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yooitsyorick · 5 months

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The Division Book from Today's Short! (Featuring some very rushed doodles from me)

A NEW SYMBOL

At the beginning of this story are two symbols: addition and subtraction. For the longest time, that’s the only thing numbers knew. I’m not exactly sure how the numeral species took so long to discover anything outside of these two symbols. Maybe they were content with what they had discovered already – Maybe they were just stupid.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Actually, no. We need to go a bit deeper here, I think. First graders learn about multiplication and division. How were they just unable to figure this out? It’s really not that hard. I’m just being honest here. Why should anyone be interested in this “tale” when it’s predicated on such an unbelievable premise? An entire population of sentient, powerful beings and not a single one of them could come up with an array? They’re literally numbers for crying out loud! I just feel like they could’ve figured this out earlier, I guess.

Whatever, quick recap, the numbers only know about addition and subtraction for a long while. They had a lot of fun adding into each other and all that. They really liked it.

Multiplication, which is really just doing addition multiple times in a row, (Think about it, four multiplied by three is just adding four together three times. Isn’t that cool), was discovered shortly after. There were some problems with it, and there are still problems with it. A lot of numbers don’t really mess with multiplication anymore. Every single time they try to, something ends up going wrong. It’s not fun! Addition is fun. Well, I find it quite boring, but they find it fun.

Division, however, stayed a mystery for the longest time. Which it bears repeating, is absolutely unbelievable. Division is literally just opposite multiplication.

Remember when I said multiplication is just addition multiple times in a row? Well, division is just subtraction multiple times in a row. Again, shocking that it took them so long to figure this out. I can imagine the moment now.

So I don’t really know what happened, but we can probably guess that someone stupid – 9 or 7 – brought up the idea of “reverse multiplication.” I’m not sure. Maybe those two weren’t even alive, I’m not exactly sure why I was the one chosen to pen this history into the annals of time. I really do not know a single thing about what actually happened.

Anyway, let’s just say all the numbers were just sitting around, having a lot of fun, and playing on the seesaw, 9 walks in after a visit to the local multiplication symbol. She has a weird thought in her head, and she confidently brings up the idea of division. She’s laughed at and made to feel very, very dumb. Little did they all know, however, that the idea of division is very, very real. It had just been forgotten about. More on that later.

THE POWER

The division symbol is theorised to be extremely powerful, giving its leftward user the power to split themselves into multiple parts. The amount of parts the leftward number splits into is equivalent to the value of the rightward number in the equation.

The graphic below displays the basic capabilities of the division symbol. 16 being four multiplied by four can get divided by 4 into four four. These fours are all 16, just split up in between four different bodies. They all act like 16 and share 16’s colours. This is because these four 4’s are 16. 16 has disappeared due to splitting themself up. Imagine if you were split into four identical bodies – that’s what ended [up] happening in it. Only in the graphic, of course. 16 is kind of a scaredy-cat, so I don’t think they would be keen to split themselves up like this. Which is frankly weird to me, I think of it the same way I think of people who chicken out of riding roller coasters. Like, you stand there for an hour and a half and watch thousands of people stream in and out of the coaster. Not a single person dies. When’s the last time you saw someone fly out of their roller coaster seat? It doesn’t happen! So, what is there to be afraid of? Do you think you’re special or something? You’re not. You’ll survive. Roller coasters are fun. Why are you robbing yourself of the experience?

Sorry about that rant, this book wasn’t really the place for it. I think I could just delete it, but, um, I really don’t feel like it. I got commissioned to write like at least 200 pages of this thing, and I’m kind of already running out of ideas. You saw it yourself, a couple dozen pages ago I went into a 2 page lecture about the history of devilled eggs. I literally just copied that from Wikipedia. I’m starting to think I’m not being paid for my writing ability, but just because someone was too lazy to do what I’m doing right now. Insane! This thing should be like a pamphlet at most.

Whatever, I should probably get back to the topic at hand. The division symbol is very powerful because it allows the user to split themselves up. This is beneficial for manual labour and especially fighting.

Imagine how much you could get done in a day if there was a clone of you around. That’s like, a basic sitcom plotline. It’s relatable! The numbers, lucky as they are, get to live in a reality where this is possible. You need to lift up a really heavy, wide object? Just divide yourself in two. Of course, you’d have to find 2 in order to divide yourself by them. That’s really the only downside of the symbol. A lot of the smaller numbers don’t like being “used” for division. They have their own lives!

But yeah, division is, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very powerful

THE LOSS

Those who ruled the numeric realm at the time were not pleased with the existence of the division symbol. You know how people say when you’re alone you’re weak, and when you’re united you stand. Well, yeah, extrapolate that concept to this. Do you think those who enjoy power over a population of powerful numbers like the idea of them splitting themselves into a million little equally-powerful pieces? No!

So those in power really did not like the division symbol at all. Like, they really, really did not like it. Like when you walk by a group in public and they start reciting jokes you swear you saw online six years ago to each other. Like, are you that unoriginal? You think you can impress your friends by stealing other people’s jokes? They aren’t even that good of jokes! It’s just sad, honestly. Just show them the joke on your phone, or something like that.

It just really grinds my gears, honestly. So I can really imagine how it feels to be whoever ruled the land of the numbers [was]. I don’t really think it was justified; in fact, it was kind of evil, honestly. But like, if I happened to have dominion over those idiots? Yeah, I probably would want to get rid of the self-destruct button they randomly found and learned how to use. Especially if there are 2 other self-destruct buttons out there for them to use. I say 2 because subtraction is kind of useless. Like… It doesn’t really help anyone. Multiplication and addition are pretty cool though!

So, yeah, one night the numbers were having fun, partying, and just generally enjoying themselves – as numbers are known to do. They generally liked to hang out around the division symbol, actually. They really liked it! It was probably one of their favourite things in the world. Of course, everyone had their own personal favourite thing. 9’s favourite thing was his sunglasses, the real retro ones. They had a rainbow gradient instead of a desert gradient. Doesn’t that sound cool? Meh. I don’t need your approval anyway. Who cares. 8’s favourite thing is when all of the other numbers are quiet. What a weirdo.

So the numbers partied all night. They sang songs and danced around. Blah blah blah. At the dead of night, the last number finally decided to go to bed. Numbers sleep, by the way. I don’t think they really need to? I’ll be honest I know almost nothing about these things. They’re kind of useless? They’re also annoying.

While they were asleep, however, the evil ruler of the realm took the division symbol and removed it from its place! It’s a pretty heavy symbol, so I’m actually kind of amazed that a group of people were able to just pick it up like that. As you’ll see later, 2 is also able to just pick it up on their own. Isn’t that insane? Like, 2, let me know your workout regimen or something. I could use a tip or two. Haha, two, 2.

Ok back on track for real, now BFDI season 1 is the best season. Like, by a mile! It’s just so whimsical and fun and awesome. My favourite episode was episode 6, The Power of Three. What’s up with 3 anyway? Why aren't they in these things? We’re all thinking it, right? This is meta, lol.

For real this time, let’s get back on track. The numbers woke up the next morning to find their precious division symbol gone! All that remained was the discoloured patch of grass that lay under the symbol for so many years.

The numbers were shocked and horrified by the division symbol being taken. 9 cried for like, three days straight, I think. It would’ve been cute if it wasn’t so pathetic. Like, you’re an adult, man. Either way, it was still a tragedy, though. The symbol meant a lot to these freaks! And now it was gone! The fun was over! They got over it quite quickly, though. Like, I’m not kidding, they all forgot about it the literal next day. It was like it never existed. Isn’t that just crazy? These things are so weird, man. Like. Gosh. Just crazy.

THE SEARCH

Leading spots where experts think the division symbol might be hidden. It’s not clear why they think these spots have the most potential. But they’re experts! So listen to ‘em. Also, look, map! Go obsess over what this map means or something if that’s what you’re interested in. Go wild!

Why am I still writing this. How many pages are even left! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

The typography on those “blahs” is really, really ugly. So I’m going to stop using them to fill space. The numbers embarked on an epic search for the division symbol, but were a little too stupid to end up finding it. Who would’ve guessed! This is partly why I said they just forgot about it earlier. They tried searching for it, got lost, and instantly gave up! What losers! Can’t commit to the simplest of tasks.

If I remember this correctly, 7, the genius he is, started climbing a tree to get a good vantage point. The only problem with that idea, though, was that the tree had like eight different hornet nests on them. He turned as red as 3! Because of the stings, of course. He was pretty embarrassed too, though. He tried really hard to play it off, making excuses. He said something about how the redness came from getting a sunburn… Which, like, isn’t that much less embarrassing than getting stung by thousands of hornets?

Imagine the contempt you feel whenever you see someone walking around with an ugly full-body sunburn. Like, what an idiot. You couldn’t take the basic precautions to avoid this? You couldn’t put in the 10 minutes of work it would’ve taken you to drive to the local pharmacy and buy a can of sunscreen? It’s so easy! And yet, here this dope is, fully sunburnt. Whatever, I went on a tangent again. What do you think the person who commissioned me to write this is going to think when they check my work. My guess is they’ll just see that there’s a lot of words and instantly give it their seal of approval. If you’re reading this, that is exactly what happened. There is almost zero to be actually gained from reading this book. I’ve gone on the same tirade about how little I care like 50 times now. In fact; all of this is just copied and pasted from 10 pages earlier. That last sentence was too! I’ve reused this same passage about three times now, I’m gonna do it again, too. I’m out of ideas.

Anyway, the numbers stopped searching pretty much immediately. I think Eight maybe looked for a day or two more, but he eventually gave up too. He tried to do this thing where he’d split up into four different grey 2’s… It was low-key a little weird but some people seemed to like it. I just made all of that up.

Last paragraph on this page, better make it count. Lalalalalalalala. Uhhh… Yeah I can’t make this one count. There’s really nothing to talk about with “The Search.” There literally basically wasn’t one. There’s no way anyone is reading this far down. Whatever. Bye.

#xfohv #bfdi #bfb #algebralien #algebraliens #algebralian #algebralians #yorick's show and tell #this took me way too long to do oh jesus christ #my eyes hurt from straining them just to read the blurry text lmao

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ashysmultifandomcatdump · 5 months

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trying my best to make out what the storybook fourteen is reading says so that you don't have to

last night after the subscriber special came out i spent an hour and a half trying to read and type out the contents of this book!!! i got most of it but there's still parts i couldn't read due to lighting esp towards the end so if anyone has been able to read those parts please let me know!!!!!!

A NEW SYMBOL

At the beginning of this story are two symbols: Addition and subtraction. For the longest time, that's the only thing numbers knew. I'm not exactly sure how the numeral species took so long to discover anything outside of those two symbols. Maybe they were content with what they had already— Maybe they were just stupid.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Actually, no. We need to go a bit deeper here, I think. First graders learn about multiplication and division. How were they just unable to figure this out? It's really not that hard. I'm just being honest, here. Why should anyone be interested in this "tale" when it's predicated on such an unbelievable premise? An entire population of sentient, powerful beings and not a single one of them could come up with an array? They're literally numbers, for crying out loud! I just feel like they could've figured this out earlier, I guess.

Whatever, quick recap, the numbers only knew about addition and subtraction for a long while. They had a lot of fun adding into each other and all that. They really liked it.

Multiplication, which is really just doing addition multiple times in a row, (Think about it, four multiplied by three is just adding four together three times. Isn't that cool), was discovered shortly after. There were some problems with it, and there still are some problems with it. A lot of numbers don't really mess with multiplication anymore. Every single time they try to, something ends up going wrong. It's not fun! Addition is fun. Well, I find it quite boring, but they find it fun.

Division, however, stayed a mystery for the longest time. Which, it bears repeating, is absolutely unbelievable. Division is quite literally just opposite multiplication.

A lot of the time, the stupid people among us tend to have the best ideas. A lot of great ideas are unsaid just because they sound stupid. Like, imagine being all smart and educated in the 1500's and suggesting the idea of electricity. Oh, wow, magic beams from the sky can power gigantic and complex machines! Get out of here, man. But that's actually how it works! So I don't really know what happened, but we can probably guess that someone stupid— 9 or 7— brought up the idea of "reverse multiplication." I'm not sure. Maybe those two weren't even alive. I'm not exactly sure why I was the one to pen this history into the annals of time. I really do not know a single thing about what actually happened.

Anyway, let's say all the numbers were just sitting around, having a lot of fun, and playing on the seesaw. 9 walks in after a visit to the local multiplication symbol. She has a weird thought in her head, and she confidently brings up the idea of division. She's laughed at and made to feel very, very dumb. Little did they all know, however, that the idea of division is very, very real. It had just been forgotten about. More on that later.

THE POWER

The division symbol is theorized(?) to be extremely powerful, giving [??] leftward [????] the power to split themselves into multiple parts. The amount of parts the leftward number splits into is equivalent to the value of the rightward number in the equation.

The graphic below displays the basic capabilities of the division symbol. 16, being four multiplied by four, can get divided by 4 into four fours. These fours are all 16, just split up in between four different bodies. They all act like 16 and share 16's colors. This is because these four 4's are 16. 16 has disappeared due to splitting themself into quarters. Ultimately, 16 is splitting themself up. Imagine if you were split into four identical bodies— that's what happened to 16. Only in the graphic, of course. 16 is kind of a scaredy-cat, so I don't think they would be keen to split themselves up like this. Which is frankly weird to me. I think of it the same way I think of people who chicken out of riding roller coasters. Like, you stand in line for an hour and a half and watch thousands of people [?????????? i CANNOT make this out sorry]. Not a single person there. When's the last time [?????????????]? It doesn't happen! So what is there to be scared of! Do you think you're [?????]? You're not. You'll survive. Roller coasters are fun. Why are you robbing yourself of the experience?

Sorry for that, this book wasn't really the place for it. I think I could just delete it, but, um, I really don't feel like it. I got commissioned to write like at least 200 pages of this thing, and I'm kind of already running out of ideas. You saw it yourself, a couple dozen pages ago I went into a 2 page lecture about the history of devilled eggs. I literally just copied that from Wikipedia. I'm starting to think I'm not being paid for my writing ability, but just because someone was too lazy to do what I'm doing right now. Insane! This thing should be like, a pamphlet at most.

Whatever, I should probably get back on the topic at hand. The division symbol is very powerful because it allows the number to split themselves up. This is beneficial for manual labor and especially [????i don't know what that word is fighting? tighting? tichtong? what!].

Imagine how much you could get done in a day if there was a clone of you around. That's like, a basic sitcom plotline. It's relatable! The numbers, lucky as they are, get to live in a reality where this is possible. You need to lift a really heavy, wide object? Just divide yourself by two. Of course, you'd have to find 2 in order to divide yourself by them. That's really the only downside of the symbol. A lot of the smaller numbers don't like being "used" for division. They have their own lives! But yeah, division is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, powerful.

THE LOSS

Those who ruled the numeric realm at the time were not pleased with the existence of the division symbol. You know how people say when you're alone you're weak, and when you're united you stand. Well, yeah, extrapolate that concept into this. Do you think those who enjoy power over a population of powerful numbers like the idea of them splitting themselves into a million little equally-powerful pieces? No!

So those in power really did not like the division symbol at all. Like, they really, really did not like it. Like when you walk by a group in public and they start reciting jokes you swear you saw online six years ago to each other. Like, are you that unoriginal? You think you can impress your friends by stealing other people's jokes? They aren't even that good of jokes! It's just sad, honestly, just show them the joke on your phone, or something like that.

It just really grinds my gears, honestly. So I can really imagine how it feels to be whoever ruled the land of the numbers felt. I don't really think it was justified; in fact, it was kind of evil, honestly. But, like, if I happened to have dominion over those idiots? Yeah, I probably would want to get rid of the self-destruct button they randomly found and learned how to use. Especially if there are 2 other self destruct buttons out there for them to use. I say 2 because subtraction is kind of useless. Like... It doesn't really help anyone. Multiplication and addition are pretty cool though!

So, yeah, one night the numbers were having fun, partying, and just generally enjoying themselves— as numbers are known to do. They generally liked to hang out around the division symbol, actually. They really liked it! It was probably one of their favorite things in the world. Of course, everyone had their own personal favorite thing. 9's favorite thing was his sunglasses. His old ones, the real retro ones. They had a rainbow gradient instead of a desert gradient. Doesn't that sound cool? Meh. I don't need your approval anyway. Who cares. 8's favorite thing is when all of the other numbers are quiet. What a weirdo.

So the numbers partied all night. They sang songs and danced around. Blah blah blah. At the dead of night, the last number finally decided to go to bed. Numbers sleep, by the way. I don't think they really need to? I'll be honest I know almost nothing about those things. They're kind of useless? They're also annoying.

While they were asleep, however, the evil ruler of the realm took the division symbol and removed it from its place! It's a pretty heavy symbol, so I'm actually kind of amazed that a group of people were able to just pick it up like that. As you'll see later, 2 is also able to just pick it up on their own. Isn't that insane? Like, 2, let me know your workout regimen or something. I could use a tip or two. Haha, two, 2.

Ok, back on track for real, now. BFDI season 1 is the best season. Like, by a mile! It's just so whimsical and fun and awesome. My favorite episode is episode 6, The Power of Three. What's up with 3 anyway? Why aren't they in these things? We're all thinking it, right? This is meta, lol.

For real this time, let's get back on track. The numbers woke up the next morning to find their precious division symbol gone! All that remained was the discolored patch of grass that laid under the symbol for so many years.

The numbers were shocked and horrified by the division symbol being taken. 9 cried for like, three days straight, I think. It would've been cute if it wasn't so pathetic. Like, you're an adult, man. Either way, it was still a tragedy, though. The symbol meant a lot to these freaks! And now it was gone! The fun was over! They got over it quite quickly, though. Like, I'm not kidding, they all forgot about it the literal next day. It was like it never existed. Isn't that just crazy? These things are so weird, man. Like. Gosh. Just crazy.

Leading spots where experts think the division symbol might be hidden. It's not clear why they think these spots have the most potential. But they're the experts! So listen to 'em. Also, look, map! Go obsess over what the map means or something if that's what you're interested in. Go wild!

THE SEARCH

The typography on those "blahs" is really ugly. So I'm going to stop using them to fill space. The numbers embarked on an epic search for the division symbol, but were a little too stupid to end up finding it. Who would've guessed! This is partly why I said they just forgot about it earlier. They tried searching for it, got lost, and instantly gave up! What losers! Can't commit to the simplest of tasks.

If I remember correctly, 7, the genius he is, started climbing a tree to get a good vantage point. The only [???????? the rest of the paragraph is like impossible to read]

[honestly this section and the next several paragraphs are so hard to read i can make out a few words and sentences but most of it is illegible for me it's not worth typing them out at this hour. pains me to do this but i must skip to the end...i did my best]

Last paragraph on this page, better make it count. Lalalalalalalala. Uhhh... Yeah I can't make this one count. There's really nothing to talk about with "The Search". There literally wasn't one. There's no way anyone is reading this far down. Whatever. Bye.

#again if anyone can make out the stuff i couldn't...please tell me!!!#i initially tried the first page as well but it wasn't clear enough for me to see the writing #bfdi #jacknjellify #xfohv #long post

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dwellordream · 2 months

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“The Baby Boom affected nearly everyone. The postwar era appeared on the surface to be a time of mass conformity, when most people seemed to dress like, behave alike, vote alike, and share common values. But there were deep divisions in society, particularly along racial lines. Yet when it came to having babies, everyone was doing it. If we divide the population according to economic class, religion, racial identification, or any other category, we find that among all groups the birthrate rose in the 1940s and 50s and then declined in the 1960s. The Baby Boom was a statistical indicator of the intense focus on family life that permeated the nation in the years after World War II.

