#women in STEM I reckon

[mossymandibles]

Sylvaine Asheweaver lives under a stolen name in a commandeered mansion that was built for a scholarly being much larger than her.

Most people of Marrowtide tend to make up a lot of outlandish rumors about her, too afraid to actually go to Tattered Wing island (it may be the griffins as well).

She’s got that kind of uuhhhh Vincent Price-house-on-haunted-hill type vibe goin on.

[appalachy]

Tbh welding joints and welding practices in general are really interesting topics worth putting your time in 🤩 if you care abt that shit

[smytherines]

Not to get too serious about something that was super fun and we all enjoyed immensely, but I keep thinking about the Mega Bastards headcanon video because the thing is...

in A1P1 Agent Mega is already shown to be drinking alcohol at inappropriate times (i.e. trying to escape a Russian weapons facility with his boyfriend). We tend to focus on Curt's drinking post-banana because of course we do. It's a traumatic event (even if it's his fault, ugh agent Mega) and definitely accelerates his drinking to the degree that he can't do his job for four years.

BUT he clearly already has a drinking problem at the beginning of the show. Owen reacts to him drinking out of the flask like this is a thing Curt regularly does, a thing Owen is at least somewhat concerned about. Curt even (very defensively) teases Owen into taking a swig himself.

So thinking about what Actor Curt Mega believes about Agent Curt Mega, that he regularly used to have to seduce women despite having no interest in women, it just makes the Mega bastards lore (as much fun as I've had with that) incredibly fucking sad. Like most things with SAF, first it's a farce, then it's a tragedy.

Curt Mega even uses the term "masking" (which definitely shot me in the heart as an AuDHD person), and while I personally headcanon Agent Mega as ADHD, there are still plenty of things that ADHDers have to conceal about themselves. A gay neurodivergent man in the 1950s-1960s would have to conceal so much about themselves that it absolutely could lead to substance use as a way to deal with it. Substance use is a pretty serious problem for ADHD & autistic (and queer!!) people precisely because we live in a society that is not built for us, that is often actively hostile to us, and we have to find ways to survive that.

Maybe this is too personal but I'm a chronic oversharer- my dad had alcohol use disorder. It destroyed his life. He passed away several years ago, and one of the hardest parts of my getting diagnosed with ADHD & autism as an adult was having to really reckon with the fact that he wasn't drinking because he was a bad person or because he didn't love me- he was drinking because he was born in the 50s and things like ADHD & autism weren't as well-understood, and as someone who was certainly autistic and possibly ADHD (there's a heavy genetic component there) he had to hide so much of himself. All the time. He was masking 24 hours a day. And I think he coped with that incredible pressure and physical and emotional distress by drinking. That drinking often made him defensive and petty and irresponsible.

Anyways, the more I think about the Mega bastards lore, the more heartbreaking it becomes. Agent Curt Mega's job requires him to have sex he doesn't want to have with people he is not attracted to. His life, safety, reputation, freedom all depend on nobody knowing he is in love with a man.

Actor Curt Mega kinda nailed it when he used the term "masking." There is really no part of Agent Mega's life where he is allowed to be himself, except for **maybe** when he and Owen are alone together, so when Owen "dies" and Agent Mega loses that one tiny place where he gets to be his authentic self, his drinking just goes over the edge.

As an Owen Carvour apologist I sometimes feel like the narrative doesn't really punish Agent Mega for being kind of an asshole in A1P1, but I'm sort of reframing it after the headcanon video, because it does make me wonder how much of that asshole behavior stems from his persistent alcohol use, his defensiveness when people point out issues arising from his alcohol use (Owen, Cynthia criticising his job performance), and the general macho tough guy affect Agent Mega has adopted to just survive living as a neurodivergent gay man in the 1950s.

I know it was just a fun unofficial kickstarter goal (and I got to make like six tinlightenment promo posts out of it so thank you for the promo content, sir), but it has legitimately kinda forced me to extend empathy to Agent Mega in a way that I didn't really do before.

Goddamn, this show has l a y e r s

[ruiconteur]

li lianhua's final letter to di feisheng

i hear the official eng subs weren't great so here's my own attempt at a translation (under a read more bc fuck it's Long)

edit: translated qiao wanmian’s letter to li xiangyi as well, which mirrors this one!

十年前

Ten years ago,

东海一决

during the duel of the eastern sea,

李某蒙兵器之利

this unworthy Li made benefit of whetted blade

借沉船之机与君一战犹不能胜

and capsizing boat whilst battling thee but was yet unvictorious.

君武勇之处

Thy martial prowess and valiance

世所罕见

are unexampled in this world.

心悦诚服

Mine heart delights in it, and by mine own will yields to thine eminence.

今事隔多年

The affairs of today are by many years separated.

沉疴难起

By pains alone would a lingering malady be cured.

剑断人亡

The sword hath broken—the man hath perished,

再不能赴东海之约

and can no more honour the accord to duel by the eastern sea.

谓为憾事

Such is the cause for most sincere regret.

余感念君所赠之忘川

I recall in deepest gratitude the flower of oblivion bequeathed by thee,

然终有负君之所望

yet did forsake all thou hadst longed for in the end.

江山多年

The rivers and mountains of this land have many years endured,

变化万千

their changes reckoned in the tens of thousands.

去去重去去

Partings upon partings, farewells upon farewells;

来时是来时

the coming times shall be the coming times.

方多病习我之功法

Fang Duobing hath been studied in my skills,

资质上佳

and his own endowments of the utmost excellence.

不暇多日

Shouldst he not keep idle days,

定不在明月沉西海之下

he shall surely be not beneath the bright moon sinking into the western sea.

君今无意逐鹿

Thou hast not now any desire to pursue the throne,

但求巅峰

but instead to seek the height of skill.

李某已去

This unworthy Li hath since gone;

若君意不平

if thy desire be not appeased,

足堪请其代之

he shall suit, shouldst thou bid him succeed me.

李相夷绝笔

Thus end the last words of Li Xiangyi.

footnotes

i've translated this letter into (my best attempt at) early modern english to try and reflect the formality li lianhua is writing in. also because he uses 君 for di feisheng throughout, which is a literary second-person pronoun, and i wanted to emphasise that. i know thou is actually the informal pronoun, but given how archaic it sounds in comparison to you, the actual formal pronoun in early modern english, i thought it a better fit. (for all the feihuas out there: 君 was also used by women to address their husbands, so actually i thought the informality might work in my favour here LOL)

if you saw this post before, you might have noticed that my translation of the third and fourth lines changed slightly lmao. ty to @/presumenothing for the reminder and ofc my fav @/bat1lau4can4 for talking through it with me and being the 文言文 expert i need <3

for the purposes of my goal in the above footnote, i've had to take some creative liberties in my choice of vocabulary. for example: unexampled is not quite an accurate translation of 罕见, which actually means rarely seen.

i phrased 心悦诚服 as mine heart ... yields but that's a somewhat liberal interpretation of the phrase lol. there is a heart in it; it's just maybe not the thing that's yielding, to be precise. close enough imo though!

