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potuzzz · 1 year

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Western Communists, Psychopathy, and Love

Snark, smugness, and smarm are not revolutionary.

Pettiness, sadism and cruelty are not revolutionary.

The system of capitalism encourages narcissism. Psychopathy, sociopathy, megalomania and trance-like overconsumption are its core tenets. The cold and ruthless are rewarded while the warm and compassionate fall behind and suffer the whims of the cold.

It alienates us from not just our labor but from nature, our fellow humans. People are trained to be fake, to socialize only as a part of a grotesque game where dogs eat dogs and everybody has an ulterior motive, a vein of gold to mine, refine and exploit, and a limp leg, a disturbingly human flaw that renders them an imperfect asset in a world where only a string of uninterrupted perfection will win the race. A flaw which signals to a world of speculators that they are little more than a burden to be calculated around, or, preferably, removed altogether.

We learn to hate our neighbors. To distrust them, to make what use of them we can as quickly as possible and then to discard them—and that is only if we are forced to interact with them in the first place, as surely we would rather avoid all that is biological and social and only touch numbers on a screen or the stiff cardboard of an anonymously delivered box of fleeting dopamine. Everything is pornographic, but nothing is erotic; sex is a corrupted pantomime from the prude to the promiscuous. Passions are only useful insofar as a “side hustle” or a potential career. Friendships and family relationships are a chore to maintain. Community is dead in the West and we are all somewhat relieved to know this.

We have arrived at the conclusion we have neither the time, the emotional energy, nor the patience to deal with the human race which we now recognize as insufferable monsters. We shorten the time required to build rapport in cyberspace by donning on iconography to signal our allegiance in a flash; those who fall short of meeting every checkmark are quickly and unceremoniously discarded. We have a very woke-sounding rationale we cite to ourselves and to the audience to excuse our lack of positive emotional effort and our overabundance of negative behaviors and worldviews. We have no patience to change, or for others to change; real change is fake (when has a Westerner ever felt real, positive change?), and we have come to internalize this. Even those of us who understand the scientific, incremental, and bloodily difficult process it is to change society, who see the positives in the East which are taking their turn with humanity’s steering wheel, even those comrades also see how real, positive change in the West is unprecedented, how deeply sick this society is. The question we ask ourselves is not how to heal it, but rather how to save one’s individual self, how to amputate from the host body that is overridden with cancer…if we allow ourselves to reflect on this grim scenario and its implications for our personal life in the first place. And in truth, as we have come to subconsciously accept the fascist creed “to live is to suffer,” many of us happily accept a future of death and destruction, smiling softly knowing that perhaps the Chinese, Russians, Africans or Latinos may be happy in the world a century for now, and that we can finally know peace in the finality of our deaths, buried underneath the rubble of the Empire as its roof caves in on top of us.

However, these are revolutionary, unprecedented times.

The Empire is waning, and they have used up all their tricks on the populace—they may be brainwashed, but there is no new bleach to pour into the mix. The realities are more in our favor to persuade than ever before. The CIA, FBI, and numerous American Deep State entities which have been curating Hell on Earth on this plot of stained land are losing their grip. They are running out of ways to transmute revolutionary potential into an anticommunist Compatible Left. They are overwhelmed with the sheer amount of surveilled citizens who casually and constantly talk about treason and violence against the oligarchy from every bastardized niche of the American political spectrum.

People—even people who still believe Stalin killed the entire population of the Baltics, even people who still are tricked into demanding escalation of the war in Ukraine, even people who still think the United States is a benevolent force of “liberal democracy” that just occasionally makes mistakes in the war against a far-worse “authoritarian” menace, even people who proudly voted for Bush Jr. and then Obama and then Trump and then Biden—are sick of being sick. Tired of being tired. People hunger for real, positive change.

