#like. there are statues that depict each of the races but no evidence they actually lived down there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mythicaldrawer · 8 months

Text

Okay! I've been hearing a lot of people agreeing with the theory of the AH (Ancient Hero) being Rauru and Sonia's son/descendant. As much as how much it is a popular theory, I personally don't believe this theory. And since I haven't seen anyone else come up with a different theory of who the AH could be or disprove the current theory, so I might as well give it a try. What I'll basically be doing is giving some of my own evidence of why I believe the AH isn't a son/descendant of Rauru and Sonia while also giving you my own speculation on who/what the AH may be.

We'll start with one of the more well-known evidence, the appearance of the AH. Looking between the AH and the Zonai we know of (Rauru and Mineru), we can see the AH is more canine-like while the two Zonai have more of an appearance of what I thought was a goat or sheep at first, but when I was doing some research for this discovered that the Zonai have more of an appearance of llamas and alpacas (Would make sense for the sharp teeth the Zonai have since llamas also have sharp teeth to use for fights.) and I'm pretty sure that llamas and dogs are two different animals. Alongside that, the AH has a greener skin color compared to Rauru if you look at their models side by side. And before you say "There might be other Zonai that look like the AH!". I hardly doubt that. Sure, there MIGHT be some that look like the AH, but since we only have Mineru and Rauru to go off by until we get to see more Zonai's, I'm saying that the AH isn't a Zonai.

The next piece of evidence is actually one that we see in both TOTK and BOTW, but mostly in BOTW. What I'm talking about is the tapestry of The Calamity from 10,000 years ago, where we first see the depiction of the AH. This is the part where it feels more solid in my opinion. The reason why is because one thing that people seem to forget about the tapestry is the princess from it. So, let's say this princess is also the daughter/descendant of Rauru and Sonia, if that is the case, that would make her a relative, or even sister, to the AH. If that were the case, wouldn't they look more similar to each other? If you look back at the tapestry, it is clearly shown that she is very much human (Most likely Hylian), with a light skin color and sprouting the same golden hair that Zelda has. If the two were related somehow, wouldn't one of them be the same race as the other? (Like the princess being the race that the AH is or the AH being a Hylian like the princess.).

Sure, you can say that "The princess could have come from another kingdom to be wed to the AH" or "The AH and Princess not looking alike doesn't mean they are not related" Which could be true. But this final piece of evidence is something that I have no doubt behind, and that's the titles that the AH and Princess hold. Recall the cutscene of Impa retelling the legend of the 10,000-year-old Calamity. "...by a warrior wielding the soul of a hero, and a princess who carries the blood of the Goddess..." Notice anything? The Titles. The AH doesn't have a title of royalty. If the AH was really the son/descendant of Rauru and Sonia, it would make him either a prince or the KING or Hyrule!? And yet, there is NO title of the AH being one. either being referred to as "warrior" or "hero". Nothing about him being a "prince" or "king". And for those who are saying "Well! Impa is the one retelling the story, and her recount of the legend might not be true." Which something I would agree with you on if it wasn't for King Rhoam saying the same thing during his cutscene at the Great Plataue where he said, and I quote. "...We also learned of a princess with a sacred power and her appointed knight, chosen by the sword that seals the darkness..." He referred to the AH as a knight, nothing about him being royalty. If the AH was in fact one of royalty, then the Ancient Shiekah would have given him the title appropriate for his status, but they didn't because he was only a knight.

God! That took a while to explain! Anyway, that's the end debunking part of this post, now on to my own speculation of who/what the AH may be. I'll keep this short because this post is already getting long.

So I think the AH is in fact of the Links that we have not seen the story of (Like Hylia's chosen hero) and was part of the Barbarian tribe that was in the Faron region long ago. One, being the Barbarian Armor set having red hair on it, like the AH. And two, the Spring of Courage is found in the Faron region, with Link being associated with the Triforce of Courage. Granted, this is all speculation, but it would be REALLY COOL if this was true because it also gives us some info about the Barbarian tribe that once lived in Hyrule before vanishing.

Right! Thats the end of my whole shpeal. If you have gotten to the end of this long post, thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a wonderful day/evening/night!

#tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda #loz tears of the kingdom #tears of the kingdom spoilers #totk theory #loz totk #the legend of zelda #legend of zelda theory #fan theory #theory #speculation #totk spoilers

9 notes · View notes

legalupanishad · 2 years

Text

Critical Analysis of Gender Equality

This article on 'Critical Analysis of Gender Equality' was written by Priyal Kumari, an intern at Legal Upanishad.

Introduction

The article focuses on the position of gender equality in India by highlighting the laws formulated for gender equality and its position of it in the present scenario. In India, the existence of a patriarchal society has always rushed to a gender-biased position of men and women in society from eternity. Society always privileged men over women with unequal opportunities for them. The men were given the status of the head of a family and women as the nurturer of it. Comparatively, there were more restrictions on women than on men.

What is gender equality?

Time is evidence for the prevalence of great gender inequality. In several Indian states, this inequality was witnessed in Haryana and Rajasthan where a girl child was prevented from taking birth, and education and was the victim of child marriage in the name of traditional customs. Unfortunately, despite such strict favored laws for women, it still can be seen in these states. Today, we talk about women empowerment and gender equality but still, some people are unaware of its true sense. As a layman, we understand gender equality as the equal status of men, women, children, and transgenders on the same level with equal opportunities outside. That each gender shall be given equal rights and decision-making powers. But is it actually achieved in the true sense?

Laws upon gender equality

Before Independence, the condition of women in society was worst creating a dire need for women's equality. After Independence, several laws were enforced and implemented to favor the same. The Indian Constitution eased the conditions by raising gender equality. It can be clearly depicted in the preamble, Part III, and Part IV of the Indian Constitution which contains Fundamental rights and duties along with DPSPs. The constitution guarantees women equality and encourages the Indian states to take adequate steps for the same.

Constitution and gender equality

The Indian Constitution is the basis of all the other laws that exist in India. No law can be formulated which violates any of the constitution’s fundamentals. When we see our Indian Constitution, every individual whether national or alien is provided certain rights that they exercise on their behalf. These rights contribute to forming gender equality across the nation. Several articles of the Indian Constitution like A.14, A.15 & 15(3), A.16, A.39(a), 39(b) & 39(c), and A.42 are of paramount importance in respect of gender equality. A.14 establishes the equality status by denoting that every individual is equal in the eyes of the law and no state can deny it. Further, A.15 eliminates discrimination amongst individuals on the basis of religion, race, caste, place of birth, and sex. This article abides by the state to form women-specific regulations for women. A.16 establishes equality among every citizen of the nation with respect to employment opportunities. By A.39, it is the duty of the states to ensure that both men and women are provided with equal rights and opportunities in all aspects of life-based on their needs and demand. Lastly, A.42 incorporates the provision for adequate working conditions for all.

Other Special Statutes

Over time, as society changed, laws were formulated to reach the demand of society. To encourage healthy and justified empowerment, several other acts were formulated in accordance with the constitution. - The Equal Remuneration Act, of 1976 The main objective of the act was to give equal remuneration to both men and women in course of their employment. There shall be no discrimination while the recruitment, transfer, or training of any employee on the grounds of sex. - Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 Sexual harassment against women was recognized for the first time in the Vishakha case, in 1992. Where the SC gave guidelines for the sexual harassment of women in the workplace considering it as against the constitutional provisions of A.14,15 and 21. After, this case, the above act was formulated in 2013. - The Women’s Reservation Bill According to this bill, about 33% of the total seats in Parliament, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and State assemblies got reserved for women. - The Hindu Succession Act, of 1956 As per this act, females were provided with ownership over all the property which is acquired before or after the act. Recently, with the amendment of 2005, the daughter of the coparcener will have equal rights over the property of the coparcener since birth in the same way as that of the son in a HUF. - The Maternity Benefit Act, of 1961 Within this act, paid maternity leave is granted to women employees. In 2017, the act was amended which provided that the paid maternity leave for more women employees with less than two children will be given for 26 weeks and can work from home after 26 weeks too. Further, a working woman adopting a child of fewer than 3 months can take 12 weeks of maternity leave from employment from the date she receives the child. - The Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Criminal Amendment Act, 2013 With the change in the status of women, crime against women prevailed. There were a number of cases of rape, molestation, sexual harassment, and torture registered which incorporated the need for separate laws to protect women’s dignity in the outside world.

Critical Analysis of Gender Equality

Judicial Pronouncements

Indian Judiciary had played a major role in protecting the women’s position in the nation by safeguarding the existence of laws favoring it. Some of the landmark judicial decisions are: - Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) The case was the landmark decision providing guidelines against sexual harassment. In this case, sexual harassment was first recognized in India, and the Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 was formulated. In this case, the court decided that the act of sexual harassment is against A.14, A.15, A.19, and A.21 of the Constitution. - Laxmi v. Union of India (2015) The case holds a history of the acid attack. In this case, the acid attack was taken seriously for the first time. In this case, the court ordered the central government to formulate separate laws for an acid attack in IPC, 1860 to prohibit the non-licensed sale and purchase of acid. Further, the extent of punishment was also extended. - Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020) The case relates to the rights of a daughter in her coparcener property. This right was recognized in Hindu Succession Amendment Act, 2005 and the court interpreted that the daughter holds equal coparcenary rights as that of the son in HUF property since birth irrespective that whether they were born before or after the enactment of the act. - Air India v. Nargesh Meerza (1981) In this case, SC held that no employee can be denied employment on the basis of sex. The court struck down the policy of Air India where it was mentioned that air hostesses above 35 yrs whether pregnant or getting married shall retire from employment on the grounds that it is against equality.

Analysis of the existing position of gender equality

Gender Equality amongst, men, women, children, and transgenders are of huge concern in India. India has always been a country with a patriarchal form of society where women were always kept below men. The societal behavior was such that even if the women thought of getting independent, were drowned back in the reality of their existence. The condition remained the same throughout the British period. Today, we can observe that there exist several individual laws regarding the concerned acts happening in the surrounding that violates the basic rights of an individual. It can be determined that no doubt the laws have been made which target gender-based offenses and discrimination, yet there exists gender inequality in several forms.

Present Condition

As per Census 2011, only 48% of girls are accounted for the total child population in India. Of this 48%, many girl children are victims of child trafficking, child marriage, and child labour. Over 12.15 million children are married in India and are below 16 yrs of age. According to the NCRB report of 2018, over 51% of children are victims of child trafficking out of which 80% are girls. Further, UNICEF reported that over 223 million girls below 15 yrs of age are victims of child marriage. These reports of the governmental authorities highlight the position of law which were made to initiate gender equality in the nation. It is clearly visible that the laws have appallingly failed to fulfill their objectives to promote gender equality across the entire nation. Not only India, but other countries across the world like the US, UK, France, etc have also failed to achieve gender equality across their nations

Conclusion and suggestions

From the above analysis, it can be seen that the hold on gender equality is quite weak and needs to be strengthened across all the countries of the globe. The same can be done if the countries improve their employment as well as financial services. Further, the nations shall extend the severity of the punishments for those causing gender-based offenses. The awareness campaign shall be conducted against gender and sexual violence. It is finally concluded that although laws exist and the government had made all possible attempts to maintain harmony and equality in the country, nothing is of use if people of the country are not aware of such laws and their rights with respect to their equality status. The same will continue to exist till the mindset of the people is immersed into a patriarchal being.

References

- Alexander Durai Raj, K.S Shobha Jasmin. (n.d.). Gender Equality in India: An Analysis. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics. https://acadpubl.eu/hub/2018-120-5/1/36.pdf. - Smriti Sharma. 1st December, 2016. Achieving Gender Equality in India: What works and What doesn’t. United Nations University. https://unu.edu/publications/articles/achieving-gender-equality-in-india-what-works-and-what-doesnt.html. - What does Gender Equality Mean? Human Rights Career. https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/what-does-gender-equality-mean/. - Global Annual Results Report 2020: Gender Equality. UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/reports/global-annual-results-2020. Read the full article

#CriticalAnalysis #GenderEquality #LawsinIndia

0 notes

kaioken16 · 3 years

Text

Sacrificing your Freedom

Mallek Week 2021 - Day 2

Day 2: Sacrifice Word count: 3020 Rating: Teens and Up Character(s): Mallek Adalov, original background characters

AO3 link

A/N: Set in a canon divergent AU as the previous entry but follows are darker route to rebel fighter Mallek. This will be a angst filled piece, mentions of brief torture, pain, and being enslaved.

Summary: Rebel Hacker codenamed ‘Scorist’ is captured and is then brought before a high ranking Imperial general who reveals his secret and he is forced to sacrifice the most important thing to him for his loved ones.

Mallek is led down the hallway of this vessel, a pair of heavily armored guards on each side of him, each carrying a long spear, the blades were teeming with energy which allowed them to discharge very painful bolts of energy. His head hung down, his face was bruised, with dry blood staining his lip and forehead. His uniform was torn all over, cuts and dirt, stained with his own blood. His arms are tightly restrained behind his back, and his ankles were shackled together. He made no attempt to try and fight the chains as any attempt would result in a swift, merciless reprimand from the guards, as evident by the old scorch marks on his clothing and his skin.

He had been careless, an error on his part. During a mission his role was to disable the alarm system as not to alert the imperial guards at a weapon’s warehouse that they were planning to steal supplies from for the rebels, however, he missed a secondary alert system that had recently been installed after the initial intel that had on the facility. From there, it all went downhill, and they didn't have enough time, and he had to think quickly so he provided cover, transferring a copy of the new weapon data and sending it to his friend, but in the end, only half of his team managed to get away, while the other half was caught.

They had been to a detention station located in some random quadrant of this galaxy that was Empire controlled. There he endured the usual torture and interrogation, he held out but his captured friends…

They weren’t so fortunate.

And now, after weeks of this shit, he had brought onto this ship by order of some high-ranking imperial. What did they want? Was it more questioning? If so, why take him off the detention facility? Many questions raced through Mallek’s head, he wasn’t sure what to expect. And his imagination didn’t help, he knew from first hand experience and from the stories of others just how cruel some of these highbloods officers could be. But what could they possibly do to him that was worse than the treatment he had been enduring…

A grimace look spreads on his beaten face, he didn’t wanna entertain those thoughts.

Finally, they arrive before a giant pair of metallic doors. It was decorated and given gold trimming, very expensive. In fact, everything about this ship was expensive, it was an imperial-class Devastator, part of the X-series which were the latest models and these were the next best ships after the Empress’s personal battleship. Owning a vessel like this could only be someone very high up on the imperial chain of command.

