#I think it’s because like. there’s a cultural aversion to being old. right? we’re afraid of getting older and we think you

[klanced]

i understand why it didnt happen. but i do legitimately think that the voltron fandom would have been better if shiro/coran was more popular. i was a #shirantruther from the start but imagine if some dude and his dilf bf was a cornerstone of the fandom

YOU ARE SO REAL FOR THIS‼️🗣️🔥💯💯

im not even joking like. can you imagine the neutralizing impact shiran would have had on the fandom dynamic. like imagine if it was as uncontested as a well-established fanfavorite het ship. like sure people would still ship them with other characters but there would have been like a mutually understood starting point. we could have had peace

also the dynamic of shiro being allura’s step-dad/step-uncle would have been so Peak

#this is why I am an alforan truther tbh we need old man yaoi to settle our differences #I NEED to go to bed #ask #anonymous #anon you are so big brained #I think it’s because like. there’s a cultural aversion to being old. right? we’re afraid of getting older and we think you #become less desirable past a certain age #but shiran subverts this by having an age gap while still depicting a healthy and loving relationship #ugh im too tired to word this right. but there’s like. tenderness here do you understand me. WITHOUT acting like shiran is in a nursing home

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I really enjoy your erudite and literary posts about James Bond in your blog very much. Your most recent post about Connery as best cinematic Bond and Dalton as the best literary Bond was brilliant. Although the PC brigade have been inching towards making Bond a woman or even non-white, Ian Fleming’s legacy of a suave but cold hearted English gentleman spy hasn’t been completely trashed. As someone familiar with Fleming literary lore can you also tell me where was James Bond educated? Was it Oxford or Cambridge? I was having a discussion over Zoom with friends and the Oxonians like myself thought it was Oxford because in Casino Royale with Daniel Craig it’s made very plain it was Oxford. Your thoughts?

I appreciate your kind words about my posts on James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming. It’s very hard to ignore the cinematic James Bond because he is very much an icon of our modern culture that needs no translation to transcend across cultures. Alongside Sherlock Holmes, another British literary and cinematic export, the name alone speak for itself.

James Bond appeals to both genders very well.

For the men, Bond dresses well and lives in a care free way. He is both ferociously intelligent and resourceful to get out of any tight corner. He drives incredible cars (from the incredibly stylish Aston Martin DB5 to the incredibly awful AMC Hornet) and uses awesome technology (he is the archetypal boy with toys). He's not afraid to get down in the dirt to fight or engage in lethal gun-play and spectacular car chases. He sleeps with beautiful women, regardless how strong and independent they are (or even lesbian if we’re being honest about Pussy Galore).

For us ladies, while he's not averse to action, he's also a cultured gentleman with suave and sophisticated manners. He's also a generally pretty good looking guy. In many ways, he's a conventional male ideal. So while his conventional good looks and manners aren't for everyone, they hit right the sweet spot of what women like. For everyone, he's a spy! Not at a grey real world nondescript spy, but a cool spy fighting larger than life bad guys whose bland sartorial choices scream mad super villain. It's a very black and white world that James Bond lives in. These bad guys truly are villainous in the desire to re-order humanity, and we need a debonair British MI6 agent to save us from these mad men who want to harm us by laying waste to a bonkers Armageddon.

When all is said and done I think that what makes James Bond so iconic across gender and generations is what Raymond Chandler wrote back in 1959, “every man wants to be James Bond and every woman wants to be with him”.

That sounds about right. Men want to be him, women want to be with him.

I know my first introduction to James Bond was through my grandfather on my  Anglo-Scots father’s side who was a dashing gentleman in his day with a long rumoured hush hush work for Her Majesty’s government firmly shoved under the carpet to avoid further discussion that he - being self-effacing and humble - would find embarrassing that would paint him in any heroic light. Years later he had bought his Bahamas beach pile in Harbour Island out in the Caribbean for the family to rest up from cold winters in Britain. Amongst his immense stack of books dotted around the place were (and still are) first editions of Flemings novels which a few were signed by the author as he on occasion met Ian Fleming when he would sail over to Jamaica (they were also OEs which helped). We were not allowed to touch these but instead picked up the dog earred paperbacks that still retained their 60s musty smell.

On my teen sojourns there I would spend time along with my siblings just reading anything we could find to take to the beach or lounge around in a hammock or a chaise longue. That’s how I came to read the Fleming books - really out of necessity to avoid boredom on a beach (which isn’t really my thing as I prefer the rugged outdoors). But I was pleasantly surprised how well written the books were and I actually enjoyed the stories; it was a refreshing change from the more heavy literary tomes I was trying hard to wade through. As for the Bond films, I watched them on film nights at boarding school; I remember having a school girl crush on Connery, Dalton, and Brosnan.

There are many reasons for the successful longevity of James Bond in popular culture and literature but perhaps one of the most pertinent to our discussion is that James Bond is actually a blank slate and therefore malleable as a character and so he can capture the current zeitgeist in time.

This ability of the film to adapt to different generations while remaining relevant is an important factor for its longevity. For example, the early James Bond films were unashamedly sexist with characters using women as objects and discarding them. In the most recent James Bond films, certainly starting with Timothy Dalton, there is a subtle change in attitude with a few chauvinist attitudes.

James Bond today is more serious, seduces fewer women, and is more respectful towards women in his life, including his boss. This shows how the film changes concerning the rise of feminism in the West. For example, Miss Moneypenny used to be a minor character in the very first James Bond films. Today, she is more formidable and doesn’t tolerate sexist remarks.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this blank slate malleability that has allowed different actors that have been cast to play James Bond their own way - rather than get a straight like for like Scottish sounding actor to replacing Connery for example the film producers went across to Moore via Lazenby for example  - and letting each actor imbue the super spy with different moods. They each added their own colour from the same broad palate to create different tones. However, each of these characters maintained the essential character that defines James Bond. The actors have broadly stayed true to the inherent mix of character and class associated with James Bond.

For this reason I have some empathy towards your concern that Bond would be held hostage to the current zeitgeist of white washing or genderising everything so as to avoid being a victim of cancel culture. But it’s only empathy because I feel there is a danger of misunderstanding just who James Bond is and what he represents.

What do I mean by this?

I mentioned James Bond is a malleable character to the point he’s presented as a blank slate. This is ‘literally’ true - certainly as far as the books go. Ian Fleming doesn’t tell us much about Bond other than his appearance in his books. Indeed - as I mentioned in my past blog post on Connery as the best Bond - Fleming wasn’t convinced by Connery as Bond. He was reported to have said, ‘I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stuntman’ and even dismissed Connery as “that fucking truck driver”. Fleming has good reason to rage. His Bond as written in the books was someone like him.

Like Fleming, Bond was an Eton educated Englishman; an officer and a (rogue) gentleman who was a lieutenant-commander in Naval Intelligence. As Connery began to wow and win over Fleming as Bond, Fleming had a change of heart. Fleming in his later Bond books re-wrote a half-Scottish ancestry for Bond as a tribute to Connery’s portrayal. Bond’s Scottish father was a Royal Navy captain and later an arms dealer, Andrew Bond from Glencoe; and his mother, Monique Delacroix, was Swiss from an industrial family. Bond himself was born in Zurich. Bond isn’t English at all but half-Scots and half-Swiss according to literary canon.

So I mention this because the question who can play James Bond is not as straight forward as it might seem.

But clearly we now have a canon of work, both cinematically and in the literature, where we have base line of who Bond is - or what audiences could possibly suspend their disbelief and go with what is presented to them as James Bond.

I do vaguely remember the hullabaloo and hand wringing around Daniel Craig playing Bond because he didn’t conform to the traditional tall, dark, and handsome trope of James Bond super suave spy. People couldn’t get past his blond hair. Some still can’t. But in my humble opinion he has been an outstanding James Bond and has reimagined Bond in a fresh and exciting way. Craig is in fact mining the Fleming books for his characterisation of Bond as a suave, gritty, humourless killer of the books. Dalton got there before him but that’s a moot point. To our current generation Craig has modernised Bond and dusted 007 down from being a relic of the Cold War to being a relevant 21st Century super spy.

Can anyone play James Bond OO7? Yes and no. It’s arguing that two different things are one and the same. They are not. James Bond is separate from OO7.  

Can a woman play Jane Bond or a black woman or non-white man play Black Bond? Respectfully, no. That’s not who James Bond is.

James Bond is a flesh and blood character with a specific genealogical history - whether in the books or on the screen. This Bond has literary back story that is canon and makes him who he is. Bond does transcend time - he can’t be 38 years old for over 75 years in the real world - but at the same time his character only makes sense when rooted in a specific historic context we know existed (and still exists) and not some wishy washy make believe fantasy of British society. He’s an Old Etonian and therefore an upper middle class male product of the British establishment that is identifiable in a very British cultural context.

Jane Bond would have to have gone to Cheltenham Ladies College, Benneden, or Roedean I suppose if we are talking about equivalence - but such girls’ boarding schools were not the breeding ground for future spies (more likely they married them or became trusted secretaries in the intelligence services as well as flower arranging in their Anglican parish church).

