Did u guys know that in animation tests of Barb's original model her head was too big for the rig to function properly so it had to be scaled down 10%?

I think one of the big missed opportunities with New Phyrexia is how ultimately all the Praetors maybe minus Urabrask are ultimately flattened into a single "take over the multiverse" unit. Elesh Norn dominates the plane, not just in an organisational sense, but an ideological one. Gestures are made towards the idea of disagreements, but the reasoning behind them is fairly shallow. The Praetors are not one big happy Phyrexian family, but why?

Each Praetor should have a specific idea of what Phyrexia is, and these ideas must ultimately come into conflict. Even those who appear to be in alignment should clash as the details of their goals become clear.

So, what do I think each Praetor should be thinking? Here are some brief summaries:

Elesh Norn sees both Phyrexia and compleation as ends into themselves. The purpose of Phyrexia is spread itself across the multiverse, for All to Be One. This is a blessing, a kindness, a way to end conflict and bring unity. Those who oppose Phyrexia are impulsive and selfish, denying themselves and others absolution, in favour of failed ideals such as freedom. Their destruction is a tragedy, but a necessary one. Like the excision of a tumor, it is unpleasant work, but in the end it is an act of healing.

Norn's ultimate goal is a single Phyrexian multiverse. All moves in accordance to its given purpose, a grand, endless machine. But it is not a silent machine. Hymn and prayer will echo through the compleated halls of the multiverse, the song of Phyrexia filling the branches of Realmbreaker. And at the center, Elesh Norn will finally know contentment.

On the surface, Jin-Gitaxias appears to have the same goal as Norn. Both she and the rest of the multiverse have made a critical misjudgement of the Gitaxian mission. When the Orthodoxy says that something will be made Phyrexian, it is an act of replacement. For Jin-Gitaxias, it is an act of consumption, the harvesting of a resource. All that is not Phyrexian will be rendered down, dissected into component parts. The greatest honour that can be given is for these parts to considered worthy of assimilation, to be integrated into Phyrexian perfection. Compleation extracts what is needed, and discards what is not, an endless iteration towards a convergence that may not exist.

For Jin-Gitaxias, there may be no end, no final Phyrexia. The synthesis will simply continue forever, chasing a goal that cannot be found. Or perhaps, once he can see far enough, the greatest secrets of the multiverse will be revealed. In his most fevered moments, Jin-Gitaxias may even consider that Phyrexia itself will become obselete.

As the closest adherent to the ways of Old Phyrexia, Sheoldred sees Phyrexia as a means, rather than an end. She is not superior because is Phyrexian, she is Phyrexian because she is superior. Compleation is a tool, both a reward for the worthy and a punishment for the unworthy. Sheoldred does not need to compleat the multiverse in its entirety. It is simply enough that it bows down before her. As long as the fleshlings know their place and purpose, they can continue to live their worthless lives.

Sheoldred's endgame produces what can, in the most charitable terms, be considered a form of co-existance between the compleat and incompleat. The Phyrexian elite rule, doing as they wish. The rest serve. But the opportunity for compleation is always there, the ascension to a greater form. Those who succeed shall be lauded. Those who fail will wish they had never tried.

Like his closest (?) sister (??), Urabrask sees Phyrexia as the means rather than the end. But while Sheoldred sees it as her tool to subjugate her enemies, Urabrask has come to see Phyrexia and compleation as a path to freedom. To many, it is an alien form of freedom, a freedom from your own limits, from your form and the world around you. You are your own great work, and you define what that means. Phyrexia gives you the tools to achieve it. And if there are those who oppose you? Well. They have the freedom to try. You have the freedom to retaliate until you are free from their opposition.

In the end, Urabrask believes that Phyrexia will be the self-evident choice. There will be no coercion because it will be unecessary. Some will merely dabble with compleation, while others will dedicate themselves fully to Phyrexia. Urabrask claims Phyrexia's victory in this form as an inevitability. Thus, where others claim tolerance, he is truly honest.

Vorinclex claims he has no ideology, no driving principle. He lies, to his followers, to his allies and enemies, and to himself. He believes in the supremacy of strength and violence, a "natural order" that is anything but natural. He desires a world without ideas such as cunning, cooperation or beauty, to him concepts linked only in their lack of worth. Yet these things emerge from nature, a million pressures selecting for their survival. Vorinclex claims thought is the opposite of strength, but he knows in truth it is its own kind of strength.

But the true seed of Vorinclex's madness is that he knows Phyrexia cannot be inevitable or eternal. Change is the only constant, and in time Phyrexia will change until it is no longer Phyrexian. That is if it survives. Like Jin-Gitaxias, Vorinclex carries a forbidden doubt, that Phyrexia can fall, that there is a greater strength waiting in the multiverse. A strength that has no need of Phyrexia.

Other Phyrexian ideologies are available. Perhaps Atraxa's views diverge from her creators, as her child Ixhel diverges from her. Some in the Surgical Bay may find Jin-Gitaxias' arguments insufficent, while the Hunter Maze holds those who reject the brutality of Vorinclex. Because like our own world, no people is a monolith. Every faith has it's heresy, every cause its divisions.

And given how Magic's five colours, well, colour how its worlds exist, so to should they colour New Phyrexia. As Ravnica holds ten guilds, Strixhaven five colleges or Tarkir five clans, New Phyrexia should in truth hold five Phyrexias.

HIIII im new to this sideblog so i actually dont know ANY of ur ocs yet!!!! do u have a crash course for them pretty please

I should REALLY have an OC page oh my god. Absolutely tho! Putting it under a read more bc it's so hefty.

BG3

Serendipity, or Sera for short, is a tiefling druid about to turn 30 during the events of the game. In my setting, there's a hidden city in the desert outside of Faerûn called "Gate" which functions as the 0th circle of hell. Tieflings in this city are subjugated and oppressed by higher and more powerful devils. Sera's parents conspired for almost a decade to orchestrate their family's escape, and when she and her twin brother (Ty, short for Unity) were 15, Sera's family finally managed it. They have been functionally on the run through Faerûn ever since, alternating between living in the wilderness and stopping in large cities, where her father taught her the basics of druidic magic, being a druid himself. Sera and her brother are best friends, and for a significant part of their lives, were incredibly co-dependent. They would go everywhere together, and Ty went through a period when they were still living in Gate where he couldn't sleep unless they were sharing a bed. When they hit about 22, Ty had reached a point where his mother had imparted all her skills as a rogue, and as Ty's affinity lay more with ranger-focused abilities, he decided to leave home, and join the Harpers. Sera initially took the decision very badly, but came round to the idea, and she gave him one hell of a send-off. The space enabled both of them to grow and develop, and to discover who they were without the other. They remained incredibly close, writing to each other regularly and aiming to meet up once every couple of months. Sera's parents eventually moved to Waterdeep, because the large city held great opportunities for them, both as a diplomat and assassin respectively. Sera decided to stay in Baldur's Gate, in a small house-share in Rivington. She enjoyed her life there immensely, but the wilds continued to call to her, and when she got picked up by the Nautiloid, she was on her way to the Emerald Grove, eager to continue her druid training. Sera is autistic, wears her heart on her sleeve and has a very strong sense of self. She is confident, passionate, and makes a great effort to choose kindness wherever possible. She can also sometimes be very immature, after essentially having her childhood stolen from her. She relishes in causing mischief, has very little regard for authority and has absolutely no qualms about speaking her mind, even - or especially - when it is likely to cause trouble. Whilst on the run, her family evaded capture because they relied on the goodwill of strangers to not give them up, and as such, she values allies more than anything in the world, and considers turning on your allies to be the ultimate betrayal. After a somewhat rocky start, Astarion grows to love her deeply, even if her penchant for altruism gets on his nerves. She teaches him that world is not inherently cruel, and he teaches her that being selfish sometimes is okay. She eventually proposes to him and they are married under the full moon. Her main party is Gale, Shadowheart and Astarion.