As the past century has shown, even the most expertly, intricately, secretly crafted boot made with the finest leathers and laces imperialism can procure cannot stomp out communism from the human heart. Three decades of uncontested Western hegemony, following several centuries of world-faring propaganda and power, even this solidified not the throne of capitalism but its own failures. People are looking everywhere for communism, and capitalism is increasingly desperate, feeding them half-truths to buy just a little more time. But as the hyper-individualized solutions of McMindfulness, narcissistically-twisted astroturfed narratives of isolating self-love, for-profit therapy, aesthetics-based New Ageism and the wheezing, decrepit body of Christofascism fail to bring peace of mind, as rise-and-grind culture and Yang-esque “capitalism, but different this time—seriously!” fails to bring prosperity, as billionaire foundations and “charities” and media virtue signaling and tokenization fail to solve homelessness, climate change, or racism, the bewitching capitalism will run out of new, ever-the-more complicated spells to cast to maintain the illusion.

The truth is, simply, too simple. Americans will not be surprised to learn that within the next century America might be a dystopic wasteland…but what will utterly shock them is that the rest of the world not only isn’t suffering the same fate, but is even better than America ever was!

Now is the time to sow seeds. When people are finally ready for their moment of epiphany, it must be a matter of coming to terms with reality, not shutting down into despair, depression and psychosis. The easier this process can be made, the less pressure it will take to trigger it, and the less explosive the transition will be.

People cannot feel “in too deep.” It is far too often the guilt associated to coming to terms with what they have done that a wolf will opt to stay the same rather than venture on the path of positive change. Nor can people cannot think that the path to redemption is one that involves showing one’s belly and prostrating unconditionally—not for the sake of sheltering their pride, but because in this society, in this world, we have been taught that only the wolf ever wins. A communist above all surely understands that we are all a product of our circumstances; every horror of capitalism is the predictable, logical conclusion of the core tenets it was built upon. People who are monsters today were not born that way, and, if shown the right path, there are many who can be saved from their seemingly terminal fate.

Just as the person is taught to either become a wolf or suffer as a sheep, we are unconsciously, expertly, and incessantly taught, as communists living in the West, to ultimately serve capitalism and thwart or own missions of socialism and intersectional harmony. The leftwardly curious are first sent on a marathon through a gauntlet of false-consciousness; many are plucked one-by-one, recruited towards social democracy, liberal Wokeism, anarchism, doomerism, and anticommunist, anti-AES socialist tendencies such as Trotskyism, Maoism, and the like. And then, if all else fails, and we cannot be hindered from reaching Marxist-Leninist conclusions, still there are diseases that capitalism will try to mix into our food: dogmatism, purity politics, social gamification, outrage loops. And, above all, core character traits we do not normally associate with our politics: fearfulness, grudgingness, arrogance, and the other aforementioned cancers outlined at the beginning of this.

The people need to see the alternative, to start conceiving in their mind of an alternative to this hellscape. They will not see it if we are bashing them for their current state—their natural, logical, predictable state per the path of least resistance in such a society which has been carefully manicured into a beast from the top down.

No matter how deserved it must seem, the communist must strive to avoid being snarky, cruel, or petty. We are only humans, our days are hard and we have our own toxic behaviors baked into us by our natural life in these United States. However, as communists, we are the pioneers, the moss and lichens that must make do on barren rock so that one day soil and then a forest may bloom. Our job is not easy, and we must not beat ourselves up for failing to maintain perfect praxis in all our interactions. However, that does not mean that, when we have the spare energy, when we have a little bit of extra fight in us after making sure the bills are paid and our hens are in order, that we shouldn’t at least consciously strive towards it.

