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robininthelabyrinth · 11 months

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The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 2

Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan

Warning Tags on Ao3

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“Enough already,” Wen Ruohan groaned, and ignored with a twinge of irritation how Qing Yu, the man reporting to him, stiffened and looked pale as if he were convinced that he would imminently be dragged off to the Fire Palace.

As if Wen Ruohan would murder one of the top spies in his network simply because he was being boring.

He wasn’t actually insane, thank you, or at least not to that degree.

Appearing to be wildly unpredictable was often a tremendous advantage in dealing with his fellow sects, and even sometimes within his own sect, but genuine instability would be a disaster. Wen Ruohan’s sect was the most powerful by far of all the Great Sects, and he intended to keep it that way – or rather, he intended his power to grow until his Wen sect was as indominable as the sun in the sky and the other so-called “Great Sects” were mere shadows left in his wake.

Which was why he was torturing himself listening to spy reports on the other Great Sects to begin with, Wen Ruohan supposed, and suppressed a sigh. It was the sort of work that he couldn’t entrust to some subordinate, the whole business confidential in the extreme no matter what the content – the mere confirmation that he had spies in the other Great Sects, and that they were successfully obtaining information for him from them, was potentially explosive. But at the same time, the vast majority of the time the information he received was completely lacking in anything usable. Or even mildly interesting!

“I’m not interested in yet another rehashing of the Jiang sect’s internal issues,” he said, because he wasn’t. While it was true that Jiang Fengmian’s marriage troubles were potentially useful as a weak point, ripe for potential exploitation, they were not exactly new. “Tell me something more exciting.”

Qing Yu looked surprised by the question. “More – exciting, Sect Leader?”

Wen Ruohan groped around mentally for a moment for an example, having grown so bored that he couldn’t think of anything at first, and then smirked faintly as something came to him. “Yes. Tell me who’s going to be attending Lan Qiren’s classes this year.”

Now that would at least be interesting.

Wen Ruohan had never paid very much attention to Lan Qiren. Sure, as acting sect leader of the Lan, he headed one of the other main Great Sects and was therefore one of the targets of Wen Ruohan’s illicit information gathering, but the impression Wen Ruohan had gotten from their few interactions at discussion conferences accorded with the information his spies regularly reported concerning his activities at home: Lan Qiren was an unbearably dull human being.

In almost – and that was the critical word, almost – every respect.

Lan Qiren’s interests, insofar as he took time from his sect duties to indulge in them, appeared to be traditional to the point of cliché, consisting of music and study, both philosophy and the analysis of those ridiculous Lan sect rules. He had no notable romantic entanglements to his name, which was the usual way the Lan sect added interest to their lives, though Wen Ruohan supposed in fairness he wouldn’t have had much opportunity for it, having been entrusted with the responsibility of raising his two nephews and by all reports having characteristically taken it overly seriously. In fact, Lan Qiren barely seemed to have any friends, even within his own sect – a cousin or two he spoke to more often than others, perhaps, but little more. Probably he thought it was somehow inappropriate for someone in his position. He had a temper, on rare occasions, but often sought to suppress it: the man was really unbearably fussy about his sect’s rules, pretending and possibly even genuinely seeking to be faithful to them at all times. Even the inconvenient ones like Do not tell lies, which was just insane.

In short: a boring rule-bound prig with as much passion to him as a bowl of tepid milk.

In Wen Ruohan’s opinion, the Lan tended to come in two flavors, hideously boring and terrifyingly obsessed. He’d concluded that Lan Qiren was the former about an incense stick into their first discussion conference together, and as a result, he’d barely paid any attention to reports about him ever since.

That was why he’d almost missed it.

Only almost, which was why Wen Ruohan was the closest thing the cultivation world had to a god.

Not only was he older and more powerful than all the other cultivators, he also didn’t let himself get lulled into a false sense of security. He prided himself on being observant and cautious, albeit sometimes to the point that others called him paranoid. He kept track of everything that might at some point become a threat to his ambitions for the Wen sect. And even then, it had been years before he’d noticed what Lan Qiren was getting up to with that immensely clever little lecture series of his!

That was the “almost” of Lan Qiren, the exception to the rule of how dull he was.

Somehow, Lan Qiren had managed to convince other sects to send him their children to teach.

He’d offered up the Lan sect’s infamously rigid but spectacular education to sects who were nowhere near as well-equipped, and they’d started sending their children to him in droves, particularly once he got a reputation for being able to improve the unruliest of children. It was a little unusual for any sect to make such an offer or for other sects to accept it, given that most sects tended to be possessive and insular, but ultimately it was easy enough to disregard as little more than an extension of the Lan sect’s overweening pride in their scholarly prowess…and by easy to disregard, Wen Ruohan meant easy to overlook.

And overlook it he had: it wasn’t until a small and especially timid sect under Wen Ruohan’s own command had been paranoid enough to see fit to let him know that they were planning to send their own child there, just in case he might have some problem with it – the Pingliang Tang sect leader probably didn’t piss without confirming that it wouldn’t annoy Wen Ruohan – that Wen Ruohan had even realized the potential implications of what Lan Qiren was doing.

A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime, the saying went, and by the time Wen Ruohan realized what was happening, Lan Qiren, inadvertent father to only nephews, had already seeded the entire cultivation world with students that had recognized him as their teacher. Younger sons, cousins, or branch family members – it might all seem like a lot of nothing, but if one mapped out where they were all from, it was immediately obvious that in another ten or twenty years, Lan Qiren would be able to call upon a vast network of connections, each one bound by their code of honor and cultivation orthodoxy to treat him with respect.

Each one of whom could, without effort, become the perfect spy that no one would ever suspect. Or even more than a spy – even an outright supporter, swaying their sect to follow Lan Qiren’s lead!

No one else had figured it out yet, much to Wen Ruohan’s amusement, not even the year before last when Lan Qiren had finagled Nie Mingjue to be one of his students, presumably trading on his friendship with the current Sect Leader Nie. The Nie sect’s very own sect heir, a Great Sect! That must have been a real coup for Lan Qiren. Not only had it made Lan Qiren’s classes fashionable, a mark of pride for parents who sent their children to them to brag about to each other, it meant that more and more sects were now willing to send their own sect heirs to him, giving him the chance to mold their young, impressionable minds into whatever shape he wished.

Sect heirs! Voluntarily bowing to someone in another sect! To the leader of another sect!

The mere idea of it was enough to make a prospective empire-builder like Wen Ruohan seethe with frustration and envy. No one would ever voluntarily entrust their children to him. If he wanted them, he’d have to force their parents to send them, resistant and rebellious, and it’d have to be outright indoctrination rather than teaching. Far less effective than Lan Qiren’s method.

It was all a stroke of genius, really.

A pity that Lan Qiren had almost certainly done it entirely by accident.

Really, it was almost appalling. How could someone so reserved and, well, boring as the acting head of the Lan sect, with his dull monotone voice and his tendency to talk at great length about exceedingly boring minutiae, have stumbled into such a clever scheme? It required an almost impossible mix of contrary and conflicting elements: the Lan sect’s brilliant reputation for morality and Lan Qiren’s own impeccable (if, again, incredibly boring) reputation as a stern moralist so rigid that suspecting him was essentially pointless, yes, but also persuasion skills sufficient to convince other sects to hand over their precious children, teaching skills sufficient to actually improve those children (presumably all the most troublesome ones their clans had produced, to boot) to such a degree that their parents noticed and appreciated it, sufficient dedication and patience to continue in such unfulfilling work for years and years while knowing that the harvest would not come for decades…

After he’d figured out what Lan Qiren was up to, Wen Ruohan had briefly wondered whether he’d misread the man’s personality. Maybe Lan Qiren was in fact hiding himself in plain sight, a snake in the grass, with all that dull long-windedness actually a deliberate persona designed to divert the attention away from what he was doing. Certainly some of those stupid little exceedingly boring bits of minutiae that he raised during the discussion conferences had ultimately turned out after several years to actually be quite beneficial to the Lan sect…

Unfortunately, that theory had only lasted until the next discussion conference. Lan Qiren was no schemer, Wen Ruohan would bet everything he knew about people on it.

So…fortuitous accident it must be.

It really was a pity. Wen Ruohan hadn’t needed to actually think about any of his fellow sect leaders in ages, most of them being exceptionally predictable, and one really did see it all after a certain point. It would have been rather fun to have a little mystery to slowly unravel, tugging lightly at each thread until he found the loose one that would undo the entire knot.

“Well?” he drawled, suddenly realizing that Qing Yu hadn’t actually answered his question, but had started hemming and hawing in an incredibly irritating sort of fashion instead. “Did you not obtain that information? If so, you’re far better off simply admitting to your failure up front, rather than making me wait…”

“Sect Leader, no!” Qing Yu cried out, his eyes going wide and a little white around the edges, spooked like a nervy overbred stallion. “The information was sought, of course, I would never fail the Sect Leader by letting down his expectations. But there simply wasn’t any to be obtained! As far as we can tell, there haven’t been any invitations sent out at all.”

Wen Ruohan frowned. “No invitations? Why not?”

The weather had already started to turn from winter back into spring. Whatever his other faults, Lan Qiren was invariably meticulous. In previous years, he had always settled all the details of who would be attending later that summer well before the first flowers bloomed, leaving him the entire spring to develop and revise his teaching plans.

A deviation from the norm was invariably worth paying attention to.

Qing Yu looked uncomfortable. “Sect Leader,” he said, “it is my belief that – ah – well, I think it is likely that there aren’t going to be any classes this year at all.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyebrows shot up.

“You may recall,” his spy said delicately, clearly reluctant to remind him lest Wen Ruohan take insult at the suggestion that he’d forgotten something, “the information I passed to you two months ago, about the change in power at the Lan sect…?”

“Yes, yes, Qingheng-jun coming back out of his wretched seclusion, I recall.”

Wen Ruohan hadn’t liked that news one bit. He had never been particularly impressed with the man – his memory of Qingheng-jun was a little less complimentary than that of many of his colleagues – but even he had to admit that Qingheng-jun had always been a talented cultivator.

Before he’d gone away into seclusion, Qingheng-jun had had a great deal of promise as a force to be reckoned with. With his good looks and aloof charms, not to mention his rapidly growing power, he had easily taken and maintained the top place on the cultivation world’s lists of most eligible and well-respected young masters. It was well known that the Lan sect treated him as their precious treasure and saw him as the future of their sect, and even outside his sect he’d been widely regarded as an especially promising young talent. For those like Wen Ruohan who thought of growing their own sect’s power, he had always been regarded as a potential threat.

Admittedly, Wen Ruohan hadn’t thought much of Qingheng-jun’s political sense during those brief few years that he had been in charge of the Lan sect, even accounting for the fact that he was a Lan, who were uniformly not especially good at such things. Rather, he had concluded that Qingheng-jun was at that time a little too arrogant given what he had to back it up – unlike Wen Ruohan himself, who was overweeningly arrogant but who had the personal and political power to justify it – and the years since had largely made him think that the Lan sect had probably traded up when they’d substituted Lan Qiren in instead. Lan Qiren might be boring, but he wasn’t reckless or overweening, and that counted for a surprisingly great deal when it came to politics.

Still, ten years of secluded cultivation wasn’t anything to sneer at, least of all from a man who’d already been a promising talent. As soon as he’d heard of the Qingheng-jun’s reemergence into the world, Wen Ruohan had sent his spies in the Lan sect to check that the other man hadn’t become too powerful, at least in comparison to himself. Upon being reassured that he hadn’t, he’d immediately stopped caring.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, frowning. “If Lan Qiren is no longer serving as acting sect leader, doesn’t that give him more time to devote to his little teaching experiment…? Or has he decided to pack up his guqin and take to the road as a wandering cultivator?”

The idea was a little ridiculous, though not actually out of the question. It was extremely common for young masters to set out on such a journey upon reaching adulthood, hoping to improve their cultivation and win fame and glory, and Lan Qiren was after all still in his twenties, or at minimum early thirties, even if he behaved so much like an old fogey that it was easy to forget it. Wen Ruohan had always instinctively classed him as the same age as his peers among the other Great Sects, but in actual fact Lan Qiren was younger than Jiang Fengmian, otherwise the youngest, by at least seven or eight years.

It was plausible, anyway. Still, Wen Ruohan couldn’t see it. Maybe after a year or two, once Qingheng-jun was firmly settled back into his new position as sect leader, but surely Qingheng-jun wouldn’t so readily give up the invaluable resource that was his younger brother’s ten years of experience…?

“No, Sect Leader, nothing like that,” Qing Yu said respectfully. “My sources in the Lan sect report that Second Master Lan has entered seclusion.”

Wen Ruohan blinked.

“No, that’s wrong,” he said, genuinely startled out of his usual apathy for the first time in – years. “Lan Qiren would never enter seclusion.”

That was something he was quite certain of.

Wen Ruohan might have been taken by surprise by the unexpected inventiveness of that teaching idea, but as a general matter, he still had eyes that he knew how to use. Lan Qiren had never once gone into secluded training in the entire ten years since his brother’s retreat from the world, not even temporarily, not even when the opportunity to utilize the most desirable spots for cultivation was offered for his use during the discussion conferences, as it was on occasion. Further, Lan Qiren hadn’t managed to completely eradicate his tendency to grimace whenever someone even mentioned seclusion, though over the years he’d gotten a little better at suppressing it.

In short, it was quite obvious that he regarded seclusion with the same suspicion as a man who had once bitten into a sour lemon thinking it was candy might regard all fruit.

It was quite a reasonable distaste, given what had happened with his elder brother’s own strict seclusion and the impact it had had on his own life. But that just made it all more unlikely that Lan Qiren had suddenly chosen to give up his beloved classes in favor of a lengthy seclusion. If he had, then Wen Ruohan had wholly misjudged him, and that was a far more serious matter than whatever the man was actually doing.

“The Sect Leader is wise and insightful, with unsurpassed judgment,” Qing Yu said, slavishly complimentary as ever. “Although I only have some whispers to rely upon, it is my understanding that the seclusion is not wholly voluntary on Second Master Lan’s part, but rather undertaken as some sort of penance.”

“Penance,” Wen Ruohan said, now even more bemused. “Lan Qiren.”

The Lan sect was inordinately fond of making all sorts of ridiculous rules, and of punishing themselves for breaking those rules, but – Lan Qiren?

Wen Ruohan was usually the first to believe in his fellow man’s capacity for treachery, which was not to be underestimated, but…still. Lan Qiren? He couldn’t see Lan Qiren having committed any sort of serious offense, let alone one that was sufficiently grievous to justify him being confined against his will. The man had once looked appalled and outraged when Jin Guangshan had casually suggested he wear something that would break a Lan sect rule against waist ornaments. How serious an infraction could he have possibly committed?

“What else do you know about it? I’ll accept rumor if you don’t have anything concrete,” he asked, finding to his amusement that he was fishing for gossip like some sort of fishmonger’s wife. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an exciting series of updates. Not even Qingheng-jun’s unexpected reemergence into the cultivation world had moved him this much.

“Rumor has it that it may have something to do with his brother, the now restored Sect Leader Lan,” Qing Yu reported. “There are those in the Cloud Recesses that say that they quarreled – even that they’ve grown to despise each other.”

Wen Ruohan arched his eyebrows and steepled his fingers together in front of his mouth.

Now that was news.

Rumor or no rumor, he’d never heard so much of a hint of it before. Lan Qiren had never said a bad word about his brother within Wen Ruohan’s presence, and the reports his spies had delivered to him indicated that he always dutifully reported to his brother’s door once every five days without fail, to update him about the events happening in the Lan sect. There had never been any hint of trouble there, and the vanishingly rare orders Qingheng-jun had issued from his seclusion, all in writing, had been implemented without the slightest hesitation. Wen Ruohan had never bothered looking into Lan Qiren’s history with his sect, assuming it to be every bit as dull as his present day, but perhaps that had been an oversight, if there was something like this lurking in there.

It seemed that Lan Qiren might have hidden depths after all.

Interesting indeed.

Though…perhaps what was most interesting was instead Wen Ruohan’s own reaction to the news.

Reflecting on the thoughts he’d just had, it was notable that he’d fixated on the part of the rumor focusing on Lan Qiren, rather than his brother. Under normal circumstances, Wen Ruohan really ought to have immediately assumed that the rumor was half-true and half-false, that the hatred was one-sided, that it was only Qingheng-jun who had a problem with Lan Qiren. It’d hardly be surprising if that were the case, really. The man had been in seclusion for ten years; it’d be strange if his mind wasn’t a little twisted after that, and of course any paranoid mind would suspect the person who’d sat in his seat for those ten long years of malicious motives, no matter how superficially innocent and loyal Lan Qiren might seem.

That was by far the more logical conclusion, and yet Wen Ruohan hadn’t gone there.

Instead, he’d immediately accepted what was, after all, only a rumor, and taken it as a complete truth. Was it simply that he was taken by the unlikely notion that Lan Qiren hated his brother in return?

It just seemed so…unlike the man.

Wen Ruohan had never seen a version of Lan Qiren that hated before.

The rare times the man had succumbed to his temper had already been interesting enough, and those instances had involved little more than distaste. How would genuine hatred look on him? Wen Ruohan found himself rather curious.

A thought then occurred to him.

“What about the two boys?” he asked. “Lan Qiren’s nephews. Isn’t he raising them? How could he go into seclusion and leave a duty like that unattended?”

“Yes, Sect Leader, your memory is correct, he was previously involved in the heirs’ upbringing. I believe that Sect Leader Lan has now resumed supervision over their education, as is his right as their father.”

“Father,�� Wen Ruohan snorted. “Father indeed. If I recall correctly, Lan Qiren was serving as father and mother both to those children, what with the two of them in seclusion the way they were. Are you saying he’s no longer involved in raising the children? At all?”

“No, Sect Leader.”

Cutting off Lan Qiren’s access to his beloved nephews might be enough to make him hate someone, Wen Ruohan supposed, finding himself unexpectedly appalled by the news. It seemed like a terribly stupid thing to do, and he hadn’t thought that Qingheng-jun was that stupid.

Even if you were jealous of your brother who had (however unwillingly) usurped your authority in your absence, whether as sect leader or as father, even if you longed to have your children back at your side with their attention paid to you rather than to him, to tear apart a close family relationship like that was really a step too far. Even Wen Ruohan wouldn’t do such a thing lightly. He might be power-hungry and cruel, bloodthirsty and sadistic, he could admit all of that, but even he understood the foremost importance of family.