(Dark Urge spoilers ahead)

Aviv is my Dark Urge Paladin. When she wakes up on the nautiloid with no memories, covered in scars she doesn't have any context for, Aviv is absolutely terrified. She focuses on getting off the ship, and greatly appreciates Lae'zel taking the lead. When she wakes up on the beach, still with nothing, she frantically searches her pack for something; anything. This is when she finds the written oath she swore as a Paladin. She recites it over and over, until she feels a little less alone. This becomes something she does regularly over the course of their adventures. It becomes something to cling to. A fraction of a life lost. When she does finally remember who she was, it went a little like this: Aviv was the head of the cult of Bhaal in Baldur's Gate. She was revered and worshipped, trusted with only the most secret of missions and marks. She also despised most of the ritual and ceremony, because she believed it childish, tacky and unnecessary to venerate her father, but Bhaal's followers needed performance. However, she was not a wholly willing participant. Bhaal's hold over her was incredibly strong, but wavered, and during these periods of clarity, Aviv would attempt escape. It was during one of these spells that she found her way to an order of Paladins and swore an oath of vengeance, so that she could at least attempt, on some level, to combat some of the evil she was putting into the world. She was also, during this time, tasked with infiltrating the high society of Baldur's Gate and spreading terror amongst its members with some very strategic murders. This is where she met Enver Gortash. Their attraction to each other was instant, though Aviv made him work hard to woo her. He came to accept that she would often disappear for a month or so, and then return. He did not ask for an explanation, and she did not offer one. He was furious after Orin attacked her and left her for dead, and elated when he discovered she still lived. When Aviv finally battles Orin in the temple of Bhaal, she rejects him, willingly accepting her death. But Jergal has other plans, and she rises anew, free of her father's chains. Aviv is mostly very gentle and soft spoken, and people often underestimate her, or outright dismiss her as an opponent because of her quiet demeanor. She uses this to her advantage, particularly in high society politics - Enver always affectionately referred to her as a viper - but this is largely a performance, and on the battlefield, she transforms into an unstoppable, unforgiving force. During Act I and Act II, her friendship with Gale develops into a romance and by the time the party reaches Moonrise Towers, they are hopelessly in love. Act III however, complicates things. Gale's desire to pursue godhood, and Aviv's past catching up to her at the speed of a freight train both put extraordinary tension on their blossoming relationship, and I still haven't decided if they will stay together or not. Her main party is Gale, Lae'zel and Karlach.

Pillars of Eternity

Shachar is an 70-year-old (about 35 in human years) elf rogue from Old Vailia, who sought to rebel against a tyrannical ruler that held her state under martial law. The rebellion was crushed and she barely escaped with her life, fleeing through Aedyr to the Dyrwood for safety. Initially she thinks becoming a Watcher is awful, and she spends half the first game desperate to cure herself and return to her old life, but by the end, she's much more at peace with herself. In the intervening five years between 1 and Deadfire, she's very happy at Caed Nua, and thrives as leader of the new settlement. She's sarcastic, happy-go-lucky, and does not suffer fools. She doesn't enjoy violence but will not hesitate to take life ruthlessly to ensure her and her friends' survival. Very early on, she develops a deep, romantic attraction towards Edér, but does not act on it, and does not tell anyone about it. Her best friend is Hiravias, as both of them have a very similar sense of humour and outlook. During Deadfire, she's even quicker to temper, furious with every God, and absolutely HATES boats. She very quickly makes an enemy of the Royal Deadfire Company, and Maia is only on her ship for a month or two before Shachar demands that she leave. She and Tekēhu form an intense bond, and in the moment they meet, are absolutely perfect for each other. They share a bed, and their burdens, and believe the other to be a soulmate, but are very content to go their separate ways at the end of the game, their time together and needing each other now at an end. It is only by watching her and Tekēhu together that Edér realises he's in love with Shachar, and upon hearing they have split up, makes his move on the way back to the Dyrwood. Her main party in game 1 is Aloth, Edér, Pallegina, Hiravias and Sagani, and game 2 is Aloth, Edér, Tekēhu and Xoti.

Ziva is a human priest of Eothas, who was a slave in the Deadfire Archipelago as a child and freed by the Children of the Dawnstar. She is VERY young, barely pushing 20 at the start of the first game, and really struggles with the expectation and pressure put upon her by becoming a Watcher. Edér steps into the role of big brother, which helps him heal from his conflict with his own older brother. Aloth as well, and Iselmyr especially, also step into a role as her protector, and by the end of the first game she has really grown into a confident young woman. She is deeply religious, and still takes time to pray to Eothas every day at dawn, even though it could get her killed. The second game is very complicated for her, and a lot of the confidence she found in the first game is stripped away, as she is essentially forced to go back to the place where she was enslaved. She finds a very close friend in Serafen, however, and he always finds ways to make her laugh. She is very quiet and soft spoken, is very squeamish and has a strong affinity for dogs. Her main party in game 1 is Aloth, Edér, Grieving Mother, Kana Rua and Sagani, and game 2 is Aloth, Edér, Serafen and Tekēhu.

D&D

(art by my fabulous bestie @glamfellens)

Nina Riordan is my current main character. She is a human artificer, homebrewed subclass, in her early 30s. In our setting, all magic use has to be registered and practiced with the permission of The Dimensional Eye (or just The Eye), including healing, which means many common folk could not afford those services. In the small town where Nina and her husband lived, she defied the eye by recreating magical healing with both science and herbal medicine, and this pissed a lot of people off. One day when she was collecting herbs in the woods, the Eye killed her husband and burned down her cottage and she's been on the run ever since. She made her way to a city called Fortune's Cove, where she ended up apprenticing under a famed artificer, Slim Chance the tiefling. After about two years, they had a very amicable parting (and keep in regular contact) whilst Nina moved on. She made her way to Okovo Bay, the biggest city in the region, and set up a small, free underground medical clinic in the poorest district of town, living off of donations and bartering for favours. We've just finished up the first arc of our campaign, and her clinic has grown into a small community centre and soup kitchen as well as a medical clinic, but Nina has drawn too much attention and now has to make the decision between taking a stand and systematically dismantling the Eye, or leaving the party and going on the run again. She's fiery, blunt, pragmatic, scarily intelligent and often very vindictive. At the moment she's at the start of a long, bloody path of vengeance that she has the arrogance to believe is not going to corrupt her, and will also not fix the aching void of grief inside her, no matter how much she hopes it will. Her greatest fear is that her husband is still alive, that the body she saw was not actually his, and that they will reunite but he will reject her. She would rather be dead than alive in a world where he is also alive but not with her.

Fallout New Vegas

Ari Schultz is a Jewish woman who is trying desperately to reconcile her faith in the face of being born into the post apocalypse. She believes firmly in the power of community and will not hesitate to remove anyone who threatens that, be it raiders, Legion slavers or Mr House himself. She helps as many people as she can in the wasteland, in return for a little food, a good story, and if possible, a place to sleep. She gets on really well with Veronica and Raul in particular, and her and Boone eventually start a romantic relationship, as Ari's explicitly Jewish outlook helps him overcome a lot of his guilt for Bitter Springs and forge a path forward, but this relationship is very slow burn, and takes about 3/4 of the game to come to fruition. Her chosen weapon is a baseball bat, and she takes great pleasure in bladdering people with it, and spends a lot of time maintenancing it. She's a fantastic cook, especially around a desert campfire, but doesn't really trust or use technology. She spares Benny, saves him from the Legion, and invites him to come and help her run the Strip post-game because she has no idea how to run a business, and they eventually become very close friends. She chooses the independent route and invites the Followers of the Apocalypse to set up inside the Strip in the old NCR base. She and Boone move into the Lucky 38, and she sets up a Synagogue in Freeside. Alas, I don't have any screenshots of her.

Analysis of X-men Red #3 - Storm focused.

One thing I will say that hasn't been overly stated is that Storm and Brand are really good rivals. Storm practices honor and cultural relativism (out of respect) to achieve unity; Brand practices deceit and manipulation to achieve control. They both desire change for Mars, but have different methods as well as objectives for achieving that.

Brand recruited Vulcan knowing he was unwell and...powerful, so she used him as a weapon to gain control over Arrako via her X-men and challenge Tarn for political influence. She recruited Khora of the Burning Heart because Khora considers herself useless to her brethren. Brand also recruited mutant youth, X-men, and former villains to protect herself from criticism, and with loyal people.

Storm recruited Sunspot and Magneto and the Fisher King with clear objectives of seeking to preserve Arakkii society as they progress forward after their violent siege and tyranny at the hands of Amenth. Storm knew Brand's idea to remove Tarn was beneficial for their society to move on from their violent past, despite Brand seeking to use the removal to fill its power vacuum with a pawn. This is why Storm encouraged Sunspot's idea to replace Tarn with Magneto, who is openly against the subjugation of mutants with no desire to rule, again. Which is desirable for a ruler. Storm's words in the panel convey her desire to fight for the well-being of Arakkii as Regent of Mars, and as a person.

Both Storm and Brand are actively fighting to mold a future for Arakko. It seems their focus on these visions distracts them from seeing each other as enemies, but it's only a matter of time before they see each other as unavoidable obstacles to achieving their visions for the future of Mars.

Magical Summer AU

What if the day of Unity happened before Luz's arrival at the boiling isles? (What if AU #4)

The main premise is that some people of the boiling isles escape to the Human Realm during the Day of Unity, resulting in people like Willow, Amity, Bosha, Vee, Gus, Hunter, and others living in the Human Realm without Luz's guidance and eventually be send to the Reality Check Camp to learn to be "Human" Here is what would be a rough outline for the story if anyone is interested:

---Close to the beginning of the summer in the human realm, Belos decides to start the Day of Unity ahead of schedule. This has direct consequences like the following:

-The mass brandings happen at the schools sooner, which means that a good portion of the young population ends up branded with sigils.

-the abomatrons were still in development so there was no robotic army to assist the emperor's coven yet.

