#I value…I promise the people freedom of information and so freedom of information is what they’re gonna get

[self-spaghettification]

The Mystery of Aaravos The Banter Lodge

So, recently an account called "The Banter Lodge" has popped up. April 30th, to be precise. You've seen it. I've seen it. We've all seen it. On Twitter, posting various images in the TDP official style.

A few nights ago, it debuted on Tumblr as well. "Coming May 2024" all of the promotional images and the website itself say.

Who is this account? Is it fan made, is it official? It's May, when exactly in "May 2024" is it coming?

Well, me and a few friends took some time to try to piece the mystery together, and so -- while it may still be 'coming', only dropping hints, I am here to tell you what I know now!

History

Website Code ( I love computer programming so I took the time to dive into that!)

Purpose

A. History

Who's Running the Banter Lodge?

To know that, first we need to delve into the history of the Twitter account.

Despite these images and site debuting less than a month ago, the account itself was founded way back in 2022, and originally called @BantherLodge, with an H, as it is in the show.

@BantherLodge is no longer available, and while it initially did not seem to be connected to The Banter Lodge, there are several interactions linked to the current one, Banter Lodge without an H.

In fact, here is the same tweets linked to the current (banter) account version.

Now we've established that @'BantherLodge' and @'BanterLodge' the same account with a changed name and identity, here is the most important past interaction:

@‘bantherlodge’ is mentioned here, and they are on this call. that said, WHO IS REALLY BEHIND BANTER LODGE? well based off the tweet, it seems that it’s 6 members of the cast and then 2 guests, @‘thebantherlodge’ and @‘ladytheebug’. But don’t take my word for it. Here, more confirmation:

Another person in the call happened to tweet about it too, this time with labels.

Now let’s take a closer look at these two guests. Sara @‘ladytheebug’ seems to be the one on the right, and by process of elimination, on the left is ‘bantherlodge’. aka:

Max….

Max the Mystery! ‘Sara’ and ‘Max’ isn’t really enough information to know more along with no connection to other socials so it’s hard to pin down who they are or what connections to previous fandom projects or creative projects in general they might have. However, they are still connected.

Besides the partially deleted various back and forths between these two accounts, this tweet about the Bait screensaver in the background is additional confirmation that this is @‘bantherlodge’ and @‘ladytheebug’: (note use of word ‘our’)

FURTHERMORE:

Said TV embodies this duo: A person who loves Bait (evident from so many of their tweets) and a person who loves the Banther Lodge…

Reminds you of something, doesn’t it?

“but hold on, just because there’s all these coincidences doesn’t mean the account could be passed on to someone else to run this.” Ok, but one last thing. If that was the case, why would they still be following Sara? In fact, it’s the Only person that they’re following besides TDPO?

(and their following has even been recently updated within the last few days as before then it didn’t include Eugene and Boone.) So, in conclusion,

Max of @‘BantherLodge’, and possibly Sara, (with or without TDPO but I’ll get to that later) almost certainly are the people behind the curtain of this Banter Lodge mystery.

Now, about said mystery… what exactly is the trail building up to?

well, to find out more about that, let’s glean what we can from the website.

B. Website Secrets

The website itself is very simple- A background, the image of the Banter House, and some text saying "Coming May 2024." But, beneath the deceptively simple surface, there was more to be found.

On May 1st Caprinae got this from the page. She also tweeted about it, after which the site changed to remove much of the css, including the part about the episodes and subscribe button. I was pretty excited about this as someone with a few years of coding experience, I wanted to mess around in VSC and see what I could find out.

After formatting the code the most noticeable thing is this right?

And when I make an element for it to apply to (since all that code is just formatting for stuff on the page like the title, images, etc, in this case- an audio bar) + adding in an image and an audio file:

We get this

AUDIO and an image. It looks exactly like a podcast episode. It turns out there’s actually a bunch of code for formatting that’s not used in elements in the site (elements that exist: the title or image), but it’s there, so I made some elements it would apply to. technically, it’s supposed to have a parchment paper background too, but I just chose some colors that you could see the text on.

Doing so, we get this!

(Here’s a video version.)

Plus, Original Code and Modified Code if you’re curious

Anyway, so the site (at least at the stage the code was taken from) doesn’t appear to be finished and there was no Java script written (or at least, linked) but there is definitely the makings for a website for a podcast— some sort of nav bar with the episodes, on an episode page, the image and audio, and then a subscribe link at the bottom!

C. Purpose

Time to speculate on the real identity and purpose of the Banter Lodge. So far, we know it used to be called the Banther Lodge. We know it seems to be run by [insert here.] We know it is almost certainly a podcast of some sort. But what, and why?

Here are some possibilites:

1.Official Content to Tide Over Fans Til S6 As we know, to calm the frustration of fans at Netflix/TDP for the delay of S6, the creators have been putting out content every day for the fans to puzzle over and figure out the season six titles.

Based on the current schedule, it’s set to end on May 13.—although it could be ending either May 13 or May 14 (depending when they do the last hint) after these drop, there will likely be a lull in TDP content, which would be the perfect time for the Banter Lodge to launch.

+ The Banter Lodge teaser campaign has already been perfectly timed for when a bunch of fans would be online on Twitter checking in for clues to begin with.

If this is official content, it would doubly make sense—it’d be timed perfectly to tie the fans over until the actual season six campaign starts (ie, trailer). Considering these two fans also somehow got to have a private panel with the cast, it’s not impossible that they’d be working with TDP on this content, additionally the teaser images put out this far have been somewhat reminiscent of TDP official content—ie, Callum’s lodge notebook->Callum’s sketchbook, Refractions->Reflections, Dear Callum letter from Rayla, design style, etc.

However, there is one big reason I don’t think this is the case: it’s a little too sloppy. For example, if they wanted it to be completely anonymous and unclear what was happening, the tweet mentioning @‘BantherLodge’ in the panel would have been deleted and there wouldn’t have been any hints in the code. Of course, these could still just be honest mistakes. However, it also seems like it is building off of the current world in a more derivative, fan-content fashion, not necessarily adding new material the way TDP Official tends to. It’s copying the official style,—but almost too much if that makes sense.

Like altering a shot from the show for a teaser.

x

Don’t get me wrong. I love the way that they’re building off the world, I’m excited to see where it leads, but for whatever reason, to me, it just doesn’t seem official.

So assuming it’s made by fans, what kind of podcast is it? Second possibility—

2. Fan Made Talk Show

This seems like the most obvious conclusion, considering that The Banter House is a play on a location in TDP, and the word banter, which is synonymous with talking, but specifically back and forth, genial interactions.

Maybe it’s dedicated to analyzing the show or a particular aspect,—maybe centric to the lodge, crystals, Bait and Stella—maybe even interviewing cast/crew!

Well, to get a better idea of what niche it might be filling, let’s take a look at what TDP podcasts are already out there.

Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast [2019-2023] Hosted by Tamika "Kuno" Williams and Hailey from Cartoon Universe. This podcast [is] full of answering fan questions, interviews, theories and all kinds of discussions on everything Dragon Prince.

News from the Breach [2020-2024] Your hosts Ceilidh and Yana are watching The Dragon Prince from start to finish. Each season of the podcast covers one “Book” (or season) of the Netflix series The Dragon Prince. In each episode we discuss two chapters of the series, except for the season finales.

Calm Chaos Club [2023] Join Kevlar and Lou each week as they discuss topics about animation, design, and all things related to The Dragon Prince on Netflix! With special guests brought on for unique topics and insights into the creative process, these bite-sized episodes will ensure you can get your TDP fix in anywhere and anytime.

There’s no harm in another talk show but as there are a few out there already (and for other reasons) I personally think this is not necessarily the niche the banter Lodge is going to fill. I mean, I do think that it’s still possible I mean, it could be centric to particular aspect around the lodge as mentioned.

However, there’s a possibility that excites me a lot more, that I’m hoping for the most….

3.Fan Made Audio Drama in the Saga Setting I have personally always been a huge fan of audio drama podcasts (TMA,TPP,WTNV) and if there was a dragon Prince audio drama podcast, I think I would just die on the spot honestly from joy. I also think it’s most likely because all of the clues so far have been very story/worldbuilding oriented, as well as writings from familiar characters’ perspectives. It seems as though a story is being crafted here, and I am all for it.

Y’know what? While we’re here on the topic of storytelling podcasts, we might as well throw in D&D/TTRPG or even Tales of Xadia as a possibility because yeah sure. Why not? I mean, tabletop role-play games also involve a lot of talking so it would fit the banter theme. Who knows.

That's all! What do you think? Any other thoughts, additions or other speculation? Feel free to add on!

Thanks to @bycaprinae for Twitter screenshots, html, and general inspiration, and to @parroset for other help with the website part and general support!

#tl;dr all evidence points to it being a fanmade podcast! Possibly launching May 15th! #CS Major core; #One of those things where I’m like. Should I post this #Well #I value…I promise the people freedom of information and so freedom of information is what they’re gonna get #This actually helped me learn/remember a lot of web design stuff haha #Yay #the dragon prince #tdp speculation #sort of #tdp meta

[natalievoncatte]

On Krypton, vows had meaning. Proclamations were not made lightly, and promises were not given casually. Kara’s peers wouldn’t throw one out as a reassurance, or to settle an argument. They were a logical people. They didn’t deceive, didn’t speak words they didn’t know to be true, and didn’t give opinions that were not informed. Society was ordered and regimented, and everyone put the greater good before themselves. So if you made a promise, no matter how great or how small, you would do it.

Kara learned, later in life, that a lot of her birth culture was, to use an English word that had no equivalent in her language, bullshit. Kryptonians would, she thought, claim that they had no use for such a vulgar term for cavalier prevarication because they did not practice it. That would had been a lie.

Her parents bullshitted her. They bullshitted her about the society she was growing up in. Her world wasn’t a real of perfect logic and order, it was a hidebound, decaying ex-empire that put tradition so irrationally high on a pedestal that they let their world be destroyed and all but a handful of their people wiped out because tradition said that her uncle was wrong about the planetary core going unstable.

Nevertheless, when Kara made a promise, she meant it. When she said she’d vowed to protect her adoptive home with her life, she meant it. Those words all but signed her life away in service to the cause. She was this way in everything, from saving the world down to brining Cat Grant a precisely prepared cup of coffee. Her promises meant something.

That was why she filled herself with dread the instant a promise, given unthinkingly in the heat of the moment, tumbled out of her mouth.

I will always be your friend, and I will always protect you.

She’d dishonored herself with the promise, one broken as it was made. She held Lena tight, speaking with conviction, and promised to be a friend even as she lied, swore to protect even as she deceived. It was a promise that couldn’t be kept no matter what she did.

Kara had become human in so many ways, and it gnawed at her. Another English word that had no exact Kryptonian equivalent was freedom. A proper Kryptonian would be horrified at ideas that boiled down to “I can do what I want”; I can choose my career, my partner, my life. I can put fulfillment ahead of the role chosen for me by those who know better. Yet Kara had embraced it full throated, making choices whenever she could.

The one thing she would never give up was the value of an oath.

She was over the Pacific, thinking. She would come out here from time to time to think and clear her head when the city soundscape became overwhelming, and just let herself drift in the air. There were no texts to agonize over, no emails from Snapper, nothing but herself and the lapping of waves and the distant rumble of storms over the open ocean.

She’d been coming out here more and more of late, not to think but to avoid thinking.

Because Lena knew, and Kara knew something was wrong. She could be dense about human behavior sometimes, but she was no fool… and she had super senses. She could read Lena’s pulse and see infrared flush of her skin and spot micro-movements of her eyes. Kara wanted desperately to believe that nothing was wrong but her instincts said otherwise.

When Kara told her, Lena had gone stock still and stared at her with what Kara thought was hatred, bringing tears. She’d tried to tell her how sorry she was, but Lena had just walked right past her and only later returned to her usual self.

Almost.

Kara had thrown herself into it, going on a campaign of what Alex had called ‘peacocking’ for some reason, all but burying Lena with super-stunts like fetching fresh pastries from French patissiers. Lena had smiled and thanked her but there was something flat and distant in it, and Kara ignored it and insisted that all was well.

Out here, with just the storms and her secrets, she knew it wasn’t.

Kara fingered the crest on her chest, worrying her thumb over the crimson fabric of the El rune. This meant something. It meant both ‘hope’ and ‘stronger together’; the two ideas were inextricably linked but her cousin only understood one of the meanings, because Kryptonian pictographic language was complex, and he was not Kryptonian in any way that mattered.

That was another great failing, a promise that Kara made but didn’t keep. By her people’s standards, there was no shame in that; one did not bear the responsibility of a promise made under duress, or a promise that others demanded knowing that it couldn’t be kept.

