#i understand how easy it is to divorce these people from our concepts of humanity and logic but like

[metapphjores]

there is no future or liberation for any movements that sees their "enemies" as non-human

#having read accounts of some of the most soul-destroyingly cruel and evil actions taking during genocides by their perpetrators #i understand how easy it is to divorce these people from our concepts of humanity and logic but like #nothing will be solved unless you understand that these people commiting these crimes are in fact human #and nearly nothing seperates you from them but your situations. nothing. there is no inherent moral center that these people lack. #if we were raised in these circumstances we too would do these things. the reasons people within these systems reject them is not because #they are uniquely better and more human than the majority of their ethnic group / fellow nationals / whatever #but that they were in circumstances that allowed them to understand that they were being lied to #these people actually do have be engaged with and accepted as human beings. you can not kill or remove every person who has participated #its doesnt work like that. it has never worked like that. changing things is awful demoralizing generational work that we may never see the #results of but it very literally is the only option. any solution that denys the humanity of any of the parties involved will fail and will #leave all these issues for the next generation to solve. the only way forward is to destroy THE SYSTEM creating these circumstances and hope #it leaves a better world for the children.

[barbaramoorersm]

February 12, 2023

February 12, 2023

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Book of Sirach 15: 15-20

The author Ben Sira, refers to our free will and our responsibilities.

Psalm 119

The Psalmist speaks of the need for God’s help as one lives out God’s degrees.

1 Corinthians 2: 6-10

Paul tells his listeners that God’s wisdom, is “mysterious and hidden”.

Matthew 5: 17-37

Jesus confirms that he was not going to abolish Jewish law but fulfill it.

 In these days, when antisemitism is rather prevalent in our country and around the world, it is wise for us to remember and share the fact that Jesus was a practicing, faithful Jew throughout his life and even in his death.  In fact, the early church was composed of both Jews and Gentiles.  In a new book by Justo and Catherine Gonzalez, entitled “Worship in the Early Church”, they share that it was approximately in the year 100 that the Judeo-Christian community declined, and the growing Christian church was composed mostly of Gentiles. But they write, “…all Christianity -even in its anti-Semitic strains- has Jewish roots.” (35) This factor seems to be lost on those who take actions against the Jews like the denial of the Holocaust in WWII and even today, the murder of Jews, and attempts to damage their synagogues.

Some religious leaders in Jesus’ day feared he was threatening the laws of their Jewish community. But Jesus calls for observance of the law when he said, “I have not come to abolish (the law) but to fulfill (it).”  This statement is part of the larger Sermon on the Mount.  What are we to understand by this statement? What might he have meant by the fulfillment of the law?

Perhaps Jesus meant that the law over time was losing its original intent.  Or maybe he worried that the law was becoming too rigid.  It is a fact that many poor folks and those who lived a great distance from Jerusalem did their best observe the whole law but at times it was impossible because of their circumstances.

As one author states, “ Jesus declares  that they (his listeners) are held to a higher standard than even those who  know the Torah intimately and claim to be strict adherents to it”.  That is a remarkable statement. Remember he once said to the religious leaders that “they placed heavy burdens on the people but never lifted a finger to help them.” Or, as he grew in his faith, did he come to see the enormous needs of the people, and did he understand that the some demands and interpretations of the law were too burdensome and had moved away from God’s heart? Think of the cures he performed on the sabbath not only for Jews but Gentiles as well.  Cures for those considered impure or possessed.   As I was growing, up scrupulosity was evident among some and great worries existed that they kept violating the law.  My guess is that it still exists among many people.  At times the law in my life, took precedence over God’s great love.

What he was saying about “fulfillment of the law”?   Listen to how he was trying to teach fulfillment of the law. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill’ and whoever kills will be liable to judgement,’ but I say that ‘whoever is angry with their brother or sister will be liable to judgment’”.  In other words, he is asking us to broaden our views and come to understand that bitter anger has the capacity to kill as much as a weapon.

He is inviting his listeners who understand that if a “brother or sister has anything against them to reconcile” before they offer their gifts at the altar. Jesus expands the concepts of loving one’s neighbor as oneself.  He speaks of adultery forbidden by the law, but also includes behavior that may lead to the practice.  Divorce was very easy for a male to obtain in his day, and women were considered property, but Jesus expands the understanding of that relationship.

And when he speaks of parts of our human body that cause us to sin, and that we should eliminate those parts physically, of course, he was using a dramatic metaphor.  The topics that are mentioned by Jesus in this Gospel were being debated in his time and Jesus was, by his words today adding to the discussion.

He was so aware of the struggles and suffering of the men and women who were listening to him. The law, the commandments are very important, but by his life and actions Jesus makes it clear that the greatest of all the commandments is to “love God and one’s neighbor as one’s self.”

Yes, this is the greatest commandment and the fulfillment of the law.  But experience tells us that often, it is the most difficult of all the laws.

[quantumheart]

Infinite Growth

Jenna has been my anchor. She approaches the world with hope despite how impossibly confusing it is. I have never been sure of my place in the world, or what it’s like to feel like I have a purpose, before seeing her model these things in front of me. Watching her meet a tipping point has ultimately caused me to have a paradigm shift.

Since early in our relationship, Jenna and I have been absolutely open about our struggles. Having access to viewing things in my life through her lens has been invaluable and has pulled me through several of the most difficult life situations I’ve been in. When I had to manage a divorce from my wholly abusive ex entirely on my own, she was there with encouragement and support. The stumbling blocks that felt like the end of everything could be easily put into perspective with her help. The space for healing and growth that she has given me has been vital to my finding myself in a place where I can breathe today.

Jenna is not special. She is special to me, of course, because of our relationship. But the things that make us capable of forming the bond we’ve formed are not exclusive to either of us. She is not a magical creature created specifically to fit with me. She is a person who has accepted that she must survive, and to do so requires showing care, kindness, and grace. She also understands that - as a participant in our decomposing society - she must do what she can within her capacity to make sure those around her survive.

Shared survival is not a new concept, but the ways in which we view survival must evolve as the society around us evolves (and - inevitably - reaches decomposition). The idea of shared survival being a macro-level task can no longer be humoured as we are beyond the point under capitalism where we can manage society at that scale. We must refocus our efforts more locally. It is necessary that we build local communities that not only subvert the decomposing of society, or assist in it, but also have at their core the safety and survival of their most immediate members as a first priority. A focus on community at a personal level is the only method by which a person may survive in capitalism.

The dynamics of shared survival within a loose community are not new to me. My parents, despite the flaws in their methodologies during my upbringings, modelled this radical leftist concept to me even while they were deep in pre-New Millennium Conservative Christian subcultures. The dialectical view of this is that while they had been nurtured to be susceptible to those types of subcultures, their core human desire was nevertheless to have their people, and to take care of them. But the understanding of these dynamics was always abstract. I spent many years building communities online, and focusing on how to make them amazing. I wallowed in failure as I watched them eventually reach the point of decomposition, and then died. But I realize now that this is not a failure. Seeing a subculture through from birth to growth to decomposition is a privilege, and I realize that all communities decompose.

Decomposition, in the context of my writing, is the concept of a societal object reaching a natural point at which the lines between it and another neighbouring societal object reach a point of dissolution. In our current moment in society, everybody listens to Jazz, but very few people still Listen To Jazz. The subculture of jazz has decomposed. Decomposition is a positive. It is very easy in our current culture to see death as an absolute negative, but throughout all time some subcultures have understood the necessity of birth, growth, and death to be beautiful and necessary. I feel that this well-known lifecycle has been well reterritorialized by capitalism, and so our view of death is that it is an inevitability rather than a necessity. Death is a moment, and has a small place of note in the lifecycle of accelerationism, but the true lifecycle is birth, growth, and decomposition. When an apple falls from a tree and is left to rot unpicked, the point at which it has died is difficult to impossible to state. The same is not true of decomposition. We know the point at which it begins: the moment it loses access to the resources and support necessary to keep it alive and growing. From that moment on, it decomposes. At what point during that process does death begin? When does it end? Death is a concept with much societal focus, and very little benefit. I believe this is intentional, as capitalism has been able to reterritorialize the societal lifecycle and death itself to its own means as a tool of fear.

I died. I have died many times, as most people have. Death is simply the process of burying parts of you. An apple dies when it is no longer connected to its tree. At that point, growth is no longer possible, and it dies. At the same time, decomposition begins. When I died, the decomposition began. At the beginning of my period of psychosis, I noticed within myself a strong desire to write. I’ve never considered myself a writer, and have rarely considered what I have to say or write to be of any real note, but the desire was there nonetheless. I believe that the focus on that desire correlating with the early stages of psychosis was mechanical. Some part of me knew that I had thoughts in my head that I needed to get out, and some other part of me knew that I would need that skill very soon. When I died, the parts of me that began decomposing would fertilize the soil from which these thoughts were born. I am proud of the knowledge of my ability to allow that lifecycle within me.

We must not choose to stop believing in magic simply because we grow. Even if the social object of magic has reached deep decomposition, the value of it is well known. Allowing ourselves to believe in the unreal*, to engage with faith, and to imagine and dream has been shown to encourage and even accelerate growth. While the societal subsystem of magic will always exist, it has died and we must tend to its decomposition. This is our task. We must tend to the corpse of the societal subsystem of magic and use the resources naturally present during decomposition to enrich another area of life that needs accelerated growth. We play, we imagine, we dream, all so that we can drive our natural instinct to grow and learn.

I died. My death came at the end of many things. In a truly astonishing show of cosmic humour, I saw many threads of my life all end at once. And to add to this, I was experiencing a particularly harrowing alienation. My anchor slipped. I am particularly fond of the metaphor of the anchor. I feel that it is important to allow humans to place special value on particularly important people in their lives. This can be a very slippery slope, which is why largely we have chosen to take a hard line and say that finding safety, security, comfort, and stability in others is toxic. This is often true, but like all things that have yet to be deterritorialized there is missing nuance. I feel that “anchor” is sufficient here because it describes the role of an object to which we make a strong connection that we can rely on to keep us moored, but the anchor is passive. There are no active processes by which the anchor holds. The anchor’s nature is to grasp. And not to grasp intentionally, but to - by passive, natural design - have the environment cling to it. There are so many essential understandings necessary to design an anchor. Its shape must passively conform to the immense variability of the floor of the lake. It exists as an object with a firm grasp on its environment, and that is the root of the value we derive from it. In those moments, the anchor exists, but the ship is the active participant. Even the rope - the bond we build with our anchor person - is passive in the moments that it most matters. There is no way to reinforce the rope once the waves get rough.

Co-dependency is difficult. As humans we rely on others, and untangling the ways in which you are independent, dependent, or co-dependent on another person is daunting and scary. The taboo surrounding co-dependency makes it sneaky. It lives in the shadows and while we allow it to do so, it affects us in ways we have difficulty seeing. I have been co-dependent on Jenna, and likely will again in the future. I am beyond accepting guilt for this. While I regret it, I understand the forces at play that caused me to believe that my value could be derived from someone who thought I was special. It also cheapened the unique light under which she sees me. I am not special because she needs me. I am special because I happen to share similar goals and passions, and I share them in a way that lets us engage with them together. Understanding this is the most important tool in burying the response entirely.

A very large piece of the philosophy I am building is burying the things that should be dead. I believe that our role as participants is to bury the decomposing corpses so that we can tend the growth of the things that are important to our survival. Burying the taboos surrounding the various traumatic responses will allow us to deterritorialize them, bring them to a point of dissolution, and make their decomposing corpses available to us to build new trauma responses, and to attempt to then bury the root causes of trauma wherever possible. And that is what I am doing with this document. Part post-mortem, part vain self-reflection, but entirely allowing the decomposing corpses of the parts of my past that no longer have talons in me to be buried, allowing new growth.

*things that are not objectively real should not be considered less valuable to society

[cindymoon]

Did it ever occur to anyone that Wanda’s Roma background in the comics was BUILT on racist stereotypes? Similarly to M’Baku but also several others. And maybe that’s why the show runners stepped away from that..?

okay, so i think what we have here is someone who skimmed the original post in question (paragraph 2) and likely didn’t ready any of the links attached because that first message has been addressed already... but for anyone else in the same boat:

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's Romani heritage was canon for decades (including in their non-mutant backstory), although this depiction often had problematic undertones. Wanda is literally a mysterious foreign witch, a damaging stereotype that acquired more nuance in later comics. But instead of updating Wanda and Pietro as modern Jewish/Romani superheroes (much like how Black Panther's charismatic M'Baku started out as a villain named "Man-Ape"), Disney whitewashed them. This casting choice was divisive in 2013, when The Atlantic highlighted the negative connotations of casting a white blonde actress as Scarlet Witch. Roma people are a marginalized ethnic minority, and Disney chose to erase their presence from the MCU.

...This rewrite was rather tone-deaf, because it involved Wanda and Pietro volunteering for neo-Nazi experiments. In the comics, their original parents were Holocaust survivors. Whedon also ignored the most obvious solution to Wanda and Pietro's non-mutant backstory: Django and Marya Maximoff, their Romani parents from the comics.

white washing characters is never the best solution. it doesn’t address the issue in so much as it just sweeps it under the rug. as well as perpetuating the idea that white is some unproblematic neutral that ppl can just default to. like can you imagine if in an attempt to “fix” how m’baku is portrayed in the comics, they just...put a white guy in the role? you can’t just remove a characters racial or ethnic background. no one is saying that her comic background hasn’t been problematic, but this isn’t the way to remedy that.

@scarlet--wiccan has an amazing post about the erasure of this whole family’s ethnic identity in the fox x-men films (x).

@villyns also has a good post outlining some examples of the mcu white washing rather than actually fixing the problem (x).

and here’s a decent article on white washing in media and why it’s a problem (x), quote from this article below:

Making a movie is not an easy feat; there are many things to take into account and even more people that you have to please, but there are also standards and morals to uphold. Whitewashing, blackface, brownface or yellowface is not just about denying jobs to minority actors, appropriating the stories of these groups, perpetuating stereotypes or keeping them invisible, it is about undermining their value as human beings and turning them into stepping stones, props, for white artists.

as for the second part. i think that’s entirely possible, actually. it’s done a lot to characters, where they won’t explicitly state their ethnicity but give them attributes from one (often stereotypes) and make them a caricature without making it, like i said, explicit. take the concept of jewish-coded villains in media. no one from disney has ever said that mother gothel in tangled is jewish, but it’s been pointed out by everyone that she’s jewish coded through stereotypes, ones specifically often used for “evil” witch-type characters, which is no coincidence: large, hooked nose, curly hair, greedy, etc. edit: hollywood uses coding like this often for racial/ethnic groups and the lgbtq+ community.

the maximoffs in the mcu and xmcu have never been explicitly made romani, with disney going so far as to change their parents romani names (django and marya) to oleg and irina. the name changes were unnecessary, except to distance the maximoffs from their original romani identity. the mcu changed their origins stories and cast non-romani actors to portray the maximoffs, and considering they went as far as to remove their jewish heritage as i mentioned before, it’s not a stretch that this is all an attempt to veil their romani background too. while they often joke about stealing and fortune tellers and poverty (the wv halloween episode really put it all in one place, but they’ve been doing it forever in the xmcu and mcu), i wouldn’t say this is an attempt to make them romani as much as it is to use a romani-esque caricature, to use it as a sort of “aesthetic” for the twins without acknowledging that it’s an ethnicity. the aspects they choose to keep are often either negative or painted in a negative light. i think the fact that el*zabeth ols*en continuously uses the g-slur to talk about wanda and costume design, speaks to that. 

and even if the mcu came out and said, “oh, our wanda is romani,” that wouldn’t change the fact that she’s played by a non-romani actress (who continues to use anti-romani slurs, despite knowing she shouldn’t) and that so far, they have not explicitly stated in the mcu that she is.

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's whitewashing feels like an attempt to "neutralize" them. It frames their ethnicity as a problem to be avoided, rather than an opportunity to celebrate an under-represented group. This also meant that Marvel could cast famous white actors instead of sourcing an unknown Romani actor, during a period when the MCU was visibly uninterested in racial diversity.

But Marvel Studios wanted to have its cake and eat it, too. While Wanda is now white and Sokovian, her role isn't completely divorced from its Romani origins. It can't be, because everything in the MCU is informed by the comics. That's how we end up with El*zabeth Ols*n describing her Age of Ultron costume as "kind of this g*psy, vagabond feel"—terms that usually wouldn't come to mind for a simple black minidress and maroon jacket. Wanda's Romani heritage remains visible through veiled references and superficial costume choices, sidestepping any hint of meaningful representation.

from jessica reidy’s article:

Today, some Roma do call themselves witches, and serve as healers and spell-casters in a community, but make no mistake, being a witch is a job like any other. I was trained by my grandmother, I studied hard, I started a business, and I take bookings in my Google calendar. This is the context that most people miss when creating (or, in this case, adapting) Romani witch characters like Wanda Maximoff, and while the Scarlet Witch has plenty of magic, she does not need to fall into the stereotype, nor have her identity erased.

