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cksmart-world · 4 months

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SMART BOMB

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

By Christopher Smart

January 2, 2024

SMART BOMB'S PREDICTIONS FOR 2024!

It's that time of year again when the staff here at Smart Bomb looks forward to the coming year. But since Wilson and the band broke our crystal ball we've had to look elsewhere for help making our annual predictions. So we turned to psychic Helga Olga Helga for some answers that might help guide us and you through the New Years:

— Great Salt Lake returns to capacity as alfalfa farming is banned along the Bear River.

UTA gives up on light rail in favor of a system of gondolas.

The Rio Tinto mining group plans 2034 Olympic Opening Ceremony in Kennecott's open-pit mine.

Major League Baseball comes to American Fork.

Mayor Erin Mendenhall takes Main Street back from Mormon Church.

Mayor Erin Mendenhall excommunicated from Mormon Church.

Utah Legislature approves Critical Race Theory but bans the word “slavery.”

The Utah towns of Beaver and Virgin sign a joint tourism agreement forming the Virgin Beaver Resort.

Gov. Spencer Cox selected as running mate for Donald Trump after signing an NDA.

The Utah Jazz win the NBA championship and then trade away all the starters.

LDS CHURCH BLOWS OUT THE STOPS TO REMAKE DOWNTOWN

Holy Moroni have you seen the new plans for Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. It's going to make the Vatican look like a Tooele trailer park. Smart Bomb's old pal, Tribune ace Tony Semerad, blew the lid off the heavenly inspired blueprint that would make Brigham Young blush. No Wilson, we are not making this up. The massive makeover would extend to Temple Square to 400 West in time to welcome the 2034 Winter Olympics and show the world the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knows how to build a mall. Final plans are still in flux, so the staff here at Smart Bomb reached out to architects Dewey, Cheatem & Howe to get a feel for what it will look like. Interesting options include renovating the historic Hotel Utah that morphed into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in 2000 when Main Street was permanently closed and Temple Square became “A Little Bit of Paris.” It could become the Saints Zion Museum. Inside, Olympic visitors could see life-like robots reenacting scenes, like Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates from the Angel Moroni and other Mormon history, such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Rather than “A Little Bit of Paris,” the new Temple Square could be dubbed “A Little Bit of The Celestial Kingdom.” Let the Games begin.

GASLIGHTING ALL THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Every four years, things get weird. That's because politicians rewrite history to convince voters they're hallucinating on LSD or just demented. Case in point: the Civil War was not about slavery. No, of course not, it was about the economy and state's rights and God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley stepped in it when asked what caused the Civil War. "I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run... ," Haley said. It was, no doubt, a trick question posed by a Democratic political operative. Republicans don't like to say the S-word, 'cause if there was slavery, then there would be the struggle for civil rights, the Voting Rights Act, racial quotas and all kinds of un-American stuff that points to our history of unspeakable... freedom. Or as Florida Gov. Jim DeSantis likes to say: Slavery was good because slaves learned skills they could use when they got free. Or as Supreme Court Justice John Roberts like to say: We don't need the Voting Rights Act anymore 'cause there is no longer any racial discrimination. That's why states such as Florida, Arkansas, Missouri and others are banning African-American History. Rewriting the past can be so rewarding.

Post script — That's a wrap for a warm and wonderful holiday and a hideous 2023 here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of national electoral politics so you don't have to. (WARNING: Watching news on television is harmful to your health.) It's light years to the presidential election, although the campaign has been going on since anybody can remember. Media types and pundits began talking about the 2024 election the minute after Joe Biden was sworn in. Do we really need to hear from Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and that Ramaswamy dude blabbing on every single day. In some places words don't mean what they mean. For example, Sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President or hold any office, civil or military... who, having previously taken an oath... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This, of course, doesn't mean Trump can't be president because it just can't mean what it says. And besides, who said he engaged in insurrection or gave aid to insurrectionists. You just can't believe your lyin' eyes.

A new year Wilson and we should be on the look out for good stuff and try to ignore the bad stuff. It's a mean world out there and we ought to listen to the guy who said it's up to all of us to make a difference. So wake up the band and take us out with a little something to help us jettison some of the cynicism:

As I walk through / This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity. I ask myself / Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? And as I walked on / Through troubled times My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes So where are the strong / And who are the trusted? And where is the harmony? / Sweet harmony. 'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry. What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? So where are the strong? / And who are the trusted? And where is the harmony? / Sweet harmony. 'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry. What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

(Peace, Love and Understanding — Elvis Costello)

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gooseberrysunday · 1 year

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LavellanSolas

The Herald approaches Solas near the apothecary.

{{Solas}}: The Chosen of Andraste, a blessed hero sent to save us all.

{{Inquisitor}}: Am I riding in on a shining steed?

{{Solas}}: I would have suggested a griffon, but sadly, they’re extinct. Joke as you will, posturing is necessary.

Solas steps off to the side.

{{Solas}}: I have journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past of wars both famous and forgotten.

Solas turns back towards the Herald.

{{Solas}}: Every great war has its heroes. I’m just curious what kind you’ll be.

{{Inquisitor}}: What do you mean, ruins and battlefields?

{{Solas}}: Any building strong enough to withstand the rigours of time has a history. Every battlefield is steeped in death. Both attract spirits. They press against the Veil, weakening the barrier between our worlds. When I dream in such places, I go deep into the Fade. I can find memories no other living being has ever seen.

{{Inquisitor}}: You fall asleep in the middle of ancient ruins? Isn’t that dangerous?

{{Solas}}: I do set wards. And if you leave food out for the giant spiders, they are usually content to live and let live.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’ve never heard of anyone going so far into the fade. That’s extraordinary.

{{Solas}}: Thank you. It’s not a common field of study, for obvious reasons. Not so flashy as throwing fire or lightning. The thrill of finding remnants of a thousand-year-old dream? I would not trade it for anything. I will stay then, at least until the Breach has been closed.

{{Inquisitor}}:: Was that in doubt?

{{Solas}}: I am an apostate mage surrounded by Chantry forces and unlike you, I do not have a divine mark protecting me.

{{Inquisitor}}: You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you.

{{Solas}}: How would you stop them?

{{Inquisitor}}: However I had to.

Solas considers them a moment.

{{Solas}}: Thank you.

END_OF_DIALOG

The Inquisitor speaks with Solas in the rotunda.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’m interested in what you told me of yourself and your studies. If you have time, I’d like to hear more.

{{Solas}}: You continue to surprise me. All right, let us talk… preferably somewhere more interesting than this.

Suddenly, the Inquisitor is back at Haven as though nothing happened. They are walking with Solas.

{{Inquisitor}}: Why here?

{{Solas}}: Haven is familiar. It will always be important to you.

{{Inquisitor}}: We talked about that already.

Suddenly they’re in the chantry’s lower levels, among the dungeons. They stop at the spot where the Inquisitor was held prisoner.

{{Solas}}: I sat beside you while you slept, studying the Anchor.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’m glad someone was watching over me.

{{Solas}}: You were a mystery. You still are.

{{Solas}}: I ran every test I could imagine, searched the Fade, yet found nothing. Cassandra suspected duplicity. She threatened to have me executed as an apostate if I didn’t produce results.

{{Inquisitor}}: I would never have agreed to that.

{{Solas}}: You were in no position to argue.

They start walking. Suddenly they’re outside the chantry.

{{Solas}}: You were never going to wake up. How could you, a mortal sent physically through the Fade? I was frustrated, frightened. The spirits I might have consulted had been driven away by the Breach. Although I wished to help, I had no faith in Cassandra… or she in me. I was ready to flee.

{{Inquisitor}}: The Breach threatened the whole world. Where did you plan to go?

{{Solas}}: Someplace far away where I might research a way to repair the Breach before its effects reached me. I never said it was a good plan.

Solas takes a few steps away, looking up at the Breach in the sky.

{{Solas}}: I told myself: one more attempt to seal the rifts. I tried and failed. No ordinary magic would affect them. I watched the rifts expand and grow, resigned myself to flee, and then…

The image of the first rift they closed flashes to mind.

Solas turns back to the Inquisitor.

{{Solas}}: It seems you hold the key to our salvation. You had sealed it with a gesture… and right then, I felt the whole world change.

{{Inquisitor}}: Felt the whole world change?

{{Solas}}: A figure of speech.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’m aware of the metaphor. I’m more interested in “felt.”

The Inquisitor moves closer to Solas.

{{Solas}}: You change… everything.

{{Inquisitor}}: Sweet talker.

Solas smiles and looks away, when the Inquisitor turns his face and kisses him. Solas seems surprised, but when the Inquisitor moves to leave, Solas kisses her back. Eventually, Solas backs up.

{{Solas}}: We shouldn’t. It isn’t right. Not even here.

{{Inquisitor}}: What do you mean, “even here”?

{{Solas}}: Where did you think we were?

The Inquisitor looks around.

{{Inquisitor}}: This isn’t real.

{{Solas}}: That’s a matter of debate… probably best discussed after you wake up.

The Inquisitor abruptly sits up in their bed.

END_OF_DIALOG

Solas is sitting as his desk in the rotunda, drinking tea, but he makes a face when he drinks it. The Inquisitor enters.

{{Inquisitor}}: Something wrong with your tea?

{{Solas}}: It is tea. I detest the stuff. But this morning, I need to shake the dreams from my mind. I many also need a favour.

{{Inquisitor}}: You just have to ask.

Solas stands up and walks around the other side of the desk.

{{Solas}}: One of my oldest friends has been captured by mages, forced into slavery. I heard the cry for help as I slept.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’d be happy to help. What did these mages use to capture your friend? Blood magic?

{{Solas}}: A summoning circle, I would imagine.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’m sorry?

{{Solas}}: My friend is a spirit of wisdom. Unlike the spirits clamouring to enter our world through the rifts, it was dwelling quite happily in the Fade. It was summoned against its will, and wants my help to gain its freedom and return to the Fade.

{{Inquisitor}}: Do you have any idea what the mages want with your friend?

{{Solas}}: No. It knows a great deal of lore and history, but a mage could learn that simply by speaking to it in the Fade. It is possible that they seek information it does not wish to give and intend to torture it.

{{Inquisitor}}: All right. Let’s go get your friend.

{{Solas}}: Thank you. I got a sense of my friend’s location before I awoke. I will mark it on our map.

Solas, the Inquisitor and their party travel to the Exalted Plains.

{{Solas}}: Thank you for this, Inquisitor. We are not far from where my friend was summoned.

They come across a body.

{{Solas}}: One of the mages. Killed by arrows, it would seem.

Varric: Bandits, by the look of it.

Further up the way, they find several more bodies.

{{Solas}}: These aren’t mages. The bodies are burned, and these claw marks… No. No, no, no.

When they finally reach the site,

{{Solas}}: (Gasps.)

Solas, the Inquisitor and their party arrive at the site of a ritual. Solas rushes forward.

{{Solas}}: My friend.

Trapped in the ritual circle is a Pride demon.

{{Solas}}: (Growls.)

{{Inquisitor}}: The mages turned your friend into a demon.

{{Solas}}: Yes.

{{Inquisitor}}: You said it was a spirit of wisdom, not a fighter.

{{Solas}}: A spirit becomes a demon when denied its original purpose.

{{Inquisitor}}: So they summoned it for something so opposed to its own nature that it was corrupted. Fighting?

There’s a rustling, and a mage approaches.

{{Solas}}: Let us ask them.

{{Mage}} A mage! You’re not with the bandits? Do you have any lyrium potions? Most of us are exhausted. We’ve been fighting that demon…

{{Solas}}: You summoned that demon! Except it was a spirit of wisdom at the time. You made it kill. You twisted it against its purpose.

{{Mage}} I… I… I understand how it might be confusing to someone who has not studied demons, but after you help us, I can…

{{Solas}}: We are not here to help you.

{{Inquisitor}}: We came to help your friend. Any way to do that now that it’s a demon?