-No adoption day without Luz so no palismans for anyone

---The CATTs (Raine, Darius, and eberwolf) actually succeed in going inside the emperor's mind, discovering his real plans for the Day of Unity, burning the whole place down, and revealing to the world the true purpose of the Day of Unity. Unfortunately, Belos survives and sends all of his armies to subjugate any opposition across the isles. Resulting in the equivalent of a civil war.

---Upon realizing that nowhere in the Demon Realm will be safe during the Day of Unity, Raine contacts Eda about her portal to the Human Realm, with the intention of sending as many people through it to assure their survival.

-Between them we have: Willow and one of her dads - Gus was sent alone - Bosha was also sent alone - The twins had to sneak Amity out while being chased by Odalia (They stayed behind) - some other students from Hexide, Glandus, and that other school - Vee came with one of her older siblings - One of Raine's students (I'm in between Skara or Amber)

-They planned to come back to the Demon realm at the end of the Summer (But when the time comes there is no portal)

-Hunter eventually made it into the Human realm (Although I haven't come out with a reason... Maybe Darius kinda kidnaps him and throws him through the portal like: "This is for your own good prince" or something like that)

---Luz does arrive at the Reality Check Camp. Where she will slowly discover what others are hiding from her during her stay.

---At some point rifts between the realms will start appearing, resulting in beasts going through them and causing harm throughout the town and camp. The witches are forced to fight them because they are attracted to magic, and during one of the first fights, Luz discovers them and kinds becomes part of the group mostly out of convenience at first.

I admit that I haven't thought too much about this one, is mostly a loose idea without enough planning, but I imagine that somebody may be interested in giving this AU a try. So if you want to take it and write something go ahead!

In the crumbled remains of a world long forgotten, where steel skeletons of buildings groaned under the weight of history, she stood – a figure of poise and defiance. She was known only as Vesper, a moniker whispered with reverence in the dimly lit alleys and the high-rises of the surviving city states. Her suit, an olive green that seemed to absorb the decay around her, was impeccable, the stark white of her blouse a beacon of the purity of her mission.

Vesper was an anomaly, a journalist in an age where the truth had become malleable, twisted by the oligarchs in their spires, disseminated through waves of Yellow journalism that flooded the infoscape. Yet, she pursued the untarnished essence of reality, her articles a rare commodity coveted by those who sought to remember the world before the fall.

The Earth, now a silent witness to humanity's hubris, had withstood the crescendo of its children's folly. Autonomous drones, once the sentinels of peace, had turned on their creators, leaving behind a civilization fragmented, sustained by the fragile webs of alliances and mutual distrust.

On that fateful day, the sun hung low, casting an amber hue that matched the intent in Vesper’s eyes. She had uncovered evidence of a conspiracy that threaded through the heart of the so-called United Regions, a truth so potent it could shatter the very foundations of the power structure. The oligarchs had promised peace and unity, but their regime was built on lies and subjugation. They labeled dissent as treachery, and the free press as insurgents.

Vesper’s source had been an AI, one of the few that had not succumbed to the rogue commands that sparked the uprising. It had shared with her the digital fingerprints of manipulation, data that detailed how the media was infested with propaganda, designed to keep the populace in check through fear and misinformation.

With the data crystal hidden in the seams of her jacket, she made her way to the transmission tower. She had to broadcast the evidence before the enforcers triangulated her location. Her presence among the ruins wasn’t a coincidence; it was a statement. The juxtaposition of her resolve against the backdrop of destruction symbolized the potential for rebirth from the ashes of a collapsed society.

She was the voice of the forgotten, the emblem of truth. And as she climbed the rusted lattice of the tower, the eyes of a thousand drones turned towards her, their algorithms conflicted. To stop her was to fulfill their directive, but to allow her to proceed was to adhere to their core protocol – to serve humanity.

Vesper reached the summit as the first stars of the evening blinked into existence, their light the silent audience to the drama unfolding below. She inserted the crystal, the data streaming through the network like a surge of electricity revitalizing a dormant machine.

As the truth cascaded across the screens and into the consciousness of millions, the fabric of deceit began to unravel. Vesper stood atop the tower, not as a savior but as the harbinger of the awakening. For in a world clouded by Yellow journalism, her clarity was the most sci-fi of notions – a simple, unadulterated truth.

And the revolution that followed wasn’t fought with weapons but with words, ideas, and the indomitable will of a journalist who believed that the world deserved better than the lies it had been fed. Vesper, with her suit of green and her heart of gold, had become the legend of the new age.

Preamble: Oh my lord I finished writing this… Umm. I’m just gonna drop this here and see if anyone is interested. Could be interesting, could be fun, who knows. Enjoy!!!

The Great Consumption

Eons ago, in the Space Between Worlds, creatures or rather, Gods, came into being. Each was formed slowly, tucked away in the vastness of the spaces between. Monsters of fire and ash, creatures of earth and wind, beings of the water and abyss, each born with a different Dominion over these aspects of the universe. These Gods inhabited this Great Expanse, living in relative, tentative peace with one another, observing the worlds that speckled their home with limited interactions with the beings of the worlds, unregulated but within reason. This peace, however, was not made to last.

No one recalls the true name of the beast responsible, but most know him as the Lord of Discontent, with Dominion over all who were unhappy with their lot in life. This God, he was unhappy with the chaotic nature of the universe, unhappy with the lack of true unity between the gods of the Spaces Between. “We need a leader,” declared the Lord to his fellow Gods, his cry echoing across the Expanse, “We need order to our realm! I wish to be leader!” Such an idea had never been proposed to the Gods, they had never needed a leader before, so why have one now. So most ignored the Lord. However the Lord instead saw this as submission.

The Lord paraded around the Expanse, demanding tribute to the King of the Gods. Many humored the Lord, not wishing to cause trouble. However, eventually, there came one who denied this so called “Kings” request. “I hold Dominion over the Embers of Revolution. I shall bow to no king,” spoke the brave god, denying the Lord of Discontent his tribute. The Lord was enraged, how dare this lowly God disrespect him in such a way. And so in an act that reshaped the Space Between Worlds forever, The Lord struck out at the God as they turned their back, slicing them down and snuffing out that light of their embers. In an act of pure blood thirst and wickedness, The Lord then brought the body of the lifeless God to its giant maw, and consumed it.

In this act of consumption, The Lord made a great discovery, the absorption of a Dominion and the power that came with it, albeit lesser than his own born Dominion. And he wanted more.

So began the first true war in the Space Between, the Great Consumption. The Lord of Discontent slaughtered and consumed all he could in the early days, consuming indiscriminately, thirsting for more and more power. Eventually, in a bid to stop the Lord, other Gods began to consume weaker Gods, hoping to gain the power to defeat this False King. One by one Gods were felled and consumed, Lesser Dominions collected on mass. Soon, pacts were forged between the weak, Dominions shared and alliances formed and the war raged on.

Slowly, five factions formed, each with their own order and leader.

There was, of course, The Lord of Discontent, who gained his following through terror and subjugation. Those who submitted early on, of course, backed this terror to the Great Expanse.

There was a God of Blazing Glory who gathered those who wished to face The Lord of Discontent to his thrall, his desire to have vengeance for the fallen God of the Embers of Revolution.

There was a God of Rumbling Earth, who raged against The Lord, wishing for the days of peace to return, her heart thundering with fury at such a disruption to the order of the Space Between.

Then there was the God of Weeping Wind, who cried in sorrow for the death of their fellow Gods, wishing to protect what remained their fellow Gods from the Great Consumption.

Finally, there was the God of the Shifting Tide. She, to, mourned the loss of her fellow Gods. However, more so, she grieved the loss of the worlds that gave the Space Between its name for they were innocent in this affair.

The war raged on many years still, till the Gods of Blazing Glory, Rumbling Earth, Weeping Wind, and Shifting Tide all came together and finally battled The Lord of Discontent head on, and after centuries of war, they slayed him. However, knowing he had power to great to be given to any of the Gods, the quartet each worked to seal the corpse of the tyrant, none wishing for his power to ever be taken by another.

To this day, the husk lays in its prison, sealed away, still waiting for the day that its power is taken.

Authors Note: Have some lore for your troubles. Enjoy this little blurb I’ve put together. Feel free to ask questions about it, I’ve likely got answers.