Representation matters. Wanda’s Romani ethnicity has been well-stated in the comic books, sometimes capturing the discrimination and violence that Roma face, and other times falling flat and stereotypical. Marvel also owes us, as Roma are often rendered as mentally unstable thieves, such as Dr. Doom, Wanda and Pietro’s community, and Wanda herself, and the entertainment giant capitalizes off of these stereotypes, reinforcing them all the while.

Every opportunity we get for accurate and positive representation is essential to us because it shapes the way people understand us.

linking the post i made again, because it has a list of articles and posts i’d recommend really taking the time to look through and engaging with them, as well as following folks like jessica reidy and @scarlet--wiccan​ on social media for more info from romani folks. 

#anon #b.inbox #hope this clears some things up for u #anti wandavision

[heliosoll]

Do you think we are not meant to know were god? I used to be Muslim, and it was this things said like “when a human saw Allah and his true identity and his power he got blinded and he died” I think knowing im god is making me mad? Idk I think it’s too much knowledge I feel like im alone and I feel like im not supposed to know this, I need someone to talk about this but Ik if I tell a therapist or my mom or friend about this, they’re gonna think I’m crazy. I don’t know what to do. Sorry for dumping this on you but I’m spiralling

Well, I think it really depends on how you look at it. Neville very much thought that people were supposed to know. He considered this a promise actually. I talk about it briefly here!

However, regardless of whether you consider yourself God, you're still manifesting. You don't need to acknowledge or even know this to manifest. We manifest every single moment of our lives! We literally don't stop. Neville didn't say that "to manifest you need to know you're god". He essentially believed that all humans were once God and that we sacrificed this knowledge to experience the 3D and that all people would "awaken" and know they are God.

This may be controversial in this community since it's very "religion bad" but you don't need to believe you're God. At least, not in the religious sense. Neville calls us God because that's honestly one of the best words to describe how manifestation works. Our assumptions create our reality. We are literally creators and we can change anything we want with a snap of our fingers. That's pretty Godlike huh? But still, while the word "god" is religious in nature, the true meaning of it within the law isn't. It's literally just a word that most people understand to mean "real fucking powerful creator". I fully believe that people can believe in whatever religion they want while still calling themselves God. I talk about this a little here if you're interested.

At the end of the day, what you're feeling is completely normal. A lot of people go through it! There are tons of people who know about the law and we're not all the same. Some people found relief in knowing they are God and immediately denounced whatever religion they grew up with. Others still found relief but also had a healthy relationship with their religion and wanted to keep believing in it. Others weren't religious at all and had a hard time believing in the law because let's be real, it can sound a little religiousy. And others who weren't religious found it easy because they separated the law from religion, even with the use of the word "God".

I know I kind of rambled on this one but I just want you to know that you're going to be okay. I know it can be confusing, you might feel like you're betraying someone/something. It's hard! And that's perfectly okay to recognize. I can't tell you what to believe or how to feel because that will be different for everyone. From what you're saying it does sound like you have some religious trauma to unpack.

I think you should try to divorce the word "god" from the concept of religion. Don't think of it as religious! It really isn't. Neville uses that word because he read the Bible and it was easy to explain the concept of manifestation to a bunch of american christians using stories and words that they were familiar with. Hell, it was easier for him to understand too. You can try to completely separate manifestation from religion or you can try to understand it using stories/lessons from the Quran. It's up to you! Whatever will make you feel better. And don't rush it either. Take your time and do what you have to do.

#letters 🎀

[missyasf]

Game Of Hearts

| 1 |

↳ Summary: Your life is in monotonous tones of grey, day in, day out. Nothing matters besides your sister, the only thing you remember is seeing fireworks before waking up to Tokyo abandoned . Soon enough you are properly introduced to the deadly Borderlands where you must fight for your life in Games to survive. When things can’t possibly get worse soon division arises and rivalries are made. No matter what though, you are constantly plagued by a blonde who, no matter how hard you try, just can’t seem to go too far without.

↳ Pairing: Chishiya/Reader

↳ Genre: Angst, smut, thriller

Word Count: 11k

___| Next

Trigger Warning: ⚠️ much like the manga/Netflix adaptation this will be a dark fic which includes mentions of prostitution, attempted murder, child ab*se, sexual harassment, heavy grief and attempted suic*de among other things. Additional warnings will be added for chapters when triggers are brought up. Please read with caution if these are triggers for you or just skip all together! 

Side mention: This could be considered a prequel to the current Alice In Borderland. I’m writing based off the Manga bc I was a glutton and couldn’t wait no spoilers will be present as of...

Escapism

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy ♡ 

You had known all about this during your short lifespan, as a child you’d often play pretend with your sister that you were movie stars living in a five star hotel rather than the shitty busted up apartment on the wrong side of town. Escapism came in, many forms. It was often a way for people to cope psychologically, simply because sometimes, facing the reality of your situation can be too much for one person to handle mentally. 

Or at least, that was the topic of your lecture today in class. The human mind always fascinated you. Even at the young tender age when your mom died and you watched your once cozy little family fall apart piece by piece until nothing was left in its wake. 

It was your fascination that drove you now for most things, why? Why, why, why? You always wondered what the motive was behind someone’s actions, not only thing but you wanted to  understand them better, to try and sympathize. You were already fairly intuitive in nature. It wasn’t difficult to read people. In fact your line of work made it easy, you’d watch a man who would be excited to be with you reach for his left finger as if used to touching something. A wedding band perhaps? 

The lowlife cheater was fairly common in a whore house after all. Or the man who had been pissy this morning behind you in line because you had decided to try something new on the menu and you weren’t fast enough, obviously because he was tardy and woke up late, his shirt unbeknownst to him was button the wrong way and his tie loose and even the way his hair fell were all signs of being late to work. 

It was the little things you noticed in people’s facial expressions, the way they moved and spoke. You could read people like a book, and sure sometimes it was useful. But you often wished you weren’t so perceptive. It drove you mad knowing when a potential love interest was no longer interested through a simple text or a friend not wanting to talk by their tone. Sometimes you wished you could just blot it all out, still, you lived like this day in and day out, you were used to this kind of thing and honestly. Friends? Love? Your gaze dropped a little to your feet, the pumps you were wearing a jet black and the heel too high for any respectable woman to ever wear. 

...It wasn’t like you ever had any of those in your life and you had struggled to come to terms with the fact that you could survive without that kind of support. Still...it made you envious, the couple happily holding hands on the sidewalk. The group of friends all laughing at a table while they studied. Oftentimes these feelings are muted, but when you’re faced with something you’ve always craved, those muted feelings suddenly become hyperactive in your mind. 

It’s pathetic, honestly. 

“How dare you! You disgusting slut!” 

In this moment however, you were brought back to reality at just what was happening, you squeaked loudly as you dodged the shoe the woman had thrown at you. This was all a regular occurrence, you had a lot of regulars who weren’t the most amazing people but hey, money was money. But along with them they also left a trail which their wives and girlfriends always followed. And then they always blamed you instead of their partner for leaving them for a prostitute despite you never having agreed to anything such as that.

It really wasn’t your fault, you were just trying to make a living while juggling with keeping up your own education, paying your fathers debts, rent and still somehow getting food on the table. What part time college job could provide that?

Prostitution wasn’t a job you would’ve gone into willingly but given the past and your trauma that was already laced in it you had been learning that sometimes because of the trauma we experience, sometimes people go back to that same trauma and actively participate in it as a way of feeling like they’re in control. 

That whatever happened before, would never happen again if you were in control. You weren’t sure if you qualified under this category, trauma came in many forms but the one most used as an example in your class was that a study showed that women who were assaulted often develop a kink for consensual non consent as a way of coping with what happened, except this time, it’s in a controlled environment where it can end the moment they want it too. 

Again, you weren’t sure you fell into this category, but you often wondered if your line of work was intertwined with your earlier memories when you were younger, if anything it brought comfort to you. Much of it, blotted out now simply because your mind couldn’t take it. Trauma expressed through amnesia was also much more common than many thought, and it’s so small, so easy to miss. After all how can you be aware of something if you have no memory of it anymore?

“Security!” Your manager screeched, two of the bodyguards were already between you and the feral woman who was ready to gut you clean as she screamed hysterically, her husband...your regular....at her side trying to get her to calm down only for her to come to her senses and slap him clean across the face. You didn’t condone violence, but he did have it coming...

You weren’t about to justify cheaters, you couldn’t imagine the hurt someone had to feel that not only did their partner cheat on them, but it was with someone...like you...You had been trying not to put down your job occupation, sex workers were just as valid as anyone else...you knew you would’ve thought this way if it was anyone but you in this position. 

You sighed as you ran your hands through your hair, watching the couple get dragged out of the tight space of the brothel, “Jesus christ....didn’t you say you stopped using perfume because of this?” Miki, your manager sighed as she crossed her arms. You didn’t want to say your manager was your friend but she was the closest you had as you’d often complain to her about most of your problems. Sex work often attracted broken people, it wasn’t something she wasn’t used to. 

“Yeah, but apparently he never got around to washing his clothes…” You wiped your mouth on the back of your hand, “Lipstick stain,” You glanced down at the ruby pink color that stained your skin now, “Fuck...that did hurt.” You rubbed your sore cheek that was still throbbing from where she had first slapped it when she ripped the door open of the room where she got to see with her own eyes you riding her husband. 

It had happened so many times now you weren’t even embarrassed about someone walking in let alone a partner. Miki gave you a lopsided smile as she patted your shoulder, “Guess that just pays for being one of the best here. Did you at least get paid.” 

You nodded, “Yeah, I always make them pay in advanced but I was hoping to get a tip afterwards...He was a lawyer so you know he had good money.” You sighed, crossing your arms, you were well aware of his partner because a lot of the time he didn’t even come in for sex anymore. It was funny how humans work. 

He often felt his wife was overbearing and you had suspected some sort of verbal abuse by the way he talked about her constant screaming. Truthfully, you don’t think he ever intended on cheating with her. He just wanted someone to talk to without being judged, you could relate with sympathy to that, but he unfortunately chose to walk into a brothel instead of a therapy clinic and this truly was the only inevitable outcome. Still, you hope if for anyone’s sake, he gets that divorce for himself. 

 “Hey I think I’m gonna call it a day. I need to get back to Nanami, she was wanting to talk to me about college applications.” You sighed as you rubbed your neck, ever since she had graduated high school she had been chomping at the bit to start applying for college, maybe to just get out of the house and into a dorm. You couldn’t blame her and if she did that it would lighten your load a little. 

Guilt washed over you at the thought as Miki chuckled, “They grow up pretty fast huh? My brother was the same way, except the moment he found out I was a sex worker was the moment he called me a whore and we haven’t talked since. That was probably about five years ago,” She crossed her arms as she sighed, “Crazy how the things we do for the ones we love, never appreciate our effort...I’ll see you tomorrow then?” 

“If I’m not bruising.” You offered a weak smile as you nodded at her before going back to your room to get changed. Truthfully, you much like anyone else, often wished you could go to a world where reality wasn’t a concept any longer. Where you could lay out in the sun for the whole day and just soak up it’s rays with no worries or trepidations. 

But sooner then later everyone had to face their fears. Even you, you supposed. But no matter how hard you fought your demons, they always came back tenfold. Again, you supposed your story was no different from tens of thousands, and yet you all live on regardless. Maybe it’s you who should be the one seeking therapy. Pulling on your jeans and the cropped top over your head before pulling the jacket over your arms and grabbing your bag. 

The walk home was as quiet as ever, your hood over your head and earbuds any unwanted attention, it wasn’t too late at night, only eleven PM and your work had just been getting started but that had ruined the night for you and besides, you had already failed a test today, you could use the sleep tonight. 

Occasionally you’d hear the sirens of  a cop car passing by or a bystander shout, nothing out of the ordinary in this neighborhood. Walking up to the apartment complex you pulled the key from your bag as you unlocked the door. Quietly stepping insides as you shut the door before locking it once more. Your nose wrinkled at the smell of stale air mixed with rotten...something…

If anything, you were always lacking in something, you had been so busy most of the day that you never had time to clean anything leaving the house in a horrible state. Not that you thought this was much of a house. 

Walking down the narrow hallway you opened the rickety door with a missing lock as you gave a brief smile to the small clump of bedsheets. Your sister was curled up and on her phone, eyes darting to the door with a hint of fear before she jumped up, “Y/n! You’re home earlier from night shift already!?” 

You offered a smile as you set down your bag and nodded, sitting down on the mattress that laid on the floor as you replied, “Yeah, a coworker needed the extra hours so I let them cover for me tonight. Besides, you wanted to talk about college applications?” Your sister was under the impression your late night job was bartending at some hole in the wall downtown, where in all actuality you just went there to drink a few days and talk to the loud and sometimes obnoxious, but good hearted bartender who loved talking about his nerdy underaged friends that couldn’t do anything beside stay and drink soda. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t think your sister would accept you, if she knew what you were actually doing. Fear, most times came in many different forms and this was one of them. You simply didn’t want to be judged, even by her. So nobody in your life truly knew who you were, and therefore, how could you hold the expectation for people to accept you into society if you were already self sabotaging yourself? 

All philosophy aside, you were simply a lost soul, looking for your way in the cruel reality called life. 

“Yes!” Nanami was chipper as always as she squealed, clapping her hands, “I…! I was thinking about applying to the university you attend! Maybe I'll get a grant and move into the dorms there? I already applied for several jobs, I’m just waiting on a callback!” 

You offered a small smile as you hugged your knees to your chest, “I think you’d like it there, there’s lots to do around campus. But what will you go in for? The only advice I can offer is be sure it’s what you want to do.” 

Nanami’s face faltered a little as she hummed, “Well...I thought maybe working with animals? I’d love to be an assistant surgeon in veterinarian? I know it’s a pretty...sad job but...I really like the idea of being able to heal such innocent things.” Your smile tugged into a gentle one at your sister. She was too tender for this world.

It had been your goal sense the day your mother died that you took care of your sister, it didn’t matter what happened to you. You could rot for all you cared at the end of the day, all you wanted was to look up and see your sister's smile and her happiness in life blossom. She more than anyone deserved it. 

“I think you’ll be great at it.” You encouraged as you rested your chin on your hand, always happy to see her bounce in excitement as you yawned, your body was used to your demanding schedule but it was always more than happy to welcome a few extra hours of sleep.”

Hearing the door loudly slam close caused you both to jump, Nanami hurriedly crawled back in bed, pretending to be asleep as you frowned. Your dad must’ve come back home from wherever he was. 

“Y/n! Just stay here! Can’t you talk to him later?” Nanami looked scared, she always did when he was around. But you weren’t about to stand down to the bastard any day of the week, you offered a weak smile as you replied. 

“It’s fine Nami, I’ll be just a few minutes.” You replied, you knew that she knew, that was probably a lie. But you’d try your best, for her sake at least. But somebody had to put this guy in his place occasionally and it was always you. It results in a lot of screaming sometimes, other times he’d break down in tears or on a bad occasion you’d get shoved to the ground, a few times hit. Nothing major. 

Walking out of the room you leaned against the wall of the entrance of the hallway watching your father stumble around in the living room, “Did you finally talk to the loan company?” You called out as you asked, not in a forgiving mood tonight. He had said he’d do this for two weeks in a row. The company that sank your whole family into the ground. The reason your mother couldn’t take it anymore and put a blade to her wrist. 

Your father stood up, looking a little wobbly, obviously drunk, “Now listen here little girl I don’t have shit to own to you or anyone else.” You sighed as you tucked your tongue into your cheek, annoyance flowing inside you as you straightened up. You weren’t going to be bullied into being scared of this guy. 

“Actually you do,” Your smile twisted into something more sharp, more bitter and sinister as you walked forward, “See, if you hadn’t of gotten involved in something shady like loan sharks we wouldn’t be drowning in debt and mom wouldn’t have killed herself because of you and both your daughters wouldn’t hate you. I know you drink away all our money in some pathetic attempt to escape from the cold reality that you fucked up your whole life and watched your family slip from your fingers while not even trying to do anything other then put us in further shit,” You closed your eyes as you tilted your head, “But the least you could do, is admit that. You owe us at least that for being a total fuck up.” 

You opened your eyes to find pure rage brewing in your fathers eyes as you smiled once more, this time a false sense of sickly sweet tone to it as you shrugged, “Or you could live in denial, at this point, there really isn’t anything you can do to get anyone back ♡ ” 

You had turned around, planning to tell Nanami that maybe she should go sleep over at a friends house today but you never got the chance, suddenly being slammed into the wall and flecks of spit hitting your face, “I am your fucking father! I deserve respect from you and your worthless sister! Do you know how much I provide for you both?” 

Anger splintered through your veins as you grabbed onto his wrists, his fingers digging into your neck as you squirmed, “Like fucking what!? A shitty broken down apartment that your vacant from because you’re too fucking ashamed of yourself to even look at us sober!?” 

Much like years in the past you weren’t surprised to hear Nanami cry as she rushed out of the room at the sound of you both screaming, “Stop!” She cried out, trying to break you both up, “Stop! Don’t fight! Why…! Why can’t we all just get along!” She sobbed only for your dad to shove her down making her curl up in defeat. 