This powerful commitment to family was accompanied by a widely held belief that men should be the wage earners for their families, and women should tend to the home and children. Women of all racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds faced intense pressure to become wives and mothers after the war, and to make homemaking their primary career. Agnes Meyer expressed these sentiments in 1959 when she wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, “What modern woman has to recapture is the wisdom that being just a woman is her central task and greatest honor… Women must boldly announce that no job is more exacting, more necessary, or more rewarding than that of housewife and mother.”

…In spite of the huge numbers of women in the paid labor force, female employees found it difficult to combine the responsibilities of a family with a job outside the home. The few child care facility that had been established by the federal government during the war closed, and mothers of small children faced even more intense pressures to stay home. As younger women left the paid labor force in order to have babies, they made room for older women whose children were not in school.

It was not unusual for women to take jobs after their children were grown. Since most women married young and had their children during their early 20s, they were in their mid-30s when their youngest child entered school. With the life span increasing, many women could look forward to decades of active life when their primary childbearing duties were over. Since very few highly skilled, well-paying, or professional positions were available, most of these women took jobs as secretaries, clerks, saleswomen, and waitresses in the “pink-collar ghetto,” poorly paying service jobs held almost exclusively by women. As a result of these expanding job opportunities, the number of employed women continued to rise after the war, even though the range of employment available to them narrowed.

…White women might decide to forgo paid employment and marry a man with a well-paying job, taking on the role of full-time homemaker and mother in a comfortable suburban home. Black women did not have that choice. Excluded from the suburbs, married to men who faced poorly paid jobs and few chances for advancement, they had to develop different strategies. As one black woman explained, after the war their families were “crammed on top of each other—jammed and packed and forced into the smallest possible space.” As they had before as well as during the war, black women continued to seek whatever employment they could get.

For many white women, the need for extra household income made it acceptable to take jobs they enjoyed and gain a respite from household tasks. Married women’s wages helped purchase the appliances, automobiles, and other consumer goods that became available in the expanding postwar economy. By 1960, 10 million were employed—triple the number in 1940–but fewer than half of them worked full time. Most of these positions were jobs, not careers. In spite of the return to prosperity, there were proportionately fewer women in professions than there had been in 1930.

…College enrollments also increased for women during the postwar years, but not at the same rate as for men. Although more women were enrolled than before, they represented a smaller percentage of the student population. Women had made up 47 percent of college students in 1920; by 1958 they were only 35 percent of the total, and they earned fewer degrees. During the war years, some barriers to women were removed. Harvard Medical School, for example, finally admitted women for the first time in 1945. But as professional opportunities for women shrank, so did the number of advanced degrees they earned.

College and professional degrees did not guarantee the same entry into well-paying jobs and careers for women as they did for men. As a result, more than half of all women college students dropped out in order to marry and become housewives, or to support husbands through school. Jokes at the time reflected this trend: women were often said to be pursuing a “MRS. degree,” since so many met their future husbands in college and then dropped out to marry and have children. Another term reflected a different pattern: women earning their “Ph.T.,” or Putting Hubby Through, were holding jobs while their husbands completed college. It was expected that a college-educated man could get a better job than a college-educated woman, and would be able to support his family after graduation.

…In 1956, presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson spoke to Smith College graduates at their commencement ceremonies, urging them to take up the banner of domesticity with pride: “Once they wrote poetry. Now it’s the laundry list. Once they discussed art and philosophy until late in the night. Now they are so tired they fall asleep as soon as the dishes are finished.” But “women in the home [can] have an important political influence on man and boy… I think there is much you can do about our crisis in the humble role of housewife. I could wish you no better vocation than that.”

For many white college-educated women, that indeed would be their fate. For black women, the pattern was very different. Since most black women expected to be employed, like their mothers and grandmothers before them, college degrees would greatly improve their occupational prospects. Although there were far fewer black women than white women in college, more than 90 percent of black women who entered college completed their degrees.

…The difficulty of developing a career no doubt encouraged many women to marry during college. Most universities were forced to discontinue their policies against married students and provide places for young couples to live. These arrangements made it easier for women to drop out of school and work or have children while their husbands remained enrolled. Young men and women were both advised that marriage during college was a good idea. Women were warned that their “chances for marriage are greatly reduced if they do not make a permanent attachment during the college years.”

Men were also encouraged to marry while in school. As one writer in the Ladies’ Home Journal advised, “Many young men find that they can do much better work if they get the girl out of their dreams and into their kitchens.” Vocational guidebooks and counselors urged women to use their college education to prepare themselves to be well-educated housewives, with some skills to fall back on in case of an emergency. This may have been realistic advice, given the limited employment opportunities for women. Nevertheless, it caused many college-educated women to resent their education for raising their expectations.”

- Elaine Tyler May, “Domesticity: The Nuclear Family in the Nuclear Age.” in Pushing the Limits: American Women, 1940-1961

#elaine tyler may #1950s #gender #education #american #history #pushing the limits #20th century

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mrfrblogresearch02 · 2 years

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Medical Alert Systems Market: Industry Trends, Revenue, Growth Rate, Impact Factors and Forecast: 2022-2027

Market Highlights

Global Medical Alert Systems Market Share is expected to register a CAGR of 6.46% during the forecast period, with a market value of USD 17,293.6 Million till 2027.

Medical alert systems permit seniors to quickly get help in case of a fall or other medical emergencies. With the push of a button, seniors can signal a call center that is monitored throughout the day and night. Trained operators then notify first responders and help communicate the senior’s condition and medical history. Medical alert systems have gained popularity in recent years in developed countries. The increase in geriatric population and health literacy across the globe, increasing adoption of smart & mobile emergency response systems, and technological advancements in medical alert systems are driving the medical alert systems market globally.

However, the increasing incidence of false alarm and lower acceptability among seniors for use of technology is likely to curb the growth of the medical alert systems market. Nevertheless, entering developing markets will create lucrative opportunities for the growth of the market during the assessment period.

Segment Analysis

Global Medical Alert Systems Market is segmented into System Type, Offering, Connection Type, Application, and Technology. By system type, the market has been segmented into personal emergency response systems (PERS), nurse call systems (NCS), ambulatory auto alert systems, automated airborne flight alert systems, and smart belt. Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) is further divided into home-based/landline-based systems, mobile-PERS, and standalone PERS. Mobile-PERS is further segmented into cellular emergency response system, GPS-based emergency response systems, and wireless emergency response system. Standalone PERS is classified into transmitter, standalone voice communicator, wandering system, and R- Cube/V-Cube monitoring system.

Based on offering, the market is divided into hardware, software, and services. Hardware segment is further bifurcated into console unit, transmitter, battery, and others. The transmitter segment contains wristband transmitter and pendant transmitter.

By connection type, medical alert systems market is segmented into wired and wireless connection.

Based on technology, the market is divided into two-way voice systems, unmonitored medical alert systems, medical alert alarm (button) systems, IP-based systems, and others.

On the basis of application, the market has been segmented into home-based users, senior living facilities/senior care centers, assisted living facilities, and others (nursing homes, hospice) more. Regional Analysis: Global medical alert business opportunity, based on region, has been divided into the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa.

The Americas accounted for the largest share in the global medical alert systems market and was estimated to account for USD 3,973.78 million in 2019 growing at a CAGR of 5.68% by the end of the forecast period. The larger share is majorly attributed to the presence of technological advancements in the wearable healthcare sector, high incidence rates of injuries due to falls from beds, and high disposable income.

The European market is the second-largest market for medical alert systems. Factors such as rising inclination towards independent living among older adults and increased healthcare spending are driving the growth of the market in this region.

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the third-largest market share due to the increasing aging population, government support to improve the healthcare sector, constant innovations in technology, and easy adaptability of PERS devices by major healthcare providers. For instance, according to the UN, it will take China just 20 years for the proportion of the elderly population to double from 10% to 20% (between 2017 and 2037). The next closest is Japan where it took 23 years.

The Middle East and Africa with less economic developments and extremely low income accounted for the least market share in 2019 but is expected to grow with the increasing geriatric population along with the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and demand for better healthcare facilities.

Key Players

MRFR recognizes the following companies as the Key Players in the Global Medical Alert Systems Market— Koninklijke Philips NV (Philips) (Netherlands), ADT (US), AlertONE Service Inc.(US), Bay Alarm Medical (US), GreatCall (US), Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc. (US), LogicMark (US), Medical Guardian, LLP (US), Nortek Security and Control (US), Rescue Alert (US), Tunstall Group (UK), and VRI (US) among others.

Key Findings of the Study

The Global Medical Alert Systems Market was valued at USD 10,609.3 Million in 2019, is estimated to grow at USD 17,293.6 Million by 2027 at a CAGR of 6.46% during the assessment period

Americas accounted for the largest share of the global market due to the presence of major pharmaceutical manufacturers, technological advancements in the wearable healthcare sector, and high incidence rates of injuries.

Based on system type, the personal emergency response systems (PERS) segment accounted for the largest market share in 2019

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#Medical Alert Systems Market

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plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows · 3 years

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Part 2 of the frametypes headcanon ramble.

Under a cut this time bc it’s l o n g.

↠ PART ONE : read first otherwise this prob wont make sense lol

Notes on Groundframes

↠ Light standards are like your basic sedan, they're fuckin everywhere and most people can't tell the subtypes apart. They make up just under 20% of the population on their own, and tend to be thought of as the ‘average Cybertronian’, for better or worse. There are nine subtypes based on location of origin:

Iaconic — tallish, slim, kinda plain otherwise. Very common.

Meridian — tend to be dorito-shaped, with big spoilers or vents. The most common of the subtypes, theyre fuckin everywhere.

Tagani — smaller than the others, compact and flexible design specs, have a reputation for being the 'sportsmecha' of the frametype due to being made for getting around in big honkin mountains. Fairly rare outside of the Tagan rus.

Kaoni — big and stronk for an average sedan, curvy design aesthetic. Common in the southern hemisphere, less so in the north bc having ‘Kaon’ attached to ur name is an instant popularity nerf.

Tarnais — big and often kinda boxy, probably turns into a small ute. Also common in the south and less so in the north.

Praxian — average in every way except for the doorwings. Not actually that common anymore. The 'doorwing' aesthetic originally comes from Praxus but at this point it's present in most of the northern subtypes because Fashion.

Polyhexi — the northern equivalent of the Kaoni type, generally kinda short and stocky. Super common.

Tyresti — tends to be tall and slim. Design aesthetic leans toward big audial fins, spoilers, generally more flourishes than strictly necessary. Not super common outside of Tyrest.

Tyger Paxi — smallish, often Round. Most notable trait is three-fingered hands, also tend to be enframed with a colorful paintjob. Not common outside of Tyger Pax.

Despite the subtype names being based on locale of origin, they can generally be found all over the planet. There are more of the Polyhexi light standard subtype in Helex than in Polyhex, for example.

Average heights tend to range between 16′ to 20′ or so. Modding for occupation, hobbies, or just plain fashion is very very common and there are a load of different frame blueprints anyway, which makes identifying who’s got what frametype even more difficult. (Functionists hate this.)

↠ Heavy standards are also super common and can be hard to tell apart, though less so because there’s only six subtypes. The Towers subtype is particularly difficult to identify unless you have experience; they can potentially be shorter and weigh less than those aforementioned really large light standards. Heavy standards tend to be more heavyset than light standards, but aside from being slightly larger the main difference between the frametypes is in armor and engine grade — heavies have heavier armor and more powerful engines; they're made to carry a bigger load.

Hesperidus class — more or less the 'ancestral' type. They tend to be leggier and a bit slimmer than other heavies. Spot a hesperidus mech by the deep chests and the big feet.

Equatorial, Boreal, and Austral types were the result of semi-deliberate selection for large long-distance haulers, in the ages before throttles and dexters. They tend to be boxy, heavyset, probably have a van alt.

Towers class — was developed much later than the rest, to fit the Second Generation nobility's aesthetic ideals because what's the point of having a capable servant if they don't look good? (Second Generation noble culture, incidentally, is where the seeds of Functionism came from.)

They also tend to be found in lower-ranked castes than the light standards (with two exceptions being the priestly castes and medics, the former because size is a useful visual shorthand for authority and the latter because working on bigger patients is easier if u are also Big). You'll occasionally see them with offroad tyres and utility altmodes, whereas that's very much Frowned Upon for light standards under a Functionist viewpoint.

↠ Throttles came from the same semideliberate selection process as the bigger heavy standard classes. Cybertronian society in the rebuilding years of the First Generation was mostly made up of small frametypes (because the small frametypes were those who found it easiest to hide underground from the Cataclysm!), and so once they emerged from the cavernous underworld, they found they had a great need for larger, stronger mecha capable of going long distances without the need for refueling. (This is also the same process that gave rise to the durus and efficiens system configurations.) Throttles were the largest and heaviest of these mecha, and for a long time they were actively prized - up until supply outstripped demand and they became associated so strongly with the labor castes that as the social value of the labor castes decreased, so did the status of the throttles.

There are two subtypes:

Southern — developed in the First Generation settlement of the Austral rus. They’re Extremely Common in the labor castes due to their size, strength, and physical endurance. Their armor pattern is usually kinda blocky and/or pointy because that was the height of Fashion for ages and ages. Probably turns into a small truck or some other specialised work vehicle.

Northern — developed about the same time in the settlement of the Tagan rus. Much less common as a result, because the Tagan Heights turned out to be a huge pain in the ass to colonise. They’re often Extremely Round and very well-reinforced, could probably fall off a mountain and their reaction would be like “oops my bad.”

↠ Minibots are the one frametype to have thrived in the Cataclysm. Cybertron's underworld is full of cramped and narrow spaces, so smaller mecha were able to take shelter much deeper and in many more places than larger mecha. The original minibots tended to look like a standard, simply scaled down. Modern frametype subdivisions occurred once Cybertronian society moved out of the underworld into the wide open plains and proto-cities of the First Generation, and suddenly being small in a world of increasingly large mecha was a scarier prospect.

Compact minibots — selected for resilience and the ability to take a pounding and bounce back as quickly as possible. They’re flexible, with simple internal system design and often end up looking a lot like one another, aside from paintjobs and other personal decorations.

Articulates — selected for agility and the ability to get into spaces other mecha can’t. Often built with non-standard proportions, long limbs and occasionally extra limbs and tails.

Sylph minibots — selected for speed and the ability to avoid getting hit in the first place. Common as a frametype, especially where space or other resources are at a premium.

It's culturally quite common and accepted for the articulate and sylph types to physically climb all over their larger brethren (provided they have the appropriate relative ranks/social status). This serves the dual purpose of putting the minibot on more or less the same level as their interlocutor, and making sure the minibot is out of the way of getting stepped on or whatever.

↠ Dexters were one result of a deliberate bioengineering project during the Quintesson Wars, at a time when Cybertron was losing the fight and thus was getting desperate enough to throw whatever the heck they could come up with at the invaders. Researchers took code inheritances from heavy standards, throttles, and heavy warbuilds to create a new type of mech, one with the inherent combat capabilities of the warbuilds and the size, strength, and most importantly the endurance and resilience of the large groundframes, which could serve as an all-rounder both in combat and in supply chains and behind-the-lines defense. Unlike some previous attempts at bioengineering, this was a roaring success.

Dexters are also quite common among Towersmecha despite their size and the perception of them as being suited best to labor, hauling and fighting. The Towersmecha are deliberately invoking an older perception of dexters: this is the shit that won us the Quintesson Wars, so put up or shut up.

Aegis dexters — often interestingly lanky in appearance - think TFP Optimus and pre-war Soundwave - and heavily-armored enough that the warbuild inheritance is visible. They are the most common subtype; you'll find them most often in the military and ground freight castes.

Eurus dexters — some of the biggest groundframes, often outstripping the largest heavy warbuilds and coming second only to their dexter cousins, the rayets. They are much more heavyset than the aegis subtype, though again visibly well-armored. They tend to have something of an hourglass shape, and altmodes are basically limited to large haulers, tanks, and guncars.

Rayet dexters — the largest groundbound transforming mecha bar none. They are often tall and leggy, though not to the same extent as aegis dexters, and the vast majority take on rail altmodes and work in rail-based castes. The largest can have difficulty finding accommodation and furniture that's rated for their size. Some absolute madman once had the idea of creating a combiner entirely out of rayet dexters and these guys are now basically the biggest celebrities on Velocitron. (Literally.)

Notes on Flightframes

↠ Light jets are most of what came through the Cataclysm unharmed; jets have always tended larger than groundbound frames because of their engines (both physical size and the size of the tanks needed to hold enough fuel to keep them going) and also their wings. The frametype subdivisions among light jets are divided by engine grade and how far a jet can fly without needing to be refueled, and therefore size.

Flightframes in general can be easily modded for aquatic altmodes, but it is most common among light jets. This is a fairly comprehensive mod, involving most bodily systems, but it's not considered a reformat because it's not really changing any of the frame's basic architecture (although wing area is usually significantly reduced). By contrast, modding a warframe or a groundframe for a fully-aquatic altmode requires a full reformat.

Super-light jets — the jet equivalent of minibots, fairly common and especially well-suited to city life. Often small and agile enough to fly indoors, and like groundbound minibots are prone to climbing their larger brethren. Flightframes tend to dislike this more than groundframes do, so this subtype has a reputation for being particularly scatterbrained and tactile.

Aurora-class — a little larger, match well to the light and heavy standards in size class. Usually leggy with wide shoulders and dorito torsos, engines often slung on the back between flexible wing-joints. Accounts for probably like 25% of all flightframes because they strike a handy balance of ‘can fly’ with ‘relatively cheap to build’ and ‘won’t drink you out of house and home.’

Comet-class — larger again, roughly dexter-sized. Cuts a striking figure with long wings and legs, but aren’t particularly economic either in enframing costs or fuel intake. Mostly they turn up in rich clades, which then gives them a secondary reputation for being Pretty.

↠ Heavy jets diverged from light jets twice - once during the Dynasty of Primes, and once again after the Cataclysm. The largest Dynastic flightframes were simply too large to take shelter underground as the meteorites began to hit. As such, while light jets are one of the five most common frametypes, heavy jets are much rarer, and tend to be limited in the jobs they do and the castes they occupy. Socially, they’re also limited by their sheer size - a common refrain among the larger flightframes.

Like light jets, the subtypes are divided by engine grade and range, and overall size:

Notos-class — the smallest, but only relative to the other classes. Usually identifiable by not having delta-wings, and a relatively slim v-shaped frame.

Lipara-class — delta-winged and often built like a flying brick. You can tell they were built for cargo, although these days they’re somewhat outdated.

Erebus-class — delta-winged, extreme long-distance fliers built for speed and coverage. Often mistaken for smaller shuttles, but generally not capable of spaceflight.

↠ Shuttles diverged from heavy jets relatively late; during the Quintesson Wars, as a product of the increased need for rapid long-distance transport. The smallest shuttles usually look very similar in root-mode to the Erebus-class heavy jets (and even their frame blueprints and code inheritance is extremely similar at a glance), but where heavy jets are limited to atmospheric flight, the shuttles are capable of spaceflight. Consequently the heavy jet >> shuttle reformat is one of the easiest to do.

Delta-class — the vanguard of Cybertron’s moon colonies, designed for local space exploration. Tend to have the classic flightframe dorito shape with large delta wings.

Iota-class — capable of longer-range spaceflight, generally built to be extremely self-sufficient. Usually not an atmospheric flier; wings are small if present at all and tend to get tacked onto unusual places in root mode.