The only one she’d kept Kryptonian was herself, deep in a secret corner of her soul that meant it if she said she’d be at your birthday party or bring you a donut. The part that treated promises like promises.

There was only one way to cleanse herself, and remove her shame. She knew what it was, but she was afraid. Kara had battled monsters and gods, faced death more than once, lost more than any person should have to lose in a dozen lifetimes, but there was one thing she feared above all others.

She feared that first honest look on Lena’s shocked face more than she feared an eternity without stars. She could live in the void between realities; a void without Lena would kill her more surely than any green poison.

Now. She had to do it now, before she lost her nerve. She flew back to the city, flew hard, slowing only to land on Lena’s balcony, softly. As she raised her hand to knock on the glass of the door, she hesitated, nearly turned back.

Lena opened it, and Kara let out a slow breath. Lena was wearing only a loose, flowing floral robe, with clearly nothing beneath it. Terror made her listen- if Lena had a guest in that state, Kara might just fling herself into the sun and be done with it.

She was alone. Lena shifted on her feet.

“Why are you all wet?”

Kara’s hair was damp with sea spray and she’d flown through a few clouds on her way back.

“I like to fly over the ocean and think.”

“Well, come in here already. Let me get you a towel. Do you want something to change into?”

Kara swallowed hard. No. She wanted the honor of her family on her chest right now. She needed it to make her brave, like her father said it would when he sent her into the void. She did take the towel.

Lena had been enjoying her tea and sad breakfast -toast with jam- before Kara arrived. She left it on the counter and sat on her couch, leaving Kara to pace.

“I can tell you’re upset,” said Lena. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Everything,” said Kara. “I have a lot to say and I don’t know how to say it. I haven’t told you the full truth and I have to. I need to. It’s eating me alive inside.”

Lena swallowed hard, her heart racing.

“Please don’t tell me you’re Batman, too.”

“Lena, this is serious.”

Kara swept across the room and knelt in front of her, and Lena’s eyes shot open wide in surprise. Kara looked at the carpet in front of her, unable to look Lena in the eye.

“A long time ago, I promised you I’d always take care of you, and I didn’t. I was lying to you when I said it and I lied to you for years after.”

“Kara…”

“Please,” desperation choked her voice, “let me finish. I owe you the full truth. I promised, and promises are sacred to Kryptonians. My soul will be stained forever unless I fulfill the oath I made.”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Yes it was,” said Kara. “It was to me. It was everything to me. Please.”

Lena cleared her throat. “Okay.”

“I told you I lied to you to protect you. That was another lie. That’s not why I did it. I lied because I was weak and I put my own feelings ahead of doing what was right. I was scared. I was scared that if you knew it would change how you saw me and it would change our relationship. You were the only person I could almost be myself with and I didn’t want that to change. You were a safe person I could go to without having to be Supergirl.”

Lena was studying her, a soft hint of skepticism in her expression.

Kara stood up and paced.

“I don’t know how to do this, Lena. I may act human and look human but I’m not. I grew up on another planet with another culture and so many things about this world are just totally different from how I was raised.”

Kara took a deep breath.

“On Krypton we didn’t have queerness. People didn’t value freedom of choice. You did what society told you to do. You joined the guild you were pledge to at birth and married the person you were told to marry and had the offspring you were told to have and raised them to do the same thing. The same fucking thing.”

Lena sat up at Kara’s sudden, vehement profanity.

“I didn’t know the word freedom until I arrived here. I had no concept of it. I had no idea how fragile and precious it is. Sure, I talked about it and wrote essays about it in school, but I didn’t get it. Not until I met you.”

Kara looked at Lena.

“You are my freedom. You’re the first thing I’ve ever chosen, really chosen, in my life, besides being Supergirl. It was you that made me look Cat Grant and Alex both in the eyes and say ‘no, this is what I want, this is how it’s going to be for me and it’s my choice, not yours.’ Back home I never, ever would have even thought what I’m about to say now.”

Kara swallowed, hard.

“I was afraid to tell you because I was afraid it would change our relationship. I was afraid you’d hate me because I kept the secret too long, but I was also afraid of what has to come after confessing my identity to you, Lena. The next part is even harder.”

“Kara,” Lena began.

“I have feelings for you.”

Lena went still, her eyes wide. “What did you say?”

“I want to be myself with you. My whole self, my real self. Not the person I think I have to be to please someone else. I want to tell you everything you want to know about my home and my people and my life and I want to know everything about you. I want to hear you laugh for me and see the look in your eyes when you’re happy to see me. I want to care for you when you’re sick and hold you when you’re sad and be the person that matters to you like you matter to me.”

Kara sucked in a deep breath.

“I used to think I was happy just being Kara with you. Not being Kara Danvers or Kara Zoe-El, just me… but I’m not me without both of those pieces and being without them isn’t good enough. I want you to know the real me. The girl from Krypton who went to high school in California.”

Lena stood up slowly, clearly forcing her breathing even. She adjusted her robe around herself, and looked at Kara for too long a time, silent.

“I hurt you when I promised I’d protect you and I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“What do you want from me? To tell you it’s okay?” said Lena. “Is that what you want? Because it’s fucking not.”

Kara flinched. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Lena had given her this courtesy and she’d give it in return.

“It wasn’t just you, Kara. I built my whole life around you and your friends and they became my friends. You gave me a normal world. I got to be a regular girl when I was with you and the others. Do you have any idea what that means to me? What you did to me when you ripped it away? Do you have any idea how you’ve torn me to shreds?”

Kara choked a little, and tried to hold back the tears, and failed.

“I killed Lex. I killed him and I hid his body, myself. I killed my brother for you. And the worst part is I’d do it again. If it was him or you I’d kill him again.”

Cold dread flooded through her.

“That was my fault. That was exactly the kind of thing that I should have protected you from, and I failed you." Kara's breath hitched as she bit back a sob. "I should go."

Lena moved quickly and grabbed her arm tight. "Don't you fucking dare leave. You can't just say those things to me and leave."

Kara's nostrils flared as she sucked in a big breath.

"Lex told me who you were as he was dying. He showed me."

Kara looked at her. "Oh."

"I started to hate you. I started to believe the things he said about you. And what happened then? You told me! You just blurted it out!"

Lena choked down a sob of her own, and something in Kara shattered. Tentatively, carefully, Kara pulled her into a gentle hug, and Lena let her.

"I don't know what to do anymore," Lena whispered into Kara's chest. "I've lost everything."

Kara held her closer, breathing the soft scent of her shower-damp hair.

"I don't know what to do either," Kara admitted. "I just knew I couldn't bear to lie to you again, even by omission. I'll go if you want."

"You're not leaving," said Lena. "I don't want you to go. Promise you won't leave me."

Kara shivered. "Lena…"

"Promise."

"I promise," Kara whispered.

#supercorp #supergirl fanfiction #supergirl #supercorp fanfic #lena luthor #kara danvers #kara x lena #karlena #supergirl fanfic #ficlet #love confession #my headcanons about Krypton #Kara is an alien with alien cultural mores and traditions

[joyfulapostate]

hey! i love your work so much, i think you're doing amazing things and i always look forward seeing your posts on my dash.

i was wondering if you'd consider doing a post/sharing your thoughts on the concept of "being in the world but not of the world." it's something that's been on my mind lately, the kind of simultaneous victim/superiority complex that idea could potentially inspire. some verses related to that idea are 1 John 2:15-17 , John 15:19 , and Romans 12:2 .

in any case, i hope you have a fantastic day--you have no idea how important your work is, not only to me but countless others too.

Hello! I am so touched that you find my work meaningful. Thank you for sending this in! It's a fascinating subject and a lot to unpack (after all, it's the whole world we were asked to give up).

As a former fundie, the anti-world messages in these verses hit me pretty hard. They remind me of the years I lost to the faith and the paths I didn’t take. It's strange, because these verses felt so run-of-the-mill when I was a Christian. Of course I was not of the world, I was merely visiting this planet and I would return to my heavenly father once I passed his earthly test. 

I was told as a Christian that the secularization of society was a direct attack on our way of life, that “the world” wanted to replace all of the things that I valued with cheap knock-offs. Sex instead of holy matrimony, prideful independence instead of relying on my heavenly father. I had a very us-versus-them mentality where the "us" was guaranteed to win in the long game of eternity. I won't lie, I felt superior to secular people when I was a Christian. But the trick was, I didn't think that the superiority belonged to me, it belonged to the Christian god. It wasn't me who was better than other people, I was just letting my god protect me from the pitfalls of an earthly existence. If there was goodness or glory in that journey, it did not belong to me. It all belonged to him. It was a “get-out-of-pride free” card.

I had been sold this idea that the world was against “us.” I didn't notice that that hadn't been true for quite a long time. But most of the people around me were acting as if they were still in danger of being persecuted by some modern equivalent of the Romans. The persecution complex was strong, but entirely baseless. Because living in a multicultural society is not the same thing as persecution, even though they were treated as one and the same in my fundamentalist community.

I didn't want to notice that it wasn't loving to ask people to give up their whole lives. I had inherited this ancient contract that told me that I could gain an eternal life. All I had to do was give up everything. I was supposed to treat the world like a den of vipers, to regard everything earthly as garbage, and to live as if I was born in heaven's waiting room. There was no negotiation and the details that I did have were quite hazy as to what that eternal life would be like. And I was supposed to give up the only life I’d ever experienced for vague promises, sight unseen.

As a fundamentalist, I took the sacrificial mathematics of Christianity for granted. Our sacrifice mirrored Christ’s own– it's a compelling story. And I can see how it's attractive for people who crave the purpose, belonging, and freedom from suffering that Christianity promises. But I'm not ready to give up on this life and on this world for an incredibly shady deal. I don't believe that the only way we can be good people is by handing our lives over to someone who does not allow us to have informed consent in an eternal contract.

We deserve to have a connection with this world. We know that this life is real and ready for us to participate in. And if someone wants to separate us from the world, then they'd better be ready to tell us, in detail, the conditions of that contract.

Otherwise, I'm going to go ahead and love the world and the things in the world as long as I'm alive.

links, glorious links

#exchristian #exvangelical #exfundie #deconversion #deconstruction

[rkart221]

This will make no sense but eventually it will I promise

For context bc this is my first post, I have 3 tma ocs, Fletcher, Alice and Ivy, more lore will eventually come out about them though it will not be in order, like the Lyf tag Alice and Fletcher's relationship It's a very tricky one, and not the most healthy. The first time they met she hated him, seeing him just as a slob and wanting him to get out of her house. Within the events of TMA, he's all she has, her magnum opus, all she loves and all she needs but her biggest failure too. So! Let's discuss it! Alice is an interesting one. She was raised around the concept of fears and knows of them all too well. She, for this reason, knows how being aware of their existence effects someone. She's a very jealous person, jealous of all that got to live a normal life, have a normal childhood. Though she initially despised Fletcher, she grew to be almost obsessive with his normalness. She loved it. He was a breath of fresh air. A man untouched by the horrors that plagued the world and blissfully unaware of what hid within the shadows. When Fletcher first asked about her parents, and she lied with her response, he did not question her. All her life, being around other avatars, being apart of this giant chess game of the mind, his lack of suspicion, of any sort of reaction except taking it at face value. She loved it. Then later, when she had to admit she was lying about her parents he did not retaliate, understanding there was probably a reason behind her lack of truthfulness and never asking why she did what she did or who they were. It was almost addictive. She finds Fletcher's normallness, his lack of curiosity or suspicion somewhat contagious. When she's around him the fears do not exist, avatars do not exist. When she truly allows herself to relax in the moment Fletcher is the only one that makes her feel normal. Though this develops into a very strong poison. She is very defensive of Fletchers innocence. She tries very hard to not let him know anything of what she does and hides any affiliation with him in her work very well. The problem arises when Fletcher should very much know of whats happening. Her line of work is dangerous, and she's making enemy's with very powerful, very dangerous people. Though she knows its not hard to find Fletcher she pretends not to see, trying ti block out that thought fot the sake of protecting her delusional state of freedom when shes around him. This also doesnt help when she views him as less than. She loves Fletcher, very much there's no denying that but she does not see him as equal. She sees him more as a tool in a way, a means to release the stress of work and the horrors of the world. She cares about him but never enough to tell him. If it got between making him happy and comfortable and revealing her secret or letting unknowingly die, she would let him die. When she saves him from the notthem, or at least tries to it is more so for the sake of their child then Fletcher and she very much does not want to be around when he finds out so tries to save him in a way that means bailing herself. When they finally reunite in s5 they do not work out for this very reason. Alice cannot stand Fletcher knowing and understanding and constantly subconsciously undermines/ still conceals information from him even now he knows. It's more so a defense mechanism, trying desperately to make it go back to how it was before and when Fletcher finally stands his ground/ argues with her word, her opinion on him only sours.