One of the guards approaches the set of doors, he then removes his glove, he had his back to Mallek, so he was unable to the symbol that had been tattooed into his palm, he presses it against the security panel, it scans the logo and then a green light pops on the panel. The doors open, slowly pulling away from each other. The guard places his glove back on and takes a seat back, Mallek’s eyes narrow as a means to get a better look at what was awaiting him on the other side.

The other guard shoves Mallek forward as he’s forced to resume walking, they enter the room. Inside was a long table that could seat 10 people, on the left side of the room was a shelf filled with books, data cards, files, and a set of strange look trinkets. On the right was a set of statues each depicting some kind of troll each carrying an actual weapon, it seemed like the statues were made for the sole purpose of advertising the object they were holding rather than the figures who inspired them.

Mallek’s eyes shifted around the room, scanning everything he could see, no escape routes of any kind except for the doors they entered through. But his eyes did stop at the far end of the room, was a massive view of the vast region of space, and admiring the view was a very tall figure, even taller than the guards who were at least 6ft each. The guards stand to attention, taps their spears on the metal floor, and salutes the figure, clearly, this was the big shot in charge of this vessel. “General Ioktex. We’ve brought the prisoner as you instructed.” One of the guards addresses him by his surname. Mallek’s right twitched, that name was familiar to him.

“Very good… You may leave us, wait outside.” Her voice is disguised but Mallek can tell that it’s a woman. The guards do as they are told and exit the room leaving Mallek alone with her.

“Welcome aboard the Devastator.” She raises her arms out gesturing towards the room, clearly referring to this ship as a whole. She turns to face him, still too far away for Mallek to get a better view but a single red glow catches his attention where one of her eyes should be.

“I must say, it is rather thrilling to meet a male blue caste. Such a rarity.”

She approaches him, her figure coming into his line of vision. He can see another troll, much older than him possibly in her mid-to-late 30s, waist-length black hair that is noticeably curled at the ends despite being otherwise relatively straight with parts of her hair covering her right eye, her left eye was completely red, as if blood and seeped through her pupil and iris, but it wasn’t blind, she could see through it.

Her mouth was covered by a mask that was the source of her altered voice. Her outfit was a long blue dress, but the shoulders were fitted with armor and a chest plate which had a pattern in the shape of crisscross with four points at each end. She wore boots that made a heavy sound each time she took a step on the floor. A high-powered blaster was strapped to her hip. From the colors that donned her attire and her previous statement, it was clear by the colors her outfit adorned, that she purple caste.

“Allow me to introduce myself properly, my name is-”

“Adrani Ioktex. General of the 20th division. Conqueror of the Andrax and Nova systems. Also known as ‘The Empress’s Spear’. I know who and what you are…” Mallek spat out in disgust knowing who she was, remembering the name and her unique features.

“Ah, I see my reputation precedes me.” Her voice is filled with glee that Mallek was aware of who she was. Though Mallek doesn’t react, his face remaining blank and neutral not wanting to show any emotion.

“The same can be said for you, the mysterious hacker and rebel operative responsible for the destruction, theft, and reprogramming of many of our imperial drones for your own cause, the genius who is known simply as the ‘SCORIST’.”

She refers to Mallek by his codename, the alias he went by after joining the rebellion, the handle he used when hacking into the systems and stealing from various targets. He had made a name for himself and used it to hide his name for safety and personal reasons as he had secrets and people to protect associated with his real name. Only his close friends and those he trusted knew his real name, he had made sure to erase any and all records of his name he could find.

“Congratulations, you’ve done your homework…” He responds to her conclusion with a sarcastic tone.

She grins at him. “But of course. I’ve done my research and know full well about your past… Adalov.”

Mallek’s face showed a look of shock, and he immediately returned to a neutral look. How did she know his last name? That wasn’t possible. But unfortunately, the general had noticed the brief change of his expression. “Oh yes, I know your real name… Mallek Adalov.”

“Truly you were quite careful in erasing yourself from the records when you betrayed the Empire and defected. A young information spy killed in a crossfire on a mission, just another body to add to the pile of the dead… Another random troll who no one would miss or consider.”

“But you survived the skirmish, and then used your hacking abilities to erase your records… And then found yourself among the rebels. It was a brilliant move. However, you left footprints and breadcrumbs that most would overlook… So I began my investigation into you, studying your trail, your mark left on the servers and drones.” She starts to walk around Mallek.

“You kept your face hidden, rarely coming out in the open and providing support to your team. So I created a scenario that would bring you out in the open.”

Mallek looks at her, realizing that the factory mission had been a trap for him, she had orchestrated it to lure him out. Which meant his captured teammates deaths were, even more, his fault. Mallek couldn’t hide his anger, gritting his teeth, hands balled into fists.

“The final part was identifying you. You were able to remove yourself from most of the off-world servers and you were still fairly new, and you even stopped wearing your sign which would be an obvious tell.”

“But you can’t access any of the homeworld data after being shipped off… Records of you back home still exist after all.”

His eyes widened, he knew that any trace of him that still existed would still remain on Alternia but no adults could return there, it was heavily guarded and the Empress or her heiress would be alerted if an adult troll was spotted on the planet.

“Once you were captured, got a photo of you and then crossed references across the homeworld data, found your sign and then your real name.”

“What do you want?” He says in a slow, angry tone. He hated this, he hated when he wasn’t in control of a situation but she had all the cards.

“To make you a deal.” Her statement caught him off guard, confused by that.

“It must be hard having to follow the noble traditions of your people. A blue caste such as yourself serving as a mere soldier or spy within Her Imperious Condescension’s army. You would’ve preferred to be an information specialist, but your talents and skill as a genius hacker would never be utilized by her the Empress… It’s no wonder you feel so at home with traitors and rebels, allowing you to express your talents freely.”

“But even I must admit that your talents were wasted as a spy. I admire your work, it’s taken 3 years but you developed into a true specialist. So far from the timid anxious boy who feared being shipped off-world 5 years ago…”

“Shut up.” He demands, not wanting to listen to her words. He didn’t need a reminder, and she didn’t know him. She knew nothing about his struggles or his life.

“So I’m offering you an alternative.”

“You can spend the rest of your days rotting away in my detention facility. Dying in some dark, small cell or being beaten to death by some random prisoner… Or you can work for me, become my personal specialist and gather information on my enemies.” She states her offer to him which makes Mallek look at her with a confused look.

“What? Why would I work for someone like you?” Mallek snaps back, he would rather rot in that prison than work for her. Of course, she was expecting that response from him, which makes her chuckle.

“Your rebel friends. The rest of your group that escaped, and the ones you're protecting. And the reason you chose to use an alias and remove your name from the records…” She leans in close and whispers something into Mallek’s ear.

All the color fades from his face, a genuine look of fear and surprise as she pulls away smirking at him. “Your fate is in my hands Mallek Adalov, and if you want their safety to be ensured along with the safety of your own rebel cell, you will take my offer. I have no interest in small fry like your team, the rebel cells are divided, unorganized and there are more major threats, larger groups, and more important matters to deal with.”

“I will overlook your friends, and keep what’s most precious to you safe.” She informs him as a ringing noise begins to fill his ears, this wasn’t happening? This couldn’t be real? How? How could she have known about them, and how could he have been so careless…

What choice does he have now?

Mallek, with a defeated look in his eyes. Looks down, biting his lower lip.

“Good. Your silence is a reassurance that you’ve chosen wisely.” She smirks before taking the nearest seat at the table. “From this moment on, you belong to me. You are a tool and item, and a piece on my board to help me reach higher and eliminate my enemies and rivals. You will never see your comrades again, you have sacrificed your freedom in exchange for the ones you love, and for them…”

“Yes…” Mallek responds, his voice broken with acceptance.

“Very good. Welcome abroad SCORIST.” She grins, before standing up, she presses a button built into the table, and the doors open once again revealing the guards who had been waiting patiently. “Please take him to his quarters, and get him some new clothes.”

Years later…

The location was a planet in a far-off galaxy, it was the next site for the Empire’s eyes. It was full of valuable resources, from rare minerals, being the center of this galaxy, to serve as another controlled planet, and its people as slaves to help build the new facilities. The first steps of the invasion plan, first a team would be sent to infiltrate and survey the world, and general Ioktex had been dispatched to oversee this mission, and she had sent her team to go in first. A small vessel arrives over the planet and begins to break through the atmosphere. Inside the small vessel. Were four trolls, each dressed in imperial uniforms with their caste colors and general Ioktex’s sign engraved on random spots of their uniform, symbolizing that allegiance to her.

Piloting the ship, was a tall tealblood, his eyes focusing dead ahead to their destination, checking all the system and making their cloaking device was functioning. A slim blueblood and hulking purpleblood armed to the teeth with weapons and armor, both were wearing helmets to cover most of their faces. And sitting in another seat, typing away and looking at the monitor was Mallek. His expression was cold and dead, his eyes barely moving as he shifted through data, and attached to his neck was a collar device that was blinking. He has several holographic screens around his face. He waits for the virus to download into the flash drive he has plugged in, and once the bar fills and 100% appears, he removes it from the port.

“Here.” He tosses the drive to the other blueblood, who catches it.

“Once you get to a server, insert the flash drive in and we’ll access the mainframe. The virus will be uploaded and we’ll have all the information we need.”

She examines the device in her hand “Huh? It’s that simple huh? What about firewalls and security systems or-”

Mallek cuts her off “Don’t worry about it. It’s a multiagent virus, it’ll be infecting too many systems at once to mask what we’re really doing. Just get in, stay hidden, and don’t let anything happen to the drive.”

“Alright, fair enough. You’re the expert. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.” She smiles trying to make small talk but Mallek doesn’t even look at her, not interested in her or any of them.

“We’ll be landing shortly.” The pilot says as he presses some buttons. “Boosting cloaking shield.”

Suddenly a pained groan is heard at the back of the ship. In the generator room, strapped and bound into the ship, by tendrils was a gold caste troll, colorful energy surges through his eyes and then around his body as it is absorbed through the tendrils, powering the ship up. This was the norm for goldblood, but in this one’s case, it was a punishment. He was a rebel agent who had been captured and as punishment, he had been bound to his vessel as a living battery.

The rebels had adapted to using ships powered by alternative means as opposed to the living batteries on gold castes. After all exhaustion and overuse would result in the gruesome, permanent damage or painful deaths of the psionic trolls. But the empire would just replace them with another. Of course like the rebels, the empire did have ships and vessels that were also powered by other non-living energy sources. Only the older models and generation still used living batteries, as a reward by the Empress as goldbloods could last longer than fuel.

Every groan or scream he made was ignored by the crew, the purpleblood, in particular, found it to be soothing and enjoyed the cries of pain. Mallek was forced to endure this, and do nothing. The device around his neck was a precaution that the general had used to further keep him in line. Containing a powerful explosion that would activate at the push of a button or he made any attempt to remove or hack the wiring.

He had sacrificed his freedom, in order to protect what was dearest to him…

And now he was once again a servant to the Empire, an unwilling servant and this would be his life for now until the end of his life. A slave who was no different than that poor soul in the generator, no different from the inhabitants on the planet below who would soon be enslaved and lose their freedom.

He sighs before returning his view to his screen. “Let’s begin…”

#mallekweek2021 #mallekweek #mallek week 2021 #mallek adalov #fanfiction #fanfic #hiveswap fanfiction #hiveswap #hiveswap friendsim #hiveswap act 2 #hiveswap mallek #sci-fi #angst #canon divergent au #au #sacrifice #freedom #mallek week day 2 #my writing

23 notes · View notes

wrong-bts-shitposting · 4 years

Text

The Cigarette Burner

“He knew he was building a brand for himself by now – the burnt cigarette in the mouth of his victims, the closest everyone will get to the actual evidence tying him to the murders while at the same time being far from it...”

Mafia!Jungkook x Detective!Reader lol??? help

→ summary: You’re on Jungkook’s tail as he carries on doing Mafia stuff. Assigned to stick to him like freshly-chewed gum, you wonder if you can survive this case and tie him to all the murders.

→ genre: dark, angst, fluff, a bit of smut??? (haven’t decided yet)

‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘

Chapter 1

→ warnings: quite realistic description of the murders, weed mentioning+consumption, guns

→ word count: 2.064 words

→ a/n: Welcome to my first fanfic ever?? I decided to write this as a joke for my friend Lys over here, and she actually really liked it. After months of egging me on to post it, here I am, modifying my female heroine into a Y/N so all of you can read :) Please tell me what you think. I’m looking forward to any criticism, just don’t be mean. I guess that’s it, enjoy the read! I’m trying my best to come up with another chapter soon.

kisses, Omi xx

Prologue

Everything happens for a reason – or so he tells himself. I’m not a bad man, they’re the ones who deserve punishment is the only thought racing through his head as he watches the life drain through the victim’s eyes. He wasn’t wrong, however. He was just mistaken. He was just as bad as them. How could a cold-blooded murderer play God as if he ruled over the kingdom of the living? A kingdom so beautiful at times, but more often than not, terrifying even to the toughest…

Another gunshot echoes through the darkest of nights, startling the crows on top of a tall, abandoned building, causing them to caw desperately and flap their raven wings, deserting the place in mere seconds. Heavy footsteps walked towards the unknown man who was barely keeping his eyes open, gripping his chest hastily and fighting for his right to live. Suddenly, he feels the hair at the front of his forehead being latched onto and pulled harshly, causing him to tilt his head up and look the perpetrator in his eyes – a pair of onyx orbs staring right back into his, as if he was receiving some kind of sick pleasure from his pain. “You tried to trick me? Me? Out of all people?” he spat the words so hatefully that he made the dying man shiver. “Mr. Jeon, I swear we delivered the precise amount-“ he couldn’t even finish his sentence as Jungkook pressed the warm muzzle of his gun against his forehead and pulled the trigger, watching as blood splattered across the cold ground and all over the front of his white shirt. He lets go of the man’s hair in slight disgust and gets up, scoffing to himself. “I hope Leonard gets the message when he sees you…” he mutters lowly while pulling out a pack of cigarettes, grabbing onto an individual one by its’ neck and shoving it in between the lips of the corpse, lighting it with his Zippo, the whole image becoming a gory, unsettling sight.

