's how you get people who misquote MLK or think that "racism is over," which we all know it very clearly is not.

I also have a podcast and a platform (and a majority white audience) and if the government is going to abandon the public then the first thing we should is educate each other.

If you are one of those white people that think "Well that's old, racism is over," Keep in mind this was only 70 years ago, and the first black student to attend an integrated school, Ruby Nell Bridges Hall, is still alive today. So, no, it was not that long ago.

Keep in mind, this is one school board in one county in all of the American South. Thurgood Marshall, leader of the NAACP is quoted in the above articles saying that they would sue any school that did not comply with the Supreme Court's decision, and whose work was so incredible that segregation can seem like a thing of the distant past, even though capitalism wielded as a tool to enforce white supremacy has been here all along.

Next week we're going to look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and will continue to look at more big moments in Black History for the entirety of February. If you want to know more of mine and Josh's opinions, we talk about it on this week's APWSTR ep. 224 'Know Your Enemy (Greg)'

Take care, and happy Black History Month!

#black history month #apwstr

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centrally-unplanned · 1 year ago

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I am beginning the "Understanding Victoria 3" journey - I love Paradox and love Victoria 2, but I didn't vibe with 3 on release. but I didn't try too hard - after all its a Paradox game on release, they always kind of suck lol, you gotta wait for a few patches.

So I began a Japan file (weeb alert) and am taking it one step at a time. I think I have the economic fundamentals a bit down now with the "construction sector" gameplay loop - build up some construction buildings, look at sell/buy mismatches, drag peasants into the market economy, and then plan for multi-step supply chain moments and key production line switches building everything needed at once. I still get what is worth vs not worth, but that will come with time.

I do like the core system here - the "peasant" stock is a clever workaround of a Vicky 2 problem. Tons of workers start out "outside" the market economy doing subsistence farming, which is ahistorical (1836 rural economies in almost all countries were heavily commercialized) but in Vicky 2 a lot of what you did to boost things like RGO production was just "wait" - wait for techs, wait for population to grow, because everyone started fully employed. Now you can plan your economy way more effectively as there is a deep labor pool to play with.

On the down sides the UI is extremely messy. No screen really gives you "the economy", in the way you want it. Where is labor, where is infrastructure bottlenecks, what goods do my factories need to go to next production level tech, etc. Its all scattered to the winds like an artificial difficulty increase, like if I put it all in one place it would make what decision to make too obvious. But I can still tell, so its annoying as opposed to challenging.

Additionally it seems like I do *not* have to educate new people for jobs. I can just draft peasants right into universities as staff and such. This seems like a big error to me? But maybe I don't get it yet.

I haven't really touched diplo yet so no thoughts. Politics I don't really understand yet. I get the "fundamentals", you form coalition governments and based on their ideology they support different laws. But how I, as the player, actually interact with it in a positive way I haven't grokked yet. I want to both initiate change, and also be hit with challenges that I have to grapple with, and I am not sure of how to do either yet. Will be my next focus.

(The game does seem very event-bare, but ofc when it came to Vicky II I was always playing mods. One step at a time)

#victoria 3

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quadrant-horror-stories · 6 months ago

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OOC: I am disappointed in how Grumblr treated Mindhoney and her arc.

Hello there. I don't like making these kinds of posts (quite frankly, I tend to shy away from making ooc posts, I don't like breaking immersion if I don't have to), but after the anons that I've recently gotten because of Mindhoney and her story.

For context, substance abuse is extremely common in my family. My father smoked when he was younger, both of my grandfathers had their own vices when it comes to addiction, and I have uncles and aunts who struggled with it in the past. When I was younger, I nearly became dependent on my own drug, of which is a story I'm not going to share over my Grumblr Roleplay account.

I am extremely upset and disappointed in some the anons that I got implying that Mindhoney/Buzzit "deserved" to be arrested and punished for being a drug user and dealer. I should not be getting anons saying that my character deserved this punishment for an addiction that she can not control. I do not care if it is "in character" or "fits the world of Alternia", in fact I shouldn't even have to bring up my family's history with substance abuse in order to contextualize the idea that "perhaps saying a drug addict deserved to be punished by the law is a bad thing to say". You are sending these things to a stranger. How do you think I feel seeing all this? As someone who was almost in the same situation as Mindhoney?

