#has been white OR emphasized their whiteness as the important part cause they hated themselves that much | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

onecanonlife · 3 years

Text

Wilbur wakes up one morning to find white in his hair. This is—irritating, for several reasons, but that's all it is. An annoyance. A distraction.

There's nothing deeper at work here. There's nothing wrong at all.

(Or, the stresses of the presidency give Wilbur a white streak of hair earlier in canon, and somehow, this serves as the cry for help he can never bring himself to make.)

(word count: 5,039)

(second part) (third part) (fourth part)

--------------------

Part One

He first notices it because he chances a glance in the mirror. Not something he does often, these days, because he dislikes looking at his appearance for longer than necessary. The mirror only tends to show him his flaws and imperfections: the bags under his eyes that he can never quite hide, the way his cheekbones jut out in too-telling prominence, the way his uniform never seems to fit right lately, and not just because he almost never finds the time or energy to give it a proper wash.

So, he doesn’t look in the mirror beyond a cursory glance in the mornings as he’s dragging himself out of bed, just long enough to be sure that his veneer of professionalism is holding, because frankly, he has nothing if he doesn’t have that. No one’s called him on his slowly slipping standards just yet, and he intends to keep it that way. He is president, after all; he must lead by example, and if the nation is to be a success then he must be as well. Or at least, his citizens must believe that he is.

But this morning, his gaze lingers just ever-so-slightly longer than he normally allows. And then, his vision catches on—something. He thinks he must be mistaken, and he hasn’t the time to figure it out, really, but he can’t help but lean in closer, searching his own reflection. What he sees makes dread beat out a two-timed rhythm in his chest.

There is white in his hair.

Not much. Just a few strands. But it’s strange enough to catch his attention. There has never been white in his hair before. He can’t imagine what caused it. He’s not that old. But nevertheless, the white is present, and it’s not so obvious that someone would catch it on a first glance, probably, but it stands out enough against the dark brown of the rest of his hair that it’s not inconceivable that someone might spot it. Spot it, and then ask questions. Questions that he would not want to answer, if only because it would be ridiculous for someone to be grilling him about his hair of all things.

He doesn’t want to deal with it. That’s the only reason why he’s bothered, surely.

He’s going to be late to a meeting if he dallies for too much longer. So his gaze flicks about his room—which is fairly bare, fairly utilitarian; decorating’s been the last thing on his mind in recent weeks, and it would be a waste of time that he could be devoting to bettering his nation—and lands on a sword leaning against the wall. One that he’s barely touched recently, and that he hardly knows how to use, and certainly not well at that, but if he’s looking for a quick solution, it will serve. So he crosses the room, snatches it up, and returns to the mirror.

With one hand, he picks out the white strands. With the other, he uses the sword to slice them off. Crude, and he’s certain he gets a few brown strands as well, but it’s effective, and that’s what’s important.

It only takes a few minutes more after that to prepare himself. He emerges from his room confident, his head held high, a president ready to take on the challenges of the day. Never mind that he barely slept last night. Never mind that he’s stopped eating regularly, grabbing a bite only when his schedule allows him. Never mind that he’s been feeling jumpy of late, more anxious, that he’s taken to tracking the whereabouts of everyone around him at all times, if only to know that they’re safe. Never mind any of that. He is the president, and sacrifices must be made.

He is, after all, only as good as the country he builds.

---

The incident slips his mind in the following weeks. It’s simply not important when there are so many other things to accomplish; infrastructure and food and an economy and all the other intricacies that go into running a nation, that lead to endless stacks of paperwork for him and hopefully, prosperity for his people. All the other intricacies that, as it turns out, he has no idea how to handle, but he’s trying.

Because it’s all worth it, if it’s for them.

But one night, he’s tugging off his hat, shucking off his coat, tears already pricking at his eyes for no other reason than the feeling of being terribly, desperately overwhelmed, and he happens to glance at that hated mirror. Rather than alighting on any of the other aspects of his physicality that annoy him—most recently, it’s the fact that he always feels that he’s not standing straight enough, and that other people are judging him for his lack of professionalism—he focuses on his hair.

There’s white in it. Again.

And more of it, this time. Not too much, still, but definitely more. Enough that someone else might actually notice. He’s not sure how he didn’t, up to this point. He strides over to the glass, already tugging at his hair hard enough to hurt, and sure enough, there they are. Strands of snow white hair. Like he’s bleached them, except—he takes one and rubs it between his fingers—without the brittle quality that often-bleached hair tends to take on.

He doesn’t understand why this is happening. He can’t feel anything about it other than annoyance, because this is just one more thing to deal with, one more thing to add to the pile. And it’s made worse because it’s practically a vanity project; sure, he doesn’t want people bothering him about it, but logically, he knows that hair shouldn’t be such a big deal to him. It’s only that professionalism is important, and he already feels like he’s not doing enough in that area. Not enough to garner the respect that a good president should command, at any rate. So he needs to keep this under control.

Somehow, the thought of doing anything about it tonight is too much. Exhaustion pulls at him like anchors tied to his legs, even though he knows his sleep will be broken and fitful, as it usually is of late. He breathes in and out, slowly and deliberately, hoping to attain some measure of calm, but it doesn’t work, only makes him more aware of the tears readying themselves to fall.

It’s a disgusting display of weakness, truly. He only allows himself this because there is no one else here to see it, no one else to realize just how weak a man their president truly is. He can break down in private, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rest of his duties. There was even a time when crying into his pillow made him feel better, if only a little, made him feel as if he was getting rid of all the emotions and incessant whispers of failure that always build up in him over the course of a day. But those times are long gone. And yet, the tears still flow.

Here, alone, in the privacy of his chambers, he can never manage to stop them. He lacks willpower.

Weakness. It’s pathetic. He knows it is.

But if he has to be weak here in order to successfully pretend at strength for everyone else, then he will put up with the self-loathing that he can’t seem to shake, and he’ll let himself cry. It’s not as if anyone will ever know about it. No one will be able to judge—except for himself, that is, but dealing with his own judgments is nothing new. In a way, it’s what keeps him going, his self-criticisms. They keep him sharp, doing what needs doing; he can always trust himself to tell himself the truth, after all, even if he can trust no one else.

He casts one more glance at his hair, disgust flooding him. He’ll trim it out in the morning, same as before. For the moment, he crosses his bare floor to his bed, slumping into it. Almost immediately, his eyes begin stinging with more intensity, and the first of the tears roll down his cheeks. He turns his face, burying it in his pillow as emotions well up in him, too many at once, washing over him and drowning him, because it’s all so much and this is the only way he can deal with them, because he has to be strong. Has to have himself together.

It truly is pathetic, how much trouble he’s having with handling this. He should be able to do better, and yet, here he is. He can’t help but wonder what they would all think if they knew. Surely, they would consider him unfit to lead them, and the trouble is, they might even be right. But that would destroy him, he thinks, if they were to believe him unworthy of their trust, of their love.

And sometimes, he wonders what Phil would say if he could see him now. But he always shies away from that. And besides, Phil doesn’t need to know. He’ll keep sending letters that emphasize the good, and Phil will be happy, and Phil will be proud of him, and—he needs to stop thinking about this.

Morning comes too soon, but he forces himself out of bed, as per usual. Cuts the white hairs until there’s no sign they were there at all, and hopes that will be the end of it.

---

The problem is, that’s not the end of it. The white hairs keep appearing, and at an increasing frequency as time goes on. It starts to be that he can’t go more than a day or two without checking for them, lest they become noticeable to literally everyone else around him.

The most troublesome thing about it, though, is that he simply doesn’t have the time to deal with it. He doesn’t have time to painstakingly comb through his hair every morning, not when there’s so many more important things he could be doing, so many tasks to accomplish, ideas to form and sign off on, an entire goddamn nation to keep afloat. He doesn’t have the time, and it’s wearing on him already, so he needs a different solution.

He considers hair dye. He could get his hands on some fairly easily, and likely surreptitiously. No one would have to know. But the trouble with hair dye would lie in finding the right color; if no one has noticed the white hairs cropping up until now, they certainly would notice if he came into the office with his hair an entirely different shade of brown. And that would make it obvious that he’s hiding something; no one dyes their hair a different shade of its original color unless they’re trying to cover something up.

Possibly, through trial and error, he could make a dye that matches his hair color exactly, or at least, close enough that the difference is imperceptible. But there’s the time issue again. He can’t waste his efforts on experimenting with hair dye when he’s meant to be trying to better the lives of his citizens, to build up a prosperous, glorious country. What kind of president would that make him? He’s already well aware that he’s not a very good one; he doesn’t need to make matters worse.

So, hair dye is impractical. He’ll revisit the idea if he truly gets desperate. But the situation as it is is untenable. He’s been having difficulty getting out of bed at all in the morning, recently, a combination of exhaustion and a strange, pervasive apathy serving to keep him under his covers long past when he should have been preparing for the day ahead, even though staying in bed longer doesn’t seem to help him catch up on sleep at all. Why he finds himself wanting to lie there, doing absolutely nothing other than staring at the ceiling for hours on end, he has no idea. He doesn’t let himself, of course, or at least, not for more than an hour or two just after dawn, but the fact remains that the temptation is there, and growing stronger every day. He can’t be spending ages on his hair every morning. It’s not feasible.

But that leaves only one real solution. And that’s to leave the white hairs as they are, and simply try to hide them. The more he considers it, the more he believes it’s the only real avenue worth pursuing. He could probably manage; his hat is a part of his uniform anyway. He rarely takes it off outside of his bedroom. So, all it will take is an extra moment of styling to make sure that all of the white has been pushed up under it. And perhaps checking a few times during the day to be sure that nothing has come loose, but that should take seconds at most. He can spare a few seconds, probably.

At the very least, it will take less time than what he’s been doing. That’s the goal here, really.

He hates that this is something that he’s having to put any amount of thought into at all. But he’s reached a decision, and the next morning, he gives it a shot. Arranges his hair so that more of it lies hidden under his hat than usual, and sets out for the day.

No one comments on it. Not this day, nor the next day, nor the next. He supposes he could consider that a success.

It does mean, of course, that the amount of white in his hair only increases as time goes by, until his hair is streaked with it. But if he’s careful, if he continues to be cautious with it, no one will know about it but him, and he can dislike it in the privacy of his own quarters. Just as he dislikes everything else.

---

On the rare occasions that he has any time to himself before retiring for the night, an instance that becomes more and more seldom as the days and weeks pass on, he often finds his feet carrying him to Niki’s. There is a safety here that is difficult to find anywhere else, even in his own quarters. Perhaps especially in his own quarters, because there is nothing warm, nothing personal about his room. Here, though, there is the scent of baking bread and cookies, a heat that gets trapped under his skin and chases the chill away, and there is, of course, Niki herself.

He finds it hard to lend too much trust to anyone these days, but Niki is an exception to that.

So, here he comes, and here he stays, when he has an hour or two to spare. He comes here, and they talk, about little things, unimportant things, about how her days have been or the latest prank that Fundy has performed—and it’s nice to hear about Fundy. He barely sees his boy, busy as he is, and it’s good to hear that he’s doing well, that he’s still the upbeat, rambunctious lad he knows and loves.

They talk about these things, and they talk about other things, and sometimes, they talk about nothing at all. Sometimes, talking is asking too much, and Niki always seems to see it, and she kneads dough and lets him sit in front of her and watch. He likes watching. The motions are repetitive, soothing. If he had the time, he might ask if he could join in; he thinks he might enjoy it, even if he’s never had a deft hand in the kitchen. But he never has the time, of course, so he just watches, for whatever time he can spare.

Today is one of those days. It’s nearing nightfall, but for once, he’s cleared his desk of a majority of his paperwork, so here he is, slumped against Niki’s counter, letting his cheek rest on the cold stone as she pats down the space in front of her with flour, rolls out her dough with a rolling pin. Cookies, then, rather than bread. He likes watching this, too, likes watching as she spreads out the dough again and again, cutting out more shapes until all the dough is gone, used up, in the oven and baking.

He likes being here in general. He could be doing other things—he told Fundy he’d take him fishing soon, for instance, but soon keeps on being put off, and he feels terrible about it, but the job has to come first. His country has to come first. Or, there’s a new redstone gimmick that Tubbo worked out that he wanted to show him, but that can probably wait for a bit. Or, Tommy wanted to watch a movie with him, he thinks, but he never has time during the day, and by the time night comes, he’s far too exhausted, so he comes here, instead. Comes to see Niki, where, somehow, the weight of all the expectations placed on him seems to lighten, if only for a little while.

He always ends up being horribly unprofessional here, in this bakery. Always ends up messing up his uniform, taking off his coat, getting a smudge of something on his face, not sitting straight enough, not keeping his shoulders set, slumping in general, a whole list of faults. But it’s harder to care when it’s Niki in front of him. Because she’s always glad to see him, and she’s one of the few people from whom he can believe that the sentiment is the truth.

But that is always, and this is now: Niki’s making cookies, the last batch of the day, and he’s watching, head resting against the table. He almost feels like he could fall asleep like this, which would be a miracle in of itself. He wouldn’t let himself, of course; a bit of unprofessionalism is one thing, but falling asleep where anyone could see him, where anyone could get to him, that is quite another.

He wonders if he should tell her any of the things he’s been thinking about. About his own ineffectiveness, about how all his work seems to amount to very little actually being done. About how he’s sure everyone is losing faith in him, and he can’t even blame them, because he’s losing faith in himself. About how in the end, he has no idea what he’s doing, and he was a fool to think that he did. About power and its nature, and who has it and who doesn’t, and about how his words might not amount to very much at all, actually.

Probably not. He’s not sure she would understand. And he shouldn’t burden her with his troubled mind.

So he just watches, and lets himself drift a little.

“Rough day today?” Niki asks, working her rolling pin, smoothing out all the clumps.

“No worse than usual,” he says. “It’s just tiring.”

Niki hums. He likes when she does that. From someone else, it might sound dismissive, but when she does it, it means the opposite, means she’s considering all of your words, giving them due thought.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been tired a lot, lately,” she says. She sets the rolling pin to the side, picking up a cookie cutter. It’s leaf-shaped. For autumn, he assumes. Outside, the trees are beginning to change colors, though the shift to reds and oranges and yellows won’t really get going for a few more weeks. It’s that hazy, indistinct time of year when it’s not still summer and not yet fall, too hot for one and too cool for the other.

Not that he’s been paying that much attention. It’s been a while since he was outside for any significant length of time. Or rather, for a reason other than approving construction or checking on borders or something of the like. For a reason not presidentially important.

“It’s a tiring job,” he says. “Who would’ve thought? I’m alright, though. It’s well within the bounds of what I can handle.”

“Have you been getting enough sleep?” she asks. She presses the cutter into the dough. Lifts it. Pushes the shape out of the cutter and onto her baking sheet. Repeats.

He laughs, quietly. “I don’t need you to mother hen me, Niki,” he says, and without looking up, she reaches across the counter and swats him on the arm.

“I am not mother henning,” she says. “I’m being your friend. Your eyebags could hold second, smaller eyebags in them.”

“What, you don’t think I’m gorgeous?” he asks wryly, and she snorts.

“I’m sure someone out there would,” she says. “Tiredness has to be considered hot somewhere.”

“Mm. I think I’m hot. Very sexy.”

“You would think so.” She’s got enough cookies on the sheet for a batch, now. The next step is to put the sheet on a pan and put the pan in the oven, and that’s exactly what she does. It pleases him that he has the steps memorized. “I’m serious, though, if you have too much work to do, give some to your cabinet. I’m sure Tommy or Tubbo would love to help out more. Or Fundy.”

“Fundy’s too young.” It’s a bit of a longstanding argument between them. He tries not to let it get to him.

“And the other two aren’t?” She returns from the oven, an eyebrow raised, and then goes for another baking sheet. She’s still got dough left to roll out. One more batch will do it, he thinks. “You—oh, wait a moment.”

He watches bemusedly as she leaves the counter again and crosses to her sink, washing off her hands and then dampening a dishtowel. He’s not sure what she’s doing; it doesn’t make sense to wash up when she still has another batch to make. Her hands will just get dirty again. But now she’s walking back over, towel extended toward him and—now she’s rubbing it on his head. He blinks as a corner of the towel flops over his eye.

“Sorry, I got a lot of flour in your hair,” she says. “I’ll get it, hang on.”

And then, her motions slow, and then stop.

“It’s not coming out,” she says slowly. “Wilbur, did you dye your hair?”

The question doesn’t make any sense at all, at first. Because no, of course he hasn’t dyed his hair. Part of the whole problem is that he doesn’t have time to dye his hair. Not properly. Not in a way that no one would notice.

And then his brain realizes that that’s not what she’s asking about at all. Realizes that he’s been lying with his cheek resting against the counter for the past half hour, face parallel with the surface it’s resting on. Realizes that his hat has long passed the point of being merely askew and is now barely touching his head at all. Realizes that his hair is splayed out for anyone to look at.

He shoots upright, grabbing his hat and slamming it down on his head. Too late, of course; the damage has been done. Niki jerks back at the suddenness of his motion. Her damp towel drips a bit.

“No,” he says instinctively, and then curses himself, because—because hair dye would work as an excuse, wouldn’t it? A reason for why it’s like that? It might get her to not push further, and he’s not even sure why it’s so important to him that she doesn’t, because it’s Niki of all people, and Niki won’t use this against him later. Probably. Hopefully. Most likely. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want her to worry, because he knows that she will, even though it’s not a big deal at all and her efforts would be better expended on other problems, other people.

Fuck, wait, it’s been too long since he said something. Can he still change his answer without arousing suspicion?

“Yes,” he says, and internally cringes. It was definitely too late for that, because Niki’s just staring at him now, eyes wide. “Um, yeah, I thought it’d be fun. And then it went a bit wonky, so I’ve been covering it up. It doesn’t look very nice, does it?”

Is this what he’s been reduced to? Lying to one of his closest friends?

Gods, he’s pathetic.

“It looks fine,” Niki says, in that soft tone of voice she uses when she either doesn’t know what’s going on or doesn’t know how to proceed without scaring someone off. Like she’s talking to a frightened animal. “Wil, are you—are you really alright?”

“Of course,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Her mouth works for a second.

“Wilbur,” she says, just that, and something in his chest turns hot, wrenches all around, squeezes, and for a brief, panicked second, he thinks he’s having a heart attack. But no, he can feel his heart pounding. A bit faster than it should be, if anything, but strong. His vision blurs, too, but he blinks hard, and everything comes back into focus. Which might be a mistake, because if anything, Niki looks even more distressed.

“Wil, please, you can talk to me if something’s wrong,” she says, and he laughs, shaking his head and standing. His stool scrapes against the floor, loud and grating to his ears.

“There’s nothing wrong, Niki,” he says. “You don’t need to worry so much. Though I have realized, I do have a bit more work to do tonight, so I should probably get back to it.” He smiles at her, though she doesn’t smile back. “But it was very good to talk to you. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Wilbur—”

He’s already leaving. His chest feels tight again. Tight and hot. For absolutely no reason at all, because even if Niki did ask him more questions, it’s just hair, for crying out loud. It’s hardly the end of the world.

But he needed out of there. He doesn’t quite understand why.

His parting words were not a lie. He does have a bit more work to do. There is always a bit more work to do. The work never ends. He can’t actually remember the last time he didn’t have work to do. Before getting independence, surely. Back when he still felt entirely sure that he could do this, that he could build a country, that peace through words was a sustainable option, that he could look at the mess of things that need to be done to form an effective nation and actually accomplish them.

