#irl politics

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: Mavros Arator, Voice of the Ascendant

The demagogues seem everywhere these days, putting their words to the tune of the populace's nebulous worries: this week it's the impiety of the realm's leaders, last week it was the barbarians infringing on the borders, before that it was the decaying morality of the youth. It's the same old song, just with new lyrics to fit with the times. No one's sure just when the crescendo will hit or how, but everyone who's been paying attention know they're going to try to bring the whole house down when it does.

Setup: A charismatic figure has risen to prominence channelling discontent in the wake of an unfavourable war. As a gifted orator and veteran of a conflict remembered for being more "glorious", the words of Mavros Arator carry weight with both the military and common people. He agitates on behalf of those who resent the diplomatic capitulations used to secure peace in a losing war his own rulers started, and argues for a revival of "national spirit" to strengthen the homeland so it does not allow such a disgraceful defeat to happen again.

What separates Mavros from any other blowhard protofascist is the fact that he's looking to summon a demon to purge his homeland of those unsympathetic to his cause. Scoured clean of all those unwilling to fight and die and obey, he and the other true believers will form an unstoppable army that will march out under the banner of conquest to settle at spearpoint every historical grievance in the realm's long history.

It's up to the party to stop this instigator and the hatemob he's made of their neighbours before he enacts his plan and ends up ascending to full dark lord status.

Background: Mavros loved his homeland, as a young man he went to war to defend it, spent decades bleeding for it, and that love endured even after his homeland spat him out with nothing but a soldier's pension and a lifetime of traumas he had no words to explain.

That was the point of course, empires are built on the back of men like Mavros, shaped from their earliest days to believe that their homeland is singularly great and beset by threats on all sides, or that war is the measure by which a son may prove his faith and loyalty rather than an enterprise made to expand the holdings of the powers that be.

The problem for those powers is that Mavros didn't die like he was supposed to, he soldiered on driven by a manic dedication that persisted despite his comrades getting scythed down around him. When he was too old for soldiering he turned to having a family, raising four boys and feeding them one after another into the waiting jaws of his nation.

A man less ardent in his love of home, less firm in his faith might have wavered when they brought the first of his sons' bloody helmets back in lieu of a body. He might have seen how his virtues, his loyalty, had been abused by those above him, made him question the justness of the wars and conquests and pain he had been apart of. instead that loss, made him open to change. Instead Mavros's convictions deepened, and by the time of his third son's death he had become so entrenched in the pit of his beliefs that he had unearthed a new truth: He loved his homeland, it was just being held back by the people who didn't love it enough.

It was deep in that pit where Mavros first heard the whispering of Diridaxx, the fiend known to diabolists as "He who claws from below". In ages past the demon was said to prey upon the weak, wicked, and impious, before clashing with an ancient hero and being struck down with a blow so divinely empowered that it not only buried the fiend deep underground but reduced him to ash along the way, depriving him of the strength required to ever escape. The depths of Mavros's despair and his own desire to see those "less thans" cleared from his home formed a connection between man and demon: first dreams, then visions, then a pact. Influence in exchange for escape, followed by victory in exchange for slaughter. The fact that the hero of the old myth happened to be one of the founders of the realm that handed Mavros's own homeland its recent defeat was just icing on the cake.

Adventure Hooks:

The party is likely to encounter Mavros's influence long before the man himself, as thugs, opportunists, and grifters look to take advantage of the post-war unrest to raise their place in the world and make good on his words. A troop of discontented soldiers may be shaking down travlers on the road as an unofficial "toll" to repay their service , while an enterprising merchant might stoke xenophobia to turn townsfolk against a competitor of forign origin.

It'll take more than speeches and random acts of violence to summon Diridaxx from the pit, it will take sacrifice. (un)Luckily for Mavros, he's been sacrificing all his life, and all that is required is a bit of occult-recontextualization to turn the deaths of his sons into a ritual years in the making. With fiend's magic his follower's resources at his command, it's only a matter of time before he gathers the bones of his three dead sons (and their haplessly dutiful surviving brother,) from their resting place in foreign lands and cremates them, suffusing their pyresmoke with Diridaxx's own noxious essence.

If you want to add another big bad to the mix and given similar themes of would be tyranny and xenophobia, consider checking out my genocidal fallen angel villain: Insiyah who could be very easily be using Mavros as her agent, or working alongside him to bring about his vision.