江山 literally translates to rivers and mountains but is often used as a metaphor for a country as a whole, hence my translating it as the rivers and mountains of this land.

grammar is not as important as Vibes.

逐鹿, which i've translated as pursue the throne, literally means to chase the deer, and stems from the 《史记》 / records of the grand historian.

绝笔, rendered here as last words, specifically refer to the last words written by one before their death.

[tizzypizza]

Top 7 idol list?

I was saving this so I could draw it at some point but oh my god I am SWAMPED and can't see myself with time to do it so top list umm.

1- Shiver. I think this is self-explanatory. I love Asian women so much (I'm Asian before anyone starts raising any eyebrows) and her personality is so funny. She's incredibly theatrical and dramatic and has this big persona that she puts on that falls apart SO quickly when it comes to her friends but otherwise she is fierce!! A force to be reckoned with!! But also a sopping wet little guy.

2- Marina. I love women in STEM I LOVE women in STEM so much. My two immediate draws are like... Traditional-looking Asian woman and Smart Woman so. Marina is such a fascinating character and it's always a shame to see her so heavily uwu-ified, she's super smart and she has a lot going on besides just her attachment to Pearl!! But TBH her attachment to Pearl is part of what endeared her to me. Girl who has experienced The Horrors and is kind of a living supercomputer becomes sappy mush when Girlfriend Flashbang. She was also the one who lowkey got me into Splatoon simply by being the prettiest Nintendo character I'd ever seen as a kid.

3- Pearl. I hesitate to put Pearl above Frye because really they're super tight in my head but the only thing that knocks her up a peg is that her dialogue is a lot more fun for me to write in English (Frye talks really interestingly too! She genuinely speaks like an old man in the Japanese but that's just not reflected in the English). I love her so much because at so many moments where she could choose to be snarky or witty with Marina or anyone else, she always chooses kindness and she's always so supportive in her own spunky little way. She's so genuine and fun and silly and self assured and confident and she's so COOL. I hate drawing her hair though. I actually used to kinda hate Pearl as a kid because I fell for the forehead propaganda but I know better now.

4- Frye. LIKE I SAID in my head Frye and Pearl are tied. I love Frye she's such a sweetheart and she has such a fun fierceness about her. She cares deeply for her friends and she keeps her cool the best out of all of her friends in Deep Cut and she DANCES!! Her character design is one of the most interesting designs I've had the pleasure of drawing a shit ton of times and despite being team Shiver nearly every time I get really sad whenever she doesn't win Splatfests :( She deserves it (and tbh I think she deserved to be the leader of Deep Cut but don't @ me on that)

5- Marie. I wish I had more opinions on Marie but given that my earliest hands-on exposure to Splatoon was Sp2 when my friend used to let me walk around as her Octoling and play a little bit of Salmon Run (lost outpost my beloved wherefore art thou) and I've never played Sp1 or 2's campaign I can't really say anything about her other than I think she's really pretty. I think she's often characterized as the more flippant and low-energy one which is a cool thing to see in an idol (who are typically meant to be all smiles) but she's also really silly! She cracks a lot of jokes in the Sp3 campaign!! She's also just really cool and really pretty and white is one of my favorite colors

6- Big Man. LISTEN!!!! I LOVE HIM I REALLY DO BUT Frye-Pearl are soooo close together in my head and I feel only a little less strongly about him than Pearl but I really really love him. He's a blast to draw and honestly he's a lot more fun in the Japanese since Frye and Shiver have extremely thick accents and he's the only one who talks like Just Some Guy. He helps reign them in but he can rarely control them. He's such a lovable little dude.

7- Callie. Love the girl but I've never once resonated with her. I don't do well in the way of happy-go-lucky fun types but I don't hate her! I think she's got a lot of room to be interesting. My friend characterizes her with some flaws relating to like. Octarian prejudice which I think is pretty dope. And I'm not a huge pink fan... But I WILL say she is one of the most fun to draw.

[bookofmirth]

I was wondering if you would be willing to take on an analysis of Cassian and Nesta’s relationship. I’m a sucker for romance and when I first read acosf I was so excited and happy for all the nessian although there were parts I felt so angry with Cassian because I felt were extremely unnecessary, like making Nesta carry a heavy pack all while not noticing her dehydration, telling her he’s shackled and not getting a decent reconciliation, to name a few. I feel like the story has this imbalance between the two characters because everyone already sees Cassian as this funny, mistreated by society, handsome huge cuddle bear in Feyre’s pov and we see Nesta as this unnecessary asshole in her pov. That, paired with Nesta’s self loathing, is why I can see why some readers are led to believe Nesta is awful to Cassian and might even go as far as agree that she needs to be worthy of him (which is why I have feelings about Mor who is an NC leader and one of her job titles is to help abused women but that’s another topic) then to read it explicitly in Nesta’s pov at the ending of acosf is what made me abandon the ship almost completely. which is a problem because we’ve agreed in previous posts just as Nesta’s pov is subjective by that same logic so is Feyre’s.

I loved reading your thoughts about Nesta and her father since that also didn’t make sense to me. I always figured Nesta’s trauma stemmed from the matriarchal side of her family and it’s helping me come to a certain understanding. I was just hoping maybe your perspective might give nessian a fresh angle I’m missing.

Hello! I will do my best. I assume we probably won't agree 100% but I am very much in the mood to lend some nuance to Nesta's character since the fandom is either intensely anti her or pro her, and both stances distort her character (and tbh some of the takes I've seen COMPLETELY missed the point of her entire character and of acosf, not to mention they are super vitriolic and antagonistic towards other people in the fandom. Calm the fuck down, y'all. No you op, just... the fandom.)

I take nessian as being a very different type of ship than any of sjm's others. Her other ships have tension that usually stops short of cruelty, but nessian are very aggressive as a couple and that energy turns antagonistic sometimes. Their dynamic is what made sjm make them mates, because Nesta is a force to be reckoned with and Cassian is not only strong enough to be with her and give it back, but he doesn't turn away from her either, when so many people in her life have stopped trying (Amren, Elain, Feyre to an extent).