He tries not to think about that.

But instead of to his office, his feet carry him back to his room. To his blank walls and floor, his few pieces of furniture, his few sets of the same uniform. He really does need to get around to washing them. His gaze falls on his sword, next, still leaning against the wall, and then his guitar, propped up in the corner. There’s a layer of dust collecting on it. He should clean it off. That’s not good for the wood or the strings, and he’s sure it’s terribly out of tune. How long has it been since the last time he played?

There’s no time for music, nowadays. Not when other things need to take priority. He’s got a country to run; he can’t be wasting his time. He can’t afford to.

But rather than do anything productive, he winds up in front of the mirror. He takes off his hat, though it’s almost unnecessary; his hair sticks out from under it every which way, after how he shoved it on so carelessly. He hopes no one was watching him as he returned here.

There is a broad white streak in his hair. Right in the front, right where people tend to look. He tugs at it, and his scalp stings. He’s not sure what else he was expecting.

He definitely can’t cut it out now. It’s far past that point; people will definitely notice if he goes about with a whole chunk of hair missing. And they’ll also still notice if he dyes it, so that problem remains.

He just needs to be more careful, that’s all. The thing with Niki was a foible. An error on his part, a lapse in judgment. He’ll take more care from now on to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

He lets out a shaky breath, and then, he blinks and finds himself kneeling on the floor, still in front of the mirror. He looks at himself, and then immediately looks away, because he can’t stand what he sees. It’s not just the white streak, though that’s awful enough on his own; it’s all the inadequacies stacked together, all the imperfections that he can’t help but pick out, all the screaming signs that seem to point directly toward his own incompetency.

It’s a wonder no one else has seen it yet.

Tears burn his eyes, and he can’t seem to blink them away. They go rolling down his cheeks, and he watches their progress in his reflection as best he can. His breathing hitches, and a small gasp escapes him, and he can’t have that, can’t make too much noise, so he stuffs a fist in his mouth.

He’s fine. The fit will pass, and he’ll be fine. He’ll spend the next three or four hours in bed staring at the ceiling, wishing he could fall asleep, and then, at last, he will, and he’ll wake up in the morning feeling more tired than ever, and he’ll drag himself out of bed because he has to, because he’s got responsibilities that he can’t shirk, even if he can’t fulfill any of them well enough. And he’ll be fine, because he can’t afford to not be, because he’s got a country on his shoulders and that means he needs to keep standing.

He’ll be fine. He is fine.

He is.

He still can’t bring himself to look in the mirror. The next morning, he covers it with a sheet, and tells himself that it’s not a defeat.

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #nihachu #niki nihachu #alivebur #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #cw depression #cw self-hatred #in general his mental state isn't great #but anyway! here's part one of that president wilbur fic i mentioned a few days ago!#there will be a part two so stay tuned #just in case anybody got to the end and was like... where's the rest of it #it'll be posted once i manage to get it finished!!

197 notes · View notes

arlingtonpark · 3 years

Text

SNK 134 Review

Thank you. Thank you so much. This means so much to me.

(Ofc this chapter is called “In the Depths of Despair.”)

Sigh.

So, I guess I have to have an opinion on this chapter now.

For a while there, it looked like SNK had made the right choice.

Eren was the asshole. He was insubordinate, ungrateful, uncooperative, and above all else, a fucking sociopath. Cool, got it. One and done.

But then his friends started talking about how it was really their fault he’s doing this.

Ok, that’s fine. They’re desperate to stop him, so they’re just saying whatever they think will ingratiate themselves with Eren and help talk him down. Dynamics like that are very common in abusive relationships.

Now we arrive at this chapter, where even random people are saying Eren is a victim *as he is murdering them!*

It is patently absurd that Eren is having a warranted or natural or reasonable reaction to what he’s been through.

If Eren were a better person, he would have known that mass murder against the Eldians was wrong because mass murder is wrong. Unfortunately, Eren is a fundamentally amoral person. The only moral compass he has to guide him is a childish belief in “you hit me, so I get to hit you.”

He’s said as much on multiple occasions. He has said, “If someone tries to take my freedom away, I will take their freedom away.”

Instead of being the better man and ending the killing, his solution was to kill more people than them, faster and on a larger scale.

I think the clearest picture of Eren’s worldview was given when he spoke to Historia. He said the only way to end the cycle of violence was to destroy the whole world.

That is Eren’s deeply felt belief: there can be no peace or coexistence; the only way to win is to be the last man standing.

This mindset is so natural to him that he will even kill his friends for opposing him.

He told them that they were free to oppose him, and he was free to fight back. That’s how he justifies killing them to himself. They have the choice to oppose him, so if he fights back and kills them, it’s their fault they died, not his, because they could have made the choice to flee and live, but decided to stand and die.

In reality, the alliance is fulfilling a moral duty to protect life, while Eren is an asshole who has killed billions.

The series wasn’t kind to Eren about that. He was depicted as a cheering child as he murdered everyone. The Rumbling was not white washed either. The take away was obviously that Eren’s decision was not the product of a sound mind.

And yet.

Now I have to wonder if the series is seriously trying to say the Rumbling embodies some form of justice.

There are multiple layers to this issue, so let’s start at the surface level.

So in what is obviously a ham-fisted attempt by Isayama to lecture the audience about morality, a Random Commander Guy filibusters about the ills cast by the Marleyans on the Eldians and how this has rebounded back at them.

It is generally considered good writing for characters to get their just desserts. If someone sells drugs to kids, you expect something bad to happen to them. If someone helps a kid cross the street, you expect something good to happen to them.

What’s different between a generic case of just desserts in a story and this chapter in SNK is that the dessert is typically delivered through some nebulous, karmic force, rather than a vengeful twerp with God-like powers.

When the drug dealer’s car blows up, it’s karmic fate, not revenge.

The car doesn’t blow up because one of the kids devoted his life to exacting revenge, it’s because the car just blows up for no reason, or because something completely unrelated to the dealer causes a bomb to be planted in the car, or the dealer brought it on themselves by getting caught up with terrorists.

People may or may not deserve to suffer, but it’s fine to show people suffering if you’re just trying to make a point about how people should act.

Eren’s a different case. For several reasons.

To help untangle why, let’s think about the death penalty.

The death penalty is an example of retributive justice. Put simply, it’s the idea that retribution can be morally just.

The Rumbling is immoral precisely because it is something a supporter of retributive justice would emphatically NOT support.

Most supporters of the death penalty would justify it as an act by a legitimate societal authority. Eren is not that.

Eren is not an authority figure. He does not speak for the Eldian people and has no right to exact this genocide on their behalf. No one made him King of the Eldians. It’s not his place to decide what’s in the Eldian’s best interest.

Also, killing people because “it’s what the scumbag deserves” is usually justified because it’s a sentence for a crime handed down in a legal process.

Rights can be taken away, but not arbitrarily. Transparency is an important part of this. Acts that are a crime are public knowledge, as well as the prescribed punishments. The criminal law is also supposed to apply to everyone equally, not selectively. To say nothing of the law itself being duly enacted by a legitimate governmental authority.

The same principles apply to the process by which a right is taken away. The process must be laid out in a law that was duly enacted by a legitimate government authority, applies to everyone, and is publicly known.

Eren’s process, of *fucking* course, is nothing like this. Eren has no legitimate authority. He’s a Guy With an Opinion who bumbled into attaining absolute power, and now he’s acting on that Opinion.

He not the government punishing a convict. He’s a guy with a gun shooting people he doesn’t like. The Rumbling is not just retribution, it’s just murder.

Commander Guy says that if they knew this would happen, they would have acted differently.

That’s a good point.

Why the fuck do they deserve to die, then?

To some extent, everyone’s worse impulses are kept in check by the knowledge that there will be consequences if they act rashly.

But it’s not just that.

Laws are public knowledge for a reason: it’s fair. If you know your act is a crime and that performing said act will result in a certain punishment, then by committing the act anyway you have tacitly accepted whatever punishment will be meted out.

The moral onus is placed on you.

This is why knowledge that you are committing a crime is necessary to be convicted of a crime.

In principle, the case with the Marleyans is the same. Is it fair to punish someone for an act they did not know would carry that punishment? No.

They may know the act was immoral, but that is not the same thing as knowing it will lead directly to their death.

And needless to say, but you only deserve to be punished for an act if you deserve to be punished for that act. The Marleyans do not deserve to be punished for that act.

There are multiple ways a wrong can be righted. There are punitive ways, in which the perpetrator is harmed outright. There are also restorative ways, in which the victim is compensated for the harm done to them, usually at the expense of the perpetrator.

I have already explained why Eren lacks the authority to pass judgement on the world, and that the process by which he made his decision was completely illegitimate, but it needs to be said that this punishment is totally improper in itself.

Wiping out humanity is purely punitive. To use the obvious analogy, I don’t think any sane person would argue white people deserve to be punished for racism. Supporters of racial justice usually talk about restorative, rather than punitive, forms of justice, like reparations.

The Rumbling does not make the Eldians whole again. It does not restore their trampled dignity. It is purely an act of vengeance.

Casting it as some kind of deserving retribution is crazy.

Oh, and, you know, suffering is bad, so retributive justice is wrong even disregarding everything I just said.

You could theoretically believe life is a miracle, but that people forfeit that right if they act wrongly…it’s not something many people would support.

If Dino!Eren had been depicted as a random force of nature that visited ruination upon humanity, we could have potentially gotten a good story about how hatred leads to no good outcomes. Like how Godzilla is a metaphor for the ills of nuclear weapons.

Instead we get a nihilistic tale about two sides punching each other until one keels over dead. And somehow the one that keels over deserved it.

What makes it nihilistic is that you could easily reverse it. What if right before Eren destroys Fort Salta, aliens invade the Earth and help the Marleyans.

Now the Eldians are on the verge of annihilation and *Eldian* Commander Guy gets his turn to say “Woe is us who surrendered to hate. We deserve this.”

There is no right side or wrong side. No deserving side or innocent side. The Eldians were cheering for genocide the same as the Marleyans. The difference is the Eldians had a God on their side.

The morality of this series is just all over the place.

The Alliance and Eren are equally sinful, but now Eren is an agent of karmic destiny and his victims “deserve it.”

There isn’t much to talk about this chapter besides that.

Armin still hopes to take Eren alive, but good luck with that.

Eren can manifest other titans from his body, which is cool I guess, though it’s pretty clear this power only exists to give the Alliance things to fight.

There were a lot of allusions to parenthood this chapter. The baby and the cliff. Reiner’s mom realizing how shitty she’s been. Historia’s pregnancy. The Commander Guy saying it’s the fault of “us adults.” The numerous shots emphasizing the kids at Fort Salta.

Child abuse is a common theme of SNK. And not just parental abuse, but societal abuse, too. Children are the victims of individual foibles and broader social ills, like racism and police brutality.

The cycle of violence at the heart of the series’ conflict is bad for everyone, but the story emphasizes that it is bad for children in particular. It harms them, and leads to a world that is worse off for them.

If there’s one takeaway from SNK, it’s that we should think of the children. Adults shouldn’t just take care of their kids, they should fix broader social issues, if not for themselves then for the children’s sake.

It’s a fucking insult.

Historia’s pregnancy is all but confirmed here. There’s no way it’s fake. There may have been motive to fake being pregnant, but there is no fucking way she’d have a reason to fake *birth*.

I always leaned towards the pregnancy being real, so that didn’t get to me. What gets me is that Historia is just…there. On Paradis. On the sidelines.

Not only was Historia, who is the only likable female character in this show now, impregnated, she’s also been MIA most the last two story arcs.

I had thought Isayama was saving her for the finale. Surely, Isayama understands that if you sideline a major character for no reason, they have to come into play at some point, I thought. Surely.

Characters are tools; they exist to be used. So use them.

But no, it seems Historia is legit not going to be a thing in this final battle. My dreams of the domineering boss saving the day are dashed.

But what really messes with me is how shafted Historia has been since basically the end of the Uprising Arc.

Historia’s only contribution to the plot after Uprising, but before the pregnancy was making the disastrous decision to make the truth of the world public, which paved the way for Paradis society to become radicalized and back Eren’s coup.

She has done nothing other than that.

Obviously her pregnancy will have thematic importance, but at this point the best Historia stans can hope for is that she’s the main character in the epilogue.

I’ve always assumed the pregnancy was the product of a loving relationship. For all his incompetence with Historia, I was willing to assume Isayama would not force her to carry a forcibly impregnated child to term.

And you know that even if the child is the product of rape, Historia will still have to say she loves and accepts them as her child and will raise them lovingly, with no regard or acknowledgement of the trauma of having to raise a child born out of her being raped.

Because the theme of the story.

All life is a miracle.

All children deserve to be loved.

Even if it was rape.

Except it’s more complicated than that, and I’m terrified to think that Isayama may not understand that.

So for now, I choose to presume that Historia is pregnant because she loves someone, decided to have a family with them, and we’re being led to believe she was raped for shock value.

But arguably more important is what this means for the queer audience.

Historia’s first love interest was another woman.

She’s queer. A lesbian. A dyke. What have you.

Now you’re telling me she either loves a man, or was not only raped, but has to love and accept the child that results from that trauma?

And for what?

So we can end the manga on a speech by Historia moralizing about the value of posterity?

Historia stands at the nexus of two subjects in this manga: the value of posterity and the denigration of queer people.

It is very homophobic of this series to pair a queer character with a dude to affirm a message about the value of children and motherhood.

As if queer people can’t have children.

We seem to be headed down that path.

It didn’t have to be like this.

Queer people can have children through artificial insemination. And artificial insemination is conceivable with Paradis’ current level of technological development.

Isayama is choosing to do this because queer people are not a part of his vision of a world where people, especially children, are able to live free.

That’s very sad, because it shows how empty SNK’s morals are.

So who’s the slave here?

Who here is truly free?

The ones who are free are the ones who aren’t reading Attack on Titan anymore.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #snk 134 #snk chapter 134 #spoilers

46 notes · View notes

myhoneymoontour · 3 years

Text

Chapter 1

All You Need Is Love

Author’s Notes: English isn’t my first language so if there are mistakes, forgive me. I will do my best to write correctly.

Summary | Chapter 1

It’s a sunny day in Asgard, suitable for a morning walk by the stream bank of the little kingdom. For her it’s like a secret garden, an immense space that no one ever visits, where no one disturbs her, where you can read your books, where you can hear the birds chirping and where you can sing serenely.

She’s in love with Midgardian poets, they fascinate her. In theory, everything from Midgard fascinates her. She’s a girl so passionate about literature and art. For days she wanted some serenity since life at court is often a bit frenetic. Too many rules, although to tell the truth, she hates breaking the rules.

The sound of running water is the background to her reading, making it more pleasant, until she hears a voice interrupt her imagination.

“Venus are you here?”

She ignores the voice hoping it goes away.

“Venus!”

The voice come closer. Then she decides to get closer not to reveal her secret place.

“Here I am!”

“Where did you go? I've been looking for you for minutes! Our father wants to talk to us, let's go back to the castle!”

A wonderful castle, yes, but small, nothing compared to the royal palace of the king of the gods. Venus and her sister Artemis, the oldest one, reach the great hall where their father Zeus was waiting for them, also finding her mother Dione, their other sister, the middle one, Harmonia and their brother Eros.

“My kids, the king of the gods, my old friend, has invited us to join in the celebrations of the birthday of his firstborn Thor. This evening will be very important because you will finally meet the queen.”

Venus and her sisters look at each other happy because they will finally meet Thor. Although they have met him in the past during their walks but never had the courage to introduce themselves. Venus, however, unlike her sisters, was more curious to know his younger brother, the one she has never seen, the one people talk about the least, probably he loves staying in his castle and leading the life of a prince. Which, being a princess too, she liked to lead that life but she also needed to let off steam a bit far from the castle every now and then. She has always seen Thor in action, in some of his battles or around the kingdom but of his little brother, not even a sign.

The princes return to their rooms and Venus feels her arm being taken and pulled away. Artemis, the one who brought her here, pushes her towards the castle doors.

“What are you doing?!?”

“Let's get to know the prince!”

“Are you mad? Then they won't even let us in.”

“Of course they will let us in! Sure, we aren’t Odin's daughters but they know who we are. And then I want to visit the castle before there’s confusion tonight!”

She nods and they start walking towards the royal palace. The path is long, they stop on the way, the palace is on the other side of the kingdom.

It’s afternoon and they finally arrive at the royal palace. The guards give them a look and without moving they let them in. Artemis smiles and sneaks into the huge hallways. Venus is fascinated by such beauty. Being a princess she had seen luxurious places but this was indescribably majestic. She felt the magic in the air, more than what was usually in her rooms.........

Arm in arm with her sister they go from one hallway to the other and enter in a huge room where there were some people walking and some who were standing there chatting. She hears Artemis smiling, walking slowly they notice two quite solemn figures. Venus focuses on one of them. It’s like she’s attracted, she cannot help but look. This black hair, skin so pale it seems transparent, thin lips, sculpted face and ice eyes also transparent, effect caused by the sun's rays. He turns his face towards her, the blinding white of her hair, the pale skin that emphasizes her rosy cheeks, he too seems attracted to all of this, but above all, he can't help but look at the green in her eyes. Her big, shimmering green eyes that, to her too, the sun's rays make them shine.

She can't take her eyes off him, the same goes for him. She had a lot of crushes but this one looked different. Her cheeks blush even more and she feels butterflies in her stomach but at the same time she feels embarrassed. He feels a strange sensation, something in his stomach that he had never felt before. A pressure on his chest. Enchanted by the green of her eyes never seen before. He also notices the redness of her cheeks but doesn't understand what he’s feeling. They continue to look at each other until Venus goes away with her sister. The sisters remain silent until they’re sure they’re far enough from the ears of the two nobles. Venus continues to think about the person in front of Thor and how she feels.

"Who was he?" Venus asks.

The sister looks at her with a smirk.

“Did you see how he looked at you?"

She hadn't noticed it as her sister.

"No actually, but tell me who he is!"

“He’s probably Odin's second born, Loki. Dressed like that he can only be part of the royal family,” she replies. “Have you seen Thor? He’s so beautiful! "

"Yes..." she lied.

They both continue to walk around the castle and its gardens and then return shortly after to their castle to get ready for the party.

———

Tag List: Let me know if you want to be tagged.