Kindness. Patience. Compassion. Empathy. Forgiveness. Conscientiousness. Acceptance Proactive helpfulness. Unconditional love for all. These are some of the traits a communist should be striving towards, as often as they can, per the circumstances they occupy. Avoiding starvation, maintaining a job and a good friend, battling demons, getting sleep, and necessary leisure to enjoy life for being life and to recharge the batteries are, of course, even more paramount. Us comrade have our own cancers that have been inflicted upon us. But it should be understood that if one is too tired, or their mood is too poor, they perhaps should avoid being cruel to the unenlightened—it is only through sheer luck of circumstance that we are communists and the vast majority of Westerners are not. It is only through the machinations of the ephemeral monster that we call “capitalism” that our neighbors are bigots, misers, painfully ignorant and excessively selfish, infantile and yet without the wholesome spark we wash out of children, delusional, rigid, and damaging bastards who have been tricked to worship devils. Sometimes walking away from these situations is better for both ourselves as individuals and for communism as a worldwide movement than staying and letting our enemies drag us down to their woeful state.

Choosing to be kind instead of cruel is rewarding in the long-term, much like how a healthy diet, exercise, passions, socialization, sleep and sun are. And, just like how doing those things are made incredibly, unnecessarily difficult in the world of capitalism, so too is being kind. Doing “the right thing” is often the opposite of doing “the easy thing,” as we all know. People will be cruel to you, inviting you to be cruel back. Tempers flare. Our lives are already awash with injustice, and this is only felt more sharply when one is going out of their way to be kind. People will taunt you. Men trying to be kind to other men, women, or children will be perceived as being gay, toxic, and pedophiles respectively. White people being kind to Black people is perceived as patronizing, fake, or conditional to their submission, whereas Black people being kind in reverse is seen as fearful, fake, or submissive. Even talking about “love and kindness” will be seen by many here as cultish and disingenuous. So many interactions that should be simple are made to be overly complicated and uncomfortable, across wealth, race, gender, sexuality, profession, interests, age, and certainly political label.

Yes, the social contract is completely fucked. As a communist, you should know this already. But unfortunately, while many revolutionary factors happen without our input required at all, many do require input—sweaty, infuriating, demeaning input at that. Just like how they ripped the idea of “peace” from the hands of revolutionaries such as Martin Luther King Jr. and turned him into a Walmart t-shirt, just as the notion of “One Love” and “world peace” of well-intentioned white suburbanite hippies was quickly distorted by the powers-that-be, they will try and co-opt any real, positive change and kill or corrupt those who birthed it. People will abuse a call to be kind and turn it into the equally gross smarm, to victimize themselves in the face of constructive criticism, to scold human emotions such as anger. We are swimming against the current, we are brushing against the grain, and we will shred our hands and cough up foul water in the process.

But also, in my personal experience, I can assure you that it is not always this agonizing. And, if we act as a healing force in society, if we help give these peoples a taste of what trust, love, acceptance and social harmony is like, we will find it slowly getting better, even faster than how slowly things got worse and worse. People are already hungering for a social dialogue to fix these issues, and the primary problem with their solutions is they are not anti-capitalist and they are certainly not pro-socialist. However, from the time of Christ, the ancient home of kindness on the political spectrum has always been in communism. If we take up our positions as the pioneers of a better society, we will naturally inhabit this niche; it will be like dusting off and oiling a machine that, while it has been neglected for quite some time, has always been waiting for us to reacquaint. The key to start this machine has always been in our possession, in the possession of the communists—we only need the willpower to fish it out of the refuse we have allowed to build up. Yes, we need to “clean our room,” as in we need to throw out all the poisonous garbage capitalism has instilled on the otherwise pure temples of our hearts and minds.

Capitalism is an anti-human system, and likewise it has instilled even its greatest detractors with anti-human tendencies. While socialist revolution will not break out in the imperial core through a mere few hugs, bummed cash, or kind explanations of Marxist theory, it will certainly accelerate the process of real, positive change. I ask my fellow communists to—especially when they are “on the clock”—catch themselves before they do “the easy thing.” To kindly assert kindness into our political spaces. To forgive and understand not only our comrades, not only our neighbors, but our enemies and ourselves as well. And if you begin to doubt the efficacy of kindness, ask yourselves how much good this society of cruelty, artificially brought upon us by the agents of the most inhuman system on the planet, has done for us, and ask yourself what sort of things every person on this Earth, especially in such a sick and stunted society, crave above all else. Peace and prosperity, love and kindness. Not from the cynical “doing what they must” to win a war, but the sincere sort that exists for its own sake with no ulterior motives or expectation of reciprocation.