Alarm bells were triggered in your head at the sight of Nanami on the ground, she had never actually gotten hurt while in your sight and it was triggering something deep inside you as you watched him stalk up to her. Your hands shaking and rage boiling in your mind as you grabbed the closet thing you could find. An empty beer bottle on the table. 

Your vision blurred and you don’t quite remember what happened other than glass shattering over his head and the brute force of you shoving something before blood was stained on your hands. 

How did you end up sitting against the wall? Why was there….blood on your hands…? Your fingers trembled at the metallic sticky substance. All you could hear were Nanami’s sobs and cries as she frantically pushed herself away from the body slumped on the ground. 

“You…! He…!” Nanami’s eyes brimmed with tears as you heard a loud boom making you jump, your eyes darting to the open window where….fireworks, big and bold crashed and crackled before you felt like you were sucked into a vortex making your whole vision black out. 

Your head felt fuzzy and there was ringing in your ears as you groaned, curling up into yourself as the darkness beckoned you closer before you forcibly opened your eyes. You were laying against the hardwood floor. Beams of light streaked through the window and you could see dust particles in the air against the shower of sunshine that streamed in. 

...Wait...Light? The thought had perplexed your head enough to make you push up from the ground, memories pulling into your mind as your breath became shallow, suddenly looking to the side where...you slumped against the wall. It must’ve just been a bad dream….your eyes flickered to Nanami’s curled up figure...a really vivid dream…? Something wrenched in your gut as you rubbed your eyes. What happened? “Nami…!” You whispered, forcing your muscles to move despite their protest as she whined. 

After another moment she reluctantly opened her eyes, flickering around before she suddenly scrambled up, taking a deep breath as if realizing what had happened before, looking towards where your dad once was she frowned, “...I...What…” She seemed just as perplexed as you and if her face was anything to go by, last night had obviously happened, “Is dad…” She looked at the absent place of the floor. 

Leaning against the wall your eyes darted around the room, “I guess so…” You silently felt relief at knowing your dad was still very much alive as you leaned back as you closed your eyes, trying to remember what had happened before everything went dark...oh..! The fireworks...had it been a celebration last night? Your brows pinched together, something felt...off...getting up you opened the door to the apartment walking out. 

“Y/n? Y/n! Hey! Where are you going!” Nanami called out, quickly chasing after you as you frowned, cars were parked odd and there was no one out on the street...as in...at all...Something was very wrong and you couldn’t figure out what. 

“Wow...it..must be a slow day…” Nanami felt a sense of discomfort at the lack of life as you both walked down the side walk, it didn’t just feel like a slow day it felt, apocalyptic. As if humanity just left on it’s own leaving nothing but an empty city behind. Cars were parked on the curb and a few even left in the street.

“No, it’s like everyone vanished...This is really weird.” You wrapped your arms around yourself as you frowned, looking around as you came closer to where typically it would be a booming part of the downtown but it was empty, just as everything before. 

“Well, maybe it’s a national holiday?” Nanami rubbed her head, trying to make sense of the situation just as much as you, surely everyone wasn’t...gone...right? She looked around as she bit her lip, second guessing herself at all the cars that were vacant, “Hey Y/n.” 

You paused as you looked at your sister, curving an eyebrow as she offered a weak smile, “What if everyone got raptured away like they talk about in christanity?” Your expression flattened as she giggled, obviously getting a rise out of you as you crossed your arms. 

Raptured? Where? To heaven? “Wouldn’t it be fire and brimstone then if that was the case?” Nanami pouted at your words as you shrugged, snickering yourself at her expression, the tables now turned as you sighed, “I don’t think there’s anyone left in Tokyo...I mean, it feels like...we’d have seen someone by now...right?” 

“Well…” Nanami frowned once more, a little disturbed at your words as she spoke, “There’s no way everyone could be gone I mean, where would they go? And how could we miss something like that...Maybe the police found us and now we’re under some weird simulation.” 

Chills spilled down your spine as you shoved her making her whine, “Don’t say that! That makes me feel all weird…! I didn’t…!” You cut yourself off, you didn’t what? Murder your own dad in cold blood...you looked down at your hands, they were free of any blood but it still felt like something like sin lingered. Like no matter where you went, it would always be stuck to you.

You didn’t like this, not one bit. Briefly you felt the urge to go hunt down your dad, he was a deadbeat but you would never...you’d never kill him....Right?

“Well…” Nanami hummed her eyes scanning ahead before they jumped to the mall that was up ahead, “Hey…! If nobody is here...maybe we could make use of it! Come on! Let's go!” You yelped at her grabbing your arm before dragging you ahead. Cars were all parked and yet not a single person exited through the mall's entrance. Something just felt off! You wrapped your arms around yourself as you warily looked around the empty mall, “Nanami I really don’t like this!” You looked around, concern bubbling inside you as she ran ahead into the store, digging through the section of clothes as she giggled. 

“Relax! I doubt any of this is real and even so…! Who’s going to stop us!?” She shrugged as she bounced in excitement, “Oh my god! I had dreamed of something like this happening! Now we can do whatever we want! Go wherever we want! Y/n!” She gasped with a smile, “Now we don’t even have to worry about money!” 

“We don’t even know if this is permanent.” You looked around warily, not partaking as she began plucking off the racks, “Regardless of what this is, I don’t like it. I want to go back home, our home. This just doesn’t…” You shook your head, “This just doesn’t feel right.” 

“Well you can feel that way!” Nanami clacked her tongue as she gave a childish smile, “But I’m gonna go through this whole store and get a new wardrobe so feel free to sit on the bench and tell me what you think looks good!” 

Looking away you sighed, unable to pinch the anxious feeling you had away as you sat down reluctantly as Nanami went into the changing room. Well...at least she was smiling and she was happy...With each outfit Nanami tried out and giggled, you giggled with her and maybe things weren’t so bad after all…

“What a perfect day.” Nanami hugged you close as she sighed, yawning as you looked up at the sky in awe, you had seen a single star while living in Tokyo before, but now it was filled with constellations and millions of stars that stretched for miles. You could stare at it for days and days. The sun had just set a little over half an hour ago and you were ready to retire and find something to eat at the apartment. 

You and Nanami had tried going to the food court but much to your dismay everything had been...rotten...soiled and ruined, meaning there was no point in trying to find anything there and you were getting really hungry despite devouring bags of chips you had both got at the convenient store, another thing that stood out to you was that there was no electricity...at all..

Looking back up to the sidewalk something caught your eyes...was that…! Light!? “Hey! Nanami look!” You shook her making her squeak as she looked up ahead, “It’s the hospital! They have electricity there which means there’s other people! Of course! Why didn’t we think to check essential areas!? Come on! Lets go! I wanna figure out what happened.” 

“Alright! It sucks that this is already over but at least I can finally charge my phone, the battery is pretty low.” Nanami nodded in agreement as you both made your way up the road. 

The walk wasn’t too far and you felt excitement fill you at the sight of the hospital all lit up as you walked into the entrance, a frown slowly setting on your lips once more as you walked past the receptionist desk and…! Oh there’s other people! 

You felt relief wash over your as you ran up, there were at least seven other other people here at least! “Hey! Guys oh my god. I thought everyone was gone! What’s going on?” You asked, smiling bright in relief that you and Nanami weren’t the only ones left behind. Was this some kind of evac point or…?

Silence ensued and you slowly began to frown as you felt everyone stare at you as if you were insane, “Um…” You wrapped a hand around your arm, suddenly feeling as if everyone knew something you didn’t, “What’s going on…?” You furrowed your brows as you tilted your head, unsure of why everyone was looking at you like this. 

Somebody looked like they were going to talk to you, a guy relatively around your age but a woman stopped him- his girlfriend maybe? “Stop, the less that know the better chance we have.” She said quietly though you still heard just enough. Fear twisted inside you as you took a cautious step back...The...the less you knew? 

“Wow, you guys are assholes,” A girl suddenly whistled out, she was sitting in a waiting chair, a cowboy hat on her head paired with distressed jeans and...a bikini top? Strange but you’d roll with it if it meant getting answers. She stood up as she offered a smile, “Akari, nice to meet ya’. You folk must be new to the Borderlands huh?” She jutted her bottom lip a little as you frowned. 

“Um I’m Y/n and this is my sister Nanami...?” You introduced yourself despite feeling confused as you raised a brow, “Borderlands…?” You echoed, what was that supposed to be? Other than Tokyo?

Akari gave a nod as she let out a brief chuckle, as if amused by your confusion but you sensed she had no real ill will unlike....your eyes checked to the couple that stood off in the corner on their own, “That’s what they call it here,” She nodded in affirmation as your eyes darted back to her in confusion, “To be frank with ya’, I don’t have a damn clue what's going on. Nobody does. But ever since you crossed the threshold there’s no going back, so I’ll be brief. We’re all considered outsiders here and we participate in games at venues such as this to extend our stay.”

Nanami and you looked at one another confused as Akari waved you over to the table in front of a TV, “Here, you’ll wanna put these on, it’s for the game.” She explained as you carefully picked up the metal bracelet, something about it felt ominous as you reluctantly put it on, jumping at the way it latched together and there was no getting it off now, “Word of advice, just don’t panic and you probably won’t die.” 

“What?!” You screeched as Akari smacked your back, panic evident in your voice as you turned around to face her making her laugh again, this girl was insane! She had to be! “You’re…! You’re joking!” 

Akari wrinkled her nose as she tilted her head, “Ah shit, I wish I was- Oh…! There’s the last player!” Just on que everyone turned to look at who had arrived, someone heaving breaths with their hands on their knees as if they had sprinted. You were mildly worried at why he seemed so scared but you had a feeling that was the least of your problems right now.

“Y/n what’s going on…?” Nanami frightened grabbed your arm as she hid a little behind you due to all these immensing strangers that looked like they were ready to feed you to the sharks, literally. 

The guy walked past you both as he put on his bracelet, your eyes sharp as you watched it latch together automatically, your gaze jumping to everyone's wrists to notice you were all now wearing one. The TV suddenly lit up. 

Game 

You squinted your eyes a little at the sight of the screen, just what were you about to unwillingly participate in…?

Difficulty: 5♣

“The game you will be participating in is, Monster under the bed.”

A playing card? Monster under the bed? Your brows furrowed as you looked at Nanami who shrugged a little despite her concerned expression, looking just as confused as you. You could’ve made a joke out of this, surely it would’ve been easier. Maybe everyone would bust out laughing and you’d be at the end of a poor joke but...somehow you felt that wasn’t the case. Thus paying very close attention to whatever was on this screen, 

“Everyone will be sectioned off into pairs by the number chosen on your bracelet, when the doors to the ward open you will have three rounds ten minutes each to figure out who is the monster under the bed that must be returned to its own, once the ten minutes is up you must hide before you are found. If the selected pair that is the monster is chosen correctly it’s a Game Clear.  If the monster is not found by the end of the third round or if the pair fails to hide it’s a Game Over.” 

Rules: 

Once the doors are open you and your partner must find a hiding spot by the time limit

Both partners must be hidden. If one is exposed to the monster it’s a Game Over for both partners

There will be an X marked on the ground to place the monster of your guess onto. 

You will have three rounds of ten minutes each to find the monster.

Any attempt to remove bracelets results in a Game Over

If the monster is not found by the third round a Game Over.

The only Game Clear condition required is for the monster to be returned by the third round.

What…

What!? 

“Now the game will commence, you have five minutes to figure out who you have been paired up with before the doors open.”

Your mind was blanking as you watched everyone look down at their bracelet, hurriedly you lifted your arm as your mind blanked 2 looking back at Nanami her lips were already quivering as she sniffled lifting her arm in defeat as your lips dropped open, 5.

“Hey! Guess you’re my partner!” Akari grinned as she wrapped an arm around Nanami who sniffled, “Oh…” She looked between you both, “Oh! Oh don’t worry! We’re not the monster so I’ll make sure your sister lives! You should go find your partner.” 

Your hands trembled unsure of what to do before you went to hug Nanami, “Whatever happens just stay calm okay! I need to go find my partner now!” You whispered, kissing her cheek as she sniffled while nodding. 

Everybody was shuffling around looking for their partner now, you passed by a few people, 4, 1, 3...did you even have a partner…? You scanned around, your throat tightening a little in panic, there had to be a mistake! There were only 8 people surrounding you- you yelped at the tight grip that suddenly held your arm forcing you to turn around to be met with a white hooded figure, a lollipop handle hanging and earbuds in before sighing, “So it appears I’m stuck with someone useless.” The man concluded as he stood up making you back away a little as your lips parted somewhat indignantly. 

How...how rude! You looked up, unable to fully make out his face but you could tell you didn’t like him one bit, “I’ll…! First of all I’m not useless! I’m just trying to understand what's going on! This is insane! We aren’t actually going to die from this, are we!?” Pushing his hood down you were immediately met with a snide gaze and cat eyes that leered at you like you were nothing more then dirt beneath his feet, long blonde hair pushed behind his shoulders and his bangs hanging low, suddenly a viscous side smile appeared on his lips, “Apparently so, otherwise I wouldn’t have watched half my last game get their brains blown out and the other half hung.” 

You reeled a little away from the blonde, your face dropped in semi horror, unsure if this was just a sick joke or he was serious. You searched his face a thousand times over, but for the first time in your life, you couldn’t figure out what his goal was. You couldn’t figure out anything about him, except he was exceptionally cold, “Well I don’t suppose I have much choice to doubt you,” He said with an annoying sing song tone as he rattled his wrist that showed the bracelet with a matching 2 on it, “My name is Chishiya, just stay out of my way and we’ll both live.” 

How arrogant! You scoffed as he walked past you, not the least bit bothered at your offense as you whipped around, glaring at his back. How come out of everyone you got stuck with the most…! Pompous! Arrogant! Ugh! You crossed your arms as you followed behind him, stilling secretly sending daggers into his back with your eyes as everyone shuffled into the ward. 

Hospital beds were scattered around the room, a few closets and one large vent at the bottom right corner of the room ahead. 

“Wait, what is this?” The first person to speak was a fair thin older gentleman, he appeared friendly as he observed the room around him, everyone looked around in confusion as you noticed what he meant. 

Any possible hiding spot was covered by either sheets of metal or locked tight...How were any of you supposed to hide if…!? The rules mentioned nothing about solving puzzles to gain access to a hiding spot!

“Forget that,” Another man said with a sneer he was broad and a bit older, well into his late twenties at least, perhaps a gym coach? Or maybe a wrestler of some sort? He looked like he could break you and nearly every other person in this room like a twig, “We need to figure out who’s the monster. “ He cracked his knuckles as you leered a little away and nobody spoke for a second. 

Of course, who would out themselves as the monster, more importantly, how does one even know they’re the monster? You could immediately feel tension rise as the previous, more patient man spoke, a little more collected, “How about we just check one another's’ watches! If anywhere it would show us on that! One pair should work on solving these puzzles here so everyone has a place to hide” 

“Unless the monster is among us and it sabotages us so we all die by the time limit.” The girlfriend crossed her arms as she darted her eyes around. Truthfully you didn’t know what to believe, the wording on the soundbox was rather confusing as to just what were you looking for. Was the monster supposed to be in the group or it’s own entity?

“If that were the case it would’ve showed up on our watches, which it didn’t. So that won’t work.” Chishiya spoke matter of fact, his tone cool as his eyes gazed across the room before he walked away from the group inspecting various hiding spots granted you didn’t think he was about to help anyone but himself, if anything you were at least lucky that him securing a hiding spot meant it was one for you as well. 

You looked at everyone in confusion, some arguing while others scattered to look for a hiding spot as the clock ticked down. You breathed in relief at the sight of Nanami and Akari both going for a bed to hide under. Your gaze finally found Chishiya’s form before following him, unsure of what you were supposed to do, if anything outside trying to figure out just what the monster even was. 

You glanced up at the digital clock that stood above the entrance you had just come in from, it was already a minute in before you searched the floor where you found a red X in the center of the room, that must’ve been the...what? Offering spot? You cringed a little at the idea. Looking forward you peered behind Chishiya’s shoulder deciding to not think about that, it seemed the metal sheet that had wrapped around the bed and was sealed to the ground was locked by some sort of metal device…? Contraption? Lock?

“Isn’t hiding under a bed a bit obvious…?” You frowned as you crossed your arms, unsure as you looked behind your shoulder once more to where accusations were already being thrown in the group. 

“The vent is a decoy to make you waste time, I already checked,” Chishiya replied, his fingers nimble as they rattled the metal, “And even if someone were to accomplish it in the time limit it’s the most obvious spot the monster would first check. Next would be the closet given it’s at eye level and the first thing one is drawn too when they walk into a room.” 

Your lips parted a little in surprise at his assessment...obviously he wasn’t just overconfident, “And why this spot?” If he had really thought about all this in less than a minute then...did he have a reason for this spot? You now found yourself, slightly less annoyed and a little more curious as to what was going on in his mind. 