He knew he was building a brand for himself by now – the burnt cigarette in the mouth of his victims, the closest everyone will get to the actual evidence tying him to the murders while at the same time being far from it, as the cigarettes always burnt away up to the butt. Without even giving him a second glance, he walks away, twirling his Glock in between his fingers before putting it behind his back, inside the band of his trousers.

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

“This is it, Y/N, I’m really fucking done with this man!” the tall, blond man known by his high status in the Police Department of Los Angeles – the sergeant – almost blurts out in anger as he kicks the door to her office open. “Another day, another body; I’m about to lose my fucking mind” he throws a pile of documents under the name of Jeon Jungkook on your desk, the collision with the hard wood making a loud, slapping noise. “Sir, calm down, I told you I’m your best chance at tying him to all this-“ You stood up from your chair, a bit taken aback by his sudden presence and the fact that his face almost turned bright red from the poor managing of his emotions. “How could I let my best detective just throw herself at some relentless animal?? Tell me how? You know what he’s capable of.“ he walks to her desk, his breathing sounding a bit ragged as rushed up a flight of stairs and kept on raising his voice unintentionally.

He opens the documents in front of you, gruesome pictures of dead girls almost flying out from in between the sheets of paper that were holding infinite amounts of details related to the autopsy and the surroundings they were found in, everything but one thing: proof that Jungkook is the one behind all this. “You need to understand that if you offer to go undercover, you might become just like them: a pretty face on a maimed body… or vice versa” you roll your eyes at his last comment, not wanting to interfere in his small speech about the girls. “I completely understand, Oliver, but you have to let me in on this. LA is already fucked by his drug cartel, we don’t need them to fear his killings on top of all that” you let out a long sigh, glancing with the corner of your eyes at the poor, poor girls. You knew he was right, and deep within you lay a fear of such death, your heart throbbing at the thought that you might give your life away for a grain of truth.

A heavy silence fell upon both of you as you stood in the middle of the office, each staring at a random object from the room, hoping that the other would just say something. Anything. Oliver runs a hand through his thick, blonde locks and looks up into your eyes, feeling uneasy “Okay, Y/N, I’ll let you in on this job… But if you die, I’ll be so disappointed”. you quickly deliver him an encouraging smile, the dimple on your right cheek making a glorious appearance on your face “Thank you… I won’t let you down. I hope it doesn’t take too long...” you trail off before walking to your desk slowly, opening the first document that revealed a mesmerizing, yet somewhat scary man: his dark locks contrasted with his dark brown eyes and his really pale skin. The only picture available of him was slightly shaky; depicting him at what you could tell was a club, probably looking up at someone. How they got their hands on this – you’ll never know. But you were thankful that you at least had the smallest of leads on how he looked like. The man breaks the silence once again, letting you know that he’ll be preparing everything that’s needed for later that night, as you were bound to begin as soon as possible to prevent any more tragedies from happening. Amongst the many drug dealers killed, innocent people found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, falling into the killer’s hands. You nodded to Oliver before he disappeared out of your sight, leaving you alone with your thoughts which only became louder as adrenaline kicked in – you realized you’ll finally come face to face with the most dangerous drug lord. What if I die? What if he finds out who I am? God, I’m an idiot sometimes…

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

You were nervous, you couldn’t lie. You were holding a cold cup of coffee to your chest while staring outside the window of the office, your mind absent. You knew that Paula, Oliver’s assistant was almost done packing the bag which only contained clothes and a really small, device, which could easily be hidden almost anywhere. It served the purpose of alerting the police once you were in real danger or once you considered that you’d found out everything needed to throw him behind bars. You hear your phone go off and pull it out of your pocket, reading the text that popped up on the screen “I’m done, come downstairs and meet me” the name above the text was Paula. Sipping the last drops of your coffee, you throw the cup into the trashcan near your chair and walk out of the office, running both hands through your hair as if it weighed you down greatly. Everything around you felt heavy; it felt like you were walking to your death sentence – which was… probable. “Miss Y/L/N” shouted a high-pitched voice, reeking your ears painfully. You could never stand Oliver’s assistant, you thought she didn’t deserve her job, but only got it because of her looks. Shaking the thought away, you force a smile and walk to Paula, who was waiting next to one of the police cars which was often used by the detectives when going undercover – a black Mercedes. She reaches her arms forward, almost pushing the bag into your embrace “The clothes are a bit… revealing. Jeon is known for liking… naughty women.” Paula’s sentencing almost made you choke on your tongue, a slight blush appearing on your pale cheeks. Is this girl serious? How could Oliver hire such an unprofessional woman… Your biggest problem was your judgmental nature. Maybe it came from years of working for LAPD; meeting all kinds of people – the dumbest to even the smartest of criminals, whom you respected for their skillfulness, but despised for the field they chose to display it on.

You hold the bag to your chest, afraid to open it, not knowing what clothes were chosen for you to wear. You could work with anything, well… almost anything. You weren’t going to flaunt your body around in patches of cloths rather than feel more comfortable in slightly revealing clothes. Giving Paula a soft glare, you unlock the car and throw the bag inside “I’ll go now, tell Oliver I’m not going to disappoint him”. The assistant watches you sit in the car and drive away, wondering if you know where you’re headed.

You had the documents with you, hidden in the glove box, as you had been analyzing them all day. You noticed Jungkook had a habit of visiting a strip club named Trinity, somewhere downtown, almost speeding to that place as your memory had reminded you of it. You were thinking of your boyfriend and family, not to mention your friends. Bound to be gone for a while, you knew they’d start worrying. The worst part was not being able to connect with them or even see them, just to let them know that you’re doing fine.

What a shabby place… is this where I’m supposed to be? You wished your thoughts would just shut up at times, as they only made you grow more anxious. Parking the car in a very dark place, on an alley, you glance at the board of the car, becoming aware that it was well past 11 PM at that point. Rifling through the bag on the passenger’s seat, you pull out what seems to be a baby blue, short dress with noodle straps and a pair of white high heels. You let out a really long sigh, although you were glad it wasn’t the worst outfit ever. You might’ve as well worn this at some point in time when going out clubbing. Making sure no one’s around, you quickly change in the car and hides the small device in between the foam and the material of your bra, on the inside. Okay, I’m ready… somewhat ready. It won’t be bad, right? He can’t be that bad.

The bodyguards let you get through quite easily as you batted your long eyelashes at them and pleaded them nicely. Upon opening a heavy door and walking down a set of stairs, your mind could only comment on how sketchy it all looked. This definitely isn’t filled with criminals… A thick cloud of smoke could be cut apart with a knife, and as you waved your small hand near your face to push it away, you see him. All the way back in a corner, dimly lit by a red light, he sat sprawled back on a cozy couch, surrounded by girls… and a few of his men. He was wearing a black shirt, the top buttons of it undone, paired with black jeans and a pair of worn-out black boots. You stop dead in your tracks, your lips parting so softly and slightly, your bright blue eyes slowly widening at the sight of him. This man was… gorgeous. How could you think such things about a criminal? As you indulge in the sight, from across the room, Jungkook notices everything. His keen eyes saw everything the second it moved, one of the things which annoyed most people he knew. He shifts his dark orbs towards the front door and sees you, slightly scanning your face as it was the only thing he could see through the crowd of people dancing around. Your eyes meet his briefly and you swallow tightly – understanding that there’s no turning back now. He was watching you curiously, although his glance was too intense, burning holes through you, wanting to find out everything about you on the spot.

I will definitely throw this mission…

#bts #bangtan #bangtan boys #bts jungguk #bts jimin #bts jungkook #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #mafia jungkook #detective reader #fanfic #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook angst #criminal jungkook #police x criminal

18 notes · View notes

traincat · 5 years

Note

speaking of mcu spidey weirdness, am i the only one who feels like they tried to fuse flash with a harry on a particularly bad trip? i remember him being brown in a comic timeline but never mean when sober. and after pheathers, making the bully a smart member of a minority group just feels tonedeaft

I think there’s a very good argument for Norman and Harry being mixed race in the main canon, because I think Norman reads best as a character if there’s something about him that he’s personally and to his detriment deeply ashamed of and repressed about and that he goes to great lengths to cover up. This could be that he’s mixed race --- the tight curl pattern of the Osborn hair, and Harry’s afro in Spider-Gwen’s flashback scenes could lend themselves to this -- or that he’s Jewish -- again, the tight curl pattern of the Osborn hair and Harry’s afro in the Spider-Gwen flashbacks, along with the extremely questionable decision to have Harry bullied for being rich by having kids call him “the Green Goblin.” (It is actually still antisemitic if you don’t actually go all the way there, Jason Latour.) The self-hating Jew aspect definitely becomes problematic in a canon where Peter Parker isn’t himself openly and proudly canonically Jewish, so I tend to steer clear of this one, though I do think it could be very interesting in terms of Norman turning himself into the ultimate stereotype of the wealth-hoarding evil Jewish business man through his own self-hatred. My current favorite reading of Norman is that Norman is a deeply repressed gay man. There’s plenty of subtext here to support this: the obsession with Peter Parker as the young and strong masculine ideal, the deeply campy original Green Goblin design with the fuschia purse and the huge fake eyelashes, Norman’s eschewing and disdain for his genetic descendants, the paralleling between Norman’s abuse of Harry with a father’s sexual abuse of his son in The Child Within, and the seduction and later the torture of Flash Thompson when Norman recruited him to be his assistant after his return from the dead. It’s all potentially, to use a word I hate, very problematic without a deft hand in the storytelling, but I think done right and balanced against some honest and positive representation any of the above could offer up some very good stories.

Anyway, all that Osborn stuff aside, yeah, the decisions made with Flash in the MCU truly baffle me. I like the casting of Tony Revolori, who I really enjoyed in Grand Hotel Budapest, but the decision to make him a nerd who verbally bullies Peter instead of a jock who antagonizes Peter is bizarre, to say the least. I think I read an article somewhere that said the change was made because jocks aren’t the “in kids” anymore, which, like, presents a weird picture of current American high school politics where all the nerds are just picking on each other now in an attempt to become the new pop culture ruling class. Then there’s the fact that Flash, now A Smart Kid, is routinely passed over in favor of Peter, kicked off the decathlon in favor of Peter, and, during the Washington Monument scene, depicted as a person who would rather save a trophy than help his classmate and in-comics high school girlfriend, Liz. So now that Flash is brown, the MCU has decided to portray him as a smart kid who is routinely passed over for the supposedly smarter white kid, and a materialistic coward beside. I’ve seen Homecoming get a lot of praise for its diverse cast, and I have to say I do like much of the casting, but the follow through in the actual movie is, I would say, far less progressive than it looks on paper. See also: this being the first Spider-Man movie with a black love interest and coincidentally the first Spider-Man movie without a kiss scene in it, and the erasure of Mary Jane’s identity by pasting her nickname onto a character the screenwriters have been very open about saying isn’t Mary Jane, a character who isn’t even given a last name within the film, following the massive racist backlash after rumors broke out that Zendaya was playing Mary Jane.

It’s also important, in my opinion, to note that in main comics continuity Flash Thompson’s childhood was marked by violent and repeated physical abuse by his father. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is the only film franchise to reference this, even though Flash Thompson is a character who has appeared in all three Spider-Man film franchises. The Thompson family in 616 is depicted as extremely blue collar: Flash is a high school football star whose father is a cop and an alcoholic who beats his son and ridicules his wife. They live in a modest apartment. MCU Flash, by contrast, is depicted as a nerd who drives a very expensive car and gets ousted from the academic decathlon by Peter, who doesn’t even care about the decathlon and just needs an excuse to go to DC where -- conveniences of all plot conveniences -- the decathlon is being held. I mean, they just bussed my dad out to Brooklyn when he was a mathlete, but whatever. (Spider-Man: Homecoming has a deeply weird undercurrent about financial status; almost everyone in the movie is either depicted as comfortably middle class, including the Parkers, or as rich.) I’m going to admit: the scene where Peter steals and wrecks Flash’s car made me deeply uncomfortable in the theater, knowing Flash’s comics backstory. Absence of on-screen or referenced abuse is not, in and of itself, a lack of that abuse within the story, or rather an erasure of the contents of the work the story was adapted from. If we assume 616 is the main universe, and that everything leads out of there, then from my perspective, unless other evidence is offered up, there’s no reason to assume things don’t line up, i.e., without direct evidence otherwise I have to assume Flash is still a victim of parental abuse. Expensive gifts like a car isn’t direct evidence against that. Flash being a nerd now isn’t direct evidence against that.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #-1)

(Amazing Spider-Man #574)

(Venom (2011) #27)

So I think about scenes like this and then I think about Flash being the butt of the joke in Spider-Man: Homecoming over Peter stealing his car and at the very least, I have to say, I’m not happy with the lack of nuance presented, or the implication that the MCU’s Flash couldn’t be a victim of abuse because he’s a rich nerd in this iteration. It is, now that you mention it, a bizarrely Harry Osborn-esque take on the character: the expensive car, the rich background, smart but not as smart as Peter, a bit of a jerk to Peter in their early acquaintanceship in a verbal rather than a physical way, not exactly the bravest crayon in the box. But there’s an issue in that too because, like Flash, although rarely depicted as physically, Harry was also abused in his childhood by his father. So we’re back to square one with the car scene and some troubling implications, turning a character who bears the name of one abused character and wears the traits of another into the butt of a joke so Audi could fit another car into the movie.

Like I said, I do like the casting and I think Revolori is a great actor and did his best with the part he was given -- I just wish the character had been handled by the writers and director with any compassion. A big part of me wishes that instead of pasting Ned Leeds’ name over Ganke Lee, Miles Morales’ best friend, the MCU had compressed the timeline and just let Flash Thompson inhabit his future rule as Peter Parker’s best friend. Instead, we get Flash Thompson, The One Note Bully: Nerd Remix.

#flash thompson #*replies #traincat talks comics #traincat talks homecoming #mcu negativity/#mcu criticism/#long post/#child abuse cw/#also i keep seeing fics now where the avengers publicly humiliate flash to get revenge for peter and like yikes #Anonymous

102 notes · View notes

nnaked-mind · 3 years

Text

Reading Black on Asian Hate-Crime Videos

05.11.20

It’s been an interesting time to be living in America as an Asian, to say the least. I was aware of the existence of COVID-19 since late January after visiting relatives in Japan. There was no way I would have imagined the events that would occur, the fear I would witness, and the hatred I would experience just months later. Since the news broke out that the virus began in China and the impacts of the virus were felt by Americans, Asians in America have been the target of explicit displays of racism. I have become a victim to these expressions of hatred myself, being spat on by a random person on the street and having people cover their mouths and avoid being in proximity to me.