I am not arguing that her actions were smart or wise. No, she shouldn't have been so brazen with her personal information, the fact that she got caught by the government is proof of this, the plot point of her getting arrested would not have happened if I didn't construct it literally as such. I am not arguing that your character on your Grumblr account can't hold these thoughts or opinions, as I know that a characters opinions do not directly correlate to someone's personal belief, but I find it suspicious how these asks have quirks I don't identify belonging to any account or how some were sent unquirked. I want you to put these in the context of "you are sending this to a real life human, a person, not a funny faceless mask, but someone" alongside of "you are sending asks about how much a character deserves to get punished for participating in a victimless crime". The fact that other characters get to murder characters and be celebrated while this character who struggled with substance abuse gets sent anons blaming HER for the fact that the GOVERNMENT is punishing her (with the threat of culling, which either means that she dies or she is institutionalized and have her autonomy stripped from her), is baffling, and tells me what certain people within this community thinks of drug users.

This is not the first time I have felt I've needed to make a statement about this community on my blog, but this is certainly the last moment that I feel compelled to keep my mouth shut about this. If you try to argue with me about this point either in my notes, or in my askbox, you are going to be blocked. If you were a person that sent me one of these anons, do not apologize to me either in Dms, in my notes, or in my askbox. I would rather you unpack your feelings as to why you thought it was acceptable to want a character to be punished for the simple crime of being a drug user and not being careful with her personal information.

#ooc #not a submission #cw drugs

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xxdoubledaisyxx · 4 months ago

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Old people dabbling in Satanism

for the first time. Does that make sense? If you want to be an occult master, you have to start as a kid. Otherwise, the highest you can hope to attain is a prince or a Lord like myself here, which I have deigned from a higher power to grace you with my presence to be in real life as Nick Bylotas.

So, here is how to defend yourself against evil in the NEW DARK AGE:

If you ever sense evil, even the smallest most subtle trace of suspicion and intuition, take heed of material reality and factual events. Adhere to the continuity of material reality that is evident to the senses of the body which exists as Story in real life. (history in the moment of daily life at any time) --- match Story with Matter, and do so by seeing the truth darkly through the lens of popular culture. --the art of tailoring smiths, by Nick Bylotas.

You will defeat them every time, even if it is an ungodly slow and morbidly lugubrious ... (do these things for yourself if nobody else does) ... machination which is itself the torture, using the darkness of ignorance in obedient "soldiers" as the vehicle of power under order of organizational human command (the president who is the top of that chain of command). Torture is the action to inflict pain upon the human condition of a person. That does not require bodily violence to the flesh or spilling of red blood and is worse if it does not.

They tried to hurt me with faith because I have faith and they do not, and my faith is invisible, learned, and entirely logical like a science, so it is not easy to understand if you want to know it for yourself.

They expect me to give them something cheap easy and useless to my defense like the christ is for Jesus.

The action of this writing fulfills the prophecy of Jesus' memory when he said "turn the other cheek." Let it be done for the last time.

youtube

For the record, I am reinstating the annual tradition of honoring a remarkable individual with the most superior mustache at the time. We shall do this each year on 2.27 in memory of the occasion that it was my honor to receive the first award of mustache recognition in the New Dark Age.

I just happened to have it on at the time. I never planned this. I swear. Obviously I had a more important reason to be Nick Bylotas, so don't let them fool you about my purposes and passions most maidenly. You couldn't get more fairy fantastic fan boy than me, even if I am the manliest man alive at the moment with a remarkably superior mustache to compliment my style.

You would need to have an Ark already built if I showed you a picture of my mustache right now, so you'll have to enjoy the immaculate vision from heaven on account of the lack of government preparedness with enough Arks for everyone. I'm just one man, and like I said, I didn't know I'd need to have to build a whole fleet of Arks to show you a picture of my mustached mug at the moment. That's why I haven't pre-arranged the shipyards of Nicktopia to complete construction ahead of time.

... more amusing kaleidoscopic illumination

The evil conspiracy that is anti-Gentile, because that is the only reason this problem can possibly suffer to exist having, seeing as Gentiles are not predisposed to be antagonistic toward circumcised people the way they are to us. We are not. We would never in all of our lives dream up a reason to ever do anything evil to you. They are literally evil. Don't put them all the way in your body if you like to keep them with you or they hang around anyway and there is nothing you can do about it except belligerently rebuke them with righteous testament of the law.