“If the monster were to check a bed it would be after his eyes are drawn to the closet. Next in that line of sight would be the vent directly across it, which would be his next place to look if not his first and vice versa. The beds are all staggered throughout the room making them less conspicuous compared to the other hiding places, the bed on the far end of the room would be no good.” 

Your brows furrowed in curiosity at his assessment as you watched Chishiya blow a piece of hair from his face, wiggling out one piece of the knotted metal, “It’s too far from the entrance where as the one in the middle is by average the one most people would start with, where as the first? It’s almost too soon in the start to look there thus making it the safest.” 

“It’s them! They’re over there conspiring!” You both twisted around to watch the broad man point an accusing finger at you both as your eyes darted from him to the clock on the wall, which read at six minutes. A few other pairs, relievingly so was your sister had started working on a hiding spot while a few others stood around and argued. 

Your face coiled a little as you replied, not appreciating the accusation to such a baseless accusation, did they not realize the longer they argued the less time they had to secure a hiding spot? “Someone who’s terrible at playing the minority would often be the first to point fingers. There’s only six minutes left before the first round is over and we need to hide. But if you want to talk about this then sure,” 

You stepped closer as you crossed your arms, scanning over him before continuing, “Let’s talk about the chances of you being the monster, ever since you first came in you’ve been all twitchy and acting like something is wrong. Even when we first got paired up, you seemed a little panicked. Anyways,” You turned around as you spoke, “How do we know one pair is a monster and not one single person?” 

“Eh,” Akari sat on the bed that her and Nanami chose as Nanami fumbled to work out the puzzle, she had always been good at those! You felt assured as your heart beat frantically at the idea of them not being able to get a hiding spot in time, “Let’s all calm down,” She gave an awkward laugh, “This isn’t a hearts game, we shouldn’t divide our trust. This is a team building after all which means this game should be making us work together, the last thing we need to do is throw that away on our own accord.” 

“...Team building?” You frowned as you murmured having not been aware that this was some sort of game category...Hearts? Clubs? The memory of the playing card flashing on the screen appeared in your mind again, right...was that to stand for some kind of game genre? If Clubs stood for team building then...there should be no reason that the monster is any of you. Why would they even suggest that to begin with?

Then...what was the monster? 

“One minute remaining.”

The lights suddenly began flickering, “Got it.” Chishiya yanked the last piece of metal undone as he pulled the sheet of metal off, everyone was now scrambling and the few who had not done their puzzle were now panicking. Getting down you crawled under the bed, your back flat to the ground as you inhaled sharply as you noticed the lights beginning to dim, “This is...uncomfortable.” You mumbled, trying to ignore being pressed shoulder to shoulder with a man you didn’t even know besides him having a god complex, “We should’ve went with the vent.” 

“By all means, if you want to try and get yourself killed already. Go for it.” You turned to look at him, dark endless cat eyes meeting you as you harshly glared at him, why was he so condescending!? 

You were about to snap back something before you realized it was completely dark and the door slammed open causing you to jump. Was your heart always this loud? You could see the heavy boots step against the ground making you unsteadily inhale, swallowing as you closed your eyes. You could only place your trust that Chishiya hadn’t picked a horrible spot. 

More importantly your mind was plagued with worry for your sister, you had been so caught up you hadn’t even tried to help her yet...did she even…! You heard a sudden loud scream from two people causing you to stiffen as you looked up at the bed frame lined with wooden planks. You could only cower back down at blood suddenly painting the floor.

Your stomach suddenly churned as you covered your mouth. So he wasn’t lying. Chishiya however looked just as nonpulsed as he did when he first told you himself, his eyes blankly staring up at the bed frame as if this was just a regular game of hide and seek as people screamed as they were torn apart. 

Or that’s at least what you assumed it was. 

After an agonizing few minutes the doors finally closed and the lights flickered back on making you breath in relief as you waited a moment, could you even bear to face what was waiting on the floor? You winced a little before something caught your eye. What was with all this extra wood stuck in the frame? 

Chishiya had already gotten out from under the bed and before you suddenly heard a few girls scream, your sister among them making you puff and breath as you scrambled from beneath the bed.

Standing up your mouth agape at the horrid sight of the female and the broad male that had been too focused on accusing others, they didn’t have...enough time...it looked like they had been completely mutilated, blood pouring on the floor and the smell made you want to gag as you looked away. 

“Well, now what do we do.” Akari scratched her head, also not looking phased that two people had just been brutally killed. Your eyes stayed placed on the bodies before they slowly trailed to your hands, the memory of blood staining them still fresh in your mind. 

“Well we have to figure out where the monster is?” The girlfriend of the couple spoke up, she looked around somewhat suspiciously, “But I’m not sure where we could find it? Maybe it has to do with the bracelets? Maybe there’s a clue hidden.” 

“Oh what about in the cabinets?” The collected man from before offered as he went to search the cabinets, your frown furthered as you glanced around. Everyone was now getting along, still on edge but along at least. 

Chishiya only leaned against the wall, his hands in his pocket as he rolled the lollipop in his mouth, his gaze the same steely one it was before as if he had done his job in securing his temporary salvation and was now done. 

Or maybe he just didn’t know what to do? It was obvious his strength didn’t lie in teamwork, clearly. But then again, you weren’t sure what was going on, you couldn’t get a read on him. Crossing your arms you stayed beside him, your eyes briefly washing over your sister who was working Akari to dig through a desk together. 

“Cabinets and drawers are too obvious.” 

Chishiya’s eyes flickered to your figure, his expression just as cold if not...a little smug maybe? He said nothing in return as you continued, “If we’re looking for a monster, it’s obvious it’s a metaphor for something. Inanimate most likely,” Your eyes flickered around the room, inhaling sharply, why did it feel like the answer was right in front of you? 

Think…! You glanced at the clock, only six minutes left. The rounds were really short…! “It’d be something small and inconspicuous, something that’s in plain sight….but easy to miss...and the game said it was a pair which means there’s more than likely two.” 

“Three,” You glanced at Chishiya as he spoke, pulling the lollipop from his mouth, that permanent smug look on his face as he answered, “Two is what they want you to think and if you spend a round searching for each like they hope it’s game over by three.” 

You rubbed your neck as you frowned, “It’s already the second round and we haven’t even found one…” You glanced around before you suddenly perked up, “Wait…!” Getting back down on the floor you laid on your back as you pushed yourself under the bed, “Chishiya! Help me get this thing out!” 

Within a moment the blonde appeared as well, his eye sharp and keen as they noticed straight away what you were tugging at, “You think this is the monster?” 

You looked at him as you raised a brow, “We have less than four minutes left on our second round, you have a better idea?” Chishiya said no more but helped regardless, successfully with the both of you maneuvering it around from beneath the wooden boards you managed to get it out. 

Holding it up you looked at it, “It’s a poppet doll.” You turned to face him as you smiled in accomplishment, “They’re typically used as curses to place upon people in folklore. If anything is a monster, this would be it.” 

Excited at your first victory you pulled out from beneath the bed as you waved it up, “Hey guys! We need to start looking for something similar to this! If not a replica.” Everyone huddled around you examining the doll before the microphone sounded, “One minute remaining.”

Everyone had immediately scrambled back to their hiding place as you ran to the red X, placing the poppet on it, that's the reason that had to be there right!? You’d just have to see, hurriedly you ran back to your spot under the bed. Making it just in time as the lights flickered off. 

The door slamming open once more as you slowly inhaled, it had to work right? If not...then you were at a loss for what to search for and you were utterly screwed. 

The boots stomped against the floor past the bed as you closed your eyes, unable to calm yourself. After a moment you heard a screech and something rip open before screams followed making you jump. Chishiya’s eyes were on the feet that stood by the closet that had been obviously ripped open. 

You heard the sound of something wet and a gurgle before a body slumped to the floor and you could hear begging before something got snapped in half causing you to close your eyes once more...Did you make it angry!? Was that not it? Fuck. You had never felt this stressed before as it roamed around, passing in front of your bed as you tensed.

Was this your last moment alive? Truly? 

Much to your relief, the door closed once more before the lights followed, flickering on, relaxing a little you sighed as you reluctantly got out from underneath the bed with Chishiya to see what had happened. Much to your horror it was the man who had been so kind this whole game and his partner. 

The monster didn’t check anywhere in the first round, yet he did this round? You tried to block out the bodies slumped in the corner as you glanced at the red X, the poppet doll gone. 

“Why- why were they killed!” Nanami’s eyes began to water as she grabbed her head, “This makes no sense!” 

“If it accepts the doll that means we only need two more. What happened to them is irrelevant.” Chishiya stuffed his hands back into his pocket as you glared at him sideways, not appreciating his careless tone. You could deal with it, but you didn’t want your sister dragged into it. 

Grabbing your chin you thought about it for a moment, “Well...the game said to return the monster to its own and…” You glance down at the X, was there some kind of unsaid rule that if you didn’t get all three of them on the first try that it would start hunting down players? “How would a mother feel if they only returned one of its children?” 

“This thing doesn’t have feelings,” The girlfriend of the partners replied coldly, her eyes like steel of her own as she clung to her boyfriend, “It’s as he said,” She waved to Chishiya, “It doesn’t matter, we’ll be like them if we don’t figure this out.” 

You glanced around the room, “Tell me this, if it doesn’t matter, then why did they give us all these different hiding spots?” Everyone was silent, all eyes on you as if your question didn’t make any sense, your eyes flickered to the clock that was nearing eight minutes, you didn’t have time to monologue, “No think about it. The monster never intended to look for us- that was never stated in the rules. So why did they give us all of these choices if we only needed one per pair? My point being, if we found one poppet in our hiding spot then...You get where I’m going with this? Chishiya.” 

He glanced up at you acknowledgement as you curved a brow, your lips threatening to tug into a smile as you tilted your head, “How confident are you in solving that vent?” 

He glanced back down and for the first time, you watch a cocky wide smirk twist onto his lips, “You’re lucky to have someone as smart as me here to be able to open it.” You tucked your tongue into your cheek as in annoyance as he sauntered over to the vent already getting to work, “As for everyone else, we need to open up as many of these as possible to find the other two.” 

Everyone immediately scrambled to get to work, with only seven minutes on the clock this was...going to be difficult. First Nanami and Akari searched all the opened spots as you worked on another bed. Rubbing your head as muttered, “Shit...I never was good with puzzles.” You awkwardly hung your head in defeat temporarily, briefly letting your eyes shift to Chishiya who was fiddling with several locks, his gaze sharp and you couldn’t even imagine all the calculations going on in his mind. You were somewhat envious of what it would be like to be that perceptive to anything adhering to logic and solution. 

“Aha! Found one!” Akari yanked the poppet from the top of the closest as Nanami covered her mouth, looking like she was gonna throw up being so close to so many dead bodies. You ignored the grisly sight at the second victory of the poppet doll. Akari quickly placed it on the X as you began to work on the puzzle once more, looking up at the clock. Oh no...Oh no there was only three minutes left!

“Chishiya! Hows that puzzle coming along.” You called out, trying not to sound alarmed but you could see the clear cut annoyance on his face as he continued working through the locks, “If you’d like to help while struggling on a novice lock feel free.” He replied condescendingly, not appreciating the pressure. 

You rolled your eyes with huff as you finally managed to get it undone, feeling triumphant as you searched under the bed but there was no luck, “There’s nothing here!”

“Or here!” 

Several people called out as well as you rubbed your head, standing up, “If the only other place that hasn’t been searched is the vent then maybe there’s only two? It did say a pair.” You felt a lump of anxiety well in your chest at the sight of the clock ticking close to a minute and half. 

“Should we really take the risk?” The boyfriend asked as he rubbed his neck, concern on his face as he looked around, “If we’re wrong then we’ll all…” 

You hadn’t even thought of that…

“...! Hey.” You turned to Chishiya who seemed to be trying to get your attention making you immediately come over, if he was asking for you it’d have to be for something important given there was nearly less then two minute on the clock, “Hold this right here.” He immediately pushed your hand onto the lock right where he wanted it, “This is a two handle mechanism meaning that there needs to be two people unlocking it. Push down and out at the same time.”

“Hide! Everyone needs to hide now!”

The lights were beginning to flicker as everyone scrambled to hide, stress evidently put on your shoulders now more than ever. You could only hope he was right with your life on the line, “Now!” You pushed down on your side, the lock sliding as you pulled out, pulling a piece of metal holding up the lock directly out as Chishiya did the same with his side. 

The lock fell off as well as the metal of the gate of the vent, you immediately with no hesitation leaned inside it was dark and hard to make it out anything besides the steep drop off. So he was right, this was a waste of time for a hiding place. 

Looking down you caught sight of wood before laughing in relief, “It’s here! Wait shit! Chishiya! It’s too far down in the vent, you’re gonna have to lower me down to reach it. Time?” 

“Forty five seconds.” You felt unfamiliar hands on your hips lifting you up as you were lowered down, “We have time.” 

You squinted trying to see as you reached down, “Lower me further! I’m not quite in reach,” Your muscles began to ache in your shoulder as you reached harder, growling in frustration, “Time!?” You were lowered a little further, the wooden poppet brushing against your fingers. 

“Thirty seconds! Could you go a little faster?” 

“Could you lower me a little quicker- Ah! Hey did you almost let go!?” You snarled back, grabbing the poppet doll, giving a good yank as it lodged in between the crevice it was in, “Get me back up! I got it. Time!” 

“Twenty seconds.” Chishiya called back, pulling you up as you gasped, pain from the metal jabbing into your stomach evident as you were met with a darkening room. Setting your feet firmly on the floor your eyes flew to the flock fifteen seconds and your spot was all the way across the room….! 

“Where are we supposed to hide!? We can’t get all the way there in time!” You hissed out running to the X as you dropped the poppet down. The lights shut off as the final five seconds counted down and before you could do anything you were shoved to the floor as you squeaked. Your body throbbing in pain and your mouth immediately covered as you were met with the coverage of a bed but neither one of you were bold enough to try and scramble beneath it as the doors slammed open. 

Fuck.

Your whole body was tense as your eyes squeezed shut, you were just a little ahead of the X here, if this is all the poppet dolls...they’d have no reason to go further into the room...unless...Your hand squeezed tight around the wrist of the hand that covered your mouth as you tried to calm yourself at the loud thudded footsteps. 

It was quiet for a moment before you heard more walking before the doors closed. 

“Game Cleared”

The lights turned on as you fell limp against the side of the bed, Chishiya’s hand removed from mouth as you pushed your hair from your face, closing your eyes as you breathed in relief, “Holy shit.” Was all you could mutter to yourself, you had never been more grateful to breathe air in your whole life. 

“I guess you weren’t that useless after all huh.” Chishiya clacked his tongue as you turned your head to look at him, raising your brows as your face contorted into something between insult and amusement. 

You’ve only known this man for a half an hour and yet...something about his words, if you dug down deep past that smug expression of his, was this a compliment? Looking away you pressed your tongue into your cheek, trying to keep from smiling, “Yeah, and you’re still conceited and arrogant but, I guess you have a good reason to be.” You glanced back at him again but you could hardly hold his gaze, something in that brief moment was electrified between you both as you laughed somewhat sheepishly, closing your eyes as you looked away once more. 

What the fuck was even wrong with you? If this was back before today you would’ve totally kicked this guy in the balls and went about your day.

“Y/n!” You straightened up at the sound of Nanami’s voice, your expression brightening as you stood up, quickly running to her as you hugged her tight, “I can’t believe that just happened…” She whispered to you as she pressed her face into your neck. You couldn’t either but, you were thankful you had survived this game. Whatever it was. 

“Come on, let's get out of this room.” You tugged on her arm, no longer wanting to be in this death room despite knowing it was all over. Pulling her out you paused at the sight of the TV and a...register…? You bracelet unlocked as you took it off, tossing it on the table as you tilted your head. 

“Congratulations Game ''Clear ``.''

“...Now issuing visas to those who survived the game…?” You furrowed your brows as you glanced at Nanami who rubbed her head in confusion. You grabbed the receipt as you looked it over with a frown before picking up the 5 of clubs playing card along with it. Odd. 

“It’s how many days you’re allowed to stay now! Almost a whole week, that's a good score for a first game!” Akari called out as she patted your back making you jump a little. 

Almost a whole week…”Until we have to play again to...continue our stay?” You raised a brow, deciding not to ask what happens if you refused. While you had many questions, you had a feeling you knew the answer to that one. 

A part of you couldn’t even believe this had happened, or was it all still a dream. 

“Hey…! Sorry for all of that in there,” You turned to see...oh…! It was the boyfriend of the partner, the gifrlfriend stayed behind looking brooding, “I’m Ryu and that’s my girlfriend Hiroko I was...ah…” He faltered a little, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze flittered to his girlfriend who was glaring him down, “You should stop by the Beach- I...I think you guys would make good additions! Bye!” He hurried not even finishing his original sentence before scurrying off making you furrow your brows at what he even meant. 

“The hell?” Akari raised a brow as she watched the guy run off, “Seems to me he wanted to chat more…guess we know who's really pulling balls in that relationship.” 

Nanami suddenly snickered, covering her mouth as she giggled, “Hey Akari! Why don’t we stay together! We did really well in the game together!” 