{{Mage}} You cannot befriend a demon. However amicable it might appear, it must–

{{Solas}}: Shut up.

{{Solas}}: You summoned it to protect you from the bandits.

{{Mage}} I–Yes.

{{Solas}}: You bound it to obedience, then commanded it to kill. That is when it turned. The summoning circle. We break it, we break the binding. No orders to kill, no conflict with its nature, no demon.

{{Mage}} What? The binding is the only thing keeping the demon from killing us! Whatever it was before, it is a monster now!

{{Solas}}: Inquisitor. Please.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’ve studied rituals like this. I should be able to disrupt the binding quickly.

{{Solas}}: Thank you.

The demon roars, the mage runs off.

{{Solas}}: We must hurry!

They begin the fight, either by targeting the demon or the summoning circle.

Solas kneels before the image of a woman, the spirit of wisdom.

{{Solas}}: Lethallin. Ir abelas. (I’m sorry.)

Wisdom: Tel’abelas. Enasal. Ir tel’him. Ma melava halani. Mala sueldan nadas. Ma ghilana mir din’an. (I’m not. I’m happy. I’m me again. You helped me. Now you must endure. Guide me into death.)

Solas looks down sadly.

{{Solas}}: Ma nuvenin. (As you say.)

He gestures with his hands, and the woman disappears.

{{Solas}}: Dareth shiral.

{{Inquisitor}}: I heard what it said. It was right. You did help it.

{{Solas}}: Now I must endure.

{{Inquisitor}}: Let me know if I can help.

Solas stands up and walks over to the Inquisitor.

{{Solas}}: You already have.

Solas catches sight of the mages.

{{Solas}}: All that remains now is them.

Three mages emerge from hiding, including the man from earlier.

{{Mage}} Thank you. We would not have risked a summoning, but the roads are too dangerous to travel unprotected.

Solas charges forward, prompting the man to back up.

{{Solas}}: You tortured and killed my friend.

{{Mage}} We didn’t know it was just a spirit! The book said it could help us!

There’s the sound of magic being cast off screen. The ground burns.

{{Solas}}: Damn them all. I need some time alone. I will meet you back at Skyhold.

Solas leaves the party.

END_OF_DIALOG

As the Inquisitor walks down the stairs to the lower courtyard, they spot Solas walking in the gate. The Inquisitor approaches him.

{{Solas}}: Inquisitor.

{{Inquisitor}}: How are you, Solas?

{{Solas}}: It hurts. It always does, but I will survive.

{{Inquisitor}}: Thank you for coming back.

{{Solas}}: You were a true friend. You did everything you could to help. I could hardly abandon you now.

{{Inquisitor}}: The next time you have to mourn, you don’t need to be alone.

{{Solas}}: It’s been so long since I could trust someone.

{{Inquisitor}}: I know.

{{Solas}}: I’ll work on it. And thank you.

nquisitor: Where did you go?

{{Solas}}: I found a quiet spot and went to sleep. I visited the place in the Fade where my friend used to be. It’s empty, but there are stirrings of energy in the Void. Someday something new may grow there.

{{Inquisitor}}: What happens when a spirit dies?

{{Solas}}: It isn’t the same as for mortals. The energy of spirits returns to the Fade. If the idea giving the spirit form is strong, or if the memory has shaped other spirits, it may someday rise again.

{{Inquisitor}}: You’re saying your friend might come back?

{{Solas}}: No, not really. A spirit’s natural state is peaceful semi-existence. It is rare to be able to reflect reality. Something similar may reform one day, but it might have a different personality. It would likely not remember me. It would not be the friend I knew.

{{Solas}}: I know it may seem strange to you, but I appreciate what you did for my friend. That matters to me. You matter.

END_OF_DIALOG

The Inquisitor finds Solas in front of one of the murals.

{{Solas}}: Inquisitor, I was… do you have a moment?

Solas leads the Inquisitor off.

=====

The pair arrive to the balcony off the Inquisitor’s quarters.

{{Solas}}: What were you like before the Anchor?

The Inquisitor considers their marked hand for a moment.

{{Solas}}: Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your… spirit?

{{Inquisitor}}: If it had, do you really think I’d have noticed?

{{Solas}}: No. That’s an excellent point.

{{Inquisitor}}: Why do you ask?

{{Solas}}: You show a wisdom I have not seen since… since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade. You are not what I expected.

{{Inquisitor}}: I don’t think of myself as different from anyone.

{{Solas}}: Perhaps not in the form of your body, no.

{{Solas}}: You have shown subtlety in your actions, a wisdom that goes against everything I expected. If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours… have I misjudged them?

{{Inquisitor}}: The Dalish didn’t make me like this. The decisions were mine.

{{Solas}}: Yes, you are wise to give yourself that due. Although the Dalish, in their fashion, may still have guided you. Perhaps that is it. I suppose it must be. Most people act with so little understanding of the world. But not you.

{{Inquisitor}}: So what does this mean, Solas?

{{Solas}}: It means I have not forgotten the kiss.

The Inquisitor steps closer.

{{Inquisitor}}: Good.

She stands just before him, hands clasped behind her back. He considers her a moment, before turning to leave. The Inquisitor grabs his arm.

{{Inquisitor}}: Don’t go.

Solas doesn’t turn around.

{{Solas}}: It would be kinder in the long run. But losing you would…

He turns around and kisses her.

{{Solas}}: Ar lath ma, vhenan.

He leaves, and the Inquisitor watches him leave.

END_OF_DIALOG

The Inquisitor speaks to Solas in the rotunda.

{{Solas}}: The Temple of Mythal was extraordinary. In all my journeys, I never dreamed of finding anything like it. What will you do with the power of the Well once Corypheus is dead?

{{Inquisitor}}: I’m not arrogant enough to think it’s my decision alone. Whatever happens, we’ll do it together.

{{Solas}}: You think to share your power, to avoid the temptation to misuse it. A noble sentiment… but, ultimately, a mistake.

{{Inquisitor}}: Why?

{{Solas}}: Because while one selfless (woman/man) may walk away from the lure of power’s corruption… no group has ever done so.

{{Inquisitor}}: There’s a first time for everything.

{{Solas}}: Perhaps… but it will not be this time. I believe even you know that.

{{Inquisitor}}: Why is this so important to you?

{{Solas}}: You have not been what I expected, Inquisitor. You have… impressed me. You must not let false modesty allow you to pass your power to someone else. There are few regrets sharper than watching fools squander what you sacrificed to achieve.

{{Solas}}: Forgive my melancholy. Corypheus has cost us much. The Temple of Mythal did not deserve such a fate. The orb he carries, and its stolen power… that, at least, we may still recover. With luck, some of the past may yet survive.

{{Inquisitor}}: You’re being grim and fatalistic in the hope of getting me into bed, aren’t you?

{{Solas}}: I am grim and fatalistic. Getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit. Come with me, vhenan.

END_OF_DIALOG

Solas leads the Inquisitor to a grotto where two massive Halla statues stand. He holds the Inquisitor’s hand as they walk towards the water.

{{Solas}}: The Veil is thin here. Can you feel it on your skin, tingling?

He brings the Inquisitor around to face him. They look at each other a moment before he caresses her face.

{{Solas}}: I was trying to determine some way to show you what you mean to me.

He drops his hand.

{{Inquisitor}}: I’m listening, and I can offer a few suggestions.

{{Solas}}: I shall bear that in mind.

{{Solas}}: For now, the best gift I can offer is… the truth. You are unique. In all Thedas, I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me, more important than I could have imagined.

{{Inquisitor}}: As you are to me.

{{Solas}}: Then what I must tell you… the truth… Your face. The vallaslin. In my journeys in the Fade, I have seen things. I have discovered what those marks mean.

{{Inquisitor}}: They honour the elven gods.

{{Solas}}: No. They are slave markings, or at least, they were in the time of ancient Arlathan.

The Inquisitor thinks for a moment.

{{Inquisitor}}: Whatever the marks were before, the Dalish have reclaimed them. They mark me as one of them.

{{Solas}}: I know. For everything I have said about the Dalish, I admire that indomitable spirit.

{{Solas}}: I didn’t tell you this to hurt you. If you like, I know a spell…

The Inquisitor drops her gaze.

{{Solas}}: I can remove the vallaslin.

{{Inquisitor}}: If what you’re saying is true…

{{Solas}}: It is.

{{Inquisitor}}: Then… my people vowed never to submit to slavery.

{{Solas}}: I’m so sorry for causing you pain. It was selfish of me. I look at you, and I see what you truly are… And you deserve better than what those cruel marks represent.

{{Inquisitor}}: Then cast your spell. Take the vallaslin away.

Solas smiles at her, then nods to the water.

{{Solas}}: Sit.

They both kneel beside the pool of water, Solas raising his hands before the Inquisitor’s face. As his hands pass over her face, they glow with magic. When he withdraws his hands, the vallaslin is gone.

{{Solas}}: Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.

They stand back up. They stare at each other for a moment.

{{Solas}}: You are so beautiful.

They share a kiss. When the break apart, Solas looks sad for a moment.

{{Solas}}: And I am sorry. I distracted you from your duty. It will never happen again.

{{Inquisitor}}: Solas…

Solas backs away from her.

{{Solas}}: Please, vhenan.

{{Inquisitor}}: Solas… don’t leave me. Not now. I love you.

Solas shakes his head.

{{Solas}}: You have a rare and marvellous spirit. In another world–

He continues to back away, but the Inquisitor moves closer.

{{Inquisitor}}: Why not this one?

Solas backs up again.

{{Solas}}: I can’t. I’m sorry.

Solas leaves.

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kittykalashnikov · 4 years

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I HATE it when ppl say it's racist to reenact a racist period in history like the confederacy or the nazis even if u understand that its racist and don't agree with the politics of the time...its remembrance and learning.

#i reenact the confederacy so yeah #its also bc where i live in the deep south its the most accessable to me #and i go to reenactments of the civil war every year #me #civil war #wwii

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gatheringbones · 3 years

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["We are offered some false gains to keep us from making that choice to stand with women different from ourselves. One is that of a material security equal to the men of our culture, if we side with them as we move outside the home, into the larger world. We are offered, not the nightmare image of the slaughtered woman, but the image that, as a girl, I saw flashed on the screen in a darkened theatre: a beautiful young white woman is weeping because her past affluence is gone, her plantations and her slaves; her family is without food, the garden trampled, but she digs her hands into the red clay and vows: "I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill— as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again." She goes on to become financially secure, using white men for protection when necessary, using her "connections" to make sure she lets nothing go to others during the social revolution of Emancipation and Reconstruction.

When I was a child, Scarlett was a heroine, in her strength as a woman within the myth of my land as I learned it: today she is to me a person ready to take what is offered to her as a woman who is white, a lady of the culture, with no caring about where the land came from and who has worked it, willing to leave all others except her immediate family behind, in order to secure a narrow place of safety, that she foolishly thinks is secure: the place of equality with white men.

That this is foolish security is evidenced by the number of women in poverty in this country, white as well as women of color, a number increasing every year. Anne Braden points out that historically the struggle for economic and social justice for the most disadvantaged group, Blacks in slavery, substantially benefited all other folk who were not in control of land and money; she likens this to a shift in the foundation stone of a house that causes all else to move.

Today the economic foundation of this country is resting on the backs of women of color here, and in Third World countries: they are harvesting the eggplants and lettuce for Safeway, they are typing secretarial work sent by New York firms to the West Indies by satellite. The real gain in our material security as white women would come most surely if we did not limit our economic struggle to salaries of equal or comparable worth to white men in the U.S., but if we expanded this struggle to a restructuring of this country's economy so that we do not live off the lives and work of Third World Women.