27 notes · View notes

antoine-roquentin · 3 years

Quote

If every language is acquirable, its acquisition requires a real portion of a person’s life: each new conquest is measured against shortening days. What limits one’s access to other languages is not their imperviousness but one’s own mortality. Hence a certain privacy to all languages. French and American imperialists governed, exploited, and killed Vietnamese over many years. But whatever else they made off with, the Vietnamese language stayed put. Accordingly, only too often, a rage at Vietnamese ‘inscrutability,’ and that obscure despair which engenders the venomous argots of dying colonialisms: ‘gooks,’ ‘ratons’, etc.12 (In the longer run, the only responses to the vast privacy of the language of the oppressed are retreat or further massacre.) Such epithets are, in their inner form, characteristically racist, and decipherment of this form will serve to show why Nairn is basically mistaken in arguing that racism and anti-semitism derive from nationalism – and thus that ‘seen in sufficient historical depth, fascism tells us more about nationalism than any other episode.’13 A word like ‘slant,’ for example, abbreviated from ‘slant-eyed’, does not simply express an ordinary political enmity. It erases nation-ness by reducing the adversary to his biological physiognomy.14 It denies, by substituting for, ‘Vietnamese;’ just as raton denies, by substituting for, ‘Algerian’. At the same time, it stirs ‘Vietnamese’ into a nameless sludge along with ‘Korean,’ ‘Chinese,’ ‘Filipino,’ and so on. The character of this vocabulary may become still more evident if it is contrasted with other Vietnam-War-period words like ‘Charlie’ and ‘V.C.’, or from an earlier era, ‘Boches,’ ‘Huns,’ ‘Japs’ and ‘Frogs,’ all of which apply only to one specific nationality, and thus concede, in hatred, the adversary’s membership in a league of nations.15 The fact of the matter is that nationalism thinks in terms of historical destinies, while racism dreams of eternal contaminations, transmitted from the origins of time through an endless sequence of loathsome copulations: outside history. Niggers are, thanks to the invisible tar-brush, forever niggers; Jews, the seed of Abraham, forever Jews, no matter what passports they carry or what languages they speak and read. (Thus for the Nazi, the Jewish German was always an impostor.)16 The dreams of racism actually have their origin in ideologies of class, rather than in those of nation: above all in claims to divinity among rulers and to ‘blue’ or ‘white’ blood and ‘breeding’ among aristocracies.17 No surprise then that the putative sire of modern racism should be, not some petty-bourgeois nationalist, but Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau.18 Nor that, on the whole, racism and anti-semitism manifest themselves, not across national boundaries, but within them. In other words, they justify not so much foreign wars as domestic repression and domination.19 Where racism developed outside Europe in the nineteenth century, it was always associated with European domination, for two converging reasons. First and most important was the rise of official nationalism and colonial ‘Russification’. As has been repeatedly emphasized official nationalism was typically a response on the part of threatened dynastic and aristocratic groups – upper classes – to popular vernacular nationalism. Colonial racism was a major element in that conception of ‘Empire’ which attempted to weld dynastic legitimacy and national community. It did so by generalizing a principle of innate, inherited superiority on which its own domestic position was (however shakily) based to the vastness of the overseas possessions, covertly (or not so covertly) conveying the idea that if, say, English lords were naturally superior to other Englishmen, no matter: these other Englishmen were no less superior to the subjected natives. Indeed one is tempted to argue that the existence of late colonial empires even served to shore up domestic aristocratic bastions, since they appeared to confirm on a global, modern stage antique conceptions of power and privilege. It could do so with some effect because – and here is our second reason – the colonial empire, with its rapidly expanding bureaucratic apparatus and its ‘Russifying’ policies, permitted sizeable numbers of bourgeois and petty bourgeois to play aristocrat off centre court: i.e. anywhere in the empire except at home. In each colony one found this grimly amusing tableau vivant: the bourgeois gentilhomme speaking poetry against a backcloth of spacious mansions and gardens filled with mimosa and bougainvillea, and a large supporting cast of houseboys, grooms, gardeners, cooks, amahs, maids, washerwomen, and, above all, horses.20 Even those who did not manage to live in this style, such as young bachelors, nonetheless had the grandly equivocal status of a French nobleman on the eve of a jacquerie:21 In Moulmein, in lower Burma [this obscure town needs explaining to readers in the metropole], I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town. This ‘tropical Gothic’ was made possible by the overwhelming power that high capitalism had given the metropole – a power so great that it could be kept, so to speak, in the wings. Nothing better illustrates capitalism in feudal-aristocratic drag than colonial militaries, which were notoriously distinct from those of the metropoles, often even in formal institutional terms. 22 Thus in Europe one had the ‘First Army,’ recruited by conscription on a mass, citizen, metropolitan base; ideologically conceived as the defender of the heimat; dressed in practical, utilitarian khaki; armed with the latest affordable weapons; in peacetime isolated in barracks, in war stationed in trenches or behind heavy field-guns. Outside Europe one had the ‘Second Army,’ recruited (below the officer level) from local religious or ethnic minorities on a mercenary basis; ideologically conceived as an internal police force; dressed to kill in bed-or ballroom; armed with swords and obsolete industrial weapons; in peace on display, in war on horseback. If the Prussian General Staff, Europe’s military teacher, stressed the anonymous solidarity of a professionalized corps, ballistics, railroads, engineering, strategic planning, and the like, the colonial army stressed glory, epaulettes, personal heroism, polo, and an archaizing courtliness among its officers. (It could afford to do so because the First Army and the Navy were there in the background.) This mentality survived a long time. In Tonkin, in 1894, Lyautey wrote:23 Quel dommage de n’être pas venu ici dix ans plus tôt! Quelles carrières à y fonder et à y mener. Il n’y a pas ici un de ces petits lieutenants, chefs de poste et de reconnaissance, qui ne développe en 6 mois plus d’initiative, de volonté, d’endurance, de personnalité, qu’un officier de France en toute sa carrière. In Tonkin, in 1951, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, ‘who liked officers who combined guts with “style,” took an immediate liking to the dashing cavalryman [Colonel de Castries] with his bright-red Spahi cap and scarf, his magnificent riding-crop, and his combination of easy-going manners and ducal mien, which made him as irresistible to women in Indochina in the 1950s as he had been to Parisiennes of the 1930s.’24 Another instructive indication of the aristocratic or pseudo-aristocratic derivation of colonial racism was the typical ‘solidarity among whites,’ which linked colonial rulers from different national metropoles, whatever their internal rivalries and conflicts. This solidarity, in its curious trans-state character, reminds one instantly of the class solidarity of Europe’s nineteenth-century aristocracies, mediated through each other’s hunting-lodges, spas, and ballrooms; and of that brotherhood of ‘officers and gentlemen,’ which in the Geneva convention guaranteeing privileged treatment to captured enemy officers, as opposed to partisans or civilians, has an agreeably twentieth-century expression. The argument adumbrated thus far can also be pursued from the side of colonial populations. For, the pronouncements of certain colonial ideologues aside, it is remarkable how little that dubious entity known as ‘reverse racism’ manifested itself in the anticolonial movements. In this matter it is easy to be deceived by language. There is, for example, a sense in which the Javanese word londo (derived from Hollander or Nederlander) meant not only ‘Dutch’ but ‘whites.’ But the derivation itself shows that, for Javanese peasants, who scarcely ever encountered any ‘whites’ but Dutch, the two meanings effectively overlapped. Similarly, in French colonial territories, ‘les blancs’ meant rulers whose Frenchness was indistinguishable from their whiteness. In neither case, so far as I know, did londo or blanc either lose caste or breed derogatory secondary distinctions.25 On the contrary, the spirit of anticolonial nationalism is that of the heart-rending Constitution of Makario Sakay’s short-lived Republic of Katagalugan (1902), which said, among other things:26 No Tagalog, born in this Tagalog archipelago, shall exalt any person above the rest because of his race or the colour of his skin; fair, dark, rich, poor, educated and ignorant – all are completely equal, and should be in one loób [inward spirit]. There may be differences in education, wealth, or appearance, but never in essential nature (pagkatao) and ability to serve a cause. One can find without difficulty analogies on the other side of the globe. Spanish-speaking mestizo Mexicans trace their ancestries, not to Castilian conquistadors, but to half-obliterated Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs and Zapotecs. Uruguayan revolutionary patriots, creoles themselves, took up the name of Tupac Amarú, the last great indigenous rebel against creole oppression, who died under unspeakable tortures in 1781. It may appear paradoxical that the objects of all these attachments are ‘imagined’ – anonymous, faceless fellow-Tagalogs, exterminated tribes, Mother Russia, or the tanah air. But amor patriae does not differ in this respect from the other affections, in which there is always an element of fond imagining. (This is why looking at the photo-albums of strangers’ weddings is like studying the archaeologist’s groundplan of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.) What the eye is to the lover – that particular, ordinary eye he or she is born with – language – whatever language history has made his or her mother-tongue – is to the patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother’s knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined, and futures dreamed. 12. The logic here is: 1. I will be dead before I have penetrated them. 2. My power is such that they have had to learn my language. 3. But this means that my privacy has been penetrated. Terming them ‘gooks’ is small revenge. 13. The Break-up of Britain, pp. 337 and 347. 14. Notice that there is no obvious, selfconscious antonym to ‘slant.’ ‘Round’? ‘Straight’? ‘Oval’? 15. Not only, in fact, in an earlier era. Nonetheless, there is a whiff of the antique-shop about these words of Debray: ‘I can conceive of no hope for Europe save under the hegemony of a revolutionary France, firmly grasping the banner of independence. Sometimes I wonder if the whole “anti-Boche” mythology and our secular antagonism to Germany may not be one day indispensable for saving the revolution, or even our national-democratic inheritance.’ ‘Marxism and the National Question,’ p. 41. 16. The significance of the emergence of Zionism and the birth of Israel is that the former marks the reimagining of an ancient religious community as a nation, down there among the other nations – while the latter charts an alchemic change from wandering devotee to local patriot. 17. ‘From the side of the landed aristocracy came conceptions of inherent superiority in the ruling class, and a sensitivity to status, prominent traits well into the twentieth century. Fed by new sources, these conceptions could later be vulgarized [sic] and made appealing to the German population as a whole in doctrines of racial superiority.’ Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 436. 18. Gobineau’s dates are perfect. He was born in 1816, two years after the restoration of the Bourbons to the French throne. His diplomatic career, 1848–1877, blossomed under Louis Napoléon’s Second Empire and the reactionary monarchist regime of Marie Edmé Patrice Maurice, Comte de MacMahon, former imperialist proconsul in Algiers. His Essai sur l’Inégalité des Races Humaines appeared in 1854 – should one say in response to the popular vernacular-nationalist insurrections of 1848? 19. South African racism has not, in the age of Vorster and Botha, stood in the way of amicable relations (however discreetly handled) with prominent black politicians in certain independent African states. If Jews suffer discrimination in the Soviet Union, that did not prevent respectful working relations between Brezhnev and Kissinger. 20. For a stunning collection of photographs of such tableaux vivants in the Netherlands Indies (and an elegantly ironical text), see ‘E. Breton de Nijs,’ Tempo Doeloe. 21. George Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant,’ in The Orwell Reader, p. 3. The words in square brackets are of course my interpolation. 22. The KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger) was quite separate from the KL (Koninklijk Leger) in Holland. The Légion Étrangère was almost from the start legally prohibited from operations on continental French soil. 23. Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894–1899), p. 84. Letter of December 22, 1894, from Hanoi. Emphases added. 24. Bernard B. Fall, Hell is a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, p. 56. One can imagine the shudder of Clausewitz’s ghost. [Spahi, derived like Sepoy from the Ottoman Sipahi, meant mercenary irregular cavalrymen of the ‘Second Army’ in Algeria.] It is true that the France of Lyautey and de Lattre was a Republican France. However, the often talkative Grande Muette had since the start of the Third Republic been an asylum for aristocrats increasingly excluded from power in all other important institutions of public life. By 1898, a full quarter of all Brigadier-and Major-Generals were aristocrats. Moreover, this aristocrat-dominated officer corps was crucial to nineteenth and twentieth-century French imperialism. ‘The rigorous control imposed on the army in the métropole never extended fully to la France d’outremer. The extension of the French Empire in the nineteenth century was partially the result of uncontrolled initiative on the part of colonial military commanders. French West Africa, largely the creation of General Faidherbe, and the French Congo as well, owed most of their expansion to independent military forays into the hinterland. Military officers were also responsible for the faits accomplis which led to a French protectorate in Tahiti in 1842, and, to a lesser extent, to the French occupation of Tonkin in Indochina in the 1880’s . . . In 1897 Galliéni summarily abolished the monarchy in Madagascar and deported the Queen, all without consulting the French government, which later accepted the fait accompli . . .’ John S. Ambler, The French Army in Politics, 1945–1962, pp. 10–11 and 22. 25. I have never heard of an abusive argot word in Indonesian or Javanese for either ‘Dutch’ or ‘white.’ Compare the Anglo-Saxon treasury: niggers, wops, kikes, gooks, slants, fuzzywuzzies, and a hundred more. It is possible that this innocence of racist argots is true primarily of colonized populations. Blacks in America – and surely elsewhere – have developed a varied counter-vocabulary (honkies, ofays, etc.). 26. As cited in Reynaldo Ileto’s masterlyPasyón and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910, p. 218. Sakay’s rebel republic lasted until 1907, when he was captured and executed by the Americans. Understanding the first sentence requires remembering that three centuries of Spanish rule and Chinese immigration had produced a sizeable mestizo population in the islands.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

#citation 24 is gorgeous

31 notes · View notes

buzzdixonwriter · 3 years

Text

COMPARE & CONTRAST: Birth Of A Nation vs Gone With The Wind vs The General

TRIGGER WARNING: Talking about race in American culture and movies, so some readers may want to brace themselves (looking at you, wypipo).

. . .

Confining “classic films” to movies that: Demonstrate technical expertise, and Influenced other films and creators

-- we have three (and only three) movies about the American Civil War we can safely put in the classic bin.

Before we go further, let’s restate the obvious: A film’s impact in the medium of motion pictures is separate from its impact on the culture as a whole.

Case in point: Leni Riefenstahl’s The Triumph Of The Will is a perfect textbook example of how to stage massive crowd scenes for maximum visual impact, and how to promote individuals and ideas in purely cinematic terms.

It also contributed mightily to the Nazis’ rise to power, their subsequent wars of conquest, and the deaths directly and indirectly of tens of millions of human beings.

It’s important to know The Triumph Of The Will exists and why it’s important in film and cultural and political history, but you need never subject yourself to its vile hate mongering.

With that in mind, let us proceed.

. . .

Here are the three bona fide classic movies about the American Civil War:

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

The General (1926)

They are all problematic for the same reason: They embrace the “lost cause” myth of Southern white supremacists.

The Birth Of A Nation is by far the worst offender of the trio, helping to restart the Ku Klux Klan and promulgate jim crow for decades to come.

Director D.W. Griffith was a Southern boy, Kentucky born with a father who served as a colonel in the Confederate army (Kentucky, a border slave state, tried to stay neutral at the beginning of the Civil War, then leaned heavily towards secession, but by 1862 threw its lot in with the Union).

Griffith bought into the lost cause myth heavily, and The Birth Of A Nation explicitly states African-Americans are fit only for slavery, becoming a murderous / rapacious mob once freed, and the Ku Klux Klan were gallant heroes attempting to turn this tide.

Griffith tries to have it both ways, depicting Abraham Lincoln as a thoughtful and compassionate leader who would have treated the South better had he survived (ignoring the fact Andrew Johnson did everything in his power to prevent the Union from holding the South accountable, and that Lincoln’s assassin was a Southerner who killed him in revenge after the war ended).

There can be no denying Griffith’s enormous talents as a film maker (again, separating thematic content from the technical expertise). While the Hollywood publicity machine was quick to claim The Birth Of A Nation was the first feature length film (i.e., 65 minutes or more), the truth is the Australians, the Chinese, the English, the French, the Italians, the Japanese, and the Russians all made feature films long before Griffith, and Griffith wasn’t even the first American to make a feature but was preceded by at least a half a dozen other film makers.

What Griffith was, however, was a master synthesis of all the techniques that preceded him. Griffith made movies better than anyone else of his era, and his best films are still eminently watchable to this day.

That’s what makes The Birth Of A Nation so harmful and destructive: Like the Riefenstahl film, it seduced common audiences into complacency while stirring the worst people to action.

It’s a film whose final cost is not measured in dollars but in innocent blood and tears.

Griffith wasn’t stupid, and while he might have felt personally immune to the criticism of his racist attitudes, he was savvy enough to recognize publicly embracing them would not serve his career well. He followed The Birth Of A Nation with Intolerance, an epic that jumps around in its story lines like a Tarantino film, and in later movies displayed a far gentler albeit still patronizing attitude towards African-Americans.

But the damage was done, the lost cause myth cemented into not just the Southern psyche but white America in general.

Like The Triumph Of The Will, I would never recommend The Birth Of A Nation as a “must see” film to anyone. If you’re a film historian and you want to subject yourself to this cancer, that’s your choice, but if you’re a student of film there’s nothing Griffith did technically or artistically in this movie that he didn’t do better in his later efforts, and other film makers have since emulated his innovations and built upon them.

. . .

For many decades Gone With The Wind was celebrated as the pinnacle of American film making, but once the romantic blinders were removed we see it for what it is: An over long, over blown epic that promulgates what we now recognize as white supremacy, classism, and rape culture.

And while it uses every technical trick in the book, it doesn’t use them as well as Orson Welles did a year later with Citizen Kane.

Gone With The Wind is really two movies: A well made Civil War epic and its lackluster Reconstruction sequel.

They should have ended the movie with “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” (Seriously. The only two memorable scenes in the second half other than “I don’t give a damn” both center around Scarlett O’Hara’s dresses.)

Again, let’s emphasize that a technically well made movie does not excuse bad intentions in thematic content.

Gone With The Wind is a rip-roaring bodice-ripping historical novel, admittedly well research and well written by Margaret Mitchell.

She isn’t necessarily writing from a conscious desire to spread the message of white supremacy, but as a Southern gal who grew up in the midst of the lost cause myth, she ends up breathing that message into every line of the book.

The movie version can’t escape that, nor does it try to. There’s a brief scene early on where both Mitchell and the later film makers prefigure the lost cause myth where Rhett Butler explains to the good ol’ boys at the Tara cotillion that they’re about to be brutally decimated by the Union in a war of attrition, but both author and film makers side with the good ol’ boys and support their God given right to throw away their lives and destroy their homes in an attempt to keep enslaving millions of innocent people.

That last part in bold never gets mentioned, does it? As others have observed, Gone With The Wind isn’t antagonistic towards African-Americans, rather it treats them as if they don’t exist other that walking / talking props among the scenery.

In that regard, Gone With The Wind is on par with The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (only with a far superior writing style). The protagonists of all three books are narcissistic sociopaths who will lie / cheat / steal / blow up buildings because the common folk -- the people who actually put in the grunt labor to make things work -- are nothing but slaves there for the elites’ entitlements, and God (or market forces, take your pick) help them if they ever raise their heads or voices -- much less their hands -- in protest.

Oh, but doesn’t it look gorgeous? As those beautiful rich Technicolor gowns and sets and matte paintings. All those balls and dances. All those smoldering looks. All those flames as Atlanta burns…

There’s the true hero of the story: William Tecumseh Sherman. The mofo cut the Confederacy in half, destroying lines of supply and communication, obliterating any rebels who dared to stand up to him, shortening the war by several months, and freeing tens of thousands of enslaved people in the process.

None of which would have been necessary if a few greedy bastards such as the O’Haras had lived Christian enough lives to say, “Y’know, maybe the way we’re treating these people is wrong…”

Gone With The Wind proved insanely popular, on a scale with The Birth Of A Nation a generation earlier, and once again it made it easier for mainstream middle American whites to turn a blind eye to injustices still being perpetuated on African-Americans of that day.

And it kept playing again and again, one of the very few non-Disney movies to enjoy a substantial re-release schedule, popping up about once every seven years in theaters until the arrival of first cable then VHS.

And it’s still popular, still a steady seller in DVD and BluRay.

That’s in no small part to the skill of both Mitchell and the film makers in hiding the most egregiously problematic elements of the story under a think patina of romanticism. It became a cultural touchstone that everyone knew and everyone could reference, from political cartoons to Carol Burnett skits.

But it’s still racist and white supremacist, saying African-Americans exist only to serve whites.

It’s still classist, saying not all whites are worthy of what the upper class hogs for itself.