Asians in this country are experiencing a rude awakening, if they did not know already, that even the Model Minority myth cannot protect them. What’s caught my attention in particular during these times, is the quick and mass dissemination of videos surrounding cases of anti-Asian hate crimes. I couldn’t help but notice that the videos that garner most traction are not ones that display crimes committed by white people, but are ones that display Black on Asian crimes. There are two videos in particular that have gone viral and have kept my mind busy. The first shows a video filmed by an Asian woman who was harassed on a subway by a Black man, and a white man stands up and helps the Asian woman (Chen). The second is a video of an old man being robbed, mocked, and harassed by a group of Black people, filmed by a Black man (@nicholaaasli). What is particularly interesting about these videos is the responses by Black, Asian, and white people.

There appears to be three popular types of responses to these hate crimes: one that expresses frustration using “if it were the other way around…” as an argument, one that comes from white people who use it to criticize Black people of saying “Black people can’t be racist” while also calling them violent, and one of Black people showing sympathy and un-claiming the Black people in the videos. What do these responses and readings of this video expose on American racial politics between non-white communities? What does this do for both white and non-white spectatorship when Black on Asian violence is popularized and trending for thousands of people to see? I argue that the incessant display of Black on Asian violence acts as a veil for white Amerikkka to hide behind and for Black and Asian Americans to forget who is actually responsible for the oppression and injustice they experience.

The Two Narratives

“People of Asian descent become the model minority when they are depicted to do better than other racial minority groups, whereas they become the yellow peril when they are described to outdo white Americans.”

— Yuko Kawai, Stereotyping Asian Americans

In order to fully understand the analysis of the videos and its effects, it is first important to understand the two narratives that permeate within the video and the responses to the video. The first narrative is one we are all familiar with: the racism against Black Americans and its long history of violence. The other is the less familiar tale of triangulation of Asian Americans. Asians have been labeled Model Minority because they’ve been stereotyped as docile, hardworking, and disciplined. The Model Minority myth, and the petrification of the stereotypes that make up a model minority, was created and used to silence and oppose the Black liberation and Black Panther movements.

Asians and their Model Minority status had granted them a degree of whiteness, giving them privileges that Black Americans could not attain. However, Asians in America were also seen as perpetually foreign. The interchangeability of the terms “Asian” and “Asian American” is proof that to America, there is no difference between a 4th generation Asian and a new immigrant. Asia and its people are seen as mystical and foreign, and we see this constantly whether it be in visual media where anywhere dystopian or futuristic is coded in Japanese aesthetics, or the ways in which people always ask Asians, “where are you from?” In the end, despite the everyday injustices Black people face, they are considered Americans, just like their white counterparts, something Asians will never be seen as.

Asians and Black Americans have always been pitted against each other as if they were direct opposites. When Asian businesses thrive in Black communities, as Asians display their colorism and racism against Black people, Black retaliation is seen as violent and unjust. Asian Americans, in the eyes of many Black Americans, are seen as allies and beneficiaries of white Amerikkka because white Amerikkka said so. Asians are model minorities and Black people are not and never will be no matter what they do because of preconceived notions of what a Black person can and cannot be. The fear-mongering of China and its rise as a global power is reflected in a miniature scale within small businesses in Black and Asian communities. Building up the tension between Black and Asian communities makes it easier to forget that the real enemy is neither Black nor Asian, but Amerikkka. COVID-19 came from China, but the president has announced it as the “Chinese Virus” and consistently blames China for its wrong-doings instead of addressing the failures of his own country. Yellow peril has resurfaced and is being used once again, as a divisive tool.

Understanding Hatred

“A man was expected to behave like a man. I was expected to behave like a Black man.”

— Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask

Jacque Lacan’s Mirror Stage presents us with a theory that people do not come into the world understanding different symbolic systems, but rather it is learned and placed upon us. Fanon builds on this idea by claiming the “negro” is a part of a symbolic system based on what it means to be white, stating, “for not only must the Black man be Black; he must be Black in relation to the white man” (110). What Fanon suggests, is that the idea of what a Black man is supposed to be, pre-exists the Black man itself. There is an imaginary created about what someone who is not white is supposed to be like. If the white man is viewed as civilized, the one who is not white is imagined to be a savage. Non-white bodies are constituted as stereotypical beings, where no matter what they do, they will be seen as stereotypical. When Fanon is shaking in the cold, it is read as shaking in rage (114). If non-white bodies are perceived to be inherently stereotypical, then what is created is a false sense of truth. It means any performance will be viewed within the framework of whatever stereotype, and that performance will inevitably confirm the stereotype.

This concept is vital in understanding the ways the two videos are digested. Let us begin with the video of the Asian man being harassed. The elderly Asian man is recorded to be in distress as a group of Black men take his belongings and physically assaults him when he tries to get it back. The person filming, Dwayne Grayson, a Black man, records him and others saying racist slurs, declaring “I hate Asians,” and mocking the elderly man as he cries (@nicholaaasli). The responses to the video are as follows:

@ughdoingthemost (Black man): “I meannn everyone is talking about the ‘I hate Asian’ comment but are we going to pretend that Asians like us either. I’m just asking”

@TowerTtv (white man): “Why does the background sounds, sound like the flying monkeys in wizard of oz?”

@empteaclouds (white woman): “there’s people who don’t care until it’s their own community lmao”

@KafirKafir4 (Black woman): “they’ve never seen anyone stand up for them so why tf would they give a shit about people who aren’t their own”

@empteaclouds: “then why should people care if the races were switched? everyone jumps to say yes to equality but as soon as it’s not their community who needs help they’re quiet”

These responses give insight into the ways in which imaginary conceptions of certain races interact with their viewing of the video. We see people are either siding with the harassers, the victim, or being racist towards the harassers and justifying it. What is interesting to note, is the way these people talk about themselves. Donald Moss states that people “hate as a part of a group, not in the first person singular, but first person plural” (xviii). We see this reflected in the responses. @ughdoingthemost’s comment brings forth the idea of how the claim, “I hate Asians,” is not just by that one Black man, but by a community, as he says that Asians don’t like “us” either. The “I” in the hate comment and “us” in @ughdoingthemost’s response is to be read as I = a man who belongs to a group who has been historically placed below Asians.

Furthermore, Moss claims that hatred seeks confirmatory evidence. We seek whatever will confirm the hatred and preconceived notions that already exists in our imaginary. Just as Fanon and Lacan has argued, spectators are seeing and looking for visual affirmation of what think they know to validate it as truth. @TowerTtv’s response and others who called the harassers animals, savages, and used this to justify their hatred towards Black Americans are examples of this. @TowerTtv as a White man, should not have a say in the video, especially when visually, there is no one he could immediately identify with. James Baldwin makes a point that a white man’s hatred is rooted in terror as opposed to the Black man’s hatred being rooted in rage (60). A hatred rooted in terror means the white man focuses on the entity that lives in his imaginary, in his mind — it is not something that can be easily eradicated, it lingers.The video allows him as a white man with the imagined violent Black man to align his imaginary with something tangible.

Identification

“the visual field is itself a racial formation, an episteme, hegemonic and forceful.”

— Judith Butler, Reading Rodney King, Reading Urban Uprising

Judith Butler’s chapter in Reading Rodney King, Reading Urban Uprising examines the role of identification in viewing the Rodney King beating video as something that fits into the narrative of white paranoia. In examining the role of identification, she explains the vital distinction between reading and seeing the visual. She attempts to understand how a video that so blatantly shows a helpless Black man being senselessly killed, was used to side with the white police instead of King. I argue that the ability to identify with the victim lies in the distinction between identification with and the identification of, and is also dependent on which perspective the video is being filmed from. Identifying with places the viewer in the position of Whiteness and White paranoia, whereas the dis-identification occurs when the viewer enacts an identification of the the non-white.

Examining this video utilizing Butler’s theory is a difficult task because critiquing the narrative in this video is not as clear cut as the Rodney King video. Nevertheless, using Butler to raise questions about the role of identification in a video that portrays Black on Asian crime is necessary. Unlike the Rodney King video, there aren’t as many options given to the viewer as to who to identify with. We are given the choice to identify with Grayson, the other harassers, or the Asian man. However, it is shown that Grayson and the other harassers share the same view point, as they all participate in the hate crime. This means that there are two figures with potential for identification and dis-identification.

As seen earlier, there are many comments from within the Black community that express something similar to @ughdoingthemost’s viewpoint. This perspective is likely attached to an identification with the Black harassers. Perhaps it is attributed to the long subjugation of racism not only by white people, but by the Asian community as well. As mentioned prior, Black Americans have faced countless cases of racism from the Asian community, all while Asians are labeled as model minorities. The identification with the Black harassers may not necessary stem from a place of racism or prejudice, rather, it could stem simply from an understanding that Asians have done the same. When the president of this country, even prior to COVID-19, has explicitly showcased his prejudice against the Chinese, it doesn’t help that the fear of the spread of the virus adds fuel to the fire. The identification with the harassers come with a fear of Asians as well as hatred of Asians for the Black community’s perceived whiteness that Asians possess. This identification, however, is based off an imaginary that Asians are inherently better off, equal to white, or that they all hate the Black community.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is an identification/dis-identification that takes place between white spectatorship and videos such as this one, that displays Black on Asian violence. Unlike the case of Black or Asian spectatorship that comes with the understanding of the racial tensions between a Black person to choose to identify with either the Asian man or the Black man, white spectatorship poses a complicated relationship with the video. @TowerTtv is an example of one type of identification/dis-identification that takes place. This type of white spectator identifies with the Asian man, while also dis-identifies with both the Black figures and Asian man through enacting the identification of their other-ness.

This type of white spectator identifies with the Asian man because he is more like the spectator. Erica Burman’s Fanon’s Lacan and The Traumatogenic Child explains the notion of epidermalization where there is a strong emphasis on visuality and an attention to identification from without (80). Firstly, the Asian man visually, is more relatable to the white man simply because the Asian man has lighter skin. Secondly, on a deeper level, there is a degree of the imaginary that involves the first narrative discussed prior: the one of the savage Black man.

The white spectator identifies with the Asian man’s fear and sadness of having this possessions taken from him by a group of Black men who mock his sadness, as if they are inherently vile. This white spectator does not see himself as the oppressor that stands above both racial groups. Instead, he sees himself in the Asian man that happens to be placed perfectly in what would be representative of the white paranoia Butler discusses. Unlike the Rodney King video, the spectator does not have to try so hard to view the Black body as violent and deserving of being beaten. This video maintains the existing imaginary of white paranoia by already having the Black man actually posing a threat to someone innocent.

The video of the Asian woman being harassed by a Black man while a white man stands up for the woman is a prime example of this type of identification. This video provides a clearer narrative and affirmation of the imaginary for the white spectator. An innocent woman, not a man, is attacked by the “savage” Black man. But there’s a bonus: we get to see a white man “save” this woman. The white man is praised for being an upstander while the other Black man sitting is criticized for being a bystander. In this case, the @TowerTtv type white spectator identifies with the white savior, and dis-identifies with both the Black and Asian figures. Of course, there are cases of white spectatorship that does not involve the perpetuation of the violent Black man narrative; however, regardless of whether the white spectator makes a racist comment against the Black body or not, he will not identify with the Black person.

Mis-recognition and Fantasy

“The industry is compelled, given the way it is built, to present to the American people a self-perpetuating fantasy of American life…To watch the TV screen for any length of time is to learn some really frightening things about the American sense of reality…[these images] weaken our ability to deal with the world as it is, ourselves as we are.”

— James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro

Why is there an abundance of these Black on Asian videos as opposed to white on Asian violence? More importantly, what is it about these Black on Asian violence that makes them more “popular” and trendy than white on Asian violence? Baldwin makes the observation that Americans feel the need to maintain a sense of normalcy and consistency between their imagined America and reality, and this is done through producing and reproducing certain images that are “designed not to trouble, but to reassure” (86). White Americans latch onto these images of people of color attacking and hating each other as a way to feel like white people are not the only bad guys and that their racist narrative of Black people is truthful. Simultaneously, non-white Americans view this widespread narrative that Black and Asians are always against each other, distracting them from larger, systemic practices that are pitting them against each other to begin with.

Through these videos, we see the classic stereotypes played out to reassure the historical narratives we all all familiar with. The Black uncivilized savage, the passive effeminate Asian, and the innocent heroic white man. While Baldwin is referencing the media industry and it’s preferential reproduction of the imaginary America unlike these hate crime documentation that is filmed by individuals, the essence is the same. In White Man’s Guilt, Baldwin states, “[white Americans] are dimly, or vividly aware that the history they have fed themselves is mainly a lie, but they do not know how to release themselves from it, and they suffer enormously” (723). White Americans’ lack of ability to deal with their own incoherence and guilt of a history they do not want to know or be responsible for creates a need for a form of disavowal. Thus, these videos where the victims of their systemic oppression are being cruel amongst each other provides some sense of comfort. They get to say, see, I’m not the racist, we’re not racist, even though as Moss suggests, hatred performs as a first person plural.

“I cannot go to a film without seeing myself. I wait for me.”

— Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask

“The mirror sage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation”

— Jacaque Lacan, Écrits: A Selection

“they seemed placed on the screen for me and for me alone…I [couldn’t] disassociate myself from the pleasures I was taking…I dreaded the newsreels, but wanted to see more”

— Donald Moss, Hating In The First Person Plural

We cannot accept the virality of this specific type of content to be random or by chance. There is an allure to these videos that depict violence between ethnic minorities. That allure is attributed to White Amerikka’s constant need to see themselves as whole. There’s a disconnect between what they see themselves as (the post-racist white man) and what they know to be true (the privileges they have and the continued systemic oppression of non-white communities), a fragmentation. These videos of Black on Asian crimes in light of the virus have performed in the same way Fanon seeks himself on the screen, the way Lacan describes the mirror stage as our repeated need to see an image to consume to feel whole, and the way Moss couldn’t stop looking at the newsreels due to the pleasure he received.