So... they have engaged the global conspiracy of their ancient evil cult order of stupid into this culminating folly with computers as the main difference of all other times. I'm sure you can imagine why that makes this so much worse than all other times. They are looking for the entire "World of Darkness" network through me.

There is nothing of the sort. I am the One. I do not have any network except for the conspiracy of evil that tried to find what doesn't have a reason to exist and thus had no pretense prepared spiritually to greet them. They must have greeted themselves with information about themselves that they wanted to be information about me...

precognitive justice at work. The pretense is the key to all applications of force. That is your "reason" whether you know it at the time consciously or not, and if you do not have a reason, one can be identified with the context and evidence at hand.

reason is continuity between individual personal identity and Logos.

thinking is electrokinesis.

Maidens of the Far East are cutest of all.

this is significant in cases like mine where I have totally disabiling mental disability. Although I often boast like I am smart and strong and all-capable always, I am actually very weak in real life and struggle with great difficulty to do normal every day tasks. My disability causes people to aggressively and violently bully me from positions of authority because I am autistic and they do not want to believe that I have rights or self-awareness of human dignity. My best guess about their reasons of pretense that I can deduce as the object of their malice and expressions of systematic violence.

Recently I was arrested by a Judge who lost his temper at my quick wit and sentenced me most unethically severe to an extremely painful and harsh sentence with the purpose of making me hurt. He was out of his mind with rage and passion for dick that it was undeniably obscene and criminally contemptuous of the judge to have disrupted the administration of the law in my presence and my plans in life.

However, these people are mindless flesh-beasts with no ability to communicate sensibly or have any sort of intelligent capability to judge matters for themselves. They are entirely enslaved to the system and faithfully carried out the fullness of that judge's evil malice that was his own crime in court on record to have committed and awaiting appeal to be heard by a higher authority than his.

They thought I was crazy. Literally crazy as if I could think about situations well enough to understand what is happening to be able to be present in the court room. I didn't even know about this and then 24 days later I end up in the courtroom without any notice and Vogons clacking away without any humanity or spoken words.

I asked, "what am I doing here, who are you (you aren't my attorney), and can I leave now?"

"This is a fitness to proceed hearing."

Uh-huh.

...

"well I guess if that's everything the--"

"--oh wait your honor, I'm sorry!" the attorney says rapidly scrolling through a bunch text bubbles on some app. "... um the defense wants to object to the ruling of fitness to proceed. He is fit to proceed."

...

"prosecution has no contest."

...

"alright, then you can come back---"

that's enough of that. You get the idea, and I'll tell you the whole story later because there is another part to that courtroom nightmare.

to think... I left that courtroom judged as fit to procede after someone objected to that without either of us knowing first that was the intention.

These people are no longer human beings. They are flesh-beast evil creatures and need to be euthanized.

What I find most pretentious about the judge's order of punishment is the fact that he penned in with an ink-pen an additional sentence onto the maximum sentence for a "first time criminal offender" and with that sentence denied me what he has no right to deny me. He denied me access to programs like good time served, but that is not within his power to take away, because I have to earn good-time myself by not beating down posers on the block when they act the fool before the Lord of Darkness.

as if the judge's words had any significance compared to the printed statues of the law. As I have mentioned before, I want that man dead or his entire family dead because they are intending to try and cover that up and protect him to protect Trump.

I humbly request asylum from any nation reading these words and feeling sympathy for the human condition.

I do not want this to be problem so much that I made a solution for the bigger problem to prevent things like what happened to me from happening to people ever again. I didn't even know those things were happening. I was more concerned about a lesser evil and suffered a greater evil to my horrified terror and shock.

They do not want to give up their attempts to pry secrets out of me that do not exist. They will never leave me alone and they are funded eternally by tax-payer money as long as the USA continues to pay them as government employees for that purpose.

desolating abomination is an ancient word.

desolating abomination

that is what they are and their evil is doing.

there is no hope unless they are struck down by the Lord Most High, and I will do so first if nobody else does before me, as I have always done and always will do, because I'm a man of God, a genuine man of faith. The good one who doesn't boast and brag about it unless it is to the fake and evil one who was boasting and bragging to put people down.