A second false gain that we, if we are privileged women, are being offered now is more "protection"; this time not just in our "sacred homes," but protection of us living in the U.S. from the "powers of evil" in the rest of the world. The foreign policy of the Reagan administration is being shaped by evangelical Christian beliefs that hold the U.S. has a divine calling to "protect the free world" from godless, evil, "perverted" communism. This apocalyptic thinking interprets all world events as reenacting Biblical prophecies, especially those in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelations, which predict, evangelicals think, a struggle between the "forces of good and evil," the U.S. and Russia, culminating in the battle of Armageddon on the Hill of Megiddo, near Haifa, Israel.

(...) The U.S. economy is being mobilized to enact a Christian morality play, with U.S. soldiers, or forces in the pay of the U.S., acting as an Army of God, fighting "anti-communist" interventions throughout the world, especially now in the Caribbean and in Central America, as well as in the Middle East. In the statements of the men running this country, I hear echoes of the condemnation by my folk of the civil rights movement of Black people; Third World people fighting for economic and political freedom are condemned as "communists" and "godless"; under these comments are the old racist beliefs: that people of color are "uncivilized," "immoral," "dirty," "naturally evil," "need to be controlled." Meanwhile, Third World countries like Nicaragua, that need to use limited resources for literacy and health campaigns, for building a self-sufficient economy, instead must spend enormous sums of money for arms to defend against a U.S. that is re-enacting the Crusades, trying to "save" the Western hemisphere.

And the people at home supposedly "protected" by these actions are suffering also. To fund the military build-up, cuts have been made to health programs, educational programs, job-training programs, with disproportionately severe effects on all women and children, and on people of color, while about 9,500 jobs for all women are lost for every $1 billion shifted from civilian to military spending; 63% of the current U.S. budget goes to pay for preparation for war and the debt for past wars. And the Children's Defense Fund has said, "One third of President Reagan's proposed military increase could lift every single American child out of poverty." Again, it seems that if we are women who want a place for ourselves and other women in a just, peaceful, free world, we should be saying, as white and Christian-raised women, Not in my name."]

Minnie Bruce Pratt, from Yours In Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, Firebrand Books, 1984

#minnie bruce pratt #history stuff #lesbian literature #wasteland radio

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auroralightsthesky · 2 years

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you got anything else for Ack Ack??? cause I mean...I don't mind some senseless Ack Ack hcs-

Do I have anything else for Ack Ack?? Oh hon that's like asking the city of Boston if it remembers the Boston Tea Party (lol: sorry I had to go there)

Ack Ack has this really weird fascination with Civil War era medicine

I mean hey, it's a part of history whether we like it or not, but it does get kinda gross

Like one night when you guys were eating dinner and he started talking about how the surgeries were done

"ANDY I'M EATING SPAGHETTI FOR SHIT'S SAKE!!"

"Sorry babe, I forgot"

Or that one time you two watched a documentary on it while you were eating a steak

"Ok (y/n) I think I'm gonna switch the channel"

Let's face it, guys are gross but we love them anyways

Anywho.....

Your brain started ticking a few days later

And you contacted a friend who lived in Virginia

You and Andy decided to go down for a few days

He was a bit shocked when you took him to a Civil War reenactment

Your friend who was one of the Confederate soldiers asked Andy if he wanted to partake in the reenactment

His eyes were so huge you thought they would take up his whole body

So he was led to the medical tent

And he got to step into a doc's shoes on the Yankee side

He loves when you come along and join him every year for it

Because he loves sharing the experience with you

#the pacific hbo #andrew ack ack haldane #ack ack x reader #hbo war #hbo war au #hbo war headcannons #k company

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niqhtlord01 · 3 years

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Humans are weird: Speech Writers

( Don’t forget to come see my on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord ) The politics of the universe hold just as much sway as the governing laws of nature themselves in the distant future. With the passage of a few laws empires rise and crumble in the ever changing cosmos like the changing of the tides with the Draconian Empire as a prime example.

Spanning 17 star clusters and ruling over nearly 83 different worlds they were considered the prime super power of the galaxy at the time. Their fleets numbered in the thousands and their armies the millions of professional soldiers ever ready to take up the banner of conquest.

Most neighboring civilizations had either been wiped out from fruitless attempts at military defiance against Draconian expansion or had negotiated unfavorable deals to secure their independence with the empire.

Such was the scale of the military that equally as large was the governing body that oversaw the day to day functions. Legions of clerks and data archivists researched and gathered data for additional armies of legislators, governors, senators, and high council members and even the royal family themselves as a sea of information and statistics flowed daily over the span of light years.

To be a member of such a labyrinth of government was to be a one of many; a cog in a machine whose purpose is so far reaching that one risks being buried into the depths of obscurity.

And such we find regional overseer V'tet Darorn of Sector 12.

Unlike many of the Draconian species, he was not considered normal by many measures. While other of his species were thick with muscle and scales of such redness they made blood look pale, his frame was slender and his scales appearing as a rust red. Where other's wings on their back were full and strong, easily able to carry them high into the sky, his wings had developed a genetic deformity that made them extremely painful to fully open and thus remained closed.

V'tet had obtained a seat on the overseer council for sector 12 of the empire more through family connections and contributions to the empire then by initial skill. That was to say he was not dedicated and hard working, but in the grand mechanisms of the governing powers of the Draconian Empire new comers rarely gained more higher postings. This frustrated V'tet as he had developed new ideas that would push the power of the Draconian Empire to even greater heights, and yet was never able to sway his fellow council members to vote with him leaving him in a state of limbo.

That was until fate saw fit to intervene and introduce V'tet to one of the strangest people he had ever known.

Her name, was Rayah Amari. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The council chamber was a vaulted circular room of black stone and a vaulted ceiling made entirely of stained glass. Each piece of glass was from a different world under the domain of the Draconian Empire with the piece in the middle being made from the very planet beneath their feet.

At the center of the room was a descending pyramid built into the floor with levels of chairs and desks for each of the some several hundred council members to sit. At the very bottom stood a pillar known as the "Speaking Stone" which any council member must mount to earn the right to address the council. Not only was it symbolic, it also weeded out the weak as whomever mounted the stone would be gazing upwards at all of his fellow members and feel the weight of their gazes baring down on their every word.

Though any council member could mount the stone to speak, not many could handle such a matter save for several of the most senior members whose years of experience had numbed them. Indeed, some of the newer council members would go so far as to attempt to bribe senior members to mount the stone for them to push forward their motions with promises of wealth and political support.

It had been rare for a new council member to last long atop the stone and so it was quite the surprise when young V'tet began his descent from the stony steps towards the speaking stone.

As he passed by others he would nod a greeting or shake a hand but his descent was never stopped until he reach the bottom level.

Obrik and Htvala stood before him and blocked his path to the stone. Together they were the most senior members of the council and their respect was such that they had warranted seats beside the speaking stone itself.

"Come to propose your new plans once more?" Obrik's voice was a low grumble, like that of thunder rolling over the distant hills.

"You should let us speak in your stead." Htvala's voice was of a higher pitch which made him sound far younger than he actually was.

V'tet smiled. "Thank you, but I shall be fine."

He moved to get around them but Obrik stood in his way once more.

"Think carefully young runt." His tone dripping with smug superiority. "You wouldn't want to make your proposal and choke at the last moment."

Htvala snickered. "You never were one for words; it's not too late to make us an offering."

"You are both most generous, but I shall be fine." V'tet side stepped once more and approached the speaking stone.

"I've recently hired someone to take care of my short comings." he said as he slowly clambered up the stone. As he climbed the stone the murmur of conversation surrounding him slowly died away until finally he stood atop the stone and saw every council members eyes fixed on him.

He stared up at as many councilors he could as he slowly turned on the spot taking the grandeur in before stopping to read some of his notes on a scribbled piece of paper, to which Htvala and Obrik chuckled.

As if ready, V'tet set his notes and papers down and clasped his hands behind his back.

"When I was a child," V'tet began, " I considered taking my own life."

Whatever the councilors had been expecting this was certainly not it and a rush of gasps filled the chamber.

"Doctors had told my parents that my disease would only grow worse with age and eventually I would never be able to spread my wings again."

He began slowly pacing atop the stone while the eyes of every councilor were glued to him.

"Can you imagine it?" He asked, stopping in place and spreading his hands out to his colleagues. "To be blessed with the gift of flight only for it to be taken from you; to never feel the rush of air beneath you nor the softness of clouds against your scales ever again?"

Several of the councilors reached for their own wings while some flexed them instinctively.

"So when I learned that one day this would be taken from me I went to the tallest cliff I could find and planned to leap from it." V'tet stood at the edge of the speaking stone as if reenacting it, the tips of his feet hanging off the edge. "I planned to feel the rush of wind one last time before I faded away to join the eternal glide of our ancestors."

"I leaned forward over the edge," he spoke as he too began leaning over, " and just as I was about to plunge into the void once again my father came from behind and pulled me back." He spun in place and took several steps back to the center of the stone.

"He looked at me and said "What madness has taken hold of you?" to which I replied that I knew what would become of me, that I knew what the disease would take from me."

He stopped and put his hand to his head and pinched his brow and he appeared as if holding back emotions. After several seconds passed in silence V'tet spoke again.

"My father knelt beside me and put his hand on my shoulder and said "My son, just as the clouds are ever changing so too must we; for to remain stagnant as a mountain is not our way."

"He took hold of me in his arms and to my surprise leapt with me over the edge I had nearly fell from mere moments before." V'tet was circling the stone now, his arms wide in motion as if gliding through the air as he captivated the council. Obrik and Htvala looked on and scoffed at the seemingly childish antics unbecoming of a councilor.

"As he carried me in his arms as we flew home he spoke to me words I have carved into my heart. He said "Every problem we face will always have a solution, even if it was one we had never considered.""

V'tet stopped and spread his arms once more to the chamber.

"I tell you this story as now our great sector faces problems that even now seem impossible." V'tet's gaze wandered over the councilors as he spoke. "Our citizens earn less and less with each passing cycle while prices soar ever higher making their goals ever farther from their reach; but do not despair!"

V'tet's voice rose and he smashed his clenched fist into his chest. "For as my father taught me and as each of you know in your hearts there is no problem that we Draconian can not over come!"

A chorus of approval cam from a few of the councilors and some even clapped.

"When the Yupori war machine invaded did we cower behind our walls?"

"No." was cried out by several councilors who had served during the Yupori Crisis Wars.

"When our very sun spat ever growing deadly belts of radiation, did we flee from this sector with our tail between our legs?"

"No!" came a chorus of councilors who served the trade commission that had made countless negotiations with numerous other political bodies to import a rare element so powerful it stabilized their sun in a matter of weeks, saving billions from lethal radiation.

"And when our very own surrounding sectors sought to steal our glory and present them to the emperor himself, did we allow such a travesty of justice to unfold?"

"NO!" was the reply of some hundred councilors who served as the old guard who had stopped a plot from sectors 11 and 13 to mislead quota reports to make them appear more beneficial to the empire when in reality sector 12 had out performed both sectors combined.

"NO!" V'tet shouted. "When impossible tasks have been set before us we Draconian haven risen to meet each and every one of them; and we have emerged victorious in each and every one!"

The councilors were now cheering as they became swept up in their achievements, V'tet's words filling them and swelling them to the brim with pride.

V'tet was in full motion now, as if he was a hurricane made manifest that sought to sweep every councilor present up in his gale. "This challenge of wealth is not some monumental undertaking, nor is it some impossible task, not even is it something we should hide and fear from the very discussion of!" V'tet was staring directly at Obrik when he said this as Obrik had been the one in the passed who had pushed for delaying talks of economic reform in favor of the current system.

"No my fellow councilors, my conquers of the impossible, my defiers of the very fates themselves!" V'tet turned back and faced the massed audience. "This is but another marker for the very foundation of our greatness!"

The cheers were much louder now and several dozen councilors now were standing and clapping their hands while Obrik and Htvala's eyes narrowed at V'tet.

"For as my father told me I now tell you all!" V'tet stopped his speech and appeared to be in pain. The cheers and applause died down as the councilors wondered if something was wrong when they noticed V'tet's wings twitching.