It’s still about rape culture, saying all Scarlett needed was one good rape by Rhett Butler to set her straight.

Is it a product of its era?

Absolutely. The same way over the counter heroin at your friendly neighborhood drug store was a product of its era. The same way cocaine laced Coca-Cola was a product of its era.

Just because it wasn’t recognized as a bad idea then means we should still circulate it now.

Compared to The Birth Of A Nation, Gone With The Wind is a far less hate filled work, and one that inspires less immediate harm.

It has inspired harm over several generations by making it easy to overlook the real harm it represents in favor of a romantic antebellum fantasy.

If someone wants to see a film that represents the Hollywood studio system at the height of its creative power, I’d recommend Casablanca or The Wizard Of Oz.

I’d put Gone With The Wind way down on that list, and I’d caution it with caveats, but I would say it represents a good example of the old Hollywood system firing on all eight cylinders.

At least for the first half of the film.

. . .

In most ways, Buster Keaton’s The General is the least problematic of these three films.

In another, it’s as bad as Gone With The Wind.

The good thing about The General is that modern audiences can easily enjoy it.

Buster Keaton chasing after a stolen steam locomotive? What’s not to love?

It’s one of his best comedies and if it’s not the very best, I’d hate to live on the difference.

It certainly lacks the overt racism of The Birth Of A Nation.

In fact, it almost lacks any race at all.

And ironically, that’s what makes it a problem.

In researching this post, I re-watched The General, something I wasn’t willing to do for The Birth Of A Nation or Gone With The Wind.

I re-watched it looking for African-American faces anywhere in the film.

I think I found four.

Two porters lugging a trunk in an early scene at a train station, possibly two small children with their backs turned to the camera at the edge of a crowd about ten minutes later.

That’s it.

In a movie about one of the most crucial events in American history, an event entirely predicated on the issue of the enslavement of millions of African-Americans…that’s it.

Four faces.

Total screen time: Less than a minute.

If critics can justifiably lambast Gone With The Wind for sailing over the bloodied backs of millions of enslaved African-Americans to focus on the luxury liner S.S. Scarlett O’Hara, what can they say about a Civil War movie that almost succeeds in eradicating those enslaved humans from the story?

Paradoxically, this makes The General the safest of these movies to show an unsuspecting audience.

The Civil War is boiled down to the dark uniform army fighting the light uniform army; why they were fighting is never explored in detail.

But the lost cause myth was so prevalent at that point that Keaton and company didn’t need to discuss the causes of the war.

Audiences – even those completely ignorant of U.S. history -- automatically assume the light uniform army are the good guys simply because Buster is on their side.

Buster would never do anything bad, would he?

Of course not!

And so -- =poof!= -- millions of people erased from history.

Top that, Thanos.

To be honest, I don’t know how a modern audience should react to that, in particular an African-American audience.

Disappointment at being culturally short changed again?

Relief at being spared the most egregious stereotyping and white supremacy apologies?

Or just plain enjoy Buster chasing after a stolen locomotive?

The General’s cultural weightlessness helps it become a great film.

It’s a purely cinematic endeavor, with the intertitles used primarily to explain the spies’ and military leaders’ plans and motives, not tell us what Buster is thinking and doing.

For a guy called “the great stone face” Buster could be awfully expressive with his body language, and he needs title cards the least of all the performers in this movie

. . .

So where does that leave us, as a 21st century audience in a 21st century culture?

We can neither deny nor ignore the impact of these three films. Even The Birth Of A Nation, as vile and as hateful as it is, influenced the country and the countries attitudes for a century.

Gone With The Wind feels like something we’ve outgrown, something some audience members can look back on with fondness, but not anything we can fully embrace again.

The General can still make us laugh, and in this case the sin of omission seems far less than the others’ sins of commission.

Learn from the past.

Do better in the future.

#race relations #movies #art #cinema #morals #ethics #politics #Birth Of A Nation #Gone With The Wind #The General #DW Griffith #Buster Keaton

7 notes · View notes

lorewytch · 3 years

Text

The Crimes of Scrooge McDuck

SPOILERS! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS

Thank you,

Now onto business. I haven’t done any real responses to the previous episodes because I didn’t have a lot to say. I was fine with most of the episodes..if only nitpicking things here and there. But that’s just the creative mindset.

Scrooge has always been one of my favorite characters...and here’s why.

He’s deeply flawed, which is very very human.

No one is perfect. We all have our flaws and Scrooge’s flaws were carved into him with his hard life having to basically claw his way to the top for something that was very precious and important to him. My mom was poor too and the need to hold onto what you have is a deeply seeded drive that can be hard to break. He’s been obviously betrayed and deeply scarred from his life. One thing being Goldie betraying him constantly to the point of him expecting it and accepting it as a part of who she is. Like that.. during the times of events with Poe and Magica, which are selfish..Scrooge necessarily wasn’t a good person then. Around that time he very much was disconnected with his family and held harsh feelings about families in general.

He made mistakes, and as such mistakes can really hurt others to the point of they themselves being created as the villainous monsters that he faced. Now Scrooge has learned a lot and changed. This episode I think wanted to emphasize Scrooge’s maturity. He is no longer the one without compassion and empathy that he once was. His family brought back those deeply hidden emotions and I really liked how that was brought into this episode. We are all complex individuals with our emphasis on right and wrong...good and evil and what makes a good person. But there is usually more to the story than you see on the surface. Revenge is a dish best served cold..but it can also be never ending. Hate infects others with a rapid and devastating capacity and can quickly snuff out ones logical and common senses. It’s okay not to like someone..but just remember that causing harm to others can often have a rebound affect on yourself.

But I do like Louie’s point.. loose as it was for Scrooge getting his wealth and the town back. Everything has balance. Without his enemies Scrooge probably wouldn’t be the man he was that day. Magica whether she wanted to or not brought them back together at the end of season one. And there are different kinds of ‘sentences’ one could be given. Scrooge spent a majority of his own life isolated. Which as a whole must have felt like a eternity of emptiness...isn’t that punishment enough for his own crimes? And in a way there’s also another thing that bothers me. I feel like the justice system is wrong in the sense that it just punishes people who are bad..making the situation in a way worse for the person. It doesn’t change them mostly. But offering someone compassion and a chance to do better is something worth pursuing. It should never be.. just about punishment I feel like and because Scrooge had learned to become compassionate and empathetic and apologize from his heart. This is why Justice slid in his favor. Justice isn’t just about punishment. And in a way he was responsible for certain things but honestly.. the creation of his villains seems rather shaky. As Louie said..it doesn’t hold weight because quite a few were already bad from the start. The question about this is did Scrooge create his villains? No. No one can create villains on their own. Magica, Glomgold and Ma were all nurturing the darkness within their own hearts. They weren’t forced to make the decision to become villains by someone else. It’s not so black and white and there could be millions of others perceptions that differ than my own. But this is how I personally feel because creating and growing the darkness like that within you is part of your own struggle. Others can help it along with certain actions but ultimately its you and you alone that makes that decision to cross a line.

Now.. Ducktales won’t delve so deeply into that like I did. But that’s what I got from it. I think what Justice did was right because Scrooge isn’t the same man who did those things and punishing him now would really do nothing to change anything. Actions do speak louder than words and I am sad we don’t see more of Magica and Poe. Because I feel that is a path worth exploring with Scrooge especially. He may try to find Poe to make amends to Magica. I would love to see a plot like that. I just wanted more Poe in general lol. Who is excited for the final episode? I’m half dreading it.. half excited.. I’m sooo worried for Webby...I may or may not think about starting another fanfic (I know I know.. I have like two? three? I need to finish but omg) I’m soooo sad to see this series go..and I’ll be even sadder for those in the fandom who will move on. I’ll probably stick around for quite a while yet. I do want to finish..but I’ve been struggling myself lately with things so it’s kinda a long road at this point.

Anyways, talk to everyone later ^^

#The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck #Spoilers #Ducktales #Long arse essay here #Lore's ramblings #Magica #Scrooge #Poe #Enemies #responsibility #rant #Some slightly dark stuff here #YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

8 notes · View notes

surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

Text

Survey #309

“show me how to lie - you’re getting better all the time / and turning all against one is an art that’s hard to teach.”

Have you ever played Jackbox Games? If so, which ones of their party games are your favorites? No, but I looooove watching Mark and The Boys play them on charity streams. They can make up the funniest shit. I can't recall the name of the specific one I'm thinking of... but I enjoy watching most of them. I do think one or two are boring, though. Do you have artistic friends? If so, have you got their artwork displayed? I have some very talented friends, but I don't have anything of theirs displayed somewhere. Have you ever considered pole dancing? Why/why not? No. It takes an incredible amount of strength, plus confidence I don't have. That and I'm just not into it. What's the last thing you fixed yourself? Uhhhhhhh bitch I couldn't tell ya. Are there any CDs you've held onto for sentimental reasons? No. Did you read the Barbie magazines with comics made with the actual dolls? "I didn’t know that was a real thing." <<<< Me either. What's the last thing you knitted? I've never knitted before. Who was your first online friend? Emma. :') She was the first person who joined my RP mob back in the Animal Planet forum days. Why do you take surveys? Be honest. Boredom, distraction, and sometimes I just wanna ramble about whatever. Does mail get delivered to your door or do you have a mailbox outside? Our mailbox is by the side of the road at the end of our driveway. Your doorbell rings out of the blue. What's your reaction? Let Mom answer it. I don't answer the door ever if I don't expect someone or can peek outside and don't recognize them. Are all the lamps in your home LED or other energy saving lights? I don't know. Do you prefer writing by hand or typing? Typing. I can't write very long at all before my carpal tunnel flares up. Think of one of the biggest decisions you've had to make in your life...If you made a different choice, how different would your life be now? I'd be dead, that simple. Have you ever taken a course on CPR? No. What makes you laugh most effortlessly? You can guess it pretty easily. What makes you cry most effortlessly? I make it a rule that I "can't" listen to "Eternally Yours" by Motionless In White because there hasn't been even ONE occasion where it hasn't made me cry, even when I was stupid enough to binge it because it's just a good song. I've broken that "rule" before because I do just genuinely enjoy the song, but I know the pain truly isn't worth it, so I haven't heard it in a decently long time. What is the best smell in the whole world? Cinnamon rolls, probably. My body wash is currently that kind of smell, and Jesus Christ it's the best part of showering. Do you wear a watch? No. Can you tell time from an analog clock? Yes. What a time it'll be when kids can't anymore... Is there a number or a combination of numbers that feels important to you? Only dates, but not numbers themselves. What is the most socially awkward thing you've done? *gestures at my life as a whole* Is your computer decorated in any way? No. If your old class was to have a reunion, would you attend it? No. No. I don't want to relive my high school experience; it would be too painful for me to willingly walk into. What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you? I would say "the breakup," but technically it was letting him basically own me and my every neuron of joy. Not by his will of course, but my own. I was stupid and just... handed those rights over without really realizing it. I can harp forever and ever and EVER about the importance of making sure you own yourself and your emotions. Do you ever donate money to charity? If so, which charity and why? Blah blah blah, I don't get an income, you know this. Whenever I do, I 100% plan on donating to every charity stream Mark ever hosts again, as well as some other people's. I'd love to donate to a lot of places. Would you ever want to get married? If so, why? Yes, because society has made it too instilled in me that it's just like... this ultimate validation of "forever" with your partner, even though I know you can be just as or even far more invested in your relationship without marriage. The only *true* benefit of marriage imo is for legal and financial reasons, but yeah, I still want it. Like I said, it's too deeply embedded in that brain of mine that it's a relationship goal. Why do you live the way you do? I'm not even living the way I want to, so... Have you ever abused an animal? No, and I say "fuck you" with every ounce of sincerity and loathing if you have. Do you think animals are less important than humans? If so, why? Nope. We share this earth and grew from the same roots, so what *really* makes us better? We might be smarter (generally) and more developed as the apex predator, but that does not equate to being more important than, say, even a gnat. That creature has the exact same level of rights to be here as the human species does. I could go on and on and on about this topic. How close was the last person close to you who has died? Not extremely, but she was still important to and loved by me. Grandma and I were very, very different and butted heads more than once, but her love was unconditional, and she showed boundless kindness to others. She showed a courage I see as unmatched in the face of death. I truly, deeply, in the very core of my heart hope she is at peace and experiencing all joys she ever wished for. How does death in general make you feel? Well, it depends on how I'm looking at it. I fully accept it is an inevitable phase in simply existing that none of us will ever evade, so it's not exactly terrifying to me, though of course I don't want it anytime soon. If I'm thinking about people I love dying, I definitely get sad about it and scared of that possibly eternal separation. Is there a person you absolutely loathe? If so, why do you loathe them? Not that I know personally, no. Has anyone ever told you that you're rude? If so, what caused it? No; I think I'm very mannerly, honestly. Have you ever seen a therapist? I've regularly seen therapists since I started middle school. I advocate for everyone to have one, honestly, whether you have a mental illness or not. Have you ever been homeless? In technical terms, yes, but a friend let me stay with her until Mom and I settled into a new place. Have you ever been completely broke? That's the actual story of my life. Well, not me personally considering I've never had to take care of myself financially, but my mom struggles very, very badly with this, and mind you, she's frugal. Just disgustingly underpaid when she worked, and her current status with disability isn't exactly incredibly generous. I live under her roof, so. Have you ever had a steady job? No. Have you ever needed a loan? If so, what for? Have you paid it back? Yes, for school, and no. I do NOT want to know how in debt I am with schools. Have you ever wanted to go to space? Not seriously, no. What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen or heard? I am 99.99% sure mine and Jason's old roommates were having some ~kinky~ sex once while I was alone on the couch against their bedroom. Preeeetty sure the girl was making meowing sounds. They were furries (who I want to emphasize have zero judgment from me; I actually think they're very brave and creative), so that was... something I definitely wasn't used to hearing, haha. What has been the most exciting moment of your life thus far? Probably when Mark N O T I C E D me on Tumblr by reblogging a gif I made of him and his pupper, and I LITERALLY struggled to sleep for three days lmfaoooo. How many birds can you name just by looking at them? Uhhhh a pretty decent amount, I'd say. Which birds are most common around your neighborhood? Crows, sparrows, cardinals and bluejays if you're lucky, robins... pretty basic stuff like that. What do you think is the most interesting sea creature? Octopi are absolutely fascinating with their intelligence. How do you reset your head to zero, so to speak? Take a nap. That usually works. Have you ever gone exploring an abandoned building? Yeah, I love that shit and really wish I could do it more. Bring my camera, too. Are there any foreign television shows you enjoy watching? Some animes. Do you have any clocks in your house that chime when the hour changes? Do those types of clocks annoy you? No. I actually quite like them, though. Has anyone ever let you borrow some of their music, promising you'd love it, but you really didn't? Did you lie to the person and agree, or tell the truth, that you hated it? My dad lent me his Shinedown CD once clearly without thinking I could just look up the album online, haha... He's an old clueless man, leave 'im be. But anyway, of course I listened to it for him and I enjoyed it; I especially loved "The Human Radio," "Kill Your Conscience" and "Pyro." Have you had the same doctor pretty much your whole life, or have you went to a bunch of different ones over the years? Have you ever been to the doctor thinking something was horribly wrong with you, but it turned out to be something minor? Mine has changed a few times, but I haven't had "a bunch." As for the second question, not to my recollection. Is the background on your phone a default picture, or a picture you took? What is the picture of? The lock screen is a pastel-styled list of mental health reminders: "i am strong, i am loved, i am enough." My home screen has been some adorable meerkat pups for a while, which I didn't take. What is your favorite type of print (ex: zebra, stripes, argyle)? Do you have a lot of things with this print on it? Ummmm maybe plaid? No. Are there any stores you feel uncomfortable going into (ex: if you dress girly, do you feel uncomfortable going into Hot Topic)? Are there any stores that you refuse, or just never go in to? The only situation I could think of would be a sex shop. That'd be so fuckin uncomfortable. What is your favorite brand of clothing? Is this a brand that is sort of expensive, or is it pretty affordable? I'm heavily biased towards Cloak, haha. I just support anything and everything Mark takes part it, and it's his and jacksepticeye's business. I have one shirt and it's genuinely great quality and reall comfy. I wouldn't call its products expensive, but they're not cheap, either. What person do you text the most? My mom or Sara, depending on the day. Do you have any pictures that always make you laugh, or cry? Are they digital pictures, or printed pictures? What is the significance? No. Not pictures I have anymore, at least. Have you ever eaten raw pumpkin? Omg I would never. I hate the flavor of any sort of pumpkin food. Does your car have a name? I don't have my own car, but Mom jokingly calls hers "Olivia." Who was the last person you made plans with? One of my sister's in-laws that's actually the mother of one of my closest friends contacted me to plan some family pictures. What is the rudest thing someone has done recently towards you? I can't think of anything recent. How do you feel about your hair right now? It needs to be trimmed and dyed. How fast have you driven a car? I think accidentally leaning towards 80 on a highway. When you're hanging out with friends + you become bored, do you just leave or endure the boredom? Given I can't leave without a car, I deal with it. What did you last plug into your computer? What were you doing with this? The charger for obvious reasons. What color(s) have you dyed your hair? Red, purple, black, then red, purple, and lighter brown highlights. I really wish I could dye it more and actually have the color stick... Was your first kiss perfect? It was to me. What song did you hear last? I have "Over The Mountain" by Ozzy on now. (: Does anyone have any blackmail on you? No. Have you ever walked into the guys' bathroom? HA, once during a teacher work day (my mom was an assistant) at my elementary school. My sisters and friends went in there to be little "rebels." I remember being mega confused with urinals, haha. Then as a teen and adult, I've been in the dance studio's boy's restroom as well as a church's to help Mom clean. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? My therapist. Are you shy? I am VERY shy. Are you talkative? Generally, no, but when I'm in a very good mood, I tend to be. Has your most recent ex ever seen you cry? Oh jeez, she saw me wail once. When was the last time you were called "cute"? I'm not sure. Would you rather be called "hot", "cute" or "beautiful"? "Beautiful." Do you have a little sister? Yep. Definitely not "little" anymore, though. About to have her Master's in social work... How many arguments have you had with the last person you kissed? Given our childhood, we've fought a lot, but mostly just as kids over very, very stupid things. As adults, we've had a serious argument once or twice and then just some very minor disagreements sprinkled in there. Do you know anyone who's been arrested? Oh yes. What're you planning on doing after this? Another survey. What time did you go to sleep last night? Damn, it wasn't even 8:00. I was EXHAUSTED and actually slept decently for once in my life. Do you like waking up to good morning texts in the morning? I mean, I'd think most people would. It's a sweet, easy way of someone showing they care and think about you. Have you left some things unsaid with a certain person? Yeah. What was the last thing that made you happy? We had syrup to add to my breakfast, haha. I don't know if these are a thing everywhere, but I looove what we just call "pancakes on a stick," which is like a corndog, but with sausage and pancake batter. Dipping it in syrup is amaaaaaaziiiiiiing. Do you like the smell of rain? I don't love it, but it's refreshing sometimes. It's mostly just associated with a bittersweet memory, so it can be triggering to smell. I know, that sounds immensely stupid. What was the last thing you took a picture of? A very, very relatable meme to show Sara, haha. She doesn't have a Facebook, so that'll do. When you go to McDonald's, what drink do you usually get? I always get a Coke. What’s the nickname of your home state? Tar Heel State, from discovering tar in the since aptly-named Tar River. Have you ever thought about your wedding? I mean duh. What’s the worse type of weather in your opinion? Hot and humid, ugh. Especially right after a summer afternoon thunderstorm. It's unbearable. You can't fucking breathe outside, and you set one foot out of the door and it's soaked. Do you have a Kindle or iPad or neither? Neither. Would you rather read or write? Write. When was the last time someone took a picture of you? The time Misty visited last month and we were taking family pictures. Would you rather see Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood in concert? I wouldn't pay for either or even willingly go to one or the other, but if I had to go for whatever reason, Carrie. She has a beautiful voice as well as a good handful of songs I actually like. I'm not a Taylor fan; there are only like, two old songs by her I enjoy. When someone screws you over, do you get back with revenge? No. I may not be the best at adulting, but damn, I'm not that bad. Name something negative that you hate about yourself? I overthink like a motherfucker. About everything. Is there a dead end road near where you live? I live on one. Huh, that's actually been the case three times... wow. Four if you count the apartment. Who are you tired of seeing in the news a lot (celebrities)? I don't care. I don't even pay attention to the news, other than Covid updates. Have you ever had to call and complain about a product you bought? No. Name something positive you love about yourself: I care a lot about people. Can you smell anything right now? No, besides however my house naturally smells that I'm numb to. Have you spoken to a relative on the phone today? No. How does alcohol affect you? I flush in my face very obviously, and I become more outgoing and talkative. Have you ever eaten tofu and if so, did you enjoy it? I've never tried it, but I very much doubt I'd enjoy it. What was the last type of meat you ate? Pork. What colour is your toothpaste? Blue and white. Have you ever been suspended from school? No. Have you ever inhaled helium? Once, I believe. Are you a fan of Adam Sandler? Yeah, I think he's pretty funny and a talented actor. What was the last fruit you ate? An apple. A candied apple for Valentine's Day, but still an apple, haha. Have you ever watched Parks and Recreation? With Sara's family, yeah. It was fine. Have you watched a movie this week? I haven't watched a movie in many months. Have you set an alarm today? Yeah, just to ensure I was up for group therapy today. Have you asked someone for advice today? No. What was the last website you were on, other than this one? YouTube. Have you ever been to Hawaii? No, but it'd be cool. Well, thinking about the humidity... Have you watched more than an hour of TV today? No; I haven't watched television in a long time. Do you keep magazines by your toilet? No. The last time you got dressed up, where did you go? I got my makeup done and put on a dress for a Halloween "witch" shoot with my friend and some other people. The pictures pretty much don't exist because they're blurry as shit and way too dark because we left too late. I don't know why we even left the house to do it by the time everyone figured their shit out. I was really disappointed because I thought Summer made me look really, really pretty. ;_; Did the one person who hurt you the most in your life apologize? Yes, but I don't know if he really meant it. He might have just wanted me off his back, but I kinda feel now that he meant it, at least regarding how it happened. Are you proud of who you are? Only in the sense that I think I have a good heart. Otherwise, no. I've accomplished so little. Have you ever been to Costco? We don't have those here, so no. Do/did you have to wear a uniform to your high school? No, thank Christ. Only in middle school. How many video games do you own? A whole lot. Have you ever been to a casino? If so, which one(s)? No. Have you ever visited a sex shop? No. How many sets of keys do you have for your house? One. Do you give spare keys to your place to your friends and family? Our landlord/family friend has one. Then obviously my sisters do, too. Have you ever ridden a bicycle through a busy city? Oh hell no. Do you use Instagram? How often do you post there? Yes, two for each of my photography "styles." I don't post a lot myself, but I react to stuff. When was the last time you high-fived someone? I believe the last time I was at my sister's and my nephew caught a Pokemon on his first throw in Pokemon GO. He and his sister LOVE that game; that's the first thing they ask to do when I come over, haha. Their dad doesn't like it because it's "evil" (which he finds most things, really...), and it's something I could roll my eyes into the back of my head about, but I still have to respect his parenting and ask if they can play it first. He let's 'em, just not long. He also took away the Pikachu plushy I gave Aubree because it's her favorite one. :^) Guess who doesn't fuckin like him lmao. Do you like writing? How often do you write? I love writing! I don't do it very much nowadays except through surveys, though. RP is kinda on pause, so surveys is really how I just get stuff out, even if it isn't creative. Are there any posters or artworks hanging in your living room? Artwork and family photos, yes. What's your favourite place to get pizza? I'm a basic bitch that loves her some Domino's. How many times have you been to the beach? Quite a few times. We live only like two hours away, and considering Myrtle Beach is a common dance competition location, we've been a couple handfuls of instances. Has there ever been a fire inside your house? Tell me the story. No. After we moved out of my childhood house though that we actually owned, the fucking idiots who were moving in completely roasted it to pitch by setting boxes on the goddamn stove and accidentally turning it on. The house had to be entirely rebuilt. My parents were livid considering it was THEIR house. Have you ever had a scary encounter with a wild animal? No. What was the best school project you remember doing? I actually really enjoyed the huge essay I did on toxic masculinity the last time I tried college. I've always been very firm about letting men be humans and not emotionless robots, but I learned a lot more while researching and writing. Name a video game you can play over and over again: Shadow of the Colossus is #1. I've beaten it at least 30 times, maybe even 40+; it's been too long since I've seen the save files. It's a relatively short game (you can beat it in less than like, four hours if you know what you're doing) and just very relaxing yet simultaneously absolutely epic to me. God, I want a PS4 to play the remaster, like beyond words. It looks incredible, and I want to try to get white Agro. Have you ever petted a cow, a sheep, or a pig? A pig, yes. I love pigs.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''you're gonna go far kid'' by the offspring