Also consider checking out my writeup on how d&d tends to mishandle matters of morality in it's game, and the simplistic way it views evil. Writing that inspired me to write a villain who was a very human sort of evil who utilized magic, rather than the all too common magical evil around which most campaigns are based.

Art 1

Art 2

#villain #villain warlock #warlock #villain politician #politics #irl politics #fiend #mid level #random encounter road #encounter town #warfare

[shsl-fujoshi]

Shitty republican ao3 board candidate resigned 🎉🎉🎉

#archive of our own #ao3 #irl politics #fandom wank

[myrddin-wylt]

What insane history lesson or head canons do you have for this hungry anon tonight? <3

................ are current events not enough for you?

usually I'd come up with something because Yay History but atm I'm a little distracted watching Macron get crucified because he just completely fucking annihilated Europe's chances at economic stability. you're laughing. Macron is being crucified and you're laughing. but I can tell you about that if you like?

the tldr is that Europe is already struggling economically with the energy crisis (that, if you recall, was started by Russia), so the EU has been pushing hard on the US to loosen protectionist trade policies (ie not only is the US difficult to trade with, but businesses are being rewarded for relocating to the US). but given Germany and France's general Bullshit from February 2022 up till now combined with the already-extant American GOP sentiment that Europe has been getting a "free ride," now most of Europe is terrified that the US will not only stay economically protectionist but actually go full isolationist. also, of course, Europe is just as dependent on Taiwan as the US, if not even more, so saying that Taiwan is none of Europe's business is completely fucking insane and I genuinely have no idea what Macron was thinking there so uh. good job on that, you poor, poor dumbass.

good news for Australia: your AUKUS "diplomatic catastrophe" has been forgiven and in fact probably vindicated lmao

#ask #anon #irl current events #irl politics #you're not laughing but I sure fucking am #like yeah it shouldn't be funny but how do you fuck up so badly??? #imo Europe doesn't have to fear US isolationism #I mean good luck on that protectionism though but NATO will remain. it just might move hq to Poland lol

[theclonesdeservebetter]

Sometimes I'm sad, but then I remember the Jedi would 100% be pro-union, and then I feel better :)

#jedi order #pro jedi #pro union #irl politics #fictional politics #my thoughts

[omnipointmuses]

ah cool

e621 is gonna get killed because of an arizona state law

kinda feels like slowly but surely the internet is becoming worse and worse

#ooc #divi rambles #irl politics #i am very much holding my tongue back rn

[the-bar-sinister]

i wanna write some really politically dissident fanfiction

#😼🔪 #irl politics #blog updates #fanfiction #rambling

[mitzirockerextendeduniverse]

‘fellas, is it antifascist to let fascists into power to own the libs’

#irl politics #mine #first person who posted this turned off reblogs so i’m reposting it bc i’m so angry #second goddamn time i’ve almost been pulled into a youtube-based radicalisation pipeline #trump might support netenyahu’s attempt to flatten gaza 100% but at least he ain’t a fucking lib amirite #shaunvids #israel/palestine #breadtube #is dead to me #letting theofascists take over your country to preserve your own moral purity

[spinnyspood]

#spoodposts #henry kissinger #irl politics

[emberoops]

preface: I am Jewish. I also support Palestine and her right to freedom. I understand that Israel is a colonialist nation, and that it’s dissolution (regardless of the religious claims otherwise) would be just.

that being said, it is SUPER uncomfortable to watch the way this is playing out online, where people completely brush over the fucking blood libel myth being espoused by the person they’re celebrating. Like. I understand that this is a complex situation and that where it was brought up was inappropriate, which is why I’m making my own private untagged post about it instead of racking on to the reblog chain, but to see that point be the ONLY one that’s ignored is uh….yikes. Tm.

This is not to say that I expect you to have a revolutionary who is pure btw? Like just acknowledge that he spreads antisemitic myths, you know? You don’t even have to weigh in but to see that completely ignored feels very much like people don’t give a shit about antisemitism so long as it’s the “right people” and like tbqh if that’s your pov then that’s your prerogative but I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.

Anyways. Whining about my feelings over, I guess.

