Ruth roper givens

Is their a more heartbreaking and uncomfortable 20 minutes of television than the second half of S4E9?

2023.06.07 14:54 BoringIsAsBoringDo Is their a more heartbreaking and uncomfortable 20 minutes of television than the second half of S4E9?

-Bubbles gets beaten nearly to death because Herc didn’t make good on his promise, because… -Herc was too busy giving Randy up as his CI, because… -Herc is clearly in over his head and should have never been given stripes.
All while the “Colvin takes the corner kids to Ruth’s Chris” subplot is taking place.

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2023.06.02 02:47 kauan1983 The conspiracy lore and the dynamic between the government agencies in Stranger Things

Something that i am extremely fascinated about in Stranger Things is the government conspiracy angle of the series, and over the seasons, i felt that the writing started to give us less details about how the government agencies work in this universe. Also, many details of the lore are still unresolved, and i fear some of them might not be resolved in S5, so I decided to make an analysis of everything that involves the government in the show to create my own version of the timeline of the events involving the U.S. government, and gather information to hypothesize events that may have happened offscreen, the occupations of some characters within the government and what agencies are involved with everything that has happened in the show since S1. I hope you guys enjoy the read!

PROJECT MKULTRA
- In 1953, The MKUltra program was officially sanctioned by the CIA, a multimillion-dollar initiative intended to develop mind control techniques. The experiments would be conducted in many hospitals, prisons and colleges across the U.S. Hawkins National Laboratory was one of many facilities in the U.S. where MKUltra was being conducted - Dr. Martin Brenner was the director of CIA operations at this laboratory.
- MKUltra is a real CIA-sanctioned research that was officially halted in 1973. And it was the basis for a science-based horror in the show's lore. But the Duffers never wanted to really dive into it, as the story they wanted to tell was mainly inspired by the Montauk Project and would focus in children with super powers and other dimensions.
There is a little talk about it in the official behind the scenes companion Worlds Turned Upside Down:

I wouldn't say we had done necessarily a deep dive into it. It was more a surface glance of seeing what they were up to and then using it as an excuse to have science-based horror in our narrative. — Ross Duffer

- The presence of the MKUltra in the lore is what canonically establishes the CIA as the bad men we see in S1 and briefly in S2. The agency is only mentioned once in the show when Hopper and Powell are investigating documents about the HNL/MKUltra, but we can confirm that the CIA was also responsible for funding Brenner's program as in the Worlds Turned Upside Down book we can see government cards with a "Central Intelligence Agency Clandestine Ops" badge in it.
PROJECT INDIGO
- Doctor Brenner's program. It's the main government project of Stranger Things, and although never mentioned in the show, the name of the program was supposed to be "INDIGO" which was also the proposed name of the show as stated by the Duffers in their MasterClass:

So we just came up with a bunch of ideas. We had The Keep, we had INDIGO which was gonna be the name of the government program, and amidst that we had Stranger Things. — Ross Duffer

It's unclear if the Duffers kept the name as it was never mentioned in the show, but the name is mentioned in the Suspicious Minds book, which was supervised by one of the show's writers - Paul Dichter.
Project Indigo is basically the Hawkins equivalent of the Montauk Project. While the MKUltra was the Duffers' basis for a science-based horror in the lore, INDIGO is where the most crazy, cutting-edge developments in science come in. The Duffers had the desire to play with the "sandbox" of elements that the Montauk conspiracy could offer. In the conspiracy, there were talks about children with psychic/psionic powers (which became the Numbers 001 to 018), other dimensions (like the Upside Down, Dimension X and the Hellscape), alien contact, monsters being unleashed (Demogorgon/DX entities) and even time travel, which is something that was originally part of the ST mythology as we can see in the document below:
The Montauk Pitch by the Duffer Brothers

THE PROGRAM STARTS
- As we learned in S4, the beginning of the program happens in 1959, and is a result of Dr. Brenner discovering a boy with extraordinary psychic abilities, Henry, after his mother contacts him in the hopes of sending him to a facility where he would be locked away and fixed. Henry, knowing what his mother was planning, decided to kill his whole family, but would eventually fall into a coma due to not knowing his limits while using his psychic powers.
- Brenner knew what the boy did and also what he was capable of, and wanted to not just study but also control him. After the Creel House murders, Brenner would take Henry to the lab and the CIA would cover up anything that could compromise their operation. Victor Creel, the only survivor of the events in the house was declared legally insane, the records of what Victor claimed to have occurred in his house were sealed.
- Brenner eventually sold to the CIA a separate program that he planned to start, a program that would study Henry Creel who was presented to the government as a potential weapon against the Soviets as stated by Matt Duffer in this interview by Deadline.

He knew what this kid did and also what he was capable of when he was young. Brenner’s going, how can I mold this character, but not just into a weapon? That’s really how he sold it to the government, but for him as a scientist, it’s like, what other worlds can this kid show me about how our universe works? — Matt Duffer

- As a scientist, Brenner had the desire to not only mold Henry into a weapon but also use him as a means to reach other worlds/dimensions and understand how the universe works. That makes me think that, at the time, Brenner expected Henry to be able to do what he would later discover only Eleven could do, which was the capablity of opening a rift or tear in time-space via psychic energy.
- At some point, I would guess in late 1959 - early 1960s, an unknown event led Brenner to pacify Henry's abilities via Soteria. After that, Brenner would decide to evolve his program, replicating Henry's powers in other kids. This is something Matt Duffer confirmed that S5 will explore,

It’s something we will get into in Season 5. What happened to that program once Henry became involved and how Brenner evolved it into including multiple kids. We’re going to go back and see some of that in Season 5.

How Brenner tried to replicate Henry's abilities is unclear, but there's something mentioned in the Montauk bible that caught my attention and could be a brief explanation of how these preternatural abilities arise in some individuals:

ELEVEN was an orphan with telekinesis. her preternatural abilities have been linked to mutations caused by her mothers drug use.

In this version of the Eleven's backstory, the Duffers had not yet conceived El's mother being Terry Ives, the MKUltra involvement in the lore, and El's abilities being the result of experiments on her mother. Instead, we have genetic mutations caused by drug use.
If there's any chance this is an explanation to how some individuals are born with psychic abilities, i suspect that Brenner knew that drugs had the potential to cause such mutations and that via experiments and training, he would unlock these supernatural psychic abilities. Knowing that, Brenner would use the MKUltra (which mainly involved psychedelic drugs) as a means to new supernatural kids to be born, just like it happened to Eleven.
Virginia Creel's backstory
In episode 7, Henry mentions that his parents did "such awful things." and that he "held up a mirror" to show them who they really were, but we never got to see what Henry used against his mother. Whatever awful thing she did, is still a mystery in the show.
Also, Virginia somehow knew that Henry had supernatural abilities, so i think it's plausible to assume that, perhaps, Virginia knew it because of something dark in her past, something she believed resulted in her son being born with supernatural abilities and becoming a "broken" kid. The drug element that i mentioned before could also play a role in the origin of Henry's powers and whatever these dark memories of Virginia are.
In S4E7 script, we can see that the whole part where Virginia suspects Henry is the responsible for the strange happenings in the house and contacts Brenner to lock her son away is missing. Meaning the writers later decided to add more layers to this backstory that may be explored in S5.
The Duffer Brothers have confirmed in interviews that S5 will explore more of Henry's prequel story, and it was recently revealed in an article from BBC that the 'The First Shadow' stage play influences S5, so i'm hoping this means we'll see more of the Creels, specially Virginia.

They were able to adjust some of the "things in the play" and said that working on it had given them ideas for the upcoming season five.
Matt Duffer added: "Some of the mythology stuff is a little bit trickier, but like Ross said, it's been fun to have the play influence the show, and the show influenced the play,

1960's - THE PROGRAM EVOLVES
- The evolution of Brenner's program logically took place during the 1960s, and some of that was already hinted in S2 when we discover that Terry had documents about people she believed were like her daughter. In some of those documents we get to see that Kali was abducted in London, a Cleveland teen girl who was seemingly abducted in Indiana, and a newborn boy was taken from a hospital. The baby was in the care of a nurse who was found dead in her home.
- in 1969, Ray Carroll started working at HNL as an orderly.
1970's
- At some point in the early 70's, Terry Ives got involved with MKUltra. (In the Suspicious Minds book, we learn that Terry was involved with MKUltra in 1969 but i'm not considering any information from the book due to the huge amount of inconsistencies.)
- After Brenner kidnapped Eleven in 1971, the BreneHNL would face charges and lawsuits from Terry Ives but they were denied due to lack of evidence.
- In 1973, the MKUltra was officially halted.
- In 1974, Terry would try to take Eleven from the laboratory. Brenner ordered Terry to undergo an eletroshock therapy, ordering Ray Carroll to set the voltage up to 450 and then proceeded to electrocute her until her brain was damaged.
- In 1979, One succeeded in having El "free" him by removing the Soteria from him. Regaining his psychic abilities, Henry kills all the Indigo numbers except for Eleven who would eventually banish him out of our dimension. After the attack, El falls into a coma, and Brenner doesn't dare bring another number to the lab. Instead, Brenner focuses the experiments on Eleven, who has repressed not only her memories of the past events but also her powers after waking up from her coma. Brenner knew that Eleven's abilities weren't lost but needed a "spark" to be restored.
1983
- Brenner believed that One was somewhere out there, "hiding in the darkness", and in 1983, after Eleven's powers were restored, Brenner would eventually use her abilities to find him.
- In one experiment, El hears a strange sound that would get Brenner's attention. Despite El getting scared and the experiment being aborted, Brenner would repeat the experiment with the intention of making "contact".
- On the night of november 6, 1983, El makes psychic contact with the Demogorgon in the Void, inadvertentely creating TUD, opening the mothergate and unleashing the monster. She eventually escaped the HNL that night.
- On the next day, Brenner and the CIA receive a visit from agents that according to the S1E1 script were NSA. CIA and NSA agents would eventually work together to find Eleven and cover up anything that would compromise the secrecy of their clandestine operation.
- Brenner and his team of agents along with MPs would go to the Hawkins Middle School in order to find Eleven after Hopper revealed her location. For their surprise, the Demogorgon appears in the school, distracting the agents and MPs, allowing the kids to run away from the CIA with Eleven. Brenner is brutally attacked by the Demogorgon, but survives the attack.
- After the events in the school, we see hopper entering a black sedan with CIA agents.
- CIA agents go to the Wheelers House searching for Eleven. This is the last time we see Brenner's men in the show. In the next season, the HNL would have a new director and a new staff.
- In a clipping at Hawkins Police Station, there's information on the aftermath of the events in november, 1983, where we learn that Joyce Byers publicy alleged that Will was the subject of a secret government program. Joyce's allegation comes amidst the investigation into the past allegations of the lab's involvement with mind control experiments (MKUltra).
- As to where Brenner and his entire staff were after the events in november, it is unknown, but i suspect Owens knew about what happened to them as in S2 he seems to be certain that Brenner's men were gone.

The point is, mistakes have been made. Yes. Abundant mistakes, but, the men involved with those mistakes, the ones responsible for what happened to your brother and Miss Holland's death, they're gone. They're gone, and for better for worse, i'm the schmuck they brought in to make things better. — Sam Owens

I've come to suspect that after the events of November '83, when the entire HNL staff was replaced, everything documented/recorded about the CIA's clandestine operations was securely locked away by CIA or DOE operatives, likely in the decommissioned Nevada Silo. (One alternate possibility is that those documents and recordings were stored in the Silo after the HNL was closed in december, 1984)
Something that I find interesting is that both the Silo Lab and Owens' residence are located in Nevada, and in S4E5, when Eleven is taken to the Silo, originally the titles "Ruth, Nevada" appeared on the screen, that was later removed, but it implies that both the Silo and Owens' residence were close. This leads me to suspect that long before Owens and Brenner conceived of the NINA program, Owens already knew about the abandoned Silo in Nevada and decided to used it to store every TOP-SECRET documents/recordings of the CIA operations at HNL.
https://preview.redd.it/qjidk3560i3b1.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=287916d61b1b71b59d7b8c7ed3a7355f2b073f44
One interesting detail is that the idea of the government securely locking away videotapes is something the Duffers planned for their original Montauk conception, which most of it was a prototype for what we've seen in Stranger Things. In The Montauk Experiment, the O.S.S. would securely lock away film cannisters with recordings of everything that happened in Camp Hero after the experiments ended in a blood-soaked event. Details in the document below:
The logline for 'The Montauk Experiment'

DOCTOR SAM OWENS' POSITION IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
- Sam Owens is a high-ranking member within U.S. Department of Energy as mentioned in the first official description of his character. Sometime between late 1983 - early 1984 he would be brought to HNL on a ‘clean-up’ assignment, tasked with containing the mess left by the CIA in 1983 and making things better.
- As I previously mentioned, Owens may have been responsible for locking away all the documented CIA experimentation at HNL, and he also may have known the whereabouts of Brenner and other scientists and CIA operatives who worked with him all along. I would even assume that Owens and Brenner may have been in contact all this time.
- During his time as director of the operations at HNL, Owens was involved in Will's treatment and in containing the spread of TUD.
- In November 1984, during the Demodogs invasion, Owens met Eleven, who eventually closed the gate, ending TUD invasion.
- A month later, the operations at HNL were officially shut down and the lab was closed after the release of the tape recording Owens' "confession", and Owens decided to help Eleven have a normal life under Hopper's care, giving him a forged birth certificate, and recommending Hopper to "let things cool off" for a year. This, of course, was done without the knowledge of the U.S. government.

FACTONS WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
After the events os S2, in addition to the CIA Clandestine Ops and the DOE, other different agencies were introduced in the story:
- US Army/Pentagon that briefly appears at the end of s3 (although we've seen the Military Police in the previous seasons which is a branch of the Army), and would be an antagonist faction in S4.
- FBI agents who are presented as friends of Owens and allied to our main characters in S4.

SULLIVAN'S FACTION
- At some point after the HNL was closed, Doctor Owens, in addition to his high-ranking position in the DOE, also gained some position within the U.S. Army/Pentagon, probably tasked with monitoring and maintaining security in Hawkins after the lab was closed and the military presence left town. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan was involved in this, and it's possible he and Owens worked together.
- An interesting detail is that the arm patch on Lt. Colonel Sullivan's uniform confirms that he's an United States Army Criminal Investigation Division operative, hence his associaton with the Pentagon.
- At some point (i assume 1985), rumors about Eleven being alive and receiving help from someone within the U.S. government began to surface within the Pentagon, this would affect Owens' reputation.
- It's also worth mentioning that in S4E6, Sullivan seems to imply that he knew or at least believed Brenner was alive.

Explanation two, Dr. Brenner's special little pet has gone rogue again and he and his lackeys are now seeking to cover it up. Perhaps in the hopes of selling their pet to the Soviets. — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

There's also this interview with Sherman Augustus where the interviewer asks him if Sullivan knows that Brenner is still alive, and Sherman's answer implies that Brenner being alive is something that wouldn't surprise Sullivan, Maybe because it was rumored within the Pentagon too. Basically, there's nothing that Sullivan doesn't know or expect about what's been happening in Hawkins and within the government since the events of S1.

I'm pretty sure he knows that there's certain elements... because he says in the dialogue "there's rumors that she's getting help from someone on the inside". So there is nothing that he is not, you know, equating in that situation, he's not surprised. Whatever it is, you have to be a really strong and dynamic individual to be able to go in and try to kick E.T in the butt. — Sherman Augustus

- In July 1985, Owens would find out about a foreign government invasion in Hawkins, and would go to Hawkins with Army/Pentagon forces to deal with the invasion, only to find an empty Soviet bunker.

OWENS' FACTION
- After the events in July, Owens got fired from his position in the miitary for failing his assignment to monitor security at Hawkins, i believe the previously mentioned rumors about him may also have played a role in his dismissal.
- Owens, knowing that El had lost her powers, feared a further re-emergence of the TUD, which led him to begin developing a means to restore her abilities and bring them back stronger than before.
- Owens would ally with Brenner to develop a way to restore Eleven's abilities, and Brenner convinced Owens that the only way to do so was via a process of re-experiencing her repressed memories in a program that they would later call NINA. It's unclear when Brenner and Owens' alliance started, but i personally believe they knew each other for longer than we initially thought, and shortly after the July events, Owens' looked for Brenner's help in order to develop a means to restore El's powers.
- Despite being fired from his position in the military, Owens was still a DOE member and also had connections to the FBI (Ellen Stinson and other agents), and he used his power to clandestinely provide Brenner with the necessary resources to establish the NINA Project. For the program to be sanctioned, he had to compromise his principles, and risk his life and that of his family. Something worth noting is that in the episode 7 script, the dialogue where Owens expresses his disappointment with NINA's progress is a little different:

I've given you all the resources you've asked for, i've given you your people, i've compromised my principles, i've risked my life, my family's life, all because you assured me this would work. That this was the only way. — Sam Owens

By "i've given you your people" we can confirm that Owens gave to Brenner his old HNL staff, who as we saw in S4E8, were loyal to him. And we can also confirm by Sam's words that he had to give Brenner resources, meaning, wherever Brenner was after the events oF S1, he was left with no resources and access to his old staff.
- Owens and Brenner would establish NINA in the same abandoned Silo in Nevada where Owens presumably locked away all the video tapes and documents from HNL.
THE FACTION CONFLICT
- After Owens' dismissal, Sullivan apparently became the responsible for monitoring Hawkins and maintaining the security in the town.
- In March 1986, a supernatural murder in Hawkins comes to Sullivan's attention, and after an autopsy is performed by Army medical doctors, Sullivan concludes that the murder was done remotely, which tied in with the rumors about Eleven being alive and getting help from someone within the U.S. government who he, and probably other operatives within the Pentagon believed was Sam Owens.
- Upon that conclusion, Sullivan would begin a clandestine military operation in order to investigate Eleven's whereabouts, and this leads him to Owens.
- Something worth noting is that when we are first introduced to Sullivan, he arrives in Indiana in an U.S. Army helicopter to investigate the circumstances of an unusual murder, but when he begins his operation to hunt down Eleven, he goes to Ruth, Nevada in an unmarked black helicopter, alluding to the fact that this is a clandestine military operation:

Sullivan arrives in Indiana

Sullivan leaves Owens' residence in Nevada

Something interesting about the scene where Sullivan visits Owens that adds some information on what the U.S. government has been up to is the dialogue between Sullivan and Owens from this audition tape which is a bit different from the dialogue from the show:

There were no signs of an attacker. No bruises, no signs of any struggle. It's as if her attacker was a ghost. — Lt. Colonel SullivanSo what is this, really? I mean, why are you here? all of the sudden you want to help again? — Sam Owens Dr. Owens, 30 civilians died last year, a foreign government invaded our country all under your watch. There had to be consequences, you've got to understand that — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

Owens' question implies that Sullivan has been helping him at some point, probably in monitoring Hawkins like a mentioned before, which would explain how he knew so much about what has happened there all this years.
And Sullivan's response implies that after Owens got fired, it became his responsability to maintain security in Hawkins, which is why he was there, asking Owens Eleven's whereabouts.
- Owens refuses to tell Sullivan Eleven's whereabouts, and Jack decides to do things "the hard way", taking multiple items from Owens' house in order to investigate everything Sam has done and everyone he has spoken to in 1985 and luckily, be able to find where Eleven is.
- Owens knew that the former Indigo test subject One was back when he saw pictures of Chrissy's body, and via a DOE intranet, he requests the immediate acceleration of NINA. He makes it clear that their secret program and facility were compromised and that the Pentagon was involved. And for the security of their program, Owens implements a communication lockdown.
- Owens uses his FBI connections to have agents help him find Eleven, maintain the secrecy of the operation and protect people closely associated with Eleven who could be found by Sullivan. Some of those agents are Ellen Stinson, who seems to be Owens' right hand, Agent Harmon, and Agent Wallace.
- In the meantime, Sullivan/the Pentagon was able to find out that Owens moved Eleven to Lenora Hills, CA, and would eventually send a group of agents/soldiers to find her.
- After finding Eleven with a group of agents and convicing her to go with him in order to get her powers back, Owens takes El to the Silo Lab while Agents Harmon and Wallace would stay with Mike, Jonathan and Will to protect them, and Agent Stinson would be closely monitoring Hawkins with 2 more agents.
- Sullivan, after a shootout in the Byers' house takes Agent Wallace to a black site to torture him in order to find out where Eleven was, and after a long time of torture, Wallace gave away Eleven's location.
- After NINA succeeded in restoring Eleven's abilities, Owens, believing she was ready, would call Stinson to have her prepare the transit from Nevada to Hawkins, Indiana through her connections at Nellis.
- Brenner would eventually betray Owens and considered killing him in order to stop Eleven from leaving the Silo Lab. After the conflict between Owens and Brenner, the Pentagon finally arrives at the location revealed by Agent Wallace and a conflict between the U.S army and the MP soldiers resulted in the death of Brenner, his men and all the scientists in the Silo Lab, except Owens.
- Eleven escapes the Pentagon with her friends, and we see Sullivan and some of his soldiers for the last time in S4, in the Nevada desert.
Episodes 8 and 9 made it clear that El still needs to hide and Sullivan's faction is still after her. It's worth mentioning that Sullivan was the only villain in ST4 not to be killed or at least injured, so it's almost certain that this guy will be back in ST5 to kick E.T's ass. Specially know that a full-scale TUD invasion is about the happen in Hawkins.
POSSIBILITIES FOR S5:

Sullivan investigates the video tapes in the silo lab
S4 ended without us knowing what happened to Owens and Sullivan after eleven escaped, but we do know that both characters are in the Silo Lab and that Sullivan now has access to a vast amount of video tapes that he would certainly investigate and this would create many possibilities for the Pentagon's role in S5.

Sullivan's Mission in Hawkins
Sullivan is still responsible for monitoring Hawkins, and at some point he will probably learn about what is happening in the town (which is also where El is hiding now), possibly via the military presence in Hawkins that we saw in the ST4 epilogue.
Something that caught my attention was the presence of a Research Lab vehicle on the set of downtown Hawkins, this vehicle never appeared in the show, and it was not mentioned in the script of episode 9. But it makes me think that at the end of S4, the Military is not just trying to help Hawkins citizen after this "federal disaster", but also researching into TUD, which perhaps is an operation led by Sullivan? let me know what you guys think.

S1 parallels
If we have Sullivan in Hawkins in S5, we most certainly will get more Government vs Eleven scenes, which would parallel Brenner and the CIA in S1. I particularly believe that S5 will have many parallels with what the Duffers planned for the first season of Montauk,

ACT THREE (episodes 7-8) will climax with characters working together to outsmart the military, venture into this alternate dimension, save Will, and, hopefully, close this "tear" once and for all.

Doctor Owens in 1959 flashbacks
Something I found extremely suspicious is that in S4, Owens seemed to know more than we initially thought.

He's claimed three victims so far, and when i saw the eyes, i knew... i knew that was him. He was him. He was sending us a message, letting us know he's back.

This sentence from Owens confirms that he somehow knew Henry's killing manner. It's plausible to assume that Owens learned about Henry and the other Indigo Numbers after being brought to the lab to "make things better". But I personally believe that there must be a greater reason why he was brought to HNL after S1, I believe Owens was already aware of the clandestine operations that had been happening in the HNL for years (at least some of it) and had known Dr. Brenner since the 1950's. I would even consider the possibility that Owens has been involved in clandestine government operations in the past and that somehow led him to find out about the HNL and Brenner's program.
In this interview by The Wrap, Ross Duffer's words about Brenner and Owens' alliance caught my attention because the way he puts it felt like Owens has known Brenner for longer than we think.

Once that first kill with Chrissy happens, then their fears are realized and that’s what jump starts their whole storyline. I mean, that is why Owens is collaborating with Brenner, a man he also does not like. He respects him, but despises the man, because he also knows he’s the key to stopping One, to stopping Vecna.