Slowly and with painful bellows V'tet cried out as his wings shakingly stretched out. The creaking and breaking of muscles and bones reverberating up through the chamber until even the lowest members could hear the pain.

Finally, through gasping breaths shaking hands, V'tet stood proudly at the center of the speaking stone with his wings fully outstretched.

"Nothing is impossible for the Draconian!" V'tet roared and the chamber erupted in jubilation as nearly every councilor stood to their feet and cheered the young councilor.

-----------------------------------------------------

"I heard you put on quite the performance."

V'tet looked up from his files and smiled.

"Given by these messages of support I would say so."

V'tet had returned to his office some hours later after the council finished for the day. After his speech the days discussions had been shifted to tackling the economic problems facing the sector with almost laughable ease.

His companion had been waiting for him in his office and it was her he now enjoyed the quite evening with. She sat comfortably across from his desk swirling a caramel liquid in a crystal goblet.

"I could almost hear the applause from here." Rayah Amari said as she smirked and took a sip of her drink.

V'tet set down his data pad and stood up from his own chair to face the window behind him. The view overlooking much of the city from the council chambers to the slums of the grit district.

"I still find it hard to believe that your speech worked."

"Don't sell yourself short." Rayah quipped, finishing her drink before pouring another. "You did well reading it and going through the motions."

V'tet shook his head and looked at her. "I have given speeches before, yet none of them have ever been as impactful until I hired you to write them."

"I am but a humble word smith." She raised a glass to him and relaxed back into her chair.

"Now who is selling themselves short?" V'tet said as he sat back down and poured himself a glass.

"I've read your previous speeches; they were decent enough but they failed to sell capture you audience."

"How do you mean?" V'tet looked puzzled at her remark. " I laid out the facts clearly for all to understand."

"But it lacked spectacle and flare."

V'tet must have still appeared confused because Rayah leaned forward and pointed her glass to him.

"Arguments made with reason are good, but there is a time and place for them." she said. "You were making your case before you even got in the door, and no one wants to listen to the ravings of a man on the street."

"Then how did your building get me inside?" V'tet asked.

"By blinding them with emotion."

"Emotion?"

Rayah grinned. "When people feel emotions while listening to something they immediately become more invested in it, regardless of what it is." She put down her glass and cracked the sore muscles in her neck.

"My speech opened with something known to every Draconian, your wings." She motioned to his which had folded back tightly behind his back. "Every Draconian has them and uses them and deep down fear what would happen if they couldn't use them."

V'tet nodded at this, as not a day had gone by that he did not think of his wings.

"You lure them in with a tale of sadness, but you end it with a high not; a moment of inspiration that things will be better."

"Is this important?" V'tet asked, to which Rayah nodded. "Despite what some people think the majority of the population likes a happy ending."

"Next we stoked the pride of the people you would most need the support of." She held up a single finger.

"Mentioning military pride ensures you will have support from a few of their members as they enjoy being seen as proud defenders of their people, regardless of the problem they face."

She held up a second finger. "The merchants and money lenders who are often overlooked now have been moved front and center as their support will be helping the people, which will in turn boost their image and importance thus giving them a stake in your venture."

She held up a third hand. "The old guard who would most likely be opposed to change. By mentioning the previous clashes with neighboring sectors we've shifted their focus to what is best for the empire; something they are more likely to support given their national pride."

V'tet nodded as he followed along. "So by making each of these parties feel something, and giving them a reason they could benefit from it; the speech ensnared them?"

"I wouldn't say that," Rayah said as she finished her drink and set the glass down, "but it got them interested enough that their own imaginations will begin painting pretty pictures of what could be if this succeeded and they were the ones who most contributed."

Hearing this strategy V'tet was not ashamed to say he was impressed beyond measure that a single speech could have such depth of underlining themes and sentiments.

"Hiring you was one of my best decisions yet it seems." he spoke as he smiled to her.

Rayah shrugged. "I've had of practice with using emotions back home. You'd be surprised how often I could get people to vote against their own interests."

"Then I look forward to a long and mutually profitable cooperation." V'tet said as he raised his glass to her.

"As do I councilor." Rayah said with a devilish smile crossing her face. "As do I."

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #story

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houseboatisland · 3 years

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Sodor During the Second World War

Sodor was never bombed during the Second World War, though naturally it still had blackouts, civil defense, etc. This puzzled military and civilian historians for decades, considering Sodor’s value as a target and how reachable it was for the Luftwaffe. We’ll learn why further within this post.

In the earliest months of hostilities, Sodor was a popular destination for evacuated British children either staying there or en route to Canada.

Sodor of course formed a Home Guard, and a handful of abandoned concrete pillbox posts are still to be found moldering away on the Island, especially on its eastern and southern coasts.

Nearly all standard gauge locomotives on the Island were painted flat black, with the initials “N. W.” This has NEVER been reused for historic weekends or reenactments because engines universally find it saddening and uncomfortable to wear. The main exemptions to this change were Toby, on the Arle Valley Tramway, and a few private locomotives running factory sidings. (A/N: The Arle Valley Tramway is my name for Toby’s Old Tramway, which I’ve broken from Awdry to place on Sodor. Toby’s never worked in East Anglia.)

The Island’s narrow gauge railways didn’t receive this change either. They were however, unlike the NWR, banned from night running, something they didn’t do much of anyhow.

The Skarloey Railway THRIVED during this period, after twenty-odd years of living hand to mouth. Its slate, which had stacked up unwanted on the wharf for years, was suddenly in high demand to repair bombed houses on The Mainland. Petrol rationing, rubber tire shortages and heavily cut bus services meant that those people beyond its small, loyal clientele flocked to use it in droves. Receipts for goods and mail carried, and tickets sold, visibly spike during these years on paper. Routinely, every coach and several swept-out slate wagons were pressed into service to handle the scores of passengers, and there was even hope of repairing Skarloey, who had been out of action for a few years. This sadly didn’t happen, and Rheneas, already running the line alone for all this time, handled this tremendous strain as best he could.

The Mid Sodor Railway, which unlike the Skarloey was considered essential to the war by the Government, thrived also. Its lead mines were expanded, and additional miners, including prisoners of war, were brought from The Mainland to get it done. Their passenger services and goods tonnages, like those on the Skarloey Railway, more than recovered as a result of the motoring situation.

I’m gonna break with Awdry and say no engines were ever loaned to help any of the narrow gauge railways at this time. It just seems so… off.

The STANDARD GAUGE railways, however, (again excluding Toby’s tramway, the AVT,) were awash with engines sourced from other regions as needed, and in the war’s closing years, War Department engines themselves. S160s, Austerity 2-8-0s and 2-10-0s, Austerity Saddletanks and Yankee Tanks were all to be found on the Island at some point or another. A few stayed on in peacetime among the many “unseen but there” engines within the system, some lasting only until the Fifties, and others right up to the present day. (This excludes one engine who would be an obvious example: Rosie, a Yankee tank and easily the most famous War Department engine on Sodor, only arrived in the Nineties.)

As can well be imagined, Sodor’s steelworks and similar industries also went into overdrive, and many of its factories, as elsewhere, were retooled for the war effort to make armaments, aircraft and so on. The Mid Sodor Railway’s own Works, famously, came under Government control again, as it had during the First World War, making shells. Crovan’s Gate, which also built several War Department locomotives, similarly was refitted to make tanks, Jeeps, artillery, aircraft etc. Tidmouth’s shipyards were also churning out battleships and freighters for immediate launch.

Sodor in my universe DOES have coal mines, another break from Awdry’s canon, and these were also in high gear for the war effort. Again, like the MSR’s lead mines, Mainlanders and prisoners of war both were shipped in to accomplish this.

Now, as to the question of why Sodor was never bombed. Historians had for years been baffled by this question. Apart from a few bombs lost at sea, in all likelihood meant for Barrow, why had Sodor been practically off limits? It was well within range of the Luftwaffe, and had scores of industrial sites and military installations to target. In the Seventies, it was unearthed and eventually confirmed that Hitler had spared Sodor deliberately. Like his own psychotic plan for Blackpool in England, he planned to tour Sodor and the many beauties it offered after he had won the war. Thankfully, this didn’t come to pass. Hitler lost the war, and did the one good thing a Nazi can do: die.

Several stations took to growing victory gardens. This included Maron, which continued the tradition after the war ended, and now uses the resulting tomatoes, lettuce, and carrots in its refreshment room salads.

As I’ve said on Twitter, a LOT happened on the Island of Sodor during the Second World War, but it was such a frightening and miserable time that the engines of the time have an unwritten law amongst themselves not to talk about it. Only Edward breaks this rule, and that’s to speak with human historians separate from other engines. As such, he’s been credited in numerous papers, books, and even official Sudrian Parliament history for his priceless testimony.

The Thin Clergyman had been planning a book, as child-friendly as could be managed, about the NWR during the Second World War. It was meant to be released in 1965, twenty years after the war’s end, but engines up and down the Island refused to allow their likenesses in the book. This was a unique situation of this kind. The Thin Clergyman of course couldn’t magic up a fake Sodor as a substitute, for it would be both obvious and insulting to the engines who had just declared their discomfort. The scrapped volume, which only had so much as the foreword written, was shelved indefinitely, and it was only at his death in 1997 that the book’s status as an idea for a book at all was revealed. The Thin Clergyman instead opted for a different, but still very important anniversary to write about in 1965: Skarloey’s and Rheneas’ hundredth birthdays.

I won’t go into details, but Sudrians did serve heroically in the war, a famous and canon example being the “Duke of Sodor,” who was killed in North Africa. The total number of Sudrians dead in action was a few thousand, which may seem small but on an Island as sparsely populated as Sodor was significant and all-encompassing. Their sacrifices can never be forgotten, nor can be the evils of those they fought. To do so would only enable it all again, and Sudrians, anti-fascist to the core, will never, ever let that happen.

#ttte worldbuilding #tw nazism #tw death #houseboat's universe history glossary #ttte skarloey railway #ttte mid sodor railway #ttte arle valley tramway #ttte north western railway #ttte edward #ttte toby #ttte rheneas #ttte skarloey #ttte rosie #ttte the thin clergyman

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e350tb · 3 years

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The Owl House: A Blight on Gravesfield (Chapter Five)

Five

The sun rises over Gravesfield.

...so the first essay topic will be up online this afternoon. Now back to weird local myths!

In 1660, King Charles II was restored to the English throne, and the whole Civil War period came to a close. Sort of. There was still a lot of political and religious controversy in both the British Isles and in the colonies; but that’s mostly a topic for another course. We are going to be following the continuing adventures of the Wittebanes.

John died in 1672 of pneumonia, but before he did, he had a family house constructed on his estate; that house, the Historic Wittebane Home, is still, and access is free to all Gravesfield residents, so if you have some time it’s well worth a visit. Although it looks small and uncomfortable now, in the 1660s it was the height of colonial luxury.

John left his estate to his son, the confusingly named John Philip Wittebane. We’ll call him John Philip to avoid too much confusion. Before John Philip took over the estate, he had sailed both as a merchant and as a buccaneer in the Caribbean; we believe he sailed with Henry Morgan in the raid on Maracaibo in 1668-69. While there, he purchased investments in a number of industries, and while he divested from them when he returned to Connecticut to collect his inheritance, they had made him a very wealthy man.

He immediately put his wealth to use by buying up most of the small farmers around Gravesfield, and by 1690, it was reckoned that most people in Gravesfield were employed by him. It became effectively a Wittebane company town, with John Philip even serving as the city’s mayor several times.

This is where our next myth comes to play; that in 1687, John Philip Wittebane had a woman put to death for witchcraft, and that consequently, her ghost haunts the Historic Wittebane Home.

Now, I’m a historian, I can’t tell you ghosts are real. That’s a job for ghostbusters. But was a woman really hanged in Gravesfield for witchcraft, nearly twenty years after the end of the Connecticut Witch Trials?

