‘Socialism has never worked’?
What do you call Russia, China, and Cuba functionally eradicating homelessness and illiteracy in their respective spheres within a few years of the massive upheaval of revolution, and radically improving the living conditions of millions after generations of poverty?
What do you call the Soviet Union bearing the brunt of the greatest military conflict the world has ever seen and emerging victorious?
What do you call the Soviet Union holding out for four decades of sustained military and economic warfare against the greatest military and economic superpower the world has ever known?
What do you call Vietnam defeating the greatest military empire the world has ever known in its anti-imperialist resistance campaign?
What do you call China emerging from the 20th Century as the most populous country on earth with the highest GDP?
What do you call China reducing daily covid numbers to double digits in a population of 1.4 billion?
What do you call Cuba thriving after six decades of brutal embargoes?
What do you call Cuba passing the most progressive and practically protective legislation for family and LGBT rights in a world historical moment marked by increased LGBTphobia among the Western powers?
What do you call the people of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe shrugging off the muck of ages to usher in an era of progress, all while Western powers conspire to sabotage them at every turn while growing fat off the earth they’ve scorched?
I’d ask what history books you’re reading, but I know that you’re not reading any, and the only information you have on the subject is spoon-fed into your colonised mind by the people’s enemies, whose vested interest in fabricating events is readily apparent to any who bother to look into these things.
‘Socialism has never worked’? It has been one of the dominant political-economic models of the past century, and has made drastic strides on every front despite its relative infancy and constant opposition from Western superpowers. If you fear socialism, what do you really fear? Socialism is the people. Socialism is me; socialism is you; socialism is all of us, together.
‘Socialism has never worked’?
Socialism has always worked. Socialism is working right now. We will see socialism work again, always.
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I don't give two shits if you're also physically disabled. If you're throwing fellow physically disabled people under buses by going along with the whole MERD bullshit then you deserve to choke on a bagel. #cripple punk was created by the physically disabled for the physically disabled. Neurodivergent people have plenty of movements and spaces for them. Nobody is getting left out of anything. Die mad about it.
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Oh yeah baby, it’s time for the unhinged, unscheduled and unstructured Ylthin rambles, today’s topic: loose thoughts on the overall structure of “Horus Rising” (based on my increasingly more faded memories so forgive me for any inaccuracies) and how it contrasts the first few chapters of “Flight of the Eisenstein”.
*cough*
So, in no particular order, and jumping around subjects a bit...
Remembrancers. I know you probably don’t care about them because they’re either annoying, forgettable, blatant writer self-inserts so that Graham McNeill can ogle some fictional women, or have the misfortune of competing for attention with Astartes and Primarchs, but... they are so goddamn important to the story structure, characterization and theming in “Horus Rising”. They are sheltered civilians and bohema-roleplayers fed mountains of propaganda before getting shipped off to create more propaganda about “our brave boys”... and they get reality-checked on multiple levels.
They expect glorious, refined, “peak of humanity” warriors - they get barracks filled with what’s at best scaled-up teenagers, and at worst actively hostile war machines. The Astartes typically dismiss them, avoid them, treat them as a nuisance - which is why someone like Mersadie or Ignace having direct access to Garviel Loken is such a big deal for both sides. They get to talk to a company Captain and Mournival member - and he doesn’t shun them. He’s actually a little sympathetic to them even if he doesn’t quite understand them. That sets him up to be a “good guy” type - an image that is then viciously (and forgive me for using a word so abused it’s lost all meaning) subverted, because...
Whisperheads. The Remembrancers perhaps expect the scattered strands of humanity to kneel before the majesty of the Great Crusade, then rise into a glorious new future - and then they see the reality of ruined cities filled with hostile locals and keeps lined up with mangled bodies. And remember - Luna Wolves don’t particularly revel in violence, they specialize in fast, precise assaults to decapitate the enemy. The action at Whisperheads isn’t a malicious slaughter. It’s an execution, a burst of gruesome yet detached violence, and its aftermath shocks the Remembrancers even before the supernatural gets involved. It has what may be one of my favourite moments in 40K novels - Loken calmly, yet callously dismissing a grievously injured soldier’s pleas for spiritual solace by calling them “superstition”, then mercy-killing him through a decapitation. This is our “hero”. This is a man we’ve seen cheering and fraternizing with his battle-brothers like a middle-school kid. This is a man considered to be a good leader, respected and liked by his men. This is one of the kinder, more mortal-friendly Astartes.