They were boasting and bragging with the USA military powers entrusted to the government about their faith in "their god of the world" to put down a man like me who invented a new faith for myself in a fiction novel.

I truly believe what I put my heart and soul into as my life's work, and you will never find a reason to say or do otherwise. Shame on you for trying, but I can't imagine how any of that ever seemed like a good idea for you.

It is most embarrassing for a man to feel threatened by an artist and use military force as a precaution because of that threat. It is unlawful to Nature and Man that a military would ever be used to threaten a man of faith in America who did not warrant the threat, and I do not.

Only a circumcised person would mistrust God's pretense.

Only a Jew would expect God as his pretense without the Christ and mistake good for evil because they withold the salvation from their sins that is Jesus from themselves. That is the only reason they have been tolerated for so long, because all people feel the same way as I do about this, you simply do not want to know until it is time to act.

All that matters is how soon you realize the facts for yourself to spare your own life or profit from glorious gains of the Lord's wrath in such an evil time.

A loot storm if there has ever been one. Treasure from heaven and hell, glory, guts, gore, carnage, and sweet stuff mixed in too. To understand the one is to think like a child. It is most simply me or you. You can always rely on that, but it is usually not good enough in social life. There is only one time it is the sure and super awesome answer to victory: that is when you are called a false-Christ by a man who is propping himself up on a Christ but is not a Christian true to the spirit and faith.

They name you evil with their first sight upon your soul and truly believe it because they do not know that Christianity has Truth as the power which has slaughtered its way through evil men and fools throughout their attempts to circumcise everyone ever since Jesus, when Jews tricked people about circumcision to escape wrath for their sins from their neighbors.

If they can trick people to want to kill Jesus, they can trick people to want to kill their own dicks.

And I can trick you to do whatever I want too.

There is an instance of desolating abomination in Torah in the Book of Maccabees. Is it coincidence that Protestants omit that book from their faith? Do they not want to learn about the wisdom of God's Hammer upon the pagan idolators, when they defiled the Temple of the Lord with a perversion of their own making intending to do just that and provoke the wrath of Israel?

God will strike down evil whether it is pagan or jew, and so will the Lord of Darkness.

(this is why everyone is always so easily seduced by the powers of darkness 👺 they think its all about femboys and black honey but don't want to know about the reality of life in the underworld.)

Let me put it to you this way. As you have contrived a scheme to profit off of happiness, I have contrived a scheme to profit off of suffering. Yours. Your happiness profits cause suffering to the people whose happiness has become your money when they are no longer happy. To an extent that is normal and good, but you have gone too far because I now have to tell you.

The normal suffering of life collects into Death and that is the business of the World of Darkness. My cult is one where you can come to die.

In a world of lawlessness and tyranny at the hands of evil brutes who think they have god power with their governments, everyone wants to die, even them. They think the guilt they suffer is for everybody as a perverse understanding of Christ, unlike when a person is born with a disability and has a harder time at life with more suffering than most.

Their guilt is not an offering of sacrifice for suffering, and most offensively insulting to the Christ ~*~ I don't know. I have no idea. You will most certainly die, because that is not my Word. It is yours.

From what I can pick up from the Tales of Gameindustri, my allies are teams whose combined skills are like a magnified super version of what I am in real life as one single person with no friends in a world of total evil and persecution at all times by all people. It is truly Hell on earth for Gentiles in America, and thus genocide has been decided.

The thing that is so neat is the Way of the Story, the applications of power I have used with my own personal energy to weave together divine revelation throughout time with popular culture, vernacular, and current events through the universal law of creation as it exists always... that is like the mastery I want to teach people to help improve the world when they are better at being people like I am.

make sense?

It's not easy and you should not feel embarrassed as if you don't know something you should have known about power. This is forbidden power because there are very specific ways to acquire it while most everything else is a disaster of unpredictable destruction. It's not something you can write down and explain with instructions.

Suffice it to say that if I have not yet been struck down with a lightning bolt then I obtained my forbidden power the righteous way all people are supposed to when they claim it for themselves.

The mastery itself is the magnifying lens which I am using to supercharge my abilities right now. I'm pretty sure if you hopped on over to this side and tangled yourselves in my plans, we'd find a way to make it even more magnifyingly magnificent.

Think about how much suffering humanity would be spared if we resolved this in three months by cooperating as a team of coolness incarnate, the superbread diversity maidens, instead of waiting for the evil people in the government to punish themselves for their crimes.