The local newspaper tell us that on June 13th, 1687 - a Friday - a ‘vagrant, suspected by some of heresy and witchraft, was duly hanged by the magistrate on account of the cruel and vicious murder of Henry Finch, who had been struck down while attending the ‘pigges’ on the Wittebane estate.’ So we have a clear cause for the hanging, and a ‘suspicion of witchcraft,’ but we don’t have a connection.

Frustratingly, this newspaper doesn’t tell us how poor Henry Finch died. Was he cruelly hexed? Well, if we go digging about in the archives, we might find a different story…

----

A brisk and foggy dawn was breaking over Gravesfield.

Ben Frakes was not a man of means by any stretch of the imagination, and as he stepped out into the cold air, he wished he could afford a car. (Well, he could, but it was hard to justify the expense.) It had been an uncomfortable night. Life in his one-room apartment had its charms - chief among them proximity to the college - but on cold nights it could be miserable, especially when his radiator was still broken.

Still, he was in fairly good spirits. His course on Gravesfield’s myths, and the truths behind them, was going very well, and the students seemed engaged. And it was a very good time of year to be in the history business; the annual Gravesfield History Fair was coming up, something he always looked forward to. It was always a riot; apart from a small county fair, there would be historical talks and tours of the old battlefield and the Historical Wittebane Home, and even the yearly battle reenactment; one which Ben had taken part in every year for his whole time in Gravesfield.

He was always on the Redcoat side and therefore always lost, but having fun was the main thing. Even if it was a bit of historical revisionism on the part of the townsfolk.

He was just starting off down the sidewalk to the college grounds when he spied a rustling in the nearby bushes. For a moment, he was prepared to dismiss it as a rabbit or a bird, but then, to his astonishment, a little white head poked out.

“Is that a cat?” he asked himself.

Slowly and gently, he crept forward, leaning down behind the bush. The cat emerged, gently headbutting his outstretched hand.

“Hmm… too much grooming to be a feral,” mused Ben. “Have you gotten out of someone’s yard?”

Carefully, he picked up the cat.

“Am I gonna have to print out a wanted poster for you?” he asked, chuckling. “I’ve got some milk in my fridge, maybe… what the?”

His gaze turned to the cat’s paws. Just under one of the back paws, he could see a peculiar mark, almost like a lock. He frowned.

“That doesn’t look healthy,” he mused. “Okay, pre-class prep can wait, I think you need a vet.”

He started off in the direction of the vet. He wasn’t concerned about making it to his class; that was still hours away, and he’d been planning on spending the morning doing some marking. But that mark… cats did not have marks like that.

At least, not in his world.

----

Camila was not an oblivious woman, especially when it came to her daughter.

She had had some suspicions the night before; most people wouldn’t jump through a portal into the unknown to get their friend to help, after all. But things were messy and upsetting, and people did irrational things under stress, so she’d shelved that thought.

When she walked into her living room the next morning and found them sound asleep in each other’s arms - well, suffice it to say, her suspicions grew a bit.

When Luz eventually blinked open her eyes, she found her mother sitting on the couch with a cup of tea in her hand, smiling wryly down at her.

“Good friends, are you?” she asked.

Luz blinked, and then glanced over to Amity.

She yelped and pulled herself out of her friend’s arms, which in turn woke her up with a start. Both sat up, Luz turning bright red.

“What’s going on?” demanded Amity. “Are we being attacked?”

Camila took a sip of her tea.

“Don’t worry,” she replied. “If we are, I’m sure Luz is very well protected.”

“Mooo-oooom,” groaned Luz, burying her head in her hands as Amity turned red too.

“Uh, Ms. Noceda, it’s… I’m…” Amity scratched the back of her head. “Please don’t get mad, Luz…”

“Mad?” Camila tilted her head. “Why would I be mad?”

“I… um… I…” Amity stammered.

“I need to take a shower!” exclaimed Luz. “Far away from here! Goodbye!”

She darted off the inflatable mattress and out the door.

Amity buried her head in the blanket, moaning softly. Camila frowned, moving a little closer to her.

“Amity,” she asked. “Is everything alright?”

“Sure,” sighed Amity. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Camila reached down and put a hand on her shoulder. She was surprised to see Amity jolt away from her; her frown deepened.

“If you ever need to talk,” she said. “Just remember that I’m here.”

“Thanks,” replied Amity, looking away, “But I don’t think I will.”

She got up and walked away.

----

Luz spat her toothpaste out into the sink (she was surprised at how much better-tasting human toothpaste was than the stuff they used on the Isles, although it probably didn’t provide the same magical plaque protection) and washed her hands, whistling to herself. She didn’t know why - it wasn’t as though she was calm or cheerful - but perhaps music calmed the soul.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “Gotta go back to the historical society. Maybe there’s a lead to getting Amity home on that creepy curator guy’s conspiracy board… also wanna see if the bookstore’s still there. I think Amity would like it.”

She turned to the door and immediately froze.

Camila was leaning against the closed door, arms crossed.

“I think it’s time we talked, mija.”

Luz pursed her lips.

“...do we have to do it in the bathroom?”

#the owl house #luz noceda #amity blight #camila noceda #vee #lumity #a blight on gravesfield #writing

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daitranscripts · 3 years

Text

Solas Cutscene: The Threat Remains

A Blessed Hero

Solas Masterpost Related Quest: The Threat Remains

The PC approaches Solas.

Solas: The Chosen of Andraste, a blessed hero sent to save us all.

Dialogue options:

General: I hope to be one. [1]

General: Sounds dashing! [2]

General: I’m not a hero. [3]

1 - General: I hope to be one. PC: I didn’t ask for this… but someone has to find a way to seal this Breach. Solas: Spoken nobly indeed. [4]

2 - General: Sounds dashing! PC: Am I riding in on a shining steed? Solas: I would have suggested a griffon, but sadly they’re extinct. Joke as you will, posturing is necessary. [4]

3 - General: I’m not a hero. PC: I’ve no interest in being a hero. All I want is to find a way to seal this Breach. Solas: Pragmatic, but ultimately irrelevant. [4]

4 - Scene continues.

Solas begins to walk away, and the PC follows.

Solas: I have journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past of wars both famous and forgotten.

Solas turns back towards the PC.

Solas: Every great war has its heroes. I’m just curious what kind you’ll be.

5 - Dialogue options:

Investigate: You study ancient ruins? [6] + Solas slightly approves

General: A good one. [12] + Solas slightly approves

General: A smart and happy hero. [13]

General: Unstoppable. [14]

6 - Investigate: You study ancient ruins? PC: What do you mean, ruins and battlefields? Solas: Any building strong enough to withstand the rigors of time has a history. Every battlefield is steeped in death. Both attract spirits. They press against the Veil, weakening the barrier between our worlds. When I dream in such places, I go deep into the Fade. I can find memories no other living being has ever seen.

7 - Dialogue options:

Special: How can you sleep there? [8] + Solas slightly approves

General: That’s impressive. [9]

General: That’s valuable. [10]

General: That’s dangerous. [11]

8 - Special: How can you sleep there? PC: You fall asleep in the middle of ancient ruins? Isn’t that dangerous? Solas: I do set wards. And if you leave food out for the giant spiders, they are usually content to live and let live. [Back to 7]

9 - General: That’s impressive. PC: I’ve never heard of anyone going so far into the fade. That’s extraordinary. Solas: Thank you. It’s not a common field of study, for obvious reasons. Not so flashy as throwing fire or lightning. The thrill of finding remnants of a thousand-year-old dream? I would not trade it for anything. I will stay then, at least until the Breach has been closed. [15]

10 - General: That’s valuable. PC: I imagine you find some amazing things in there… alongside all the demons. Solas: Exactly. It is occasionally dangerous, but more often it’s just sad to see what has been lost. The thrill of finding remnants of a thousand-year-old dream? I would not trade it for anything. I will stay then, at least until the Breach has been closed. [15]

11 - General: That’s dangerous. PC: If you go that deep into the Fade, you might find something better left alone. Solas: I take precautions to avoid possession. I have no wish to become a demon’s tool. In the same light, be cautious here. Cassandra’s protection only lasts so long as she survives. It will interesting to watch this fledgling Inquisition make its way. I will stay to see it. For now. [15]

12 - General: A good one. PC: The kind who makes the world a better place. Solas: It isn’t always that easy… but I wish you luck. I will stay then, at least until the Breach has been closed. [15]

13 - General: A smart and happy hero. PC: Hopefully the kind who lives to become that embarrassing former hero everyone has to put up with. Solas: I can think of worse fates. I will stay then, at least until the Breach has been closed. [15]

14 - General: Unstoppable. PC: The kind who wins. Solas: That is usually better than losing. I will stay then, at least until the Breach has been closed. [15]

15 - Scene continues.

PC: Was that in doubt?

Solas (elf mage PC): I am an apostate mage surrounded by Chantry forces and unlike you, I do not have a divine mark protecting me. Solas (non-elf PC): I am an apostate surrounded by Chantry forces in the middle of a mage rebellion.

Solas: Cassandra has been accommodating, but you understand my caution.

Dialogue options:

Flirt: You can trust me. [16] + Solas slightly approves

General: Cassandra will protect you. [17] + Solas slightly approves

General: We have bigger problems. [18]

General: Your fears don’t matter. [19] + Solas slightly disapproves

16 - Flirt: You can trust me. PC: You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you. Solas: How would you stop them? PC: However I had to. Solas: Thank you. [20]

17 - General: Cassandra will protect you. PC: Cassandra trusts you. She won’t let anyone put you into a circle against your will. Solas: Thank you. I appreciate the thought. [20]

18 - General: We have bigger problems. PC: The giant hole in the sky trumps any other concerns. We can worry about the rest later. Solas: Yes. Who can say what this world will look like when we are done fighting for it? [20]

19 - General: Your fears don’t matter. PC: You might dislike the Circles, but if that Breach stays open, you’ll like what it does to the world even less. Solas: Agreed. Hence remaining here to offer help. [20]

20 - Scene continues.

Solas: For now, let us hope either the mages or the templars have the power to seal the Breach. Solas: For now, we must focus on finding a way to seal the Breach.

Scene ends.

#dragon age #dai #dragon age inquisition #dai transcripts #solas #haven #long post

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minervacasterly · 4 years

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First Protestant King of England, Henry VIII or Edward VI? (And why Edward VI's reign was no less important than his father's)

It is important to dispell myths about the most popular English dynasty, so I decided to briefly take on this topic. A common misconception until recent decades is that Henry VIII was the first Protestant King. In reality, it was his son who was the first true Protestant King of England. I’ve written about this before on my blog, building upon the research by great scholars like Chris Skidmore, Loach, and the short introduction to his reign by Kyra Cornelius Kramer. Besides taking after his father in intellect, Edward VI was fairly concerned with the state of the church of England but unlike his old man, he thought that the time had come to make it into the first true Protestant church of England, agreeing to the issuing of the book of common prayer and a revision of it two years later. Edward VI also frowned upon improper clothing. He loved to dance and watch sports, but didn’t think t0 was a good idea to indulge in these frivolities since the Evangelicals believed that this was a gateway to moral decay. (Don’t you just love those who interpret the will of god so good, that they conveniently forget about the passages where their savior rails against the rich and so on?) Edward’s actions had consequences and these, like the contributions of his reign, are often brushed aside in favor of his more famous father and sisters. One of them, was a rebellion in the North and his half-sister’s resistance to his new laws that forbade people to hear the Mass and forced the new English service on everyone. Long story short … lots of people hung, punished and lots of enemies that his councilors (who as always since people couldn’t point fingers at the king unless they had a sick death wish of some sort) were blamed and were punished for during his half-sister’s reign. Some of you might be pointing out that since Henry VIII was excommunicated and labeled a heretic by most of Christendom, that technically he was a Protestant king but no, seriously, he wasn’t. Henry was, despite these labels, still a practicing Catholic. He agreed to Gardiner’s articles of faith that criticized the church and validated his claim as supreme head of the Anglican Church, and God’s representative on Earth, and surrounded himself by obvious Reformists, but other than that, he forcefully kept everyone in line. Catholics who practiced the Mass or adhered to his new rules while still being loyal to their beliefs were tolerated, but if they pulled a ‘Thomas More’ where they denied the king’s supremacy or insulted one of his beloved wives (before he got tired of them, that is) then yes, off to the block with them!