While white Americans seek these videos and take pleasure in them to reassure themselves, Black spectatorship on the side of the harassers involves satisfying a need for justice, to hurt the people who’ve hurt them, though that justice is served against the wrong person. Black spectatorship on the side of the Asian victim is perhaps a satiation of their need to be validated as a victim to historical violence in general. As for Asian spectatorship, perhaps it is similar to white spectatorship in the sense that they seek some need to justify their racist and colorist beliefs of Black people. Perhaps it is a way for them to satisfy a need to finally be seen as a victim, unlike the label of model minority suggests. Whatever the case, these videos provide an image in which each respective spectator sees themselves, and the reproduction and virality of these videos suggest that there is some sort of pleasure that is received from watching them.

Last Thoughts

In light of COVID-19, as fear of Asians turn into misdirected hatred, acts of hate-crimes are being increasingly documented. While these documentations are important to identify the perpetrator, I cannot help but feel discomfort knowing that most of the videos that circulate are of Black on Asian violence. It feels strange to not only feel empathetic towards Asian victims, but also towards the Black community for the slander that they will receive for participating in hate-crimes. Just as I find myself identifying with both the Black and Asian persons I see, these videos complicate the type of relationship different spectators have with what they are seeing. More than anything, it is crucial for us to remember to not be falsely swayed by the narrative these videos have the potential of disseminating. We cannot let these videos be possessed under the hands of white paranoia. Despite whatever racial tensions exist between Black and Asian Americans, the real perpetrator of injustices and inequality that displaces both communities is white Amerikkka, and that must never be forgotten.

#opinion

0 notes

the-seas-song · 6 years

Text

Tolkien Gen Week Day 4

DAY FOUR: solo Tolkien’s characters must spend time on their own! What does your favorite character do by themself? What’s a favorite hobby or a struggle they went through on their own? This is a day to explore what happens when only one character is around.

I know this is late, but unfortunately work and real life intervened. Fortunately, I had today off!

For this prompt I want to talk about my top two favorite characters, Arwen and Kili.

Arwen. Oh, Arwen! Where do I begin? She's the reason I became a Tolkien fan. I watched the films before reading the books, and her scene with Elrond in RotK was the defining moment for me. The world shifted, and I was fundamentally moved.

“I looked into your future and I saw death.”

“But there is also life!”

“Some things are certain. If I leave him now, I will regret it forever.”

“This was my choice. Ada, by your will or not, there is no ship now that can bear me hence.”

The sheer amount of inner strength Arwen has will always blow me away and render me speechless. Because Arwen's choice isn't really about Aragorn, even though it is because of Aragorn. Arwen chooses to truly live a full life for a short time, over existing for her naturally long lifespan. She chooses to live for less than one elven-year (144 years of the sun), because she knows that she will be fully fulfilled and that no other path could bring her greater joy.

Just... think of everyone you know. How many people do you know who could make that choice? Who could choose to go out into the world and live every day to the fullest, even though they know they will soon die because of it?

Because this renders me speechless, I want to quote one of my favorite fanfictions, The Light Returned by Ellynn. It is from Elrond's pov:

And then I chanced upon this one picture – I could not remember whether I had seen it earlier that day – but it immediately captured my attention. Even if I hadn't seen the signature, I could have told it had been drawn by Lalaith, Eldarion's daughter. She was exceptionally gifted. Her pictures were almost alive; they had their own voice and soul. This particular one depicted almost the entire family – Arwen, Aragorn, their children and most of their grandchildren. Looking at it, I could smell the spring grass of the Pelennor fields, hear the sound of children's laughter, feel the mild, warm breeze. I blinked, and the vision was still there. I was there, with them; they were here, with me. But most of all I was captured by Arwen's face. She was smiling and looking straight towards Lalaith who had been drawing the picture; due to some magic, or to the skill of the artist, her gaze came out of the picture and reached me, reached the depth of my heart. I have never seen such serenity and happiness within anyone; the serenity of a fulfilled life. Her eyes were full of warmth and love for Aragorn, for their children and grandchildren...

...and for me. For her parents. I kept on staring at the picture and read everything from her gaze. A moment later I took another picture, and another, and many more, and looked them over. And over. But with different eyes than before, now unaffected by self-pity and pain. No, the sorrow did not vanish, but now I really saw. In each picture, whether crafted with a supreme skill of the artist Lalaith or with unskillful strokes of a child which Arwen encouraged to draw for the very first time, my daughter had that same expression – the expression of utter happiness and fulfillment. The emotions were the same, and they were always present.

How stupid I was not to see it right away! I must have been blinded by my pain; it must be that the parental selfishness did not want to retreat. I believe Celebrian understood it straight away; she was wiser than I was. But now I saw things differently as well. If there had ever been any doubt in my mind that this had not been the best path for her, all doubts had now vanished without a trace. Yes, I have been hoping that fate would take her down a different path; yes, I wished she had chosen one of our folk. But this was her path, there was no other which would have brought her a greater joy. Every parent wants what is best for his child, and she had the best. Even if the loss of immortality was the price to be paid. Sometimes even that which seems like the highest price is but a pittance compared to the happiness gained.

My daughter died. We will not meet in this world, for as long as Arda does not change. The pain was still there. But now I look at her life – blessed more than a person could ever wish for – and I cannot but thank Eru for granting her such a wonderful family and a life full of love. Thank you, my daughter, for making it possible for your family to become a part of my life forever, although I thought I had lost everything that day many years ago, when I left Middle-earth for good.

The pain is still there, but a smile appears through the tears; the pain is no longer the only thing I feel, now there is joy as well. For her gift is the greatest one I have ever received, a gift of boundless love which triumphs even over the greatest sorrow. It is still dark outside. But I am no longer in the darkness. The light returned.

And Arwen's kindness! During all the chaos after her wedding, Arwen picks up on the fact that Frodo's wounds have not really healed. No one else has noticed this – only her. So what does she do? She goes to Gandalf and, using her own choice of mortality as leverage, argues that Frodo should be able to sail in her stead so he can find healing. This gets approved, and when she tells Frodo, she gives him another gift! A gem imbued with healing power. Because getting permission for him to sail wasn't good enough for her – it wouldn't stop his current pain. So, she imbues a gem with healing power. It is not a permanent fix, only a temporary relief. But it is enough for now, for she has already arranged for him to take the permanent fix, if he wishes it. (This is, of course, reflected in the films at the Ford. Arwen doesn't even know Frodo; and yet she is crying for him, pleading with him to live, and doing a healing incantation.)

(For evidence of what I've just said, see my Arwen essay)

Kind and brave, Arwen embodies the same lessons of another heroine – Cinderella. For, “We must simply have courage, and be kind, mustn't we?”

I will always love and strive to be like these two amazing beings.

~*~

Kili is my second favorite character for very different reasons. Whereas Arwen is the ideal I love and strive for, Kili is the character I fundamentally relate to.

Overall, we have the same exact personality. There is something called the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is a personality type theory. Unlike most personality theories, though, MBTI focuses on the cognitive functioning of your brain, and not individual personality traits. There are sixteen different types, and Kili is an ENFP (see here for my typing of him).

Kili has a self-esteem problem. It's not obvious to most people, but he and I have the same little tells, because our brains function the same way.

(for evidence of what I'm about to say, see my Fili and Kili essay)

Dwarven culture has a correlation to some of our world's most sexist cultures. Dwarf women are not named on family trees. They join their husband's family. They do not go outside, “save at direst need”; and dress like men when they have do so. They do not go to war, or partake in dwarven crafts. They live in “deep bowers and halls.” Dwarves only fall in love once, and both male and female dwarves are “jealous” of their spouses and spousal rights. Tolkien states that Fili and Kili were never Thorin's heirs (the filmmakers changed this), and Dain always was. He also states that the “sentiment of affection for sister's children” is the least strong amongst dwarves, out of all of the Free Peoples. It is the mother's job to raise the children, and children should be treated with “apparent harshness” “to ensure that they shall grow up tough, hardy, unyielding”. Vengeance is very important.

Dwarven culture also continues the glorification of masculinity and the damnation of femininity into their jobs. The beloved dwarven crafts are stonework, mining and crafting, and weaponry. In their cultural relationship with humans and hobbits, the dwarves exchange their work for food. However, dependency on them for food does not equate to perceived worthiness. According to Thorin, hobbits “were just food-growers who happened to work the fields on either side of the Dwarves' ancestral road to the Mountains.” Elves are, of course, culturally damned as evil.

So we have an exceptionally hypermasculine culture that exalts fighting, vengeance, and crafts of stonework, mining and crafting, and weaponry; and also derides femininity. They are also the only culture that exalts secrecy and prejudice in it’s theory (reality is a whole different matter, because there are prejudiced people of all races).

Thorin got his people sanctuary and acceptance in Ered Luin. He remained a dwarf lord in title, because he is still technically the heir to the most powerful dwarven line. However, he had no actual standing in Ered Luin. This is the situation Fili and Kili were born into. Born and raised in Ered Luin, they were royalty in title but not in action. However, Thorin raised them as if they were royalty in action.

(Also, since Balin and Dwalin speak as if it has been a while since they've seen each other, Balin is a politician and Dwalin is a hardened warrior, and Kili refers to Dwalin with a title (“Mister Dwalin”), I assume/headcanon that Fili and Kili don't know Dwalin very well because he is a traveling warrior.)

We see several examples of this paradox. There are several similarities and signs of status in their clothing, and all three have their own personal emblem. Fili and Kili would have spent their early years with Dis in the isolated living quarters and domestic halls. They are innocent. When he was home, Thorin raised them on stories of Erebor's glory while keeping from them the painful and horrific details (as we see, they don't know the details of the Battle of Azanulbizar – they would have only known that Thror, Frerin, and many of their people died; and that Thrain disappeared). However, because of dwarven culture and his own issues, Thorin is stern and not overtly affectionate. Fili and Kili had lessons and were raised to be warriors, like any good dwarven prince. They are skilled and lethal fighters, and have traveled as guards for merchant caravans (though it is highly unlikely they were the only guards, two isn't really an escort), but they have never been in a battle or war. They do not remember losing anyone close to them to orcs – they find Bilbo's fear funny, as only lethal innocents would; not understanding the severity and pain of an orc attack. Nor have they had much interaction with people of other races. While they have traveled as guards, we know that Kili (and thus likely Fili) has never seen an elf before; and before Bilbo, the only place they could have met any hobbits is in Bree. Their interactions with humans (and hobbits, if they had any) would have been very limited and strictly related to business.

Even though Fili and Kili are both extremely talented, they have two very different attitudes towards fighting. Fili has loads of weapons; lovingly pulling them out at Bilbo's house, and hating the elves for taking them. Kili has far less, as well as different, weapons than Fili, and he never appears emotionally invested in fighting – he explores and complements Bilbo's house while Fili is lovingly taking out his weapons. In Mirkwood, Kili doesn't just ignore the disappearance of his weapons; he starts fancying Tauriel because of her impressive skill when she saved his life, and smiles softly after her retort. According to his culture, she has just emasculated him at least twice; and his reaction is not to get angry, but to fall in love with her. He is perfectly comfortable with being the more feminine one in their relationship.

We see from the very beginning that Kili is odd for a dwarf. He is very different from any other dwarf we ever meet. He doesn't have that internal sense of dwarven pride. He is very open-minded, and exemplifies the saying, “A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet.” He is genuinely curious and admiring of Bilbo and his house. Kili also defends him and shows faith in him by betting on him. Though raised on the evilness of elves, Kili doesn't have any prejudice or dislike for them. He sees Tauriel as a breathtaking and awe-inspiring being far above him while never showing the slightest hint of jealousy or possessiveness towards her, and has thought about the nature of nature; thus contradicting everything dwarven culture believes in. He follows his heart and morals no matter what. He is resilient and light-hearted, even though he is a cultural anomaly.

At the beginning of the Quest, Kili doesn't understand the prejudices of his culture, but he lacks the personal experiences needed to challenge them. By the time Kili gets to Erebor, he has the personal experiences needed to speak up. He cannot stand silent in the face of injustices.

Because this is the thing about me and Kili – we don't consciously choose to be open-minded or strong willed. I promise that we're not trying to be defiant or disrespectful. Our brains are just cognitively wired to never accept anything at face value and see a multitude of alternatives. That insatiable curiosity drives us to ask endless questions and seek out new experiences. It's (usually) not recklessness, because we do think and care. We're just wired to engage. We have very strong internal senses of self and morality, and we dance to the beat of our own drum. We have never been able to wrap our minds around statements like 'because I said so' or 'because it is'. This is especially true when it comes to prejudices, like the dwarves' against hobbits and elves. Why are we good and they bad? Kili genuinely can't comprehend it.

Added to that, Kili and I both seemingly wear our hearts on our sleeves; being outgoing, lighthearted, fun-loving, romantic dreamers. But the low self-esteem is there. We will happily gush for hours, but if you ask us to share our pain, we will immediately clam up. Red alert, deny! deny! deny! Also, we may get angry for a moment, but we have a very hard time holding grudges (which dwarven culture exalts).

Kili shows this several times – after Thorin's rebuke about the orc joke Kili bows his head and doesn't look up when Balin starts speaking; after being completely humiliated in front of the entire Company he just says “funny” and looks down (being hurt and vulnerable instead of getting angry and lashing out), and immediately joins in the food fight; he immediately lightens the conversation after telling Tauriel about his promise to his mother; he has his vulnerable and pained “remote and far away” line; he continues to deny and play down his injury even after Thorin tells him he doesn't get to continue on the quest; he doesn't want Fili to defend him to Thorin but drop it and go with the others; and he makes his dazed speech about Tauriel, wondering if it's even possible that she might have loved his lowly self.

Not only is his personality more elven than dwarven (he isn’t emotionally invested in fighting, one of his two main weapons is a bow, and he ponders the nature of nature), he is also seen as ugly and very 'elf-like' physically - he only has stubble, is the least deep-chested (even Ori has more of a barrel chest and waist), is the second slimmest (only Ori is slimmer), and is on the taller side. As the icing on the cake, he's not even attracted to dwarven beauty standards.