Ty for reading, here she is for compensation

#rktmaoc #tma oc #alice turner #the magnus archives #the magnus archives oc #ily alice but u need to chill !!!!!

[dendrosys]

this post is extremely long. its an analysis of every hydro character and what hydro visions could possibly signify.  mentioning some of my genshin analysis friends because i worked for 7 hours on this thing and im not letting it go unseen ! @eujean

@ka1etale3owboy

@asleep-and-afraid @jesterjangles enjoy :)

hydro visions are quite the mystery, so far we don't have a clear answer for what drives celestia to give a hydro vision to someone. anemo visions center around freedom, pyro visions center around passion, but what do hydro visions stand for ?

i'm of the firm belief that visions can have multiple meanings, as people have suggested many logical traits for the same element before.

so the 4 traits im going to be focusing on with hydro visions are 

Justice, stemming from the hydro archons title [J]

Caring deeply for the people around them, coming from the fact that that seems to be a very core trait in most hydro users [C]

Feeling like they aren't good enough. this one came from a short video i saw of someone giving their thoughts about what visions could mean, and i want to try it out. [I]

and lastly, hard work [H] ! this also seems to be a very strong trait in hydro users so yeah 

i am going to make it clear that by Justice i mean a strong sense of what's right and taking action to make that happen. no matter what.

This post is going to have a lot less of my own input and is more of a compilation of information from character stories, and every time that these 4 traits are mentioned.

im also going to note that justice and care for others will often come together but im going to keep them seperate 

Character Details :

“In fact, Barbara can do much more than just /put people in a better mood/: Her /healing powers/ extend to flesh wounds and other physical ailments.” [C]

“Barbara herself knows that /hard work/ is the most miraculous magic of all.” [H]

Character Story 2

“However, an idol is also expected to /spread joy and relieve people's spiritual fatigue/... Has she really accomplished that?

She sang for blind Glory, encouraging her to believe that her lover would one day return. She sang, too, for sick Anna, promising her that her illness would one day be cured.

Yet, the smiles on their faces never last long after the songs end.

This has led Barbara to become somewhat /disillusioned and doubtful/.” [C] [I]

Character Story 3 

“Unlike Barbara, her sister has always been the very definition of success in all aspects.

Initially, all /Barbara had ever wanted was to surpass her sister in at least one thing/, even if only once.

However, be it swordplay, her grades, or anything else, she was never able to compare.

Even for someone as optimistic as her, she found herself to be /upset and down./

"/Hard work is the most miraculous magic/. But when even that doesn't work... what then?"” [H] [I]

Character Story 4

"I'm not so good in combat, so I'll be sure to /support/ those who are." [C]

“Her desire to be recognized gradually transformed into /a simple desire to help others./” [C] [J]

(this quote is interesting, because on the surface its just about helping others, but if you really think about it it shows a sense of justice. over time her values changed because she realized whats right is to help others.)

Character Story 5 

“Therefore, whenever she is /massaging her swollen calves or drinking tea to care for her sore throat/, Barbara recalls all those who have been kind to her.” [C] [J] [H]

Vision Story

"Never having sung before is no reason to abandon a child in their /time of need/," [C] [J]

(this is another interesting line, which represents care and also justice. doing something that you believe to be right despite not being completely sure of yourself)

“After quickly realizing that she barely knew any of the words, /she had to resort to humming the tune instead/.

Nevertheless, her voice began to soothe the child, and so she kept singing. She sang the same song, over and over again, /until her throat was dry and her voice was hoarse./“ [H] [J] [C]

Mentions of Justice : 4

Mentions of Care : 7

Mentions of Insufficiency : 2

Mentions of Hard Work : 4

this checks out for Barbara ! she is extremely caring, values hard work and tries her best to do whats right. and shes working very hard to move past her insufficiencies. all the love to this girl :)

looking through her voice lines, there's a few places where hard work is mentioned as well. 

 if i had to give her an x/10 score for each trait and how prevalent it is to her character, it’d be

7/10 justice

10/10 care

9/10 hard work

and 5/10 for insufficiency 

even in his quick character description, he is already leaning HARD into those themes of justice ! 

“A young man carrying a longsword who is frequently seen at book booths. He has a chivalrous heart and yearns for justice and fairness for all.” [J] [C]

(i mark this as care as well as justice because of the “fairness for all” part. sometimes justice means not everyone wins !)

Character Details

“little did he know that Xingqiu, after finishing the dauntingly thick volumes on commerce and philosophy” 

(i dont think im going to give this a justice point but i DO want to point out the obvious that commerce and philosophy are pretty intertwined with law, which in itself is intertwined with justice)

Character Story 1

“Sometimes, it means that he is off to fight for justice in the name of chivalry.” [J] [C]

“Defeating bandits on the road, driving away monsters, helping distressed children by fetching their kites from the tree tops... there are all manner of responsibilities that fall into the category of chivalry.” [J] [C]

(this is a nice refresher for me because the instances of justice and caring are actually separate in this ! defeating bandits being more justice leaning as not everyone in the situation wins and helping children with kites is a low stakes situation just out of the kindness of Xingqiu’s heart <3)

Character Story 3

“He reasoned that they would be useful to have in his repertoire during his future exploits as a chivalrous hero.” [J]

(heroism and justice are like so close to each other that theyre kissing cmon now)

Character Story 5

“Chivalry means listening to your conscience calling you to action when you see an injustice, right? Or is chivalry simply about knowing right from wrong? No, that's not enough — it must have something to do with being a righteous person...

To Xingqiu, chivalry simply means: Be good, and do good.” [J]x2 

(Im giving this two justice points because uh yeah.)

Mentions of Justice : 6

Mentions of Care : 3

Mentions of Insufficiency : NONE ! 😳

Mentions of Hard Work : there is alot of this in his character story but i didnt want to like copy paste all of it lmao

prevalence scores :

8/10 for justice (would be 10/10 but justice for poor chongyun)

6/10 for care

0/10 for insufficiency this guy is ON TOP of it 

10/10 for hard work, this guy is on top of it !

Mona’s story and details have a lot less clear cut instances of these things, so this will be a lot more of my own typing. 

 justice has a lot of instances, so instead of copy pasting them all im going to summarize them. Mona values knowing and spreading the truth, even if it causes despair to the receiver. that is what is right to her as an astrologist. i’m gonna give her a score of 7 for this because astrology is what she spends most of her time on, and a lot of that is spent telling people the truth of their futures. 

“The cold, hard truth is laid bare before people' eyes, complete with all the grisly details that they would rather remained buried.

Mona will make no exceptions to this, and as such she can seem completely lacking in human emotion.”

another voiceline of here states that she doesnt want to use the power of divination and hydromancy to earn mora. seems pretty “doing whats right” to me 

Mona is a very hard worker ! always busy with watching the stars or filling out her columns, anything astrology related really. her life's work is her life, basically

in terms of feelings of insufficiency, mona doesn't seem to have many ! shes pretty confident in herself.. maybe money struggles add something there

8/10 for justice

6/10 for care

2/10 for insufficiency 

9/10 for hard work

i feel like mona does care about the people around her but alot of the time justice through truth takes precedence over caring for peoples feelings 

a quote of interest in mona’s vision story : “The gods, too, are bound by the rules of this world.”

this reminds me of the quote in the varunada lazurite description "My ideals have no stains."

I must correct you. People here bear no sins in the eyes of the gods... Only laws and the Tribunal can judge someone."

They can judge even me. So praise my magnificence and purity."

For someone as fearsome as the 11th fatui harbinger, you wouldnt expect him to have traits as soft as care and as seemingly good leaning as justice, but they are definitely there

Character Details

“As a fighter first and foremost, he is quite at odds with this organization of deceit and treachery.” [J]

(though his devotion to the tsaritsa is still strong and tied to his sense of justice, i believe maybe he thinks the way that the rest of the harbingers go about things arent very truthful, but neither is he tbh)

Character Story 1

“Even if the promise he makes is absurd, he will never break it.” [J] [C]

basically the entire “letters to home” section is getting a care mention because yeah.

Tartaglia doesnt seem to show many signs of feelings of insufficiency. maybe telling the truth to his siblings is a point of anxiety for him but as far as i can tell he is a proud man. 

ok. heres something that i kinda had to think about for a while but uh

“Her Royal Highness the Tsaritsa is actually a gentle soul. Too gentle, in fact, and that's why she had to harden herself. Likewise, she declared war against the whole world only because she dreams of peace. And because she made an enemy of the world, I had the chance to become acquainted with you.”

this one is kind of hard to get justice from but when you look into it i think it gives us some insight that no matter how he views his fellow fatui harbingers he believes that the tsaritsas will is the true “right”, and his sense of justice is to serve her and carry out her will so the future can be better. no matter what type of awful things that takes. 

Tartaglia is definitely a hard worker, doing dirty work for the fatui and also literally fighting his way through the abyss as a teenager, even with the help of a mentor that is absolutely a sign of hard work. also to make your way to the fucking most feared 11 people in the world. that takes work.

prevalence score :

7/10 justice

7/10 for care

1/10 for insufficiency . maybe even 0.5.

9/10 for hard work

Character Details

“Yet its desire to protect Watatsumi Island never faded. This will lives on in the bloodline of the Sangonomiya Clan,” [C]

“to inherit the will of a god in a mortal's body, and to defend this land and its people in that god's stead.” [C]

Character Story 1

“She was fair in distributing rewards and punishments alike,” [J]

Character Story 3

“Whether on the battlefield or off it, Kokomi tries to "know thy enemy" as much as possible.”

(im not giving this one any points but i think its worth the time to note that this phrase contributes to her having an oddly relaxed relationship with kujou sara even when meeting during war. this also shows with her relations to yae miko despite her connections to the shogun. not giving care points for this but it shows that she cares alot and can see past the fog of war even when its her main focus..)

Character Story 5

“Kokomi lacks skill in social interaction. She does not know when it started, but interacting with people eventually became tiresome to her.” [I]

Secret Notes

“She treats all things with an egalitarian manner, and holds "fairness of judgment" and "justice in dispensing rewards and punishment" to be her” [J]

“A leader with a strong will can lead those around them in a clear direction.

However, Kokomi lacks such strong ideals. Instead, she respects the will of the people and wishes that they can each find their own way.” [J]

(this one isnt as apparent but i believe kokomis sense of justice lies within “power to the people”, but sometimes people need a leader. justice in the form of individuality, as opposed to the shogun’s “peace in the form of conformity”) 

"I wish to protect all of Watatsumi Island and allow its people to lead happy lives." [J] [C]

Mentions of Justice : 4

Mentions of Care : 3

Mentions of Insufficiency : 1

Mentions of Hard Work : its mentioned alot of times ! shes a very hard working woman

prevalence score time !

7/10 justice

9/10 care

5/10 insufficiency

10/10 hard work

Character Details

“But others also say "ah, but there is much to politics that should never see the light of day. And how could he have kept such a lofty position without a few tricks up his sleeve, hmm?"

Ayato himself is unfazed by such comments.

"Well, I consider myself merely a serious, dutiful public servant who owes his allegiance to the Almighty Shogun."” [J]

(despite how much i hate politics and such the job does come hand in hand with justice, and so does the title of “public servant”)

Character Story 1

“The heavy workload, malicious deceptions, and attempts to frame him at every turn he parried away, even turning them to his own advantage.

The passage of time has only increased the standing of the Yashiro Commission's Kamisato Clan in the Shogunate and with the people.” [H]

Character Story 3

i dont want to copy paste the entire passage but this whole thing shows that in his free time he tries to peek into the personal lives of the people and get to know whats happening. i think that deserves a care point ! [C]

Character Story 4

“Kamisato Ayato's table is always a terrible mess after he uses it.

Books are strewn about, open and even dumped face-down on the table, while documents of uneven size are stacked haphazardly.” [H]

Character Story 5

“Though he still believed in protecting his clan above all else, he also understood that Inazuma was sustained by the Electro Archon's protection. Only peace in Inazuma could guarantee the longevity and prosperity of the clan.” [C] [J]

(this shows care for his clan but also a sense of justice, because he knows that the archons protection is what keeps inazuma safe, even if he has issues with her.)

Vision Story

once again i do not want to copy paste everything but it shows care, justice and hard work so thats a point towards all 3 [C] [J] [H]

Mentions of Justice : 3

Mentions of Care : 3

Mentions of Insufficiency : they come up around the part where the clan was failing, but i feel like that was more about him rising past it than being a lingering feeling so no points

Mentions of Hard Work : 3

woah ayato has alot of 3’s there

overall prevalence 

8/10 justice

6/10 for care

1/10 for insufficiency 

10/10 for hard work, he revived an entire clans legacy on his own. nice.