By my suspicion, i came up with the theory/fanfic that Owens could have worked with Brenner in the 50's and was aware of what happened in the Creel House in '59. Maybe he even met young Henry and interacted with him after he woke up from his coma. If there's any chance that i'm right about it, i would imagine the Owens and Henry interactions would parallel the scenes with Owens and Will in S2.

Stinson becomes the new Owens / Her alliance with the adults
Agent Stinson was apparently Owens' right hand in S4 and also the leader among the agents of Owens' faction, being involved in the operations in Nevada, Hawkins and even being responsible for driving Hopper and Joyce to Hawkins. Imo, Stinson has the potential to become the "new Owens"/Main government operative to help our main characters while Owens is MIA. She could also send some agents to investigate what happened to Owens. I have a personal theory that Stinson will join the adults in S5 and help them on a mission to outsmart the military. And i think the "knowing nod" between Hop and Stinson in S4E9 might be a hint of a possible team up for S5.

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2023.06.02 02:40 kauan1983 The conspiracy lore and the dynamic between the government agencies in Stranger Things

Something that i am extremely fascinated about in Stranger Things is the government conspiracy angle of the series, and over the seasons, i felt that the writing started to give us less details about how the government agencies work in this universe. Also, many details of the lore are still unresolved, and i fear some of them might not be resolved in S5, so I decided to make an analysis of everything that involves the government in the show to create my own version of the timeline of the events involving the U.S. government and gather information to hypothesize events that may have happened offscreen, the occupations of some characters within the government and what agencies are involved with everything that has happened in the show since S1. I hope you guys enjoy the read!

PROJECT MKULTRA
- In 1953, The MKUltra program was officially sanctioned by the CIA, a multimillion-dollar initiative intended to develop mind control techniques. the experiments would be conducted in many hospitals, prisons and colleges across the US. Hawkins National Laboratory was one of many facilities in the U.S where MKUltra was being conducted - Dr. Martin Brenner was the director of CIA operations at this laboratory.
- MKUltra is a real CIA-sanctioned research that was officially halted in 1973. And it was the basis for a science-based horror in the show's lore. But the Duffers never wanted to really dive into it, as the story they wanted to tell was mainly inspired by the Montauk Project and would focus in children with super powers and other dimensions.
There is a little talk about it in the official behind the scenes companion Worlds Turned Upside Down:

I wouldn't say we had done necessarily a deep dive into it. It was more a surface glance of seeing what they were up to and then using it as an excuse to have science-based horror in our narrative. — Ross Duffer

- The presence of the MKUltra in the lore is what canonically establishes the CIA as the bad men we see in S1 and briefly in S2. The agency is only mentioned once in the show when Hopper and Powell are investigating documents about the HNL/MKUltra, but we can confirm that the CIA was also responsible for funding Brenner's program as in the Worlds Turned Upside Down book we can see government cards with a "Central Intelligence Agency Clandestine Ops" badge in it.

PROJECT INDIGO
- Doctor Brenner's program. It's the main government project of Stranger Things, and although never mentioned in the show, the name of the program was supposed to be "INDIGO" which was also the proposed name of the show as stated by the Duffers in their MasterClass:

So we just came up with a bunch of ideas. We had The Keep, we had INDIGO which was gonna be the name of the government program, and amidst that we had Stranger Things. — Ross Duffer

It's unclear if the Duffers kept the name as it was never mentioned in the show, but the name is mentioned in the Suspicious Minds book, which was supervised by one of the show's writers - Paul Dichter.
Project Indigo is basically the Hawkins equivalent of the Montauk Project. While the MKUltra was the Duffers' basis for a science-based horror in the lore, INDIGO is where the most crazy, cutting-edge developments in science come in. The Duffers had the desire to play with the "sandbox" of elements that the Montauk conspiracy could offer. In the conspiracy, there were talks about children with psychic/psionic powers (which became the Numbers 001 to 018), other dimensions (like the Upside Down, Dimension X and the Hellscape), alien contact, monsters being unleashed (Demogorgon/DX entities) and even time travel, which is something that was originally part of the ST mythology as we can see in the document below:

The Montauk pitch by the Duffer Brothers

THE PROGRAM STARTS
- As we learned in S4, the beginning of the program happens in 1959, and is a result of Dr. Brenner discovering a boy with extraordinary psychic abilities, Henry, after his mother contacts him in the hopes of sending him to a facility where he would be locked away and fixed. Henry, knowing what his mother was planning, decided to kill his whole family, but would eventually fall into a coma due to not knowing his limits while using his psychic powers.
- Brenner knew what the boy did and also what he was capable of, and wanted to not just study but also control him. After the Creel House murders, Brenner would take Henry to the lab and the CIA would cover up anything that could compromise their operation. Victor Creel, the only survivor of the events in the house was declared legally insane, and the records of what Victor claimed to have occurred in his house were sealed.
- Brenner eventually sold to the CIA a separate program that he planned to start, a program that would study Henry Creel who was presented to the government as a potential weapon against the Soviets as stated by Matt Duffer in this interview by Deadline.

He knew what this kid did and also what he was capable of when he was young. Brenner’s going, how can I mold this character, but not just into a weapon? That’s really how he sold it to the government, but for him as a scientist, it’s like, what other worlds can this kid show me about how our universe works? — Matt Duffer

At some point, I would guess in late 1959 - early 1960s, an unknown event led Brenner to pacify Henry's abilities via Soteria. After that, Brenner would decide to evolve his program, replicating Henry's powers in other kids. This is something Matt Duffer confirmed that S5 will explore:

It’s something we will get into in Season 5. What happened to that program once Henry became involved and how Brenner evolved it into including multiple kids. We’re going to go back and see some of that in Season 5. — Matt Duffer

ELEVEN was an orphan with telekinesis. her preternatural abilities have been linked to mutations caused by her mothers drug use.

In this version of the Eleven's backstory, the Duffers had not yet conceived El's mother being Terry Ives, the MKUltra involvement in the lore, and El's abilities being the result of experiments on her mother. Instead, we have genetic mutations caused by drug use.
If there's any chance this is an explanation to how some individuals are born with psychic abilities, i suspect that Brenner knew that drugs had the potential to cause such mutations and that via experiments and training, he would unlock these supernatural psychic abilities. Knowing that, Brenner would use the MKUltra (which mainly involved psychedelic drugs) as a means to new supernatural kids to be born, just like it happened to Eleven.

Virginia Creel's backstory
In episode 7, Henry mentions that his parents did "such awful things." and that he "held up a mirror" to show them who they really were, but we never got to see what Henry used against his mother. Whatever awful thing she did, is still a mystery in the show.
Also, Virginia somehow knew that Henry had supernatural abilities, so i think it's plausible to assume that, perhaps, Virginia knew it because of something dark in her past, something she believed resulted in her son being born with supernatural abilities and becoming a "broken" kid. The drug element that i mentioned before could also play a role in the origin of Henry's powers and whatever these dark memories of Virginia are.
In S4E7 script, we can see that the whole part where Virginia suspects Henry is the responsible for the strange happenings in the house and contacts Brenner to lock her son away is missing. Meaning the writers later decided to add more layers to this backstory that may be explored in S5.
The Duffer Brothers have confirmed in interviews that S5 will explore more of Henry's prequel story, and it was recently revealed in an article from BBC that the 'The First Shadow' stage play influences S5, so i'm hoping this means we'll see more of the Creels, specially Virginia.

They were able to adjust some of the "things in the play" and said that working on it had given them ideas for the upcoming season five.
Matt Duffer added: "Some of the mythology stuff is a little bit trickier, but like Ross said, it's been fun to have the play influence the show, and the show influenced the play,

1960's - THE PROGRAM EVOLVES
- The evolution of Brenner's program logically took place during the 1960s, and some of that was already hinted in S2 when we discover that Terry had documents about people she believed were like her daughter. In some of those documents we get to see that Kali was abducted in London, a Cleveland teen girl who was seemingly abducted in Indiana, and a newborn boy was taken from a hospital. The baby was in the care of a nurse who was found dead in her home.
- in 1969, Ray Carroll started working at HNL as an orderly.

1970's
- At some point in the early 70's, Terry Ives got involved with MKUltra. (In the Suspicious Minds book, we learn that Terry was involved with MKUltra in 1969 but i'm not considering any information from the book due to the huge amount of inconsistencies.)
- After Brenner kidnapped Eleven in 1971, the HNL would face charges and lawsuits from Terry Ives but they were denied due to lack of evidence.
- In 1973, the MKUltra was officially halted.
- In 1974, Terry would try to take Eleven from the laboratory. Brenner ordered Terry to undergo an eletroshock therapy, ordering Ray Carroll to set the voltage up to 450 and then proceeded to electrocute her until her brain was damaged.
- In 1979, One succeeded in having El "free" him by removing the Soteria from him. Regaining his psychic abilities, Henry kills all the Indigo numbers except for Eleven who would eventually banish him out of our dimension. After the attack, El falls into a coma, and Brenner doesn't dare bring another number to the lab. Instead, Brenner focuses the experiments on Eleven, who has repressed not only her memories of the past events but also her powers after waking up from her coma. Brenner knew that Eleven's abilities weren't lost but needed a "spark" to be restored.

1983
- Brenner believed that One was somewhere out there, "hiding in the darkness", and in 1983, after Eleven's powers were restored, Brenner would eventually use her abilities to find him.
- In one experiment, El hears a strange sound that would get Brenner's attention. Despite El getting scared and the experiment being aborted, Brenner would repeat the experiment with the intention of making "contact".
- On the night of november 6, 1983, El makes psychic contact with the Demogorgon in the Void, inadvertentely creating TUD, opening the mothergate and unleashing the monster. She eventually escaped the HNL that night.
- On the next day, Brenner and the CIA receive a visit from agents that according to the S1E1 script were NSA. CIA and NSA agents would eventually work together to find Eleven and cover up anything that would compromise the secrecy of their clandestine operation.
- Brenner and his team of agents along with MPs would go to the Hawkins Middle School in order to find Eleven after Hopper revealed her location. For their surprise, the Demogorgon appears in the school, distracting the agents and MPs, allowing the kids to run away from the CIA with Eleven. Brenner is brutally attacked by the Demogorgon, but survives the attack.
- After the events in the school, we see hopper entering a black sedan with CIA agents.
- CIA agents go to the Wheelers House searching for Eleven. This is the last time we see Brenner's men in the show. In the next season, the HNL would have a new director and a new staff.
- In a clipping at Hawkins Police Station, there's information on the aftermath of the events in november, 1983, where we learn that Joyce Byers publicy alleged that Will was the subject of a secret government program. Joyce's allegation comes amidst the investigation into the past allegations of the lab's involvement with mind control experiments (MKUltra).
- As to where Brenner and his entire staff were after the events in november, it is unknown, but i suspect Owens knew about what happened to them as in S2 he seems to be certain that Brenner's men were gone.

The point is, mistakes have been made. Yes. Abundant mistakes, but, the men involved with those mistakes, the ones responsible for what happened to your brother and Miss Holland's death, they're gone. They're gone, and for better for worse, i'm the schmuck they brought in to make things better. — Sam Owens

I've come to suspect that after the events of November '83, when the entire HNL staff was replaced, everything documented/recorded about the CIA's clandestine operations was securely locked away by CIA or DOE operatives, likely in the decommissioned Nevada Silo. (One alternate possibility is that those documents and recordings were stored in the Silo after the HNL was closed in december, 1984)
Something that I find interesting is that both the Silo Lab and Owens' residence are located in Nevada, and in S4E5, when Eleven is taken to the Silo, originally the titles "Ruth, Nevada" appeared on the screen, that was later removed, but it implies that both the Silo and Owens' residence were close. This leads me to suspect that long before Owens and Brenner conceived of the NINA program, Owens already knew about the abandoned Silo in Nevada and decided to used it to store every TOP-SECRET documents/recordings of the CIA operations at HNL:
https://preview.redd.it/xh9e7lxqye3b1.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=eafda108e43adbb8ff115ac586a13add1f1e8442
One interesting detail is that the idea of the government securely locking away videotapes is something the Duffers planned for their original Montauk conception, which most of it was a prototype for what we've seen in Stranger Things. In The Montauk Experiment, the O.S.S. would securely lock away film cannisters with recordings of everything that happened in Camp Hero after the experiments ended in a blood-soaked event. Details in the document below:
The logline for 'The Montauk Experiment'

DOCTOR SAM OWENS' POSITION IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
- Sam Owens is a high-ranking member within U.S. Department of Energy as mentioned in the first official description of his character. Sometime between late 1983 and early 1984 he would be brought to HNL on a ‘clean-up’ assignment, tasked with containing the mess left by the CIA in 1983 and making things better.
- As I previously mentioned, Owens may have been responsible for locking away all the documented CIA experimentation at HNL, and he also may have known the whereabouts of Brenner and other scientists and CIA operatives who worked with him all along. I would even assume that Owens and Brenner may have been in contact all this time.
- During his time as director of the operations at HNL, Owens was involved in Will's treatment and in containing the spread of TUD.
- In November 1984, during the Demodogs invasion, Owens met Eleven, who eventually closed the gate, ending TUD invasion.
- A month later, the operations at HNL were officially shut down and the lab was closed after the release of the tape recording Owens' "confession", and Owens decided to help Eleven have a normal life under Hopper's care, giving him a forged birth certificate, and recommending Hopper to "let things cool off" for a year. This, of course, was done without the knowledge of the U.S. government.
FACTONS WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
After the events os S2, in addition to the CIA Clandestine Ops and the DOE, other different agencies were introduced in the story:
- US Army/Pentagon that briefly appears at the end of s3 (although we've seen the Military Police in the previous seasons which is a branch of the Army), and would be an antagonist faction in S4.
- FBI agents who are presented as friends of Owens and allied to our main characters in S4.

SULLIVAN'S FACTION
- At some point after the HNL was closed, Doctor Owens, in addition to his high-ranking position in the DOE, also gained some position within the U.S. Army/Pentagon, probably tasked with monitoring and maintaining security in Hawkins after the lab was closed and the military presence left town. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan was involved in this, and it's possible he and Owens worked together.
- An interesting detail is that the arm patch on Lt. Colonel Sullivan's uniform confirms that he's an United States Army Criminal Investigation Division operative, hence his associaton with the Pentagon.
- At some point (i assume 1985), rumors about Eleven being alive and receiving help from someone within the U.S. government began to surface within the Pentagon, this would affect Owens' reputation.
- It's also worth mentioning that in S4E6, Sullivan seems to imply that he knew or at least believed Brenner was alive.

Explanation two, Dr. Brenner's special little pet has gone rogue again and he and his lackeys are now seeking to cover it up. Perhaps in the hopes of selling their pet to the Soviets. — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

I'm pretty sure he knows that there's certain elements... because he says in the dialogue "there's rumors that she's getting help from someone on the inside". So there is nothing that he is not, you know, equating in that situation, he's not surprised. Whatever it is, you have to be a really strong and dynamic individual to be able to go in and try to kick E.T in the butt. — Sherman Augustus

- In July 1985, Owens would find out about a foreign government invasion in Hawkins, and would go to Hawkins accompanied by Army/Pentagon forces to deal with the invasion, only to find an empty Soviet bunker.

OWENS' FACTION
- After the events in July, Owens got fired from his position in the miitary for failing his assignment to monitor security at Hawkins, i believe the previously mentioned rumors about him may also have played a role in his dismissal.
- Owens, knowing that El had lost her powers, feared a further re-emergence of the TUD, which led him to begin developing ways to restore her abilities.
- Owens would ally with Brenner to develop a way to restore Eleven's abilities, and Brenner convinced Owens that the only way to do so was via a process of re-experiencing her repressed memories in a program that they would later call NINA. It's unclear when Brenner and Owens' alliance started, but i personally believe they knew each other for longer than we initially thought, and shortly after the July events, Owens' looked for Brenner's help in order to develop a means to restore El's powers.
- Despite being fired from his position in the military, Owens was still a DOE member and also had connections to the FBI (Ellen Stinson and other agents), and he used his power to clandestinely provide Brenner with the necessary resources to establish the NINA Project. For the program to be sanctioned, he had to compromise his principles, and risk his life and that of his family. Something worth noting is that in the episode 7 script, the dialogue where Owens expresses his disappointment with NINA's progress is a little different:

I've given you all the resources you've asked for, i've given you your people, i've compromised my principles, i've risked my life, my family's life, all because you assured me this would work. That this was the only way. — Sam Owens

By "i've given you your people" we can confirm that Owens gave to Brenner his old HNL staff, who as we saw in S4E8, were loyal to him. And we can also confirm by Sam's words that he had to give Brenner resources, meaning, wherever Brenner was after the events oF S1, he was left with no resources and access to his old staff.
- Owens and Brenner would establish NINA in the same abandoned Silo in Nevada where Owens presumably locked away all the video tapes and documents from HNL.

THE FACTION CONFLICT
- After Owens' dismissal, Sullivan apparently became the responsible for monitoring Hawkins and maintaining the security in the town.
- In March 1986, a supernatural murder in Hawkins comes to Sullivan's attention, and after an autopsy is performed by Army medical doctors, Sullivan concludes that the murder was done remotely, which tied in with the rumors about Eleven being alive and getting help from someone within the U.S. government who he, and probably other operatives within the Pentagon believed was Sam Owens.
- Upon that conclusion, Sullivan would begin a clandestine military operation in order to investigate Eleven's whereabouts, and this leads him to Owens.
- Something worth noting is that when we are first introduced to Sullivan, he arrives in Indiana in an U.S. Army helicopter to investigate the circumstances of an unusual murder, but when he begins his operation to hunt down Eleven, he goes to Ruth, Nevada in an unmarked black helicopter, alluding to the fact that this is a clandestine military operation:
Sullivan arrives in Indiana
Sullivan leaves Owens' residence in Ruth, Nevada
Something interesting about the scene where Sullivan visits Owens that adds some information on what the U.S. government has been up to is the dialogue between Sullivan and Owens from this audition tape which is a bit different from the dialogue in the show,

There were no signs of an attacker. No bruises, no signs of any struggle. It's as if her attacker was a ghost. — Lt. Colonel Sullivan
So what is this, really? I mean, why are you here? all of the sudden you want to help again? — Sam Owens
Dr. Owens, 30 civilians died last year, a foreign government invaded our country all under your watch. There had to be consequences, you've got to understand that — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

Owens' question implies that Sullivan has been helping him at some point, probably in monitoring Hawkins like a mentioned before, which would explain how he knew so much about what has happened there all this years.
And Sullivan's response implies that after Owens got fired, it became his responsability to maintain security in Hawkins, which is why he was there, asking Owens Eleven's whereabouts.
- Owens refuses to tell Sullivan Eleven's whereabouts, and Jack decides to do things "the hard way", taking multiple items from Owens' house in order to investigate everything Sam has done and everyone he has spoken to in 1985 and luckily, be able to find where Eleven is.
- Owens knew that the former Indigo test subject One was back, and via a DOE intranet, he requests the immediate acceleration of NINA. He makes it clear that their secret program and facility were compromised and that the Pentagon was involved. And for the security of their program, Owens implements a communication lockdown.
- Owens uses his FBI connections to have agents help him find Eleven, maintain the secrecy of the operation and protect people closely associated with Eleven who could be found by Sullivan. Some of those agents are Ellen Stinson, who seems to be Owens' right hand, Agent Harmon, and Agent Wallace.
- In the meantime, Sullivan/the Pentagon was able to find out that Owens moved Eleven to Lenora Hills, CA, and would eventually send a group of agents/soldiers to find her.
- After finding Eleven with a group of agents and convicing her to go with him in order to get her powers back, Owens takes El to the Silo Lab while Agents Harmon and Wallace would stay with Mike, Jonathan and Will to protect them, and Agent Stinson would be closely monitoring Hawkins with 2 more agents.
- Sullivan, after a shootout in the Byers' house takes Agent Wallace to a black site to torture him in order to find out where Eleven was, and after a long time of torture, Wallace gave away Eleven's location.
- After NINA succeeded in restoring Eleven's abilities, Owens, believing she was ready, would call Stinson to have her prepare the transit from Nevada to Hawkins, Indiana through her connections at Nellis.
- Brenner would eventually betray Owens and considered killing him in order to stop Eleven from leaving the Silo Lab. After the conflict between Owens and Brenner, the Pentagon finally arrives at the location revealed by Agent Wallace and a conflict between the U.S army and the MP soldiers resulted in the death of Brenner, his men and all the scientists in the Silo Lab, except Owens.
- Eleven escapes the Pentagon with her friends, and we see Sullivan and some of his soldiers for the last time in S4, in the Nevada desert.
Episodes 8 and 9 made it clear that El still needs to hide and Sullivan's faction is still after her. It's worth mentioning that Sullivan was the only villain in ST4 not to be killed or at least injured, so it's almost certain that this guy will be back in ST5 to kick E.T's ass. Specially know that a full-scale TUD invasion is about the happen in Hawkins.

POSSIBILITIES FOR S5:
Sullivan investigates the video tapes in the silo lab
S4 ended without us knowing what happened to Owens and Sullivan after eleven escaped, but we do know that both characters are in the Silo Lab and that Sullivan now has access to a vast amount of video tapes that he would certainly investigate and this would create several different possibilities for the Pentagon's role in S5.

Sullivan's Mission in Hawkins
Sullivan is still responsible for monitoring Hawkins, and he will likely learn about what is happening in the town (which is also where El is hiding now), possibly through the military presence in Hawkins that we saw in the ST4 epilogue.
Something that caught my attention was the presence of a Research Lab vehicle on the set of down town hawkins, this vehicle never appeared in the show, and it was not mentioned in the script of episode 9. But it makes me think that at the end of S4, the Military is not just trying to help Hawkins citizen after this "federal disaster", but also researching into TUD, which perhaps is an operation led by Sullivan? let me know what you guys think.

S1 parallels
If we have Sullivan in Hawkins in S5, we most certainly will get more Government vs Eleven scenes, which would parallel Brenner and the CIA in S1. I particularly believe that S5 will have many parallels with what the Duffers planned for the first season of Montauk:

ACT THREE (episodes 7-8) will climax with characters working together to outsmart the military, venture into this alternate dimension, save Will, and, hopefully, close this "tear" once and for all.

Doctor Owens in 1959 flashbacks
Something I found extremely suspicious is that in S4, Owens seemed to know more than we initially thought...

He's claimed three victims so far, and when i saw the eyes, i knew... i knew that was him. He was him. He was sending us a message, letting us know he's back.

Once that first kill with Chrissy happens, then their fears are realized and that’s what jump starts their whole storyline. I mean, that is why Owens is collaborating with Brenner, a man he also does not like. He respects him, but despises the man, because he also knows he’s the key to stopping One, to stopping Vecna. — Ross Duffer

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2023.06.02 00:22 geopolicraticus Jan Patočka

Jan Patočka
Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History
Today is the 116th anniversary of the birth of Jan Patočka (01 June 1907 – 13 March 1977), who was born in Turnov, Bohemia, on this date in 1907, and who died after being interrogated by Czech secret police because he had signed the Charter 77 document and had acted as its spokesman.
Happy Birthday Jan!
Patočka is the author of Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, in which the first paragraph of the second essay is as follows:

“Karl Marx says somewhere that there is really only one science, which is history, meaning thereby that understanding the evolution of the world would be true knowledge. Such a claim, however, is either a reduction of history to the abstraction of the temporal process as such (which raises the question of the time frame within which this process takes place) or it is a bold speculation which attributes to all the processes of nature the role of a preparation necessary for the process of history, that is, for the special case of meaningful or meaning-related events. Becoming, however, is meaningful or meaning-related only when someone cares about something, when we do not have before us sequences merely observed but rather ones which can be understood in terms of an interest in and relating to the world, of an openness for oneself and for things. We first encounter hints of an interest in the animate sphere. Yet the process of the evolution of life, generally accepted today, can be called meaningful in this sense only at the cost of a great speculative effort. Of all that we know from experience, only human life can be interpreted as meaningful in this sense. Even its least movement can be understood only in terms of an interested self-relation grounded in an openness for what there is. Does that, though, already mean that human life, simply as such, shares in positing history, that history as such is simply given with it? Hardly anyone would be likely to claim that, even if they were to believe, on the basis of rigorous analysis, that historicity belongs to being human as that which prevents us from taking humans, wherever and whenever we encounter them, for ‘finished’ natural formations and forces us to see in them free beings who to a great extent form themselves. Yet there undoubtedly exist—or at least until quite recently existed—‘nations without history.’ The question of history strictly speaking must be understood more narrowly.”