I believe they are letting in black pupils on bursaries at Eton these days to be more inclusive but again it’s an an exception not the rule and Eton doesn’t even get public credit for the inclusive work they try to do because it’s not well known.

Moreover we know Bond loses his Scottish-Swiss parents in a skiing accident. I don’t mean to sound racist but I ski a lot in Switzerland and I can say you don’t really find droves of non-white skiers on the slopes of Verbier or Zermatt. Of course there are a few but it’s the exception and not the norm. Again, I’m not trying to be racist but just point out some obvious things when it pertains to the credibility of character that underlines who Bond is. You pull one thread out of the literary biography and the danger is the rest of the tapestry will unravel.

Of course one could try and go for a Black Bond on screen and then hope there is a huge suspension of belief on the part of the audience. But I suspect it’s a bridge too far. It just doesn’t fit. Audiences around the world have an image of who Bond is - British at the very least but also male (damaged and flawed in many ways) and coming from a specific British social class background that serves as an entree to a closed world of English gentleman clubs, Savile Row, English sports cars, and the hushed corridors of Whitehall.

Any woke film maker with an ounce of creative vision and talent and one who is invested in this would be better off creating a new character entirely - with their own specific biography that is both believable and relatable. Can you imagine an American James Bond? What a ghastly thought. Or worse a Canadian one? Canadians are far too nice and far too apologetic to produce a cruel cold eyed killer. But look what clever film makers like Spielberg and Lucas did with Indiana Jones and even later Doug Liman did with Jason Bourne - both fantastic creations that are part of the cultural zeitgeist now.

Or look at Charlize Theron who plays a MI6/CIA/KGB triple agent in Atomic Blonde or Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in any of the Mission Impossible movies. I would eagerly watch any movies with these two badass women on the screen. All this talk about making Bond a woman or even coloured is just lazy thinking at best and at worst kow towing to the populist tides of PC brigade.

But I firmly believe one can have a female and a person of colour portraying 007. This is because James Bond and OO7 are two different things entirely. Many mistakenly believe 007 is Bond’s own code name and specific alias to him alone.  

007 is a license to kill for a very specialised kind of intelligence officer. Bond has that privilege for as long as he serves at the service of Her Majesty’s pleasure. His 007 license can be revoked - and it has been in the past Bond films - and he’s back to being a just another desk jockey civil servant in Whitehall. So my point is OO7 is not sacred to Bond’s identity. Bond could continue to be Bond even if M took away his 007 license to kill.

The origins of the Double O title may date to Fleming's wartime service in Naval Intelligence. According to World War Two historian Damien Lewis in his book Churchill's Secret Warriors, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were given a “0” prefix when they became "zero-rated" upon completion of training in how to kill. As part of his role as assistant to the head of naval intelligence, Rear Admiral John Godfrey (himself the inspiration for M), Fleming acted as liaison to the SOE.

In the novel Moonraker it’s established that the section routinely has three agents concurrently; the film series, beginning with Thunderball, establishes the number of OO agents at a minimum of 9. Fleming himself only mentions five OO agents in all. According to Moonraker, James Bond is the most senior of three OO agents; the two others were OO8 and OO11. The three men share an office and a secretary named Loelia Ponsonby. Later novels feature two more OO agents; OO9 is mentioned in Thunderball and OO6 is mentioned in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Other authors have elaborated and expanded upon the OO agents. While they presumably have been sent on dangerous missions as Bond has, little has been revealed about most of them. Several have been named, both by Fleming and other authors, along with passing references to their service records, which suggest that agents are largely recruited (as Bond was) from the British military's special forces.

Interestingly, In the novel You Only Live Twice, Bond was transferred into another branch and given the number 7777, suggesting there was no active agent 007 in that time; he is later reinstated as 007 in the novel The Man with the Golden Gun. As an aside, in Fleming's Moonraker, OO agents face mandatory retirement at 45 years old. However Sebastian Faulks's Devil May Care (an authorised Bond adventure from the Fleming estate and therefore arguably could be considered canon) features M giving Bond a choice of when to retire - which explains why Roger Moore (God bless) went past his sell by date.

In the films the OO section is a discrete area of MI6, whose agents report directly to M, and tend to be sent on special assignments and troubleshooting missions, often involving rogue agents (from Britain or other countries) or situations where an "ordinary" intelligence operation uncovers or reveals terrorist or criminal activity too sensitive to be dealt with using ordinary procedural or legal measures, and where the aforementioned discretionary "licence to kill" is deemed necessary or useful in rectifying the situation.

The World is Not Enough introduces a special insignia for the 00 Section. Bond's fellow OO agents appear receiving briefings in Thunderball and The World Is Not Enough. The latter film shows a woman in one of the 00 chairs. In Thunderball, there are nine chairs for the OO agents; Moneypenny says every 00 agent in Europe has been recalled, not every OO agent in the world. Behind the scenes photos of the film reveal that one of the agents in the chairs is female as well. As with the books, other writers have elaborated and expanded upon the OO agents in the films and in other media.

In GoldenEye, 006 is an alias for Alec Trevelyan; as of 2019, Trevelyan is the only OO agent other than Bond to play a major role in an EON Productions film, with all other appearances either being brief or dialogue references only.

In Casino Royale with Daniel Craig’s first outing as Bond, we see in the introduction the tense exchange between Bond and Dryden, a section chief whom Bond has been sent to kill for selling secrets.  

James Bond: M really doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden. She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling secrets. Dryden: If the theatrics are supposed to scare me, you have the wrong man Bond. If M was so sure I was bent...she'd have sent a Double-O. Benefits of being Section Chief...I would know of anyone being promoted to Double-O status, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills...and it takes - James Bond: - two. (flashback of Bond fighting Dryden's contact in a bathroom.)

The OO is just a coveted position and nothing to do with who occupies it. Ito use a topical comparative example it’s like a football team in which a new star player would be given an ex-player’s shirt number e.g. Messi wears Number 10 for Argentina which is heavily identified with the late great Maradona. So conceivably there would be no problem having a woman or anyone else play 007. I think it would be an interesting creative choice to have a woman or someone else play OO7 and Bond is out of the service and yet he has to work together with this new OO7 - the creative tension would be a refreshing twist on the canon. 

Your question about James Bond’s Oxford or Cambridge education is more easier to answer.

It really depends again which Bond one is talking about. The literary James Bond or the cinematic Bond.

In the Fleming books, James Bond’s didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge or any of the other great universities of Britain. In the books Bond’s education is not gone into much detail. We know he was raised overseas until he was orphaned at the age of 11 when his parents died in a mountaineering accident near Chamonix in the Alps. He is home schooled for a time by an aunt, Charmain Bond, in the English village of Pett Bottom before being packed off to boarding school at Eton around 12 years old. Bond doesn’t stay long as he gets expelled for playing around with a maid. He is then sent to his father’s boarding school in Scotland, Fettes College.

Bond is then briefly attends the University of Geneva - as Ian Fleming did - before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel. In 1941 Bond joins a branch of what was to become the Ministry of Defence and becomes a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, ending the war as a commander. Bond applies to M for a position within the "Secret Service", part of the HM Civil Service, and rises to the rank of principal officer. And that’s it.

In the cinematic Bond universe things get more complicated and even contentious as you alluded to in your question. It’s never made quite clear which of the two - Oxford or Cambridge - Bond attended because it depends on how much weight you attach to the lines being spoken in each of the films where it is raised.

In Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond is up at Oxford (New College to be exact since his Aston Martin DB5 was parked in the courtyard at the entrance). He is seen bedding a sexy Danish professor, Inga Bergstrom, to brush up on his Danish (to which Moneypenny on the phone retorts ‘You always were a cunning linguist’). But it’s definitely doesn’t mean Bond studied there as an undergraduate. 

Casino Royale is the film many think yes, James Bond went to Oxford because it is mentioned by Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) as she sizes up Daniel Craig’s Bond on the train. Here is the full quote as said by Vesper Lynd, “All right... by the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or wherever. Naturally you think human beings dress like that. But you wear it with such disdain, my guess is you didn't come from money, and your school friends never let you forget it. Which means you were at that school by the grace of someone else's charity - hence that chip on your shoulder. And since your first thought about me ran to "orphan," that's what I'd say you are.”

The thing to note is that it’s Vesper Lynd taunting Bond and even then she takes a wide stab by saying ‘Oxford or wherever’ because she doesn’t really know and Bond doesn’t oblige her with an answer.

That whole scene struck me as strange because she’s guessing by the cut of the suit it must be Oxford (or Cambridge). Bond is wearing an Italian suit (Brioni to be specific) and not and English Savile Row one that presumably someone of Bond’s taste and background would be sporting.

A more plausible answer if we are going by the cinematic Bond universe is Cambridge. Indeed it is stated explicitly by Bond himself. Can you guess?

You Only Live Twice which is has the distinction of being the only Bond film (as far as I can tell) from being set in just one country - Japan.