Omega-class — these guys are the biggest transforming Cybertronians, period. Extremely rare, extremely valuable; all those in existence were created by cold-construction in several waves during the Imperial expansion period, explicitly to augment imperial Cybertron's colonial forces. Can be very expensive to maintain, don’t tend to be economically independent in their own right.*

↠ Satellites diverged from heavy jets during the Second Generation, in an experiment which took the lonely high-altitude communications relay hubs and stationed them on the edge of space, orbiting Cybertron like the moons. These first satellites were heavy jets which underwent a fairly simple reformat to make them spaceworthy and give them powerful inbuilt communications hardware. In the early years, these mecha underwent many more mods to make them more efficient at their jobs, and new satellites were designed according to a particular psychological profile - many of those early recruits were simply too social to tolerate extended periods of solitude. Quickly, a new frametype emerged.

Perseid & Lyrid — very similar subtypes originating from Praxus and Tarn respectively. These are common in public, private, and military enterprises alike, and are capable of limited atmospheric flight. They tend to be lanky and full of interesting cables.

Eridanid — rarer, larger, and less maneuverable in atmospheric flight. Most satellites are faceless because why bother? but eridanids take this to an extreme and sometimes lack normal arms or heads entirely.

Tryptid — the largest, are not capable of atmospheric flight at all beyond what is necessary to reach orbital altitude. Like eridanids, they can be identified by fuckin weird body plans.

Satellites and shuttles both contain base coding that prepares them for long periods of solitude. Satellites especially spend most of their time hooked into various planetary networks and often have lively online presences, but depending on their jobs they may go entire vorn without being in the physical presence of another mech. They have a reputation for being very self-sufficient as a result, and often experience culture shock upon returning to their planetary bases.

↠ Rotaries were created in the same no-holds-barred frenzy of military experimentation that created dexters. These are the odd ducks of the flightframe family, inherently flight-capable but sharing more of their code blueprint with groundframes than with flightframes. Cybertronian rotaries are augmented with adjustable jet engines, increasing their load capabilities and range to an extent. Their specialty is in slow flight and hovering; they were designed essentially as aerial assault platforms. They are heavily-armored, usually have two or three different engine systems, often bristling with gun placements, and most of them are rather large.

Zephyr-class — smallish, usually angular and winged. Historically less common than their larger counterparts because of their smaller size, but also an unfortunate tendency to be aggressive little fraggers.

Bolide-class — bigger, more common, best defenses of any of the flightframes, primarily because they’re easy targets. Tend to be built like bricks, with about that much subtlety too.

Notes on Warframes

↠ Light warbuilds and heavy warbuilds are primarily distinguished from each other by armor grade and intended combat role, with heavy warbuilds taking on direct combat roles and light warbuilds primarily intended for ancillary roles (though they are perfectly capable of combat if required and do share the combat optimization of the warframe class as a whole). Light warbuilds have a lighter armor grade, and do not get quite as large as heavy warbuilds, but otherwise they can be very hard to tell apart.

Skirmisher class — optimized for ranged combat and awkward terrain. Light and agile with a lot of gun emplacements and highly developed sensory processing with built-in targeting software. Often mistaken for ur average sedan.

Scout class — optimized for information gathering and being very sneaky. Look like minibots, usually.

Ranger class — combine the two previous types with a focus on long-term missions and endurance. Also tend to look like nothing in particular.

Executive class — are the rarest subtype, with a focus on large-scale data analysis, communications and command. Lots of variation in body type and armor pattern; the internal stuff is what’s characteristic of the subtype.

Heavy warbuilds are divided into three subclasses based on size, armor grade, and intended combat role:

Chevalier class — optimized mainly for speed in close quarters combat. They range across four size classes and account for the largest percentage of the warbuild population. Could be mistaken for an average sedan, but the armor grade tends to be a giveaway.

Reinforcement class — optimized for holding a defensive line; they have the heaviest armor and generally the biggest weapons. Brick-shaped, sometimes wider than they are tall.

Frontliner class — optimized for breaking the other side's defensive line; they have the second biggest weapons and are generally the biggest scariest mecha on the field. Tend to be what others think of when they hear the word 'warframe', despite being relatively uncommon.

↠ Flighted Warbuilds are often called Seekers, a reference to their tendency for target fixation. The nickname caught on in common parlance for being less of a mouthful than the original term. Seekers originated from the same source as dexters and rotaries; their initial code blueprint was a blend of flightframe physical capabilities with warframe armor, weapons systems, and skeletal architecture. Despite having inherent flight capabilities, Seekers are counted among the warframes because they possess all the extra bits that make warframes what they are. They are by far and away the most successful of the warborn frametypes, with a population nine times larger as the dexters and nearly thirty times larger than the rotaries.

Seekers are divided into three subtypes by size, intended combat role, and range.

Skirmisher class — the smallest, agile in the air and best against aerial opponents, but also have the smallest range. Tend to be slim and leggy in root mode.

Bomber class — the largest, with the longest range, the highest top speed and the biggest guns, but also the least maneuverable. Tend to be solid and heavy-limbed in root mode.

Multirole class — strike an elegant balance between skirmisher and bomber, and are generally considered the archetypal Seeker. Classic long-legged dorito shape in root mode.

↠ Triplechangers also originate from the wartime developmental period, but remain exponentially rarer than the other three warborn frametypes, primarily because of the truly ludicrous cost associated with building a triplechanger frame. If you see a triplechanger, chances are they’re either high-ranking military or out of the Towers.

They are divided into two subtypes by size and potential altmode groups:

Ouranos class — generally take one large grounded altmode such as a freight hauler and one small jet or aquatic altmode. Roughly brick-shaped.

Atlas class — generally take one very large grounded altmode such as a locomotive or a tank, and one large jet or aquatic altmode. Roughly house-shaped.

Notes on Monophase Frames

↠ The defining characteristic of monophase frames is that they do not transform. They are a product of the Golden Age colonial push, built to sacrifice transformation ability for defensive size and self-sufficiency. The latter means that they are their own transport, accommodation, and energy-production facility. They do require an intermediary to act for them in the physical world of Cybertron, due to being too large to participate in most real-world social environments, but otherwise are entirely independent. This intermediary is called a keynote, drawing from the much older practice of symbiosis between Cybertronians and minicons, wherein the Cybertronian 'host' is referred to as a keynote. (Similarly, the heart of a gestalt network is also referred to as a keynote.)

↠ Sparked ships came first; the logical conclusion of the Omega class shuttle program. The enormous spark of a sparked ship, created by energy drawn from the Well of All Sparks over a full day, allows such ships to support bodies and systems exponentially larger than an Omega class shuttle - large enough that transformation became impossible, and even larger; enough that the loss of transformation capability was worth it. Sparked ships could carry propulsion systems capable of reaching far-flung corners of the galaxy; necessary in the years before the space bridge network, and could monitor and control their own life-support systems, making decisions in extremis and allowing mecha on board to be placed in suspended animation for the length of the journey to ensure that the ship reached its destination with plenty of resources with which to build a colony.

↠ Sparked cities followed soon after, as an extension of the same program. The first sparked city, named Boreas, was placed on Cybertron, becoming a satellite city of Protihex.

The advantage of sparked cities over traditional cities was that they could be built with extremely limited mobility. Place a sparked city by a rich mineral vein as a convenient residence for all your workers and smelters/refineries, and once the vein runs dry in the future, the city can, over several months, recycle or cast off much of its mass, allowing for efficient transport to the new location and in the process reducing itself to its most fundamental skeleton, at which point it it can simply pick itself up and walk to the next location.

Notes on Unclassified Frames

This is where the mad science happens. :D

↠ Unclassified frames are built from scratch. They might start off from the skeleton of a recognised frametype (most do because it's slightly cheaper) but then be modified past the point of recognition for some reason - usually, to fulfil a task that requires unusual specs. It takes a lot to make such a frame 'unclassified' - you have to change multiple systems in a pervasive manner. One example are the handful of 'living gun emplacements' that were created during Nova Prime's colonial wars, mecha whose entire frames were built around an enormous plasma gun. These mecha did not live long or comfortable lives; the stresses of firing that gun ultimately proved too much and the design was shelved indefinitely.

Red Alert is the only unclassified frame I've thought much about; he has most of the outward features of a standard Cybertronian (he looks like a particularly tall heavy standard) but his 'alt mode' is basically him wiring himself into a very special supercomputer, one of three that monitor the Grid at all times. He's stuffed full of interesting nanocircuits that don't look like anything much until he's in that alt mode form, at which they reveal themselves to be thousands of very small processors geared toward a single purpose - data monitoring. (If you're doing stuff on the Grid, you've got a one in three chance of Red Alert being your own personal FBI agent meme.)

Notes on Other Shit

↠ Economic independence (or lack thereof) is an unfortunate Golden Age construction related to the buying and selling of debts, and the economic exploitation of those subject to said debts. Larger shuttles and satellites, triplechangers, and especially monophase mecha tend to end up in contracts where their entire lives are controlled by whoever’s paying for their basic upkeep. The individual mech cannot be bought and sold - but their creation debt and upkeep costs can be.

As u can imagine, this went down the plughole with Optimus Prime’s accession to the Primacy; he narrowly escaped a similar fate mainly bc the Hall of Records head honchos had slightly too many Morals. Unfortunately, by then the Great War was well underway.

#book of hours worldbuilding #tfp headcanons #frame type

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pnwdoodlesreads · 3 years

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Seattle's largest Hooverville occupied nine acres that are now used to unload container ships west of Qwest Field and the Alaska Viaduct. (Courtesy King County Archives).The failure of Depression-era policies to alleviate unemployment and address the social crisis led to the creation of Hoovervilles, shantytowns that sprang up to house those who had become homeless because of the Great Depression.

The towns were named “Hoovervilles,” because of President Herbert Hoover’s ineffective relief policies. Mass unemployment was rampant among men aged 18–50, and the lack of a social safety net continued to push them down the ladder. By looking at the Vanguard’s news coverage from 1930–1932 and the history of Hooverville written by its self-proclaimed mayor Jesse Jackson, we can see that the creation of Seattle’s Hooverville was due to an ineffective social system and the inability of local politicians to address the Depression’s social crisis.

Even though these men wanted to care for themselves, the social structure forced them toward charity, a dependent position many unemployed men in Seattle rejected. As a reporter for The Vanguard, the newspaper of Seattle’s unemployed, wrote of one Hooverville resident, “He had a distaste for organized charity-breadlines and flop-houses so he decided to build a shack of his own and be independent.[1]

This rejection of organized charity was due as much to a desire for independence as to the low quality of the shelter and food on offer. While there was shelter for sleeping, it was often on the ground in damp and unhygienic surroundings, and while charities such as the Salvation Army offered soup kitchens, the food was often barely digestible and contained little to no nutritional value. The creation of a Hooverville in Seattle, then, was due to the lack of social safety net, the desire for self-sufficiency, and the poor quality of Depression-era charity.

Jesse Jackson, the self-declared mayor of Hooverville, was one of the men who had a strong distaste for organized charity. After finding men that shared this feeling, they decided to do something about it. In recalling the foundation of their Hooverville, Jackson explained,“We immediately took possession of the nine-acre tract of vacant property of the Seattle Port Commission and proceeded to settle down.[2] Jackson and his friends rounded up whatever they could find and began to create shelters. Seattle city officials were not thrilled about this new development.

In an original attempt to disband these shantytowns and unemployed “jungles”, city officials burned down the entire community, giving the men only seven days’ eviction notice. As The Vanguard argued, this only made the social crisis worse: “If the County Health officer orders the Jungles burned out this year, as he did last year, a large number of men will be thrown upon organized charity, for no very good reason.[3] Hooverville residents, for their part, were not thwarted by the city’s attempt to disband them. They simply dug deeper embankments for their homes and reestablished the community. Noted The Vanguard, “Meanwhile, new shacks go up everyday, and more and more buildings uptown are empty.[4]

In June of 1932 a new administration was elected in Seattle. They decided that the Hooverville would be tolerated until conditions improved. However, they did demand that Hooverville’s men follow a set of rules and elect a commission to enforce these rules in conversation with city officials. Among the city’s new rules was one outlawing women and children from living there, a rule almost always abided by. This agreement between Seattle and its Hooverville improved relations between the two greatly. Businesses that were originally hesitant become friendlier, donating any extra food or building supplies to Hooverville’s residents.

The Vanguard drew vivid pictures of the atmosphere of Seattle’s shantytown: “Little groups of men huddled around forlorn fires, ‘boiling-up’ clothes begrimed by their peculiar mode of travel, or cooking food-the worst kind of food… out of smoke-blackened cans these men eat and drink.[5] While the surroundings were not optimal, Hooverville mayor Jesse Jackson;s more personal portrayal of Hooverville pointed out the resilient nature of residents: “…for the most part they are chin up individuals, travelling through life for the minute steerage.[6] Either way, Hooverville was growing: very quickly after its original settlement, Jackson noted that Hooverville “…grew to a shanty city of six hundred shacks and one thousand inhabitants.[7]

Jackson referred to Hooverville as “…the abode of the forgotten man[8] His characterization was correct in regards to the men who lived in other jungles or shanty communities around Washington, but not accurate of Seattle’s Hooverville. One Vanguard journalist noted that “Perhaps if some of these Jungles were as conspicuous as Hooverville, the problem of unemployment would be recognized to be really serious by those sheltered dwellers on the hilltops who live in another world.[9]

The men in the average city jungles were in fact forgotten men. Hooverville, however, was a jungle with power. Wrote sociologist Donald Francis Roy, who lived in the Hooverville as part of his research, “Within the city, and of the city, it functions as a segregated residential area of distinct physical structure, population composition, and social behavior.[10] Residents were not only to gain community involvement but also a place in the Seattle city board of commissioners. Hooverville was becoming a city of its own.

A different Hooverville near 8th Ave S. in 1933 (Courtesy University of Washington Library Digital Collection)

Despite its growing influence in the city, Hooverville was by no means a secure place to live, but a temporary and improvised shantytown. With a backdrop of skyscrapers that boasted of Seattle’s economic might, Hooverville, on the edge of the waterfront, was situated in a location where it stood out completely.

One town member commented on how “The sea appears to be eternally licking its chops in anticipation of swallowing the entire community in one juicy gulp[11] While Hooverville’s small shacks seemed to suffice for the time being, they were not sturdy homes. Some were lucky enough to contain solid walls built of wood with separate bedrooms inside, while others barely had a wall and ceiling built from flimsy boards. One journalist described Hooverville simply and accurately as “…approximately one thousand shacks, inhabited by about fifteen hundred men, who have discovered how to exist without money.[12]

The shantytown consisted of almost all men, aged 18–60, with little to no income. Considering that the majority of Hooverville’s population was older men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, many historians have been shocked that there weren’t higher death rates. Some observers of the community claimed that the shanty lifestyle provided a stability that actually improved some of the men’s health.

The only variable among these men was race, which was reflected in Hooverville’s elected board of commissioners. As Jackson wrote, “The melting pot of races and nations we had here called for a commission of several races and nations. Two whites, two negroes, and two Filipinos were selected.[13] As noted before, the Seattle city commissioners did not allow women or children to live in the community. While some floated in and out, they were rarely permanent fixtures.

The spirit of these men was their most notable characteristic. Jackson declared that “If President Hoover could walk through the little shanty addition to Seattle bearing his name, he would find that it is not inhabited by a bunch of ne’er do wells, but by one thousand men who are bending every effort to beat back and regain the place in our social system that once was theirs.[14]

Jackson’s goal was to point out that these men were not lazy, but simple, average, hardworking men who had been failed by the social system. While these men created a community together, Jackson felt that a community sensibility was not the only one in the town: “I would say it is more of an individualistic life, but we do divide up a lot around here, but it is more a settlement of rugged individualist.[15] One of the traditions of Hooverville was for residents who found a job (a rare event), to ceremoniously give their house, bed, and stove to others still out of work. While the men of the community clearly were used to living their lives independent of others, they still found a way to help those struggling around them.

The political structure of Hooverville was based largely around the self-declared mayor Jesse Jackson. While the city did demand that the town create a commission of representatives, Jackson was still looked upon as the voice of Hooverville. Jackson claimed that “mayor” was never a role he sought out, but rather fell into: “I am just a simple person, whose status in life is the same as theirs, trying to do the best I know how to administer in my poor way to their wants.[16]

The only benefit he received for being the leader of this shantytown was a donated radio from a Seattle company, which he made available to the men by hosting news and entertainment listenings in his shack. While the community seemed to have a substantial political structure, individually Jackson noted that the situation was different. “My honest opinion is that the average working man doesn’t know what he wants in a political way.[17]

The community’s naïve opinion toward politics might have been the reason why it was so easy for them to look to Jackson to lead of the community. While there were no laws established within Hooverville, there were common rules enforced. Jackson pointed out one example. “You can’t come here and do just what you want. You can’t live alone. You have to respect your neighbor, and your neighbor must respect you.[18] He noted that troublemakers were not thrown out by the men within Hooverville but by outside authorities.

The men in Hooverville did far more to help themselves than any established social and political structures did during the onset of the Depression., but their collective action was often not enough. One Seattle journalist still put it most bleakly by describing the men of Hooverville’s future as “… blacker than the soot on the cans [they eat out of],” while politicians quibbled … “about the exact number of unemployed but do nothing to relieve distress.[19]

Lee took this photo June 10, 1937. Close to 1,000 men lived in Seattle's Hooverville. (Courtesy University of Washington Library Digital Collection).

Many politicians looked away at other, more “important” issues, but it was still noted that there was a crisis of housing taking place. Reported The Vanguard, “According to the report of the Central Housing Committee of the U[nemployed] C[itizens’] L[eague] to the central federation the unemployed are expected to be content with shacks, rookeries hovels in brief, a pig-pen standard of housing.[20]

Politicians, in some cases, did far more harm then good. For instance, after ordering the burning of Hooverville, Mayor Dole of Seattle proceeded to evict more people out of their homes. He suggested that they obtain temporary, low-quality housing, then move quickly into permanent housing again. Articles in the Vanguard asked, “Just where they were going to find permanent dwellings, when they had no money to pay rent in their previous homes, was not explained.[21]

This plan was clearly flawed and poorly thought out: “…he was going to see to it that property was protected. Human rights apparently came second.[22] Mayor Dole claimed he was just upholding the rule of law. However, in a time of economic depression, with hundreds of thousands of American’s struggling to make ends meet, what is the duty of the law? It was established the protect individuals, not persecute them when they are down and out. “All these men ask is a job, and until that job is forthcoming, to be left alone.”[23]

Lessons from Hooverville still have not been learned today. Seattle, in 2009, is currently facing a recession that may be the most serious since the Depression of the 1930s, and a community similar to Hooverville has formed. The current “Nickelsville” is a nod to Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, just as “Hooverville” was a sarcastic nod to President Hoover’s inaction. Additionally, the mission statement on Nickelsville’s website is eerily reminiscent of the Jackson’s description of Hooverville’s founding: “

Nickelsville will keep operating due to the inescapable fact that there are people on the streets with nowhere better to go. They are taking the initiative to organize so they can provide for themselves a basic level of safety and sanitation when their government steadfastly refuses to do so for them.[24] Sinan Demirel, executive director of the local Seattle shelter R-O-O-T-S, which has supported Nickelsville, referenced the history of tent cities in an interview, saying,

“Like the Tent Cities that preceded it, Nickelsville is part of a long and proud tradition of homeless persons organizing themselves to provide each other safety and to educate the broader community about their plight.[25] The leaders of Nickelsville urge its members, as well as the members of the community, to encourage government action to fight homelessness.