“Awh shit, if you guys really want me too!” Akari offered a quirky smile as you laughed, you had no problems with someone staying behind with you. Looking past Akari your smile faded a little at the sight of a white hoodie exiting the entrance. 

“Hey- I’ll be right back!” You pushed past the both of them who paid you no mind as you pushed out of the exit and down the stone steps, not sure why your feet were making you chase after such an egotistical man but…!

“Chishiya!” You called out, making the man pause, he turned around, pulling the earbuds out as he glanced up from his hoodie, raising his brows in acknowledgement, “Um…” Why did you even chase after him…? You stepped down the last step as you wrapped your arms around yourself. 

It was silent for a moment as you berated yourself internally for why you seemed so speechless all of a sudden. Chishiya however didn’t seem to mind, his eyes absent now as he stared up at the hospital, “I used to do my clinical rotations here.” 

You were broken out of your silent thrashing of internal humiliation as you raised your brows, lips parting in curiosity as you asked, “You were a doctor?” 

“No,” Chishiya snorted, that amused calico look of his on his face once more as he looked down at you, “I was a medical student. Training to be a doctor but that obviously didn’t happen…” His lips curved into a frown, his eyes cold once more as they looked back up at the building, “I came here tonight to see if anyone I knew would be here.” 

“Oh…” You looked away, feeling somewhat awkward and unsure of how to reply to him as silence took over once more beside the occasional rustling of the wind in the tree’s, the urge to speak overtaking you to the point you couldn't resist, “Chishiya...I…” You looked away, feeling somewhat bashful, “We...made a really good team back there.” You forced yourself to look up at him as you offered a bright yet subtly shy smile, “If you want...you could stay with us…?” 

Chishiya pulled the lollipop stick from his mouth, letting it drop to the ground as he spoke, “No thanks.” You turned to him in surprise as you frowned a little, you shouldn’t have expected anything less…

“Oh...I understand.” You offered a weak smile as he turned his back on you and began to walk once more, “I just have one more question,” You called out causing him to pause, “...Do you by any chance know about a place called the Beach?”

Note: Whew...! As a lurker in the Alice in borderland fandom I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of Chishiya fics so I decided to volunteer myself and take on for the team to write a series for this little blonde fucker so PLEASE let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!! Also

#alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya x reader #chishiya x reader smut #shuntaro chishiya #shuntaro chishiya x reader #aib imagine #aib x reader

[qqueenofhades]

Hi, I’ve been tasked with researching Richard Plantagenet for a paper and thus far found extremely negative accounts of the king, his religious bigotry being a reoccurring theme (his treatment of Jewish dignitaries attending his coronation and his reasoning to join the third crusade etc)

I stumbled across your wonderful tag for Richard at the weekend and wondered if you wouldn’t mind sharing your informed opinion of Richard and his views on religions ? Your writing seems very well balanced regarding his attributes and flaws. Thanks :)

Oof. Okay. So, a short and simple question, then?

Quick note: when I was first reading your ask and saw "Richard Plantagenet," I briefly assumed that you meant Richard Plantagenet, father of Edward IV, or perhaps Richard III, both from the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century, before seeing from context that you meant Richard I. While "Plantagenet" was first used as an informal appellation by Richard I's grandfather, Geoffrey of Anjou, it wasn't until several centuries later that the English royal house started to use it consistently as a surname. So it's not something that Richard I would have been really called or known by, even if historians tend to use it as a convenient labeling conceit. (See: the one thousand popular histories on "The Plantagenets" that have been published recently.)

As for Richard I, he is obviously an extremely complex and controversial figure for many reasons, though one of the first things that you have to understand is that he has been mythologized and reinvented and reinterpreted down the centuries for many reasons, especially his crusade participation and involvement in the Robin Hood legends. When you're researching about Richard, you're often reading reactions/interpretations of that material more than anything specifically rooted in the primary sources. And while I am glad that you asked me about this and want to encourage you to do so, I will gently enquire to start off: when you say "research," what kind of materials are you looking at, exactly? Are these actual published books/papers/academic material, or unsourced stuff on the internet written from various amateur/ideological perspectives and by people who have particular agendas for depicting Richard as the best (or as is more often the case, worst) ever? Because history, to nobody's surprise, is complicated. Richard did good things and he also did quite bad things, and it's difficult to reduce him to one or the other.

Briefly (ha): I'll say just that if a student handed me a paper stating that Richard was a religious bigot because a) there were anti-Jewish riots during his coronation and b) he signed up for the Third Crusade, I would seriously question it. Medieval violence against the Jews was an unfortunately endemic part of crusade preparations, and all we know about Richard's own reaction is that he fined the perpetrators harshly (repeated after a similar March 1190 incident in York) and ordered for them to be punished. Therefore, while there famously was significant anti-Semitic violence at his coronation, Richard himself was not the one who instigated it, and he ordered for the Londoners who did take part in it to be punished for breaking the king's peace.

This, however, also doesn't mean that Richard was a great person or that he was personally religiously tolerant. We don't know that and we often can't know that, whether for him or anyone else. This is the difficulty of inferring private thoughts or beliefs from formal records. This is why historians, at least good historians, mostly refrain from speculating on how a premodern private individual actually thought or felt or identified. We do know that Richard likewise also made a law in 1194 to protect the Jews residing in his domains, known as Capitula Judaeis. This followed in the realpolitik tradition of Pope Calixtus II, who had issued Sicut Judaeis in c. 1120 ordering European Christians not to harass Jews or forcibly convert them. This doesn't mean that either Calixtus or Richard thought Jews were great, but they did choose a different and more pragmatic/economic way of dealing with them than their peers. This does not prove "religious bigotry" and would need a lot more attention as an analytical concept.

As for saying that the crusades were motivated sheerly by medieval religious bigotry, I'm gonna have to say, hmm, no. Speaking as someone with a PhD in medieval history who specialised in crusade studies, there is an enormous literature around the question of why the crusades happened and why they continue to hold such troubling attraction as a pattern of behavior for the modern world. Yes, Richard went on crusade (as did the entire Western Latin world, pretty much, since 1187 and the fall of Jerusalem was the twelfth century's 9/11). But there also exists material around him that doesn't exist around any other crusade leader, including his extensive diplomatic relations with the Muslims, their personal admiration for him, his friendship with Saladin and Saladin's brother Saif al-Din, the fact that Arabic and Islamic sources can be more complimentary about Richard than the Christian records of his supposed allies, and so forth. I think Frederick II of Sicily, also famous for his friendly relationships with Muslims, is the only other crusade leader who has this kind of material. So however he did act on crusade, and for whatever reasons he went, Richard likewise chose the pragmatic path in his interactions with Muslims, or at least the Muslim military elite, than just considering them all as religious barbarians unworthy of his time or attention.

The question of how the crusades functioned as a pattern of expected behavior for the European Christian male aristocrat, sometimes entirely divorced from any notion of his private religious beliefs, is much longer and technical than we can possibly get into. (As again, I am roughly summarising a vast and contentious field of academic work for you here, so... yes.) Saying that the crusades happened only because medieval people were all religious zealots is a wild oversimplification of the type that my colleague @oldshrewsburyian and I have to deal with in our classrooms, and likewise obscures the dangerous ways in which the modern world is, in some ways, more devoted to replicating this pattern than ever. It puts it beyond the remit of analysis and into the foggy "Dark Ages hurr durr bad" stereotype that drives me batty.

Weighted against this is the fact that Richard obviously killed many Muslims while on crusade, and that this was motivated by religious and ideological convictions that were fairly standard for his day but less admirable in ours. The question of how that violence has been glorified by the alt-right people who think there was nothing wrong with it at all and he should have done more must also be taken into account. Richard's rise to prominence as a quintessentially English chivalrous hero in the nineteenth century, right when Britain was building its empire and needed to present the crusades as humane and civilizing missions abroad rather than violent and generally failed attempts at forced conversion and conquest, also problematized this. As noted, Richard was many things, but... not that, and when the crusades fell out of fashion again in the twentieth century, he was accordingly drastically villainized. Neither the superhero or the supervillain images of him are accurate, even if they're cheap and easy.

The English nationalists have a complicated relationship with Richard: he represents the ideal they aspire to, aesthetically speaking, and the kind of anti-immigrant sentiment they like to put in his mouth, which is far more than the historical Richard actually displayed toward his Muslim counterparts. (At least, again, so far as we can know anything about his private beliefs, but this is what we can infer from his actions in regard to Saladin, who he deeply respected, and Saladin's brother.) But he was also thoroughly a French knight raised and trained in the twelfth-century martial tradition, his concern for England was only as a minor part of the sprawling 'Angevin empire' he inherited from his father Henry II (which is heresy for the Brexit types who think England should always be the center of the world), and his likely inability to speak English became painted as a huge character flaw. (Notwithstanding that after the Norman Conquest in 1066, England did not have a king who spoke English natively until Henry IV in 1399, but somehow all those others don't get blamed as much as Richard.)

Anyway. I feel as if it's best to stop here. Hopefully this points you toward the complexity of the subject and gives you some guidelines in doing your own research from here. :)

#anonymous #ask #history #medieval history #richard the lionheart #long post

[ultranos]

Hi, you're probably tired from dealing with trolls so I thought maybe I could take your mind off them! I see a lot of Dragon!Zuko in AO3 but would you mind making some Dragon!Azula headcanons? It can be as fluffy, as full of crack and as full of angst as you want.

Anon, this concept has been living in my brain rent-free since you sent it. Gosh, what fun!

So you’re right, there are a lot of Dragon!Zuko fics, which always struck me as kind of weird when Azula ends up being a totally normal human because, uh...how did dragon happen? (Even weirder when Ursa is one and Azula is not and...what. My genetics hurts.) So in an effort to answer that question, I ended up stumbling back to our favorite crack-theory of Azula’s parentage!

Turns out, “Dragon of the West” did have something to do with actual dragons. And isn’t just a random title.

Oh no, Iroh isn’t a dragon. Not really. But in the period after Lu Ten was born, after he lost his wife (divorce, not death), Iroh went out to find his destiny. And like the sons of his line, like his father before him, Crown Prince Iroh went dragon-hunting. He found Ran and Shaw on that island, and they taught him that fire is life. That a dragon’s fire does not only have to destroy, but can be life itself. The dragons look deep inside Iroh and decide to trust him with their most precious gift, to take it out into the world.

Iroh...doesn’t realize they didn’t mean firebending.

Iroh certainly didn’t think of dragons when he ends up in an extremely ill-advised tryst with his sister-in-law. They were on Ember Island, him and his son. And his brother and his wife and their adorable little boy. Ozai was called home. A diplomatic incident. A logistical issue. Azulon wanted his second son at the Palace and so Ozai went. And in a rare display of softness, maybe of caring instead of neglect, Ozai left his wife and son to finish their vacation. Iroh, after all, would keep threats away.

Maybe Ursa and Iroh were drunk. Drunk off rice wine or drunk off loneliness. Maybe it was simply that both were tired of cold beds and empty nights. Maybe they both wanted to feel something real from a partner again. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how or why, just that it did.

Nine months later, Ursa gives birth to a girl with tawny eyes, gold like a hunter’s moon. Ozai smiles when he sees the girl for the first time, the spark of fire (the girl’s soul burned with something greater) in her eyes from that first moment. Of course, of course this would be his heir, of course the fire would burn hottest in this second child of a second son. (if only she were a son)

(Ran and Shaw entrusted Iroh with a sun.)

Some things stay the same. Azula grows up. Iroh stays away, not realizing the truth. He sees something far too cold in the girl’s eyes, not the hearthfire brightness of Zuko’s. (A reptilian coldness.) Iroh focuses on his nephew, a boy neglected by his father. Iroh does not know he has a daughter.

Azula grows up knowing Something isn’t quite right. She preens under the praise her fire awards her (prodigy, they whisper. A once-in-millenia affinity for fire), and something deep inside her rumbles in pleasure. She doesn’t understand why people struggle with things that are as easy as breathing, doesn’t understand that not everyone was born to bend and burn.

What happens is that Azula starts to notice things about herself, like all children eventually do. But she thinks this is different. Sometimes, when she looks in the mirror, her reflection has slittled pupils. Sometimes, her nails resemble talons without her needing to file them into that shape.

Azula swears she saw scales underneath her collar at least once.

When she overhears Ursa say the word “monster” one day, something clicks into place and oh. That’s what this is.

(Little girls do not have talons and sharp teeth that come and go with no warning. Little girls do not have phantom scales that itch between her shoulder blades, like there should be something there.

Little girls are supposed to feel pain when they burn.)

(Azula doesn’t expect Zuko’s burn to be so bad that day. Father’s burns never leave marks like that on her skin. They will hurt, but they won’t maim her skin like it did Zuko’s.)

Three years with Ozai is a long time. Azula defines herself accordingly, and an old, old spirit binding shifts. The dragons hid their child, their sun, their gift even from herself. The mask is defined by her own sense of self, a dragon hidden by the very flame she burns with.

As long as she believes she was born to to bend the fire, the mask will hold.

The Last Agni Kai has so many consequences. When Zuko stands over her, when she’s chained down (like a hunted beast before the slaughter, like the siblings she never met were bound and made to bow at the feet of Sozin’s Line before they died), her fire flickers.

The mask cracks even more.

Zuko means well. But his sister is dangerous and wild, and she cannot be free like she is now. So he locks her away but tries to help. The doctors tell her she is fine, that she is normal, that of course she shouldn’t listen to the roaring in her ears, in her mind, wanting fire and sky and freedom.

The doctors do not know Azula is correct. And the more they try to push their perception of reality on her, the more the human that was Azula cracks. Cracks more and more until finally, that human shatters.

Not even Fire Nation asylums were designed to hold a dragon against their will.

(Meanwhile, while Azula gets to revel in this newfound-freedom of “fuck yeah, I’m a dragon”, Zuko is...having A Time. Zuko gets the emergency notice from the asylum, reads it, and has to sit down as he tries to make sense of what the hell he just read.

Zuko finds himself torn when Iroh and his friends find him. He doesn’t know if he should start with “a dragon suddenly appeared” or “I think a dragon ate my sister?”

Aang suggests that maybe they need to go talk to the other dragons, maybe Ran and Shaw know what’s going on? So Iroh accompanies Avatar and Fire Lord to the island.

Ran and Shaw: [see Iroh] Oh hey, how’s our kid doing? Iroh: Your what? Aang and Zuko: Your what?!

)

#atla #flash fanfic #and now we have shannanigans #this time with more dragon #Anonymous #dragon au

[aestherians]

Hey! I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about your culture when you were a gnoll? What do you remember? What did you eat? What laws did your society abide by? Your partner: what was their role in society? What was yours? Were you an outlier, or did you fit in well with your kind? Did y'all domesticate animals? What about agriculture?

I really love hearing about other peoples' cultures, and yours is rather close to home in a distant way... so hearing about it is interesting and nice.

Lots of questions all at once!! I’m just gonna pick one I like and start rambling skdfhg

Gnoll society is kinda hard to pin down as a whole because there isn’t a lot of interaction between the different clans. My own clan was also really small - something like 50 people. So I can’t speak for gnolls as a whole, and I know for a fact that the one neighboring clan I can pericall had slightly different rules and customs.

None of the rules are written down (though we do have some kind of written language, it’s only used to send messages, not to write down common knowledge). Some of the most prominent rules in my clan were the rules of bonds, the rules of taking, and the rules of sharing. I know the rules of sharing best because they’re mostly related to food and like 75% of my noemata are about food :’)

The rules of bonds are the most basic and easy to understand: You are not born with bonds, your bonds are created, and the bonds you’ve created should inform your actions. So, you aren’t tied to any people from birth, not even your parents (parenting is done communally anyways, so like, you know who conceived of/birthed you, but it’s just as likely that another couple will become your main parental figures). The adults choose to care for you and offer to bond with you, and as you grow up you reject some bonds and accept others.

Usually bonds aren’t “official” in any way, but you can choose to officiate any bonds you want with any people you want, the same way humans officiate bonds with their mates through marriage. If you choose to officiate a bond, you and the other person(s) go through a ceremony, and are now considered “life partners” of sorts. I don’t know if you can break an official bond after it’s been made, and divorce the other person - at least I’ve never seen it happen.

When you’ve chosen to accept the bond created between you and another person (officially or not), your actions should always have the other person’s interests, as much as your own, in mind. You can’t do anything that would make the other person in any way disadvantaged to yourself. Bonding is serious business and bonds require perfect loyalty.

There are also more abstract bonds between the individual and the clan as an entity, but they basically require the same things: If you choose to accept your bond with the clan, you should always have the clan’s overall interest at heart. If you don’t accept this bond, the clan has no responsibility to protect you or feed you or care for you.

-

The rules of taking are based a bit on practicality and a lot on spiritiuality. ‘Taking’ is badly translated from gnoll language - I don’t even know what the exact word is in gnollish, I just know this is not a good translation and that there isn’t a word in the English language that accurate summarizes the concept. ‘Actively consuming’ is maybe the closest thing.