You remember the scene. Lieutenant commander James Bond has just had a briefing with M on board a submarine and is naturally flirting with Moneypenny on his way out. Moneypenny playfully tosses him a Japanese phrase book, saying he might need it.

“You forget,” Bond responds with an expression just short of a smirk as he tosses it back to her, “I took a first in oriental languages at Cambridge.”

So it seems James Bond is a Cambridge man.

A first means - as any British university student would know - first class honours. It’s the highest classification grade one can get in their undergraduate degree ie a ‘first’. Although at Cambridge, like Oxford, you can also get a double first in the part I and part II of the Tripos. Both universities also award first-class honours with distinction, informally known as a ‘Starred First’ (Cambridge) or a ‘Congratulatory First’ (Oxford).

Another oddity is he says ‘oriental languages’ when one got a degree in ‘oriental studies’ at the Oriental Faculty at Cambridge. That is until 2007 when Cambridge bowed to public and student pressure and chose to drop its Oriental Faculty label and instead adopted the name the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Oxford still hangs on to its name the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

My only reservation about crowing over an Oxonian is how truthful was Bond being with Moneypenny in this scene?

Is this line meant to be taken seriously or ironically? Most people seem to take it seriously, despite much of Connery's dialogue being obviously ironic and playful. Certainly, Bond is shown to have never been to Japan before and is incapable of saying anything in Japanese other than the odd "sayonara" and "arigato." But then again Bond does know the correct temperature sake is meant to be served at. So there’s that.

Or it could be Bond was speaking a half-truth. I know speaking from experience as someone who very nearly read asian languages instead of my eventual choice of Classics that ‘Oriental languages’ at the ex-Oriental faculty in Cambridge can mean many other languages e.g. Sanskrit, Hindi, Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic as well as Korean, Japanese and Chinese. It opens up so many other delicious possibilities for Bond. If he read Arabic then perhaps he’s being deeply ironic with Moneypenny (after all she would have drooled over read his MI6 personnel file).

If you think I’m losing my mind then ponder on the fact it was Roald Dahl who penned the screenplay of You Only Live Twice. Dahl was not above snark. Indeed pretty sure he would have got a starred first in snark at any university.

Of course the most obvious explanation is that it’s plot armour as a way for Bond to just get on with the story by suspending the audience belief. Why wouldn’t Bond know Japanese? He seems to know everything else imaginable.

However if it ever was it’s now become canon as EON - the production company behind the Bond films - have stated officially for the fandom that Bond’s official bio has it that he went to Eton and Cambridge, where he got a first in oriental languages. So that seems settled then.

In hindsight it makes perfect sense that Bond went to Cambridge since historically Cambridge has provided the bulk of the spies not just for Her Majesty’s service but also for the other side, the Russians - the so-called Cambridge Spies of Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross, and a host of other traitors. We seem to be an equal opportunities employment service.

I’m sorry to disappoint you and other Oxonians that despite what you might think James Bond didn’t attend Oxford. Believe me as a Cantabrigian it gives me no pleasure to say this…..too much.

Thanks for your question.

#ask #question #james bond #bond #film #cinema #ian fleming #oxford #cambridge #oxbridge #university #education #cancel culture #culture #society #britain #british #personal

[crstapor]

Terror White

“You’re either with us or against us.” - George W. Bush


1.

On January 6th, 2021, domestic terrorists invaded the Capital Building in an act of political insurrection. Their intent was to overthrow the will of the people by preventing certification of a free and fair democratic election. They did so at the behest of their political leader (who was impeached a second time for inciting this gross transgression of his oath of office), other voices in their party - the so-called GOP - and talking head agitators inhabiting the far-right media echo chamber. Nearly to a man, a woman, a they, each of these terrorists were white.

Images of ‘good old boys’ traipsing down the halls of the people’s house waving confederate battle flags, kicking feet up on the Speaker’s desk, walking off with public property or smearing their shit on the floors pervaded the internet. These images provided by the villains themselves, posted shamelessly to social media profiles.

As a result of this treasonous, insulting, juvenile, despicable, and ultimately futile effort five people died. Even still, hours after the fact, a majority of members of the so-called GOP voted in accordance with the will of these terrorists. They voted to overturn the results of a free and fair election in the world’s oldest modern democracy. They did so because they believed there were serious ‘concerns’ (‘concerns’, let’s be clear, that started with them and like the Ouroboros, ended up with the confusing, if unhygienic, phenomenon of not knowing where their mouths or assholes ended or began) with the 2020 presidential election. After over 60 court cases arguing that point only one was ruled in their favor. None of the 50 States comprising our union found any evidence of wide-spread fraud. Indeed, a federal agency tasked with monitoring election security stated unequivocally that the presidential election of 2020 was one of the most secure in a generation.

And yet? There they were. Spouting conspiracy theories, assaulting police officers (those stalwart stewards of the ‘law & order’ they otherwise claim to love), brandishing spears and bearskins, stealing mail, leaving death threats to the Vice President, fundamentally acting the fool. A bunch of bullies let out of detention with rage and rebellion on their minds.

Let me be clear: each and every one of these terrorists should be hunted down by law enforcement and charged to the fullest extent of the law. They should then be prosecuted and the judges in each and every case should show or allow no mercy. These barbarians must never be allowed to storm the gates again.

Fine.

But that’s not the really interesting question here. The far-right has been producing assholes forever (one of the few things the ‘right’ is truly consistent at). What’s actually interesting is how these insurrectionists arrived at the conclusions they did. Which is to say; how did their ‘thinking’ bring them to this point.

2.

While it might be tempting for some on the left to see that last sentence as a joke, let’s remember we’re sitting at the adult table. These terrorists, being human, sharing our genetic code, are people - real, live, eating, shitting, fucking, anxious, sleeping, scared, afraid, terrified people - just like you and me. As much as it would be easier if we could see them as Uruk-hai instead of our brothers and sisters, sadly? That’s what they are. Family. Part of the Human Condition.

Though humans that are clearly very, very, very sick. My diagnosis? Mind Cancer. Let me explain, under the assumption my readers understand the difference between mind and brain. As such, I am not asserting that the terrorists are physically sick. From their pics and videos it’s clear many are - obesity, hypertension, anal retention - though that isn’t the point. It’s their mental programming, their minds, that have been infected. Infected with what?

Put simply? A disjointed ontological phenomenology obscured, obfuscated, and accelerated by persistently chaotic epistemological aberrations. Said plainly? Their ability to process reality has been impaired.

Why? Racial resentment, poor economic opportunities, an aversion to books and learning? Yes. All that. Plus? The internet, which has created a new Dark Ages.

Paradoxically, one built on light.

3.

Look. Self-interested demagogues intent on self-aggrandizement are nothing new. Nor are their ability to rally or rile a downtrodden populace. Sadly, demonizing the ‘other’ is also pretty par for the course in these scenarios. An old story, all told. What’s new this time is how it happens.

In a single second - count it out! One Mississippi - a beam, or photon of light moves 186,000 miles. Roughly seven times the circumference of the Earth. The new speed of hate. The internet, that modern marvel ushering in Humanity’s first truly post-scarcity resource, is built on light. Philosophers have for millennia wed knowledge with light. And now we all (well, those of us in the post-industrial world) carry a terminal connected to this internet in our pockets. A stunning marvel of human ingenuity. One would imagine that access to such a wellspring of knowledge and information would have a truly edifying affect on the Human Condition. Perhaps, in aggregate, or retrospect, it will. At the moment?

Yeah ...

At the moment it seems that the more access to information humans have the more they double down on tribal identities, wish fulfillment, instant gratification (read: porn), perceived slights, fantasy lands, Rick Astley videos, or the jibbering incoherent rantings of simple capitalists fomenting the fragile emotional states of low information individuals who feel they have no place in this world. This is a fundamentally devastating epistemological conundrum. Why? For centuries the barrier to the future was the amount of information, knowledge, you could access or process. Yet here and now? Here and now there might be too much access. Too much information. More so, the striking fact that our ability, as a species, writ large, to process or parse this information has not kept pace with the information at hand. A sad equation that inevitably leads to moments like 01/06/21.

4.

The Trump Terrorists of January 6th, 2021, weaponized the internet to facilitate their attempted coup. As did their ‘dear leader’ throughout his humiliating single term in office. In fact, it was the geometrical acceleration of connectivity and interconnectedness enabled via the web and its insanely capitalist platforms that allowed for their ‘movement’ to incubate and evolve. While it is true that neo-liberal policies advocating globalist economics and monetary policy are at the current root cause of most ills genuinely affecting rural, or poor, or uneducated MAGA-heads, it’s also true that apart from an Independent from Vermont no one in the political economy of the last couple decades gave much of a shit about these poor and dispossessed inheritors of old racial mythemes and toxic narratives of self-reliance. No one that is, other than their ‘dear leader’. Never mind he didn’t intend to ease their suffering in any material, or structural way. He talked about it. He tweeted about it. And then he gave them a little song and dance at the rallies. Breathtaking stuff.