3 notes · View notes

booksneedcaffeinetoo · 4 years

Text

Book Review: House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

This review is going to be LITTERED with SPOILERS because idk how to talk about this book without giving away the whole plot.

Consider yourself officially warned.

I’m still debating on my rating, but for now here is my review. Fair warning: it is rant-y and ramble-y and hasn't been edited yet. I'll clean it up when I come back for a rating.

As always, content warnings are listed at the bottom!

Overall Positives:

• SJM has actually included a few gay characters….now they are all very minor side characters (Isiah, Fury, Juniper, and Declan) who are only present for maybe 3% total of the novel, but at least they exist??? So she gets points for actually having gay characters who aren’t killed off. You can say that she’s making an effort.

• The banter between Bryce and Hunt was pretty funny

• That scene with the knock-off My Little Pony dolls was funny

• I think there might've been a reference in the book to First Aid Kit (the sister folk duo) and it made my heart squeal because I love that band SO MUCH!

• Bryce actually has a great relationship with her mom and her stepfather! And they are both alive! And stay alive! I’m actually struggling to recall a book I’ve read where the main character in the book has a). both parents alive and b). a great relationship with them both. So that was really refreshing!

• Hunt in a sunball cap.

• Bryce and Hunt taking photos together. Way too adorable.

• Ride or die friendship. I love books that emphasize the importance of friendship.

• That LIGHT IT UP DANIKA LIGHT IT UP LIGHT IT UP scene....like i felt that...her happiness. so sweet. i teared up at that scene ngl....

• Pretty good depiction of grief. How even after years the pain of losing your friend doesn’t go away. How some people cut themselves off to cope and others don’t. How some take out their anger on the closest target. How some people remember the dead one’s birthday and other don’t. etc. etc.

• It really was a slow burn because they like didn’t even kiss until 75% into the 3,000 page book.

• Rhun is my favorite character in this book. He’s a goth softie king. I also loved the Demon Cat. And Fury. And Declan. And Flynn. And Isaiah. And Hunt. And Lele. And the dog. And Jesiba. And Randall. And….well….that’s about it….

• I have recently been getting more and more into Urban Fantasy so I am excited and glad that this book is UF. I also like how it takes place in a different world with a different history (although for some reason I went into this book under the impression it takes place in New Orleans…)

Overall Negatives:

• If I ever have to see the word “alphahole” again it will still be too soon. I get that she was going for meta and trying to poke fun at how the trope in so many UF books includes an alphamale love interest….but it just doesn’t really work because none of the guys she was calling an alphahole was actually acting like one??? Okay so this is kind of ramble-y but whatever. When I think of an alphamale love interest acting like a…*shudders*…. alphahole I think of the stereotypical shifter romance/erotica novel where the guy likes wants to punch any guy who stands too close or talks to his mate. I think of him making outrageous claims, always posting a guard, never letting her leave the house, etc. all without any cause. Having a literal demon serial killer who (at this point in the book) you believe RIPPED APART AN ENTIRE PACK OF WEREWOLVES and is killing everyone who is close to working on the same case as you and you are a half-fae who NEVER carries a weapon with you, doesn’t have magic, and no one beside your mom, stepdad, and dead bestie know that you can turn into a flashlight at will…..yeah it makes sense that the people who care about you would like you to have a guard. But that’s not “alphahole” behavior. Nor is when you’re starving yourself from guilt him being concerned and wanting you to eat, or wanting you to try to take care of yourself….that’s not “alphahole” behavior, it’s being a good friend/sibling. If someone wanted a guard on her PRIOR to her investigating the murder than yeah….that would be “alphahole” 100%. But that’s not what happened…one of the highlights of the book was Hunt calling out Bryce by telling her that she is actually the “alphahole” here.

• Fucking sunball = baseball. WHYYYYYY I thought it was soccer for so long until Hunt tossed on a “sunball cap”

• I thought that Violet Hall from Pucked was the most infuriating main character I have read in a long time until I met Bryce fucking Quinnland. It is a pet peeve of mine when a character acts like someone (usually lazy or a partier) and then gets pissed because people think they are how they act??? Like, if you act like an asshole then don’t be shocked if people think you are an asshole. Also she was someone who was terribly selfish and stupidly reckless for no reason for 99% of the book. Yeah she’s ride or die for her friends which is supposed to be her best quality but she is just terribly rude to so many people. Like take Lele for example. Bryce treated her horribly until Hunt was sold again, then was friends with Lele for like a week which someone equated to Lele being willing to die for her???

• Part two of that bullet above^: Why was everyone willing to die for Bryce? Maybe I hate Bryce because she reminds me too much of Jane Salone from The Bold Type with her ‘I’m always right’ attitude. But yeah, everyone is willing to die for her. I don’t get why though. Also everyone wants to fuck her. She can’t walk down the street without like five dudes wanting to fuck her. It was so annoying. Also how the hell has she not died by age 25!?!? There is a different between being bitchy with your algebra teacher versus being bitchy with some guy who could smite you before you blink. And all of them are like ‘oooh she’s not afraid of me like everyone else how charming’ and I’m just like NO. That’s like if I intentionally pissed off some mafia dom and instead of making an example out of me for dissing him in front of his mafia bros, he’s like ‘oooh you’re sassy wanna fuck?’ MAKES NO SENSE!!!

•Part three of the above^: okay before someone comes at me and says ‘well would you be saying the same things if she was a guy doing an acting this way’ well probably. I love the KATE DANIELS (Magic Bites) series. And Kate is a no-nonsense, can come across rude, and gives zero fucks what anyone else thinks about her. Kind of like Bryce, but less bitchy and has the power and skills to back up her recklessness. (No one around Bryce learns of her secret lightbright gift or of her sharpshooting skills until the very end so I am maintaining my ‘she’s reckless’ viewpoint based on everyone around her not knowing of her abilities when she does all of this dumbshit). Kate also is a fucking martyr who runs towards danger even when the odds are against her. Just like Bryce. But I love Kate and hate Bryce. So…yeah I think it was just a Bryce issue. It took until about 41% with the whole phone-Sandriel thing for me to stop finding her insufferable….but I still never really liked her after that...I could stand her for the occasional paragraph or two

• Speaking of martyrs…why is everyone one in this book!?!? NOT EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE A MARTYR!!!

• Another reason I hate Bryce (yes I’m back on that Bryce shit) is because after Hunt broke her heart he immediate thought upon learning who he was going to be sold (back to his old owner who is a sadistic fuck) her thought was good, he deserves it and all he did was break her heart and not want to be a slave anymore and kept something he knew would destroy you (which yeah, keeping that secret furthered his cause but still…) and I just????? Have???? No words???? Like girl you have a RIGHT to be PISSED but jfc that doesn’t equate to TORTURE.

• Ugh and then her whole ‘take me instead’ bullshit was so reminiscent of that Jules and Emma whipping scene from Lady Midnight I almost gagged for the level of cheese and martyr-syndrome

• Why is everyone described as “brown,” “golden brown,” or “tan”?! It’s like SJM is trying to not make everyone white but doesn’t want to fully commit…

• And was anyone uncomfortable/cringed at the ‘white angel wings are supreme to any wings with color’ bit....

• I hate books where the werewolves can talk outloud in human form. I cringed.

• Why was the calling people by their last name thing not consistent? I’ve read books before where characters flip between using another character’s first and last name, but there is context behind why they choose one or the other: the professional setting, if the person is happy or upset, who is being addressed, etc. But you’ll get Hunt calling Bryce “Bryce” and “Quinnland” within a sentence of each other? And literally every character did stuff like this. It was weird and not consistent at all.

Negatives About the Plot:

• This book really felt like three books in one: Part One (first 12ish%) being the day leading up to the Pack of Devil’s murder. And I do mean like every boring thing that happened. Part Two (the next 66ish%) being the murder investigation. Part Three (the last 22ish%) being where all the action occurred. The book felt like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. The summary promised a murder investigation so I was expecting it to be a KATE DANIELS-esque plot. But nothing of true importance really occurred during that investigation. We got some cool flashbacks with Danika, and some sweet moments between Hunt and Bryce…but that’s it. SJM isn’t Brandon with a Stormlight Archives (The Way of Kings) complicated interwoven plot. I think the book as whole would have been better if it was about 300 pages shorter.

• Nothing in the plot of true importance happened until the last 100 pages or so.

• I mean we literally got every single thing that happened during every single day of their investigation…it was….too much detail.

• When I got to 80% like every other chapter felt like the book should end. It could’ve ended on a cliffhanger. Like right after Hunt was found on that boat. But nope….

• Figures. SJM can’t have a main couple unless they both are super special. Did anyone else feel like she just recycled parts of ACOMAF in this book? Hunt: has wings and super special powers. Bryce: absorbs some super-fae juiced up power from a cauldron—er….I mean arch—to get extra powers and become the most super cool and super special fae in all existence because god forbid we have a heroine who isn’t the most physically powerful person ever. I mean, to hell with mental strength. Must be physically magically powerful or you’re no good!

• The only plot points that surprised me were the hunt being at the drug bust (because we got nothing from his povs that he was remotely interested in going back down that revolution road especially after his whole meeting with Briggs…still iffy with this one, because his thoughts in that cell sound like he actually was on board with it until he called it off because the drug is too dangerous but his call to the viper queen said she owed him a favor so…..) and Micah’s weird horn hard-on. Literally nothing else surprised me...

• I really though Reid would play a bigger role considering Bryce used to date him and is fam is responsible for that drug....but nope. The dude is like never even mentioned.

• Ugh...that villain speech. Maybe I'm just like...what's the point? Why not just zap the bitch why do you need to tell her your life story!?!?!

• Also let's be real, Danika's password never would have been allowed to be that simple nor remain unchanged for 2 years. But whatever.

• It’s also pretty cringe that Bryce freed Lele just for her to die…………..

• Why is Jesiba’s shop impenetrable (the building and cameras) until it’s convenient for it not to be…I mean it sounded like nothing could break into her building or the cameras but then… Micah just easily waltzed in there and Declan easily hacked into the security cameras….makes no sense but okayyyyyyy…..

• ....or about how the dog can teleport and undo locks until once again it's convenient for him not to be able to so she can dramatically save the day (look I also have issues with her valuing her pet's life over Lele's in that scene...also isn't the dog supposed to be like terrifying, it could've fought while her and Lele got out. not really sure how the water which delayed him like two seconds helped more than her dog would've....look, i love pets and i don't want him to die but i don't want Lele to die either!)

• Bryce and Hunt literally never have a talk about everything???? Like I get the world almost ended but neither of them had a thought like I know we need to talk about everything that happened on the boat. About if his love for Shahar trumps his love for me. But that can wait… Because those were all fears she had before but now vanished???? I get not wanted to have verbal talk but a thought from Bryce would’ve been nice.

• How can you run, carry a sword, and shoot a gun all at the same time? Still trying to figure out the logistics of that all....

• Why is SJM's adult book the least smutty thing she has written so far!?!?!?!?

• The love saves everyone and everything line is so fucking cheesy I can’t.

My Overall Feelings:

• The book couldn’t choose a plot. Did it want to be a crime book? Did it want to be ACOMAF? Who the fuck knows.

• This would have worked better as a TV series than a book. Especially that scene where Bryce is trying to save the city and everyone is just watching it happen on the jumbo screen at the summit. In book form it was just….weird….and felt disruptive...and someone could've started flying to help out. Plus I like watching shows with characters like Bryce but hate reading books with characters like her if that makes sense...

• Also if the summit is just between the leaders of CC then why did Sadriel have to be there? Why does it happen only every 10 years? Why does it have to take place outside of the city if no other leaders from other places are present?

• Why don’t we get a map of all of the other countries that were mentioned?

• This book was wayyyyyy too long. It would have been much better if it was reduced to 500ish pages instead.

• Also the character’s flip-flopped with their character development way too much. It wasn’t consistent.

• This is definitely one of the better SJM book’s I’ve read, but it won’t be one that I’ll reread. It is too long with too many boring bits in the middle.

