Lolth: Web

[kFoyauextlH]

Temple Of Lolth (TO Lol)

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Lolth

The things collected in these posts should start to give you an idea as to what this thread is about, though each thread is extremely complex.

The now absent entries were also part of the overall theme, and absence and traces are part of the theme of this thread also.

If one is to try to understand this or any of my other threads, they have to loosen up and let the information flow but also play a matching game of seeing what seems to repeat and connect and how it can be applicable or used in reference to the ideas presented.

This and all of my threads and the posts in them, even those where I speak about real life things, are meant to play a part in triggering, hopefully powerful and profound, deep meditations that can strengthen thinking as well as act as productive towards creative activities like the production of art with more in it and available from it than a demonstration of technical skills and production value like material costs or time spent working on the product:

[kFoyauextlH]

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Llyngeir
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3y ago
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Edited 3y ago
While women in Classical statues are hardly 'fat', there is a distinct difference between the ideal men's body presented in statues, which are lean and athletic, and the supposedly ideal women's body which is presented as much more natural. This largely comes down to the elite ideal of women's lifestyles in Classical Athens. While men were free to go to the gymnasium, and were encouraged to do so, and boys were generally also expected to do so, women were largely confined to certain areas of life.

Xenophon provides us with what may have been the Classical Athenian elite ideal concerning women in his Economics. In his work, Xenophon says that women were responsible for controlling the household. Indeed, it appears that a girl's education, whether provided to her by her parents or by her new husband, was orientated towards this responsibility (Ec. 7.3ff; cf. Hesiod WD 699). According to Xenophon, "to be woman it is more honourable to stay indoors than to abide in the fields, but to the man it is unseemly rather to stay indoors than to attend to the work outside" (Ec. 7.30). We should be wary, however, simply accepting Xenophon's testimony as the general view of Classical Athenians as, much like Plato, his works weren't performed in a public sphere or for public attention, but for a small section of society.

Yet, we see a similar belief in other Classical Athenian sources. For example, Lycurgus tells us that, when word of a defeat reached Athens, women were crouched in their doorways asking passersby for news of their husbands, brothers, and sons, and Lycurgus makes it clear that such behaviour was considered shameful (Against Leocrates 40). Lysias similarly tells us that it was an admirable thing for young women to not even be seen by their kinsmen (3.6-7). Additionally, Euripides tells us that it was considered "shameful for a woman to be standing with young men" (Electra 343-4). These examples are from speeches and a play, which were performed before a wide selection of Athenians from different social strata, and as such, we can infer that this ideal was widely held. Thus, elite women likely led largely sedentary lifestyles.

However, these examples likely relate to elite Athenian women, not all women in Athens. As Cohen says, "relatively few families which could dispense with the essential economic activities of the woman - activities which necessarily involve going out of the house" (1989: 9). There are plenty of hints throughout the sources that poorer women regularly went outside, for example, to fetch water (Aristophanes Lysistrata 327-31; cf. this vase painting) or even to go to work (Aristotle Politics 1323a), such as selling goods in the market (Aristophanes Wasps 495-500). These working women were likely not of the physical appearance that you describe, but they were also not the women statues were made of.

As for elite women, as Blundell says, "There is no evidence to suggest that Athenian girls were given any kind of systematic athletics training in the gymnasium" (1995: 133). That said, there is evidence from vase paintings that show girls and young women involved in some forms of exercise. This vase shows a young woman running, possibly being chased, while holding her skirts in one hand in a manner that is reminiscent of a bronze figurine we'll turn to in a moment. This vase shows girls dancing under instruction, although we can say nothing about their status from the vase, they could conceivably be slave girls being trained. Finally, this vase, from the temple of Artemis in Brauron, shows girls or young women dancing or running (see Blundell, 1995: 133-5).

In Sparta, on the other hand, there is evidence for more formal physical education for girls and women. Xenophon, in his Lacedaemonain Politeia, approves of the 'Lycurgan' measures that meant both boys and girls had some form of physical training, including "races and trials of strength" (1.4). Euripides paints Spartan women in a similar light, saying that they go abroad with men and exercise in the same places as men (Andromache 595-601). Alcman, who was active in the late seventh to sixth century BC, references girls dancing (fr. 1 West). In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Lampito, the Spartan woman, is said to look like she could strangle a bull (line 81). Both Plato (Laws 806a) and Aristotle (Politics 1269b) complain that Spartan women's physical education made them no better at war than women of other Greek poleis, suggesting that their exercise was unusual for Greek women. This figurine, mentioned above, is thought to be Laconian, possibly attesting to the exercise of Spartan women in the Archaic period. Sadly, however, we do not have much more physical evidence of women exercising in Sparta.

Thus, the appearance of women in Classical sculpture with less athletic figures than their male counterparts is simply due to the culture of female separation in Classical Athens, which meant that women likely did not have the opportunity to exercise, while elite men made a habit of going to the gymnasium.
"

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UmWBIyb6Rxo/hq72 ... mmgKS7SOdg

Is it this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms

Just a little, like I've heard of this liminal spaces and empty places stuff that had some videos on YouTube, but I'm not sure if they've made more of it since I last saw it, which was just about empty and abandoned places that feel a little weird or creepy to people, along with the way that they tend to photograph them.

I was laying here in bed, it is almost 8 A.M. here, and I'm actually sort of experiencing the theme in a way. There was a conversation in the hall, and I went to see, and no one was visible, they were out of view and around the corners, and were elderly people talking about a move they are going to make, unnecessarily in my opinion, to another apartment that is older and smaller possibly, and they were talking about lightheadedness, a lack of appetite, and then the other person said to keep his number handy in case they need to call for help, the whole thing stressed me out so much that my heart was beating fast just thinking about it. I doubt the apartment would be affordable, but it is the one right across from mine and one of the biggest probably as it has two bedrooms, but he complains of some kind of toxicity in there potentially. I am locked in this space with very little room and too much stuff that has been shifted for the pest control and not shifted back because of the difficulty involved.

I've never seen their place inside, as even if their doir is opened it is just a wall and one has to to the side to get to the main areas, so it is like a backroom mystery left to the imagination. All I've ever heard are sounds from when people had been going in there, as they were showing it frequently when trying to sell this building, which now was sold and is under new ownership. All these changes lead to stress and instability.

I was looking up the etymology of the word war which apparently "confusion", and that is what a lot of these changes seem to bring, a sense of fear through a lack of clarity and certainty, and undertaking without knowing what is in the blind spots, the places where the visibility is low, and where one can't see.

That theme has been haunting me with the constant fear about numerous things, including my repeated pain issue that returned now more than once after days of nothing like that happening, so I'm left in suspense, but there is suspense about so many things, about my other apartment and what might be going on there, also just when I'm standing on the floor by my bed where I felt like a gigantic spider might run out from underneath, and usually when I feel that way, it has happened, and then it did happen just the other night and luckily I was not standing right there as there is barely any room to move or dodge the spider. It was very big but I caught it, unlike the one I failed to catch where the attempt led to a huge scratch down my arm because it was in the middle of some bikes and the metal must have gotten me. Earlier in the night my clothing got caught in the grocery store when I was reaching for something and snagged a thread loose, which irritated me, but I managed to pull to back in. The item I was reaching for was up high and around, behind something, in the back.

This theme repeated or had already occurred where a woman with a pronounced vocal fry, which I had been commenting earlier that I had never heard in the wild or out in real life, was speaking to the people at the deli meats counter section. I had to avoid her and a wet floor sign where there was no longer a wet floor as far as I could tell. I was trying to find out what these different looking meats were in a Turkey & Beef sub sandwich called a Dagwood. They were confused and told me it might be pork, and I told them that the Classic Dagwood there already has pork. Then another conspiracy was offered, that the hot dog meat of 100 percent beef hot dogs was actually mixed with pork too, which I don't really believe but I can understand the doubt people may have lol, but that is what the person behind the counter told me after the other worker had disappeared around a corner and behind some doors in a backroom type area. There were corners and unseen areas everywhere, particularly pronounced this time, and incidents with girls not turning their heads, so that I couldn't see their faces, both in the apartment and at the grocery store, which was unusual and creepy. The one girl whose face I finally saw, may have been one I saw earlier on my last trip to the grocery store, where she had a spiderweb drawn next to her eye. If it was her, then practically everyone who was there last time was there this time too and they've been there every time I've happened to go to the grocery store on amy random day.

I was looking up Jubilee or had seen Jubilee from the X-Men one day and she is a character that spent her time in the liminal places by hiding out in a mall after hours. Them I went to the grocery store and the worker was named Jubilee, she was there on this trip too, along with the guy from the register who just happened to be shopping and was off work and not in his uniform. It is Truman Show-esque to just keep seeing the same people over and over who happen to be shopping on whatever day I go there.

So the lady with the vocal fry asked the people at the counter if they had fondue and they didn't even know what that was, but I told her I had seen it, and that it was around the corner, in a place that was not visible from where we were walking as I was trying to show her, but then it wasn't even there when I made it there, so she said she just might make it herself, and I asked if she knew what cheese they use for it, and she said "fontana or something", amd I left it at that, knowing that was not the names I had heard for the typical cheeses used, but not remembering the name or the pronunciation of it.

Back around the corner I went, to my cart where I had left there, and the people who had said at one point they think the strange meat in one is almost certainly beef were now saying it is likely pork lol.

I bought the stuff and went to the door and it was locked and so I was standing there and then from around a corner the security guard came along to open the door. I went outside and then saw that the thrift store was closing and that the painting of the caterpillar from Alice In Wonderland that I had been a little interested in and looked at every time in its high place eas a blank space now. I tried to look around in the closed store from the outside, looking around the corners how I could. Then walking back home I turned a corner, and looked down a side road where I meet a cat, but didn't want to meet the cat under these conditions, but walked by while still looking, sensing that the cat was very likely there and possibly even watching from somewhere but it only approaches once I enter into the area. Then I saw these two strange looking people I had seen in the grocery store who had appeared around a corner, and then who left with me and went the other way and disappeared around a corner, where now one of them, the more remarkable of the two, was coming out of a door in a strange apartment which has only a narrow staircase behind the door before leading up to the unseen apartments.

At some point there were also 3 people on bicycles appearing one after another around the corner, and they aren't supposed to ride on the sidewalk, the first had a bright lamp and suddenly appeared, then there were two others, and I was apprehensive about the blind spot they had been appearing from rapidly.

I reached a place where people leave books and things for the public to look at or take, and I saw that there were a lot of CDs in there which I couldn't see what they were, so had to lift each one and read it, and most were classical, but I was carrying grocery bags and couldn't set them down in case earwigs would climb on them, and the bench or whatever had slits I couldn't see past, with plants and dirt underneath that looked like the sort of place earwigs like to climb around. Then there was this sound of rustling over and over next to me, which may have been a large rat, but it caused me to turn where I then saw a crazy looking person rapidly approaching from a distance and I abandoned everything and headed to the light to cross the street, and the crazy looking person possessively went to the place where I was to look through what was there also. There were more corners on my wayback, and then another free book containing unit which I looked through with my phone's flashlight. There was someone down the street with their headlights left on and pointing in my direction.

The books were in layers, hiding other books, ans there were corners, so I had to push some and lift some and create spaces to look around and to see what was there.

I approached the vehicle with the lights creepily left on and the guy got out of the vehicle, walked around behind his vehicle, and spit on the sidewalk, so I crossed the street, and they got in their car and rode away, but the behaviour was all really weird.

This has something to do with censorship or something?:



Hasan Piker keeps saying he is a "white man", but very many people probably would not think of him in the same manner as other "white" people, because he is "Ethnically Turkish from a Muslim Background" and the "white people" and the "non-white" people both don't think of that as "white" as far as I'm aware. They would think of the other guy the video is about, Anthony Fantano, as a "white man" more, but still possibly less so slightly as an Italian, though Italians have managed to be considered more white perhaps now than the Spanish, due to so many Spanish speaking countries being mixed with native Americans that it has made any "Spanish Speaker" viewed as potentially less "white". When people say "white", they mean Western and Northern Europeans most of all, then the Western Most Eastern Europeans. Then it keeps going like that until people are quite far away. Greeks are considered less white than Italians, Romanians are barely considered white, and there is a certain "look" expected too, as well as a range of accents that are considered more "white" and less "white". "Russians" get separated out and linked to slightly different things even though they are often looking like "white people", and are likely considered more "white" than "Mexicans" or whatever else, but looks can play a role.

Hasan Piker though, as far as I'm aware, is not there at all, he is considered less white than a Russian, he is linked to the Muslims and the Turks, the traditional "Anti-White" foe, and his skin tone barely plays a role once people are aware of that, every bit of his face will then be scrutinized and parsed to see how "ethnic", "foreign", and "non-white" he is, to confirm what they have heard of him being linked to those things. As far as I am aware, he is not "white" by most standards at all, like being "half", but is a "sand (person)" through and through, and the J people call the very fair skinned Palestinians "monkeys" even, and want to ghettoize them and link them to the way they may have manipulated "black culture" in America, which in Japan is depicted in the form of cockroaches in this anime:



Actually, in a way, he is doing a disservice to people by pretending people like him are viewed in the same fashion as other "white" people.

I barely scrape by myself, with only maybe much more non-white looking people possibly thinking I may be white, but I'm always stressed by the thought that people may think that I'm not quite white, just because I want the least amount of trouble. Personally, I know that I'm on a different team than most of all the people, but I have to live in fear of that being brought up and my having to persuade people that I'm not so different from them when I really may be in lots of ways, like if they are actually haters of things I like secretly, or lovers of things I despise.

That is why I consider myself a "bl*ck man" and a "n*gg*r", meaning what these people would consider their "savage" enemy and a "Moor", but in disguise, but aware that they are in a different spiritual faction than myself, and the paranoia that they would try to work harm towards me, even naturally and helplessly or unconsciously, just because I am on another team. My team is not "Muslim" either though, in the sense that there are many people using that term who are actually of a different belief system or understanding and would also be potentially hostile, so I feel mainly totally isolated from "teams" for the most part and alienated from everyone, just pretending however I can to better survive or improve my interactions with one set of threats or another.

In the current ranking, chosen by the dominant "white overmind", the worst of all things may be "Black Woman" and "Native Woman" since they are both "Black" and a "Woman", so if anyone can pass as "not that", they absolutely should skip the hassle of being linked to either thing, but most of the time, they simply can't hide it or pretend to be something that would get them treated better.

If I "discovered" I was somehow, in any way, something that would get me treated badly, I would never "come out" as that! That is a totally unecessary hardship, that only a fool in my opinion would deliberately express in a world as hate filled as this.

[kFoyauextlH]

"
@johnlavin836
10 days ago
What if the dummy with the knife bumped into the shoulder rammer
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"
@chickensangwich97
1 year ago (edited)
Brennan never tries to have an actual conversation about holding a turd. He only ever engages in a meta-conversation about everyone else presuming it's wrong for him to hold a turd. They presume so because it is obviously true, so Brennan can only argue that it's wrong to close the discussion of the issue.

He never actually argues that holding the turd is right. If he tried to actually engage with "is there any good reason for me to hold this turd?" he would immediately lose the debate.

Whenever you're dealing with people like this, always ask: are they having the conversation, or the meta-conversation?

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@calebjensen6654
1 year ago
It always makes me think hardcore misdirection, exceptionally used by the worst of us.

@abhyudaykrishna9714
1 year ago (edited)
lmfao so so true, very well put. it's a weird problem with discourse online especially that only seems to be growing all the time: the meta nature of how people talk about topics or issues; everything is a reaction to something else and there is no basis or grounding of the discussion in any core ideas, much less material reality. it's truly enough to drive one insane

@timgalivan2846
1 year ago (edited)
So wrong, he has the right to hold that turd. That's why there's no law against it. He only crossed a line when he smeared it on someone's face. Whenever you use a weak argument like, because it's obviously true, you depart from rational discourse and enter into the realm of kindergarten logic. All rights should be maintained until there is a good enough reason to restrict them. If everything was illegal until good reason was given to make it legal, the world would be a very strange place. (Ok it is already a strange place but it would be much stranger)

@samrapine4615
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 LA municipal code, section 41.47.2, "Urinating or Defecating in Public". Good enough reasons include salmonella and shigella, for starters. While the base tapestry of society expects that the taboo of shitting at your desk and carrying it around is "obviously true", we're fortunate enough to have it woven to legal framework for folks stuck on the stoa.

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@samrapine4615 if you poo in the bathroom and then walk out holding it, you didn't deficate in public

@jordanmacavoy4089
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 We know a priori that holding shit is wrong - we could examine the broader context, but in the case of such deeply held convictions (such as the Right of all laborers to work in sanitary conditions, as free as possible of human waste) it's up to the "visionary" to provide reasonable, data-driven arguments to overturn precedence in a way that alters the very foundation of civilized society. He doesn't approach any kind of reasonable argument, instead using circular logic to justify offensive behavior, and then using circular logic to justify the use of circular logic in defending his indefensible position. The existence of a Bill of Rights, the delineation of natural rights afforded to all people under our jurisdiction, completely contradicts the absurd notion that you should be free to do anything you want just because there isn't a specific code against doing it. Besides which - holding shit in a shared office space would in fact be considered unsanitary and disruptive enough to be illegal under existing laws.

@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@jordanmacavoy4089 invoking a priori is just another way of saying, I can't justify what I'm saying, so I'll just say it's common sense

@jordanmacavoy4089
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 "A priori" only means "common sense" if you don't know what a priori means. It means that we have gotten to the most fundamental layer of discussion possible - technically there are a bunch of suppositions that went into getting here, but they're ones we're extremely comfortable with because they are either proven by data or self-evident (i.e., human waste is unsanitary (driven by data), unsanitary work conditions are bad (a priori), ergo holding human waste in the workplace without a good argument is bad).

And this is what I mean by the onus being on the "free thinker" in coming up with a reasonable argument for their disruptive behavior. If you want to challenge axioms, you should be allowed to! There totally are bad axioms poisoning our public consciousness, and we do need to investigate and rout them so that higher level discussions can be more productive. However, you have to do better than childish dream logic and circular reasoning to do so - the rest of the characters in the skit don't have the structured language to explain that to him (that's the joke), but they do understand it fundamentally (except Raph's character, who is temporarily mind-poisoned by infant logic). The "paradigm challenger" knows that they don't know the logical structure required to banish him back to Plato's cave, and abuses that to try to trick them with confusing language he learned from 4channers who took Philosophy 101 and then promptly stopped learning forever.

@WeenieHutGenius
1 year ago
Is there a name for this kind of thing? I feel like there has to be

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@JohnnyStar-tr5fc
1 year ago
See if it was a theoretical turd it would be okay to bring that situation into a meta convo, really only as an analogy or opener but then…… why the freaking turd irl and why that analogy at all!!!! Lolol so funny

@Chuppaciuk
1 year ago
@jordanmacavoy4089 I mean I'm not arguing for the poop, but the statement unsanitary working conditions are bad is not a priori, because a priori statements are self-evident, based purely on logic. Yes unsanitary working conditions are dangerous, but It only seems self-evident because it is widely known. Just an example, Doctors didn't know about microbes for the majority of human history and conducted procedures in unsanitary conditions because they didn't know it increases the risk of infection. The causality of unsanitary working conditions having health risk needed empirical evidence for people to realise. An example for an apriori statement would be a tautology like 'a tree is a tree'
And even if unsanitary working conditions being bad was apriori, your own comment proves tim right in that holding shit is bad being a priori is not really true because you've had to deduce it.

That being said, even if you're not right about the a priori bit, you're deduction based on empirical evidence is pretty good, although you could further the argument by saying that uncanitary working conditions are dangerous to people -> by holding human waste in your hand you're for no reason you're unnecessarily creating unsanitary working conditions (all three of the statements we can only know to be true thanks to empirical evidence) -> putting other people in danger for no reason is bad. Now the last statement is an ethical one and if Kant can call an ethical statement a priori, I don't know why we shouldn't.

@jordanmacavoy4089
1 year ago
@Chuppaciuk What I mean is that normal people don't (and shouldn't) deeply consider the origin of germ theory and the history of labor and safety laws when someone shits in their hand in the middle of the office. You and I have the luxury of considering how and why it was unacceptable, because nobody is standing between us holding human shit in their hand. In that room, there is an immediately collective notion, a powerful consensus, unbounded by even the simple syllogism you constructed, that the condition Brennan created was unacceptable. It is so deeply embedded in our social consciousness that it is unacceptable to hold human shit in an office that we do not have to philosophize it. We take the truth to be *self-evident*. To challenge such a deeply held conviction is to shake the very foundation of the social contract - again, something we should be allowed to do! Sometimes we take bad notions to be self-evident and they need to be re-examined. But you have to do it before you shit in your hand in the middle of the office, after you have made an argument that doesn't use twisted dream logic to suppress the rational ideas of your coworkers who are already deeply distressed and confused because you took a shit in your hand in the middle of the office.

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
​@timgalivan2846 holding crap out in public is still unsanitary, for unnecessary reason, it's a risk to yourself, others and bothersome psychologically to others

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 The government has no responsibility to protect me from myself. People's psychological hangups don't really matter either. People get upset about all kinds of stuff that's not illegal and is even a constitutional right, so that's a moot point, too. I'd need to see some proof that poop being near you and not touching you with it was unsanitary. If so, portopotties would be illegal, would they not? Farting in an elevator is not an arrestable offense.

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 same logic back to you then, people whose opinion on holding crap out on public probably don't matter either, only difference is that the majority people agree holding crap out on public is taboo and disturbing. But I mean sure there aren't risks (sarcasm), apart from figuring out where to lay the crap, how to manage tasks while holding the crap, bumping into people and unknowingly smearing the crap everywhere and for what particular reason? No reason? So you're doing something, that makes you inefficient actively, to the detriment of yourself, your environment and other people for no reason? It's a really roundabout way from taking a regular crap on a toilet but aight. Oh not to mention farting and holding out a crap is fundamentally different in that, farting is something that can't be particularly managed as compared to holding out a crap on public and that give or take 2 seconds, eventually farts stop smelling due to laws of physics and gasses rising up to the atmosphere, I think we both know holding out a crap in public doesn't have nearly the same expiration. But put it this way, even if you still disagree, just by using your logic, it wouldn't be particularly illegal for one to perhaps kick you out of an establishment, fire you, cuss at you for doing something so obtuse, that is simply the effect of having a free mind and what would you know most free minds are bothered by holding out crap by the hand, I don't think it's far fetched to assume that me spitting a venomous statement on a random bystander randomly would cause the effect of me being berated, booed and possibly having things thrown at me, it's not illegal but it's still likely, that's just causality

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 also fairly sure by those factors alone the government would have to intervene in the form of enforcing hygienic codes

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 it actually doesn't apply the other way because in reverse, it's imposing your will onto others. All these scenarios are conjectured and require separate rulings for legality. For example, in many places, I'm allowed to open carry a weapon. That doesn't mean that if I bump into someone and it goes off and hurts them, I'm not responsible. Playing the hypothetical game is a good way to ban anything and everything.

@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 it ISNT illegal for someone to kick me out of an establishment, fire me, or cuss at me, so idk what your point there was. I don't have to hold poop for anyone else to do one of those things to me. Businesses don't have to have any reason at all to tell me to leave or fire me (generally, depending on the state), and thank goodness free speech is a thing so if you want to curse me for holding a poop you have every right.




@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 it WOULD, however, be illegal if you threw something at someone because you didn't like their words. Unless they expressly threatened you, that kind of behavior is childish. I guess you missed the sticks and stones speech in kindergarten

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 So you bring out crap on your hands, skip the whole discussion with your coworkers and have the consequences in mind (imagine being in a restaurant setting) and that's suddenly not just you imposing your will unto to them, your consequences unexpectedly? But they object and take action concurrently and that's not practicing free will or something? It's called free will to disagree, it happens it's part of free will, it's happening right now

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 k tell me then a law that says I can't kick you out of a restaurant for doing something so inconsiderate? Not a gun law mind you an actual law about carrying crap on your hand. In that case you don't necessarily have authority or say in the matter do you?

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 yeah yeah and I guess you weren't potty trained in kindergarten amirite? We all could learn something huh?

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 it's like you're arguing with yourself. I said pretty clearly that you can be kicked out of or fired from a private business for any reason, so who are you arguing with? Mr. Straw man I guess

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 k, we agree then. Due to objective factors such as the law, common sense, factors affecting yourself and others and based on your ethical system, not only does one have the advantage in law to disagree with you for such an act, you'd also be morally wrong for holding the crap out in the first place in a public setting

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 so if I'm keeping track of this right. One of your main points, legality, rebutted by me and left undefended by you, for obvious reasons. Free will and how it affects others, just because you're thinking about your own free will explicitly, not thinking about others, doesn't mean your free will won't have an effect it just means you're inconsiderate, rebutted. 2-0, it's a great ratio, devil's advocate beaten by bundles of straw

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 also wtf is the intrinsic benefits of holding crap out of your hand? How is it not just as discussed, a detriment to you and those around you? At least with firearms you could argue for self defense and bans, thanks for bringing that up, you don't need a ban for something that's already illegal, you just need a book and glossary and see how general rules apply

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 public indecency, health code violations, etc.... see where it took me?

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 I'm not playing a hypothetical game, I'm being pragmatic, there is no benefit to holding out crap on your hand, it is in fact impractical to do so. So the main factor of whether something's ban-able or not is to see it's benefits and drawbacks, again, what you want not to be banned is mostly just drawbacks, it isn't necessary for metaphysics to be used in the case, cause you can also argue for pragmatics

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 you need to look up strawman arguments. Who said anything about intrensic benefits?

@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 You should look up public indecency. Obviously, you don't know what that is




@timgalivan2846
1 year ago (edited)
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 btw at this point, I think it's very clear you have no idea what the bit in the original video was. You probably think Brennan is an actual monster who smears poop on people, and you're taking all of this WAY too seriously I bet you're real fun at parties

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 what so I could argue concepts all day like you? You're fun in a party too? Maybe in your world we're tit for tat in that issue, so I bring up another big factor into it, into the main cruxes of how something is deemed ban-able or not and it's an issue? I bring up pragmatics, something responsible to root the conversation in so we don't get into logic loops and it's a problem because I'm guessing, that not only is your ethics questionable and circular but if I brought up pragmatics into it too you wouldn't be able to rebuttal that at all. So call me names, compare things that aren't comparable and pretend that isn't a strawman but you oughta make sure you're rebutting my points too and making good points yourself

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 so what's the issue? Free will? Already had that discussion, accountability for yourself and others? Easy, pragmatics? Already brought it up

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 you answer this then, as straight as the conversation gets. I hold a log out in front of you and as previously stated, give you the risks of doing so for little reason, by your logic you can kick me out, because by your logic I am a detriment to myself, the environment and other people and am breaking laws, then we factor my logic into it and I'm being impractical too. No gun laws, state laws, just the hypothetical straight up and who's the bad guy there?

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 while you're at it, do us a favor and just say every name, post every emoji you want at me. Clearly you hate me enough to be hypocritical and get into fallacies, I don't much appreciate disingenuousness

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 you don't make things illegal cause it isn't pragmatic, that's pure nonsense

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@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 ok, I'm going to try to help clue you in one more time to what's going on here without completely spoon feeding it to you. Do you think Brennan Lee Mulligan thinks it's ok to Rub a Mud Monkey on his coworkers' faces?

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 you answer my question and I'll answer yours but maybe instead you could skip into spoon feeding me huh?