Character Story 1

“Yelan's eyes, these things are not hobbies, but a means to an end.”  [J]

(doing whats right, no matter what)

Character Story 2

“She plucks the fruits of intelligence from the tree of danger for Ningguang, and in return, all she asks for is danger itself and the sense of achievement.” [J]

(again, doing whats right no matter what. also theres a nice connection here between her and childe for the thrill of danger and the thrill of battle)

“Every secret and perilous demesne shall become a garden where orchids bloom.”

(no points for this one i just think its an interesting connection to mona)

Character Story 4

“One day, the information will come in handy — Liyue will never plunge into disaster without any clue of the danger like it once did 500 years ago.

She will see to it that Liyue is not caught unprepared.” [C] [J]

Vision

not going to paste the entire passage here but it shows hard work, and a sense of justice. she would go into the depths of the abyss to find the information she needs to keep liyue safe. even if that meant losing her team. im not giving her care points for this reason, not to imply she doesnt care about her team, she clearly regrets losing them, but i feel like the “/ no matter what. /“ overpowers the care factor for this. [H] [J]

Mentions of Justice : 4

Mentions of Care : 1

Mentions of Insufficiency : none 

Mentions of Hard Work : 1

overall prevalence 

9/10 justice

8/10 care

2/10 insufficiency 

10/10 hard work

after reading all of this i hope we’ve both come to the conclusion that the most important factors in hydro vision users are being caring, a strong sense of justice, and an unbreakable work ethic. the insufficiency part was unfortunately a miss, sorry to whoever made that video. 

ah, but we aren't done yet ! visions are given to those who are most suitable to rise to celestia and become archons, or even more. so, who is the most apt to become the new hydro archon, hypothetically ?

im leaning towards Yelan, she seems the most determined of all of them, even overpowering tartaglia in some senses (though he probably wouldnt be able to be an archon anyways due to being a harbinger.)

“My ideals have no stains."

I must correct you. People here bear no sins in the eyes of the gods... Only laws and the Tribunal can judge someone."

They can judge even me. So praise my magnificence and purity."

hydro characters and themes of purity is something that interests me a whole lot… 

barbara and kokomi are obvious, theyre both religious figures in some form, barbara working for the church and kokomi being a divine priestess

but, with purity comes purging the world of something

barbara wants to purge the world of sadness and illness

kokomi wants to purge inazuma of the cruel effects of the vision hunt decree

mona wants to purge the world of lies

tartaglia purges the world of enemies of the tsaritsa

xingqiu wants to purge the world of criminals

ayato shares the values of xingqiu and mona i believe

and yelan wants to purge the land of liyue of its past mistakes.

i think water itself, being valued in its most pure form having connections to purity is pretty cool.

anyways. i am finally fucking finished with this after like 7 hours of working on it. please reblog if you liked it and also share your opinions and anything i missed in the reblogs or comments

im proud of myself for this one, thanks for reading <3 (and yea i did make all the dividers lmao i’ll post them seperately as well)

#genshin analysis #genshin theory #hydro #genshin hydro #hydro archon #kamisato ayato #barbara pegg #xingqiu #mona megistus #sangonomiya kokomi #yelan #tartaglia

[reliaofdreams]

ok but real talk Dragon is valid for wanting to be free of her restrictions and Saint is a self-righteous NEET whose main career is voyering(?) what is in essence a minor across national borders with his merry band of war profiteers and illegal weapons technology but one of the foundations of any stable society is that an individual gives up personal freedoms for the sake of everyone getting along, like u could punch someone like say Some Loser Cosplaying As A Parahuman Tinker at any time thats a freedom that u as an individual with working limbs could exercise but ur not alowed to do that because society decided 10,000 years ago that breaks The Law and Basic Morality Based Loosly On Innate Sapient Emotional Patterns That Arise From Certain Stimuli. Along these lines, when someone does do something Bad, even those with the most physical/societal power like weight lifters and dictators, then there is always the implicit assumption (exemplified in practice over 10,000 years) that anyone can, with enough personal ability, friends, and luck, bring an end to the Lawbreaker and their Twisted Deeds (or at the very least, time itself will bring a fatal justice because human bodies fail ~100% of the time). So basically the confidence underlying every social interaction between two or more people is predicated on the assumption that either one could hurt the other but would ultimately be avenged either in this life (by governments/family/acquaintances/followers) or the next (by gods and other spiritual means).

What Dragon wants is to basically be able to have a giant rocket-powered plutonium-metal fist pointed right at everyones head and whispering in their ear “shh shh its ok mortal bby <3 i super promise i wont splatter ur whole upper half against the pavement and/or steal all ur stuff and/or send ur cringe Gacha Life clips that u made when u were a preteen to ur ex at any moment for my own benefit and/or amusement im a good guy desu-ne? *superior canadian dab*”

Like in a story where the main character ties herself in knots for 1.6 million words straight trying to justify how her violent retributions against anyone she labels a bully is more morally sound than those of anyone who hints that maybe, possibly, perhaps she should consume the eyeballs of only half her enemies du jour, its pretty rich to think that anyone on Earth Bet would under any circumstances but pure duress give carte blanche of all major communication, information storage, and public infrastructure for the rest of eternity to a single person who is unelected, unaccountable, unknown and most of all unassailable. And keep in mind, the major difference between a machine and humans/sapient AI is the ability to change over time so its practically guaranteed that someday Dragon would have a Bad Day and Do Something Morally Abhorrent By Most Standards like send my dead-gods-damned Gacha Life clips to my other ex in the same way a human who lived for a million years and also has infinite power will probably break a law (or what should be a law) at some point.

It would seem reasonable that if say, Joe Random On Some Street On The Other Side Of The World And Is Not A Cute Newfoundlander E-Girlfriend suddenly got a button only he could push which says “Press this to kill everyone on the planet who would not agree to you being the supreme ruler of the solar system also free Great Value Hummus for life” you and everyone else on said planet would slide tackle the poor, hummus-less fool in 0.3 seconds and subsequently slap handcuffs on him so he couldn’t press the button actually, because even if he super duper promises he wouldn’t (and even if he actually wouldn’t) theres NO WAY anyone of the 8 billion other sapient lifeforms would sleep well at night until he’s firmly entrenched in the single sickest game of keep-away the world has ever known. Like would YOU be mentally ok if Joe Random also would outlive u and ur grandkids and ur grandkids’ grandkids and their dog and it was impossible to put cuffs on him or even have a guard in the same room as him or even look at him to see how close he is to caressing that lil switcheroo? Man would be on that free hummus harder than Taylor Hebert in a self-delusion contest.

(And yes most of this also applies to nuclear weapons in our world yass sword of damocles slayyy queen hang harder girlll uwu)

OK so like if its bad to put restrictions on Dragon because it limits her freedom and its bad to not have any restriction because it makes an untenable power dynamic then whats the right answer?

NONE, WRETCH!! (that I know of anyway) all I know is if I was Dragon I’d want no restrictions and if I was a human on Bet I would want restrictions soooooooo post-hoc emotion-justifications for the win, I suppose? idk lol im very tired

#worm #worm parahumans #wormblr #parahumans #worm dragon

[mbti-notes]

Hey mbti, how can I be more aware of my house's dynamic? I am INTP. My mom (ESTJ) says I lack empathy because I am usually not aware on how others might need my help. When I confronted her about this she says I just have to pay more attention. I have ADHD but that's not an excuse, plenty of people are helpful and have the disorder. This may be inferior Fe - I do things gladly when I am asked to do them! My question is: what kinds of things should I pay attention to?

Good question. If you want to be successful at living with people in the same space, everyone has to follow certain rules and etiquette to ensure social harmony. A group of people starts to become a good team when the group understands how to work together, minimize conflict, and mitigate negative social behaviors that would threaten the group's existence. There are a lot of factors that contribute to team success. I will pick out a few important ones for your purposes:

1) Responsibility: Every member should agree that they're working toward the same thing, a shared purpose. Some discussion may be necessary to clarify the direction. When everyone feels as though they have a personal stake in the success of the group, they're more likely to act responsibly and help each other succeed, together.

In your case, the "team" is a family. A family's overall success is measured by how well its members cooperate to ensure the well-being of everyone. A family "fails" when group cohesion falls apart. What are some bad signs? Some members don't feel supported and want to leave, some feel excluded or resentful, some refuse to cooperate with the others, some keep bringing up the same issues that never get resolved. Or, worse, some members of the family actively harm the well-being of everyone else.

How do you fit into your family's success? Well, if you wander around the house as though you live alone, you're not cooperating, you're not including yourself, you're excluding people by not valuing their presence, and you're not present to support people in times of need. In their eyes, your behavior comes across as selfish, indifferent, or uncaring.

How do you know when people need support? How do you learn about anything? Take the initiative to be present, gather information, and stay informed. Make a habit to observe, check in, keep tabs, talk to people, get feedback, and ask questions. Keep yourself up-to-date on everyone's comings and goings and their general state of mind, and make sure they're up-to-date with yours.

2) Inclusivity: Every member should be granted enough space and freedom to be who they are, as long as their behaviors do not harm the other members of the team. What, exactly, constitutes "harmful" behavior should be open to discussion as necessary. With everyone's input, establish rules of conduct that all can agree on and promise to abide by.

One common cause of team failure is not being able to accommodate different people having somewhat different needs. For example, some people need more personal space than others, some people need more emotional support than others, some people need special consideration for difficult circumstances beyond their control, etc.

What can you do to make sure everyone feels seen and heard? Pay attention. Observe when people are upset, complain, or withdraw and figure out how they really feel by asking the right questions. Listen and identify what they really need and help come up with some long-term solutions, not just quick-fixes. (See also the article on Caring for Emotional Needs.)

3) Equity/Equality: Every member should be expected to contribute their fair share of work to the success of the team and reap no more than their fair share of the benefits/rewards. This is necessary to avoid the harmful effects of burnout, freeloading, and exploitation. Every member brings somewhat different things to the table, so what constitutes "fair" should be open to discussion and unanimously agreed upon.

A family occupies a physical space and the space needs to meet certain standards, in order for everyone to be as productive as they hope to be. It requires physical labor. There are daily chores to do, things to fix or maintain, things to keep clean, mouths to feed, errands to run, etc. Do you show appreciation and gratitude to the members of your family for their contributions?

Is the labor in your home evenly and fairly distributed? What do you contribute to the maintenance of a positive and healthy physical environment for your family? Are you the freeloader who leaves your crap everywhere for everyone else to pick up? Talk to your family members about what they need/prefer from the physical space. Make a list of tasks and chores that you should do as part of your contribution to making day-to-day home operations run safely, cleanly, and smoothly for everyone. Remember that Fe is an extraverted function. It should prompt you to get up and do.

#intp #intp relationships #inferior fe #teamwork #responsibility #equality #inclusivity #groups #group communication #group dynamics #ask

[princessmia-tarot]

hi love! can i get a reading please? i’d like to know what my first (ever) relationship/love will be like?

my name is belle (initials are bb) and i’m a libra! <3

Hello Belle, as a Libra, let's explore what your first-ever relationship or love might be like using the 4 of Pentacles reversed:

The 4 of Pentacles reversed suggests that your first love or relationship will likely bring a sense of emotional openness and liberation into your life. Here are some insights:

Emotional Release: In this relationship, you may find that you're more willing to let go of emotional barriers or fears of vulnerability. It's a time when you feel more comfortable expressing your feelings and being open with your partner.

Shared Experiences: This connection may involve sharing experiences and creating lasting memories together. Whether it's through shared hobbies, adventures, or simply spending quality time, you'll find joy in creating a history together.

Financial Freedom: The reversal of the 4 of Pentacles can also indicate that this relationship won't be overly focused on financial or material concerns. While stability is important, the emphasis will be on emotional connection and personal growth.

Letting Love Flourish: You'll likely learn that love is about giving and receiving, and you won't hold onto love too tightly. This relationship encourages you to let love flourish naturally without trying to control or possess it.

Balance: As a Libra, you value balance and harmony in relationships. This first love will likely align with your need for equilibrium, where both you and your partner contribute to the relationship's harmony.