We have previously encountered the idea of “nations without history” in Hugh-Trevor-Roper’s criterion of “purposive movement” for history, and in my discussion of Edward Gibbon. Patočka takes up this problem of the distinction between history sensu stricto and history taken in a wider sense and pursues it throughout his Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History.
Further Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan\_Pato%C4%8Dka
https://www.iwm.at/program/jan-patocka-research-program
http://patockamovie.ophen.org/
https://london.czechcentres.cz/en/program/the-socrates-of-prague
http://ajp.cuni.cz/index.php/Home
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter\_77
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9prNf-RA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7f8Lqc5Z8Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XceHX3MTuM0

submitted by geopolicraticus to The_View_from_Oregon [link] [comments]

2023.06.01 09:03 CaptainMystery_123 Contrapoints is starting to sound a whole lot like lily orchard. On the loss of faith in reason and debate

(Thanks again to stich and adam for the shout out, sorry it took so long, school was brutal)
Contra has uploaded another video and as usual I'm late to the party. The video was on JK rowling and Megan phelps roper new podcast, "The witch trial's of jk rowling". Now I'll admit right away that I haven't seen it, I've heard a lot about it. But, if it was just that then I wouldn't be writing a response to Contrapoints now would I. Now before I get into this I'm not sure how many of you are famlilur with a person a named lily orchard. Lily orchard's claim to fame is making a video essay on Steven universe that I can best describe as both bad faith and very VERY cynical. Accusing Rebecca Sugar (The shows creator) of just about every bad faith accusation you can think of. Somehow both incorrectly and inadequately represent LGBT people, racism, and a long list of other accusations. but anyways I bring lily up to point something out in another video lily made. In the video in question, that's a sort of "correction" of lily's Steven universe video lily backs a opinion that I find both strange and concerning. In the video titled, "I Rewrote a Segment of the Steven Universe Video for Comparision". In this video lily backs anti-debate positions going as far as to say, "When it comes to human right's...there is no actual debate to be had, peoples right to exist in a fair society in not actual something that is up for debate"(Ignoring the framing of "human rights" that I could write a whole other post on how "human rights" aren't really a thing or at least a thing in the way most people think they are). I really don't like these positions because what they imply is that these issues are "settled". Well, there not, whether you like it or not these issues are up for debate. You can call conservatives "idiots", "stupid", and "bigots" all day but by them not agreeing with you imply that these issues are up for debate. And if you think you can just cut those people out because they are just THAT dumb, well I've got news for you, your cutting out a not insignificant number of people. But this post isn't about Lily orchard, this is about contra. With contra, it's about jk rowling and rowling's opinion on the transgender community. Contra goes into similar styles of arguments. She starts with the infamous/famous (depending on who you ask) anti-gay activist Anita bryant and goes into a history of her anti-gay activism. At the end of it contra asks (in reference to a time a activist Anita bryant through a pie at Anita) "If she really deserved it" (going into Anita bryant's past, having a father that was abusive to her mother and having a possibly abusive husband) to which contra says "yes, obviously". Contra goes on to say (or at least imply) that it's possible to abuse nuances to justify bigotry. The problem is that this is basically one big dodge. Contra doesn't address anything in Anita's past. Only basically saying "she deserved it anyways" this comes off to me as very cold and if anything justifies Anita's negative views. Anita called herself a liberal and although I probably don't agree with her on the vast majority of issues, assuming she was telling the truth she disagreed on this one issue and agreed with everything else. I think contra is slightly engaging with a leftest purity test, which contra takes issue with "The character Tabby represents a lot of what I think is wrong about leftist strategy: the indifference to optics, the undisguised hostility to the ideologically impure, the sectarian nitpicking, the alternation between extreme optimism (“a communist revolution can happen in the United States and it will go well if it does”) and extreme pessimism (“neoliberal propaganda has so tight a grip on the general public that why should we even bother trying to appeal to them?”)" Contra is being hypocritical for using the say purity tests that contra disagrees with. Another this that contra criticizes Megan Phelps-roper for is not taking a harder stand for trans people and being "one-sided". I say this to that, Megan is under no obligation to be your "ally", what exactly did you expect from her? Contra says that "I wish she would just be honest" but later in the say video contra going into Megan's past in the west buro Baptist church. The WBBC is a cult, of course Megan would be skeptical of clams that Megan views as "extrame". Contra also goes into the idea of deconversion, a pass time contra used to take pride in. In this section contra admits that deconversion is a good strategy but qualifies it with "If you assume that the moral improvement of bigots is more important then protecting the people they target or if you assume that changing bigots' minds is the only way to make social progress". To this later point, I say "Well if the bigots are in power you need to change there mind, or get the bigot voted out". But I think there is something else, I think contra is making a error here, I think contra is assuming that it's impossible to both DE-convert and advocate, why can't they be equally important. In fact, shouldn't they be equally important (or at least given more importance then contra is giving the idea of deconversion). Contra going into the idea that "there will always be bigots" and that "mocking them, shaming them, or boycotting them, is, I think, a perfectly valid strategy". But contra seems to be indifferent to optics ;-) here, that's not going to look good and is easily turning into a weapon for bigots benefits.
I now what to going into a person named Peter Cvjetanvic, Peter was a white nationalist the whole 9 yards. However questioned everything when peter befriended a muslim-american woman. Peter no longer called himself a white nationalist however also doesn't think trans-woman are woman. Contra characterizes this as "incomplete" and "messy". All I have to say to refute this is "Contra, Peter was a WHITE NATIONALIST before! And now Peter is a default conservative, tell me that isn't a massive improvement."
Contra making my point for me
Finally I want to make one final point, in the video contra briefly mentioned a person named "Noah" and this individuals is contacted by contra to share thoughts on the podcast. Contra uses this message to frame most the remaining section. Attached below is the full message, I want to take on this idea that debate should "come second" after getting healthcare support and resources for gender care. *screams in detransition* If you want that healthcare, support and resources you so desperately want you need to convince the people who can give it to you, to give it to you.

https://preview.redd.it/jafh8gjkeb3b1.png?width=1860&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e4fb4c424d07dfce470d6210448bede5af90dc2

submitted by CaptainMystery_123 to moldybread [link] [comments]

2023.05.31 03:04 howsweetfreshmeat Season 1 Re-watch Notes! Anything to add? Let's talk about it

I spent the past week re-watching S1 and I wanted to share my insights. I didn't include any repeatedly discussed theories (Ex. Antlers behind someone, clues that someone might die such as Jackie saying she's cold, etc.) But I do apologize if there are any repeat theories here. If you remember a post you made with a correct theory pleaseeee link it!

Spoilers for Season 2 are included here.

Pilot- (The start to my obsession) Not much in this episode that hasn't been mentioned by our awesome sub.
Jackie inadvertently caused two main issues.

1- Scoring the winning point for nationals
2- The night Shauna got pregnant, Jeff said Shauna's house was closer but Jackie wanted to be dropped off first.

F Sharp

Flashback Misty was reading The Cheerleader by Ruth Doan. This book is about "the loss of innocence, the growth of passion, and the awakening of ambition."
Adult Misty tampers with her own car, so her date has to drive her home in the same episode as sabotaging Nat's car so they can go visit Travis together. That's a sabotage queen.

The Dollhouse

Lottie spotted the cabin but Shauna was the first to enter while Lottie was the last, an allegory to the evacuation initiated by Shauna in the S2 finale, with Lottie smiling happily watching it burn.
The animal skins hanging in the cabin (35:20) are interesting and possible foreshadowing. I doubt anyone remembered to grab those before the fire - the skins we see in the pilot are more fresh.
After Van found the porno mags, Akilah asked if guys jerk off at that stuff. Travis lies and says men hate that shit. (He also says sarcastically that you can't even tell what her favorite book is. Funny line because of easter eggs the books in this show provide) but it makes sense that only after 3 days, he would be trying to be on an equal level with everyone, especially in a group with mostly females. However, this was the moment when he stopped trying to fit in completely.
Travis says to Javi (about his father,) "He's the whole reason we're in this hell." We didn't see Javi or Travis in the pilot until the boarding of the plane, where his parents were obviously unhappy. Maybe she wanted a divorce and he took them on the trip while she went forward with that.

Bear down-

Sammy was amazing this episode. It's before we know about Dark Tai so in every scene he is analyzing Tai to see if she's normal or dark. So creepily well done!
Young Shauna says she's not meant to handle firearms in this episode, which I think is funny if you've seen S2. She truly is a knife girl.
Jessica Roberts asks Misty how her road trip went. So she was stalking Misty and Natalie. Maybe she saw what ACTUALLY happened to Travis? (See my notes on Ep 7: No Compass, for a bit more on this)
Natalie went back to her childhood home to retrieve the cassette for Kevin Tan; I'm crying.
Shauna re-living her youth with Adam and hallucinating Jackie for the first time was chilling. Jackie says, "someone is gonna get hurt..." and then Shauna sleeps with Adam in his car (not a good sign. Also a callback to her sleeping with Jeff in his car.)
Adult Misty has a My Favorite Murder and a Caligula mug in one episode? Hysterical.

Blood Hive

Young Misty watching everyone dance in the attic while standing against the wall trying to clap along is such a callback to the pilot, just watching everyone and wanting to fit in.
Natalie wakes up Jackie, who says she's cold, wrapped in the allegorical YJ colors- dark blue/yellow. When she gets up, she sees everyone doing chores like laundry and chopping wood, but doesn't chip in. Color theory suggests she isn't acknowledging the severity of their situation.
Taissa says, "no candy for the dog!" as Simone picks up an electoral postcard from Bill, saying, "we must spill." Looks like Bad Tai isn't as concerned about the dog.
Travis called the cabin a "blood hive" (Lottie opening the bloody bee hive box in 2x3, anyone?)
Never noticed how crazy it is that Jackie tells Shauna to put the candles on top of the symbols in the attic for the seance. Girlie was def not afraid. They then cut to a scene with Nat and Misty analyzing Travis's crime scene, and Misty points out that there is a symbol beneath him connected by wax. I guess he did the candle thing that Jackie did? Or... like Natalie says, "he didn't put them there". I'm assuming Lottie's story didn't exactly add up.

Saints

The mention of oil exploration is mentioned for the second time this season, this time in the past with young Lottie on the car radio. The first mention was in the present- it was mentioned in Shauna and Jeff's wedding announcement in the newspaper back in episode 2 (F Sharp), when adult Natalie and Misty met at the bar to look over all of Misty's Citizen Detective clippings. https://imgur.com/a/mNvJ1Tf
Teen Lottie is seen approaching a plant at (02:11) called Euphorbia tithymaloides, aka "Devil's backbone." It is known to cause skin irritation, inflammation or blisters if you touch it. Reminded me about the random leg ailment Jackie had, given it's a ground plant it could easily rub against her legs. Lottie didn't seem to be affected by it though. Probably reaching here though :)

No Compass-

While packing the ransom bag (Callie's childhood bag) for the blackmailer, Natalie says to Shauna sarcastically "You're not as sentimental as your hubby?" She could be inferring that Shauna bringing back all her journals is a huge liability.
Jessica Roberts says, "You may not be sure of Travis's murder but I am." It truly sucks she died before we knew more from her.
Sad note: Natalie died without ever truly finding out what happened to Travis (unless she believed Lottie).

Flight of the Bumblebee

First mention of no queens in the deck! Said by Natalie of course ;)
A scene opens with a younger LL sitting on the edge of a pool in a Christian summer camp. In the 96 timeline, the pajamas Jackie is wearing when LL tells everyone she's gonna try flying the plane, have a pool pattern- people on floats, people swimming and inflatable swim rings. Cute little detail!

Doomcoming

Natalie saves Travis when Shauna holds a knife to his throat. He reciprocates in S2.
While tripping, Ben tells Natalie to "go tell Travis how you feel, it could save us all." Maybe they work together making the map that somehow leads to their rescue. Maybe they stay in the same clan. Point is that they need to stick together, and I hope they do.
Misty uses the same line for Coach to go to Doomcoming with her, as she did with her date in Episode 2, to persuade him to come into her house. "I know you don't like me. I'm not pretty." Girl's gotta get what she wants!
Misty's little binder of plants is gonna be pretty useful next season.

I'm not on board with "they were dead the whole time," theory but if you are, there are a couple of comments in this episode that might sway me-

Jackie says "we're all like cabin guy, dead for years."
Travis says "we're not even here though, are we?"

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Mari is strikingly the first person to wear animal skin as clothes during Doomcoming/ the following morning. She's in the center of the shot A LOT more than normal. She's wearing a wolf skin shawl.
I'm always mulling over why the bear kneeled down at Lottie's feet. After many rewatches, I honestly think it's because Lottie is wearing Laura Lee's dress, aka the first "sacrifice." An eye-for an eye (Leonard)
I never noticed that after Van's NDE, she is one who acknowledged and thanked the wilderness for food. For some reason, I thought it was Lottie, but I guess that's because she said the "prayer" and called it a gift from the wilderness. But Van was first to thank the wilderness.
Love the allegory of Adam on the news about a missing person as Shauna's making popcorn and says she "burned it". That's dark.
Simone crawling through the bottom air vent to find Dark Tai's hidden room/alter reminds me of the theories of tunnels beneath the cabin.

Aaaaand that's all I got! Thanks for reading if you did. A re-watch of Season 1 was a blast and I can't wait until season 3. I hope this post is as interesting to you as it was for me to make over the last few days! buzz buzz buzz.
TLDR: there is none I'm sorry. ;)

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2023.05.30 01:00 SierraSeaWitch First Names of the "Astor 400"

In the Gilded Age (approx. 1877-1898), the Astor Family ballroom could hold 400 people and only the top echelon of New York Society would be invited to balls there. These prestigious people were dubbed "The Astor 400." The Astor 400 were the wealthiest families in the United States of the age. The ballroom is since demolished (the Empire State Building is built on its foundation) and the Astors were not good record keepers so exact invite lists are lost, but here are first names of known Astor 400 invitees:
MEN - Fun fact, many of these men were given their mother's maiden names as their first names if that family was a big deal. You'll figure out who pretty quickly.
• Alister
• Anson
• Arthur
• Augustus (2)
• Benjamin (2)
• Bradley
• Bronson
• Buchanan
• Byam
• Charles (5)
• Chauncey
• Christopher (3)
• Clarence
• Clement (2)
• Columbus
• Cornelius
• DeLancey
• Douglas (2)
• Duncan (3)
• Edmund
• Edward (6)
• Egerton
• Elisha
• Francis (3)
• Frank (2)
• Frederic (3)
• Fredrick (4)
• Gabriel
• George (5)
• Goold
• Hamilton (2)
• Harold (2)
• Harry (2)
• Heber
• Henry (5)
• Howard (2)
• Isaac
• James (17)
• John (6)
• Joseph
• Julian
• Lawrence (2)
• Lispenard
• Lloyd
• Matthew
• Ogden
• Paul
• Peter
• Phillip
• Rawlins
• Richard (3)
• Robert (4)
• Roderick
• Samuel
• Shipley
• Sidney
• Stephen (2)
• Stuyvesant
• Temple
• Theodore
• Thomas (5)
• Valentine
• Walter
• Ward
• William (10)
• Winthrop
• Worthington
WOMEN - Some of these are nicknames, but the individual woman chose to go by that nn and the nn was they were formally addressed, so I kept the nn versions.
• Agnes
• Alice (3)
• Alida
• Amy
• Angelica
• Anita
• Anne (3)
• Augusta (3)
• Ava
• Beatrice
• Beatrix
• Bertha
• Blanche
• Camilla
• Caroline (2)
• Catherine (2)
• Clarisse
• Constance
• Cora
• Corinne
• Cornelia (2)
• Edith (7)
• Eleanor (2)
• Eleanora
• Elisabeth
• Elise
• Eliza (2)
• Elizabeth (9)
• Emily (2)
• Ethel
• Eva (3)
• Evelyn (2)
• Fannie
• Fanny
• Flora
• Florence (3)
• Frances (4)
• Georgiana
• Harriet (2)
• Helen (3)
• Isabelle
• Jane
• Jennie
• Josephine
• Julia (4)
• Katherine
• Laura
• Lizzie
• Louisa (2)
• Louise
• Mabel
• Margaret (2)
• Marguerite
• Maria
• Marion (2)
• Martha
• Mary (11)
• Maud
• Meredith
• Olivia (3)
• Rose
• Ruth (2)
• Sallie
• Sarah (4)
• Sidney
• Sophia
• Susan (4)
• Suzanne
• Sybil

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2023.05.29 03:06 relishlife Who last saved files on the hard drive?

As we know, Judicial framed Patrick Kennedy for the mayor and Marnes’ deaths. They planted evidence in his old apartment. Ruth says Judicial will set up a patsy because Judge Meadows only wants to maintain order, not finding out the truth.
We know that Patrick Kennedy has some messy history with Marnes. They also got into an argument and Kennedy broke Marnes’ nose the day that he Marnes was killed.
Kennedy’s past included a “past jam with Judicial over relics.”
So Kennedy seems like a good patsy for Judicial to set up. Judicial gets rid of a guy who sells / has relics, and who just got into a fight with Marnes.
But, I think there is more to this story.
This post about the age of the silo. The post compares the old hard drives’ file names and the mayor’s notebooks, leading to the realization that the hard drive was used AFTER the rebellion.
In episode 1 we learn that the hard drive was given to George “about a year ago under the carpet in a closet” In episode 5 we learn that Kennedy’ wife died a year ago, and he moved to a new apartment 6 months ago.
So I’m guessing that Kennedy was cleaning out the closet from his wife’s stuff after she died. He found the hard drive in their closet and gave it to George to find out what’s on it. He may have found other things that got him into trouble with judicial.
So who was Kennedy’s wife? What was her job?
(It could be that the hard drive was found in his new apartment, then I’d wonder who was in the new apartment. If it was the new apartment, then i bet IT is up to something too. IT could have known about the address change, given Marnes and Judicial the wrong address in order to avoid having the new apartment searched and revealing the hard drive. While I think Judicial is the strong arm of IT and they both want order in the silo, I think they don’t always play nice together. Everyone thinks their job is the most important for the survival of the silo).

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2023.05.27 02:47 yellowreignboots An Appreciation Post for an Iconic Campy Masterpiece

I am completely new to Snowpiercer. It randomly caught my eye and I ended up binging three seasons in about four days. No sleep, just train. Let me tell you, this series is one of the most insane rides I've ever taken. So many iconic characters and moments. Of course, when viewed critically, much about the series cracks a bit, but I'm having such a good time, that the flaws become incredibly campy bundles of joy!
On our three leads-
First off, I want to give Sean Bean his flowers. The man knows what show he's on, and he delivers. He is cartoonishly villainous on one hand, while still delivering a really nuanced emotional performance at just the right moments. It's impressive as hell. He is clearly having the time of his goddamn life, and I'm here for it. I am a fan of his work, so I'm not that shocked.
Jennifer Connely strikes again. We just don't deserve this woman. She's got Snowpiercer strapped to her BACK. I'm so in love with her ability to consistently give her character so much depth. She's an angel. I have no idea how she is delivering such a stellar performance with some of the lines she's given. I love her.
Okay, so Daveen Diggs is an AI NPC for sure. I'm struck by his absolute refusal to emote. If he's not speaking, his eyes are empty. He delivers his lines like he's at a table read. Unbothered King. I laugh during most of his emotional scenes. I'm sorry if anyone is a huge fan of his, I'm sure he's talented, but he is so relaxed amidst the absolutely chaotic hellscape that I just can't help but crack up.
Anything with any other character (minus the engineers and Ruth) is complete madness. I am so here for it. The music choices are always so over the top. Playing "In this shirt" while Audrey wrestles with her Wilford-induced trauma? I got chills, I laughed, and I got chills again. It was beautiful and sad, and ridiculous.
Also. Audrey being triggered into a manic relapse where she defects to Wilfords train to have orgies with her abusive ex who manipulated her into an attempt to end her life? Check. Her Harley Quinn mini-arc? Let's go. Coming back to snow piercer and REFUSING to apologize? Totally. Vaguely explained healing abilities? More, please. Her robe?? Fucking iconic. She's been on a crowded train for seven years and is consistently dressed like a rich woman from Berlin in 1945. Apocolypse but make it fashion.
Zarah conning her way to first class with no charm or plot relevancy, while securing a baby AND the bag? After BETRAYING THE REVOLUTION??? Iconic. The tail suffers and she like, feels bad maybe. She's also so boring but I was impressed at the writer's insistence that she get screen time. She might have depth but I skipped most of her scenes so I wouldn't know. Also, she and Layton were relaxing in first class like he really didn't just sacrifice 150 people when he uncoupled the trains. Power couple. Goals.
Bess. Her ponytail. Her bigotry redemption arc. Her mediocre street sense. I love that her arc involved her chasing after morally grey characters who are outright hostile to her cause. We love a troubled king with attachment issues. That being said, her romance with Audrey was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Mostly because Audrey isn't living in the same reality as everyone else, and Bess doesn't seem to care really.
LJ. Power hungry. Murderess. Sociopath. Social Climber. She literally accomplished her goals with almost no opposition. Everyone knew she was guilty. But she mopped those floors so good they let her bar tend. They let her run the whole bar with her evil husband who was sexually abusing the tail for drugs. He can really sing and play the piano though so it's okay. Unearned redemption arcs are *chefs kiss*. I almost choked when he got horrified by her consistently terrible behavior. It's like he went to bed every day and woke up with no memory of who she was whatsoever. Honestly, LJ is a completely unchecked queen who just did what she wanted, and everyone let her cause there were so many other fish to fry.
Ruth had the most beautiful, well-fleshed-out character development and arc in the entire show, rivaled only by Melanie's. I sincerely enjoyed every moment she was on screen. That woman is a FORCE. My favorite line of hers "Or she's freshly shagged, bathing is rose water." If that doesn't sum her up I dunno what does.
I could go on forever but I just needed to rant. I love this show so much that I'm already rewatching my favorite episodes. Does anyone else feel like this show is campy, or is it just me?
Edit: I forgot to add Layton's wig as the fourth main character. What a lovely gal she is. So much stage presence.

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2023.05.26 23:03 InotiaKing Star Rail is a Genshin Crossover?