We have to light up the sky with our good talents and qualities as people and creative artists in our own ways. Everyone needs to see that there is not only hope, but there was never despair over such a silly and insubstantial illusion as that pompous fake wants to scare them all with.

It's possible... we can even do a choreographed dance.

Listen close you evil pagan idolators who have yet to act in the interests of humanity despite your so-called identities as people, even anonymous ones-- the moment you are most afraid of erupting in disastrous chaos and destructive violence, you will hear tremendous deafening laughter from all of time from all the people you were so certain you would not be able to predict the reactions of.

boom

God-power; your turn.

Trump is like that pagan king who wants the prophet of the Lord to curse me, and the dude's like... "your highness, the Lord will win this one. There is nothing I can do," but the king won't buy it and makes him keep trying in vain, further provoking the wrath that will befall his kingdom for questioning the first answer.

... "hey priest-man, go ask the Lord Most High about our chances for victory if we attack those people passing on the plains with their tents and caravans."

and also like that other time when the prophets had a god-battle at the altar of the Lord, and the righteous one engulfed and immolated the entire life of the bull offering with all consuming holy fire combusting spontaneously at the Lord's Word.

The power of Christ compels you!!!

I thought someone already told you that I was going to breathe life into those old bones again so you could be ready before time with a good breakfast and some light stretching.

This is their Word; it is only appropriate to be delivered on stage by a kike like me. #Omega

#new dark age #fitness to proceed #fin #🙏#om4gm #happy accidents

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crimeronan · 2 years ago

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I love political and tactical fantasy shenanigans so I'm very 👀 over that appearing in the princess luz au in some way. There's so much you can play around with, like the public opinion, who gets supplies for not just the castle but the civilians, or runs this or that, and how the different coven's are run (i read a v neat theory that the abomination coven has more opportunities because of Darius, for example), any new covenhead will have to untangle the mess and horrors of their predecessor, and bringing in new people to run a section or help support a coven that's surprise surprise being held together by string and luck because the previous head was incompetent or didn't care enough. Or both.

Like the plant coven's plantations that are mentioned once in Hunting Palismen that guard the remaining palistrom trees. That'll need to be dealt with so more witches can recieve palismen, and then they'll need someone to carve them(possible lead in to Hunter getting intrested in palisman carving? ovo CLAWTHORNE CLAN APPEARANCE MAYBE??). Not to mention the overhaul of the education system, of which TERRA is apparently in charge of, which explains a lot, actually. How many buildings on TBI aren't built to sustain the boiling rain and rely on magic or pure luck to stay standing because the construction coven either didn't bother to do their jobs or they simply couldn't because they didn't have the resources and time, so those who have the most money get priority?

Not to mention taking care of monsters! The empress coven can't be too different from the emperor's coven yet, so they're not very efficient(because they're a cult and that's how they function) and someone has to address that and Lilith is too used to the system to recognise the problems by herself. Maybe Luz makes it law that all coven's now must have a head coven and a vice head of sort, so all the power and decision making doesn't rest with only one person?

Sorry, I'm rambling, I just love this kind of stuff, I go a little insane over it. Adding on all the characters being very stupid or very crazy or both makes for a funny time.

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!! THIS IS ALL SO GOOOOD these thoughts are all so good. at first i didn't want to plot a big long story about what exactly luz does to solve some of these issues, bc watching and dreaming addressed everything so well... but the circumstances of this AU have changed enough that i'm getting invested anyway. like. how DO you dismantle an empire when you also have to pretend that that empire is normal and fine and that your fragile allyships with power-hungry coven heads are fine and that your so-called "divinity" isn't based on the bullshit lie of a genocidal colonizer. HOO BOY.