Even if he didn’t, Wen Ruohan wasn’t an idiot: to put a mere brotherly rivalry above sect unity and create internal strife before you had firmly gripped the reins of power once more was stupid to the extreme. Lan Qiren hadn’t been the most popular leader, but he’d still been leader for ten years, and people were creatures of habit – to immediately imprison him in seclusion would be seen as inauspicious, a bad omen. What ambitious man voluntarily brought a cloud like that upon himself when it was infinitely easier to avoid it by doing nothing?

Not to mention the impact on the children themselves! That alone would have been enough to stay Wen Ruohan’s own hand in such circumstances.

Oh, other men might believe that children of nine and six were too young to really remember much, but Wen Ruohan knew better. Take himself as an example: he was the cultivation world’s most ancient monster, having lived for a century or more, and by now the details of many of his older memories had begun to slip through his fingers like grains of sand, faces blurring and details forgotten…but the traumatic events of his own childhood were still shockingly easy to recall.

He’d been, what, six, seven years old when the Lan sect’s last war had started? Eight, perhaps? Certainly no more than that. But Wen Ruohan could still remember those days, when the smell of blood had sunk so deeply into him that he thought it had never really left him since. He could still recall with ease memories of walking through battlefields full of his slaughtered kin, his feet bleeding, his skin burning from the harsh glare of the sun, each and every one of his senses full of the stink of the humid forest, the filth and dirt of the earth. He could still recall how the faces of the Wen sect’s dead were twisted in agony and fear, filled with resentment, but those of the Lan bloodline were quiet and peaceful, as if they had been lulled to sleep with a lullaby…and they had been, an immensely poisonous one, their own sect leader having poured it into their ears long before the battle began to give them the strength of madmen, and the deaths of madmen, too.

Terrifying. Wen Ruohan had never really trusted a Lan since that day.

Wen Ruohan could recall the other lessons he’d learned back then, too. That bitter and bloody war had been the first time his brothers had betrayed him. It had been the first time he had realized that he could rely only upon himself in this world, himself and those who were so deeply dependent upon him that they could see no difference between his interests and theirs. He had grown cold and closed off and self-interested, rejecting all connections other than the ones he himself chose. It hadn’t been until years later, when he himself had inadvertently betrayed his own favorite younger brother, that he’d realized the perils of the path he had set himself on back then, and by then of course it was too late to regret…

Not that Wen Ruohan really regretted having had the last laugh, of course. After all, was he not here, still firmly seated upon the seat of the Wen sect leader a century later, and all those who had once betrayed him now dead and gone, forgotten by all but him?

Surely that must mean that everything had worked out for him, with no room for regret.

Still, the fact remained that the scars of childhood were oftentimes the most lasting, with Wen Ruohan’s own lingering wariness of the seemingly placid Lan sect itself something that could be seen as evidence of that. So if Qingheng-jun intended to use involuntary seclusion as a means to separate Lan Qiren from his sons and return their loyalties to himself, he was making a terrible mistake.

It wasn’t that the goal itself was so bad, really – Wen Ruohan might not be overly attached to his own sons, but he would swiftly murder anyone who tried to take his place with them – but rather the method.

The right way to do it would have been for Qingheng-jun to take advantage of his lengthy absence to re-introduce himself to his sons in a way that would let him sweep them off their feet. It wouldn’t even have been that hard! It wasn’t as if Qingheng-jun were without his good points. He had a reputation as an exceptional swordsman and an outstanding cultivator, of being polished and charming, and of course he was handsome in the way all the Lan main bloodline were, and being handsome was always an advantage.

They were only children. With just a little effort, he could very easily have overwhelmed them.

He could have filled the boys’ eyes with him until they couldn’t see anything else. He could have set himself out as something new and exciting and different, made himself all honey in comparison to their uncle’s strict discipline. Then, once he’d won their trust, it would have been easy enough to drip poison into their ears, easy enough to breed distrust and disdain and dislike of the uncle who had once raised them with love. They were only children. It wouldn’t have been hard at all to lead them by the nose until they’d turned away from Lan Qiren, thinking the entire time that they were acting through their own free will. It would take years for them to uncover the deceit, and by then it would be too late to regret.

Far too late.

In his time, Wen Ruohan had enacted similar plots before on people who weren’t even related to him. To do it to children of his own family would have been as easy as flipping over his hand.

But…this? This way? A forced rupture, a cruelly imposed separation?

It would do nothing but harden everyone’s feelings, solidify their positions. It would brand the boys’ love for Lan Qiren into their heads forever. Even if they never saw him again, they would forever remember the uncle that had faithfully cared for them in their youth, and they would resent their father for having so cruelly taken him away from them. Such a resentment might take years to ferment and grow, and it might never come to anything in the end, but at a minimum there was no way that such a move would aid Qingheng-jun in winning his sons over to his side rather than his brother’s.

It was stupid. Absolutely, colossally stupid.

…too stupid, perhaps?

Wen Ruohan was aware that his peers often jeered at him for being unduly paranoid, but he credited his suspicious instincts at least in part for his success in living as long as he had. Could there be something more to Qingheng-jun’s actions than what appeared on the surface? Or was it really just that seclusion had rotted away his brain?

Qing Yu tried to speak further, possibly to change the subject, but Wen Ruohan waved him silent. There was something in that thought, the feeling of having caught the right scent, of tracking down some hidden hint of truth that he needed to follow to its end lest someone manage to get something by him.

Wen Ruohan did not let people get things by him.

So: let him take as his premise that Qingheng-jun was, while not necessarily smart, at a minimum not completely foolish. His behavior towards his brother was not only malicious, but pointless and counterproductive. He had to have realized that what he was doing would only make his sons dislike him more, especially sons that had been up until now raised with Lan Qiren’s rigid adherence to morality, and yet he had decided to proceed regardless. What, then, could be his real goal? Even sadists like Wen Ruohan typically had a reason behind their cruelty…

Unless the cruelty was the point.

Now that was an interesting thought.

Let Wen Ruohan accept as a premise that Qingheng-jun disliked his brother, having formed a grudge against him, presumably for having enjoyed everything that rightfully belonged to him while he hid away from the world. It would be a foolish sort of grudge, of course, given that he’d voluntarily given it all up, but it was the sort of irrational grudge a petty sort of man might nevertheless foster. Then, taking the next step down that path, could he assume that Qingheng-jun was acting first and foremost on account of that grudge, rather than reason?

Could Qingheng-jun really have grown to hate his younger brother to such a degree that he wanted nothing more than for him to suffer, and knew that he would suffer all the more in his seclusion because he knew that his nephews would also be suffering through missing him?

Interesting indeed.

It certainly fit with what he remembered of Qingheng-jun. He’d been short-sighted, which at the time Wen Ruohan had largely ascribed to his youth, and he had been inclined to play favorites, a contrast to Lan Qiren’s scrupulous even-handedness thereafter. He’d been susceptible to flattery in a way that Wen Ruohan had noted down as a potential future weakness to exploit, the same way he did with Jin Guangshan, and he had been dreadfully petty, remembering grudges but never favors. He’d been young back then, yes, but ten years in seclusion would have calcified and enhanced those traits, not reduced or ameliorated them.

So yes, Qingheng-jun might not be stupid enough to behave in a way that was wholly contrary to his goals, but he might be just stupid enough to prioritize his grudge over other considerations. Even Wen Ruohan would make missteps when he allowed self-indulgence to overwhelm his political sense.

It fit – but not quite.

There was still something there that didn’t quite make sense.

Overall, the logic was sound. If the goal of Qingheng-jun’s actions was to punish Lan Qiren for the perceived slight of having been Sect Leader in Qingheng-jun’s absence – even though it was obvious enough to anyone with eyes that Lan Qiren hadn’t especially wanted to do it and would probably have been delighted to be quit of the role if only the person he was returning the position to was worthy of it – then it was quite reasonable to forcefully tear him away from his nephews as a means of hurting him.

(It was even a little exciting, in its own way. Wen Ruohan could quite reasonably claim to be the cultivation world’s most accomplished torturer, though admittedly one that preferred inflicting physical pain rather than emotional agony, and brutality of this level was piquant even to his long-jaded palate.)

On the other hand, there was surely no lasting joy or victory in such a necessarily temporary set-up.

After all, as long as Lan Qiren remained at the Cloud Recesses, his nephews would have access to him. There was no way around it. Even Qingheng-jun’s wife, who had lived in permanent solitude alongside him, had had some connection with the outside world, however limited. No matter how great the hatred between them – and Wen Ruohan had to remind himself that that hatred was just an assumption on his part – even so, Qingheng-jun couldn’t justify locking Lan Qiren away for good.

No, the Lan sect was the Lan sect in the end, with a reputation for righteousness that was not wholly hollow. They might, in their insularity and joy at the return of a much-beloved and much-missed hero, allow a miscarriage of justice, but it wouldn’t last. Qingheng-jun might be the Lan sect’s darling, a treasure that everyone had thought lost for good, and his reputation would undoubtedly only have benefited from never having to be measured against reality, everyone projecting their own prejudices and ambitions upon his blank slate. But in the end it was still the Lan sect, honorable and rule-bound. Even if Qingheng-jun was universally beloved and Lan Qiren not, which Wen Ruohan doubted, it would still be impossible to imprison him forever.

Lan Qiren would eventually go free. And once free, with the trauma of forced separation between them, his nephews would rush back to him and him to them, wouldn’t they? They would only be closer than ever before. All the suffering they had endured would be wholly eclipsed by the greatness of their joy…

That’s what didn’t work.

Wen Ruohan’s assumption, at the moment, was that Qingheng-jun was a cruel man. Wen Ruohan himself was a cruel man, had been a cruel man for years, and moreover he had been in the position of having felt himself deeply and truly wronged before. Like recognized like. No one knew better than he how a man like that thought – the things he might want, the things he might do.

There was no way that a Qingheng-jun who wanted to be rid of his brother would stop at just seclusion.

And in this situation, that meant…

“What are Qingheng-jun’s plans for Lan Qiren?” Wen Ruohan asked abruptly.

Qing Yu jumped a little. He was easily startled, though presumably paranoia and over-caution was a useful trait in a spy. “His plans, Sect Leader?”

“After the seclusion is complete,” he clarified, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m certain he has some. What do the rumors in the Cloud Recesses say?”

“Ah – Sect Leader – this one failed to anticipate your level of interest – I have not heard of Qingheng-jun having any plans for his younger brother at all –”

Of course. Wen Ruohan nodded sagaciously, realizing that he’d raised the question the wrong way around. Someone as vain as he recalled Qingheng-jun being would never allow others to suspect that he was acting purely out of malice, as that might call his reputation as a perfect gentleman into question.

No, whatever he was going to do to Lan Qiren next would have to be appear to be spontaneous.

The key phrase being, appear to be.

“Tell me then of what the rumors are regarding Lan Qiren’s own plans for the future, once his seclusion has ended,” Wen Ruohan requested. It was unlikely that someone as transparently sincere as Lan Qiren actually had any such plans, which meant that any rumors that existed were probably being spurred on by Qingheng-jun instead. It was the sort of thing Wen Ruohan had seen plenty of in the Lan sect when it had been under the former Sect Leader Lan, their father, and that was the environment Qingheng-jun would have grown up in, much more so than Lan Qiren given the difference in their ages. “There must be something that people are saying, never mind their stupid rule against gossip. If someone is saying something, I wish to hear about it. No matter how outlandish.”

“Sect Leader, this humble one apologizes – I have failed to live up to your expectations – I will go out and seek out an answer at once –”

Wen Ruohan probed a few more times in a few more ways, but without success.

After a while, he gave a faint sigh and lifted his hand again to stop Qing Yu’s endless apologies.

“Enough already,” he said. “I understand already, you have nothing more to say. You’re dismissed…ah, as you go, send in Wang Liu, will you?”

He waited until Qing Yu’s dutiful second-in-command had been summoned and Qing Yu was fully gone before speaking again.

“You are in luck,” he told Wang Liu mildly. “You have an opportunity for advancement.”

The man’s eyes widened – in surprise, yes, but Wen Ruohan could see the light of ambition kindling in his gaze as well.

“It seems that your predecessor is a spy for one of the other sects.” Wen Ruohan smiled at Wang Liu’s obvious shock. “No, don’t deny it. I’m certain you had your suspicions and were keeping them to yourself for the moment, looking for a chance to capitalize on them? No proof, I assume?”

Wang Liu jerked his head in a nod, then bowed deeply.

“The Sect Leader’s wisdom greatly exceeds my own,” he said respectfully. “It has been my belief for some time that Master Qing reported first to Lanling Jin before you. Uncovering a spy in a single conversation…! The Sect Leader is far better at judging men than I could ever dream to be! He never slipped up enough around me for me to confirm anything, and he has always been triply cautious when speaking to you.”

Wen Ruohan snorted. “Stop it with the compliments,” he said dryly. “There’s a difference between respect and blatant flattery, and the latter is an insult to my intelligence. There’s news like this out there and he drones on for half a shichen about Yu Ziyuan’s latest fit of jealousy? He’s either incompetent or a traitor, and I forgive neither.”

It wasn’t worth it to force the answer out of Qing Yu directly, though Wen Ruohan had no doubt he could do so. Why bother? There were far more enjoyable ways to go about it – and indeed, a piece of paper and a flick of his hand sent word to the soldiers that waited outside his door, and they headed off to escort his previous guest down to the Fire Palace. He and Qing Yu could have a much longer, more fruitful, and far more enjoyable conversation down there.

Well, enjoyable for Wen Ruohan, anyway.

Maybe he really would let it get out that he’d done it because the man had bored him. There was value in having the appearance of instability, after all…

“Do you know of any rumors in the Lan sect regarding Lan Qiren’s future plans?” he asked his new top spy for Gusu. “I presume you get the same reports as Qing Yu. There must be something that someone is saying.”

Presumably mindful of the fate of his predecessor, Wang Liu gave the matter some serious thought.

“Nothing concrete or believable, Sect Leader,” he finally said. “Even the most persistent rumor I heard was little more than chattering among the Lan women that now that Lan Qiren was free of the burdens of sect leadership, he might finally go ahead and get married.”

That actually got a real, genuine bark of laughter out of Wen Ruohan.

“Lan Qiren,” he said, unable to contain his glee. “Lan Qiren, married? Can you imagine? The poor woman!”

Wang Liu couldn’t conceal an answering smirk of his own.

“Just imagine it,” Wen Ruohan continued, doing just that, his laughter getting stronger rather than fading. “Listening to him drone on and on about those awful Lan sect rules day and night! It’s probably his idea of convivial dinner table conversation – ah, no, the Lan sect has a rule against speaking while eating, doesn’t it? So it’d be sitting in silence instead, and then the rules would come out –”

Lao Nie, the current Sect Leader Nie, had once told Wen Ruohan that he’d gotten Lan Qiren drunk in some sort of experiment, and that the other man had apparently gone on a full-shichen rant about some arcane nuance of some rule developed four generations earlier. If that was what the man was like when he was drunk, Wen Ruohan couldn’t even imagine the misery of being married to him while he was sober.

He supposed there was the possibility that it might not be quite as bad as he was making it out to be: Lan Qiren was a Lan, in the end. That family had once been infamous for their mad hearts, even the most placid and boring of them a potential minefield – it was really their one bout of unorthodoxy, the way they honored their ancestor’s ceaseless devotion to a single dao companion, for whom they would do anything. Would it be possible for Lan Qiren to change everything about who he was once he’d fallen in love…?

Of course, that assumed he’d marry for love.

Still chuckling, Wen Ruohan dismissed Wang Liu and headed down towards his Fire Palace to entertain himself. He found, to his surprise, that he couldn’t quite get the thought out of his mind. Though perhaps that was understandable: it was a compelling notion! The Lan sect might prefer to marry for love, but they were as deeply mired in the muck of politics as everyone else. While they refrained from arranging betrothals in childhood to allow for the possibility of their disciples falling in love and ruining everything, they were more willing to be practical when it came to older ones, and Lan Qiren must be around thirty by now. It wouldn’t be implausible for him to want to get married…

Or at least agree to it, anyway. After all, Qingheng-jun was new to the scene, coming back to take charge of his sect after ten years of absence; he would need to make some big moves to establish his authority. It would only be beneficial to him if he could arrange some sort of alliance on the basis of Lan Qiren’s marriage, establishing himself as a figure to be reckoned with both internally and in the wider cultivation world, and it would probably tickle his fancy to utilize a brother he despised to do it.

Maybe that really was what Qingheng-jun was planning.

It would even be rather clever, really. A few months of seclusion to remove Lan Qiren from power, then shackling him down with some woman of Qingheng-jun’s selection – and Lan Qiren was a valuable matrimonial prize, as such things went, capable of winning all sorts of benefits for the Lan sect.

Brother of a sect leader, years of service and experience as sect leader himself…the sect that married their daughter to Lan Qiren would probably even think that they’d be getting a direct line to Qingheng-jun – of course, they’d be wrong, if Qingheng-jun really did dislike his brother, but that was the sort of thing an outsider wouldn’t know unless they had access to the types of spies Wen Ruohan had – and also all of those valuable connections Lan Qiren would have spent years building with the other sect leaders. What wouldn’t they trade for such an immense advantage? Qingheng-jun could have his pick of the world!

Of course, such a solution still left the long-term problem.

Wen Ruohan just couldn’t see someone as upright and devoted as Lan Qiren turning away from his nephews simply because he’d married and had his own children. The man’s personality just didn’t seem to be that type, not at all. He was too bull-headedly loyal, too devoted, too true…well, perhaps Qingheng-jun simply didn’t know him well enough. He’d been gone for ten years, after all.

Lan Qiren, a married man with a wife of his own at home, Wen Ruohan thought to himself once more, and shook his head. For some reason, the amusement that he’d initially had at the ridiculousness of the thought had faded away, leaving only a strange sense of dissatisfaction. I just can’t see it.

I can’t see it at all.