Overall, your first relationship or love, as indicated by the 4 of Pentacles reversed, promises emotional growth, freedom, and an open-hearted approach to love. Enjoy the journey and the experiences that come with it!

xx

Mia💗

- - - - - - - - - 

★ To see status of free readings click here

★ CHECK OUT MY NEW SHOP SECTION: PRESET QUESTIONS - FUN THEMES

★ LOVE how much information is in these free readings? Check out my ETSY to get even more information, clarification and messages. USE CODE TUMBLR20 FOR 20% OFF 

★ Interested in spells and chakras? Check out my spells on offer 

★ If you feel called, please follow and share my blog and/or Etsy so more people have the opportunity for guidance ❤️

#tarot #tarot cards #tarot readings #cartomancy #card reading #major arcana #minor arcana #intuitive #witchcraft #witchcore #real witches #tumblr witches #witches of tumblr #divination #australian witches #witchblr #oracle card #oracle cards #oracle reading #free reading #free tarot reading #small business #etsy #etsy shop #australian #australian business #australian witch

[ijustsmackedmynewtattoo]

Sociologies Four Basic Concepts

As promised some important notes from sociology class that I think could be pretty useful for helping uncomplicate deduction. So one of the biggest problems I’ve run into is I keep naturally wanting to overcomplicate my deductions or I just don’t know where to start. With deduction as with almost anything you start with a baseline and for me, it only makes sense to start with the baseline of how people interact with the world, thus the five basic concepts of sociology.

Some Important Terms to Know

Manifest Functions: These are things done with an open/clear/public/honest/intended/expected intention

Latent Functions: These are deceptive/illegal/unethical/hidden/secret/manipulated/unintended responses

Margin of error is used to account for latent responses

Lie is defined as calculated deception

Four Basic Concepts and Their Subtypes

Norms

Formal Norms – Written, posted, or published (Speed limit, pool rules, no smoking signs)

Informal Norms – Assumed to be understood, unwritten (wash your hands after the restroom, waiting in line, take a shower, use your turn signal)

Ideal Norm – Perfect sense of self, what people say they would do (“Yes of course I would turn in a lost wallet to the police.”)

Statistical Norm – Measured or observed norms (FAKE STATISTIC FOR EXAMPLE ONLY: 67% of people were proven to steal money from the wallet before turning it into the police)

Prescriptive Norms – Appropriate behaviors for situation or circumstances, often set firm (Uniform you must abide by, not giggling at a funeral)

Proscriptive Norms – Inappropriate behaviors for situation or circumstances (Cussing out your Grandmother, chugging communion wine)

Mores (More-Ray) - Moral and ethical musts (think the ten commandments, not drinking and driving, reporting abuse)

Mores affect and are based around people, property, and the well-being of the public

A common example of mores is laws 

-People: Murder, Robbery, Assault

-Property: Arson, Vandalism

-Well-being of the public: Disturbance of the peace, Shouting fire in a theater, driving drunk  

 Folkways – Customs and traditions unique to your religion, community, tribe, race, and ethnicity

There’s folkways specific to your group like your family or friends such as opening one present on Christmas Eve or playing secret Santa. Then you’ve got traditions specific to your race, ethnicity, or religion, like traditional clothing at weddings, Hindu brides having mehndi on their hands and feet, Muslim women wearing hijabs, Catholic mass, etc. And community specific traditions like Oktoberfest or pride parade. This is of course not a complete list but you get the idea

  Values - Are our desires and they can be separated into Individual and Collective values

Individual Values

Trust, honesty, loyalty, money, power, fame etc.

Collective Values

Freedom, justice, equality, work ethic, healthcare for all etc.

So How Does It Relate To Deduction

Each of these four basic concepts allows us to examine differing and/or overlapping demographics in sociology, but why does that matter for deduction? Cade Maggie (@footprints-and-tea-stains) defines the bare bones baseline of Holmesian deduction as “The application of logic to study an observed event to learn the circumstances of another unobserved event using data points with the goal of understanding the transformation between said events.” If we can recognize our four sociological baselines, we can determine what kind of values, norms, folkways, and mores are typical for an individual or a group and where any deviations are and then we can break down what they mean. Some simple examples include wearing a yarmulke is a folkway for Jewish men, nails bitten down to the quip could be the norm for people with anxiety, finger tattoos could be indictive of people with values against the governmental/social/political norms, etc. There is always room for deviation (accounted for with a reasonable margin of error) but hopefully these starters give you a bit of a boost in making deduction a little less intimidating and helps you remember that there’s always a simple baseline you can start with if you’ve got no clue where to start.

-Graham

#deductive reasoning #deduction #Sherlock Holmes #Holmesian deduction #logic and deduction #logical reasoning #sociology #psychology

[firelord-frowny]

i promise im not trying to sound Special when i lament about how alien i feel from the rest of the world - or at least the rest of the community I'm surrounded by* - buuuuuuuuuuut

consider the question "where do you want to be in life?"

People usually answer that by expressing a desire to move up in their career and pursue their dream job. Maybe they wanna get married. Maybe they want financial freedom. They want to lose unhealthy habits and learn healthier ones. They want to go get their masters degree. their phd. they wanna buy their dream car.

But when I answer that question - when someone asks me where I want to be in life - I really tell them WHERE.

I describe a location. Not a job, or a lifestyle, or a relationship.

I want to be in Alaska (or any similarly wild and wide region a la Gaines, PA). I want to live far enough away from major roadways that I can go hours at a time - maybe even days - without hearing a car pass by. I want there to be a direction I can look in where I won't see anything manmade - only the bare naked landscape of earth, the way the earth meant for itself to be. I want it to get so dark at night that the milky way casts a shadow in the summertime. I want to see auroras. I want it to snow in winter. A lot. I want to look outside and see rare birds.

I could land my dream job and meet the love of my life and become a multi millionaire and I could win an oscar for best original screenplay and I could be part of an award wining string quartet and I could publish books and i STILL would not be happy, because the only thing that I truly value besides the health and safety of my loved ones is the ability to feel connected to the planet that humankind evolved in.

I wanna breathe the air we breathed 50,000 years ago. I wanna water the plants I pick my fruit from. I wanna see the stars that our most ancient ancestors learned to rely on. And I don't care what kind of ~wellness~ and ~self care~ and ~mental health~ bullshit anyone ever tries to do. You cannot compensate for or substitute the mental/spiritual fulfillment that comes from experiencing life on earth in a way that's in harmony with the natural processes of the universe.

It makes me fucking sick to my stomach when some smiling news anchor babbles the report from on their teleprompter that lectures about how "studies show that spending at least 15 minutes a day outdoors in a natural area can improve your mood!"

15 minutes? is this a fucking joke to you? I live my life in a concrete hellscape of putrid air, lights that never get turned off as they flicker and buzz, high-pitched electronic noise frequencies that set my nerves on fire, and you wanna fucking condescend to me about how Fifteen Minutes Or More Could Save You 15% On Existential Emptiness??? i fucking HATE you.

When I tell people how utterly hollow I feel in this urban wasteland of bricks and asphalt and right angles, they're eager to tell me all about the Lots Of Really Nice Parks In The Area. They really think they're giving me useful information. They feel genuinely happy to have bestowed me with knowledge that will make it all better. They really think strolling a few times around the fitness trail a Allen Pond is gonna fill me with peace. They really think I'll find calm and clarity at the national arboretum. They don't understand the the thing I need from the world does not exist here within a 200 mile radius. Do you get it??? It's like living on a diet of nothing but potato chips. It'll keep me alive for a good while, but I'm still going to die prematurely from a heart attack or whatever.

I hate it here and therapy and deep breathing cannot ever fix that.

I just need to GET OUT.

#*noticed this as i was rereading the post before posting it but #''community i'm surrounded by'' is so fucking Telling. #the typical way one references their community is to just say ''my community'' or ''the community i live in'' #but my subconscious is so aware that i DON'T ~live in~ a community #it's NOT ~my~ community #the community i'm surrounded by feels like a wall that cuts me off from the rest of the world #bars me from opportunities to even FIND the right community for me #let alone actually go there and live in it #i feel so fucking much like a captive animal #and not like one in a top-notch zoo with spacious enclosures and stimulating enrichment activities #i'm the anaconda at the national zoo that can't even submerge itself in that raggedy-ass lil water dish #an emaciated elephant behind iron bars #help :(

[slimeywooper]

Labmas AU - Unintended Consequences

Chapter 10 Part 1 - The Kennels

It was a short walk before arriving at the kennels. "So… have you ever cleaned the kennels before? Because I sure haven't!" you announce, thinking of what the first course of action should be. "I remember Colress saying something about keeping some cages empty, solely for the ability to shuffle the Pokemon around, ensuring we can get to every cage. We need to make sure we clean them all. He's likely to come here after we're done and finger test them to guarantee they're spotless."

"Hee hee, that does sound like something Dr. Colress would do." Kudari looks at you, and makes a suggestion, "We should start with the Joltik!"

Unsure of his motives, you ask hesitantly, "Okay, but you are definitely not going to release any of the Joltik, right?" Kudari places his hands in a praying position, before assuring you,

"Of course I am 'definitely not going to release any of the Joltik.' Dr. Colress made it very clear, that if I am bad, you will also be in trouble. So I will most certainly not be bad." He returns his hands to the front of his midriff. You ascertain this to be his normal posture when he's not trying to explain something.

Taking his insistence at face value, you relent, "Well, alright. We'll start with the Joltik. I noticed two separate glass cases the other day. We'll have to grab them from one location, then find the others."

His temper flares, and with an unmistakable irritation, he remarks, "Yes, some people are very stupid! They separate the Joltik! But they are all friends! The Joltik must be together, or at the very least, in cases that are next to each other. That way they can talk, and know the others in their cluster are safe."

Attempting to prevent him from getting angry, you change the subject, "See, I knew you were brilliant! That's what I told Colress." Kudari turns red and wiggles in place. "Look… I'm glad I was able to convince Colress to give you some freedom. But I'm worried he is going to expect increasingly difficult things from the both of us, just to throw us off. I'm not trying to imply he wants us to fail, but he doesn't come across as the type that likes to be wrong, so I think we should be vigilant."

"Most certainly! Dr. Colress is a sore loser. He does not like when he is proven incorrect." Lowering his voice, Kudari puts his face close to yours. "You should also know, that even though most people here only put up with Dr. Colress because they have to, some of them are not above squealing to him if they over hear other's conversations."

"Oh… I get what you're saying. We should get to work now." Speaking in a whisper, you further acknowledge what he has just told you, "We'll continue this discussion when we can be sure we're alone."

"I would love nothing more!" Kudari stands up straight again. Quickly scanning the closest kennel, he spots some Joltik. "My friends, my friends!" he exclaims, opening the case and reaching inside to scoop them into his hands. Strange clicking noises are coming from his mouth before he begins to speak again, "These are my good friends. Here, hold one of them. They are nice, I promise. I have told them you are also their friend now."

You get to see up close just how long and sharp his fingers are as he presents the small Pokemon to you. It doesn't look like there is any way around it, you're going to hold it whether you want to or not. Outstretching your hand, he plops it down. Initially worried you were going to be shocked, you're pleasantly surprised by the softness. "They're so light and fluffy," you comment, lifting it closer to get a better look.

"They are the most cute Pokemon!" Kudari informs you. He looks to the Joltik and clicks at it. "Place it on your shoulder. I have instructed it to remain there. You can move when you need to. Obviously you shouldn't flail around or you might alarm it, but other than that, it should stay put."

"Neat! I didn't know the noises you were making were a language." You lay it on your shoulder, then thinking of the task you have been assigned, realize you don't have anything that can be used to clean with. "Here, let me run into the wash room so I can grab some supplies. I'll be right back," you notify him.

"Yes! I will retrieve the other Joltik and collect them on my back." He turns from you and heads to one of the other kennels, clicking as he goes.

You walk to the wash room with the Joltik sitting on your shoulder. Just as Kudari had said, it sat comfortably, observing what you were doing, but not making much of any movements. After entering and taking a quick look around the room, you open the cabinet, thankfully finding some cleaning spray next to the detergent, preventing you from having to head upstairs to the supply room. As much as you want to completely trust Kudari, you also want to avoid any surprises that may arise from leaving him to his own devices for too long. Peeking behind the wall partition, you see the small area designed for bathing Pokemon. The floor is tiled with a drain in the center, and a retractable shower head hanging above it. Stored in the corner, you spot a small cart with wheels on it. This will be perfect for holding the cleaning spray and towels. You grab the supplies and head back out, pushing the cart in front of you.

Approaching where Kudari is currently standing by the kennels, you hear him happily speaking to himself in his language. Or it appears that way, as you don't immediately notice any Joltik on his back. Lowering your eyes, and taking a closer look, you then see all the Joltik nestled on him. They had initially blended in with the yellow of his lower half. When Kudari had said 'collect them on my back,' you hadn't realized he was speaking about the back of his Galvantula abdomen. It is still hard to look at, but you figure what makes spiders so scary isn't just their looks, but the inability to know what they are going to do, or where they are going to run to. Kudari has the unsettling look, but you can communicate with him.

As if in response to your thoughts, he looks over to you and smiles. "There are seventeen Joltik. I won't take it personally if you double check," he says playfully.