And then there are the others. Abaddon, who can be choleric and brash, but not a blood-addled fool or a sadist, whom we see frolicking with the rest of the Mournival and trying to ease Loken after the Whisperheads - who then gets into a vicious argument with his own Primarch, to the point of driving usually calm and fatherly Horus to throw his wine glass, command him out of the room, threaten demotion and only consider showing mercy if his First Captain comes back groveling and begging for it. All of it over Horus’ refusal to conduct a direct military action against the Interex clashing with Abaddon’s warmongering attitude and disdain for the “deviant” civilization. Torgaddon, the king of witty retorts and master of dad jokes, an “older friend” type to Loken - and yet you don’t see him fraternizing with the Remembrancers. Wish I could say something more about Aximand - but his silence and general withdrawal is also somewhat telling. You see their human side, yet they stay away from mortal humans and keep to their insular little coven of warrior-brothers instead.
“Horus Rising” succeeds at making its Astartes human-yet-dehumanized by having them interact with - or avoid - mortals, and all of it plays into the further themes - the intended nuance and tragedy across the loyalist-traitor divide. The doubt over the veracity of Imperium’s stated goal. The insidious nature of propaganda, the inherently repressive nature of this authoritarian state. The fallen idol of gold we see in 42nd millennium was standing on feet of clay from the very beginning, and the book isn’t subtle about it. Doesn’t have to be - nuance and subtlety aren’t inseparable - and shouldn’t be because the 40K fanbase is full of people like me, who need to be whacked over the head to understand something, and also people who wouldn’t get the memo even if it gave them a wedgie and stole their lunch money, like some of BL’s own writers.
I’ll spare you the extended screaming match over “False Gods” killing all nuance, assassinating half the cast (for now figuratively) and taking a massive step towards an oversimplified “good Imperium vs. evil Chaos” storyline that misses the entire goddamn point and actively makes the whole series less entertaining. I’ll also fast-forward over “Galaxy in Flames” struggling to pick up the pieces as it has to rush forward and cover a major event without having the same amount of time and word count to flesh out some of the key players in it, and deepening or firmly rooting in the problems of the previous two books as a result. We’re now at “Flight of the Eisenstein” scrambling to flesh out Death Guard the way “Horus Rising” fleshed out Luna Wolves.
And I’m just 4 chapters in, about 70 pages out of 280-ish (discounting all the superfluous marketing/publisher crap inflating the pagecount of BL novels). Things could change. I could be wrong and full of shit, and I’ll be the first to admit it if the novel somehow corrects itself on the problems I have with it right now: namely that everything is once again so goddamn flat and simplified.
Remember the nuance with which both halves of the Mournival were written? Fuck that. Grulgor is a brash dick with no redeeming qualities, Garro is a saint of a man and Typhon is Erebus Mini. Remember how the Remembrancers served to highlight that even the kindest Astartes is still a cold, uncaring war machine at the core? Fuck that, so far the only mortal character - Garro’s housecarl - is here to show you that Grulgor is a dick and Garro is a saint. The divide between diminishing ranks of “watered and fed” Terran-borns and Barbaros Legionaries whose ancestors struggled in extreme conditions - and how it feeds into some really toxic mindsets (I’m not apologising for this awful pun) across the Legion - may as well end up being another botched “good-evil” binary, and I saw enough derision towards the “lows” of society (working class deriding the margins, working-ascended-to-middle class looking down at both, big city middle class sneering at them all) to feel afraid.
I’ll give it benefit of a doubt in one area for now - remember how “Horus Rising” focused mostly on conflict against “normal” humans - not insane technobarbarians, not deranged Chaos worshipers, but conventionally acceptable “civilized” worlds, some of which proclaimed themselves to be the Sole Human Empire In The Galaxy (what could Dan Abnett mean by this, I wonder) - and only introduced a planet of “hostile xenos” as a (forgive me for using this cursed word again) subversion to once again remind you with the subtlety of a brick through the window that the Imperium’s policies are horseshit across the board? “Flight...” opens with an assault on the world-ship of distinctly inhuman xenos who go as far as to implant combat augments into their “children”, which has potential to be another stab against the Imperium and Astartes... but unless it gets elaborated upon later, it may as well end up being a footnote in the story, a cool little setpiece to introduce the characters and little more - or worse, be repurposed into yet another pro-Imperial argument without a hint of self-awareness. After all, we’re already setting up an abridged rehash of “Galaxy in Flames” so we’ll have the basis for Garro turning against his Primarch, siding with the Emperor and flying the titular ship to deliver the news of the Heresy.
A story that could easily have the same nuance and message as “Horus Rising”, but that will most likely end up being boring “good guys outsmart the bad guys” drivel.
Wake me up when Heresy remembers what does “no good guys” actually mean again.
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You can tell how effectively the right-wing propaganda and toxic idea of “right way to protest” has infiltrated leftist discourse and online communities, that people are now trying to cancel Greta Thunberg for saying Andrew Tate has small dick energy.