#mdzs #wen ruohan #lan qiren #qingheng-jun #my fic #my fics #megafic

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frankterranella · 2 years

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Beware the communist boogeyman

United States foreign policy has been guided by an irrational fear of communism for the last century. Particularly in the 1950s, this fear was stoked as if it was an existential threat. The fear led to the now-discredited Domino Theory that suggested that if we didn’t stop communism from spreading anywhere in the world, the U.S. would become communist. This fear-based theory prompted us to engage in unnecessary wars in Korea and Vietnam, leading to the loss of thousands of lives. The truth is that a fully-communist Vietnam since 1975 has not led to communism here or anywhere else. But the fear of communism persists. To this day, the word “communism” is still trotted out to attack social policies advocated by the Democratic Party. Worse, “socialism” is treated as a synonym for “communism,” even though it is significantly different. And even further removed from communism is “democratic socialism,” a political doctrine advocated by people like Bernie Sanders. Democratic socialism is a strain of socialism that accepts capitalism, but attempts to rein in its excesses through regulation, while also addressing inequality through government-run social programs. In essence, democratic socialism accepts greed as the best social motivator. It rewards individual effort and innovation. It allows motivated individuals to make large fortunes. But unlike in a pure market-driven system of extreme capitalism, it puts a governor on the greed engine. There is no doubt that a free-market economy is the best path to economic prosperity. However, any free-market economy will have winners and losers, and democratic socialism aims to cut back the peaks and valleys. It aims to decrease the gap between rich and poor without eliminating it as communism would. It aims to create a healthy middle class. And most importantly, it allows everyone to compete knowing that if they fail, the social safety net will catch them. Costs such as health care and education are taken off the table, vastly decreasing economic anxiety and generally making the lives of the vast majority of people better. The best-known examples of democratic socialism are places like Denmark and Sweden, but there are basic elements of it in France, the UK and Canada. Even the US has things like Social Security and Medicare that are creations of democratic socialism. These provide an essential safety net for our elderly. And in fact, the social safety net is the essential characteristic of democratic socialism. But also, worker safeguards such as OSHA, the Fair Labor Standards Act and child labor laws come to us straight from the democratic socialism playbook. The important fact here is that democratic socialism is not communism or even pure socialism. It’s a hybrid that takes the best features of capitalism and socialism. It is essentially the doctrine that guided the New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt and brought the country out of the Great Depression. But its origins go back much further than that. In the Bible, we see that the early Christians practiced these principles: “And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Acts: 2:43-47 So the next time you hear that a proposal, program or law is socialist, perhaps you can reject the knee-jerk, fear-based response and consider the proposal, program or law on its merits. Are restraints on pure capitalism such as child labor laws, worker safety laws and pure food and drug laws really the first steps toward communism? Or are they instead simply steps towards a nation where our governmental policies show how much we truly care about each other.

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firelxdykatara · 3 years

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If you interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic affection, then you have some serious issues of your own. Is a very dangerous message for teenage girls indeed. People who ship Zutara have to seriously analyze how unhealthy the message of the pairing would be. Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason, and to twist it into something it’s not is massively disrespectful to both the character. The outdated and ridiculous notion that a girl who acts like she doesn’t like a guy is simply “confused” and “denying her feelings” is so sexist and degrading. Take her emotions at face value. It's never been

Yawn. Boring. This is the same old tired argument I’ve heard a million times before--the one that proves a) you don’t actually understand how relationships work, and b) you’ve never read a single zutara meta in your life, because that’s the only way you could seriously get the ‘good girl is secretly in love with the bad boy and hopes to fix him’ read of a relationship that bares absolutely no resemblance to that particular collection of tropes either in the show or in our fandom.

But ok! I’ll bite, since you clearly want so badly to be educated and evidently don’t have the time to watch the show yourself, nor the reading comprehension necessary to understand the sort of media analysis that goes on in a lot of atla and zutara-focused meta in this fandom.

Which probably means that anything I write here will fly right over your head, but oh well, what can you do?

At any rate, the first mistake you’ve made here is assuming that I (or zutara shippers in general, but since you came into my inbox, I’m going to be taking this just as personally as you clearly intended me to) interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic at any point in the series prior to their reconciliation (after which point, there is no aggression from Katara aimed at Zuko for anyone, me included, to interpret romantically in the first place). I don’t, and I never have, and neither does a vast majority of the zutara fandom in the spaces I frequent (which encompasses tumblr, occasionally twitter, and the very large zutara discord server I’ve been an active part of for two years now). Pointing out oddly suggestive tension in early parts of the series (such as the “I’ll save you from the pirates” and “you rise with the moon, I rise with the sun” lines, or the fact that Zuko wore Katara’s necklace around his wrist for like nine episodes when there was absolutely no need for it) is just that--pointing out tension.

There doesn’t need to be feelings for there to be tension, antagonistic or otherwise, but that tension is the foundation from which their relationship arc throughout the series grew, developed, and eventually evolved. This is what is generally known as relationship development, and it occurs when two characters go from having one kind of relationship to another within the course of the story.

For example, enemies, who become friends, who become lovers.

Now, your mileage may vary on this next part (although I really hope not, cause Y I K E S), but I, personally, think that ‘if a boy kisses you without your consent, but he really really loves you, then you owe it to him to love him back, especially if he just saved the world, and you should never expect an apology because since you suddenly decided you return those feelings, that means the violation of your boundaries was ok since clearly you really liked him all along’ is a much more damaging message to send to young girls--and boys, to be frank, especially since learning about consent is hugely important at young ages--than ‘if a boy who was your enemy goes to great lengths to better himself, to the point where you forgive him for when he hurt you and become close friends with him, then it’s normal for those feelings to grow and change, even to the point of becoming romantic, and it’s ok to explore them’.

And guess which one of those is canon to the AtLA finale?

Next, you say ‘Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason’ as if that was ever in dispute. It wasn’t--certainly not on my blog. I know there are some people who hate Katara because she was ‘too mean’ to Zuko, but I don’t agree with them, nor do I associate with them, since I have no time, energy, or room in my life for Katara slander. However, do you know what the operative word is in that sentence? Hated. As in past tense. As in, ‘Katara used to hate Zuko, but by the end of the show that is no longer the case, and they are extremely close friends with a deep bond and multiple life-debts between them’.

Why are you so insistent on not only denying Zuko’s hard-earned and bitterly fought for redemption, but also Katara’s emotions and feelings, which you end this weirdly disjointed ask by insisting they be taken at face value?

And it’s actually really funny (ironic funny, not so much ‘ha ha’ funny) that you use the word ‘confused’ there, followed by the phrase ‘denying her real feelings’, and then call that ‘sexist and degrading’, as if that isn’t exactly what happened in Katara’s canon endgame in the show.

She said point blank that she was confused, she showed with her words, tone, and body language that she was not open to Aang’s romantic advances, she had completely forgotten about the last time he’d kissed her without her consent, rather than reflecting on her romantic feelings as one would expect of a girl who’d been kissed by someone we’re supposed to believe she’s had feelings for since book 1, and was completely taken aback by Aang’s reaction to the play and his weird believe that they ‘were gonna be together’, when she had never once indicated that she wanted to be with him in any romantic sense. And yet, he kissed her--and while she got angry about it and stormed off in the moment, he never apologized for crossing her boundaries, and they also didn’t have a single significant scene together between that moment and the epilogue.

What happened to taking Katara’s emotions at face value? What happened to how ‘sexist and degrading’ it is to assume that if a girl says she’s confused, that must mean she’s ‘denying her feelings’? What happened to caring about Katara’s agency, even a little bit?

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap this up by saying: I do not believe Zuko and Katara should’ve been making out in the finale instead. I actually hate the fact that the final shot of AtLA was a romantic kiss (particularly for such a poorly written pairing), rather than a shot of the gaang together like it should have been to show what the series was meant to be about. I think that focusing on the romantic relationships in the finale undercut an already weak ending to an otherwise great (not perfect, but certainly good enough that it deserved much better closure) show.

That said, I also think a Zutara kiss would have been more earned, at that point in both of their narratives. Because Katara’s feelings had been the focus of their relationship throughout its entirety. Zuko’s feelings mattered, too, of course, (in stark contrast to how they were treated during his relationship with Mai), but Katara was the one who got to choose when and why and what she felt about him. She got to choose when to forgive him. She got to choose to help him, and to save his life, and her emotions were frequently the focus in a way they never were during her relationship with Aang, so nudging those into a more romantic light not only would have fit better with her character arc, it also would have been far less jarring to see that as the culmination of their respective storylines, rather than a romantic kiss coming out of nowhere when her very last scene with him was being kissed without her consent and storming off about it because it upset her.

My most fervent hope, anon, is that some day you actually watch the show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Because Katara and Zuko are amazing characters, they have amazing storylines both separately and together, and it’s really a crime whenever someone misunderstands both of them so badly. I hope that when you do watch the show, you pay attention. You may see something amazing.

#atla #zutara #katara #zuko #kataang salt #not a ton but yk it's there so #salt for ts #asked #try harder next time anon #this doesn't even rank a 'you tried' star #Anonymous

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snapeaddict · 3 years

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Hi, what do you say to the people who claim Regulus is the real Slytherin hero, and not Snape? To me RAB always seemed like a plot device and nothing more so I don't get why he's being worshipped... He's just another rich pureblood kid...

I say this is a very bad take, and it is disrespectful (that's a strong word for something that isn't really important but I cannot think of a softer version) of the actual people who enjoy his character. I'm going to write down some thoughts, but there's more to it than just what I would reply to them - allow me to ramble a little on the roots of this claim and on the thought process embraced by Snaters and Marauders apologists (I've seen that some people don't like this term, so I mean people who erase the Marauders' flaws and make them morally superior to Snape, justifying them being abusers and him being abused.)

The nonsense of comparing a plot device to a complex, layered character: Comparing Severus and Regulus is ludicrous. You are comparing one of the most (I would argue the most well-written and complex, but Dumbledore is quite something as well) well-written, accomplished character of the books to a plot device. It is indeed what Regulus is, no matter if his character could have been really interesting/seems to be interesting: we know very little of him, and he exists solely for the Slytherin locket plot. The very little we know of him certainly isn't enough to express any critical judgment of his character; he is mostly made out of white pages which are filled out by his fans, which is great, and by the people making this kind of argument, which is unfortunate.

The interest in the character only stems in his usefulness: I would argue that the vast majority of people making this claim do not care at all for the character himself, despite using him as a moral high ground. It is not his character which interests them, but how useful he can be to fuel their hate and biased claims. His personality? Having being sorted in Slytherin. His merits? Being a Slytherin. This is the only fact that matters, because it allows them to 'prove' that Snape wasn't a hero (being a hero does not mean being a good person, by the way) and diminishes Severus' merits. Using a character solely for the purpose of depreciating, downgrading another is not appreciating them: it's just completely hypocritical. This is often the kind of flat argument used by people opposed to social justice movements, if you will allow the broad comparison: using something you have never cared for before (often minority populations) in an attempt to depreciate something, even though the very fact you are using them for this purpose shows how little concerned you are with the actual people you are talking about. Well, it reminds me of this a bit. The true purpose is to try and impose your own views, and here they try to legitimise them by filling an almost inexistent character with their views to carry on with their agenda.

The sudden leniency toward privileged characters: Making such a claim in fact once again proves that Snaters have an extremely biased, subjective and elitist vision of what being good means, an opinion on what is moral integrity (and superiority because they keep comparing people), which they also apply to James and Sirius. I think Regulus is loved because he is a Black, respected by the fandom because he comes from a pureblood, rich family. It is very easy to prove: look at how much love Draco and Lucius get, despite being supporters of blood supremacy, active members of a terrorist group, using discriminatory insults on a daily basis, being actively supportive of the murders of muggle borns/participating in these murders [do not misinterpret this - I'm pointing out double standards, not saying they should not be loved. One's interest in a character does not depend on the character's morals]. Look at how respected Snape was in the fandom before book 6, when people thought he was a rich pureblood from an ancient family. Social hierarchy has a great impact on how people view characters, and they tend to be much more lenient toward privileged characters, because prestige is attractive, even in fiction. Similarly - but it is more concealed - there is the usual refusal to acknowledge that social inequalities do impact one's life, choices, and opportunities to be or do good. The quote "You didn't make good choices! You had good choices" (Little Fires Everywhere) works quite well in this context, especially regarding James and Severus, but also regarding the Blacks versus Severus. Severus' survival was completely, utterly dependent on his adherence to blood supremacist values. This must be taken into account - but weirdly, this is an argument that is often used to prove Sirius' moral superiority, because his family required him to share their beliefs. This is ignoring that despite his difficulties, he still beneficiated from a support system and privileges that others did not have access to. Similarly, you cannot compare Regulus' and Severus' choices. And in my opinion, both are tragic; but if we had to take part in Snaters' silly arguments, then I would remind them that Regulus effectively had no obligation to join Voldemort, his parents were not death eaters. The pressure both characters experienced certainly wasn't of the same nature - even perhaps not of the same intensity. But does comparing them makes any sense, again...

The social biases: While Snape is blamed for his decision to join the death Eaters (rightly), Regulus is praised for his decision to leave them. While Regulus is pitied because he came from a family who brought him up with this ideology (just like Draco is), which apparently takes off all responsibility from him, Severus' background is never considered as a factor which pushed him right into extremists' opened arms. Regulus' privilege is used as an excuse; Snape's social disadvantage and familial issues are, at best, ignored, at worst, interpreted as proof of his inherently bad nature. Some people associate his upbringing with him being bad, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. While Regulus is headcanonned as handsome, Snape is constantly described as 'greasy' and 'ugly' by these same people, and you can see exactly how important appearances are to them. I'm even going to argue that worshipping a rich, handsome, privileged pureblood must sound better to them than being fond of the 'greasy git', and I am also saying these are mostly internalised biases. When you read these claims carefully, it sounds like in the mind of these people, Regulus is more legitimate as Slytherin's hero because he is better - inherently. And it is easy to see why.

The double-standards and their disturbing roots: This is also plainly ignoring the fact that Regulus and Snape defected for the same reasons, if we must make comparisons. Voldemort was targeting one of their loved ones, Kreatur for the former and Lily for the later, which made them realise, because they are humans and thus not selfless, how wrong his methods were when they turned against them. However, in Snape's case, turning against Voldemort in an attempt to save Lily is often held as proof of his selfishness/absence of morality: he wanted her for himself, he only deflected because someone he liked was in danger. In Regulus' case however, his gesture is seen as heroic and compassionate. Why? Well, there are a variety of reasons apart from Snaters' double standards, but I have noticed that most of them seem to think of Lily as 'belonging' to either James or Snape, and think Snape unworthy of having ever had Lily as a friend because of some kind of deep rooted flaws he had even as a child ('He tried to hurt Petunia with accidental magic when he was 11, he was always bad'. In fact I should make a post about how horrible this claim is.) In Regulus' case however, wanting to save Kreatur is seen as an act of compassion. Why? Not only because they want to make Regulus look better than Snape. I think it is also because Kreatur is a house-elf, an inferior being: Regulus' wish to protect him becomes praiseworthy, laudable, because house-elves do not really deserve consideration. So wanting to save him becomes an act of generosity. Even when you're not thinking of the double standards, this way of thinking is disturbing. Snape also turned against Voldemort at the age of 20, 21? Like Regulus did if I recall? They weren't death Eaters for very long. They both actively fought to bring Voldemort down. It would be tremendously hypocritical, wrong and plain bad faith to think of Regulus' action as superior to Snape's 20 years of hard work to bring Voldemort down.

So why can't Snape be a hero? I think this claim is a confession. To me it shows a very simplistic vision of heroism, of good and bad, of models, and a complete refusal to consider the grey, sometimes praise the grey- it's a failure to accept the complexity of the human functioning. Thinking that the people we praise for certain actions, or consider to be examples must be flawless is vain, simply because it is unrealistic, and we could not admire them/relate to them/like or dislike them/learn from them if they were not like us, layered and flawed - but this is exactly what this claim desperately wants us to believe. Or rather, what Snaters want to believe, while imposing their very biased views of good and bad, themselves rooted in prejudices. This is why they are using a character that is mostly inexistent: an empty, one dimensional character can fulfil this aim. This is also why so many people fail to appreciate characters such as James, Sirius and Remus without completely ripping off their flaws, and thus complexness - they cannot be loved if you can find fault in them.

#I think this ask is from July 2020 or something #I'm so sorry anon #Forgive me #Thoughts #My opinion #Meta #Regulus black #Severus Snape #Pro Snape

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kyidyl · 3 years

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Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 5

(as per usual, all these posts are collected under the KyidylCL tag)

Pottery and shErds

So, what are we talking about today? Well, I think the next thing is gonna be pottery. This is where we’re gonna talk about time, space, and dating a site. Because most people think that the only way to date an archaeological site is via C14. That’s not true, and actually we don’t always do it. C14 dating can have some problems, including that the wood used in the fire is likely older than the time in which it was cut down and burned. It also only goes back 50,000 years, so anything older than that won’t have any carbon isotopes (it’ll have all decayed), and we have to use other things that are more expensive. And c14 testing itself is expensive - we sent in 2 samples and it was around $500/sample so we spent about $1000 on testing. Instead, there are other ways to date a site and one of the most accurate is pottery.

See, like all other kinds of material culture (AKA, stuff people leave behind. Non-material culture is like...song and story and stuff like that.), pottery follows stylistic trends and trends in how it was made. And it does this both regionally and chronologically. Which is great, because if we find bits of one type of pottery we know is made in one place in a settlement in another place, then we know the two people traded with each other. But I have to explain something else so that determining a date from pottery makes sense.

Every area of the country has what’s called a “type site” for a given period of time. In undergrad I was lucky enough to actually get to work on the type site for the Safety Harbour period, which is Weedon Island....ironically enough there’s a Weedon Island period and Weedon Island isn’t the type site for that period so uuuhhh...yeah it’s weird lol. Anyway, a type site is a site that is considered stereotypical for a given time and place in history. Usually they’re large and well-preserved, and they’re often the first sites found in that time period/area (but not always, which is how the above weirdness happened.). And so what happens is we dig ‘em and analyze the finds and do testing on those finds. So now we know “hey, this kind of pottery comes from here and it is X years old”. Now you know when you find it in other places where and when it comes from. This is all a very generalized explanation, but I think any more is like extraneous detail you don’t need. Just know that things like type sites help us determine where and when stuff like pottery was made. Lots of literature usually exists for type sites, but I actually can’t remember the type site for this area for this time period.