However, it wasn’t just the performative act of playing ‘authoritarian’ that got them hot and bothered. No, it was at the same time the eternal need to belong to a group, the legitimate feeling of economic obsolescence, coupled with these new tools of information transmission. Tools that at once gave them powers unheralded and seemingly ensconced them in a protective shell, a perpetually larval manifestation of all their baser inclinations. A reactionary ‘safe space’ from which they could launch a thousand ships of intolerance and hate. What good is truth if you can’t weaponize it? What good are facts if you share them with everyone else?

And so we find ourselves revising Plato. There isn’t just one cave in which we are chained, kept from reality. There are multiple tunnels, alcoves, deeper caverns in which we might dwell. Furthermore, if lucky, there are different days, vistas, egresses in which we can escape from the confines of ignorance. Much like the lucky Mormons, it would seem the far-right believes there are plenty of planets in which ‘Truth’ can dwell. Never mind that multiplying ‘Truth’ in such a way doesn’t actually produce more truth.

In fact, it reduces ‘Truth’. Impoverishes it. Hollows it out.

Which is sad, really. For the major harm caused by these rebels isn’t to our democratic institutions, nor our mythological vision of our nature, nor that ever-loving economy - but to the very fabric that binds the social contract on which all the preceding rely.

That fabric being, specifically, a shared objective reality.

5.

How can we survive if we can’t agree on basic facts? Can a multi-racial, multi-cultural, representative democracy exist when a large percentage of the comprising citizens don’t believe in, or even acknowledge, that that’s actually what’s happening? Is White Supremacy so fundamentally a part of our nation’s DNA that the country can’t exist without it? If so, for those of us who vehemently oppose White Supremacy, the question might then be: is the country worth saving?

Most versions of Western Ethics indicate that violence is not the cure. Nor do I advocate such a position. At the same time I’m deeply troubled, because due their illness these actors are neither rational or coherent. Ergo, we can’t reason with them either. So what next?

To corral the revolutionary, if inchoate, spirit of these sick, fringe minds diseased as they are by hate, grievance, and digital oubliettes would any policy proposals be acceptable? Perhaps as fantastic an idea as the images from 01/06/21, what if the Federal Government decided to halt its obsequious sycophantry to corporate America and ‘elites’ and instead actually, seriously, emphatically reinvested in the heartland, in Main Street, in the working class? Wouldn’t it be ironic if a little more socialism was truly the cure these hatemongers require?

6.

Maybe we should step back and listen to the wisdom of George W. Bush.

Confronting what was at the time the most disheartening terror attack on the homeland, Bush made clear not all who could otherwise be lumped in with the terrorists were terrorists. In the same way that, yes, not all Trump voters are Trump Terrorists.

Even so. Bush made it clear you needed to pick a side.

With us - toward a diverse future in which the promise of the Founders is emboldened and expanded for all who live between our shores. Or against us - back to your stunted hovels and holes with all the other low information troglodytes you like to cosplay revolution with.  

Choose.

It’s your call. But choose quickly, because history is watching, and only one path moves toward the future.

C. R. Stapor Longmont, CO 01/16/21

#January 6th #terrorism #domestic terrorism #the internet #social media #revolution #insurrection #01/06/21 #low information #mind cancer #George W Bush #Trump #GOP #epistemology #white #essay #philosophers on tumblr

[winterverses]

Walking Wounded - Chapter Seventy - Three

It would have been a bad idea to take the bike when they planned on drinking, so they’d taken an aircar to the restaurant they’d planned to start their night off at, walking through the door just as the clock ticked over to the time of their reservation. Anne’s eyes brightened when she saw the elegant lady near the doors, who was speaking to what looked to be one of the servers. “Dobryj vyechyer, Mamulya,” Anne said as they walked toward her.

The woman looked over at them, a frown creasing her brow at first, then her green eyes widening as she recognized Anne. “Goodness, Mishka, what have you done to your hair? Is this some sort of fashion thing? It never used to be that bad.” She had no accent that Kirk could discern, her words rapid and clipped but sounding as American as his, or as Anne’s. She walked briskly toward them, and Anne let go of his arm to take her arms and do that very French air-kiss on both cheeks.

“I’m afraid it’s real, Mamulya. I’d rather not talk about it, but if you really want to know, there’s an article coming out tomorrow in the Clarion.” Anne rested her hand back on Kirk’s arm, drawing the woman’s attention to him. “Jim, this is Regina Vasyutin, the owner’s mother. Regina, Captain James T. Kirk.”

Those green eyes widened again, looking him over appreciatively. “Well, it’s a good thing we gave you two one of the window tables. A handsome man like that will bring business our way.” She extended her hand toward him. “Call me Regina, darling.”

Not a single streak of grey in her dark hair though she had to be in her fifties at the very least, face that was fifteen years younger, body that was thirty years younger, dressed in classy designer clothing that fit her perfectly-- instead of shaking her hand, Kirk bowed over it, brushing his lips across the back. He knew this type. “Pleased to meet you, Regina.”

Regina fanned herself with her hand. Speaking in an aside to Anne, she said, “I was going to tell you that you should have married Maxim, but I’ve changed my mind. Marry this one. He’s polite, handsome, a hero-- what more could anyone want?” To Kirk, she said, “Unless you like older women. In which case, my husband will have been dead for two days in about three days’ time.”

That caught Kirk off-guard, leaving him biting back a laugh. “I sincerely doubt I could keep up with you, Regina, but if I ever feel like I have a chance, I’ll give you a call.”

Apparently satisfied by that, Regina led them to their table. The entire restaurant was extravagantly decorated, with carved chairs made of real wood, gilded designs on the walls and ceilings, embroidered and polished linen tablecloths, and more of those real candles flickering on every table, along with flower arrangements. It was sort of odd, as he’d always thought that French and Italian food were usually the ones that got this kind of fuss made over them-- Russian food didn’t usually qualify, as far as he knew. But it was one of the hardest restaurants to get into in all of Yorktown, and Anne’s taste was impeccable, so it had to be good.

After a little more chat and an affectionate kiss placed on Anne’s temple, Regina swept off to see to their dinner. Anne watched her go, mixed feelings clearly evident, at least to him, in those expressive eyes. “What’s up?” Kirk asked.

Anne shook her head, smiling wryly. “She doesn’t know anything about me, and she still treats me like a daughter. It’s just a little disconcerting. And tomorrow when that article comes out, I’m going to have to deal with her being upset over everything that’s happened.”

“You could just tell her to take her upset somewhere else,” Kirk said. “There’s no reason for her to lay that on you, even if she means well by it.”

Anne’s mouth twisted unhappily. “But would she still treat me like a daughter if I did?” Trying to shake off her mood, she smiled at him. “It’s all right. There’s no help for it anyway. Let’s just enjoy the evening. Maxim has probably been dithering all day about what he needs to show off first.”

“Trying to impress you?” Kirk asked, wondering just how over Anne this guy was.

Anne shook her head, laughing. “No. Trying to prove he’s the better cook. He is, he always has been, but when I worked here I showed him some tricks he didn't know and he’s never quite forgiven me for it. It’s mostly a joke.”

A furred, pawlike hand reached down then, placing two tall, frosty, clear drinks on the table, Kirk looked up to see a black-striped brown felinoid with pretty white smudges around her--  definitely her, he thought, judging by her graceful slightness-- eyes, wearing the apron that the other servers wore, a golden necklace, and nothing else. She didn’t need clothes; the fur covered everything relevant. Anne didn’t smile, but her eyes lit up. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” she said, obviously pleased.

“Iss only a short shift. Maxim wanted the besst tonight.” The voice sounded female, so he decided he'd been right. He hadn’t known about the Sivaoan community on Yorktown until Anne had mentioned it, but he was glad to see that they were adapting to their sudden entry into the technological and political landscape of the galaxy.

Anne broke into a smile, but was careful to keep her mouth closed. Bared teeth were not a friendly sign in Sivaoan culture. “Leapstar, I’d like you to meet Captain James T. Kirk. Jim, this is Leapstar to-Yorktown. Leapstar and I used to work together here.”

Holding his hands parallel to the ground, Kirk flexed his fingers, curving them into claws, then relaxed them, imitating sheathed claws. “Good to meet you, Leapstar,” he said, glad he remembered the etiquette.

Leapstar likewise showed and then sheathed her claws. “James Tiberius Kirk to-Enterprise,” she said, surprising him. “I know you. You have never met me, but you have ssaved my life twice. Once here on Yorktown, and once from AyDeeEff.”

“It’s not only Sivaoans here then? There are Eeiauoans too?” There had been tension between the two planets. The Eeiauoans had originally come from Sivao, but had been banished from the planet because of cultural friction caused by a plague. He’d played a role in reintroducing the two cultures to each other a couple of years ago while trying to find a cure for an incredibly infectious disease called ADF Syndrome that had been spreading through Federation systems like wildfire. It was a pleasant surprise to see the two cultures reuniting peacefully.

“Yess. Our differences become small when faced with the many other races in the galaxy.” Leapstar’s tail looped in amusement. “Only wanted to thank you. I live twice because of you.”