The Soviets, the Chinese, and the other revolutions across time and space had their own battles to fight. Their societies were destitute, overexploited, and undeveloped. We too may need guns and the courage to make physical battle before this is all said and done—not every fascist fanatic and American state agent will be persuaded to change their ways—but in the now, while this is still an invisible warm war in the Age of Information for hearts and minds, we will need solutions to the remarkably sick hearts and minds of Western society, who have been inoculated against the very medicine meant to liberate them. If they are taught to hate Marxist buzzwords, how do we start a dialogue? What is the pioneer species that will break into this barren rock? Love and kindness.

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varyathevillain · 5 months

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Sebastian Vael would've been such a better character for the Dragon Age fandom to enjoy if in act 3 instead of the shitty "here, have a Leliana cameo and another proof there's Blood Magic Everywhere in Kirkwall, go fetch!" quest, we had a different one.

Let's say... Hawke has an option of investigating a weird deal between a chantry sister and a Starkhaven diplomat, and during it you uncover that the chantry has been embezzling from Starkhaven's treasury, as well as putting "former chantry members" (read: malleable or outright Chantry puppets) in the ruling circle which is currently holding Starkhaven afloat in absence of Sebastian as their Prince.

If Sebastian is not in the party as you uncover this, you have an option to either tell him about it, or investigate the questline further. If he is, however, in the party as you find the first notice of something being wrong between Chantry and Starkhaven relations, Sebastian will exclaim that this is a mistake, someone posing outside (or within) a Chantry to implicate either Starkhaven royalty, or Grand Cleric Elthina, and reference Sister Petrice. The moment you involve him in the questline, however, he'll be locked in for the investigation missions, and start getting special points in the code, one for each encounter (including the very first one starting the questline), for the final confrontation of the questline. The same happens if you start involving Sebastian at any other point of the questline, but with less and less points available.

As you progress, there would be three more quests to go through, one of which even takes you to either the outskirts of Starkhaven, or to the busy streets of it, allowing 1) to show another city state of Free Marches, 2) where Sebastian comes from, 3) actually be worth your money for the DLC, if ideal DA2 still had him as a DLC companion. Which I still hate with burning passion a decision, same with Javik being DLC in ME3.

The questline has chantry sisters and nobles implicated, Flora Harriman reaching out to Hawke about weird decisions made in Starkhaven politics, resembling what her mother did, and at a second quest there's even a possibility of you uncovering a chantry brother in a contract with a Desire demon. It seems like it all leads up to corruption in the political sphere and stragglers in the Chantry circles, right?

Except. On the final quest. It is revealed that Elthina, in her own handwriting, no forgery as confirmed by any rogue in the party, has forced Grand Cleric of Starkhaven to resign, installed her own puppet (one of the chantry sisters you might see in Act 1) as a new Grand Cleric, all for a bid of "uniting the Free Marches under the Chantry banner". It also implies that Sister Petrice was telling the truth, and that Elthina was, in fact, more involved with the unrest against Qunari than one would believe in the base game (I believe she was involved, but it's not majorly pertaining to this post in particular). There's a letter that implies Lady Harimann was allowed to do what she did, because Elthina believed she'd be able to manipulate Sebastian in favour of the Chantry. It also unveils how many people of Starkhaven were hurt by this. Turns out, a lot.

Then, you can go about this questline ending several ways.

This is where the points counting in the background come into play.

If you did not bring Sebastian alongside you on any of the missions, or if there aren't enough points for you to sway him... Sebastian will claim the evidence as plot against his support of the Chantry and Elthina specifically, and burn the letters in particular, calling them a "bad replica of what sister Petrice tried to do". Elthina, on prodding, feigns innocence, or if you have not talked to Sebastian yet, calls him in to discuss "this silly accusation", which gives +15 rivalry if you're not in a locked relationship with him. He still burns the letters, and accuses you of believing the conspirators, or even being one of them. There are some undertones in Elthina's dialogue to imply she's ready to blackmail you back if you press the matter, and Hawke has no choice but to back off.