As for Protestants … Ever heard of Anne Askew? She defended Henry’s actions, she thought he was some kind of Moses as his last wife -Kathryn Parr whom she was closely associated with- would paint him as in her two books (primarily in ‘Lamentations of a Sinner’) and then she defied her husband and Henry’s establishment, pushing for a more Evangelist agenda, and what happened? Oh nothing big … she just got tortured and then burned. As long as you played Henry’s sycophant you were fine. There is also a spiritual aspect that ties into his megalomania. As Henry became more obsessed with securing his dynasty, his focus on spiritual matters also grew. By the end of his reign, nobody could predict what the king would say or how he would act so everyone walked a fine line when they discussed important subjects. Kathryn Parr is one of them who learned this lesson early on during their marriage. If it weren’t for gentleness, and the friendship she established among prominent ladies in her household, her accusers would’ve succeeded in convincing Henry VIII that she was a heretic. She would’ve had a sham trial like Anne Boleyn and then beheaded or worse, burned like Anne Aske. Luckily for Kathryn Parr, she was one step ahead of them. Humbling herself before her lord and husband, she told him that she never intended to change his religious views but just challenged him as people did at the beginning of his reign, so he could stir her towards the right path since she was a woman and these things were too complicated for her to fathom, let alone choose on her own. She lived and continued to be a major influence on future Protestant leaders, such as Jane Grey, Elizabeth I and of course, Edward VI.

Edward VI was greatly influenced by his beloved stepmother’s religiosity and mourned her deeply. He referred to her as his mother. Kathryn encouraged his passion for books and aided his Protestant tutors in stirring him towards their faith, ensuring that he’d become the king they’d all be waiting for, that would transform England into a fully Protestant nation.

It was Edward who began to force religious codes on his people in a way that hadn’t been done before. His father cracked on religious houses on the basis of cleansing them from corruption and because of their disloyalty, and open defiance against his supremacy; but Edward made things worse. The monasteries that were sold to his father’s noblemen left many people begging on the streets while forcing others to adapt to their new environment. When people could no longer handle it, they rose up in open rebellion and like in his father’s time, these were brutally squashed. But here is where it gets interesting … Whereas Henry VIII is blamed for all the evils of his reign, Edward VI is not and the reason for this? He was a kid, don’t be so mean. Leave the poor tot alone. Fact: Edward VI died at the age of fifteen and by renaissance standards, he was not a little boy anymore. Even if he hadn’t come of age, he was not an innocent boy anymore who was oblivious to the world around him. In fact. When Edward VI found out that his uncle had been executed, he was like ‘meh … okay’. And sure, Thomas Seymour was a brash individual who thought he could get away with everything but even after he tried to kidnap his nephew, to act in such a manner and for an uncle who was married to your favorite stepmother and someone you claimed to be your favorite relative, that’s pretty cold. But it gets better. After Edward VI finally got rid of his tedious uncle and his irritating set of rules, Edward wrote in his diary (showing no emotion at all) that the former lord Protector died and that was that. Getting rid of Edward Seymour probably made the little critter sigh in relief because out of all his uncles, the Lord Protector was the one who always reminded him of his duties and responsibilities, not to mention all those rules and not letting him be king! How unfair! And then there was also that issue about the rebellions. Edward VI saw these people as traitors and agreed with Northumberland that they should be dealt with immediately but his uncle didn’t think that was wise, which was why people called him the ‘good Duke’ because they saw him as a friend of the people. Now that he was out of the way, his kingdom would not have to suffer any more dissenting voices, nor any threats of isolation or future skirmishes with Scotland. Edward VI was fully committed to the Protestant cause but convinced by Northumberland, he realized that he would not go far if he did not have any allies. And the whole campaign in Scotland had gone awfully wrong and with Mary, Queen of Scots in France, the only way to neutralize that threat was making an alliance with that country, betrothing him to Henri II and Catherine de Medici’s daughter, Elizabeth Valois. Sadly, Edward VI did not live to marry her or do more for the Evangelicals. He died and before he did, he wrote a paper called “my device for the succession” which became the basis to disinherit his sisters in favor of their cousin, Jane Grey. That opened a can of worms that could have easily escalated into another civil war like the wars of the roses but thankfully for everyone involved it didn’t and his sister won her crown fair and square. But as with every Tudor, once her sister became Queen, she began to make good use of the propaganda machine to portray her sibling as a puppet of Northumberland and other evil lords who had corrupted him and turned him against her. Why was this done? Same reason why people who rebelled against their kings often pointed their fingers at their councilors -because doing so against an anointed king meant that they were upsetting the natural order. It was only in extreme cases, when someone had enough support and belonged to a different dynasty, that they would point it directly at them. Edward belonged to the same dynasty as Mary, and a dynasty divided was bad business for everyone, especially for the first Queen Regnant of England who had inherited a divided country.

Mary I also did something else and that was appropriating some of Edward VI’s religious achievements in an effort to make Catholicism appealing to those who were still unsure whether or not they wanted to return to the church or side with the various groups within the Protestant movement. Sections from the book of the common prayer were added to a new set of prayers in Latin and English, and adapted in a way that didn’t contradict church doctrine. During his reign, Edward encouraged many poets and artists to express themselves. These would reenact passages from the bible, or create allegorical paintings that depicted Edward as England’s messiah, and all those who followed him as true Christians as opposed to the decadent Catholics who were portrayed as heathens.

Edward’s religious reformation became the basis for Elizabeth I’s reign who continued with many of these reforms. Although she did not go as far as Edward or his chosen heiress, Jane Grey, would have liked. Elizabeth I was far more pragmatic, recognizing that if she wanted to rule over a divided country she had to maintain some of the older traditions or else, she’d risk losing everything she had. Unlike her siblings, Elizabeth I wasn’t thought of as legitimate by many of her Christian peers. Ideological purity was a luxury that she couldn’t afford and in any case, she did not want because many Evangelicals didn’t like the idea of the supremacy of kings (or queens). Nevertheless, Elizabeth I built her religious establishment upon her brother’s by issuing a new revision of the book of common prayer and encouraging artists and poets to create works that extolled the Anglican Church and the Tudor Dynasty.

#Edward VI #Henry VIII #English History #English Reformation #dailytudors

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forsetti · 4 years

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On Racial Justice: Time For Action

When I was in high school, a young girl went missing. There was a rumor she had been abducted. This was years before cell phones and then internet. Word spread through phone trees, in diners, at the gas station, in the barbershop and hair salon. The entire county became quickly invested into finding her. It was as if someone took a big stick and beat the hell out of our little beehive.

She was found, later that day, up one of the canyons that bordered the rural valley where we lived. She had been killed. I know this because my father was the county coroner, as well as the local mortician. As the news of her murder spread as quickly her abduction had earlier in the day, a wave of anger and fear blanketed the valley. Anger because of what had happened to “one of their own.” Fear because there was an existential threat to their own children out there, somewhere, still at large. The beehive was whipped up into a frenzy.

I can't remember if it was later that same day or the next but the local police soon found and arrested what they described as “a drifter from California,” for the young girl's abduction and murder. They locked the man up in the little jail that was located in our town hall.

Once news of the arrest and jailing hit the hive, the emotions that had been building over the past couple of days began to boil over. By that evening, after a number of drinks at one of the local watering holes, a number of men had worked themselves up into a frenzy over what had happened. At some point, one of the men suggested they drag that “mother fucker” out of the jail and administer some “good ol' country justice.” Before you could say, “vigilante justice,” a number of armed men in pickup trucks were parked in front of the town hall ready to reenact their own personal version of “Death Wish.”

With all respect to the local police force, the few officers on duty were able to talk the inebriated, heavily armed group off the ledge. The men eventually drove off to their respective homes, no one was lynched, and a crisis was averted. A few hours later, in the middle of the night, the police transferred the prisoner to a larger jail a hundred miles away.

The reason I bring up this story is because I am reminded of it every time I hear white people lecture black people on how to behave after one of their unarmed sons and daughters is killed by the police. I watched, in real time, an entire community get worked up to a fever, murderous pitch over the course of a couple of days over the murder of one of their own. Yet, people just like those I grew up around who, within a few hours, rationalized a lynching over one unjust death, cannot imagine the release of pent-up fear and anger many black communities feel that has been building for generations.

The reason Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the National Anthem wasn't because of the killing of one person. The reason there were riots in Ferguson MO in 2015 wasn't just because of the death of Michael Brown. The reason there are protests and riots in all fifty states right now isn't just because of the deaths of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. The reason for all of these is the centuries-old, systemic practice of viewing and treating black bodies as expendable.

When citizens do this like we've recently seen with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, it is horrible and deserves moral outrage and legal repercussions. When this happens at the hands of those entrusted to serve and protect the very people it kills, without consequences, it is evil. When this happens over and over and over and over....again, it is a moral failure not just of the law enforcement officers who do this but of our society because we've turned a blind eye to the deaths, pain, and suffering of our own.

It doesn't take a lot of thought to imagine what would happen if it was unarmed white people being killed by the police. One of the turning points in how the nation viewed of the way our government was handling the Vietnam War was shooting deaths of four young, unarmed students at Kent State in 1970. Like the rural area where I grew up, white America doesn't tolerate the killing of their own by agents of the government. Not for one fucking second.

Yet, a whole lot of white America can't seem to understand why Black Americans get so worked up whenever one of their own is murdered by the police. I've seen more video of white people screaming at police for pulling them over or for asking them to obey safe practices during a pandemic than over the killing of their fellow, unarmed citizens.

I know there are a host of hot takes as to why white America doesn't really give a damn about the killing of unarmed minorities. If the analysis doesn't begin and end with, “as a whole, white America views minorities as inferior and expendable,” it isn't worth a damn. This doesn't mean all of white America is racist. It means that, as a group, white America doesn't care enough to change the status quo. This shouldn't be a revelation to anyone who pays attention to the world around them. White America hasn't given a damn about minorities since, forever. They have really never cared about Native Americans. They've only given a half-assed care about blacks and that was only after seeing images of church-dressed men, women, and children being attacked by police dogs and brutalized with batons and fire hoses at the hands of racist, Southern police. Once the Civil Rights Act passed, White America pretty much went back to not giving a damn about black people. It almost seems like giving blacks the right to vote was all the care White America could muster and a lot of them couldn't (and still can't) do that. The fear and anger the people in my community felt over the course of a few days back in the late 70s led them to be willing to break whatever laws they deemed necessary to get the justice they felt they deserved. Imagine this same fear and anger not building up over a few days but a few centuries. Imagine not one member of your community being unjustly killed but dozens and dozens each and every year. Imagine the fear and anger not that these deaths were the result of some random person but by the very people hired and entrusted to protect your community.

The surprising thing isn't that black Americas are angry. The surprising thing is they've kept their anger in control as well as they have. White Americans protest and riot over their favorite sports team winning or losing. They protest and riot over a beloved football coach being fired. They protest and riot over having their favorite drink being taxed. They protest and riot over not being able to get their hair cut and flower beds properly tended. Black Americans are protesting over the killings of their loved ones.

I cannot imagine what it is like to fear for your life every time you encounter the police, regardless of the circumstances. I cannot imagine worrying about any of my children being harmed, let alone killed by the police. I cannot imagine being punished more harshly by the police and courts for doing the same things that others have done. I cannot imagine being viewed as “violent,” “lazy,” “a thug,” “a threat,”... , no matter how wealthy or successful I am, by a good portion of society, just because of the color of my skin. I cannot imagine my water supply being poisoned with lead and no one with any power gives a damn. There are thousands of things about being black in America I cannot even imagine.