Basically, you are not allowed to take without actually using. You are not allowed to hoard or waste things - everything you keep, you should have a plan or an idea of how you want to use it. For every animal or person we kill, every body part must be used in some way, as food, tool, fuel, or decoration, and we’re only allowed to kill if we know nothing will be wasted.

We are only allowed to live in a given area as long as we respect that rule. If we become too greedy and wasteful, the area will go against us and force us to move - usually the signs of an area “not liking” our presence is a lack of prey and edible plants. Since we’re semi-nomadic it’s just an accepted part of life that eventually we will have to move away from any given area. You’re never gonna find a gnoll city, only temporary settlements.

The “only take what you need, actually use everything you take, and the area provides for you” mentality also extends to other people who might enter our area. Meaning if travelers are passing through, we will understand that as an example of the area providing for us, and if they have stuff we can use we will take it from them including their lives. This doesn’t apply to other gnoll clans, though, we’re friendly towards those :P

-

The rules of sharing are basically that if anyone within the clan asks for something you have to share it with them. You can’t say no. The onus is on the asker to only request something if it’s appropriate for the other person to give it up. So instead of the individual being responsible for keeping their belongings for themself, the clan’s responsibility is to respect the individual’s property. I’ve had a really hard time phrasing this rule in the past, so let me give an example:

While courting Iʀya I gave hrir a lot of gifts, ranging from flowers and snacks to jewelry and metals. You might think that nonconsumable/lasting gifts like jewelry are kinda meaningless in a society where everyone owns everything, but that’s just not accurate. It’s true that, if anyone asked to wear the necklace I gave Iʀya, hri would let them use it. But because of the responsibility to respect other’s property, no one would dare ask to use that necklace.

It’s kinda like a social contract - if someone asks for things they shouldn’t, they can be sure others will ask them for things they shouldn’t in return. Not respecting others boundaries leads to conflict, while respecting the boundaries creates a deep trust between all clan members. So if someone who was known to respect the social contract asked for Iʀya‘s necklace, hri would know they had a good reason to ask for it and hri would give it to them without hesitation.

#ask #gnoll rambles #i love asks like this #otherkin

[cutesilyo]

Don’t know if you’re still full of energy to answer this ask but what do you think Nation-tans are or what they represent? i personally love how Hima made them so humane they’re able to entertain themselves with little pleasures like owning pets and— and the likes. And they work under their government but, oftentimes have opinions that aren’t politically driven, because propaganda can’t be the quintessence of being a nation-tan, their identity is also be with culture and ppl.

omg chiring-art i admire you so much and i admire every single piece of art you do so i am personally so EXCITED to answering this ask for you. ill try my best to answer this with care.

this ended up pretty long though, sorry! tl;dr: i think nations represent culture more than their government, and they take government jobs because its convenient. i also feel like nations are intrinsically connected to human perception of them and disconnected from linear time

my idea of the nations is an amalgamation of stuff other hetalia fans have said, the few interpretations we can get from canon, and things i’ve read concerning other mythologies and monsters. there is a stark political and legal delineation between the terms “nation” and “state”: a nation being the cultural identity shared by a group of people living in the same borders, while a state is literally just territory with a sovereign government. i certainly think the nations represent, well, their nation — the totality of it, the land and the culture and the history and the people — more than their governments, primarily because himaruya bases their personalities mainly on national stereotypes (which are derived from history and culture) and not on political, governmental action. it’s why hetalia, despite the subject matter, can be as light and comedic as it is: the focus isn’t on history enacted by a wacky cast of characters, but rather on a wacky cast of characters that just so happen to embody history.

on why the nations usually work under their governments, i always felt like it was out of convenience’s sake on the nation’s part. national governments will usually be involved in any major event that requires foreign relations, and national governments have the ability to reach out to every single little city, town, county, province in the nation. the breadth of government to, by necessity, be connected to every kind of sector — women, children, workers, media, education, business, transportation, military, healthcare, trade, law, the poor, science, environment and resources, oil, energy, and a PLETHORA of other things — means that, for a nation, it’s easy to use those connections to be placed in a job that they’re actually personally interested in. and for the government itself, it’s very convenient to a) have their nation in a workplace they have direct control over, and b) nations being fickle and developing different interests over time, and thus trying to go to different jobs or locations, means that the government has an “insider” that can informally, quickly, and honestly report on how this specific workforce or location is doing and if they have any concerns to forward without going through bureaucracy and red tape. so like, america will request to be placed as an engineer for NASA, and he has monthly calls with his assigned federal agent where he can say stuff like “oh yeah, we’re a little low on morale because the boss is going through a rough divorce, we need a referral for a nearby therapist stat. also johnson here wants to follow-up on the radiators he’s been requesting for three years now so a bump on that would be lit” it’s a win/win situation most of the time, but i do feel like there are some nations who don’t trust their governments enough for such an arrangement, or just want to live simple lives outside of their nation duties with no work or need for such connections.

but i digress. i guess the heart of the question is really: what even are nations?

i struggled a lot in how to word this, honestly. nations are, well, the physical representations of the culture, history, territory, and people of a nation — we all know that. but i feel the question needs to be taken to a deeper level so we can search for a more conclusive answer. history tells us that nations fall and unite and form and change and expand and crumble over time, so what determines what the nations in hetalia represent? when does a nation die and get replaced by a new nation-tan, and when does a nation just adapt and represent what they’ve developed into? in the meta-sense, we know its because hima is adapting the nations based on our current, modern understanding of history: we know which nations/kingdoms/empires stand the test of time and which don’t, so we have an idea on which ones are “relevant” enough to be their own separate character and which don’t. whatever force in hetalia that serves as the in-universe explanation for which nation-tans exist must have the same understanding. 

it’d be tempting to pin this force as fate or god or some other otherworldly being, but nations are fundamentally human constructs, and i’m a lot more interested in how that works. i read a short story before about a conversation between a human and a vampire, and the vampire says something like, “we used to be fine under the sun, but then humanity began believing that it was one of our weaknesses, and since then we've been crumbling under its light. whatever story you tell about us shapes us.” i think the same mechanism applies for which nation-tans exist and the personalities of the nation-tans themselves, and in a broader sense, it also explains why the nations are basically just normal people that don’t die. people write about nations as people all the time; not even just counting personifications like uncle sam and lady britannia, but also poetry and art of nations (represented by normal humans) doing normal people things like crying, working, dancing, etc.

but this mechanism would also have to be one that exists outside of time: 14th century england has to carry with him the conceptions and stereotypes that 21st century modern society associates with england, for example. the nature of being a nation demands that you cannot be governed by time in the same way that humans are, and it explains why nations are immortal, why they have their own rules for aging, why their sense of time is off, why humans go crazy when exposed to them over long periods of time, why animals develop longer lifespans when nations develop bonds with them, and why anachronistic one-off jokes like america trying to use google in the 40s can happen. 

im really not sure how to end this because i feel like i can ramble on forever. but to sum it all up, nations are basically a metaphysical nightmare!

#chiring-art #asks #this was the FIRST thing i saw when i woke up so i am so EXCITED #i feel like i didnt say anything new though lmao #okAY OKAY BUT WHAT IF #what if in the biological sense nations are literally just people but every cell is a cancer cell #and their blood has no antigens or antibodies so their blood type is essentially [REDACTED] #THIS MAKES NO BIOLOGICAL SENSE LMAO BUT THEYRE NATIONS SO #you know i actually dont know how to add tags to answered asks before i post them.......

[theexistentiallyqueer]

It’s been a while, what with me being being more active on Twitter these days, but I had some thoughts churning around in my brain and this felt like a better place to post them rather than threading them over there.

This is a post about Persona 5 and restorative justice. Before I go any further, though, a note: this is meta about restorative justice and prison abolition as ethical philosophies only, how it can be expressed/structured in works of fiction, i.e., Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and what the importance of doing so is.

I should also note that I am not a philosopher, a legal scholar, or an activist, I just like to read, and I strongly encourage you to look into the topics I’m discussing in this essay. If you want specific recommendations you can DM me; again, this being meta about a video game, I think linking those titles here would diminish their importance regarding what they’re actually about.

Ready? Okay. Let’s get started.

what is restorative justice?

‘Restorative justice’ is a concept in ethical and legal philosophy that holds itself in contrast to two other kinds of justice: punitive and carceral. Punitive justice is justice as punishment, i.e., an eye for an eye, while carceral justice involves justice as the confinement of criminal offenders. While both have heavy overlaps with one another, they’re distinct in the generality vs the specificity of their outcome: punitive justice can involve the death penalty, property seizure, permanent loss of rights, etc., carceral justice refers strictly just to the incarceration of criminal offenders in institutional facilities (jails, prisons, etc.).

Restorative justice, in contrast, roots itself in the understanding of closing a circle: the best and most holistic way to heal harm one person inflicts on another is to have the person who inflicted the harm make reparations to the person they hurt in a tangible and meaningful way. This can take many forms, and if you’re passingly familiar with restorative justice already, you may have heard about it involving the offender and the victim meeting face-to-face. This does happen sometimes. Personal acknowledgement of the harm you’ve inflicted on someone is important, and direct apologies are important, but these need to also be coupled with actions. The person behind a drunk hit-and-run of a parent could help put their orphaned child through school, or a domestic abuser could be made to take counseling and go on to help deter domestic violence in other households, and so on. 

The vast majority of states across the world use punitive/carceral models, though small-scale community trials of restorative justice have been attempted, to varying degrees of success. No one is going to argue that it would be easy to implement, but it is important. Restorative justice is about recognizing that crime, specifically crimes against other people, are fundamentally still about two people: the perpetrator and the victim. And we have to look beyond the words perpetrator and victim to recognize that they are both human beings and challenge ourselves to build a society where our concept of justice means healing hurts instead of retaliation.

It’s not easy, but it is possible. It requires changing your own perceptions of justice and humanity and society and the big wide entire world to have the kind of mindset that allows it to be possible. But it is possible, and I know that from personal experience, because it’s my own mindset and I’ve been through trauma too.

prison abolition and the god of control

Persona 5 has an authority problem. By which I mean, Persona 5 has a problem challenging authority in any way that functionally matters.

The game is drenched in heavy-handed prison imagery, from jail cells to wardens to striped jumpsuits to cuffs and chains to an electric chair. Throughout the long build-up of the main storyline we’re treated to a confectionery delight of punitive justice, stick-it-to-the-man justice: the Thieves find a bad guy who coincidentally has personally hurt or is actively hurting one of their members, and they take it upon themselves to make the bad guy miserable and then send him off to jail. By the end of the arc you’re meant to feel like you accomplished something heroic, that by locking someone up you’re balancing the scales of justice. In the Kamoshida arc Ann even frames this in restorative justice terms, telling him he doesn’t deserve the easy way out of ending his own life and needs to live with his mistakes and repent, but he’s still sent off to jail regardless and Ann and Shiho are left to struggle through the trauma he put them through without anyone to really support them. This repeats itself, over and over: Madarame, Kaneshiro, Okumura, Shido--expose the bad guy, bring him low, publicly shame him, and then send him away (or, in Okumura’s case, watch him die on live TV to riotous cheers from the public).

And what does this all accomplish, in the end? You get to the Depths of Mementos on Christmas Eve to find the souls of humanity locked away in apathy, surrendered willingly to the control of the state, and your targets right there with them, thanking you for helping them return to a place where they don’t have to think of other people as people any more than they did before. In prison, they can forget that they are human beings and that all of the rest of the people in the world are too. The Phantom Thieves march upstairs and defeat the Gnostic manifestation of social control, that being that masquerades itself with lies as the true Biblical god. And then you go back home and the adults tell you that everything is okay now, the system itself isn’t rotten, and you just have to sit back, stop actively participating in the world, and let them take the reins.

It’s one of Persona 5′s most ironic conceits. “Prison abolition....good?” the player asks, and Atlus swats you on the hand and says, “Silly kids, prison abolition completely unnecessary because you can trust the state to not fuck up anyone’s lives anymore ever.” All while using prison imagery to present prisons as institutions inherently divorced from what might constitute actual justice.

Prisons exist because hierarchies exist, and so long as hierarchies exist, inequality will exist and people will commit harm who otherwise likely would not. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Atlus. You can’t frame prisons as an inherently unjust institution used to control people because you didn’t do anything to get rid of the hierarchy. You just gave the hydra a few new heads.

restorative justice and rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is Persona 5′s favorite buzz word, and for all that it’s used the game never really clearly defines what it’s supposed to mean. Yaldabaoth uses it as a euphemism to describe the process by which he creates his ideal puppet, but Yaldabaoth bad, and by the end of the game, Yaldabaoth dead. We get barely any time with Igor after that for Igor to define rehabilitation properly on his terms, which is notable in that Igor is the one who’s supposed to be the spiritual mentor of the wild card within the Persona universe. 

We can only infer from that that it’s the player who’s meant to define what rehabilitation is by the end of the game, but because the game fails to take any concrete stance on its themes that could in any way undermine the idea that society isn’t functionally broken, it’s hard to figure out what conclusion we’re supposed to draw. As I stated above, the game immediately walks back any insinuations that it’s the institutions themselves that are rotten by having Sae and Sojiro step in and assume responsibility for making the world just by continuing to operate within the rules society itself has created. If you can’t beat them....join them?

If anything the closest we can get to coming up with a definitive understanding of what the game wants us to understand rehabilitation as is when the protagonist is in juvie. During those months we’re treated to an extended cutscene of all of your maxed out confidants taking action to get you out of jail, but because you can trigger this scene even if you haven’t maxed out all of your confidants, and because the outcome (getting out of juvie) is the same even if you haven’t maxed out any besides Sae, then we’re right back where we started.

But that cutscene still has a sliver of meaning to it despite it being largely window-dressing, because the game does push, over and over, the argument that it’s through your bonds with others, through building a community, that you’ll rehabilitate yourself and find true justice.

And that’s what restorative justice is about: community.

the truth: uncovering it vs deciding it

I can’t find enough words to convey how infuriating it is that Atlus comes so close to telling a restorative justice narrative and then completely drops the ball on displaying it at all in Goro’s character arc.

Goro’s concept of justice is fundamentally punitive, the textbook “you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you back.” In doing so he goes on to hurt a whole bunch of other people: orphaning Futaba, orphaning Haru, triggering a mental shutdown in Ohya’s partner Kayo, and also killing countless millions other instances of mental shutdowns, psychotic breakdowns, bribery, and scandal that caused people material harm and, in a handful of cases, killed them.

Yes, Shido gave him the gun, but Goro pulled the trigger. And in a restorative justice framework, you don’t bypass that fact: you actively interrogate it.

There’s been a lot of really great meta about what the circumstances of Goro’s life were like, including the Japanese foster care system, the social stigma of bastardy in Japan and the impact it has on an illegitimate child’s outcomes, and the ways in which Shido groomed and manipulated Goro into being the tool of violence he made him into. These things aren’t excuses for what Goro does, however: they’re explanations for it. They are the complex social issues that create a situation where a child feels his best choice, indeed maybe his only choice, is to take the gun being offered to him and use it on other people. If you want to prevent more kids from slipping through cracks into those kinds of situations, you need to understand the social ills that made those cracks appear in the first place and you need to fix them. Otherwise there will always be another kid, and another recruiter, and another bad choice, and another gun. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

Even so, none of that bypasses the fact that it was Goro’s hand on that gun, that it was Goro who performed the physical action of killing Wakaba’s and Okumura’s shadows, and that, as a result of Goro’s direct actions, Wakaba and Okumura died. You can say Okumura deserved it all you like, but Haru doesn’t deserve to be an orphan. Haru deserved to repair her relationship with her father. Okumura deserved the chance to learn and make direct, material amends to the employees he hurt and the families of those who died on his watch, and they deserved to have him give them a better way to heal.

But this isn’t about the loss of Okumura making amends to his family or his victims: this is about Goro Akechi, and the fact that even in Royal his fraught relationship with Haru and Futaba is never explored, barely even addressed. There’s not even any personal, direct acknowledgement from him of the pain he put them through.

You can say he doesn’t care, and that’s fine that he doesn’t care. And it is. He’s a fictional character, this is a video game, they are anime characters.

But Persona 5 flirts with the idea of restorative justice and never fully explores it, and it’s a weaker game for that.

the thin place, the veil between worlds, the line in the sand

This is the last part, I promise, and I’ll be short and brief here, because the truth is that none of this matters, at least not in the way that you think. Persona 5 is a story. It’s a lie that we buy. It’s all zeroes and ones and electrical signals and optical images on a blank black screen.

But art can be powerful. Art is like magic, the deepest magic, the oldest kind. We human beings are creatures of art and poetry, of images and patterns, of music and words. Good art, really good art, can allow us to explore new ideas and critique our internal assumptions about how the world works.

No, fiction doesn’t affect reality, not the way that you think it does.

But if you’ve gotten this far, I just got you to read an essay on restorative justice and prison abolition in regards to a Japanese role-playing game, and that is something to think about.

How do you define rehabilitation? What kind of justice do you believe in? Is the way you conceive those things really the best way?

And how much more interesting could a story that challenges those concepts be?