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 "you don't make things illegal cause it isn't pragmatic...." You make it sound like that Isn't one of the main factors on what makes something illegal, heroin? Unless it's in a medical setting, there are pragmatic reasons why it's illegal

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 but I guess for you if they had a PhD in philosophy, that just beats a doctorate in biology, that sure isn't ridiculous

@timgalivan2846
1 year ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 "because it isn't pragmatic" is DEFINITELY not why heroin is illegal I was trying to clue you in that Brennan is doing a bit, ergo propter hoc, I'm doing a bit, but I can see your blood pressure rising through the damn phone so I just can't do it to you any more. Go see a doctor about some Zanex and have a nice day. I hope you find peace in life

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 it goes both ways dude, otherwise why would you waste your time into this too and call me a name first, as the first obvious strawman? Only difference is that I'm human and I can understand how this whole conversation would be frustrating but ultimately just another argument in the internet and wouldn't need to get into a whole social experiment scheme as to the reasons I planned into getting into an argument, I just did in on a whim, I wouldn't say it's personal enough to get into how someone lives their life, you argue the point and that's it, you don't argue the person. I mean it's not like I told you to take heroin, ruin your stable life because of the obviously harmful side effects and affect those around you because that's bad for apparently practical reasons. But you know walk away I guess if it's irritating to get into, I'll still think I'm right and you wouldn't understand why, you'll still think you're right and I wouldn't understand why, that's the real lesson

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
1 year ago
@timgalivan2846 if you wanna come back to the conversation though just argue why you wouldn't take heroin and not include any practical reasons into it

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@komatosfulcrum
11 months ago
@timgalivan2846 you saw an actor performing a character who no one likes and thought, "i want to be that"

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@ayebraine
11 months ago
@timgalivan2846 Why are you doing this

@aionicthunder
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 This is a long conversation, but I just want to mention to you that, in at least 49 out of 50 states, you cannot be fired for no reason. You likely have an incorrect concept of what "At will" state is, that being one in which you can be fired for any LEGAL reason (which has very much made me wonder what the other state does. How else do you get fired?). That is in place so that wrongful termination lawsuits are possible. For example, revealing that you are pregnant, or have requested FMLA leave, then being let go for "poor performance"? Keep a paper trail, and you have a lawsuit on your hands, one you could get with a "no win, no fee" lawyer.

Know your rights is my point

@timgalivan2846
9 months ago
@aionicthunder it would be more accurate to say they can be fired without reason given. It would then be on the employee to prove they were fired for one of a short list of restricted reasons. A hard bar to meet. It is likely insurmountable for someone unemployed.

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 oh yeah did some research, you don't have to have to have a specific word by word law to say you can't do something, that's what general laws exist for, an example would be attaching a flamethrower to your car, no specific law about it but if you apply laws about arms and weapons, specifically the use of flamethrowers, which are laws that actually exist, it would actually be considered illegal. Fairly sure you could find a general law for holding out poop in public

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 just for research's sake though, if you truly believe you can't be tried in court for the act, then just hold out your crap on public in front of the authorities and report your findings

@timgalivan2846
9 months ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 1. Wow, should I be paying rent for living in your head this long? Back at it again.
2. you're still referencing a law that prohibits flamethrower use at the end of the day, so doesn't that undercut your point about not needing a law for something to be prohibited?
3. Don't tell me you think cops don't unlawfully arrest people, or arrest people first and then try to figure out something to apply after the fact? Haven't you heard of contempt of cop laws that are catch alls they apply to everything like obstruction, interference, and disorderly conduct? If you have the time and money to fight for years, then after several appeals and higher courts throwing out lower courts' mistakes, you will win but as they saying goes, "you can beat the charges but you can't beat the ride."

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 1. Glad to know we're in the same boat
2. Just adding to my original point
3. Hey you're the one who said it wouldn't be illegal, I'm just taking it to its natural conclusion, taking it to the court to actually find out but if you can't that means no proof of evidence and that you and I are not necessarily right, so ground zero

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 found some laws and regulations. Also the link's the best part

@timgalivan2846
9 months ago
@somedudeintheinterweb8665 People like Brennan don't believe it's good enough to just hold the right belief. It's also important to understand WHY those things are right. Without that, you just end up making terrible arguments in a YouTube chat to try to convince someone who already believes what you believe, but has a better understanding of the reasons why. Someone who wants you to have good arguments. Someone who understands often, we start with a belief, and try to justify it in reverse, which is BAD. If you don't have good reason for a good belief, you'll end up having bad reasons for a bad belief in other aspects of your life. We clear? We good? Imma get back to taking care of my cat who's in liver failure, and you get back to rage posting in stale chats at people who forgot about you until you try to start up the conversation again months later

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 lemme just quote you a sec "That's why there's no law against it...." You lost the the point of argument, now you're trying to goalpost the whole thing in ethics or whatever, which I still win in btw. Now you bring up cats and liver failure like what? Cool you have a life or whatever, I do too, just seems rather personal to bring that up on the internet in this conversation of all things, you don't need to prove having a life you know? You just know it, never asked it, never cared but good luck on your cat or whatever, hakuna matata either way. Talking like you not a nobody either, wouldn't have remembered this whole thing if I didn't see it in my comment history and you still replied on my whim, that is just as poor of an impulse control as me. If I wanna win in ethics this time, I'll pick some whim in my life, get your arse provoked to comment again and call it a social experiment, lol

@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 hey does your social experiment include cats as a focus group too?

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@somedudeintheinterweb8665
9 months ago (edited)
@timgalivan2846 also, PE-TTY, really man? Using your dying cat as a glorified dong measuring life contest, in a year-ish argument not even about it, with people you can't even see, in the internet? Ethically speaking, could use some work

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@eldryn7443
9 months ago
@timgalivan2846 Good luck taking care of your cat with poop in your hand

@filipemartinho1753
8 months ago
​@timgalivan2846I assure you, there are plenty of laws against defecating in public. It's unsanitary and disturbing

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@filipemartinho1753
8 months ago
​@timgalivan2846oh god, this is a thread kf an uphill battle you've been fighting for months on end that proves the original commenter's point! Gosh, this is such an interesting comment section. You should be analysed by someone, I think there's a lot to learn

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@jankthunder4012
6 months ago
He has to have the meta conversation because they're refusing to have the actual conversation.

@adamclark4434
6 months ago
Like when ppl say men can be pregnant?




@noskes1
3 months ago
Yeah, that's the joke.




@FFKonoko
3 weeks ago
​@Chuppaciuk I wish I wasn't a year late but...isn't it included in the definition of the word unsanitary? The doctors not knowing it was bad meant it wasn't considered unsanitary. The moment it is defined as unsanitary and agreed to be, it is a priori. The real hurdle here is getting him to agree that poop being present is unsanitary.
"

"
@processpsych
3 years ago
I love the fact that this entire sketch is a hilariously convincing poop metaphor for Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance. Well played, gang. Well played.

6.1K
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@akobrakoral
3 years ago
in this sketch it's more like Karl Pooper

655
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@essie_bee
3 years ago (edited)
@akobrakoral i fucking love this

85



@neothepenguin1257
3 years ago
@akobrakoral I verbally laughed aloud thanks

@Beegrene
3 years ago
It works on a lot of levels. Because the cast let him get away with holding a turd for so long, he was able to slowly escalate. If they had killed him right from the start, nobody would have had poop smeared on their faces or put in their mouths.

311



@joehair3446
3 years ago
When you are tolerant of everything, you stand for nothing


@Cirac1
2 years ago
@crispinfornoff206 Intolerance isn't some nebulous concept lol it's definition is straightforward and not particularly open to interpretation. Its an unwillingness to accept beliefs, behaviours, cultures and people that differ from you.
Provided the previous aren't limiting the freedom of others or causing harm, intolerance against them should not be tolerated.

@Cirac1
2 years ago
@crispinfornoff206 lmao! The Bolshevist revolution had nothing to do with tolerance or intolerance, it was a socio-economic fueled revolution
The south didn't oppress slaves because the slaves were intolerant.
They went to war because their money was threatened by the collapse of the slavery institution.

Your parameters for "people doing bad things to people to stop intolerance" are so laughably broad and vague they could be applied to literally any conflict or attrocity in human history. "Y'know guys, Genghis Khan was just trying to stop everyone else from being intolerant of him ruling them!".

@silverkleptofox
2 years ago
The ‘tolerance paradox’ falls apart when you realize that tolerance is a contract. The intolerant are in breech of the contract, so they no longer benefit from it

@radicaltrafficcone8284
4 months ago
More like Karl pooper
"

They already made the joke, and people kept repeating it in the chain. Maybe that is a joke too, but an extremely irritating one to just keep repeating what people have already said.

"
@sananaryon4061
6 years ago
"It's word magic he learned from a fountain of lies"
"Your word sorcery ends now"
I'll be using all of these quotes for a DnD campaign sooner or later

4.5K
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@LuminousOriens
5 years ago
Have you used them?

7
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@sananaryon4061
5 years ago
@LuminousOriens Not yet, unfortunately
"



This guy's face is like a mask.

"
@kropfreiter
3 years ago
Talk about totally missing the point.

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@openmind2464
2 years ago
How so?

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@kropfreiter
2 years ago (edited)
@openmind2464 unlike the Cheshire Cat, I don't need to explain myself. The point behind Popper is that tolerance has its limits. Allowing the intolerant to dictate what those limits are is a slippery slope leading to the end of tolerance by the ascendancy of the intolerant.

@noahhenderson3164
1 year ago
@openmind2464 This guy is arguing sh- about violence. Popper was talking about tolerance. He was saying that to be a tolerant society we can't fight intolerance with tolerance because those intolerant people aren't on the same debate stage as us. So you have to reject that public s*** flinging to have actual discussions and push the right kind of tolerance.
"

"
@UserJWR
4 years ago
Karl Popper specifically talked about intolerance, not violence, making your second point a strawman, as many pointed out. But even if he did in the way you proposed: The argument is still a paradox. If you defend yourself against violence using violent means, you are using violence (which is kind of tautological, but you get my point). So the concept of suppressing violence with violent means is paradoxical by nature. Whether or not violent self defence is "moral" or "acceptable" is an entirely different question that has little to do with the violence paradox from before.

@colinr.turner
4 years ago
The difference is that most rational people do not equate violence with self-defence, and there is a very clear line between someone who's just verbally intolerant and someone's who's violent. Trying to define what level of tolerance / intolerance is acceptable is unnecessarily messy and subjective. Whereas violence has a much clearer boundary to see when someone has crossed the line.

@UserJWR
4 years ago
@colinr.turner There is no such thing as "rational people", we are all irrational in some way. There are only rational arguments. But that's besides the point.

It all depends on your definition of violence. What is violence to you? And more specifically: Why is self-defense not violent, even if you use violent measures? Before you make a rational argument, you have to get your definitions straight. That's also why 99% of "I debunk [complex philosophical concept or argument] in [unreasonably small time frame]" videos are kinda nonsensical and miss the point.

@artisanshrew
3 years ago
@UserJWR That is the entire point! All of it is SUBJECTIVE to a degree and regardless of how "rational" the argument, people aren't persuaded by rationale ANYWAY!

Your argument is moot!
Sometimes the most simple explanation is more than sufficient and no amount of bloviating is going to change that!

@music79075
2 years ago (edited)
@UserJWR vi·o·lence
/ˈvī(ə)ləns/
Learn to pronounce
noun
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

If I am forced to do any of those things to prevent those things being done to me then it I am not being violent. I am defending myself.

The Violent person is choosing to exhibit behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill me.
I am not being violent if that person forces me into an ultimatum of "I die or am maimed or kill or maim him". I am defending myself.

@UserJWR
2 years ago (edited)
@music79075 Read the definition again. It says nothing about choice. If you defend yourself, your most effective (and likely) course of action will be to inflict as much damage upon the other person as necessary to make them incapable of hurting you. You will literally engage in "behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something". Thanks for providing a definition that proves my point.

Also, one could argue that you still have the choice to surrender yourself, "turn the other cheek" if you will, instead of defending yourself. I tend to dislike that line of argument because it discounts the level of coercion that's at play in violent situations. It also discounts the human tendency and instinct to avert damage and survive.

@music79075
2 years ago (edited)
@UserJWR defense is different because you are choosing to defend yourself which may involve reciprocation.

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@UserJWR
2 years ago
@music79075 So you DO choose to defend yourself, which, by your logic, makes it violent. Which is it? Please get your arguments together.

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@music79075
2 years ago (edited)
@UserJWR I'm saying that Defending yourself using reciprocal force is not violence because the aim is to defend myself not cause harm or kill. Violence is the process i have been forced to use.

@UserJWR
2 years ago (edited)
@music79075 How do you defend yourself without harming the attacker? The goal of defending yourself is to render the attacker unable to harm you. That involves harming them, especially and by definition when you use reciprocal force (you punch me, therefore I will punch you). Defending yourself is inherently violent. Please note that this does not imply a normative statement about violence of self defense. Not all kinds of violence are morally wrong.

EDIT: You also contradict yourself with your last sentence: "Violence is the process I have been forced to use." So you agree that self defense is violence? At least that's what that last sentence implies. Please, again, get your arguments together.

@music79075
2 years ago (edited)
@UserJWR You are misunderstanding what I am saying.

My intent is not to harm or kill, my intent is to defend myself in a violent situation which may require reciprocal or greater force.
My end goal is not to harm or kill the attacker. My end goal is to be safe. My use of physical force is a form of defense.
My attackers end goal is to harm me and is exercising physical force for that end and so it is violence.
When in a self defense situation the defender is not exercising "violence", for lack of a better term, to harm or kill the attacker for the sake of harming or killing the attacker. They are doing it to preserve themselves and so it is not violence because the end goal of the act of self defense is not to harm the attacker but to defend the attacked; the attacker possibly getting harmed or killed is a byproduct.

This is in opposition to the attacker who is using violence to harm or kill the attacked for the sake of doing that because it furthers self serving goal, like greed or wrath.

@UserJWR
2 years ago
@music79075 I understand the difference between aggression and self-defense. I know what you mean. However, the intent to harm and the intent to defend yourself are not mutually exclusive. In order to be safe, one might have to harm an attacker. That is completely congruent with the definition you posted. If you engage in behaviour that intends to harm another, you are being violent, no matter the end goal.

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@Boo7X77
2 years ago
​@openaccessguy when you are defending yourself you are committing an act of violence. You're over complicating it.

@SamMaciel
2 years ago (edited)
​@UserJWRthank you for all your points here. Kudos.

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@RayDoeksen
2 years ago
Using violence to suppress violence is only paradoxical if you are unfamiliar with concepts like justice.

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@UserJWR
2 years ago (edited)
@RayDoeksen What exactly does justice have to do with it? Violence can be just or unjust, it's a normatively neutral concept.

@mornnb
1 year ago
It's not paradoxical by nature because the issue is not the violence itself, but rather in the instigation of violence. If you say that the issue is in instigating violence rather than violence, then to say that you can respond to violence with violence is not a paradox .
The mistake being made here is in saying that violence is the problem when the real problem is the instigation violence. A world in which violence was never allowed not even in response, would quickly be taken over by those willing to break this rule and functionally it can not work.

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@jamie59685
8 months ago
the use of force it not always violence

@UserJWR
8 months ago
@mornnb Then you have the problem of proactive and reactive violence. If the police knows about a terror cell, they know that terror cell is planning to be violent, but the terrorists have not yet acted on their plans, I think we all agree that the police is still justified in breaking down their door and arresting (or shooting) them even before an act of terrorism has been committed. However, who initiated the violence here? Clearly, the terrorists first had the intention to be violent, but the police are the ones who actually engaged in violent action first. Also, you could argue that the police "instigated violence" by ordering the arrest of those terrorists. The police did not react to an act of violence directly.

@mornnb
8 months ago
@UserJWRAction to prevent violence where clear intent is proven is a different thing to instigation of violence. In this case the issue is still fundamentally the instigation of violence and not the violence itself. In that scenario, you closely monitor and arrest based on actions that show clear intent to instigate violence. You don't merely go on speech either, you wait for the actions that show intent.
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_law

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum

Stick or t*rd?

[kFoyauextlH]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophily

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterophily

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_ties

"
Most of the early work in heterophily was done in the 1960s by Everett Rogers in his book Diffusion Of Innovations. According to Rogers, "Heterophily, the mirror opposite of homophily, is defined as the degree to which pairs of individuals who interact are different in certain attributes".[1] This is in contrast to homophily, the likelihood that individuals are to surround themselves with those they share similarities with.[1] An example of heterophily would be to individuals from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds becoming friends. Through his work Rogers showed that heterophilous networks were better able to spread innovations. Later, scholars such as Paul Burton have drawn connections between modern social network analysis as practiced by Mark Granovetter in his theory of weak ties and the work of Georg Simmel. Burton found that Simmel's notion of "the stranger" is equivalent to Granovetter's weak tie in that both can bridge homophilous networks, turning them into one larger heterophilous network.

Heterophily is usually not a term found often by itself. Rather it is often used in conjunction with other similar terms that define attraction. Heterophily is often discussed with its opposite, homophily when analyzing how relationships form between people. Heterophily also may be mentioned in areas such as homogamy, exogamy, and endogamy.

To fully understand heterophily, it is important to understand the meaning and importance of homophily. The theory of homophily states that "similarity breeds connection."[2] Homophily has two specific types, status homophily and value homophily. Status homophily are ascribed statuses such as race, gender, and age.[2] Value homophily refers to shared beliefs and practices between individuals.[2] Studies of homophily have linked attraction between individuals based on similarly shared demographics. These may include, but are not limited to: race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status. In fact, according to The logic of social bias: The structural demography of heterophily by Ray Reagans, the first component is the intrinsic level of interpersonal attraction due to homophily.[3] Individuals are more likely to form social groups based upon what they have on common. This creates strong ties within the group. Mark Granovetter defined the strength of a tie as a "combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy, and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie".[4] However, Granovetter's article suggested that weak ties are also instrumental in building social networks. He believed that weak ties could be possibly more effective than strong ties in reaching individuals.[4] Findings like this have been referenced when discussing heterophily.

The effect and occurrence of heterophily is also analyzed in intimate relationships. In Dangerous Liaisons? Dating and Drinking Diffusion in Adolescent Peer Networks, Derek Kreager and Dana Haynie mention the effects of heterophily on romantic relationships. They see the removal of the barrier of gender as a departure from the homophily of peer friendships.[5] According to Kreager and Haynie "exposure to new behaviors and social contexts associated with a dating partner may also correspond to higher levels of influence from that partner."[5] The terms homogamy, endogamy, and exogamy are often used when discussing intimate relationships in a sociological context. Homogamy refers to the tendency of individuals to marry others that share similarities with each other, while endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific group. The relation between these terms and homophily is the tendency to be attracted to what is similar. Homogamy and endogamy may be a result of cultural practices or personal preference. Endogamy's antithesis, exogamy, is marriage only outside of a particular group.
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... etwork.jpg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociogram

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathema ... s_diseases

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_ ... _religion)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler_colonialism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasitism

https://www.ujecology.com/articles/the- ... 03583.html

https://phys.org/news/2015-06-cuckoos-m ... guise.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckold

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckquean

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyeurism

https://palmerluckey.com/if-you-die-in- ... real-life/

"
But that isn’t what you are here for. You want NerveGear, the incredible device that perfectly recreates reality using a direct neural interface that is also capable of killing the user. The idea of tying your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me – you instantly raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players inside it. Pumped up graphics might make a game look more real, but only the threat of serious consequences can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game. This is an area of videogame mechanics that has never been explored, despite the long history of real-world sports revolving around similar stakes.
"



People are watching themselves suffer and die by watching human beings suffer and die.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive

"
In classical psychoanalysis, the death drive (German: Todestrieb) is an aspect of libidinal energy that seeks "to lead organic life back into the inanimate state."[1] For Freud, it "express[es] itself—though probably only in part—as an drive of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms",[2] for example, in the behaviour of predation. It complements the life drive, which encompasses self-preservation and reproduction behaviours such as nutrition and sexuality. Both aspects of libido form the common basis of Freud's dual drive theory.

The death drive is not only expressed through instinctive aggression, such as hunting for nourishment, but also through pathological behaviour such as repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.[3][4][5]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-de ... e_behavior

"
The terms mortido and destrudo (though both rejected by Freud),[39] formed analogously to libido and refer to the energy of the death instinct.[40] In the 21st century, their use among Freudian psychoanalysts has been waning, but still designate destructive energy.[41][40] The importance of integrating mortido into an individual's life, as opposed to splitting it off and disowning it, has been taken up by figures like Robert Bly in the men's movement.[42]

Paul Federn used the term mortido for the new energy source,[43] and has generally been followed in that by other analytic writers.[44] His disciple and collaborator Weiss, however, chose destrudo, which was later taken up by Charles Brenner.[45]

Mortido has also been applied in contemporary expositions of the Kabbalah.[46]

Literary criticism has been almost more prepared than psychoanalysis to make at least metaphorical use of the term 'Destrudo'. Artistic images were seen by Joseph Campbell in terms of "incestuous 'libido' and patricidal 'destrudo'";[47] while literary descriptions of the conflict between destrudo and libido[48] are still fairly widespread in the 21st century.[49]

Paul Federn
edit
Mortido was introduced by Freud's pupil Paul Federn to cover the psychic energy of the death instinct, something left open by Freud himself:[50] Providing what he saw as clinical proof of the reality of the death instinct in 1930, Federn reported on the self-destructive tendencies of severely melancholic patients as evidence of what he would later call inwardly-directed mortido.[51]

Edoardo Weiss
edit
Destrudo is a term introduced by Italian psychoanalyst Edoardo Weiss in 1935 to denote the energy of the death instinct, on the analogy of libido[52][53]—and thus to cover the energy of the destructive impulse in Freudian psychology.

Destrudo is the opposite of libido—the urge to create, an energy that arises from the Eros (or "life") drive—and is the urge to destroy arising from Thanatos (death), and thus an aspect of what Sigmund Freud termed "the aggressive instincts, whose aim is destruction".[54]

Weiss related aggression/destrudo to secondary narcissism, something generally only described in terms of the libido turning towards the self.[55]

Eric Berne
edit
Main article: Eric Berne
Eric Berne, who was a pupil of Federn's, made extensive use of the term mortido in his pre-transactional analysis study, The Mind in Action (1947). As he wrote in the foreword to the third edition of 1967, "the historical events of the last thirty years...become much clearer by introducing Paul Federn's concept of mortido".[56]

Berne saw mortido as activating such forces as hate and cruelty, blinding anger and social hostilities;[57] and considered that inwardly directed mortido underlay the phenomena of guilt and self-punishment, as well as their clinical exacerbations in the form of depression or melancholia.[58]

Berne saw sexual acts as gratifying mortido at the same time as libido; and recognised that on occasion the former becomes more important sexually than the latter, as in sadomasochism and destructive emotional relationships.[59]

Berne's concern with the role of mortido in individuals and groups, social formations and nations, arguably continued throughout all his later writings.[60]

Jean Laplanche
edit
Jean Laplanche has explored repeatedly the question of mortido,[61] and of how far a distinctive instinct of destruction can be identified in parallel to the forces of libido.[62]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles ... chiatrist)

Brennan Brenner Berne

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupio_dissolvi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sco ... d_the_Frog

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willful_ignorance

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism

"
In psychology, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid believing in a uncomfortable truth.[6] Denialism is an essentially irrational human behavior that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.[7]

The motivations and causes of denialism include religion, self-interest (economic, political, or financial), and defence mechanisms meant to protect the psyche of the denialist against mentally disturbing facts and ideas; such disturbance is called cognitive dissonance.[8][9]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_evidence

This is pretty ridiculous,

because this guy who looks suspicious is so paranoid

about something no one is thinking

but which it is weird for him to be thinking that they are thinking

which makes it seem like he really is what he fears they are thinking he is

and which he also looks like:

https://www.threads.com/@g18.86/post/DN ... hv8tlam_Sg

I saw what might be the only sort of better than usual Blumhouse produced horror film, called The Woman In The Yard, which I liked. Maybe they have other good ones but most I've seen have been pretty bad and not very scary either. This film had pretty good cinematography considering the poor standards of today's films from the U.S. in particular, and pretty good acting and sound design was fine, and it had a happy ending also and was generally satisfying. The villain or the monster was enjoyable too and pretty scary even.

That film might have been a significantly neater and more efficient version of a film that I also thought was alright but which didn't seem as focused or sharp possibly, which could also be interpreted as The Woman In The Yard being less complex and more heavy handed or direct, called Under The Shadow. This The Woman In The Yard film is way easier to remember with more clear cut memorable scenes and events and moments, but that other one just had a few. I feel like I'd be more likely to return to The Woman In The Yard than Under The Shadow, but a film I liked significantly more than either of those is probably Rigor Mortis by Juno Mak. The similarity or why I brought that up might be because of Under The Shadow taking place in relation to some small group of characters in an apartment area or something. Dark Water also has that aspect and a feeling of even less characters possibly. Three of these are about a single mother taking care of a child or children.

The best monsters are in The Woman In The Yard and Rigor Mortis, but Rigor Mortis is the most action packed with the most stuff happening in it overall. So I like a lot of things to happen, filling every moment with entertainment rather than things being dragged, big blank spaces of barely anything of interest, plus I often don't care for melodrama and uninteresting story elements or points, and I prefer things to be funny and even campy or willing to be wacky without feeling it has to be dedicated to that, like it can be a lot of things at once but so many films feel like they either have to be just one thing and can't go certain places of they might not be as easily, and annoyingly, stuck into a certain category that they want to be clearly planted in, like they think audiences would be disappointed ir something if Will Ferrel's Sherlock Holmes film wasn't full of totally stupid humor and words that throw a person out of a movie that could have been a genuinely good Sherlock Holmes film that was on the funnier side, of which there have already been several that balance comedy and a still relatively serious Sherlock Holmes story better, and the Will Ferrel one had a lot of potential and a good cast and a potentially great Moriarty by Ralph Fiennes, just wasted.



American comedy has really declined, one comparison can be how good the BBC's comedy called Ghosts is compared to the atrociously unfunny American version of Ghosts as one if the best comparisons possible for something full of great acting and comedy and something fully of terrible acting and the worst writing.

It is quite hard to even watch anything at all these days with everything going on. I'm still managing though, and a day for me is better when I'm able to avoid unpleasant things as much as possible.

There is a show that they are talking about here:



I have never seen it. It appears to be popular. It has a lot of merchandise already which sells out. It introduces people to "Goetic Demons" and uses them, making the names of such more mainstream than ever before in the United States. Before this, the most mainstream mentions of them were still rather fringe, as they appeared in Japanese video games like Shin Megami Tensei and Devil May Cry, with the latter being more mainstream and popularly played in the United States, but not as much with the Goetic Demon Names as much as with the more well established names overall.

Much more popular than Goetic Demon Names are the names of demons which are also much more well known from being outside of the Goetic Names, and in the United States and worldwide, the most access to the names in popular culture were games in the Diablo series by Blizzard Entertainment most likely, and just general Christian culture and evangelism that focuses on some of these names.

The most popular and well known is Satan, generally synonymous with "The Devil", which is the namesake of the game series "Diablo" and brings up a title or term closely identified with all the others and the concept of a fiery Hell, Darkness, Death, Torture, and the Occult. Those things seem to indicated symbolically on the cover art, which may be more witnessed thsn actual gameplay which will have a drastic drop from all those who merely hear of it somehow, then those who see more like the cover art, and it keeps getting into a smaller population from there.

Another extremely popular, but far less popular than the international term "Satan" and the overall concept of "The Devil" and "Demons" and "Angels" is Beelzebub, sometimes also called Beezlebub.

This show though that the video is bringing up, brings up and highlights far more obscure and less known names, like "Stolas".

People in the comments are bringing up modern obsessions like "intimate partner abuse" frequently, and the show might deal with various social dynamics, coupled with music, and has attracted many females and the "LGBTQ+" community to it, by also apparently having stuff which is of interest to them like less common or strict rules having to do with sexuality, identity, and relationship boundaries between different categories of people, and some more gender bent ways of dressing and acting.

This is a hugely popular show presented on YouTube.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivienne_Medrano

She has a birthdate very close to mine, but a different year.

"
She is bisexual,[44] and on the asexual spectrum.[45] She grew up Presbyterian, and says she remembers going to church and questioning a lot of stories in the Bible—Adam and Eve and Lucifer, in particular.[46]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality

I'm heterosexual and really like the appearance of women, but don't get any action, a much more literal involuntary celibate than the ones who get called that who seem to be socially inept, misogynistic, and self-sabotaging.

"
In a January 2024 interview following the release of Hazbin Hotel on Amazon Prime Video, she described herself as a "queer woman on the internet who made something popular", and related herself to her character Charlie Morningstar, saying that both she and Charlie are in a "position of fighting uphill battles to just have [their] dreams exist."[47] Previously, Medrano had described herself, on social media, as a "proud 'fiery' [L]atina," and said that Vaggie was the character she related to most, saying that Vaggie and Charlie "feel like sides of [her]self."[48]
"

Ethnic and Racial stereotypes bother me and make me sad.