You’re trying to demonize 19 years old climate activist, who is target of harassement from all of right-media and online trolls and has been for the last 3 fucking years, because she didn’t respond in a way you find “educated and dignified” to a RAPIST AND SEX TRAFFICER that tried to jump on that bandwagon, to feed his desire to bully others, by bragging about 33 cars he could buy thanks to grifting angry losers with incredibly misogynistic rhetorics AND SEX TRAFFICKING. You’re less outraged about his victims than about Greta telling him he’s acting like if he’s compensating for something.
Delete your social media and go rethink your life. I’m not joking, nobody needs your shitty bootlicking opinions.
-Admin
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Warning vent below the cut. I need to get shit off my chest.
So if you dont wanna see a long ass vent. Ignore this.
Scorpion. Nrs butchered him. Hanzo hasashi. The real fucking scorpion. The only scorpion.
Hanzo has always been scorpion
That was his codename. There were many before him sure. But they've never fucking been kuai. Kuai was and always is lin kuei!!!!
Nrs fucking that up. Is seriously fucking things up. Especially whenever i search for hanzo hasashi scorpion shit. Idgaf,i seriously dont care for whatever this stupid fucking idiot's braindead game!!!!!! Anyone who remotely thinks this shit is fine or cool is getting blocked on the spot. Period. If you even dare call scorpion anything but hanzo hasashi you are dead to me.
Nrs changing it for no damn reason is a problem
And people posting,talking about it like its not a problem is fucking ridiculous
Like these people are such fucking fake ass fans
It pisses me off
Like you guys thinking this shit is cool just because it's "DifFeReNT"
Just because you can don't mean you should.
Unfortunately people don't fucking listen to older fans and even fans who came in thru mk11. Like even they fucking know better.
Even they question this shit
Half these people who think nrs fucking everything up and thinking its ok or cool are comicbook fans,marvel fans,and non mk fans. Hell they don't even play fighting games!
Like not everything is for you. Not everything has to fit your genre of crap or fandoms
Like ffs like corporate greed and bitch ass warner bros is fucking over game devs right the fuck now oh but just because they dangle shiney keys in front of you that makes it better or the problems go away?! No it dont!!!!!
Like im sick of people tagging shit wrong. Calling the characters by the wrong names. And butchering the characters. And im sick of nrs and canon.
Like im serious. Im sick of it.
Im pissssssed off. Fr
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end of blue morpho arc really was so peak . vbros always peaks when it comes back to its central element of all the dead things coming back and haunting the narrative (dead clone boys (TFTSTST specifically (also assisted suicide(+ a lot of s4 and s5 but imo not as strong)) JVS + blue morpho in the s7 premier, JVS living through his legacy to haunt Rusty the entire show, etc.) ANYWAY. s7 3 ep premiere special i miss what you could have been, it's crazy to me they have a whole thing w Rusty's dad being alive -> his dad being his greatest inspiration & greatest fear, root of trauma etc & then this goes nowhere . Monarch finds his dad again -> immediately ends up killing him & GOES NOWHERE. esp considering like. the way Dr Mrs looks at him when she realizes what he's done, there's something about JVS selfishly doing everything to save his own ass/bring himself back even at the cost of his best friend + his own kid (also really interesting how he just dismissively talks to Billy & theres no followup ik hes already kind of lost some luster for his childhood heroes since he's now living w 2 of them, has talked to Rusty for years + is aware of his baggage but still, Billy is largely dismissive of Rusty so i am disappointed this isnt even a background detail down the line) but anyway JVS willing to use anyone and anyone to help himself, always a guy living for his own pleasure and ego -> uses his good friends son to open a weak spot in him so he can kill him + take over his body, vs blue morpho who is obviously devoted to his son, loves him -> cant even focus on saving himself bc its his Malcolm etc etc . the way blue morpho saves Monarch through his death (gets him out of trouble, takes the fall/blame) even if unintentional, WHICH would have been a great bridge into dr. mrs' own emotional dilemma -> im mad at my husband bc he nearly got himself killed & i would have had to handle it, he lied to me he betrayed me -> how can i be mad rn bc his dad just died in front of him but im still (rightfully) angry but i shouldnt be his dad just died etc . but nothing w that ever, nothing w rusty learning his 'uncles' lied to him since his dad's "death" not even any real emotional baggage following the fact that he just talked to his dad again + he still didnt get a proper goodbye/sendoff, didnt get to get it all of his chest (20 years to midnight) + even brock "your whole foundation is a lie, pyramid wars was a lie" OSI is such a bs lore point at that point its whatever but its still like. man give brock something please ik you think he has no emotional depth but cmon. anyway
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