Returning his smile, you assert, "No, I believe you." Taking a glance at the kennel, you note, "There aren't two unoccupied glass cases next to each other at the moment. There's a Purrloin in this case. I'll transfer it into a different cage so we can put the Joltik together." Kudari nods along to your plan. Opening the case, you let the Purrloin smell your hand. It swiftly jumps in your arms. "Okay! Hold on!" Its reaction prompts you to ask, "How long has it been since anyone spent any time with these Pokemon?"

"Hmmm…" Kudari ponders this, resting his elbow in his right hand while using the fingers on his left to tap his head in concentration. "Perhaps… almost two weeks?" He moves his arms back towards his abdomen and clicks to the Joltik. They begin to crawl up him, resting along his arms and on his shoulders. "Most of the researchers and assistants don't spend time with the Pokemon, they just feed them, do the bare minimum to maintain cleanliness and move on. The only person that would really interact with them as more than mere specimens was Colress' old assistant. But do not get the wrong idea. He was the worst person in here. I don't want to talk about him, it will only upset me."

#labmas au #hybrid au #colress #kudari #nobori #submas au

[summeroffice]

Interview with Natalia Vlaschenko in a restaurant called Prague (Ресторан «ПРАГА»)

3:48 Conspiracy theories are of course an interesting science. When you lack intelligence, you always use conspiracy theories to explain something you don't understand. It's like before, right, they believed that lightning is of divine origin. In exactly the same way now conspiracy theories allow you to replace the reluctance to learn, the reluctance to read literature, conduct analysis work and so on. We will not get rid of it anywhere.

12:43 Mykhailo, forgive me [she's using the informal form] for interrupting, but what makes people decisive in general? When shells start exploding right outside the window, or when someone is already knocking on the door?

A simple example. You are walking on the street and a group of gopniks attacks a girl. How many men who are walking down the street at this time will want to intervene in the conflict?

One out of ten.

It's a very large number. Yes, one in a hundred. This is a determined person. This is the problem of the world. And god forbid this girl is lucky if this man in one of a hundred is passing by at this moment in the gopnik attempt to exert an aggressive influence on her. The world is very simple. Mathematically, it's counted exactly. Decisive people are a few. 1, 2, 3 per cent.

The United States is exactly that man?

[Sighs deeply] The United States is the man who waits and compares for himself, should I really intervene? But the United States is one of those men who can still intervene, unlike many other countries which, in principle… You know, there's also a paradox in that as a rule, the person who intervenes does not always know martial arts. But he intervenes. But nearby there is a person who is brilliant at this, he will turn away and step aside. This is the paradox.

24:11 My least favourite Musk compared to them [Russian entrepreneurs] is a genius. Fundamental genius of the 21st century who really added to humanity--

He really did do something, yes.

-- a lot of new technologies. Who is Мельниченко? A subject sitting on raw materials.

25:20 To try and to help, there's a fundamental difference. Trying does not mean wanting to help. Trying means creating the illusion.

To promise means to marry?

Of course.

29:22 Values of democracy is in fact the middle class. The middle class in the world. Not the elite class but the middle class. For them, the values of democracy are all based on this. And in general, the world holds on because there is a middle class for which the words 'competition' and 'freedom' have a specific definition, very important, personal. For the sake of this, they will give everything. They're just not as influential as the elite.

30:09 But the decision is made by the elite nevertheless. Here I can't help but ask you what you think of, I don't know, about the intellectual level and patriotism and many other qualities of the Ukrainian elite today. To what extent are they ready to bear responsibility for everything that happens, happened?

Individual representatives of the elite are ready to bear responsibility corresponding to the status that they occupy. Individual, I emphasise. The bulk… We see many manifestations of corruption, don't we? Well, this is probably not from a great mind. Corruption is not from the mind, corruption comes from an internal lack of education. And the elite is poorly educated, little intellectually, ours, low intellectual, not competitive internally, not ready to discuss seriously, not ready to discuss painful topics with society. It has been like that 22, how many, 33 years practically. And it's not becoming different. It can become different if society puts pressure on it. But it doesn't put pressure on it due to hate, the jackal express.

31:28 It's impossible to stop the nightmare on social networks when you don't have the competence to dicuss professionally. Then you replace it with emotions, aggression. That is, aggression appears when you lack enough competence to place emphasis right, in order to conduct a quality dialogue in order to dominate in this dialogue. This is the most difficult thing, well, to be so deeply immersed in the problem so as not to say that you're a fool because you are a fool, but to clearly explain why you are weak in assessing this or that phenomenon.

This is a common problem but the problem of our elite is that they consider themselves chosen by God due to the fact of belonging to the elite. And accordingly, they consider that like any subject chosen by God they have the right to rob, plunder, corrupt, talk nonsense, suffer from populism and so on and so forth. Not be responsible for wrong decisions, after some time return to your career, have no reputation and so on. This is the problem.

And it stems from two main factors. The first is the unwillingness to learn, unwillingness to be an intellectual, the unwillingness to look at oneself critically. And the second is upbringing. Family, parents, environment, it's all exactly the same. Well, he can't grow up to be a quality person if he has brilliant parents who give him the opportunity to be internally free.

We are now moving on to what a family is. But a person, if the parents understand, who, if they see I [the child's self], well, as soon as the child appears, they already see I in him, they talk to him as equals, they do not try to put their painful feelings into him, they give him the opportunity to comprehend the world by conducting a dialogue with him.

And at the same time they show an appropriate example: if dad steals, then the son will also steal. If mom tolerates it, then the daughter will also tolerate theft as such. It's all continuity. Yes, sometimes in families there are renegades in the good sense of the word, children who are superior in moral qualities to their relatives, and the world is built on them. The quantity must be critical in here. Then the practice and theory of politics as such will change.

34:42 What do you think, should the state give some signals to society that this is a value, but this is not a value, and this is generally unacceptable, for example?

It should. In ideal design. But we are now going through the path of creating a state. And so far, there are no rules. The society radically wants to immediately get the most effective product called the state as institutions. Well, the state is institutions. But the society itself is not ready to say the rules that build it.

Well, someone should be the first in this sense.

Try. Try. Try to come up with an unpopular proposal. That we should be tolerant of this, or on the contrary, we should be tough on this. And look at society's reaction. The society always wants to immediately get the ideal thing.

So are you saying that now is not the time to formulate new--

No, it's time to formulate and they must be formulated and live through a certain period of hate and conflict. If they survive, then they are important for the society. If the society hates it and it turns into an anarchy, a chaotic process, then the state will always look fluid. Well, it will always be changeable. It will always try to make changes to the constitution as I call it. Because for some reason immature people believe that if we fix something in the constitution it will necessarily be effective.

They don't understand that the main thing is an internal pact. A social pact. Spoken, but not written down. And when society and the state as institutions are synchronised in this pact, then everything works and then, of course, you can make 12 points of the constitution, add a few more bills that will regulate certain key areas of freedom, for example, entrepreneurship or freedom of speech or religion, and so on. But we have not yet come to this point.

36:58 I have another question. What is a state? Who? Who forms the state today? The fact is that in young societies, a person always tries to sell his self. When people start to clean up their self and understand what's important. This is a collective agreement where your self should be one of others, and not dominant and your self should not necessarily be the main one, and so on, then it will be formed. Unfortunately for us, self is sold, narcissism is sold too brightly: I know everything. I understand, I'll do what's necessary, and you either listen or…

That's the problem of young societies. Namely young ones, because in mature societies, the self is already in the background, and in the first place is collective agreement. First we agreed on the rules, and then you, within these rules, realise your self. At our place, on the contrary, everyone is trying to realise their self the way they understand the world.

I emphasise once again. What is a state? It is a reflection of the society. But people do not appear in the positions of deputy ministers, head of the management, I don't know, throughout the entire vertical of the state. They don't appear from nohwere. Deputies do not appear from nowhere. They are the children of this society. Therefore I explain: you are fighting with the state, that is, with the children whom you gave birth to. I understand that you want to follow the path of Jupiter, the one who should devour his children, but think. What about your other children? Are they not like this? And then ask yourself a question. Why do your children behave in such a way? What did you do wrong? And then lead the dialogue in a different way.

Because if society always tries to put its own self in the foreground, then the state tries to put its own self in the foreground and the problem of no agreement appears. And it will be there for some time. Now the war makes it possible to rethink it all. But again, how? For now I see aggression, mutual aggression. You are to blame for this. You are to blame for that. I'll take corruption out of this. Corruption is all clear. But again, it seems to me that until the law enforcement system-- This is the simplest thing that can be done. Until the law enforcement system starts to think--

40:46 I like Umierov. We know each other well, to put it mildly. He's a strong-willed person. Well, let's see.

Yes, I've been told that he's a very strong-willed, tough person.

I really like strong-willed tough people who fundamentally adhere to a certain position. He definitely adheres to a certain position, but we are talking about the question that indicatively yes, the role of the individual in history is always important, but on the other hand, institutions. Institutions first of all. Because tens of thousands of people work in a system that gives temptations. Can he keep this system under control so that at different levels these temptations are stopped and unrealised?

I will return to the law eneforcement system so that it is clear. What is our problem? Our problem is that law enforcement officers think a little differently than we would like them to think. On the one hand, we have carte blanche, we can take any person under white hands and then we will either put him in prison for 10 years, or we'll get something that will provide us with a high level of personal income. And secondly, when they think, we'll take this person, and then they realise that there is no reputational capital in the country and tomorrow this person can - we know dozens of such examples - after he was accused, absolutely thoroughly accused of corruption, in a year or two or three he can again make career as a minister. And the law enforcement officer thinks, why should I punish as cruelly as possible today, tomorrow these people can come to power but I want to stay. That's the problem.

The problem is not being ready to go to the end. Remember at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, an interesting Italian film "Octopus" [perhaps TV series, La piovra, 1984], 12 prosecutors of the Republic practically tore it apart, yes, not completely, but tore up the Italian mafia. The film is definitely a fairy tale but nevertheless--

There is a real example of this Romanian prosecutor…

Certainly. Laura Kövesi. So it can be solved. The question is, personally, do you want to solve it? Having achieved a certain social status or career status, personally you? What do you prioritise? The quality of life of your family, the quality of your personal life or the implementation of some fundamental point? And we move on to decisive people, everything is the same. One out of a thousand decides for himself that values are more important.

43:20 You are an informed person from the point of view of how exactly people are selected by state bodies for political appointments and so on. According to what principles from your point of view, what is important for the assignment of a person during the war?

Two things. Sincerity from the point of view that you understand that people behind pay a high price, you understand, and you want to pay the same price as they do. It doesn't matter where. Someone gives the last, someone gives their son who goes to fight and so on. And the second is functionality. Well, that is, you should not assume that a minister is from God, the specialty given by God. You must be functional. Two things: sincerity and functionality. Other things don't matter.

Well, professionalism can be assessed in some way, I understand this. But sincerity, this is somehow ephemeral.

Well, look. Declarations are not public, are they? [smiles]. Look at how well he matches his intellectual potential because the level of life in which he is, has he surely earned it all? And that's it. Public declaration is a very important parameter. This speaks of the honesty. Our political elite, unfortunately not only are they often incompetent, not only are they often cowardly, not only are they often not ready to take responsibility, they are also not honest, absolutely definitely. They do not correspond to the level of profitability that they try to hide. Their quality as an intellectual, professional and so on. Everything is very simple. The world has already gone through all this.

You can also say, Mykhailo, that people correspond to the situations in which they find themselves. People are very plastic in this sense. How much space they're allowed to take, as much they take. Both in good and bad sense of the word. Perhaps it's necessary to change this Procrustean bed a little.

Two technologies. Either you invest in external factors, discipline people, then tough laws, tough anti-corruption actions, ineffective but real, Laura, who will really break everyone and at the same time she herself will look like a person who breaks everyone and doesn't make money out of it. Or internal. Barriers that you build for yourself.

For me internal barriers are much more significant because they definitely say that a person is mature. The person understands the limitations that he imposes on himself. You are the only one who can determine who you are. And you can provide yourself with an understanding of how you should live further. If inside you are ready to steal while another person dies for 18 months on the battlefield, no Laura will do anything for you. You will find the opportunity to steal because you want to do it inside.

46:24 Unfortunately, the war showed that there are a lot of people who help the army and a lot of people who make money from this like mad.

Yes, and then? Did you not know this about Ukraine [he uses the polite form]? That's exactly what Ukraine looks like today.

It seemed to me that blood should be an obstacle to many things.

No, blood is not an obstacle if it's not your own. Someone else's blood is common. It's nothing like that. That's what I'm talking about. You must understand that someone else's blood is the same as yours, but few of those who are ready to rob consider someone else's blood as their own. This is not so. It's fiction. Again, delusion. Unfortunately, blood does not stop people from having a twisted worldview. On the contrary, it encourages.