I was looking at some descriptions on old cards from a Dungeons and Dragons Adjacent game series, and they were describing these "Jaguar Warrior" humans who are very directly inspired by Aztec things, in such a sad way, because it was so childish and limited, like they were not allowed to be as complex or unique and individualistic as the characters who were more Western inspired, even if that individuality comes through the form of villainy, though they would generally be villains in some way too as they are dedicated to a God in the game world that is associated with evil and evil things, Zaltec, in perhaps and attempt to treat their characters with Western "respect", they made them Noble Savages and "Braves", and one could almost hallucinate the "Tonto-esque" way that they were most likely being thought of. The drawings of their faces, and there were two character cards at least that I have seen of these, are both totally without personality or uniqueness, while the Western seeming character is full of character and uniqueness.

So when this woman, in my opinion "caves" to the stereotypes of being a "fiery Latina", I feel sick to my stomach. I despise that stuff. It is that stuff that is currently behind so much evil that is occurring right now, like the stereotyping and imposing of stereotypes that the J people are doing to the P people, and how the J book has basically always implied things like that, possibly more overtly or in a now more popular fashion than any other text due to it being so widespread now, like their prejudices towards various groups that were viewed as automatically an enemy or "bad" category, ignoring how vile they would appear to be as a whole if they were viewed and treated in the same way as they view and treat "others", but we are meant to not hold them to the same standards, in which case their villainy recorded in their own telling of their supposed history, hopefully largely fabricated, reveals that they were for the most part very similar seeming to the mostly European and Caucasian variants that exist today in their horrible thinking that lead to horrible ways of dealing with all the "out groups" and really even "their own".

Supposedly, these Goetic Names derive from traditions that are J*d**-Christian in nature, though the names at times may connect to other cultures and languages where they were used before J*d**-Christian influence, and were thought of in different ways.

They are categorized now as "demons", which for many makes them "automatically bad", like how "Canaanite" and now "Palestinian" is meant to mean "automatically bad", no matter what their age, ancient or infant.

Hispanic people, a people under the influence of a "Latin", "Romance" culture, the heirs of Latin like the Italians and with a more clearly Vulgar Latin seeming language than the French most likely or even the Portuguese, many of which also descend from a colonized people, with layers of colonial history and tension, since the people of Iberia were colonized by Rome, they were colonized by Christianity, by Germans, by Arian Christian Kingdoms possibly, by Muslims, then they performed the ReConquista and ended up imposing Northern groups upon Southern groups that had little real historical unity or connection with the Northern Groups, and their languages were pushed further away in favor of the Northern "Standards". It didn't end there, then they went and they terrorized people through the Inquisition, and terrorized the Catalans, the Basque, and many more tribes and families, and had the Spanish Inquisition, they imposed themselves on the Americas and brought ruin there and tried to wipe out those cultures and people too, they became like a killer virus.

Now the people throughout the Spanish world have this confused rage and hatred in themselves that is carried through their language and history, where alien things were repeatedly imposed upon them and then pushed forcefully on to others, a culture of bullying and abuse which had led to a lot of machismo complexes, chauvinism, colorism, unspoken but still very active and real casteism and classism, and a deep desire to lash out and rebel while also wanting and even loving authoritarianism on the other hand. They have a very strong attraction to the Satanic and Demonic, and to be Contrary but not necessarily "Counter-Culture" in the same way as others.

All that sh"t, and it is truly sh*t, stinking sh*t, seems to make its way into this cartoon made by this "fiery Latina" "bisexual asexual", lol, all of that nonsense gibberish seeming to very specifically give some insight into the batsh*t crazy thinking of the modern Romans of today.

As far as I can tell, very little of the Native mindset may have actually survived in comparison to the things which can be traced to Roman and Hispanic thinking from the Spanish language being used and so the dominant way in which these people even think to themselves, and language matters VERY much, and what is carried in those languages. I speak in my mind some form of "American English" and carry the sentiments and attitudes of an "American", which are totally at odds in many ways to what is being presented by the mainstream media today as the norms of an American or of America, such as through films which possibly the vast majority are finding in at least some ways unpleasant and objectionable and not representing their standards or ideals or even their true culture, as if it was written by alien groups, and it often really is being written by people with little to no experience with the mainstream culture of the North American people, but by a tiny minority with different cultures, evrn if they are "caucasian" or "English" in their ancestry, they have never lived like we have, or been given the thinking through the language and history that we have, yet they are made out to be the writers of a culture they try to make the norm, and people are finding that it is really not mixing and meshing comfortably with the ways in which they were raised or the prior culture that they were indoctrinated with. This is causing "Western" people in general to seek out groups that they can better identify with or tools and "technologies" they feel are such that they can use more freely to express their sentiments through, so Islam and Satanism, both considered the Arch Heresies of the Latinate and Western World, are what so many are flocking to throughout the West, since both represent the Rebellion Against Oppression and the Authoritarian Justice we had been raised to consider the "American Way", where Christianity appears instead to be slavish and effeminate, not suitable to the Virile Modern Roman, still full of "Fire":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtus

"
The origins of the word virtus can be traced back to the Latin word vir, 'man'. The common list of attributes associated with virtus were considered to be particularly masculine strengths. From the early to the later days of the Roman Empire, there appears to have been a development in how the concept was understood.

Originally virtus described specifically martial courage, but it eventually grew to be used to describe a range of Roman virtues. It was often divided into different qualities including prudentia (practical wisdom), iustitia (justice), temperantia (temperance, self-control), and fortitudo (courage). This division of virtue as a whole into cardinal virtues is an ongoing project of positive psychology or, in philosophy, virtue ethics, following a tradition originating in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. It implies a link between virtus and the Greek concept of arete.

At one time virtus extended to include a wide range of meanings that covered one general ethical ideal.[1] The use of the word grew and shifted to fit evolving ideas of what manliness meant.[2] Once, virtus meant primarily that a man was a brave warrior, but it came also to mean that he was a good man, someone who did the right thing. During the time of the decline of the Roman elite, the Roman upper class no longer thought of themselves as unmanly if they did not serve in the military.[3]
"

"
Virtus came from an aristocratic tradition in which it described a specific type of public conduct. It was mainly applicable to those in the cursus honorum, certainly by the late republic at least. It was not a "private" virtue in the way that modern people might consider it. Valor, courage, and manliness were not things to be pursued in the private sphere of the individual or the individual's private concerns. There could be no virtue in exploiting one's manliness in the pursuit of personal wealth, for example. Virtus was exercised in the pursuit of gloria for the benefit of the res publica resulting in the winning of eternal memoria. According to D.C. Earl, "Outside the service of the res publica there can be no magistratus and therefore, strictly speaking, no gloria, no nobilitas, no virtus."[4]

The nobility of virtus lay not only in one's personal acta but also those of one's ancestors. However Cicero, a novus homo, asserted that virtus was a virtue particularly suited to the new man just as nobilitas was suited to the noble. Cicero argued that just as young men from noble families won the favor of the people so too should the novus homo earn the favor of the people with his virtus. He asserted that virtus, and not one's family history, should decide a man's worthiness. Because virtus is something that a man earns himself, not something that is given to him by his family, it is a better measure of a man's ability. Cicero's goal was not to impugn the noble class but widen it to include men who had earned their positions by merit.[5]

The term virtus was used quite significantly by the historian Sallust, a contemporary of Cicero. Sallust asserted that virtus did not rightfully belong to the nobilitas as a result of their family background but specifically to the novus homo through the exercise of ingenium (talent, also means sharpness of mind, sagacity, foresight, and character). For Sallust and Cicero alike, virtus comes from winning glory through illustrious deeds (egregia facinora) and the observance of right conduct through bonae artes.[6]
"

"
Virtus was not universally applicable—typically only adult male Roman citizens could be thought of as possessing virtus.

Women
edit
Virtus was rarely attributed to women, probably because of its association with vir. The highest regarded female virtue was pudicitia: 'modesty' or 'chastity'. Cicero, however, attributes virtus to women several times. He uses it once to describe Caecilia Metella when she helps a man who is being chased by assassins.[Note 1] Twice more he uses it when describing his daughter, Tullia, portraying her in his letters as brave in his absence.[10] He uses it again to describe his first wife Terentia during his exile.[11] Livy in Book 2 attributes it to Cloelia.[12]

Children
edit
Virtus was not a term commonly used to describe children. Since virtus was primarily attributed to a full-grown man who had served in the military, children were not particularly suited to obtain this particular virtue.

Slaves
edit
While a slave was able to be homo ('man') he was not considered a vir. Slaves were often referred to as puer (Latin for 'boy') to denote that they were not citizens.[13] Since a slave could not be a vir it follows that they could not have the quality of virtus. Once a slave was manumitted, he was able to become a vir and also classified as a freedman, but this did not allow him to have virtus. A good slave or freedman was said to have fides, but no virtus.[13]

Foreigners
edit
Foreigners in the Roman world could be attributed with virtus, for example, if they fought bravely. Virtus could also be lost in battle. Virtus could even be a qualification for citizenship, as in the case of Spanish cavalry men granted citizenship by Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo in 89 BCE for their virtus in battle.[14]
"

"
Virtus applies exclusively to a man's behaviour in the public sphere; that is, to the application of duty to the res publica in the cursus honorum. His private business was no place to earn virtus, even when it involved courage, feats of arms, or other associated qualities performed for the public good.

In private
edit
While in many cultures it is considered "manly" to father and provide for a family, family life was considered in the Roman world to be part of the private sphere, in which there was no place for virtus. Most uses of virtus to describe any part of private life are ambiguous and refer to another similar quality.[15] In the Roman world the oldest living patriarch of the family was called the pater familias. This title implied that he could make all legal and binding decisions for the family; he also owned all its money, land, and other property. His wife, daughters, sons, and his sons' families were all under his potestas. The only time a son was seen as separate from his father's control in the eyes of other Romans was when he assumed his public identity as a citizen. He could earn his virtus by serving in the military, and thus he could only demonstrate manliness outside of the family setting. This is another reason that virtus is not often used to describe Roman private life.[16]

In public
edit
Virtus was a crucial component for a political career. Its broad definition led to it being used to describe a number of qualities that the Roman people idealized in their leaders.

In everyday life a typical Roman, especially a young boy, would have been inculcated with the idea of virtus. Since military service was a part of the lives of most Roman men, military training would have started fairly early. Young boys would have learned how to wield weapons and military tactics starting at home with their fathers and older male relatives and later in school. Also a young boy would have heard numerous stories about past heroes, battles, and wars. Some of these stories would have told of the virtus of past heroes, and even family members. Publicly it was easy to see the rewards of virtus. Public triumphs were held for victorious generals and rewards were given to brave fighters. This propaganda encouraged young boys coming into their manhood to be brave fighters and earn virtus. It was the duty of every generation of men to maintain the dignitas which his family had already earned and to enlarge it. Pressure to live up to the standards of one's ancestors was great. In achieving virtus one could also achieve gloria. By gaining virtus and gloria one could hope to aspire to high political office and great renown.

Cicero suggested that virtus was real manhood and that it boiled down to "Ever to excel". He declared that, "The whole glory of virtue [virtus] resides in activity." A Roman political man would only need to show scars in defense of the Republic to prove his worth.

Romans established their status through activity, creating a pecking order of honour. This involved agon—a test, trial, or ordeal requiring active effort to overcome. This activity was thought to banish certain characteristics of Roman thought that were believed to be negative. Such negative characteristics included being shameless, inactive, isolated, or leisurely and were the absence of virtus; placing dignitas into a static, frozen state. The contest established one's being and constructed the reality of one's virtus. Romans were willing to suffer shame, humiliation, victory, defeat, glory, destruction, success, and failure in pursuit of this.

Virtus was often associated with being aggressive[citation needed] and this could be dangerous in the public sphere and the political world. Displays of violent virtus were controlled through several methods. Men seeking to hold political office typically had to follow the cursus honorum. Many political offices had an age minimum which ensured that the men filling the positions had the proper amount of experience in the military and in government. Thus, even if a man proved himself capable of filling a position or was able to persuade people that he was capable, he would not necessarily be able to hold the position until he had reached a certain age. Minimum age also ensured an equal basis for candidates in elections for public offices, because by the time most men went into public office they would have retired from military service. Furthermore, before any Roman soldier could partake in single combat, he had to gain permission from his general. This was meant to keep soldiers from putting themselves in unnecessary danger in order to gain virtus.

Politically, virtus also tended to be a concept of morality. In contrast to its representation of manliness—as seen in aggression and the ruthless acquisition of money, land, and power—the lighter, more idealistic political meaning almost took on the extended meaning of pietas, as a man who was morally upright and concerned with the matters of the state.[17]

Plautus in Amphitruo contrasted virtus and ambitio. Virtus is seen as a positive attribute, while though ambitio itself is not necessarily a negative attribute it is often associated with negative methods such as bribery. Plautus said that just as great generals and armies win victory by virtus, so should political candidates. Ambitio "is the wrong method of reaching a good end". Part of virtus, in the political sphere, was to deal justly in every aspect of one's life, especially in political and state matters.[18]

According to Brett and Kate McKay, the Roman identity exists in a paradigm[clarification needed]; Rome was a contest culture and honor culture. Romans believed "your identity was neither fixed nor permanent, your worth was a moving target, and you had to always be actively engaged in proving yourself."[19]

Sexuality
edit
While in many cultures the virtue of manliness is seen as being partly sexual,[citation needed] in the Roman world the word virtus did not necessitate sexuality. Similar words deriving from the same stem often have sexual connotations, such as the word for man itself (vir) and the concept of "virility" (virilitas).[20] Nonetheless, poems such as Catullus 16 and the Carmina Priapea,[21] as well as speeches such as Cicero's In Verrem, demonstrate that manliness and pudicitia, or sexual propriety, were linked.[22]

Marcellus and the Temple
edit
M. Claudius Marcellus, during the battle of Clastidium in 222 BCE, dedicated a temple to Honos and Virtus. This was one of the first times that Virtus had been recognized as divine. The connection with Honos would have been obvious to most Romans, as demonstrations of virtus led to election to public office, and both were considered honos. The cult of Honos was already a long-standing tradition in Rome. The marriage of the two deities ensured that Virtus would also get proper respect from the Romans. But the pontiffs objected that one temple could not properly house two gods because there would be no way of knowing to which god to sacrifice should a miracle happen in the temple.[citation needed]

Augustus
edit
During the reign of Augustus, the Senate voted that a golden shield be inscribed with Augustus' attributes and displayed in the Curia Iulia, these virtues including virtus, clementia, iustitia, and pietas. These political catchwords continued to be used as propaganda by later emperors.

In literature
edit
The comic poet Plautus made use of virtus in his play Trinummus, which concerned family virtus, honor, public office, and obligations to the state. He also offered commentary on the concept of virtus in Amphitruo (see § In public above).[23]

Cicero said, "[only] virtus usually wards off a cruel and dishonorable death, and virtus is the badge of the Roman race and breed. Cling fast to [virtus], I beg you men of Rome, as a heritage that your ancestors bequeathed to you. All else is false and doubtful, ephemeral and changeful: only virtus stands firmly fixed, its roots run deep, it can never be shaken by any violence, never moved from its place."[24]
"

[kFoyauextlH]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C4%ABrya

"
Vīrya literally means "state of a strong human" or "manliness."[1] In Vedic literature, the term is associated with heroism and virility.

In Buddhism, virya refers to a practitioner's "energy",[2][3][4] "persistence",[4][5] "persevering,"[6] "vigour", "effort", "diligence",[7][8] or "exertion", and is repeatedly identified as a necessary prerequisite for achieving liberation.
"

"
The Abhidharma-samuccaya states:

What is virya? It is the mind intent on being ever active, devoted, unshaken, not turning back and being indefatigable. It perfects and realizes what is conducive to the positive.[7]
In the context of the Mahayana Abhidharma, virya is commonly translated as diligence.[7]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu

"
Sisu is a Finnish word variously translated as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience,[1] and hardiness.[2] It is held by Finns to express their national character. It is generally considered[by whom?] not to have a single-word literal equivalent in English (tenacity, grit, resilience, and hardiness are much the same things, but do not necessarily imply stoicism or bravery).

In recent years, sociologists and psychologists have conducted research on sisu, attempting to quantify it and identify its effects, beneficial and harmful, in both individuals and populations.[3]
"

"
Sisu is extraordinary determination in the face of extreme adversity, and courage that is presented typically in situations where success is unlikely. It expresses itself in taking action against the odds, and displaying courage and resoluteness in the face of adversity; in other words, deciding on a course of action, and then adhering to it even if repeated failures ensue. It is in some ways similar to equanimity, though sisu entails an element of stress management.

The English "gutsy" invokes a similar metaphor (one also found in other languages): the Finnish usage derives from sisus, translated as "interior", and as "entrails" or "guts". See also the colloquial phrase "intestinal fortitude". Another closely related English concept evokes the metaphor grit.
"

"
Sisu is a term which dates back hundreds of years. It is described as being integral to understanding Finnish culture.[4] It is a term for going beyond one's mental or physical capacity, and is a central part of the country's culture and collective discourse. However, hardly any empirical research has been done to explore the meaning of this construct as a possible psychological strength resource, and it has long seemed[to whom?] to have a somewhat elusive nature. It has usually been studied as a cultural component among Finns and Finnish Americans,[5][6] but as a psychological construct long remained under-researched and poorly defined.

As early as the 1940s, attempts were made to grasp the essence of sisu. The Finnish newspaper Uusi Suomi[7][full citation needed] reached out to its audience for their definition of sisu, and conducted a contest. Uusi-Suomi wrote: "All of us somewhat know what sisu is... [it] has for long been a topic for discussion here in Finland and abroad. But how do we describe and define what sisu really is?" The quest to define the essence of sisu has evidently been around for almost a century. More recently, William R. Aho, professor emeritus of sociology at Rhodes College, said "we need a good deal of organized, systematic scientific research to discover the scope and depth of sisu, geographically and situationally, and the depth and strength of both the beliefs and behaviors surrounding and emanating from sisu."[5]

Research that began in 2013 sought to offer more precise language for discussing the term. While examining sisu within the psychological framework, it sought to render it less elusive as a construct by giving it an easily citable definition rooted within the field of positive psychology. Sisu as a psychological power potential was introduced for the first time at the 3rd World Congress on Positive Psychology in Los Angeles on 29 June 2013.[8] In the study, sisu is described as a psychological key competence which enables extraordinary action to overcome a mentally or physically challenging situation. Sisu also contributes to what has been named the action mindset: a consistent, courageous approach toward challenges which at first seem to exceed our capacities.[9] Sisu, as measured by the Sisu Scale questionnaire, has been established in contemporary psychological research as a strong correlate with well-being and stress. The Sisu Scale is composed of harmful and beneficial sisu. [10]

A related online survey conducted between March and May 2013 tracked the cultural representations of sisu among contemporary Finns and Finnish Americans.[11] It revealed that sisu is still deeply valued, and that there is public interest for cultivating this strength capacity as well. The study received over 1,000 responses; its data was the basis for thematic analysis. Among the main findings was the perception of sisu as a reserve of power which enables extraordinary action to overcome mentally or physically challenging situations, rather than being the ability to pursue long-term goals and be persistent.

Sisu is a psychological potential that enables the individual to tap into strength beyond their pre-conceived resources. Wielding sisu in the face of adversity helps individuals push through what first seemed like the boundaries of their mental or physical capacities. Sisu provides the final empowering push when we would otherwise hesitate to act. Sisu can be conceptualized as taking action against the odds. Even though 53% of the respondents believed some people innately have more sisu, 83% of the respondents believed that sisu is a flexible quality that can be cultivated through conscious practice, rather than being a fixed quality, and the majority of respondents were interested in developing this capacity. Research on sisu is currently[may be outdated as of August 2023] continuing at Aalto University School of Science in Espoo, Finland.[12]

Sisu is not always an entirely positive quality. In Finnish, pahansisuinen, literally translated, means one possessing bad sisu, a description of a hostile and malignant person. The answers from the sisu survey indicate that there can be too much sisu, and according to the survey answers this leads to bull-headedness, foolhardiness, self-centeredness, and inflexible thinking. The study suggests that sisu should be informed by reason and cultivated and practiced with self-compassion.[9]

Like any trait or psychological capacity, sisu is the complex product of genetic, psychological, biological, and social factors, and its comprehensive understanding will require studies from multiple scientific perspectives. Finland may have the initial monopoly on sisu as a cultural construct, but it is a universal capacity and the potential for it exists within all individuals.

The transformative power of narrative is widely acknowledged.[13][page needed] People develop their values and contribute to cultural values by communicating with other people in their culture.[14] Fostering sisu may very well be embedded in such behavior, rather than being a genetic trait one is born with. Sisu is a new term in the field of positive psychology, and it may contribute to our understanding of the determinants of resilience, as well as of achievement and the good life. It is suggested[by whom?] that positive psychology research could benefit from focusing on sisu and by examining relevant constructs from other cultures.
"

"
Sisu has been described as "the word that explains Finland", and the Finns' "favorite word"—"the most wonderful of all their words."[15] As defined by Roman Schatz in his book From Finland with Love (2005), sisu is an ability to finish a task successfully. During the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Finnish perseverance in the face of the invasion by the Soviet Union popularized this word in English for a generation.[16][17] In what may have been the first use of sisu in the English language, on 8 January 1940, Time magazine reported:

The Finns have something they call sisu. It is a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win. The Finns translate sisu as "the Finnish spirit" but it is a much more gutful word than that. Last week the Finns gave the world a good example of sisu by carrying the war into Russian territory on one front while on another they withstood merciless attacks by a reinforced Russian Army. In the wilderness that forms most of the Russo-Finnish frontier between Lake Laatokka and the Arctic Ocean, the Finns definitely gained the upper hand.

— Time magazine, January 8, 1940[16]
In 2009, sisu was described as so essential to the Finnish national character that "to be a real Finn" you must have it: "willpower, tenacity, persistency."[18]

Examples
edit
Singled out for kudos for this attribute was "Finland's wiry old peasant President, Kyösti Kallio—full of sisu..."[17] The word was also used to describe the Finnish stubbornness in sticking to its loose alliance with The Third Reich from 1941 to 1944 (in the war against the Soviet Union, which had attacked Finland on 30 November 1939):

Finnish sisu—meaning a peculiarly Finnish brand of doggedness, capable of facing down death itself—was at work against the Allies.... The Finns are not happy. But sisu enables them to say: "We have nothing worse than death to fear."

— Time magazine, May 10, 1943.[19]
During the 1952 Summer Olympics, sisu was further described in the context of the continuing Cold War looming over the Finnish capital city of Helsinki:

HELSINKI, host to the Olympic Games, a city of 400,000, was abustle. ... The Finns are not stupidly hiding their eyes from their future, but they are determined not to fall into another fight with a powerful and predatory next-door neighbor 66 times their size (in area, Finland is the sixth largest country in Europe; in population it is the third smallest). Under popular, 81-year-old President Juho Kusti Paasikivi and able, unpopular Agrarian Premier Urho Kekkonen, the Finns have learned to walk the nerve-racking path of independence like tight-rope walkers.

— Time magazine, July 21, 1952[20]
Well into the 1960s, sisu was used to describe the Finnish resistance to the invasion of 20 to 30 years prior and its continuing discontents.[21] In 1960, Austin Goodrich's book, Study in Sisu: Finland's Fight for Independence, was published by Ballantine.[22] Also in 1960, a notable reviewer of Griffin Taylor's novel, Mortlake, wrote:

"Have you heard of Finnish sisu?" asks a character in "Mortlake"—and it turns out that sisu is a sort of stamina or staying-power which the Finns have had to develop as a result of living next door to the Russians.

— Nigel Dennis, New York Times Book Review[23]
In 2004, Jorma Ollila, CEO of Nokia, described his company's "guts" by using the word sisu:

In times like these, the executives who run Nokia talk up a uniquely Finnish quality called sisu. "The translation would be 'guts,'" says Jorma Ollila, CEO of Nokia, in an interview. (Photograph Caption: Jorma Ollila says Nokia is determined to 'overcome all obstacles.') "But it's also endurance. There is a long-term element to it. You overcome all obstacles. You need quite a lot of sisu to survive in this climate." The climate he's referring to is the bleak and bitter Nordic winters, but he might as well be talking about the competitive, erratic wireless-phone market and Nokia's travails. This sisu trait—anathema to Wall Street's short-term outlook—says a lot about Nokia's response to its recent turmoil.

— Kevin Maney[24]
A Finnish heavy metal rock singer injured himself, without noticing, at a concert, to which a reviewer wrote:

Alan epäillä, että suomalainen sisu ja adrenaliini ovat yksi ja sama asia.—I am beginning to suspect that the Finnish sisu and adrenaline are the same thing.

— ImperiumI.net Finnish Heavy Metal website[25]
The concept is widely known in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is home to a large concentration of Finnish Americans. This has extended to include a popular bumper sticker saying "got sisu?" or simply "SISU". In 2010, a 63-year-old Yooper named Joe Paquette Jr. of Munising, Michigan, walked 425 miles to the Detroit Lions training facility to bring the spirit of sisu to the team.[26]

The non-profit documentary SISU: Family, Love and Perseverance from Finland to America was made by Finnish-American filmmaker Marko Albrecht. The documentary looks at sisu by means of a profile of his late mother, his Finnish-American family, and his uncle Heikki's fight against pancreatic cancer. The film was called a time-capsule of modern Finnish-American life.[27]

In a 2008 episode of Top Gear, F1 racer Mika Häkkinen described sisu to James May:

Sisu in English means courage, it is the Finnish courage. Let me give you an example. Climbing a tree and jumping down from there, that doesn't mean sisu. That is not courage. Sisu we can relate very much that in motor racing, for example, you're driving a rally car in a forest extremely, really fast, you need courage to be able to brake late, to go on the throttle really early, to go really close to the apex of the corners.[28]

The platinum trophy of the Finnish-made video game Alan Wake 2, given to players who earn every other trophy in the game, is called Sisu.

As a proper name
edit
Due to its cultural significance, sisu is a common element of brand names in Finland. For example, there are Sisu trucks (and Sisu armored vehicles), the icebreaker MS Sisu, a brand of strong-tasting pastilles manufactured by Leaf[29] and Suomen Sisu, a Finnish nationalist organisation with connections to other far-right groups.

Sisu is also a male name with increasing popularity. More than 2,000 Finnish men have this name,[30] most of them being born after 2010. The son of The Dudesons's Jukka Hilden is called Sisu.

Globally, there were several fitness-related organizations and endurance sports teams such as the Sisu Project based in Haverhill and Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.[31] that carried the name sisu and based their philosophy on the characteristics included in the concept sisu, including courage, integrity, honesty, and determination.

Mount Sisu is the name of a mountain first ascended by mountain climbers Veikka Gustafsson and Patrick Degerman in the Antarctic.

Sisu is also the name of a London-based hedge-fund, operated by several directors including Joy Seppala. The firm bought the football club Coventry City FC in 2007.

In Norway there is a seafood company named Sisu Seafood Norway AS that exports Norwegian seafoods.

On the Western end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the SISU Ski Fest is a popular annual event, highlighting a 21- and 42-kilometer cross-country ski race "finishing" in historic downtown Ironwood.[32]

In popular culture
edit

"Monument to the Finnish sisu" on a fell in Lapland
In season two of McLaren's animated program Tooned, Sisu is a planet and the true origin of two-time Formula One Drivers' Champion Mika Häkkinen (and possibly 2007 Drivers' Champion Kimi Räikkönen as well, based on a Sisu scene near the end of the episode in question). Häkkinen and Räikkönen are both Finnish and have driven for McLaren; Häkkinen won both of his titles with the team while Räikkönen won his after leaving McLaren for Ferrari.

A starship with a crew of partly Finnish descent in Robert A. Heinlein's 1957 science fiction novel Citizen of the Galaxy is named Sisu.[33]

A World War II movie titled Sisu, directed by Jalmari Helander and starring Jorma Tommila, was released in April 2023.[34]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganbaru

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah

"
Chutzpah (Yiddish: חוצפה - /ˈxʊtspə, ˈhʊt-/)[1][2] is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. A close English equivalent is sometimes "hubris". The word derives from the Hebrew ḥuṣpāh (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus, the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation, but the form which entered English as a Yiddishism in American English has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television.
"

See, they even know, Hubris is all they do now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumud

Here is a crazy ad that was sent to me:

"
It's deliciously dreadful. Lucky you.