So, Kili has a lot of reasons to have low self-esteem. Here are some quotes from other ENFP's:

My experience is that most people perceive me to be excitable, bubbly, and as someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, but that’s just the shiny surface of the person I am. The truth is, my external behavior seeks to create a harmonious, positive vibe within my groups (Ne+Fi) in order to make a better environment for myself & others; as a charismatic extrovert, I know that wearing all my negative emotions on my sleeve would drain everyone around me, so instead, I rely on my Ne & Te to guide the conversation to topics that help me explore my inner emotional world (Fi). (source)

You know you're an ENFP when you love expressing your happiness and excitement about everything in life, but rarely display negative feelings. There's a misconception that we are always happy people, but we meet the other end of the extreme as well. We just don't feel the need to share that side of our emotions. (source)

A growing ENFP is an increasingly sensitive person who spends more and more time concerned with private matters of the heart. Whereas the public ENFP is active, entertaining, clever, and playful, the private one can be worried, fearful, and morose. Accepting both sides of their personality is essential to fully understanding them. (source)

Though this type gives off a light-hearted, fun-loving air, they actually take life quite seriously. ENFPs feel their lows just as intensely as they feel their highs – they just aren’t as comfortable expressing negative emotion as they are positive. (source)

We don’t actually wear our hearts on our sleeves. Shocking, I know! Being highly emotional, loud little roller coasters you’d think it’d be easy to get to know us but nope. We’re the weirdest mix of super private and an open book that you’ll ever meet. (source)

Also:

People underestimating your intelligence because you lead with the fun, upbeat parts of your personality. [cut] Others being surprised that you hold such strong opinions and beliefs, despite your easy-going nature. (source)

These deeply held values of the ENFP is something that most people do not perceive at first. ENFPs can appear casual, flexible and easy-going for most things in life but when they feel their values are being compromised, they will stand resolute and even stubborn, surprising even their closest co-workers. (source)

None of this means we're faking the light-heartedness – something inside us, no matter how depressed we might get, refuses to stop having hope and seeing good in the world. We literally can't hold grudges. Our annoying brains question and challenge ourselves just as much, or even more, than they do others.

There was one point in my life when I was so depressed I was close to becoming suicidal, and (except for my mom) the people I confided in couldn't believe it. How could I be depressed and outgoing, lighthearted, with a deep belief in the spiritual goodness of the universe? I honestly don't know – I'm just that kind of walking paradox. So is Kili.

P.S. There is a reason most Kili fans call him a puppy. When I say lighthearted and outgoing, I mean we're very silly and probably seen as insane by the general public. There's no one in my real life I can be completely silly and dorky with, but I can through Kili! (Weird People by Little Mix is our anthem)

#Arwen #Kili #tolkiengenweek #Mine

5 notes · View notes

deusexceteri · 7 years

Text

A collection of random theories (of varying plausibility) I have about the Jak and Daxter games:

Engravings in Mar’s tomb seem to depict a creature that resembles Gol Acheron, it’s possible that in throwing Gol into the Dark Eco Silos he was transformed and became the first Metalhead Leader, unleashing a reign of terror across the universe but later being usurped by Kor.

On the contrary, Metalheads are beings that feed on Eco to survive and their Skull Gems actually bear strong resemblance to the glowing features on many Precursor temples, it is possible the Metalheads were created by the Precursors to fight the Dark Makers, but the Metalheads eventually became uncontrollable and turned on their creators.

The warrior met in Rock village has an impressive resume, having highhandedly defended the village from Lurker attacks for about a year. His hair and eye colour match Jak’s and elements of his outfit match the statue of Mar and the statues seen in No Man’s Canyon, lending some evidence to suggest that he is the Mar. Additionally the flags in Rock Village resemble Mar’s seal, just with the two circles removed.

Further, if you subscribe to the theory that Jak is the original Mar and will eventually go back in time to found Haven City, the warrior in Rock Village complains about a headache and could be suffering amnesia. While not necessary for him to pretend not to recognize Jak or Daxter, it would mean the fact he didn’t seem to recognize either of them was completely genuine.

However, all this may be moot, as the time travel in the Jak and Daxter games may not actually form a complete loop, but instead each use of time travel formed a new timeline. Some evidence of this is in the fact that Kor seemed absolutely convinced he’d defeat Jak, which wouldn’t make sense if Young! Samos and Young! Jak would be going back in time to raise Jak to defeat Kor. Additionally, it’s possible that when Kor comes through the portal at the beginning of Jak 2 he is coming through from a future where he was victorious. If the Rift Gate forms a new timeline when used that would mean Jak may actually not become the Mar who founded Haven City, but instead forge his own path.

Noting Kor coming through the Rift Gate at the beginning, he does so without a Time Map, and needed the portal to be active to come through at all. This is noteworthy because when Jak, Daxter, Keira, and Samos travel into the future they arrive above the city, falling like meteors, rather than through the gate in the Metalhead Nest. This suggests that Kor is coming not through time, but through space, his armies flooding from some other planet the Metalheads conquered. Kor’s line “Finally the last Rift Gate has been opened.” would in this case suggest that Jak’s world is part of some vast Rift Gate network, and that it is the last to be attacked by the Metalheads. If true, it’s probably a lonely galaxy out there...

Still on the Kor bandwagon, when Onin tests Jak before giving him the last piece of Mar’s seal, she is talking with Kor about Samos’ plan to overthrow the Baron. Onin remarks (through Pecker) that Kor’s voice sounds very familiar, before giving him a death-glare. Much of Onin’s backstory is unknown, but she seems to be a sage of some nature, possibly of Light Eco, and it’s possible that at some point in the past, she actually tried to fight Metal! Kor, thinking her powers were strong enough. This fight may have even been when she became blind, who knows. It would be interesting if her past was ever fleshed-out more, she seems like she must’ve been a real badass when she was in her youth.

If Keira were to become a sage, it’d almost certainly be one of Dark Eco. Don’t get me wrong, Light Eco is certainly cool and all, mastery of Green Eco would be carrying on he father’s work, and the other types could each play on her personality in an interesting way, but as a sage of Dark Eco is where she would almost certainly be needed most. The Metalheads feed on it, the Dark Makers thrive in it, and Jak is tormented by it, studying it and trying to overcome the failings of Gol and Maia would be the most challenging and the most rewarding task she could devote to. Returning to Gol and Maia’s citadel and recovering their work, studying both their experiments and discoveries along with their slow descent into madness, it’d make an interesting storyline. As a sage of Dark Eco, much of her work would almost certainly be in finding ways to destroy, counteract, or otherwise nullify the substance, though once she found ways to use it against both the Metalheads and Dark Makers, seeing her channel it for that purpose would be awesome.

UR-86 is Erol. Or rather, a copy of the parts of Erol’s consciousness that specialized in combat and racing. UR-86′s profile says he was built approximately during Jak 2, easily at the peak of Erol’s racing career. As the Baron was experimenting with mechanized Krimzon Guard at this time (either to save human lives from being wasted fighting the Metalheads -or- to remove the flawed human element from the Krimzon Guard and better control Haven’s populace) it would make sense that the KG Commander, a man renowned for his combat and driving skill, would be used as a template for KG Deathbot AI at some point or another. How UR-86 ended up in Kras City is anyone’s guess but Krew probably had some part in it.

Samos has a fairly odd line in Jak X, saying that “A woman’s place is in the garage fixing cars!” This fairly sexist sentiment is fairly strange at first glance as in the real world we’re used to seeing anything mechanical as stereotypically a man’s work, however the explanation may be quite simple. Given the war with the Metalheads almost certainly requiring an army at least a third the size of the population and given that Jak’s world is fairly patriarchal, one would expect that there’d be a large gap in many industries, industries that are themselves necessary to the war effort such as engineers. Much like how many women were given factory jobs during the World Wars due to the huge loss in manpower that conscription caused, it’s possible that Haven City, being in an almost perpetual state of conscription and war, has simply come to see highly mechanical and technical work as jobs women do, not men. Samos may have grown up used to that cultural dynamic and instilled it in his daughter when she was young, encouraging her to become a mechanic. In this sense, her racing (both in Jak 2 and Jak X) was an act of rebellion against her expected gender role, not just defiance towards a strict parent.

Will add more to this as I think of them, others are welcome to add their own.

#jak and daxter #deusexrambles

18 notes · View notes

topmixtrends · 5 years

Link

NEARLY A MONTH after her firing from the White House, Omarosa Manigault Newman appeared on Celebrity Big Brother to embark on a “total Trump detox.” In the two and a half weeks she was on the CBS spinoff show, the former reality TV star discussed her time working for President Trump, a man she once considered a friend, mentor, and fellow trafficker in showmanship.

She recounted being “haunted by [his] tweets every single day,” insisted Vice President Mike Pence was the person to keep an eye on, and claimed she joined the Trump Administration because she “felt like she was serving [her] country, not him.”

But Omarosa’s tell-all Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House offers less patriotic reasons for her decision to join the “Trump Train” in July 2016. She writes that the former businessman “had asked [her] to support” his presidential campaign, an offer she couldn’t refuse because of the gratitude she felt toward him for casting her on the NBC reality TV show, The Apprentice, in 2003. The relationship, she says, was “symbiotic.” When the first season premiered, it launched both of their careers as national shock jocks, eager to secure high ratings at any cost on the reality TV circuit. With his reputation as a straight-talking “real estate maverick” from New York, and her status as an eccentric villain who could get him “attention and headlines,” the duo, with the guidance of reality TV producer Mark Burnett, helped Donald Trump go from being a failed real-estate mogul representing the worst of the ’80s, to a legitimate businessman equipped with marketable catchphrases and a brazen charisma which would later capture the hearts of American voters.

When she lays out her journey from the Westlake projects in Youngstown, Ohio, to college, the Clinton White House, reality television, and finally the Trump White House, you can’t help but marvel at the sheer variety of her life experiences, and her relentless determination to realize the “American Dream” on her own terms. While the idea of achieving immense wealth through sweat and grit is possibly the most harmful of America’s founding lies, it doesn’t stop Omarosa from talking about her hardships with bootstraps language. It’s both an extraordinary and gloomy testament to what marginalized people are forced to survive, notwithstanding depression, poverty, and prejudice.

Grief takes center stage in several passages of Unhinged. In Omarosa’s world, mourning is messy, compassionate, callous, selfish, and self-serving. At her brother’s funeral in October 2011, she writes that the National Enquirer sent a black woman journalist to pose as a griever, only for her to take Omarosa’s eulogy, and present it as a reported article. It’s an immoral stunt which Omarosa acknowledges and responds to with a lawsuit against the tabloid. The only problem was David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer, had a cozy relationship with her then-former boss, Donald Trump. In a move that could only exist in Trump-Omarosaland, the self-styled mogul negotiates for his protégé to be the West Coast editor of the tabloid, in exchange for the lawsuit being dropped. What would seem an unforgivable breach of trust to most becomes another business deal for Trump, and a résumé-builder for Omarosa.

Before The Apprentice began shooting in the fall of 2003, Omarosa states that she read “every Trump magazine profile and interview,” and watched “videos of his TV interviews” with the purpose of turning herself into “a female version of him.” She uses the same disciplined mimicry in Unhinged, parroting the playground insults both used by and lobbed against her former boss. She calls the president “Twitter Fingers,” brings up his obsession with daily tanning sessions, and decides his love of “Big Macs and fried chicken” have left him “obviously obese.” She also alludes to the diagnoses made about Trump’s mental health by professionals and non-professionals alike, often highlighting her concern for his sanity.

These remarks may be truthful and humorous to some, depending on how many times you can laugh at “orange-in-chief” or “cheeto dust” appearing on your timeline. But they don’t present the reader with the sort of confidential information you’d assume close proximity to the most powerful man in the world would yield. For all Omarosa’s methodical scheming, her attempts to solicit support from the same liberal media she was more than happy to antagonize are sloppy and desperate. After finding herself exiled from Trumplandia, she appears to be on a mission to find a sympathetic ear she can use for her elaborate public redemption.

When Omarosa writes that the discovery of the alleged N-word tape would be the “last straw” for her, you feel insulted at how brazenly she’s willing to undermine the reader’s intelligence to salvage her own image. By the time she claims to have heard the tape, there’s been too much said and done for her to pretend that Trump’s bigotry was her “blind spot.” She’s also proven that she doesn’t mind leveraging her unique relationship with the commander-in-chief to rebuff evidence of his prejudice. When six alumni of color from The Apprentice speak out against the then-presidential hopeful right before the New York primaries, she goes on the offensive. She books several interviews on cable news channels, writing that her “strategy was to say how much Trump had supported” her. So in other words, he had black friends. This just goes to show that if there’s anything Omarosa knows how to invoke or minimize when it’s convenient for her, it’s race.

Omarosa isn’t convincing anyone of her supposed naïveté and ignorance about Trump’s racism either. We find her stumbling her way through a litany of Trump’s “racially charged” offenses, some of which include birthing the birther movement, pitting races against each other on The Apprentice, referring to Haiti as a “shithole country,” hiring both Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, calling Mexicans “drug dealers” and “rapists,” and claiming there were “fine people on both sides” in the wake of Charlottesville. She gives racism an array of spicy euphemisms like “provocative,” “inflammatory,” “controversial,” and “inappropriate,” sometimes preferring its academic, elegant cousin, “racial,” when Trump’s remarks veer too far even from the type of prejudice white people can tolerate from drunk relatives during the holidays.

When she does go into detail about her day-to-day activities at the White House, she can’t resist portraying herself as a humble servant of the American people, looking to advance “diversity” in a government adored by the likes of Klu Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. There’s no question Omarosa took her position in the administration seriously, a reflection of her own self-seriousness to be sure, but this account doesn’t seem like an honest recollection of what she actually did on the job. If she’s not telling inflated tales about putting out fires, she’s either anticipating or creating them. And when she mentions being worried about Trump’s ability to process complex information, or the establishment vultures encircling the Oval Office, it doesn’t conjure up any of the shock or concern she seems to want from the reader. Perhaps these statements are so in line with what we expect from the Trump administration, we can only greet Omarosa’s list of complaints with an eye roll and a told-you-so.

In the prologue and epilogue, she goes back to her unceremonious sacking by Trump’s chief of staff, General John Kelly, in the Situation Room. The ordeal is admittedly disturbing to read as she recounts being held in the top-secret room without access to her belongings, or any counsel. Yet it’s difficult to pity her or feel surprised. This is an administration led by a narcissist who’d already set the terms of engagement, long before Omarosa decided to join his cast of villains, liars, and corporate titans treating the planet’s future like a game of truth or dare.

Unhinged fails to depict its author as a brave whistleblower revealing impeachment-worthy secrets on the Trump presidency. She doesn’t provide us with a persuasive enough reason for her decision to remain loyal to him, nor does she reckon with how much damage her support of a morally bankrupt administration has inflicted on the communities she professes to care about. And when it’s finally convenient for her to call Trump a bigot, she’s already dug up her own grave so well, she might as well officiate the rest of her funeral.