If members of the Seattle community do not take action, they might experience a modern-day Hooverville. Demirel noted that, “If it is successful during its next move [in June 2009] in establishing a permanent site and permanent structures, then Nickelsville will join an even prouder tradition, dating back to Seattle’s Hooverville over three quarters of a century ago.[26] If Seattle does not learn from the example set by Hooverville in the 1930s—that the failure of the social and political system, not individuals, leads to homelessness—it is doomed to allow history to repeat itself.

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skekheck · 4 years

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All About the Seven Clans: The Spriton

THIS POST CONTAINS EVERYTHING I COULD FIND ABOUT THE SPRITON. SOME INFORMATION WRITTEN HERE ARE FROM OLDER MATERIAL AND MAY EITHER CONTRADICT STATEMENTS OR IS NO LONGER RELEVANT. I WILL DO MY BEST TO STRING IT ALL TOGETHER AS COHERENTLY AS POSSIBLE. IF THERE IS INFORMATION THAT I AM MISSING, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I’LL ADD IT!

Clan Index: Dousan Drenchen Grottan Sifa Spriton Stonewood Vapra

OVERVIEW

The Spriton were a farming clan that occupied the southern plains of Thra. Although well known for their knowledge in agriculture and husbandry, they were also experts in textile creation and other fine arts. Due to their location and way of life, they were the most important providers of grains and produce for other clans. Interestingly in other media, usually older works, the Spriton were a warrior clan instead.

The Spriton totem animal was the Landstrider and their core elements were the earth, its foundation, and protection of the land and its creatures . Both their clan and sigil colors were green and their pennant colors were beige with green and gold detail.

Characteristics

Most Spritons had dark or tanned skin and were sometimes covered in freckles. Their hair was dark-colored or black and were only ever worn in single braids. Decoration was minimal with only adorning their hair with small beads. A Spriton's eyes were noted to be "jewel-toned", usually light in color. Grey and off-white yellow or green were fairly common with darker greens and browns being rarer exceptions. Thanks to their lifestyles, Spritons were athletic and graceful. Spriton wings were noted to be long and narrow which were good for speed and agility. In the books written by J.M. Lee, one Spriton named Gereni had bright green wings. Older gelfling commonly had sun-worn skin and calloused hands.

Spriton clothing were simple, described as russet colored with autumnal qualities or earthy tones that matched their environment. Reds and browns in particular were extremely common. Plenty of gelfling from this clan wore head coverings which protected their heads from the Three Suns. Despite its simplicity, Spriton fashion displayed beautiful textile work with a unique stitching style not seen in other clans.

Lifestyle

The Spriton were a traditional clan that valued hard work and generational knowledge. Performing daily tasks kept the community thriving as well as providing clothes and food for other clans. Their agricultural livelihoods revolved around season events like the trine cycle as well as ninents or greater seasons, which were one hundred trine in length. It was very important for memories to be passed on to ensure the success of crops for future generations. Living in harmony with Thra’s plants and creatures was also a tenet in Spriton culture. This stemmed from the Song of the Six Sisters where the Spriton’s first maudra was tasked with not only taking care of the land but also its foundation and animals.

The Spriton were a medium-sized community whose population was comparable to the Drenchen's. Most Spritons lived in the clan's hometown Sami Thicket, but branched out into smaller villages and singular houses and farms along the Spriton Plains. The Spriton were some of the first clans to had spread outside their main village. Even the Stonewood, who had a larger population, didn’t stray too far from their home village until well into the Age of Division. A Spriton family unit usually consisted of three to six gelfling. Despite the distance from their hometown, the Spriton never lost their sense of community. Whenever families returned to Sami Thicket to give crops, practice trading, or for special occasions, they were always welcomed warmly.

Daily Routine

A day in the life of a Spriton consisted of long work days that started when the suns rose and stretched on well after dark. In Sami Thicket, and perhaps in some neighboring villages, an hourly bell was rung so the Spriton never got too lost in their work. When younglings grew to the age of apprenticeship, they were selected by mentors to begin training. They were put into a work group that was monitored by two elders. Younglings also refined their riding and hunting skills by participating in sports like bola-throwing and knock-knee, a race-and-ball game played on the backs of Landstriders. In the book series, they were also trained in combat and to fight with a spear.

Because Spriton had a variety of jobs, they were divided into three main categories:

Hearth Workers: This group focused on tasks of integrated care of the hearth and home. Occupations included caregivers, woodworkers, songtellers, musicians, hearth workers (sometimes also called fire workers), bell ringers, food servers, and artisans like weavers, stitichers, and craftsmen. This group emphasized on building and maintaining the physical homes as well as replenished the hearts and spirits of the Spriton. Artisans were also seen as integral to the clan as their tapestries and other creations preserved their way of life.

Dirt Workers: Dirt workers protected the land and cultivated the clan’s many gardens in Sami Thicket and nearby fields. They were largely farmers, but also consisted of animal breeders and maintainers. They kept oral records of seasonal wisdom by marking the passing of time using sun-sticks posted in fields and horticultural and agricultural knowledge from previous generations. Dirt workers tended to creatures by tracking their numbers and observing their health. They believed that the health of the animals represented the health of the land.

Path Workers: Path workers were traders. Gelfling with these jobs were responsible for sorting, preparing, counting, and trading Spriton products. They were strong in numbers and noted for their adventurous and outgoing personalities who used their intelligence, sharp tongues, and charismatic smiles to sell their items. A popular saying “as smooth as a Spriton wagon driver” was inspired by them. Spriton traders often traveled outside of Sami Thicket, mostly staying within the plains but ventured to Stone-in-the-Wood and even Har’rar.

Spriton Crafts

The Spriton were renowned for their crafts as much as their expansive knowledge on agriculture. They covered just about everything from textiles and quilts to tools and weapons. Although, in regards to their metalwork, it was not as refined as the Stonewood’s and Vapran’s due to the dearth in materials. Spritons opted to work mainly with charmed wood, fiber, and substances from both vegetables and animals which were magically bounded. Needlework in particular was considered a highly valued talent within Spriton communities as it was believed they were the stitchers of the gelfling clans.

Spriton textiles were easy to spot with its exposed stitchwork, extensive variety of magically-enhanced colors, and embroidery. They were highly sought out by other clans, especially the fashion-oriented Vapra. Their sandals were particularly famous not just for their beauty but also because of how sturdy they were. Spriton wool, which were spun from the coats of various plains creatures, were popular especially when dyed from one hundred pigments made in Sami Thicket.

As previously mentioned, Spriton crafts sported a unique style. While craftsmen in other clans hid binding agents like threadwork in shoes and tangle-weed in pottery, the Spriton purposely exposed them. They believed that if it weren’t for them, the craft would fall apart. Highlighting these parts was the Spriton’s way of showing respect to them. Exposed threadwork was incorporated artistically with patterns on clothing and shoes. Tangle-weed, which made clay more durable, was dyed in beautiful vibrant colors.

Some other examples of Spriton craftsmanship were their lyres and bolas. While lyres from other clans had six strings, Spriton lyres had seven. The seventh string was spun from Vapran metal which clans were given through trading. It gave the lyres a sublime character and was said to have emulated the voice of Thra. Spriton bolas were better than ones produced by other clans as it had longer rope with smaller stones, which made it easier to throw and reached farther distances.

Dream-stitiching

Dream-stitching was a type of magic that originated from the Spriton. It was a skill that combined elements from dreamfasting and dream-etching, which had the ability to fasten memories onto a physical object that invoked all senses and stirred imagination. The object could be anything: books, paintings, tapestries, or even stones or plants. This skill was difficult to master and was only taught by the Spriton maudra.

Kylan, a dream-stitcher, displayed noteworthy forms of the art. In the TV series, Kylan dream-stitched Brea’s memory of her mother within a Glider Seed so that others could know the All Maudra like she did. His skills in the book series were even more remarkable as he bounded Tavra’s soul upon the body of a crystal-singer and spread the message of the gelfling resistance on the Sanctuary Tree’s petals with dream-stitching.

Animal Husbandry

Much like their knowledge of land, the Spriton knew plenty about Thra’s diverse creatures, dating as far back as the Age of Harmony. Dirt workers were the ones responsible for training and handling animals. They knew animal calls and methods that taught them certain commands. Many of these animals helped the Spriton in their daily tasks. For example, Mounders used their digging abilities to create irrigation channels in fields that helped Spriton crops.

Landstriders

Landstriders, the totem animal of the Spriton were the most notable animals among the clan. In fact, it was common belief by other clans that all Spritons were experienced Landstrider riders. Riding one was noted to be difficult for newcomers and it took time for the creatures to get used to a saddle. But trainers created a system that made the Landstriders comfortable giving gelfling rides if they were given treats in exchange (usually roasted fruits or nectar). While their eyesight was poor, they had impeccable hearing and could “see” by listening to the echoes of their hoofbeats. They could be ridden during both the day and night, but weren’t good for stealth as their hooves produced loud sounds. During times of war, Landstriders were given armor, even on their legs. While this slowed them down, lining them together made for an affective barricade.

Spriton cared for Landstriders within several large herds. They were given plenty of freedom to roam in large meadows with built structures for them to take shelter with eating-troughs and trenches from nearby rivers for fresh water. These living spaces formed positive relationships between Landstriders and gelfling. These bonds became especially important during the late Age of Division as they were the only animals capable of fighting off the Garthim thanks to their swift speed.

Swoothus and Windshifters

Swoothus and windshifters were other notable Spriton animals. They were used for delivering messages all throughout gelfling settlements. While windshifters were faster, they were more aloof and easily distracted. Swoothus, on the other hand, were slower but easier to train and performed better especially when motivated by food. They were capable of understanding speech and specific commands as well as recognizing multiple locations.

Like with Landstriderss, bonds of trust formed between Swoothu or Windshifters and their trainers. With Swoothus, it came to the point where they’d visit their trainer even when there were no messages to send. Younger Swoothu tended to not stray too far from Sami Thicket until they gained the courage or curiosity to fly farther out. Sometimes they hitched a ride with their trainers or traders until they’re ready to fly off. By then, they mainly traveled to major gelfling settlements like Stone-in-the-Wood, Har’rar, and the Castle of the Crystal.

Cohabitating With Podlings

While podlings had always co-existed with gelfling, the harmony between them and Spritons were the greatest. The relationship between the two were very communal and so close that they adapted cultures and characterstics from one another. Gelfling from Sami Thicket and neighboring villages commonly spoke podling tongue.

Podlings lived alongside their fellow Spritons in Sami Thicket, having houses nestled in between the gelflings’. They worked alongside the gelfling in various jobs, shared everything together, and even raised within the same nurseries. The two species took part in each other’s holidays or traditions, like podling funerals. Spritons and podlings alike gathered by the Pavilion and prepared the body for service and burial.

Diet

Thanks to the Spriton’s knowledge in agriculture and crops, they found ways of growing fruits and vegetables not normally found in their region, elongated growing seasons, and yielded bigger crops. Because of the large bounty of produce, a Spriton’s diet was heavily relied on fruits and vegetables. Meat was consumed rarely and when they did the gelfling carefully picked a creature, quickly slaughtered it, and gave it their respects.

Spriton cuisine involved mixing greens with vegetables and fruits. Produce was sometimes marinated in a tangy sauce or seasoned with fire-toasted seeds or nuts. Spriton cheese was treasured and came in great variety, from soft spreadable to harder cheeses suited for grating and melting. The cheeses were widely sought out by other clans and fetched good prices, especially in giant markets like the ones in Har’rar where such foods were hard to come by.

One notable Spriton delicacy was the sweet cherry squash. Cherry squashes were roasted which gave them a savory sweet taste. They were saved for special occasions like visits from the skeksis during tithe and census ceremonies. Other Spriton foods included dried squash and emroot.

Festival of the Sour Squash

This was an autumn holiday that celebrated the harvest of the sour squash. The ripeness of the squash signaled the beginning of the harvest seasons and the coming of winter. The fruit grew in partial shades of the thicket and changed color from green to amber and, when ripe, to red. Sour squash was delicious when roasted, although the ripeness produced an even more flavorable heady sweetness. Otherwise raw sour squash, as its name indicated, had an unbearable sourness. Roasted sour squash was similar to roasted sweet cherry squash for both flavor, crispiness, juiciness, and equally sweet-scented.

Along with the beginning of the harvest, the festival was also the Spriton’s way of thanking Thra’s generosity for the bounty of their crops. This was reflected in the festival’s tradition: after gelfling roasted their sour squash they must share all of it with others and only then were they allowed to eat the ones given to them by others. It was generally considered bad luck to decline to share. Sharing roasted squash wasn’t limited to gelfling as it involved podlings and the animals that resided in the village.

Day of the Great Sun

This was a traditional summer festival that all gelfling celebrated with summer activities like carrying water, taking a day of rest and more. But for the Spriton, who referred to it as the Longest Day, observed the event differently with a tradition called “sun-filling”. On the days leading up to the Longest Day, the Spriton cut back the trees around their homes and removed the latching from their roofs. When the day came, the sunlight from the Greatest Sun filled their houses with its light as it made its long journey across the sky. The Spriton held the belief that the light the sun brought kept out dust and last until the next trine.

Another tradition was burning old or discarded items within Sami Thicket’s hearth whose fire raged on through the entire day. When homes were cleaned and the fire put out, the head of each household took a small handful of ash and sprinkled on the newly thatched roofs. It was a reminder of letting go but also respecting and honoring the old.

Spritons sung a traditional song called “Sun-Filling Song” while they de-dusted heavy quilts and mats.

Mysteries of the Mystic Valley

Although the Spritons lived near the Valley of the Mystics none knew about the existence of the urru. Yet, they knew that something lived there beyond the dried-up ravine as rumors sprung from sights of silhouettes and hearing chanting at night. Many had gone into the valley to find the source of the rumors but found nothing. This may be due to the mystic magic that cloaked their village from outsiders. Many songs were created to explain these seemingly mysterious phenomena. Some were more logical, that the valley was the new home of the Arathim, but some were more superstitious that the ravine was haunted by a long forgotten race.

Interestingly, plenty of songs focused on skekMal the Hunter who was known by many gelfling to be a myth. In many of these stories he was known as the Hunter. They explained that the Mystic Valley was his birthplace and in one particular song, called “Hunter’s Knife”, was also the resting place of his heart. In the song, it explained the origins of his bloodthirst as, believing his spirit was holding him back, he carved out his heart with a knife made from stone. He left it in the valley where, as rumors believed, was the source of the moaning heard at night. It was his disembodied spirit’s desperate calls to be reunited with his body.

Sami Thicket, Hometown of the Spriton

Nestled within a small wood in the middle of the Spriton plains lied Sami Thicket. The word sami meant “to rest” in old gelfling, which signified the village being a welcoming place of rest after a long day of work. Hundreds of families of both gelfling and podling lived within their clay and wooden houses, some multiple stories high. Some houses, like the ones outside of the village, were built with sturdy logs. Animals also lived within the village with winded creatures like Windshifters and Swoothu having built-in dens and nests throughout the wood. The village circled around the Pavillion.

The Pavillion was known as one of the hearts of Sami Thicket. It was located right in front of the Spriton maudra’s large round house. It radiated out from a stone hearth as its core with paved multi-colored stones of red, gray, and blue which were arranged in a mosaic, twisting, tree branch-like pattern. The hearth itself was ringed with stone ledges wide enough for several gelfling to stand on or for a whole band to play in the evening.

The community gathered around the Pavillion daily for performing tasks and where supper was served by hearth workers. It was also the meeting place for special occasions. During these times, fire workers created giant fires that towered over the village and beautifully lighting up the Pavillion.

Nenadi-Staba

Otherwise known as the Low Tree, this was the patron tree of the Spriton. It was considered the other heart of the Sami Thicket and was located within a bowl-like valley near a winding brook. The tree itself was a squat tree with bulging roots that had a gnarled, maze like-pattern with dangling smaller roots and vines. The Low Tree’s thin, reedy branches were ruffled with fragile hand-shaped golden leaves. It only took a short walk to get there which allowed the Spriton to visit it whenever they wanted. Younglings played on its labyrinthine roots while elders meditated under its shade. To pay homage to their Great Tree, the Spriton sang a song called “Ode to the Low Tree”.

Relationship With the Skeksis and Other Clans

The Spriton were among the most loyal of the skeksis. In fact, it was the Spriton who first agreed to form an alliance with them, kickstarting the Alliance of the Crystal. SkekVar, when he was known as the Ambassador, convinced Elder Carn of the gelfling council to form a compromise of exchanging weapons for the skeksis protection from the Makraks. After meeting with skekSo the Emperor did Elder Carn solidified the alliance with them. Since then, the Spriton remained loyal to the skeksis, where they provided them with tithes and banquets whenever they visited. Like most clans, some Spritons were sent to the Castle of the Crystal to become guards. In the book series, along with the Stonewood, they made the majority of the skeksis’ armies and guards at the Castle of the Crystal. However, their loyalty was eventually driven by fear as evident by Maudra Mera. In both the TV and book series, she remained stubborn about joining the resistance fearing the safety of her own clan. Eventually she decides to join the Spriton in the fight against the skeksis.

Spritons generally were respectful and kind to any visitors who visited Sami Thicket and neighboring villages. They valued keeping face and held the belief they had good trading relationships with other clans. They did have their fair share of rivalries, though. The most well known of these were with their woodland neighbors the Stonewood. Depending on the media, the severity of their rivalry varied. In the timeline established in Age of Resistance, it didn’t extend outside of name-calling and rumormongering. The book series, however, had the two clans constantly feuding over territory within the Endless Forest. Despite all of this, the Spriton shared the same folklore with them including the heroic Jarra-Jen and the villainous Hunter.

They were the only neighbors of the Drenchen which they had semi-regular contact with. On the surface, the two had a friendly neighboring relationship but looking past this lied a steadily growing tension. This hit a crescendo in the book series as, after Stonewood’s defeat and supposed annihilation, the Drenchen took up arms to fight the skeksis themselves. To get to the castle, they would have to go through the Spriton which were still loyal to the skeksis. Fueled by fear that they too would end up like Stonewood, the Spriton expected to fight the Drenchen. Thankfully, Naia and her friends were able to defuse the situation from becoming a civil war and managed to get the two clans to join the resistance.

Like other clans, the Spriton had their own stereotypes from outsiders. While the Spriton thought of themselves as humble and more productive of the seven clans, others found them overly obedient and old fashioned. At least in the book series timeline, the Spriton were believed to be territorial as well as aggressive and combative. Some outsiders referred Spritons as “grasslings”.

Notable Spriton Members

Kylan: A songteller who lived during the late Age of Division. He accompanied the Drenchen Naia who wanted to find Rian and exchange him for the freedom of her brother. He would then help the gelfling resistance by helping the other clans light the fires of resistance. Interestingly, Kylan is half Spriton from his mother side: his dad was from Stonewood.

Maudra Mera the Dream Stitcher: Maudra Mera was the Spriton Maudra during the late Age of Division. She loved the skeksis and much as she feared them and would do anything to keep her clan safe, even if it meant siding with the lords who were draining gelfling. She was shrewd and traditional.

Tolyn: A Spriton who served as a guard at the Castle of the Crystal. When an uprising was being formed after the gelfling learned the truth, Tolyn decided to tell the lords about this supposed traitorous behavior. It backfired on him completely as he was drained of his essence along with most of the castle guards.

Carn: Also known as Elder Carn or Maudra Carn. She lived during the late Age of Harmony and the early Age of Division. During the Makrak raids, she agreed to form an alliance with the skeksis for their protection, an alliance that would nearly last a thousand years.

Thall: Daughter of Carn. A lover of the forest she lived near by, she was the first gelfling to encounter urSu the Master. She, urSu, and Raunip found a way to help the Makraks find their way back underground and stopped their destructive raids.