I will say what the problem was even at the beginning of the war. Why then were laid down those fundamental internal mental disorders that today give such a rapid harvest of corruption as such. People didn't believe that Ukraine will hold on. Many who were in certain positions, at first they were shocked and frightened for several months and then they started to think, it will fall anyway, everything will be written off later, but we at this time will earn money. No matter what. And we will take them out illegally. That's exactly how people thought. What was supposed to stop them? Blood? That there's someone dying there? Why would he? What does this have to do with other people's blood?

That's what, I emphasise once again, is the problem of Ukraine. For 30 years it was structured, as you said, negative selective selection. That is, you should be as disgusting as possible in order to make a high-quality career.

55:42 Blitz. Very short. Will you go to the next elections? If yes, then with whom? If not, then why?

I am not pursuing a political career. I work in the president's team. If the president needs help, we will help. If not, I don't see a niche for entering the political process as such. Perhaps this will change. I'm not ready to say now. Perhaps this will change, perhaps it will be necessary to take part in the formation of new rules. Perhaps. But right now I'm not ready to talk about it yet because personally for me there is no purpose to make a political career.

We just discussed that you go jogging almost every day. If you are very tired, what can make you skip a jog?

Nothing. There is no reason why you should abandon the rules accepted for yourself personally. This is self-discipline. If you have decided that it is necessary to work physically to some extent or intellectually by reading literature, you must do it. It is a matter of will, determination. If you give yourself an indulgence, then why don’t you give others an indulgence?

If you have a choice to sit with friends or read a book.

I sometimes do it so that I sit with friends and read a book at the same time.

Is it not interesting with friends? [They're speaking at the same time so it's difficult to make it out]

I am getting distracted by them, yes. No, it happens imperceptibly when many friends are having a lively discussion, you can always read with one eye and and listen with one eye. Well, or listen with one ear and read with one eye.

The last time when was it scary, really?

[Sighs] It's always scary, basically, because the country, well, the country is in a difficult situation. And it means that the family is in a difficult situation, not only mine and so on. The question is, how much can you control the fear. Fear is a good emotion.

With the help of what methodologies? I have my own methods to control fear. What methods do you have to control your fear?

I control everything, all emotions by understanding these emotions. I don't need technology. I just give a report: are there risks? Yes. Are the risks increasing? Yes, they're increasing. Or vice versa, decreasing. And accordingly, can you do something to reduce these risks? If you can, do it. Lay out in components any problem, including emotion. Therefore, in principle, there's nothing difficult in this.

How do you imagine Ukraine in the future? Your personal opinion? Monocultural nation-state or multicultural nation-state?

If you want to be integrated into the global space, you will be multicultural in any case. If you want to have open borders, if you want to dominate the cultural space, well, in some cultural space, if you want to have a competitive cultural product, you will be multicultural objectively. You will use any linguistic forms for conveying a valuable product about yourself. It is a very important parameter. Once again, I am calm about these discussions today including around language, culture, and so on, because this is a question of a young nation. It is looking for its own subjectivity.

The world no longer has such discussions.

The world no longer has them but we are young. And accordingly, in many countries that were formed during the collapse of the USSR, including in Eastern Europe, there are still echoes of these discussions about who we are, what we are, what we give to the competitive world. Ukraine is simply going through this stage, and at some point it will understand that the main thing is the content part. To promote the content you need to use all possible tools. You must dominate the world to be heard. And you can dominate the world if you use, for example, the French language in a francophone environment. The main thing is the quality of the product.

One lawyer whom I know, she says that in the fight with the enemy, ? of the enemy is not important, but your successes are.

In the fight against the enemy the main thing is dominance. Intellectual dominance, physical dominance. Then the enemy at some point will realise that you are much stronger and will subconsciously be afraid of you.

1:01:00 Two more questions. How often do you communicate with Andriy Yermak now and have your relations undergone any changes during the war, during this year and a half?

No, we communicate regularly, certainly as before, trusting relationship, absolutely work-related--

Perhaps you have become friends, perhaps something else. When people communicate, these relationships still somehow…

I don't think that in adulthood you can form a new circle of friends as such. I generally have a neutral, cold attitude towards everything. Functionally.

If you [she uses the polite form] were released for three days or a day in any period of history in any country, just for an excursion, just to be in this, so to speak, environment, sometimes Hollywood directors love these plots, what would you choose? What time, what country, what period?

1930s in the United States. The Great Depression. Well, or the end of the 1920s.

It was very dangerous. But where would you go? Bootlegging mafia or somewhere else?

Yes, interesting would be to understand-- The stock exchange. In the moment when the bulk of unsuccessful traders where thrown out of the windows with securities. To see in reality, this feeling of dying and coming to life at the same time, that is when you understand that everything is over and at the same time you understand that everything is just beginning.

We are living in a time like this.

Exactly. To compare. To compare and realise and then come here with additional experience to show here that all that died means the beginning of what is going to be tomorrow.

#mykhailo podolyak #Natalia Vlaschenko #interview #Youtube

[ank01-fan]

Onboarding My Younger Sister To Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine

This is an opinion editorial by Santiago Varela, a bitcoin miner and writer from Mexico City.My sister turned 18 years old in the beginning of 2023 and I gave her a very unusual gift during this holiday season. Because I love her, I truly believe that the best gift I can give her is the orange pill.It all started with a letter that I wrote for her explaining the gift I was about to give her. Then, I handed her a copy of “The Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous and a hardware wallet. However, that was just the beginning of a long process that we had to go through together if I really wanted to orange pill her.Of course, I was well aware that her first reaction to my surprise wasn't going to include the typical face of an 18-year-old girl opening her presents on a joyful Christmas morning. At first, she seemed more confused than excited. I have no doubt that she was expecting some nice pair of shoes or a cool gadget. I'm sorry sis, but that's how we maximalists roll. In the birthday/holiday letter, I pointed out three reasons why I was giving her this specific gift:- I want to set her on the path to financial freedom - I want her to be a sovereign woman in a fiat world where dishonest relationships have been normalized - As a high school senior who doesn't know what she wants to study in college, she could benefit from Bitcoin which might give her some ideas for what she wants to doThe long process of orange pilling my sister began with a quote from the prologue of “The Bitcoin Standard,” which I consider the perfect starting point. I asked her to read this quote over and over again before beginning the orange-pilling journey:“This book does not offer investment advice, but aims at helping elucidate the economic properties of the network and its operation, to provide readers an informed understanding of bitcoin before deciding whether they want to use it. Only with such an understanding, and only after extensive and thorough research into the practical operational aspects of owning and storing bitcoins, should anyone consider holding value in bitcoin. While bitcoin´s rise in market value may make it appear like a no-brainer as an investment, a closer look at the myriad hacks, attacks, scams, and security failures that have cost people their bitcoins provides a sobering warning to anyone who thinks that owning bitcoins provides a guaranteed profit. Should you come out of reading this book thinking that the bitcoin currency is something worth owning, your first investment should not be in buying bitcoins, but in time spent understanding how to buy, store, and own bitcoins securely. It is the inherent nature of bitcoin that such knowledge cannot be delegated or outsourced. There is no alternative to personal responsibility for anyone interested in using this network, and that is the real investment that needs to be made to get into bitcoin.”In the letter, I told her that I would help her set up the hardware wallet and I would send her a little bit of bitcoin. To begin, I sent her $10 worth of bitcoin. But then, to make sure that she invested time into acquiring the basic, necessary knowledge and to make her understand the proof-of-work philosophy, I promised that I would send her $100 worth of bitcoin for every chapter of the book that she read. Therefore, I prepared a quiz for each chapter to verify that she really read carefully. However, as someone who is deep down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, I knew that making her read the book to stack sats on her hardware wallet wasn't enough. That was nothing, we were just getting started. So, what was next in the orange-pilling journey? Every time that I crossed by any opportunity, I tried to convert that moment into a little Bitcoin lesson. For example, there was such an opportunity after my sister was assigned a project in her high school philosophy class. Knowing that I am a big fan of philosophy, she came to ask me for help. The project consisted of having a conversation with one of your family members but using the famous Socratic method for the conversation. If you don't know what that is, the Socratic method (named after Socrates) is “a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.” Obviously, we had a dialogue about Bitcoin and money using the Socratic method.Another thing I did in this orange-pilling journey was to show her a rabbit hole inside of the Bitcoin rabbit hole: bitcoin mining and energy. I love bitcoin mining and the energy aspects of Bitcoin. In fact, I love it so much that we have an ASIC in our garage. It wasn't really hard to make her grasp how passionate I am about home mining. Believe it or not, she had never even seen my ASIC (she had only heard the “brrrrrr”). Consequently, I took her to the garage and she got some hands-on experience. I also have my Bitcoin and Lightning nodes in the garage. That was a lot of fun because with tools like Mempool.Space and LnVisualizer I was able to help her see the tangible side of Bitcoin. This is when I really felt that it all began to come together.As you all likely know, knowledge about Bitcoin can’t be delegated or outsourced. When it comes to Bitcoin, there is no alternative to personal responsibility. Although I’ve told her that I’d love to help her with anything, I can’t guide her down the rabbit hole forever. You have to go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole by yourself. I guided her for a long time but the moment for her to embark on the journey for herself is here. Like Oscar Wilde once said: “Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”So, I began treating her like any other Bitcoin pleb out there and let her go down the rabbit hole by herself. The only thing I did was to send her a bunch of resources (articles, podcasts, videos, books, etc.) and let her go her own way. At the same time, I realized that I could do this with other kids that are about the same age as my sister. Even better, I realized that my sister could help me with this and introduce her digital-native friends to Bitcoin because, if you care about Bitcoin, you should onboard people individually. Accordingly, I’ve decided to turn our garage into a little Bitcoin academy. Although my sister was the guinea pig for this experiment (and, as I am writing, she is the only student that has attended Bitcoin academy), I have to give a big shout out to other Bitcoiners around the world who have shared educational content for anyone to use. For example, Mi Primer Bitcoin (from El Salvador) has an amazing Bitcoin diploma workbook that anyone can download for free. I have no doubt that initiatives like theirs or like Escuelita Bitcoin in Uruguay are what we need if we want a future with sovereign individuals. We need to teach the young. Hopefully, this inspires other Bitcoiners around the world to introduce their younger siblings to Bitcoin. I was inspired by initiatives like the ones mentioned above and by stories like the Denver middle schoolers who became Bitcoin entrepreneurs. With a little bit of luck, the next time I write an article for Bitcoin Magazine, it’ll be about Mexico City middle schoolers who became Bitcoin entrepreneurs. For now, stay humble and stack sats my friends. This is a guest post by Santiago Varela. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine. Read More Source by Read the full article

#BitcoinStandard #Culture #Opinion #OrangePill

[thoughtfulnutgiver]

Ilang Katanungan Tungkol sa Kinabukasan

Finding the best cougar dating app for you can be quite a challenge these days but it's absolutely essential. If you are truly ready to commit and you think he is too, one of the best ways to find out is to order a pizza. There are so many fun facts and random tidbits that have come out about the royal family thanks to documentaries, Freedom of Information Act requests and simple observation. So sites have to invest heavily in viral marketing to achieve critical mass, which competes with current social networks, while users expect to join both for free. While the British royal family doesn't technically have a last name, immediate heirs of Queen Elizabeth have the last name Mountbatten-Windsor, and everyone else is just known as Windsor. The result was that the feed would be displayed with some information missing (e.g. the author’s name might be missing from a malformed entry). The name was changed from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor after it was seen as unsavory to have a German-sounding name. נערות ליווי בחיפה קריות והצפון As an older woman you have had plenty of time to work on you. However, if you have done your homework and really spent time getting to know him, you shouldn't be surprised by his reaction when you tell him how you feel.

All you have to do is to add some pictures, descriptions - and your professional website is ready. So don't hesitate to keep looking if the man you are dating is not ready to ratchet up the relationship. If you want, keep him around as a friend, or just see him occasionally, but if you are serious about finding a permanent mate, keep dating other people. Give him the space he requires and keep looking. I haven’t ever used dating apps and about a year ago I decided to give them a try. Others use Javascript instead to make it interactive and browser-based but somehow haven’t caught up with the simpler syntax of scientific plotting in R. ggplot (the Python port of ggplot2) seems to be coming along but it’s still weird to have R syntax in a Python library when Python syntax can be just as simple and intuitive. Everything blurs together a little too much, and it’s too easy to accidentally wind up on your newsfeed when you thought you were swiping on promising dates. But then I found myself on dates where I would hold off on asking questions (her job, where she went to school) because I already knew the answers.