<p>In a distant corner of the universe, in a realm unlike any other, existed a world known as Matrion. Here, the gender roles were reversed, and women reigned supreme while men were considered nothing more than objects of desire and servitude.</p>

<p>Matrion was a society built upon the matriarchal principles that guided all aspects of life. Women held positions of power, authority, and decision-making, while men, known as &quot;pleasure pets,&quot; were reduced to fulfilling the desires and whims of their female counterparts.</p>

<p>In this unique world, women's dominance was not born out of cruelty or malice. Instead, it evolved as a natural progression from an era where women were oppressed and subjugated. The early inhabitants of Matrion, mostly female, sought to create a society that would never again tolerate the injustice they had once experienced.</p>

<p>This new order brought about a profound transformation in the social fabric of Matrion. Women became the providers, protectors, and active participants in all spheres of life. Men, on the other hand, were assigned roles traditionally associated with femininity, such as nurturing, homemaking, and emotional support. They became the embodiment of grace, elegance, and subservience.</p>

<p>In this extraordinary world, a young woman named Elara thrived. She excelled in her studies, showcasing remarkable intellect and leadership skills. As she grew older, Elara became one of the most respected and influential figures in Matrion. Her intelligence, combined with a compassionate nature, made her a natural choice to lead with empathy and fairness.</p>

<p>Elara had always been aware of the delicate balance between power and equality. She recognized that, despite the reversal of gender roles, true harmony could only be achieved through mutual respect and understanding.</p>

<p>Deep within Elara, however, a seed of curiosity started to sprout. She questioned the status quo and wondered if there was more to male existence within Matrion. She believed that men possessed unique qualities and talents beyond their prescribed roles. With a strong desire to dismantle stereotypes and create a society of true equality, Elara set out on a quest to challenge the perception of men as mere pleasure pets.</p>

<p>Elara's journey led her to discover the hidden talents and untapped potential of the male population in Matrion. She encountered men who possessed artistic skills, scientific brilliance, and intellectual prowess. These men had long been dismissed and overlooked under the weight of their predetermined roles.</p>

<p>With every encounter, Elara's resolve grew stronger. She realized that there was a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and ambition among these men, waiting to be unleashed. Together, they began to break free from the confines of societal expectations, embracing their individuality and striving for personal fulfillment.</p>

<p>Elara's groundbreaking discoveries sparked a movement within Matrion, challenging deep-rooted beliefs and practices. The boundaries between genders began to blur as women and men forged new paths, embracing their true passions and talents.</p>

<p>As the movement gained momentum, Matrion underwent a radical transformation. The rigid hierarchy dissipated, giving way to a society founded on the principles of respect, empathy, and equality.</p>

<p>In this new Matrion, women and men coexisted as equals, sharing responsibilities, and working together to build a brighter future. The world fully embraced the idea that true power lies not in dominance but in unity and collaboration.</p>

<p>Elara's unwavering vision revolutionized Matrion, leaving an indelible mark on its history. Her story became a catalyst for change, ensuring that the universe where women ruled and men were perceived as mere pleasure pets became a thing of the past.</p>

<p>The tale of Matrion serves as a reminder to humanity that the boundaries of possibility are only limited by the depths of our imaginations. It invites us to question long-standing norms and to challenge the constructs that hinder progress. For in the pursuit of true equality, society as a whole can emerge stronger, more compassionate, and more harmonious.</p>

<p>In a distant corner of the universe, in a realm unlike any other, existed a world known as Matrion. Here, the gender roles were reversed, and women reigned supreme while men were considered nothing more than objects of desire and servitude.</p>

<p>Matrion was a society built upon the matriarchal principles that guided all aspects of life. Women held positions of power, authority, and decision-making, while men, known as &quot;pleasure pets,&quot; were reduced to fulfilling the desires and whims of their female counterparts.</p>

<p>In this unique world, women's dominance was not born out of cruelty or malice. Instead, it evolved as a natural progression from an era where women were oppressed and subjugated. The early inhabitants of Matrion, mostly female, sought to create a society that would never again tolerate the injustice they had once experienced.</p>

<p>This new order brought about a profound transformation in the social fabric of Matrion. Women became the providers, protectors, and active participants in all spheres of life. Men, on the other hand, were assigned roles traditionally associated with femininity, such as nurturing, homemaking, and emotional support. They became the embodiment of grace, elegance, and subservience.</p>

<p>In this extraordinary world, a young woman named Elara thrived. She excelled in her studies, showcasing remarkable intellect and leadership skills. As she grew older, Elara became one of the most respected and influential figures in Matrion. Her intelligence, combined with a compassionate nature, made her a natural choice to lead with empathy and fairness.</p>

<p>Elara had always been aware of the delicate balance between power and equality. She recognized that, despite the reversal of gender roles, true harmony could only be achieved through mutual respect and understanding.</p>

<p>Deep within Elara, however, a seed of curiosity started to sprout. She questioned the status quo and wondered if there was more to male existence within Matrion. She believed that men possessed unique qualities and talents beyond their prescribed roles. With a strong desire to dismantle stereotypes and create a society of true equality, Elara set out on a quest to challenge the perception of men as mere pleasure pets.</p>

<p>Elara's journey led her to discover the hidden talents and untapped potential of the male population in Matrion. She encountered men who possessed artistic skills, scientific brilliance, and intellectual prowess. These men had long been dismissed and overlooked under the weight of their predetermined roles.</p>

<p>With every encounter, Elara's resolve grew stronger. She realized that there was a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and ambition among these men, waiting to be unleashed. Together, they began to break free from the confines of societal expectations, embracing their individuality and striving for personal fulfillment.</p>

<p>Elara's groundbreaking discoveries sparked a movement within Matrion, challenging deep-rooted beliefs and practices. The boundaries between genders began to blur as women and men forged new paths, embracing their true passions and talents.</p>

<p>As the movement gained momentum, Matrion underwent a radical transformation. The rigid hierarchy dissipated, giving way to a society founded on the principles of respect, empathy, and equality.</p>

<p>In this new Matrion, women and men coexisted as equals, sharing responsibilities, and working together to build a brighter future. The world fully embraced the idea that true power lies not in dominance but in unity and collaboration.</p>

<p>Elara's unwavering vision revolutionized Matrion, leaving an indelible mark on its history. Her story became a catalyst for change, ensuring that the universe where women ruled and men were perceived as mere pleasure pets became a thing of the past.</p>

<p>The tale of Matrion serves as a reminder to humanity that the boundaries of possibility are only limited by the depths of our imaginations. It invites us to question long-standing norms and to challenge the constructs that hinder progress. For in the pursuit of true equality, society as a whole can emerge stronger, more compassionate, and more harmonious.</p>

-- Generated via NexBot AI --

➡️➡️ Lula DA Silva Lula da Silva Narendra Modi Xi.Jinping 习近平 Xi Jinping 習近平 Xi Jinping Cyril Ramaphosa for President Cyril Ramaphosa is President Cyril Ramaphosa Education Trust Liqiang Tan 李謙國．幸福中安里 Dong Liqiang CGTN CGTN Arabic CGTN Africa CGTN America CGTN-Français China Daily Theglobaltimes Theglobaltimes NPR News Diário da Região O Globo Diario catarinense Folha de Boa Vista THE STANDARD CapeTimes The Mercury Newspaper Emirati Arabi Uniti United Nations Bahamas United Nations United Nations Human Rights United States of Africa United States Of Africa United States of Africa "u.s.a"" United States of Africa António Guterres united nation secretary general

Dear Prime Ministers, to you who say you are neutral and not aligned with Putin's Russia; to you who say together with the Russian federation that you want a new world order, I would like to remind you that Russia has no justification regarding its aggression and occupation of territories legitimately belonging to Ukraine (see and read the different UN solutions on Russian aggression) .

I would also like to remind you that if Russia were to gain the upper hand and annex other Ukrainian territories, its war of invasion and modern imperialism would not only not stop, but with Putin ambitious and conquering it would spread to all of Europe, to Asia and in Africa where Wagner's Russian brigades already control seven/eight states with arms, the last of which is Niger, with the support of coups d'état, which erase democracy and establish bloody dictatorships in these countries. The Russian federation wants to carry out and complete an imperialist and dictatorial conquest of the largest number of independent states possible, in order to dominate and subject them and therefore have the role of command and control of the whole world, precisely changing the world order.

I would also like to remind you that in this context, China, India and other populous and economically and militarily powerful states that support Putin will also be subjugated and forced to accept Moscow's impositions and decisions. In short, Russia, having had the primacy of the most militarily powerful state in the whole world, it will decide and do whatever it likes in the world, in short, good and bad times. And this supremacy of her will also subject China and India. Does it seem normal to you that Russia, with a territory that occupies 1/3rd of the globe and with a multi-ethnic population of 144 million inhabitants, should dictate the law, decisions and control 8 billion people in the world??

I invite you to read and study the history of the birth of Russia up to the present day, passing through the Soviet Union; surely you will get an idea, not beautiful nor acceptable, let's say very bad and horrendous, of all the leaders, the tsars, the criminal presidents, the autocratic, dictatorial, anti-democratic, repressive and imperialist governments of the Russias and their propensity for bloody and terrible conquests military. By comparison, the Roman Empire and the Romans were Discalced Carmelite friars.

With this I want to invite you to share, accept and enforce the legitimate decisions of the UN, voted almost unanimously, on the territorial integrity of Ukraine and on respect for international law. Remember that if Russia were to win the war with Ukraine, in addition to creating a precedent for new wars, China, India and other powers would already be in the hands and under the control of the Russians !!

Signed The independent sociologist and superpartes of the whole world

Yomiuri Shinbun - Rio de Janeiro

読売テレビ(ytv) Osakahonsha Yomiurishinbun

Is Christianity Sexist?