“And she lives twice as hard,” Anne said impishly, her silvery eyes dancing with suppressed humor. “One of the only Eeiauoans I’ve ever seen who’s gotten over the alcohol aversion. She can drink me under the table.” Leapstar’s tail flicked and then wrapped around Anne’s wrist.

Kirk had to admit he was impressed. With their sensitive noses, most Sivaoan or Eeiauoan felinoids couldn’t stand to be around alcohol. “That takes some dedication,” he said, taking his drink and toasting her.

Leapstar’s tail squeezed Anne’s wrist. “I musst go. I will bring your hors d’oeuvres. Maxim has your menu planned; you do not need to order unlesss you wish something different.”

Kirk held up his hands. “I leave these things to the experts.”

“We’re fine with whatever Maxim makes,” Anne said. She stroked the tip of Leapstar’s tail once before it unwound and the lithe felinoid disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

“Do you know everyone here?” Kirk asked when Leapstar was gone.

“Some of the waitstaff has changed. Mostly I knew the back of house staff; I worked here when I was between books.” Faint guilt crossed her face. “They were under the impression that I was just a wanderer with a small inheritance, enough to travel and live off, but not enough that I didn’t have to work.”

“Didn’t the plush apartment ever give you away?” Kirk teased, hoping for a smile.

His hopes were rewarded; her eyes lightened and her dimple almost showed. “Oh, come on. I never got anything like that just for myself. Mostly whatever the smallest place was that had a kitchen and a balcony or a terrace. I’ve lived in some very odd places because of those requirements.” The humor was temporary; after a moment, the guilt crept back in, accompanied by worry. “I hope they’re not too mad when they read the article,” she said, her eyes darkening to the heavy grey of a sky that was about to rain.

Now that was just all out of perspective. “I think they’re going to be more concerned about you than anything else. No one’s going to get mad at you for not telling them every detail of your life when there are much bigger and more current issues to address.”

Anne shook her head. “I know that’s true. I just wish I could believe it.”

He could understand. Childhood never really disappeared, and when it was a childhood where the smallest mistakes overshadowed everything else and became the reason for wildly disproportionate punishments, that ended up creeping into any relationship like some sort of fungus trying to rot away everything it touched. It was something he’d had to deal with in various ways, but at least in his friendships with his crew, it had been entirely erased by repeatedly risking their lives for each other. But he could still understand Anne, whose relationships were mostly transient, mostly distant, mostly kept at arm’s length despite the obvious affection people had for her. If he hadn’t ended up on the Enterprise, would he have become like her?

That kind of damage couldn’t be fixed tonight. And if it was a choice between spending the night fruitlessly trying to confront her old demons, or enjoying each other and the night as she’d intended, he knew what he’d pick. “Hey.”

“Hey what?” Anne asked, the grey of her eyes seeming to shift like mist in a light breeze.

“Put it down for now, gorgeous. Whatever happens, happens, and either way you’re going to be moving on once all this is over.” Whether with him, or on her own. With him, he hoped. They could work it out.

She looked down at her drink, fingering the cucumber rose that garnished the side, then looked up at him, smiling crookedly. “You’re right. Sorry. I’m just a little on edge right now.”

Now that he could believe, with the interrogation looming over her. “Nothing to apologize for. Eat, drink, and be merry, right?” he said wryly.

That surprised a laugh from her. “How Epicurean. And absolutely correct.” She sipped her drink, watching him over the rim.

Leapstar appeared again then, setting down an assortment of little finger foods, blinis with caviar, pickles and cured fish and bites of bread with some sort of thinly sliced meat, tiny kebabs that Anne said were called shashlik, and some sort of meat jelly thing that Kirk could swear he had stunned with a phaser once. Surprisingly, it was absolutely delicious, as was everything else on the table. He and Anne picked at the assortment until the last bite was gone, appetites whetted for the meal. Somehow, like magic, new drinks discreetly appeared whenever the old ones were finished, and plates that were empty disappeared the same way. It went on this way throughout the meal, the plates that made up the main course showing up just at the moment when their appetizers were finished. The most Leapstar did was murmur the names of the dishes-- botvinya, pelmeni, kurnik, all of them made with as much of an eye to presentation as taste. The result was really excellent, the soup cold and served with ice cubes, crayfish adorning the sides, the pelmeni artfully arranged, tender and savory, the kurnik pastry light and flaky and delicate, decorated with whorls and flower shapes, and the filling something like a really great pot pie. By the end of the meal, he was definitely in agreement with the rest of Yorktown-- this was a meal worth waiting for.

Before dessert came, a man that Kirk assumed was Maxim came to talk to them. He found himself evaluating Maxim, looking over the impeccably clean white apron, the large nose that looked as if it had been broken once or twice, the deep-set eyes. The man was handsome enough in spite of, or maybe because of, his flaws. As he set down the desserts, he said, “It’s good to see you again, Mishka.” He looked over to Kirk, nodding respectfully. “And we’re honored to have you here, Captain. I hope you’ve enjoyed your meal.”

“What is this shit you put in front of me, Max?” Anne said before Kirk could respond. He saw the glint of humor in her eyes, so he knew she wasn’t serious, but that seemed really out of order for such a great meal. And he knew she’d enjoyed it; she’d said so, a few times, over the course of the meal. “You’re getting lazy. I could have chipped a tooth on that pelmeni dough.”

To his surprise, Maxim played along. “True, it’s not as light as when you were in charge of it. Maybe I should have asked you back into the kitchen.”

“Are you kidding? I’m never setting foot in that hole again.” Anne sniffed.

In response, Maxim grabbed her arm and pulled her up out of her chair. Kirk saw her bracing, trying not to struggle away as he engulfed her in a bear hug, thumping her back. “I don’t know how I manage without your sharp tongue to prod me along.”

Anne relaxed enough to return the embrace in kind, but pulled away shortly. “You’re doing fine, Max. Although you’re still a shit. What kind of a nickname is Mouse?”

Maxim laughed, not seeming to notice that she was still tense. Kirk had to admit, he might not have realized she was shaken if he hadn’t known the signs so well. “So you finally got someone to tell you what it meant.”

“Yeah. One of the bridge crew on the Enterprise is Russian.” Anne leaned her hip against her chair.

“You could have just looked it up,” Maxim pointed out. “Still so stubborn.” He looked over to Kirk, grinning just a little. “She was aboard ship, was she? How much trouble did she cause, Captain?”

Kirk leaned back in his chair, pretending to think about it. “All things considered, very little compared to the normal course of events. Only one hull breach and a room full of medical equipment destroyed. Oh, and a few bodily injuries, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“That hull breach was not my fault, “ Anne said, turning her long nose up. “I was trying to stop it but your damn ship wouldn’t listen to me.”

Maxim’s eyebrows raised. “I’m glad I kicked you out of my kitchen before you graduated to bodily harm, Mishka.”

“You didn’t kick me out. I left when we broke up,” Anne said. “And your mother took it worse than you did, you asshole.”

Maxim shrugged. “She’s fine. She’s happy to have grandchildren now. Our first is seven months old. Second on the way.” He paused, then added, “You were invited to the wedding. Julia and I got married just before the baby came.”

Anne kept her eyes and voice calm. “I don’t want to talk about it, Max. It had nothing to do with you. There’s an article coming out in the Clarion tomorrow that will clear everything up. I know you don’t keep up with the news, but really, I’d think you’d have heard something about all that mess.”

“I’ve heard things,” Maxim said, his voice even and noncommittal. “I chose not to listen to them until I heard your side.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Read the article, and then contact me in a few days. I’ll clear up whatever questions you have then. Maybe.”

That seemed to be enough for Maxim; he looked to Kirk, cocking his head. “I was fortunate enough to meet your Russian officer today, Captain. A good choice. You’ll never find a more hardworking, dedicated man than a Russian. When he wants to be.”

“Mr. Chekov is a vital part of my crew. He’s personally saved my life more times than I can remember. Of course, he has a lot to live up to-- the rest of my crew is equally talented, and I’m proud to have all of them on my ship.” That sounded fair enough, if a little press-conference bland. It wasn’t that he wanted to downplay Chekov’s talents, but he also didn’t want to outright agree with Maxim. If that was childish, so be it.

Maxim frowned thoughtfully. “Well, when he comes in, I’ll get Mamulya to bring him over. I made space for him as well today. The least I could do for a fellow countryman and a hero.”

Kirk wondered why he wasn’t surprised, and why he felt just a tinge of resentment. “I’m flattered to know you’d go to such lengths to accommodate us.”

“It’s no trouble, not after what you and your crew have done for Yorktown. And whatever Mishka wants, she gets.” Maxim grinned broadly. “Enjoy your dessert. And give my regards to your crew. I’ll try to fit them in whenever I can, should they want to sample our efforts.”

Well, at least the man was generous. “I’ll pass along the message. Thank you for an excellent meal. I’ve enjoyed it very much.”

Maxim bowed slightly, then went off between the tables, towards the back, his broad body somehow inconveniencing no one with his passing.