Veara: A healer from a Spriton village. She tried helping Barfinnious and Hup with a beast that had been attacking her village, but was snatched by it instead. Veara was able to leave a trail of herbs to the cave where the beast lied in hopes the two could put a stop to it.

Vortina: A Spriton farmer from a village outside of Sami Thicket. Vortina tried to defend her farm when a beast attacked it but was hurt in the process. Her wounds were mended by the village's healer Veara.

Mimi: The daughter of Maudra Mera.

Lun: In Shadows of the Dark Crystal, he was seen helping roast cherry-squashes in preparation for the arrival of the skeksis lords. In Flames of the Dark Crystal, he became a scout for Maudra Mera to keep track of any Drenchen soldiers.

Phaedra: A Spriton who lived in Sami Thicket. She was the village’s sandal-stitcher.

Remi: A childling who lived in Sami Thicket. He was in charge of ringing the hour bell.

Gereni: Gereni was a scout who accompanied Lun to look out for Drenchen soldiers.

[Sources: Song of the Seven Gelfling Clans, the official Dark Crystal website, Shadows of the Dark Crystal, Song of the Dark Crystal, Flames of the Dark Crystal, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, the Dark Crystal, The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance: An Epic Return To Thra, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: The Ballad of Hup & Barfinnious, Author Quest: The Gelfling Gathering, Creation Myths, Heroes of the Resistance , the Dark Crystal Bestiary]

#the dark crystal #gelfling #spriton #all about the seven clans #dark crystal #my posts

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robertreich · 4 years

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The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It

The coronavirus has starkly revealed what most of us already knew: The concentration of wealth in America has created a a health care system in which the wealthy can buy care others can't.

It’s also created an education system in which the super-rich can buy admission to college for their children, a political system in which they can buy Congress and the presidency, and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail.

Almost everyone else has been hurled into a dystopia of bureaucratic arbitrariness, corporate indifference, and the legal and financial sinkholes that have become hallmarks of modern American life. The system is rigged. But we can fix it. Today, the great divide in American politics isn’t between right and left. The underlying contest is between a small minority who have gained power over the system, and the vast majority who have little or none.

Forget politics as you’ve come to see it -- as contests between Democrats and Republicans. The real divide is between democracy and oligarchy.

The market has been organized to serve the wealthy. Since 1980, the percentage of the nation’s wealth owned by the richest four hundred Americans has quadrupled (from less than 1 percent to 3.5 percent) while the share owned by the entire bottom half of America has dropped to 1.3 percent.

The three wealthiest Americans own as much as the entire bottom half of the population. Big corporations, CEOs, and a handful of extremely rich people have vastly more influence on public policy than the average American. Wealth and power have become one and the same. As the oligarchs tighten their hold over our system, they have lambasted efforts to rein in their greed as “socialism”, which, to them, means getting something for doing nothing.

But “getting something for doing nothing” seems to better describe the handouts being given to large corporations and their CEOs.

General Motors, for example, has received $600 million in federal contracts and $500 million in tax breaks since Donald Trump took office. Much of this “corporate welfare” has gone to executives, including CEO Mary Barra, who raked in almost $22 million in compensation in 2018 alone. GM employees, on the other hand, have faced over 14,000 layoffs and the closing of three assembly plants and two component factories.

And now, in the midst of a pandemic, big corporations are getting $500 billion from taxpayers.

Our system, it turns out, does practice one form of socialism -- socialism for the rich. Everyone else is subject to harsh capitalism.

Socialism for the rich means people at the top are not held accountable. Harsh capitalism for the many, means most Americans are at risk for events over which they have no control, and have no safety nets to catch them if they fall.

Among those who are particularly complicit in rigging the system are the CEOs of America’s corporate behemoths.

Take Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose net worth is $1.4 billion. He comes as close as anyone to embodying the American system as it functions today.

Dimon describes himself as “a patriot before I’m the CEO of JPMorgan.” He brags about the corporate philanthropy of his bank, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to his company’s net income, which in 2018 was $30.7 billion -- roughly one hundred times the size of his company's investment program for America’s poor cities.

Much of JP Morgan’s income gain in 2018 came from savings from the giant Republican tax cut enacted at the end of 2017 -- a tax cut that Dimon intensively lobbied Congress for.

Dimon doesn’t acknowledge the inconsistencies between his self-image as “patriot first” and his role as CEO of America’s largest bank. He doesn’t understand how he has hijacked the system.

Perhaps he should read my new book.

To understand how the system has been hijacked, we must understand how it went from being accountable to all stakeholders -- not just stockholders but also workers, consumers, and citizens in the communities where companies are headquartered and do business -- to intensely shareholder-focused capitalism.

In the post-WWII era, American capitalism assumed that large corporations had responsibilities to all their stakeholders. CEOs of that era saw themselves as “corporate statesmen” responsible for the common good.

But by the 1980s, shareholder capitalism (which focuses on maximizing profits) replaced stakeholder capitalism. That was largely due to the corporate raiders -- ultra-rich investors who hollowed-out once-thriving companies and left workers to fend for themselves.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, for example, targeted major companies like Texaco and Nabisco by acquiring enough shares of their stock to force major changes that increased their stock value -- such as suppressing wages, fighting unions, laying off workers, abandoning communities for cheaper labor elsewhere, and taking on debt -- and then selling his shares for a fat profit. In 1985, after winning control of Trans World Airlines, he loaded the airline with more than $500 million in debt, stripped it of its assets, and pocketed nearly $500 million in profits.

As a result of the hostile takeovers mounted by Icahn and other raiders, a wholly different understanding about the purpose of the corporation emerged.

Even the threat of hostile takeovers forced CEOs to fall in line by maximizing shareholder profits over all else. The corporate statesmen of previous decades became the corporate butchers of the 1980s and 1990s, whose nearly exclusive focus was to “cut out the fat” and make their companies “lean and mean.”

As power increased for the wealthy and large corporations at the top, it shifted in exactly the opposite direction for workers. In the mid-1950s, 35 percent of all private-sector workers in the United States were unionized. Today, 6.4 percent of them are.

The wave of hostile takeovers pushed employers to raise profits and share prices by cutting payroll costs and crushing unions, which led to a redistribution of income and wealth from workers to the richest 1 percent. Corporations have fired workers who try to organize and have mounted campaigns against union votes. All the while, corporations have been relocating to states with few labor protections and so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken workers’ ability to join unions.

Power is a zero-sum game. People gain it only when others lose it. The connection between the economy and power is critical. As power has concentrated in the hands of a few, those few have grabbed nearly all the economic gains for themselves.

The oligarchy has triumphed because no one has paid attention to the system as a whole – to the shifts from stakeholder to shareholder capitalism, from strong unions to giant corporations with few labor protections, and from regulated to unchecked finance.

As power has shifted to large corporations, workers have been left to fend for themselves. Most Americans developed 3 key coping mechanisms to keep afloat.

The first mechanism was women entering the paid workforce. Starting in the late 1970s, women went into paid work in record numbers, in large part to prop up family incomes, as the wages of male workers stagnated or declined.

Then, by the late 1990s, even two incomes wasn’t enough to keep many families above water, causing them to turn to the next coping mechanism: working longer hours. By the mid-2000s a growing number of people took on two or three jobs, often demanding 50 hours or more per week.

Once the second coping mechanism was exhausted, workers turned to their last option: drawing down savings and borrowing to the hilt. The only way Americans could keep consuming was to go deeper into debt. By 2007, household debt had exploded, with the typical American household owing 138 percent of its after-tax income. Home mortgage debt soared as housing values continued to rise. Consumers refinanced their homes with even larger mortgages and used their homes as collateral for additional loans.

This last coping mechanism came to an abrupt end in 2008 when the debt bubbles burst, causing the financial crisis. Only then did Americans begin to realize what had happened to them, and to the system as a whole. That’s when our politics began to turn ugly.

So what do we do about it? The answer is found in politics and rooted in power.

The way to overcome oligarchy is for the rest of us to join together and form a multiracial, multiethnic coalition of working-class, poor and middle-class Americans fighting for democracy.

This agenda is neither “right” nor “left.” It is the bedrock for everything America must do.

The oligarchy understands that a “divide-and-conquer” strategy gives them more room to get what they want without opposition. Lucky for them, Trump is a pro at pitting native-born Americans against immigrants, the working class against the poor, white people against people of color. His goal is cynicism, disruption, and division. Trump and the oligarchy behind him have been able to rig the system and then whip around to complain loudly that the system is rigged.

But history shows that oligarchies cannot hold on to power forever. They are inherently unstable. When a vast majority of people come to view an oligarchy as illegitimate and an obstacle to their wellbeing, oligarchies become vulnerable.

As bad as it looks right now, the great strength of this country is our resilience. We bounce back. We have before. We will again.

In order for real change to occur -- in order to reverse the vicious cycle in which we now find ourselves -- the locus of power in the system will have to change.

The challenge we face is large and complex, but we are well suited for the fight ahead. Together, we will dismantle the oligarchy. Together, we will fix the system.

#video #videos #oligarchy #American oligarchy

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clannfearrunt · 4 years

Text

Roughly Late Stoneish Ageish Inkfish Thoughts

That I forgot to! Post! I think! Mostly drawn up in... October 2019; Anything related to housing drawn Literally Just Now

I had some Thoughts and Such about early Inkfish society a while back and started to draw them, and forgot about it pretty quickly. I do not have numbers but in general this is an era directly before Inklings and Octolings had made contact with each other. Both had developed the use of stone tools and similar building techniques independently, though Octolings had also been making some advances in pottery making that they later passed on to Inklings. I did not draw these tools because I burned out.

Under the cut is a really long rant with pictures about the details I had more ideas about, like Clothing, Housing, and Slight Ideas about early Inkling and Octoling social structure, under the cut to save ur dashboards:

Clothing

Typical Inkling clothing tended to be quite minimal, if they wore anything at all. Most clothing simply consisted of roughly woven plants, wrapped around the waist or made into a vest or cloak if the weather required some coverage from the sun. More than that as everyday clothes was a little bit of a luxury, seen in more larger tribes. Shoes and additional body coverings were used when going into heavily planted areas and wet shorelines. The most valuable clothing were full fish leather parkas and trousers, as fish leather is waterproof and can offer protection against rain, or allow coastal fishers to safely wade into the sea a little. There weren’t that many of them made because of how much work and fish it took to make them, so they were used sparingly and with great care. Even MORE valuable were clothing made from Salmonid leather, but Inklings did not usually specifically target Salmonids in search of their hides as it was deemed too high risk. Most Inklings during this era did not have much in the way of “cold weather” clothing, as their preferred range didn’t see that significant of a drop in temperature even in the winter. The best they usually had was adding plant fiber vests and trousers.

The baseline attire for most Octolings especially inland was a simple tunic (?) made of rough ramie cloth. They’re hand-woven, so they’re rather rough - Here’s a link to a recreation of the process I’m talking about, making small cord straps for demonstration purposes. They usually saved cloth making for the winter months, where they stayed holed up inside their homes all season. Leather made of fish and reptile skin was also used, but they were prioritized for use in footwear and water protection wear first. As they lived further north than Inklings, they did actually have cold weather attire. In the absence of mammals with warm fur that humans used to make clothes from, Octolings had to get a little more creative. To create winter coats, they took tighter-woven and layered ramie cloth, or if available, leather (usually reptile or fish derived), and stuffed them with down feathers plucked from their meals. Some experimented with sewing in dedicated pockets on the inside of the coats to place heated rocks inside so that they could stay out in the cold longer if they needed to for emergencies. They made bedding and blankets in a similar fashion.

Housing

Caves were highly valued as homes, but as populations increased and people traveled for new territory it became more common to build homes themselves. In both Inklings and Octolings, dugout/pit type homes were pretty standard, though there were variations in the construction.

This type of building was commonly built by Inklings if they could find level ground to build on. These were shallow, wide holes with relatively low and level roofs, often with a pit dug around the entrance to prevent rainwater from entering the home. They didn’t usually make fires inside these structures, so many houses did not have any major openings for smoke ventilation. They were Not very strong against strong storms, but such is squid life, I guess.

Digging into the sides of slopes were fairly common in both Inklings and Octolings. Inklings tended to dig shallower but more numerous holes to house multiple families within a small area. Octolings, who did not live in large communities, dug as deep as they were able to with the structure and ventilation in mind, in order to have Maximum Warmth during the winter months. Octolings burned fires inside their homes, so they tended to have higher ceilings and always had an opening somewhere to keep the smoke from suffocating them.

Deep vertical pit homes were built by Octolings, though they didn’t exactly prefer it. The roofs on their pit homes had to have a steeper slope in order to prevent snow from piling up during the winter and possibly causing it to collapse. It usually required help from neighbors to build as ancient Octolings preferred to live in smaller family units. (That probably led to some Neat Events and Cultural Stuff, but that’s a different rant)

There were other types of structures but these are the most standard and also I’m tired of drawing Architecture

Misc Stuff bc I don’t know how to organize the rest

Inklings formed larger multi-family tribes and divided up work among adult members. While the parents were expected to take the main responsibility for their own children, child rearing was still fairly communal and it wasn’t uncommon for larger tribes to have dedicated “babysitter” roles to take charge of the children. Youngsters weren’t explicitly asked to move out unless the territory was getting cramped, but many still tended to move to neighboring tribes.

Octolings on the other hand usually stuck to one family per territory, with the eldest surviving child inheriting the land (if more than one from the eldest clutch survived to adulthood, the clutchmates sorted out inheritance in their own way). They mostly kept to themselves for most of the year, and met up with neighbors (which tend to be close relatives anyways) to trade items, stories, and ask for help occasionally. Older teens/young adults moving out to start their own families were the absolutely most social folks around. There were expectations in place for youngsters passing through established territory, but they could usually expect some form of aid if asked for. Ancient Octolings weren’t hostile to strangers, they just didn’t like mingling All Of The Time like Inklings did.

Both Inklings and Octolings are carnivores, and (still) eat a mostly meat based diet. In ancient times before effective trade routes were established, those living near the ocean naturally depended more heavily on aquatic animals, while those living deeper inland subsisted mainly on birds and reptiles. In addition, Inklings and Octolings have enjoyed certain plant based foods as a treat throughout their existence. Inklings Fucking Love Fruit, but didn’t tend to eat much else plant wise. Octolings enjoyed fruits and berries as well, but they also went for the young shoots, leaves, stems, etc of certain plants during the spring, though possibly more for some ritual purpose than for the taste. They typically ground up these plants with stone tools to eat as a rough paste, as they have no teeth to chew and grind leaves with.

The study of the era of cultural exchange directly following this period had been obscured in awkward silence for the century after the Great War, but light is finally starting to be shed upon the subject once more. Pre-War material holds that when the two species started to meet, Inklings introduced domesticated pheasants to Octolings, and in turn Octolings taught Inklings how to make cloth and pottery. Agriculture was not practiced by either species until some time after early Inkling and Octoling societies had started intermingling, though there is evidence to suggest that both species had groups that had begun tending to existing patches of useful plants during this era. Pre-War consensus held that the development of "proper” agriculture was a direct result of coordinated cooperation between Inklings and Octolings.

As per usual, I do not know how to close this off. Thank u for reading this long ass thing

#Splatoon #Splat Bio #Inklings #Octolings #hmm. yeah.#Conarts #Squid 2 the evolution of the squid #i had to switch to Firefox while writing this bc Chrome is just chewing up my poor laptop's ram #anyways I think these are all #individual characters + first contact story details in a different post i think

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bullets-and-masks · 4 years

Text

Fantastic Flustercuck: Lore, Interesting points, and a little thinking through

Here we go! This list is really, really big. I’ll do a short analysis/critic later on, but I want to get this out now! We’ll have 4 sessions: 1. Krieg and the Crimson Raiders 2. Krieg and Maya 3. Krieg and Himself 4. Final Notes

Session 01: Krieg and the Raiders

Sane Krieg starts by calling Psycho Krieg him; and dividing their mind between two minds, as if there are thoughts only Psycho Krieg has that he can’t access and/or understand

There’s a constant JACK voiceover that can be heard anywhere. Sadly, I didn’t catch the words, but sounded like the pre recorded messages at the preserve in Bl2

The first section of the DLC, the Castle raid, is considered imporant because it’s the first mission Krieg did along with the Crimson Raiders after a while

During this section, we fight the raiders

Brick and Modercai come first. They talk about how Krieg is too crazy to be a part of the Raiders. Sane Krieg does not want to fight them. Psycho Krieg fights - but it’s fear

Tannis quickly accesses it as fear of rejection. Krieg always had an issue with how the Raiders see him

Despite this Sane Krieg does know they’re friends, his family

Also sane Krieg uses the word oaf and that’s like... really funny

In this, Tannis says she relates to fear of rejection, but quickly corrects saying she doesn’t care

There’s the implication that Krieg’s eye was clawed out by a skag

The “Evil Lilith” inside his head calls him an animal, a beast, a weapon just to be used. Says they never cared if he lived or died

Sane Krieg quickly corrects this isn’t how she spoke to us

Lilith is tagged as “Scary fire lady” and that’s kind of adorable

Sane Krieg shows Psycho Krieg an old memory about how the Raiders treat him, and it’s the Raiders inviting Krieg to a bar. They don’t mind how he acts and laugh along with him

But Krieg follows from a distance

The Raiders guard his buzzaxe = strenght and attack

Krieg has a dialogue with himself that goes sorta like: Sane Krieg: (smth about finding out who is he, really) Psycho Krieg: Fragile Things

Sane Krieg also mentions wanting to learn dance, saying he has to exercise to keep his abs, calling it “lean muscle”

Session 02: Krieg and Maya

Oh boy

As soon as they see a memory of Maya, Sane Krieg wants to be careful. He doesn’t want the memory corrupted like the Raiders’.

Krieg KNOWS she is dead

Sane Krieg says Maya is the only thing he and Psycho Krieg ever agreed on

despite this, during the DLC they seem to get along better and better, Krieg is really working on themselves

Maya drops her book before proceeding. The player has to go after. Flowers grow on the ground where we walk

Tannis states diferent brain activity readings at this point, saying Krieg can really focus on Maya

Maya is taken by Locomobius, the monster train, and Sane Krieg says it’s because at the time they met, Psycho Krieg thought the train was taking her

Maya tells him in a goodbye ECHO: “No matter how far appart we are, I’ll always be with you.”

The name of the mission to catch Locomobius and free the memories of Maya is what love remains

Sane Krieg says the memories are all he has left of Maya

There’s a flashback to when they met, and it shows that Maya invited Krieg to come with her because he showed knowing how to fight

She does call him Big Guy constantly

Krieg has memories of Athenas, implying he has been there

Athenas is guarded by eridians, here funcioning as guardians to the memories of Maya

This is all viewed by Tannis as the protections of a grieving mind

The flashback about when they met also reveals that Krieg expressed he didn’t think he had anything to offer Maya and she understood him

It it’s not explained, whoever, how she understands him, but it’s very strongly implied that she sees his through thoughts/the translation of psycho speech

Maya guards his gauntlet = his defenses and hope

Even now, Maya is still a figure of hope for him

Sane Krieg complains about how Psycho Krieg lost a watch that he cared for

Session 2.5: Maya’s Spirit

Maya’s Last ECHO Maya leaves for Krieg one last ECHO that explains why she’s staying on Athenas for an indefinite time - to teach Eva. She says she knows she’ll pass her powers to Eva which implies she suspects her death could be soon. She says she can feel all the sirens that came before her like energy flowing, and says that if she days she’ll be among the stars waiting for him. There’s the quote, from her: “Even death and time can’t keep us appart from each other.”

