#I have no intelligent words for this

[phantomsies]

getting all the education/degrees I can and planning so I can get the fuck out of this country >>>>

[pocketgalaxies]

Her dead husband. I'm going to have his face. || Delilah and I have shared a brain for an incredibly long time. (for @sharkodactyl)

[basiatlu]

I need to go to sleep - I know I’m tired when I start over-annotating my sketches.

[owari--hajimari]

god i fucking love the bravery mechanic in twewy!!!

it's such a genius way to handle gender locking equipment without anything actually being gender-locked. and i think it touches on something that is one; real, and two; a slice of the cultural atmosphere twewy was created in, like a lot of things in this game are. like, yeah you DO have to be braver to wear womens clothing generally, performing femininity has a higher barrier of entry, and especially so in 2007.

and i love love love the BRV requirements varying by brand/style as well, like yeah it DOES take a lot of bravery to wear gothic lolita. that for sure takes so much more courage than wearing a cheap solid colour t-shirt.

i'm of course never ever getting over joshua having the second highest base bravery after shiki, aka the highest of the guys, but more interesting than that to me is beat having the lowest. like. until post-game changes the relationship with brv as a stat, bravery = femininity, or at least comfort with with performing femininity. so shiki at 109 base BRV > joshua at 39 > neku at 14 > and beat at 4, is absolutely stellar characterization, for all of them. because it makes so so much sense, and it’s shown!

if BRV were purely “bravery” in the most literal sense with no relation to gender, then i wouldn't understand beat having a lower base stat than neku. i do not think there is a world where beat is less courageous than neku of day 1. but beat is ABSOLUTELY more MASCULINE than neku, what with his big boy machismo talk like “don't get your panties in a twist” and “you man up any yet? ‘cause i don’t believe in hittin’ women and children”. the idea of what a “man” is, something “strong”, something as far away as possible from “women” or “weakness”, is something incredibly important to beat! and that makes it known in his BRV stat! (and there is an irony in that. beat being tethered as he is to the ideal of masculinity and therefore strength, can’t equip the strongest threads without the most significant grinding of BRV…)

and of course the relationship BRV has with femininity largely falls apart with the appearance of post-game threads with absurd BRV requirements, but there’s still a little something to be said about the item with the highest BRV requirement in the game being one with a character-specific ability for joshua.

[petorahs]

shuake works because it feels like akechi's the only one who listens to akira and prompts the otherwise quiet leader to talk.

in a game about defiant teens making their voice heard, goro akechi listens to akira's voice from the get-go. out of detective-sleuthing/work duties, sure, but over time it's clear that akechi genuinely finds akira interesting.

in fact, akechi's confidant route regardless of which game is being played starts with him deeming akira the antithesis to his thesis, a "worthwhile debate partner". akechi values joker's opinions.

its always nice to see people point out that in that one 3rd sem phone call with akechi, its the most involved akira's been in a conversation in-game. i myself remember inserting a lot more input during that story-sequence which usually i can put on autoplay otherwise. akechi, in a whole different reality, still seeks out joker's opinions on it. it's like he trusts no one but him.

and imo this gives a lot of character to akira. he talks the most with akechi. the quietest people have the most on their minds, and it shows with akira. but akira never gets a say in anything, and who would listen? he's less than a nobody in reality since society dictated that. so he pointedly made himself silent, hiding his thoughts beneath an impenetrable mask. during important story moments, akira favors doing more than saying. his teammates and confidants are all directly inspired by his actions over the course of the game.

but with akechi, it's different. actions seem to take a backseat as they continue with their verbal back-and-forth. in rank 7 of royal, they play pool while talking, but it's clear to the outsider that the focus is in the layered conversation they're having. they primarily talk everytime akechi's in the coffee shop, because they dont usually see eachother in their busy schedules. it's not just "hi, hello, how are you?" with them but "i find you and everything you stand for interesting. let's talk more."

there's something to be said about how two people with vastly different and opposing views seek eachother out to further discuss things instead of antagonizing eachother. its why maruki said "despite being enemies, your relationship was never based on hatred or ill will".

their relationship was never a one-sided thing. akechi helps joker as much as joker helps him... arguably more. he eggs joker on, shows him that he can do better. otherwise, the leader would remain stagnant and unchallenged. there is no progress where there is no thesis and-- you can finish the rest.

[tremendously-crazy]

Relationship envy except I envy the bond between iconic fictional characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

[planetarymesss]

TUMBLR WILL BE SELLING USER INFO TO AI

HEYY THIS IS IMPORTANT !!! please pleaseeeee toggle this:

you go to account -> blog settings -> scroll ALL the way down its at the very end

its questionable how much this will do but take every precaution !!!

go here to learn more

[valzhangism]

i know i said i was happy about how mel's story went, but the more i think about it the less i'm sure about that. this is very much connected to how the themes of classism and wealth disappeared in s2, but mel in the beginning was the epitome of piltover. she wanted to advance piltover to prove herself to her mother. to "put piltover—" and by extension herself, "—on the map."

she wanted wealth just to have it. and i'm not blaming her for anything that happened, especially with hextech! she, just like jayce and viktor, could not have known what it would lead to. i mean yeah heimerdinger said so but who the hell listens to heimerdinger? but anyway i think mel changed throughout s1, much in thanks to jayce. by the end she's become more cognisant of the mistreatment of zaunites. she's the first to vote for their peace. she was a good person all along but now she knows how to act on it. it's also seen more in s2 act 1. when she covers her painting with gold, it's symbolic—she won't act according to what her mother might think. she won't let her desire for approval dictate her anymore.