What Unhinged does reveal is Omarosa’s knack for making her ambition, however ugly or severe, as exhilarating to watch as a horror movie. Like her former colleagues who went on mea culpa tours after being voted off the White House, she’s managed to capture the attention of the public, albeit briefly, through a dedicated performance of whatever version of herself she’s playing that day.

Khanya Khondlo Mtshali is a freelance writer and critic. Follow her @kublakhanya.

The post The Convenient Villain appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2FjrDB8

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

As Congress debates new rules for food stamp recipients, race is one thing Republicans backing the proposal don’t want to discuss.

Legislators are currently discussing a bill that would reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, often referred to as food stamps. The reforms would create stricter work requirements for able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 59, requiring them to provide monthly proof that they are working a minimum number of hours a week or are in a job training program. Those who don’t meet these requirements would lose their spot in the program, a change that could cut some $20 billion over a 10-year period.

Republicans support the new measure and argue that the program should be doing a better job of promoting self-sufficiency.

But as Vox’s Tara Golshan explained in April, SNAP already has work requirements, leaving some congressional Democrats and policy experts to argue that the legislation is written in a way that aims to kick people out of the program.

And during a House Agriculture Committee meeting in April, Rep. David Scott (D-GA) noted that race plays a part in discussions of food stamps and public assistance.

“The image of able-bodied men not working are African-American men in the minds ― not in everybody’s minds, but there are unfortunately people out there who have this mental disposition,” Scott, a black legislator, said. He argued that the bill was “filled with racial vicissitudes,” adding that the new work requirements played on stereotypes that cast African Americans receiving public assistance as lazy, despite evidence that more whites use public assistance.

Republicans rejected the suggestion that race had anything to do with the issue of poverty or food stamps, arguing that the issue was race-neutral. “I’m shocked when those kind of comments are made,” Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), told the Huffington Post. “I don’t think hunger really cares about your heritage or the color of your skin or anything else.”

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), meanwhile, told HuffPost that he had never heard someone connect race and food stamps. “I don’t have any reference to it being racial other than what David [Scott] said,” Conaway said.

Though some politicians deny a connection, the concepts of race and welfare have long been linked in public discourse. African Americans have often been inaccurately depicted as consuming the lion’s share of public assistance. And research suggests that inaccurate ideas about who receives welfare may in fact influence how white Americans feel about these types of federal programs.

Welfare, in this context, serves as a catchall term for a number of programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, SNAP, and Medicaid. The racial makeup of these programs varies, but for the most part, whites are the largest group receiving benefits, making up 36 percent of those receiving food stamps, 43 percent of Medicaid recipients, and 28 percent of those using TANF. And in 2017, a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, found that public assistance pulls more whites out of poverty than other racial groups with higher poverty rates.

“There is a perception out there that the safety net is only for minorities. While it’s very important to minorities because they have higher poverty rates and face barriers that lead to lower earnings, it’s also quite important to whites, particularly the white working class,” Isaac Shapiro, a senior fellow at the CBPP, told the Washington Post last year.

Despite the fact that whites receive more of these benefits, people of color, particularly African Americans and undocumented immigrants, are often accused of being the largest groups using welfare. (There are actually several restrictions in place that keep most undocumented immigrants from accessing public assistance, but they still help pay for the safety net through taxes.)

And African Americans, despite being initially locked out of early public safety net programs due to racial discrimination, have come to be seen as the face of the program.

This was perhaps best captured by Ronald Reagan during his 1976 presidential campaign, when he framed welfare recipients as con artists. He noted that an unnamed woman in Chicago “has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four nonexistent deceased husbands. She’s got Medicaid, is getting food stamps and welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000.”

Regan was speaking of a woman named Linda Taylor, who was called a “welfare queen” in Chicago press. Her crimes were much more extensive than fraud — she was investigated for homicide, kidnapping, and baby trafficking, among other crimes — but Reagan’s description of her contributed to the stereotype that black women con their way into and then improperly use public assistance, a stereotype that continues to affect discussions today. Some experts argue that the use of the term “welfare reform” is racially coded, serving as a dog whistle that positions public assistance as an unfair advantage given to minorities.

Recent research has shown that racial animus — especially the belief that African Americans and other people of color are failing to uphold American values like self-reliance — may have an effect on support for public assistance programs.

In May, Berkeley sociologist Rachel Wetts and Stanford’s Robb Willer released a study showing the findings of a set of experiments looking at racial attitudes on welfare. As Vox’s Dylan Matthews wrote, they note that white opposition to public assistance programs has increased since 2008 — the year that Barack Obama was elected. The researchers also found that “showing white Americans data suggesting that white privilege is diminishing — that the US is becoming majority nonwhite, or that the gap between white and black/Latino incomes is closing — led them to express more opposition to welfare spending,” with white respondents supporting cuts to food stamps despite the programs largely benefitting white Americans.

And while the researchers caution that their findings don’t necessarily translate into actual voting behavior, Matthews notes that it fits into “a growing body of evidence to suggest that white Americans who fear a loss of racial status are driving major shifts in policy and politics.”

The evidence suggests that race has long played a role in discussions around public assistance benefits and food stamps for decades. And given what we know about race and public assistance, it’s highly unlikely that this has changed.

Original Source -> Republicans say race isn’t a factor in the food stamp debate. Research suggests otherwise.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

goldeagleprice · 6 years

Text

The essence of animals on Roman coins: Phase II

We are fortunate enough to share our ecosystem with animals. They enhance the natural beauty of our planet and even the most ferocious amongst them illustrate the nature with its refined and primal grace. Many artists had tried to capture this creation of nature with the brush or chisel but yet few come near to copying their perfection. Every aspect of a man’s creativity is inspired by its surroundings. Hence, it shouldn’t surprise us to see these beautiful animals depicted on coins too. One of the finest artistic representation of them are the animals on Roman coins. This coinage covers the wide variety of fauna, the embellishment of these beasts on Roman coinage is unique and awe-inspiring.

As one of the most studied and collected coinages of the world, Roman coinage offers the most beautiful illustrations of animals. The social and religious culture of Rome had a deep connection with the animals. Their fascination with the wild beasts is evident through their games, painting and intricate design on their coins.

The variation in which animals are depicted on Roman coins can be divided into six categories. The first three categories are discussed in the previous article, the essences of animals on Roman coins Phase I. To continue this analysis further let’s discuss the other three categories of animals on Roman coins.

Animals associated with the provinces

Animals as moneyers( Mint masters) initials

Animals with cart and carriages

Animals associated with the province

The Republic and Imperial Rome administrated vast jurisdictional area under it in which many provinces were controlled. Each province was personified as a deity attached to an animal, due to some significance. The above-shown image depicts four coins from different provinces of Rome. Each coin portrays different animals.

The first coin (1a) depicts Aegyptos, Egypt personified as a woman seated on the ground with Ibis, near her leg, depicted facing the goddess. This reverse design of this coin was common in all the coins of Emperor Hadrian. These coins were stuck on the occasion of the Emperor’s visit to Egypt. The Ibis was sacred and peculiar to Egypt. It is said that this bird would die if taken somewhere else. Ibis was worshipped, due to its nature to destroy the serpent and insects that destroy the food supply.

The province of Africa, a northern part of the vast continent under the administration of Rome extended to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The personification of this province on the coin was same as Aegyptos, her headgear was in the shape of elephant’s trunk. Africa holds a scorpion in her right hand on the above-shown coin (1b).

This coin was struck under Emperor Hadrian on his journey to the Province of Africa. The symbol of the scorpion is seen as a rich natural resource of this province. The Scorpion is also recognized as the goddess Africa third venomous animal.

The silver denarius (1c) depicts the personification of the province Hispania near her feet a rabbit. The significance of the hare on this coin was that this animal was found in abundance in Spain. Emperor Hadrian depicted Hispania on the silver, gold and bronze issues during his visit to Spain province. Later on, the same design was copied by Emperor Ulpius Cornelius Laelianus on his gold aureus in 269 CE.

The coin showed in the image 1d is interesting: the personification of the Dacia province in the form of a woman is illustrated in the centre with the eagle and lion depicted near her leg. The animals shown on this coin represent the Roman legions (army units). Lion is the symbol of Legio XIII Gemina and eagle represents Legio V Macedonica legion. This coin was issued to pay homage to the Roman legions garrisoned in the province during Emperor Philip of the Arabs reign.

Other interesting coins presenting goddess and animals are Mauretania with the horse, Africa with the lion, Arabia with camel and Moesia with bull and lion, etc.

Animals as moneyers( Mint masters) initials

The coinage of Roman Republic was issued by the authority of the Roman senate. The denarius series of this monetary system had different variations, in this series different types of anagram, monogram and small animal symbols came up, this kind of coins circulated till 150 BCE. These symbols were the initials of moneyer ’s, the mint master in the Roman Republic, three mint masters issued coins

The bronze As depicted in the above image (2a) features a butterfly resting on a vine branch with leaves and grapes around it. In Roman culture, the butterfly represents liberation after the death because of their life cycle. The soul is also called butterfly-soul which gets liberated from a cocoon of the body after death. The significance of butterfly in this coin is unknown, it may be the initials of a moneyer.

A donkey is depicted on the bronze as (2b) standing above the ship Prow. The donkey was an important domestic animal for the common citizens of Rome. On this coin, it may be connected to the moneyer’s origin from his lower class.

The dolphin is depicted on the Roman coin in a fixed position or in a state of motion. Dolphin (https://www.mintageworld.com/media/detail/3695-dolphin-on-coins/ ) in important to Neptune the god of the sea, it was also associated with goddess Venus and God Apollo. On this denarius (2c) of the republic, the dolphin is depicted below the Dioscuri. This may be connected to a moneyer, but the significance of these initials is still unclear.

The fourth coin in the image, silver denarii (2d) depicts an owl below the deity Dioscuri( twin sons of Zeus). The owl is the companion of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and strategies. Romans believed that the presence of a hooting owl on the roof brings the news of death. Owl was also the embellishment of knowledge and intelligence.

The last animal in this category is a fly, It is depicted at the bottom of the Biga driven by Goddess Luna on the last coin (2e). This insect may have a symbolic importance in the Roman culture. It has some connection to the epidemic-prone area, but any documented proof is not present. This symbol mostly appears on the coin in the anonymous denarius coinage of the Republic.

Animals with cart and carriages

The universal use of domestic animals is to pull a cart or carriage, to help transport goods or people. Then why would the Romans be any different? In Rome, these animals were used for pulling chariots during games like racing. Some of the animals were particularly assigned to pull the chariot of the important people of the empire.

The above-shown coin (3a) portrayed two animals pulling a chariot, this vehicle is usually called a Biga. It was used in Rome for sport, transportation and ceremonies. The most common animal on this chariot was a horse, but on art or architecture or even on ceremonies it was replaced by other animals. The driver of the Biga was Bigarus, this two-horse chariot represents moon in philosophy.

The two horses pulling chariot on coins was a common icon of Republic coinage. Two yoke chariots were scared to Goddess Luna, she was always shown driving it. The above-shown denarius depicting two-horse chariots were drawn by the goddess Victory. The philosophical theory relates the duality of the horse with a metaphor of the charioteer’s soul divided by genesis and apogenesis.

The second coin (3b) depicts the Biga of goats, in Roman culture goat represented victory, intelligence and even voraciousness. The Roman god Faunus was also a half goat, goat blood was used in religious scarifies. In the above coin, Juno is riding the Biga of goats.

This benevolent coinage of Roman republic also depicted biga pulled by snakes. The silver denarius (3c) depicts goddess Ceres holding the torch and two snakes pulling the chariot. The snakes are associated with health and medicine in the Roman mythology, it is believed that they consist the power of healing.

There is also the Biga pulled by Cupids depicted on the denarius of the republic, Neptune is driving the biga of Hippocampus (sea horse like mythological creature), Hercules driving the Biga of Centaurs. There were elephants and stag Bigas also.

The propaganda or status and royalty developed and now chariots were pulled by more than two animals. The chariot drawn by three animals was called Triga and by four animals was called Quadriga.

The first silver denarius coin (4a) depicts Victory driving the Triga pulled by three horses. The depicting of this chariot is a rare sight on both Roman architecture and coinage. The reference shows that the use of Triga (https://www.mintageworld.com/media/detail/5958-triga-the-three-horse-chariot-on-coins/ ) in the war was more than that in the games was quite less. The Etruscan used three horses in a race, the third horse was used as a trace-horse.

The second chariot is actually a cart called Carpentum depicted on the Sestertius (4b). This cart was used by Roman for travelling, but later it gained the religious importance. This cart was pulled by mules, this animal was occasionally replaced by the horse. The emperor of Rome used Carpentum on the occasion of a long festive procession.

The last type of this category is Quadriga depicted on the coin of the feature image of this blog. The Quadriga is pulled by four animals often mounted by a male deity, but few goddesses also drive this chariot. God Apollo is often depicted driving the four-horse chariot. In the above-shown silver didrachm, goddess Victory is driving the horse chariot. Quadriga appeared on all most all Roman pantheons including Sol, Minerva, Libertus, Jupiter Mars and even the deified emperors. On the coin of Phoenicia, Poseidon, the god of the seas drives the quadriga pulled by four Hippocampus.

At the end of this analysis, it would be important to highlight about the six-horse chariot called Seiuga. It required a high degree of skill to ride this. This chariot was hardly used for racing; even the representation of this chariot on the coin was absent.

All the animals on the Roman coins have an important connection to the culture. Different animals had different values in the Roman religious practices. Pig, Ram, goat and a bull were sacrificed to the god Mars during the time of war. In the marriage ceremony, Roman sacrificed a sheep or a lamp as the insignia of purity. Julius Caesar also had a full farm of lions, his beasts were used for public entertainment. On the coins of Julius Caesar elephants were the symbol of his authority and power over the Roman Republic.

The use of animals in every aspect of life was an important factor for many civilizations and empires around the globe. In a way, these practices were responsible for the extinction of many species, yet their essence was embellished on the coins. Animals on Roman coins represent the best iconography of Roman fauna. The complex imagination of mankind and its affinity for art has given us the privilege to know about these mighty beasts which are extinct or on the verge of extinction.

We are privileged to share our ecosystem with them and harming them is going to harm us indirectly. They sustain the balance of our nature and control the food chain. Without these creatures, we will have a difficult time adjusting. Let’s pledge to protect, conserve and help them restore their natural habitat.