I put the rest of this under the cut because it got very long!

Honestly, it confuses me when people get mad at Cassian for being mean to Nesta because that street goes both ways. They both say horrible things to each other that they know will wound, though Nesta does it first and more often. She calls him a brute and a bastard, when we know that that's one of his major insecurities. And this starts in Wings and Embers!

Her brows flattened. “Leader of the High Lord’s armies, and yet the brute remains. You cannot cow me with words, so you seek to intimidate me through your hulking size.”

Rhys, Az, and Cassian all call each other bastards on occasion but with them it's Bastard (affectionate). When Nesta calls Cassian a bastard/brute, she does it à la Beron and Eris. I honestly can't include all the times that she insults him that way. He lets it go at first, but then we know that, in his POV, this is actually an insult that gets under his skin and something he thinks about himself - much in the same way that Nesta thinks negative things about herself:

They were all staring. Cassian rolled his tensed shoulders, stretching out his wings. He’d revealed too much. Like a stupid brute, he’d let them all see too much, learn too much.

And someone else who uses that against him is Eris:

Cassian clenched his jaw. “So you’re to be my ally whether I wish it or not?” “The brute understands at last.” Cassian ignored the barb.

“It’s the ugliness of his fucking soul that riles me. I don’t care if he calls me a mongrel bastard.” Eris had called him such things today, she realized. Rage rippled through her. “It’s just that, ally or not, I hate him. He’s so slick and unruffled and … I can’t stand him.” He set down his fork and stared toward the window behind her. “Eris and his twisted word games and politics are an enemy I don’t know how to handle. Every time I meet with him, I feel like he’s got the upper hand. Like I can only catch up to him, and he sees through my every fumbling attempt at being clever. Maybe that makes me a stupid brute after all.”

And it's ironic to me that Nesta gets angry at how Eris insulted Cassian in that way, because she has done the exact same thing. So she knows that her blows are landing. In fact, that's why she does it. Nesta has identified a weakness and exploits it in order to push Cassian away, so I'm not surprised that it worked and he snaps. That's the reaction she's going for and that's the kind of behavior she needs to change because she's constantly pushing people away and then getting angry/sad when they leave.

The reason that I am emphasizing the things that Nesta has done here is not to say any of this is her fault, but that they both dish it out, and if we read the whole scenes, it usually starts with Nesta because that's just where she's at in her life right now. I dislike the arguments that because Cassian is older, he should know better or whatever, because 1) Nesta is an adult, and 2) as an Elder Millennial lol I know that age doesn't mean anything when it comes to maturity. In fact, I've lost my fucks with increasing frequency over the past few years. I know 20 year olds who are more mature than 40 year olds. It's just not that simple!

To go back to my initial point about their relationship, I think that even once the intention to harm is gone, now that some reconciliation has happened and they accept the mating bond, they will continue to be that aggressive couple. Feysand are leaders, nessian are warriors, and in the future I see elucien as co-conspirators and gwynriel as competitors. Nesta and Cassian both fight for what they care about, in the literal fighting sense, so it seems natural that that bleeds into their relationship a bit when they are still butting heads and trying to figure out how they work.

There are a couple of things you pointed out that I've noticed other people mention, so I wanted to discuss them!

like making Nesta carry a heavy pack all while not noticing her dehydration

I personally don't have an issue with the hike as a whole (I have another ask where I'll touch on it), but I did read this thing where Nesta passed out from dehydration as being both of their faults. Cassian just isn't paying attention, he forgets that Nesta isn't a hundreds of years old Illyrian tough guy and she *had barely gotten to the bottom of the stairs at the HoW (edit because I forgot she did that just before these shenanigans). Nesta is a grown adult, he's not her babysitter, she could have said something but instead she just suffered. (I wonder if that was also in line with her self-destructive behavior in acofas?) They're basically both being dumb here.

telling her he’s shackled

While he is doing this to hurt Nesta in that scene, all of the acotar mates thus far have said that about their mate. Lucien said it about Elain and Rhys about Feyre, though theirs were in more self-deprecating ways. To me, it just goes back to the push and pull that Nesta and Cassian have. I think the conflict in that scene is that they are essentially talking about two different things - for Cassian, Nesta rejecting the mating bond is her rejecting him. But for Nesta, the mating bond has nothing to do with Cassian and everything to do with her lost humanity. Cassian is taking her reaction personally (and why wouldn't he, when she has spent so much time picking at his insecurities?) and she is thinking of how the Cauldron and being Made affected her (and why wouldn't she, when she is still grappling with her trauma?) They are basically both thinking of themselves! And not considering how the other one feels.

and not getting a decent reconciliation

I think *fingers crossed* that we will see them in a much better place in future books. SJM said that Nesta's story will continue, so I'm just going to be optimistic here. Since the narration won't follow either of their perspectives anymore (we assume) we probably won't get an in-depth exploration of it. In fact, I was surprised when I got towards the end of acosf that I only had 30 more pages because I knew that so much still needed to happen. The end was very rushed but that's a whole different issue 😂

I am curious what you think of them after this! They aren't my favorite acotar ship; that's reserved for feysand and elucien, at least in canon. But I really love Cassian's character for his combination of strength and vulnerability, and Nesta is probably the most complex and interesting thus far, so I enjoy them from that standpoint.

[piizunn]

mihkokwaniy

by joshua whitehead

mihkokwaniy

my kokum has many names:

the indian woman

the whitehead lady

a saskatoon female

but my favourite is:

the beauty queen;

they never meant to call her beautiful

what they meant by beauty was:

cheapdirtybrownprostitutedrugaddictalcoholicfirewaterslut

when they write: “an indian about 35 years old

naked from the waist down

died from asphyxiation

at the queen’s hotel

effects of alcohol

&sedatives”

they don’t mean beauty as in:

mino iskwēw

or: “pleasing the sense or mind aesthetically;

of a very high standard; excellent”

what they mean is

she is beautiful for a squaw in ‘62

she pleases the body

of white men who burn in the loins

for the teal-shade of a browning bruise;

when i type into google

“how to say beautiful in cree”

i get: shaoulle

& when i type that into google i get:

“brutal murder-sex assault case”

seeRE:rinelleharpercindygladuetinafontaine

that’s my grandmother:

she is a mino iskwēw

the beauty queen

a woman with a name:

rose whitehead

&shediedbecauseofit

i read somewhere that saskatchewan

is an economic machine

for producing rape—

seed&honey

& in tisdale you can buy a mug that says:

the land of rape and honey

that’s where my kokum is buried

& her grave is a modest little place

where rabbits visit & sometimes chew

where little dandelions bloom

grant wishes to the wind

to her children who are scattered

across the plains of kanata

looking for a quick fix

& for anger to heal

or at least amend

like it does for a judge

who gifts a man six years

for the death of three women;

i think of my nôhtâwiy

her son who lost his name to a polish man

& felt the sting of day schools

even if priests beat & made honey

with their fists smooshed

into the sweet rot of little brown boys

who liked hockey & lived in suburbs

with whites who made them wait

in the freezing cold

& broke their noses on the ice—

but you’re still not ready to apologize

for that just white yet

my kokum has made many headlines:

“woman found strangled”

being the most consistent

a fifty word article that calls for sympathy

not for the “strangulation death

of the whitehead woman”

but for the man:

steven kozaruk of esterhazy

who “was suffering from the effects

of alcohol and sleeping pills”

even with a “seven-man jury”

& “thirteen witnesses,” lives—

his whiteness is his weakness

(even if its biceps can crack a brown neck like a wishbone)

and that weakness is his innocence;

the life of my kokum is worth:

six years & fifty words;

all these things overlap

interweave, interlay, interplay, interact

penes

|inter|intra|

|probo|capio|vita|

terra|corona|letum|nullius

tansimaslow

my kokum is famous

a real holly golightly

i bet she even eats

fried bologna sandwiches

at tiffanys

aint that right gran?

when i visit your grave

in saskatoon

i see the face of kozaruk

on the prairie scene

fatteninginsuburbia

& here you are

with a rag-tag little monument

made of sticks & leaves

stems from jackrabbits

that seem to visit often

a little blue ribbon

god knows from who

& a sad little brown boy

with a million questions like:

how are you doing?

do you hate klik too?

what would life have been like

if you had lived beyond thirtyfive?

would i be alive?

would the cancers in my dad

not have crept & lived

spelled doom on his skin?

would i be able to speak cree

without having to google translate

this for you?

would you make me cookies

& teach me how to sew back on the limbs

to my plush rabbit floppy ears?

would you call me “m’boy?”

& take me to sundances

powwows, bingo nights too?

would you make sure i feed the rez dogs

when they all come around?

would you make me a jingle dress

cause i want to be a pretty dancer like you—

would you teach me what it means to be two-spirit

tell me i can be a beautiful brown boy in love?

make me say niizh manitoag—feel the power on the tongue?

would you teach me to knead bannock

make life from lard—

a real ratio for reckoning?

hi kokum?

can i call you on the phone?

i promise not to call collect

i just want to hear your voice

tell you i learned what it means

to say i love you

& feel the whole of cree

coalescing in my breath:

kisâkihitin; my god, kisâkihitin

hey gran?

can i ask you something quick?

are you okay up there in godknowswhere?

do you see what we’ve all done?

my dad says these things all happen for a reason

that i wouldn’t be here if they didn’t

hey gran?

i’m sorry—

you know that right?

did you have to die for me to be alive?

heygranheygranheygranheygran

i’ll let you be

& stop being sick’ning

i bet you’re busy

cooking macaroniandtomatosoup

for twelve hundred missing & murdered women,

girls & two-spirit folk

it’s just, am i supposed to hate him, gran?

tell him that with one death

he ruined the lives of an entire family?

i want to tell him that the life of a person

is an archive of memory

& when you he strangled the life out of you

in a queens hotel shoddy little bed

the last gasping breath you exhaled

held in it little particles

fragments of time:

a bay leaf boiling in tomato sauce;

a flake of tuna that a

cat named randy

licked&licked&licked;

the soft cry of a baby boy

plummeting into day;

the smell of sweet grass smudging

monsters from our bedrooms;

tell him: when you kill a memory

you snuff out metaphor

turn off the light in a home;

you destroy a world where children

are nursing still&still;

—& aint that the hardest truth?

to be honest

i’m no aeneas

no marvellous country house poem

no faeryland, no golden world

no chimeric homeric epic

i’m just a little brown boy

queered by his colour

writing for a kokum he’s never met;

but i promise you:

these spaces can transform

an injun into a warrior

who can claw, scrape, fight

who can write on a piece of paper

sign a name instead of an ‘X’

that says, “this is my kokum

& her name is Rose Whitehead;

and she is

beauty queen extraordinaire.”

I dedicate this poem to all missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit peoples; for their families, friends, loved ones, and kin.  We are a collective trauma that demands to be examined, reconciled, resolved, and healed.

Today we survive; tomorrow we resist.

[lligkv]

It's my birthday today, which always feels like a time to take account. The last month or two, I've endeavored to channel spates of low mood into the reasonably productive activity of reading, rather than mere vegetation, and I've had good success. I just finished Mircea Cărtărescu's Solenoid—a long novel about a lonely weirdo in communist Romania reckoning with existential dread. Also finished Susan Taubes's Lament for Julia, a novella paired with various short stories, all with a powerful Freudian bent, Taubes being the daughter of a psychoanalyst and prone to autobiographically inflected fiction. Fathers and daughters are locked in strange relation; men and women antagonize each other; there's much angst around the emergence and forcible repression of sexuality and desire. I also completed a reread of Crime and Punishment (impressive in its structure, if not at the line level; conservative, like much of Dostoevsky, in its premises and sympathies, though not without its points when it comes to the weaknesses that certain modes of thought can have when they're adopted carelessly, as vogues, and in arguing for the necessity of humility against despair when one's despair stems, as Raskolnikov's does, from overweening self-regard). And I read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet—which was a funny one. Much to love in it, certainly. I also felt a bit of a twang reading, say, Rilke's condemnation of "the unreal half-artistic professions"—among which he includes "almost all of criticism"—"which, while they pretend proximity to some art, in practice belie and assail the existence of all art." Oh look, it's the form to which I've apparently pledged my troth, ha ha whoops.

I admit I wasn't blown away by Solenoid as I thought I might be. It offers a slightly banal resolution to existential crisis... That is, that the narrator ultimately meets the horror he spends about six-hundred pages grappling with—of the possibility that he might be trapped within three dimensions when a fourth, superior dimension might exist, meaning (I know this sentence is Going Places, stay with me) a dimension that is not ruled by the determinism by which any dimension is ruled in the eyes of those who can see it from the next dimension on, the same way that the life of, say, a mite might seem determined to us, all unthinking instinct and bound to a terribly specific and minute purpose, given our position as the mite's vast superior—that he counters the tremendous weight of this fear by turning to an abstract love for humanity and the purpose he finds in raising the child he has with his lover, Irina... It reminded me of the commitment to bourgeois normalcy that the protagonist of Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight makes, and how that let me down after his Master-and-Margarita-esque path through other, more hallucinatory forms of experience in the first three-quarters of that novel—which promised, I don't know, something more.