WEDNESDAY’S NEW
MEAL OF MISFORTUNE
Ah capitalism, but at least this kind comes with torture...
Rest in 10 PC Nuggs with 2 Dips of Dread, Small Cursed & Crispy Fry, and Small Raven’s Blood Frosty® - agony awaits.

WEDNESDAY’S RAVEN’S BLOOD FROSTY® — OOZING WITH FLAVOUR
Black cherry and endless chills.

WEDNESDAY’S 4 DIPS OF DREAD
2 mystery dips in every bag —keep ordering for a chance to endure them all.
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Rodrigo

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday_Addams

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Addams

"
Addams would enjoy the Presbyterian Cemetery on Mountain Avenue in Westfield as a child, where – according to author and Addams expert Ron MacCloskey – he would wonder what it was like to be dead.[5] In the cartoons, his ghoulish creations lived on Cemetery Ridge with a dreadful view.
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterianism

"
Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that were formed during the English Civil War, 1642 to 1651.[3]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Dissenters

"
Presbyterian theology typically emphasises the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ. Scotland ensured Presbyterian church government in the 1707 Acts of Union,[4] which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. In fact, most Presbyterians in England have a Scottish connection. The Presbyterian denomination was also taken to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, mostly by Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants.[5] Scotland's Presbyterian denominations hold to the Reformed theology of John Calvin and his immediate successors, although there is a range of theological views within contemporary Presbyterianism.
"

https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/01/0 ... spiration/

"
How an inmate’s insight inspired Northeastern professor’s modern take on ‘Paradise Lost’
Assistant professor Orlando Reade’s “What In Me Is Dark” has won plaudits for the way it has shone a light on John Milton’s epic and its attractiveness to history’s freedom fighters.
"

https://news.northeastern.edu/wp-conten ... e=1100,732

The Black Hand like that of the Church Of Bane from Dungeons and Dragons and The Forgotten Realms and the lyrics of Gowan's Criminal Mind song.

"
Reade admits that he was “afraid” of the libertarian’s 17th-century poem, which details the biblical story of the fall of man and Satan’s ruinous revolt against God, because of its density and legacy. But his interaction with the inmate made him view the masterpiece “in a new way.”
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seny

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomez_Addams

"
In the Charles Addams cartoons, Gomez—as with all of the members of the family—had no given name.[2] When The Addams Family television series was being developed, Charles Addams suggested naming the character either Repelli or Gomez. Addams left the final choice up to portrayer John Astin, who chose Gomez.[3]

Because "Gómez" is originally a Spanish surname, the character's name was changed to "Homero" ("Homer") in Spanish speaking translations. In Spain, where the surname originated, he is called Gómez.
"

"
Like the other members of the family, Gomez's personality became largely codified by the television series.[2] He is depicted as being of Castilian extraction and Spanish ancestry, which was first brought up in "Art and the Addams Family" on December 18, 1964; in the episode, Gomez says his "ancestral land" is Spain and Morticia refers to him as a "mad Castilian."[4]

John Astin had long sessions with Addams and series producer David Levy, who gave him free rein in developing the character. Enlarging on Addams's description of Gomez as a Latin lover type, Astin suggested the eye-rolling, pencil moustache, and ardent devotion to Morticia.[5]

In the Addams cartoons and the television shows, Gomez wore a necktie to his chalk-stripe suit, though in the films, Gomez wears a bow tie and a wide variety of extravagant clothing. He spends $1000 per month on cigars,[6] and he is an accomplished juggler and knife thrower. He loves crashing toy trains and diving for crabs on Halloween. When he wishes to know the time, he will pull a pocket watch from the breast pocket of his jacket (the chain is attached to the lapel) while simultaneously checking a wristwatch.

Gomez is an athletic, acrobatic, and eccentric multibillionaire.[6] Though an extremely successful businessman, having acquired much of his wealth through inheritance and investments, he has little regard for money and will casually spend thousands of dollars on any whimsical endeavor. Gomez's investments are guided more by whimsy than strategy, yet rarely fail him. Gomez owns businesses around the world, including a swamp, bought for "scenic value", a crocodile farm, a buzzard farm, a salt mine, a tombstone factory, a uranium mine, and many others. In Forbes 2007 "Fictional 15" list of the richest fictional characters, he was ranked number 12 with a net worth of $2.5 billion.[6]

As a young man, Gomez was, per flashback in "Morticia's Romance", a perennially sickly youth, gaining perfect health only after meeting Morticia. He nevertheless studied law (voted "Most Likely Never to Pass the Bar") and is quite proud his law class voted him "Least Likely to Succeed"; and although he rarely practices, he takes an absurd delight in losing cases, boasting of having put many criminals behind bars while acting as their defense attorney, claiming that he "never sent an innocent man to jail"; this is somewhat contradicted in the episode "The Addams Family Goes to Court," which noted that while Gomez has never won a case, he has never lost one either. This backstory, while not mentioned directly, is recalled in The Addams Family (1991), when Gomez announces he will serve as his own attorney, only to lose the case. In The New Addams Family, Gomez had also studied medicine.

Gomez has offered contradictory views on work; in one episode, he claims that although his family was wealthy even in his childhood, he nonetheless performed odd jobs and "scrimped and saved [his] kopeks," which he considered character building. When his son Pugsley decided to find a job, however, Gomez was horrified, claiming, "No Addams has worked in 300 years!" In the 1991 animated series, Gomez deliberately tried to fail at something, anything, only to realize in the end of the episode that he is only a failure in failure. This is additionally contradicted in "New Neighbors Meet the Addams Family" (season one, episode 9, 1964). He specifically states that Thing always beats him at bridge.[7][better source needed]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morticia_Addams

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Fatale

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magica_De_Spell

"
Magica De Spell (magica being Italian for 'magical') is a cartoon character created in 1961 by Carl Barks for the Duck universe. An Italian sorceress, she constantly attempts to steal Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime, which she believes will play a vital role in magically obtaining the same fabulous wealth of its owner.
"

"
The dime is a key plot point in practically every story featuring Magica De Spell, a character invented by Carl Barks, as the main villain. Magica believes that by stealing the first coin earned by the richest person in the world and melting it down to a magical amulet, she can gain the power of the ancient King Midas, so that everything she touches becomes gold and she can be rich beyond her wildest dreams. The fact that this will only work if the coin indeed belongs to the richest person in the world at the time, and is the first coin that person earned, is crucial, and is made into a plot point in some stories. However, the dime only has magical value because of these circumstances and not on its own. Magica once successfully stole the Dime while helping the Beagle Boys rob McDuck, stopping when she realized this would mean McDuck would no longer be the world's richest person, rendering the Dime worthless.

According to a comic story by Don Rosa,[33] it is an 1875 Seated Liberty dime, but in a comic story written by Pat and Carol McGreal and drawn by Maximino Tortajada Aguilar,[34] the last two digits have been swapped, making it an 1857 Seated Liberty dime.

Scrooge earned the dime in 1877 in his hometown of Glasgow, when he started working as a shoeshine boy on his tenth birthday.[16] Before that it belonged to Howard Rockerduck (the father of John D. Rockerduck). The customer who paid it to him, a ditch-digger called Burt, seemingly "cheated" Scrooge. In reality, Scrooge's father, Fergus McDuck, gave Burt the dime specifically for paying Scrooge for his services. Scrooge McDuck never learned that fact, although Fergus did reveal it to Scrooge's sisters Matilda and Hortense. Burt and Magica De Spell, who learned about this when she traveled in time to the day Scrooge earned the Dime, are the only other ones who know. McDuck kept it as a reminder not to be fooled again in the future. When he emigrated to the US three years later, he carried it with him. Scrooge still has the dime and keeps it on a pillow under glass because of its sentimental value. Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Gladstone Gander among many others think it is really a lucky charm, but Scrooge himself rejects any claims beyond sentimentality.[32]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_ ... ty_coinage

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_dime

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_coinage

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Barber

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Peace_Cemetery

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Fellows

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_U ... Oddfellows

"
Grand United Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society (GUOOFS)
"

[kFoyauextlH]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism

"
Jacobitism[c] was a political ideology advocating the restoration of the senior line of the House of Stuart to the British throne. When James II of England chose exile after the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England ruled he had "abandoned" the English throne, which was given to his Protestant daughter Mary II of England, and his nephew, her husband William III.[1] On the same basis, in April the Scottish Convention awarded Mary and William the throne of Scotland.[2]
"

"
The Revolution created the principle of a contract between monarch and people, which if violated meant the monarch could be removed. A key tenet of Jacobitism was that kings were appointed by God, making the post-1688 regime illegitimate. However, it also functioned as an outlet for popular discontent, and thus was a complex mix of ideas, many opposed by the Stuarts themselves. Conflict between Prince Charles and Scottish Jacobites over the Acts of Union 1707 and divine right seriously undermined the 1745 rising.

Jacobitism was strongest in Ireland, the Western Scottish Highlands, Perthshire, and Aberdeenshire.[3] Pockets of support were also present in Wales, Northern England, the West Midlands and South West England, all areas strongly Royalist during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In addition, the Stuarts received intermittent backing from countries like France, usually dependent on their own strategic objectives.

In addition to the 1689–1691 Williamite War in Ireland and Jacobite rising of 1689 in Scotland, there were serious revolts in 1715, 1719 and 1745, French invasion attempts in 1708 and 1744, and numerous unsuccessful plots. While the 1745 Rising briefly seemed to threaten the Hanoverian monarchy, its defeat in 1746 ended Jacobitism as a serious political movement.
"

"
Scottish Gaelic: Na Seumasaich
Irish: Seacaibíteachas, Na Séamasaigh
"

"
Historian Frank McLynn identifies seven primary drivers in Jacobitism, noting that while the movement contained "sincere men [...] who aimed solely to restore the Stuarts", it "provided a source of legitimacy for political dissent of all kinds".[32] Establishing the ideology of active participants is complicated by the fact that "by and large, those who wrote most did not act, and those who acted wrote little, if anything."[33] As a result, historians have taken different views on its primary driving force. These include being an aristocratic rejection of an increasingly unitary state, feudal opposition to capitalism, or Scots and Irish nationalism.[34]

Jacobitism drew on elements of a political theology shared by Non-juring, Tory elements within the Church of England, and members of the Scottish Episcopal Church.[35] These were the divine right of kings, their accountability to God, not man or Parliament; secondly, that monarchy was a divine institution; thirdly, legitimism, the crown's descent by indefeasible dynastic right, which could not be overturned or annulled; and lastly the scriptural injunction of passive obedience and non-resistance, even towards monarchs of which the individual subject might disapprove.[36][37]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobit ... _Belle.jpg

The bluish color is beautiful.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-edi ... rite-color

"
Studies as early as 1941 indicated that bluish hues were the most preferred; just this summer, the world’s favorite color was declared to be a particular shade of greenish-blue (or was it bluish-green?) based on a 30,000-person survey canvassing 100 countries. It’s a predilection that isn’t limited to a particular geography or gender or even political affiliation—as it turns out, even Republicans generally prefer blue, too.
"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/0 ... reen-blue/

"
It is the world’s favourite colour - but nobody can decide whether it is actually blue or green
"

https://colorlib.com/wp/color-psychology-facts/

It is a word and people are meaning the same specific blue-green color we are wired to like, the chlorophyll color that is seen throughout nature and seen here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rococo_painting

"
Rococo painting represents the expression in painting of an aesthetic movement that flourished in Europe between the early and late 18th century, migrating to America and surviving in some regions until the mid-19th century. The painting of this movement is divided into two sharply differentiated camps. One forms an intimate, carefree visual document of the way of life and worldview of the eighteenth-century European elites, and the other, adapting constituent elements of the style to the monumental decoration of churches and palaces, served as a means of glorifying faith and civil power.
"

Remember, these two seemingly contrasting themes have been repeated throughout this recent writing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rococo_ ... _Swing.jpg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll

https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine-archive/node/1425

"
Our eyes and plant leaves have much in common
Published:3/25/2014 3/25/2014
Discovery initially led to accusations of flouting the law of thermodynamics, newest college Professor of Distinction recalls



By Clint Talbott

One might ask what human eyes and photosynthesis have in common. The answer, a pioneering scientist at CU-Boulder says, is, “More than you might think.”

Barbara Demmig-Adams has been named the 2013 College Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences. She discussed her work during a public presentation celebrating the honor this fall.

“Intense sunlight can actually damage the human eye, as well as leaves.” The eye absorbs light for the purpose of interpreting information, and leaves absorb light for energy to make food.

“Therefore, it is maybe not entirely surprising that eyes and leaves share things. They employ the same powerful protection against any damage from this intense light, except that plants manufacture this protection just as is needed, but we can neither manufacture this protection nor do we seem to know what we need to eat.”

Humans need to consume certain compounds that protect our eyes and other parts of the bodies against damage.I stood up there and proposed that plants do dissipate any excess light just fine, and this ‘damage’ thing had to be looked at again. ... Nothing could have prepared me for the firestorm that broke loose."

Demmig-Adams described her interest in photosynthesis this way: It is the basis of life on Earth and human civilization.
"

https://www.nature.com/articles/eye2017226

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180954729/

"
The colors we see—all different wavelengths—move by microbes swarming on the surface of our eyes, enter through the cornea and pass through the pupil. They bend through the lens and swim through the vitreous humor that keep the eye an orb. On the retina, the back of the eye, the light rays pass right through the nerve cells that will pass signals to the brain—but ignore them for now. They reach cones—that line the back of the eye and sense the differences in colors—and rods, which are color-blind but even more sensitive to light.
"

"
Plants appear green to the human eye due to the presence of chlorophyll pigment, which absorbs light in the blue and red ends of the spectrum but reflects green light.
"

https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/Qur ... a-803.html

"
To render or do the forbidden, blessed with means of subsistence, to die in youth, take up a load or burden, green, to become green in color (9th verb form), to be cut or cut off (like as dying young or fruit that is picked before it is ripe), fresh or pleasant, having much verdure.
"

https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/76/21/#gsc.tab=0

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivendell

"
In 1937, having had his manuscript for The Silmarillion rejected by a publisher who disparaged all the "eye-splitting Celtic names" that Tolkien had given his Elves, Tolkien denied the names had a Celtic origin:[T 7]

Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact "mad" as your reader says – but I don't believe I am.[T 7]

Dimitra Fimi proposes that these comments are a product of his Anglophilia rather than a commentary on the texts themselves or their actual influence on his writing, and cites evidence to this effect in her essay "'Mad' Elves and 'elusive beauty': some Celtic strands of Tolkien's mythology".[18] Fimi proposes that some of the stories Tolkien wrote as elven history are directly influenced by Celtic mythology.[18] For example, "Flight of The Noldoli" she argues, is based on the Tuatha Dé Danann and Lebor Gabála Érenn, and their migratory nature comes from early Irish/Celtic history.[18] John Garth states that with the underground enslavement of the Noldoli to Melkor, Tolkien was essentially rewriting Irish myth regarding the Tuatha Dé Danann into a Christian eschatology.[21]
"

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Undying_Lands

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Western_Lands

This ad played as I read about the "Undying Lands", f*ck, that was horrible, it kept typo'ing and then trying to explain it was also infuriatingly difficult, because of "Lanss" and "Lands" sounds so similar, and then when I tried writing the typo'ed version to type it here in the explanation and then it typed it correctly when not intended! There is in that little tale a message, I try not to write things without additional layers of meaning for meditative purposes.

Likewise, at the same time, there are two shoppers working for the same company and even purchasing for the same buyer, me, who are unaware that they are doing that, as they cross by each other in the store, they don't know that they are both workers for the same company, or even shopping for the same person! They are completely isolated and cut off from each other, making complaining amongst themselves difficult, and organizing to get better rights, which is just what a company would ideally want, completely isolated people working as blind cogs in a machine to enrich unknown masters.



When I looked up at it, it was showing an interview with people involved with the film, interspersed with the trailer, so it said "Death Lives".

I had been looking at a "(Aztec/American) Death Whistle" from Amazon.ca, the World's Most Convenient Consumer Hub, for months, maybe even years now, considering potentially purchasing one, but also not necessarily liking or being able to feel comfortable using it in this apartment building where one can hear through the walls and I maintain a lot of silence like a monk.

It is all meant to sound weird, like that the place is called Amazon, like the Amazon Jungle, that they are selling a modern recreation of an ancient technology that produced the sound of people screaming as if in terrible distress or being tortured.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Myrkul

I'm trying to understand and figure out uses for these symbols:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Three

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Dead_Three



That title made me laugh:

"
Why do folk talk about The Dead Three like they're losers?

In game characters talk about Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul as if they're pathetic. They are human adventurers who presumably reached max level and boot strapped themselves to godhood with hard work and great cunning. The fact they never give up and keep grinding no matter who they are up against is seen as annoying, rather than admirable. I looked for a list of Faerun gods who were human and the best list was about 20 names long. Of all the millions of people who ever lived in that world, only 20 beat the odds, and three of them are these guys who are considered losers. Why?
"

The name of the person who posted it is reminiscent of The Addams Family:

https://www.reddit.com/user/MorbidParamour/

Morbid Paramour

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.4993494 ... f8f8f8.jpg



https://listofdeaths.fandom.com/wiki/Li ... ved_Deaths



https://crimereads.com/high-net-worth-v ... e-fiction/

"
It’s true. As readers, the only thing we love more than a bad person getting what’s coming to them is a bad rich person getting what’s coming to them. Agatha Christie knew it when she skewered the American gangster in Murder on the Orient Express. She knew it when she used a poison-tipped dart to do away with grisly moneylender Madame Giselle in Death in the Clouds, and later when she poisoned the wealthy matriarch Mrs. Boynton in Appointment with Death.
"

"
According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, J*w*sh again ranked as the most financially successful religious group in the United States, with 44% of J*ws living in households with incomes of at least $100,000, followed by Hindu (36%), Episcopalians (35%), and Presbyterians (32%).[13] Amongst J*ws, in 2016, Modern Orthodox J*ws had a median household income of $158,000, while Open Orthodoxy J*ws had a median household income of $185,000 (compared to the American median household income of $59,000 in 2016).[14]
"

https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-survey-sho ... -to-israel

https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-po ... ing-gazans

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx9l4x7xjno

"
Baroness Golding said her dad told her of people at the camps who were "skin and bones with vacant eyes".

She added: "We need to remember this, so it can never happen again."

Despite wanting to preserve this valuable evidence, Mr Edwards could not face having the piece of lampshade in his home, so gave it to his son to keep safe.
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_Revolt

"
The uprisings unfolded almost simultaneously across various provinces of the Roman East. In Egypt, Libya and Cyprus, J*w*sh actions were primarily directed against local populations rather than the Roman authorities,[8] with accounts from historians like Cassius Dio and Eusebius, as well as epigraphical evidence, documenting extreme violence, including mass killings and the destruction of temples.[9]
"

"
Dio's account describes the J*ws of Libya as engaging in shockingly violent and cruel behavior.[9] They are said to have engaged in cannibalism, mutilation, and other brutal acts, including using the victims' skins and entrails to make clothing and belts, and staging gladiatorial and wild beast shows.[45][42] Dio reported that the J*w*sh rebels in Cyrenaica were responsible for approximately 220,000 Gentile deaths,[45]
"

"
Epigraphical sources provide evidence of attacks on religious and civic structures, including temples and statues.[9] In Cyrene, for instance, the sanctuary of Apollo witnessed the destruction and burning of the baths, porticoes, ball-courts, and other nearby structures during the uprising. The temple of Hecate also suffered destruction and was burned down in the uprising. Significant damage is also recorded at the Caesareum and the temple of Zeus.[9][15] Bishop Synesius, a native of Cyrene from the early 5th century, also refers to the devastation caused by the J*ws, four centuries after the revolt.[47]

The archaeological evidence, including inscriptions, sheds light on the significant destruction caused by the J*ws in Cyrenaica during the revolt.[48] A Hadrianic milestone commemorates the repair of the road connecting Cyrene with its port, Apollonia, "which had been overturned and smashed up in the J*wish revolt," possibly in anticipation of a Roman military advance from the sea.[9][45] Joyce Reynolds notes significant damage to the sanctuary of Asclepius at Balagrae, west of Cyrene, which was later rebuilt under the Antonine dynasty.[15][9] The presence of a deeply incised seven-branched m*n*r*h—a symbol indicative of J*w*sh presence—on a road northwest of Balagrae may suggest, according to Reynolds, that J*ws deliberately sought to disrupt the route connecting Cyrene with neighboring regions to the west.[9] The destruction of a small second-century temple near modern El Dab'a in Marmarica is likely also attributable to the J*w*sh rebels.[15]
"

"
Lukuas's forces, supported by Egyptian Jews who rallied to his side, continued to plunder the Egyptian chora (countryside) and destroy various districts throughout Egypt.[50] Papyrological evidence indicates that the revolt indeed affected extensive areas, including the Athribite district, the region around Memphis (noted for its antisemitism), the Faiyum, Oxyrhynchus, and the Herakleopolite nome. Further south, fighting also impacted the Kynopolite, Hermopolite, Lycopolite, and Apollinopolite districts.[26] It seems that the Jewish forces were well-organized and capable of presenting serious military challenges to their adversaries; as they moved through Egyptian villages, they quickly overcame local resistance.[51]
"

Haha, they excuse it by interjecting "(noted for its antisemitism)" without facing that their history, their book, which is a big part of their culture, even if they are atheistic now or were then like the Sicarii were said to have been, repeatedly encourages, promotes, praises, and goes beyond even merely normalizing these exact sorts of actions they have been repeatedly bringing to life which target civilians and even little children and babies:

https://www.arabnews.jp/en/middle-east/article_151834/

"
Prof. Nick Maynard, a gastrointestinal surgeon working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told the BBC that he and his colleagues are encountering “clear patterns of injury” in young casualties, including “certain body parts on different days, such as the head, legs or genitals.”

Speaking to the “Today” program on BBC Radio 4, Maynard said: “On one day they’ll all be abdominal gunshot wounds, on another they’ll all be head gunshot wounds or neck gunshot wounds, on another they’ll be arm or leg gunshot wounds.”

He added: “It’s almost as if a game is being played, that they’re deciding to shoot the head today, the neck tomorrow, the testicles the day after.”

Maynard said the victims at the aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which he called “death traps,” tend more often than not to be teenaged boys.

“These are mainly from the militarized distribution points, where starving civilians are going to try and get food but then report getting targeted by Israeli soldiers or quadcopters,” he added.

“A 12-year-old boy I was operating on died from his injuries on the operating table — he’d been shot through the chest.”

GHF sites, backed by the US and Israel, are manned by private contractors and Israeli soldiers.

At least 875 Palestinians seeking food at the centers have been killed by live fire since May, according to the UN.

Maynard said levels of malnutrition seen in young patients are affecting their ability to recover from their wounds.

“The repairs that we carry out fall to pieces, patients get terrible infections, and they die,” he added. “I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover.”

The BBC said other medics working in central and southern Gaza had also reported patterns of gunshot wounds in people shot at GHF centers.
"

https://fonpeter.wordpress.com/2023/04/ ... nd-forget/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgiveness



https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/inte ... ould-it-be



https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-who ... ay-with-it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitem ... ial_hatred

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:39

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

"
Former American Vice President Dick Cheney said that his support of American use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against suspected terrorists was unchanged by the fact that 25% of CIA detainees subject to that treatment were later proven to be innocent, including one who died of hypothermia in CIA custody. "I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that in fact were innocent." Asked whether the 25% margin was too high, Cheney responded, "I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective. ... I'd do it again in a minute."[29]
"

"
Volokh considers two criminal cases in which the defence told the jury "that no innocent person should be convicted and that it is better that many guilty go unpunished than one innocent person be convicted" as references to a Blackstone's ratio with values of both "infinite" and "many" guilty men to an innocent one.[30] He notes its importance in the inspiration of Western criminal law, but concludes by citing a question of its soundness:

The story is told of a Chinese law professor, who listened as a British lawyer explained that Britons were so enlightened that they believed it was better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be executed. The Chinese professor thought for a second and asked, "Better for whom?"[31]
"

https://nationalpost.com/feature/canada ... ice-system

https://www.om.nl/binaries/om/documente ... ngels_.pdf

https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/hait ... ows-enarhe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_justice

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 1622000519

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_justice_in_Ghana

https://www.dw.com/en/south-africa-nige ... a-70832801

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866208

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-authoritarianism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... of_victims

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_crime

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-s ... _terrorism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

"
The Reign of Terror (French: La Terreur, lit. 'The Terror') was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to the Federalist revolts, revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. While terror was never formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention, it was more often employed as a concept.[3]
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_revolts

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_A ... Saint-Just

"
Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just[a] (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ʒyst]; 25 August 1767 – 28 July 1794), sometimes nicknamed the Archangel of Terror,[1][2][3] was a French revolutionary, political philosopher, member and president of the French National Convention, a Jacobin club leader, and a major figure of the French Revolution. The youngest person elected to the National Convention, he was a member of the Mountain faction and a steadfast supporter and close friend of Robespierre. He was swept away in Robespierre's downfall on 9 Thermidor, Year II.
"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mountain

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... -asset.png

https://www.parismuseescollections.pari ... k=xkmF3c2g





I saw a bit of a terrible film called Shirley which horrendously lies about some author.

These films must be significantly better than that totally obnoxious film with shockingly bad acting in it as well. Somehow the director goes ahead and just keeps making stuff and no one seems to ever say how totally sh*t her work is:

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls006466313/? ... date%2Casc

10:27

So I found this guy wearing and mentioning symbols similar to my own, and then I saw their page and profile:

Huehuecóyotl

https://m.youtube.com/@Hue_Hue_Coyotl

https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/WUnuv ... ffff-no-rj

"
All American Anarcho-Commie, fed up with the Two Party System. It's the same bullshit that's left us all stranded.
No system should govern on the basis of its own justification.
It always makes me laugh when Conservatives speak on propaganda. If they could ever get their heads out of their asses, and see past the bullshit, they might find themselves Anarchists and Socialists themselves. Libs = Trash, and equally complicit in giving Republicans everything they want. The Government is Hellishly Compromised, and has been for long. Money is power, and power is ultimate in decision-making. It is reserved only for the top Capital owners. Any suggestion of help for the common man has been met with a trained hatred, while assistance to those at the top are all the rage at every meeting. The age of American Empire as we know it is nigh on done, and we've got to see to it as a country that the change comes from the ground up. A horizontal shift in power by the people, for the people.
"

I can't find any good music on their channel lol. I've had and have been surrounded by the coyote symbol and identification since infancy.

I take totemism as a real human experience and tendency that I take as perhaps a little more seriously and meaningful than a lot of others might these days, so if I see someone really identifying with and seeing themselves in a certain animal, I like to see what might end up being linked to that or what it could mean, and if there are similarities between others who may choose similar ways of being represented, showing themselves to others, and being seen by themselves and others.

It can be non-animal too, the clues people end up providing as to what they may be like and what camp on sone more indirect abd abstract or overall level, a mystical and spiritual level even, they may seem to belong to.

I reject other things though as not necessarily being totemic, like the way certain creeps use symbols like My Little Pony and Wolves, Darth Vader or Storm Troopers, or cats that I've been seeing a lot, and all those who choose these do clearly fall into camps and types, and it seems to mean a lot that they chose these, but I can't accept that they are truly "Ponies" and "Wolves" and "Skeletons/Grim Reapers" or whatever, or cat-like, but are doing it for other reasons, and that is also because I love all those animals and these people are typically the most irritating pieces of sh*t anyone could conceive of, so "say it ain't so"!

The My Little Pony people are extremely belligerent, often contrarian, but mainly just rude, insulting, and suppressive, and like an idea of universal dumbness and conflict, they do indeed have a herd mentality and stampede type trampling mentality that they are very clearly all about really, plus in many cases they even imitate the hairstyles of the ponies, but they are not, I can not accept that they are truly horse spirits and that horses are such despicable creatures as they are, but there is even reason to think that ponies and horses really are potentially vile at times too.