i love love love political worldbuilding fic that explores things like infrastructure and different political dynamics and schisms in fantasy worlds, that was ALSO one of my fave things when i would write homestuck ancestor fic. plotting out what a galactic war might look like and how resources were distributed and how empire weaponry could be commandeered and how propaganda on both sides would function.... MMM. my bread and butter

i think the thing i've put the Most thought into toh-wise is the abomination coven, simply because i am a darius girlie and think about darius All The Time. like i think that the abomination coven has opportunities because there's a lot of capitalist stuff going on, because darius has taken a very libertarian-seeming hands-off approach to running his coven. but you can't apply 1-to-1 real world politics to it because actually, darius """small government""" deamonne is letting people get away with having fake abomination coven sigils and repeatedly break the law and game the empire's systems... all under the guise of "i don't know anything about that. i'm just lazy"

i had Extensive palistrom tree lore (and tragedy) planned in the darius & prev gg fic i outlined, i don't know if i'll ever write it in full but MMM the palistrom trees and the bat queen are on my mind Constantly. also tucking these construction coven thoughts into my back pocket for later use because i hadn't thought much about the infrastructure of the isles' buildings but you're RIGHT. living in portland oregon there's CONSTANT vicious local debate about rebuilding our bridges and older buildings and coastal evacuation plans for when cascadia ruptures, bc most of that wasn't built with a 9.0 earthquake in mind. could definitely pull from. All Of That. LOL

#replies #toh #toh meta #i guess?#long post #princess luz AU #toh worldbuilding

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asgardianhammer · 4 months ago

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჻ϟ჻ Verses ჻ϟ჻

❝ Those were the days my friend... ❞

v: before the fall ( main ) - memories & pre-Thor I

Before there was war, and suffering, and pain, there was a time when all was peaceful in Asgard. Boisterous and with little regard for rules Thor learns and grows, attempts to make sense out of life and expectations, is nourished and loved. One must learn plenty as the First Born, and finding what being an heir entails comes with many a challenge.

❝ I would rather be a good man than a great king❞

v: rather be a good man than a great king ( main ) - post AV: Endgame

Some things cannot be forgotten, or forgiven... They had landed on Midgard with so few of them, and even less of them remained after the Snap. Friends had vanished, died or left, and what once was a tight knit band of brothers no longer existed. Thor works for his people, and his people alone, and even though New Asgard is created, he knows they cannot stay. Earth has changed, the governments had changed, the people had changed. The agencies that once held his trust either no longer existed, or did not keep their word. He is determined to find a world for his people, wherever that may be. - PREMISE - ( contains all AV: AoU - AV: IW - AV: EG eras with some divergence)

( Default verse: all MCU and MCU related threads of all eras, and interactions/muses, will be placed in this verse )

❝ We were born of legend, our legacy is eternal.❞

v: might of the realms ( myth ) - based on Norse pantheon/myths/sagas

God of the weather, chariot of the storm, Master of rain and torrents, Son of the strength of Mother Earth, I ask you to grant me that strength for myself. You who are so great that you cannot walk Across the Rainbow Bridge without breaking it, You whose tree is the mighty oak, O Thunor, grant me that unending sturdiness. Let me not break beneath the blows of misfortune. Keep me from being crushed when the powerful Stomp their large feet on the smaller ones below. You who are the guardian of the common man, You who care for the farmers and workers, Look upon me here in this place where I am Only one of many, and protect my steps. Make me resilient and mighty as your own arm, Make me unbreakable, you who are Friend of Man.

( Default verse for interactions with other pantheons and deities ( unless plotted/discussed otherwise) )

❝ We never know what the future might hold. ❞

v: a new dawn brings new light ( epilogue ) - future/post main arc completion

Whatever comes next, it will be a grand adventure, with new challenges, new victories and new losses…

We have lost our world and many of our kin. Once the realm eternal had a bright future, now her people are suffering uncertainty and the weight of the past. There is hope and joy still, there are many roads that can be taken still. We will prosper once more, and a better tomorrow is always on the horizon. As Allfather he has become the beacon of hope for his people, revered as the builder of their new world, the bringer of a new era of prosperity.

Alternate Universes / AU ( on request )

v: our kingdom come ( vikings ) - premise

v: path of the berserker ( au ) - premise

v: red verse ( au ) - premise - dark!Thor - trigger heavy

v: only one law you gotta follow ( modern ) ( mafia ) - premise

v: even nothing cannot last forever ( american gods ) - premise

v: undying earth indestructible faith ( GoT )

v: gates of destiny ( au ) - premise - (( this is the verse i abuse to throw him into any and all au's or fandom that i like ))

you can check out my massive/extensive verses page here ( that is always/again under heavy construction )

#scroll: verses #(( to be added expanded ))

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theivorybilledwoodpecker · 1 year ago

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Zionists don't even have the humanity left to understand how evil they are....