But I can understand the turn. And Solenoid does have some terrific setpieces along the way. One is the protest of the "Picketists"—a sect the narrator stumbles upon that stages demonstrations against life's pain and suffering (their signs bear lines like "Down with Death!" "Down with Rotting!" "Down with Accidents!" "NO to Agony!" and "Stop the Massacre!")—before a building in Bucharest that once housed one of the first institutes of forensic medicine, whose cupola bears thirteen statues depicting the soul's dark sides, Sadness, Despair, Fear, Bitterness, Melancholy, Revulsion, Nausea, Mania, Horror, Grief, Nostalgia, Resignation, and Damnation. Most striking is the way that protest ends, with the statue of Damnation—which has come alive, "as alive and slow-moving as soft glass and black as anthracite"—stamping on the lead protestor, Virgil, crushing him, when he asks her whether anything humanity can offer her will ever be enough.

Cărtărescu is also quite skillful at pacing his plot across the novel's 638 pages, as the narrator discovers each of the six solenoids sprinkled across Bucharest—the massive electromagnets that make possible eerie wonders like levitation and serve as engines that, essentially, power the world—and as he endures his own Virgil-like trial among the Picketists at the novel's end. Translator Sean Cotter also deserves a ton of credit, I'm sure. It can't have been easy to translate a narrative like this one, which depends so much on so many references to Bucharest's geography, Romania's history, and the histories of so many figures, so strangely intertwined—the forensic scientist Mina Minovici, who studied death (through, in Cărtărescu's telling, intense bouts of self-strangulation); the psychologist Nicolae Vaschide, who studied dreams, which in the narrator's mind join death as one of two potential means of escape from this world to the next; and the mathematician Charles Howard Hinton, who married Mary Ellen Boole, daughter of mathematician and logician George Boole, whose other daughter, Ethel, married Wilfrid Voynich, famous owner of the Voynich manuscript, which the narrator ultimately comes to possess and, at the novel's end, offers to the goddess Damnation, whereupon its pages somehow morph into a tesseract, the shape that Hinton once theorized as the fourth-dimensional analogue of the cube; the next level of complexity to it, just as the cube is the next-level of the two-dimensional square—thereby permitting the narrator one glimpse, one moment of contact with whatever it is that lies in the fourth dimension, beyond...

So, you know, it's been a time. If you're in the mood for a long novel about an intelligent, sensitive, neurotic thwarted artist confronting the fear that has oppressed his life, that engages whole histories of mathematics, logic, and philosophical thought along the way, you might give Solenoid a shot. Meanwhile, I'll end this with some words from Rilke in his last letter to the young poet, Franz Krappus, when Krappus was twenty-five: "Do you remember how [your] life yearned out of its childhood for the 'great'? I see that it is now going on beyond the great to long for greater. For this reason it will not cease to be difficult, but for this reason too it will not cease to grow." Arrange your life, he tells Krappus, according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult. I'm certainly not in my twenties as I write this, but the lines still inspire.

[lorata]

Does Lyme ever face a reckoning over her "not like other girls" attitude? Many of the other female Victors have the type of strength she's willing to respect, and I can't imagine her hanging out with non-Careers enough to figure out that they can be strong in their own ways.

I mean yeah, I've written it XD

but in all seriousness, Lyme's issues 100% stem from her childhood trauma, where her interpretation of her birth and her mother's situation is "something bad and violent happened here". also her mother kept telling her that one day she'd grow up and the same thing would happen to her. Lyme's mother was not talking about a shotgun marriage at 14, mind you, she was talking about puberty and falling in love, seeing Lyme's WELL I NEVER WILL as the more child-typical "boys are gross!" reaction that many adults find charming and transitory rather than deep-seated fear of physical violation and loss of bodily autonomy regarding a situation she still didn't fully understand.

so when Lyme says she's not like other girls, she's trying, desperately, to stop whatever "inevitable" biological process her mother says is going to happen to her where she will, one day, lose the right to her own body whether she wants to or not. in her mind, her mother kept trying to make her more stereotypically feminine (long hair, dresses, etc), so maybe if she resisted that, she would be safe.

also, in her head, because of her upbringing, the girls who DID fall into more feminine presentation ........ the ones who were excited for sex and boys and puberty and all that, Lyme thought that meant they WANTED the nebulous bad thing to happen to them, which was so alien and foreign and terrifying that, yeah, she did think she was different. but maybe if she hung out with them too much then she'd start to want it too -- so she kept herself a little bit apart. she DID get her period and she DID find herself attracted to boys, so ... not entirely unreasonable for her thinking to go this way.

(ironically, irl Lyme would be absolute terf bait but once she heard their arguments she would fling them into the SEA. yes, men are all intrinsically evil! yes, women are helpless against them! yes, being female is inherent suffering for your entire life, and the experience of womanhood is this awful, horrible shared suffering, forever! also the most intrinsic, valuable thing about you is your genitals. Lyme would be like, what. what the FUCK. are you fucking joking. my mother was RIGHT?! fuck you fuck you fuck youuuuuuuuuuuuu.)

after victory, though, things go differently. at first Nero works very hard with her to help break down exactly where this stuff comes from, plus she's in therapy, and then also (I haven't written about this, but) she and Callista have a lot of talks about sex and gender and power and why what happened with her parents was not an inevitable result of all male-female relationships but just ... a shitty, abusive relationship, the end.

so yeah, while all of this doesn't change her preference for presenting butch, Lyme is able to do it because she wants to rather than out of fear or like ... reactionary anger/spite against people who don't.