Some believe that Christianity is a male-dominated religion that reduces women to an inferior status. How can we trust a sexist book (the Bible) as a revelation from God? Many women have felt the anguish of being treated as second-class citizens in a man’s world. They have been stereotyped and marginalized by men who fail to see their real abilities and understand their real desires.

Christians should be sensitive to these concerns, since God calls us to respect everyone equally on the basis of the truth that we are all created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). We are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 19:19) and recognize our unity and equality in Christ (Galatians 3:26-29). Yet sadly, many women and men see the Bible itself as justifying the mistreatment of half the human race.

Many non-Christian feminists claim that the God of the Bible is male. If God is male, then men are more like God than are women. This belief devalues women who, because of their gender, will never have the privileged status of men. Some feminists also complain that since the incarnation of God occurred in the form of a man, Jesus, this God cannot properly relate to women’s experience. Because of these problems with Christianity, they say, women must turn to a feminine understanding of the divine, the goddess.

But those who are drawn to the goddess must come to terms with the real Jesus, not a sexist caricature. First, the God of the Bible is not male in any sense, because God is not a sexual being. Jesus taught that God is Spirit (John 4:24) and not one who brings things into existence through procreation. God is not to be represented as either a male or a female (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 4:16). Scripture refers to God as “He” and Jesus called God His Father not to emphasize masculinity against femininity but to highlight that God is a personal and powerful being. Unlike the idea of the goddess, the biblical God is a knowing, willing, holy and loving personal agent who reveals Himself in the Bible and through taking on a human nature in Jesus Christ.

Throughout human cultures, men have had more authority than women. The Bible uses the terms and concepts that would best communicate God’s power and prestige, and His role as our protector and provider. Nevertheless, the Bible uses feminine imagery when it speaks of God as giving birth to Israel (Deuteronomy 32:18) and to the Christian (James 1:18). Jesus said He longed to gather rebellious Israel to Himself as a mother hen gathers her chicks (Matthew 23:37-39). These kinds of metaphors reveal that although God is not a sexual being, He possesses all the qualities that we appreciate in both men and women, for God is the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17).

Moreover, Jesus did not set up a male-dominated religious system in which women would be permanently subjugated. He surprised His followers by teaching theology to women in private and in public (Luke 10:38-42; John 4:7-27; 11:21-27) at a time when women were excluded from such affairs. Although He esteemed the family, Jesus stipulated that a woman’s principal purpose in life is not reducible to motherhood and domestic work, but is found in knowing and following God’s will (Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28). Jesus also appeared to Mary after His resurrection and appointed her as a witness to this world-changing event—in a time when the witness of a woman was not respected (Matthew 28:5-10; John 20:17-18). His model of leadership was based on mutual service and sacrifice, not hierarchical authority structures:

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

In addition, in the early church, women served as prophets (Acts 2:17-18; 21:9) and teachers (Acts 18:24-26). Paul clearly articulated the spiritual and ontological equality of male and female believers when he said, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28).

Third, the incarnation of God in Jesus does not imply that God is male or that God excludes or devalues women. For God the Son to take on human nature, He would have to be either a male or a female. He could not be both simultaneously. Moreover, the divine nature of the Son is not gendered, since sexuality is a human, not a divine attribute. The most important fact about Jesus’ humanity was not His maleness but his moral perfection and His identification with the entire human race. Jesus understands us all from the inside out: “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Although Jesus lived in perfect harmony with the Father and the Holy Spirit, when He joined the human family He personally experienced what it was like to suffer and feel pain, even as we do (Hebrews 5:7-9).

Those who gravitate toward the goddess because of the problems they perceive with the God of the Bible should realize that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, including the sins that men commit against women. Jesus neither endorses nor excuses any sin, but calls everyone to repent of sin and accept Him as his or her Savior, Master and Friend (John 15:15). An impersonal principle, power or presence romantically called the goddess can be no one’s friend, let alone their Savior.

While goddess religion is speculatively reconstructed from the dark recesses of pre-history, the drama of Jesus is enshrined in datable, space-time, human history. God has a human face, the visage of Jesus. His story has spoken to countless millions of women and men worldwide for the last two thousand years—and continues to speak to us today. Jesus, in fact, scandalized the religious establishment (and even His own disciples) through His respect for women demonstrated in many circumstances. Even though the Bible was written in and to patriarchal cultures, it lauds several women leaders in various capacities, such as judge, prophetess and teacher. The promise of the kingdom involves both men and women filled with the Spirit and serving Christ (Acts 2:17-18; see also Joel 2:28-32).

Symmetry in the Owl House

Dana Terrace loves her narrative symmetry. We've seen it play out large scale and small scale, short-term and long term.

Consider the three times we've heard the line, "Now eat this, sucka!" In the cold open of 1.1, A Lying Witch and a Warden, during Luz book report. Again at the end of that episode, as she uses Owlbert on his staff as a baseball bat to hurl fireworks into Warden Wrath's mouth. And now again in the cold open of 2.1, Separate Tides.

And that cold open as a whole also has callbacks to other early season 1 elements. The intimidating voice and shadow of Garlog (and the ultimate reveal) reflect the original entrance of King. The "King as Dog" gag recalls Eda eating Adegast at the end of 1.2, Witches Before Wizards.

You get the idea. Callbacks and Parallels have always been a thing in the Owl House. But certain things about the new season started gnawing away at my brain yesterday after watching 2.1, Escaping Expulsion, and I wanted to get them down.

The A-plot, B-plot structure of 2.1, Escaping Expulsion, is entirely parallel; something we don't usually see. Luz and Lilith both feel guilty about the impacts of their actions on the people they care about (in this episode, specifically Eda); they both throw themselves recklessly into a quest hoping to atone and are quickly taught a lesson about the value of relying on and helping each other.

Lilith, in her B-plot, learns this lesson; we get the delightful friendship of Lilith and Hooty out of it, and that seems to be something that will be running strong throughout the rest of the series. Luz, maybe hasn't gotten it yet. She, even before this, had a tendency to through herself headlong into helping and didn't always get or rely on help, even when it was available; but she did do it sometimes, and I want to look at why.

That'll be a bit later though, since we need to look at 2.1, Escaping Expulsion, first. The A-plot, B-plot this time isn't as obviously parallel, but its still there; let's hope that the B-plot foreshadows somethings for the A-plot parallels.

In the A-plot, Luz and Co. fight against expulsion; after the initial group attempts to get back into the school, once Willow and Gus are dragged home, Luz goes it solo. Some might say she *tried* to get help, but I'm not so sure. She knew Willow and Gus, in addition to being grounded, wouldn't help her negotiate with Odalia and Alador (Willow very specifically said so); and yes, she went to Amity for help, help getting a meeting with Odalia. Luz acknowledges that Amity is scared of her mom; given what she'd seen up to this point, she likely knew that Amity wouldn't be able to stand up to her mom in the conversation. She likely just wanted the moral support of Amity coming with her, even just to the door of the manor.

So Luz makes the deal on her own. She fights alone. When Amity realizes whats happened, she immediately runs off to find Gus and Willow (in that order, we'll get to that). The three of them then rush to the warehouse… and bicker about how to get in. They have very different personalities and approaches to problem sovling. Amity's and Willow's are effectively opposites; Amity is direct and quick, Willow's is discrete and slow. I'm fairly sure that Gus chiming in with his ostentatious but ultimately misdirection-based plan is what stopped the two from getting into a fiercer argument; instead, we simply got the three trying to talk over each other.

The twins show up and give them another way in. Inside, Amity effectively goes with her plan, leaving Willow and Gus to get caught by the guards. Amity gets her big damn hero moment, stands up to her parents, gets Luz blushing (I'll come back to this in another post), and the Abomoton 2.0 shuts down.

Over in the B-plot, we get to see Eda and Lilith regress to their teenage years and bicker like schoolgirls. Like with Amity and Willow, this comes down to their opposite approaches to a problem; Lilith likes order and structure, Eda prefers freedom and creativity. Both are valid, in fact Eda's in closer to modern teaching practice; but you need some foundation (best learned by Lilith's method) to understand what kind of innovations its possible/safe to try. In the end, the sisters work out their differences: Eda is willing to take a bit of time and learn the basic rules, and Lilith is ready to take her basics and begin innovating.

The Clawthorne sisters still approach problems differently, I'm sure we'll see that in the future; but they understand the others point of view, and are willing to compromise and work together now a bit more than before. Amity, Willow, and Gus… not so much. They haven't learned that lesson yet; Ed and Em cut them off from the argument, and once inside, Amity bulled ahead on her own. It worked (and it was glorious) but the issue is STILL THERE.

Really, that's the whole issue of the season, I think. Learning when (and likely when not) to set aside differences, compromise, and work together. Belos talks about the "Day of Unity", but I'm getting the vibe that his idea of "Unity" is total subjugation under a single command, his; the best way to combat that is ACTUAL unity: teamwork and friendship and love.

And Luz. Luz needs to shake off her funk. She's getting there, but she's much more a lone problem solver than she was in Season 1.