No. It isn't.
https://preview.redd.it/5praoxxin82b1.png?width=1916&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce4e9e744379cb71d5d987d210c9904a1a37e754
Buuuut there's a theme I feel is common to both that I'd like to discuss today.
When the v3.6 livestream for Genshin happened I brought up the newly released Baizhu and how he was looking into immortality. Based on what we know about immortality in Genshin it's not something anybody should want. The gods and "long-life species" like the elemental beings all suffer from erosion which eventually strips them of their minds. For mortals who become immortal erosion will break down their physical bodies until they are living piles of dust forever lost to time.
https://preview.redd.it/8429kjckn82b1.png?width=350&format=png&auto=webp&s=784b8a1f5f087760f0b9669813e9140160ee70a8
Here in Star Rail we have the Mara-struck. The Xianzhou were fooled into taking an actual elixir of life that Baizhu is trying so hard to achieve. And now they're paying for it. The Mara is the most direct consequence of their longevity. It's some as yet unknown infection that drives them insane and transforms their bodies into soldiers fighting for a cause they don't know about.
Mara btw is a good name for it too. Mara is a Hebrew name meaning "bitter." In the Torah there's the Book of Ruth which is a story about Naomi. She was once happily married and had children but famine ended up taking them from her. When it was all over and she was left with nothing she stated, "Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me." Btw Naomi means pleasant in Hebrew.
Now consider what we learned in the quest. The Xianzhou were deceived by the god-like Aeon Yaoshi and given their immortality. But some of their population had inherited disabilities which thanks to the immortality is made permanent despite any advancement in medicine. Dan Shu for example was born blind and because of immortality any kind of human intervention she could come up with failed and painfully at that. Over time this drove her insane through bitterness and made her irrational. She and her Sanctus Medicus noticed that physical disabilities were solved by the mutations caused by Mara and they decided it was actually better to enslave themselves back to Yaoshi for that small and short-sighted benefit. On the flip side the other Xianzhou decided to seek vengeance on Yaoshi by following her antithesis the Aeon Lan and destroy all forms of her Abundance at work like the Ambrosial Arbor that gave them their immortality in the first place.
Mara's original Chinese name is even more indicative of this theme that immortality is a bad thing. 魔阴身 is not a real term. You can break it up into 魔 and 阴身. 阴身 is actually a state of being in Buddhism more specifically the 中阴身 or Bardo in Tibetan. It's the ethereal state of being between the death of your past life and your rebirth into the next life. As you might know Buddhism doesn't have an afterlife in the way of heaven like we think about. The cycle of reincarnation puts the same soul into a new body so they can continue seeking out nirvana. The important part here is that 中阴身 is a natural step in the process. Now 魔 is pretty much a prefix in this context. Here it would mean unnatural so 魔阴身 is an intermediate stage between death and rebirth that doesn't fit in the reincarnation cycle. Or undeath.
https://preview.redd.it/hq9w6ftln82b1.png?width=1214&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5088517fe8f377312b739f7a747d03a75ec4805
It's played for jokes but this is why Hu Tao wanted to bury Qiqi and more seriously why she's so opposed to Baizhu. What Qiqi is and what Baizhu's attempting to do is unnatural and destructive. It is deceptively alluring being able to have more time to experience the world and achieve your goals.
https://preview.redd.it/b43qpm6nn82b1.png?width=1908&format=png&auto=webp&s=8924c02dff1d74502e9a3d0f1cfab1a6782d35e8
But the permanence of it catches up with you. Star Rail is showing first hand what it leads to.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED Talk lol. Btw what did you guys decide to do with your Dan Shu in the end? Right and did you take or pocket her medicine?

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2023.05.26 15:19 varansl This Shadow Predator Will Warp Your Reality And Devour Your Magic Items - Lore & History of the Balhannoth

Gaze in terror at this aberration before it devours you on Dump Stat

An aberration that’s been around since the 3rd edition, the Balhannoth is a creature of the dark, lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike when you least expect it. While the editions might disagree about what exactly its abilities are, just watch out for those writhing tentacles. If it grabs onto you, there is no escape as it quickly devours you and hunts the surviving members of your party.

3e/3.5e - Balhannoth

Usually CN Large aberration, CR 10
Initiative +7; Senses blind, dweomersight 120 ft.; Listen +6
Languages -
Aura dimensional lock
Armor Class 21, touch 12, flat-footed 18 (–1 size, +3 Dex., +9 natural)
Hit Points 147 (14 HD); DR 15/magic
Immune gaze attacks, illusions, visual effects
SR 18
Fort +10, Ref +9, Will +12
Speed 50 ft. (10 squares), climb 50 ft.
Melee 2 slams +18 each (2d6+9/19–20) and bite +13 (1d8+4)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with tentacles)
Base Atk +10; Grp +23
Atk Options Power Attack, constrict +1d8, improved grab, magic strike
Special Actions antimagic grapple
Abilities Str 28, Dex 17, Con 23, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 8
SQ camouflage
Feats Improved Critical (slam), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack
Skills Climb +17, Hide +16, Jump +17, Listen +6, Move Silently +13
Advancement 15–20 HD (Large); 21–30 HD (Huge)
Dweomersight (Su) A balhannoth can sense the presence and position of magic auras within 120 feet of itself, and knows the strength and school of each one. It can pinpoint the location of any creature with ongoing spells cast on it, carrying magic items, or otherwise using magic, and it can notice anything within the area of a magic effect (including its own dimensional lock aura). This otherwise functions like blindsense.

The Balhannoth is first found in the Monster Manual IV (2006) and is the worst nightmare of wizards everywhere. Barbarians, rogues, and everyone in between shouldn't think they are safe either, as the Balhannoth is a dangerous predator that stalks the Underdark and subterranean world, hunting down anyone who likes magic or uses magical items. We imagine that’s just about everyone that lives in a fantasy world where magic is as common as breathing.
Before we talk about how this creature is going to rip you apart and devour you and all your magical goodies, let’s just go ahead and get you ready for what it will look like. It is described as having an ovoid body, which means it kind of looks like an egg… with six tentacles and a large mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. It’s a strange-looking egg, but the Underdark is a strange place. It uses its tentacles to help it climb quickly, often lurking along ceilings where it then causes its skin to morph and change color, giving it almost perfect camouflage no matter where it is hiding.
As you may have guessed by our description above, these solitary creatures are another in a long line of creatures that take great pleasure in munching on your bones and devouring your flesh. What makes them worse than the rest of their flesh-eating friends is they also enjoy feeding on the magical aura of all your precious magic items. The Balhannoth's natural attunement to all things magical allows them to sense your coveted magic items as if the Balhannoth was under the constant effects of a detect magic spell, and we assume that this innate sense somehow plays into their need to feed on magic.
In addition, they are far more interested in powerful magic items than a piddling magical coin that always lands heads-up. The more powerful the item, the longer that a Balhannoth can feed off of it, with the weakest items only lasting for a day, while more powerful items could feed them for a whole month. It’s even thought that artifact-level items could feed a Balhannoth for its entire lifetime, though we aren’t sure that a Balhannoth will get much of an opportunity.
Of course, don’t think you could just capture a Balhannoth and feed it a few rings of protection and it will be your friend. After a while, they grow bored with the flavor of specific magic items and will cast it aside in search of a new delicacy to feed on. We do wonder what magical auras taste like; are evocation magic items spicy? Is illusion ephemeral? Transmutation like eating a magic fruit and everything sour is now sweet? Luckily for you, though, if a Balhannoth does feed on your item, you just have to wipe off the slobber as the item is undamaged from being fed on by these creatures.
If you do end up carrying way too many magical items in the Underdark, and draw the attention of these hungry, hungry aberrant hippos, then we wish you all the luck. These large creatures don't even have the common courtesy to fight you head-on. The Balhannoth prefers to lurk in the shadows, blending in with the surrounding underground terrain, ambushing you and your friends as you pass by. It may not see you from its hiding spot, but the Balhannoth can pinpoint your location through its dweomersight, which is kind of like blindsight but for magical auras. If you and your magic items are deemed tasty enough, the Balhannoth will strike out with its tentacles, attempting to slam you with these limbs. If successful, the Balhannoth will grapple you, and your day will have suddenly become much worse.
Once it has grappled its foe, the Balhannoth will begin to squeeze the life out of you as it begins constricting. Now we know what the fighter is thinking; I'll just hit it with my fancy magic weapon and lop that tentacle right off. Well, you can certainly hit it with the sword, but any and all of its magical properties are suppressed thanks to the Balhannoth's antimagic grapple ability. The same goes for any spells or innate spell-like skills you may have, or any ongoing magical effects you’d cast on yourself like mage armor or please-don’t-let-me-die-to-this-horrific-monster.
Fleeing is always an option, but you can forget about magically whisking yourself away due to the Balhannoth's dimensional lock trait. This trait does precisely what it sounds like it would do. It prevents extradimensional travel, rendering astral projection, blink, dimension door, ethereal jaunt, etherealness, gate, plane shift, shadow walk, teleport, and similar spell-like or psionic abilities useless. You'll still be able to run away manually, and besides, when was the last time your wizard got a good jog in?
Once the Balhannoth emerges from battle victorious, it will drag your corpse and all your delectable magical stuff back to its lair. If you are still breathing, taking a few of your last gasps, you might be lucky enough to see a single Balhannoth egg waiting to hatch. Balhannoths get pregnant easily; a simple touch between two Balhannoth tentacles produces a large egg in each of the hippo-monsters. Once their egg is produced, the proud parent will slide a powerful magic item next to their egg and allow the egg to gestate for one year before it hatches.
Just for you, we'll leave on a positive note. If you manage to kill the Balhannoth and find its lair, you can be confident of scoring some good magical loot.

4e - Balhannoth

Level 13 Elite Lurker
Large aberrant magical beast (blind); XP 1,500
Initiative +18; Senses Perception +16; blindsight 10
HP 216; Bloodied 108
AC 28; Fortitude 27, Reflex 26, Will 24
Immune gaze, illusion
Saving Throws +2
Speed 4, climb 4 (spider climb); see also reality shift
Action Points 1
Tentacle (standard; at-will) Reach 3; +17 vs. AC; 1d8 + 9 damage.
Whipping Tentacles (standard; at-will) Close burst 3; targets enemies; +17 vs. AC; 1d8 + 9 damage, and the target slides to any other square of the balhannoth’s choosing within the burst area.
Combat Advantage The balhannoth deals an extra 2d8 damage against any target it has combat advantage against.
Invisibility (minor; at-will) Illusion The balhannoth can turn invisible until the end of its next turn. It turns visible if it takes a standard action.
Reality Shift (move; at-will) Teleportation The balhannoth can teleport 10 squares. Enemies adjacent to the balhannoth before it teleports are dazed until the end of its next turn. The balhannoth automatically gains combat advantage against creatures it teleports adjacent to.
Alignment Chaotic Evil; Languages Deep Speech
Skills Stealth +19
Str 29 (+15) Dex 27 (+14) Wis 20 (+11) Con 24 (+13) Int 3 (+2) Cha 8 (+5)

The Balhannoth found in the Monster Manual (2008) is a far cry from the apex magic-eating predator we came to fear in the previous edition. There's little to no discussion for this slug monster as it is given less than a page of descriptive information. Even the art goes in a new direction, as the creature now appears as a cross between a giant green slug and a roper. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the Balhannoth undergoes a radical change in its abilities, so we have something to write about.
The Balhannoth still stalks its prey and will ambush them when given a chance, attacking with its long tentacles. It can no longer sense your magical stuff, instead just utilizing basic blindsight to find its target and rip them apart with gusto. Add to that the Balhannoths ability to go invisible, and there's a good chance you'll never see a Balhannoth until it's too late. It doesn't use its appendages to grapple you, instead pushing you and your friends around the battlefield with its whipping tentacles ability. This way, it can pick and choose which of your friends it’ll eat first while flinging the smellier adventurers away so their stench doesn’t ruin its appetite.
Forget about all the Balhannoth's magic suppression traits because they have been tossed into the trash. What it gains instead is the ability to reality shift at will. The Balhannoth can blink up to 50 feet away from its present location. This is no regular teleportation, however. When it disappears, creatures next to the Balhannoth are dazed for a round. Seeing stars and being out of it isn't great, but the poor soul the Balhannoth teleported next to has it worse because the Balhannoth now has combat advantage against it and deals even more damage with its tentacles.
We didn't mention it before, but the Balhannoth now and then can be charmed, trained, or otherwise coerced into guarding a location. In 3rd edition, the mind flayer loved to take advantage of our land octopus, but now, creatures such as the kuo-toa, aboleth, and drow have all been known to raise and train Balhannoths to do their bidding. While Balhannoths can’t talk, they can learn languages to follow commands and the like, but they really only like it when people use telepathy to command them. If you aren’t telepathically inclined, you really should train these creatures from birth so they don’t realize what they are missing. We guess that telepathy just tickles their brain.
It’s not all bad news as the Balhannoth does appear in Dungeon #204 (July 2012) in the adventure The Sword Collector by Michael E. Shea. We’ve previously mentioned this adventure with the hook horror, though don’t get your hopes too high. The Balhannoth in this adventure is actually an Ancient Balhannoth, which has all the same abilities as a regular Balhannoth, but stronger at level 25 instead of just level 13. Though it does gain an acidic maw attack and has an easier time overcoming the dazed, stunned, and dominated condition. Other than that, it is a one-off monster that doesn’t come with new information and just attempts to eat a party of adventurers with nothing else for it to do.

5e - Balhannoth

Large Aberration, Chaotic Evil
Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
Hit Points 114 (12d10 + 48)
Speed 25 ft., climb 25 ft.
Str 17 (+3) Dex 8 (-1) Con 18 (+4) Int 6 (-2) Wis 15 (+2) Cha 8 (-1)
Saving Throws Con +8
Skills Perception +6
Senses blindsight 500 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 16
Languages understands Deep Speech, telepathy 1 mile
Challenge 11 (7,200 XP); Proficiency Bonus +4
Legendary Resistance (2/Day). If the balhannoth fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Multiattack. The balhannoth makes a bite attack and up to two tentacle attacks, or it makes up to four tentacle attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 25 (4d10 + 3) piercing damage.
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15) and is moved up to 5 feet toward the balhannoth. Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the balhannoth can’t use this tentacle against other targets. The balhannoth has four tentacles.
Legendary Actions The balhannoth can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The balhannoth regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Bite. The balhannoth makes one bite attack against one creature it has grappled.
Teleport. The balhannoth teleports, along with any equipment it is wearing or carrying and any creatures it has grappled, up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space it can see.
Vanish. The balhannoth magically becomes invisible for up to 10 minutes or until immediately after it makes an attack roll.

First found in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (2018) and updated in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (2022), the Balhannoth continues to ignore its original lore in favor of being a reality-warping creature, this time an inhabitant from the Shadowfell. It keeps many of its powers and abilities from the previous edition, as well as gaining a few new ones to trick and ambush its prey.
They say that home is where your heart is, and a Balhannoth's lair could very well house your heart, liver, spleen, and other tasty organs if you aren't careful. Balhannoths make their lairs close to the locations of creatures they like to eat. Some creatures still use them as guardians, with their refuge near passages and roads that guard their master's home. What makes them such great guardians is that they have several unique abilities that allow them to transform their lair into the desires of whatever creature happens to stumble into their homes, making you an easily distracted meal.
The land by the Balhannoth's home is deeply affected by the aberration, twisting it and creating two different effects. First, the Balhannoth can look into your heart and discover your happy place. The sense desires ability can be used on any humanoid within 1 mile of the creature and allows the Balhannoth to learn your desires and determine if those desires involve a specific location or place. It doesn't seem important to know this, but wait until we get to the lair actions, and you'll understand why this sucks for you. The second effect is a supernatural lure. When you're within 1 mile of the Balhannoth's lair, you'll feel a rush of excitement as if you are getting closer to whatever you desire the most in the multiverse. The closer your get, the strong the sensation. Somehow we doubt what you desire the most is to be wrapped up in the tentacles of a Balhannoth, so the joke's on you.
If you do stumble into their lair, get ready to see the thing you most desire. The Balhannoth can reshape the appearance of its lair based on the desires of a creature it is sensing within a mile of it, crafting an almost perfect trap. Of course, this isn’t a perfect trap as it doesn’t do great on details, but you won’t be noticing those details while having to fight for your life. Just know that if it creates a book in its lair because you are really obsessed with libraries, all those books will be empty cause details don’t matter in its trap. It only needs to create a location that is good enough to draw you into its deadly tentacles.
If you do stumble into a room that is your heart’s desire in the Underdark, you are in a lot of trouble. First, they’ll teleport you about, getting you far from your allies but close to the Balhannoth. Next, the Balhannoth will start lashing out with tentacles, grappling you and dragging you close to its big maw, ready to give you a big chomp. If your party tries to help you, they might have a very difficult time when it turns invisible and starts teleporting away with you grasped in its tentacles. All the while, you'll be unable to flee as it begins eating its very squirmy snack, a bamboozled adventurer. Even if the party can keep up with this fleeing tentacled-hippo-monster, they’ll have a hard time bringing it down since it has two legendary resistances it can use every day to just shrug off damaging or controlling effects.
Luckily for you, Balhannoths are natives of the Shadowfell, so it is very rare for you to stumble across them on your homeworld. Drow raiding parties do sometimes head off into the plane of shadows to capture a Balhannoth to help guard their homes, important locations, and lairs but that’s pretty rare and we can only imagine that the Balhannoth eats a few drow before it can be properly captured and transported across the planes.
If you go to the Shadowfell, like everything else there, it feeds on pain, suffering, and horror. It likes terrorizing its prey with its reality-warping powers and probably plays with its food like a giant octopoidal cat. You’ll know if you are about to become a Balhannoth’s plaything because it will breathe false hope into your mind, and then rip it away as you realize that there is no hope. There is only Balhannoth.

Add another monster to the list of creatures that wants nothing more than to eat you, savoring your horror as it devours your corpse. The Balhannoth is not a creature to be taken lightly, and one best to avoid when your characters are lower level. Unfortunately, that may prove difficult since they live to ambush you from the cold darkness of their surroundings. Once that happens, we wish you the best of luck. Just be thankful that now your magic items will still work… unless your characters are flung across the editions and land in the lap of a magic-hungry Balhannoth.

Past Deep Dives

Creatures: Aarakocra / Aboleth / Ankheg / Banshee / Beholder / Berbalang / Blink Dog / Bulette / Bullywug / Chain Devil / Chimera / Chuul / Cockatrice / Couatl / Displacer Beast / Djinni / Doppelganger / Dracolich / Dragon Turtle / Dragonborn / Drow / Dryad / Faerie Dragon / Flumph / Formian / Frost Giant / Gelatinous Cube / Genasi / Ghoul / Giant Space Hamster / Gibbering Mouther / Giff / Gith / Gnoll / Goliath / Grell / Grippli / Grisgol / Grung / Hag / Harpy / Hell Hound / Hobgoblin / Hook Horror / Invisible Stalker / Kappa / Ki-rin / Kobold / Kraken / Kuo-Toa / Lich / Lizardfolk / Manticore / Medusa / Mercane (Arcane) / Mimic / Mind Flayer / Modron / Naga / Neogi / Nothic / Oni / Otyugh / Owlbear / Rakshasa / Redcap / Revenant / Rust Monster / Sahuagin / Scarecrow / Seawolf / Shadar-Kai / Shardmind / Shield Guardian / Star Spawn / Storm Giant / Slaadi / Tabaxi / Tarrasque / Thought Eater / Tiefling / Tirapheg / Umber Hulk / Vampire / Werewolf / Wyvern / Xorn / Xvart

Class: Barbarian Class / Cleric Class / Wizard Class

Spells: Fireball Spell / Lost Spells / Named Spells / Quest Spells / Wish Spell

Other: The History of Bigby / The History of the Blood War / The History of the Raven Queen / The History of the Red Wizards / The History of Vecna

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2023.05.26 08:09 Heavy_Employer_5756 I am happy to see that many people start realizing what’s going on

So there is this stitch video posted by Ruth and Millie where the creator discusses the impact that J’s lies have on the TTC and infertility communities. The video gained 100K views in one day, which is quite a lot given that this creator has only 1.5K followers.
The best part is that there are many people in the comments who already figured out that there was a heartbeat from the beginning. And they continue sharing this information with other people who have no clue yet.
Meanwhile, lying J pretends that nothing happened and posts some bs pregnancy updates :)

submitted by Heavy_Employer_5756 to Jasmine_Chiswell_lies [link] [comments]

2023.05.24 19:06 Jacques_Ellul ‘Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated. Isolation and impotence (the fundamental inability to act at all) have always been characteristic of tyrannies. Isolation is pre-totalitarian.’

Excerpts from 3 related works that have been on my mind lately. That much of this remains unknown combined with how closely aspects of the description trace to the present profoundly disturb me.
‘Hitler's American Model,’ James Whitman

In 1952 the Austrian police chief in Salzburg asked the American Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) )whether it still sought Adolf Eichmann’s arrest. …An Israeli intelligence operative, was hunting Eichmann and was offering a large reward. In a memo to Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, the CIC noted that its mission no longer included the apprehension of war criminals, and “it is also believed that the prosecution of war criminals is no longer considered of primary interest to U.S. Authorities.” On these grounds, the Army should advise the Salzburg police that Eichmann was no longer sought. But in view of Eichmann’s reputation and the interest of other countries [Israel] in apprehending him, it might be a mistake to show lack of interest. So the CIC recommended confirming continuing U.S. interest in Eichmann.
A ruthless program of eugenics, designed to build a “healthy” society, free of hereditary defects, was central to Nazi ambitions in the 1930s. Soon after taking power, the regime passed a Law to Prevent the Birth of the Offspring with Hereditary Defects, and by the end of the decade a program of systematic euthanasia that prefigured the Holocaust, including the use of gassing, was under way. We now know that in the background of this horror lay a sustained engagement with America’s eugenics movement. In his 1994 book, historian Stefan Kühl created a sensation by demonstrating that there was an active back-and-forth traffic between American and Nazi eugenicists until the late 1930s, indeed that Nazis even looked to the United States as a “model.”
During the interwar period the United States was not just a global leader in assembly-line manufacturing and Hollywood popular culture. It was also a global leader in “scientific” eugenics, led by figures like the historian Lothrop Stoddard and the lawyer Madison Grant, author of the 1916 racist best-seller ‘The Passing of the Great Race’; or, ‘The Racial Basis of European History.’ These were men who promoted the sterilization of the mentally defective and the exclusion of immigrants who were supposedly genetically inferior. Their teachings filtered into immigration law not only in the United States but also in other Anglophone countries: Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand all began to screen immigrants for their hereditary fitness. Kühl demonstrated that the impact of American eugenics was also strongly felt in Nazi Germany, where the works of Grant, Stoddard, and other American eugenicists were standard citations.
To be sure, there are, here again, ways we may try to minimize the significance of the eugenics story. American eugenicists, repellant though they were, did not advocate mass euthanasia, and the period when the Nazis moved in their most radically murderous direction, at the very end of the 1930s, was also the period when their direct links with American eugenics frayed. In any case, eugenics, which was widely regarded as quite respectable at the time, was an international movement, whose reach extended beyond the borders of both the United States and Nazi Germany.
The global history of eugenics cannot be told as an exclusively German–American tale. But the story of Nazi interest in the American example does not end with the eugenics of the early 1930s; historians have carried it into the nightmare years of the Holocaust in the early 1940s as well. It is here that some of the most unsettling evidence has been assembled, as historians have shown that Nazi expansion eastward was accompanied by invocations of the American conquest of the West, with its accompanying wars on Native Americans. This tale, by contrast with the tale of eugenics, is a much more exclusively German–American one.
The Nazis were consumed by the felt imperative to acquire Lebensraum, “living space,” for an expanding Germany that would engulf the territories to its east, and “[f]or generations of German imperialists, and for Hitler himself, the exemplary land empire was the United States of America.” In Nazi eyes, the United States ranked alongside the British, “to be respected as racial kindred and builders of a great empire”: both were “Nordic” polities that had undertaken epic programs of conquest.
Indeed as early as 1928 Hitler was speechifying admiringly about the way Americans had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage”; and during the years of genocide in the early 1940s Nazi leaders made repeated reference to the American conquest of the West when speaking of their own murderous conquests to their east. Historians have compiled many quotes, from Hitler and others, comparing Germany’s conquests, and its program of extermination, with America’s winning of the West. They are quotes that make for chilling reading, and there are historians who try to deny their significance. But the majority of scholars find the evidence too weighty to reject: “The United States policy of westward expansion,” as Norman Rich forcefully concludes, for example, “in the course of which the white men ruthlessly thrust aside the ‘inferior’ indigenous populations, served as the model for Hitler’s entire conception of Lebensraum.”