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

where does your inspo for the jo daily topics come from? 😗

omg incredible question shoo thank you!!!!!!!! and honestly i don't really know, they just rock up in my brain and then i work backwards and find a way to link them all together. i think a lot of it comes down to the fact i have now had intense jogirl feelings for 7 solid months, and so i've had time to build up my own big ideas about her and the themes i think follow her around the most. my jo theses are roughly as follows:

she has lots of gender issues specifically tied to accepting her femininity and viewing it as strength rather than weakness. this is of course due to being raised amid hunters in the roadhouse and wanting to be a hunter (an idea she can't link to femininity at all) - for her, the way to heal is to embrace her femininity

her gender issues and many others also stem from her parents - her overbearing mother being her only female rolemodel and her dead father being absent in her life (and of course her daddy issues impact her entire worldview)

she has been lonely her entire life; she felt isolated when she was at school partly because the other girls didn't like her because she was different and partly because she didn't like the other girls because she was a hunter and they didn't know (superiority not like other girls complex made worse by hunting)

her isolation and lack of other positive relationships with women in her life makes her discovery of her sapphicness very difficult and long, because she literally doesn't know what having girl friends feels like compared to wanting to be girlfriends with them

she secretly hates her mother for not being her father and can't get over this

as much as she feels constrained by ellen she can't leave the roadhouse to hunt by herself because she still feels so attached to the roadhouse as a place of safety and doesn't want to leave on bad terms with her mother

she's caught in this awkward place between innocence (being undersocialised, constantly treated younger than she is by ellen) and having experienced horrors for her age (the death of her father, the supernatural monsters she has grown up aware of) and she herself doesn't know which of these to lean into more

okay this got very long very quickly whoops so. i just think about jo a LOT and have written a lot about her so they all consolidate together in jo daily. i'm really enjoying writing it because it gives me such a good chance to bring all these different strands together as we see jo reckon with them. she's so full of depth!!!!!!! and also i get ideas from projecting onto her <333

[yelenadelova]

So I finished Harley Quinn: Reckoning! I need time to process my feelings completely but for the most part I really liked it?! (This post will contain spoilers for the book)

I like Harley’s characterization for the most part. The Harleen of this book doesn’t feel like the same Harley I know and love but it’s an origin story so that’s to be expected and I think she still seems like Harley TM (If that makes sense?)

I loved seeing Harley’s science mind and the sexism women and girls deal with in STEM felt sadly realistic and true to experiences me and my peers have had.

This book fully embraced Harley’s bisexuality and I loved it!

I don’t know how I feel about the main Love Interest/Relationship of the book? I think I liked most things about it but at times it rubbed me the wrong way. But I believe it was intentionally portrayed as a toxic relationship in many ways.

I think it did a really good job of showing the darker side of Harley and sort of her internal struggle with sanity and villainy and what any of that means and I’m hopeful and curious to see how that continues in the rest of the books!

I’m also nervous to see how Joker continues to play a role in the future stories. He didn’t play a huge role in this story but it definitely seems like they’re setting up more of that in the future. But the author seems to have a good grasp on the toxic nature of that relationship and I hope we’ll see a version of her origin story that gets into the darker details of her descent into villainy and her toxic and abusive relationship with the Joker.

Also!!! The ending introduced Ivy and teased Harlivy!!!!

I think the feminist messaging was good but at times it did feel a bit cringe and/or heavy handed. But I still think it was good overall!

In terms of Harleen/pre-villain stories it’s definitely one of the most fleshed out stories we’ve ever gotten for her. And since it’s a trilogy I’m excited for even more!

[charli-at-uni]

Me, Unfiltered

As I sat to begin writing this, I sat perplexed on what this post demanding me to deliver. A heartfelt tale of my journey that reflects my accomplishments in life. Society conditions you to humble yourself. But that’s not this post is about! We all deserve our 15 minutes of fame, and I decided mine will be highlighting why I’m proud of myself. So, this post is who I am.

I am very good at communicating and empathising with people and know how to address an issue without escalating the issue, great at compromise. My reputation is built on possessing remarkable grit. While I might experience frustration, I consistently dedicate myself and exert double the effort to accomplish tasks or acquire new skills.

However, I struggle with being easily distracted and anxious, making it challenging for me to stay focused during lengthy meetings. To address this, I've been working on improvement strategies such as taking short breaks and diligently jotting down notes. This helps me better grasp the discussions and provides a reference point for later recall in case I forget details.

When I started University I began it with no knowledge of business and a limited experience in the coding community. Over time, I gained a deeper understanding of the intricacies involved in maintaining a business platform. Now, with a broader mindset, my goal is to contribute by finishing projects, communicating effectively with stakeholders, and providing the necessary resources for them to establish their online presence.

My journey in IT began right after high school, marked by a dedication to learning and intense effort to enhance my skills, which has cultivated a strong sense of grit within me. Despite my initial lack of experience, I've actively engaged with the STEM community, embarked on a three-month IT internship, and am consistently applying for new positions and jobs. This proactive approach showcases my commitment to continuous improvement and overcoming challenges, even in areas where I may lack expertise. Furthermore, I understand the significance of bonding with fellow BI colleagues, team leaders, and developers, and grasping the attributes they seek in new team members for their BI team. I aim to enhance my skills to match these criteria and become a valuable asset to the team.

I follow the Women in Digital forum that displays both membership exclusive and public events. These events are essential to building my brand network and increasing my personal branding. Likewise, I follow many Businesses Intelligence specified companies in Brisbane that are promoted through Women in STEM events and platforms.

As someone who has grown up with social media, I can empathize with the impacts of the more complex factors associated with the internet. Due to the anonymity that any individual with a platform can easily assume, there is little risk of repercussions. Consequently, the ability to spread fake news or engage in cyberbullying has become increasingly effortless. The notion of social technology functioning as an online community is further evidenced by the prevalence of cancel culture. A mass reckoning on a particular individual online can quickly tarnish their personal brand. Therefore, as I establish an identity online, I am decidedly careful when choosing which platform to promote my image, and I hold the companies I associate with to the same standard as I. In turn, I avoid aligning my image with controversial platforms.

Another challenge encountered by online networking opportunities on social media pertains to the absence of boundaries concerning privacy. Without proactive measures, individuals' risk having their information sold to third-party vendors. Although there are laws and agreements in place, some entities are less than ethical in their disclosure of information usage.

By steering clear of companies affiliated with unethical practices and prioritizing those that uphold good privacy standards, I can enhance my reputation as a trustworthy and reputable employee.

[alencooperus]

The Fashion Aspect of Luxury Bombers

About Bombers

When style and comfort strike a mind, bombers make a knock to the collection settings. Bombers have now been in tremendous use since the development of modern clothing. They make a foremost mark on both ongoing trends and the key warding ability. Howsoever gaining fame on the aforementioned concepts,  comfort, and luxury however also form a prime aspect for the designs.