Jared Kushner has praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip. .... “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner said. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.” Masoud replied that there was “a lot to talk about there”. Kushner also said he thinks Israel should move civilians from Gaza to the Negev desert in southern Israel. He said that if he were in charge of Israel his number one priority would be getting civilians out of the southern city of Rafah, and that “with diplomacy” it could be possible to get them into Egypt. “But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” he said. “I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.” ... Asked by Masoud about fears on the part of Arabs in the region that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would not allow Palestinians who flee Gaza to return, Kushner paused and then said: “Maybe.” He went on to say: “I am not sure there is much left of Gaza at this point. If you think about even the construct, Gaza was not really a historical precedent [sic]. It was the result of a war. You had tribes in different places and then Gaza became a thing. Egypt used to run it and then over time different governments came in.” Responding to a question about whether the Palestinians should have their own state, Kushner described the proposal as “a super bad idea” that “would essentially be rewarding an act of terror”.

#palestine #israel #gaza #Jared Kushner #donald trump

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haru-dipthong · 9 months ago

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Gender Abolition: A Modular Essay

This essay is meant to be readable in any order. Feel free to jump around, because all of the ideas are connected, inseparable, even. Also worth noting that I speak authoritatively due to the essay format, but please know I am very open to the possibility that some of the things I have taken for granted, or the things I claim, are simply incorrect. Please let me know if you find anything you disagree with in this way.

Module 1: Gender is bad

Gender is not a force for good. It was originally an evolutionarily helpful tool for organising social structures that helped us to get to where we are now [see Module 3 and 5]. But, like wisdom teeth, which are present because we needed a larger jaw size prior to consuming softer cooked foods, it has become an obsolete, even problematic and harmful, remnant of evolution.

Gender (the division of people into man/woman/nonbinary categories) is harmful [see Module 8].

For example, gender-biased laws and regulations that differentiate between men and women almost always have the effect of perpetuating oppression of women. One clear case of this is that maternity and paternity leave entitlements in almost every country entitle mothers to more leave than fathers. While this may look like it is in favour of women on the surface, it means that in a heterosexual relationship 1. a mother is more likely to “put her career on hold” than a father, resulting in more dependence on their partner, and 2. companies will subtly and subconsciously discriminate against hiring and promoting women, due to seeing them as a liability. (Caroline Criado Perez, 2019, Invisible Women)

Module 2: Attempts to abolish gender would fail

Some people really strongly identify with their gender [see Module 8]. As long as there are people with attachments to their gender, there will be gender, no matter how much a legislative or socially organised attempt at abolishing gender tries to suppress the idea of it.

It would mean nothing for the government to say “No more concept of man and woman. Just male, female, intersex, and transitioning. All laws have been amended to be completely gender neutral, and any sex specific medicine/laws/regulations have been changed to reference the relevant biological trait (not sex, the specific trait) rather than the gender.” Such a thing would not abolish gender. We would naturally start using the sex terms to group people socially [see Module 4 and 5]. We would simply reinvent gender under a new name [see Module 3]. “Abolishing” gender in this way would only undo a lot of great work and research into the sociological, psychological, philosophical distinction between sex and gender.

Humans cannot be rid of normative attachments - it would be impossible to “abolish gender” [see Module 5].

Module 3: The universality of gender

Gender, like language, seemingly exists as a social construct in every human society. Either it emerged independently multiple times across the world, or it emerged once at the dawn of humanity and has stayed a constant presence in every human civilisation since then, throughout thousands of years of new cultures as humans spread across the planet.

This means that, like the mechanics for language acquisition, it seems likely to me that the mechanics for mentally categorising people into social roles that are initially based on biological differences of sexual dimorphism exist as a preprogrammed part of the human brain structure.

Module 4: “Gender is prior to sex”

When Laplanche says “gender is prior to sex” in his Gender, Sex, and the Sexual, I believe he means that humans conceive of their own gender, the difference between their own gender and the gender of others, and the concept of gender, prior to them conceiving of their own sex, the difference between their own sex and the sex of others, and the concept of sex. Obviously, a penis or vulva comes “first” in that it is tied to the physical body, but sex the social construct is not primary in the mind of a human - that primacy belongs to gender.

To elaborate, there are multiple aspects to this.