‘Propaganda and Free Thought,’ Bertrand Russell

“Teaching, more even than most other professions, has been transformed during the last hundred years from a small, highly skilled profession concerned with a minority of the population, to a large important branch of the public service. …any teacher in the modern world…is made sharply aware that it is not his function to teach what he thinks, but to instill such beliefs and prejudices as are thought useful by his employers.
In former days a teacher was expected to be a man of exceptional knowledge or wisdom, to whose words men would do well to attend. In antiquity, teachers were not an organized profession, and no control was exercised over what they taught. It is true that they were often punished afterwards for their subversive doctrines. Socrates was put to death and Plato is said to have been thrown into prison…[A teacher’s function is] to instill what he can of knowledge and reasonableness into the process of forming public opinion. In antiquity he performed this function unhampered except by occasional spasmodic and ineffective interventions of tyrants or mobs. In the middle ages teaching became the exclusive prerogative of the Church, with the result that there was little progress either intellectual or social. With the Renaissance, the general respect for learning brought back a very considerable measure of freedom to the teacher. …Institutions such as universities largely remained in the grip of the dogmatists, with the result that most of the best intellectual work was done by independent men of learning. In England, especially, until near the end of the 19th century, hardly any men of first-rate eminence except Newton were connected with universities. But the social system was such that this interfered little with their activities or their usefulness.
In our more highly organized world we face a new problem. Something called education is given to everybody, usually by the State, but sometimes by the Churches. The teacher has thus become, in the vast majority of cases, a civil servant obliged to carry out the behest of men who have not his learning, who have no experience of dealing with the young, and whose only attitude towards education is that of the propagandist. …Where these evils prevail no man can teach unless he subscribes to a dogmatic creed which few people of free intelligence are unlikely to accept sincerely. …He must carefully abstain from speaking his mind on current events. So long as he is teaching only the alphabet and the multiplication table, as to which no controversies arise…official dogmas do not necessarily warp his instruction; but even while he is teaching these elements he is expected, in totalitarian countries, not to employ the methods which he thinks most likely to achieve the scholastic result, but to instill fear, subservience and blind obedience by demanding unquestioned submission to his authority. And as soon as he passes beyond the bare element, he is obliged to take the official view on all controversial questions. The result is that the young in Nazi Germany became, and Russia became, fanatical bigots, ignorant of the world outside their own country, totally unaccustomed to free discussion, and not aware that their opinions can be questioned without wickedness.
This state of affairs, as bad as it is, would be less disastrous than it is if the dogmas instilled were, as in medieval Catholicism, universal and international; but the whole conception of an international culture is denied by the modern dogmatists, who preached one creed in Germany, another in Italy, another in Russia and yet another in Japan. In each of these countries fanatical nationalism was what was most emphasized in the teaching of the young, with the result that the men of one country have no common ground with the men of another, and that no conception of a common civilisation stands in the way of warlike ferocity. …There is a widespread belief that nations are made strong by uniformity of opinion and by the suppression of liberty. One hears it said over and over again that democracy weakens a country in war…It is obvious that organized party spirit is one of the greatest dangers of our time. In the form of nationalism it leads to wars between nations, and in other forms it leads to civil war.
…Teachers are more than any other class the guardians of civilization. …The thing above all, that a teacher should endeavor to produce in his pupils if democracy is to survive, is the kind of tolerance that springs from an endeavor to understand those who are different from ourselves. It is perhaps a natural impulse to view with horror and disgust all manners and customs different from those to which we are used. Ants and savages put strangers to death. And those who have never traveled either physically or mentally find it difficult to tolerate the queer ways and outlandish beliefs of other nations and other times, other sects and other political parties. …in every country nationalistic feeling is encouraged, and school children are taught, what they are only too ready to believe, that the inhabitants of other countries are morally and intellectually inferior to those of the country in which the school children happen to reside. Collective hysteria is encouraged instead of being discouraged, and the young are encouraged to believe what they hear frequently said rather than what there is some rational ground for believing. No one would consent in our day to subject the medical men to the control of non medical authorities as to how they should treat their patients, except of course where they depart criminally from the purpose of medicine, which is to cure the patient. The teacher is a kind of medical man whose purpose is to cure the patient of childishness, but he is not allowed to decide for himself on the basis of experience what methods are most suitable to this end.

‘The Origins of Totalitarianism,’ Hannah Arendth
‘Education [in the concentration camps] consists of discipline, never of any kind of instruction on an ideological basis, for the prisoners have for the most part, slave like souls.’ -Henrick Himler

Totalitarian propaganda perfects the techniques of mass propaganda, but it neither invents them nor originates their themes. These were prepared for them by fifty years of the rise of imperialism and disintegration of the nation state, when the mob entered the science of european politics. Like the earlier mob leaders, the spokesman for totalitarian movements possessed an unerring instinct for anything that ordinary party propaganda or public opinion did not care for or dare to touch. Everything hidden, everything passed over in silence, because of major significance, regardless of its own intrinsic importance. The mob really believed that ruth was whatever respectable society had hypocritical passed over, or covered up with corruption.
Mysteriousness as such became the first criterion for the choice of topics…since the middle 1930s, one mysterious world conspiracy has followed another…The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda demonstrates one of the chief characteristics of modern masses. They do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience; they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their imaginations, which may be caught by anything that is at once universal and consistent in itself. What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they presumably apart.
When a man is faced with the alternative of betraying and thus murdering his friends or of sending his wife and children, for, whom he is in every sense responsible, to their death; when even suicide would mean the immediate murder of his own family–how is he to decide? The alternative is no longer between good and evil, but between murder and murder. Who could solve the moral dilemma of the Greek mother, who was allowed by the Nazis to choose which of her three children should be killed?
Through the creation of condition under which conscience ceases to be adequate and to do good becomes utterly impossible, the consciously organized complicity of all men in the crimes of totalitarian regimes is extended to the victims and thus made really total. Camp inmates were made responsible for a large part of the administration, thus confronting them with the hopeless dilemma whether to send their friends to their death, or to help murder other men who happened to be strangers…forcing them to behave like murderers. The point is not only that hatred is diverted from those who are guilty but that the distinguishing line between persecutor and persecuted, between the murderer and his victim, is constantly blurred.
Once the moral person has been killed, the one thing that still prevents men from being made into a living corpse is the differentiation of the individual, his unique identity. …this part of the human person, precisely because it depends so essentially on nature and on forces that cannot be controlled by the will, is the hardest to destroy. The methods of dealing with this uniqueness of the human person are numerous. They begin with the monstrous conditions in the transports to the camps, when hundreds of human beings are packed into a cattle car stark naked, glued to each other, and shunted back and forth over the countryside for days on end; they continue upon arrival at the camp, the well-organized shock of the first hours, the shaving of the head, the grotesque camp clothing; and they end in the utterly unimaginable tortures so gauged as not to kill the body, at any event not quickly. The aim of all these methods, in ay case, is to manipulate the human body–with its infinite possibilities of suffering–in such a way as to make it destroy the human person as inexorably as do certain mental diseases of organic origin.
It is here that the utter lunacy of the entire process becomes most apparent. When the SS took over the camp the old bestiality gave way to an absolutely cold and systematic destruction of human bodies, calculated to destroy human dignity; death was avoided or postponed indefinitely. The camps were no longer amusement parks for beasts in human form. That is, for men who really belonged in mental institutions and prisons; the reverse became true: they were turned into “drill grounds” on which perfectly normal men were trained to be full-fledged members of the SS.
After murder of the moral person and annihilation of the judicial person, the destruction of the individuality is almost always successful...and those condemned to death very seldom attempted to take one of their executioners with them, that there were scarcely any serious revolts, and that even in the moment of liberation there were very few spontaneous massacres of SS men. For to destroy individuality is to destroy spontaneity, man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something that cannot be explained on the basis of reactions to environment and events. Nothing that remains but ghastly marionettes with human faces, which all behave like the dog in Pavlov’s experiments, which all react with perfect reliability even when going to their own death, and which do nothing but react. This is the real triumph of the system: “The triumph of the SS demands that the tortured victim allow himself to be led to the noose without protesting, that he renounce and abandon himself to the point of ceasing to affirm his identity. They know that the system which succeeds in destroying its victim before he mounts the scaffold is incomparably the best for keeping a whole people in slavery. In submission. Nothing is more terrible than these processions of human beings going like dummies to their death.” [‘scarcely more than .05% of the deaths could be traced to suicide]
If we take totalitarian aspirations seriously and refuse to be misled by the common-sense assertion that they are utopian and unrealizable, it develops that the society of the dying established in the camps is the only form of society in which it is possible to dominate man entirely…Pavlov’s dog, the hyman specimen reduced to the most elementary reactions, the bundle of reactions that can always be liquidated and replaced by other bundles of reactions that behave in exactly the same way, is the model “citizen” of a totalitarian state.
Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous. Until now the totalitarian belief that everything is possible seems to have proved only that everything can be destroyed. Yet, in their effort to prove that everything is possible, totalitarian regimes have discovered without knowing it that there are crimes which men can neither punish nor forgive. When the impossible was made possible it became the unpunishable, unforgivable absolute evil which could no longer be understood and explained by the evil motives of self-interest, greed, covetousness, resentment, lust for power, and cowardice; and which therefore anger could not revenge, love could not endure, friendship could not forgive. Just as the victims in the death factories or the holes of oblivion are no longer “human” in the eyes of their executioners, so this newest species of criminals is beyond the pale even of solidarity in human sinfulness.
We actually have nothing to fall back on in order to understand a phenomenon that nevertheless confronts us with its overpowering reality and breaks down all standards we know. There is only one thing that seems to be discernible: we may say that radical evil has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous. The danger of the corpse factories and holes of oblivion is that today, with populations and homelessness everywhere on the increase, masses of people are continuously rendered superfluous if we continue to think of our world in utilitarian terms. Political, social, and economic events everywhere are in a silent conspiracy with totalitarian instruments devised for making men superfluous. …The Nazis and the Bolsheviks can be sure that their factories of annihilation which demonstrate the swiftest solution to the problem of overpopulation, of economically superfluous and socially rootless human masses, are as much of an attraction as a warning. Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social, or economic misery in a manner worthy of man.
Ideologies–isms which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurrence by deducing it from a single premise–are a very recent phenomenon and, for many decades, played a negligible role in political life. Not before Hitler and Stalin were the great political potentialities of the ideologies discovered.
Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other and that, therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is pre-totalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together, “acting in concert” (Burke); isolated men are powerless by definition. Isolation and impotence, that is, the fundamental inability to act at all, have always been characteristic of tyrannies.
What we call isolation in the political sphere, is called loneliness in the sphere of social intercourse. Isolation (a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me) and loneliness (a situation in which I feel myself deserted by all human companionship) are not the same. Isolation is that impasse into which men are driven when the political sphere of their lives, where they act together in the pursuit of a common concern is destroyed…where man remains in contact with the world as the human artifice; only when the most elementary form of human creativity which is the capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world, is destroyed, isolation becomes altogether unbearable. This can happen in a world whose chief values are dictated by labor, that is where all human activities have been transformed into laboring. Under such conditions, only the sheer effort of labor which is the effort to keep alive is left and the relationship with the world as a human artifice is broken.
Isolated man who lost his place in the political realm of action is deserted by the world of things as well, if he is no longer recognized as ‘man the maker’ but treated as an ‘animal laborans’ whose necessary “metabolism with nature” is of concern to no one. Isolation then becomes loneliness. Tyranny based on isolation generally leaves the productive capacities of man intact; a tyranny over “laborers,” however, as for instance the rule over slaves in antiquity, would automatically be a rule over lonely, not only isolated, men and tend to be totalitarian.
The crisis of our time and its central experience have brought forth an entirely new form of government which as a potentiality and an ever-present danger is only too likely to stay with us from now on, just as other forms of government which came about at different historical moments and rested on different fundamental experiences have stayed with mankind regardless of temporary defeats–monarchies, republics, tyrannies, dictatorships and despotism.
But there remains also the truth that every end in history necessarily contains a new beginning; this beginning is the promise, the only “message” which the end can ever produce. Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man’s freedom. ‘Initium ut esset homo creatus est–‘that a beginning be made man was created’ said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man.

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2023.05.24 19:04 Jacques_Ellul ‘Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated. Isolation and impotence (the fundamental inability to act at all) have always been characteristic of tyrannies. Isolation is pre-totalitarian.’

In 1952 the Austrian police chief in Salzburg asked the American Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) )whether it still sought Adolf Eichmann’s arrest. …An Israeli intelligence operative, was hunting Eichmann and was offering a large reward. In a memo to Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, the CIC noted that its mission no longer included the apprehension of war criminals, and “it is also believed that the prosecution of war criminals is no longer considered of primary interest to U.S. Authorities.” On these grounds, the Army should advise the Salzburg police that Eichmann was no longer sought. But in view of Eichmann’s reputation and the interest of other countries [Israel] in apprehending him, it might be a mistake to show lack of interest. So the CIC recommended confirming continuing U.S. interest in Eichmann.
A ruthless program of eugenics, designed to build a “healthy” society, free of hereditary defects, was central to Nazi ambitions in the 1930s. Soon after taking power, the regime passed a Law to Prevent the Birth of the Offspring with Hereditary Defects, and by the end of the decade a program of systematic euthanasia that prefigured the Holocaust, including the use of gassing, was under way. We now know that in the background of this horror lay a sustained engagement with America’s eugenics movement. In his 1994 book, historian Stefan Kühl created a sensation by demonstrating that there was an active back-and-forth traffic between American and Nazi eugenicists until the late 1930s, indeed that Nazis even looked to the United States as a “model.”
During the interwar period the United States was not just a global leader in assembly-line manufacturing and Hollywood popular culture. It was also a global leader in “scientific” eugenics, led by figures like the historian Lothrop Stoddard and the lawyer Madison Grant, author of the 1916 racist best-seller ‘The Passing of the Great Race’; or, ‘The Racial Basis of European History.’ These were men who promoted the sterilization of the mentally defective and the exclusion of immigrants who were supposedly genetically inferior. Their teachings filtered into immigration law not only in the United States but also in other Anglophone countries: Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand all began to screen immigrants for their hereditary fitness. Kühl demonstrated that the impact of American eugenics was also strongly felt in Nazi Germany, where the works of Grant, Stoddard, and other American eugenicists were standard citations.
To be sure, there are, here again, ways we may try to minimize the significance of the eugenics story. American eugenicists, repellant though they were, did not advocate mass euthanasia, and the period when the Nazis moved in their most radically murderous direction, at the very end of the 1930s, was also the period when their direct links with American eugenics frayed. In any case, eugenics, which was widely regarded as quite respectable at the time, was an international movement, whose reach extended beyond the borders of both the United States and Nazi Germany.
The global history of eugenics cannot be told as an exclusively German–American tale. But the story of Nazi interest in the American example does not end with the eugenics of the early 1930s; historians have carried it into the nightmare years of the Holocaust in the early 1940s as well. It is here that some of the most unsettling evidence has been assembled, as historians have shown that Nazi expansion eastward was accompanied by invocations of the American conquest of the West, with its accompanying wars on Native Americans. This tale, by contrast with the tale of eugenics, is a much more exclusively German–American one.
The Nazis were consumed by the felt imperative to acquire Lebensraum, “living space,” for an expanding Germany that would engulf the territories to its east, and “[f]or generations of German imperialists, and for Hitler himself, the exemplary land empire was the United States of America.” In Nazi eyes, the United States ranked alongside the British, “to be respected as racial kindred and builders of a great empire”: both were “Nordic” polities that had undertaken epic programs of conquest.
Indeed as early as 1928 Hitler was speechifying admiringly about the way Americans had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage”; and during the years of genocide in the early 1940s Nazi leaders made repeated reference to the American conquest of the West when speaking of their own murderous conquests to their east. Historians have compiled many quotes, from Hitler and others, comparing Germany’s conquests, and its program of extermination, with America’s winning of the West. They are quotes that make for chilling reading, and there are historians who try to deny their significance. But the majority of scholars find the evidence too weighty to reject: “The United States policy of westward expansion,” as Norman Rich forcefully concludes, for example, “in the course of which the white men ruthlessly thrust aside the ‘inferior’ indigenous populations, served as the model for Hitler’s entire conception of Lebensraum.”

‘Propaganda and Free Thought,’ Bertrand Russell

“Teaching, more even than most other professions, has been transformed during the last hundred years from a small, highly skilled profession concerned with a minority of the population, to a large important branch of the public service. …any teacher in the modern world…is made sharply aware that it is not his function to teach what he thinks, but to instill such beliefs and prejudices as are thought useful by his employers.
In former days a teacher was expected to be a man of exceptional knowledge or wisdom, to whose words men would do well to attend. In antiquity, teachers were not an organized profession, and no control was exercised over what they taught. It is true that they were often punished afterwards for their subversive doctrines. Socrates was put to death and Plato is said to have been thrown into prison…[A teacher’s function is] to instill what he can of knowledge and reasonableness into the process of forming public opinion. In antiquity he performed this function unhampered except by occasional spasmodic and ineffective interventions of tyrants or mobs. In the middle ages teaching became the exclusive prerogative of the Church, with the result that there was little progress either intellectual or social. With the Renaissance, the general respect for learning brought back a very considerable measure of freedom to the teacher. …Institutions such as universities largely remained in the grip of the dogmatists, with the result that most of the best intellectual work was done by independent men of learning. In England, especially, until near the end of the 19th century, hardly any men of first-rate eminence except Newton were connected with universities. But the social system was such that this interfered little with their activities or their usefulness.
In our more highly organized world we face a new problem. Something called education is given to everybody, usually by the State, but sometimes by the Churches. The teacher has thus become, in the vast majority of cases, a civil servant obliged to carry out the behest of men who have not his learning, who have no experience of dealing with the young, and whose only attitude towards education is that of the propagandist. …Where these evils prevail no man can teach unless he subscribes to a dogmatic creed which few people of free intelligence are unlikely to accept sincerely. …He must carefully abstain from speaking his mind on current events. So long as he is teaching only the alphabet and the multiplication table, as to which no controversies arise…official dogmas do not necessarily warp his instruction; but even while he is teaching these elements he is expected, in totalitarian countries, not to employ the methods which he thinks most likely to achieve the scholastic result, but to instill fear, subservience and blind obedience by demanding unquestioned submission to his authority. And as soon as he passes beyond the bare element, he is obliged to take the official view on all controversial questions. The result is that the young in Nazi Germany became, and Russia became, fanatical bigots, ignorant of the world outside their own country, totally unaccustomed to free discussion, and not aware that their opinions can be questioned without wickedness.
This state of affairs, as bad as it is, would be less disastrous than it is if the dogmas instilled were, as in medieval Catholicism, universal and international; but the whole conception of an international culture is denied by the modern dogmatists, who preached one creed in Germany, another in Italy, another in Russia and yet another in Japan. In each of these countries fanatical nationalism was what was most emphasized in the teaching of the young, with the result that the men of one country have no common ground with the men of another, and that no conception of a common civilisation stands in the way of warlike ferocity. …There is a widespread belief that nations are made strong by uniformity of opinion and by the suppression of liberty. One hears it said over and over again that democracy weakens a country in war…It is obvious that organized party spirit is one of the greatest dangers of our time. In the form of nationalism it leads to wars between nations, and in other forms it leads to civil war.
…Teachers are more than any other class the guardians of civilization. …The thing above all, that a teacher should endeavor to produce in his pupils if democracy is to survive, is the kind of tolerance that springs from an endeavor to understand those who are different from ourselves. It is perhaps a natural impulse to view with horror and disgust all manners and customs different from those to which we are used. Ants and savages put strangers to death. And those who have never traveled either physically or mentally find it difficult to tolerate the queer ways and outlandish beliefs of other nations and other times, other sects and other political parties. …in every country nationalistic feeling is encouraged, and school children are taught, what they are only too ready to believe, that the inhabitants of other countries are morally and intellectually inferior to those of the country in which the school children happen to reside. Collective hysteria is encouraged instead of being discouraged, and the young are encouraged to believe what they hear frequently said rather than what there is some rational ground for believing. No one would consent in our day to subject the medical men to the control of non medical authorities as to how they should treat their patients, except of course where they depart criminally from the purpose of medicine, which is to cure the patient. The teacher is a kind of medical man whose purpose is to cure the patient of childishness, but he is not allowed to decide for himself on the basis of experience what methods are most suitable to this end.

Totalitarian propaganda perfects the techniques of mass propaganda, but it neither invents them nor originates their themes. These were prepared for them by fifty years of the rise of imperialism and disintegration of the nation state, when the mob entered the science of european politics. Like the earlier mob leaders, the spokesman for totalitarian movements possessed an unerring instinct for anything that ordinary party propaganda or public opinion did not care for or dare to touch. Everything hidden, everything passed over in silence, because of major significance, regardless of its own intrinsic importance. The mob really believed that ruth was whatever respectable society had hypocritical passed over, or covered up with corruption.
Mysteriousness as such became the first criterion for the choice of topics…since the middle 1930s, one mysterious world conspiracy has followed another…The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda demonstrates one of the chief characteristics of modern masses. They do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience; they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their imaginations, which may be caught by anything that is at once universal and consistent in itself. What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they presumably apart.
When a man is faced with the alternative of betraying and thus murdering his friends or of sending his wife and children, for, whom he is in every sense responsible, to their death; when even suicide would mean the immediate murder of his own family–how is he to decide? The alternative is no longer between good and evil, but between murder and murder. Who could solve the moral dilemma of the Greek mother, who was allowed by the Nazis to choose which of her three children should be killed?
Through the creation of condition under which conscience ceases to be adequate and to do good becomes utterly impossible, the consciously organized complicity of all men in the crimes of totalitarian regimes is extended to the victims and thus made really total. Camp inmates were made responsible for a large part of the administration, thus confronting them with the hopeless dilemma whether to send their friends to their death, or to help murder other men who happened to be strangers…forcing them to behave like murderers. The point is not only that hatred is diverted from those who are guilty but that the distinguishing line between persecutor and persecuted, between the murderer and his victim, is constantly blurred.
Once the moral person has been killed, the one thing that still prevents men from being made into a living corpse is the differentiation of the individual, his unique identity. …this part of the human person, precisely because it depends so essentially on nature and on forces that cannot be controlled by the will, is the hardest to destroy. The methods of dealing with this uniqueness of the human person are numerous. They begin with the monstrous conditions in the transports to the camps, when hundreds of human beings are packed into a cattle car stark naked, glued to each other, and shunted back and forth over the countryside for days on end; they continue upon arrival at the camp, the well-organized shock of the first hours, the shaving of the head, the grotesque camp clothing; and they end in the utterly unimaginable tortures so gauged as not to kill the body, at any event not quickly. The aim of all these methods, in ay case, is to manipulate the human body–with its infinite possibilities of suffering–in such a way as to make it destroy the human person as inexorably as do certain mental diseases of organic origin.
It is here that the utter lunacy of the entire process becomes most apparent. When the SS took over the camp the old bestiality gave way to an absolutely cold and systematic destruction of human bodies, calculated to destroy human dignity; death was avoided or postponed indefinitely. The camps were no longer amusement parks for beasts in human form. That is, for men who really belonged in mental institutions and prisons; the reverse became true: they were turned into “drill grounds” on which perfectly normal men were trained to be full-fledged members of the SS.
After murder of the moral person and annihilation of the judicial person, the destruction of the individuality is almost always successful...and those condemned to death very seldom attempted to take one of their executioners with them, that there were scarcely any serious revolts, and that even in the moment of liberation there were very few spontaneous massacres of SS men. For to destroy individuality is to destroy spontaneity, man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something that cannot be explained on the basis of reactions to environment and events. Nothing that remains but ghastly marionettes with human faces, which all behave like the dog in Pavlov’s experiments, which all react with perfect reliability even when going to their own death, and which do nothing but react. This is the real triumph of the system: “The triumph of the SS demands that the tortured victim allow himself to be led to the noose without protesting, that he renounce and abandon himself to the point of ceasing to affirm his identity. They know that the system which succeeds in destroying its victim before he mounts the scaffold is incomparably the best for keeping a whole people in slavery. In submission. Nothing is more terrible than these processions of human beings going like dummies to their death.” [‘scarcely more than .05% of the deaths could be traced to suicide]
If we take totalitarian aspirations seriously and refuse to be misled by the common-sense assertion that they are utopian and unrealizable, it develops that the society of the dying established in the camps is the only form of society in which it is possible to dominate man entirely…Pavlov’s dog, the hyman specimen reduced to the most elementary reactions, the bundle of reactions that can always be liquidated and replaced by other bundles of reactions that behave in exactly the same way, is the model “citizen” of a totalitarian state.
Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous. Until now the totalitarian belief that everything is possible seems to have proved only that everything can be destroyed. Yet, in their effort to prove that everything is possible, totalitarian regimes have discovered without knowing it that there are crimes which men can neither punish nor forgive. When the impossible was made possible it became the unpunishable, unforgivable absolute evil which could no longer be understood and explained by the evil motives of self-interest, greed, covetousness, resentment, lust for power, and cowardice; and which therefore anger could not revenge, love could not endure, friendship could not forgive. Just as the victims in the death factories or the holes of oblivion are no longer “human” in the eyes of their executioners, so this newest species of criminals is beyond the pale even of solidarity in human sinfulness.
We actually have nothing to fall back on in order to understand a phenomenon that nevertheless confronts us with its overpowering reality and breaks down all standards we know. There is only one thing that seems to be discernible: we may say that radical evil has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous. The danger of the corpse factories and holes of oblivion is that today, with populations and homelessness everywhere on the increase, masses of people are continuously rendered superfluous if we continue to think of our world in utilitarian terms. Political, social, and economic events everywhere are in a silent conspiracy with totalitarian instruments devised for making men superfluous. …The Nazis and the Bolsheviks can be sure that their factories of annihilation which demonstrate the swiftest solution to the problem of overpopulation, of economically superfluous and socially rootless human masses, are as much of an attraction as a warning. Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social, or economic misery in a manner worthy of man.
Ideologies–isms which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurrence by deducing it from a single premise–are a very recent phenomenon and, for many decades, played a negligible role in political life. Not before Hitler and Stalin were the great political potentialities of the ideologies discovered.
Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other and that, therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is pre-totalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together, “acting in concert” (Burke); isolated men are powerless by definition. Isolation and impotence, that is, the fundamental inability to act at all, have always been characteristic of tyrannies.
What we call isolation in the political sphere, is called loneliness in the sphere of social intercourse. Isolation (a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me) and loneliness (a situation in which I feel myself deserted by all human companionship) are not the same. Isolation is that impasse into which men are driven when the political sphere of their lives, where they act together in the pursuit of a common concern is destroyed…where man remains in contact with the world as the human artifice; only when the most elementary form of human creativity which is the capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world, is destroyed, isolation becomes altogether unbearable. This can happen in a world whose chief values are dictated by labor, that is where all human activities have been transformed into laboring. Under such conditions, only the sheer effort of labor which is the effort to keep alive is left and the relationship with the world as a human artifice is broken.
Isolated man who lost his place in the political realm of action is deserted by the world of things as well, if he is no longer recognized as ‘man the maker’ but treated as an ‘animal laborans’ whose necessary “metabolism with nature” is of concern to no one. Isolation then becomes loneliness. Tyranny based on isolation generally leaves the productive capacities of man intact; a tyranny over “laborers,” however, as for instance the rule over slaves in antiquity, would automatically be a rule over lonely, not only isolated, men and tend to be totalitarian.
The crisis of our time and its central experience have brought forth an entirely new form of government which as a potentiality and an ever-present danger is only too likely to stay with us from now on, just as other forms of government which came about at different historical moments and rested on different fundamental experiences have stayed with mankind regardless of temporary defeats–monarchies, republics, tyrannies, dictatorships and despotism.
But there remains also the truth that every end in history necessarily contains a new beginning; this beginning is the promise, the only “message” which the end can ever produce. Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man’s freedom. ‘Initium ut esset homo creatus est–‘that a beginning be made man was created’ said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man.