• But hey! If you love SJM then you’ll probably love this book…

Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings: restricted eating, self-harm, drug use, alcohol consumption, implied rape, mentions of abusive relationships, suicidal thoughts, depression, emesis, slavery, terrorist attacks, grief, gun violence, death, murder, violence, torture

View all my reviews

#this review is so long it ran out of space on goodreads lol #book review #house of blood and earth spoilers #crescent city spoilers #crescent city #house of blood and earth #booksneedcaffeinetooblog

8 notes · View notes

infinitesplinters · 4 years

Text

This is an ongoing thought process I am trying to synthesize. Here is our state affairs, for both the addicted and the men of this world. We enter into a 21st century. Into a way of living that has been significantly altered from our primeval state (in good and bad ways) for about... 5000 years. Major changes. We enter into modernity, post industrialism, the internet age, and suddenly the height of mind development (by way of ego appearance and mind based perception) becomes the norm. While the development of rationality, logic, and the use of the mind as a tool for discernment and the location of truth has hit an apex, our sense of our heart and of a connection to our bodies has disappeared for many of us. We are trapped in our mind without a clear way out. Male dominated culture, which has had its uses and developed - I think - organically for biological and anthropological reasons. However, just like certain processes of natural selection and fear based instinct causing maladaptive patterns of behavior as evidenced by PTSD sufferers, so too has this “way of being” that is rooted in masculinity (overdeveloped mind based reality) caused many of us to veer into a dark, unrooted existence. While it may be true that men as a biological organism are more prone to violence, externalizing behaviors, etc. there is a case to be made that hypermasculinity is the root cause of many, many of the world’s problems. And the people it affects (it really affects everyone) substantially is men. We live a compartmentalized, limited inhumane existence - cut off from the trials and survivalist tendencies of the past, without a great purpose to move our lives forward in a world that sometimes emphasizes a lack of meaning and purpose. Our heads keep us literally cut off from everything around us. Therefore, we develop classes of drug addiction (people attempting to comfort themselves, find union with the divine, and re-root themselves in sensory experience which the mind has become cut off from), we develop people who do not feel the repercussions of their actions, who reject feeling as a necessary way of being (probably because feeling means to experience emotional pain and without a base line of feeling, any emotional pain feels overwhelming). Thereby, the maladapted (aka the normal) male is cut off from true human experience of body, sense, and heart. The overdeveloped mind, seeker of pleasure and “correct” outcome, sets a path whereby the means justifies the ends of behavior. We are literally cut off from our bodies, from any experience of the heart, from actual reality, delusional, and we are much much less for it. The philosophical debates, the endless “rational” inquiries of French existentialism (before and after, really) onward, all interesting and important, seem to create a educated malaise and feed a latent misery that is not easily overcome. Intellectualism. Hyper-rationalism. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake, not for practical ways of being. The Stoics had most of this figured out. No further debate. Yes, life is different today. Life can be a drag for any human. But this class of miserable has very little way out because the means by which the organism perceives and experiences the environment and the paradigms inherent of such a perception are the root cause of the massive amount of suffering. We deny the feminine. We deny, and I hate to pigeonhole what the feminine truly is, an emotional experience of reality (which is our true experience, by the way - study the brain, what runs the show? The limbic system). We deny the “child”-like part of ourselves who wishes to experience wonder and awe. We create a shell of hardness through which nothing but heroin, the most potent weed, liquor, violence, the degradation and subordination of others, the grip of power, and the need to be right become the antidote to a harsh, alien, insufferable existence. No wonder I have alienated myself, the mind’s job is to dissect and analyze and create difference. To create useless “knowledge”. To make a map of the world and to live only in that map, not actual experience. I have said, I am special, I am unique, I am different (which I am and so are you), but am I really so different? The bird wishes to enjoy its life, so do I. So does the cockroach, do does the fern. Women fall into this trap too, I think, by embracing this hypermasculinity. We are so far removed from our true selves. I have to know that in myself I have masculine and feminine components, both equally important, who work together in tandem to create a balance of force, of softness and hardness. Of logic and of the sensory. But the domination of any particular force or part in a system creates a broken machinery. Asymmetry is normal, natural, but nature abhors an organism divided against itself. No wonder we have so many mental health problems. It it right that women are on the surge of great progress and position in society. They are the inborn carriers, by virtue of natural archetypal manifestation, of the solution through which we will become healed. If we deny the divine feminine, we are nothing short of devils, subhuman. That is the vessel through which healing occurs. Masculinity has its place, is important, but if we lose our souls in the name of material progress and the advancement of “ideology”, what have we gained? We owe a lot of thanks certain advantages of modern life that this rigid container of mind based activity has manifested, but there is a diminishing returns. What is the purpose of this life? I think to be happy. Our minds make us very unhappy, I think. Without a proper contact to the heart, to our bodies, to the root of our existence as experiential beings, healing will not occur. The great truth is that any of us at any time are able to explore and re-experience our natural affiliation with different energies and archetypes. It requires a strong psyche, one that can reject fear and societal influence. Or circumstance, personal crisis, that drives a necessary new inquiry. It is a frightening process. Like jumping off a cliff. That has been my experience. I think, by and large, we are doing it. It is happening. None of these categories should be taken too literally. A lot of this is reductionist. The feminine aspect cannot be reduced to a list of words nor can the masculine, it is all beyond words. In all of us, there are a myriad of dynamics, energies, interactions... biological, environmental, experiential, etc. These are only rough scratchings in a post. But we as men (white men especially, I suspect) must learn to turn over our power to the “other” and trust what innate qualities the “other” has to bring to our personal psyche and our societal pain. We either trust and explore or blame and regress. In our hearts, humans are just humans who have been habituated by biology or societal pressures to adapt to a certain form. If we cut ourselves off from experience, the full experience, because of containers or forms we have adapted into (for useful and necessary purposes), we will not experience our true selves. If we cannot experience our true selves, the full breadth of what it means to be alive, surely we will destroy ourselves. We do it on an individual level and a community level. Sometimes on a racial/ethnic/multi-national level. But growth and awakening begins with each individual and thankfully, if there is such a crisis, the crisis of masculinity may be bringing many of us, myself included, kicking and screaming, to understand that how we have been living isn’t right, and what’s more, it’s not necessary. There is so much more out there for us to experience.

#thoughts #masculinity #personal

7 notes · View notes

popwasabi · 4 years

Text

“Do the Right Thing” and “the language of the unheard”

Two things tend to happen following the death of unarmed African American at the hands of law enforcement in this country.

The first are protests that often lead to heightened demonstrations of anger, which lead to police decked out in riot gear to come in and put a stop to it while property and storefronts often burn around them. The second is a condemnation of all that but less so of the brutality that led to the riots but of the riots themselves.

In America, there is a modern philosophy of “civility” at any costs, that even when angry, even when rightfully enraged by the injustices that befall a group of people, you are STILL expected to “behave” and it is YOUR responsibility to stay calm and do the right thing.

“I’m sorry, I agree with you, but I just can’t support you because of the way you demonstrated that belief” are often the words that follow.

(Image unrelated)

I’m not saying you should ignore all toxic behavior or that you can’t take issue with a movement’s methods, I’ll leave that up to you to decide, but I used to stringently believe this myself. In the wake of the Ferguson riots in 2014 where a Missouri police officer shot and killed unarmed African American Michael Brown for the crime of allegedly *check notes* stealing a box of swishers, I found myself participating in the same tone policing as much of the wider country.

“Yeah, the police were wrong to kill Michael Brown like that but also the protesters have no right to destroy their own city. That’s wrong, they should do it peacefully!” I proudly proclaimed at the time.

(Image unrelated)

Six years later my feelings on this have taken a complete 180, partially because the circumstances of our times have become exponentially more volatile but it really began with finally understanding an ending to a movie I got around to seeing in 2009; Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.”

Back in the “halcyon” days of 2009 I used to be a part of a small Myspace (yea, I know…) movie club group where we all shared various movie reviews amongst each other upon individual recommendations. One day one of these members recommended watching 1989’s “Do the Right Thing.” Up until that day I really didn’t know much about Spike Lee beyond him being a rabid Knicks fan and opinionated Clint Eastwood agitator but I gave it a watch and I liked it quite a bit.

(Shade you can hear.)

“Do the Right Thing” details a day in the life of Mookie, played by Spike himself, as he navigates his rough Brooklyn neighborhood. Throughout his day, he and his mostly black neighbors, friends, and acquaintances encounter various micro aggressions in the form of gentrifiers, white and Asian store owners who disrespect them despite being their primary customers, widespread income inequality, and of course the police who monitor their every step. The movie examines the intersection of race and how it all comes colliding together when circumstances are less than perfect specifically to those that exist in African American neighborhoods.

I enjoyed this aspect of the film, it felt real and authentic to me, even humorous at times, critiquing the very real issues black Americans face every day while also examining how other groups of people interact with them.

Where I took issue with the film, at the time, was its aforementioned climax.

At the film’s end, tensions have boiled over as Radio Raheem, one of Mookie’s friends, is called the n-word by Sal, Mookie’s white pizza store owner boss, leading to a scuffle between the two of them. Police are then called, pulling Radio Raheem away, nevermind that it was Sal’s words that ignited the fight, and put him in a chokehold and well, you know this story already…

youtube

Finally, the anger that has been rising throughout the film ignites with a growing mob agitated at Sal and his sons who they see as the main instigators. Mookie stands rubbing his face for a few moments before picking up a trashcan and tossing it at the window of the pizzeria, simply yelling “Hate!” as it crashes through.

youtube

A riot of course ensues, as the largely African American neighborhood tear the store apart, looting it of all its material goods before it burns to the ground. The next day Mookie returns to the scene of the unrest to ask Sal directly for his paycheck who angrily tells him his stunt destroyed his business to which Mookie simply retorts “Radio Raheem is dead.” The two argue for a bit but somehow ends with the two quietly understanding each other before they go their separate ways.

For the longest time I couldn’t square exactly with the ending despite my enjoyment of the movie. I never outright condemned the entire film’s message, (some people within that group I spoke of did though…), but I did find myself saying I couldn’t condone how it ended. Afterall, what did Sal do to deserve that kind of backlash, why did his storefront deserve to be destroyed? It had “nothing” to do with Radio Raheem’s death, right?

Fast forward to today and well, my attitude has definitely changed.

At this point I’m not going to spend an entire paragraph describing our current events as you all should be smart enough to know by now what’s going on but an African American friend of mine summed up these past two weeks in the most concise way possible I feel; “the results of oppression, poverty, hopelessness, and frustration is destruction and violence.”

Throughout “Do the Right Thing” Spike Lee shows us a microcosm of the effects of societal neglect and institutionalized racism has on his community. He tells us exactly why Mookie did what he did and yet still largely white viewers, which included myself at one point, were confused by this. At a certain point a person, a group of people, an entire community can only take so much before they take actions into their own hands.

When our white dominated society tells African Americans it’s “inappropriate” to protest during the national anthem, that it’s inappropriate to “make everything about race,”, ask “What about black on black crime,” respond back “#BlueLivesMatter” or “#AlllivesMatter,” when largely white Americans, especially those in power, ignore and refuse to believe all evidence that says otherwise this is what happens. These are the results of the neglected, ignored, and unheard.

(Btw, Roger Goodell can fuck all the way off with his crocodile tears until he gives a formal apology to Colin Kaepernick on behalf of the league, AT MINIMUM.)

There is a rush to judgment when the looting and rioting starts following these tragedies around the country. Nevermind the fact that police are largely the aggressors in all these interactions and attack peaceful protesters who are “doing it the right way” anyways but the blame for the destruction is almost only squared on the rioters themselves.

Cries of “Martin Luther King would have never supported this” and “He would call for peace and #unity right now!” are typical when this happens. King was a far more nuanced and complicated man than the liberal hippie that both Republicans and Democrats liken him to be and when you invoke his name to condemn protesters before the cops who actually started this you, and I cannot emphasize this enough, ARE NOT HELPING.

(If you won’t listen to me, listen to his daughter, you assholes.)

People generally want to empathize with victims but for some reason only want the perfect victim in this country. A victim that is a Saint in real life, lays down, does all the right things, and still gets hurt for it because they are “doing it the right way.” Sometimes victims are imperfect, including people who have been murdered by cops and people who loot and riot, but they STILL deserve to be heard and most importantly they deserve JUSTICE.

Nevertheless, these people are villainized to their most extreme as people are disproportionately being harassed by the cops while it all happens. Again, I cannot emphasize this enough, when you spend more time talking about “good” vs “bad” protesters you are helping those who benefit from maintaining the status quo. They WANT you to make this about those “criminals” and “thugs” who would “destroy our communities.” Nevermind, that upping the militarization of our police force only INCREASES the chances of a protest turning violent anyways.

(Tell me who is this protecting? Who is this serving?)

By making this about the “bad protesters” they drive a wedge between you and the cause so that police brutality can be maintained, so that power structures are not changed, so that you can be “protected” from people who are actually fighting for your rights right now. When the media and politicians use this kind of language, they are giving cops free reign to justify all forms of heinous means of pacifying these demonstrations, including ones that are banned in war. They want you to miss the point, they want you to forget why this started, hell they want you to forget they looted your asses long before the “rioters” looted a multibillion dollar company’s store who has more than enough insurance to recoup their losses anyways.

Spike Lee is often asked about the ending to “Do the Right Thing,” a question I would’ve asked him myself even just a few years ago, and he’s quoted as saying “only white people ever ask me that question.”

MLK’s name is often invoked when shit hits the fan in these demonstrations and while I’ll admit that I don’t like seeing neighborhoods destroyed and certainly don’t like seeing small businesses torn down and looted it’s important that King wanted us to understand why they happen and to keep our eyes on the ball:

“A riot is the language of the unheard” is important in understanding “Do the Right Thing” and this current moment we are having in history. While I have been pleasantly surprised by the near unanimous support Black Lives Matter has had across the board by people I would never thought to become radicalized there are still pockets of people who make this about the “right way” to protest.

To quote Spike Lee even he says he is unsure if Mookie did the “right thing” or not in that situation but he also says, “I know who did the wrong thing.”

Some of you might be saying still that MLK would not have supported these riots and hell, that may be true but need I remind you, there’s a reason he's not here today to tell you himself.

I’ll leave you with the same two quotes Spike left his audience in 1989 from MLK and Malcom X. I want you to read them both thoroughly and see if you have done the right thing yourselves over these past two weeks.

I truly hope you have...

youtube

Love and respect, y’all.

1 note · View note

ettadunham · 4 years

Text

A Buffy rewatch 7x09 Never Leave Me

aka tired of subtle

We did it, guys! We made it to the last season! Also, hello if you’re new, and stumbled upon this without context. As usual, these impromptu text posts are the product of my fevered mind as I rant about the episode I just watched for an hour (okay, sometimes perhaps two). Anything goes!

And I prefer today’s episode to Sleeper as a post-Big-Bad-reveal kick-off to our season’s main arc in multiple ways. Also, Willow drags Andrew. Literally.

Season 7, as a whole, struggles from the main story arc taking up too much of its time. People often hate on filler episodes, but the truth is, you can’t fill out 22 episodes of television with a singular, focused story arc. And you shouldn’t.

Not to mention that fillers are a great way to explore characters without being bogged down by an overarching plot. (So stop hating on their concept, just because some shows do them badly.)

Buffy at its best realized that these things – your main arc, your character stories and your fillers – can coexist in the same episodes. Some of the best episodes of the show are one-off stories, using a unique set-up or villain of the week while focusing on characters and pushing the season arc on some level.

Unfortunately, the structure of season 7 makes it much harder to tell these kinds of stories. Our Big Bad is ever-present, and the battles and confrontations with it are constant throughout the season, once the reveal happens in episode 7.

I’m pointing this out not to criticize Never Leave Me, but to emphasize how good it is, and why the issue of the season has more to do with trying to keep up with the pace this episode sets.

Oh, yeah. Hot takes I guess about the episode that ranks 98th on iMDB. Never Leave Me is pretty good.

(I kinda wanna look up each episode’s iMDB ranking at this point before writing up on them, just for funsies, but I also don’t want to be influenced by the popular opinions? The struggle.)

To be fair though, part of my fondness for this episode comes from my feelings regarding the previous one. Watching it, I felt like I was seeing a much better version of what a follow up to Conversations with Dead People would look like.

And a lot of that has to do with Spike. And Buffy.

I spent the last time ranting at length about how I just don’t connect with Spike, and that’s okay. Pretty much all Buffy characters are incredibly flawed, and we all relate to and/or gravitate towards different ones, based on our own experiences. I love that. I love that these are well-rounded characters who change and grow in both surprising and consistent ways.

I also like Spike much better in this episode, because his story relates to Buffy much more strongly. Which does seem to be the best way for me to find a connection to Spike in any given episode (see also: Fool for Love).

I guess another aspect is that unlike Sleeper, this episode focuses much less on his romanticism. He instead talks about his past. About the horrific things he’s done. About his and Buffy’s self-hatred. About how he understands it and that she used him now, and how he didn’t back then.

More importantly, Buffy gets to fire back. She did tell him all those things last season. It’s why she ended things with him in the first place. She also challenges his assumptions about that self-hatred as a current motivation in what’s decidedly my favorite scene of the episode.

SPIKE: “Have you ever really asked yourself why you can’t do it? Off me? […] You like men who hurt you.” BUFFY: “No.” SPIKE: “You need the pain we cause you. You need the hate. You need it to do your job, to be the Slayer.” BUFFY: “No. I don’t hate like that. Not you, or myself. Not anymore. You think you have insight now because your soul’s drenched in blood. You don’t know me. You don’t even know you. […} Listen to me. You’re not alive because of hate or pain. You’re alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance. […] You faced the monster inside you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man.”

I love this scene, because Spike posits something that’s in line with Buffy’s own fears about her relationships, something that she voices as far back as season 4. That maybe she herself seeks out these painful, dramatic romances.

…But this discussion isn’t really just about that, isn’t it? And even if Buffy hasn’t quite landed yet on how to approach her romantic history, she has plenty of self-knowledge. She knows why she hasn’t and won’t kill Spike now.

Buffy sees and believes in the best of people. Even when they don’t. And here she shows the same compassion to Spike that she did to Angel as far back as season 1.

See, she’s a protector, not a killer. And one with a huge fucking heart at that.

That’s why she didn’t kill Spike. At worst, she saw him as non-threatening to others after his chip debacle, at best, she saw a potential for him to become better.

Still. How does one reconcile this characterization of Buffy with what we see in Selfless? Has Anya not proved more than enough times that she can be better? That she’s more than just the vengeance demon she used to be?

Worse, when Buffy and Xander argue about the difference between stopping Anya then, and Willow at the end of season 6, Buffy’s argument doesn’t really make sense once you think about it. She says that they weren’t planning on killing Willow, because Willow’s human. But from everything we know of vengeance demons, there really isn’t any distinction between them and a human with powers. They still have their souls.

So the distinction Buffy makes between Anya’s and Willow’s case feels arbitrary. And so does the decision to not kill Spike at certain points of the story.

But that’s what Buffy says in Selfless, isn’t it? “Someone has to draw the line.” And in a world with no clear-cut black and white morality, that line is arbitrary.

Buffy’s been acutely aware of the fact that the world she operates in is full of grey areas ever since Lie to Me. There are no easy answers or choices, even when you’re fighting literal creatures from hell, but someone has to makes these decisions regardless. Someone has to draw the line. And that’s Buffy.

But I think that’s why she finds it all the more important to choose hope sometimes. She has to be prepared, yes, and she can’t rely on the power of love alone, as discussed before. Her responsibilities come first. But she can offer a choice.

Even in Selfless, one of the most important moments for Buffy is when she implores Xander to find her another way to deal with Anya. Which is what Willow ends up doing, by asking D’Hoffryn to offer up the same kind of choice to Anya, that Buffy felt unable to in this situation.

Never Leave Me is also the episode where the gang meets Andrew again. More accurately, Willow runs into him, and he’s terrified. As he should be.

ANDREW: “Warren killed Tara. I didn’t do it. And he was aiming for Buffy anyway.” WILLOW: “Not making it better.”

In case you missed it, this was a direct callback to another scene:

WARREN: “It was an accident, you know.” WILLOW: “Oh. You mean, instead of killing my best friend, you killed my girlfriend.”

Listen, all I’m saying that if Willow flayed Andrew after that line? I wouldn’t have blamed her.

But Willow these days is less about the murder, so instead she just stares incredulously at Andrew after that little moment of rage-inducing blunder. And they both nerd-monologue at each other, I guess?

(Sidenote: I don’t think I ever got around to mention this with the last season, but there’s an interesting and somewhat uncomfortable interpretation of the Trio, as a mirror to Willow’s own character. Mostly the worst parts of her at that of course, but there are definitely some parallels here; particularly to Warren and his tech savviness, and Jonathan and his magical abilities. Andrew is probably the least obvious example though – unless we take his relentless gay-coding as a nod to that.)

This whole storyline of course ends up being played mostly for comedy, as Anya and Xander take it upon themselves to test their interrogation techniques on Andrew. And it’s fun, too, seeing them work together without the added baggage that was their romantic relationship. It makes me both root much more for them to get back together, and wish that they wouldn’t, because they work so much better like this.

Even if Xander’s speech to Andrew is obviously supposed to be about himself, and how he’s still not over Anya.