We also use a term called “diagnostic”, which is used much as it is in medicine. If we find a certain thing that was only made during a specific time period or in a certain place, then it’s diagnostic. IE, a certain kind of pottery is diagnostic of the late, middle, or early Woodland. The pottery we have at our site is diagnostic of the late Woodland. Some of the lithics we thought might be a bit earlier, but honestly I think that was just misidentification by the site director bc we were in the field at the time. Lastly, identifying pottery has a few components. Color and decoration I think are easy to understand (they didn’t have glazes, but you can make different colored pottery by varying the composition of the clay and the temperature at which it is fired.). Paste and temper are the other two. IDK how modern pottery is made, but old ass pottery is made with paste - the main body of the clay, the matrix that contains the temper - and temper. Temper is stuff they’d crush up and mix in to help it not break during firing and heating during normal use. So we combine these factors to ID the pottery and thus the age of the site and trading habits of the people in question. One last thing you need to understand about pottery - ancient people used pottery the way that we use disposable things. They didn’t think it was like an important thing that had to keep safe. They’d use it until it broke and then toss it in the garbage pit and make a new one. So it’s really common and we find it all over the place, but TBH in the future pottery *won’t* be diagnostic anymore because our ceramics come in such a wide variety that we couldn’t possibly hope to narrow down time or place.

Alright, so who wants pictures? You, of course. Who *doesn’t* want pictures? Here’s some of the pottery we found:

This is the larger shard that I found in the features I’ve talked about in previous installments. You can see where I accidentally broke it. >.> Anyway it’s kind of unique bc of the light color outside and the black inside. It’s like...idk, 4 or so inches long.

This is a rim piece that I happened to find two matching sherds of. I always check the rim pieces because the patterns on them usually make them easier to fit together. Honestly I’ve got hundreds of pot sherds from this site and I don’t have the sanity to try and make pots from them.

This is the outside and inside respectively of the largest piece we have. TBH taking this thing out of its box and handling it makes me nervous because of how large it is - about the size of my hand, but I did include my earbuds for scale. The black is charring from both firing and subsequent use, and it came out of the pit feature I’ve been talking about. And do you wanna know the cool thing about the inner surface of pottery? Because they didn’t use glazes, the surface was porous and retains the unique chemical traces of what was made in them. However, the vast majority of the time those kinds of tests aren’t done because archaeology as a whole is extremely underfunded and trace chemical analysis of pot residue is an expensive test requiring expensive equipment and expensive scientists. Funnily enough I probably could do some of this testing bc I used to be premed and so I’ve taken a lot of chemistry and know how to read a mass spec thing, but I don’t have access to the chemicals or tools to do these kinds of tests. Plus, they’re often destructive...which....I mean...there’s so much pottery that it doesn’t really matter if one piece gets destroyed but like you do still have to be careful *which* piece you destroy.

Anyway, you also can see the striations on the outside piece, and that’s decoration on the pot. It probably also helped with gripping it. This is a piece of Shepardware, which is diagnostic of the late Woodland period in the Shenandoah valley. Here’s some more cool pottery:

This is a random assortment of the kind of stuff we regularly pull out of the ground when it comes to pottery. The most common kind we have is the orange on one side black on the other (3 upper rt pieces), whiteish (upper left 2), orange on both sides (lower left 3) and totally black (lower right 3). All of ‘em are some variety of shepard or pageware. You can see the texture on a lot of them, too. We have a good mix of textured and untextured, and that’s why the composition of the pottery is more diagnostic than the decoration. Frankly, people can and will put whatever design they think looks cool. But they made that particular design by wrapping twine around the end of a flat stick and pressing it into the surface of the wet clay. I also chose those two upper right pieces because they have really visible temper. Here’s a side shot of one of them:

You can see how big the bits are compared to my fingers (yeah, there’s dirt under my nails....I haven’t taken some tweezers to them yet after working on the car.). And...wait, I WAS going to try to describe this to you but then I was like “no, they deserve better” and I broke out my DSLR and my macro lens and took some pics. Here are some macros of the temper:

The white balance is a little off on the top one...the bottom one is more true to color (they aren’t the same piece of pottery, but they are a similar color). So you can see that it’s crushed up limestone. Pardon the depth of field on those...I had to open the aperture pretty wide to get one that wasn’t blurry bc I don’t exactly have bright lights in my room.

Anyway....so that’s the pottery we’ve gotten at the site and what we can learn from it. It’s going to take some time before we can start determining patterns and whatnot in regards to style, but we do have some evidence of trading here because some of the pottery we have is from the piedmont culture....

...wait, let me explain what that means. When archaeologists need to describe a group of people who existed in a given place in a given time based on similarities in material culture regardless of ethnic and social grouping we call it a culture. This is different than the standard meaning of the world culture, or even the way a cultural anthropologist would use the word. So when I say the piedmont culture, I mean people that lived in the general area of the Piedmont plateau during the late woodland. They were of varying tribes, languages, etc. And we do this to describe the extant boundaries of cultural influence of particular trends in physical objects and not the social groupings of the humans in question. So, for example, lots of people are familiar with the Clovis culture. When archaeologists use this term we mean “these are the boundaries of the places we are finding physical objects in the group we’ve named Clovis” not “everyone in this area was a Clovis person”. Like no, obviously, they weren’t. There were tons of social groups, tribes, etc. that were all distinct and different. It’s a way of mapping cultural influence via physical objects to see how far they spread and who was using them.

So, we have some piedmont stuff despite not being in the piedmont area, so we know that they were trading with those natives. If you’re interested in more detail here, this is the VDHR resource I use for IDing pottery. It looks like it came to visit you from the late 1990s, but the info is good and it’s easy to use.

Anyway, that’s it for tonight. Tomorrow is gonna be rocks and weird stuff, depending on how much I end up saying about rocks. Probably not much bc we know how I feel about rocks. ;)

#kyidylCL #archaeology #science #pottery #native pottery #native americans #anthropology

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cryptoevent · 3 years

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Is the cryptocurrency epicenter moving away from East Asia? – Cointelegraph Magazine

It probably came as little surprise last year when crypto intelligence firm Chainalysis declared East Asia “the world’s largest cryptocurrency market,” accounting for 31% of all cryptocurrency transacted during the previous 12 months. The region has a broad base of retail users along with a solid foundation of crypto traders and institutions, and China alone was at the time mining around two-thirds of all the Bitcoin in the world.

In July 2021, Fidelity Digital Assets surveyed 1,100 institutional investors in the United States (408), Europe (393) and Asia (299) between December 2, 2020 and April 2, 2021. The study reinforced this idea, with the firm reporting that digital asset adoption rates are substantially higher in Asia (71%) than in Europe (56%) and the United States (33%). In March 2021, a Statista consumer survey of 74 countries on cryptocurrency ownership and usage determined that the Asian nations of Vietnam and the Philippines are ranked second and third globally, respectively.

But the past is not always a prelude to the future, and there is no guarantee that East Asia will remain the world’s center of gravity for crypto adoption. China’s attachment to crypto is tenuous at best, and Beijing’s rollout of its digital yuan could cause reverberations throughout the region.

When asked about the crypto prospects of East Asia, Kim Grauer, head of research at Chainalysis, tells Magazine that the region has recently experienced “a major decline in cryptocurrency adoption compared with other regions globally,” further adding:

“This drop-off is driven by a decline in Chinese activity beginning 6 months ago, which coincided with various crackdowns there including the mining ban and the halting of derivatives trading by major exchanges. We hypothesize that much of this activity has migrated to DeFi, but that hasn’t picked up enough that it makes up for the losses in the derivatives market yet.”

China’s dominance in Bitcoin mining made it “a natural marketplace for crypto,” says Lennard Neo, head of research at Stack Funds. But as reported, many rigs are moving elsewhere, including to Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia and the United States.

Asked if Asia is likely to maintain its crypto dominance, Eloisa Cadenas, CEO of Mexico-based financial services firm CryptoFintech, tells Magazine: “It is a difficult question to answer because, when we think of Asia, we automatically focus our attention on China which, as we know, has taken quite restrictive measures in relation to Bitcoin, crypto assets and of course, mining.”

China’s digital yuan is likely to have a big impact on the region, Cadenas says. Indeed, she anticipates that other Asian countries will try to replicate the digital yuan model, and “It is likely that there is also an intention to block or restrict the market for crypto assets in such a way that only the CBDCs of each country can proliferate.”

If that happens, the mass center of crypto adoption could move elsewhere — to Latin America or Africa, opines Cadenas. These are two regions where, according to her, there is “a greater possibility of adoption, since the economic, social and political context is different.”

Asia’s crypto crown could indeed be in play now, as Latin America and Africa aren’t the only contenders. Here’s who could potentially fill the void if and when Asia falters:

North America

Traditional “reticence” on the matter of digital assets is the result of three principal factors, according to another report by Fidelity Digital Assets: price volatility, concerns around market manipulation, and the lack of fundamentals to gauge appropriate value. But U.S. respondents appear to be coming to grips with digital assets, despite these shortcomings.

“The strength of concerns [in the U.S.] decreased notably vs. last year across most factors,” reported Fidelity Digital Assets. “Price volatility concern fell 13 points, concerns around market manipulation fell 6 points and lack of fundamentals fell 8 points.”

Elsewhere, some of the United States’ top legacy banks — including State Street, BNY Mellon, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs — have been making forays into the crypto space.

On the mining front, the U.S. was already the number-two mining nation before China’s May crackdown on crypto mining, albeit a distant second. Back in September 2019, China contributed 75.53% of the global Bitcoin hash rate. But more recently, China’s portion of the hash rate has ebbed to 46.04%, while the U.S. has broadened its share to 16.85% globally. Henri Arslanian, crypto leader and partner at advisory firm PwC, tells Magazine:

“The United States is probably the one country that has a lot of momentum now. The regulations are becoming clearer, there are numerous large crypto companies and there is a lot of capital flowing into crypto both from institutional investors and retail.”

Meanwhile, north of the U.S. border, Canada has been innovating on the crypto front. The Purpose Bitcoin ETF, North America’s first crypto-based exchange-traded fund, launched in February and has been a big hit by most accounts. It was followed in April by an Ether ETF, with strong volumes reported.

Many believe that it’s only a matter of time before Canada, with its vast hydroelectric resources, becomes a major player in crypto mining, particularly as more miners seek out renewable energy sources to power their rigs.

Latin America

The Latin American region could become a crypto adoption hotspot, and not only because El Salvador declared Bitcoin legal tender in June when it issued its Bitcoin Law — a historic move in the view of some.

Many regional economies are sustained by remittances — i.e., money sent home from workers abroad. They account for 23% of El Salvador’s gross domestic product, for instance. In Honduras, remittances also exceeded 20% of the gross national product in 2019, according to Pew Research Center. By comparison, Mexico saw only a 3% share of its GDP driven by remittances, but its gross numbers are high — $42.9 billion in 2020, according to the World Bank, which is a number behind only China and India. Crypto and blockchain technology potentially offer a more efficient way to transfer overseas payments.

The trend in Latin America “is toward retailers and unbanked users because with cryptocurrencies you can create cheaper financial products that, eventually, could promote greater financial inclusion,” CryptoFintech’s Cadenas tells Magazine.

There is also evidence that El Salvador’s dramatic action may be encouraging other countries in the region to devise their own crypto strategies. Paraguayan legislators introduced a cryptocurrency bill to the nation’s Congress in July, for instance.

“Where El Salvador has led, we can expect other developing countries to follow,” said Nigel Green, CEO and founder of financial service company deVere Group. “This is because low-income countries have long suffered because their currencies are weak and extremely vulnerable to market changes and that triggers rampant inflation,”

There isn’t much CBDC fervor in the region either, which means that Latin American countries are less likely to clamp down on crypto for competing with a government’s digital currency. “What I do see [in Latin America] is financial institutions creating alliances with crypto-asset companies to facilitate operations through crypto-assets, mainly with stablecoins,” Cadenas says.

Stack Funds’ Neo perceives some similarities between Latin America and Asia. The latter was historically home to a number of “restricted” currencies that were subject to government controls — such as the Chinese yuan, Indian rupee, Indonesian rupiah, Malaysian ringgit and Philippine peso — making them difficult to convert. These restrictions encouraged investors to turn to crypto “as a hedge against these limitations,” explains Neo. Similar tendencies may be emerging in Latin America where citizens increasingly appear to “prefer crypto over fiat [currencies], which are exacerbated by political turmoil.”

In its “2020 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report,” Chainalysis cites Venezuela — which ranked third globally out of 154 countries in its Global Crypto Adoption Index — as a stellar example “of what drives cryptocurrency adoption in developing countries and how citizens use it to mitigate economic instability,” adding that “Venezuelans use cryptocurrency more when the country’s native fiat currency is losing value to inflation, suggesting that Venezuelans turn to cryptocurrency to preserve savings they may otherwise lose.” Chainalysis saw the same pattern in other Latin American countries, as well as those in Africa and East Asia.

Cryptocurrency adoption in the region may not all go according to plan, of course. Eric Anziani, chief operating officer of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, tells Magazine that “El Salvador officially accepted Bitcoin as legal tender, but this news is a two-edged sword. If the experiment is successful, then it will promote crypto in the region; otherwise, it could make local governments look at cryptocurrencies with greater skepticism.”

Europe

As in North America, institutional interest in crypto is growing in Europe. Today, nearly 80% of institutional investors “believe digital assets should be part of a portfolio,” according to Fidelity Digital Asset’s July report. And while “this belief is strongest in Asia,” it is also strong and growing in Europe: “More than three-quarters (77%) of European investors share this belief, up from two-thirds the prior year.”

The European Commission’s proposed Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, undergoing its first reading in the European Parliament, is expected to create a harmonized European crypto-asset market that “will definitely attract more and more large institutional investors — hedge funds, pension funds etc. — that have been wary of investing in this asset class due to regulatory concerns,” says Patrick Hansen, head of blockchain at Bitkom, an association of German companies in the digital economy.

When MiCA is implemented, a crypto firm receiving authorization from any one of the 27 European Union countries will be able to share its services across all the other EU states. Hansen also foresees greater mainstream adoption in the region and among its 450 million residents.

On the flip side, the European Central Bank is moving ahead with plans to introduce a digital euro that could be used by the 19 countries in the eurozone as “an alternative to third-party payment services and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin,” reported Deutsche Welle, mainly because “Central bankers fear the widespread use of foreign or unregulated currencies could destabilize the economy.”

In other words, Europe’s crypto-wary central bankers could still have something to say about crypto adoption in the region.

Africa

When focusing on retail adoption, regions in the developing world such as Africa can’t be overlooked, Monica Singer, ConsenSys’ South Africa lead, tells Magazine. “Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of retail users of Bitcoin,” for instance — at least on a per capita basis. It ranks first among 74 countries in Statista’s March consumer adoption survey. She further adds:

“In countries where there is no trust in the fiat currency, and the population is young and mostly all have access to the internet, it is a natural progression that they will use cryptocurrencies to transact, in particular for remittances.”

Three African nations — Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa — made the top 10 in Chainalysis’ 2020 global crypto adoption index. “Remittances are an early use case for this developing cryptocurrency economy,” notes the report, adding that many of the region’s countries are also plagued by severe currency devaluation and instability, making them ripe for Bitcoin and its fixed, anti-inflationary supply.

Still, many African countries have restrictive policies with regard to currencies not backed by central banks, which could impede adoption, Singer tells Magazine. In early 2021, Nigeria’s central bank effectively banned commercial banks from providing account services to crypto exchanges.

The dominant mood is optimism, though, as epitomized by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson’s keynote address at Blockchain Africa in which he compared Africa’s emerging economy to China in the 1980s — both offering case studies of new technologies leapfrogging legacy systems. Indeed, Hoskinson predicted: “There’s a great potential for that to be African nations — not Germany, not France, not England, not the United States, not China or Japan.”

East Asia

Of course, there are good reasons that nothing much may change at all — and East Asia remains crypto’s adoption epicenter. Asian countries have embraced digitalization, while their appetite for crypto was whetted by their early exposure to pioneering crypto firms. Indeed, by the end of 2020, six of the 10 largest crypto “unicorns” were Asia-based — including Bitmain, Binance, OKEx, Huobi, BitMEX and FTX.

Moreover, many East Asian nations that have embraced e-payments are used to public market investing and encourage STEM subjects in their school systems. Charles d’Haussy, managing director of the Asia-Pacific region at ConsenSys, tells Magazine that Asia’s “new wealth,” as well, is keener to embrace new asset classes, compared with “established wealth in the Western World which is more drawn to traditional asset classes.” For these reasons, he concludes that “Asia has a head start and will remain a leader [in crypto] for the decades to come.”

Even without China, Asia may be deep enough with regard to crypto adoption that it won’t lose its leadership position. Winston Ma, adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and author of The Digital War: How China’s Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace, tells Magazine:

“Asian investors are used to inflation risk in their economies and high volatility in trading markets, and they embraced digital assets to hedge against the fiat money printing across the globe.”

“The lead may shift from China to Southeast Asian countries, as well as other countries with less restrictive regulations and laws with regard to crypto,” Yu Xiong, international associate dean at Surrey University and chair of business analytics at Surrey Business School, tells Magazine. In addition, Hansen notes that crypto-favorable regulatory frameworks have emerged in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

Meanwhile, on the institutional front, “Regulatory clarity and tax treatment of crypto markets relative to their other options — stocks, derivatives, etc. — will matter a great deal more than it does for retail investors,” says Gina Pieters, assistant instructional professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. Here again, East Asia often seems further advanced than other regions. Pieters adds:

“Japan’s tax treatment of gains from crypto investment is much simpler than USA tax treatment, and so all else equal it would not be surprising to see higher adoption in Japan by institutional investors compared to the USA.”

Overall, if one were to categorize the competition, it would be the history, culture, professional traders, exchanges and first-mover advantage of Asia pitted against the youth and economic needs of Latin America and Africa, the investment capital and entrepreneurial vitality of North America, and the wealth, size and regulatory harmonization of Europe.

Who will prevail?

The case could be for Latin America or Africa, where the need is the greatest and a clear solution seems at hand. But, of course, it’s really anyone’s guess.

#Crypto #Bitcoin

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aventurasdeunatortuga · 3 years

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Laredo Part 2

Week 1

Hey friends,

After a long travel hiatus, as some of you may already know, I am back in Laredo, Texas. I’ll be here for about 3.5 weeks working with shelters to support recently arrived asylum seekers at the US Mexico border. I was here 2 years ago doing the same thing, you can go through the laredo tag on here to get some more background about what is going on here and to read about my experiences in 2019.

I have been here already for about a week and have been so exhausted I haven’t had the energy to write anything, but here is more or less what is going on.