Just because I can't imagine these things doesn't make them not real. It doesn't make them not important. That I cannot imagine these things just means I've been fortunate enough to be on the other side of the systemic racism in our country. As I watch the current protests over the latest police killings of unarmed blacks, I'm hopeful and afraid. Hopeful because the number of protests not just in big cities but around the country in towns large and small means, like the images on tv from the 60s of the Civil Rights marches, are having a real impact on white America. Fearful because I know the history of this country when it comes to the levels it will go to protect the white patriarchy.

Within the past few years, I watched the election of someone who is the personification of white supremacy as a backlash to the first black president. Trump won the election because the majority of white men and women voted for him. They may not do the same next time around but that they did the first time tells you all you need to know about where White America stands when it comes to racial justice and equality.

When it comes to the deaths of unarmed blacks by police, to the overpopulation of our prison system, to the gross wealth disparity of whites and blacks, to too many issues to list here, to my fellow White Americans, I quote Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” You know damn well you wouldn't tolerate being treated how blacks our in our country. You know damn well you wouldn't tolerate the killing of your sons and daughters by anyone, especially the police.

It is time to stop pretending the problem isn't systemic and it is the responsibility of minorities to fix. White America built the system. White America has and still does, to a great extent, support it. White America, all of it, benefits from it. It is up to us to dismantle it. We can either go down as the ones who did what was necessary to live up to the promises of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or we can go down in history as just another era that made promises it never intended to live up to. This isn't something that could or should wait another day to happen. It is centuries behind schedule. Trying is no longer enough. To quote a Jedi Master, “Do or do not, there is no try.” We owe it ourselves but, much more importantly, we owe it to Black Americans past and present.

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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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Good morning world. And do you know what I’m thinking about this morning? Keiko (chill, autocorrect) on Deep Space Nine.

Partly because I’ve been thinking about how the show’s done her wrong since a few episodes into Season 1. Partly because, in the wake of the Atlanta shooting, it’s clearly past time to talk about how women of Asian descent are depicted in the media.

Rather go on and on about what the show did wrong, I’m going to start with what it did right, then move on into some suggestions for plot lines that might have gotten the audience into Keiko’s (and perhaps her daughter Molly’s) head better. Feel free to borrow for fanfic purposes. (And let me know if you do, or if someone else wrote some good Keiko and/or Molly fanfic I might enjoy.)

What's right: she’s a, not core character, but sort of second tier character who is on the show often. She has a respectable role: she’s a well-educated professional whose work is important to her, and a wife and mother. We also get hints of her having a life beyond that — not as much as I’d like, but for example at one point in the first season she’s away visiting her mother, and when she’s pregnant with her second child she keeps leading an active life. I think the show strikes an appropriate balance on sexuality: she’s married, we’re pretty sure she and Miles have sex, but she’s not presented as a sex object. And we don’t see her suffering more trauma than the other characters. As of where I'm currently at in Season 6, she's alive, and I have every reason to believe she'll stay alive through the end of the show. (A quick look at Memory Alpha confirms this.) Good stuff.

(She’s also in The Next Gen — parts of that I haven’t watched and others were a while back, so I’m going to stick to talking about her role in DS9.)

And...very nearly all the episodes she’s in, are very firmly from Mile’s perspective and not hers. (Even storylines that really should be about her: when she’s experiencing frustration at not being able to pursue her career and ends up going back to work, that episode is entirely from Mile’s perspective. She barely speaks a word in it.)

Contrast this to how Benjamin Sisko’s son and father are shown: Jake very much gets his own storylines and own life, and relationships that aren’t primarily about his father, even though his dad has a more central role in the show (and we definitely see their relationship from Benjamin’s perspective as well), and even though we rarely see Grandpa Sisko (huh, apparently his name is Joseph), you immediately get the sense of him as a strong-willed person who lives life on his own terms, and when he and Ben have conflicts you can understand his perspective easily. In spite of relatively little screen-time. Keiko gets far more screen time, but far less interiority. She’s presented in a way that’s hard to empathize with. And there’s less of a sense of who she is as an individual rather than as a role.

(BTW, if we got to see Keiko’s perspective more, whose would we see less of? Maybe Miles, who gets quite a lot of focus. Maybe Quark, maybe Julian...basically, I’m pretty sure if I went through the season and marked down which episodes were primarily about male characters vs primarily about female characters vs pretty balanced, the ratio would be telling. And it’s not like I don’t like the male characters (well, maybe I could do with less Quark) but... I don’t like them so much that I think the show is better for having shorted the women.)

I want to see Keiko have friends. I want to see her talk to other parents on the ship as a parent. That episode where Keiko’s off station and Miles has to figure out how to get their new baby to stay asleep? I want an episode where Miles is gone and Keiko has parenting struggles. Where we get into old conflicts between her and her mother or father that she has to work through as a parent herself. (This is not an unrealistic expectation -- we got that for Odo in one episode, and we got a similar thing with Kira processing her father's death while another character was dying.) I want Molly to go on her first sleep-over and Keiko to have conflicted feelings about her daughter growing up and for Molly to have conflicted feelings where she’s excited but...also kinda misses her mom.

I want to see how Keiko’s explaining the Dominion war to Molly and what she’s skipping over. I want to see Keiko worried about her husband (which, granted, we’ve seen that) and getting emotional support from someone else (which we haven’t really.) I want to see Keiko pursuing a hobby other than gardening. I want her to be really excited to introduce Molly to something that she loved growing up. (Specifically a Japanese cultural thing or not.) I want her to take Molly to a holosuite program that shows some Japanese architecture or history or gardens. I want there to be some conversation about language — sure, universal translators, but what do people speak on their own, and what does Molly grow up speaking?

(They’ve got an interracial/inter-cultural relationship and explore absolutely nothing about that.)

Since Keiko was a teacher for a while, is she absolutely obsessing over homeschooling Molly now that there’s no school?

I’m not sure I want to see Miles and Keiko have a “no one’s right” disagreement over how to raise their children, but that’s certainly a thing that could have happened. Or could happen indirectly: Miles isn’t the talking type and yet everyone on the station knows when he’s having wife troubles and are willing to give him advice. Who does Keiko get relationship advice from?

When Keiko and Miles are apart and Miles spends all his time playing darts with Julian or reenacting battles with Julian, who is Keiko connecting with?

(Side note: one thing that Brandon Sanderson does well in his fantasy novels such as the Mistborn Trilogy, is couples that are balanced in power and narrative significance. The show made a choice to have Miles be a more central character than Keiko. There’s no intrinsic reason they couldn’t have been on the same level of narrative significance.) (But even if they were going to be at unequal levels of significance, Keiko still could have been done much better.)

(And you’ll notice the show is almost going out of its way to avoid having any female characters with less significant recurring love interests. When they partner up Kira, it’s not with some guy who’s just nice and fun or a supportive boyfriend (someone analogous to what Leeta is for Julian or later Rom), somehow even though she’s one of the most powerful characters in the show (she’s second in command on the station) she keeps getting partnered up with characters who have more religious or civil power than she does, and who become very narratively significant at least for a little while. Female characters can be just love interests or family members, male characters have to be doing something big and important.)

I think the show overdoes romance, so this wouldn’t be my first choice, but...having an old flame of Keiko’s show up could be a thing that happened. Or having a thing where she notices an interesting stranger, and of course nothing happens because she’s married, but we still get to see Keiko as, you know, a woman with desires and interests that don’t always fit perfectly into her respectable well-ordered life. We could see mirror universe Keiko — I wonder what she’s like. Or some time travel alternate timeline story where she’s with someone else, or single and enjoying the single life. (Surely even if Keiko is overall happy with her life, surely sometimes she must wonder about the roads not taken.) We could have some indication that she too misses Miles when they’re not together, or we could see her excited to get more time away or get their quarters to herself while he’s away, or both because people are complicated.

What are Molly’s adventures? Who is she best friends with? Where’s her tension between growing up and becoming her own person vs wanting her parents’ love and approval? Where’s the episode where we’re all wait, she’s really not a little toddler any more, is she?

(We don’t even know what Molly thinks about having a baby brother — and that’s a huge, highly dramatic change in the life of a child.)

Where’s the episode where she desperately wants some pet that her parents don’t want her to have, or desperately wants some toy or activity that one or both thinks is unsafe, or where she wants to be on a sports team but there aren’t enough kids on the station, or where she has to say goodbye to the Bajoran friends she made, or she starts playing make believe games involving evacuating the station...

What if we got to see Keiko’s mother and learn something about her or the family history? What if Keiko had some aunt or uncle or sibling who showed up on the station some time, what might their relationship be like? Is there some family hero that Keiko’s always encouraging Molly to grow up to be like?

If the show’s writers truly couldn’t handle writing a child that young, this is Star Trek and we have time travel — there’s no reason we couldn’t have an episode involving future grown up Molly O’Brien.

What if we got some terribly retconned explanation for why Keiko, a professionally trained botanist, was mysteriously ready and eager to step into schoolteacher mode even though that’s its own profession that requires years of specialized higher education? Did...did Keiko for some reason study to be a teacher, have something go wrong, and then go with botany as Life Pursuits Take 2? (Perhaps she was pushed into being a teacher then decided she loved botany more? But she didn’t actually dislike teaching?)

What if we actually got an episode centered around her being a botanist and exploring alien plants? There’s possibilities there — heck, one of the most popular TOS episodes centered around space wheat, so why not? I want an alien planet where all the plants are yellow or hot pink because they photosynthesize with something other than chlorophyll. Why not? (Did you know there’s an old school Piers Anthony sci fi book about killer mushrooms? Not joking.)

She’s the only woman of color who’s a regular character on the show throughout the whole series. She’s one of the few Asian-descent women who’s on American TV at all. She deserved better.

And I think we should talk about how she, and other characters, could have been written better.

#keiko o'brien #representation in media #asian women in media #ds9 #sorry for the extreme length on this fucker #it's a long show and I have opinions #women in media #feminism #gender #I'm seeing this through more of a gendered lens than a race/culture one #I imagine someone of asian descent would pick up on a lot of things I missed #to me the connections between how her character is done and how other female characters are handled stand out brightly #it would be interesting to hear from someone who's noticing race and culture stuff more clearly #autocorrect keiko is a real name I promise you

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myhauntedsalem · 4 years

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9 Signs of Your Past Life

Have you live before?

Here are 9 clues you might find in your present life

The idea that our souls or spirits reincarnate reaches back at least 3,000 years. Discussions of the subject can be found in the ancient traditions of India, Greece, and the Celtic Druids. It’s a tantalizing belief – that our spirits are not confined to the seven, eight, or nine decades of life on Earth (if we’re lucky), but that we have lived before and that we might live again.

What do you believe? Do you believe that you have had a past life or lives, growing up, working, loving, and suffering in roles very different from the one you are now playing out? Perhaps you were a different race, socio-economic class, or gender. Some even believe you could have been another living species entirely – a dog, gazelle, or fish perhaps.

Those who believe in past lives suggest that there might be clues to what our past lives were in the various complex aspects that make up our current physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychological personalities. Here are some of them.

DÉJÀ VU

Most of us have experienced the eerie feeling of déjà vu – the sudden, surprising feeling that an event we are going through at the moment has happened exactly this way before. Psychologist Arthur Funkhouser has broken down this phenomenon into sub-categories: déjà vécu – an event already experienced or lived through; déjà senti- already felt, perhaps triggered by a voice or music; and déjà visité – a place so familiar we feel we’ve been there before.

While scientists and psychiatrists insist there are neurological explanations for these phenomena, others wonder if these strange feelings could be vague, fleeting memories of past lives. You enter a house or building, for example, in a town you’ve never visited before. Yet every detail of that place is familiar. You know what’s in the next room and up the stairs. You have the overwhelming feeling that you’ve been there before. Have you – in a past life?

