12, 41, 42

& MORE CHARACTER BUILDING | ACCEPTING.

How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?

even though Riven can’t read very well & lacks a proper education ( mainly being self-taught mixed with some elementary subjects from her time in the military ), i wouldn’t write her off as “dumb” by any means. her intelligence shines in how adaptable she shows herself to be; for example, during her little ‘trips’ to the downtown, she’d overhear middle class merchants and see their speech as more ‘refined’, so she’d mimic it. if she didn’t understand a word, she’d parse its context, or dig through dictionaries and practice saying it until it was right.

 the result is a surprisingly large vocabulary with proper, formal pronunciations - you will rarely catch Riven using slang. her intellect is not hampered by education by any means.

Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony?

i’d say somewhat. she doesn’t shy away from her strengths, but i think her glaring weakness is - ironically - her inability to admit her weaknesses. she doesn’t think she’s stubborn, goddamn it, she’s right. she isn’t short-tempered, she’s passionate !   i think that’s just in part because of her disability ( somebody w/ ADHD is notorious for having weaker self-insight ), but the main culprit is Riven’s ego. time in exile tempered her, but never doused her completely - it take somebody she sees as wise, or somebody she trusts, to really point out those chinks in her armor and get her to adjust her worldview.

What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

it depends on the verse, but de facto, Riven want\s to reform Noxus.  she wants revolution and she wants it ardently, which is why she’s actually showing self - restraint by crossing her t’s and dotting her i’s. she’s making plans, meeting allies, getting a lay for the land - despite her fervent desire, she’s moving the pieces on her board in a collected manner. Riven will do whatever she sees fit to achieve it, strangling out her every option until she’s got her hands wrapped around its neck.

( ‘sacrifices must be made.’ ) 

So there has been the expected dismissal of Dr Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh based on the old boys will be boys/he was a kid then and didn’t know better tropes.  This sort of thing needs to stop. I certainly hope nobody is really buying it (I mean, even the people who say it know what a crock it is and only do so to save their political strategy, right?) but worry that too many are.

I will admit, that when I first heard of Ford’s, then anonymous, accusation I did think to myself ‘ this was a long time ago and he was a minor at the time; yeah it’s horrible but is it enough to disqualify him? He could have grown as a human being since then’ - I mean, it’s not as if I support his candidacy, but looking at it from a strategic perspective, anticipating the responses. I certainly did things back then that I am not proud of (nothing like this mind you) and would never do today; haven’t we all? But since then we have a second accuser, with an incident that took place later at Yale, when he was a legal adult; this shows a pattern of behavior stretching at least into early adulthood and is undoubtedly, and now beyond any argument, of great concern. 

Or even ignore that (because the Senate committee is not full of people who tend to believe accusers or even take them seriously at all), and look at the footage we’ve seen of Kavanaugh speaking to various groups, reminiscing fondly and jokingly about his time at the high school in question, alluding to the general debauchery we have heard about.

But to get back to my main point, it is dangerous, unfair (in that it has historically not been applied equally to all people) and false to use the dismissive arguments Kavanaugh’s supporters have in the article above.

Firstly, as we all know, he was 17 at the time.  Poor black boys (as an easy example, not an exclusive list; generally anyone non cis/het-white-male and at least middle class) do not get the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to crimes committed as minors.  Even nonviolent crimes such as theft and drug possession.  They get charged as adults and sent to adult jail, where they tend to be taken advantage of by the older, actual adult, inmates.  Contrast this with that privileged white university jock (an actual adult, whose name I will not bother to look up because he doesn’t deserve it) who raped an unconscious girl and then only got, what, 3 months? 

Secondly, and not to diminish the first point above which is very important and a horrible travesty but others are speaking to that better than I can, the bigger issue may be the complete fallacy of the argument in any demographic case.  I’ve been a minor in a culture of escapist inebriation.  I’ve been wasted at parties.  No such thing as this ever happened; it would not have happened.  It is NOT normal in a categorical sense, not in gendered Catholic schools, nor coed public ones (I have attended both).  Every 17 year old boy I knew, would have known it was wrong and also known that the rest of us would put a quick end to it should we notice any such activity (yes, I can think back and identify certain individuals who may have, had the culture been more tolerable, tried it; but the point is, even they knew it was wrong).  Sure, the macho patriarchal entitlement-to-the-use-of-a-woman culture was there, boys still tried to pick up chicks, and there were the ones I knew of who girls would warn each other about, but they were (not to diminish the seriousness of the behaviour, but comparatively)  just manipulative jerks, not rapists (e.g.  the pity fuck master male-slut kiss and teller).  This situation with Kavanaugh, as described by Ford, is inarguably rape.  Gang rape at that; he had help.  There is no way a 17 year old boy, especially one ostensibly educated on the subject of Christian ethics, would not know this is wrong.  That’s the appeal; to top, to dominate, to impose one’s will, to do the wrong thing and get away scott free. It is a tool to generate respect from other boys within that same culture (leveraging faux sexual prowess, without actually being about the sex at all; like it doesn’t seem to matter who the victim is very much; it’s a matter of picking off the perceived weak ones in the herd). It is practice or training, for being a leader in America.