#persona #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #goro akechi #akira kurusu #meta #words

[yellowocaballero]

Cod(a) Monkey

Forgot to post this earlier. Epilogue to my Half-life story Code Monkey , which is a 90s stoner comedy flick except Black Mesa. Probably understandable without it, though. Not canon to that story, but consider it a sort of alt ending. 

Written because my friend was upset that Barney and Gordon never got that beer, so it’s dedicated to @magickkart. The Half Life 2 story is still in the works! It’ll be a bit long. 

Rest under the cut. 

“I don’t feel pain,” Gordon said. “So no. But I went to a concert, and it was very heavy on bass and drums. Good vibrations. Kind of like a gun’s vibrations, but more purposeful.”

“The symphony of violence,” Barney said with a straight face, using the sign for ‘abuse’ and passing the finger past the fist very empathetically, several times, as he always did whenever he felt the need to describe the way Gordon killed things. “Is the mosh pit where you learned the Rambo thing?”

“Sure, Barney. Sure it is.”

“Because I really don’t think you were born a superpowered killing machine -”

“There’s no superpowers involved. I really don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

“You cannot just be a genetic assassin -”

“Guns aren’t hard, Barney. You just press A.”

“What does that mean -”

“What I don’t understand,” Barney said that night, over clammy mugs of beer and sticky wooden tables, “is what Black Mesa was going to do with the world once they took it over. I mean, they were already a shadowy government agency in the most powerful government in the world with unlimited funding that basically did whatever they wanted. What were they going to do, increase our salaries?”

If it wasn’t for the fact that Barney had learned a lot of esoteric vocabulary just to be able to talk to Gordon for hours about his alien and Illuminati conspiracy theories, Gordon reflected, then they really would have been in trouble at Black Mesa. 

“That would have been nice,” Gordon said contemplatively, gently sipping at his beer. He was far from a lightweight, but he had to be careful not to overdrink when he went out with Barney. Guy could drink the entire bar under the table and barely even get dizzy. It was almost unnerving, and raised the question of if anybody who was an ex-employee at Black Mesa was a normal human being, but some Pandora’s Boxes should just stay shut. “I liked my salary.”

“Yeah.” Barney sadly chugged more beer. “I’m not going to miss that job, but I feel like I’m going to miss having a job, you know?”

Mittens licked one of the onion rings sitting in a basket on the table. Gordon stroked Mittens on her head as she pressed up against his hand affectionately. 

This wasn’t their usual bar. Their usual bar was on Black Mesa property, and Black Mesa was currently having a bad case of the crabs right now. When Gordon casually mentioned that to Barney his shoulders started shaking from laughter, but he refused to explain what was funny. So far, Gordon already missed their old bar. It was well-lit, making it easy to talk, completely sterile and anti-bacterial, and had hazardous waste bins. And everyone always knew your name. 

But it wasn’t too bad, for a random bar. They let Gordon and Barney sit on the patio with Mittens in a secluded corner, and it was well enough lit that they could still talk. Random people kept on staring at them, sometimes for an uncomfortable amount of time, and while Gordon was fairly used to it Barney wasn’t. Barney had hesitantly asked if it was because the white lab coat Gordon still wore was dyed half-red with blood, but as that was the natural state of a theoretical physicist’s labcoat Gordon really didn’t see the issue. 

“What other job can I even get?” Barney griped. “My degree isn't good for anything. I was just a rent-a-cop for the last three years. I’m homeless, at least for right now, since my dorm is infested with murderous aliens. I can’t even go back there to get my stuff until the military kills off all the aliens. This sucks.”

“It’s a common Gen X problem,” Gordon said, with a straight face as he scratched Mittens’ ruff. Her purr vibrated happily under his hand. “Divorce, MTV, and reduced adult supervision made us incomplete adults.”

“I miss MTV,” Barney said. “Man, that was just like, high school. The memories, man. We’ll never get the 80s back.”

“I was never really into MTV.”

“Really? You never watched it? Not even for the babes?”

“I never really understood the appeal of babes,” Gordon said, with a straight face. 

“Yeah, I forgot, sorry.” They sat there for a little bit, not talking, as Barney both chugged his beer and seemed to be thinking really hard about something. Finally, he said, “Cute dudes on MTV too. Like, uh...Prince.”

“Prince.”

“Michael Jackson, you know.”

“Yeah, I know Michael Jackson.” Gordon gently freed an onion ring from the cold embrace of Mittens. “College roommate at MIT showed me Nirvana, actually. I liked it.”

“Really? I can see that. Very inner pain.” Barney squinted at Gordon. “Do you have inner pain?”

“I don’t feel pain,” Gordon said. “So no. But I went to a concert, and it was very heavy on bass and drums. Good vibrations. Kind of like a gun’s vibrations, but more purposeful.”

“The symphony of violence,” Barney said with a straight face, using the sign for ‘abuse’ and passing the finger past the fist very empathetically, several times, as he always did whenever he felt the need to describe the way Gordon killed things. “Is the mosh pit where you learned the Rambo thing?”

“Sure, Barney. Sure it is.”

“Because I really don’t think you were born a superpowered killing machine -”

“There’s no superpowers involved. I really don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

“You cannot just be a genetic assassin -”

“Guns aren’t hard, Barney. You just press A.”

“What does that mean -”

It was at that moment that a waitress, looking somewhat startled by Barney’s incredibly expressive and sweeping signing, approached them and asked Barney something. They chatted for a bit - judging by Barney’s smile and the woman’s easy grin, he was flirting with her again, like he did with every waitress. 

“She wants to know if you want a refill,” Barney reported. 

Barney tilted his fist, pushing the mug that he hadn’t realized was empty to the waitress and giving her his best polite smile, which made her flinch in fear and take the cup, disappearing quickly. Was it the lab coat, or was Gordon really just that bad at looking polite?

“But you’re changing the subject,” Barney said, when she ran off, seemingly uncaring that Gordon had torpedoed his flirting attempts. “Why would Black Mesa make a deal with the alien armies to take over the world? And what musicians did you have a crush on as a kid?”

“That question is so esoteric and obscure that the answer is almost unfathomable.”

“Stop using complicated signs, asshole, this is my fourth language.” After a second of translation, Barney followed that up with, “Okay, which question was that in response to?”

“Yes.”

“Now you’re just being an asshole,” Barney accused, and Gordon surprised himself by barking a laugh. 

“Maybe I am an asshole,” Gordon teased, unfamiliar with the concept but willing to give it a shot, “but I’m your asshole.”

For some reason, that made Barney flush very red, and finish his beer very quickly before moving Mittens aside to stuff some onion rings in his mouth. Finally, after Barney seemed to collect himself, he weakly offered, “Never thought I’d see Gordon Freeman admit that we were friends.”

“Some things you can’t experience together without admitting that you’re friends, and defeating an alien hoard is one of them,” Gordon joked. Wow. Two jokes in one day. Might as well put on the face paint and the red nose, he was becoming a comedian. Maybe all of the crowbars to the skull had cracked him. 

But Barney just squinted at him. “Are you quoting something?”

“That kid’s book that everyone’s talking about?”

“What?” Barney snapped his fingers in thought, before lighting up. “Oh, Harry Potter! I keep meaning to check that out. My little sister keeps talking about it.”

“They’re pretty good.” Gordon read it in case someone asked him what bonding activities he did with his fake son. “I’ll lend you my copy.”

“When your dorm’s no longer full of aliens.”

“Yeah. When my dorm isn’t full of aliens.”

“But that’ll be soon,” Barney said, smiling hesitantly and hopefully and fearfully, “right?”

“You know, Barney,” Gordon said, picking up Mittens and putting her in his lap as she purred gratefully, “I really think all of this will just blow over. And everything’ll go back to normal.”

“That’s good to know.”

And it was. 

#half life #hl #my writing #freehoun #half life fanfiction #gordon freeman #barney calhoun

[ineffablebuddies]

Thoughts on how the Star Trek remakes should approach the characters , in a way that I think would be realistic for 2021 and our current climate:

Romantic relationships:

Sulu/Chekhov - We know they spend a lot of time together on a one to one basis, especially in the films, and they are very endeared to each other. It also wouldn’t change their dynamic or the dynamic on the bridge, and could slip into any future films or shows without change to character. (unlike Spock and Uhura, which I don’t hate, but required adjusting Spock’s character in order to enable a pre-existing relationship.) Like, all you’d need is one throwaway line to make it canon and you could keep the rest exactly the same. And there is obvious value in representing an interracial same sex relationship.

Uhura/Scotty - this would work as a slow burn, because Scotty is a bit of a hopeless romantic whilst he is younger, and is easily misled by his heart and can be a bit overprotective in a very 60s style which is a character flaw integral to his character (and is the plot of a few episodes). Which is why a slow burn is nice for him, because he needs to learn to come from a place of genuine respect and deep affection. And whilst I do like that Uhura stays relatively unattached as one of the few prominent female characters in tos, I do think that as a black woman it is important to allow her to have a romantic relationship due to current representation issues. Which is why I think the slow burn is also nice for her, because you can’t change her character, or make her the object of affection, but showing a deep love and affection developing on the job is nice. We also only start getting the scotty/Uhura romantic dynamic coming in the films when they’re much older. And again I think this is one you can show without having to change anything integral to them. Same with checkov/sulu that it shouldn’t be a plot point, but a character thing that happens without needing to be focused on. Neither of them seek it, but it happens naturally.

Amanda/Sarek - obviously this is already canon, but I think it should be explored in a little more detail. I also think we can do away with the whole “Vulcan is incredibly sexist and treat women as property” thing, which doesn’t actually make sense considering the female Vulcans we do meet, so doesn’t really add to the world building anyway.

Ambiguous Relationships:

Kirk/Spock/Bones - now I know this is controversial, but I don’t think they should necessarily make them canon in the remakes, except possibly at the very end of the shows/last film. To focus on the romantic relationship between Kirk/Spock too early on will potentially reduce the time for Bones to be included as a very necessary part of the main three, and the fact of the matter, the three of them are presented as having a deep bond, not just Kirk/Spock. And there’s a certain level of yearning and unspoken love that really defines their relationships. They should always end up together in some manner, with no other romantic attachments. Part of me would love to make it a ployamarous relationship, but I don’t think it’s likely to happen anytime soon.

I do think however that they should make Spock gay, and I think they should keep the relationship with the Romulan commander but make it a man, because that was actually very well written and acted, but the fact that Spock is able to use that romantic affection to his advantage against a woman is a little sexist considering it’s like the only time we see a female romulan commander, but as a man we wouldn’t have those same issues. And I think that’s the only other relationship we should see Spock have outside of Kirk/bones, because it’s marked by the fact that he can’t act on it the way he would like to, and none of the other relationships in tos really work IMO because it just seems ooc for him. But I think it’s important to allow him to be confirmed as gay considering he is queercoded.

I don’t think it’ll be as easy to confirm a queer identity for Kirk, but I think that for the women he has flings with, he should never be the one to initiate it, but have the same flaw of scotty as being a bit of a hopeless romantic who can be misled by his heart, and again that would give more value to the slow burn he has with Spock. I think you can very much allow him to refer to Spock with love, and I think you can confirm a relationship with Spock at the very end, but I think it should be non-sexual. Vulcan kisses are the way to go, and should allow you to give confirmation of romantic love whilst also having plausible deniability for the people who would riot against it.

I think it’d be fucking amazing if we could cast a trans guy as Kirk. I don’t think you’d get away with saying the character is trans, but having a trans actor and just never mentioning it in show may just be enough to get away with it. Especially if this is a relatively unknown actor who passes completely so casual watchers can’t even get fussed about it (I know this wording has some issues, but I’m thinking more about getting around execs and producers, than on what would be best for rep.)

I’m torn on how far you could get away with including Bones in their relationship. The bones/Spock dynamic is interesting because it is like enemies to lovers, they definitely develop that care for each other, whilst Kirk/bones are old friends. I think Bones shouldn’t have romantic relationships on screen, and should maybe be quite unromantic as a result of his divorce. I don’t think we should ever meet his daughter, though I’m also quite interested in the idea of his ex wife having remarried for a number of years and then having a brief affair with Bones, before breaking it off, but then gives birth to his child but it remains a secret. Because it’s definitely part of his character that he has no attachments to his home, and it makes more sense of his attachment - his love for a daughter that never knew him - if it’s one he can’t do anything about. And would understandably make him more bitter towards his ex, which can make him more unromantic. But I don’t think it needs to be a major plot point.

Like I said, Spock/bones/Kirk should always end up together in some way. And I think it’s in their character to never define why they end up together, but to acknowledge that they can’t live without each other. And I think you could get away with including that as ambiguous to how far their love for each other goes. There’ll be too much backlash to make it completely canon for it, but you could get away with the Good Omens approach. Perhaps you could include Bones in a Vulcan kiss subtly enough to get away with it.

Characters who should be important:

Christine Chapel - she should definitely be in it and made a more significant character, because otherwise Uhura is really the only woman in the show. But it’d be very nice to have a woman who doesn’t need to have a relationship, and there’s no need for her romantic desire for Spock to exist in any remakes. It would also be nice to just make her a doctor from the get-go. Her friendship with Uhura was present in tos, but can now be focused on more, as well as her supportive role to Bones throughout. She wouldn’t be part of the main group, but she should be a big part of their lives.

Doctor m’benga - he was an interesting character, and it’d be nice to have a fixed medical team that work closely together. There’s also a potential for an interesting concept of him being an expert on Vulcans, Bones being an expert on Humans, and thus they’ve both been hired on the ship to work together for the sake of Spock. Also, having another established doctor on board could give an actual explanation for why it’s okay that their only doctor keeps beaming down to dangerous missions and going up to the bridge for no reason lol. Plus there is a lot to be said for casting a dark skinned black man in the role of knowledgable caregiver, especially if they can make him more of a scientist of alien biology too. There may be value if it naturally develops of him having a relationship with chapel, because whilst I like allowing women to exist without relationships, it might be balanced out with the positive representation of an interracial relationship.

Lieutenant Rahda - remember her? She was like In one episode but was great, and she should definitely be introduced as part of the bridge team again. Though her exact culture or religion is not disclosed, she is seen to wear a bindi, and i think it’s always a great time to add more diversity. It makes sense to have more people in the bridge crew too, even if they aren’t part of the main team dynamic. Considering the current political climate, it’d also be a great idea to add another bridge crew team who is visibly a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, seeing as various countries are still trying to ban that.

Walking Bear - he was only in the TAS for one episode, but again I think he would prove a valuable addition, especially considering star trek’s representation of native people has never been the best, so it’s time they started to make up for that a bit. In most episodes there’s always usually others in the bridge that are helping the main team, and it’d make sense to have a fixed cast of who these people are and flesh them out a bit more.

Saavik - she shouldn’t be in it until much later, at least not as part of the enterprise crew, but there is something very interesting about her character and the dynamic with Spock (which is why I think they should meet later on, because he takes on a role of mentor which is a dynamic shift, and thus should probably happen later. Multiple Vulcans on board is also a dynamic shift that I think should be addressed more.) I do wonder whether it might be nice to move her to being a scientist rather than bridge crew, as that would afford her more interaction with Bones as well, who I think we should get to see interact with other Vulcans more, to establish that he is not xenophobic despite his conflict on Vulcan philosophy with Spock. (Or at least if he does start xenophobic, to start showing his development away from this.) She also should not have a relationship, especially not with Spock oh my god. I think a nice way for her to be introduced would be if she was staffed on a Vulcan only ship that the enterprise for whatever reason has to work alongside, because I think we need to see Spock interact more with other Vulcans and see that Vulcans, despite claims to the contrary, can have the same xenophobic failings as humans. I think her being one who is sympathetic to the enterprise and to Spock is a nice set up to them then meeting later and working together (and also why she might change careers and move away from the Vulcan only ships, as we do get the sense it is unusual for Vulcans to serve on board a starship.) Whilst I do think that a romulan/Vulcan offspring could provide an interesting story, I think she should be fully Vulcan in order to make her acceptance of Spock more poignant.

Kevin Riley - I just think he’s neat. Also maybe we can return to the Tarsus 5 colony story point?!?!?!?

I’d also think it’d be cool to establish some engineers that work beneath Scotty, and a mix of genders of course.

But yeah, I think there’s a lot of ways that any remakes could stay true to the original, whilst still pushing for progressiveness in the same spirit as tos, whilst managing to manoeuvre around execs and producers and negative media. Star Trek should always be progressive for its day, and it’s a new day now, so we need to keep moving onwards.

#Star Trek #Star Trek tos #long post

[adeliaharris]

My Favorite Books...

1. Harper Lee "To kill a Mockingbird"

The story of a small sleepy town in the South of America told by a little girl. The story of her brother Jim, dill's friend and her father - the honest principled lawyer Atticus Finch one of the last and best representatives of the old "southern aristocracy". The story of the trial of a black guy accused of rape a white girl. But first of all it is the story of a turning era when xenophobia, racism, intolerance and bigotry inherent in the American South are warming to the past. The "wind of change" has just begun to blow over America. What will it bring?