Anne sat back down in her chair, looking over at Kirk. “After this, we’ll go somewhere that doesn’t employ anyone I know.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Was that true? He definitely hadn’t liked the way Maxim hadn’t noticed that Anne didn’t want to be touched. It seemed like anyone who was close enough to take that sort of liberty should also be close enough to know when it wasn’t welcome. Other than that… “He’s an interesting guy.”

“You don’t like him, you mean,” Anne said. Sometimes she was too damn perceptive. “I’m not really surprised; you’re both used to being in charge, and it shows. I liked him a lot, but he and I broke it off because he’s a family man. I’m not that kind of girl.” Anne shrugged, and then smiled at him, her eyes shining. “Besides, he never made me crazy like you do.”

Now that was a sentiment he could definitely understand. Being with Carol had been the same. “Yeah, I think we’ve got that one covered in both directions.” Kirk felt himself relax.

The dessert was, again, fantastic. Anne told him it was an elaborate take on something called Bird’s Milk Cake, explaining that bird’s milk was a euphemism for something vanishingly rare. The cake itself was springy, creamy, with just enough sweetness that the dark chocolate icing was a nice bitter complement. After they were finished and it came time to leave, Anne beckoned Leapstar over, who then refused to give them a bill. “On the housse. For Mishka and James Tiberius Kirk to-Enterprise, to ask for payment would be an inssult.” She would not discuss it further, despite Anne’s annoyance.

As they got up to leave, Kirk saw Chekov sitting in the waiting area, talking to one of the ensigns from Communications. Natalia looked vaguely like a sea creature, with a spiraling lobe at the back of her head and a trilling, watery voice. “Pavel, Natalia,” he said, and Chekov looked up, surprised.

“Keptain! I did not expect to see you here,” he said.

“We’re off duty, Pavel. You can call me Jim.” Kirk glanced back at Anne, who was deep in conversation with Regina, and looked to be chewing her out for not allowing them to pay. “Definitely some good food. Anne got us in; she used to work here.”

Chekov looked over in the direction Kirk had, and must have seen those ridiculously tight leather pants, because he almost blushed. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, K- Jim. If only because thet means I vill enjoy myself. Do you hev any plans for the evening?”

“Anne wants to go dancing.” He looked over at Natalia. She was dressed in a slinky little outfit that said she and Chekov had the same sort of plans. “Looks like you were thinking about it too.”

She laughed, hiding her smile behind her hand. “Yes, Captain. We were going to go out to the bars.”

Chekov grinned a little. “Perheps ve vill see you around.”

“Why not?” Kirk told him the entertainment district they were planning to visit. “No guarantees, but if you happen to be around there, keep an eye out for us.”

“Ve vill,” Chekov said.

Anne and Regina walked towards them, Regina’s arm threaded through Anne’s, and her head bent near Anne’s ear, talking softly. As they stopped near Kirk, Regina pulled her arm from Anne’s and did that French air-kiss thing again. “Now, Mishka, if you need anything, you must call us. Anything at all.”

Anne smiled and made a half-step towards Kirk, resting her hand on his arm. “I’m fine, Mamulya.” Noticing Chekov, she said, “But please, treat my friends nicely. Pavel was just lovely to me while I was aboard ship.”

Regina glanced over, smiling widely. “To have you visit, and then your friends as well? Delightful. Do follow me, Pavel. I’ll show you to your table.” She kissed Anne’s cheek once more while Chekov stood, throwing Kirk a playfully sultry look. “Enjoy your night, darlings,” she said, then focused on Chekov. “Come with me. You’re getting some of the best seats in the house…”

Anne pressed up against his side. “Let’s go, cher. Work some of this off before we work the rest of it off at home.” She smiled up at him, her eyes luminous.

“Sounds good to me,” Kirk said, and walked her out the door.

#Jim Kirk/OC #James T. Kirk/OC #fanfic #star trek fanfiction #dark romance #star trek #Star Trek: Walking Wounded #ST:WW

[saltineofswing]

Ozzy or Drell?

Obvs I got one for Drell SO:

Full Name: Osmanthus Quince, Sword of Storms

Gender andSexuality: Male;probably bisexual

Pronouns: He/him

Ethnicity/Species: Homo Anubii (Shortened to‘Anubii’ in 99% of situations), a race of technically-undead beings whosegenesis is attributed to Worldmarrow, pure unfiltered magic in liquid form.Worldmarrow makes up the core of the planet and frequently wells up in largeamounts to the crust, magically altering things at random. One of the productsof this phenomenon are the Anubii, who owe their existence to the abandonedorganic material of the sapient races of The Road. There are two varieties:Whole and Imperfect. Imperfect Anubii are covered in Sal’s post here, inregards to Domino the Dominator, but Whole Anubii are, ehhh, a little harder toexplain. They don’t quite resemble any of the races that currently inhabit TheRoad… but the various skin colors they appear in are vaguely reminiscent ofthe mysterious Liches that inhabit the massive millennia-old necropolisesbeneath the surface of the continent. This is a painfully obvious connectionbut nobody has actually officially put it together for a variety of reasons, somost people consider it to be one of the grand mysteries of the Road’s society.

Specifically,although nobody now alive has the words for it, Ozzy would be half-Gariagaxianand half-Bogribolan, as evidenced by his pale hair and sort of indistinctlygrayish skin that you could construe as faintly yellow-tinted or faintlyblue-tinted; in addition, Ozzy was born a little extra special – he is what’sknown as a ‘Lesser Lich’, a type of Anubii identifiable by their incrediblemagical potential… and the subsequent mental instability that accompaniessuch power. If a Lesser Lich is put under too much stress, they have a chanceto breach a power threshold and ‘emerge’ into a Greater Lich; Ozzy,specifically, is a Supremator, a subtype of Lich with an extraordinary controlover an elemental force (in Ozzy’s rather exceptional case four of them –Lightning, Water, Wind, and Ice, giving him the title of ‘Storm Supremator’).

Birthplaceand Birthdate:Actually, Ozzy doesn’t come from the Road’s prime timeline, or ‘Primeline’. Theversion of The Road that he hails from is one we affectionately refer to as the‘Mindrunner’ timeline, where the powerfully Psionic hivemind species known asthe Uluth were able to survive their… rocky exodus through the Unknown, fromtheir dying homeworld to the Road. As a result, the trajectory of thedevelopment of both the continent and the society was drastically altered.Notably, the Psionic energy that saturates the atmosphere due to the abundanceof Uluth Overminds across the continent places an inordinate pressure on theminds of Anubii, resulting in an incredibly high incidence rate of Anubiiexplosively developing into Liches. Because nobody really knew what to do withthem, and the understanding of mental health in this world remains somewhatabysmal, facilities were created where Liches could be sent to keep them calmand/or sedated, and in a lot of cases kept in stasis until a long-term solutioncould be divined.

This meansthat the culture into which Ozzy was born views and treats him as a second orsometimes even third-class citizen, where Anubii that are too powerful or areat risk of turning into Liches are taken away to any of several installationsof ‘The Facility’ and the governing bodies use the populace’s fear and lack ofunderstanding to pass laws that blatantly infringe on Anubii’s civil rights.Ozzy was born in 2002 (Mindrunner is set in 2025), in the ever-cloudy southerncoast of the Tidelands. He was born in the suburbs of The Well, MetropolitanZone Prill-003, named for the local Uluth Overmind. Ozzy is a second-generationWhole Anubii and is an orphan, adopted by two human parents, so his exactbirthday is sort of nebulous. Best guess, he was born during the hot rains ofSummer.

GuiltyPleasures: Ozzyis a really shy guy with very little self esteem and a lot of internalizedissues, so he feels guilty about enjoying himself doing just about everything.He’s grown out of most of it, but highlights include: long showers or baths,colorful clothing, expensive tools, taking apart expensive or sophisticatedmachinery (especially if it doesn’t belong to him), and other stuff that hefeels like makes him ‘impose’ on the world around him too much. A big one,though: using his powers just for his own enjoyment.

Phobias: Not only is Ozzy very shy, he is also a peerlesslyanxious guy. He’s got a LOT of phobias. It would be faster to name the stuffhe’s not afraid of – he’s kind of a coward – but there are a couple ReallyReally Big Ones: he is easily triggered by needles, medical equipment(especially especially ESPECIALLY anything that goes on his head), and mentalinstitutions. He is terrified by the prospect of losing control, hates to beseen/looked at/placed in a position of authority, and is horribly averse to thespotlight. After all, he spent most of his life trying to hide his true natureto avoid getting crammed in a stasis pod for the rest of his natural-bornexistence. He also doesn’t really like to be touched, especially by people hedoesn’t know, and is also rather averse to enclosed spaces and restraints.