So since Fall of 2019, the border was closed to all asylum seekers thanks to 45’s cruel Remain In Mexico policy, which forced asylum seekers from Central America to wait along the Mexican border for an undetermined amount of time until they could get an immigration hearing. In the past asylum seekers could wait with their families in the US for their court dates (it can be a long wait). Waiting at the border in Mexico, a country they are not from, left folks vulnerable to human trafficking, kidnapping, gang violence, and extortion from the cartels operating along the border. During COVID folks were living in makeshift tents along the border with no running water and were left vulnerable to exposure, flooding, disease, dangerous wildlife, and the millions of other dangers that come from being outside in 113 degree heat with no water. There was no international aid brought in and support was limited to the few aid workers allowed to cross the border, which was very dangerous given the amount of gang violence on the Mexican side. One shelter director in Nuevo Laredo was kidnapped and murdered last year.

When Biden was elected, he reversed the Remain In Mexico policy just a few weeks into his presidency. Meaning that asylum seekers could now enter the US after surrendering at the border and being held for indeterminate amounts of time in ICE detention centers. Once they are released from there they are given a court date in wherever their final destination in the US is, but are left on the street with nothing.

Most folks are illiterate, none speak English and some only speak indigenous dialects. All of their possessions and money have been taken by either cartels or by ICE. Most havent eaten in days and many are seriously ill. None of them know where they are or how to get where they’re going. ICE will drop them off at random towns along the border after releasing them from detention, sometimes hundreds of miles from where they crossed. They just have a name and phone number memorized of a friend or family member in the US that is sponsoring them and who they are planning to stay with.

The vast majority of folks are from Central America, they are fleeing cartel violence , government persecution, extreme poverty, and natural disasters caused by climate change. The instability in these countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) was caused directly by US intervention, but that’s a whole other topic I won’t get into now. Folks must show a credible proof of being threatened or persecuted in their home country to even be granted the status of asylum seeker and to be given a court date.

Shelters in border towns do what they can to support folks being released from detention. They help them make phone calls, provide translation, help them buy bus and plane tickets, give them food, water, medical care, showers, clean clothes, toiletries, and a safe place to sleep until they are able to make travel arrangements to their final destinations.

During the last 2 years under the Remain In Mexico policy, no one was being admitted and so shelters lost a great deal of funding, staff, and volunteers. They turned more towards community work, which was especially needed during COVID.

Shelters are in a difficult position now though, folks are allowed to enter now which is good news but shelters are having to meet even more extreme needs with far fewer resources than they had pre-COVID.

For a long time the shelter I worked with before, La Frontera, was closed due to lack of funding; but only very recently reopened again. I have been spreading my time between La Frontera (run by Catholic charities) and the other shelter in Laredo, Holding Institute Community Center, which is a community center run by the Methodist Church. Both of these shelters have 2-3 paid staff members, a revolving door of volunteers from around the country (the majority of them nuns), are entirely donation based, and receive 200-300 new people every single day.

About 20-30% of each busload of people that ICE drops off are infected with COVID. ICE refuses to test folks that they detain for COVID because if they knew they had positive cases they would have to provide healthcare and a place for them to quarantine. Instead they lump everyone together in cramped conditions and COVID is allowed to run rampant in these detention centers.

In detention folks are kept in overcrowded rooms, communicated with almost exclusively in English, are provided limited food and toiletries, and are kept in refrigerated rooms (65 degrees) with no blankets. These places are called the ‘ice boxes’. Sometimes folks are separated from their families here as well.

Lately there has also been a dysentery outbreak due to the fact that the city of Laredo does not currently have drinkable water, residents are advised to drink only bottled or boiled water, which asylum seekers do not have access to until they reach the shelters.

When folks reach the shelters, they are given on the spot covid tests by a team of nurses and public health officials. There is no room for them at the hospitals, even if there were room hospitals wouldnt accept them because they have no insurance. The city government has offered bottled water to the shelters but thats it.

After being tested for covid, the health team divides folks into 2 groups, positive and negative. Folks who test positive have to quarantine for 10 days in an empty warehouse next door to the shelter or if they’re lucky and the shelter can afford it, a motel. Yesterday the shelter bought out a motel because there were 200+ covid patients who arrived. We have two small classrooms at the shelter that have been converted into sleeping areas for about 40 covid patients. The medical team leaves boxes of food and clothing outside their door, and once a day they are taken to shower and then the entire bathroom is sanitized.

Those who test negative are immediately vaccinated on site, and then taken to get clean clothes, food, and a shower. They sleep on cots outside under the trees in the fenced courtyard of the shelter.

For the first few days I’ve been here, I’ve been working at Holding only because I didn’t know La Frontera had reopened. I was mainly working on sorting and organizing clothing and helping folks find clothes that they need. Last night though 200+ covid positive patients arrived and we had to stop allowing people in the building to pick out clothes, and today we moved to just putting together kits of different sized clothes to give directly to them.

I was feeling a bit frustrated the last few days because the staff member in charge of organizing donations was being extremely critical of me and it was very frustrating and degrading to be around. I was yelled at a number of times by her. For example, I saw a pile of 200 towels on the ground and folded them. I was told that I did it wrong, to unfold them and fold all of them a different way. Or I started organizing toiletries and was just told ‘no, you’re messing it up, don’t touch that’. I understand that I’m new but no one took the time to introduce themselves to me, orient me, or show me what to do and I was trying to be helpful. I also understand that folks are stressed and under pressure but please don’t take it out on people trying to help you. Most everyone there is extremely nice it was just one of the staff members in particular that was acting this way. I was told I wasn’t allowed to give water or shoes to people who needed them because “I didn’t know how to do it” and because “if you give water to one person, everyones going to want it, and i don’t have time for that”. I didn’t come down here to sit inside doing nothing next to a giant case of bottled water and be told I’m not allowed to give it to the thirsty person in front of me.

So I walked out and I left the shelter in the middle of the day to go drive around town and take a breather, because everything I did seemed like made someone upset. When I came back I inserted myself into the kitchen crew and ended up making 200+ sandwiches for dinner. I also had a long talk with one of the nuns who assured me that that staff member is like that with everyone and has a lot of control issues due to the amount of pressure she is under, and not to take it personally. She told me that La Frontera had reopened and so ever since then I started dividing up my days between the two shelters. This has made a big difference and I feel a lot better and more useful.

I also connected more with some of the nuns here and they invited me to dinner tonight which was nice. One of the sisters is writing a book based on narratives of folks passing through these shelters and is interviewing people she meets. It was fascinating to talk to her. She has worked with undocumented immigrants and DREAMers from around the country for 28 years, and wrote another book based on those experiences called Silent Voices In The Shadows (Paula Schwendinger), which I just finished reading and highly recommend.

Oh, also it has been raining really hard for the past day or so with 95% humidity and constant thunder and lightening, which has made things even more interesting.

I will try to keep posting semi regularly while I’m here.

#laredo #texas #borderlands #immigration #asylum seekers

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brightideawritings · 4 years

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Ahhhhhh, I only finished "The Rise of Kyoshi" on Sunday but immediately my mind has been overtaken by Kyoshi's story. Especially, her lovely relationship with Rangi! So, in order to get this fire out of my head I wanted to explore some events of the books from Rangi's perspective. Here is the first chapter surrounding the events of the first few chapters.

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Burning Thoughts

Chapter: Mansion

Ragni did not give her opponent the time to react to her attacks, her fists blurred in front of her in a storm of quick jabs, she felt the heat of her chi travel through her arms to her hands and burst forth as incandescent fire, “Yaaaaah!” she let loose her war scream as the storm of fire burst across the training room at a blinding pace. Any lesser bender would have balked under the sudden barrage - a non-bender would have ran for cover. Rangi’s opponent did not stand idle or run for cover but instead stepped into the oncoming attack. Her opponent raised a right leg in Crane stance and brought it down in a single motion - an arc of fire sprang into being and cut through Rangi’s barrage like it had all been nothing. She noticed with ire that the force of the new flame snuffed out many of her own fire jabs - again, as if they were nothing.

Rangi’s mother, Hei-Ran, former headmistress of the Fire Nation’s Royal Training Academy for Girls was not like most opponents.

Her mother’s fire cut came directly for Rangi, and she had to bite down a curse - due to the fact that she was acutely aware that unless she wanted to go up like a light torch she needed to move aside. Again she cursed to herself as she leapt to her right, as soon as she had cleared the flame she had already begun to move her body into a low body crouch for a counter-attack but as she had predicted would happen her mother had used the momentary lapse in her daughter’s offense to close the gap between them with blinding speed. Time seemed to crawl to a snail’s pace as Rangi’s body settled into a stable enough stance that she could use another firebending technique to produce a double wave of flame by bringing both of her hands upward - anything to force Hei-Ran away. The bout would be over as soon as the older woman was within arm's length of her - again a fact she was acutely aware of that seemed to nonetheless scream inside of her head.

No sooner had she let the chi ignite with her arms swinging upward she cut off the flow of flame which winked out as quickly as it had appeared. She had not been fast enough.

“I yield,” Rangi said, she forced herself not to wince - more at the disappointment and frustration in her own voice than Hei-Ran’s fist inches from her face - though her mother had not ignited her firebending she could still feel heat radiate from them. A common technique that Rangi knew how to do as did every single firebender - it was a threat, a command to surrender. Still, the emotions she breathed was nothing next to the controlled response from Hei-Ran.

“I’ve seen children half your age with stronger fire jabs than those fire lights, Rangi.” Hei-Ran looked down at her. Firebending did not come from an outside element like that of the other arts - but from the chi inherent in a firebender’s own body - the power to create fire at a whim was powerful and dangerous. The first lessons that were drilled into Rangi and every firebender she had even known was control over their emotions. To lose control was to become nothing more than a chained beast belching flame in utter futility.

“I apologize,” Rangi bowed in deference - Fire Nation society stressed hierarchy as a core social tenant. In failing today she had disappointed Hei-Ran twice - as a student and as a daughter.

“I know you can do better,” Hei-Ran sighed and nodded her chin down, a mix of pride and concern written over her face, “I’ve seen you do much better. Your calm is off. Something is bothering you.”

An altogether different emotion fluttered in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. Something must have shown on her face as her mother raised an eyebrow almost immediately. By the spirits, Hei-Ran could be as persistent as a vulturehound - trying to run away from the subject would only leave Rangi tired and on her last legs.

“It’s just...I can’t stand, Kyoshi!” Rangi gasped in exasperation and immediately wished the words would crawl back inside of her mouth.

“Oh?” Hei’Ran’s mouth quirked with no small amusement, “I thought you two were such good friends…”

“I mean...how she acts so meek to those brats in the village!” Rangi burst with a huff, she ignored the fact that they were all just about the same age, “They taunt her and she just takes it like she was made of stone.”

“Hmm. It would most likely go better for Kyoshi in the long run if she had ambushed and destroyed the leader of her tormentors to send an example to the others.” Hei Ran had shifted down into a sitting position, which Rangi had unconsciously copied. Her earlier hesitation warred with the good sense her mother had spoken. She had given similar advice to Kyoshi earlier that day had she not? The moment reminded her that many saw Rangi herself as a smaller version of Hei-Ran, again a common social norm among the old, noble families of the Fire Nation. It was a sign of respect and honor to her mother - though she had to admit there were still a great number of differences between them.

“At times I feel tempted to do so on her behalf.” Rangi said and frowned. She had heard of Kyoshi’s...problems that lived in the village from snippets here and there in the form of gossip between other members of the household staff of Jianzhu’s mansion. Not that she was particularly friendly with many of the household staff - the vast majority of them were not worth the breath to talk to, an opinion she had formed rather quickly from their own whispered jealousies of Kyoshi and their fear of Rangi. Again, not that they had told her any of this directly - she had been trained in infiltration and evasion tactics - and she had learned quite a bit from the staff when they thought their employer or his guests were within earshot.

Today had been different from what she knew, the village idiots that taunted Kyoshi had either been too swept up in their petty bullying of Kyoshi or perhaps too hopeful to catch a glimpse of the Avatar. Rangi had spotted the them as they climbed the path back to the mansion, taken in that they had followed Kyoshi well past the the point that Rangi had noted previously they would normally turn back, and had wordlessly used her firebending to propel herself over the perimeter wall and sprint at a full pace around it and then unnoticed into a tree not far from the gate.

A part of her had been extremely disappointed when they had not burst into flame at the single, first look she had given them. That was a firebending technique it was said that could only be mastered by the greatest fire sages, but Rangi had still tried. Instead they had the sheer audacity to run away like the cowards that they were and hurl the jar of pickled kelp into the air. She had tried to get Kyoshi to use her own earthbending but no matter how much she had pushed her friend the taller girl had not moved at all - no, that was not totally true.

Kyoshi had finally acted - by jumping on top of her to save her from what would have been a shrapnel storm of kelp and pottery shards. The memory of it even hours later caused something inside of her chest to feel like it wanted to burst in protest - at Kyoshi or her own actions she still was not sure. She knew several ways to unlock an opponent’s grapple and had exercised their use at plenty of opportunities in the junior corps. When Kyoshi had shielded her Rangi had felt strangely paralyzed in the other girl’s long limbed embrace, she remembered the smell of sweat and earth and it had not been unpleasant at all.

Then she had snapped back into her head and had pummeled on Kyoshi until she had let them both stand. The jar had been fine, somewhere Avatar Yun had been watching them and had saved the day - not that a broken jar would have been a disaster the likes of villages burned and the spirit world falling into chaos. Still, it had needled her that Yun had to have step into the situation at all - it was beneath him. Though, perhaps her reasons were not totally fair. Then of course Kyoshi had gone and said the utterly cheesy yet also charming words of calling Rangi a strong hero that would always protect her.

Rangi had rolled the words over and over in her head so much that she had not even noticed that she followed Kyoshi into the kitchen. She had been surprised but in her mind had executed a well-ordered retreat, she had reminded Kyoshi of her gift duties, then complimented her on her rank of being above a scullery maid and had left. She had memorized Yun’s schedule and she had known he would be in his firebending training with her mother so she had returned to the barracks until they had concluded. Something though had happened to Yun though as when she had arrived to see him only her mother had been there. Before she could press further Hei-Ran had pushed for them to train together.

“You are the Avatar’s bodyguard, Rangi, not a servant girl’s” Hei-Ran frowned at her but she noticed there was something off, her mother had paused slightly as if something weighed on the older woman’s mind, before she continued, “You will be his sword and shield, his will and his guide. You must not forget nor waver from your duty.”

“I know mother.” Rangi bowed her head in deference once more. She paused before she continued, she wanted to find the words how important Kyoshi was...to the Avatar, “I just want to ensure harmony in the household around Yun. Kyoshi is...close to Yun” at Hei-Ran’s alarmingly inquisitive eyebrow raise Rangi knew she needed to backtrack, “That is, she often attends to Yun’s needs” a part of her blanched at the possible connotation she had uttered, “She is an ear he can talk to, we are all the same age and she is not someone who expects something from him or a servant who is over-awed by him.”

“I will...trust your judgement on that, Rangi” Hei-Ran replied, “You aren’t mistaken. Yun has requested that Kyoshi join us when we travel to the Eastern Sea to negotiate with the daofei Tagaka and the Fifth Nation.”

“WHAT? WHY-” Rangi stopped herself, she needed to control the volume of her voice. She had practically shouted the words, “Why...why would he want her to come with us to deal with those dishonorable, pirate scum!?!”

On force of habit her hands curled in and out, as if she was squeezing the life out of an invisible person. Yun! What game was he playing at? The Fifth Nation were slaving pirates and despite the promise of a peaceful accord Rangi had very little faith the affair would be bloodless. Why else would Jianzhu also want to bring a compliment of guardsmen with them? He was her charge and her friend but there were times when it boggled her mind about how impulsive and reckless he could be - perhaps he was a fine enough successor to Kuruk.

Her face scrunched together with worry as she thought of all the ways that Kyoshi would be in danger out on an iceberg in the middle of the sea. Kyoshi certainly cut an imposing figure with her height but how could Yun expect a girl who let the village brats walk all over her deal with the presence of pirates?

A thought brought her whirling mind to a sudden crash. If this was all some sort of clever scheme by Yun to impress Kyoshi...

“He said he wanted someone normal there. Kyoshi does fit the girl, besides her height.” Hei-Ran replied again, a measure of amusement entered her voice, “You will have to look out for her when I or Amak are not with the Avatar. Think of this as a new aspect of your mission Rangi. My little tigress”

“Mother!” Rangi blushed at the use of her pet name that Hei-Ran had always called her when she was a little girl. It certainly had become less amusing when the other students at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls had grown taller than her. Hei-Ran only used it now a days when she WANTED to fluster Rangi or distract her. Warfare took many forms on and off the battlefield.

“I am being serious,” Hei-Ran replied, one corner of her lips rose upward in more amusement, “You will have to manage multiple persons and weigh which ones are the greater priority should something occur. Do you think you can handle this?”

“Of course,” Rangi steeled her features, she vowed that no harm would come to Yun or Kyoshi. If anything did come between them she would burn it to ashes. They were dealing with a daofei after all, nothing they could do or say would rattle her.

#kyoshi #the rise of kyoshi #avatar the last airbender #fanfiction #rangi

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curiosity-killed · 3 years

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super long rambling and a fair bit of whining abt my relationship with dance AUs bc this is what my brain chose to fixate on for my whole extremely sloggish run

Because I love dance and because I love writing and because I do rather a lot of both, I pretty consistently struggle with my complete and utter block on writing dance AUs and I’ve basically realized that it comes down to a three-prong barricade that gets progressively harder to overcome as you move through it

Because part of it is just technical. Writing about dance is hard from a dancer’s perspective. I know dance, I know the mechanics of it and the sensations of it. I can walk you through the technical details of a 3-minute variation and I can tell you how my heart lifts and body fills with light the moment I step onto the stage. I can give you the nitty gritty and I can give you the grand metaphors—and I cannot for the life of me balance the lens on the middle ground.

I got asked on bumble what my favorite dance step is and immediately answered tour jete (or entrelace, depending on your school). And then, because the person wasn’t a dancer, I followed up with, “it’s a big fun jump that makes you feel like you’re flying.”

Yeah. That clears everything up.

A story cannot be made by a Big Jump That Feels Like Flying. Do you know how many steps that could cover?? Hell, how many disciplines?? A barrel leap is a big jump that can feel like flying. So is an Italian pas de chat. All three of these are w i l d l y different steps.