If you bring Sebastian along and your relationship with him at this point is so-so, neither a full friendship or a rivalry, you'd need at least 3 points with favourable dialogue, this makes Sebastian question the Chantry, even Elthina. You'd need all 4 points (bringing him from the get go in your party when they rock up to the start of the questline) without going further into discussion for him to buckle. With friendship, you'd need to bring him on at least 2 missions, or 3 with favourable dialogue. With rivalry, however, you need for him to be brought only on one mission with favourable dialogue, the final one, after which he'll even say that "You (Hawke) were right about me needing to step up and rule Starkhaven". On two missions if you want to bicker with him throughout the quests instead.

If you would manage to sway Sebastian by the end, you'd have one final choice: support him in standing up and demanding answers from Elthina, or asking him to forgive her involvement.

Supporting him on Friendship is the simplest, but supporting him on Rivalry ends up in Sebastian switching to Friendship, like with Merrill reversing her Friendship in Mirror Image if you don't give her the Arulin'Holm. This ends up in a calmly voiced, but very angry Sebastian Vael, pure venom in his words, listing how Elthina has abused his trust and his people by using faith in the Chantry, and manipulating a Prince of a sovereign nation for her own means. If you supported him on Rivalry, he'll have additional lines on how you've challenged him to see problems with Chantry and Templar order, as well as to come back to Starkhaven, and outright thank you right in front of Elthina, whose eyes will throw daggers in your direction. At the end of the speech, Sebastian will actually start removing pieces of his armour, them clattering to the floor at Elthina's feet, and walk out alongside you out of the Kirkwall chantry.

However, if you ask him to forgive Elthina, he'll have the biggest rivalry (+30) jump in the game if you aren't in a Friendship, and will briefly lash out at you, saying that complacency with his devotion to the Chantry is what got him and his people into this mess. On Rivalry, it's worse. Instead of a calm but angry and vicious reprimand of Elthina's actions, Sebastian will SCREAM at her, throw evidence in her face, and then scream at you on Rivalry for good measure, about how you can't simply forgive someone who would seek ruin his city, and is actively ruining Kirkwall. How he was blind to Elthina's actions, but sees now that blood magic isn't the rot at the city's heart that is dividing the Circle and Templar order, it's Chantry politicians like Elthina. And instead of armour pieces clattering to the ground, they're thrown at the feet of the Andraste statue, while Sebastian outright declares that if Elthina doesn't cease machinations in Starkhaven, he'll rage war against her, specifically, and everyone who would support her. Then, he storms out, alone.

You can insert either a "there's nothing to talk about" with Elthina afterwards in both endings of this form, or promises of Hawke "never holding a position in this city aside from carrying the Amell name".

After that, you can find Sebastian, clad in a new armour (simple, reminiscent of what Alistair wears in his introduction scene in DAO, only with the Starkhaven symbol emblazoned on an archer chest piece), with a box in his arms, on the steps out of Hightown into Lowtown. He jokes about how his whole life in Kirkwall can, at the same time, be put into a small box like this one, and be something world encompassing. After a dialogue, where he tells you he is going to live in a small hovel in Lowtown, since he doesn't want to even see the chantry building, or talk with nobles who'd gladly eat him and people of Starkhaven alive, until the moment Kirkwall unrest is over, since he wants stability for you and your city as well. Also, he'd rather spend money on his people and those in need, not himself.

If romanced, or with certain persuasion options, you can invite him to live with you. You can still try to invite him with a couple of options, but he'll deny them for various reasons. After that, he'd live near the market; or, if you managed to convince him, in Hawke's mansion.