What TheyWould Be Famous For:If it weren’t for the whole mess Ozzy has become embroiled in, he wouldprobably be famous for his engineering prowess. Ozzy is a genius-levelintellect, and is a talented machinist in his own right – he was able to get ascholarship to work a janitorial job at a college where he was working towardsseveral different tech-based degrees. He created a technology for prosthesisthat utilizes the Uluth’s Psionic-sensitive material known as ‘Mindstone’ as acore and a tough but lightweight and magically reactive plasteel compound,allowing the prosthetic to be linked directly to the user’s mind and react notonly to their mental commands but also to their expectations; if the userexpects to feel touch sensation, they will. If the user expects the plasteel tofeel and behave like flesh, it will (to an extent). It’s really a miracle ofmodern engineering. If his life had panned out differently, he would’veprobably been taught about in medical textbooks for decades on decades.

Also in a wayOzzy is famous, both in the primeline by way of the Wild Hunt and in theMindrunner timeline due to his… legal status. As an inescapable part of hisfights being televised to the Threnghelleon viewing public, Ozzy has been puton blast in a way; he seemed like a huge wimp to everyone (including members ofthe ‘home team’, so to speak) until he literally could not hold back his powerany longer and kicked the ever-living shit out of notorious Wild Hunt bruiserEthem-Cailo in his very first fight. That very first victory was seen as a HUGEupset, and it’s gotten him a ‘following’ amongst the Threnghel populace. Thisis not necessarily a good thing.

What TheyWould Get Arrested For: Existing, actually. When faced with the choice of submitting to a newordinance requiring all Anubii with ‘At Risk’ or higher status (denoting therisk factor for an individual to become a Lich) to be ‘chipped’ with atransmitter and status indicator, or probably just being straight-up taken awayto The Facility, he had a mental breakdown and revealed that he was a Lich (afact he’d been hiding for years). So he went on the run! Canonically, Osmanthuswould probably be arrested for defying Overmind ordinances, failing to reporthimself as a Lich, resisting arrest, defying basically all Emergence protocols,resisting and evading Pure Fold detainment squads, assaulting a police officer,assaulting a Pure Fold agent, associating with known governmental dissidents,conspiracy to commit a felony, conspiracy to incite a riot… uh, et cetera.

OC You ShipThem With: He hasa girlfriend! Her name is Rosemary, they’ve been best friends since highschool, and she is definitely the one who has the spine in their relationship.When Ozzy went on the run, Rosie basically dropped everything and went on therun with him. Otherwise, when it comes to idle speculation, I think Ozzy hasgood chemistry with Fee; he literally took a plasma bolt to the gummy-works forher before he even knew her, which has endeared him to her somewhat.

OC MostLikely To Murder Them: Ethem-Cailo, now Jovix-Cailo, has faced not one but two ‘humiliating’defeats at Ozzy’s hand now. After the first, Ozzy stole the legendary hammerMjolnir (not the version everybody is familiar with, but with a similarWorthiness parameter), which Ethem-Cailo himself had won by beating the hellout of the Aesir. He wants his hammer back, and is filled with hatred for the‘lowly’ mortal that stole it from him. In fact, Jovix-Cailo is going to havehis shot – the two of them are due for a reckoning, and there’s a significantchance that Ozzy might wind up dying in their final conflict. One of them isgonna have to.

FavoriteMovie/Book Genre:Sci-Fi, no question. Since he comes from a near-future and slightly dystopiantimeline, you’d think it holds no mystery for him. But it’s even more wild,speculative, and diluted there, so it’s still pretty nuts. This goeshand-in-hand with horror stuff, too (the more sci-fi, fantasy, or high-conceptthe better). He also enjoys fantasy to a lesser extent, and is a big fan ofsuperhero comics. He’s a fairly typically nerdy guy in his tastes in media.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Ozzy has a certain appreciationfor most cliches and tropes, because he’s pretty good at analyzing media. Evenif he doesn’t necessarily enjoy a cliche, he’s able to appreciate the way itslots into a narrative. However, he is easily annoyed by Idiot Plots andanything that arises from people behaving ‘out of character’, which he feels isa sign that they had to force something to fit where it didn’t. He hates the‘We’re five feet from the exit but OH NO I TRIPPED!’ Trope, and glaring gaps inthe logic of the media in general – stuff that isn’t consistent with the rulespresented by the media in question.

Talentsand/or Powers: Asmentioned above, Ozzy is a genius-level intellect and is fond of tinkering;he’s dexterous and knowledgeable in the art of crafting machinery. He’stalented enough in the art of engineering to innovate functional prosthetics,and has a broad umbrella of technical know-how. He’s clever, quick on his feet,and isn’t a terrible tactician when he’s given a comfortable breadth to plan.He’s also crazy good at fighting games. Don’t challenge him to Street Fighterunless you want to know what it’s like to feel hatred for pixelated green menbecause you KNOW he mains Blanka.

What? You’resaying I’m forgetting something? I dunno. Oh, the lightning thing? Haha yeah,right, right.

Ozzy is aBLISTERINGLY powerful magus with an affinity for elemental magic –specifically, elements associated with the storm: Lightning, Wind, Water, andIce. He is so latently powerful that his mere presence can influence theoverhead weather if he’s not keeping a tight grip on his own magical aura.Once, Ozzy channeled enough lightning to power an entire town for about an hour(he did the math in-universe). Since then he’s actually gotten more powerful,to the point that the upper limit of the amount of electricity he can generateis unknown. The cost of all that power is that his body literally cannot handleit, hence why he has prosthetic arms now. In terms of gameplay mechanics, Ozzycan theoretically deal about 600 damage in a single turn with the proper confluenceof events. It costs him a significant amount of HP and CON, so it’s notsomething that can be used flippantly, but it’s a considerable boss-burner ifthe situation calls for it.

Recently, Ozzywas blinded in his one remaining fully-functional eye by a bad turn in a gameof divine chance by Al Fortuna, August En-Zaiid’s patron deity. However, notlong afterwards, Ozzy’s senses of Touch and Hearing were elevated to superhumanlevels by the whims of the very same game; currently he hasn’t had the opportunityto replace his eye with a prosthetic but he does have the ability to mapobjects around him in space based on electromagnetic fields and bioelectricity,and that with his super-hearing gives him a fairly precise image of the world.He just can’t read or watch TV or do anything too precise.

Why SomeoneMight Love Them:Osmanthus is a sweet guy with a big heart and a lot of empathy. He’s a verygood listener and has a very clever sense of humor. He’s smart and is willingto share his knowledge very liberally, but he shares inclusively and doesn’texplain so much as inform (narrow though the distinction may be). When he’scalm, he’s very methodical and cunning, and he gives pretty decent advice. Hehas no problem sharing the spotlight (prefers to stay out of it, in fact) andis very good about giving credit where credit is due – doesn’t hold grudges,nonexistent temper, doesn’t take stuff personally, and is quick with acorrection or a fact-check when needed. Some people enjoy a partner they canhelp or ‘fix’, so to speak, and Ozzy does have a lot of issues.

Why SomeoneMight Hate Them:As I’ve mentioned, Ozzy is a bit of a coward. His self-esteem is absolutelyabysmal and he is devastatingly non-confrontational to the point that he won’tstand up for himself at all unless absolutely forced to. He can seem a littlesniveling, especially since he has a pretty bad stutter that gets worse whenhe’s stressed. On top of that he is kind of hard to deal with at times; it’snot always easy for people to handle their own issues, let alone somebodyelse’s – and Ozzy has a lot of issues. When it’s at its worst, he’s incoherentand completely non-functional for the whole day; at it’s best, though, he stillhas trouble speaking coherently, has problems with dissociating and sometimeshearing things, and stuff like that. When he’s feeling talkative it’s hard toredirect his focus when he’s on a roll, which can interfere with his ability tolisten to other people and participate in group conversations, and if someone snapsat him too sharply he’ll just clam up and stop talking altogether. So,sometimes interacting with him can be tiresome.

How TheyChange: Ozzy haschanged A Lot since I first introduced him to the game in Mindrunner;originally he was a very lonely and honestly quite pathetic guy, with a lot ofproblems he’d completely given up on trying to solve, slogging through day today life and hiding his ‘At-Risk’ status. When Mindrunner started he wasactually suicidal, and had already failed two attempts due to his Lichabilities; although it was partially against his will, being swept up in theevents of that story gave him a will to live and the discipline to actually dosomething about his mental health and the state of the world at large. He hasdeveloped an incredibly fine control over his powers (which continue to grow astime goes on), met a bunch of new people, and has gotten in REALLY good shape,all in the span of half a year after spending most of his time as a skinny-fatjanitor at a second-choice college. Ozzy is working on his self-esteem, whichis coming along slowly but surely; after taking Mjolnir from Ethem-Cailo he hasdeveloped a reliance on the hammer as a sort of crutch for his self-esteem – ifthe fabled mythological hammer of the Aesir deems him ‘worthy’, he probably is,right? It’s a good first step, but the events of his next campaign willprobably involve confronting that crutch. He’s not a hero yet, per se, but he’sgetting there.