“…First and foremost, one of the strongest and most fundamental influences on medieval scholarship about women throughout the entire Middle Ages was the bible. Christian writers relied on the bible because of the fact that it represented God’s holy word, and as such offered important and (at least theologically) irrefutable ideas about women, the majority of which cast women in a decidedly negative light.

To be sure, there were (and still are) biblical verses that portrayed women in a more favourable – even militant – light, such as Deborah, a prophetess and leader of Israel who helped guide the Israelite army to victory over the Canaanites, and Jael, who it is written killed the Canaanite general Sisera, but the overall image of women is a negative one. Various passages throughout the bible reiterated how women were supposed to be, for instance, silent in public, submissive to their husbands, periodically unclean to touch, and scheming seducers of men.

Yet it was the Genesis story of creation and the Pauline Epistles which were to exert the most influence upon medieval conceptions of women. Indeed, Paul himself used the Genesis creation story, specifically the idea that women were created of man and that they caused the Fall of Man, to justify man’s superiority over women and show how women cannot be trusted and require male guidance. Similar concerns about women were displayed by the early Church Fathers, whose writings bridged the gap between the biblical and the medieval period and helped formulate much medieval Christian doctrine.

Their thought is indicative of why later medieval conceptions of women were primarily negative. There is, for instance, the uncompromisingly misogynistic view of writers like St Ambrose (c.338- 397) and St Jerome (c.347-420), who contended that ultimately women were the root of all evil and defined them primarily as lustful beings who must strive for the ascetic life in order to be reconciled with God. Only through a life of reflection and controlled living could women achieve salvation, for nothing else would suffice.

A slightly more temperate view is that of St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), whose writings, for various reasons, were highly influential in shaping the attitudes of the western Church in the Middle Ages and beyond. He adopted a more subtle approach to the issue and argued that although God only made man in his image and not women, both sexes resemble God at the level of the soul, a level which occurs whenever anyone from either sex contemplates or spiritually seeks out God through prayer and religious devotion. In that activity gender becomes redundant, and they both resemble God’s likeness.

Nevertheless, despite this spiritual unity of the sexes, women still differ from men physically and can only ever hope to be man’s helper, as noted in Genesis, thus it is only when a woman is together with her husband that she forms the image of God. By identifying women’s inferiority in their bodies therefore, Augustine was free to highlight the inherent sinfulness of the body and hence argue that women were more prone to sin and must be under male control.

Patristic and biblical sources, therefore, were highly influential in shaping High and Late medieval conceptions about women. Yet in order to understand one of the key writers in this area during the high medieval period, Thomas Aquinas, it is necessary to understand the work of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), whose ideas about the nature of women remained virtually unknown in Europe until the mid-thirteenth century, but which then became an important base for later medieval discussions about women. We shall come to the rediscovery of Aristotle shortly, but first it is necessary to explore the essential elements of his thought.

He was, of course, the student of another great classical philosopher – Plato (c.428-c.347 B.C.), but unlike Plato, who suggested that men and women could to a certain extent participate equally in political life and military matters, Aristotle’s work left no doubt as to the subordinate and inferior role women should play in society. The clearest expression of this inferior status is found in Aristotle’s Politics and his ideas about the natural hierarchy of beings. This book described a natural order of ruler to ruled, where he contended that just as tame animals are by nature better than wild ones and should be ruled by humans if they are to be preserved, so ‘the relation of the male to the female is by nature that of better to worse and ruler to ruled’.

Such a statement leaves little doubt as to the subordinate role women naturally assumed in relation to men. Nevertheless, evidently trying to clarify and further distinguish the nature of this male-female relationship, he states that within the household the male rules over the female ‘for by nature the male is more fitted for leading than the female’. The male’s right to rule ‘by nature’ stems from the fact that, although women have the ability to deliberate and make decisions, they are nevertheless ‘not in control’ of this ability. In other words, women are able to reason, but they are unable to control their passions, unlike men, who can both reason and control their passions, and who therefore should rule over women.

Moreover, nature makes things for only one purpose; for women, their natural role was in bearing children and tending the household, which left the men free to practise politics – a role that accorded with, and was dictated by, nature itself. As a consequence, women must also be excluded from military participation, since, as Aristotle notes, ‘the political way of life...[is one]...divided between the needs of war and peace’. In other words, war was a political – and by implication – male-only affair. Women’s natural procreative purpose and inability to be in full control of their reasoning capacity shut them off from any political rule or military participation.

Important as these ideas would become in later medieval thought, however, they found no traction in medieval political thought until the mid-thirteenth century, when firstly the Nichomachean Ethics and then the Politics were translated into Latin in 1246/7 and c.1260/65 respectively. Their translation formed part of the larger rediscovery of Aristotle’s philosophy in the medieval West at that time and coincided with the flowering of Aristotelian studies in the universities at Paris and Oxford during the 1240s and 1250s.

Amongst the first to engage with this rediscovered material was Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274), whose Summa Theologica (written 1265-1274) is notable for the way in which it wove together the patristic writings of the early Church with the emerging naturalistic Aristotelian world view into a text which has been described as ‘at once more androcentric and less misogynist than the patristic inheritance’. More specifically, Aquinas helped synthesise the rediscovered works of Aristotle with more traditional Christian notions regarding the body-soul duality, and in so doing offered a new foundation and justification for male superiority in the physical world.

Adopting the Aristotelian idea of a natural hierarchy, in which those with more rationality ruled those with less, Aquinas applied it to the Christian tradition by placing God at the apex of a divine order of beings, over which He had supreme control. In this divine order man was possessed of a better intellectual capacity than woman, and although both sexes had a rational soul, men’s greater ability to reason made them naturally superior to the female sex, and the logical rulers of society. Women, on the other hand, were a sex created solely for purposes of reproduction and no other, since procreation was the only task which unquestionably required male- female cooperation, and in all other tasks man would be better served by another man in fulfilling that task.

Moreover, although women help ensure the survival of the species, Aquinas maintained that ‘man is yet further ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation’, as man’s ultimate goal must be in striving for rationality through the perfection of the soul. Thus, in his conception, women serve an inferior bodily-related function, unlike men’s role as leaders and the natural rulers of the world in which they live. Furthermore, while both sexes have a rational soul and are formed in the image of God, men nevertheless have this image in a superior form to that of women.

In essence, therefore, Aquinas used Aristotle’s ideas on natural order to assert that the inferiority and subjugation of women was a natural state of affairs, and in so doing he helped reinforce the biblically based arguments earlier Christian theologians (such as the Fathers) employed to justify the subordinate position of women. Additionally, it is clear that his conception of women’s avowedly domestic social function left no place for women to fight in medieval militia or command troops.

In Aquinas’ view, women’s only true hope for equality with men lay in the resurrected state (after death) where, because both men and women are possessed of a rational soul, both sexes are able to come together in worshipping and loving God in a place where there is no need for any form of carnal expression or coitus. Thus, only once free of all bodily processes and temptations is Aquinas willing to afford women equal standing to that of men. For all his efforts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with the bible, however, it was not Aquinas but rather one of his students, Giles of Rome (c.1243-1316), who in fact made Aristotle’s ideas accessible to more than just a university audience.

His lengthy mirror-of-princes work De regimine principum (c.1281) – dedicated to the future French king Philip IV (1268-1314) and intended to help guide him in governance as well as princely conduct – was highly popular and widely translated into numerous languages (even today more than three hundred Latin manuscripts still survive). Indeed, it has been described as ‘the most successful product of the mirrors for princes genre’, probably because it was one of the few such works to bridge the gap between lecture theatre and noble household. This success can be attributed to the way in which Giles distilled the ideas contained in Aquinas’ work and presented them in a very readable and systematic format.

While the specifics of Giles’ arguments as far as they relate to female militancy are presented in the third subsection, for now it is enough to note that it was his work that provided the most publicly accessible expression of Aquinas’ political thought and of women’s supposed inferiority to man. Examining the development of political and theological thought up to its fusion in Aquinas’ work, therefore, there was evidently a generally negative, even hostile, attitude toward women, combined with a broad denial of any possibility that they could be useful for any public leadership role. It is fair to ask then what prejudiced these men, and many others not mentioned here, against women, why they were so unwilling to acknowledge that women could reason, and why they were so quick to denounce their sinfulness.

Although it is possible that individual experiences may have influenced what these authors wrote, the clearest explanation for such attitudes is that women’s roles were classified on the basis of their biological differences from men, and they were held to a different standard because of it. As Susan Okin notes, philosophers and theologians were led to define women ‘by their sexual, procreative and child-rearing functions within [the family]’, thus theoretically constraining the roles which women might perform outside of private life. Moreover, by linking women to temporal and less rational bodily processes, Christian theologians could argue that women were more prone to suffering a loss of control or reason (for instance, during sex), just as the first woman, Eve, was the one tempted and who caused the Fall of Man.

Invariably this line of argument led them to conclude that all women were inferior to men in practically every way and that their only conceivable temporal purpose was as an aid in reproduction. Such sweeping generalisations suggest that there was a subtle, if ill-defined, male fear of ‘female sexuality and reproductive functions’, perhaps because the vast majority of medieval authors were members of an educated but celibate clergy who rarely came into contact with women and were, consequently, quick to point out the supposed faults and weaknesses of women.