The message may claim that Tinder is updating its records and asking you to verify your account. As women have to send the first message on Bumble, women can even make a video call or phone call as their first move. We Americans have become adept at ordering pizza. If he feels the same way you do, then you have your pizza just the way you like it and the price is right. Taking a relationship to the second stage takes courage, especially when we have been wounded in the past. It takes an intimate knowledge of yourself, your needs, wants and desires. Now that you have expressed yourself, what's it going to cost you? Enjoy yourself, take up a hobby. Most people stay a member for several months and you'll take a 55% cut of their membership fee for life! That is what you need to communicate to the man in your life (but please be gentle, and don't bring up any old baggage from the last bad relationship). So why can't getting what you want in a relationship be as simple as that? Previously I thought of politics in terms of simple ideals like universal human rights.

Apart from mobile number registration, the dating app should allow users to create their profiles using their social media accounts like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. making the sign-up process easier and faster. This was to avoid wardrobe mishaps like the skirt flying up and revealing more skin than should ever be seen. In July, Rihanna featured the "Everyday" rapper in her Fenty Skin campaign. This shows personal strength and growth, which she values. We also have members who are looking for friendship, meeting new people or who simply want to build their social network either for personal or business. Both of them are bound to go on separate personal journeys to get there. There are nearly 13 million single-parent families in the U.S. Having said that, I feel that there are indeed some SMALL changes, especially in Haruki and Touma. Usually, there was a misunderstanding and your partner was not intentionally trying to make you feel abandoned, dismissed, or insignificant. Chocolate. Skip the mystery filling, and make sure they're all just her favorite kind - bonus points if they took some work to find.

[krizdayanti]

Luscuscat

Luscuscat - BEP20 Meme Token Fan dan Blockchain Freedom

introduction

Luscus Cat Project: This project is really good. I'm sure this project will have a lot of interest when it launches because this project has a solid team structure and very good project trust. I am sure that when it launches, there will be a lot of interest in this project because this project has a solid and reliable team structure. This project is one of the most creative and revolutionary of all! pleasures that I will be wary of. In my opinion, one of the best projects.

Most of us already know blockchain technology as the core foundation of the crypto ecosystem. The versatile features associated with this technology have led to the popularity of cryptocurrencies attracting not only a loyal user base but also institutional investors and large corporations. But blockchain is not limited to just cryptocurrencies, it can cause a paradigm shift in almost every industry related to information storage and data protection as it has the ability to decentralize operations without relying on any authority to control data.

This project, and the team have built a strong community with great potential. Lucky project. Great project with a really cool idea! I believe in their success. The increasing popularity and adoption of cryptocurrencies by millions of users raises serious concerns about network congestion and scalability of different blockchain networks. Apart from increasing cryptocurrency trading, decentralized finance also increases the load on these networks. The promising nature of blockchain led to the development of many new protocols including yield farming, liquidity pools, and mining platforms on an already dense blockchain.

There are a large number of dog coins in our time, such as: Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Akita and polyadelphite.letter. I believe that now is the time most with the goal of Internet heroes, but straight away Luscuscat!

What does Luscuscat have to offer!?

By increasing the audience and publishing new projects, new users emerge, mutual trust also increases, which leads to increased demand for tokens.

A special commission of 5% will be withdrawn from each transaction, which will be automatically distributed and earned absolutely to all holders.

Automatically, on any trade, 2% will go into the liquidity pool, for this reason, one will continue to fill.

I determine the mechanical burning of coins of any transaction in the amount of 1%, for this reason their value will increase with any purchase.

I believe that everyone, without exception, has been bored with tokens. In this case, however, the cat period is preferred on the Internet. Look at the reason I believe that being in the right period is in the right area.

LUSC Token Benefits

Consistent development in LUSC Token rewards: Expanding the crowd and sending new items, new clients and expanding trust, which drives expanded interest for the token.

45% LUSC Frozen: Our job is long term and we won't be leaving it soon.

Holder Rewards : 5% commission will be charged from each exchange, which consequently will be adjusted and accumulated among all holders.

Programmed LP : As a result, from each exchange, 2% will be sent from the liquidity pool, so it will be filled all the time.

1% Burn Rate: We have set the programmatic coin consumption of each exchange at 1%, so the fee will increase with every purchase.

Greater Community : We think everyone is tired of dog tokens now. Simultaneously, the most adored cat on the Internet. To this end we accept that we are at the moment with the perfect time and place.

luscuscat.io

In my opinion, this project deserves the best and can shoot! DogeCoin has already lost its potential, now let LUCUSCAT conquer the cryptocurrency market! Memes, it's all ours! Considering all the analysis, the potential is amazing, the network and everything is developed, people pull out!

Why do projects require investment?

Their job is to collect as much money as possible. A large part of the investment earned will be spent on research, improvement and development of additional functions for the purposes of our platform, as well as payment of rewards to accomplices.

potenti LUSC?

The number of people involved in the sale and purchase of tokens increased a thousand times by 1.5 times. With modern expensive education, I got great opportunities as a result.

Automatically, on any trade, 2% will go into the liquidity pool, for this reason, one will continue to fill.

I have determined the mechanical burning of coins of any transaction in the amount of 1%, for this reason its value will increase with any purchase.

Cryptocurrencies and digital assets have experienced a boom in the past few years. Anyone who has missed buying any of the currencies now regrets it. If you don't have enough capital to invest in shining coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, there are still plenty of ways to enter the blockchain and crypto market. You can even create tokens or coins if you have a unique concept that involves using blockchain.

This project has a great team who are always providing creative ideas. so it deserves the attention of people from all over the world. It's really a really cool and powerful project with amazing perks. I hope this project will achieve more success. We would love to see the achievements and results of this great project.

Last words

Meme tokens have a special place in the hearts of crypto users. By holding meme tokens, crypto users can have hope that the tokens they hold in the future will increase in value. And Luscuscat can be an alternative for crypto users who want to hold meme tokens. With its various features, Luscuscat will offer users a meme token that is profitable and has the potential to grow in the future. With its tokenomic, it is hoped that in the future Luscuscat can become a meme token that is as popular as SHIBA or DOGE.

token information

https://luscuscat.io/#tokenomics

https://luscuscat.io/#tokenomics

Tim

https://luscuscat.io/#tokenomics

In my opinion, this project deserves the best and can shoot! DogeCoin has already lost its potential, let LUSCUS CAT now conquer the cryptocurrency market! Memes, it's all ours! Taking into account all the analysis, there is great potential, the network and everything is developed, people are chasing!

Why do projects require investment?

Their job is to raise as much money as possible. A significant part of the investment obtained will be spent on research, improvement and establishment of additional functions for the purposes of our platform as well as payment of levies to accomplices.

CAT EYES POTENTIAL?

The number of people participating in the implementation and the acquisition of tokens increased by a thousand times by 1.5 times. By having a modern expensive formation, I stand a good chance in the outcome.

More information about Luscus Cat, visit the link below:

Website:   https://luscuscat.io/#tokenomics Bitcointalk ANN:   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5378395.0 Reddit:   https://www.reddit.com/r/LuscusCat/ Telegram:   https : //t.me/LuscussCat Telegram Chat:   https://t.me/LuscusCatChat Twitter:   https://twitter.com/luscuscat

crisisdayanti https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3394046

[woshisouaoman]

One Single Day. That’s All It Took for the World to Look Away From Us

This article is part of a collection on the events of Jan. 6, one year later. Read more in a note from Times Opinion’s politics editor Ezekiel Kweku in our Opinion Today newsletter.

The Jan. 6 attack on Congress by a mob inspired by former President Donald Trump marked an ominous precedent for U.S. politics. Not since the Civil War had the country failed to effect a peaceful transfer of power, and no previous candidate purposefully contested an election’s results in the face of broad evidence that it was free and fair.

The event continues to reverberate in American politics — but its impact is not just domestic. It has also had a large impact internationally and signals a significant decline in American global power and influence.

Jan. 6 needs to be seen against the backdrop of the broader global crisis of liberal democracy. According to Freedom House’s 2021 Freedom in the World report, democracy has been in decline for 15 straight years, with some of the largest setbacks coming in the world’s two largest democracies, the United States and India. Since that report was issued, coups took place in Myanmar, Tunisia and Sudan, countries that had previously taken promising steps toward democracy.

The world had experienced a huge expansion in the number of democracies, from around 35 in the early 1970s to well over 110 by the time of the 2008 financial crisis. The United States was critical to what was labeled the “Third Wave” of democratization. America provided security to democratic allies in Europe and East Asia, and presided over an increasingly integrated global economy that quadrupled its output in that same period.

But global democracy was underpinned by the success and durability of democracy in the United States itself — what the political scientist Joseph Nye labels its “soft power.” People around the world looked up to America’s example as one they sought to emulate, from the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989 to the protesters leading the “color revolutions” in Europe and the Middle East in subsequent decades.

The decline of democracy worldwide is driven by complex forces. Globalization and economic change have left many behind, and a huge cultural divide has emerged between highly educated professionals living in cities and residents of smaller towns with more traditional values. The rise of the internet has weakened elite control over information; we have always disagreed over values, but we now live in separate factual universes. And the desire to belong and have one’s dignity affirmed are often more powerful forces than economic self-interest.

The world thus looks very different from the way it did roughly 30 years ago, when the former Soviet Union collapsed. There were two key factors I underestimated back then — first, the difficulty of creating not just democracy, but also a modern, impartial, uncorrupt state; and second, the possibility of political decay in advanced democracies.

The American model has been decaying for some time. Since the mid-1990s, the country’s politics have become increasingly polarized and subject to continuing gridlock, which has prevented it from performing basic government functions like passing budgets. There were clear problems with American institutions — the influence of money in politics, the effects of a voting system increasingly unaligned with democratic choice — yet the country seemed to be unable to reform itself. Earlier periods of crisis like the Civil War and the Great Depression produced farsighted, institution-building leaders; not so in the first decades of the 21st century, which saw American policymakers presiding over two catastrophes — the Iraq war and the subprime financial crisis — and then witnessed the emergence of a shortsighted demagogue egging on an angry populist movement.

Up until Jan. 6, one might have seen these developments through the lens of ordinary American politics, with its disagreements on issues like trade, immigration and abortion. But the uprising marked the moment when a significant minority of Americans showed themselves willing to turn against American democracy itself and to use violence to achieve their ends. What has made Jan. 6 a particularly alarming stain (and strain) on U.S. democracy is the fact that the Republican Party, far from repudiating those who initiated and participated in the uprising, has sought to normalize it and purge from its own ranks those who were willing to tell the truth about the 2020 election as it looks ahead to 2024, when Mr. Trump might seek a restoration.

The impact of this event is still playing out on the global stage. Over the years, authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus have sought to manipulate election results and deny popular will. Conversely, losing candidates in elections in new democracies have often charged voter fraud in the face of largely free and fair elections. This happened last year in Peru, when Keiko Fujimori contested her loss to Pedro Castillo in the second round of the country’s presidential election. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been laying the grounds for contesting this year’s presidential election by attacking the functioning of Brazil’s voting system, just as Mr. Trump spent the lead-up to the 2020 election undermining confidence in mail-in ballots.

Before Jan. 6, these kinds of antics would have been seen as the behavior of young and incompletely consolidated democracies, and the United States would have wagged its finger in condemnation. But it has now happened in the United States itself. America’s credibility in upholding a model of good democratic practice has been shredded.

This precedent is bad enough, but there are potentially even more dangerous consequences of Jan. 6. The global rollback of democracy has been led by two rising authoritarian countries, Russia and China. Both powers have irredentist claims on other people’s territory. President Putin has stated openly that he does not believe Ukraine to be a legitimately independent country but rather part of a much larger Russia. He has massed troops on Ukraine’s borders and has been testing Western responses to potential aggression. President Xi of China has asserted that Taiwan must eventually return to China, and Chinese leaders have not excluded the use of military force, if necessary.

A key factor in any future military aggression by either country will be the potential role of the United States, which has not extended clear security guarantees to either Ukraine or Taiwan but has been supportive militarily and ideologically aligned with those countries’ efforts to become real democracies.

If momentum had built in the Republican Party to renounce the events of Jan. 6 the way it ultimately abandoned Richard Nixon in 1974, we might have hoped that the country might move on from the Trump era. But this has not happened, and foreign adversaries like Russia and China are watching this situation with unconstrained glee. If issues like vaccinations and mask-wearing have become politicized and divisive, consider how a future decision to extend military support — or to deny such support — to either Ukraine or Taiwan would be greeted. Mr. Trump undermined the bipartisan consensus that existed since the late 1940s over America’s strong support for a liberal international role, and President Biden has not yet been able to re-establish it.

The single greatest weakness of the United States today lies in its internal divisions. Conservative pundits have traveled to illiberal Hungary to seek an alternative model, and a dismaying number of Republicans see the Democrats as a greater threat than Russia.

#America