So there’s the words but—how to translate a language of precise motion and sweeping emotion into plain language accessible to people who haven’t grown up in this pidgin tongue of bad French and weird metaphors. Tombe pas de bourre glissade pas de chat contre temps—this is my language of dance. This is not only clear instruction on what steps to take but also the rhythm of it conveyed in the syllables and accents. I read this and not only see the dance across stage but feel the sway of my torso as I mark along, the flick of my wrist as I shape the steps before they’re taken, physical reminders of 17 years of training and study.

A reader reads this and their eyes glaze over and roll back in their heads.

To go the opposite way, to lay it all out in the actual physical motions is, if possible, even worse. Fall (gracefully) onto your right leg while extending your left with pointed foot to cross your left behind your right to step your right to the side to— *gasp for breath* Yeah, no.

The solution to this, in theory, is the kind of checklist I go through while performing: emotion, motion, technique. (Incidentally, this is the opposite of my checklist while rehearsing or taking class) Draw the reader in with the feel of it, move them with familiar steps, punctuate with the details. In theory. I’ve yet to make it work.

And then there’s the fact that I have had a very weird education and career in dance. I grew up dancing in the rural Midwest US—not exactly a hub of performing arts (and if you mention Joffrey, I will kindly invite you to look up “rural” and then look at Chicago).

The vast majority of dancers in the rural midwest (...RMWUS??) go to competition schools. Think Dance Moms, high kicks and tricks on Instagram, trophies and tiaras.

I.....went to a university.

We learned more about kinesiology than kicks. My teachers were fascinated by the way I could “jump like a boy” and didn’t once mention my waist circumference. It would be a lie to say it was all daisies and sweetcakes. We were competitive. Sometimes we were brats. We learned to push through severe physical pain and turned perfectionism to a weapon. Teachers had favorites and older girls could be downright mean.

But, having now danced at a competition studio, it was wildly different. When there were tears in the dressing room, it was because we were graduating and going far across the country from each other—not because a teacher had come in and yelled at the entire cast for 15 minutes right before the show. When auditions came around, we discussed each other’s strengths and weaknesses and together determined what we thought the best casting would be (tbc we did not have a say in casting, it was all just a thought exercise).

We learned about dance not as an isolated thing we do but as a part of life—dance as an expression of culture, dance as a remarkable maximization of the human body—and are still always welcomed home.

I do, if I’m totally honest, think I got a better education than people at competition schools. But when it comes to writing fanfic...this is not a model of dance that is super easily accessible. Competition dance is on TV, Instagram, it’s all over. A rigorous academic approach to modern ballet...is not.

Lastly and ultimately the biggest stumbling block is: dance has always been a very gendered experience for me. My weird university education was surprisingly queer and unsurprisingly liberal, but I am a ballerina—not a danseur, not a ballet dancer. I grew up huddling under the edge of the grand piano with my friends hastily sewing pointe shoes and tingling with anticipation when we were finally old enough to wear platter tutus. I grew up pulling my hair back in tight buns and only being allowed to wear small earrings in class when I was in high school.

There’s some crossover of course. I’ve got (as Colorado Ballet says) Mad Hops so my teacher would make me do men’s tempo jumps while the rest of the girls stood on the side and caught their breath. My partner for a pas de deux fell sick one tech week so my best friend, female, partnered me instead.

Men can (and increasingly do) train in pointe shoes and wear tutus. Look at James B. Whiteside and Harper Watters for some of the most obvious examples. It is wonderful and remarkable to see gender roles changing in ballet and dance and that should be expressed in fiction as well. Men dance. Men do ballet and not just to hold up the women or to do big jumps. They can point their feet too, y’all.

(Here is where the whining really begins. Just so you’re warned.)

But when I sit down to write, the stories I want to tell are the stories I know—queer women growing up and training and learning together and challenging and supporting each other. The way you are taught ballet is very dependent on your gender. Men can train in pointe shoes, but that’s not the classical or traditional route.

While my friends and I were taping our toes and grimacing about dead shanks, the guys in our cohort were in a separate class learning how to perform big jumps and turns in second. While I was cinching tight my friend’s corset-back bodice, the guys were in tights and a shirt. Again with the jumps—it wasn’t that I was a good jumper or that I was a strong jumper, it was that I jumped like a man. It was a compliment, but it was also an exception.

Meanwhile, most of my fandoms are very heavily male. The one time I attempted to write a dance AU was for VLD and I immediately ran into the baffling problem of “There are too many boys.” As someone who’s danced my whole life...this is not (usually) a problem in the real world of dance. If I write AUs about the main characters, I am writing about male dancers. Again, great! We need more positive and varied depictions of men dancing—but it’s not what I want to write.

I wrote out an entire paragraph here only to realize that the crux of the problem is actually the usual crux of my problem with gender in fanfiction and it is, quite simply: I want more well-developed female characters. Because I can write a story about side characters, but there’s so much less to go on — and sometimes, that’s where the fun comes in. Getting to play with and create a wealth of history and character for a written-off member of the cast can be really fun. But, for me at least, the delight of AUs is slipping in and twisting around canon in a new context.

If I write a wangxian ballet AU, Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation can be traded for his switching abruptly to a new studio—one that uses harsh methods, demands too much from him, cuts him off from the people he used to dance with—all so that the money from his tuition can be turned to help Jiang Cheng continue at his chosen academy and pursue dance professionally. It’s a stretch, it’s a twist, but it’s within a frame readers recognize.

If I write a ballet AU with Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing...well, it’s all free form. We have so little to go on that you can make it work—Cloud Recesses becomes a summer intensive, Wen Ruohan’s conquest becomes the buying out and closing of the Jiang academy for some new development—but there’s less resonance. We’re on new ground and the reader has to offer up a lot more trust and disbelief.

Which I suppose leads us to genderbends?? Good lord. I do not know my own feelings about that enough to go anywhere. b l a r g h

so i guess this is all to say: writing good, dance good, writing dance hard. pouty face pouty face pouty face :<

#long post #personal #BEHOLD A VERY VERY VERY RAMBLING LINE OF THOUGHT

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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A big part of the reason I harp on NTT #55 and that time Bruce hit Dick after Jason’s death is to me, its just such a perfect example of the downsides of letting something like that go unaddressed. For fans of the whole family, because the ripple effects of letting it go unaddressed either in canon or largely in fandom as a whole....like, those affect every member of the family, even if you’re not particular a fan of Dick or Bruce specifically.

First off, I want to be perfectly clear.....I do believe that a large part of the problem in the writing itself is that the writers and various editors at DC didn’t view it as a father abusing his son. To them, I think it was simply an extreme example of Bruce’s grief getting the better of him....it was meant to be big, dramatic, dark, it was meant to hurt Dick and cause an even bigger division between them, but it wasn’t meant to be abuse, in their eyes, I don’t think. At the end of the day, as far as they were all concerned IMO, it was simply a punch, and Dick’s certainly taken worse in his years as a vigilante.

None of that changes the fact that what was depicted on the page was unequivocally abuse. And I particularly want to break down the mental components of the scene, because I do feel like even when this is mentioned in fandom or fics, the weight of it is rarely felt, because its so often implicitly compared with the lifetime of abuse Jason had before coming to live with Bruce, or the times Dick��s been hurt far worse, or any of a dozen different things. Bottom line is, even when its nominally held out as being abusive, it tends to be in a perfunctory kind of way like “okay, yes, you’re not supposed to hit your kids, that’s abuse, but ultimately it was still just a punch.”

If you’ve been fortunate to never have been abused by a parent, please understand and internalize this:

A punch is never just a punch.

Or any form of physical abuse for that matter...the delivery isn’t the point. Its what it represents.

Even if its just one hit, and the abuse victim has been hit far more or far worse in fights or sparring or whatever.....the damage doesn’t come from the physical blow alone.

The far greater damage is to every single thing that person had until that point built up in their mind to be true about their parent and their relationship with that parent.

Society teaches us that parents aren’t supposed to hurt their kids. More than that, its a parent’s job to protect their kids from harm, we’re told from a very young age....with none of this coming from just one single source, but everywhere around us. We’re immersed in this perception, via entertainment, via our teachers, via everything we’re taught about how to protect ourselves.

What’s the first thing you learn as a kid, that you’re told you should do if someone or something makes you uncomfortable or afraid? ‘Tell your parents’....even if we never hear that advice from our parents themselves, to come to them, its the first thing teachers advise, etc....with there rarely being a caveat about what to do if your parent is the one making you uncomfortable and afraid. Society’s default message to kids doesn’t really factor that in....because those are the outliers, as far as society’s perception goes.

Even as we get older and we start to consume media where older kids and parents have tense relationships, fight a lot....the vast majority of them still end with some form of reconciliation, whether deserved or not, because the implicit understanding is even when families fight, when parents yell, at the end of the day its all okay, because the parents love them and only want whats best for them....because of course they do. That’s how it works. The exceptions, again, are outliers.

The problem is, those of us with abusive parents are just as immersed in these outside narratives as any child with non-abusive parents....even if we don’t get this same reassurance from our parents themselves. Not only does this make it particularly hard for abused children to recognize or acknowledge when they’ve been abused (my parent can’t have meant to hurt me, because they’re my parent, they love me, so its not like they abused me)....

But in addition to that, up until that first moment of actual abuse, up until that first true piece of evidence that our relationship with our parent is not the same as the message we’re immersed in about what it should and should not be....

Before that, in the absence of that, we hear the same narratives and messages everyone else does, about how parents are supposed to protect us, nurture us, be our last line of defense against those who would see to harm us. That they love us, that we should never have to be afraid of them, etc. We absorb these implicit beliefs, the same as any other child. We internalize them. We accept them. We believe them to be true. We believe this to be fact.

‘No matter how much we fight with a parent, they would never truly hurt us. Not on purpose. That’s the last thing they’d ever want, because at the end of the day no matter our disagreements, they love us and want what’s best for us, not for us to be afraid of them.’

A punch is never just a punch, when its from a parent.

Its also the end of that belief. That trust. That unspoken faith we had in the message we’d been taught over and over throughout our lives....

Because its hard to argue that a parent would never really want to hurt you, when you’ve been on the receiving end of a willful and deliberate attempt to hurt you.

Bruce may have been lashing out in his grief, but he didn’t try and take it back. He didn’t show remorse or look horrified by what he’d done. Instead he doubled down, loomed over Dick, glared at him, yelled things about Jason’s death being Dick’s fault, that Dick was jealous that Bruce had adopted Jason but not him, specifically calling up things that he knew were sore points for Dick, things he knew would hurt him....making it unequivocally clear that in this moment, yes, Bruce’s intent was to hurt Dick. For him to be cowed, intimidated, even afraid of him. And then Bruce told him to leave, and to leave his key behind.

And in Dick’s case, all of this is compounded by the fact that Bruce isn’t his biological father, had yet to even be named his adoptive father. Meaning, the unspoken and spoken messages and lessons we’re taught about a parent’s role, and what children can or should trust or expect of a parent...these were only ever things Dick believed (and I don’t think anyone would truly argue that Dick didn’t believe these things about Bruce, that he loved him, wanted to protect him, etc)....

The point being....these things were never taken for granted in this case, because Bruce wasn’t technically or even nominally Dick’s father by that point. They were only ever believed by Dick...because Bruce worked to convince Dick they were all true. Dick was a traumatized orphan when he first came to live with Bruce. No matter how quickly you yourself see or headcanon him as having ‘bounced back’ from that, so to speak....that was only possible in the first place by virtue of Bruce making him feel safe enough to do so. Feel loved enough to well, act like a kid who has love and support in his life. The Manor was only ever Dick’s home because Bruce made it his home. Made him believe it was home. That it was a safe place for him, a place to feel comfortable and secure in, a refuge from the trauma that had made it necessary for him to even need another home.

One punch shattered all of that.

Because there’s no way for it not to. Dick spent years by Bruce’s side as Batman. He knows better than anyone what Bruce looks like when he wants to intimidate, when he wants someone to be afraid of him. He just never expected to be on the receiving end of that, because up until that point, even at their worst or most contentious, Dick still carried that unspoken faith that Bruce loved him even if he was bad at showing it, and as such, he’d never hurt him, not deliberately, not on purpose.....because the very idea of that, we’re taught, is incompatible with love. They can’t coexist. Someone can’t love us, and be capable of even a moment of that.

Life, unfortunately, is rarely that simple.

Make no mistake, someone can love someone and still abuse them. Our tendency in society is also to try and label people as certain things, as though they embody the description we give to them, even when that description originally is just meant to be of an action. So we call people abusive in general, even if at the start, its a specific action that’s abusive. Because abuse is ultimately an action. An abusive action that only turns into an abusive behavior when its repeated. An abusive behavior that only belongs to an abusive person, when that behavior becomes characteristic of that person.

And so whatever it was that Dick had specifically internalized about his and Bruce’s relationship by that point, whether it was that Bruce would never hurt him because Bruce was still his father for all intents and purposes, and loved him, and had made this his home, wanted it to be Dick’s home, for him to feel like it was his too...

One punch didn’t just split his lip and knock him to the floor while Bruce towered over him and yelled blame at him. It also made a lie of everything Bruce had previously worked to impart to Dick about his place here, his home, his relationship with Dick and what Dick could expect of him: to always be safe here, with him, to be wanted.

The reason I said at the start I believed that letting all of this go unaddressed was detrimental to the whole franchise and fandom, even if you’re not a fan of Dick or Bruce’s specifically - that goes back to what I said about how abuse initially is just a description of an action, before it becomes a behavior, and through enough instances of behavior, becomes characteristic enough of someone that they themselves are just described as abusive.

Because at this stage in the comics, this point in time.....Bruce’s abuse of his children is still limited to one singular scene, enacted in a time of extreme grief and emotional turmoil.

Make no mistake, I’m not for a second saying that excuses what Bruce did....because no matter his headspace, that doesn’t change the effect his actions still had on Dick’s headspace. An “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was grieving” alone can’t singlehandedly repair the kind of damage that was done to a child’s belief in his father’s inability to truly do him harm, or even want to.

But its a place to start from, and the problem is.....by never actually starting from that place, by never working from THERE, specifically, to stem the behavior that ultimately is seen repeating at various points in the comics....a precedent is made. That he can do this and just have it papered over with a mere refusal to ever really acknowledge or address it, and life will superficially go on the same, as though something fundamental hasn’t changed, shifted....with nothing nearly as impactful put in motion in counterpoint to it, to push back against everything this scene did and implied about their relationship to either of them.

I admit to being somewhat triggerhappy on this subject, lol, but see, the bottom line is ultimately, fandom’s general refusal to give this particular scene real acknowledgment or weight has nothing to do with being a Dick stan, its purely about how abuse narratives are interacted with in any medium, as a whole.

Like, hopefully it makes a little more sense now why it might be downright maddening to see a fandom so frequently write fics tackling Bruce’s behavior.....while largely skipping around and outright avoiding or ignoring:

the initial instance of abuse that without which, and if not for there never having been any consequences resulting from it, Bruce’s actions in this direction would never have kept repeating enough to become a behavior.

Its about for every action there’s an equal an opposite reaction. By one instance of abuse not being deemed worthy of an opposing reaction to address it, attempt to correct it, push back against it and try and return things to where they’d been before an unapologized-for abusive scene skewed things heavily in another direction....

The groundwork is laid for more of the same to happen again, either with the same character, or literally any other.

Because the thing that goes hand in hand with this, without ever really getting acknowledged either, as it would require referencing that time Bruce abused Dick which tends to be counter to this line of thinking entirely:

Instead of trying to ignore that this scene happened because it clashes with the idea that Dick is the favored son who can do no wrong in Bruce’s eyes.....IMO stans of Jason and the others might be better served by looking at this moment in the characters’ lives as “if we vehemently believe that Bruce favors Dick more than the others, and he can still do this to him, what does that say he’s capable of with the others?”

Hopefully I’m making a case for how after a long enough time has past where scenes like this one just exist and yet there’s not a sizable enough pushback or attempt to acknowledge, address or ‘fix’ it....it was literally inevitable that there would reach a point where shitty writers intent on just making a spectacle rather than because they care about the implications of what they’re writing....

Would eventually come up with something like RHATO #25.

How could they not? When the takeaway was that all this prior abusive stuff Bruce did never even got the kind of outcry, dramatic reception that writers like Lobdell live for.....what were writers like him ever going to do but double down? Up the stakes? Do worse?

Bottom line is you can’t keep a pattern from recurring so long as you refuse to acknowledge various of the points that make up the pattern. Especially the initial point, without which there very well might be no pattern.

And going back to that scene from NTT #55....

No, I don’t believe a simple apology was ever going to make it right. But as I said, its a start, and you have to start somewhere. If anyone ever truly wants to address Bruce’s worse tendencies with his children, IMO, you start here....where its still largely limited to a specific moment in time, and can be addressed as such. Forced out into the open and condemned before it can grow due to a lack of consequences. With Bruce expected to make amends. He can’t and shouldn’t expect Dick just to forgive him, but not even asking for forgiveness literally only lays out the inevitable conclusion that he doesn’t need to, in order to have things back the way they were.

Whereas owning up to what he did and its effects on Dick, recognizing that Dick only had this initial security of feeling he’d never harm him because he’d once upon a time worked to give him that feeling of security in the first place......that could be a reminder to Bruce that he did it once, and if he wants to badly enough and works at it hard enough, he can do it again.

But again, that requires focus on what this did to Dick, and what he needs in order to make things better from that point on...as well as effort.

An action caused this. Nothing but action in the other direction can actually have any kind of effect equivalent to the one the abusive action had.

I firmly believe that focusing on this as the starting point of any ‘fix-it’ fics meant to address or even curb Bruce’s abusive behavior in canon, is to the benefit of fans of every Batkid.

Cut it off at the source. Before it ever even gets to the point of RHATO #25, or NW #30.

Because there reaches a point where it becomes too little, too late. Where acknowledging it only once it gets to instances of that magnitude is akin to trying to put a bandaid on a gaping hole going straight through the body.

There are some instances of abuse that are so extreme, so damaging, that....they shouldn’t be forgiven, IMO. Where when if you’re focusing on what’s best for the victim, rather than trying to make things better for the whole family overall, including the abuser, under the belief that the family truly needs and would be worse off without them...

Like, sometimes the best thing for an abuse victim is to just walk away, if that’s at all possible. Cut ties and start fresh elsewhere. Some things are too big to ever truly come back from, to make things so everyone truly feels comfortable and safe and secure in another’s presence.

So I mean, its never not going to be baffling, and a little frustrating, to see fix-it fics for Bruce’s abusive behavior or actions that only act like something like RHATO #25 is a call for an intervention.