Bombers are usually described to be waist-length jackets with a bloated appearance. The image stems from the slightly baggy-fit tailoring that causes them to maintain the warmth and match insulation standards. While keeping with the loose fit,  they also happen to achieve the wearer’s utmost satisfaction by being donned in it for a whole long day. They shape to be a flexible pitched outerwear in terms of activity and stretch. Thus, their applications find a wide facet in context to purpose. Furthermore, when it comes to attires and dress codes, their variant styles and patterns enhance their flourishing scope.

A few of the bomber mutants are briefed and their significant potentials are laid hereafter.

Top Bomber Jackets for Promoting Versatile Style

Men’s and Women’s Bombers might be known to exist in limited styles and patterns. But with an advancement in processing techniques, fashion and function leeway has gained expansion. A few of the renowned waist-length designs are summarized.

Sheepskin and Shearling Bombers

Sheepskin and shearling natural wool is identified as one of the best shields for icy winter days and nights. Men’s and Women’s Shearling bomber jackets uphold the charm of opulence and glamour. Although they are detailed with lesser features to mark the original wool’s significance, however, attributable to their decent and contemporary design, they excel on the fashion scene.

The most enticing features of them include a shearling wool collar and extended cuffs bearing wool trim along them. Also, the style statement strikes the iconic bar when a hybrid detailing approach is integrated with authentic dense fox fur or raccoon fur along the collar and hood. Besides, some sheepskin bombers seem to highlight their long sleeves with wool trim accents on an elite pattern. Lastly, hardware accessorizing options like zippers and leather belts with buckle ends along cuffs, collars, and hemlines reflect the category’s premium remark.

When it comes to applications, the shearling or sheepskin bombers match the suitability prospects of casual attires, semi-formal codes, and even the gorgeous reckoned festive attires. Further, a detachable option of sheepskin or shearling hood and shawl collar yet shapes another versatile trait for adding to the suitability of purpose.

Furry Bombers

When it is about furs and feathers, it is worth mentioning that bombers made of various mammal hairs outrival in the fending ability among prestigious winter wears. Additionally, while warding the ice cold, they also keep a check on their weight. The most enchanting aspect of furry bombers is their unimaginably negligible weight and soft and plush feeling.

Furred bomber jackets for trendy Men and Women are crafted from authentic fur pelts of mammals like mink, rabbit, raccoon, and fox.  Nevertheless, all the variants impart the utmost warmth and luxury. Although what differs is their vivid uniqueness in fur’s appeal. In generic terms, the bombers render a snuggish feel owing to their elasticized hemline and wrist. Hence, they can be framed as a crude work-day winter wear, since despite repeated frantic activities, the bomber is certain to remain in place. Also, a clip-out hood is a common feature appearing among all the fur mutants.

The mink fur bomber is marked as one of the most embellished jackets. They give off the sheen of the hybrid blend of shawl-style collars made of Fox or raccoon fur. Also, some of them are detailed to exhibit a gorgeous glow when additionally belted along the waist. 

Fox fur marks off its significance by itself being naturally available in a spectrum of sub-categories. Variants like the blue shadow fox fur, silver fur, red fur, golden island, arctic or crystal fox fur, etc all outshine the flawless appeal by the exquisite charm of their naturally patterned tones.

Rabbit and Raccoon fur are esteemed for their voluminous appearance and which significantly contributes to pristine beauty. Available in a collection of single shade or even blends of dual tones, they tend to prove their worthwhile quality.

Natural authentic fur is always a great winter shield, long-lasting and supple. Hairs are anti-shedding. Hence the aforementioned fashionable bombers make a worthwhile investment.

Leather Bombers

The leather women and men’s outerwears itself are known to be a multi-faceted clothing staple. Versatility lends way towards weather, purpose, and attires.  Although, comfort is never a compromise to earn adaptability. Further, supreme quality full-grain lamb leather with an Analine finishing throws off the enormous glitz.

When it is to designs, the variants like  Regular Bomber, V-Bomber, and Puffy Bomber are the eminent winter fashions for both men and women. Regular bombers form the most decent and sophisticated attires suitable for the majority of daily occasions and settings. They display their cozy vibe vide their elasticized hemline and cuffs. Also, they feature a zip-out hood with a drawstring closure for a snug fit.

V-bomber and puffers well occupy the regal winter wear segments. The best thing being that they show a significant diversion to their potential ability towards weather fend. Being padded with 100% goose-down filling, they serve as a tremendous heat trap.

Furthermore, the bombers are detailed with detachable fox or raccoon-trimmed fur collars and hood borders. The supplemental detailing adds elegance and entice.

Ending Clause

To conclude, Men’s and Women’s Bomber Jackets meet their significant fashion-being while rendering plus and opulence. They make a mandatory winter clothing segment attributable to their extraordinary structural construction. Authenticity pays back their effectiveness. Be it shearling, fur, or even leather, the bomber wears are crafted of genuine top-notch materials.  Premium quality is always durable and excels in the key function. High-grade processed bombers retain their original attractiveness and trendy appeal even after scores of crude uses.

[shortstackadr]

Not Seen on TV

I chose the piece, Pipilotti Rist, Ever Is Over All this piece was very interesting to me. The first is two sets of pictures meshed together. On the left is a lady walking a dog and smiling on a beautiful bright sunny day. To the right looks like a scene of a roaring fire, it is very intense. The way the two pictures are put side by side with no border it looks as though the lady is walking away from a bad situation with all the matters to her...her dog. She is walking with confidence, intent, and a strong smile.

The second is two videos that are running simultaneously. The one is a video of a lady walking down a sidewalk, looking very ladylike with her pretty blue dress and ruby-like heels, and a pretty long stem sturdy flower. In the other video, it is a beautiful field of flowers that this lady is walking through, although it never shows her face, it does show the bottom of the blue dress and her ruby heels. It's like the artist is showing the lady coming from a field of flowers looking oh so ladylike and picking a flower to smash cars windows with.

I feel as though Rist is saying with both the image and the video, that women are very strong beings. We make walk through hell, and we may get poked by thorns, but make no mistake we are a force to be reckoned with. And we do it all looking beautiful and in heels!

[alienidentities-f22a]

Revised Textual Analysis Blog Post

In the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, Liz Ortecho is a brilliant biomedical science researcher. She is a vital asset throughout season 1 and 2 due to her extensive scientific and medical knowledge and impressive research background. As a pre-medicine student, it inspired me to see a young woman, especially a young Latina woman, being represented as a reputable and respected scientist. After further research and reflection, Roswell’s representation of women in medicine is extremely well done and provides a character that young girls can look up to in a world where women in medicine are underestimated and discriminated against. 