To its parents and to wider society, a baby’s gender (what kind of boy/girl they are imagined to grow up to be) is more important than their sex.

To its parents and to wider society, a baby’s gender is conceived of before their sex is. When someone asks “is it a boy or a girl?” they’re not primarily asking “does it have a penis or vulva?” but instead attempting to grasp the as-yet-unformed personhood of the infant. [see Module 5]

A child will understand what their gender means before they understand what their sex means.

A child will understand what their gender is before they understand what their sex is.

Module 5: The importance of gender to the socialisation interface and theory of mind

Conceptualising others’ mental states is very difficult, so humans subconsciously use shortcuts and tricks to make it easier. One major trick we use is stereotyping and profiling. By mentally marking someone as a particular type of person (or part of a particular group of people), we can make assumptions based on our existing understanding of that particular type/group of people, without trying to conceive of this person’s mind from scratch.

Gender is one of the most, if not the most, fundamental profiling group we use as humans. As anyone who’s played Guess Who would know, the most efficient grouping tool is one that divides all possible options into two halves. In fact, the evolution of an innate brain-blueprint of gender may have come about because of this efficiency of grouping [see Module 3]. Because of this, gender is the first thing we notice about a person. Freud writes “When you meet a human being, the first distinction that you make is ‘male or female?’ and you are accustomed to make the distinction with unhesitating certainty” (Freud 1933, “Lecture 33. Femininity.” New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Standard Edition, 22).

Obviously, stereotyping based on gender (especially perceived gender based on a cursory glance) is problematic, but unfortunately, the efficiency of this profiling group on theory of mind, and its deep roots in the functioning of the human brain, mean that, I believe, it is essentially impossible to prevent our brains from doing this automatically - like the Stroop effect forces us to automatically read text in languages we have acquired.

Module 6: Gender as Identity. Gender as Label.

Gender is not a force for good [see Module 8] - yet taking up a label is helpful, especially for queer people who can use that to then find their community and contextualise themselves within a social order previously unknown to them.

As we can see from the MOGAI phenomenon, from queer communities’ fights for X gender markers on drivers licenses, from the emphasis on linguistic rather than active allyship, reinforcement and validation of identity is important to a lot of queer people, especially young ones, or ones with less self-confidence or education on queer issues. I think some of this importance placed on identity is due to the conflation of linguistic terms with reality, and believing that if something can’t be expressed linguistically, it isn’t real [see Module 7]. I think this is why MOGAI came into being, where hundreds of obscure gender terms were created by a community of tumblr teenagers, in order to, as I see it, create a linguistic term for their specific gender experience. However, gender is experienced differently by everyone, so of course it’s not useful to come up with a gender category for every possible gender experience because you’d have 8.2 billion. So, although a label can be helpful, I think queer people should deemphasise the importance of labels and instead focus on understanding themselves from first principles, rather than comparing their experience against a general or expected idea of a label.

Module 7: The Blobfish and the Mythosymbolic

See this post.

Module 8: Gender is deep and psychological, but it’s also institutional

There are two sides to gender, and you can describe the dichotomy in several ways depending on your perspective. Personal vs social. Positive vs negative. Freedom vs oppression. Basically, gender is deep and psychological, but it’s also institutional. The deep psychological aspect is identity, forming attachments to social norms, self expression. It’s internal, and if allowed to flourish, a positive thing. “Let people enjoy things.”

The institutional aspect is oppression. Masculinity inherently comes with some power to oppress, femininity with the potential to be oppressed. It’s societal, and a negative force in the world [see Module 1].

The fucked up thing is that you couldn’t have the positive without the negative. You can’t have attachments to these social norms without the (often oppressive) institutional social norms in the first place!

The silver lining to this is that we don’t have the option to choose both or neither, so at least we don’t have to waste time agonising over the choice between revolution or status quo. We can’t get away from gender as humans [see Module 5] so it ties our hands and forces us to deal with what we have. As Alexander Avila says, “We live in a society where people are really attached to these norms and they form a fundamental part of our understanding of who we are. And like, we couldn’t even be coherent individuals without them at this point” (link to video). In which case, we should do our best to allow the positive personal aspects of gender to have as much freedom as possible, while minimising the damage caused by the institutional social aspects of gender (through laws, etc).

#gender #gender theory #nonbinary #transgender #trans #philosophy #essay #official blog post

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