XANDER: “There was this one guy, her hurt her real bad, so she paid him back. She killed him, but she did it real slow. See, first she stopped his heart, then she replaced it with darkness, then she made him live his life like that. But he still had to go do his job, and see his friends, and wake up in the morning, and go to bet ad night, but he had to do it all empty. Without anything to look forward to. Ever.”

Honey… I know you know this, but you did this to yourself.

Oh, and isn’t it fun that when the Harbringers attack, one of the first things they do is knock Willow unconscious? It’s almost as if the show is trying not to call attention to the fact, that she could probably take these guys out in a second with magic.

But at least this gives Dawn some chance to kick ass, so that’s always a plus.

Another side-plot that’s happening is with my boy, Robin, who finds Jonathan’s body in the basement. And decides to bury It instead of telling anyone about it.

I’m sure there’s an explanation to this other than making us believe that he’s a bad guy, but I honestly can’t even remember. We’ll see, I guess.

The episode ends with Buffy making the connection that they’re up against the First, and the First itself monologuing at Spike about how it’s tired of being subtle. Which feels very meta in an ironic kind of sense from the show, but also marks a questionable turn in the season arc.

There’s a lot of cool concept and potential (hehe) in the First as a Big Bad, that we’ve seen demonstrated in Conversations with Dead People. It knows things. It can appear as anyone you know who died. It can mess with you in infinite ways.

In this scene though, the First is talking about bringing these Uruk-hai vampires to the surface, and that’s just not as interesting as those other tactics. Even if Buffy gets to have cool fights with them.

But that’s still to come. Who knows, maybe I’ll appreciate the super vampires after all.

Also appreciated – those scene of Quentin and the Watcher’s Council being their usual, holier-than-thou selves, keeping information from Buffy, and relying on empty platitudes... immediately followed by them getting blown up.

Yeah. This show’s anything but subtle, that’s for sure.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs

3 notes · View notes

phroyd · 5 years

Link

Alabama is a Third-World Country Within The United States! - Phroyd

PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. — In the days since police officers arrested Marshae Jones, saying she had started a fight that resulted in her unborn baby getting fatally shot, the hate mail has poured in.

“I will encourage all U.S. business owners to boycott your town,” a woman from San Diego wrote on the Facebook page of the Pleasant Grove Police Department.

“Misogynist trash,” wrote another.

“Fire the chief and arresting officers,” wrote a third.

But Robert Knight, the police chief, said his officers had little choice in the matter.

“If the laws are there, we are sworn to enforce them,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

Around the country, the case of Ms. Jones — who was indicted by a grand jury for manslaughter — has served as a stark illustration of how pregnant women can be judged and punished when a fetus is treated as a person by the justice system.

Activists have also cited it as a demonstration of the dangers of the “personhood” movement, which pushes for the rights of fetuses to be recognized as equal to — or even more important than — the rights of the mothers who carry them. And many are now watching as the movement gains momentum in Alabama, which already has some of the most restrictive reproductive rights laws in the country.

But in Pleasant Grove, a city of 10,000 people on the western outskirts of Birmingham, the case appears to have caused little controversy. Gun rights are popular here. Reproductive rights are not. Many conversations in the city focused on how harshly Ms. Jones should be punished, not whether she was culpable.

Outside Hill’s Foodland, the city’s only grocery store, two mothers raising money for the Pleasant Grove middle school cheerleading squad said that both Ms. Jones, 28, and the woman who shot her should face some consequences — perhaps anger management classes — for the death of a fetus.

“In the state of Alabama, an unborn baby has the same rights as a living child,” said Sharonda Hall, 38, who just earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is hoping to attend law school. “Most people agree with it.”

Others said prison time would be appropriate. Inside a local restaurant, the Olipita Mediterranean & American Grill, Forrest Brown, 64, a retired musician, said that from what he had heard so far about the case, he believed the indictment was fair.

“You have to go by the law,” he said.

The notion that the law should treat a fetus like a person is widely held in Alabama. Lawmakers passed the most restrictive anti-abortion bill in the country in May, banning abortions at any stage of pregnancy, even in cases of rape or incest. A protest against the measure in Birmingham drew only about 2,000 people, in a metropolitan area that is home to more than one million.

Last November, Alabama voters approved a ballot measure that amended the state’s constitution to recognize the “sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children.”

In the wake of that vote, a Madison County judge ruled that a 19-year-old man could pursue a wrongful-death lawsuit against a clinic and a pharmaceutical company that provided an abortion pill to his girlfriend.

It is that case — not the case of Ms. Jones — that pushes the envelope of “personhood” for many in Alabama.

Brent Helms, the attorney who filed the wrongful-death suit on a contingency basis, said that case law had already established personhood for fetuses who perish at the hands of reckless people, such as drunken drivers or domestic abusers. His is the first case, he said, to “establish personhood for even an unborn aborted child.”

He acknowledged that conferring “personhood” so early in a pregnancy had the potential to affect everything from fertility treatment — which discards fertilized eggs that aren’t used — to the freedom of women who play risky sports or drink wine.

“At this stage, we don’t know all of the ramifications,” he said. “Every time I speak to someone, they come up with something new.”

Years of legal precedent in Alabama have set the stage for this debate.

“Under Alabama law, life begins at conception,” said Bryan Fair, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. “The question is whether that is consistent with federal constitutional law.”

He said that in a case like Ms. Jones’s, the federal courts could be asked to decide whether the state law that defines a fetus as a person is trumped by the constitutionally protected rights to due process and equal protection, an uncertain prospect under the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of women have been prosecuted in the state for exposing their fetuses to controlled substances under a 2006 “chemical endangerment” law, according to an investigation by ProPublica and Al.com. In Pleasant Grove, three women who were addicted to drugs have been prosecuted for chemical endangerment in recent years.

Last year, Jessica Lindsey, 29, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to chemical endangerment for using heroin while pregnant. Raven West, a heroin addict who gave birth to a stillborn baby, received a five-year suspended sentence last year. And Alexandra Laird, who gave birth to two children who tested positive for heroin, received two suspended 10-year sentences and access to a treatment program, according to court records.

The cases have sometimes put police at odds with doctors who argued that prosecuting pregnant addicts discourages them from seeking treatment they need. But in each of those cases, Lt. Danny Reid of the Pleasant Grove Police, who serves as a spokesman of the 16-officer department, gave passionate public statements about the need to protect the rights of the unborn.

A similar approach can be seen in the case of Ms. Jones. Shortly after the shooting, which took place in December, Lieutenant Reid told reporters that the mother’s culpability will be presented to a grand jury.

“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,” he said then. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight.”

Ms. Jones was five months pregnant and working at a company in Pleasant Grove that sells fuel for fires, when she got involved in an altercation in the parking lot of the Dollar General store.

The fight stemmed from a long-simmering feud with a female co-worker, Ebony Jemison, 23, over a man who worked at the same company. Ms. Jones spotted Ms. Jemison in the parking lot and started a fight with her, according to a law enforcement officer with direct knowledge of the investigation who did not want to be identified. By the officer’s account, Ms. Jones was winning the fight and had Ms. Jemison pinned in her car.

After taking repeated blows, the officer said, Ms. Jemison reached for a gun, and fired point blank into Ms. Jones’s stomach. Ms. Jones was driven to a hospital in a car that apparently broke down on the way. Paramedics eventually arrived and took her to a hospital, but her fetus — struck by a bullet — died.

This account of the fight differs from others that have been offered in recent days, which have suggested that Ms. Jemison fired a warning shot at the ground and the bullet bounced up and hit Ms. Jones in the belly.

Pleasant Grove officers initially arrested Ms. Jemison. But the grand jury declined to indict her, concluding that she had acted in self-defense. It then took the unusual step of indicting Ms. Jones, for “initiating a fight knowing she was five months pregnant.” The police were surprised by the decision, according to the law enforcement officer, but agreed with its logic.

Reached by phone on Friday night, the forewoman of the grand jury, Mischelle Cagle, said she was unaware of the national furor. She declined to discuss the details of the case, but said that it was one of hundreds of cases the jury had heard over the course of a few days. She said the jurors did their best to probe for the truth and follow Alabama law.

“You think certain things, but then when you look at the law, it’s different,” she said.

Since the furor erupted, prosecutors have distanced themselves from the charges.

A statement from the office of Lynneice Washington, the district attorney for part of Jefferson County, emphasized that no decision had yet been made about whether to go to trial, file lesser charges against Ms. Jones or dismiss the case altogether. A decision is expected within the week.

“Foremost, it should be stated that this is a truly tragic case,” the statement said. “We feel sympathy for the families involved, including Ms. Jones, who lost her unborn child.”

Ms. Washington, a Democrat, became Alabama’s first black female district attorney when she was elected in 2016 by a slim margin of about 300 votes. The case is being closely watched by liberal reproductive rights advocates in Birmingham, as well as conservative voters in her district.

Ms. Jones was taken into custody on Wednesday, and posted bail the following day with the help of her family and the Yellowhammer Fund, an organization that supports abortion rights. Her attorney Mark White, whose law firm has taken on the case, said Ms. Jones was resting in an undisclosed location.

“She’s devastated,” he said.

After being shot, Ms. Jones lost her unborn baby, her job and her house, which burned down in an unrelated incident, Mr. White said. Now she is facing criminal prosecution in a case that could land her in prison for years, depriving her 6-year-old daughter of a mother.

“If you look at the five top stress factors that humans can experience, she may be the only person we’ve encountered that got all five simultaneously,” Mr. White said.

Mr. White said many lawyers in Birmingham were outraged about how his client had been treated, and urged his law firm to take her case. His legal team spent the weekend poring over case law and investigating the facts.

“By Monday morning, we will file a motion to dismiss that will show this indictment to be illegal, inappropriate and unprecedented,” he said. “The motion will also give examples of the additional dangers this type of prosecution presents for the rule of law.”

Ms. Jones’s lawyers have not decided whether to challenge the notion of conferring “personhood” on a fetus, which is enshrined in Alabama law.

Indeed, even Ms. Jones views the fetus that died in the shooting as a baby. She gave it a name — Marlaysia Jones. She had it cremated and the ashes placed in an urn.

Phroyd

#alabama #fetus #indictment

14 notes · View notes

tragedybunny · 5 years

Text

The Blade’s Edge - A League of Legends - Chapter 6

They had a simple arrangement. She was the weapon to be used on his enemies. Things get more complicated when emotions bleed into what should simple. Now the two of them find themselves on the precipice of something that was entirely unexpected. Katarina/Swain

Winter had followed us back to the Capitol. The temperate climate and our nearness to the sea meant it was always short lived, but for now snow lightly dusted the city, quickly turning grey in the ever rising haze of smoke. I was sitting in the seat of the large window in my room, overlooking the back garden, sketch board in my lap, drawing the city skyline in charcoal.The cold breeze of the open window was worth the unclouded view. Drawing hadn’t been considered an essential part of my education, so it was something I’d learned mostly on my own, and rarely had the opportunity to indulge in. The last couple of weeks had been painfully boring however, and there’s only so many times you can do katas.

I’d commandeered the old armory on the back of house as my personal training spot. This nearly caused a fit with some of the senior servants as I demanded family relics be removed to storage. Moira especially hated the notion, as I was sure she hated me in general. She’d been the most obvious to see me as a stain upon the House from the start. Her expression hiding nothing as her and the other servants were gathered in the great hall to hear the announcement that Madame Katarina would be staying on an indefinite basis. Her protests on the matter of the armory were met with an exasperated hand wave and “Just do as she asks”.

“Yes, please do as I ask.” I’d smiled in her beet red face. I won that round you old bat, though she’d gone from detached politeness to outright hostility after that.

I felt an unexpected weight on my shoulder and a shiny stone dropped into my lap. “Kat” her bird voice croaked out.

“Hello Bea.” I reach up to stroke her chest. He hadn’t been exaggerating, his pet really had taken to me, despite my best efforts to remain cool to her. “Here to bribe me again?” I look down at the bowl of sliced citrons I’d been picking at. I’d acquired them on one of my late night kitchen raids, the imported fruits being expensive enough I’d had to split a bottle of wine with the cook, Cress, to get him to stop mourning their loss. Thankfully drinking was his second love after cooking. “Are you even supposed to eat these?” She nipped my ear lightly. “Fine, but don’t blame me if you’re sick later.” I held up a slice and she greedily pulled it from fingers.

I’d been so occupied with her I hadn’t heard the door behind me open. “I didn’t know you drew.” He was right behind me, looking over my shoulder.

I almost slam my hands down to cover what I was doing, but stop short not wanting to smudge it. “I don’t, it’s nothing.” I feel my cheeks flushing. Noone’s ever caught me doing this before, so of course the first had to be him.

“You really shouldn’t denigrate yourself.” He pushes my hands out of the way. “It’s really quite good.”

I snap out of my paralysis and move it to the side. “Were you here for something?” At my agitation Beatrice hops into my lap and lets out an indignant caw.

“No.” She flaps her wings a bit as if the emphasize her point.

“You little traitor. She’s been feeding you hasn’t she? Don’t worry, I won’t upset her again.” He holds his hand out and after a moment’s hesitation, she hops onto it. He lightly pets her head and speaks softly until she finally decides to perch on my dressing table and preen in the mirror.

I couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up. “Betrayed by your own bird.”

“Very funny. I’m plotted against in my own house.” He leans down and kisses me softly on my cheek. I stop laughing as the sensation washes over me.

“Anyway, you wanted something?”

“You’re lacking in attire suitable for a formal occasion.” A statement of the obvious. I’d left everything like that behind when I left my family’s house, all of it had been mother’s choices anyway.

I let out a groan, sure this isn’t going anywhere I like. “Yes, and?”

He ignores the groan. “That needs to be remedied, the Solstice celebration is in two weeks, and you’re going to accompany me.”

“Fantastic, a painfully boring religious ceremony. I’m not even religious, why do I have to go?”

“Neither am I, and I’m expected. You’re going to make sure I don’t die of boredom between that and the party afterward.”

“It keeps getting more appealing. Isn’t this Darius’s job?”

“Hmm, no, I believe it is definitely your responsibility these days.” I detect the slightest bit of a smile. He leans in again, lips brushing my earlobe. I forget to exhale for a second. “Must you be so obstinate about everything? Besides, the last party we attended together was interesting enough.”

“Maybe I could try to kill you again? That will keep things lively.”

He sighs, clearly done being gentle about it. “Just get ready, we’re leaving shortly.” He’s really going to drag me through this whole affair.

Then he’s gone, leaving me in a storm of emotions. I’m irritated that he orders instead of asking, but at the same turn I’m thrilled he wants me there with him. On top of it all those same feelings I’d stumbled into up north have never abated; the heart racing whenever he’s near, the yearning for his touch and those moments when he softens with me and is almost affectionate. As much as I’ve tried to reason with myself I can’t deny what my heart insists on longing for.

I’m not a fool though, we’ve barely seen each other since we returned. I know he’s done that purposefully, likely I gave myself away somehow. It’s rejection plain and simple, and it stings. And I loathe that I miss him.

I throw on some clothes appropriate to the cold and head to meet him downstairs, resigning myself to whatever he’s planning. When I reach the bottom of the stairs where he’s waiting he takes my cloak from hands and places it over my shoulders. “Madame.” He kisses my cheek, clearly pleased I’m here without further argument. Charm when he wants something isn’t a new tactic for him, and yet it still gets to me. “Did you just blush?” This time he’s actually smiling.

“What…no!” I start to march out the door. “Let’s get this over with.” The carriage has been pulled around and I climb in and wait for him to join me. When I turn back he’s standing in the doorway, having clearly heated words with Moira. What did I do this time to set her off?

When he finally gets in he takes my hand and kisses it. “I’m sorry for teasing.” He doesn’t let go.

“It’s fine.” I put on a cool exterior. “I guess I’ll just have to spend exorbitant amounts of your money to make up for it.”

“You’re a cruel woman.” Surprisingly he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me a bit closer to him. We ride the rest of the way enveloped in the silence that falls between us.

The carriage eventually rolls to a stop in front of Mistress Hester’s, of course, she’s only the best dressmaker in Noxus. I remember the hours of boredom as I tried to amuse myself in the shop while mother shopped and was fitted. Of course, Mistress Hester doesn’t take walk ins, no matter your position. I’m clearly the victim of a long running plot.

Some stop and stare as we emerge from the carriage, I can only imagine the gossip this will ignite. I try my best to ignore it. The little bell above the shop door chimes as we enter summoning a severe looking woman from the back. There’s more lines to her face and her black hair has streaks of white in it, but her steely gray eyes are still sharp.

“Grand General, Madame Katarina, well it has been a long time.” She’s already looking me over, sizing me up, quite literally.

“As was discussed, I need her to look acceptable to accompany me.” I feel more like one of his possessions than ever, being remade to better fit his needs.

“Of course, and is there a budget to be adhered to?” Her eyes gleam, no doubt she’s dreaming of the bill.

He turns to me. “Try to keep it reasonable Kitten.” It’s been weeks since he’s called me that. I’m startled at how pleased I am to hear it again, I forget to be embarrassed we’re in public. He leaves a quick kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be back later.”

He’s barely out the door before she pounces on me and I’m escorted to her office behind the counter. “Tell me now Madame, what is it that you like? I haven’t seen you in sometime and now I would wager your tastes are different.” Her last statement carries a couple of connotations she doesn’t bother to hide.

What do I like? Mother always made these decisions. A strange sense of excitement washes over me as I take in swatches of fabric, sketches, and the in progress works around me. It was never the dressing up that bothered me, but the social events that followed. I could never be as elegant or charming as Cassiopeia and I was always reminded of it. Violence was my arena and even there I fell short in my father’s eyes. Those days are gone though, and however I’m tethered now, their judgements are behind me.

“Let me show you something.” It’s a sketch, lace, meant to hug curves, and yet exquisitely elegant. “I’m seeing deep scarlet, you’ll be very fetching.”

How she figured me out so quickly I can’t guess. “I do like that. A thought has occured to me though. I’ll likely need more than one dress in the future. Perhaps I should order a few?” He can hardly argue about it, he did force me into this.

She smiles. “Of course, whatever you like. You’ll have priority for the first, so it will be ready in time, but we can get started on anything else you desire.”

Several hours later I’m being littlely chided on the ride home. “Is that what you think of as reasonable.”

“I did try to warn you earlier.” I let my tone get a little smug. Leaning over, I whisper in his ear. “Shall I make it up to you?” I may as well enjoy his attention while I have it.

“You most definitely will later. I expect you to be most apologetic you expensive little creature.”

I run my hand along the inside of his thigh. “Only if you promise to forgive me after, Sir.” I purr.

He looks like he may take me up on my offer right here in the carriage. He kisses me roughly and deeply, leaving me a bit breathless, but finally settles on pulling me tight against him for the remainder of the ride.

When we return home I’m beckoned upstairs to find Gwen waiting in my room. Young and sharp, she’s always been the first to insinuate herself when she thinks she’ll get on my good side.

“Where’s Moira?” His irritation is evident.

Gwen wisely demures and looks at a spot on the floor. “She said she was unwell, Sir.”

“I see, how unfortunate.” It feels petty, but I’m pleased this stunt has incurred his ire.

“I’m more than capable of doing her duties.” Confidence suddenly replaces the meek act from a moment ago.

“And no doubt you’re very ambitious as well.” He steps closer to her, studying her for a moment. “Do you remember Zaun at all, or is it stories from your parents driving you on?”

To her credit, she doesn’t falter under the intimidating gaze. “Bits and pieces, enough.”