Reference:

Animals on the Roman coin by T.R McIntosh

Gallienus’ Animal Series Coins and Roman Religion by Richard D. Weigel

The post The essence of animals on Roman coins: Phase II appeared first on Blog | Mintage World.

#Precious Metals

0 notes

gzysanora0349521-blog · 6 years

Text

Comply With Buck General Into War.

Just what is actually a keyword? Thus big picture, our company check out it claiming, video is actually absolutely bursting along with the innovators in that video recording as Apple and also other firms do a whole lot additional innovation on points as AR and Virtual Reality, extending our existing functions as well as consistently checking out new options like we made with Job Felix to allow folks to author ph for those. We locate this a bit arrogant for a business that has certainly not yet possessed a solitary patent issued (currently hanging), is http://todayhealth18.info actually pre-revenue, and has offered the committing neighborhood bit in the technique of evidence that its own technology is innovative. In 2014, the USC Shoah Groundwork piloted a digital rendition from Pinchas Gutter system, a Polish Holocaust survivor who was merely seven years of ages at the beginning of World War II. Fans can talk to Gutter system a concern, and also the electronic depiction would answer that. This is implemented via a combo of vocal acknowledgment innovation, natural language handling as well as thoroughness: The Shoah Base videotaped Seamless gutter for more than TWENTY hrs as well as asked him much more than 1,500 concerns to exhaust the opportunities of what a. student may ask him. If you would like to view what colour the native population perhaps was a considerable amount of opportunity ago, all you must carry out is acquire a precise planet, and view just what colour are individuals in the exact same latitude. ( NKE ). The business price reduces will obviously aid the greatest taxed, find link- Best taxed Business 2017 - Tons of health and wellness power, care as well as technician firms on this checklist. New style ARR growth surged to 109% on a steady unit of currency manner as well as demonstrates the proceeded strong uptake from each one of our new version registration offerings. Solar system is certainly not regularly such a stark aspect of personality nevertheless when Solar system and Lilith are actually with each other in the graph ones cold and darker" edges can develop a method Matriarchal touch.

You will definitely be actually a popular person with other Blacks looking for such competent and well competent white slaves as those they witnessed at your home or office.6. White servers possess an exclusive skill for performing housework, washing, horticulture, grass care, washing your cars and truck, refining your shoes, cooking as well as serving foods. He understands certainly not to embrace as well as say to, that the intimate minutes he shares with his woman are actually planned to be just that-meant to be delighted in in between both of all of them, identifying that when other individuals are actually informed to the details, it not experiences very thus special and also that is a sign of dishonor. OK, that was actually the one-fourth that occurred, the acquisitions that are after the company and also the objectives, re-stated, or re-iterated, featuring the target from possessing a cash flow favorable one-fourth since Q4 2018, and afterwards forward. Odds: Being light-skin myself I have possessed lots of negative rendezvous along with black skin afro-americans, as well as I did nothing to anger all of them. 15. Reasonable- One characteristic of a gent that several pay attention to is his feeling of generosity with his time, information and also his knowledge. The full particulars from what was actually concurred between Riyadh and Moscow in early Oct 2017, nevertheless, did certainly not promptly become clear, besides some long-lasting strategic agreements in the power area and also the investment through Riyadh of Russian S-400 Triumf sky self defense rocket devices of the kind which had actually been so successful in Syria. Any time a business acquires a considerable section of its growth, income and also benefit from accounting plans that are actually greatly reliant on quotes of future profits, a client needs to be actually skeptical. In Emma (1816) she points to the hazards of race-mixing as well as blacks trying to civilize whites and raising all of them to equal status. Folks moved the blame from remnants of racial discrimination in America to problems in dark neighborhoods," Critcher informed The Huffington Message over the phone. In the tracking 4 fourths, we've assisted our customers deal with greater than 150 trillion information transactions throughout our Expertise Cloud remedies.

0 notes

writ118krollsj-blog · 6 years

Text

ARM: The Animal Recovery Mission

Before seeing this video, I had never really heard of the Animal Recovery Mission, also known as ARM Investigations. Everyone knows the stigma around the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an animal rights organization that is more commonly known as PETA. Even though, as an animal rights group, PETA has good intentions, some people believe that they are so desperate that they go the extra mile and actually stage the animal abuse seen in their videos. You’ve heard these rumors right?! With that being said, I wanted to find out more about the Animal Recovery Mission and their investigation into Larson Dairy Inc.

With this resource session, I went straight to the source, The Animal Recovery Mission’s website. On their ‘About’ tab I found out that this animal welfare organization was started in 2010 by founder, Chief Executive Director, and Lead Investigator, Richard Couto. In his bio, it states that Couto used to be a board member and investigator for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), another nationally known animal welfare group. While investigating an illegal slaughter farm he discovered a former thoroughbred race horse, ID’d as Freedom’s Flight by a tattoo on the inside of his upper lip. With a little research, Couto found out that Freedom’s Flight was a direct descendant of Secretariat, one of the most well-known race horses in history. After breaking his leg at a race in 2008, which ended his career, Freedoms was sold numerous times before eventually ending up at the illegal slaughter farm that Couto and the SPCA rescued him from. This experience, and numerous death and political threats from “high ranking officials” is what inspired Couto to organize the Animal Recovery Mission organization based out of Miami, Florida (ARM Investigations).

As you all know by now, ARM Investigations were the one’s who went undercover at a Larson Dairy farm, captured evidence of abuse by farm workers, and released it to the public. On their website, they have a whole page dedicated to the Larson Dairy undercover operation that the ran. You can find it here! At the bottom of the page, a link to a full PDF Report is provided. In this report, a list of 8 different local, state and national departments, agencies, and administrations that this report was sent to, various satellite or drone images (I’m not really sure which) depicting exactly where the farm and it’s buildings are located from a bird’s eye view. Also included are a few pages of Larson Dairy Inc. company information as well as 18 different Ockeechobee County Property Appraiser reports. The information included on them is beyond me, mostly because I’m not in the industry and am not entirely sure what each abbreviation included means. However, I believe they are just value reports for the land that Larson Dairy Inc. owns. I’m not entirely sure why these are relevant though. Also included in the report is a page from the 2017 Florida Statues, sections highlighted indicating the crimes that ARM Investigations accuses the employees and Jacob Larson of Larson Dairy of committing. Additionally, there are about 20 different still images from the video footage captured depicting the abuse that took place during ARM’s investigation with 10-15 bullet points near the end of the report describing said abuse. Finally there are also miscellaneous files such as a Code of Conduct (which explicitly lists “Abuse of livestock” at the top of the list of unacceptable behaviors in the workplace), and a few employee agreement forms that were signed and dated 8/16/2017 (indicating the beginning of the investigation).

While reading the summary of this report near the very beginning, I notice that the rhetoric used by the president of ARM Investigations, Richard Couto, seems to be targeting Jacob Larson directly, calling him out numerous times for violating the Code of Conduct including in his own hiring process. It is also disclosed that on top of not following his own Code of Conduct when it comes to animal mistreatment and abuse, Jacob Larson has also threatened to file a law suit against a former employee (another ARM Investigator) after trying to expose abuse taking place on the farm. Was this because Larson knew about the abuse on his farm and was trying to keep it quiet? However, this claim and incident is not backed up by evidence and is not explained further as to HOW exactly the former employee tried to expose the abuse. Was it formally brought up to Jacob Larson as directed in the employee handbook? Or immediately taken to the public? Possibly exaggerated? On that, I’m not really sure!

Quoted in the original Washington Post article that I came across, in response to the video and accusations made against him, Jacob Larson stated,

“The unusual use of force is simply unacceptable on out dairy or on any other far. We have strict protocols involving animal care and clearly the behavior shown in this video goes against everything we stand for and will not be tolerated.”

He also declared that they are “equally concerned about the manner in which this video was brought to out attention,” and insisted that had the abuse been brought to his attention sooner, he would have been able to do something about it much earlier (Andrews).And being that ARM Investigations called out and targeted Jacob Larson directly in their report that was sent out to numerous county, state and national agencies, yet never showed or talked about Jacob Larson being a perpetrator of the abuse, this leads me to speculate that maybe, just MAYBE, Jacob Larson really does have a passion and respect for his cows and truly didn’t know about the abuse going on on his farm. This makes me recall the very last seconds of the video in which ARM Investigations encourages people to “choose a dairy free plant based diet”. Could it be that this video was used as propaganda to perpetuate this sort of agenda to end dairy and meat consumption similar to what PETA has been accused of in the past? It could be a possibility! Why else would they target Jacob Larson directly in their report, and jump directly to encouraging a plant based diet instead of more humane and preventative measures to make sure food production animals, including dairy cows, are treated humanely and respectfully? Again, I am not really sure! All I know is that that videos and investigations like this can ruin business for a farm, especially when/IF exaggerated.

“If cows aren’t cool, clean and comfortable,t hey’re not producing quality milk. So we gotta take excellent care of them.”- Jacob Larson

Logic right? I’ll leave you all to answer that for yourselves.

#larsondairy #cows #arminvestigations #animalrecoverymission #animalwelfare #animalrights #dairyfarm #florida #moo

0 notes

melindarowens · 6 years

Text

There Is No GOP Civil War

Retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake managed to make the news last weekend when he was caught on a hot mic saying Republicans would be toast if they became the party of Donald Trump and Roy Moore.

As Business Insider’s Josh Barro accurately noted, it was like the Hamburglar being caught on a hot mic saying he enjoyed hamburgers.

Flake has been making similar statements ever since the 2016 campaign and he even wrote a whole book denouncing Trump and his movement. The Republican senator has also publicly stated he would prefer a Democrat becoming Alabama’s next senator rather than Moore.

So why was this a big news story?

Because it contributes to a popular media narrative that the GOP is riven by a brutal civil war.

According to the narrative, anti-Trump conservatives are leading a brave resistance to the Trumpist majority and this is why the party can’t unite to pass anything.

The media portrays the Never Trumpers in glowing terms (courageous, principled, wise), while Trumpists are depicted as retrograde bigots who will eventually be trampled by history.

Reporters see the war of words between Flake and Trump as the representative battle of this civil war, with each side representing a strong constituency within the Republican Party.

However, this narrative is extremely flawed and is not reflected in the actual struggles of the GOP.

For one, these Never Trumpers that continually receive glowing praise from liberal publications don’t have a real constituency. If their main figures are Flake and failed presidential candidate Evan McMullin, there doesn’t seem a lot of evidence for their brand of politics.

The Arizona senator currently has an 18 percent approval rating among voters in his home state, while McMullin barely netted any votes outside of Utah. These low numbers exist in spite of all the fawning press coverage both men have received.

There is more to Flake, McMullin and the other Never Trumpers than just hating the president — they do stand for a particular political ideology. Essentially, what they support is warmed over Reaganism — low taxes, limited government, unrestricted free trade, foreign interventionism, increased immigration — with the added element of denouncing the majority of GOP voters as racists.

This type of ideology was actually found to be remarkably unappealing among GOP voters, according to a study conducted by election analysts Henry Olsen and Dante Scala. And that study didn’t take into account the ideology’s luminaries continually lecturing about racist Republicans since Trump won the party’s nomination.

It’s hard to imagine Republican voters want to vote for people who have nothing but contempt for them.

One of the surest signs of a civil war raging in the GOP would be party primaries pitting Trumpists against Never Trumpers. However, the major primaries in 2017 have only shown candidates adopting Trumpian rhetoric for their own purposes.

In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, the establishment guy Ed Gillespie eked out a narrow victory over the Trumpist insurgent Corey Stewart by adopting his opponent’s strong stances on illegal immigration and Confederate statues. Gillespie continued to run as a Trumpist, albeit a very restrained and unenthusiastic one, in the general election. (RELATED: Ed Gillespie Proves It’s Trump’s Party)

In the Alabama Senate race, all three of the main candidates positioned themselves as Trumpists in one respect or another.

Rep. Mo Brooks positioned himself as the Trumpist on policy. Sitting Senator Luther Strange positioned himself as the Trumpist in boasting the closest connection to the president and receiving his formal endorsement. The party nominee Roy Moore positioned himself as the closest to Trump in style due to his preference for attracting controversy and spewing bombastic statements.

None of the candidates in these elections made an effort to present themselves as the anti-Trump guy. In fact, they were more likely to try to out-Trump one another.

The only upcoming primary that was going to be a fight between a Trumpist and a Never Trumper was the primary for Flake’s Senate seat. However, due to his low poll numbers, Flake decided to not run again — which effectively meant he was capitulating to the Trumpist side.

It’s hard to say it’s a civil war when the other side is retiring from politics and it can only hold an audience with liberal journalists.

The Republican primaries stand in marked contrast from Democratic ones where Berniecrats are taking on the establishment. Both the race for the chair of the Democratic National Committee and the party’s Virginia gubernatorial primary witnessed tough fights between these two warring sides.

Nothing like that has been seen on the Republican side between Trumpists and Never Trumpers.

There is certainly the chance of bitter primaries in the GOP, as the races in Virginia and Alabama both were. But they are unlikely to be over whether it is best to support or oppose Trump.

The real fight is over how to best accommodate Trumpism. The establishment candidates favored by Mitch McConnell believe it is best accomplished through supporting the president, adopting some of his rhetoric and policies, but ultimately focusing on traditional Republican concerns such as tax cuts.

The bombthrower candidates favored by Steve Bannon believe the best way to accommodate Trumpism is to continue its rambunctious, anti-establishment style and campaign on economic nationalism and culture war.

Trump represents this division himself with his legislative agenda resembling that of the establishment’s while his tweets are pure Bannonism.

The GOP and most of the conservative movement have come to grips with Trump and there is much reluctance to adopt Evan McMullin’s caustic hostility towards the president. The only people who will approve of that message are ardent Democrats.

Rather than a civil war, the party is having debate — an intense one, however — on how to best live with Trump and the tumultuous political moment we live in. Republicans know it’s a bad strategy to continually attack the president while advocating for a form of conservatism few Americans actually agree with.

For better or for worse, the GOP is stuck with Trump for the next four years. It’s political suicide to condemn the president and his working class white base.

It makes perfect sense for liberal journalists to promote those “principled” Republicans who are willing to make that condemnation. It makes no sense for any Republican interested in actually winning elections.

Follow Scott on Twitter and buy his new book, “No Campus for White Men.”

Source link

source https://capitalisthq.com/there-is-no-gop-civil-war/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/11/there-is-no-gop-civil-war.html

0 notes

everettwilkinson · 6 years