Various political groups and shills seem to use these images and organize under them, such as the wolves always having a similar agenda in their writing. Again, they are operating somewhat like wolves, but I think that is all deliberate, not that these are true wolf spirits. They just like the idea of organizing and a hierarchy and working together to harass and take down people, but real wolves aren't evil pieces of sh*t like the people using the symbol, it is similar to how people might try to use images associated with Islam or Muslims to present themselves as totally propaganda inspired and affirming t*rror cosplayers, but they aren't real Muslims or anything like a person from any Muslim culture or background, or even beyond that those who are more sincerely and authentically Muslim through liking, agreeing with, believing in, and following the Qur'an and living a spiritual life at all times, which is a rare breed anyway.

"
The global wolf population is estimated to be between 200,000 and 250,000, primarily gray wolves.
"

"
The global cat population is estimated to be between 600 million and 1 billion cats,
"

"
The world population of humans is estimated to be over 8 billion people
"

Also, possibly from a Buddhist tradition originally, the Sikhs, particularly with the Singh name and from that sub section of the population that takes special vows, take on the identity of lions, as do Rastafarians, but that shouldn't mean that they are all really lion people, they should be all different, linking to different animal aspects, and often the people linked to certain animals, and most of the time it may even be multiple animals, should even look like or have aspects of their appearance showing these similarities or signs, besides their behaviours, and despite personal choices or preferences even, though they may come to prefer these things, they should have shown up more by themselves first or without too much purposefulness involved for me to consider it more interesting, though even deliberate choices say a lot about a personality, but it also seems a lot less natural and preternatural.

There are also choices where a person may be forced or pressured by factors like racism, so like a taurine figure selected by an African American male due to finding that they may already be seeing themselves looking like how the bull figure is depicted, along with other associations, but not necessarily that they would have ever even cared for a bull in any other way had it not been anthropomorphized and made similar to an African American male stereotype and maybe even given an African American voice actor as well. I especially hate how modern racism, which seems even more virile and insidious than even those periods that are brought up as examples of horrendous propaganda, polemics, and manipulations by institutions and the state and other groups influencing people and the public consciousness, and now it is back in such an open way as people are frequently denying certain examples of it which are impacting minds, and sadly and most disturbingly for me, the targeted populations are being influenced to conform and identify with things made for them and practically imposed upon them and they are being pressured to link themselves exclusively to certain things they are told are theirs but which are seemingly just nee collars and carcans made by the dominant groups and oppressors who really don't care about them and even hate them, just like how East Asian people have so many irritating stereotypes, both positive and negative, forced upon them and made into expectations that a lot of people may end up interacting with them very differently than they might a caucasian person, and that totally sucks and I hate to see or sense it or suspect it, and very few people seem to be able to escape it, and it creates a whole loop of trouble that keeps amplifying things, even becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

Among the various people, they all still have different individual combinations of things that make for more specific affinities and associations with them that seem to go beyond even their nuclear family, where the various people in the family may be very closely genetically related but seem to have very separate personalities, and one might find themselves linked more to some other animals than even their twin, but otherwise more certainly their siblings and parents.

The same goes for other animals as well, each has their own personalities. A cat that might do things more like a shark, or a cat that acts more like a spider. Nobody and nothing seems to be what it just appears as in a vague way, but everything seems to be more and "other" and "else". The core, or one of the major elements running behind everything even from the beginning may be a drive for stimulation and an aversion to boredom or the opposite of activity and then what seems to be of interest.

I believe that animals are little to no different from the human animal, and so would likely subscribe to ideas like imitation, association, and totemism themselves, if they don't actually already, but there are videos of animals using buttons to communicate and they seem to have no problem with making these connections and understanding them in ways similar to or identical to human beings, even able to formulate jokes by associations and similarities.



I'll keep this quote here because I enjoy imagining it like it is something from an old documentary:

"
"
@minnminni
5 hours ago
Stop this useless crying. DO SOMETHING

10
4



@JIMMYS_VIEW
3 hours ago
Do what exactly? Fight God? Are you stupid? Many have tried, and ALL have failed! What makes you think that you can defeat God?

2



@minnminni
3 hours ago (edited)
@JIMMYS_VIEW your self righteousness is appalling

@JFL.Productions
2 hours ago
@JIMMYS_VIEW what makes you think God is supportive of Israel???




@aFoxyFox.
0 seconds ago
Jimmy thinks God was on the side of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and N**i of Germany, among others. Jimmy is mentally r*tarded you see.
"
"

Now there is a giant house spider or something, but on the smaller end but still large, crawling around in areas I can't reach to capture and take outside, causing me stress, so even in my own cramped living space I have lots of problems I can't resolve which continue to stress me out, like what if it enters this room, and if this painful two dots that showed up on my face, like a kiss, is a spider's. Otherwise my beautiful face is now further marked with burst blood vessels and other signs of damage, however still minimal after nearly 40 years.

So I shut my door, closing myself in further, even within my closed apartment, to smaller and smaller spaces, perhaps like a spider myself, a recluse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loxoscelism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_hole

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider

The spider I mentioned above is in my room now, next to my bed on the wall, but hiding where I can't get it.

"
@rexrocker1268
7 hours ago
This dude was legit crazy. I can’t cut my hair now. It’s like I have long hair right now. I’m gonna cut soon and I’m not trans. I’m going to donate it to make wigs for small children, dying of cancer or maybe hopefully surviving. I’ve been growing my hair for the last three years and I do wanna cut it. But I’m gonna donate it to the children with like bone cancer and stuff like that. I grew it cause I’m lazy and also I thought if I grow long enough, I can donate it like I did last time when I had long hair 20 years ago.

2

@aFoxyFox.
0 seconds ago
Hmm.

@starlowell5432
9 hours ago
Dad of the shooter is/was a CIA contractor!! They knew!

70
2



@christopherjakel1049
7 hours ago
Where are you getting that from?

4

@waltermacpherson3648
2 hours ago
I heard that too!

@TreeFreak
8 hours ago
Rumors abound that his dad was in the CIA for 29 years or so. Where is his father?
"

"
@aFoxyFox.
0 seconds ago
So much fuss about 2 kids and barely a peep when Iz blows up lots of kids in places of worship regularly by the same who then fuss about "their own", is it because some people don't think of those "others" as even human and no different from these two kids? I despise the grotesque double standards because "these were Americans, this is America". These were human beings, this is the Earth, and if 2 kids harmed is bad, how about so many hundreds of thousands m**med and m*rd*r*d daily with American w**p*ns and funding, meaning you people and your taxes and those representing you on "both sides", are responsible ultimately.
"

The spider was caught and removed, then another of the same size appeared hours later, and I caught and removed that one as well!

I don't know if you got a chance to read this one that may have been the finale, where I decided that there is only ever one response and that it is wrong to ever have any interaction or give any response than the one. So that even those who continue to try to give any other response or have a different interaction than the one are now in the wrong too.

Added in 3 days 15 hours 43 minutes 31 seconds:
Re: Lolth: Web
https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/r ... row1.shtml

https://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexsh ... lolth.html

Added in 1 day 5 hours 37 minutes 41 seconds:
Re: Lolth: Web
Really interesting that you brought up the word Cybernetic as I was saying "Cybernetic" a few hours earlier or last night before this topic came up in relation to 90s music and how some songs would just say isolated seeming non sequitur words that were inspiring along with techno industrial heavy metal music, and that is part of how I was raised and what I liked so much from that time where I was in comparison so much less plagued and perturbed.

Now mankind is constantly brainwashed into taking on abd joining in on feuds and to enter into the place of characters supposed to be "real" who have something as truly uncommon and unlike what the general populace should ever have, which are "enemies".

No one dislikes me, I have no real life enemies or hostilities, I'm barely known to anyone at all. The only places and circumstances anyone has ever appeared even slightly rude to me have been in contexts where they don't know me at all, they have an agenda, and they are also lacking in tact and are probably practiced at being unpleasant and taking out their frustrations on complete strangers, often when they have a lot of faith that there won't be any way for that to become a problem or dangerous for them.

Like the dream which I mentioned in the post, the truth is that most things seem to be friendly and "enemies" and hostile forces never really seem to be anywhere for the most part, and the scarier instances seem to be from people who are messed up and don't know a person either.

The people are constantly vicariously taking up feuds which sound like foods and beefs which are foods for some and stressing themselves out with all kinds of team sports, while they sit in a vacuum like a non sequitur themselves.

We have little ti nothing to do with anything, and actually that is great too, a relief, except that it is hard to see how that is really true and the case and furthermore why that is fine, though we wouldn't be able to do much about it in the vast majority of cases anyway. I had to run and catch a spider to take outside, a different type from any of the recent ones mentioned.

Added in 8 hours 57 minutes 39 seconds:
Re: Lolth: Web
This lady:

https://m.youtube.com/@lolawoleka

Wrote:

"
very chill misandrist. good at words. nyc/chicago.
"

I don't know if it is a joke, and I don't think it is, but it surprised and shocked me a little, like just casually admitting to hatred. Like it is hard to imagine someone getting good results or benefiting from admitting to hatred of anything, but particularly to say that they are misogynists or other words which are like a big no no, but this one isn't an issue maybe because andros, roughly 50 percent of the world population?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio

https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about ... the-world/

I guess if I was that or something, and wanted people to know that about me because I thought they should, then I would like the freedom to admit it, but how could anyone avoid stigma and rousing hostilities by just starting off with hate, and of something so vast?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misandry

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masculism

Though a person may have better results with something even vaster, like:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Misanthropes

Though this sometimes doesn't go down as well, except maybe when Buddhists suggest it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-life

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

Is it not then:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny

Since it is against:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_reproduction

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality

https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Asexual

https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Asexual_spectrum

https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DABi ... ure=shared

https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHdc ... ure=shared

Always with the sh*tting on words and concepts, breaking the rules and parameters of words to make them meaningless.



Every year more people reach a point where everything has to be retaught.



https://twssmagazine.com/2024/08/12/bal ... tionships/

https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2022/12/wh ... nist-take/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9893301/

https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/view ... t%3Dtheses

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminis ... _sexuality



https://zawn.substack.com/p/can-women-r ... -to-sex-in

https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewc ... t%3Dmcnair

https://feminisminindia.com/2020/01/16/ ... hal-world/

https://www.nextgenmen.ca/blog/mens-rel ... m-feminism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_knight

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_knight

https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/White_knighting

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread. ... ould-think

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drow

https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DcQp ... ure=shared

https://www.efupw.com/efu1-forum/topic/ ... w-culture/

https://gamingphilosopher.blogspot.com/ ... s.html?m=1

https://www.darkshire.net/%7Ejhkim/rpg/ ... etext.html



https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Menzoberranzan

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menzoberranzan



https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1028-we ... Ca8mfRnvz_

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki ... row_houses

https://ojs.library.dal.ca/YAHS/article ... 1883/10694



https://www.gender-agenda.org.uk/why-th ... -feminism/

https://thefword.org.uk/2009/09/feminism_and_th/

https://www.tumblr.com/thenightling/185 ... bit-is-not

https://www.vampires.com/are-vampire-stories-sexist/

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/95d534b0

https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/t ... nardi/3228

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/ar ... sm/682704/

https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/__data ... venson.pdf

https://liisbeth.com/is-feminism-dead-again/index.html





This person is annoying, not mentioning countries.

My Mother seems to have gotten hacked so the hacker or bot is sending me non-stop links from Tik Tok.

Oh, no, it was just My Mother

[kFoyauextlH]

Regarding the Emergency Warning Test and sound on phones:

"
Wow! That is really interesting to see, and they even have that Welsh portion these days, I wonder if that has always been the case or how long ago that started to be included. It also reminds me of 28 Days Later. I also wonder if it is the very same sound that occurs in other places, like here. I saw a video clip the other day where someone was filming their TikTok or Instagram video and was interrupted by something like this. I am increasingly feeling like taking measures to banish my phone. It is my only connection to the outside while I’m inside, and some kind of sound proof box where I wouldn’t be informed of the Zombies would do the trick.
Just like everything pretty much, I get the impression I’m the “zombie” they are talking about anyway in those films, so what good does it do me to hear news of my compatriots supposedly running amok or “kidnapping” their own “kids”? That was the last one I heard maybe, some guy had driven away with his own disabled daughter, and I didn’t think much of it, meaning I might be a little bit on the side of that guy too, or at the very least feel constipated about it. Lol, I hope I’m the first to use the term in such a way, as an alternative to not giving a…Why, WHY, does this nauseating world keep trying to involve me with things I can do nothing about and also don’t want to do anything about in many cases? Why do they want me to feel involved and then constantly remind me how uninvolved and powerless I am? It practically amounts to bullying, and I HATE that MY devices are complicit, and working in cahoots with organizations I did not tell it to! It is a little spy living with me, watching me, whispering foul things to me that I don’t want to hear or screeching violently! Who do you work for?! I’ll see if there is some kind of No Signal Dead Box to store this in. This thing sleeps right next to me and is the first thing I look at sometimes, and that wasn’t what I did all my life until rather recently, and it just so happens that my life seemed better in many ways back then, possibly for other reasons, but the phone will bear the crucifix and maybe I’ll be forgiven of all that weighs on me, until I pick it up again. This phone is everything in my days now, I practically worship more than anything, Mirror, Mirror, which also looks like a Wall, why can’t you tale a good picture of me at all?
"

Added in 2 days 16 hours 36 minutes 30 seconds:
Re: Lolth: Web
I'm watching this film called Cuckoo.

Scenes in it look like they were inspired by a few things, including images from a music video I posted in this thread.

I moved all the posts to join them together in the first few posts since I deleted so much here.

This film is very "on theme" for this thread so far, extremely so.

This is the 2024 film with Dan Stevens in a very funny performance.

The elements in the film connect to themes in this thread.

I'll either replace all the numerous empty lots with more material or they can be deleted up until the consolidated posts. If they are left around I will continue to fill them up until this post.

Throughout the entire forum, unless you mind or object and prefer that I do not do it, I plan on filling in all available sections with quite a bit more, besides also making new posts as I have been.

I don't like deleting or losing my writing but if I happen upon anything that I think might not be good for the site anymore, I'll put it somewhere else off of the website, but I think for the most part everything is fine.

I don't tend to like one liners for my own posts so I might go through and minimize those by putting them together into longer posts or added much more to them, so that space isn't wasted with old one liners of single links.

Somewhere along the line though, I will hopefully figure out how to make shorter posts and also more conversational types of posts even though the answers to such may not be too likely just yet while the population is low.

What I have been achieving recently again though have been, for myself at least, really productive meditative rides, and they seem to be getting better in some ways, or maybe a little easier for me, as what occurs in this thread is quite a bit more difficult in some ways, though all the posts or experiences are quite complex still, but don't include the deletions that I made here which is a layer to this theme also, like how webs are weaved and un-weaved and have opened spaces between the lines.

If you view the video I placed at the top of the first thread if you haven't already, that also relates to a lot of the thinking abd themes related to what this thread is about, similar to this film.

I'd reccomend seeing the film before reading anything about it or seeing trailers or getting spoilers. I'm even quite a bit into the film already and don't know what it is about, but do know it has a lot to do with ideas that this thread is meant to bring up too.

Added in 2 days 5 hours 8 minutes 45 seconds:
Re: Lolth: Web
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuchigumo

Added in 6 hours 13 minutes 1 second:
Re: Lolth: Web
I'm reading:

https://archive.org/download/DragonMaga ... ine129.pdf

There is relevant and disturbingly true and scary stuff in it, I was explaining some of what is scary about it in detail and the whole thing I wrote got deleted, something about this thread and the theme of this thread seems to have to do with that, like not saying or showing certain things, things getting deleted and blanked out, the whole thing is scary and puts me on alert. I will show you some relevant sections, but it also mentions The Forgotten Realms, which is mostly what I use throughout the forum these days:

"
Children of the
Spider Goddess
The darkest elves’ point of view
by Eric Oppen
The drow, or dark elves, are easily the
most distinctive elves found in the AD&D®
game. From their very appearance to their
way of life, dark elves are as different
from surface elves as is possible; in more
ways than one, dark elves are like photo-
graphic negatives of surface elves. At the
same time, the common ancestry of dark
and surface elves shows up in the many
similarities between the races. Indeed, the
enmity between these races could well lie
in the fact that each side sees a horrid
caricature of itself in the other.
Pride and personality
The key to the dark elf’s personality is
pride. Any dark elf, no matter how lowly
his station, feels that he is a natural aristo-
crat. No matter how powerful a nondrow
is, or how awe-inspiring his achievements
are, the most open praise a dark elf will
usually give is: “You did about as well as
could be expected, for a [fill in racial
name].” When dealing with drow, other
beings often note a hint of elaborate,
subtle mockery in the dark elven manner.
When among other races, even the hum-
blest beggar-drow carries himself like a
prince in exile.
For a dark elf, pride in clan comes just
after pride in self. The achievements of a
noble house are believed to reflect upon
all its members; a merchant clan’s suc-
cesses, for example, are sources of pride
for each member. At the same time, this
pride often leads to bitter feuds between
noble houses, since no drow is willing to
believe that a house other than his own
should be more prominent in a drow
colony. These internecine feuds often
grow very nasty, with assassins plying
their trade briskly or with open battles
breaking out in little-traveled corridors.
One reason the drow give for the preemi-
Illustration by Richard Bennett
nence of the priestesses of Lolth among
them is that the priestesses ensure that
these feuds are never taken to the point of
endangering any one colony of drow. As a
result, many dark-elven ballads celebrate
heroes and heroines whose loyalty to their
clans and kin saved the day.
The third sort of pride all dark elves feel
is pride in their race and its accomplish-
ments. To be sure, the drow do have rea-
sons for being proud. In one of the most
threatening environments on the Prime
Material Plane, they not only survive but
thrive within and dominate their sur-
roundings. Dark-elven legend states that in
the beginning, all elves were challenged to
enter the underworld and test themselves
against its elements. The ancestors of the
drow accepted this challenge, and were
made different from all other elves to
commemorate their courage. Because of
this, dark elves scorn their surface-
dwelling kinfolk for choosing the easy,
untroubled life. “More danger, more glory”
is a common drow saying.
Dark societies
Some commentators have wondered
how the chaotic-evil drow manage to hold
themselves together and survive at all,
much less how they have done as well as
they have. The answer lies in clan loyalty,
as noted earlier. Even the most chaotic,
evil, and primitive drow differentiate
between the “in group” with whom an
individual cooperates and the “out groups”
who are fair game. This is reflected among
primitive tribes in our own world: Many
of the names these tribes give themselves
translate as “the people,“ indicating that
outsiders are not quite regarded as hu-
man. The drow feel much the same, al-
though more so about their merchant clan
or noble house, purely as a matter of
survival. Clan loyalty among dark elves is
intense and deep, even though it does not
preclude nonlethal infighting for positions,
of dominance within the group. The drow
feel that leadership should go to those
who show themselves worthy, and a
leader worthy of the title is able to keep
subordinates loyal to the clan.
Drow adventurers are usually social
exiles, and have no clan to which they may
cleave. This loss tends to make drow ad-
venturers intensely loyal to their adven-
turing party, although their normal
tendency for domination is exacerbated by
dealing with nondrow. Such a drow de-
fends the group with fervor and fury
(simply as a matter of survival) in order to
preserve the only surface-dwellers with
whom he feels even partially comfortable
— yet may constantly quarrel with and
engage in petty rivalries with group mem-
bers when with the group alone.
One tendency drow share with the other
elves is a deep appreciation of beauty and
quality in all things. For the drow, this
appreciation is manifested in a drive to
excel at whatever is done. A drow crafts-
man with centuries of perspective thinks
nothing of taking a few decades off to
become skilled in some new craft tech-
nique. This drive for excellence ensures
that any items manufactured by drow are
of the best quality and beauty. The love of
beauty is somewhat spoiled by the sharp
and egotistical pride they feel in viewing
their own works.
The drow love of beauty is one main
reason their race engages in the construc-
tion of free-standing buildings in the high,
wide caverns they favor. Queried on this
practice, a drow often responds: “What
scope for skill can holes grubbed out of
the rock afford?” This tendency for build-
ing runs contrary to that of most other
underground races.
The drive to excel at all things, com-
bined with personal pride, tempts most
dark elves to leave menial work to slaves
or servants, thus providing the free-time
for studying spell-casting or practicing the
warrior’s arts. Even drow thieves and
assassins take great pride in their skills,
often competing to see who can steal the
most in a set time, or to see who can assas-
sinate a particularly difficult target first.
Dark-elven society, unlike that of any
known race of surface elves, is basically
matriarchal. Whether or not this came
from the widespread worship of the de-
moness Lolth is unknown. In any case,
noble houses are usually led by their most
dominant female member. The males
accept this rule without cavil. Like other
elves, the dark elves do not discriminate
against a dark elf of proven ability simply
on account of sex (noble houses led by
males exist, though they are rare).
The priestesses of Lolth, along with their
male assistants, form an elite group and
provide such race-wide leadership as
exists. When an intrafamily vendetta
threatens the colony, or an outside threat
has been detected, the priestesses of Lolth
usually rally the other dark elves to their
banner. No drow could willingly accept
domination by any single noble house, but
those who serve Lolth serve a cause that
almost all evil (and even some neutral)
dark elves revere.
The drow adventurer
Drow adventurers are even rarer than
halfling adventurers. A drow needs very
powerful motives to leave his or her clan.
One common motive for such departure is
alignment. Any good-aligned dark elf finds
his entire society repugnant. The casual
acceptance of betrayal and treachery as
methods of advancing the clan’s cause, the
worship of Lolth and trafficking with
other demons and devils, the casual cru-
elty with which slaves are treated — all of
this tends to alienate a good dark elf.
Attempts at reforming drow society might
follow, only to be promptly quelled by the
amused majority. When a good dark elf
has had enough, he might well decide to
defect to the side of the predominantly
good, surface-dwelling races.
Evil drow might also find themselves
trying their luck among the surface-
dwellers. In this case, the predominant
motive could well be that their clans have
been virtually destroyed as a result of a
vendetta or assassins’ war. With no clan
and many enemies, the surface might hold
fewer terrors than the drow’s subterra-
nean home.
Still another motive that could apply to
any drow adventurer is greed. Dark elves
are well aware of their relative advantages
over other races, and a dissatisfied dark
elf might easily decide to put his skills to
use against inferior opposition. This sort
of dark elf usually plans a brief surface
sojourn with intentions of returning much
richer than when he set out.
As can be expected with such a unique
race of beings, the dark elves approach
each profession in their own distinctive
manner. Often, their perspective on a
given profession is unlike that of any other
22 JANUARY 1988
known race.
Dark-elven cavaliers are immediately
recognizable (even in full plate mail with a
closed visor) by the holstered hand-
crossbow they invariably carry. Since
cavaliers must start out as good charac-
ters, these dark elves are converts from
evil. Like many other converts, they are
often more fervent about the cause than
those whose lives have been spent in its
service. Good and neutral drow cavaliers
are among the most relentless foes evil
has. Their race is often an advantage in
itself, for many evil beings are more at
home in darkness — an element in which
the drow operates at peak efficiency. As
the drow reach higher levels, their innate
spells become more useful, particularly
against enemies who are unaware of the
fact that they’re up against a dark elf.
Dark-elven clerics are almost all female.
Unlike other elves, dark-elven females have
unlimited advancement in the clerical class,
which gives rise to some anomalous situa-
tions. A case is known in which a dark-
elven female cleric of Corellon Larethian
rose far past the highest level that the
worship of Corellon Larethian normally
allowed. Like regular cavaliers, good-
aligned, dark-elven clerics are particularly
remorseless in battling evil; their familiarity
fuels their hatred of it.
Fighters hold a relatively low status
among dark elves, even among the ranks
of adventurers. Most dark-elven fighters
are multi-classed, if any talent for another
career exists. No dark elf likes to think
that all he is good for is fighting. Neverthe-
less, a dark elf with fighting skills alone
works just as hard to perfect these skills
as he would in any other profession.
Drow rangers are a rare and special
breed. Like dark-elven cavaliers, they are
usually converts from evil, and are just as
fervent against it as are dark-elven cava-
liers. Not surprisingly, drow rangers pre-
fer operating at night, making them
invaluable members of any rangers’ orga-
nization. Since many evil beings think that
the night is their time, a few drow rangers
can often be more effective than their
numbers warrant. This is due, in part, to
the overconfidence of their foes. Taking
advantage of their race’s evil reputation
also helps. A drow ranger has a better
chance of entering an orc encampment
and being accepted as a nonthreatening
stranger than any surface-dwelling demi-
human does.
Magic-users among the drow tend to be
male for the same reasons that female
drow tend to be clerics. Often, a dark-
elven male who chafes at female domina-
tion within his society takes up magic in
an effort to excel at something few female
drow are capable of. Good drow magic-
users tend to be less dismayed over the
concept of dealing with demons than they
do over dealing with magic-users of other
races, especially since drow magic-users
are so familiar with various beings from
the lower planes.
Thieves and thief-acrobats of dark-elven
race steal primarily to prove their super-
iority over nondrow characters. Their
predilection for operating in darkness,
combined with their innate spell-ability
and high dexterity, make drow thieves
difficult to stop. In thieves’ guilds, dark
elves often specialize in the kinds of jobs
that cause other thieves to despair. Drow
thieves believe that success where other
thieves fear to dare demonstrates dark-
elven superiority.
Drow assassins seldom bother to go
adventuring. In drow society, these char-
acters perform a function that is both
valuable and in high demand, and one in
which they take great pride. In the eternal
cold war between various noble houses
and their associated merchant clans, dark-
elven assassins often do the perilous work
of removing leaders who pose a particular
threat. At other times, they perform the
task of removing particularly charismatic
troublemakers who threaten dark-elven
society with reform or the overthrow of
Lolth’s priestesses. Since the drow seldom
dare to war openly among themselves, the
skillful assassin receives much of the sta-
tus that a fighter receives among other
races. In fact, the drow attempt to hire the
services of nondrow assassins of higher
rank than they themselves can attain.
These higher-level assassins are offered
enticing rewards and challenging work.
Several human Guildmaster Assassins have
accepted these offers; one Grandmother of
Assassins who disappeared mysteriously is
said to have taken on the job of defending
a hard-pressed noble house.
Racial considerations
Dark elves distrust most characters —
dark elven or not — who are not members
of their noble house or clan, but they do
make some judgments by race. Generally,
dark elves respect humans of higher level
than they themselves can attain. Contrary
to Unearthed Arcana, dark elves should
have a neutral disposition with respect to
halflings. Unlike the other races to which
they bear antipathy, halflings are not
competitors for dark-elven food and living
space. Furthermore, halflings do not even
vaguely resemble races whom the drow
disdain; as a result, most dark elves are
entirely unfamiliar with halflings.
Gnomes, despite their similarities to
halflings, are another story. Deep gnomes
and dark elves have feuded throughout
history, fighting over alignment, food, and
living space. The deep gnomes are also
tempted by the wealth of the dark elves,
who share an envious greed over the
wealth of the gnomes. This tends to make
dark elves prejudiced toward all gnomes,
whether “deep” or not. The gnomes’ love
of pranks and japes makes matters even
worse. Although dark elves have a good
sense of humor, they find jokes directed at
them extremely unamusing.
Hill and mountain dwarves, being easily
the most subterranean of all the surface
dwelling races, have a long history of
conflict with the dark elves. The dwarves
usually claim they were tunneling along
when the dark elves ambushed them
without warning. Likewise, the dark elves
claim that the dwarves, having discovered
the drow wealth, deliberately tunneled
toward their treasure caches. The usual
dwarven-elven differences in outlook
merely make things more bitter. To the
disdainful drow, dwarves are grotesque,
self-enslaved, compulsive hoarders. The
dwarves, for their part, can’t understand
how any race with the undeniable subter-
ranean skills of the drow can be so flighty.
Furthermore, the drow penchant for
slavery and evil enrages dwarves.
The dark elves are of two minds about
half-orcs. The few half-orc assassins of
levels above those the drow themselves
can attain are respected (though never to
the same extent that humans of equal level
are). Other half-orcs are lumped together
with orcs, hobgoblins, and other human-
oids in the dark-elven mind. Such human-
oids are regarded as useful cats-paws and
patsies, but are not deserving of much
respect. Thus, half-orcs are often underes-
timated by the dark elves. The excellent
craftsmanship of the gnomes and dwarves
is respected by the drow, and the few
halflings the drow encounter are re-
spected for their superlative thieving
abilities. But half-orcs have no crafts or
arts, nor any real prospect of improving
themselves, Consequently, half-orcs often
receive exaggerated praise from the dark
elves for anything they manage to do.
("Oh, look! You actually managed to kill
that monster! Isn’t that wonderful!“)
Gray dwarves are probably the race
with whom the drow feel most at ease. As
underground demi-humans, both races
have a lot in common. In many areas, both
races have discovered that cooperation
benefits both sides. Dark elves and gray
dwarves have often fought as allies. Like-
wise, the two races often engage in a great
deal of trade. The dangers of the under-
ground environment force both sides to
suppress the traditional dwarven-elven
distrust that is typical of their surface-
dwelling cousins.
Surface elves, as is well-known, are the
people the drow hate most. Even good-
aligned, surface-dwelling dark elves share
some of this feeling, albeit to a lesser de-
gree. The drow feel contemptuous of the
easy life led by the surface elves; in like
fashion, the surface elves are revolted by
the demon-worship common among the
drow. Civil wars and intrafamily feuds are
usually the most bitter, and the feud be-
tween dark and surface elves is no excep-
tion. Indeed, many dark elves who defect
to the surface because of alignment do not
associate with surface elves if possible.
Often, these defectors find it difficult to
quell their childhood training of fear and
hatred for their surface-dwelling
cousins.
"