The Spirit Maya stays in Krieg’s mind in a shining black and white form. At first, It looks like it might be his perception of her, the way she appears in his mind, but upon further triggering dialogue, there’s a lot of things told from a perspective that make it sound like Krieg didn’t know, and that also Maya is aware of this new form for her.

Quotes say:

that she never thought she could care about anyone the way she cared about Krieg

says that Krieg’s mind is less messy than she thought it’d be

had noodles in Minus-Prime, and loves it

she dyes her hair!

Maya says with all the words Siren’s have the power to leave memory on objects, memory that are almost a spirt

So this could be a fragment of Maya, alive in Krieg’s mind through the last ECHO he ever got from her

Also her spirit also mentions that one day a hotel showed up in Athenas, she slept there, it was a super interesting place, and she woke up lying on grass the morning after. Mancubus’ traveling hotel?

Session 03: Krieg and Himself

And Hyperion.

Krieg was at Hyperion to do a job at a lab

but then was “taken” by them. also not specified if he was taken for doing the wrong job, or he was there not hired by them and was captured

It is not specified what job, but he does mention he was a mercenary

The scientist responsible for him was Dr Benedict, and the called the subjects rejects of society

Sane Krieg says the lab saw the subjects as just meat. This is easily read as way Psycho Krieg registers meat as something that matters so much

Dr Benedict considered/might have done it: sweing the mouths of subjects shut or extracting their tongues so they couldn’t complain

Sane Krieg was really soft y’all... He fights a rat while imprisioned and names it Tawanda - unclear what happens to it - but Krieg says they’ll take care of each other

Krieg tells Tawanda “I’m called Krieg”. In a further ECHO, Dr Benedict calls Krieg Subject 24C. So Krieg really isn’t his name, and he can’t remember it

There’s an audio from Dr Benedict about an non specific subject asking to see his son, which the dr considers crazy, but all the others audios, even if not mentioning Krieg by name, seemed to be about him...

Sane Krieg sits along with Pyscho Krieg in an aparent crumbled cell space watching shadows that he calls The World. It’s Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, here showing Krieg is content with the world presented to him, unable, weak or even afraid to explore. It speaks to a false meaning he found to have the sense of living without having the strenght to do so

the player destroys the allegory, thus freeing Sane Krieg to see the actual world, a further step in regaining his mind as a world to really live in - he truly was trapped in himself

Bloodlust is a type of psychosis studied by Dr Benedict. It’s unclear wheter he created it, or what is behind it, but he uses a gas to infect people

considers making a gas bomb to infect whole populations

there’s a line from the Dr about how brain probing worsed pyschosis

the gas didn’t affect Krieg like the others - it is also unclear why

a mission with a Fear Mom, completely referencing the Clockwork Orange, tells Krieg to drink Milk to grow strong so “no one will hurt you ever again.” This could be read as remnants of his past self, creating a place to feel cared for someway, but also embracing the ultraviolence of his being and the brainwashing he went through

this side mission rewards a gun with the flavor text our eyes are yet to open like a baby, or like someone who lacks clarity

Krieg cared a lot about people before going insane. He holds strongly to a sense of right and wrong he calls goodness, and values innocence a lot

The Psycho personality is a schism that showed up in several test subjects that manifested the same personality

Dr Benedict wanted to change the subject pool to see the relation and considers an elementary school class

Also considers putting the gas in water supply to infect people since the gas won’t work on open areas

Psycho Krieg saves Sane Krieg when he had given up on scaping

It is a bloodbath Psycho Krieg calls Tea Party

Sane Krieg sees this realization, about being saved and the Vault Hunter being inside his head, as Psycho Krieg letting people in

Hyperion kept his mask from him = “false face is protection”

Upon defeating the boss, the Gigantic Krieg tied to an experimentation bed fades.

After taking the mask, this Three Figures walk into a portal in his mind and disappear forever. Sane Krieg doesn’t remember who they are and remarks that he forgot his past entirely. But looks at Psycho Krieg and decides on Forging a future.

They tell jokes to each other constantly, though Psycho Krieg only tells a decent joke by the end of the DLC. The joke is the one coherent sentence he can make; showing a lot of progress in how he communicates, but not changing who he is. By the end, his mind is empty, and both Kriegs work together to fill it slowy with new memories and thoughts. They start with Maya, and keep creating until she says “Enough for now. Come in and tell me about your day”, to which Krieg responds FUSING INTO HIMSELF, WHOLE, and walking into the house with her. The voiceover from Krieg tells us we’re always breaking and hurting, but we put ourselves together again, never perfect, but close enough. Always fixing ourselves.

Final Notes:

This DLC was really good, imo. I really liked the direction it took and I’m glad it wasn’t TOO wacky, loosing all the meaning and more seriousness it could have. It is a great character exploration, respects Krieg as a character and the one around him and their relationships. Krieg comes out as not needing fixing, and instead making peace with all he is and growing. Canon things confirmed: Worked as a mercenary, was a Crimson Raider, was one invited by Maya, was loved back, was experimented on by Hyperion, was saved by himself.

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #fantastic flustercuck #krieg the psycho #krieg #dlc 4 #bl3 dlc #mmar talks #mmar plays bl3

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gravitascivics · 3 years

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THE HOUR BEFORE THE END

To continue the story of the Whig Party, this posting will describe the political landscape in those months leading up to the 1852 election. This blog is focusing on the Whigs as a case study that functioned in a political culture that one can describe as dominated by a version of federal theory. This blogger calls that version parochial/traditional federalism in which its adherents ascribe(ed) in federal beliefs and values but extend(ed) its sense of partnership only to the Western European descendants living in America.[1]

This blog assumes that given the general democratic attributes American politics reflected, what the nation’s leaders debated at a given time reflected what the nation’s population was considering important. The drawback to the approach this blog uses is that the names of vying politicians seem to take center stage while political beliefs and values making up the political culture is best seen among typical citizens. Of more importance were those concerns about which Americans were worried. Hopefully, the reader keeps this in mind.

1848-1853 (continued)

With Millard Fillmore taking up the presidency after Zachary Taylor’s death, Fillmore, as pointed out in the last posting, chose to enforce the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850. As expected, this policy made him popular in the South but lost him support among Northern Whigs. Therefore, he was vulnerable in the upcoming election.

In addition, two nationally known Whigs had presidential ambitions, Secretary of State Daniel Webster – a former senator from Massachusetts – and General Winfield Scott who led American forces in the Mexican-American War. The general was garnering a good deal of support in the North but found little of it in the South in that he was perceived as being too close to New York senator, William Seward, who espoused an anti-slavery position.[2]

At the Whig convention in 1852, Fillmore received at the Baltimore meeting, 133 delegate votes on the first ballot, missing the necessary number of votes by 14. It then took another 52 ballots – and a failed brokered deal between Fillmore and Scott supporters – for Scott to win the nomination.

The Democrats in their convention – also in Baltimore – nominated little known, pro South (pro slavery) New Hampshire senator, Franklin Pierce, beating contenders such as Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, William L. Marcy, and James Buchanan in 49 ballots. The result of these battles, both for the Whigs and Democrats, was that in both party platforms turned out to be highly similar and the ensuing campaign was mostly a personality contest between Scott and Pierce.

That is not to say that the voters were not concerned about contentious issues. With the Compromise of 1850 having been struck just two years earlier, many were concerned with the fate of slavery especially as the nation began adding states in the West. Dissolution of the union was already being considered among some in the national electorate.

But both parties supported and agreed to enforce the Compromise of 1850 while the Democrats were more strident in their advocacy and promised, in line with the party’s traditional position, less government intrusion in people’s affairs. Each side during the campaign engaged in direct attacks on the other side – some accurate, some, at best, stretching the truth. All the campaign strategies that had become common after the 1840 Harrison campaign found expression in 1852. That included handbills, parades, and rallies.

Of note, the ensuing election solicited a low number of voters casting their votes, but from those who did vote a clear choice was made. Pierce won 254 electoral votes to Scott’s 42 electoral votes. Of note was Pierce’s vice president, William R. King. He was from Alabama and was considered to balance the ticket with the New Hampshire candidate, Pierce.

He was also known as a moderate voice who strove to maintain the debate over slavery in a civil tone. He fell ill with tuberculosis and felt it necessary to go to Cuba for a cure. Consequently, he was sworn into office there, the only vice president having been so in a foreign land but made his way back to his plantation, only to die the next day after his arrival, six weeks into his term.

As Pierce’s term began in 1853, two national concerns seem to have been taking up people’s attention. For this youngest president to date (47 years old), one concern, of course, was the expansion of slavery, but the other was the economy. The memory of the national depression, although over, was still fresh.

So, while the Whigs lost convincingly in 1852, their ranks were mostly confident that they could rebound as they did in 1845 after the Democrat Polk’s presidency. But the overall national condition had changed since that earlier election result. In 1853, the economy continued to strengthen and there was a lull in the concern over the status of slavery and its expansion. This latter state did not last for long and simple arithmetic helps explain why.

In 1846 the number of slave states outnumbered the number of free states, 15 to 14. But one can see a growing concern among pro-slavery forces, and in retrospect, one can see why. In 1858, the split was 15 slave states, 17 free states and in 1861, it was 15 slave states and 19 free states.

As a reminder, expansion was especially important to the pro-slavery side in that Southerners saw as essential that the number of slave states, at least, be equal to the number of free states. This was seen as essential since if the number remained or could be reestablished as equal or higher, slaveholders could count on the Senate to be at least divided in half, and that would guarantee that any anti-slavery, national bill could be stopped.

But in the immediate months after Pierce took office, these concerns seem to be stagnated as the elements of the 1850 compromise went into effect. Therefore, especially given the improved economy, the Whig expectation that their established policy positions over the economy would again be seen positively, now seemed to be something of the past. Their call for a higher tariff only promised higher prices – which was not a winning message.

So, as 1854 approached, optimism would begin to wane, and forward-looking Whigs started or would soon begin to look elsewhere for a place to render their support. The next posting will focus on this, the end of a major political party that lasted as a viable entity some twenty to thirty years.

[1] This blogger believes that there are still many in the American public who abide by this form of federalism.

[2] Elbert B. Smith, The Presidency of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1988).

#Franklin Pierce #Gen. Winfield Scott #Whig Party #Millard Fillmore #Compromise of 1850 #antebellum politics #civics education #American history #social studies

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antoine-roquentin · 4 years

Link

Now, from the point of view of many on the Labour left, the entire Brexit issue was a distraction: a way to change the subject from the bread-and-butter issues of austerity, wages, health, education, and public services that had immediate effects on voters’ lives to scapegoating and symbolism. Some were convinced the entire project was a charade; the Tory leadership had no intention of breaking with the European Union in any meaningful sense at all—as some pointed out at the time, during the entirety of May’s tenure as prime minister, her government had not seen fit to hire or retrain a single new customs official.

What they did not at first understand, but became all too apparent as time went on, was that in Brexit the right had discovered an almost perfect political poison, not only dividing British society into two hostile camps, but bringing out the absolute worst in both of them. Each side ended up hurling bitter invective against each other, much of which was true. Remainers insisted that many Brexit campaigners were overt racists, and that the Leave campaign was—much like Trumpism—normalizing forms of racist expression that would have been considered outrageous only a few years before. They were right. Reports of racist hate crimes, for instance, increased dramatically after the vote. Leavers countered that many of the most vociferous Remainers were overt elitists, and were likewise normalizing expressions of contempt for small-town or working-class England that would have once been considered equally outrageous. They were right, too.

It might seem odd that the ultimate beneficiary of all this was Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, an Eton-educated upper-cruster whose main occupation, before he turned his hand to politics, was as a columnist and occasional television personality notorious for his contempt for immigrants, single mothers, and the poor. But to understand what happened, I think, one must consider the broader situation of what has come to be known as “right-wing populism.” Ever since the economic crash of 2008, the left had tried to make villains of the bankers. Yet despite the fact that the City (London’s financial hub) was indeed largely responsible for the collapse of the economy and resulting austerity, this approach gained little traction. The right instead tried to make villains of the bureaucrats—of migrants, too, as they definitely did appeal to simple bigotry, but the immediate emphasis was on bureaucrats. And at least among middle-aged swing voters, this succeeded spectacularly. Why?

The answer, I think, lies in the emerging structure of class relations in societies like England, which seems to be reproduced, in one form or another, just about everywhere the radical right is on the rise. The decline of factory jobs, and of traditional working-class occupations like mining and shipbuilding, decimated the working class as a political force. What happened is usually framed as a shift from industrial, manufacturing, and farming to “service” work, but this formulation is actually rather deceptive, since service is typically defined so broadly as to obscure what’s really going on. In fact, the percentage of the population engaged in serving biscuits, driving cabs, or trimming hair has changed little since Victorian times.

The real story is the spectacular growth, on the one hand, of clerical, administrative, and supervisory work, and, on the other, of what might broadly be termed “care work”: medical, educational, maintenance, social care, and so forth. While productivity in the manufacturing sector has skyrocketed, productivity in this caring sector has actually decreased across the developed world (largely due to the weight of bureaucratization imposed by the burgeoning numbers of administrators). This decline has put the squeeze on wages: it’s hardly a coincidence that in developed economies across the world, the most dramatic strikes and labor struggles since the 2008 crash have involved teachers, nurses, junior doctors, university workers, nursing home workers, or cleaners.

One might speak of the beginnings of a veritable revolt of the caring classes, global in scale. If so, the obvious question is: Why has the global left, which has always stood for the promise of a more caring society, not been the ones to profit from this development? Why is the radical right instead everywhere on the rise? How is it possible that this could lead to the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, a man who even his enemies would begrudgingly admit was a caring and empathetic human being, at the hands of a Tory candidate so utterly narcissistic and lacking in human feeling that he famously refused to even look at a picture of a feverish child marooned on an overcrowded hospital’s floor? The answer lies once again in the curse of centrism.

As Thomas Frank has pointed out, as early as the 1970s, formerly leftist parties from the US to Japan made a strategic decision to effectively abandon what remained of their older, working-class base and rebrand themselves primarily as parties representing the interests and sensibilities of the professional-managerial classes. This was the real social base of Clintonism in the US, Blairism in the UK, and now Macronism in France. All became the parties of administrators. (In the UK, of course, this included those endless legions of lawyers and accountants.)

Whereas the core value of the caring classes is, precisely, care, the core value of the professional-managerials might best be described as proceduralism. The rules and regulations, flow charts, quality reviews, audits and PowerPoints that form the main substance of their working life inevitably color their view of politics or even morality . These are people who tend to genuinely believe in the rules They may well be the only significant stratum of the population who do so. If it is possible to generalize about class sensibilities, one might say that members of this class see society less as a web of human relationships, of love, hate, or enthusiasm, than, precisely, as a set of rules and institutional procedures, just as they see democracy, and rule of law, as effectively the same thing. (This, for instance, accounts for Hillary Clinton’s supporters’ otherwise inexplicable inability to understand why other Americans didn’t accept the principle that if one makes bribery legal—by renaming it “campaign contributions” or half-million-dollar fees for private speeches—that makes it okay.)

The peculiar fusion of public and private, market forces and administrative oversight, the world of hallmarks, benchmarks, and stakeholders that characterizes what I’ve been calling centrism is a direct expression of the sensibilities of the professional-managerial classes. To them alone, it makes a certain sort of sense. But they had become the base of the center-left, and centrism is endlessly presented in the media as the only viable political position.

For most care-givers, however, these people are the enemy. If you are a nurse, for example, you are keenly aware that it’s the administrators upstairs who are your real, immediate class antagonist. The professional-managerials are the ones who are not only soaking up all the money for their inflated salaries, but hire useless flunkies who then justify their existence by creating endless reams of administrative paperwork whose primary effect is to make it more difficult to actually provide care.

This central class divide now runs directly through the middle of most parties on the left. Like the Democrats in the US, Labour incorporates both the teachers and the school administrators, both the nurses and their managers. It makes becoming the spokespeople for the revolt of the caring classes extraordinarily difficult.

All this also helps explain the otherwise mysterious popular appeal of the disorganized, impulsive, shambolic (but nonetheless cut-to-the-chase, get-things-done) personas cultivated by men like Trump and Johnson. Yes, they are children of privilege in every possible sense of the term. Yes, they are pathological liars. Yes, they don’t seem to care about anyone but themselves. But they also present themselves as the precise opposite of the infuriating administrator whose endless appeal to rules and demand for additional meetings, paperwork, and motivational seminars makes it impossible for you to do your job. In the UK, the game of Brexit politics has been to maneuver the Labour left into a position where it is forced to identify itself with that same infuriating administrator.

This was true from the start. The original Leave campaign took aim at immigration, but, even more, it took aim at distant and uncaring Brussels bureaucrats. And the fact that both major parties, Tories and Labour, were profoundly split over the issue—and even more, over what to do about it—led to an endless drama of legal and legislative warfare that allowed Leavers to argue that Remainers in Whitehall were using every sort of procedural trick in the book to thwart the popular will. For those in the movement to democratize the Labour Party, this was an insoluble dilemma. Most of the new, young Labour activists had enough experience with genuine directly democratic practice to understand that a 52/48 vote is effectively a tie; if it is a mandate for anything, it is for some sort of creative compromise.

This is precisely what Corbyn first attempted to do. He accepted the result of the referendum, but proposed to negotiate a deal whereby the UK would remain within the Common Market on much the same terms as Norway. The approach worked well enough in 2017 to prevent May from making the election exclusively about Brexit, and to allow Labour to make substantial gains; but as soon as the election was over and a hung parliament resulted, the centrist counter-offensive began. The most important role here was played by Alastair Campbell, Blair’s one-time press czar and crucial strategist of the People’s Vote Campaign to demand a second referendum, who immediately smelled blood. The “moderate” elements in the party pounced. Rallies and marches were organized, Remainer MPs—of both parties—threatened to jump ship if Labour did not join in calls for a second referendum, either to join the staunchly Europhile Liberal Democrats or to form a new centrist party.

At one point, several MPs, from both sides of the aisle, actually did begin setting up a centrist alternative, called (with a remarkable lack of self-awareness) Change UK—sparking the fear that disgruntled Remainers might begin a mass exodus. Since the activist youth base of the party was overwhelmingly pro-Europe, the Labour leadership eventually saw no choice but to change its position and call for a second vote in which Brexit might be reversed.

Corbyn has been widely criticized for maintaining a “wishy-washy” or indecisive position on Brexit, but from the point of view of the larger movement he represented, his position was about the only one he really could take. The Labour Left, after all, was trying to bring about dramatic social reforms, in much the way Attlee had in 1945 when he called for the creation of the NHS. Ultimately, they were revolutionaries: they aimed to set the ball rolling in the direction of the democratization of all aspects of British society. But they also knew this could only happen if they came into power in informal alliance with more radical, “extra-parliamentary” street movements pushing them ever further to the left. Taking a hardcore Remain position would mean even if they did come into power (which was by no means guaranteed), it could only be in alliance with politicians who ardently opposed this larger project, and, if Brexit was indeed reversed, that they would also be faced with radical street movements not of the left but of the right—outraged Brexiteers and outright fascists pushing in exactly the opposite direction.

The last thing Corbyn would ever want was to be forced into a position where he would have to send in riot police to control protests against the suppression of a democratic decision. This was the real reason for the initial dilemma. But eventually he had to come around to support a second vote.