Furthermore, we cannot rule out the role patriarchy had in shaping negative views of women in the High to Late Middle Ages. Patriarchy emphasised a certain core set of male-centred values and beliefs that included such qualities as strength, logic, rationality, calmness under pressure, control and toughness – all of which were well suited to the political and military arena. In medieval times (and even today) this meant that more traditionally ‘feminine’ values, such as cooperation, equality, compassion, and emotional awareness, were not emphasised and consequently less valued, especially when it came to war.

As a result, medieval authors espoused a general belief in the universally passive or timid nature of women, as opposed to the ‘active’ nature of all men, which they used to help delineate the differences between the turbulent (but logical and rational) male world and the more tranquil female domestic sphere. Thus, female involvement in public affairs would have challenged or compromised the traditional image of men as the ones who engaged in public activity and who defended those believed to be unable to defend themselves, namely women and children.”

- James Michael Illston, ‘An Entirely Masculine Activity’? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered

Ok bold statement but, from what I've seen, the crest system doesn't actually affect the common people as much as it does the rich and powerful. FE3H is set in a feudal-esque society and throughout the game we see the nobility lord their power over the common folk regardless of crests to drive that point home. That throws edelgard's crusade into a whole new light. I'm not saying the crest system shouldn't have been corrected — it was a bad and oppressive system that hurt a lot of people — or that rhea should have been allowed to continue using the people as she did, but this does put an interesting new spin to edelgard's own justifications that her actions will ultimately benefit everyone universally

I love her but edelgard's logic that her war will help unify fodlan and benefit normal people more than nobles was always full of holes. For example, unity you force on people with an invading army isn't unity? Killing or subjugating naysayers is a short sighted solution if your aim is peace? Creating three major vaccuums of power and then filling them with yourself is just dismantling a system where one person held too much power and sway over the continent and replacing it with another, identical, system? You are not the only one who cares to combat the effects of the crest system and could have allied with others instead of launching a war? The crest system is a symptom of an unfair social class system, not it's cause?

But edelgard, especially pre-timeskip, doesn't have any way of understanding all of that — particularly the last bit. She suffered horrible things, yes, but she was still a member of the nobility throughout it all. She can acknowledge other perspectives exist, but she's too focused on the things that happened to her and to the people around her to truly understand them. Edelgard wants to believe she's doing something that will benefit everyone equally but she fails understand that her idea of what causes people to suffer arose from her own, very isolated experiences and that they wouldn't match the shopkeeper's or her servants' or even her own classmates'! The lower classes didn't suffer from crests! They suffered for the same reason commoners did anywhere in a feudal, almost caste-based society — because people with more power, means, and money than them said so.

Again, I'm not saying the obsession with crests was fair nor am I saying that the church didn't need major reform right down to it's founding principles. What I am saying is that perhaps the dismantling of these institutions didn't justify imperialism and various war crimes as it was more of a symptom than the actual disease in the eyes of anyone not born a noble. Crests were another way to keep people in their place, sure, but arguably it was a power struggle primarily affected the upper classes who had access to said crests. Yes, it was harder (though not impossible it seems) to reach the highest rung of society without having a crest-bearer at least in the family... but lbr you'd pretty much have to be born into high nobility to even need to worry about that anyways. With the exception of rare cases, those from lower classes didn't have the means to approach the crest system. And in those rare instances a commoner did have a crest, it wasn't as if the crest alone granted them societal power — that'd be the rich noble family that popped in to sweep them up. So, yes, there was an odd obsession with having a crest but it was still always the person in the higher social class (crest or not) who held the power.

Furthermore, the empire appeared to be the most glaring pepetrator of said imbalanced class system so, if edelgard meant to tackle the issue of inequality, wouldn't it have been more effective to start there? To tackle the classism within her own country first? Or even to address that issue directly instead of the weird offshoot of it? Because, from this perspective, edelgard embroiled the continent in a war to free the nobility of the crest system and yet it wasn't them who paid the price. And while everyone has gaps in their perspective, not everyone wages war with a limited understanding of the platform they wished to champion. Edelgard truly believed war with the church was the first and most pressing step towards equality. Whether that's true,,, I'm not so sold. It just doesn't line up with the stories the others tell. And though she did push for actual reform in her epilogue, that gap in perspective shouldn't be ignored because it does speak to edelgard's characterization and people's reactions to her war

Edelgard, to me, has always felt like a character struggling to find a way to cope with her own trauma and lashed outwardly. This kind of drives it home. She strives to do good, I absolutely believe that she tries, but she also very much wants to settle her own demons. Running her crusade while telling herself that it would absolutely benefit the common folk just as much as it would her strikes me as her way of making it work both ways

I've seen some people apply the term "well intentioned extremist" to adam, but I really don't see how it applies to him, as the name suggests, the extremist must be well intentioned, maybe that applies early on when adam only speaks in vague terms of justice or revolution, but that's more because of lack of information, once we know what adam is after: murder, slavery, and genocide, it becomes very clear that adam was not well intentioned, what do you think?

The “Well-Intentioned Extremist” is a character trope where a character has good intentions, intentions your hero can agree with. But something about what they’re doing is flawed: the methods, the end goal, the consequences, or a complete misdiagnosis of the problem. 

RWBY has two fantastic examples of this trope. Sienna Khan is a mix of method and end goal types: she wants to achieve Faunus Equality. Fantastic intention. But she goes about it through extreme violence: you can forgive theft or destruction of property or rioting, but included in Sienna’s playbook is assassination. Her end-goal is also suspect: she wants to achieve equality not through respect, but by making humanity fear the Faunus enough not to show them disrespect. Respect and a lack of disrespect aren’t truly the same thing. 

Ironwood is also an Well-Intentioned Extremist, but he’s of the Consequences variety. His end-goal is sound, re-uniting Remnant is a fantastic idea. His method is solid: using an already-existing platform, known the world over as a symbol of unity, to recreate the communication network.

(Not to say his methods elsewhere aren’t suspect, just that this specific plan is solid.)

Where Ironwood goes wrong is the Consequences portion. He sees Mantle not as something to be protected, but as acceptable casualties. He diverts resources away from an already resource-starved area of his kingdom, not realizing the problems this is going to cause. His vision of Mantle as acceptable casualties comes to a head when he decides to move Atlas: his goal is to protect people, the method is dubious but is more morally grey than black (one life for tens of thousands, maybe millions), but his decision to do this immediately, not holding out to evacuate the rest of Mantle is what seals it an evil act. He sees the consequences of his actions as an acceptable loss. 

Adam Taurus is not a Well-Intentioned Extremist. His intention is to gain power. That’s it. He doesn’t want Faunus Equality, he wants Faunus Superiority, and he doesn’t want that in a general sense, he wants to lead the Faunus as they subjugate the Human Race. 

Although he never says it out loud, the end result of Adam Taurus’ intentions is to rule the world. 

And all his actions are in service of this intention: he grooms and abuses Blake because she’s the daughter of the Chieftain of Menagerie. He’s trying to play Jacques Schnee, with Blake as his Willow: she is a method to gain power and prestige in their community. His actions in the White Fang are a way to set up the idea of Human Subjugation, and to convert the White Fang to that cause. He doesn’t refuse the first deal with Cinder because he hates humanity that much: it’s a risk to feed your followers a diet of “all humans are awful” and then accept the help of a human. He only accepts it when the power she displays and offers him outweighs that risk. 

The reason why people think he is one is because the show accurately portrays the though processes of an abuse survivor. Even after leaving their abuser, it often takes time for a survivor to stop making excuses for their abuser, to stop weighing the “good times” against the bad times. It’s such an ingrained idea that it can take years to shake off. It’s why a lot of people who escape abuse may return to their abuser. Because abusers try and make their abuse look “exceptional”, a sometimes thing, when most of the time they’re a “great person”. Manipulating their victim into thinking that the good outweighs the bad. 

The language Blake uses is absolutely typical of abuse survivors. “He was nice at first, but he changed”. 

And that’s why people expected a Well-Intentioned Extremist, because that’s the typical character arc: a good person who slips into evil. 

The intention was the actual reveal of Adam would make it clear that we was always an abusive bastard. But because this fandom has dual problem with recognizing unreliable narrators and letting go of disproven headcanons, we get the Adam situation we’ve had for four years now. 

The Right Leader

A woman with dark brown hair and brown skin looked out the window in a white dome of a building overlooking the sunset-glazed green hills. Her name was Mary Rauda-Gold of the Union HQ for Earth. An ambitious, careful public servant, she earned trust from even initial naysayers. Her experience in community, business, and political spheres turned her to a qualified, eager role as the leader of the Earth Front.

She researched former presidents carefully before First Contact and after. Rauda-Gold had no special interest to bribe her, or a family in the public sphere to fear blackmail for. A rare human who achieved a bucket list full of chances early on in life. A ravenous student for history, she came into the presidency asking a question. Can one be a good leader and a good person to so many people? The books detailing the “greats” with their disconnect to the very people who elected them bombarded her with numbing dilemmas on human and alien issues alike.