It’s not allpositive, unfortunately; since Ozzy started to grow exponentially more powerfulafter his ‘emergence’ into a full Lich Supremator, Ozzy has also begun tosuffer from adrenaline-influenced mood swings and the occasional bout of mania.As is the case with many Liches throughout the history of both Mindrunner andthe Prime Timeline, Ozzy has developed a trigger-response to life-or-deathstressors in which he undergoes a mental status shift and gets much moresevere, violent, and manic that he refers to as The Lich Shift. An unstable butmostly manageable issue that only really rears its ugly head when Ozzy isconfronted with significant danger. The problem is, Ozzy is currently under theweight of several long-term mental stressors: Everybody keeps telling him thathe’s going to have to kill Jovix-Cailo, and although he knows that’s the rightthing to do, he’s never killed anyone before – and he’s going to have to killagain, in the civil war that is all but waiting for him back on his home plane.The burden of responsibility in these situations has begun to warp the ‘LichShift’ defense mechanism into something more distinct and disparate.

Why YouLove Them: Ozzywas originally made because I wanted to turn my Destiny OC Euclid into atabletop character, but he almost instantly became a unique character that wasthe star of a surprisingly in-depth and exciting one-off game. Both Sal (TheDM) and I decided pretty instantly that we wanted to do more with him. I thinkhe’s a fairly nuanced, complicated character for what he is; I feel likecharacters with his type and severity of problems don’t often get to strugglefor their own benefit (as opposed to the audience’s schadenfreude), and despiteevery setback he’s still kicking and still making progress, which I think isvery relatable and very important. He’s got a lot of handicaps and regrets andphobias but he fights anyway. He’s the underdog, he’s grown up taking shit forbeing born, his own powers threaten to kill him, but he fights anyway. Peoplehave unrealistic expectations for him. His life has been completely ruined andflipped upside-down by the choices he’s been forced to make. His reward is along, uphill slog with few immediate gratifications. He Fights Anyway.Characters in his position I feel like get shoehorned to side-character, orkilled off, or turn into the bad guy, or all of the above, but Ozzy is theprotagonist and that gives him a really interesting breadth of emotion andchange. And also, he’s cute.

#Osmanthus Quince

[maya-summers]

Ted Talks transcript

Why you should talk to strangers.

There are things we say when we catch the eye of a stranger or a neighbor walking by. We say, "Hello, how are you? It's a beautiful day. How do you feel?" These sound kind of meaningless, right? And, in some ways, they are. They have no semantic meaning. It doesn't matter how you are or what the day is like. They have something else. They have social meaning. What we mean when we say those things is: I see you there. 0:44 I'm obsessed with talking to strangers. I make eye contact, say hello, I offer help, I listen. I get all kinds of stories. About seven years ago, I started documenting my experiences to try to figure out why. What I found was that something really beautiful was going on. This is almost poetic. These were really profound experiences. They were unexpected pleasures. They were genuine emotional connections. They were liberating moments. 1:21 So one day, I was standing on a corner waiting for the light to change, which, I'm a New Yorker, so that means I was actually standing in the street on the storm drain, as if that could get me across faster. And there's an old man standing next to me. So he's wearing, like, a long overcoat and sort of an old-man hat, and he looked like somebody from a movie. And he says to me, "Don't stand there. You might disappear." So this is absurd, right? But I did what he said. I stepped back onto the sidewalk. And he smiled, and he said, "Good. You never know. I might have turned around, and zoop, you're gone." 2:00 This was weird, and also really wonderful. He was so warm, and he was so happy that he'd saved me. We had this little bond. For a minute, I felt like my existence as a person had been noticed, and I was worth saving. The really sad thing is, in many parts of the world, we're raised to believe that strangers are dangerous by default, that we can't trust them, that they might hurt us. But most strangers aren't dangerous. We're uneasy around them because we have no context. We don't know what their intentions are. So instead of using our perceptions and making choices, we rely on this category of "stranger." 2:50 I have a four-year-old. When I say hello to people on the street, she asks me why. She says, "Do we know them?" 2:59 I say, "No, they're our neighbor." 3:01 "Are they our friend?" 3:03 "No, it's just good to be friendly." 3:06 I think twice every time I say that to her, because I mean it, but as a woman, particularly, I know that not every stranger on the street has the best intentions. It is good to be friendly, and it's good to learn when not to be, but none of that means we have to be afraid. 3:25 There are two huge benefits to using our senses instead of our fears. The first one is that it liberates us. When you think about it, using perception instead of categories is much easier said than done. Categories are something our brains use. When it comes to people, it's sort of a shortcut for learning about them. We see male, female, young, old, black, brown, white, stranger, friend, and we use the information in that box. It's quick, it's easy and it's a road to bias. And it means we're not thinking about people as individuals. I know an American researcher who travels frequently in Central Asia and Africa, alone. She's entering into towns and cities as a complete stranger. She has no bonds, no connections. She's a foreigner. Her survival strategy is this: get one stranger to see you as a real, individual person. If you can do that, it'll help other people see you that way, too. 4:39 The second benefit of using our senses has to do with intimacy. I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, intimacy and strangers, but these quick interactions can lead to a feeling that sociologists call "fleeting intimacy." So, it's a brief experience that has emotional resonance and meaning. It's the good feeling I got from being saved from the death trap of the storm drain by the old man, or how I feel like part of a community when I talk to somebody on my train on the way to work. 5:16 Sometimes it goes further. Researchers have found that people often feel more comfortable being honest and open about their inner selves with strangers than they do with their friends and their families — that they often feel more understood by strangers. This gets reported in the media with great lament. "Strangers communicate better than spouses!" It's a good headline, right? I think it entirely misses the point. The important thing about these studies is just how significant these interactions can be; how this special form of closeness gives us something we need as much as we need our friends and our families. 6:03 So how is it possible that we communicate so well with strangers? There are two reasons. The first one is that it's a quick interaction. It has no consequences. It's easy to be honest with someone you're never going to see again, right? That makes sense. The second reason is where it gets more interesting. We have a bias when it comes to people we're close to. We expect them to understand us. We assume they do, and we expect them to read our minds. So imagine you're at a party, and you can't believe that your friend or your spouse isn't picking up on it that you want to leave early. And you're thinking, "I gave you the look." 6:49 With a stranger, we have to start from scratch. We tell the whole story, we explain who the people are, how we feel about them; we spell out all the inside jokes. And guess what? Sometimes they do understand us a little better. 7:05 OK. So now that we know that talking to strangers matters, how does it work? There are unwritten rules we tend to follow. The rules are very different depending on what country you're in, what culture you're in. In most parts of the US, the baseline expectation in public is that we maintain a balance between civility and privacy. This is known as civil inattention. So, imagine two people are walking towards each other on the street. They'll glance at each other from a distance. That's the civility, the acknowledgment. And then as they get closer, they'll look away, to give each other some space. 7:46 In other cultures, people go to extraordinary lengths not to interact at all. People from Denmark tell me that many Danes are so averse to talking to strangers, that they would rather miss their stop on the bus than say "excuse me" to someone that they need to get around. Instead, there's this elaborate shuffling of bags and using your body to say that you need to get past, instead of using two words. 8:17 In Egypt, I'm told, it's rude to ignore a stranger, and there's a remarkable culture of hospitality. Strangers might ask each other for a sip of water. Or, if you ask someone for directions, they're very likely to invite you home for coffee. We see these unwritten rules most clearly when they're broken, or when you're in a new place and you're trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. 8:46 Sometimes breaking the rules a little bit is where the action is. In case it's not clear, I really want you to do this. OK? So here's how it's going to go. Find somebody who is making eye contact. That's a good signal. The first thing is a simple smile. If you're passing somebody on the street or in the hallway here, smile. See what happens. 9:13 Another is triangulation. There's you, there's a stranger, there's some third thing that you both might see and comment on, like a piece of public art or somebody preaching in the street or somebody wearing funny clothes. Give it a try. Make a comment about that third thing, and see if starts a conversation. 9:35 Another is what I call noticing. This is usually giving a compliment. I'm a big fan of noticing people's shoes. I'm actually not wearing fabulous shoes right now, but shoes are fabulous in general. And they're pretty neutral as far as giving compliments goes. People always want to tell you things about their awesome shoes. 9:56 You may have already experienced the dogs and babies principle. It can be awkward to talk to someone on the street; you don't know how they're going to respond. But you can always talk to their dog or their baby. The dog or the baby is a social conduit to the person, and you can tell by how they respond whether they're open to talking more. 10:17 The last one I want to challenge you to is disclosure. This is a very vulnerable thing to do, and it can be very rewarding. So next time you're talking to a stranger and you feel comfortable, tell them something true about yourself, something really personal. You might have that experience I talked about of feeling understood. 10:40 Sometimes in conversation, it comes up, people ask me, "What does your dad do?" or, "Where does he live?" And sometimes I tell them the whole truth, which is that he died when I was a kid. Always in those moments, they share their own experiences of loss. We tend to meet disclosure with disclosure, even with strangers. 11:03 So, here it is. When you talk to strangers, you're making beautiful interruptions into the expected narrative of your daily life and theirs. You're making unexpected connections. If you don't talk to strangers, you're missing out on all of that. We spend a lot of time teaching our children about strangers. What would happen if we spent more time teaching ourselves? We could reject all the ideas that make us so suspicious of each other. We could make a space for change.