WEIRD MEMORIES

My daughter has “memories” of childhood events that we know never really happened. Is she just remembering a child’s fantasy, misunderstanding, or even a dream that she now interprets as reality? Or is sheremembering something that happened to her before she was born into this lifetime?

Human memory is a fraught with error and incongruities, and I’m sure many of us have memories of things that family and friends can attest never occurred. So the question is: Is it faulty memory or a remembrance of lives past?

DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES

Recurring dreams and nightmares also have been suggested as being memories or at least clues of past lives. I have experienced this type of recurring dream. There are two locations with specific details that crop up in my dreams several times a year, yet they are places I have never been to.

The first is a large city and I am walking down the street… there is a candy/magazine store on the corner, and I go in any buy something… then I go farther down the street to another building, and in the lower level is a small restaurant where I meet some friends and make the acquaintance of some girls… and later I think that I must go back to that place to see if the girls are there again.

The second is a smaller city – I get the distinct feeling of a “college town” – and I can see the specific view of a specific corner, how it looks, what’s there, how the street slopes down, etc.

These are not memories of places or events that have happened in this life, yet they recur in my dreams often. Are they memories of something important that happened in a past life?

Likewise, can nightmares be reflections of past life traumas that have clung to our spirits and haunt our sleep?

FEARS AND PHOBIAS

Where do your fears and phobias come from? Fear of such things as spiders, snakes, and heights seem to be built into the human psyche as part of our evolved survival instinct.

Many people suffer from phobias that are completely irrational, however. Fear of water, of birds, of numbers, of mirrors, of plants, of specific colors… the list goes on and on. People suffer from all kinds of bizarre phobias.

While several years on a psychologist’s couch might get to the root of those odd fears, those who believe in past lives wonder if they are carried over from a previous lifetime. Does a fear of water indicate a previous death by drowning? Could a fear of the color red suggest, for example, that a person was struck or killed by a red streetcar?

AFFINITY FOR FOREIGN CULTURE

You probably know a person who was born and raised in the United States but is an ardent anglophile – a person who is interested to the point of obsession with British culture. You might also know someone who can think of little else but getting dressed up and acting the part for the next Renaissance Fair or Civil War reenactment.

There are “philes” for virtually every culture on the planet, both modern and ancient, affecting people who seem to have no rationale for their obsessions. Why? Are they merely trying to find familiarity in a culture in which they lived 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago?

PASSIONS

Here is a related subject. It’s good to have things that we are passionate about, as long as they do not become obsessive and debilitating. But from where do passions arise for books, art, antiques, fashion, gardening, theatre, cars, trains, aircraft, the paranormal – or any number of other subjects?

Intense interest in a specific subject might be totally natural, of course, but might there be a past life connection in some cases?

UNCONTROLLED HABITS

The dark side of passions are those uncontrolled habits and obsessions that take over people’s lives and can even marginalize them in society. Obsessive-compulsives and hoarders fit into this category. A man who has to turn the light switch off and on ten times before he leaves a room; a woman who collects newspapers into six-foot-high stacks throughout her house because she cannot bear to get rid of them.

Each of us has at least one bad habit, from fingernail biting to gossiping to procrastination. The extreme forms include addictions to everything from television to Facebook to drugs. Again, psychological explanations can be found for these uncontrolled habits, yet those who believe in reincarnation say they might have roots in past lives.

INEXPLICABLE PAINS

Do you have aches and pains that the doctors cannot quite pinpoint or find a medical explanation for? You might be labeled a hypochondriac – a person who imagines his or her ailments. Or, as past life proponents suggest, those mysterious pains, sores, cramps, and more could be reflections of suffering you endured in a previous existence.

BIRTHMARKS

Birthmarks have been touted as evidence for reincarnation. In one fascinating case, an Indian boy claimed to remember the life of a man named Maha Ram, who was killed with a shotgun fired at close range. This boy had an array of birthmarks in the center of his chest that looked like they could possibly correspond to a shotgun blast. So the story was checked out. Indeed, there was a man named Maha Ram who was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest. An autopsy report recorded the man’s chest wounds – which corresponded directly with the boy’s birthmarks.

In a similar way, various other physical traits – even deformities – have been suggested as having their precedent in a person’s former life.

#9 Signs of Your Past Life #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

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pattern-53-enfield · 4 years

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every year when gettysburg rolls around i get the urge to do civil war reenacting and then remember the scene is garbage

so these days the plan is to assemble a kit, find an M1842 musket or a ‘53 Enfield and just go hunting in uniform

#me #reenacting

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ahagia-sophia · 4 years

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Thesis Statement: Manhood is poorly defined and actively attacked in Western society and this has caused me problems. Selfish I know, but this is my blog. So.

I have a lot of problems with the US. There are the political ones. The not so political ones. And the personal ones. When I first hit adulthood and realized that adults don’t exist I held out the secret hope that somewhere adults existed. When I saw that our political system was not run by these mythical adults I became very angry. And when I went overseas I, like some sort of idiot, thought that I had at last found the place that the adults were hiding. I found a place where people had their roles. Knew how to act. Knew how to behave. But I was a tourist. I saw people doing their jobs and just sort of assumed that everyone was like that. While I was having the epiphany that human beings are, in fact, exactly the same no matter where or when you go, this part of the revelation passed me by. And it took me three years of self reflection to figure that out. But back to the topic. Problems. This might be because of my rather, uh, unique upbringing. But I never really figured out how to be a man. Like I know some stuff. Stand up for people, don’t hit girls, have sex. That’s the basics. But I also saw a lot of other men who grew up and ‘knew’ how to be men. I was raised almost exclusively by women. My father figure was either dead or isolated from the rest of us. So it was me, my mother, my sisters, my grandmother, and my cousins. And after I was transplanted to the south it was just my mother and my sisters. My mom knew how to raise girls. And she married my step father, and stayed with him, almost exclusively for my benefit. Assuming that a man was needed to raise a boy. And because that man was around she was uh. Absent. From my raising. I’m still a little mad that my sisters got ancestral rings on their 18th birthdays and I just got a pat on the back (I’ve got a lot of angst when it comes to rings). But that’s not what I’m here to complain about. Because I was sort of left to raise myself, I turned to any manly source I could find. Those were the military and paramilitary groups. I was small and pale (still am, really) and kind of migrated to bottom bitch status. So I learned that being a man, for me, was being quiet, being studious, and being as unobtrusive as I can. Funnily enough my JROTC program was run almost exclusively by women. The only men really present were 1SG and Colonel. Colonel was a tired old Creole man who had lived a very long life. 1SG was a raging misogynist surrounded by nothing but strong women and scrawny boys. The other organization I found myself is was the 5th Louisiana Reenacting Company. A group of Totally Not Racist See We Have A Black Guy (One Of The Good Ones, A Credit To His Race) Civil War Reenactors It’s kind of surprising that I’m not some frothing trumper, really. From them I learned Machismo and Duty. A man has his Duty and he does his Duty in a manly fashion. I also probably hated women. I was definitely chock full of hormones and mad that they had it so easy sexually (yeah I know better now). I was certainly jealous of my sisters for being mothered. And I definitely hated women who attacked the fundamentals of Manhood. Because it was all I really had, beyond my own special interests.

Going into college all I really knew about my role in society was that I was to Fulfill My Duty and Have Sex. I was bitter about that. I was a virgin. And because I had sort of been raised in a military mindset I had it in my mind that my Duty was to Suffer and Die. (On a related note I fucking despise American Protestantism.) Because of that I was very upset when all my new female friends kept saying that men were pigs who have it easy. I know why they said that now, and to an extent I agree. But at the time I couldn’t understand how they could be so blind. In my mind they had it easy. I had to register for the fucking draft and get ready for a career of suffering and they got to do whatever they wanted while being cared for by those of us who were busy Suffering. Again, don’t yell at me, I’m just trying to explain some shit here.

So college wasn’t really helpful for determining manhood. I was on my own for the first time and all I was learning was all the things ‘men’ were. Men were creeps who raped their children. Men were creeps who followed girls around on dark nights. Men were assholes who tried to control every aspect of a woman’s life. Men were abusive. Men were stupid. Men were, by and large, Bad. It’s funny that you can say that in front of someone and then immediately turn around and say ‘Oh no, you’re one of the good ones.’ And not see the obvious connections. But I’m not here to discuss prejudice. I’m here, really, to discuss the nebulous nature of manhood in American society.

I still didn’t really know what a man was. Which meant (in my mind at the time) I didn’t know what the fuck I was supposed to be doing with my life. I have since learned that no one knows. But then (and now) I was keenly interested on what a man was supposed to be. I took a course on sexual violence and relationships and we got to a thing called the ‘Be A Man Box’ where we outlined the traits of manhood. I was very interested in this box. Perhaps I would get some goddamn answers. Did I mention the class was entirely composed of women? That’s important. They took this as a time to outline everything about men that they hated and provide a few of the staples like ‘provider’ for diversity or something. The box was not helpful. All I really knew was what a man shouldn’t be. Which is good, yes. But it wasn’t giving me the answers I so desperately sought. There were other men on campus, obviously. But beyond my one conservative friend all of my male friends were some flavor of gay. And seemed more interested in figuring out their sexuality and enjoying their newfound freedom than figuring out what the hell masculinity is.

Enter that ‘Muslim’ in my bio. We’ve entered my third year of college. I’m devastated by a breakup, I’m binge drinking, I’m flirting with suicide, I’m completely rudderless. And my friend’s girlfriend was trying to fuck me. A recurring theme in my life, that. A lot of bad shit was going on concurrently. My only real male role models were my professors. One of whom was Muslim, the other tired and Mormon, and the third was/is slowly dying while his wife fucked anything that moved. I was asking myself a lot of questions. Questions like, ‘Is it okay to fuck my friends girlfriend?’ ‘Did my ex break up with me because I couldn’t meet her expectations?’ ‘How have I even gotten this far?’ ‘What will I do next?’ ‘What am I supposed to be doing?’ My parents were also on the edge of a divorce and I was balancing an overfull course load, work, and being drunk/finding booze.

It was a sort of catalyst. I remembering drunkenly kneeling in my bedroom. Naked. Begging anyone who was listening for answers. And that answer was Islam. Islam had the ultimate set of honored male figures. The local Masjid was populated by academics and civil rights activists. Old black men who had clawed their way up from literal slavery to being pillars of their community. There’s no wisdom like that given by an old black man. I doubt I will ever be dissuaded from that belief. Islam had exact answers to all my questions. God. Community. Aid. Prayer. It had role models. It had answers. You’ve probably noticed that I’m still putting everything in past tense. I still consider myself a Muslim, but I’m definitely not a good one. The last time a knelt in prayer was Ramadan. But at the time religion did what I needed it to. I got sober. I got focused. I got my shit together.

It took me 21 years to find anything even resembling a guide to manhood. And it came from what many would describe as Un-American. Absolutely nothing that was presented to me before gave me a satisfactory answer. No American institution. No ‘American’ religion. No facet of American culture gave me an answer. Clearly other men have gotten answers. And, really, they got them from the same place I got mine. Old timers. People who remember, or have learned, how to be Men. And a lot of those old timers are racist old fucks who are actively poisoning young men who are desperate for answers to questions they don’t even know they’re asking. Maybe somewhere. In a country with an old faith and an old population. A place where you are confronted with civilization thousands of years old every day. Maybe there they know how to be men. Maybe that’s the place where the answers lie. Because I know for certain where they don’t lie. Sadly there aren’t any answers here. For any man or any stripe who’s trying to figure it out, I don’t think I can help you. One day I will. That’s my goal in life. To figure out what real manhood is and spread the word far and wide. But. sadly, I don’t have the answers yet.

#my stuff #manhood #adulthood

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