One of the most emphasized aspects of Liz’s identity is her career as a biomedical researcher. With her abilities, she is able to develop a serum using Max’s cells that slowly degrades alien cells and shuts down their powers, as well as the antidote that reverses the damage of this poison.  She never once shies away from using her intelligence, and eventually is able to bring Max back to life in season 2. As she is working tirelessly in the lab to prepare an alien heart strong enough to give to Max, she talks to Rosa and says:

“I chose regenerative medicine as my focus when you died. ‘Cause I was broken, and I wanted to repair the irreparable. It’s an ethics nightmare. I have been spit on by protesters and shut down by the government. I’ve worked on tiny rat hearts my whole life, waiting until someone in power would believe that I could do this with people, too. And over and over, old men on boards have told me to stay in my lane. To calm down. To wait. But I can do this!” (Stay (I Missed you)). 

This quote encapsulates everything the Roswell writers were pushing against when they established Liz as a female scientist lead who was a force to be reckoned with. It touches on the discrimination that women and LatinX community in STEM careers face. It was imperative that Liz discloses the discrimination she’s faced in order to add realism to this situation. Although I argue that creating more female STEM leads in TV shows is exactly the kind of representation needed to push back against outdated stereotypes of scientists, it’s important to address the issues that still occur today. 

This is so important because the reality is, while women in STEM have made significant progress, there is still much more work to be done to establish further equality in this field. In fact, according to a peer-reviewed article published in Frontiers in Psychology, “A study based on data from a Swedish funding agency reported that women need to author twice as many publications to obtain the same scientific competence score as men (Wenneras and Wold, 1997)” (“Facing Racism and Sexism in Science by Fighting Against Social and Implicit Bias: A Latina and Black Woman’s persective”). This exact issue is what Liz touches on in Roswell, New Mexico, proving that this is a real and ongoing issue. Implicit gender and racial bias are persistent and can greatly damage the careers of women in science. Providing a character like Liz who was able to overcome these obstacles and establish herself as a respected researcher who was able to obtain a research grant by the end of season one is taking great strides in the right direction. Young girls and members of the LatinX community can tune into the show and become inspired by her confidence, intelligence, and leadership.

It is clear that Roswell, New Mexico prioritized the representation of a wide range of minority groups that do not get frequent or accurate representation like the LGBTQ+, Latinx, immigrants, African American, Native American mentally ill, and disabled communities, to name a few. While it could be debated how well they provide accurate representation of each one, I argue that they succeeded in shedding light on the intelligence and ambition of women and Latinx women in science. At first, I criticized the show for only showing an unrealistic portrayal of how successful Liz was and not addressing the significant discrimination that women and Latinx people still face today. However, as the show progressed, the showrunners portrayed Liz in a nuanced way by addressing the adversity she faced like being consistently underestimated and not having any role models to look up to while also showing how she was still able to be successful. My only critique is that they shouldn’t have waited until season 2 to address these issues. However, overall, the show provides one of the only TV show characters that aspiring Latina women in STEM can look up to for inspiration.

[thepoetcarpenter]

The Danger of Secularism

At the start of the 21th century, there were terrorist attacks around the world, raging abortion debates at home, two wars in the Middle East, class warfare in political and social life, and racial divide; it seems then the logical and reasonable thing to fall to is the pragmatism of secularism to guide us through troubled times and solve the crisis that we are in. However, those are the very reasons to dismiss secularism, and entrench in classical moralism.

The division that we now see in our country and the conflicts that we have in our world is at face value is the reckoning of the past injustice. However, that is not true at all. The truth is we are a world in continuous conflicts and even in our society there are strong divisions stemming internally of perceived injustice. To navigate and lead our country and the world through troubled waters from a naturalistic and secular frame of view would be sheer stupidity. 

The terrorist attacks all over the world and the war against them is transparently the wars of values and ideologies. Terrorists that commit atrocities in the name of their religion, do so to try to dominate the world. They see the Judeo-Christian values as contradictory to their own values and thus must try to supplant it. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously said that Israel should be wiped off the map. We live in a fallen world where the opposing values of those that call on a jihad against the west are appeased. The Middle East is a tumultuous region in the world and withdrawing from it cedes the gain we have won. 

Not only that we have given a hundred and fifty billions to Iran in the blind hope that they will denuclearise. Where has the blind hope done for the appeasement of North Korea. In exchange of power plants to denuclearise, we now have the opposite of what we have hope for, a nuclear North Korea. The secular pragmatism views this crisis as enemies that we can bargain with. But that is not true. We should have kept label of the Axis of Evil by the Bush Administration and call a spade a spade. Evil cannot be negotiated with, but it is with strength that it can be conquered. And we have achieved this through Donald Trump.

People that hold the banner of secularism hold it blindly to their own selfish motives. The debate of whether a human unborn baby should live becomes the debate of people’s rights to their own body. And when it is convenient to tout feminism they tout it. It becomes then a murky water where pro-choice advocates paint the picture of the dominant man making laws for women. They aggregate all the naïve supporters as they can by labeling that this is about women’s rights. However, it is far from women’s right. Religious women do not support abortions. And as you can be certain of, half of all abortions being done is done on female unborn babies. Can you even deny that. 

The secular view of class is the liberal ideology that our society is a society of conflict between the haves and the haves not. Government is therefore there to take from the rich and spread the wealth around. Secularism believe in the material externalities of if there is wealth, the only just way of dealing with it is to take from someone else and give to the poor. It completely ignores that wealth is rooted in the predisposition of internalities. It is through hard work, hours spent, talent that wealth is created. Then so, if the means of wealth creation is just, the ends of obtaining wealth is justified. 

Racial division has become a hot topic in the media. Even in the applications of justice the topic of racism surfaces to be the dominant narrative. From the trial of O. J. Simpson and the trial of George Zimmerman, we cannot escape the tagline of racism, and it prejudices the outcomes of the justice being applied. I hear the labeling of a racist every time there is an opinion from someone that does not fit their own worldview. Secularism is therefore present as the agnostic observer and judge of race and colour. From one’s own shrewdness, you resolves the conflict by subsiding the charge of racism. But what that does is it forgoes justice for the victim like the trial of O. J. Simpson. In the classical moralism, you apply justice everywhere, universally. 

Since the 20th century, secularism has corroded the values of the fabric of western societies. It is therefore wise, to be on guard against secularism as we hold tight to what makes us a great civilisation, our religious values that have been the corner stone and foundation of our nations.