"
Entering the Drider's Web
What happens after a drow fails Lolth’s test
by C.E. Misso
“Your failure has proven you too weak to
represent the race of the drow. I therefore
sentence you to the form of the drider!"
With those final words from the demoness
Lolth, a dark elf is painfully transformed
into the hideous shape of the drider: a
misshapen creature, half-drow, half-spider
— the possible fate of all Lolth-worshiping
drow who fail her test, as described in the
Monster Manual II, page 60.
The first drider was created many cen-
turies past by Lolth, queen of the Abyssal
plane known as the Demonweb Pits. In the
first few years of the drow’s existence,
Duagloth, a drow in the service of Lolth,
was bribed into stealing Lolth’s platinum
egg (as detailed in AD&D® module GDQ 1-
7 Queen of the Spiders). When Lolth
learned of this treachery, she turned
Duagloth into a hideous cross between a
drow and a spider. Now, to insure a finer
racial stock of drow, Lolth tests all drow
of promising ability who worship her;
failures result in driders. Duagloth is
rumored to still survive in some remote
area of the world; and may be more pow-
erful (and dangerous) than other driders.
Upon reaching 6th level or thereabouts,
a promising evil drow is summoned by
Lolth to the drow homeland in the under-
world, where he or she is brought to the
Abyss. Lolth there puts the drow through
a specially devised test. Clues as to the
nature of this test may be found in GDQ
1-7 Queen of the Spiders, in the section on
the Demonweb. Those drow who fail the
test become driders and are dropped off
on the Prime Material plane in random
spots. Note that a drider’s form is perma-
nent; nothing short of a wish spell or
divine intervention will restore it to its
drow form.
Once a drow becomes a drider, it seeks
the seclusion of caverns and tunnels;
avoiding contact with nondriders as much
as possible out of shame, hatred, and fear.
Due to ill feelings about its failure and
bloated appearance, the drider becomes
totally self-centered. As a result, its
30 JANUARY 1988
alignment changes to chaotic evil if it was
not so already. Once a drider has claimed
a certain area as its territory, it receives
the service of 2-12 huge spiders (Monster
Manual, page 90) as a sort of parting gift
from Lolth. New spiders may be attracted
chance exists that the drider is also en-
dowed with the ability to spin a web. The
resultant web covers a 10’-square area
and acts as a net of entanglement. Up to
10 such webs can be spun per day, and
they can only be used by the drider who
to replace those lost in combat later. spun them.
Many of the drow’s former abilities are The drider also acquires a natural thirst
greatly altered by the change to drider for blood, as if it were a real spider. A
form. A brief summary of these changes drider must consume blood at least once
appears in Table 1. Those abilities which every four days or receive 1-6 hp damage
are not lost include: the creature’s former per day. The damage is cumulative and
knowledge and languages known; abilities
to detect secret and concealed doors (Play-
only heals once a live creature’s blood has
been digested. Because of this need for
ers Handbook, page 16); 12” infravision;
clerical and magic-user spell-casting abili-
ties (6th or 7th level in the former case,
and 6th, 7th, or 8th level in the latter);
90% sleep and charm resistance; innate
drow spells as per sex and level (FIEND
FOLIO® Tome, page 34; and Monster Man-
ual II, page 60); sharp senses allowing
surprise only on a roll of 1 on 1d8; abilities
to detect slopes, new construction, sliding
walls, certain traps, and depth under-
ground as per dwarves (Players
Handbook, page 16); +2 bonus to save vs.
spells (as per drow); sensitivity to and
penalties from exposure to bright light
(FIEND FOLIO Tome, page 34); and knowl-
edge of the “silent tongue” (though the
drider cannot master this unspoken lan-
guage in its new form, it understands it
perfectly well, and can still make a few of
blood, the drider is constantly creating
new and efficient weaponry to use on its
victims.
If attacked and harmed, a drider be-
comes enraged, having only a will to kill.
Consequently, the drider never checks
morale in combat and gains a +4 save vs.
fear. The drider enjoys using its weapons
on victims and attackers, but it also has a
taste for employing traps, and prefers to
single out its victims for ambush, biting to
paralyze and then drink the victim’s blood.
With its new body structure, the drider
gains a dexterity of 18 and a +2 bonus to
strength (for a maximum of 18). The effec-
tive intelligence, wisdom, and constitution
scores of the drider’s drow form are re-
tained intact. As a result of its appearance,
the drider PC receives a -8 penalty to its
charisma and comeliness (minimum score
the gestures). A drider, like a drow, can of 1). All elves hate and fear driders.
use a weapon in either hand, and can even All driders, regardless of their drow
attack with weapons in both hands, mak- backgrounds, gain certain skills similar to
ing two attacks per round so long as each those used by assassins, thieves, and thief-
of the weapons is of long sword size or acrobats. These skills (and those skills not
smaller. Drow (and thus driders as well) do so gained) are given below and in Table 2
not have the sword and bow “to hit” bo- (see Unearthed Arcana, pages 23-25, for
nuses of other elves. most details). These skills cannot be im-
Unlike drow, however, driders gain proved save by changes in the drider’s
poisonous saliva and needle-sharp teeth, dexterity or strength scores. All base
making their bite dangerous (1-4 hp dam- chances for success are those of a 6th-level
age, plus save vs. poison or victim is para- thief-acrobat or assassin, unless the drow-
lyzed for 1-2 turns). Any psionic abilities turned-drider previously had a higher skill
once possessed by a drow are lost if the level in these classes.
drow fails a system shack survival roll
during the transformation into drider
Tightrope walking: The drider is perfect
with this ability because of its spiderlike
form. All driders are sterile. structure.
Other changes may occur as well. A 50% Pole vaulting: This ability is not possible
"

The next bit becomes a mess, since it, somewhat like a web and this thread, inserts different lines between other sentences, so it is interspersed like the cut-up technique:

"
Web
Table 1
Ability Changes from Drow to Drider
Former drow ability
Armor and dexterity determine armor class
Move 12" or 15" (females)
Hit dice as per class*
Drow-made armor and weapons
Present drider ability
Natural AC 7 from thick skin (AC 3 from 18 dexterity)
Move 12" (either sex)
HD6+6
Weapons as can be found; no armor (magical items possible)
50% or better magic resistance 15% magic resistance
* Dark elves entering Lolth’s test are usually multiclassed, with levels of ability
between 6th and 8th level in the highest-rated class; other classes may have lower
scores. Acceptable classes include fighter, cleric, assassin, thief, thief-acrobat, and
magic-user; see DRAGON issue #103 for acceptable class combinations for drow.
Table 2
New Drow Abilities
because of the size and shape of the dri- dexterity of the drider, along with its new Ability Bonus/penalty
der. Also, because of its jumping ability, shape, provide a greater maneuverability Tightrope walking 100%
this skill is actually of little use to the than that of a normal human or drow. Broad jump
drider. Move silently: The drider receives a Standing +18’
High jumping: Because of the drider’s leg penalty when executing this ability due to Running +28'
strength and its additional number of legs, its increased weight and number of legs (a Pole vaulting Not possible
the drider gains an 18’ bonus on this skill. lone drider can still surprise opponents on Tumbling maneuvers
Assassination: This is one of the drider’s a 1-3 on 1d6, in the manner of an elf). Attack +5%
main abilities due to its dependence on Wide in shadows: The drider receives Evasion +7%
living organisms for sustenance. Due to a advantages when using this skill, as a Falling +5% for every 10'
repeated use of this skill, the drider gains result of the drider’s adapted color and High jumping +18‘
a 15% bonus for this skill. shape. Move silently -15%
Pick pockets: Because of its awkward Hear noise: The drider gains bonuses in Assassination +15%
shape and height, the drider receives a this ability as a result of its heightened Hide in shadows +15%
penalty when attempting this maneuver. senses. Pick pockets -15%
This skill (like the others here) is gained Climb walls: Because of its spiderlike Hear noise +5%
even if the drow was not a thief before ability, the drider can perform this skill Climb walls 100%
being turned into a drider. flawlessly. Open locks Normal
Open locks: This is similar to the thief Stalk: This ability is similar to the beast- Stalk 100%
ability. master ability given in DRAGON® Maga- Find/remove traps Normal
Find/remove traps: This is similar to the zine, issue #119. The drider is able to Track 100%
thief ability. perform this function without error be- Read languages Normal
Read languages: This is similar to the cause of its familiarity with its natural
thief ability (driders are easily bored and habitat. The drider uses this ability to As noted in the text, these bonuses and
reading passes the time between victims). follow and capture its prey. penalties are based upon either the 6th
Broad jumping: Because of its increased Track: This ability is similar to the beast- level of ability as a thief, thief-acrobat, or
leg strength, the drider gains a bonus master ability given in DRAGON Magazine, assassin, or upon the skill level possessed
when broad jumping. issue #119. in these classes as a drow, if such levels
Tumbling maneuvers: The increased were over the 6th level
"

Oh, maybe Bubba Gump was from this word:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/gumption

"
gumption(n.)
1719, originally Scottish, "common sense, shrewdness, acuteness of practical understanding," also "drive, initiative," a word possibly connected with Middle English gome "attention, heed," from Old Norse gaumr "heed, attention." The sense of "initiative" is recorded by 1812. Related: Gumptious (adj.), attested from 1823.
"

I was going to write about the power of all the "vices", like intense arrogance, and it looks like it appeared in that article anyway.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Corellon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corellon_Larethian

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki ... _Mestarine

"
Worshipers
Those most likely to worship Fenmarel Mestarine were pariahs and tribes of wild elves struggling to survive in a world hostile to their kind. Each independent group of worshipers worshiped and celebrated their god in their own unique way, a representation of the chaotic nature of a profoundly paranoid deity.[1]

The Misty Vale was a major center of worship of Fenmarel Mestarine.[11]

More recently some neutral fey'ris converted to Fenmarel Mestarine in order to understand better the Faerun of today.[12]

Clergy
Clergy of Fenmarel Mestarine who served tribes of wild elves were lone wolf specialty priests called the Unbowed. They were referred to as shamans[note 1] rather than priests.[10] Some chose to use different titles or none at all. Clergy included both males and females, with 56% being male.[11]

They offered training in techniques considered underhanded by some, including poisoning, guerilla warfare, and deception. Members of Fenmarel Mestarine's clergy prayed at dusk, an analogy to when darkness first settled upon the world.[1]

Lay Followers
Novices were called the Lost. Outcasts and isolated individuals were typically lay followers rather than clergy. They engaged in worship of their own design and observed the anniversary of their banishment as a holy day.[11]

Shrines
Worshipers of Fenmarel constructed hidden shrines rather than temples. Shrines varied depending on the individual or tribe who constructed them. Builders commonly included a token relating to their isolation as well as plant and animal materials indicative of local threats, shelter, and food sources, such as bones, teeth, claws, sticks, and leaves.[11]
"

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Seldarine

"
Each member of the Seldarine was represented by both male and female forms. For example, in Cormanthor, there were statues of the Seldarine in either both their male and female forms or in a single androgynous form. Some gods even had more than three forms, including nonhumanoid forms.[9]

In fact, the elves found the human obsession with biological sex and gender roles to be limiting and not befitting of a deity, who was beyond mortal definitions. All gods were to be respected, not squeezed into a role that presented them as little more than powerful versions of mortals at best or spoiled children at worst.[9]
"

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Seldarine

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki ... ne_Moonbow

Added in 7 minutes 32 seconds:
Re: Lolth: Web
https://notallwhowanderarelost268.wordp ... fragility/

"
On Elvendom and White Fragility

Elrond of Imladris demonstrates the typical response to the phrase “White Fragility”

Hello again, dear readers. Today I want to talk about a topic that I have been mulling over for a long while. A past post, On Elf-Friends and Sanctuary; or, On Allyship and Safe Space, was a brief explanation of those social justice concepts through the lens of the world of Tolkien, in order to (hopefully) help those who might not otherwise be willing or able to comprehend the subject see it from a different angle, and perhaps grasp the reasoning. Here, I am hoping to do a similar thing with the notion of “White Fragility.” This is an extremely polarizing phrase, as many White people (myself included, once upon a time) feel personally attacked by the concept. What do people mean when they point out White fragility, and what contributes to it? And what in Middle-earth do I mean by bringing Elves into the discussion? Let’s begin!

Tolkien’s adaptation of the old Norse mythological figures of Elves has predominated in the genre of high fantasy since his time. Though there have always been exceptions and innovations, in this literary tradition Elves are generally immortal (or extremely long-lived), exceptionally beautiful, and possess great physical and/or spiritual strength and strong moral compasses. They represent the epitome of artistic and cultural achievement and accumulated wisdom. They also are frequently given hated foes who are often corrupted versions of themselves, whether Tolkien’s Orcs or the more common Dark Elf trope in Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer, for example.

Warhammer_High_Elf_Spearmens.png

In the Warhammer world, the High Elves of Ulthuan are understood to be fighting a perpetually losing battle against a number of unrelenting foes, including their estranged kin the Dark Elves.

In nearly all of their literary manifestations, Elves are described as being a “Dying Race,” in inevitable decline or exceedingly low population. According to this tradition, the Elves represent the best of the world, but they are extremely vulnerable and prone to extinction.

But again you will ask, what does this have to do with the idea of White fragility? White fragility is a very similar dynamic to what we call Fragile Masculinity – when a person with social privilege is confronted with accusations of racism or racial insensitivity, they will frequently lash out, emotionally shut down, or refuse to engage in reasoned discussion. Even passive feelings of defensiveness are manifestations of this phenomenon.

This defensiveness happens when something we (consciously or not) consider to be of exceptional importance to our sense of reality is called into question (I say we because I myself am White and I am in no way exempt from this cultural conditioning, and I expect many of my readers will also be White). Whiteness is deeply reliant on these unquestionable assumptions in order to construct itself. And one of the defining traits of Whiteness is its obsession with its own vulnerability.

Elves, as imagined in most modern high fantasy literature, map almost perfectly onto this model. It is no accident that the Elves of high culture, of magnificent wisdom, of immense grace and power, are nearly always portrayed as light-skinned. It is also no coincidence that Elves are the classic example of the “Dying Race.” These tropes exist because of the explicit and subconscious understanding that this is the situation of the so-called White Race. White Supremacists have for centuries raised the specter of a hypothetical White extinction in order to galvanize repression of people of color worldwide. You can see it today when politicians and pundits talk about the declining birth rate among White people in the United States and Europe, immigration fears, and the idea that the United States will soon no longer be majority White. This is presented as something to be dreaded, the loss of something essential to society. Exactly the same rhetoric was behind anti-miscegenation laws and continued bigotry against interracial couples.

Drow

In Dungeons & Dragons, the Drow (Dark Elves) are presented as an evil subterranean race which split off from other Elves due to an ancient sin by their patron Goddess, Lolth. Their defining trait is their dark skin, a fact which has been a constant source of contention in the tabletop roleplaying community.

This is the way the ideology of White Supremacy operates – it hides in plain sight in popular culture, its very pervasiveness rendering it invisible to the untrained eye. Its unquestioned presence in our society leads us to accept it as simply the Way Things Are. White people, reflected in the literary creations the Elves, have convinced ourselves on some level that we are at the same time superior to people of color but also on the brink of total destruction. This is the core assumption and worldview that White people are falling back on when we react defensively to discussions about racial injustice and racism. And we need to fight it.

Acknowledging the problem is the first step. White readers, always be alert for the ways these tropes are playing out in the words and images you absorb each day. Think critically about the stories you grew up with and how they shaped the way you understand the world. Remember that one of the universal literary flaws of the Elves is their pride and arrogance, and let humility guide the way you approach discussions about race. Those small steps alone will help us to begin to resist the White fragility we have had ingrained into us from early childhood.

Author’s note: I chose to capitalize the word “White” because of some advice I received years ago – capitalizing racial terms emphasizes the fact of their existence *as racial terms*, forcing people to confront the discomfort that induces.
"

[kFoyauextlH]

http://gender-power.amu.edu.pl/wp-conte ... No_2_3.pdf

"
A large part of these monsters who have to be defeated are creatures
such as giant rats, dragons, or undead wraiths. On the other hand, there is
also the monster, as mentioned earlier, races such as orcs, and goblins, and
finally, the dark elves, also known as drows—which I will use as a sympto-
matic example in this article.

The first full description of the drow as a monster race (aka enemies)
appeared in one of the earlier first-edition manuals, The Fiend Folio. Ac-
cording to the brief description, the drow was a depraved subrace of elves.
Many centuries ago, a schism divided the good elves and those who were
“selfish and cruel” (Turnbull 1981, p. 33). The schism grew into a series of
conflicts that forced elves of darker nature into hiding in the Underdark,
where for generations they grew in strength, developing martial and mag-
ical abilities. The drow despises their surface-dwelling, sun-walking kin,
whom they regard as their sworn enemies to this day.
Traditionally, the main characteristics of drow are their appearance,
nature, place of residence, social system and religion. They are similar to
elves but shorter and slimmer, with skin in shades of black, dark grey, dark
blue, white hair, and red or purple eyes, which can see well in the dark. By
nature, they are treacherous, evil, and insidious creatures and are referred
to as chaotic evil in the D&D system’s built-in morality scale. They live in
the Underdark, a subterranean realm inhabited by various monsters and
dangerous creatures. The drow society is equally cruel and brutal, built
on ruthless competition and, it should be noted, is matriarchal. This is pri-
marily due to the last characteristic element, religion. Drow is worship-
pers of the Lolth, the Spider Queen, one of many deities created for the
D&D worlds. Lolth is a malicious, vicious, and overall purely evil being. She
requires blind obedience from her followers, and her chosen clerics are
only female.

Drizzt Do’Urden—An Exceptional Drow
Many fantasy novels are based on the D&D system and set in so-called
Forgotten Realms. Among the names of their authors especially popular
is Robert Anthony Salvatore, an American writer born in 1959. One of his
most famous works is The Dark Elf Trilogy, and its later continuations.
The trilogy includes the books Homeland (published in 1990), Exile (pub-
lished in 1990) and Sojourn (published in 1991). As the name suggests,
their main character is the drow warrior Drizzt Do’Urden. Born in the Un-
derdark, in the drow city of Menzoberranzan as the son of Matron Malice,
leader of one of the drow Dens, Drizzt stands apart from the other dark
elves. Shortly after his birth, his mother and sisters realize that his eyes
are different from those of other drow—they are different in colour and,
unlike most, do not react badly to light:

“Fetch the candle” Matron Malice ordered. “Let us see how these eyes appear
in the world of light” […].
The clerics hid their eyes and Matron Malice put a prudent hand over the ba-
by’s face as Briza lit the sacred candle. It produced only a tiny flame, but to
drow eyes it came as a brilliant intrusion.
“Bring it” said Matron Malice after several moments of adjusting. Briza moved
the candle near Drizzt, and Malice gradually slid her hand away.
“He does not cry” Briza remarked, amazed that the babe could quietly accept
such a stinging light. (Homeland).
Drizzt grows up, raised first by his older sister, then trained by his
biological father, and his many talents soon become apparent—he is ex-
ceptionally bright, has a natural gift for magic, and above all, is a skilled
and dangerous warrior. As he becomes a young man, he is sent on his first
mission to the surface. The mission has one simple task—a drow patrol
will hunt down their surface-dwelling elven cousins and shed their blood
in the name of the Spider Queen. Indoctrinated since childhood and raised
in the cult of Lolth, Drizzt is excited, but something inside him makes him
doubt.
Drizzt was not as openly excited as his brother, unsure of the implications of
such a mission. At last he would get to view the surface elves and face the truth
of his heart and hopes. Something more real to Drizzt, the disappointment
he had known for so many years, tempered his elation, re-minded him that
while the truth of the elves might bring an excuse to the dark world of his kin,
it might instead take away something more important. He was unsure how to
feel. (Homeland)
During this first mission, Drizzt experiences a turning point and makes
a decision that will determine his entire life and fate. During a massacre of
elves, unarmed and unprepared for any battle, he decides to spare a terri-
fied child at the last moment.
Only a moment later, another elf, this young girl, broke free of the massa-
cre and rushed in Drizzt’s direction, screaming a single word over and over.
Her cry was in the tongue of the surface elves, a dialect foreign to Drizzt,
but when he looked upon her fair face, streaked with tears, he understood
what she was saying. Her eyes were on the mutilated corpse at his feet; her
anguish outweighed the terror of her impending doom. She could only be
crying, “Mother!”

Rage, horror, anguish, and a dozen other emotions racked Drizzt at that hor-
rible moment. He wanted to escape his feelings, to lose himself in the blind
frenzy of his kin and accept the ugly reality. How easy it would have been to
throw away the conscience that pained him.
The elven child rushed up before Drizzt but hardly saw him, her gaze locked
upon her dead mother, the back of the child’s neck open to a single, clean blow.
Drizzt raised his scimitar, unable to distinguish between mercy and murder. […]
He almost did it. In his unfocused outrage, Drizzt Do’Urden almost became as
his kin. He almost stole the life from that beautiful child’s sparkling eyes.
At the last moment, she looked up at him, her eyes shining as a dark mirror
into Drizzt’s blackening heart. In that re-flection, that reverse image of the
rage that guided his hand, Drizzt Do’Urden found himself.
He brought the scimitar down in a mighty sweep […]. In the same motion,
Drizzt followed with his other hand, catching the girl by the front of her tunic
and pulling her face-down to the ground […].
Drizzt had to work quickly; the battle was almost at its gruesome end. He sliced
his scimitars expertly above the huddled child’s back, cutting her clothing but
not so much as scratching her tender skin. Then he used the blood of the he-
adless corpse to mask the trick, taking grim satisfaction that the elven mother
would be pleased to know that, in dying, she had saved her daughter’s life.
“Stay down” he whispered in the child’s ear. (Homeland).
Sparing the child’s life does not escape Drizzt without consequences.
He draws the attention of Lolth and her priestesses, and his actions may
bring the wrath of the Spider Queen down on his entire family. His mother,
Matron Malice plans to propitiate the goddess by offering Drizzt as a sac-
rifice, but in the end his place on the altar is taken by his father. Drizzt is
faced with a choice. He can stay in the world he knows and take on the
honourable position of the family’s weapons master. He refuses, however,
and decides to leave Menzoberranzan. Born and raised as a drow, Drizzt
rejects his people, their traditions and customs, calling them lies. In the
next volumes of the series, he will also leave the Underdark and come to
the surface, where, after many hardships, he will finally become a famous
adventurer and legendary hero.
Drizzt is not like other drows. His uniqueness became apparent shortly
after his birth when his mother and sisters noticed the peculiar character-
istics of the newborn’s eyes, an early harbinger of what was going to grow
from him. Though born in Menzoberranzan, raised according to drow
traditions and teachings of Lolth, something made him different from his
brethren. A conscience that prevented him from killing an elven child and that allowed him to look at his society and culture differently, to see its hy-
pocrisy and cruelty, and to ultimately reject it of his own free will. It made
him an exception among the drow of the Underdark—it made him a “good
drow”.
The concept, as mentioned above of the Other sometimes allows for
similar exceptions, which, although it may seem like a step in the right
direction at first, is in fact a trap that perpetuates stereotypes. In the dis-
course of feminist thought, Otherness has long been associated with gen-
der. Simone de Beauvoir wrote, “he is the Subject, he is the Absolute—she
is the Other” (de Beauvoir, 2015). We live in a world and operate on con-
cepts that have been shaped by a culture directly tied to patriarchal values,
from the perspective that women and femininity are secondary to the pri-
mary and essential masculinity. However, there have always been excep-
tions in history—honorary males, starting with the Pharaoh Hatshepsut,
women who could function on the same terms and levels as men because
of their position, talents, conditions, or merits. Joan Kelly-Gadol mentions
the problem of viewing women’s history through the prism of such excep-
tions in her 1976 article The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological
Implications of Women’s History (Kelly-Gadol, 1976). Also, Allison Heisch,
writing about another “exceptional women” in history, Elizabeth I, stated
that “right from the start, people working in the area of Women’s Studies
have recognized that the restoration of women to their place in history
could not be accomplished by focusing attention upon exceptional wom-
en” (Heisch, 1980). But what exactly is the harm of this phenomenon?
Firstly, it perpetuates the status quo according to which “masculinity” is
the norm and “femininity” is the exception. It gives women the right to ex-
ist in the public consciousness only when they fit into male roles. Secondly,
it creates the illusory impression that “equality”—understood as the pos-
sibility to enjoy a privileged position—is in fact potentially available to all.
If one woman managed to fit into male roles and shatter the proverbial
glass ceiling, the others must be to blame for not doing so as well. This
shifts the responsibility from the system to individuals—individuals who
are victims of the system
Similar phenomena also occur in other spheres and contexts. Practi-
cally every system based on segregation and discrimination of some part
of the population has adopted comparable exceptions. In the apartheid era
in South Africa, there was the concept of honorary whites, while the Na-
zis had their Ehrenarier, honorary Aryans. This privilege did not have to
be limited to individuals but extended to a whole minority—the so-called model minorities, behaved according to the requirements imposed by the
majority.
The solution to prejudice and discrimination is not to identify and ap-
preciate distinctive individuals. While superficially this may be positive, it
is actually a harmful mechanism that perpetuates negative perceptions of
the stereotyped community.