Because the thing that never ever gets mentioned in those fics, even when they bring it up and toss it out there like a throwaway line, like its still not that big a deal...

Is if your premise acknowledges that this initial scene after Jason’s death still happened in your fic....that it was the starting point for a pattern of abusive behavior that unchecked grew until it reached the point of RHATO #25....

Then your own fic is acknowledging but not addressing the fact that Dick has been living as an unacknowledged abuse survivor this whole time, without anyone in the fic’s continuity ever having addressed or even attempted anything to repair that initial damage to his faith in Bruce’s desire to protect and shelter and never harm him.

And that has nothing to do with feelings about individual characters, but again....how we interact with abuse narratives as a whole.

Just, please. If you are not a survivor yourself, if you take nothing else away from this, just please remember, reflect upon, and internalize this:

There is a difference between abuse and assault for a reason.

And that reason boils down to the fact that unlike in instances of assault, with abuse?

A punch is never just a punch.

#abuse cw

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kunrac · 3 years

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Revival of Ancient Civilizations means preserving indigenous traditions: End Hindu Holocaust!

Revival of Ancient Civilizations requires that we have respect for indigenous traditions and allow them to thrive. It is a sad story that the vast majority of indigenous civilizations have been wiped out. The only intact ancient indigenous civilization is Hinduism, and Hinduism has been under assault and persecution for over a thousand years. Sri Nithyananda Paramashiva, South Indian Master and Incarnation, talks about the value of the original Hindu civilization on his satsang May 8 2020; excerpts below.

*EXTREME ABSOLUTE LIFE POSITIVITY IS NONVIOLENCE. AHIMSA MEANS, ABSOLUTE EXTREME LIFE POSITIVITY IN EVERY LEVEL.

*FOR EXAMPLE, MEAT-EATING, IS NOT ONLY VIOLENCE DONE TO THE ANIMAL FROM WHOM THAT MEAT WAS TAKEN, IT IS A VIOLENCE DONE TO YOUR STOMACH, INTESTINE BECAUSE YOUR SYSTEM IS NOT DESIGNED FOR MAKING MEAT AS A REGULAR FOOD.

*THE EARLY HUMAN BEINGS - THEIR SYSTEM WAS ABLE TO DIGEST THE MEAT BECAUSE OF THEIR LIFESTYLE. ONCE THE CIVILIZED, THE SO-CALLED MODERN DAY LIFESTYLE STARTED, WHEN HUMAN BEINGS WERE NOT LIVING IN THE FOREST AND HUNTING FOR FOOD, WHEN THEY STARTED SETTLING DOWN, THE WHOLE BODY, MIND, BRAIN, STARTED DEVELOPING THE NEW SYSTEM. THE NEW SYSTEM IS NOT DESIGNED FOR NON-VEGETARIAN FOOD, MEAT AS REGULAR FOOD. SO MEAT IS A VIOLENCE EVEN ON YOUR SYSTEM, NOT JUST AGAINST THE ANIMAL FROM WHOM YOU GET AND EAT.

*THE EARLY HUMAN BEINGS EATING MEAT CANNOT BE THE REASON FOR YOUR EVOLVED SYSTEM ALSO FORCED TO EAT MEAT. IN A WAY, THERE IS NOTHING SIMILAR BETWEEN THE EARLY HUMAN BEING AND THE MODERN HUMAN BEING.

*YOU, ME, UNIVERSE - ALL THREE EXIST, NOT ONLY NOT HURTING EACH OTHER, BUT CELEBRATING THE EXISTENCE OF EACH OTHER. THAT IS NONVIOLENCE.

*IF PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD AND ADOPTED, NON-VIOLENCE IS THE BEST STRATEGY EVEN TO STOP THE HINDU HOLOCAUST.

As we can see, this ancient civilization was built around non-violence and harmony. It must be protected from the Hindu Holocaust, an ongoing effort to destroy Hinduism, Hindu Gurus, Hindu temples, and Hindu culture. Nithyan

*I WANT YOU TO KNOW THE PLANT BASED DIET AND HEALTH. SEE THE EVIDENCE. I ALSO WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THOSE WEBSITES FOR THE HUMONGOUS WORK THEY HAVE DONE TO BRING VEGETARIANISM AND JOY TO THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE.

*HOW MANY OF YOU WANT TO LIVE 8 YEARS MORE AND ENJOY LIFE WITH ME? ENJOY THE LEELA AND HAVE BLISSFUL BHAVA SAMADHI DARSHANS?! THEN COME BACK TO VEGETARIAN LIFESTYLE.

*MY OWN ATMA PRAMANA IS EVIDENCE FOR THIS STATEMENT: HOW MANY OF YOU WANT 50 YEARS EXTRA LIVING WITH ME, ENJOYING ME, THIS WHOLE PARAMASHIVA LEELA? START PRACTISING ‘LANGANAM PARAMA AUSHADHAM’. TAPER DOWN SOLID FOOD, JUST MOVE MORE AND MORE TO LIQUID FOOD. GO ON LUBRICATING YOUR SYSTEM WITH JUST HERBAL JUICES.

*THIS WHOLE KAYAKALPA SCIENCE IS ALL ABOUT SLOWLY TAPERING DOWN WITHOUT HURTING THE HEALTH... MOVING FROM SOLID FOOD TO HERBAL JUICES AND FRUIT JUICES. YOU CAN LIVE HAPPILY, HEALTHILY, LONG LIFE JUST BY HERBAL JUICES AND AUSHADHA. AT LEAST NOW MOVE TO VEGETARIAN LIFE.

The original Hindu system itself is built around life positivity and harmony.

*HINDU SYSTEM IS CONTRIBUTING AND LIBERATING. HINDU ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM IS ABSOLUTELY EMPOWERING AND MAKING YOU FREE. HINDU VAISHYATVA - HINDU BUSINESS, IS EXTREMELY EMPOWERING AND CREATIVE, EXPANDING. THE WHOLE HINDU WEALTH GETS ACCUMULATED ONLY TO THE PERSONS WHO ARE CONTRIBUTING. HINDU ECONOMY SAYS, WEALTH CANNOT BE ACCUMULATED WITH BLACKMAILING PERSONS, BECAUSE IT IS EXTREMELY LIFE POSITIVE AND IT IS SUCH A BALANCING SYSTEM.

*HINDU BRAHMINA VARNA - BRAHMINATVA, IS THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED SECTION OF THE SOCIETY, WHICH COLLECTS AND KEEPS THE KNOWLEDGE, DOES MORE R&D AND TRANSMITS IT TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF EVERY FIELD.

The social system itself has been so misrepresented and denigrated. Here Nithyananda describes the truth of the design and practice of the Hindu civilization. Caste is a Portuguese word; the words actually used are Jaati, which goes to one’s family structure and disposition, and varna, which goes to one’s personal choice in disposition. There was no inherited class structure; people came from a family of certain disposition but could freely move to another, ie born into jaati and could shift into a different varna as described below. The efforts to destroy Hinduism include a misrepresentation of its social system under the term caste system, which distorts the truth of the underlying system.

*BRAHMINA JAATI ALONE IS NOT BRAHMINA VARNA. BRAHMINA JAATI IS GIVEN THE ECOSYSTEM TO BECOME BRAHMINA VARNA. BUT OTHER JAATIS ARE NOT DENIED FREEDOM TO BECOME BRAHMINA VARNA. BRAHMINA VARNA IS DIFFERENT FROM BRAHMINA JAATI. DON'T BE EXPLOITED AND LOSE CONFIDENCE OVER THE HINDU VARNASHRAMA DHARMA BECAUSE OF WRONG NARRATIVES TOLD TO YOU BY ANTI-HINDU RACIST TERRORISTS AND ANTI-GURU HINDU MAFIA AND GANGSTERS.

*READ THE ORIGINAL SHASTRAS. JAATI IS GIVEN THE POSSIBILITY TO ENTER INTO THAT VARNA BUT OTHER JAATIS ARE NOT SHUT OR STOPPED FROM BECOMING ONE VARNA OR EVOLVING TO ANOTHER VARNA.

*THE BRAHMINATVA, BRAHMINA VARNA, IS ABSOLUTELY LIFE POSITIVE ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE. THAT IS WHY THEY NEVER MAKE MONEY OUT THE KNOWLEDGE. IT IS BANNED IN HINDU ECONOMY, BECAUSE PARAMASHIVA KNOWS, THE MOMENT YOU START MAKING MONEY OUT OF KNOWLEDGE, EVEN THE QUALITY OF KNOWLEDGE CAN GET COMPROMISED.

*I CAN TELL YOU WITH JOY AND PRIDE, HINDU SCRIPTURES ARE THE MOST UNADULTERATED AND MAINTAINED AS PURELY AS IT WAS UTTERED, REVEALED IN THE BEGINNING. THE VEDAS ARE AS IT IS FROM THE TIME PARAMASHIVA BREATHED IT TO PARASHAKTI, AND FROM PARASHAKTI TO VISHNU, FROM VISHNU TO BRAHMA AND THEN TO THE GURU PARAMPARA.

*EVEN AMONG THE SARVAJNAPEETHA YAJAMANS AND KARTAS, SO MANY PEOPLE ARE BRAHMINS BY JAATI. THEY COULD NOT DO ONLY THE JOB OF BRAHMINS BY VARNA, SO THEY HAVE TAKEN UP SOME OTHER JOB ALSO, LIKE VAISHYA, SHUDRA KSHATRIYA JOBS. BUT WHEN THEY GENERATE WEALTH, THEY ALWAYS ENSURE THE BRAHMIN VARNA IS ALWAYS SUPPORTED, FUNDED.

*I WANT ALL OF YOU TO KNOW, HINDU KNOWLEDGE SOURCE BRAHMINA VARNA IS ABSOLUTELY CONTRIBUTING, EXTREMELY LIFE POSITIVE AND NONVIOLENT. SAME WAY, THE HINDU KSHATRIYA ADMINISTRATION IS ABSOLUTELY EMPOWERING AND MAKING PEOPLE MORE INDEPENDENT AND MAKING THEM FEEL MORE AND MORE EMPOWERED. HINDUISM IS ABSOLUTELY CONTRIBUTING, CONTRIBUTING.

*THE HINDU KSHATRIYA VARNA - HINDU ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, IS ALL ABOUT CONTRIBUTING AND ENRICHING AND MAKING HUMAN LIFE BETTER AND BETTER - EXTREME LIFE POSITIVE.

*SAME WAY, HINDU VAISHYATVA, HINDU BUSINESSES AND ECONOMY IS ABSOLUTELY ENRICHING LIFE.

*SAME WAY, HINDU SHUDRA VARNA IS ALWAYS ENCOURAGING.

*HINDU BRAHMINA VARNA IS ENLIGHTENING

HINDU KSHATRIYA VARNA IS EMPOWERING

HINDU VAISHYA VARNA IS ENRICHING

HINDU SHUDRA VARNA IS ENCOURAGING

*THAT IS WHY I AM TELLING YOU: HINDUS HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. I WANT ALL THE INTERESTED HINDUS WHO LISTEN TO ME: PLEASE WAKE UP AND START CONTRIBUTING MORE AND MORE. HAVE A CONTRIBUTING LIFE STYLE. THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO STOP THE HINDU HOLOCAUST.

*ONLY THE CONTRIBUTING NONVIOLENT TRADITIONS HAVE A FUTURE. THE NEXT GENERATION IS TIRED AND BORED OF BRAINWASHING, FAITH-BASED RELIGIONS AND TERRORISING CONVERSION-BASED CULTS. HUMANITY IS NO MORE INTERESTED IN BRAINWASHING OR TERRORISM. IT IS INTERESTED IN CONTRIBUTING…

Again, despite centuries of oppression, Nithyananda emphasizes that Hindus maintain their non-violent, contributing lifestyle: keeping its integrity is essential, regardless of outside opposition.

*I WANT ALL HINDUS TO START BECOMING REAL HINDUS - NON VIOLENT, EXTREMELY LIFEPOSITIVE AND CONTRIBUTING. THIS IS THE CORE IDENTITY OF HINDUISM. LET US START LIVING THAT CORE IDENTITY, CORE NARRATIVE OF HINDUISM. THAT IS THE BEST STRATEGY TO STOP THE HINDU HOLOCAUST.

*WHEN YOU START CONTRIBUTING INTENSELY, PEOPLE DROP THE INSECURITY ABOUT YOU AND SLOWLY MERGE, SETTLE DOWN WITH YOU AND THEY BECOME PART OF YOUR LIFE. IN MULTIPLE CASES, I WILL GIVE YOU EVIDENCE HOW I USED NONVIOLENCE AS A STRATEGY AND I WAS SUCCESSFUL.

*EVEN THIS KAILASA - ME WITHDRAWING FROM SOCIETY, IS A NONVIOLENT STRATEGY. I NEED TO GIVE TIME FOR SOME MORE VIOLENT PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEY NEED NOT HAVE INSECURITY ABOUT ME. I NEED TO SHOW TO THEM, ‘DROP YOUR VIOLENCE, DROP YOUR ARMS!’ TILL THEY FEEL SECURE, I NEED TO BE AWAY FROM SOCIETY, THAT'S ALL.

*AS ON NOW, THEY ARE AGITATED. THEY ARE TERRORISED EVEN BY MY POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION. THEY FEEL ONCE I BECOME POWERFUL, I MIGHT ENTER INTO THEIR TERRITORY. THAT IS WHY THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL ME, ELIMINATE ME, PERSECUTE ME.

*IN YOUR PERSONAL INNER SPACE, WITH YOUR FAMILY OR WITH YOUR WORKPLACE OR YOUR TEAMILY WHICH IS YOUR FAMILY AND WORKPLACE PUT TOGETHER, OR WITH THE WORLD, AND WITH HUMANITY AT LARGE, NONVIOLENT AND EXTREME LIFE POSITIVITY IS THE MORE POWERFUL, RIGHT, INTELLIGENT STRATEGY - AHIMSA PARAMO DHARAMAHA.

*WE HAVE 2 CRORE, 20 MILLION SCRIPTURES. WE HAVE 2 BILLION HINDUS. WE NEED AT LEAST 10 PERCENT HINDUS, MEANING 20 CRORE HINDUS TO BECOME BRAHMINAS AS PER VARNAS, NOT AS PER JAATI. THIS IS MY VISION FOR BRAHMINA VARNA.

And below here he emphasizes the massive contribution that have been made, and can be made, by Hinduism as we revive this ancient civilization:

*ONLY THEN THE WHOLE 2 CRORE SCRIPTURES CAN BE COLLECTED, ORGANISED, STORED, PRACTISED AND PRESENTED TO THE WHOLE WORLD AS PER BRAHMANICAL TRADITIONS, FREE OF COST. WE NEED TO BUILD DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL LIBRARIES, BUILD PRACTICAL LABORATORIES WHERE WE CONDUCT MEDICAL TRIALS RESEARCHES AND MAKE USER FRIENDLY FOR HUMANITY AND SHARE WITH HUMANITY FREE OF COST AND TEACH THIS KNOWLEDGE TO THE WHOLE WORLD. THIS IS WHAT IS MY LIFE'S MISSION. OF COURSE WE ALSO NEED TO TRANSLATE IT, MAKE IT SEARCHABLE, INDEX IT...ALL THIS PUT TOGETHER. THAT IS WHY I STARTED THIS JNANALAYA PROJECT WHICH MAHADEVASWARUPANANDA IS LEADING NOW.

*FOR EXAMPLE, THE HINDU BATTERY WHICH CAN BE RECHARGED BY CONSCIOUSNESS DOES NOT NEED ANYTHING FROM OUTSIDE AS ENERGY SOURCE. THE HINDU AIRCRAFT CAN FLY WITH CONSCIOUSNESS BASED SOUND TECHNOLOGY.

*WE HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS-BASED SOUND TECHNOLOGY, CONSCIOUSNESS-BASED LIGHT TECHNOLOGY, BIOLOGY….THAT CONSCIOUSNESS-BASED HINDU BIOLOGY CAN BE USED TO FLY, EMPOWER, ENERGISE, MULTIPLE MACHINERIES IN HINDU TRADITION.

*I WANT TO EXPLAIN THESE TWO WORDS: DERIVATION OF THE WORD - VYUTPATTI OF THESE TWO WORDS: VARNA AND JAATI.

VARNA - VARNYATE ANENA ITI VARNAHA

THAT WHICH IS BASED ON DESCRIPTION (OF QUALITY AND ACTION) IS VARNA

JAATI - JANANAAT JAAYATE JAATIHI

THAT WHICH HAPPENS OUT OF BIRTH IS JAATI

*SO BRAHMINA JAATI AND BRAHMINA VARNA ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. BRAHMINA JAATI IS GIVEN THE POSSIBILITY TO BECOME BRAHMINA VARNA. JUST BY BIRTH HE DOESN'T BECOME BRAHMINA VARNA AND NO OTHER JAATI IS DENIED TO BECOME BRAHMINA VARNA.

In closing, please review this and further satsangs. Learn about the ongoing Hindu Holocaust, and see what you can do to support the indigenous civilization, and revive the ancient Hindu civilization in its full glory and with its full contributions to a harmonious, blissful world. Feel free to message me with any questions. Nithyanandam! (May you enter into & live from the space of eternal bliss!)

#Nithyananda Kailasa

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brightlotusmoon · 4 years

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"It is a truism that there are people, particularly on social media, with whom one simply cannot reason. Hell, some of them aren’t even actual people, but rather bots whose very existence makes every other interaction suspect. And so we could certainly take worse counsel than to avoid wasting our precious little energies on those who make it clear that they do not share our core values, particularly online, and particularly when the values in question are equality, inclusion, respect, and the most basic, fundamental rights of every human being on the planet.

But I worry. I worry that our wholly understandable refusal to engage with one another will ensure that the bifurcation of us as a people, both as a purposeful political strategy by those in power domestically and as a means for external forces to "sow societal chaos and discord*” becomes permanent. And I worry about what it will do to our ability to evolve, both as individuals and as a society.

I look back on my life and I remember a lot of moments that I’d prefer to forget, and that I hesitate to share. I remember when I was fresh out of college and just starting out in business and one of the senior-most guys on my desk, a man I admired greatly, would make fun of the support staff by saying, “We hire the handicapped; they’re fun to watch.” I remember that I laughed. Not because I thought that I had to to keep my job, not because I felt pressured to do so, but because I thought it was funny.