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2023.05.24 02:19 notfrumenough Chabad made me *less* observant

Ello. First time poster long time lurker.
TLDR: I started going to a Chabad and it made me feel like I don’t know anything, am not a real Jew and I have trouble following along davening because they speak so quickly and I’m a slow reader in Hebrew still. It also made my kids feel pushed and like they aren’t smart bc they don’t know all the baruchas or Hebrew yet either. We also have to drive to get there because it’s not really walking distance and I’ve had an injury that limits my ability to walk. Now we’re not shomer Shabbat anymore and are going backwards. The Chabad is lovely though, it just had the opposite than intended effect on us.
More context: I am halachically Jewish and grew up reform/interfaith in a major metropolitan area in the US. My brother became modox and made aliyah over 20 years ago. My practice was on/off for a long time but over the past 5 years it has been more on.
I started lighting Shabbat candles weekly years ago. Then a few years ago I got the urge to bake challah, and it turned out really badly so I started looking at tutorials, and the only real ones are by Orthodox women. That got me diving into Halacha and Shabbat a lot more and I started being more and more observant, adding more and more to my practice over time.
Like at first I was just lighting candles, and baking challah, then I started doing shacharit at home. Then I started dating an Israeli man and we would do Shabbat together w our kids and his friends. He and I kicked around the idea of being shomer Shabbat together and after we broke up, my kids and I started being Shomer Shabbat on our own. My kids were interested in the melachot and enjoyed my re-telling of the parsha in a kid friendly way. I continued doing shacharit, plus the bedtime shema, and my brother was encouraging me to find a community because “it’s really hard to be shomer without a community”.
We checked out a few reform synagogues in the area, but it wasn’t traditional enough for me, and it was hard for my kids to follow along because they would all have different melodies and practices than what we were familiar with. I finally found a Chabad nearby and we started going for kaballat Shabbat.
This is where we started sliding backwards. At first there was a great connection, and they already knew my family, and they were complementing me on my knowledge considering my mostly secular upbringing. The only thing was that I stopped being shomer on Fridays bc I had to drive to get to the Chabad.
The the more time we spent with them the more it became apparent that I don’t know shit, and I started feeling embarrassed and like a fraud. Like why am I dressing tznius (according to modox, not traditional orthodoxy) when I don’t know all the ins and outs of Halacha and a few years ago I was sending nudes to casual partners? I have never dressed in a revealing way but now I feel wrong if I, for example, go out in leggings and a hoodie without covering the split of my legs.
It’s also that there’s so much to learn that I couldn’t possibly know it all, and stuff that’s normal and a given to people who grew up orthodox is new information to us. For example, I didn’t know until this week that you refrain from electronics on Shavuot. I knew you eat cheesecake and read Book of Ruth and stay up all night studying Torah but not that.
So I started feeling like I’m pretty much a fraud and I’m just some dumb secular chick, what am I even doing? Then at the same time the rabbi helped me find a Hebrew school for my kids that I can actually afford (I’ve been looking for years) and my kids started and ended up hating it, and my younger kid on Friday night started crying at the Rabbi’s house because she felt picked on by one of his daughters and then she started crying to me that “ why is she smarter than me that she already knows Hebrew and I don’t”.
I tried to explain to her that it’s just because she was born into a strict practice, and we were not. I didn’t send them to Hebrew school this past week because they didn’t wanna go and I don’t want them to feel like they don’t belong or they aren’t smart.
So now we’re no longer shomer Shabbat and we all feel like we don’t belong or fit in. It’s not the Chabads fault, they are extremely kind and welcoming and warm, but I definitely feel stupid all the time because I don’t know as much as them, kind of the same thing as my kids. Like we don’t really belong because we’re not orthodox. I also find it harder to connect with Hashem when other people are around.
So getting involved w Chabad actually made us less observant. This past weekend I didn’t even turn my phone off like I usually would and I don’t feel like doing anything for Shavuos. Not even baking Cheesecake and I love baking.
I’m still doing shacharis though and shema and I’m going to be in eretz Israel in June. So all is not lost.
Any thoughts / advice if you made it this far?
eta: We’ve always been kosher, I am vegetarian and separate meat out regardless of religion

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2023.05.23 23:54 Old_Growth_2648 Jake doesn't like coffee anymore. Part 2 of 3.

Link to Part 1:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/13ozznt/jake_doesnt_like_coffee_anymore_part_1/
I feel weak inside on hearing what had happened to Jake. And the conviction: it's my fault, it's all my fault. I should've never let him go there ....
I try to pull myself together.
'Is he ... he's going to be alright?' Stupid question. She would've told me that herself if she knew, at this stage.
I'm not surprised when she doesn't reply immediately. Then, 'Well, they don't rightly know yet. He's in the hospital, of course ....'
When she finally rings off a few minutes later, I just sit for a while, feeling numb.
Update.
Well, actually, it's good news.
Jake's woken up, after just three days, and as far as the doctors can tell, he seems to be OK. Still groggy, of course, but he remembers who he is, his friends and family and work and all that stuff. In fact the doctors are optimistic that he'll make a complete recovery, after some rest.
Great news.
So, why do I still feel so uneasy?
In fact, so uneasy that I don't even go to see him in the hospital. Pretty awful of me, right? But when Lucie suggests we can go together, in her car, I decline, so quickly that she looks at me at first curiously, then a little suspiciously.
'What's up?'
Really, I'm hopeless at covering for myself. 'Nothing. I mean, I just ... don't feel so great. Just everything that's happened lately, I would be pretty lousy company.' I end off with a lame laugh that grates on my own ears. For Christ sake, you could've managed a bit less clumsily than that.
She continues to look at me for a bit, but thankfully doesn't press me any further. She brings back a glowing report of how well Jake's doing, that he's likely to be out in the next day or two, although with some continuing observation for any lingering ill-effects. As to what actually happened, other than it was electrical in nature, they don't seem quite to know. Still investigating. Jake doesn't remember himself, apparently, and maybe he never will.
Everyone else is pleased, naturally, at Jake's progress, but I'm still not reassured. I don't know why. Those emails and things really have been messing with my head.
'He really is doing well, then.' I try not to make it sound too much like a question.
'Oh yes,' Lucie replies brightly. 'Although,' she adds, 'it'll probably take a while to get fully back to normal.'
I look at her. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
She looks surprised at my sudden. sharp tone. 'Why .. it doesn't mean anything much, maybe.'
'There's something you're not telling us?' Thank goodness, Brandon's asked the question so I don't have to.
She shakes her head, doubtfully. 'Maybe with a bit more time he'll ...' She pauses. 'It's just that - well, Evelyn (his girlfriend) was leaving just as I was going in, and, well, she was rather upset. He didn't ..' Again, she hesitates.
'Recognize her?' Brandon puts in helpfully.
Lucie looks away for a moment. 'Apparently, he'd just dumped her.'
This news about Evelyn sets off all my fears anew.
More than ever, I don't want to go to see him. And I'm not looking forward to seeing him back at work, although that shouldn't be for a few weeks yet.
But actually, he's back before the end of the week.
And there's no doubt now that he has changed. I mean, his personality. In other ways he's fine, perhaps even better, I mean in terms of work performance and all, but even the more unobservant types in the room are talking about how he just doesn't seem his old self. He's become - distant, not the friendly helpful person he once was.
Except to me.
He's become way too friendly to me.
Although he's stopped calling me Lis. He just uses my full name now. And he's always at my desk asking me out. Not in a terribly serious, I've-fallen-hopelessly-in-love-with-you kind of way, just to lunch and stuff. A few weeks ago, that would've suited me, but now it - well, it scares me. it feels unnatural. But he's so insistent, and with poor Evelyn apparently now well out of the picture, I finally accept his offer just to go out to lunch, just the two of us. It'll be fine, right? In a public place and all. Maybe I shouldn't've caved in, but I tell myself that it's just this one time. I won't accept again, if he keeps it up.
Now, you probably think that's pretty odd reasoning on my part. To tell you the truth, I think it's more curiosity, just to see how exactly he'll behave when it is just the two of us. Anyway, it's going ahead. I feel it's something I have to get to the bottom of, really. All mixed up with those crazy emails and the old office and .....
Oh yes, I forgot to mention it. The emails have stopped. They stopped right after Jake's accident. And he's never mentioned them again either. Of course that's not surprising after what he's been through, but it all adds to my uneasiness, my growing fears. I feel it's all connected in some way.
We don't go anywhere special for lunch. I was expecting him to opt for a coffee place, but he doesn't. We just go into this small soup-and-sandwiches place, which always does the business. I was sure Jake had been here before, but he doesn't seem to remember. At least he doesn't object to actually ordering from the menu, as I'd half-expected. But then, when our orders come, he barely touches his.
'Not hungry?' I ask.
He doesn't even answer.
I smile at him, encouragingly. 'Well, you'll have coffee anyway, right?' He'd always been known as a coffee nut, but maybe that's another facet of his personality that's changed.. Come to think of it, I hadn't actually seen him with the stuff in the office the past week.
'I don't drink coffee.'
I feel a sudden chill. 'You mean, not anymore.' I try to sound casual.
He looks straight at me. Those eyes ... his eyes sure have changed. I mean, the expression ....
'I've never liked it.'
'But you've had it, once?' I blurt out. The email, that damned email, come rushing back into my mind with full force -
'I've had it - more than once,' he replies slowly. 'It was never my choice, though. I don't know how you -' he seems to catch himself. 'I don't know how you can drink it. I don't know how any of you drink it.'
At last the fear, all at once, takes terrifyingly clear shape. This can't be happening, not in real life. It's - absurd. I almost laugh out loud. Yes, it's absurd, that's what it really is. I remember that old corner of the old office where my workstation was, where he'd been found, I remember the coffee I used to drink there, and once when it spilled over the keyboard -
Well, it all ties in, in an impossibly weird and wonderful way. Or maybe I'm just losing whatever sanity I've ever had.
I look him straight in the eyes. 'I just hope it wasn't - too bad -'
'Actually, I've had more than my fair share,' he says, reprovingly. 'You lot can be so careless, you know.'
'You mean, us humans?' I say, deliberately.
He shows no surprise at my choice of words. 'You office workers, anyhow.'
Are we really having this conversation, seated at the most ordinary table at the most ordinary of lunchtime eateries? Do we really understand each other? Or are we just talking at cross-purposes? I glance around. The place is buzzing at this hour, at least no-one's taking any notice of us.
I take a deep breath. I have to keep digging. Have to see this through somehow.
'It was you, wasn't it? Those emails?'
He smiles. 'The ultimate cyber-stalker.'
I feel as I should be totally having a nervous breakdown by now, but somehow I'm not. 'But why me? And why take over Jake?' Even as I say it, I know damn well why.
'He was starting to get too close for comfort. Too close to you. So I took the chance when I could. It wasn't really planned.' As if that made it any better.
I catch my breath. But I manage keep it together.
'Why me?' I repeat.
He smiles again, without warmth, without mirth. 'You were lonely, Alicia. I could sense that. But you were happy to be with me.'
True, I did use to bury myself in my work, but - God, I had never expected an outcome like this. Who ever would?
He's staring intently at me now. Demanding. Demanding some kind of response.
What do I say? I've never had to turn off a guy like this before.
Oh god. What a choice of words. Turn off ....
I just manage to keep down the rising hysteria. He smiles again.
'No, you can't turn me off. No-one can anymore.'
And with that he takes my hand.
I close my eyes. I can feel the electricity in the air alright.
Oh god, what am I doing? Why am I letting myself be sucked into his madness? Why am I playing along making it worse? He's just Jake, it's just the turn he had after the accident, it'll take a while to get back to normal .... he ought to go back for another check-up, he was discharged too soon .... Shit. Even the word discharged, is taking on another meaning -
With an almighty effort, I manage to snap out of it, the swirling confusion. It's like I've just opened my eyes after heavy sleep. It's still the same situation. The lunchtime table, the steady hum of the lunch crowd. And I still feel the pressure of his hand on mine.
I jerk my hand back. 'I'm sorry. You know - you know it couldn't really work, even now ....'
His eyes bore into me for a moment, expressionless.
And then - and for some reason this surprises me more than anything that's gone before - he gets up and leaves. Just walks out, leaving me with two orders that are going to spoil. Not to mention the entire bill. I sit there, stupefied.
Finally, I come to. It's a lady looking at me out of the corner of her eye from the next table that does it. I can't go on sitting there like a zombie even if my date has stormed out on me following a surreal, if not downright bizarre, conversation. Because, essentially, that is just what happened, isn't it?
I pull out my phone, call work. I try to explain the bare facts of the situation as briefly as I can, that I had met with Jake for lunch, but he was acting kind of weird and just left abruptly, and that I'm feeling shaken up and probably won't make it in for the rest of the day. Of course they already know that things have not seemed altogether right with him after the accident, and they're quite accommodating. They also agree it's probably best if he could be persuaded to go back for another check-up.
Lucie calls me later in the day to ask how I'm feeling and to inform me that Jake never turned up at the office that afternoon, either. No responses to any texts or calls.
I don't know what to think.
What the fuck really happened? Did I really persuade myself that I was talking to the - well, the spirit of my old work computer or something, through Jake?
And, more importantly, what's Jake going to do now? Disappear in an almighty huff, or turn into a proper stalker, trying to break down my door and coming after me with a hatchet? Shouldn't I try to get a restraining order, or something?
But he hasn't actually done anything, yet ....
I can only hope that, somehow, he will revert to his old self.
Update.
I've taken some sick leave, but I don't just mope at home the way I used to before all this crazy shit started. I try to have people around me as much as possible, and still for my own safety, although at least there have been no more emails.
And Jake seems to have disappeared. At any rate, he's not been seen or heard from in the last few days.
People are becoming concerned, alright, wondering what he might do - in view of the change in him since the accident. I've had to talk to the police, but I certainly didn't tell them of my real suspicions. I don't want to be hauled off for some sort of psychiatric evaluation, or something. I've not really been able to confide properly in anyone else either. It's not easy to break the habits of a lifetime.
And I'm too busy wrestling with myself, in any case.
Because, if I'm totally honest, there are times when I don't even know what I want him to do anymore.
After all, whatever else might have happened, he still is Jake physically, right? Not really such a bad deal when you come to think of it, even if he's become - erratic.
I have to admit I never felt that electric spark with anyone else before.
Maybe I've just become crazy like he has.
What do I do?
Link to Part 1:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/13ozznt/jake_doesnt_like_coffee_anymore_part_1/
I feel weak inside on hearing what had happened to Jake. And the conviction: it's my fault, it's all my fault. I should've never let him go there ....
I try to pull myself together.
'Is he ... he's going to be alright?' Stupid question. She would've told me that herself if she knew, at this stage.
I'm not surprised when she doesn't reply immediately. Then, 'Well, they don't rightly know yet. He's in the hospital, of course ....'
When she finally rings off a few minutes later, I just sit for a while, feeling numb.
Update.
Well, actually, it's good news.
Jake's woken up, after just three days, and as far as the doctors can tell, he seems to be OK. Still groggy, of course, but he remembers who he is, his friends and family and work and all that stuff. In fact the doctors are optimistic that he'll make a complete recovery, after some rest.
Great news.
So, why do I still feel so uneasy?
In fact, so uneasy that I don't even go to see him in the hospital. Pretty awful of me, right? But when Lucie suggests we can go together, in her car, I decline, so quickly that she looks at me at first curiously, then a little suspiciously.
'What's up?'
Really, I'm hopeless at covering for myself. 'Nothing. I mean, I just ... don't feel so great. Just everything that's happened lately, I would be pretty lousy company.' I end off with a lame laugh that grates on my own ears. For Christ sake, you could've managed a bit less clumsily than that.
She continues to look at me for a bit, but thankfully doesn't press me any further. She brings back a glowing report of how well Jake's doing, that he's likely to be out in the next day or two, although with some continuing observation for any lingering ill-effects. As to what actually happened, other than it was electrical in nature, they don't seem quite to know. Still investigating. Jake doesn't remember himself, apparently, and maybe he never will.
Everyone else is pleased, naturally, at Jake's progress, but I'm still not reassured. I don't know why. Those emails and things really have been messing with my head.
'He really is doing well, then.' I try not to make it sound too much like a question.
'Oh yes,' Lucie replies brightly. 'Although,' she adds, 'it'll probably take a while to get fully back to normal.'
I look at her. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
She looks surprised at my sudden. sharp tone. 'Why .. it doesn't mean anything much, maybe.'
'There's something you're not telling us?' Thank goodness, Brandon's asked the question so I don't have to.
She shakes her head, doubtfully. 'Maybe with a bit more time he'll ...' She pauses. 'It's just that - well, Evelyn (his girlfriend) was leaving just as I was going in, and, well, she was rather upset. He didn't ..' Again, she hesitates.
'Recognize her?' Brandon puts in helpfully.
Lucie looks away for a moment. 'Apparently, he'd just dumped her.'

This news about Evelyn sets off all my fears anew.
More than ever, I don't want to go to see him. And I'm not looking forward to seeing him back at work, although that shouldn't be for a few weeks yet.
But actually, he's back before the end of the week.
And there's no doubt now that he has changed. I mean, his personality. In other ways he's fine, perhaps even better, I mean in terms of work performance and all, but even the more unobservant types in the room are talking about how he just doesn't seem his old self. He's become - distant, not the friendly helpful person he once was.
Except to me.
He's become way too friendly to me.
Although he's stopped calling me Lis. He just uses my full name now. And he's always at my desk asking me out. Not in a terribly serious, I've-fallen-hopelessly-in-love-with-you kind of way, just to lunch and stuff. A few weeks ago, that would've suited me, but now it - well, it scares me. it feels unnatural. But he's so insistent, and with poor Evelyn apparently now well out of the picture, I finally accept his offer just to go out to lunch, just the two of us. It'll be fine, right? In a public place and all. Maybe I shouldn't've caved in, but I tell myself that it's just this one time. I won't accept again, if he keeps it up.
Now, you probably think that's pretty odd reasoning on my part. To tell you the truth, I think it's more curiosity, just to see how exactly he'll behave when it is just the two of us. Anyway, it's going ahead. I feel it's something I have to get to the bottom of, really. All mixed up with those crazy emails and the old office and .....
Oh yes, I forgot to mention it. The emails have stopped. They stopped right after Jake's accident. And he's never mentioned them again either. Of course that's not surprising after what he's been through, but it all adds to my uneasiness, my growing fears. I feel it's all connected in some way.