At the same time as the Labour leadership was being threatened and cajoled into making common cause with militant Remainers, the Conservatives were heading in exactly the opposite direction. Boris Johnson—or, to be more precise, his strategic mastermind, Dominic Cummings—immediately filled his cabinet with hard-right Brexiters, purging Remainers first from the Cabinet and then from the party itself. He then began a heavy-handed and seemingly incompetent attempt to bludgeon some kind of Brexit bill through the House of Commons. To the casual observer, his first weeks in office appeared a combination of costume drama and slapstick comedy. Johnson lost every vote he put forward and missed his own loudly trumpeted Brexit deadline; his attempt to suspend Parliament not only failed in court but left him open to accusations of having lied to the Queen; former Tory prime ministers declared their intention to openly campaign against him; his own brother resigned from the cabinet in disgust.

Corbyn, meanwhile, began to win grudging praise from the guardians of established opinion for his willingness to coordinate the resistance. Yet this was, precisely, his undoing. Cummings’s plan had always been to win by losing. The point of the parliamentary drama was to reduce Corbyn—whose entire appeal had been based on the fact that he did not look, act, or calculate like a politician—into someone who did exactly that, and to paint the only movement in generations that had genuinely aimed to change the rules of British society as the linchpin of an alliance of professional-managerials united only by their willingness to deploy every legalistic or procedural means possible in order to reverse the results of a popular referendum and keep things exactly as they were.

If the results of the 2019 election mean anything, they reveal an overwhelming rejection of centrism. Particularly instructive here are the fates of the rebels who broke from Corbyn’s Labour to form Change UK, including Chuka Umunna, who was widely billed as Britain’s future answer to Barack Obama. On realizing that there was virtually no support for another centrist party, they ultimately joined the Lib Dems. Though the Lib Dems did increase their share of the overall vote (slightly), doing so largely served to knock out their ostensible Remainer Labour allies in close races. Not one of the defectors managed to win a seat.

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem candidate for prime minister, who had somehow convinced herself it would be a winning formula for the Lib Dems to run as a single-issue anti-Brexit party while also making clear that under no conditions would they ever form an alliance with Corbyn’s Labour, failed to win her own district and is no longer an MP. Labour lost fifty-four seats to the Tories—fifty-two of them in Leave-voting districts. But, as James Schneider, Corbyn’s director of strategic communications, confirmed when I showed him a draft of this piece, only three (Dennis Skinner, Laura Pidcock, and Laura Smith) were from the radical left of the party. Dozens of “moderates” had, effectively, blown themselves up.

The same, incidentally, is true for the Tories: not one of the twenty-one purged Remainers who ran for their old seats as independents returned to Parliament.

The center of British politics has become a smoldering pit. The country is now being governed by a hard-right government placed in power by its oldest citizens, in the face of the active hatred of its increasingly socialist-inclined youth. It’s fairly clear that for the Johnson team, Brexit was never anything but an electoral strategy, and that they don’t have the slightest idea how to translate it into economic prosperity. (It is an unacknowledged irony of the current situation that the people most likely to profit from the Brexit process are, precisely, lawyers—and, probably secondarily, accountants. For everyone else, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they will improve their current situation, and quite easy to imagine Johnson being remembered as one of the most disastrous prime ministers in British history.)

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the-outer-topic · 4 years

Photo

El Coyote

Introduction for non Spanish readers

For a quick summary, use a web translator to read the wiki article, for my own description, read on:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Coyote

As the name suggests, this was a postwar long series, of pulp western novels numbering about a hundred issues, by a Spanish author, a remake of the Zorro character of novel and film, in fact in the story the hero draws the inspiration from the example of the earlier hero and moved forward in time to the Far West times of the California Gold Rush and later decades (1849-1879). In fact they are the best Western novels I have read, and told from a Spanish perspective. El Coyote starts as a defender of the local Californian Spanish and indians against the abuses and violence of the American gringo invaders and criminals in the wake of the Gold Rush, and later on becomes a crime fighter, as law and order are established and the native Californians get equal status as US citizens, often helping American people and not just the Spanish speaking Californians, up to the point that despite his sympathies for the Confederacy, he strives to keep California loyal to the Union, if only to spare its population the ravages of civil war, and later on at one point renders a good service to President Ulysess Grant.

For a hack writer, Mallorquí, the author, was a very good writer with a great culture, knowledge of the history of the West and California, and a flair for character relationships, and a wide variety of plots other than the usual topics of Western films, including action packed shootouts, murder mistery, courtroom drama, and political intrigue to name a few. Since he wrote so many novels to pay bills, the quality is uneven. Some are great, others formulaic, and most of them just a entertaining, pleasant reading, in itself not a mean achievement.

About the character, the merit of Mallorquí is about making the Coyote a more complex character than the Zorro, and his public persona, that of wealthy, peaceful if not downright cowardly, bon vivant, and cynical landowner César de Echagüe and his family life as interesting as his heroic exploits as a masked avenger, combining in one man the duality of the Spanish character with its virtues and vices, half Quijote, half Sancho Panza.

Don Diego de la Vega is a fop, but it’s just an act to avoid suspicions while Don César de Echagüe, while also pretending to be a weakling, is a highly intelligent man, that makes him a hard realist and he sees the futility of the struggle against the new American order, but he fights injustices and abuses as El Coyote anyway out of a sense of justice and Christian morality but also as a thrill seeker in his youth, and driven by a death wish in his mid-life crisis after the death of his first wife while giving birth to his son.

Had Mallorquí been born in the USA he would have became famous, as it was, in his lifetime his books were published in other European countries and were very popular, of all places, in Finland.

These wonderful covers are from a reprint in the 1980s for nostalgic middle aged people that read them in their youth in the 1940s, and to save printing costs, they combined two novels in each volume. As a teenager I found the artwork gorgeous and the books mind blowing, and highly inspirational as they presented for me a Spanish hero as a counter to the American Hollywood culture that steamrollered over Europe, and on a personal level I was fascinated by one female character that appeared as one of the various lovers of El Coyote, an American adventuress that pretended to be a Russian princess made me feel intrigued and interested in that far away country and among other things lead me later in life to meet my Russian wife, who by a coincidence has the same name as the fictional princess.

It took me about twenty years to complete the collection as my older brother hadn’t bought them all when they were first reprinted, and I had to find them by chance throughout the years in flea markets and found the last ones thanks to the internet. Reading them in maturity, they don’t have the same impact as when I was impressionable uneducated teenager, and a few of them are formulaic and trite, but I still find them great reading, though I was shocked by the casual killing and the grisly realism of depictions of death, even though it doesn’t indulge in sadism, though torture is often mentioned as a matter of fact. Just like violence in the American Western movies, come to think of it.

Looking back, I must have been a bloodthirsty psychopath in my teens (so what has changed you may think). On the other hand these novels were written in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War for a generation that had gone through war and mass political murders and repression so I guess readers, children included, were desensitized to killing and brutality back then. Though one thing that makes them apart from the American films and novels, is the strong moral values throughout. Not the American values of law and order and the Protestant work ethic, but Catholic values of justice and equality. El Coyote is a violent man that takes justice in his own hands, but also a Christian and there are strong injuctions against social divide, racism and exploitation of the poor by the rich.

And that’s all I can think of. I will try to scan and post more of these covers if there’s interest.

PS: dor some reason and due to the vagaries of color printing, the Mexican "charro" costume of the Coyote appears in these covers in a range of shades from purple to blue and with gold trimming. Actually both in the novels and the original period covers the suit is black, with silver piping, wich makes sense since the Coyote, as an outlaw usually acted at night and the black color made him a harder target. One has also to bear in mind that a eye mask and a sombrero were enough disguise at a time when there was no electric lighting and nobody could get a good look at his face.

#spanish pulps #pulp art #western

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kathyprior4200 · 4 years

Text

Exterminate, Exterminate!

The dark creepy robotic angels of death are used to exterminate the citizens of Hell to not only reduce their population, but to also plant fear. They have silver weapons that can kill any demon, as well as humans. They were made creepy on purpose: to fight fear with fear. They are sent down once a year to purge the citizens at random.

The exterminators were divided into several groups: the Exterminators, the Death Dealer Archangels and the mechanical angels.

Some of the dark angels used to be regular deceased people who couldn’t make it to heaven, but weren’t evil enough for hell. They had done bad things in life but with good intentions (like stealing money for the poor or killing criminals). When they did make it after many years in limbo, they disobeyed orders and took advantage of their freedom. (There was plenty of food and riches in heaven, and they kept much of it for themselves). They fell from heaven and were sent to Earth and eventually, hell when they didn’t learn their lessons.

After they worked hard to redeem themselves in hell, they were sent back up to heaven. To prove their worth, their leaders gave them a test and mission. They were given special spear weapons made of silver, forged from the flames of the sun that could kill any demon and erase any soul. They were sent down to hell once a year to reduce hell’s population by purging citizens once a year.

The only way to be freed from their duties was for them to realize that even killing sinners isn’t right. That everyone should be given a second chance. They had disobeyed God, fell to Earth, then proved their innocence through prayer and being nice (or at least tolerant) to the demons. Giving them special weapons and a direct order was a way to test them: would they choose for themselves what is right, or be willing to obey their master even if what they were doing was considered “evil?” After all, when people and the divine alike possess power, they can become very different individuals.

Regarding the second group (Known casually as Death Dealer Archangels), other more experienced exterminators were actually archangels, leaders of other angels. Unlike regular angels, they were able to take on the appearance of black bird-like creatures with wings while wearing LED masks to scare off demons. Their jobs were to punish sinners and plan the purges each year. Puriel, Kushiel, Teneluehus, Raguel, Wormwood, Jeheel, Zacheniel, Ababhar, and their leader, Abaddon were the oldest and most experienced at their jobs. In fact, each one of them led attacks of choir exterminators onto one of the nine circles of hell.

For the third group, there were a few dark angels that were purely robotic. These were mostly used for tests and replacements if the dark angels couldn’t participate in the purge.

Heaven viewed Lucifer and the larger hell population as a threat, as Lucifer had waged a previous war against them. To prevent the threat, the exterminator dark angels were hired/created.

There may be several reasons why Lucifer is against the idea of Charlie redeeming sinners and creating the Happy Hotel:

1. It is part of their family’s legacy to make demons suffer and keep them in line. Creating a Happy Hotel would make the royal family appear weak to their rivals.

2. If Charlie were to redeem demons, she might be given the opportunity to go to heaven. If that were the case, her father would never see her again.

3. Lucifer has a deep grudge against God, the angels and archangels for being banished and for mortals being favored over him and the angels.

4. Lucifer is overprotective of his daughter and worries that she will be harmed if the angels (or other demon overlords) find her. He doesn’t want her to draw too much attention. He calls her a failure because he doesn’t know how else to persuade her not to pursue her dream due to his worries of the previous listed scenarios.

5. Lucifer worries that Charlie will find out that he was once an angel who punished and killed demons. The thought of her father previously killing “her people” would be too much to bear.

Vaggie remains in possession of a harpoon that can kill demons. The X over her eye is on her left eye, rather than her right, like the exterminators. Unlike many demons, Vaggie values respect and virtues. Perhaps there's an underlying reason why she has these traits?

After Vagatha died in 2014, she became an exterminator, neither good nor evil. Due to her doing evil actions with good intentions, she was put to the test and sent to purge demons every year.

But a certain demon princess caught her attention...the one demon she would not slay. For the two had fallen in love...but love comes with great costs.

But some people are willing to take the fall and brave exile, in the name of genuine feelings for a fellow friend.

Vaggie, the lesbian moth demon, is Charlie’s best friend and the manager of the Happy Hotel. She is also Charlie’s current girlfriend. She arrived in Hell in 2014 and can speak Spanish. Vaggie has a strong hatred toward men, especially when they attempt to insult Charlie.

Not much is known about her previous human life, but it’s implied that she likes punk rock music, and Latino music.

This theory has been brought up before by fans. What if there’s more to Vaggie than meets the eye? If she’s a demon in Hell, why, then, would she have been an angel in the past (or have the potential to be one?)

How did this theory come about? From similarities between Vaggie’s appearance and the looks of the exterminator angels, sent down to purge the citizens of Hell every year.

First, there is the characteristic pink X over Vaggie’s left eye. One of the Exterminators seen in the trailer had an X over their left eye as well. A picture of an angel’s face also showed an X in place of one of their eyes.

Second is Vaggie’s expertise with weapons, specifically the harpoon. Throughout the episode, she is shown holding a spear-like weapon that is capable of killing demons. The Exterminators use these weapons to “cleanse” or kill off the demons to keep the population at a set amount. Sometimes, these weapons are discarded, and are found by other demons to sell on the black market. In the opening introduction, white figures of the angels are shown holding spears similar to the harpoon Vaggie holds; a long weapon with a sharp curved blade at the top.

It is also worth mentioning that when Vaggie warns Angel Dust about Alastor, her pink bow briefly takes on the shape of horns. The Exterminators themselves also have horns on their heads.

But perhaps the most convincing point to this speculative theory is not Vaggie’s similar physical traits to the Exterminators. Perhaps it is her personality.

Based on the wiki, Vaggie is described as “prudent and sensible,” more so than the other characters. She is often seen trying to keep Charlie out of trouble and making sure the hotel stays up and running. One example is when she tells Charlie to stay on topic during her interview and not to sing (though she doesn’t listen.) When a cameraman calls Charlie a “stupid bitch,” Vaggie punches him off a chair.

Possessing a fiery temper, she confronts Angel Dust after his participation in the turf war against Sir Pentious. She is furious that Angel ruined Charlie’s reputation and that of the hotel. Though Charlie said he was “clean” for two weeks while spending time at the hotel, Angel then decided to resort to violence and drugs.

Despite Alastor being powerful and intimidating, Vaggie doesn’t hesitate to point her weapon at him, while they’re at the hotel. He warns him not to harm Charlie and even insults him.

The wiki also mentions that Vaggie has a wide knowledge about Hell, despite having been sent only recently. She knows about the Overlords and how dangerous Alastor is.

Additionally, Vaggie cannot fly like the angels can but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be a possibility in her full demon form (which has not been revealed as of yet.)

How does this relate back to the Exterminators?

While not much is known about these dark angels sent to Hell, it is assumed that they came from Heaven (or were once part of it). They would hold up certain standards and values such as obeying rules, not participating in sinful acts (despite the irony of them killing demons) among others.

Vaggie is distrustful of sinners and of men, especially. Unlike many carefree demons, she is practical and protective of those she cares about. In one scene, Vaggie protests against allowing alcohol in the hotel, saying that the hotel “is a place that (should) discourage sin.”

However, Vaggie still displays some so called “demonic” traits such as swearing and a fiery temper.

The question is, how would Vaggie know about how Hell works so fast? How would she know how the overlords rise in power and information about Alastor’s rampages? Unless someone else told her about all of it, it wouldn’t be likely for her to know all the specific details so easily. It is assumed that only demons in higher positions of power would know about these dark politics.

But if no one told her about it, then how did she gain that knowledge on her own?

Perhaps this will be explained in a future episode…

Or, maybe Vaggie got this intelligence from a higher source of power, a group who knows the ins and outs of Hell to keep the overcrowded population from becoming a threat. You guessed it…the Exterminators and the inhabitants of Heaven.

Vaggie may have been an Exterminator in the past, just after her death. She may have died from suicide or homicide. In her human life, Vaggie may have wanted to get justice on abusers and evil individuals…but went about it in the wrong way (violence or murder). Thus, she didn’t go to Heaven but not to Hell yet. She was tested and briefly became an Exterminator, to cleanse evil “for the greater good.” (Exterminators may have been previous souls who were truly neutral or did bad things that they thought were the right things to do).

Vaggie soon became a fallen angel.

How, then, was she sent down to Hell? Maybe she enjoyed killing sinners a little too much (or not enough to complete her tasks). Or, more likely, her temper tampered with her ability to focus. After all, even dark bringers of death have rules to follow. Fearing that Vaggie was a threat, they sent her down to Hell (burning off her wings) with only a weapon to defend herself.

Now she faced the ultimate test…survival in her new afterlife. She did remember one part of her mission: to keep the demon/angel Charlie out of trouble…and help her with her destiny to redeem sinners, and themselves.

For if Charlie convinces demons to be good, they might be redeemed and be sent to Heaven (or become Exterminators), thus reducing the population and making Hell less of a threat…

Something that the king of Hell and the overlords would not approve of…

List of Angels and Demons in Theology:

From Oberon Zeil-Ravenheart’s “Grimoire for the apprentice wizard” (2004) Career Press

Chioth Ha Qadesh – Supreme Order of Angels, led by Archangel Metatron (“Angel of the Presence”). Shekinah is his female counterpart. Associated with the infinite divine spirit of Kether.

Metatron is the link between God and humanity. The King of all the Angels and the youngest, he was once the Biblical Patriarch Enoch.

Auphanim – (Whirling Forces), ruled by Archangel Ratziel (“delight of God”), the prince of hidden things who is called the Angel of Mysteries, holds a coded key to the secrets of the universe.