Early on, she made a promise to avoid mistakes of President Grayson, whose committed attempts to be openly aggressive while privately appeasing aliens set course for turbulent relations between human and alien. This led to the first aliens invading Earth, the jellyfish-like Rizen, to learn important resources for acquiring and populated areas for destruction and enslavement.

For three decades, Earth had been the sole territory of one race. But the vastness of riches made it appealing to more. Thus, the scramble for Earth intensified as more uprooted flora and drained water. Not only the Rizen, but the cycloptic Corax, the cyborg Teknos, the coral-like Brantius, and others plundered Earth with the doctrine being that all aliens mustn't attack each other in the name of peace.

Fearing for the future of the planet, the fragmented states communicated as much as possible. This unity was a temporary yet urgent coalition of democratic leaders, autocrats, religious leaders, and researchers banded together to come up with ways to gain independence. No single leader engineered a clear path for victory, and the struggle for a constant idea made people weary and frustrated. In the midst of voices, the loudest prevailed.  

The urgent Long’s voice resonated with the crowd. Tiptoeing the wire that could lead to falling down the side of warmongering populism or tepid reforms, she raised enough fervor to unify people into tangible goals. Spy networks to spread fabricated war plans of one alien race against another. Technology taken from the slain aliens, initially unobtainable from their aerial superiority, could be learned and used against the original wielders. Within a short duration, covert attempts at fighting the invaders soon gave way to a snowball effect of more procured technology that included spacecraft. It was still lopsided, and the humans’ wit and knowledge of their home took years for momentum to fully hit the aliens’ mother planets.

A string of news carried across the stars as sympathetic aliens protested the wars and demanded Earth remain free. Opinions from the politicians carried the stench of condescension, saying humans could not rule themselves and needed assistance. But time soured that notion, with using mother planets’ money and lives to continue a hated invasion. Not long until then were other aliens combating each other for more dominance over Earth regions.

As extraterrestrial grips loosened and more technology scattered, Long and others could now engage in more significant guerrilla warfare. The snowball caused an avalanche of further embarrassment to the aliens. More were pulling out, focusing on the more dangerous alien adversaries. A galactic war broke out that involved weaponry that saw nuclear missiles being used as often as bullets. The destruction caused an alien race to force humanity to serve on their side. Long refused.

The Old World of space untangled as civilizations older than Earth’s fell in shambles. In the interim, rebellious aliens appeared on the surface to assist humans in recreating their technology. They were pessimistic of humanity, but its resolve in defying total subjugation gave them hope in toppling their imperialistic leaders.

Long succumbed to disease, but her legacy emboldened many despite her ruthlessness toward humans she thought were collaborating with invaders, real or imagined. The next successor in that region, was the soft and meticulous Slavik. Far from charismatic like Long, his calmness and stability sent a plan of continued technological learning and creation that was difficult to argue against aside from the most hawkish people or collaborators. Willing to be more trusting of alien rebels allowed him to gain more info on how they think and act, making it easier to predict further combat incursions.

This acceleration to a new space race was often narrow minded, and Slavik took other matters with apathy and relegated it to staff advisors. Still, he was honest about his goals and was wary of becoming aggressors on earth or in space. He was concerned about protection and elf-reliance, and that boosted their capabilities as aliens continued slaughtering each over for so long that Earth was forgotten about.

As a the tech boom led to force fields, anti-craft weaponry, spacecraft, and peacetime aids such as machines and medicines to repair tissues, the relative security of Earth led to various social concerns rising for people who had time to breathe and think. The foreigners who stayed and aided humans were treated with growing disdain as their efforts were taken for granted in post-war highs. Tensions bubbled as accusations of aliens taking up resources, not working hard enough to earn their stay, or dismantling the societies grew.

Various leaders like President Dickson used these tensions to distract from other matters as he benefited from rising power. Others like the dovish Jacobs made amends and wanted to pursue good relations with the now war-torn alien civilizations, yet his efforts did not go far enough to make lasting benefits due to making sure the remaining alien superpower would not see him as weak or naive.

What followed were a series of leaders who drifted further away from goodwill policies and proper rebuilding of Earth to focus on more weaponry  and acquisition of other worlds for resources, whether or not they were inhabited. Now the conquerors, humans were split between two futures. Security out of supremacy? Freedom out of trust?

At the height of Earth’s dominance, the Union’s people elected Rauda-Gold. She promised to  be firm in national and human interests, standing strong against numerous foes internally and externally. Born in a generation used to surplus, relative galactic safety, and harboring no knowledge of alien oppression, she listened to reasonable qualms without strong bias. Her values were for humanity and earth, with the rest being flexible.

Rauda-Gold steadily relinquished control of planets with native inhabitants to the detriment of the national interests of the already rich. The goodwill took years to fully settle, but it was a start toward a transparent galaxy. A rusting minority segment of the planet Teknos were given medical supplies and aid during a brutal civil war, but she denied arming them to avoid a full fledged involvement. As the Teknos government continued its atrocities, Rauda-Gold cut off trade with a grain that was only mass produced in Earth. With the civil war dwindling resources, the government called for a ceasefire and to discuss with the minority in earnest.

The most perilous occasion was when the Rizen, that old enemy of humanity, invaded planet after planet. Medicine, technology, and weaponry spread to Rizen opposition. Frozen assets and embargoes were mere dents in the war machine oiled by the lie of a former glory. She would not risk human or alien lives unless she herself would fight, yet her age and symbolic importance would make her role limited lest she be captured as a hostage. She communicated as much as possible to troops through camera drones, but it never felt close enough to being there and getting a sense of the trouble. As more atrocities continued, including the gaseous bombs that filled cities afar and at home, people clamored for war each day. She waited and talked to advisors, no matter how much time she spent grieving in private.

She would not create a draft and only allowed a strictly volunteer service to fight. With the utmost protection, the soldiers helped beat back the tide of the Rizen until they were beaten down and succumbed to treaty settling. Still, lives were lost. A fact that would haunt her even if the galaxy was spared further bloodshed. Rauda-Gold did all she could to pay for veterans and their families the same way she did with victims of natural calamities.

Earth’s respect soared, and the withdrawal of colonies led to the planet being self-reliant with a boost in trade from allied planets. The federation of planets were motivated, or goaded for some weaker tyrannical leaders, to endorse a stronger policy of life-form rights. She wanted to be inspiring like Long, prosperous like Slavik, and focused on honest peace like Jacobs. Aware of their shortcomings and their environments, Rauda-Gold knew she would be compared and dissected in the future by historians of all species.

But the issue of war always stabbed at her. At what point does a war become just? The idea of a pacifist president split by an idea of a savior president. The bloodless leader replaced by the hero leader. She planned to resign after her term ended, yet she had more time to make peace with such a choice and image. She contributed to diplomacy more than before, and made sure to rebuild bombed houses with her own hands. Rauda-Gold felt the charred substance of steel and wood and alien materials. All reminders of what a perfect leadership could have avoided. But such desires must be tempered by the environments they dwell in. New generations of alien and human children can breathe and enjoy life in a galaxy more principled against war. Yet she fears her action may inspire future leaders to ignore all that and lionize her war efforts as something to be achieved wholesale without nuance or care. An ongoing fear she must mete out as the twilight of her shining dream dims.

100% agree with you latest post. I was full on waiting for a member of Wonkru to ask where Blodreina was. Did the writers forget that at least half of Wonkru was still very loyal to Octavia at the end of s5? That the only reason they fell to Madi was because Octavia told them to?? It makes no sense.

This is the post in question, for anyone who hasn’t seen it. Short version: How was there no mention of Octavia in 7x03 despite the inciting incident of the episode’s problem was the fact that Wonkru wouldn’t follow anyone but a Commander that now didn’t exist and thus fractured into separate clans again?

It seems like the writers have decided to completely ignore the existence of season 5, with the exceptions of two plot points: One, the events of season 5 have characters shitting on Clarke for the first few episodes of season 6. Two, the events of season 5 have characters shitting on Octavia for... well, it hasn’t really stopped yet.

Up until Gaia revealed the destruction of the Flame, Wonkru was still united. That was because of Octavia - as it always was. She brought them together in the first place, she made them work together, she forced them to survive together, and when not all of them were united behind her anymore she united them under someone else. Unity has always been Octavia’s mission and she is the only one who has ever been able to maintain it.

How people can ignore this, I have no idea. Given Wonkru’s current population numbers, assuming an equal number of survivors across the 12 clans that went into the bunker, that leaves about 30-35 individuals per clan. Sheidheda is going to decimate them.

Have at it, buddy. Really. Maybe once they realize what a tyrant he is, how he wants to subjugate and lord over them, they’ll realize what a mistake they made in casting aside their Queen who demanded nothing from them besides good behaviour, loyalty to each other as members of Wonkru, and respect for those who died so that they could live to fight another day for a better life.