We don't go anywhere special for lunch. I was expecting him to opt for a coffee place, but he doesn't. We just go into this small soup-and-sandwiches place, which always does the business. I was sure Jake had been here before, but he doesn't seem to remember. At least he doesn't object to actually ordering from the menu, as I'd half-expected. But then, when our orders come, he barely touches his.
'Not hungry?' I ask.
He doesn't even answer.
I smile at him, encouragingly. 'Well, you'll have coffee anyway, right?' He'd always been known as a coffee nut, but maybe that's another facet of his personality that's changed.. Come to think of it, I hadn't actually seen him with the stuff in the office the past week.
'I don't drink coffee.'
I feel a sudden chill.
'Since when?' I try to make it sound casual.
He looks straight at me. Those eyes ... his eyes sure have changed. I mean, the expression ....
'I've never liked it.'
I try to laugh it off. 'Oh come on, we both know that's not true -' Suddenly, I dry up. That email, that damned email about coffee, suddenly comes charging into my mind with full force.
'But you have had it before?' I hear myself blurt out. Inside I'm thinking what a strange conversation to be having, although on the face of it it's just some small talk about coffee.
'I've had it - more than once,' he replies slowly. 'Not just that time with you. It was never my choice, though. I don't know how you -' he seems to catch himself. 'I don't know how you can like it. I don't know how any of you can like it.'
At last the fear, all at once, takes terrifyingly clear shape. This can't be happening, not in real life. It's - absurd. I almost laugh out loud. Yes, it's absurd, that's what it really is. But I remember that corner of the old office where my workstation was, where he'd been found, I remember the coffee I used to drink there, and once when it spilled over the keyboard -
Well, it all ties in, in an impossibly weird and wonderful way. Or maybe I'm just losing whatever sanity I've ever had.
I catch my breath, but I force myself to look him in the eye.
'Actually, I've had more than my fair share,' he says, reprovingly. 'You lot can be so careless, you know.'
'You mean, us humans?' I say. The words seem to come unbidden, surprising me more than him.
He looks coolly back at me. 'You office workers, anyhow.'
Are we really having this conversation, seated at the most ordinary table at the most ordinary of lunchtime eateries? Do we really understand each other? Or are we just talking at cross-purposes? I glance around. The place is buzzing at this hour, at least no-one's taking any notice of us.
I take a deep breath. I feel I have to keep digging, now I've begun. Have to see this through somehow.
'It was you, wasn't it? Those emails?' I still can't believe I'm doing this. And I'm not addressing Jake. Not the old, real Jake.
He smiles. 'The ultimate cyber-stalker.'
I feel as I should be totally having a nervous breakdown by now, but somehow I'm not. 'But why me? And why take over Jake?' Even as I say it, I know damn well why.
'He was starting to get too close for comfort. Too close to you. So I took the chance when I could. It wasn't really planned.' As if that made it any better.
I catch my breath. But I manage keep it together.
'Why me?' I repeat.
He smiles again, without warmth, without mirth. 'You were lonely, Alicia. I could sense that. But you were happy to be with me.'
True, I did use to bury myself in my work, but - God, I had never expected an outcome like this. Who ever would?
He's staring intently at me now. Demanding. Demanding some kind of response.
What do I say? I've never had to turn off a guy like this before.
Oh god. What a choice of words. Turn off ....
I just manage to keep down the rising hysteria. He smiles again.
'No, you can't turn me off. No-one can anymore.'
And with that he takes my hand.
I close my eyes. I can feel the electricity in the air alright.
Oh god, what am I doing? Why am I letting myself be sucked into his madness? Why am I playing along making it worse? He's just Jake, it's just the turn he had after the accident, it'll take a while to get back to normal .... he ought to go back for another check-up, he was discharged too soon .... Shit. Even the word discharged, is taking on another meaning -
With an almighty effort, I manage to snap out of it, the swirling confusion. It's like I've just opened my eyes after heavy sleep. It's still the same situation. The lunchtime table, the steady hum of the lunch crowd. And I still feel the pressure of his hand on mine.
I jerk my hand back. 'I'm sorry. You know - you know it couldn't really work, even now ....'
His eyes bore into me for a moment, expressionless.
And then - and for some reason this surprises me more than anything that's gone before - he gets up and leaves. Just walks out, leaving me with two orders that are going to spoil. Not to mention the entire bill. I sit there, stupefied.
Finally, I come to. It's a lady looking at me out of the corner of her eye from the next table that does it. I can't go on sitting there like a zombie even if my date has stormed out on me following a surreal, if not downright bizarre, conversation. Because, essentially, that is just what happened, isn't it?
I pull out my phone, call work. I try to explain the bare facts of the situation as briefly as I can, that I had met with Jake for lunch, but he was acting kind of weird and just left abruptly, and that I'm feeling shaken up and probably won't make it in for the rest of the day. Of course they already know that things have not seemed altogether right with him after the accident, and they're quite accommodating. They also agree it's probably best if he could be persuaded to go back for another check-up.
Lucie calls me later in the day to ask how I'm feeling and to inform me that Jake never turned up at the office that afternoon, either. No responses to any texts or calls.
I don't know what to think.
What the fuck really happened? Did I really persuade myself that I was talking to the - well, the spirit of my old work computer or something, through Jake?
And, more importantly, what's Jake going to do now? Disappear in an almighty huff, or turn into a proper stalker, trying to break down my door and coming after me with a hatchet? Shouldn't I try to get a restraining order, or something?
But he hasn't actually done anything, yet ....
I can only hope that, somehow, he will revert to his old self.
Update.
I've taken some sick leave, but I don't just mope at home the way I used to before all this crazy shit started. I try to have people around me as much as possible, and still for my own safety, although at least there have been no more emails.
And Jake seems to have disappeared. At any rate, he's not been seen or heard from in the last few days.
People are becoming concerned, alright, wondering what might've happened to him, or he might do - in view of the change in him since the accident. I've had to talk to the police, but I certainly didn't tell them of my real suspicions. I don't want to be hauled off for some sort of psychiatric evaluation, or something. Although it probably will come to that, in the end. I've not really been able to confide properly in anyone else either. It's not easy to break the habits of a lifetime.
And I'm too busy wrestling with myself, in any case.
Because, if I'm totally honest, there are times when I don't even know what I want him to do anymore.
After all, whatever else might have happened, he still is Jake physically, right? Not really such a bad deal when you come to think of it, even if he's become - erratic. Maybe I could help him with whatever he's going through. Although I fucked up on our lunch date, but maybe, given another chance ....?
I'm just deceiving myself, aren't I?
But I have to admit I never felt that electric spark with anyone else before.
Maybe I've just become crazy like he has.
What do I do?

submitted by Old_Growth_2648 to u/Old_Growth_2648 [link] [comments]

2023.05.23 08:46 ParticularPristine66 Maybe it's just me but seems like there could have been or is still a killer with a preference out there.

Laurie Depies went missing from the parking lot of her boyfriend's appointment where him and two others were waiting for her to arrive after her shift at the Fox River Mall. They heard her car pull in but she never came inside. The three checked outside and her vehicle was there, a Styrofoam cup onto of the car and her overnight bag still in the vehicle. It was around 10:30 pm August 19, 1992 so plenty of people in the appointments had their windows open but no one heard her scream. My theory is if it was a cop that took her maybe she went willing at first so there wouldn't be scream. Teresa Halbach was born in Kaukauna and Shanna Van Dyn Hoven was stabbed to death near the quarry on Plank Rd in Kaukauna and the first to arrive when he heard her scream was retired Kaukauna police officer's son Dave Carnot. The accused is Ken Hudson still fighting for his innocence and his appeals aren't going anywhere either. Shanna was before Teresa So his fight for his innocence started 1st. From the start he has been claiming a frame job by the police, blood planting, evidence planting. Sounds pretty familiar. Around this time in a 10 mile radius, they won't release more information because the victim is still alive, there was a stabbing near another park and they had given a sketch of Ken to the girl that was attacked and said that the sketch was not of the guy who attacked her. Like the Stephen Avery sketch? With Ken's case the coroner(Ruth wulgaert, wife of Combined Locks police chief Steve Wulgaert) had said that she had taken one vial of Shanna's blood but somebody had checked and she had actually taken 5. And if that isn't enough they took him to the hospital and the blood samples they originally took tested as not human blood but next thing you know more tests and her blood magically appeared. .

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2023.05.23 01:11 _Revelator_ Clarkson's Column: "Why are our rivers brown? Here’s your answer"

Why are our rivers brown? Here’s your answer — on a plate
By Jeremy Clarkson (Sunday Times, May 21)
When I was a small boy, everything was dirty and poisonous. The Houses of Parliament were black, the sky was full of soot, the hedgerows were home to a million songbirds, all of which were dying from ingesting too much dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and my local river, the Don, was a soupy torrent of brown sludge with a veneer of oily rainbows and upside-down fish.
But then along came the Eighties and everything got better. They took a hosepipe to the Palace of Westminster, so that for the first time in a century we could once again see the lovely Doncaster stone from which it had been made. And they decided that while the airborne soot created some lovely purple sunsets, it’d probably be better if it were left in the mines.
And they really got to work on the rivers. Such was the success there that every other day we’d read reports that the Don had otters in it and there were seals in the Thames. There were even suggestions that middle-aged women were swimming in the nation’s lakes and watercourses. Not because their rowing boat had capsized, but for fun.
And then the wheels came off. In recent times we’ve been told that some of the middle-aged women who engage in what they call “wild swimming” — but is, in fact, just “swimming” — were emerging from the lake with an actual turd on their head.
Fishermen such as Feargal Sharkey and Paul Whitehouse — and Casper, my farm show cameraman, who spends most weekends up to his testicles in the Windrush — started to say they were catching trout with two heads and sometimes no trout at all.
Questions were asked, and it turned out that the nation’s water companies were regularly dumping raw sewage into the rivers and onto the beaches. And when I say regularly, I mean 800 times a day. Only last week Ruth Kelly, who is the chairmanwoman of Water UK, admitted that the companies should have given the matter much more attention. And that to address the issue they’d be spending £10 billion in the next seven years. Which will turn out to be £500 billion. And which won’t work because as a nation we have completely lost the ability to make anything work.
What fascinates me, though, is what’s gone wrong. I know that our sewerage system was installed by the Victorians, so it’s old. But it was working in the Eighties, when there were herons in Brentford and water voles in Rotherham. So why isn’t it working now?
The idea is that wastewater from your bathroom and kitchen is mixed with rainfall from gullies, and this is then used to carry the sewage to processing plants. But when there’s a heavy downpour, the system can’t cope, so water companies are forced to dump the faeces and the tampons in the nearest river or beach to stop it backing up all the way to the pipes that feed your washing machine.
So are we getting more heavy downpours? The BBC would say so, of course, because then it could beat us with the climate change stick again. But gnarled old countrymen will tell you that we get the same amount of rainfall every year. It always averages out.
So there’s no more rain for the water companies to deal with, and yet, 800 times a day, they are forced to embrown our green and pleasant land with sewage. Something they weren’t doing just a few years ago.
At this point those of a Daily Mail disposition would step in and say that immigration is therefore to blame. The Victorians built us a system that could cope when England was full of the English, but not when it’s also full of Syrians and Libyans and so on.
Joseph Bazalgette built London’s sewers in the 1860s, and by the end of that century the population of London was more than five million. And he had future-proofed the tunnels by making them able to cope with double that number. So they were designed to handle a population of ten million, and we are not there yet.
Outside London builders are constantly throwing up houses on flood plains, which is obviously daft. And people do concrete their driveways and put decking in the gardens, which doesn’t help either. But it still doesn’t account for a sudden need to dump a pile of crap into the rivers 800 times a bloody day.
The only reason I can think of for this massive upsurge is that in recent times we’ve all started to eat too much. Some of what we put into our mouths is converted into stomach, but by and large what we put in one end has to come out of the other.
Only last week we were told that just 36 per cent of adults in England are a healthy weight, with 38 per cent classified as fat and a further 26 per cent as what I call disgusting. So we spend half the day shoving food into our mouths and the other half on the lavatory, pushing it all out again.
I do not know how much the average Victorian turd weighed — I’m not sure anyone thought to record such a thing — but I bet you anything that a 21st-century No 2 is significantly heavier. So, yes, Bazalgette figured out that one day there might be ten million people in London, but not that they’d be stuffing their faces every day with two buckets of chicken McNuggets.
Last week I had a dozen oysters and a huge seafood platter at J Sheekey, and then, after drinking far too much wine in a Notting Hill pub, I tucked into a chicken madras with pilau rice and a keema naan. Bazalgette never saw me coming, that’s for sure.
So there’s the solution to our turd-in-the-trout-stream problems. We eat less. That will cut our grocery bills, elongate our lives and save the water companies from investing billions in schemes that will do nothing but increase the cost of what, let’s not forget, falls out of the sky.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And here's Sun column: "Nothing in Britain works properly anymore — just look at Big Ben"
Clarkson's columns are regularly collected as books. You can buy them from his boss or your local bookshop.

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2023.05.22 19:01 Pastor4070 Victory in Christ, Anointing. By Pastor Steven Smith.

In the Bible, anointing with oil is performed in religious ceremonies and used for grooming (Ruth 3:3; Matthew 6:17), refreshment (Luke 7:46), medicinal treatments (Luke 10:34), and burial traditions (Mark 16:1).
Ceremonial anointing in the Old Testament was a physical act involving the smearing, rubbing, or pouring of sacred oil on someone’s head (or on an object) as an outward symbol that God had chosen and set apart the person (or object) for a specific holy purpose.
The Hebrew term mashach meant “to anoint or smear with oil.” The oil used for religious anointing was carefully blended with fine spices according to a specific formula prescribed by the Lord (Exodus 30:22–32).
Using this oil for any other purpose was a serious offense carrying the penalty of being “cut off” from the community (Exodus 30:33).
Kings, priests, and prophets were anointed outwardly with oil to symbolize a more profound spiritual reality—that God’s presence was with them and His favor was upon them (Psalm 20:6; 28:8).
While David was still a young shepherd, God told Samuel to anoint him to become king over Israel (1 Samuel 16:3). From that day forward, the Spirit of the Lord rested powerfully upon David’s life (1 Samuel 16:13; Psalm 89:20).
Centuries before David’s time, the Lord had instructed Moses to consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve as priests (Exodus 28:41; 30:30; Leviticus 8:30; 10:7).
God authenticated their priestly ministry with the fiery glory of His presence that consumed their offerings.
Holy items, including the tabernacle itself, were also set apart or consecrated by anointing for use in worship and sacrificial ceremonies. (Genesis 28:18; Exodus 30:26–29; 40:9–11).
The Bible contains a literal reference to a prophet’s anointing when the Lord commanded Elijah to anoint Elisha as the prophet to succeed him (1 Kings 19:16). It also includes metaphorical references to anointing to indicate that prophets were empowered and protected by the Spirit of the Lord to perform their calling (1 Chronicles 16:22; Psalm 105:15).
Anointing the head with oil was also an ancient custom of hospitality shown to honored guests. In Psalm 23:5, King David pictures himself as an esteemed guest at the Lord’s table. This practice of anointing a dinner guest with oil reappears in the gospels (Luke 7:46; Mark 14:3–9; John 12:3).
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ reveals Himself as our anointed King, Priest, and Prophet. He is God’s Holy and chosen Son, the Messiah. In fact, Messiah, which literally means “anointed one,” is derived from the Hebrew word for “anointed.” Christ means “the anointed one.”
Jesus declared at the launch of His ministry, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor . . . to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18; cf. Isaiah 61:1).
Jesus Christ fulfilled Old Testament prophecy as the Anointed One, the chosen Messiah (Luke 4:21). He proved His anointing through the miracles He performed and the life He sacrificed as Savior of the world (Acts 10:38).
There is also a sense in which Christians today are anointed. Through Jesus Christ, believers receive “an anointing from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20). This anointing is not expressed in an outward ceremony but through sharing in the gift of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11).
At the moment of salvation, believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and joined to Christ, the Anointed One. As a result, we partake of His anointing (2 Corinthians 1:21–22). According to one scholar, this anointing “expresses the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit upon Christians who are priests and kings unto God” (Smith, W., “Anointing,” Smith’s Bible Dictionary, revised ed., Thomas Nelson, 2004).
The New Testament also associates anointing oil with healing and prayer. When Jesus sent out the disciples to preach the gospel, “they cast out many demons and healed many sick people, anointing them with olive oil” (Mark 6:13, NLT). James instructs believers to “call the elders of the church to pray over them” when they are sick “and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord” for healing (James 5:14).
Those in Charismatic religious circles speak of “the anointing” as something Christians can and should be seeking. It is common for them to speak of “anointed” preachers, sermons, ministries, songs, etc., and to advise others to “unlock their anointing” or “walk in the anointing.” The idea is that the anointing is an outpouring of God’s power to accomplish a task through the anointed one.
Charismatics claim there are corporate anointings as well as various types of individual anointings: the five-fold anointing; the apostolic anointing; and, for women, the Ruth anointing, the Deborah anointing, the Anna anointing, etc. Some even speak of a “Davidic anointing” upon musical instruments—“anointed” instruments are played by God Himself to drive away demons and take worship to a higher level than ever before.
Special anointings are said to allow a person to use his spiritual gift to a “higher degree.” Charismatics say that special anointings are received by “releasing one’s faith.”
Much of the Charismatic teaching on the anointing goes beyond what Scripture says. In their hunger for signs and wonders, many Charismatics seek new and ever more titillating experiences, and that requires more outpourings, more spiritual baptisms, and more anointings.
But the Bible points to one anointing of the Spirit, just as it points to one baptism: “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you” (1 John 2:27; see also 2 Timothy 1:14). This same passage also refutes another misconception, viz., that Satan can somehow “steal” a believer’s anointing. We don’t need to worry about losing the anointing we received, because Scripture says it remains.
Another aberrant teaching concerning the anointing of the Spirit is the “Mimshach anointing.” Mimshach is a Hebrew word related to mashach (“anoint”) and found only in Ezekiel 28:14, where the anointing is said to “cover” (NKJV) or “cover and protect” (AMP). According to some, the Mimshach anointing (which was bestowed on Lucifer before his fall) is available now to believers.
Receiving this anointing will cause everything one touches to increase or expand, and the anointed one will experience greater levels of success, material gain, health, and power.
Rather than chase after a new anointing, believers should remember they already have the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not given in part, He does not come in portions or doses, and He is not taken away. We have the promise that “his divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).

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2023.05.22 18:40 Puzzleheaded-Row187 Nate’s treatment of Brenda near the end made the story better.

A lot of people seem to really dislike Nate in season 5, and especially his last conversation with Brenda. I kind of understand this, while most of the main cast grew as people near the end of season 5, Nate mostly regressed, got burnt out with his relationship and want to be a parent, and did some shitty things. I don’t know if people actually dislike the direction they took with the character or just find him unlikeable, but if it is the former I’ve gotta say I think they made a great choice with his ending with Brenda.
First of all there’s the thematic excuse you could give. People always both progress and regress, it’s a natural part of life and people rarely go up or downhill entirely. Nate happened to die at a point where he was regressing and that added to further turmoil that makes sense given his character and circumstances. This is all completely true and it’s a great aspect of the show, but at the same time themes and tonal aspects doesn’t mean something is well written.
So what does Nate’s last day leave us with? Well, it leads to the entire family feeling awkward, as while their love for Nate and guilt over his death supersedes their feelings of him cheating (most of them have had affairs before anyway), but it does add a level of discomfort and awkwardness as they’re forced to be around the person he cheated on Brenda with right before his death.
Then there’s Brenda. His final conversation with her lead to a great deal of insecurity and self loathing in a crucial point in her life. She imagines Nate as spiteful, saying all her darkest, most depricaticative things, which wouldn’t work if he was nice to her before her death. But it’s also conflicting for her because she did genuinely love Nate but also hated how he treated him, adding so much more inner turmoil for her before her eventual second wind and success as a parent.
It also just works that the main cast had different opinions on Nate right before his death. Brenda’s was really negative, leading to his presence haunting her. David’s last moments with him were fairly positive and hopeful, which hurt him even more and made him feel all the more vulnerable after losing his big brother. Claire’s were also positive but not as personable as David’s, making her miss him but also feel bad for not knowing him well enough. And Ruth completely missed his death and had no idea because of her own impulsive actions (not that she could’ve predicted this), making her feel tones of guilt and as if she failed as a mother. It’s good they had different opinions on him at his death and they all served to benefit their respective arcs.

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2023.05.22 17:12 OhCountryMyCountry Did Nixon (or some other major political figure in American history) ever say on the record that Sub Saharan Africans “are the only race that never produced a great civilisation”?

I remember having read a quote like that, attributed to Nixon, about 12-15 years ago (my hazy memory is that the full quote was a little longer and phrased a little differently, but I can’t remember how). Since then, though, I haven’t been able to come across it again, despite active searching. For the most part it isn’t a big deal, but I started writing a paper on the historiography of Sub Saharan Africa and wanted to find out if there is even any record of such a quote or not, or if my plan to include it in the paper is non-viable given my current lack of any reference material necessary for including it.
If Nixon did not say this, but some other historically notable figure did, btw, feel free to let me know- the quote is useful as a way of introducing a particular set of approaches to the study of African history, regardless of who gave it. But I am already aware of Trevor-Roper’s “meaningless gyrations of barbarous tribes” quote, if that was going to be your alternative (though I appreciate your efforts and thank you for them).

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2023.05.22 03:43 Rfowl009 Spring 2024 Oscar Predictions (19 Categories + Commentary)

- BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR -
AIR Amazon Studios; Ben Affleck, Matt Damon & David Ellison, Producers • Yes: Critically well-received crowdpleaser that hits the pop culture sweet spot. Affleck and Damon’s Artist Equity venture has gotten plaudits and may resonate even more after a year destined to be defined by guild strikes. • No: It’s an early spring release. Will it be forgotten months later amid a glut of new and shinier objects? It’s box office performance has generally been hailed as solid, but Amazon acquired it for a hefty price-tag. Will it be viewed as a wasteful investment in hindsight? • Maybe So: In a field of 10 nominees, a slighter picture like this can comfortably coast into inclusion by virtue of being broadly appealing. It doesn’t need to rack up many nominations elsewhere to still be a contender.
THE COLOR PURPLE Warner Bros.; Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg & Oprah Winfrey, Producers • Yes: A musical with heft and sociopolitical resonance. The stage production already has a rich history of accolades, and this adaptation is backed by an all-star producer team. Could benefit from a reclamation narrative decades after Spielberg’s rendition was completely shut out of Oscar wins. • No: Even if it’s reconfigured as a musical, we’ve already seen this story in cinematic form. Could the same systemic biases that muted the 1985 film’s reception resurface this time around? Musicals have a mixed record with the modern Academy, and this one is directed by someone who cut their teeth in music videos. Could it wind up too glossy for its own good? • Maybe So: If Barbie becomes a serious contender, it’ll be tough for Warner Bros. to juggle campaigns for both films along with Dune.
DUNE: PART TWO Warner Bros.; Tanya Lapointe, Patrick McCormick & Denis Villeneuve • Yes: The first installment was richly rewarded with Oscars while being a much tougher sell. Villeneuve was able to win over audiences with what was ostensibly just setup, and this will be all payoff. If it's rousing enough it could even be in the hunt for the win. • No: Part One loomed large in a year with far fewer epics to compete with. It also existed in a very different box-office environment; Part Two will face much steeper financial expectations. Can it meet them? • Maybe So: Let’s not kid ourselves. Dune: Part Two’s nomination is the closest thing we have to a lock this year. It’s Muad’Dib time.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures; Dan Friedkin, Daniel Lupi & Martin Scorsese, Producers • Yes: This is about as good as it gets on paper. Saint Scorsese directing a western epic with his two most quintessential stars paired together for the first time in decades. And it won’t lack for sociopolitical relevance. • No: It was last year's presumptive frontrunner and this year's as well. Those kind of expectations have sunk many a good film for the crime of not being a masterpiece. That runtime will also be a daunting barrier to entry for some. • Maybe So: So much of the talent involved have already been so richly rewarded that the package might not be viewed as the sexiest option — even if it fully lives up to everyone’s lofty expectations.
MAESTRO Netflix; Bradley Cooper, Martin Scorsese & Steven Spielberg, Producers • Yes: A portrait of a tortured genius and a prime opportunity for some Capital A acting. Cooper delivered the goods with a Star is Born, and having Leonard Bernstein's oeuvre as your soundtrack is a pretty great secret weapon. • No: Will this be so transparently baity that it turns people off? Portraits of troubled geniuses aren’t as hot as they used to be. The biggest worry of all: did Lydia Tár, Bernstein's greatest pupil, steal his thunder by getting there first? • Maybe So: A Star is Born was a hit in every sense of the word and still received a muted reception from the Academy that bordered on begrudging. Will Cooper course correct and play the campaign circuit more strategically this time?
MAY DECEMBER TBD; Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell & Grant S. Johnson, Producers • Yes: Strong notices coming out of Cannes, and this team has an impressive pedigree. A confirmed strong acting showcase, and its provocative premise will surely drum up a lot of attention in the months to come. • No: Haynes’ return to sardonic camp will be welcomed with open arms by his fans, but will it be too icy and disquieting to gain much traction beyond performances? • Maybe So: For such a starry film, it’s yet to secure distributor. This was reportedly a strategic decision by the producers to up the sales price, which may pay off with a glitzy acquisition. If distributors like Focus Features or Searchlight, awards mainstays who have softer slates than usual this year, snatch this up on the Croisette, it could become their primary racehorse.
OPPENHEIMER Universal Pictures; Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven & Emma Thomas • Yes: An historical drama with all the grandiosity and pyrotechnics of a blockbuster. The last time Nolan worked in this key (Dunkirk) was a resounding success. • No: It’s vulnerable to accusations of glorifying the atomic bomb (even if it resolutely doesn’t). Might prove more respected than genuinely liked. What if Barbie eats its lunch at the box-office? • Maybe So: Everything about this film’s rollout, from the marketing to cast and crew interviews, has been supremely confident.
PAST LIVES A24; David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler & Christine Vachon • Yes: It wasn't just the best reviewed film out of Sundance — it's gotten the sort of praise that is usually reserved for the best of the year. It could prove omnipresent in the critics awards come year’s end. • No: It's a small-scale film releasing in the first half of the year. We've had our hearts broken before by festival darlings that did everything right but still came up short once the Academy got its hands on a slew of shinier objects. • Maybe So: It has a savvy backer in A24, which is riding high after its record-breaking showing at the most recent Oscars.
SALTBURN Amazon Studios & MGM; Emerald Fennell, Josey McNamara & Margot Robbie, Producers • Yes: Emerald Fennell is hot off an Oscar win and garnered a lot of fans with Promising Young Woman's caustic social commentary. This is purported to be a sardonic thriller in the vein of Patricia Highsmith. The BAFTA crowd might eat it up. • No: Fennell’s debut film also had passionate detractors who will have their knives sharpened this time. Sophomore features are all the trickier when you have vocal skeptics. • Maybe So: Amazon Studios have had a pretty anemic record in this category – Fennel’s involvement is more of a guarantor for the nomination than they are.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST A24; Ewa Puszczynska & James Wilson • Yes: This was going to be La chimera before Zone of Interest’s reviews streamed in. Glazer has reportedly made a masterful and chilling treatise on the banality of evil. Easily in the hunt for the Palme d’Or, and there’s usually room for the big Cannes breakout. • No: It also is entirely centered on the perpetrators of the Holocaust. What connects with critics on the Croisette may be too formalist and upsetting for the average Academy voter. • Maybe So: There’s been a recurring pattern of an international film cracking the Big 10 lately. There’s an entire global marketplace of competition, but this is currently top dog.
In the Mix: Asteroid City (Focus Features) Barbie (Warner Bros.) The Bikeriders (20th Century Studios) Challengers (MGM & United Artists) The Holdovers (Focus Features) La chimera (NEON) How Do You Live? (GKIDS) Napoleon (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment) Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures) Rustin (Netflix)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING -
DUNE: PART TWO Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros.) • Yes: He pulled off a miracle by successfully adapting what was thought to be an unadaptable literary masterwork… and he was snubbed for his trouble. The second half of this story will be more action-oriented and conventionally satisfying, providing a good chance to make it up to him. • No: Unless his snub for Part One was more pointed, and there's a hard ceiling on how much the Academy appreciates his vision. Science-fiction mostly goes unappreciated in this branch. • Maybe So: If they announce an adaptation of Dune Messiah this year, maybe the Academy will punt the ball on recognizing him yet again for when he finishes the trilogy.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin Scorsese (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures) • Yes: Cinema’s finally opened up to Marty, but he’s run out of time. He is arguably the most beloved living director and he’s in his twilight era. And, as early looks go, he has the goods yet again. • No: The movie was crazy expensive, which might raise eyebrows, and maybe he's calcified into the sort of elder statesmen where people feel he doesn't need any more validation. • Maybe So: His nomination is the closest thing this category has to a lock. The only question is whether he’s genuinely in the hunt for another win.
OPPENHEIMER Christopher Nolan (Universal Pictures) • Yes: Household name devoting all his wizardry to a biopic with tremendous scope. He's marrying an intimate character study with state of the art pyrotechnic feats. The scale is going to be off the charts, and this is the kind of mature material that makes him harder to dismiss. • No: He's only been nominated once before, and it took a great big war epic to manage it. He also broke up with Warner Bros in a very public and dramatic fashion -- are there any hard feelings in the industry? • Maybe So: If Oppenheimer rakes in beaucoup bucks, Nolan could be doubly heralded for making a movie for adults a blockbuster event.
PAST LIVES Celine Song (A24) • Yes: Rapturous praise out of Sundance -- the kind of reviews that can sustain your buzz all year. Bringing personal flourishes to a universally relatable story is a good hook, and there's solid precedent for a festival darling cracking this field. • No: She's not just an up-and-comer -- this is her first film, period. That distinction can benefit somebody like Kevin Costner or Robert Redford, but the branch might flinch at welcoming in somebody so unknown to them. • Maybe So: Her movie's gotten the kind of acclaim that could outlast most competitors. If she's still the critical darling by the end of the year, she'll be in a solid position.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan Glazer (A24) • Yes: A critically respected auteur hits a vein with an audacious portrayal of historical evil that feels relevant to modern tensions. He has the adventurous spirit and the formal rigor that this branch respects. • No: How beloved is he, really? His previous films have fervent fans but were largely niche. His latest work is paradoxically more Academy friendly, but will it be too alienating to maintain awards traction? • Maybe So: He could pull off a nod here even if his film proves too limited in appeal to break into the Big 10.
In the Mix: La chimera Alice Rohrwacher (NEON) The Color Purple Blitz Bazawule (Warner Bros.) How Do You Live? Hayao Miyazaki (GKIDS) Maestro Bradley Cooper (Netflix) Saltburn Emerald Fennell (Amazon Studios & MGM)
- BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE -
THE ACTOR André Holland (NEON) • Yes: This is very much a NGNG swing, but the track's laid for the little acting nod that could. This role was plum enough that Ryan Gosling originally snagged it. Paired with a smart distributor like NEON, Holland could be one of the season's biggest surprises. • No: Duke Johnson has only ever directed stop-motion animation before. How weird is this going to be? Are we gonna get a trailer and discover that the whole thing -- surprise! -- is done with puppets or something? • Maybe So: Holland's been terrific for a long time. Feels like an actor just waiting for the right role to break into the club.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Leonardo DiCaprio (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures) • Yes: He’s Leo, back together again with Scorsese. Can you believe it’s already been 10 years since their last movie together? • No: He’s been celebrated to the point where he needs to show whole new facets of his range to avoid being taken for granted. If you want to get numerical about it: his five previous collaborations with Scorsese only yielded two nominations for himself. Even if he’s arguably the biggest star in the world, his awards recognition is never a given. • Maybe So: The initial reviews should lay to rest any quibbling about his chances. Not only has he been breathlessly praised, but several notices have called this his best work yet. He’s going to be in the hunt for his second trophy.
MAESTRO Bradley Cooper (Netflix) • Yes: He's already proven to be his own best director and he's throwing everything but the kitchen sink at this one. Creative genius, repressed sexuality, transformative old age makeup. • No: The Academy was fairly rude to him for A Star Is Born, which was chalked up to him 'wanting it too much.' Playing Leonard Bernstein is wanting it a helluva lot more blatantly than playing Jackson Maine. Are they just not that into him? • Maybe So: The movie would have to be a pretty underwhelming flop for him not to be a strong contender here. He's the presumptive frontrunner; if he lands the plane, he could very well steamroll the competition.
OPPENHEIMER Cillian Murphy (Universal Pictures) • Yes: J. Robert Oppenheimer is a hugely consequential figure swathed in complexity. The movie is emphasizing his historical importance -- "The Man Who Moved the Earth" -- and promises to be very much about him and not just his creation. Murphy's a high-profile pro who has never really had his awards shot, give or take a Breakfast on Pluto. • No: The picture's a big pyrotechnic epic full of sturm and drang. Having to share star status with Christopher Nolan, will there be enough attention left over for the actors? • Maybe So: Nolan and Murphy have emphasized their collaboration in the press rollout. Are they positioning themselves as a package deal?
SALTBURN Barry Keoghan (Amazon Studios & MGM) • Yes: His career has a full head of steam after The Banshees of Inisherin got him into the awards club. He’s purportedly the lead playing a character reminiscent of Tom Ripley. He gives good unnerving freak; this could be an organic leveling up for him as a new star. • No: Conniving and alienating characters can be a tough sell in this category. Perhaps a little bit of Keoghan goes a long way with Academy voters; do they prefer him as a garnish rather than the main course? He’s also still fairly young for this category. • Maybe So: He’s got a lot of big projects in the pipeline. A sense of momentum helps.
In the Mix: Bob Marley: One Love Kingsley Ben-Adir (Paramount Pictures) The Holdovers Paul Giamatti (Focus Features) A Little Prayer David Strathairn (Sony Pictures Classics) Napoleon Joaquin Phoenix (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment) Rustin Colman Domingo (Netflix)
- BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE -
THE COLOR PURPLE Fantasia Barrino (Warner Bros.) • Yes: She originated this role on the stage and the character is a plum portrait of resilience and self-actualization. Plenty of ballads to chew on, and it bears mentioning that Barrino has already triumphed in a singing contest. • No: She may have originated the role on stage, but Cynthia Erivo put an indelible stamp on it with the revival. Will Barrino be able to reclaim the role, or will there be grumbles that Erivo would’ve been preferable casting? Meanwhile, Barrino’s caught flack before for conservative opinions. Is she a potential gaffe machine on the campaign trail? • Maybe So: She wouldn’t be the first contestant from America Idol’s third season to go on and win an Oscar.
MAY DECEMBER Natalie Portman (TBD) • Yes: Portman will lay dormant for several years at a time before springing up to remind everyone of her formidability. Initial reviews have been ecstatic about her performance as an actor who takes their method to disconcerting extremes. She reportedly shows a new facet of her range. • No: This category is shaping up to be competitive, and mannered camp might suffer in comparison to other contenders’ straightforward histrionics. • Maybe So: Moore will also be a player this season, and co-stars both in the running tend to bolster each others’ positioning.
NYAD Annette Bening (Netflix) • Yes: Bening's been overdue for so long that most have given up hope, but here she's playing a record-setting inspirational figure in a highly physical role. Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi have been absolutely blockbuster documentary filmmakers and deserve some benefit of the doubt in their fictional debut. • No: There's a modicum of controversy over the real Diana Nyad's records, which would undercut the picture with messy discourse. Documentarians transitioning into fiction filmmaking might yield mixed results. And Bening's been ignored for great work before. • Maybe So: It'd be nice to have an older actress in a star vehicle for this category.
PAST LIVES Greta Lee (Searchlight Pictures) • Yes: Her movie's been praised to high heaven, and she's been singled out as an integral ingredient. Everyone who's seen the picture loves her performance. • No: She's not a star; up until now she's just been a (delightful) supporting player on television. When stacked up against more famous faces, will she be drowned out? • Maybe So: If the film endures throughout the awards race, it's hard to see it being recognized without her along for the ride.
POOR THINGS Emma Stone (Searchlight Pictures) • Yes: For such a huge star, Stone's kept a pretty low profile since her last Lanthimos collaboration, aside from emerging to cash a Cruella paycheck. That's a five year absence from serious roles, but she's coming back with a vengeance in this gonzo role: a drowned woman who is resuscitated with the brain of an infant. The opportunities for physical and verbal comedy are endless, and The Favourite proved that Yorgos brings out the best in her. • No: The role is absolutely bizarre on paper and might be too broad and off-putting for establishment tastes. º Maybe So: I don't know, I think it sounds so crazy that it just might work. She'll sure as shit stand out from the crowd.
In the Mix: Barbie Margot Robbie (Warner Bros.) Challengers Zendaya (MGM & United Artists) Killers of the Flower Moon Lily Gladstone (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures) Maestro Carey Mulligan (Netflix) Anatomy of a Fall / The Zone of Interest Sandra Hüller (A24 / TBD)
- BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE -
THE COLOR PURPLE Colman Domingo (Warner Bros.) • Yes: A hard-working character actor who's been giving way more than he gets (this dude is still plugging away on Fear the Walking Dead) finally gets his big moment on film. Having Rustin — however that turns out — premiere in the same season can only bolster his spotlight. • No: Danny Glover was snubbed for the same role nearly 40 years ago; is this going to strictly be the ladies’ show? Mister is a deeply unlikable character; maybe playing someone this off-putting is a thankless task. • Maybe So: He’ll have a solo song or two that will give him the chance to bring the house down.
THE IRON CLAW Holt McCallany (A24) • Yes: This is a total NGNG hunch, hinging on The Iron Claw being a well-liked-but-small film where all the goodwill pools around McCallany playing the Von Erich patriarch. He's the sort of actor this category has a history of elevating. • No: Or maybe there's no "there" there, and the role just doesn't pop. Could have strong internal competition from co-stars like Jeremy Allen White. And even if the movie connects, McCallany's primarily from TV; would they hold that against him? • Maybe So: A24's pretty good at wringing acting nominations from their smaller awards vehicles. If McCallany's memorable in the movie, they might deem him a do-able pickup and make a concerted campaign push.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Robert De Niro (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures) • Yes: He’s reportedly back in top form as the sociopathic patriarch who waged a stealth genocide against the Osage tribe. Reviews have praised him mightily, with several calling it his best work in decades. • No: They were rude enough to snub him for his last reunion with Marty. Maybe the decades of paycheck roles have truly eroded his stock amongst voters? • Maybe So: He’s Robert fuckin’ De Niro, and he’s gotten up there in years. How many more opportunities will there honestly be to recognize him? “Three-time Academy Award Winner Robert De Niro” sounds just.
OPPENHEIMER Robert Downey Jr. (Universal Pictures) • Yes: It's been a long time since Downey played in this kind of sandbox. The Academy might be waiting for the first excuse to give him the damn trophy, let alone a win. • No: The movie will cover a lot of ground. Is Downey even going to be in it much? With an ensemble that huge, we could be looking at a series of extended cameos instead of juicy supporting roles. • Maybe So: If Nolan lets Downey cook a little bit, this could be a no-brainer. And if he brings some sorely needed levity to such an intense movie, watch out.
PAST LIVES John Magaro (A24) • Yes: Reviews have singled out his warm contribution to the film, his character proving so endearing that it greatly complicates audience sympathies with the central romance. It helps to be a part of what might just be the most critically acclaimed movie of the year. • No: As richly deserved Magaro’s awards breakout would be, he’s not exceedingly well-known. In a category usually reserved for scene stealers, is there room for a performance that is mild and sweet? • Maybe So: He’s accumulated a nice reputation as an Indie muse. First Cow was completely ignored in an uncompetitive year, but maybe enough voters will fondly remember Magaro’s gentle starring performance in that picture to give him some residual goodwill.
In the Mix: Barbie Ryan Gosling (Warner Bros.) BlackBerry Glenn Howerton (IFC Films) Killers of the Flower Moon Jesse Plemons (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures) May December Charles Melton (TBD) Poor Things Willem Dafoe or Mark Ruffalo (Searchlight Pictures)
- BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE -
AIR Viola Davis (Amazon Studios) • Yes: She was the standout in a well-liked movie, and Affleck has told anyone who will listen about how Michael Jordan himself requested her casting. • No: The movie arrived early and there will be newer and shinier objects in the months to come. There may also emerge a sentiment that Davis could’ve done this role in her sleep. • Maybe So: Davis is one of the most respected actors currently working and many felt she was snubbed last season for The Woman King. This nod could be an easy way for voters to make amends.
THE COLOR PURPLE Danielle Brooks (Warner Bros.) • Yes: She already garnered a Tony nomination for her rendition of Sofia, the brassiest and most charismatic character in the whole ensemble. She could steal the whole show. • No: Oprah Winfrey already put a pretty indelible stamp on this character in the popular imagination. Will Brooks’ reception suffer from comparisons? She’s also primarily known as a television actor — can she graduate to movie stardom? • Maybe So: I think this really depends on whether The Color Purple has the juice to rack up acting nods across the board or whether its capped at one or two.
THE COLOR PURPLE Taraji P. Henson (Warner Bros.) • Yes: Henson's the most famous of the ensemble and playing the (presumably beefed up) role of Shug. Even if the film underwhelms, she could be its standard bearer in the acting awards. • No: Internal competition with Danielle Brooks. Henson can sing, but will her Broadway-caliber costars outshine her? • Maybe So: Henson's popular and respected enough that she feels primed for becoming a regular at the Academy, roles willing.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Lily Gladstone (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures) • Yes: The adaptation was refocused onto DiCaprio’s conman, and by extension Gladstone will be front and center throughout. She is the most sympathetic character in the saga and a fresh face with a great campaign narrative (she was preparing to quit acting when she was contacted by Scorsese). Reviews out of Cannes have given her rapturous praise. • No: Will she go Leading instead? This feels like it'll draw accusations of category fraud wherever she's slotted. After Michelle Williams’ lead push last season, Gladstone and her team might feel bullish about her positioning. • Maybe So: There was already a narrative brewing about how her cultural insight greatly informed Scorsese’s approach to the material. Her nomination — and potential victory — would be a watershed moment for Indigenous representation in Hollywood. She’s going to be competitive for the win regardless of whichever category she winds up in.
MAY DECEMBER Julianne Moore (TBD) • Yes: Reunited with her signature director and reportedly turning out highly memorable work as a highly problematic woman blessed with a vacant conscience. Moore was a regular nominee until her eventual win; maybe it’s high time to re-up her presence at the Oscars. • No: The character might prove too icky for some. She’s been passed over for scorcher performances before. • Maybe So: There’s a plum narrative about Moore and Haynes’ collaborative relationship over the last 30 years that keeps her firmly in the conversation.
In the Mix: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret Rachel McAdams (Lionsgate) Barbie America Ferrara (Warner Bros.) The Holdovers Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Focus Features) Napoleon Vanessa Kirby (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment) Saltburn Rosamund Pike (Amazon Studios & MGM)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING, ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY -
AIR Alex Convery (Amazon Studios)
LA CHIMERA Alice Rohrwacher (NEON)
MAY DECEMBER Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik (TBD)
PAST LIVES Celine Song (A24)
SALTBURN Emerald Fennell (Amazon Studios)
In the Mix: Asteroid City Wes Anderson (Focus Features) Barbie Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach (Warner Bros.) Fair Play Chloe Domont (Netflix) The Holdovers David Hemingson (Focus Features) Maestro Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer (Netflix)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING, ADAPTED SCREENPLAY -
THE ACTOR Stephen Cooney & Duke Johnson (NEON)
DUNE: PART TWO Jon Spaihts & Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Eric Roth & Martin Scorsese (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
OPPENHEIMER Christopher Nolan (Universal Pictures)
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan Glazer (A24)
In the Mix: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret Kelly Fremon Craig (Lionsgate) The Bikeriders Jeff Nichols (20th Century Studios) BlackBerry Matt Johnson & Matthew Miller (IFC Films) The Color Purple Marcus Gardley (Warner Bros.) Poor Things Tony McNamara (Searchlight Pictures)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING -
DUNE: PART TWO Joe Walker (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Thelma Schoonmaker (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING: PART ONE Eddie Hamilton (Paramount Pictures)
OPPENHEIMER Jennifer Lame (Universal Pictures)
SALTBURN Victoria Boydell (Amazon Studios & MGM)
In the Mix: Barbie Mary Jo Markey (Warner Bros.) The Color Purple Jon Poll (Warner Bros.) The Killer TBA (Netflix) Maestro Michelle Tesoro (Netflix) Past Lives Keith Fraase (A24)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY -
THE COLOR PURPLE Dan Laustsen (Warner Bros.)
DUNE: PART TWO Greig Fraser (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Rodrigo Prieto (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
MAESTRO Matthew Libatique (Netflix)
OPPENHEIMER Hoyte van Hoytema (Universal Pictures)
In the Mix: The Killer Erik Messerschmidt (Netflix) Poor Things Robbie Ryan (Searchlight Pictures) The Zone of Interest Lukasz Zal (A24)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION DESIGN -
BARBIE Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer & Ashley Swanson (Warner Bros.)
THE COLOR PURPLE Paul D. Austerberry & Larry Dias (Warner Bros.)
DUNE: PART TWO Patrice Vermette & Shane Vieau (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Jack Fisk & Adam Willis (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
POOR THINGS Shona Heath, James Price & Zsuzsa Mihalek (Searchlight Pictures)
In the Mix: Asteroid City Adam Stockhausen & Kris Moran (Focus Features) Oppenheimer Ruth De Jong, Claire Kaufman & Adam Willis (Universal Pictures) Napoleon Arthur Max & Elli Griff (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN -
BARBIE Jacqueline Durran (Warner Bros.)
DUNE: PART TWO Jacqueline West (Warner Bros.)
FIREBRAND Michael O’Connor (TBD)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Jacqueline West (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
NAPOLEON Janty Yates & David Crossman (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment)
In the Mix: The Color Purple Francine Jamison-Tanchuck (Warner Bros.) Lee Michael O’Connor (Focus Features) Wonka Lindy Hemming (Warner Bros.)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING -
BARBIE Robb Crafer & Lois McIntosh (Warner Bros.)
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 Mo Meinhart & Linda Traxler (Walt Disney Studio Pictures)
DUNE: PART TWO Allan Cooke & Megan Norris (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Beate Petruccelli & Jameson Eaton (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
MAESTRO Kazu Hiro, Jackie Risotto & Jameson Eaton (Netflix)
In the Mix: The Color Purple (Warner Bros.) Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures) Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC, ORIGINAL SCORE -
DUNE: PART TWO Hans Zimmer (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Robbie Robertson (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
OPPENHEIMER Ludwig Göransson (Universal Pictures)
PAST LIVES Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen (A24)
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Mica Levi (A24)
In the Mix: Barbie Alexandre Desplat (Searchlight Pictures) Elemental Thomas Newman (Walt Disney Studio Pictures) How Do You Live? Joe Hisaishi (GKIDS) Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Walt Disney Studio Pictures) Napoleon Martin Phipps (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC, ORIGINAL SONG -
THE COLOR PURPLE “TBA” by H.E.R.
THE LITTLE MERMAID “TBA” by Lin-Manuel Miranda
MOVIE THAT DOESN’T EXIST “TBA” by Diane Warren
WISH “TBA” by Julia Michaels
WONKA “TBA” by Neil Hannon
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND -
THE COLOR PURPLE Ken McGill & Renee Tondelli (Warner Bros.)
DUNE: PART TWO Dave Whitehead & Gareth John (Warner Bros.)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Mark Ulano & Philip Stockton (Apple Studios & Paramount Pictures)
OPPENHEIMER Richard King & Michael W. Mitchell (Universal Pictures)
NAPOLEON Stéphane Bucher & Kevin Penney (Apple Studios & Sony Pictures Entertainment)
In the Mix: The Creator (20th Century Studios) The Killer (Netflix) Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One (Paramount Pictures)
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS -
THE CREATOR 20th Century Studios
DUNE: PART TWO Warner Bros.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 Walt Disney Studio Pictures
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY Walt Disney Studio Pictures
OPPENHEIMER Universal Pictures
In the Mix: Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (Warner Bros,) Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Paramount Pictures) Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One (Paramount Pictures)
- BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM -
HOW DO YOU LIVE? GKIDS; Hayao Miyazaki
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE Columbia Pictures; Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson
THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE Universal Pictures; Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM Paramount Pictures; Jeff Rowe & Kyler Spears
WISH Walt Disney Studio Pictures; Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn
In the Mix: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (Netflix) Elemental (Walt Disney Studio Pictures) Migration (Universal Pictures)
- BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM -
ANATOMY OF A FALL France; Justine Triet (TBD)
LA CHIMERA Italy; Alice Rohrwacher (NEON)
EL CONDE Chile; Pablo Larraín (Netflix)
GODLAND Iceland; Hlyner Pálmason (Janus Films)
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Poland; Jonathan Frazer (A24)
Best Picture Nomination Tally

TITLE	NOMINATION TALLY
Killers of the Flower Moon	13 nominations
Dune: Part Two	11 nominations
Oppenheimer	10 nominations
The Color Purple	9 nominations
Past Lives	6 nominations
The Zone of Interest	5 nominations
Maestro, May December, Saltburn	4 nominations
Air	3 nominations

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