- This is probably one of my favorite books.The book captured from the very first pages and did not let go for a long time after reading. You can say a lot of things but better read it.

2. Khaled Hosseini "The Kite Runner"

A heartfelt story of friendship and fidelity, betrayal and redemption, penetrating to the very core. Delicate, ironic and sentimental in a good way, Khaled Hosseini's novel resembles a painting that can be looked at endlessly set in pre-war Kabul in the 1970s. In this magical city shimmering with all shades of gold and azure two weather boys Amir and Hasan live. One belonged to the local aristocracy the other to a despised minority. One's father was handsome and important the other was lame and pathetic. Master and servant, prince and beggar, handsome and crippled. But there were no people in the world closer than these two boys. Soon the Kabul idyll will be replaced by formidable storms. And the boys, like two kites, will be picked up by this storm and scattered in different directions. Each has its own destiny its own tragedy but they like in childhood are tied by the strongest bonds. You run after the kite and the wind as you run after your destiny, trying to catch it. But she will catch you.

- Psychological novel on the theme of "crime and punishment". Deeply elaborated images, convincing children's characters, a remarkably built plot - everything speaks of a great master. For me it is "heavy" literature but it has the right to be because it calls things by their proper names. And most importantly there is light in the stories of Hosseini! The light of true human feelings.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby"

A jubilant, sparkling thirst for life, a desire for love, alluring and elusive, exciting pursuit of wealth - but now the dream breaks to the sound of jazz and the eternal holiday turns into a tragedy. "The Great Gatsby" is a novel about "how illusions are wasted which make the world so colorful that  having experienced this magic, a person becomes indifferent to the concept of true and false." F. S. Fitzgerald

- I read it and was not at all disappointed! Elegant presentation with high meaning - everything in this life is done for the sake of love. And no amount of money can replace the woman you love... And even if she is stupid, frivolous and idly living her life. I have great respect for Gatsby and contempt for Daisy. There are a lot of wonderful quotes, phrases in the book, it's worth thinking about. I didn’t expect to literally fall in love with this piece! In the future I will definitely re-read it more than once!

4. Daniel Keyes "Flowers for Algernon"

Forty years ago it was considered a fantasy. Forty years ago it read like fantasy. Exploring and expanding the boundaries of the genre eagerly absorbing all sorts of newest trends trying on a common human face bravely ignoring the Cain's stamp of the "genre ghetto". Now it is perceived as one of the most humane works of modern times as a novel of piercing psychological power, as a filigree development of the theme of love and responsibility. It is not for nothing that Keyes called his book of memoirs published in the 1990s "Algernon, Charlie and Me."

- The book is an emotion that will not make you think about something particularly difficult. All the thoughts that it generates are very simple and understandable. Without revelations, of course, but not bad either. The assessment will, rather, depend on the degree of personal sensitivity because the author often uses the concept of "naive hero-evil reality-collision-squeezing out sympathy" during the work.

5. Agatha Christie  "Murder on the Orient Express"

The great detective Hercule Poirot who was in Istanbul returns to England on the famous "Orient Express" in which it seems, representatives of all possible nationalities travel with him. One of the passengers an unpleasant American named Ratchett offers Poirot to become his bodyguard since he believes that he could be killed. The famous Belgian brushes off this absurd request. And the next day the American is found dead in his compartment with the doors closed and the window open. Poirot immediately takes up the investigation - and finds out that the compartment is full of all sorts of evidence pointing... to almost all the passengers of the Orient Express. In addition the train gets stuck in snow drifts in a deserted place. Poirot needs to find the killer before the express can continue on its way...

- I liked the book. Pretty easy to read. The plot is "confused" from the very beginning but Mr. Poirot is yet  a world-famous detective. It is better to read about all the twists and turns of the investigation on your own, "immersion" is guaranteed.

6. Stieg Larsson "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Forty years of the mystery of the disappearance of a young relative haunts the aging industrial tycoon and now he makes the last attempt in his life - entrusts his search to journalist Mikael Blomkvist. He takes on a hopeless business more in order to distract himself from his own troubles but soon realizes: the problem is even more complicated than it seems at first glance.

What is the connection between a long-standing incident on the territory with the use of mobile devices which happened in different years in different parts of Sweden? What does the quotation from the Third Book of Moses have to do with it? And who, after all, attempted on the life of Michael himself when he came too close to the solution?

- The whole trilogy left a deep impression. Such books appear very rarely. Out-of-the-box characters, amazing Sweden, dark atmosphere. I advise absolutely everyone!

7. Ray Bradbury "Fahrenheit 451"

Perhaps the best of Bradbury's writings. The story "Fahrenheit 451" depicts a dystopian society of the future but in fact - "our reality, reduced to absurdity." Bradbury invented a state where reading and keeping books is prohibited. For the sake of political correctness and general peace of mind the general level of spiritual and intellectual demands of citizens is artificially lowered. But there are rebels and fugitives.

This is one of Bradbury's rare sci-fi works. Very exciting touching and at the same time very lively and dynamic. With a relatively simple plot, it is full of allusions including biblical texts and complex symbolism.

- This is just a great book! I advise everyone to read it! Despite the fact that the author wrote it in 1953 this does not feel at all. A very interesting and poignant plot for our time.

8. Victor Hugo "Les Miserables"

All the works of the great French poet, novelist and playwright Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885) are covered with a halo of romanticism. The idea of ​​life-giving love, mercy, the triumph of good over evil - this is the core of his novel "Les Miserables". Among the "outcasts" are Jean Valjean sentenced to 20 years for stealing bread for his starving family and the little dirty Cosette who turned into a charming girl and a child of the Parisian streets of Gavroche...

- Brilliant work! So thoughtful, so overwhelming and so humane. The inimitable Hugo put all his philanthropy into this magnificent novel!

9. Stephen King "The Green Mile"

Stephen King invites readers to the eerie world of the death row where they leave in order not to return, opens the door of the last refuge of those who have transgressed not only human but also God's law. There is no more deadly place on this side of the electric chair! Nothing you've read before beats Stephen King's most audacious horror experience - a story that begins on Death Road and goes deep into the deepest secrets of the human soul...

- I have been familiar with the work of S. King for a long time and have read more than a dozen of his books. The work "The Green Mile" is a story that will not let you go for a long time. She leaves a residue in her soul - mixed feelings and indescribable impressions from the story itself, unique and ingenious.

10. Gregory David Roberts "Shantaram"

This art-refracted confession of a man who managed to get out of the abyss and survive, has sold four million copies around the world and has earned rave comparisons with the works of the best writers of the modern era from Melville to Hemingway. Like the author the hero of this novel has been hiding from the law for many years. Deprived of parental rights after a divorce from his wife, he became addicted to drugs, committed a number of robberies and was sentenced by an Australian court to nineteen years in prison. Having escaped from a maximum security prison in his second year, he reached Bombay where he was a counterfeiter and smuggler, traded arms and participated in the showdown of the Indian mafia and also found his true love, to lose it again, to find it again...

- It is very difficult to somehow categorically evaluate this novel. There are many advantages here: a fascinating story of the wanderings of the protagonist in the world of a harsh exotic country. Together with him, the reader develops, absorbs the alien culture and energy of other people, people of another world to which we are not used to. However there is something ridiculous about this.  At times it seems that we are watching real Indian cinema - the brainchild of Bollywood naive and merciless. In general I liked the novel, it is interesting, bright, impetuous. During the period of reading this great story, I have never been bored. Despite some controversial points - I advise!

#book #books #classic #detective #drama #romance #comedy

[warsofasoiaf]

This is more of a meta question but do you subscribe to the idea in fiction of, I think it is called death of the author, where, when analyzing their writing, you don't take into account their lives, experiences, and ideals and only see their work as a standalone piece? If not, how do you draw the line between their work as fiction and them trying to push their ideals?

I don’t think it’s possible to completely divorce a piece of creative work from the author, because the author naturally has his or her own context to process things, and that will come forward in the work if nothing else. Whenever I see the Broken Man speech, I take into context that GRRM’s ahistorical overreliance on the untrained feudal levy soldier is almost certainly a function of his experiences as a CO during the Vietnam War and seeing the experience of the conscript GI’s. Similarly, I have to accept that I will have my own context by which I process works. We all have to have one, the sheer amount of information out there would overwhelm even our mighty human brains if we did not process it in some fashion.

I do not think there is a hard and fast solution. I simply try to do the best I can, and I read other people’s interpretations to try and give myself a more complete understanding and see where other folks are coming from. If I enjoy something, I will read other people’s takes on it because I want that better understanding. I try to give authors the benefit of the doubt where I can, and a lot of times I will draw that distinction based on quality of the work and what I gauge to be the intent of the author. Take GRRM, for instance, with the example I give above. I forgive him for it because I feel I understand why he did it, even as I get annoyed by it because I have a nice warm spot in my heart for accurate historical military and my own interest in the lives of soldiers, heck, that was what “To Wage War” was all about. These two concepts are often in conflict within me and finding a happy medium isn’t always easy. For example, I think “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” is a technically proficient film and does do some excellent things, and I as a man of Irish heritage want more Irish history brought into the public sphere, but I still despise the director in some ways as well.

I don’t think we can establish a hard-and-fast system for drawing a line, as dependent as it is upon your own personal context and beliefs. Turning gut instinct into formal criteria is difficult. We just have to do the best we can with the things we experience. And yes, I understand that this conclusion itself is depending a great deal upon my own personal context as a radical individualist.

Thanks for the question, Leon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#writing #death of the author

[spiritualdirections]

Mercy in a time of national anger

Last Sunday, the Church celebrated the feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit made the Apostle’s speech in their rough, Galilean accents, understandable to those from countries all over the region where Aramaic was not spoken. Ever since proud engineers tried to build the Tower of Babel, the languages of the Earth had been scrambled. The miracle of Pentecost is that through the Holy Spirit, the sin and punishment of Babel were set aside, and people began to understand each other. In fact, the Acts of the Apostles describes the early Church as having a miraculous level of unity, in which everyone lived in harmony, “with one heart and one mind (lit. “soul”).” This sort of unity is available to us, if through the Holy Spirit we set aside the sin that divides us.

But a few chapters later, that harmony gives way to jealousy and misunderstanding. The new Christian community in Jerusalem, which includes baptized converts from both Judaism and paganism, starts to divide among pagan-Jewish lines. At first, the problem is one of (alleged) discrimination—one group thought that they weren’t getting treated fairly. Later the divisions become theorized and theological—the Jewish converts wanted to impose Jewish customs and the Mosaic Law upon the non-Jewish converts. St. Paul spends much of his ministry fighting off this theological error. The Letter to the Romans explains his major arguments: Paganism is bad and you converts from paganism should rejoice at having been rescued from that. Judaism, on the other hand, includes God’s revealed truth. But the Jewish converts to Christianity shouldn’t boast about their superior heritage, since the Old Covenant was incomplete; all its religious truth didn’t actually rescue a single person from sin—for that we all need baptism into Jesus’ New Covenant. The pagan converts were apparently bragging that they’d now supplanted the Jews in God’s kingdom, and so St. Paul shut down that argument as well—we have nothing of our own to boast about, but only Jesus, and the fact that we get to suffer and participate in His Passion and sacrifice on the Cross.

Interpersonal animosity is a consequence of Original Sin. The original harmony of man and woman in the Garden of Eden, in which Adam rejoices that finally God has found him a suitable partner in Eve, gives way after the Fall to Adam blaming God for giving him “the woman”. Cain murders his brother Abel, his anger leaving him open to temptation by the devil. And so on, down to our day.

This week, we’ve been focused on how people of different races don’t love each other. Last fall, in the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein revelations and the #MeToo movement, we focused on how men don’t treat women with respect. Before that, we were concerned about how we treated immigrants. And so on. It seems that we get outraged by whatever part of fallen humanity the media causes us to focus on right now, until the next news cycle refocuses us on the sin over there. We can always find genuine, real, interpersonal animosity if we look for it, since we can always find the fallenness of humanity if we look for it.

We can hate people who are different from us. And, as the story of Cain and Abel teaches us, we can hate people who are a lot like us. A few years ago, we were focused on how Irish Christians, racially indistinguishable from each other, were killing each other. We were shocked about how Rwandan Catholics, all of whom are black, conducted a genocide against each other in the 1990s. This Wednesday, we celebrated the feast of Charles Lwanga and the Ugandan martyrs, all members of the Gandan people, who were killed by their own king for refusing his homosexual advances. Husbands and wives, who profess their lifelong love on the day of their weddings, come to hate each other in the wake of the divorce. Mothers kill their own children by the millions through abortion, from some misguided sense of self-preservation (a species of self-love). We can grow to hate or mistrust anyone who isn’t us. That’s the lesson of original sin.

Charity, the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, is the love that overcomes our anger at injustice and the sinful divisions that follow. Without charity, without grace, our concerns shrink: from a love of all mankind, to a love of our tribe (literal or metaphorical), to a love only of those like us, to a love of this family member but not that one, to a love of ourselves above all, even above Christ. Charity is the love that tears down the walls that divide us. Charity is the readiness to give our lives for those we love, in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice.

As the sad examples of Northern Ireland and Rwanda make clear, Catholics are not free of the temptation to selfishness and even to murder. The Church has had and will always have sinners within it. And yet, in the Creed we say, “we believe in one holy… Church.” This is a dogma. It doesn’t mean that the Church includes only those who are without sin, but rather that the Church is holy insofar as we allow the Holy Trinity to work within us. Through the Holy Spirit, we are baptized into Christ Jesus and his covenant with the Father. When we genuinely act and pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are holy. Charity is a participation in the interior life of the Trinity.

In my book Mercy, I talk about how a great part of the difference between Christian thinking and secular thinking about politics comes down to mercy, to how we respond to injustices. The mistake of what I call “justice-only politics” is to have well-developed ideas about how things ought to be (aka justice), but no concept of mercy, no real thought about what to do when circumstances and/or people get in the way of their idea of justice.

I think the national reaction to the killing of George Floyd reveals something like this. Some people think that the right thing to do is to enact reforms of the police; others think that the right thing to do is to kill the police and bomb the precinct. Some people think that nonviolent protests are an appropriate response; others think that injustice justifies robbing the local Target. Some people are satisfied when the bad cops are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted; others want to overthrow the government. Some are just so upset that they don’t know what to do. All agree that something deeply wrong happened to George Floyd, but our consensus stops there, at the level of justice.

Mercy is the virtue that comes into play when things go wrong. Once we decide that something is unjust, we still have to decide what is the right thing to do. Do we “cancel” the unjust persons, breaking solidarity with them and removing them from society? Do we send them to the guillotine? Or do we try to make things better? In an interesting Trinitarian statement, Jesus commands his disciples to “be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). So justice-only politics, or any politics without solidarity for the offender and the sinner, is not a Christian option.

Jesus also commands us to be meek and gentle, as he was, rather than angry. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on the Beatitudes, says that to be meek while at the same time not being a wimp (my paraphrase) is a gift of grace. For most people, to keep their anger at injustice under the control of their reason (so that it doesn’t grow to rage) is a virtue. But for the Christian, we have the grace and therefore the responsibility to go way beyond mere self-control. We are commanded to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, hunger and thirst for justice, and not to get angry enough even to call someone names—above all, to love everyone whom Jesus loves, for the reason that Jesus loves them. Jesus, when faced with the greatest injustice in the history of the universe, his own crucifixion, didn’t get angry; to the contrary, he was meek “as a lamb led to the slaughter.” He was strong—he was omnipotent—and could have resisted the injustice with power and caused his enemies to relent and submit. But he revealed to us that to be meek and loving in the face of great wrongs is to be divine.

Racism is a sin, and Jesus conquers sin. It’s a sad fact that most of our thinking about race takes place in a left-wing, Marxist, atheistic context, in which a desire for power and an awareness of otherness crowd out Christian reflections on meekness and solidarity. It didn’t used to be this way. The Civil Rights movement was once led by Christians, most notably the Protestant Pastor Martin Luther King. It appealed to the Gospel to unify people of all races. As in so much of our life, so to with regard to race, it’s a struggle to think in Christian terms. When people only talk about justice, it’s a struggle to cultivate mercy. It’s a struggle to forgive those who have trespassed against us, or people like us. It’s easy to forget what we said above, that mercy is commanded of us.

For this reason, I highly recommend that we Catholics foster a desire for mercy, pray for mercy, and perform works of mercy as much as we can. June is the month devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a symbol of his suffering for us out of his merciful love—the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is Friday, June 19, a time when many people consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart. Many people find that the Chaplet to Divine Mercy helps realign their hearts with Jesus’, so that they can regard people with his merciful eyes and love them with his merciful heart. Both devotions call attention to Jesus’ Passion, the steep price that he paid to conquer sin and division. We’ll find that we, too, have to pay a steep price to conquer the sin in our own hearts—that we cannot be casual or lazy about our own spiritual lives if we want to help the world to be better.

There are no spiritual shortcuts. To conquer racism requires a conversion to holiness, and a willingness to spread grace and charity to hardened hearts. Only through baptism into Christ’s Ascension can any fallen human being participate in the inner charity of the Trinity. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.

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