I remember when the girls were tiny and we bought Katie a doll house, and it came with a family of dolls. I remember that I hadn’t noticed that I’d bought the one with the Black family until I’d brought it home and decided it was a happy mistake. But I also remember that when a guest saw it one day, they laughed and said, “Oh, look, the house came with help,” I chuckled, rolled my eyes, and carried on.

I remember when I screwed something up and thought it was funny to mockingly say, “I”m special. I ride the little bus and wear hockey equipment every day.”

I remember raising inordinate amounts of money, making speeches, pleading for pity, all in the name of finding a “cure” for autism, with no idea that the vast majority of the people for whom I was supposedly fighting desperately needed help and support, but had no desire to fundamentally change who they were.

That was ME. The me that you know, the one who fights like hell for equality and dignity and respect, started out as a person who mocked disability and allowed racial jokes to stand unchallenged in her own home. Who effectively silenced her daughter’s autistic peers. And who desperately needed interaction with people who were light years ahead of me to get me to where I am now. And it scares me, on so many levels, to think of how different my behavior might be had I not had those interactions.

Now I want to be as clear as humanly possible that I don’t mean to imply that we owe our time and energy to anyone, particularly those who deny others’ lived experience or excuse brutality or withhold justice or actively fight against equality. And I want to be even clearer that it is absolutely, positively not the job of the oppressed and marginalized to educate their oppressors and marginalizers. A thousand times no, no, and, just for good measure, hell no. No one is entitled to your labor.

But I do want to take a pause to consider what happens when the vast majority of us, particularly those of us with relative privilege who claim to be allies in the fight, simply stop talking to anyone who isn’t already standing shoulder to shoulder with us. What happens to the folks who might just have taken up the mantle of advocacy had they been exposed to a wider variety of people and perspectives? What happens to the ones who are never challenged to examine their own role in perpetuating the systems that keep us separated in the first place? My behavior changed because I had the opportunity to interact with people outside of the bubble in which casual bigotry and degradation and punching down for a laugh were perfectly acceptable. But what if I hadn’t?

Years ago, I became facebook friends with a particularly radical disabled activist who had taken me to task here on diary a number of times. At the time, a close friend asked what the hell I was thinking bringing them into my inner circle. They said something I’ll never forget: “Aren’t you going to be, like, so uncomfortable knowing that they’re seeing all your personal posts? You’re going to have to watch *everything* you say from now on.”

It wasn’t until I’d heard the thought that had been rattling around in my own head out loud that I’d realized just how important it was to be made uncomfortable. How vital it was to be "aware of everything I was saying.” How desperately so many of us needed - and still need - to widen our circles to let in precisely those about whose lives and opinions and reactions we should deeply care.

We can’t take up every fight, particularly not on social media. But I do hope that at least in our brick and mortar lives, we will keep finding avenues to connect, to talk, to learn, and to grow. Because the absence of connection has proven to be fertile ground for nothing but fear, hate, and further division — and we’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime.

* Full quote: "One of the ICA’s most important conclusions was that Russia’s aggressive interference efforts should be considered ‘the new normal.’ That warning has been borne out, as Russia and its imitators increasingly use information warfare to sow societal chaos and discord.” - Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, Chairman, Senate Intelligence Committee"

And now, me:

FYI, one of my mentors is the activist mentioned, Radical Neurodivergent K, who coined the term neurodivergence many years ago, who will indeed take you to task regardless of what your brain is. And it's only been since 2013 that I discovered I was autistic, but in that time I have experienced and listened to so many ways of thinking, I've put them all in a crucible, and I keep trying to explain that just because you know a thing it doesn't mean you have all the knowledge. You always have more to learn. Information changes, expands, updates, increases. It's really easy to be a hypocrite. You need to keep listening to yourself, and you can't just burst in to gatekeep no matter how you feel.

A good example might be: an "Aspie Supremacist" insisting I or other autistic fans can't make an autistic headcanon about a fictional character who displays autistic traits because, according to that gatekeeper, the character doesn't have all the "right" traits, meaning their own traits, because they still retain their Aspergers diagnosis. By itself this is deep internalized ableism, and now it's with the added insult of an outdated diagnosis connected to a eugenics program that makes me extremely uncomfortable. Because Aspergers Syndrome is autism full stop, and functioning labels don't work and are arbitrary. Nobody needs to be that haughty or condescending to another neurotribe member, especially when it comes to expressing very personalized imaginings. That's kind of what Headcanons are about.

Anyway.

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things2mustdo · 3 years

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“White people are terrible,” “I have white privilege,” and “most of the world’s problems are caused by white people” are three general statements countless social justice warriors and their enablers agree with. Yet they are all based on the severest distortion of reality. You or I should no more apologize for being white than an African-American should for being black.

Just as many blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities are made more pliable by the media and the establishment by being told they are eternal victims, white people are made more pliable by agreeing that they need to always feel guilty. Using an SJW “anti-racism” that feels awfully like the leftist version of a Nazi book about hereditary, white people supposedly inherit the evil deeds of dead dudes who owned slaves prior to the Civil War or arrived on a foreign continent in a year like 1492 or 1788.

The establishment-enforced guilt is even greater for those directly descended from such people, but even culturally and genetically unrelated individuals like Polish- and Italian-Americans, whose ancestors pretty much all arrived after periods like the slavery era, are held accountable, too. Why? Even if we ridiculously assumed we can find descendants “guilty” of their ancestry, the white guilt thesis is like putting all of Harlem’s young black men in 2016 under house arrest because 20 of them were involved in a vicious street brawl… in 1937.

Provided you adhere to our creed, neomasculinity and the Return Of Kings community form the broadest functional church you will find. We do not care where you come from, so long as you support our goal of a return to masculine societies that emphasize community-building and do not apologize for taking pride in their own cultures. ROK readers who are black, white, Asian or something else are all equal in this regard.

Here are just three of many reasons why I will not hate or feel guilty about my skin tone.

1. I’m the descendant of victims myself because many of my ancestors were from oppressed ethnic and religious groups

Look at those privileged starving Irish!

Are you heavily Irish-blooded, like me? Italian? Polish? Ukrainian? Were your ancestors Catholics living in heavily Protestant areas, or perhaps Huguenots who had to flee persecutory France?

It’s funny how SJWs prance on about white privilege when over half of all whites who emigrated to America, Canada or Australia, from the Puritans to Yugoslavian Civil War refugees, came because the civilian government or monarchy representing another ethnicity or religion essentially chased them out, had killed their family members, or wanted them dead, too. Many of the white groups who did take the journey, particularly the Italians or Irish, were then subjected to quotas and mistreatment in places like New York for years.

A great deal of my ancestors were Catholics in Prussia and other Protestant parts of northern Germany. This section of my family tree is replete with persecutions, including one great-great-great-great grandfather who lost sight in one eye and movement in his arm after being brutally assaulted by a Prussian policeman. His crime? Being an ethnic German leaving a Catholic church on Sunday in the 1800s. Catholic churches were only for “subhuman” Poles. Catholic Prussians were seen as traitors who belonged in Bavaria, prison, or dead. He ended up eking out an existence as a tailor with one good arm, after both he and his brother were repeatedly refused admission to the civil service for their faith.

In addition, I had Irish immigrant forebears whose fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters died as a result of the Potato Famine. One of these ancestors, the eldest child in his family, was working in Dublin to make money for the family when, in the space of three months, he received news that his parents, all his sisters, and all but one of his brothers had died from starvation, malnutrition, or diseases related to them.

When my aunt did the genealogy over three years, she counted 37 family members in one corner of an Irish county who died from starvation or starvation-related illness in 13 months. The famine was predicted and even aggravated by the British. Considering the squalor into which the occupiers had driven the Irish Catholics, the whole ordeal was fundamentally caused by them, too. With only an extra mouth to feed, this great-great-great grandfather of mine took his barely school-aged brother with him to Australia two months later. What role did these two have in oppressing others, white or non-white, that I should feel shame about today?

Look further back into my family tree and you find German, Dutch and Swiss Jews, many of whom were shunted around various locations within Europe, depending on what limited patience local authorities had for yarmulke-wearers at the time.

With this lineage, what exactly do I have to apologize for, aside from my supposedly very, very privileged, at best lower middle-class English forebears from drab West London and grim Yorkshire? Most of them never saw a dark person, let alone mistreated one. To boot, the vast majority lived poor, thankless lives without clean sanitation, abundant food, or anything close to job security. And these are the stations in life, through no fault of their own, that 95% of your ancestors reached as well.

2. Minorities and other non-whites frequently treated and still treat each other far worse than white people did

Rwandan genocide, anyone?

From the pre-Columbian Central and South American peoples to the Rwandan genocide, non-whites have very often treated one another even more abysmally than whites have treated them. European technology may have amplified the number of indigenous and other deaths in places like the Americas, but raw hatred, aggression, and the continuity of violence can be found in even greater quantities in non-white historical squabbles.

Europeans have also been incorrectly blamed for things like infectious diseases, despite the scientific work of antiseptic procedure pioneer Ignaz Semmelweiss being years, sometimes even centuries away. Meanwhile, non-whites have been allowed to kill non-whites without serious condemnation from SJWs.

For example, critics of the Iraq War and the attempted rebuilding of post-Saddam Iraq have said that the whole country is based on a fiction that dates back to the European post-World War I mandate systems. In other words, if Kurds, Shia Arabs, and Sunni Arabs inhabit the same country, they kill each other! Whilst it is appetizing for SJWs to blame the big, bad British and French for this, it is far from the truth. Kurds and Arabs have been butchering each other for countless centuries. The greatest Muslim figure of all the Crusades, Saladin, was consistently mistrusted because of his Kurdish origins. Similarly, intra-Arab or Arab-Iranian Sunni-Shia violence is age-old and has little if anything to do with Europeans.

Last year, Rock Thompson wrote a superb piece about the hypocrisy of attacking Columbus Day in the Americas. His work exposed the double standards of many Native American and also Central and South American tribes, who pretend their ancestors were routinely peaceful when, in fact, they regularly engaged in deplorable acts of gratuitous violence, including human sacrifices and the sadistic mutilation of enemies who were not so ethnically different. The conquistadors and Puritans are falsely seen as the harbingers of cultural and racial genocide in the Americas. Local indigenous tribes, however, were already hunting each other down for sport well before the tall ships arrived.

3. White-majority countries make the humanitarian world go round

A tent city the Saudis refused to make available for fellow Arab Syrian refugees.

Whenever you find an aid program for starving Africans, war-torn Arabs, or other suffering people, chances are that a number of white Westerners are behind it. Even if they’re not all white, they invariably come from white-majority and/or white-founded Western countries, or are funded by them. All to assuage the guilt of white people living in 2016 who feel the need to apologize for a European colonial regime that replaced almost always far more brutal indigenous ones.

Western countries also welcome non-whites in droves, both as immigrants and as “refugees.” The recent Syrian crisis is a testament to this (over-)generosity. While Saudi Arabia refused to accommodate fellow Arab Syrians in their already-constructed tent city, used normally for the Haj Priligrimage, Germany and other European states bore the brunt of those fleeing, including through the open door policies of leaders like Angela Merkel.

In general terms, white people care more about the developmental outcomes of non-whites. Wealthy non-white countries like Japan and Korea have perfected a system of meticulously keeping their populations pure and rejecting the asylum claims of over 99% of claimed refugees. This asymmetrical state of affairs is ironic when Japan’s own history of colonisation, notably the Rape of Nanking, is taken into consideration.

White guilt is also very profitable for certain establishment figures and zealous entertainers. It’s why twats like Bono and Bob Geldof get up every morning, after all. And, far from sucking the world dry, white folks have repeatedly tried to make it better. Very often this generosity is taken to an extreme, but the point of white-majority countries acting and non-white countries stalling or ignoring remains valid.

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swingrat79 · 3 years

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Weekly Tarot Card Readings

You ought to go into tarot card analyses with open-ended queries in mind. With all their possibility, tarot cards do not have the capacity to give conclusive Whether Or Not answers. https://tarot-masters.com lies in supplying you with the understanding to direct you to make your very own strong life selections. Make sure that you are the focal point throughout your tarot card reading, whether online or in-person. A tarot card reading is intended to aid you in making worldly life choices. Everyone's entrée right into the globe of tarot cards as well as readings is various. Mine came at age 13, at a Bar mitzvah for a girl in my class that included a fortuneteller as part of the cocktail hour. The psychics take real like use their special capacities to help customers obtain genuine response to their inquiries. The services are offered by licensed as well as authentic psychics and also therefore, Kasamba is a reliable platform for on-line psychic readings by phone or conversation. Directly, I have been attempting tarot card readings for the past 5 years currently. It offers me a clear concept of what the future holds for me, and be rather prepared. I have actually tried numerous online tarot analysis services like Oranum, Kasamba, Keen, as well as much more. It is a known fact that tarot card reading sessions are extremely individual and rely largely on the feelings created between the customer and also the visitor of the tarot card. Although online platforms are open to a wide range of different fortune-teller, in-person tarot card readers are limited to your location. Furthermore, online tarot card analyses are convenient and also easily accessible any time that suits your timetable. Consequently, although in-person tarot card analyses are rather more effective, on-line tarot card analyses are easier for the customers. Given that old times, tarot readings are taken into consideration the most efficient spiritual guide. There is no clinical evidence for the power held by these cards. While tarot card dates back to late 1300 when the Mamluk card game originated in Egypt and spread out across Europe, it has located new audiences via social media. Social media highlights the availability of tarot card cards to any type of that are interested, no matter area. Really feel the physicality of the cards in your hand, visualizing your inquiry. If you're reading for an additional individual, utilize this reflective moment to reach the origin of their scenario and also assist you formulate details inquiries for them. In simple terms, the process of obtaining beneficial insights right into the present, previous, or future by the assistance of tarot card cards is referred to as 'tarot card analysis'. According to expert tarot card visitors, tarot cards are like storybooks of our life. Clearing up the deck is a critical initial step in reviewing tarot card cards, as it opens the path between spiritual measurements. Whenever you prepare, reduced the cards right into three and also reorder the pile, face down. On your favorite fabric, prepare to pull cards for your tarot "spread." You can start reading tarot cards much more continually by drawing a card every morning when you get up that talks with what you need to know about the day to find. Consider it as an specifically gratifying type of self-care that has actually the included advantage helpful you show up a far better, brighter future. Ask 10 individuals about tarot card cards, as well as nine of them will possibly say they forecast the future. That's nearly right, but tarot card doesn't inform you what will occur-- it tells what could happen, as well as extra significantly, exactly how you ought to appear to it. "Tarot cards do not tell the future; rather, tarot card is a tool for spiritual support as well as makes it possible for the individual getting the reading to link to his or her inner wisdom," she told EXPERT. Though tarot card analysis has actually come to be commonly prominent, it had not been also long ago that there was a unfavorable stigma connected to them. Thanks to horror motion pictures, tarot card cards were often taken a look at as frightening or intimidating devices made use of to bring forth spirits. Currently, however, a new overview on card reading has actually been stated and also more people are using them. Tarot card analysis is a method to address individuals's inquiries or advise them on their issues using a divination tool called tarot cards. In a tarot card deck, 22 cards are thought about the Significant Arcana and the other 56 are the Minor Arcana with four fits-- King, Queen, Knight, Jack. The Major Arcana tarot cards illustrate considerable events in the life trip while the small arcana are for the small details and happenings. When she pulled the Death card-- lucky number 13 in the major arcana of cards-- in my spread, I near passed out and squarely made a decision tarot card was except me. That point of view transformed when I was introduced to the job of Rachel Howe, a Brooklyn-based artist, Reiki therapist, as well as fortune-teller-- you might recognize her from her Instagram take care of, @smallspells. It was Howe's mystical, black-and-white illustrations that first captured my eye, and her recently released detailed tarot card deck and manual has actually motivated this writer to get into tarot card yet again. Tarot card reading online is a special ability that viewers invest years to master. So, it is a recognized reality that no genuine tarot card viewers would certainly select to offer their services, totally free of cost. 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If you have actually seen tarot cards used for a tarot analysis in motion pictures or TELEVISION, you have actually probably seen tarot card cards from the major arcana, like the Fool, the Lovers, the Adversary, or Death. Tarot card reading is the practice of using tarot card cards to gain insight into the past, present or future by formulating a concern, then drawing and interpreting cards. Although some web sites give free tarot card analyses online and also may seem exceptionally profitable for customers, these readings are hardly ever authentic and also are primarily auto-generated manuscripts. Keep in mind, tarot card analysis is an very personal experience. Tarot card analyses help clients in acquiring valuable insights right into their future. For example, if the tarot card analysis reveals something positive regarding the future, customers are inclined to work a lot more efficiently towards it. 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The mix of significant as well as small arcana, and the certain cards from each deck, will certainly allow the visitor to share detailed insights on your history, present scenario, and future possibility during your tarot card analysis. In addition to tarot card reading, they provide spiritual and also psychic analyses with guidance on your love life, astrology, finances, and life as a whole. Eager deals a vast array of filtering system choices so you can select an advisor that meets your specific demands. You can arrange their list of advisors by category, price, customer rating, and a lot more. Whether you've obtained a particular inquiry concerning your lovemaking or are looking for general guidance, totally free tarot card readings are a terrific area to start. A regular tarot card deck includes 78 cards, which can be divided into 2 groups, the major arcana and small arcana. Taken into consideration one of one of the most flexible sorts of readings, tarot card analyses integrate a deck of 78 cards to uncover details as well as patterns concerning your past, present, and also future. Tarot cards are believed to have actually come from 15th-century Europe for play, but throughout the years have actually progressed as a useful tool for clairvoyant visitors. Though the platform does not use phone calls or live video analyses, you can get a totally free psychic analysis via on the internet chat or e-mail. Along with psychic readings as well as tarot card readers, Kasamba likewise supplies various other sorts of services consisting of desire analysis, astrology, fortune-telling, and numerology readings. The sorts of services that the psychic readers below supply cover all the fundamentals, and after that some, with subjects varying from love psychics to tarot card readers. As you infiltrate your choices, you can additionally choose what tools they make use of throughout their analyses (numerology, tarot card, and so on) as well as what their interaction design is like. It needs to be borne in mind that tarot readings are not meant to supply accurate forecasts regarding your future in terms of partnerships, funds, family issues, and so forth. Tarot reading services are expected to expose even more broad-minded concerns than giving guaranteed solutions regarding the present, past, and also future.

#tarot reading #tarot card reading

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