The Fifth Edition
In 2014, the Player’s Handbook was released, containing the first set
of rules for the fifth edition of D&D. Following the tradition of its pre-
decessors, it listed nine playable races—humans, dwarves, elves, half-
elves, halflings, dragonborn, gnomes, half-orcs and tieflings (Crawford &
Mearls, 2014). The choice was extended to other races in the following
books, including those traditionally classified as “monsters”. Volo’s Guide
to Monsters suggests that players take on the role of an orc or a gob-
lin and that this can “offer up some interesting roleplaying possibilities.
Whether played for comedy, as a tragic story of betrayal and loss, or as
an antihero, a monstrous character gives a player a chance to take on an
unusual challenge in the campaign” (Mearls, 2016). Mordekainen’s Tome
of Foes1 released in 2018 presents among other things, an updated ver-
sion of the drow and their history, and offers mechanical rules for build-
ing a drow player’s character. Most of the elements defining drow in the
previous editions remained the same—they were still a race living in the
Underdark, worshippers of Lolth, a matriarchal society built on “blood
and poison” (Crawford, 2018). However, by allowing players to create
their own characters as drow, in a way this race was given over to their
imagination. Anyone could become a Drizzt—a good drow, a renegade,
who deviates from the wicked ways of their kin. As it turns out, it was
not enough. Many players were no longer interested in drows only in the
context of unique and distinctive individuals but asked themselves what
else could be done with the entire race.
1
 It is worth noting that during the time this article have been writing, with the
release of the new book Monsters of the Multiverse in May 2022 both Volo’s Guide to
Monsters and Mordekainen’s Tome of Foes became considered not canonical in the of-
ficial game lore.
"

"
In comparison, the members of Mighty Nein encounter many more am-
biguous choices and moral grey areas along their way. After the first, more
stereotypically heroic campaign, Mercer, now knowing his players much
better, began to confront them with more complex problems without clear
and obvious solutions. One of the manifestations of this deepening of the
world and blurring of the black and white divisions inherent in traditional
fantasy is also the way Mercer presented in his second campaign the drow.
"

"
the Empire has long been at war with its eastern neighbour,
Xhorhas. While a tentative truce is currently in place, there are also circu-
lating rumours of increasing military clashes on the borders (Curious Be-
ginnings, 0:19:01). Xhorhas is described as a hostile land, “overrun with all
manner of beasts and terrors, relics from the final battles of the Calamity
that ruined that scarred landscape” (Curious Beginnings, 0:17:15). In the
following episodes, the heroes, some of whom come from the Dwendalian
Empire and others from the Menagerie Coast, an Empire’s political and
economical ally, learn more about Xhorhas. They learn that a large part
of its population is made up of drow and that the drow dynasty, the Kryn,
rules it. They learn that in the Dwendalian Empire, the drow of Xhorhas is
often called Cricks because of the peculiar chitinous armour worn by Kryn
soldiers (Zemnian Nights, 2:11:35).
It is not long before the heroes directly contact the Kryn Dynasty sol-
dier. Their adventures are abruptly interrupted by a terrorist attack in
which two Xhorhasian spies blow up part of one of the towers in one of
the biggest imperial cities. The heroes, themselves in the middle of some
not-so-legal activity, decide to hide in the city’s sewers in the general cha-
os—and there they stumble upon one of the spies.
"

"
In the fifty-sixth episode of the campaign, the heroes face the ruler of
Xhorhas, the drow Bright Queen Leylas Kryn—and they decide that, sur-
prising even the Dungeon Master, will change the trajectory of the entire
plot. They give the mysterious dodecahedron to the Bright Queen, not even knowing its functions and power, but knowing that it was once stolen from
her (The Favor, 2:51:30). This way, they unwittingly become traitors to the
Empire—and heroes to the Dynasty. By getting to know Xhorhas and its
inhabitants, and befriending the drow dignitaries, the Mighty Nein gains
a new perspective and discovers just how many lies contain imperial prop-
aganda. The truth, however, is not a simple reversal of roles. Neither the
Dwendalian Empire nor the Kryn Dynasty is the unequivocally good or bad
side, neither of them is morally superior. Ultimately, the heroes find their
own truth—no matter what, war brings destruction and death to both
sides, and it is not enough to help one or the other. The solution is not
victory, but peace.
In creating the Dwendalian Empire and Xhorhas, Matthew Merce has,
probably quite intentionally, used stereotypes existing in fantasy since the
times of Tolkien—and he has also intently negated them by nuancing the
situation and adding shades of grey. The Dwendalian Empire, though defi-
nitely racially heterogeneous, is ruled by a human dynasty and humans are
the dominant element there. Xhorhas and the Kryn Dynasty on the other
hand are coded as the Other. Humans are a minority there, power is in the
hands of the drow, most inhabitants are primarily monster races. In the
geographical description of Wildemount in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemont,
Mercer writes specific statistics. Rexxentrum, the capital of the Dwendalian
Empire is inhabited 81% by humans, 8% by dwarves, 6% by halflings, and
5% by “other races” (Mercer et al., 2020). The inhabitants of the Kryn cap-
ital Rosohna consist of 66% drow, 9% goblins, and 7% duergar (dwarves
originating from the Underdark)—the rest are also “other races” (Mercer
et al., 2020). At first glance, the division seems very clear and automatically
puts the Kryn Dynasty in the position of the enemy in the eyes of players
and viewers, the classic “evil and monstrous empire”, another reflection of
Tolkien’s Mordor. Only by getting to know Xhorhas and its residents bet-
ter, the Mighty Nein slowly, in a natural way, get rid of their own prejudices
and stereotypes—starting with small but significant moments, like the one
when they realize for the first time that the term “Cricks” is in fact as strong-
ly pejorative slur and they stop using it. With time, they even find in Xhorhas
what they could not find in the Dwendalian Empire, in many ways a country
that is much less tolerant and open for “otherness”—a home, a place they
can treat as their own, at least for a while. And while, as I have mentioned
before, these changes are not based on a simple reversal of the good vs. evil
dichotomy, ultimately the Mighty Nein ends their adventures much closer
and more closely tied to the Kryn Dynasty than the Dwendalian Empire.
"

"
What All This Tells Us About Society
This narrative, I believe, has much more in common with current
trends in creating morality and conflict in fantasy than the two previous
examples. The audience today, more sensitive to the delicate issues of ste-
reotypes and harmful cliches than in previous decades, no longer so easily
accepts purely evil monster races, finding in them the problems perfect-
ly captured by Jemisin’s quote in the introduction. There is also a trend
nowadays to move away from the archetype of the “unique and special”
Drizzt-type hero—either for the reasons described above, or because it
has already become a boring cliché. It seems that the audience today tends
to be more interested in morally nuanced stories, with conflicts presented
in shades of grey and with less explicitly heroic protagonists.
It is also worth noting that another prevailing trend in the last decade
among the “young generation” of fantasy manifests itself, among others,
in the popularity of the “#ownvoices” initiative. It was originally created
for children’s and teen literature, but due to the close affinity of the lat-
ter with fantasy (the targets of Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy
and regular fantasy often overlap), it quickly penetrated this genre. It was
initiated in 2015 by writer Corinne Duyvis, who started a thread on the
Twitter platform in which she proposed the hashtag “ownvoices” to “rec-
ommend kidlit about diverse characters written by authors from the same
diverse group” (Duyvis n.d.). This is meant to promote work written by and
about people of marginalized identities—racial, sexual, gender etc. Under
this banner have been published novels such as The Poppy War by a Chi-
nese-American writer R.F. Kuang (2018), set in a fantasy world inspired by
Chinese history (notably the Opium Wars), and Tomi Adeyemi’s Children
of Blood and Bone (2019), inspired by Nigerian culture. Both these novels,
as well as many others, break with the stereotypical fantasy set in worlds
heavily influenced by medieval Europe.
There are many indications that today’s authors and consumers of fan-
tasy differ from their predecessors in what can be called social sensitivity.
Although fantasy as a genre bears various stigmas, imprinted by its pre-
cursor’s works—created in completely different climates and socio-polit-
ical mentality—they are more and more often not copied but contested.
One example of this is the departure from the concept of monstrous races
such as orcs and dark elves. This can be seen in how the image of the latter
has changed over the years in D&D-related media. In the beginning, the
drow were only enemies, monsters that existed to be defeated by heroes.

With time, however, people started to look for potential nuances—among
others Drizzt was born, a good drow who, thanks to his uniqueness and
morality unusual among his kin, despite his origin became a hero fighting
evil himself. Such a portrayal unfortunately also entails problematic impli-
cations. On the other hand, Critical Role is one of the most influential and
popular narratives associated now with D&D. Its fifth edition departs from
both the one-sided portrayal of the drow as a monster race and from doing
exactly the same thing with potentially few exceptions. Without complete-
ly breaking with traditional drow characterization and playing even with
audience expectations, it presents both drow community, culture and in-
dividual characters in a nuanced way—both the “human country” and the
“drow country” are drawn in varying shades of grey.
These changes attest—as do other phenomena such as the #ownvoic-
es initiative that promotes inclusivity—indicate that fantasy narratives
today are moving away from elements that for many years were taken for
granted but are now clearly beginning to bother a new generation of genre
fans. This is again indicative of a shift in attitudes toward similar issues,
a greater public sensitivity to what fictional stories represent and their
real-world implications.
"

https://the-artifice.com/dragon-age-elves-racism/

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ite_fandom

"
Declining rates of political participation in the West have led to increasing scholarly interest in the potential for participatory culture to re-engage marginalised citizens. Media fandom has, in particular, been hailed as a gateway to a new era of ‘participatory politics’. However, the implications of a politics founded on popular culture within a racially segmented media landscape is under-researched. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Dragon Age fandom on Tumblr, this article analyses how the racial dynamics of a predominantly White fandom impact upon participatory politics, taking as a case study the analogy fans made between elves and real-world racial minority groups. It argues for the dangers of founding political action upon predominantly White content worlds, with non-White fans disproportionately burdened with the task of contesting implicit racial hegemonies. Without this work, however, there is the risk that a participatory politics based on White content worlds will perpetuate racial injustice.
"

https://publicmedievalist.com/race-fantasy-genre/

"
And never is D&D’s influence on the fantasy landscape more problematic than in the embarrassing, controversial case of the dark elves.

Drizzt Do’Urden: You are a Credit to Your Race
The cover of a book. On it are six figures; at the center, a queen sits on a throne with black skin and a white pompadour; she wears a leotard with spiderweb print, a spider-themed crown, and stiletto-heeled boots. She is flanked on the right by two other women dressed similarly, on the left by a humanoid creature with purple skin and tentacles sprouting from its face, and in the background, two large armored creatures with green skin, protruding teeth, and necklaces made of skulls.
Queen of the Spiders adventure published for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons in 1986.
As Dungeons and Dragons grew and developed, it built upon the template laid down by Tolkien. One of D&D’s contributions to the canon of the fantasy genre is dark elves, or as they are called in D&D fiction: drow. The basic template—of black, underground elves—was established by a scant mention in the great 13th-century compendium of Norse mythology, the Prose Edda (which calls them svartálfar). But everything beyond this was determined by the creators of D&D.

The dark elves they invented are, in essence, bizarro-world elves. While other elves live in the forests, they live in a blighted world underground. While other elves live according to typical royal structures, dark elves are explicitly matriarchal and have a social structure modelled off of organized crime families. While other elves live in harmony with nature and are inherently good, dark elves are sadistic, worship spiders, and are inherently evil. And while other elves are fair-skinned, dark elves are black.

A screenshot of a film. The central figure is a Black woman wearing a low-cut dress made out of chain mail, a circlet of gold, and a white pompadour. She is flanked by two men, each with tall mohawk haircuts.
Tina Turner as Auntie Entity in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, released in 1985.
This cover art for one of the first AD&D products to feature the drow, “Queen of the Spiders” (above), seems modeled, as much as anything, from Tina Turner’s character Aunty Entity in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Later illustrators of D&D products, perhaps more aware of the optics, have made them a purple-black or dusky-grey-black. But let’s be real. They have black skin. If you can’t see the problems with this, I can’t help you.

Making “races” like orcs and dark elves inherently evil does two things. First, it presents a world in which good and evil are so simplistic that an entire culture, race, or species can be inherently evil. If someone were to transpose that way of thinking onto cultures or races today, it could lead to the worst sort of prejudice.

Second, this smacks of the worst sort of colonial racisms, which sought to make American Indians, Africans, and other people of color not just seem less human, but inherently immoral. Making “evil races” (like the orcs and uruk-hai, as described in The Lord of the Rings, and dark elves, in D&D) dark-skinned creates fantasy worlds that are structured along racist lines—and mimicking those that plague us in the real world. It would be foolish to explain that away as mere coincidence. Whether the creators did it intentionally or not, their worlds are loaded with the idea at the core of white-supremacy: that having dark skin is bad.

An illustration of three figures on a snowy mountain landscape. At the center, a brown-skinned man wearing a fur mantle, leather gloves and furry boots investigates a trail of blood that has been left in the snow. Behind him stand two other men; one short and armored, with a long brown beard and carrying a battle axe, the other, tall with long blond hair and wearing a wolf pelt as a cape, bearing a warhammer.
Original cover art, by Larry Elmore, for The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore. Drizzt Do’Urden is in the center.
Complicating this, in 1988 R. A. Salvatore wrote The Crystal Shard, a book set in the D&D “Forgotten Realms” universe. In this book, the author created an iconic fantasy character: Drizzt Do’Urden. Despite beginning as a secondary character, Drizzt became so popular that he has, to date, appeared in thirty more books by Salvatore. All of these books have made the New York Times Best Seller list. I read and re-read quite a few of them growing up.

Drizzt is a dark elf. But, as you may have surmised (since he is the protagonist in these books), he is not your typical dark elf. Unlike other dark elves, he is an unflinchingly good person: he has a conscience and adheres to a strict code of honor. Both of these traits lead him to flee his homeland and live among the people above ground. And as you might expect, some of his most dogged adversaries are the very dark elves that he escaped.

The character is popular for many of the reasons that similar characters are. He is a bit rogueish. He is unlike the rest of his family. He is sensitive, intelligent, and eloquent. He is a misunderstood outsider. But overall, he is a vastly badass and unerringly good hero. His sensitivity is on full display in a passage from Sea of Swords:

We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope- nay, the iron-will!- to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine, or starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance with every step, be they through gardens of flowers or through deep snows.

Some of Salvatore’s novels attempt to grapple with racism—particularly the racism leveled against Drizzt by other above-ground characters. For example, in one passage from The Crystal Shard one of the protagonists goes on a racist rant when it is proposed that Drizzt take him on as a student:

Wulfgar’s eyes widened in horror and disgust. “A dark elf!” he cried incredulously. “Sorcerous dog!” He turned on Bruenor as though he had been betrayed. “Surely you cannot ask this of me! I have no need nor desire to learn the magical deceits of his decrepit race!”

Eventually Wulfgar overcomes his racism, and comes to be counted among Drizzt’s closest friends. That said, he lives in a world where racism against drow is not really irrational—it is logical, if a bit narrow-minded. In another passage, one character chastises another for his racism against Drizzt:

You chastise him for the crimes of his race, yet have none of you ever considered that Drizzt Do’Urden walks among us because he has rejected the ways of his people?

An illustration; on the right, a man with dark-purple skin screams while jumping through the air. He is clad in intricate leather armor and wields a sword in each hand. On the left, a black panther jumps along with the man, attacking an unseen enemy together.
Cover art, by Todd Lockwood, for The Orc King by R.A. Salvatore. Note how Drizzt’s skin hue has shifted slightly.
The fabric of the world is the problem. That even the egalitarian characters use language like “crimes of his race” shows the racism built into the fabric of this world.

As the passages above illustrate, this places Drizzt squarely into the racist popular-culture trope “You are a credit to your race” where people are seen to supersede the inherent flaws of their race.

All that having been said, R.A. Salvatore deserves credit for, over the course of his career, improving his ideas about race. He has come to recognize the racism built into the fantasy genre, and many of his more-recent books complicate the depictions of race in his world. In a 2014 interview, Salvatore discusses his struggles in grappling with the racism at the core of Tolkien/D&D-based fantasy when writing one of his short stories:

One of the things that intrigues me about fantasy is that it is racist […] You’re not talking about humans, so I guess you can get away with it. Orcs are supposed to be the embodiment of evil in fantasy. It started many years ago when I wrote the short story “Dark Mirror,” where Drizzt runs into a goblin. He finds out the goblin is an escaped slave. The goblin seems like a great guy, and Drizzt wants to believe that, because he isn’t what people expect from a dark elf.

And in another, he discusses how racism in fantasy mirrors the dehumanization of war:

in fantasy, you embody evil in a race, and then you disembody it with your sword, and that’s also what mankind has done through the centuries, right? By dehumanizing the enemy so you don’t feel bad about killing them. But that’s just blatantly immoral when you get right down to it, and yet I love fantasy. So that’s the paradox I had to deal with.

Some fantasy fans who are people of color have, understandably, bristled at the dark elves—and especially at cosplayers dressing in blackface, as aptly skewered on Community when Senor Chang cosplays as a drow:


A thoughtful 2014 blog post by the “Black Role-Players Organization” further explains the racial problematics with the drow specifically:

what you guys see is cool is constantly being portrayed with in the setting as an evil and despicable race. The Drow (no matter the setting) are prejudged to be evil due to the color of their skin. Even Drizzt has to deal with people distrusting him because of the actions of his people. But what you guys see as cool, we interpret as something that plays to close to what we as people of color have to live through.

On the other hand, Drizzt has been embraced by some people of color, who saw him as a rare example of a heroic person of color in fantasy literature. As Salvatore noted:

I’ve received many letters from people on this issue over the decades. Many from people of color or other minorities, and they’ve always said the same thing: “Thank you.”

As one Canadian fan of Drizzt noted in an online forum:

Those books were a way for me to cope with racism. I picked up the Icewind Dale trilogy when I was 11 or 12. I had just moved from the North West Territories to a place in Southern Ontario. I had to deal with a lot of bigotry up north and I had to deal with some more where I moved. This became even worse after 9/11. Funny enough, Drizzt helped me not hate myself for my skin colour.

Perhaps it is too simple to think of Salvatore’s novels as simply good or bad. One could see why some people of color would find the dark elves he wrote offensive. At the same time, others find strength in the story of an unflappable hero of color. It seems at the very least that Salvatore can be credited with inheriting a fundamentally flawed fantasy world and leaving it a more complex and less-racist place than he found it.

New Fantasies, New Worlds
A book cover. A black man stands in the center in a loose robe, with ghostly wings emerging from his back. The landscape is a red desert, with a bright sun and mountains in the background.
Cover art for Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor.
Ultimately no one owns the fantasy genre. Not J.R.R. Tolkien, not Gary Gygax, not Wizards of the Coast, not R.A. Salvatore. And wonderfully, contemporary fantasy authors have worked to undo the racist structures built into the foundations of the genre, not by changing them from within (as Salvatore has attempted), but by simply creating new fantasy worlds without the racist baggage of the past. The genre is changing, and for the better. HBO recently optioned an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s excellent book Who Fears Death. N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is being turned into a TV series at TNT.

So if you create fantasy worlds, join in! Insist that people of color and non-European cultures are a vibrant and equal part of your invented world. If you want to keep the elf-dwarf-human-hobbit-orc lineup that Tolkien established, understand what it means to do so. Perhaps you could even use the paradigm to critique or deconstruct the racist structures of previous fantasy works. Whatever you do, you can work to subvert and dismantle the racist structures that are a deep part of the genre.

If you are a consumer, if you read fantasy literature or watch fantasy films and TV shows, choose worlds that are not built on the racist foundations of the past. Or if you do want to read them, at least do so with eyes open, understanding the problems inherent in the genre. Thankfully, there are more and more forward-looking fantasies to choose from every year that don’t play into the usual racist tropes. You can find some roundups of them here, here, and here—and please recommend your favorites in the comments section below!

As Drizzt Do’Urden would tell you: we are more than our origins. Just because this genre that we love has roots in racist thought does not mean that we are not allowed to enjoy it. But when we do, we should acknowledge its problems and work to fix them. We must ensure that the fantasies of the present and the future reflect our values, share our understanding of the world, and break truly new ground.

Correction: This article first indicated that Unearthed Arcana is a book in fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons. While it was a book for first and third-edition Dungeons and Dragons, that name is currently used for a blog section of the Dungeons and Dragons website.
"

https://www.hercampus.com/school/agnes- ... ople-color

https://www.buzzfeed.com/akpatel462/19- ... .eowvBVy8g





"
FantasyBellow
•
4y ago
Using fantasy species-ism as an analogy for real world human racism is always a bad idea, because it substantially undermines the very point you’re trying to make.

See, a fundamental premise to irl racism is the idea that meaningfully different behavioral, psychological, and even moral traits are biologically encoded into different racial groups, and that these differences are generally shared by all or nearly all members of each group, and that you can identify such traits by totally unrelated, visible physical traits like skin color or hair texture.

Now think about making thematic commentary about irl racism that uses actually biologically different species, with actually different behavioral traits as an analogy for human “races”. You’re already inescapably reinforcing one of the basic premises of racism—that these categories are as real and as different as a rigorous distinction like a species. When in fact this is scientifically not the case. Human racial categories are not remotely comparably to species differences. In fact we are among the least genetically diverse species on the planet due to historical population bottlenecks and our ultra high mobility that has resulted in gene mixing over vast distances throughout our existence.

Don’t worry—this is a common error that has been propagated by TONS of SFF media for decades now. Vampires as an analogy for gay people, super powered mutants as an analogy for racial minorities, etc. You’re not weird or wrong for thinking of using this type of analogy, because many people have been using it this way for a long time.

But the issue is that it isn’t internally consistent. It undermines and muddies your thematic points, which means your writing ends up being more confused and internally contradictory, which as writers we generally look to avoid. I don’t mean ambiguity—ambiguity is fine—but internal consistency. If you want to write about themes like marginalization & discrimination, but use an analogy that implicitly and inherently compares different groups of humans being to actual other species as dramatically different as elves and orcs, your themes have already become confused and self-contradicting.

There are ways to talk about discrimination in an SFF setting of course. But using fantasy species as stand-ins for human racial categories is a poor choice.

Also, think about in your post where you describe elves and orcs as being from different worlds and “not belonging” in Midgard, a world “not made for them.” This, again, takes a premise of irl human racism (that certain people “don’t belong here”, that ties together land and blood) and actually makes it true within your fantasy world. Which, again, confuses the thematic points you want to make about marginalization and discrimination.

I don’t think the skin color of the elves matters at all really. Racism isn’t really about skin color. It’s about assigning an inferior status to someone and saying that inferiority, along with difference, resides in their biology, in their body, and they can never get rid of it, and it will be passed onto their children. Using fantasy species with actually different bodies, different biology, which gets inherited by future generations, to talk metaphorically about irl racism, basically ends up accepting much of the underlying premises of racism.

Consider instead making the targets of discrimination within species groups, where the marginalized are, obviously to the reader, totally physically non-distinct from their oppressors, but everyone in that system of oppression sees them as wildly, biologically different. That’s a helpful analogy, because it lets the reader see how absurd racism is, by showing how racism operates through a fantasy scenario where the reader can look much more objectively and without learned baggage from the real world.
"

"
Megistrus
•
4y ago
Might want to go look up how Catholics and Irish were historically treated in the United States if you think that oppression of whites is just a "fictionalized fantasy."

track me


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u/FantasyBellow avatar
FantasyBellow
•
4y ago
Furthermore, who was oppressing Irish, and Catholics? Was it Black Americans? Native Americans? Asian Americans?

No, it was white, Anglo-Germanic Protestants. The Irish, and Italians, and other white ethnic groups were not oppressed because they were white. They were oppressed because they were seen as not white enough. The oppression was still coming from other people deemed to be more white, and the racism was still about oppressing people seen as non-white or less white!

And on top of that, sadly many American Irish and Italians and other groups chose to still oppress other nonwhite people, in exchange for more benefits from the very people who were oppressing them. Very sad to side with your own oppressor against even more powerless and vilified groups! As an Italian American I find it incredibly disappointing that so many people in history of my own ethnic group chose this course of action!


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FantasyBellow
•
4y ago
When I said fictionalized I was referring to Birth of a Nation, or alien invasion stories. Which are fictional narratives. No one was talking about the Irish.

It seems you’re very attached thought to being able to claim some type of victimhood for white people, imagined or otherwise. Interesting!



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u/Megistrus avatar
Megistrus
•
4y ago
Your point was that "whites" had to invent fictional narratives to pretend that they were oppressed because they were never oppressed in real life. You're exactly the type of person I was referring to in my original comment, the only difference being that you're also condescending.



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u/Tasty_Hearing_2153 avatar
Tasty_Hearing_2153
•
4y ago
He’s not condescending, he’s trying to be. It’s pretty funny, actually. Every skin color has been a slave and everyone receives discrimination from someone. People like that just refuse to admit it because it’s against their screwed up narrative. It’s sad really.


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u/FantasyBellow avatar
FantasyBellow
•
4y ago
•
Edited 4y ago
I didn’t say they “had” to, I said they did. Are you saying Birth of a Nation was factitious? War of the Worlds?

I never said anything about all white people never being oppressed ever for any reason, although you seem to be inferring that because it’s an easier position to argue against. Obviously most white people are oppressed for one reason or another—economic status, gender, etc—but no, white people have not been oppressed for being white, so narratives of white racial oppression by nonwhites did in fact have to be invented as fiction. How is that not easy to comprehend?

edit: you said: "Your point was that "whites" had to invent fictional narratives to pretend that they were oppressed because they were never oppressed in real life." But I never actually made this point or said anything to this effect. Feel free to try to reread my comments and find any evidence of your characterization. I'll wait!


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FantasyBellow
•
4y ago
And thanks again for proving my point that people really love to imagine themselves as victims, even when they aren’t. It’s a very alluring fantasy, to be sure, but I hope you can let go of that victimhood culture


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[deleted]
•
3y ago
You missed the point... There were discriminations against white people, but honestly? Most white people who I know and whined about being oppressed aren't Irish or Catholic (not to mention, that catholics (don't really know about the irish) aren't really oppressed nowadays, while many minorities are).

EDIT: Also, don't bother responding. I know you're just a troll, I just wanted to make it clear what I think about you.

Tasty_Hearing_2153
•
4y ago
He’s not condescending, he’s trying to be. It’s pretty funny, actually. Every skin color has been a slave and everyone receives discrimination from someone. People like that just refuse to admit it because it’s against their screwed up narrative. It’s sad really.

track me


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[deleted]
•
4y ago
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MOD
•
4y ago
•
You were OK up until this point but please remember being right is no defence against being a jackass. Thanks!



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FantasyBellow
•
4y ago
Fair enough lol, I got a little heated
"
"

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-r ... el-culture

"
What ‘race’ is an elf?
Andrew SmithBy Andrew Smith
Filed Under: Ethnicity, Featured
Posted: May 28, 2015

Should we see fantasy novels as just that – fantasies? Andrew Smith suggests they can contain insidious racism.

Last month saw the DVD release of the final film in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit franchise, the hugely successful follow-up to the same director’s film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. If you want to know what ‘race’ an elf is, one way of finding out to get hold of an app which was distributed to mark the release of the previous film in the Hobbit series. This allows you to convert a picture of yourself into one of the film’s elves: to make an ‘elfie’ of a ‘selfie’.

But only, it turns out, if your skin matches the range of skin-tones that the app shades around the sides of your portrait and only if you have straight hair which aligns with the long, straight elf-hair which the app superimposes. It quickly becomes apparent that not everyone can be an elf. The casting decisions which Jackson made in converting Tolkien’s novels for the screen make the same fact explicit, revealing the extent to which these supposed fantasies are aligned with the racial formation of the world in which we live. To play an elf – via an app, or on the screen – you must be white.

We don’t need an app to show us this. To understand what an elf ‘means’, racially, we need only look at what an elf is not, at the imaginary others by virtue of which ‘elf-ness’ is constituted in these films, or in the vast genre of books and games which draw on the same imaginaries. The ‘other’ of the elves are also, consistently identified by their bodies. These are dark or olive skinned creatures, with dreadlocks or matted hair, with animalized gaits and gestures, who speak in the guttural accents of those who don’t use English ‘properly’.

“Haven’t I encountered this crowd before?”, asked the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, faced with the description of Africans in Joyce Cary’s Mr. Johnson: “screaming, shrieking, scowling” figures, “faces which seemed entirely dislocated, senseless and unhuman”. That representation, Achebe points out, is almost identical to the portrayal of Africans from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, nearly four decades earlier. Both are rooted in the longer history of European representation of colonized peoples as ‘unhuman’.

So here they are again. In Jackson’s films, and Tolkien’s novels before them, we encounter the same crowd, rooted in the same imaginary of empire, no matter how technically sophisticated the CGI which animates these ‘screaming, shrieking, scowling’ figures for contemporary viewers.

Yet we need to be clear just how and why these fantasies articulate with contemporary structures of feeling and forms of racialization. The mock heroic qualities of Tolkien’s novels – especially his vision of a bucolic rural Britain – makes it all too easy to dismiss the books as an otherworldly daydream. This would be a mistake. Tolkien’s nostalgia is a product of the twentieth century. The most powerful passages of his writing are shaped directly by the landscapes and experiences of the First World War, in which he lost some of his closest friends.

In that respect – despite the author’s protestations against reading his novels as allegories – the narrative structures of these books clearly establish a consoling response to the experience of inter-European warfare. Thus both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings lead towards denouements in which the good ‘races’ of ‘the West’ turn aside, at the last, from violence amongst themselves by remembering who their real enemies should be: the “senseless and unhuman” crowds of orcs, the “southerners” who are described as “sallow, leering and slant-eyed” and “the black men like half-trolls”.