I have also previously extolled the fallacy of drunkenness as an excuse.  Lowering inhibitions does not equal turning a good boy into a rapist; that’s not how it works and for heaven’s sake we all (with the exception of dry individuals perhaps) know this.  Yes, there are mean drunks.  Abusive drunks even.  But what’s happening there is that the usual rationality that keeps these behaviours in check when sober (and this can often just be fear of consequence; never actual moral objection) are lowered. In fact it feels as if alcohol is purposely used in order to have an excuse to be able to do the things one knows one shouldn’t - or would like to but it too scared. Alcohol cannot be such an excuse when a) there is no remorse, in fact it is bragged about afterwards, b) it is repeated behaviour, and c) it is premeditated - the repeat nature and group participation shows that much rather clearly. These people are still assholes sober, they just have more self-restraint and more skillfully applied cosmetic  smiley face for the camera.  There is no level of drunkenness, that a true  respecter of women as fellow humans could achieve to make him into a rapist. Trust me; I’ve been pretty fucked up, and not just once.  I’ve said stupid things, even pathetically hit on girls, but never lost sight of consent. Never forced myself on anyone or taken advantage of the many inebriated girls that were around. I could have - there was that one girl, from a grade or 2 down (HS as well so very good comparison) at one party I recall who apparently had a crush on me (I was unaware) and who got so drunk (first time perhaps) that she was literally fawning/falling all over me.  I could have taken advantage - I mean she literally started it and she would not have resisted; I would not have had to hold her down or cover her mouth, or require any help to do so, but I did not - because I knew it would be wrong despite my own consumption of booze.  I found a friend of hers and transferred care.  I was a wasted horny teenager, as  eager to lose his virginity as any other, and somehow perfectly able to keep it in my pants. This should not be a point of pride for me; this should be normal, and I know that in many circles it is, the problem is that it is not universal.  There are numerous other examples I could give, and no, this isn’t about being the great white hope/knight in shining armour. There are also examples of when I failed to do act, or did not act enough.  What this is about is about being a human being, because you done know that girls do it for each other (even boys do it for each other) and in fact were there for us boys at times as well; it is our duty to be there for them as well.  It’s not exemplary, it’s the basic standard.  Or at least it should be.

What this (above in the article) is, is an exposure of the prevalence of the aforementioned macho culture within the ranks of the American conservative elite.  To be fair this is not exclusive to the conservative (Republican) elite, I would just argue that it is worse there - at least there is a movement against this sort of thing in liberal (e.g. Democratic) circles, but as we know there is still work to be done there as well.  It is an indictment of the old boys club, one hand washes the other, team colors are thicker than morality and justice.  An exposure of the farce of the Republican claim to have the religious moral higher ground. This also ties in with other areas in which so-called moral authority sees it fit and right to bend other rules (such as the right to rule and therefore subvert democracy to realise that right/take it back from the unworthy, as recently written about by Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic - that was about Europe, but it applies just as well to North America, especially the USA).

The fact of the matter is, that someone, like Kavanaugh, who has demonstrated a pattern of not acknowledging womens’ humanity, much less their equal status and rights under the law (the hallowed Constitution), cannot be fit to serve as a justice, especially in these times when we expect womens’ rights issues to appear before the supreme court.  Someone who has demonstrated a commitment to protecting himself as well as his old boys as being above his sense of justice and morality, cannot be fit in these times when we expect criminal investigations against the President and other public servants to occur.  Someone with such a warped and backwards view of normality, is just not fit to set de facto policy in the country’s highest court for the next few decades.

I am tired of the excuses and dismissals for these behaviours; all the while the same people trying to preach to me about my life and choices - how I am raising my kids wrong.  I do not accept your moral authority, and you are kidding yourselves if you think anyone except your small community of Kool Aid drinkers do. I am tired of these bullies and dinosaurs making me, my entire demographic, look bad.  The jig is almost up, the writing is on the wall and there is no putting the genie back inside the bottle.  No matter how many female kapos you find (such as those who wrote/signed letters in Kavanaugh’s defense), willing or coerced; your fellow men are now turning against you.  We will not tolerate or dismiss ‘locker room talk’ - we will react by shaming you in front of our peers, as your member hangs there retreating into your abdomen for safety.  We will pull your drunken (or not, as the case may be) ass off a girl if we need to.  We will not be your alibi or character reference. We will call bullshit on the usual defensive talking points we all know to be invalid excuses. We will do what should have always been done.  You will have no refuge.  You will not continue to shame us.  We will teach our boys, and they in turn will teach yours if you so fail, that the best sex, the only sex worth having, is with a person who really wants to give themselves to you (and where you in turn, really want to give yourself to them; that person specifically, not just because they are the easy prey orifice at hand) - anything else is just kidding yourself.  If she’s not into it, you can tell.