#Irl politics #irl politics cw #irl events #irl events cw #okay untagged except trigger warnings and commentary on the tags I guess

[heyitschartic]

THEY'RE ABOUT TO YOUNG THUG TRUMP

#irl politics #got him on RICO it's over

[dailyadventureprompts]

Why is your writing so dense with modernistic moralism? It seems like a losing approach, fighting against the structure of the game systems you write for instead of the more intriguing project of embracing past mindsets—not the recent past, which is boringly wrong—but more distant, wildly ‘wrong’ (or perhaps merely different if you’re feeling postmodern) of so much of history—instead of these bizarre pastiches of modern morals shaped like a caricature of the past struggling to withstand their own internal contradictions and the rigours of the medium

/srs

Alright, I'm not sure whether you're honestly trying to learn about a different point of view here, or if you're just upset that a content creator you follow isn't reinforcing your world view. So I'm going to give a good faith answer to your question first (part a), and then rip your argument apart for the entertainment of others like an Edwardian doctor in an operating theatre (part b). Feel free to respond to whichever part best matches with your actual intent.

Part A: The basis of your premise is flawed because D&D has never been a game about historical accuracy, and thus there is no "historical mindset" to return to. From it's earliest days d&d has been a work of fantasy as evidenced by all the dragons and wizards and spaceships, and like all works of fantasy what's included in the world is a matter of preference on behalf of its creators.

Like all creatives my work represents my own values, values that are shared by a large segment of the population and an increasingly large (if not dominant) part of the RPG market. However much you'd like to think that adherence to/emulation of the past is a virtue, most of the hobby flat out disagrees, preferring anachronism with allowances for genre conceit.

When it comes to morals, it's a simple fact that I and those like me don't find it fun to be racist/sexist/generally bigoted not only because those things are blemishes against humanity, but because we have had to overcome many of those prejudices ourselves including when we were getting into this hobby. We are well acquainted with bigotry, why would we wish to glorify it when we ourselves are its victims?

Part B: If you're wondering why my work is so full of moralizing, it's because I'm a moral person who's trying to make the world a better place with his art. Unlike you, who's evidently so behind the times that you need to pretend to be in the past so that you can pass your prejudice off as "historically accurate".

I'm very interested in what you mean by "fighting against the structure of the game systems" because newsflash, the game systems can change. The rules are something we made up because we thought they'd work and where they've broken down we've begun replacing them with something we think would work better. Same goes for the narrative conventions that the hobby has built up over the past 50 years, if something doesn't work we fix it, we move on, and life improves for everyone. That's the exact same ethos behind the "modernistic moralism" you seem to have such a problem with.

As for a "losing approach", I hate to break it to you anon but our victory is inevitable. D&D is for the queers now, the hobby caters to us more than it does you and in a few short years we'll be the ones publishing the thing. Same goes for all pop culture, though it's a long and bloody battle conservatism is losing the culture war and pretty soon the talking points of the right will seem as antiquated as serfdom and the divine right of kings.

There's no contradiction in including modern struggles in my work because it's the same struggle we've been fighting against ignorance and tyranny for all of human existence. There's nothing "intriguing" about putting yourself in the shoes of the oppressor when you know they're wrong, and then trying to orchestrate an opportunity to play the hero. It's sad, and I'm not sure whether it's because you're afraid of change, or you just don't care about other people.

TLDR: I write characters that have blue hair and pronouns because the people that play the game have blue hair and pronouns

#bad opinions #d&d #dungeons and dragons #irl politics #heavy topics

[myrddin-wylt]

so strictly speaking, this whole '11 rounds of voting and we still can't pick a Speaker of the House of Reps' is really fucking funny and I love it but also I cannot articulate how much I hate Kevin McCarthy.

listen. nothing in the House can pass at all. there's no proxy voting allowed for this. anyone who leaves before the House is adjourned will fuck up the votes, which means the Dems are just as stuck as the GOP. so McCarthy's plan is to basically make this thing run long enough that everyone strongarms the holdout GOP into giving in.

I, for one, have never in my fucking life supported GOP hardliners but godspeed you stupid fucking madlads, godspeed! you will be awaited in Valhalla!

#if we have to put up with GOP House then for the love of GOD please pick someone literally anyone besides McCarthy #FUCK IT PICK GEORGE BUSH I DON'T FUCKING CARE #JUST SOMEONE ELSE #irl news #current events #irl politics

[thekimspoblog]

I don't really have a choice in whether I share this.