Aralim – (Strong and Mighty Ones, made of white fire) Archangel is Tzaphqiel (“contemplation of God”), prince of spiritual strife against evil. Planet: Saturn

Chasmalim – (Brilliant Ones, justice) Archangel Tzadkiel (“justice of God), prince of mercy and beneficence who guards the gates of the East Wind. Planet: Jupiter

Seraphim – (Flaming Ones) Avenging Angels of Destruction. Ruled by Archangel Kamael, (“severity of God”), prince of strength and courage, bearing the flaming sword. Planet: Mars

Malachim – Govern all natural laws and are responsible for the motions of the cosmos and heavenly bodies. Archangel is Raphael (“physician of God”) prince of healing. Planet: Sun

Elohim – (Choir of Principalities) Archangel is Haniel (“grace of God”), prince of love and harmony, art and creativity. Hagiel (Aphrodite), female counterpart. Planet: Venus

Beni Elohim – (Sons of the Gods/ Choir of Archangels) Archangel is Michael (“protector of God”) with Raphael as his lieutenant. Their province is art and knowledge. Planet: Mercury

Cherubim – Guardian angels of humanity (“those who intercede”). Archangel is Gabriel (“strength of God”). It was he who appeared to Mary with the Annunciation and dictated the Koran to Mohammed. Planet: Moon

Ishim – (Blessed Souls) lowest order of angels, assisting humanity directly, associated with mundane concerns, once living saints and prophets. Archangel is Sandalphon (twin of Metatron) Planet: Earth

Angel Types:

Archangel (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) “chief angel”

Bene Elohim “Sons of God”

Chalkydri (Christianity, Judaism) = Carriers of the sun’s heat

Cherub (Christianity, Judaism)

Dominions (Christianity, Judaism)

Grigori (Watchers) (Christianity, Judaism)

Ishim (Judaism, Islam)

Lamassu (Ancient Mesopotamian religion) = protection, constellations, female deities

Mu’aqqibat (Islam)

Powers (Christianity, Judaism)

Principalities (Christianity, Judaism)

Seraph/Seraphim (Christianity, Islam, Judaism)

Song-Uttering Choirs (Judaism)

Thrones (Christianity, Judaism)

Virtues (Christianity, Judaism)

Angels of Death:

Azrael

Dumah

Munkar

Nakir

Samael

Fallen Angels:

Azazel

Dumah

Harut

Iblis

Lucifer

Marut

Christian Hierarchy of Angels:

(Highest order)

Seraphim

Cherubim

Thrones

(Middle order)

Dominions

Virtues

Powers

(Lowest order)

Principalities

Archangels

Angels

Names:

Abaddon (Christianity, Judaism) = Destruction

Abathar Muzania (Mandaeism) = The weighing of souls

Aglibol (Ancient Cannaanite religion) = Angel of the god Baal Hadad

Ananiel (Christianity, Judaism) Archangel, “Rain of God”

Arariel (Jewish mythology) = Waters of the Earth

Ariel (Christianity, Islam) = Personification of Israel

Artiya’il (Islam) = Removes human grief

Azazel (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) = Archangel, fallen angel, teacher of evil arts, rebellion against God

Azrael (Islam, Judaism) = Archangel, Angel of Death

Barachiel (Christianity) = Archangel, lightning, Guardian angel chief “Blessed by God’

Baraquiel (Jewish mythology) = Archangel

Camael/Kemuel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, Leader of the Powers, strength courage and war

Cassiel (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) = Archangel, solitude and tears

Daniel (Christianity, Judaism) = Watcher

Dadrail (Islam, Yazdanism) = Archangel in Yazdanism

Dumah (Islam, Judaism) = Angel of Death, silence, torments the wicked after death

Eleleth (Sethianism)

Eremiel/Jerahmeel (Christianity, Judaism) = guides the holy deceased in afterlife

Gabriel (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) = Archangel, messengers, military, destruction “God is my strength”

Gadreel (Christianity, Judaism)

Hadraniel (Judaism, Gnosticism) = Second Heavenly Gate

Hahasiah (Christianity, Judaism) = Principality

Hanibal (Ancient Mesotopamian religion) = Angel of the god Baal Hadad

Haniel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, leader of Principalities along with Archangel Netzach

Haziel

Harut (Islam) = fallen angel, sorcery

Hashmal (Christianity, Judaism) Dominions

Hamalat al-Arsh (Islam)

Hofniel (Judaism) = Archangel

Iblis (Islam) = fallen angel, ruler of lower heavens, teacher of angels, leading angels into battle, (after the fall) tempter and commanding demons

Imamiah (Christianity, Judaism) = Principality

Israfil/Israfel (Islam) = Archangel, music

Jegudiel (Christianity) = Archangel, responsibility and merciful love “Glorifier of God”

Jehoel (Christianity, Judaism) = Seraph, fire

Jequn (Christianity, Islam, Judaism)

Jerahmeel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel “God’s Exaltation”

Jophiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, wisdom, understanding and judgement

Kalka’il (Islam) = fifth heaven

Kepharel (Jewish mythology) = (Archangel)

Kerubiel (Judaism)

Kiraman Katibin (Islam) = recorder of human thoughts

Kushiel (Christianity, Judaism) = punishment

Lailah (Judaism) = night, conception

Lucifer (Christianity) = Archangel or seraph, cherub, fallen angel, Bringer of Light, rebellion against God

Morning Star/Venus, wanted to surpass and be “Most High”

Bogomiliam: Lucifer fell from heaven and trapped souls from heaven inside matter which were later freed by Jesus

Jealous of God and humanity

Satan in Christianity

One of the four princes of Hell, ruler of the East and air in Satanic Bible

Morning star, intellectualism, fantasy, enlightenment in some versions

Neopagan: Lucifer as brother and consort to goddess Diana and father of Aradia. (Apollo?) “proud of his beauty and who for his pride was driven from Paradise.”

Maalik (Islam) = hellfire

Malakbel (Ancient Canaanite religion) angel of the god Baal Hadad, the sun

Marut (Islam) = fallen angel, sorcery

Melek Taus (Yazdanism) = Archangel

Metatron (Judaism, Islam) = Archangel, seraph, The Celestial Scribe

Michael (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Yazdanism) = Archangel, seraph, military, Angel of Mercy, General in God’s army, Angel of Death “Who is like God”

Moroni (Mormonism) = the Golden Plates

Munkar (Islam) = Angel of Death, the Faith of the Dead

Muriel (Christianity) = Dominions, June and Cancer in astrology

Nakir (Islam) = Angel of Death, The Faith of the Dead

Nanael (Christianity, Judaism) = Principality

Netzach (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, leader of Principalities along with Haniel, eternity

Nithael (Christianity, Judaism) = Principality

Nuriel (Jewish mythology) = hailstorms

Ophaniel/Ofaniel (Christianity, Judaism) = Cherubrim/Thrones

Pahaliah (Christianity) = Thrones, Virtuosity

Penemue (Christianity, Judaism)

Phanuel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, Repentance and Hope “Face of God”

Poyel (Christianity, Judaism) = Principality

Pravuli (Jewish mythology) = Archangel, God’s scribe

Puriel (Judaism) = examines the souls of those brought to heaven

Qaphsiel (Christianity, Judaism) = angel of tears, presides over the death of kings

Radueriel (Jewish mythology) = can create lesser angels

Raguel/Azrael (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) = Archangel, Angel of Justice “Friend of God”

Ramuel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, “Thunder of God”

Raphael (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Yazdansim) = Archangel, leader of the Virtues, cherubim, healing “God heals”

Raziel (Judaism) = Archangel, Keeper of Secrets

Remiel (Christianity, Judasim) = Archangel

Ridwan (Islam) Angel of Paradise

Rikbiel (Christianity, Judaism) = cherubim

Sachiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, cherub, Wealth and Charity

Sahaquiel (Jewish mythology) = Archangel, guardian of the fourth heaven

Sabriel (Jewish mythology) = Archangel, Miracles

Samael (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, Angel of Death, fetching souls

Samyaza (Judaism, Manichaeism) = Watcher

Sandalphon (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) = Archangel, protector of unborn children

Sarathiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, Discipline and Penance

Sariel (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) = Archangel

Sealtiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel “Intercessor of God”

Selaphiel (Christianity) = Archangel, patron saint of prayer and worship

Seraphiel (Christianity, Islam) = seraph, protector of Metatron, highest ranking seraphim

Shamnail (Yazdanism) = Archangel

Shamsiel (Christianity, Judaism)

Sidriel (Jewish mythology) = Archangel

Suriel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, “Prince of God”

Temeluchus (Christianity, Judaism)

Tennin (Japanese Buddhism)

Turail (Yazdanism) = Archangel

Uriel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, seraphim, “God is my light” patron of arts

Uziel (Judaism) = Archangel

Vasiariah (Christianity, Judaism) = Dominions

Vehuel (Christianity, Judaism) = Principality

Wormwood (Christianity) = war

Yarihibol (Ancient Canaanite religion) (angel of God Baal Hadad), springs

Zachariel (Christianity) = Archangel

Zadkiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, leader of the Dominions, "Righteousness of God” angel of freedom, benevolence and mercy and the Patron Angel of all who forgive

Zaphkiel (Christianity) = Archangel, leader of the Thrones, “God’s Knowledge”

Zedekiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Archangel, “Grace of God”

Zephaniel (Judaism) = Archangel

Zephon (Jewish mythology)

Zophiel (Christianity, Judaism) = Cherubim

List of Demons in Theology

Archdemons seven deadly sins:

Lucifer: Pride

Mammon: Greed

Asmodeus: Lust

Leviathan: Envy (sea monster)

Beelzebub: Gluttony (Lord of the Flies)

Satan: Wrath

Belphegor: Sloth (suggests ingenious inventions will make people rich)

Demon Kings of the Ars Goetia

Amaymon (King of the East)

Corson (King of the West)

Ziminiar (King of the North)

Gaap (King of the South)

Bael (first king, power to make men invisible, teaching science,

Paimon (obedient to Lucifer, knowledge of past and future events)

Beleth

Purson

Asmodey

Vine

Balam

Beilal

Alastor (Greek spirit of vengeance)

Pazuzu

Demons in Christianity:

Adrammelech

Alastor (avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed, byname of Zeus, also one of Hade’s black horses, possessing entity like Nemesis, generic term for evil spirits)

Asmodeus

Baphomet

Belial

Belphegor

Demogorgon

Dusios

Gello

Incubus

Succubus

Satan

Four Princes of Hell (Satanic Bible)

Satan

Lucifer

Belial

Levitaian

#exterminators #hazbin hotel

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twisted-leader-of-something · 4 years

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Background Information - Andalasia in my Twisted Wonderland

[Until we have more information on Twisted Wonderland and its' countries, if they ever develop it, this what I can give you about the country.]

Location: Inbetween most Fae and Human countries, with little bits of it stretching into the land of Pyroxene.

Geography: A landlocked country with scenic forests, lakes, mountains, streams, valleys and plains.

Climate: Stable seasons with rainy springs and warm summers and brisk autumns and somewhat cold winters. The temperature of Analasia usually is pretty much the same year round besides in winter when the temperature can wildly change from day-to-day.

Population: Mostly Humans with some Fae here and there, as well as magical and regular creatures and spirits roaming around. Pretty spread out between cities and villages, and these areas are well populated.

Status: Divided by Area until Further Notice, Under Neighboring Countries' Rule

Government System: Consitional Monarchy

Class System: Royalty - Nobleman - High Peasants (Upperclass Peasants: The new money people and illegitimate magic users) - Middle Peasants (Middle Class Peasants: Most Andalasian citizens) - Low Peasants (Lower Class Peasants: New citizens/those deemed unfit to be in higher classes [Major criminals, mostly]) - Travelers (Current, Work In Progress by Neighboring Countries)

The Republic of Andalasian Peoples - Lower and Middle Peasants - High Peasants - Nobleman - Royalty (Formally)

Education System: Well-known for being strict and fast, but it is pretty good by most people's standards.

Currency: Ewro System (Andalasian Currency), Madol

Religions: Magic-Manaism (Andalasian Religion), Paganism, Mysticism, Manaism.

Magic Concentration: Only in the Upper Class, the people of Analasia are not known for any magic speciality

Languages Spoken: Andalasian, Andalasian Sign Language, Anadalasian Braille, Most Animal Languages, Common.

History/Current State: Andalasia was a great tourist country because of it's scenery and generally peaceful and laid back government policies. It also served as a middle ground between the Fae and Human countries for the most part, so often human and fae would pass by the country for access between these countries, and magical and creatures are generally well aquented with one other, with little to no food chain really present. It was often described as 'The Land of Happiness' because there was very little to no sadness or anger, ever, really in the whole country and it also had a decent standing with other countries, economically and politically. And it is believed by some historians that the Andalasians were the first magic users to learn from the Fae, but kept it hidden from the world. But then the events of Enchanted happened, and the peasants, not happy with a prince who really couldn't run a kingdom brought a person from another world, rebelled. According to the peasants, Queen Narissa was not a good ruler and treated the people horribly, but the Andalasian royalty and nobleman say she wasn't, and because there was no third party, it is unclear what is the truth. The peasants rebelled in a French Revolution type situation started by a group of people calling themselves the Republic of Andalasian Peoples who really where just power hungry people who wanted to overthrow the government, so things quickly got out of hand with executions left and right of both royalty and peasants, until the two sides agreed on a Constitutional Monarchy, with the rules and laws being very complicated but simple to understand: the royal family, nobleman, and upperclassman were to be subjected to abusive laws where they had little to no freedom and privacy and are not treated as human beings but more as puppets for the people's entertainment and the Republic of Andalasian Peoples (also known as RAP) basically get to rule instead. While the royalty and nobleman still lived in nice places, the peasants basically has full control over their lives, not often literally, but mostly metaphorically speaking. As gossipers and people looking for status can basically say whatever they want about the government and upper class families could get killed because of it. As, the laws says the peasants are always right, and it got to the lower class' heads because of RAP. And the royalty and nobleman suffered immensely from it, to where royal and nobleman suicides or escape attempts here common until the peasants basically passed a law that locked the country down and stopped all interactions with all countries until 'the upper class could be stable again'. You could still cross to get to other countries, but good luck getting around or in Andalasia though as security was really tight. And, much later the lower classes agreed gave the upper class little more freedom and money and the castle RAP had occupied back, which the royalty immediately made much bigger to fit the remaining eight royal family lines that were not killed off and basically locked the peasants out. Which definitely caused an uproar among the people, as they thought it was the royalty being cowards. And after years of battle for the castle, the royalty and peasants gave up on fighting each other and agreed to settle down, much to RAP's dismay, and the two sides are starting to rebuild the country and slowly up to the rest of the world again. Until, Faustina Desmona ran off with a leader of a Fae race and set off the peasants again, who where being egged on by the Republic of Andalasian Peoples that the upper class where all horrible people and because of Faustina's unapologetic actions and the Fae's lack of care about Andalasia's situation, the two side erupted into fights again which was supposed to be settled down by the execution of the eleventh line of Andalasian Royalty, before the one who was to be executed, Quentin Nighy-Sallow, Overblotted and basically tortured and almost killed the Andalasian People's Republic and imprisoned most of the citizens involved with the conspiracy and the royal line in a pocket dimension that did a similar thing to those groups. Which took neighboring countries a month and a half to stop thanks to Quentin being difficult to take on, and being brutally honest about the abusive laws and things the people would do to the royalty for no reason. The royal line, and Andalasian People's Republic was put under protection and interrogated by a certain group that researching Overblots, which a part of a dangerous cult known ad as the Cult of Mana and found most of what happened to the country during the period of lockdown. Now, the country has been divided into parts ruled by the neighboring countries until the royal line can be released.

Royalty Class System: Royalty (1st Line) - 2nd-6th Lines (Considered the original lines of the royal family) - 7th-14th Lines (These are people who made their own noble houses) - High Peasants (These people are often honorary nobleman)

This a more basic system that should be in place that RAP set up, and is somewhat present in most Noble Andalasian's lives, but most don't really care about the system unless their families are really stuck up. These stuck people are mostly just the egotistical ones.

Andalasian Currency System/Ewro System Overview: Dinero (≈100 Madols, often stamp/carved with an Alicanto or Bennu) - Sueldo (≈50 Madols, often stamped/carved with a Griffin or Carbunclo) - Terce (≈20 Madols often stamp/carved with a Qilin or Jackalope) - Dupondii (≈10 Madols often stamped-carved with a Hippocampus or Longma) - Ases (≈5 Madols, often carved-stamped with a Kelpie or Pegasus) - Semis (2 Madol, often carved/stamped with a human figure) - Libra (≈1 Madol, often carved/stamped with a Manticore) - Tremis (≈1/4th of a Madol, often stamped/carved with a leprechaun figure) Quadrans (≈1/10th of a Madol, often stamped/carved with a dragon)- Uncia (≈1/20th of a Madol, often stamped/carved with a unicorn)

The Ewro System is fait money system that uses common rocks and paper from Andalasia with the RAP and Royal Family's stamp of approval of it with symbols mostly of magical creature on it. It is mostly highly valued by other country, and very hard to fake.

Andalasia Religion/Magic-Manaism Overview: A Polytheistic and mostly Oral Tradition based religion based around the concept of Twisted Wonderland being created by a divine couple known as Magic and Mana, two genderless gods who are the embodiment of Magic and Mana respectively along with other gods who were created by the races of Twisted Wonderland when Magic and Mana created the universe, with gods such as Technology and Civilization who watch over the races of Twisted Wonderland to make sure the races get along and don't mess up their world or each other. It is mostly a self driven religion and focuses on a person's relationship with the embodiments of Twisted Wonderland and their domains, but there is some holidays, festivals and ceremonies people can attend if they are super committed to the religion. Pretty laid back religion unless you are super religious.

Other Information: Andalasian Parties are known for the amount of unsupervised and possibly illegal activities that happen there such as underaged drug usage, drinking and sex, which is very, very controversial with other countries as if it should be okay if children should have highly addictive drug or coping mechanisms introduced at a young age, but the Andalasians don't really seem to care all that much about it as they do have systems in place for if in the case addiction or unwanted pregnancys happens. And it is a surprisingly really good system that Andalasia made in under a few years.

#[ character content ]#twisted wonderland oc #twst oc

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robert-c · 4 years

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Thoughts on How to Get Away From Extreme Partisanship

I would really like others to post ideas about this as well. The last time the country was this divided over issues without any apparent compromise available we engaged in a civil war that took roughly 750,000 lives (about 2.4% of the US population at that time). Comparable figures today would be over 8,300,000.

The good news is I don’t think the majority are in irreconcilable camps, but have been misled into believing that they need to pick between two. I think there are several elements to undoing this false choice.

Social Media - When this was little more than sharing your vacation pictures and swapping fashion tips and opinions about music and movies it was a harmless indulgence. Now it has become a major source of misinformation. True, people should do their own fact checking, but despite distrust of our institutions, most everyone’s life experience includes the period when major news outlets checked their facts and had two or more independent sources etc. for what they published. In addition, algorithms that were perhaps intended to send you suggestions for more gardening posts based on your own posts and interests have become vehicles for directing users to more and more extreme and fringe posts.

1. Without stifling opinion, it is still possible to flag demonstrably false statements, and these platforms should do so.

2. Disable or redesign the algorithms to restrict suggestions to non-political issues, leaving people free to conduct their own searches instead of having progressively more narrow and unique posters served up to them.

Mainstream Media – In order to return this to the level of respect it once enjoyed there are several steps it must take.

Emphasize the source of the facts in the reporting and the importance of getting the right facts so as to make clear that all stories are not of equal value.

While embracing new forums and formats to attract and retain younger readers, emphasizing facts must still be paramount.

Abandon “infotainment” completely. Making news out of “anything” in order to fill a predetermined time slot makes it easier to assume the rest of the news is just as frivolous and “made up”.

And perhaps most important, eliminate or make quite clear that the commentary and opinion pieces are not news, and not facts. Crawlers on the bottom of the screen continually announcing that this is just opinion and not fact might be a good start.

The next most important step has to be either a third political party composed principally of moderates and “center of the road” or some redefining of the current parties. Ever since 1980 when Ronald Reagan essentially sold out the Republican party to the religious right, it has been on a course toward this shameful state of racist, white, evangelical fascism, i.e. “Trumpism”. The hardest core support for this agenda is at most a third of the electorate. The rest of Republicans have gone along, I think, largely due to habitual party loyalties and/or an (unfounded) fear of the so called “left” due to lies etc. [Just a fact check, the “left” hasn’t been close to an organized, single philosophy movement since the 60’s.] For the Democrats the “open tent” allows it to give some voice to a broader section of the populace, but at the price of being easily labeled “extreme”.

Let’s assume that each part basically commands the principal loyalty of about 50% of the voters. There’s a middle ground of independents, possibly no more than 5% who may truly switch between parties (47.5%, 47.5% and 5%). Now let’s imagine what would happen if the GOP kicked out the “Trumpites” [I started to go with “trumpets” since they make so loud and brassy a sound, but then decided not to insult a fine musical instrument]. So now we have the Party of American White Nationalists (the PAWNs) or perhaps simply the Trump Party commanding unquestioning and unreasoning loyalty of about 33% of the electorate. Now according to the math above that would leave the GOP with about 14.5% of the electorate, which is no doubt why they have been reluctant do so.

But consider this; that would leave the GOP with the following core principles: fiscal responsibility, minimal but sensible regulation of business (principally to ensure competition), and a desire to effect social change through example rather than fiat (e.g. as Barry Goldwater wanted to do with civil rights – the government and its contractors would not discriminate in hiring etc. based on race, religion, gender, creed or national origin, believing that private businesses would follow.) That nominal 14.5% potentially grows to as large as the Trumpites, since moderate Democrats might vote for them as well. But even if they are not outright winners in sheer numbers, their willingness to work with others to craft real solutions makes them and the rest of the Democrats a clear coalition winner since the Trumpites don’t compromise their rigid positions.

Remember that the radical right is opposed to all change in the status quo, while the “left” or progressives consists of many different causes and issues not all universally shared among themselves. However, there is a case to be made that cooperating with moderates gives their ideas and agendas a chance to be heard, and eventually attracting more supporters, whereas letting the right wing have control shuts down all chance of progress.

So, part one – let’s get back to the facts; the real, verifiable facts. Part two – let’s consider letting the extremists have their own minority party that will never garner a majority as long as cooler, moderate heads prevail without giving in to them.

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