He nods. “Very well, you’re to deal with whatever Madame needs from now on. I’ll inform Moira that comes before any other duties and I’ll see that you’re compested duly.” He turns to me. “Back to the matter at hand.”

He leads me over to my dressing table where boxes of jewels lay open, glinting in the late afternoon sun. ‘Fuck.” I mutter, not as quietly as I intended.

“Wear whatever you like. They’re yours to use as long as you’re here.”

“No, absolutely not, that’s too much.” I cross my arms, intending to stand my ground on this. “People already talk enough about me, I can’t start going out in the Swain family jewels.”

He grips my chin and tilts my head up to look him in the eyes. “Then they can talk, and you’ll do whatever pleases me.” Again it’s that sudden switch of tone, there will be no further discussion. “Understood?”

“If you insist.” I’ll be damned if I understand why he considers this so important.

“Good girl. I’ll see you at dinner.” He lets go and leaves me with Gwen, who had been making herself as unobtrusive as possible in a corner.

I turn my attention to the ridiculous wealth left on display. No wonder Moira gave herself a fit over it. Stones of every shape, size, and color; necklaces, rings, heavy broaches; the result of a lineage of wealth and titles. “I can’t believe he did this.”

“I suppose he has his reasons. That’s one of the first things I learned working here, nothing is without a reason.” Gwen was now right beside me, taking everything in with me. “It is spectacular though.” She reaches for a previously unopened box. “Want to see the most amazing bit?”

It opens to reveal a tiara wrought in gold and set with black diamonds. My eyes go wide. “Damn.” I get a little gleeful at the thought of wearing it, despite having a dim memory of seeing his mother in it years ago. I sit down at the dressing table. “Pin it on me, Let’s see if you’re up to your new role. “

“Of course Madame.” She goes to work, pinning my hair up, and fixing the tiara in place. It’s rough but it gives a good general impression.

Gwen’s work aside, I find I hate it. I look the part of being his mistress, like I am what everyone says about me, the family traitor who chose the wealth and power of the Grand General. “Do you not like it?”

“No it’s fine. I’m just not used to seeing myself like this.” She nods but it’s clear she doesn’t buy it.

She seems to consider her next words carefully. “If I may Madame, you may want to make peace with that, all of Noxus will be seeing you like this.” Of course they will. No doubt that plays into whatever his goal is with this whole charade.

That night after dinner he asks me to join him in the study. “There’s a matter we need to discuss.” He makes sure the door is firmly shut behind us and the servants dismissed.

After everything else I’m not exactly sure what to expect. “This should be less fun than the rest of the day.”

“I thought you’d prefer this since you acted like you were headed to your own execution earlier.” He smirks and takes a seat at the X’ah board. “Play while we talk.”

I don’t hide that I roll my eyes. I hate the Vastayan strategy game, mostly because he always wins. This time though I may have a strategy. My eyes travel to the whiskey decanter on the sideboard. He may be able to outplay me, but I can out drink him. I pour two glasses and sit across from him.

“You’re too kind.” He takes the glass from my hand. “You go first.”

I move, an aggressive opening, it’s what he’ll expect. “What did you want to discuss?’

He makes a soft opening, like one would against a child learning to play. I can’t decide if it’s a serious assessment of my skill or he’s making a joke. “Your father’s Guild, they’re floundering under their current leadership, since his disappearance.”

“Hmm, and?” I answer his move and tip back my glass, finishing it, daring him to follow suit.

“They need leadership, and that’s where you come in. You’re going to take over, be the leader they need, and dismantle all the other Guilds.” I don’t watch his move, I’m too busy glaring at him. I refill the glass after he finally finishes it.

I take my move. “Have you lost your mind? I’m no leader. And I’m certain no one is going to stand aside and just let me take over.”

“Then you’ll dispose of them.” If only his sense of confidence was contagious.

“You realize that is potentially a very large number of people?”

“My Dear, I don’t care if you have to kill nearly every other assassin in Noxus. The Guild will answer to you, and you’ll answer to me.”

We play in silence for a few moments, I refill our drinks. After sometime a hole appears in his strategy. I smile to myself, at least one thing is working out in my favor. “Really though, I can’t do this. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He looks up and appraises me for a moment. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you were capable of it.” I sigh and put glass number four on the table in front of us. “It’s not your aptitude that lacks, it’s your confidence.”

Hearing those words stirs something in my memories and I’m taken back across the years. A dark haired, dark eyed, very important friend of my father’s is speaking to me, offering me advice in the face of my father’s anger. “You said something very similar to me once, a very long time ago.” The whiskey must be getting to me. I don’t even know why I bring it up.

“Really?” He thinks for a moment. “Oh yes, you fell out of a tree on me. You were spying on your father and I.”

“He scolded me for the spying and my lack of stealth. I fell because I was nervous, that was your advice.”

“I’m surprised you remember that.”

“It must have left an impression.” Everything feels so unbearably warm all of a sudden. “Maybe that’s why…” No, my tongue if definitely getting too loose. “Why am I even talking about that? It was so long ago.”

I look up and he’s staring at me, in a way I’ve never seen before. “Kat…”

“Anyway I win.” He looks down at the board then back up to me as I smile triumphantly.

“You cheated.”

“No, you’re just drunk.”

He tries to stand and wobbles a bit before sitting back down and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, I am drunk. That’s still cheating.”

“It’s not technically against the rules.”

“You wicked, deceitful woman. Very well, you win.” He gives in and actually laughs a bit.

Just like that, the soft mood from that night in the north returns. I get up to clear the glasses and he pulls down into his lap and nuzzles my neck a bit. “You know first you excessively spend my money and now you win through trickery. What I am I going to do with you Kitten?”

“Maybe you should put me over your knee and spank me?” I hear him inhale heavily. I knew that would get to him.

“When I sober up I may hold you to that. For now I’ll settle for your help upstairs.” Really at this point, both of us are a bit unbalanced, and I find myself giggling as we navigate the staircase. Finally as we stand in front of his door he leans down and pulls me into a kiss that’s surprisingly soft “Come to bed.”

Everything around me spins a bit and I can feel every beat of my pulse. I know it isn’t just the whiskey. I’m enthralled by him again. “Of course.” I let him take my hand and lead me to his room, the thudding of my heart now all too familiar.

#Swain #Katarina #jericho swain #katarina du couteau #lol swain #lol katarina #league of legends #the blade's edge #swain/katarina #katarina x swain #league of legends fanfiction #my fanfiction

1 note · View note

picsofshiro · 6 years

Note

i wanna start shipping Shieth but i cant bring myself to because i still see them in a very familiar, Space Dad-Space Son dynamic but thyere so pretty together and i hate it??

-puts a hand on your shoulder-

It’s okay to ship sheith, but lemme be real with you, I do not nor have I ever seen the space dad/space son dynamic personally. And in my experience of parents, I’ve had a lot of shitty dads and one (1) good dad that my mother is currently in a happy relationship with and they got a 10 year age gap and are a powerful couple of people that work to fight oppression as a white man and a Mexican woman. I’m gonna be cordial with you cause you don’t need to be afraid to ship it, its a perfectly valid ship and my response is more to welcome you into it than anything else. I’ll put this under the cut cause it’s gonna get a bit long, with a few tangents that I hope address your fears and overall point.

Let’s take off this “space dad/space son” lens for a sec. Contrary to popular and 100% incorrect belief, Shiro and Keith are not related in any way, shape or form. Voltron has a overarching theme of found family. Allura lost hers to Zarkon and found hers in Team Voltron. Hunk was scared but found family in Team Voltron. Lance has been homesick but has appreciated and grown from working with Team Voltron. Even though Pidge was hunting for her brother and father, she has found both but is still willing to work with Team Voltron for the sake of the universe. Keith never would have believed in his wildest dreams of the universe being as big as it is — the opportunity to see his mom and spend 2 years with her to bond and share stories on a space whale and talk to her about how much his best friend means to him and balancing that love for him, his sense of justice, his drive and focus to get a mission done and his mother is an example of being able to love in that way. Shiro we canonically know did not adopt Keith — he vouched for him, taught him a lot of what he knows along with whatever the Garrison has ever taught him before Shiro went off to Kerberos and his “death” announced. I don’t know what will help you see this dynamic as friends to start because that’s what I see and it what convinced me to ship it because it has so much room for potential with canon interpretation to back it.

When I was young and my mom was often in and out of my life due to work, working late on court cases, hardly time to speak to us aside from making dinner and then shooing my sister and I to our bedroom to mind ourselves, I’ve always appreciated older figures in my life, whether it was fellow students or student teachers/paras. It’s what guided me to hanging out with kids myself because I wanted to be there for someone who might not have had anyone themselves so I made a lot of friends that were not exactly in my age range, teach kids and then crush on the older ones that acted like they had their shit together but as I grew older I saw them for the flawed human beings they are and I think that’s what Keith sees in Shiro.

I’d think at one point that Keith looked up to Shiro for some reason that convinced him to get into the Garrison in the first place — that “I won’t give up on you and you shouldn’t give up on yourself” is part of that. Keith has been very protective and defensive of Shiro’s honor and image and I feel like it’s because he truly feels indebted to him in some way and makes it count through his actions. If you watch Voltron without the Space dad lens not pushed by fandom (or by marketing for that matter) and watch it for what Voltron is: you’ll see that Shiro is just slightly older than his peers, has some experience but can never actually know what’s going on and is about as clueless as everyone else is aside from his own experience as a pilot, as a fighter, and as a teammate that just wants to make sure they all make it out of this alive, his own found family that occasionally he goofs off with.

Knowing Shiro’s character, he probably had a strict/strong foundations of upbringing that included setting an example for his peers and respect for authority to a certain degree until it challenges his own morals. Mistaking his leadership around younger peers and attributing it to “parenting” would not do him justice when many adults his age and around it, even older know they probably would end up killing a child. Team Voltron is a manageable group of young adults/teens that are going to become adults and (should)own up to their own behaviors and what Keith sees in Shiro isn’t like “oh he’s like my dad” because he already had that. If he was like any other kid, he loved his father and would not accept any replacement but he’s an only child and cares a lot for Shiro so his only frame of reference for what he feels for Shiro is “brotherly”, however his behavior doesn’t match up to the way Hunk and Lance interact, how Matt and Pidge who are actual siblings interact, how Pidge and Sam Holt, her actual father interact and from what we’ve seen, how Alfor and Allura interact with parent-child relationships. Shiro and Keith have something deeper that’s still being refined and fleshed out.

I agree they look good together. Personally, I was into Keith as a character, thought I was in love with him until I saw the way he interacted with Shiro, then asked myself what he sees in Shiro and then it all made sense to me at least in my experience! That I would love Shiro the same way if he were a real person. And the way that relationship, their deep friendship is redefined in the Black Paladins with many staff emphasizing what was important, the “I love you”….

You gotta understand that maybe you need to rethink this space dad/space son thing and reframe it as brothers-in-arms(friendsheith has been a great tag to convey this), not let it be misinterpreted as adopted or literal, found family when you’re alone in a world that doesn’t quite understand you, and finally, understand that relationships change and grow, and some of the absolute best romances are made from people who’ve known each other so long that they have the potential to deal with each other and their human selves to be in a relationship and not be shocked when they don’t fit together too well and can be vulnerable and honest with each other and their faults and work past them to be stronger because of the other AND together.

Sheith is okay, they look good, but to be honest, I’ve never interacted with an older figure in my life that I haven’t felt a little gay for or had someone a little younger than me not look at me and be a little gay for me as well, and sheith has also been something that a lot of mlm have related to which is why we ship it the way we do. Don’t be afraid, it’s a valid ship and if you like, start off slow with a side blog, work your way up. My personal rule though is never stop being myself and work out any gross imperfections that legitimately harm others and make apologies for when I do hurt people directly by invading their space.

#to be honest voltron marketing is a complete clusterfuck #the only people i listen to is staff and writers excitedly making art of their fave characters and ships #if staff thought sheith was father son they would have said that but yknow - gestures at them-#they only said it's been brotherly in the sense that they're brothers in arms and mean everything to each other #so it's fine #not a pic of shiro #sheith #how do i tag this #i wanna be positive so i hope this doesn't deter you from shipping it #this ship is important to me and so many other people who play with it #it's all in fun so let yourself have fun that's what its about its for fun #anon #anonymous #ask #answered

69 notes · View notes

christinaengela · 5 years

Text

Today in a series of replies to FAQ (frequently asked questions) sent to me by fans (and sometimes not so much), I answer the question: “Why Did I Write ‘Other Kids Are Kids Almost Just Like You’?“

Many kids today face a frighteningly increasing level of bullying at the hands of their peers! Typically this bullying is based on differences in race, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity – and as it always has been, for reasons involving jealousy, fear, resentment, or as it often is with kids, just “for fun”.

In a world where bullying and intolerance of diversity is becoming increasingly a problem, I think it’s very, very important to teach children – and adults – compassion for others. Naturally I think compassion and kindness is something that everyone should’ve learned at their parent’s knees – but unfortunately, not everyone was as lucky as some of us were – or to have the kind of parents I had!

Back in 2015, when I started realizing that children were dying at the hands of bullies, and even committing suicide because of bullying, it was an awful reality to face. Worse still, was the realization that children were being picked on for appearing gay, effeminate, or for being transgender, as I was as a child and teen (and even as a young adult) – as well as for being disabled, sickly or of another race! Seriously?

Where do children get these ideas? They certainly aren’t born with them, that’s for sure!

Children are supposed to be innocent, naive, and a newer, better version of us, aren’t they? Ideally, yes – but it’s often not the case. Some kids can be very, very cruel, even brutal towards others. This sort of behavior isn’t always spontaneous or “part of growing up” – it is often also learnt. The kid who hears Dad mouthing off about “librals” on the TV, or the Sunday School teacher venting insane yet imaginative propaganda about gay people for example, will often integrate that behavior into their own mindset and act that out with their peers.

It’s often the same with adults, isn’t it? John and Jill will go to church and listen to Pastor Jimmy thumping the holy book, misquoting and distorting verses and sermons in order to demonise and incite ill-will towards those darned homosexuals and immigrants who “come over here to rape white women and steal our jobs” – and come Monday morning, John is sharing this view with Pete and Mike over their tea-break and Jill calls the cops on a neighbor who looks suspicious while mowing his own lawn on account of the color of his skin. Meanwhile, little Mikey take their own Sunday School lessons to school with them, and decides that because Albert looks a little like a girl and likes to hang around the girls and play with their toys, he deserves what the other kids in class do to him – and joins in.

Hatred of others – and a lack of compassion or empathy – isn’t something most children are born with, it’s something they learn from those around them.

Which brings me to a very important point: what kind of learning environment and what kind of examples are adults setting for their kids? Don’t their parents teach them that hate, cruelty and bullying others is wrong or bad? Don’t they teach them to help others, to be kind? Or like many pessemists today think, do they not teach them anything at all, and “just leave it all up to the teachers at school”? In many places today, a lot of children slip through the cracks in the system – if there even is a system in place!

A lot of kids grow up with uncaring, absent parents who don’t involve themselves in their kids lives. Others might be abusive too – and there’re already whole libraries written about that aspect, but there are also many children who grow up as orphans, living in care centers, or even living on the streets. Perhaps not always in places like the US or other first world countries, where mandated foster care or center-living up to the age of 18 is legally enforced – but in places like South Africa and India and other third-world countries where kids not only slip through cracks, they disappear!

Gangs of “street kids” callously and vigorously commit crimes in the darker parts of the world, sometimes to survive, sometimes for entertainment – like the kids who chased a dog and pelted it to death with stones some years ago in a Johannesburg suburb. Then there’re the kids in the UK who were not street kids who made a video of them torturing a puppy by cutting its ears off with scissors. How cruel – how far gone must someone be to do something like that? How sick and depraved! …but yet, I wonder, how did those kids come to be that way? What kind of life have they led, that they find enjoyment in causing pain and in being cruel to a defenseless, trusting creature? Did someone teach them, an adult perhaps – through experience – that hurting and harming others gives a kind of pleasure? Perhaps a fleeting warm feeling inside to help keep the cold, harshness of living at bay?

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Circumstances and environment play a vital role in a child’s upbringing – and if a child grows up in a negative, brutal environment, whether at school or at home – it will more than likely result in a damaged child and consequently, a dysfunctional young adult. Whether or not that individual adopts the same behavior or traits and becomes a bad person – or rejects them to seek the good and beautiful in the world, generally depends on their internal make-up… and their environment as adults, and to me it’s terribly tragic to place children in such a position.

Further, there’s still a lot of animosity towards people with disabilities – which is definitely unneccessary! It seems a cruel streak runs through most of us, but in the right environment it can be negated and prevented from dominating an individual’s personality. It’s difficult to convince cynical kids though, that mocking people for their physical disabilities or characteristics is wrong and unacceptable however, when one of the most powerful leaders on earth builds his entire election platform upon doing just that. What Mr. Trump is saying – and what his revolting single-cell organism followers are saying is: “Bullies are very fine people, be a bully like us, nobody’ll stand up to you!” Nauseating, isn’t it?

Not liking people you don’t know is fine and perfectly ordinary… but hating people for being different to oneself? No wonder so many kids grow up to be such horrible, nasty, sociopathic little gits! Geez!

…And yet, there’s still a lot of hope! Hope is good – hope I can work with!

To try to offset this indoctrination of children with hatred and suspicion towards others, and the undermining of children’s innate empathy and compassion for others – and against the breaking down of their self-worth, I decided to write this book. The text reads like a poem, and it has some really gorgeous, insightful illustrations by Amanda M. Lyons, and it’s available in both eBook and paperback forms.

I wrote “Other Kids” to inspire kids (and the adults who read it with kids) who are bullied for being different without focusing too strongly on the bullying angle.

Anyway, that’s the background of why I wrote the story! Below, a review for “Other Kids Are Kids Almost Just Like You“.

“Other Kids Are Kids Almost Just Like You” by Christina Engela celebrates the concept of diversity and how precious every child is.

This book is about intolerance, diversity, and bullying and encourages readers to accept everyone, irrespective of their differences based on gender, race, and color. The book also emphasizes being compassionate to everyone, regardless of their color, status, and gender.

Bullying and intolerance are relevant topics in today’s times and this book is good for read-aloud sessions in classrooms to help children be more tolerant and compassionate towards others. The illustrations lend clarity to the concept and help readers connect with the author’s words.

The author’s approach to the subject is unique and different, and she makes the book appealing to children with the help of colorful illustrations. It is a good book to teach children to be kind and compassionate. 5 stars” – Mamta Madhavan for Readers’ Favorite, Oct 17, 2019

Until next time,

Cheers!

Where can you get “Other Kids Are Kids Almost Just Like You“? Right here!

You can find my books all over the place – on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Lulu, Smashwords, PayHip, and a stack of others around the world! You can also find them on my website’s Shop page.

For South African readers, Kobo lists all available titles in South African currency!

I hope this answers this question to your satisfaction!

Feel free to email or message me via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any comments or questions!

If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

If you’d like to send Christina Engela a question about her life as a writer or transactivist, please send an email to [email protected] or use the Contact form.

Show your appreciation for Christina’s work!

FAQ’s Answered #15: Why Did I Write ‘Other Kids’? Today in a series of replies to FAQ (frequently asked questions) sent to me by fans (and sometimes not so much), I answer the question: "

#books about bullying #bullying #children #cruelty #education #faq #fictionwriting #homophobia #kids #lgbt heroes #racism #transphobia

0 notes