If in a romance, there's a hot makeout scene in the library which fades to black implying a proper sex scene. If not, he'll have amusing additional scenes with other companions, especially other love interests, with a bit of hostility from Isabela and Anders, and a lot of genuine fun from Fenris and Merrill.

When you talk with him alone (at either Lowtown hovel or at home in the Library), Sebastian discusses, on Friendship, how he is still Andrastian, even if Chantry failed him and his, or on Rivalry how he feels that blind devotion blinded him to Chantry mistakes.

Banter between party members also changes, with one dialogue from Merrill implying that Sebastian is now helping refugees and the poor, Fenris talking about his efforts in making an organisation for former templars/chantry members expelled for one reason or another, Anders being surprised at a late night visit where Sebastian covered in blood (not his) brought him herbs and potion flasks as a peace offering, et cetera. There's still tension over Sebastian belief in the Chant and Andraste, but it's not anymore about him having to perform for the Chantry and his public image.

If you don't complete the quest with this ending, Sebastian Vael still demands Anders to be executed, or he'll wage war. But if you do... he confesses that Anders has asked him to warn as many people in Lowtown and Darktown not to come to the Hightown and chantry, but assumed this would be because of Meredith and Orsino outright fighting in front of Elthina, not this... murder.

He will, however, draw his bow and point an arrow at Anders, saying that this was not the answer to help his cause, and Anders needs to pay now. Hawke can allow him to do that, or step in.

In a so-so relationship, if you choose anything else but "I will execute him myself" or relent to Sebastian's demand and let him shoot Anders? Vael will spit at your feet and leave your party and the conflict, resulting in a very similar ending to his character as in the original DA2, just less anti-mage and pro-Chantry.

However, in a Friendship or Rivalry, it's very easy to convince him to still stay at your side and see it through. With his unknowing help, many innocents of Kirkwall were saved, and now he has to stick around to help as well, and to either see Anders pay for his crimes with work and healing, not redemption through martyr-like murder, or to understand that this, inadvertently, would be every city across Southern Thedas, including Starkhaven, if Chantry dogma supported by Templars will continue murder, physical and emotional, of mages. He'll have additional dialogue depending on whether you're a mage Hawke, or if Bethany died/is in Circle.

In Romance, Sebastian will lower his bow immediately as Hawke steps between. You'll have to mess up really badly in dialogue for him to storm out.

#Varya rambles #Dragon Age #DA2 #Dragon Age 2 #Sebastian Vael #Dragon Age II #text post #Varric's additional dialogue actually becomes more ANGRY with Sebastian if he's moved to Lowtown #and completely VICIOUS if Seb moves in with Hawke on friendship basis #he's like. THAT'S MY BESTIE/WORSTIE!! HISSSSS. he'll probably throw something alike to 'GET OUT OF MY TOWN' at Sebastian #who'll ABSOLUTELY consider that flirting. and on some level? he's so right #anyway. don't mind me. I'm going insane in the middle of DAI replay. it sucks SO BAD!! gimme Seb I actually love him #i also just think that Scottish-coded person in the party being a 'pro Chantry in the government' *stinks* of UK conservative politics #but as someone who's not one in any way shape or form i cannot personally judge how bad is it #...hey anyone up to writing this as a fic or like. outright throwing DA2 act 3 into garbage fire and remaking it with this as a questline?#this version of Sebastian in my brain that I cherish I am kissing on the tip of his nose #gd the Western Approach and just the sheer 'GAME SCENERY GO BIG' sucks so bad. I literally closed the game to write this post instead #long post #btw this way the funniest outcome of Inquisition (or something replacing that game) would be 'Starkhaven declares democracy'#'Varric who's about to be viscount of Kirkwall would you like to be friends and unite the Free Marches in democracy :)'#Varric. visibly seething he didn't realise this is the funniest way to NOT be viscount but also to still have a hand in handling Kirkwall:#'yeah fuck it Choir Boy let's do democratic union of Free Marches and put up a big middle finger to Orlais and others'

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