Jackson’s films accept these visions in large part, giving us a host of evil humans who, with their kohl-rimmed eyes and multiple piercings, come straight out of an Orientalist nightmare.

The racism of both books and films is, in this regard, neither merely incidental nor is it just an uncritical hangover from the European discourses of empire. It is, rather, integral to the logic of these narratives and to the whole moral architecture on which the stories depend for their establishment of sympathy on the part of viewers and readers. The ‘we’ that these fantasies offer to us is a ‘we’ that is exclusively fair-skinned and straight-haired. And it is a ‘we’ constituted by a vision of itself surrounded and imperiled by those whose bodily darkness marks them out as a threat. Those bodily differences, moreover, justify an absence of any moral consideration towards these enemies, whose destruction by the ‘men of the West’ becomes as acceptable as it is necessary.

Achebe, responding to the racism of Mr. Johnson insists on a simple but crucial question: “Cary is writing about my home, isn’t he?” In posing this question he calls the bluff of any attempt to write-off Cary’s representations as merely fictional. We need to ask the same question here and for the same reasons: these films are about our homes and lives, aren’t they?

The simple answer, of course, is ‘no’. There are, after all, no such things as elves or orcs. So the question “what ‘race’ is an elf” might be dismissed as nonsense. But this misses the point.

There are no such things as ‘races’ either. It is precisely the fantastic quality of these imaginings which serves to conceal how far they speak in chorus with those fantasies which sustain exclusion and violence in the world in which we live: how far they speak with dominant ways of imagining white identity, with representations of a Europe besieged, with practices of reading moral worth from appearance, all of which are all too familiar in our public life.

It is too easy to write this off as ‘escapism’. This is an escapism which sustains the very thing – those ways of making sense of the world – from which we most need to escape.
"

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10 ... 2012454224

"
Elves are a long-standing cultural trope in the West, where they have often represented the other and fears associated with otherness. Elves continue to do the same cultural work today and are a fixture of fantasy settings. Fantasy-based video games portray elves in a variety of ways across a few types of elves (high elves, half-elves, and dark elves), but there are consistencies to their portrayal across such spaces. Given the dearth of work on elves in modern narratives, the cultural work of elves as the other in video games is analyzed here. World of Warcraft (WoW), EverQuest II, The Elder Scrolls series, and the Dragon Age series were studied, with Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as background. Although WoW is somewhat exceptional in its portrayal of elves, digital elves are mostly portrayed similarly to a historically idealized real-world Western minority.
"

https://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspo ... y.html?m=1

"
To the credit of Drizzt's fictional persona, he sympathises with these people and is patient with the caution strangers take around him. At least, this is a good aspect of his character if it's taken as a model for, say, white people to not go around acting indignant that people of colour aren't always ecstatic about our presence. From the 'surface' reading of his story, where Drizzt is the victim and he is patient with having to work to personally win over every single racist he meets... that's suboptimal to say the least. The tangle that this kind of speculative fiction has made of power dynamics makes it harder to draw any conclusive arguments out of the text beyond a lukewarm 'everyone should be good to each other'. That kind of 'equal opportunity learning' gives us stuff like the unholy mess that was Disney's Pocahontas, in which the indigenous Powhatans are also guilty of prejudice against strangers just because the white people are here to conquer, pillage, and murder. I cannot even.

Fantasy racism doesn't speak to real-world racism as long as it seeks to justify its existence: as long as those simple innocent farmers are afraid of orcs because orcs are literally and objectively the twisted embodiment of malevolence forged by an evil god to burn the world, fearing orcs isn't racism, it's self-preservation. Fantasy that wants to tell us that racism is bad has to start by admitting that racism isn't a defense mechanism but a weapon--a philosophy that helps the people in power convince everyone else that it's okay to kill and exploit those other people, without provocation, because they just don't deserve any better. Stopping racism is about acknowledging and revealing and destroying that idea, and it's got to be done in us, the privileged, oppressing class.
"

Added in 10 minutes 29 seconds:


Lol, there are a lot of racists, maybe they are so deluded that they honestly think they aren't, but I doubt that too and think they are just dishonest villains, who say "fight racism!" while being wholly devoted to extremely nasty ideologies, often deeply racist one way or another, like what we see now so in the open again today.

Those double standards are extremely sickening to see, and require that I use a glamour over myself to conceal what they would hate me for, that I'm the photographic negative:

https://onestopforwriters.com/negative_traits

https://prowritingaid.com/inspiration-d ... ter-traits

https://ideonomy.mit.edu/essays/traits.html

In my view, THEY are the ones with the problem, not me, not Lolth.

Added in 16 minutes 5 seconds:
"

ArmouredHedgehog Offline
enthusiast
I wasn't specifically replying to you. There is a lot of transcendental moral thought still in the minds of most people. Human rights were, as you said, invented because "we" have decided that they should exist. The question of course is, who is encompassed by this "we". Governments of western nations (and some others) have signed so called declarations of human rights. Insisting upon their applicability to all human cultures is at least borderline intellectual imperialism. Extending this universal claim to fantasy realms is, as you understand, absurd.
I recommend the book "Falsches moralisches Bewusstsein. Eine Kritik der Idee der Menschenwürde" (Wrong moral conscience. A critique of the idea of human dignity) to all those who understand german.

Sure, I am throwing around ideas. It is a fantasy forum and fantasy is (mostly) about exploring ideas. As long as the ideas are linked to the topic I see no problem with doing that.
"

"
VarneyTheReaper Offline
stranger
Originally Posted by Sozz
Like this, the Drow are racist, but they're written to be racist, so who is really the racist?

"Supremacists" exists also in Reallife. It's not racist to point out when/that they "are" racist.

The Writer has* written them to be Supremacists, in a racist Way. But that doesn't make him* racist. He simply invented a villainous Group of Beings/People and that was it.
And the Drow have good Reasons to be so arrogant. They are somewhat powerful "and" have a mighty, dominant Society in the Underdark have they not?


Also jeah, even if this Topic is like " The Racism is towards the Drow, not coming from them/the other Way around ",

i simply want to mention why this is the Case -> and that the Drow are MOST LIKELY responsible themself for other Races having such a bad Opinion on them.
Similar like certain Groups of People who exist in Reality - and prove us Year and Year again why they should never be allowed to become a dominant, "supreme" Group.

But God protect me before i point out who they are. =P
"

I wonder who they mean. We now see what the problem is, but people are still trying to suggest it is the non-Western people at this time? Like with everything so blatant? It is so repulsive.

[kFoyauextlH]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-be ... C99qzddwz5

"
Why is the errata making Drow grey? For practical purposes, when passing phosphorescent fungus, the deepest of black skin would not reflect light as much light as grayish hues would. I believe that the hunters, scouts and assassins would have the deepest of black skin by evolution and cultural designation. The beauty of a creature living underground with skin so black that it absorbs light because of natural selection or cultural demand is far more an interesting role-playing element than "grayish skin tone of many hues". The symbolism of the power, awe and mystery that the deepest of blacks conjure can't be erased from a human mind.

It is a good thing. Black is a beautiful color. The alignment of a Drow character is irrelevant in this matter.

There is no shame in coming from a genetically black-skinned background and inheriting black skin as a result.

Please bring jet/ink/obsidian/midnight/ebony/onyx/charcoal black Drow back to canon. Being black is cool. Being black is sexy.

Thank you for reading and replying, whatever your thoughts.
"

"
People seem to be projecting their own thoughts and opinions about me from my post. MidnightPlat thinks he's being cool or funny. I don't quite get it.



Anyways, I like that Drow are getting an expansion in lore.

I just find it ridiculous that the errata writers found "the Drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian" to be offensive language that needed to be changed.



I'm not outraged because it's my game. I know I can play however I'd like. Progress and evolution. I like it.



I'm just saying being black is not offensive. It's a powerful color. Why should it be changed? It's counter-intuitive to what they are trying to accomplish.
"

I absolutely despised this guy's word salad:

"
#6Dec 14, 2021
MidnightPlat
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The Little Regarded Wars continue. I was wondering how long it would take for a member of the Retro Drow Conservationist Society to make a whole new account for this forum, exclusively to address yesterday's errata document. Don't get me wrong, occasionally I whip out the photonegative black, white aggressive widow's peaked and powerstached rockers for the party, but like those KISS coverband champions of the Underdark on their last Spelljammer expedition to Burger King, I learned the TTRPG doctrine of Have it Your Way and rest content to make Whoppers of games anyway I want. Relatedly I thought the blue and orange Hobgoblin coloration in lore didn't work for me, so they all sorta look like grey Klingons in my game ... and I have no angst that my aesthetic choices haven't been "supported" by the published game. It's cool. You can be too, if you try. To riff on Yurei, the only person stopping you is actually you.

"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and greyish skin of many hues." By the way this is a massive writing and copyediting fail. Hue means color not shade, gradation, tone or any of the proper words. It's false poetic ear vocabulary grab bagging, and a little embarassing. Haeck and Todd would word choice this way in their banter sometimes when they were doing WotC product hype videos on DDB, I'm wondering who in the WotC stable committeed that text through without anyone checking a dictionary, confident that their artistic sensibilities were infallible against the word's actual lexicon meaning.

I'm guessing the subtext is D&D will never get Drow color right, not because words fail them but they fail at words. It's one of those design team in jokes that will be shared with us in some future product in a format we've never seen before.

What printing is your PHB? Mine's the 10th (2018) and it reads "the drow have skin that resembles charcoal or obsidian, as well as stark white or pale yellow hair." Nothing polished about it. Maybe you slipped in your waxing and mispoke.

I'm not the only one who thinks I'm funny or cool, so I'll keep doing me, but thanks for noticing.

I think the new language is more reflective of Drow art direction seen throughout fifth edition, I don't know if it was done to mete off controversy, at least exclusively. Looking back to Drizzt's first rendering on the cover of the Crystal Shard in 1988 ... kinda purple. I haven't seen "polished obsidian" on the original photo negative Drow as the paper and print quality didn't allow for polished glossy effects. But it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't some renderings out there on that theme eventually. There are discussions of past representations of Drow which has opened WotC awareness to some sensitivities about representation. Some folks very passionately disagree on any changes in lore and art direction to avoid harm.

Regardless beyond "have it your way" I don't see what you want in Drow being excluded, but if you feel it is, again have it your way.
"

Argh, lol a lot of these nerds are so irritating in how they communicate, even in real life when I hear certain people who seem very nerdy, it is like something is wrong with them.

The original poster laments:

"
Yeah I read up on some history about how Drow were depicted originally - like a loooooong time ago. Didn't know about the issue and don't know who actually kept pushing about Drow being offensive. Obviously nobody is offended at charcoal black Drow. They're putting band-aids on band-aids that don't need them.

Like I grew up with D&D and Drow representations. I'm 35. Never once thought them having black skin was relevant to my earthen realm.

Now they are, lol, hues of gray. Which as written, however anyone wants to believe, doesn't mean black.

Drizzt does not look as cool. He gets lighter gray every year. They're being so non-offensive that now he's getting white-washed lol!!!
"

Added in 11 minutes 20 seconds:
"Racism" is not a direct theme of this thread, even though things involving that keep coming up, this thread is far more complex than that and is not a repeat of other threads either, where Racism is also not the point, like Khaine or Hruggek, but it is brought up for the purpose of other meditations, the idea of "that's racist!" Is totally not the beginning or the end of what it is brought up for in any thread, but a deeper look at what it is, what it is saying, what it is hiding, what it reveals, where it is, what it does, how it is unavoidable to see, disgusting, even made practically inescapable to participate in, how it is inside already, how no counter mechanism can seem to really help, and what is deeper is always much more important to me than just noticing or admitting to something or denying it as some may, which might even be more of a dead end in exploring and using it in the best ways, but this has to do with so much more than just the basic racism we read about in articles or even might experience. This thread has to do with webs, networks of ideas and paths, things to touch on and untangle, the tangle of interrelated and adjacent ideas and being able to step from one to another, and about freedom and being trapped, among numerous other things. This is a thread about the person as a negative, about the subconscious, the shadow, the inversion, and so much more!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noldor

"
The Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist writes that Tolkien's account of Finrod Felagund includes "a transparently colonial passage" where the Elf, having arrived in a new country, "immediately takes up the White Man's Burden and spends a year educating the humans about his religious beliefs ('true knowledge'). They think this is great and become his feudal subjects. Then to avoid conflict with the Green-elves he re-settles the new arrivals in a thinly populated area ruled by some of his relatives."[17]
"

"
Nightfall in Middle-Earth, a 1998 studio album by the German power metal band Blind Guardian, contained multiple references to the Noldor and the events they experience within the narrative of The Silmarillion. For example, "Face the Truth" has Fingolfin tell how he crossed the icy Helcaraxë, while in "Noldor (Dead Winter Reigns)" he regrets having left Valinor; "Battle of Sudden Flame" recalls the battle of Dagor Bragollach, which marked the turning point of the Noldor's war against Morgoth in the Dark Lord's favour; "The Dark Elf" recounts the birth of Maeglin, the son of Fingolfin's daughter Aredhel and Eöl the titular Dark Elf; "Nom the Wise" is an elegy by Beren to his friend Finrod Felagund.[18][19] The Tolkien scholar Bradford Lee Eden writes that "although one can assume that Tolkien was not a headbanger",[20] he finds that in the opinion of his students, the "driving energy" of the power metal sound is appropriate for the stories: "The music conveys rage and despair, which fits lyrics such as 'The doom of the Noldor drew near/ The words of a banished king, “I swear revenge!”'"[20] Eden adds that this facilitates discussion of Tolkien's Christian view of the fall of man.[20]
"

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Thrall-Noldoli

"
In the earlier conceptions of what would become The Silmarillion, all Elven realms of Beleriand were destroyed much earlier than in the final work, and virtually all the Noldoli were enslaved by Melko as his thralls, working in the mines of Angband doing his work. The only free Noldoli were escaped thralls, who were mistrusted by the Sindar.

Melko's power in these early works is perceived as great: he is able to dominate the minds of the Elves wherever they go, by instilling his fear in them. Even the escaped thralls are thus not truly free. It is not inconceivable that in this early conception Thrall-Noldoli were used to breed the Orcs.

In the later material the published Silmarillion was based on, there are relatively few references to Morgoth's thralls. There are no clear mentions what happens to the Elves Morgoth captures (exactly where Finduilas and the other women of Nargothrond were taken to is never said), but the idea is still present in the end of the Quenta Silmarillion, which mentions that the Valar freed Morgoth's slaves.
"

https://notionclubarchives.fandom.com/wiki/Virtinoldor

"
The Virtinoldor or Thrall-Noldoli were numbers of the Noldor who had become prisoners of Angband and were enslaved and forced to work in the deep mines and other facilities of Morgoths great northern fortress, and who were later freed by the deeds of their folk. Though not all of Morgoths Elvish slaves were Noldor, almost none of the Nandor and few of the Sindar proved to survive the brutal environment of the northern Underworld, without natural light and air. Some deceptive and often noble Elves had their will broken and they became Kaukareldar, or false Elves, corrupted Servants of the Dark Lord set free to spy out and confuse their masters enemies. Female Elves were said to have ended up as Drogwin, or slave-women, though the Elves found little evidence for this after Angbands fall and thus this may be propaganda of Morgoth. Most surviving Virtinoldor had suffered too much to be able to withstand the perils of Middle-Earth and left for the Undying Lands at the end of the First Age. The Thrall-Elves had even developed their own elvish dialect, Mulanoldorin.
"

https://notionclubarchives.fandom.com/wiki/Underdeeps

https://www.silmarillionwritersguild.or ... gle?page=0

"
Morgoth's Elvish Thralls and Slaves
Written for the question: We know that Gwindor was an escaped slave of Morgoth, and in the Lost Tales Rúmil was also captured as a slave by Morgoth and escaped later. Do you know of any other elves that were captured and escaped alive from slavery? And what about men?

While slavery as a practice of the forces of evil is a widespread and sadly common phenomenon in Tolkien’s legendarium and finds its echo numerous times in different versions of the texts, it is not usually touched upon in much detail.

Gwindor and Rúmil are some of the few named Elves suffering this particular fate. One of the most prominent captives of Morgoth, Maedhros, is often understood by fans to have been forced into slavery, but although the plot point of his captivity goes back to the earliest extant texts, there is very little evidence speaking toward the further interpretation. The early idea that he was put to torture to reveal the secrets of jewel-making was abandoned in favour of making Maedhros an important political hostage in order to pressure his brothers into renouncing their quest. Risking his escape via the mines (as in Gwindor’s case) prior to his torment on Thangorodrim seems unlikely to me personally.

However, Fingolfin’s challenge to Morgoth, describing him as “Lord of Slaves” appears more substantial considering the sheer numbers of unnamed Elves and Humans Morgoth must have enslaved. Not only the Sacking of Nargothrond and the Fall of Gondolin as well as the destruction of the Falas saw survivors taken into captivity: One of the central disasters of the Silmarillion, the Dagor Bragollach, caused widespread captivity of Noldor and Sindar who were forced to put their skills and knowledge into Morgoth’s service (Gwindor’s brother Gelmir was taken captive during or after this battle, but there is nothing in the texts indicating whether or not he was forced to work), and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad likewise saw the enslavement not merely of the remaining free Eldar of Hithlum to Angband, but also of the House of Hador at the hands of the Easterlings who were settling into their newly assigned fief. Morwen’s household was one of the few that remained untouched (although her concern that Túrin might be enslaved prompted her send him to Doriath). A kinswoman of Húrin called Aerin was married to and mistreated by an Easterling called Brodda, and Tuor was taken captive and held as thrall to a high-ranking Easterling named Lorgan for three years; however he was able to free himself and escape, eventually, to Gondolin under the guidance of Voronwë.

Gondolin as one of the few remaining strongholds may be a remnant of earlier textual versions, in which Morgoth’s victory after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad as far more decisive and the Noldor in total (excepting only the Gondolindrim) subjugated and called Thrall-Noldoli. They were not completely captive and in fact were allowed to move through Beleriand, but put under the so-called “Spell of Bottomless Dread” that left them under Morgoth’s control and in constant fear and disquiet of him. Voronwë, before he was re-imagined as one of Turgon’s mariners but already Tuor’s guide, may have been one of them, and so were a number of the Gondolindrim, for the most part in the House of the Hammer of Wrath under Rog. His name, noted as unusual by Christopher Tolkien because of its meaning (‘demon’), may be a hint that he himself used to be an escaped captive – such a moniker seems more like a degrading title than a legitimate name of an Elven nobleman, but that is again guesswork. Maeglin was subjected to the same spell after his betrayal of the city, though seems to have been able to mask it outwardly, and at least at one point Tolkien toyed with the idea of having the association with Morgoth run in the family; Eöl was then understood to be a slave who did not escape from Angband, but was “released to do mischief among the Elves”, and also seems to have gained much of his smithcraft from captivity.

Eöl was not the only released slave either. Again, no other particular Elven names are known, but the Curse of the Noldor made the free Elves among them wary of betrayal, and they became aware of Morgoth’s spell on his captives and the fact that they were often sent to do his work, thus “if any of his captives escaped in truth, and returned to their own people, they had little welcome, and wandered alone outlawed and desperate.” Why Gwindor proved the exception here is hard to say. Although Finduilas’ favour and his previous high standing may have played a role, he was even re-instated into the King’s Council, and that appears equally strange given the distrust stated prior, similar to Húrin’s admission into Doriath after his release and the shunning he himself experienced elsewhere, and the general distrustful stance of Thingol toward the Northern Sindar, who, due to their proximity to Angband rather than any real suspicion, were often counted as in league with Morgoth by the people of Doriath.

However, even the slaves who did not manage to free themselves were eventually released – either in Lúthien’s overthrow of Tol-in-Gaurhoth (in an earlier version Beren – then still a Noldo – was likewise put to work as a kitchen slave under Tevildo, a forerunner of Sauron) or in the defeat of Morgoth in the War of Wrath, after which many slaves and captives were freed.
"

https://www.elfdict.com/w/thrall

"
mûl 0
N. noun. slave, thrall

A noun meaning “slave” or “thrall”, from primitive ᴹ✶mōl derived from the root ᴹ√MŌ having to do with “labour” (Ety/MŌ). In Noldorin, a [[on|primitive long [ō] became [ū]]] (PE18/96; PE19/91).

Conceptual Development: In the Gnomish Lexicon from the 1910s, one word for “slave” was G. guinir, apparently an agental form of the adjective guin “possessed”. The suffix -(n)ir was usually limited to feminine word, so perhaps this word was exclusively female.

Another word for “slave” or “servant” was G. drog (GL/31), and the word ᴱN. drog “slave” reappeared in the Early Noldorin word lists of the 1920s (PE13/142, 155). This word was derived from primitive ᴱ✶norokā́ > ✱nrokā after which the [[g|initial [nr] becoming [dr]]] (GL/31), though at this stage its relationship to other roots is unclear.

mól 0
Q. noun. slave, slave, [ᴹQ.] thrall

A noun meaning “slave” or “thrall”, from primitive ✶mōl derived from the root √MŌ having to do with “labour” (VT43/31; Ety/MŌ).

Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon from the 1910s the word for “slave” or “servant” was ᴱQ. virt or vartyo, derived from the root ᴱ√VṚTYṚ “serve” (QL/102). In the two variants, either the [[eq|short syllabic [ṛ] became [ir] before palatalized [tʲ]]], or [[eq|long syllabic [ṝ] became [ar]]]. This word appeared as an element in the name ᴱQ. Virtinoldor “Thrall-Noldoli” for those Noldor enslaved by Melko(r) in the early tales (PE14/9).


In the Gnomish Lexicon from the same period, another Qenya word for “slave” or “servant” was given as ᴱQ. norka derived from primitive ᴱ✶norokā́ (GL/31), though its relationship to other roots is unclear.

The form ᴹQ. mól first appeared in The Etymologies from the 1930s, already having the derivation given above (Ety/MŌ). This word also appeared in Tolkien’s later writings from the 1950s (VT43/31). A later term for "Slave Noldorin” was ᴹQ. Mólanoldorin (Ety/MŌ; LR/177), a strong indication that mól replaced Early Qenya virt.

Cognates
S. mûl “slave”
Derivations
✶mōl “slave, slave, [ᴹ✶] thrall” ✧ VT43/31
√MŌ “labour, be afflicted” ✧ VT43/31
Element in
ᴺQ. mólië “slavery, thralldom”
"



"
Ah, yes. This was one of the saddest outcomes of the Curse of the Noldor, I think, that escaped captives of Morgoth weren’t welcomed as they should have been. It says in The Silmarillion that:

Ever the Noldor feared most the treachery of those of their own kin, who had been thralls in Angband; for Morgoth used some of these for his evil purposes, and feigning to give them liberty sent them abroad, but their wills were chained to his, and they strayed only to come back to him again. Therefore if any of his captives escaped in truth, and returned to their own people, they had little welcome, and wandered alone outlawed and desperate.

This fear wasn’t limited to Nargothrond. In fact, when Hurin is finally released by Morgoth, he first wanders to Gondolin, but Turgon refuses to let him enter, saying to Thorondor, “Then your words bode ill, for they can bear but one meaning. Even Hurin Thalion has surrendered to the will of Morgoth. My heart is shut.” If anything, it’s interesting that Gwindor seems to have been welcomed back into Nargothrond with little fuss - it’s likely that this was thanks to his relationship with Finduilas.
"

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Stone-gangs

https://ilverai.wordpress.com/2012/09/0 ... s-part-ii/

"
The book of Lost Tales, Part II includes further tales of the First Age of Middle Earth including: The Tale of Tinuviel (Beren and Luthien), the tale of Turambar (the children of Hurin), the fall of Gondolin, the Nauglafring, sketches of the tale of Earendel and further development of the framing device (ie. Eriol versus Ælfwine of England).

As with the Music of the Ainur in the first volume, what struck me most about this volume was not necessarily where the tales diverged, but how close they were to their ultimate form. Some tales, specifically The Tale of the Fall of Gondolin, were never fully rewritten, only compressed. There are some odd differences, but in these choices we the reader have full hindsight and can begin to place the progression of the final tales. It is this process in reading that I found most fascinating.

For myself, the clear standouts of this volume are the Tale of Tinuviel and the Tale of the Fall of Gondolin. The Tale of Tinuviel is primarily of interest for its differences, most strikingly with regards to Beren. For much of the early composition in the Tale and later the Lay of Leithian, Beren is not a Man but an Elf! The implicit difficulties in this scheme are evident to anyone who has read the published Silmarillion. Here, in the Tales, the first union of man and elf is not Beren and Luthien, but that of Tuor and Idril in Gondolin. This makes some sense, given the importance Tolkien gave to their son Earendil.

Instead of using his mortality as reason for enmity and to deny Beren’s worthiness of Luthien’s hand, Thingol and the elves of Doriath are repulsed by the fact that Beren is one of the Noldoli, possibly a thrall of Morgoth and therefore not to be trusted or harbored.

The idea of the thralldom of the Noldoli is pervasive in the Tales. Based on my memory of the Silmarillion, it was never fully abrogated, but it is only hinted at and never given as strong a character as seen here in the tales. In the Tales, Morgoth enslaves the vast majority (so it seems) of the Noldoli, and lays over them all a fog of despair and dread. Some elves he would release, but due to pall of fear he has set in their hearts, they unwittingly go on to do his will or act as his inadvertent spies.

Also of interest in the Tale of Tinuviel is Tevildo Prince of Cats, who in the narrative is the precursor of Sauron. In the Tale, Beren goes on to Angband and is captured by Morgoth. He persuades Morgoth of his loyalty and wish to serve and skills as a hunter. So Morgoth gives Beren into Tevildo’s keeping to work in his kitchens. This part of the tale only works because here Beren is an Elf, and believed to be in Morgoth’s thrall. As shown in this episode, the confrontations in the Tale tend to focus more on outwitting the opponent rather than contests of will. This strategy is used again to lure Tevildo out to fight Huan. And later to wrest control of the island from him.

One of my favorite parts of the Silmarillion is the story of the Fall of Gondolin. Here, in the Lost Tales, the story is greatly expanded and beautifully conceived. This tale, of all of them, is sure to take your breath away. The level of detail is extraordinary and while some elements of the plot are different, the main elements are already in place and the most striking (and pleasant) difference is the length. To my mind, this is the tale to read, even if you cannot bring yourself to read any other!

The tale of Turambar and the Nauglafring is interesting in its differences to The Children of Hurin, The Narn (Unfinished Tales) and the Silmarillion, but as this work is well published, I didn’t find it as enthralling. However, I did find the close mirroring of the Eddas/Vulsunga saga/Nibelungied fascinating, particularly for how closely at times the Tale follows it thematically and in plot at times. What is most interesting here is how this was woven into the tale more tightly and with increasing subtlety as the story of Turin developed towards its final form.

Christopher Tolkien’s commentary is very good, and really brings to light Tolkien’s struggles with the Tales as well as casting a light on his circumstances at the time of the composition. The commentary also attempts to explain the progression of the tales through their various drafts, which at times is confusing, but often very interesting to see how Tolkien’s thought developed.

The book of Lost Tales is definitely worth a try for anyone wishing to immerse themselves fully in Middle Earth.
"

[kFoyauextlH]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoliant

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Ungoliant

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Ungoliant

https://lotro-wiki.com/wiki/Ungoliant

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Ungoliant



https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Unlight

https://thetolkien.forum/wiki/Ungoliant%3famp=1

https://www.glyphweb.com/arda/a/avathar.html

"
A narrow land in the south of Aman, between the Pelóri mountains and the sea. Far from the light of the Two Trees, it was a place of dark cliffs and ravines, with a long shoreline shrouded in darkness. The name Avathar comes from ancient Quenya, meaning 'the Shadows'.

Dark as Avathar was, it was made darker by a being that occupied one its deep valleys. This was Ungoliant, a primordial creature in the shape of a monstrous spider, who spun webs to capture what little light penetrated the shadowy shoreland. It was here that Melkor found her after his escape from Valinor, and together they hatched a plot to wreak revenge for Melkor, and fulfil Ungoliant's desire for light: the destruction of the Two Trees themselves.

After Ungoliant passed out of Avathar with Melkor, she never returned. With the rising of the Sun, the darkness that shrouded the land would have been dispelled, but whether any of the people of the Undying Lands ever came there, no story tells.
"