#better call saul #irl politics #yes real legal advice #What is the law? A post-hoc rationalization for force.

[omnipointmuses]

cool

pornhub was banned in my state

#ooc #divi rambles #that's not concerning at all #irl politics

[thechekhov]

Hey.

please vote.

In ANY country, but specifically if you live in the US, are of age, and are capable of it in any shape or form. Even though it’s not presidential elections. Even though you might think it won’t matter. 

Please vote. 

I understand it’s not easy all the time. I realize that saying ‘your workplace is legally required to let you go vote’ doesn’t do squat if your boss doesn’t care about the law. I am familiar with how difficult it is to have to slog through campaigns full of catchy, nice-looking words that, upon closer inspection, reveal a much more sinister and selfish political goal. 

I was able to vote by mail in my state - by ordering an absentee ballot online, having it sent to me, filling it out, and sending it in by mail again. It was great because I had the time to sit with it and read through all the options presented before me. 

There are MANY states which require NO-EXCUSE-NEEDED absentee voting. (As in, they’ll simply send you a ballot in the mail if you ask.)

Please, if you find it difficult to vote in person on the day of, check and see if it’s possible for you to vote by mail. In many cases, your state site may have an easy online application for you to order your ballot and receive it as quick as 2-4 days. 

Many states also allow you to vote early, on a day that you actually have off!

https://www.vote.org/early-voting-calendar/

And as for the ballot itself - tons of websites now offer you on-demand lists of people on your ballot, with explanations on their states and what they’re about - and the only thing you need is your zipcode! I typically use the one my state provides, but you can also get them for basically anywhere by going to this website:

www.vote411.org

And look...

I know it isn’t a walk in the park, and I know politicians disappoint many of us, and it’s A) difficult to trust them and B) difficult to know you’re voting for a person who will make good choices. But we live in an age of information where we can look up what people’s stances are, what they’ve done in the past, and this is MUCH EASIER than it once was!

Don’t let people persuade you that voting does nothing! Look at Brazil!

 People who tell you that voting is useless are trying to stop you from voting - BECAUSE THEY, THEMSELVES, ARE OFTEN VOTING.

I come from an actual country where our votes haven’t meant SHIT for 20 years in a row. This shit built up slow and steady - boiling the frog, as it were. The US is far from perfect. But it’s far from pointless to vote, and KEEP voting. 

#chekhov begs #chekhov irl #politics #us politics #vote #voting #2022 elections

[kimabutch]

Things are getting increasingly shitty in Canada for trans people and, not gonna lie, it's really stressful! Within the last month:

The Conservative Party of Canada, which is the official opposition party (AKA the party with the second most votes) and has a solid chance of forming the government in the next election, held a convention where they voted overwhelmingly in favour of creating policies to stop gender-affirming medical care for minors (link)

They also officially voted to define "woman" as "female person" and try to stop trans women from being in women's prisons, shelters, locker rooms, and washrooms

Multiple provincial governments are either enacting policies that would require parents' approval in order for trans kids to change their names or pronouns at school, or have officially said that they support forcibly outing kids (link)

A nonbinary teacher in Quebec received threats of violence for using pronoun "Mx" and other Quebec provincial parties complained about "wokeism" and said they wouldn't use the title (link)

And this doesn't include the homophobic & transphobic protests outside pride events throughout the summer or the "Save Our Children" convoy that's being planned for later this month (link), or the tons of shitty things that have happened all through this year, like tons of Ontario trans people (including me!) losing healthcare.

I'm trying to stay as optimistic as possible, knowing just how many trans people and allies there are, but sometimes! It's hard!

Anyways, if you're Canadian, please consider:

Getting involved in local, municipal politics, especially on school boards, to speak out about the need for gender-affirming policies, especially for youth

Showing up (with an organized, prepared group) to counter-protest anti-trans protesters

Keeping track of any anti- or pro-trans bills going around and contacting your MPs & MPPs to let them know what you think of them

Supporting 2SLGBTQ+ charities

Literally never ever voting conservative

And even if you're not Canadian, if you have friends who are Canadian & trans, maybe check in on them? Most Canadian trans people are pretty freaked out right now I think.

#lgbtqthings #my stuff #tbh I wrote this mostly to vent #I feel like no cis people I know irl are as freaked out about this as I am #canadian politics