so somehow i wish those themes were. continued, somehow? like again they were dropped not just with mel but the whole show and it makes her story a off to me. there's no meaningful commentary on war or classism or how her ideology stands opposite to her mother's. like some people have said, it feels like she doesn't have much agency, even if she is really cool. and that to me is a shame because agency felt like her thing. "to shape your own destiny" as she says to jayce in s1. i know her collaborating with the black rose (but not fully joining them) and learning magic is supposed to represent becoming independent from her mother, taking her own path, but some other aspects of her character were thrown away... the more i think about it the more i'm thinking they kind of #girlboss-ed her a little bit. maybe to sell another champion. i can't help but feel like even though i enjoyed seeing her on screen, the payoff didn't feel proportionally satisfying compared to her setup in s1.

[batsplat]

Vale to my knowledge has made up with all his rivals bar Marc, he’s even made up with Jorge who he said with the help of Marc where in kahoots to keep him from the 2015 title so I’m wondering what about Marc makes it impossible to make up with him also post 2015 what were the changes that 2015 made Marc go through cause the way he presented himself post 2015 was so different. Also despite Marc saying he doesn’t care anymore about 2015 I think that’s a big fat lie. (Also despite vale not liking Marc post 2015 he never put Marc ability down of anything he was like no he actually is good and I was wondering if that stems from just acknowledgment that Marc is an amazing rider and like skill recognises skill)

Sorry this got long

valentino is actually quite straightforward with this: it depends on what bond you had with him at the point in time where the feud gets going. so on the one hand you've got riders like biaggi, casey and jorge, where they don't have any sort of significant bond with valentino to be destroyed... and on the other you've got sete and marc. sete's the other big one where... okay, on paper, valentino's publicly moved past it, but it's also pretty obvious he hasn't actually forgiven sete. and, crucially, he's also the other rival who valentino was friends with before things got ugly between the pair of them. the distinction between the two categories of rivals kinda becomes obvious once you pick up on it

in his autobiography, published in 2005, he puts it like this:

included in this post, where I talk about the preconditions needed for valentino to hold a grudge against a rival. like here:

as I said in that post, I think in general he can engage in rivalries where he doesn't let the animosity get to him - though he knows himself well enough to understand that it can be a good idea to take things personally. he's said as much in relation to sete:

that and the extended quote is discussed in this post, and in general I do come back to the sete rivalry a lot when discussing how things with marc went down (see here if you're interested in reading more about that rivalry). valentino needs rivals to motivate himself, he likes having someone to bounce off of, to define himself against... and that is something he's deliberately integrated into his competitive process. that being said, there's a line... this type of ultra-personal rivalry like the kind he has with sete doesn't really feel like the mode of engagement that's the most comfortable to him. sete is for the most part carefully excluded from the narrative of his autobiography - but it's worth pointing out that the autobiography quote I included above, "if I were betrayed by a friend, then, yes, I could hate him", was published in the immediate aftermath of the drama with sete. we don't know whether that was a conscious reference to sete, but it could be. and at that same time, in 2005, valentino was also distancing himself from his new rival - who just happened to be his childhood friend melandri (more on that here). it's just speculation, but you do wonder whether valentino had been burnt enough by the sete rivalry that he wanted a slightly neater separation between the professional and the private. see:

by the time he gets to dani, casey and jorge, he's a lot more disciplined with this I reckon. he's always had a pretty friendly relationship with dani, of course, one that doesn't seem to have been massively affected by how dani was supposed to be the challenger to the throne (more on their relationship here). still, they weren't friends, and valentino was always aware that dani might end up challenging him for titles. casey's an interesting one because he wasn't supposed to be the challenger... casey thinks that valentino pulled back a little when casey established himself as a competitive threat - but at the end of the day, this is all quite cold-blooded on valentino's part. they're rivals, valentino is establishing some distance, no real emotional investment on valentino's part or friendship that could be ruined. more on that push and pull dynamic here, which includes this bit:

healthy professional distance! as far as valentino is concerned, in any case. I think that's the way I like framing that distinction, yeah, where you've got "intensely personal rivalries where each offence is deeply felt" and... not that. casey is very much in the 'not that' category. they were never friends, casey developed in spades the ability to piss valentino off, but he could never hurt valentino. the same is if anything even more true with jorge, who basically got the cold shoulder treatment from valentino from day one. at least valentino had pretty good repartee with both dani and casey... this seems to have been pretty absent in the jorge dynamic. the interpersonal coldness will definitely have been exacerbated by how jorge got the yamaha seat, making him an immediate direct threat from valentino from inside his house... but it may have existed independently of that too. like, honestly I do just think valentino disliked jorge's vibe lol. here is more on their dynamic in 2008-10, which does ofc include discussion of valentino's approach to that rivalry:

so valentino had less than zero interest in befriending jorge, which does help. this is just good old fashioned honest dislike, zero pretence. as I discuss in that post, they did manage to be mostly civil to each other for the first two years of their partnership, but 'civil' is really as far as they would go. like, this is the kind of thing that was being said the first time that partnership ended

god I miss them so bad

anyhow, by the time you get their second partnership, they've made it back to being mostly civil - until the entire drama kicks off in 2015. it's not all that surprising that valentino has been willing to bury the hatchet with jorge. while valentino did at the time say something along the lines of how jorge's reaction was making him think jorge was really in on the whole thing, for the most part valentino clearly thought of jorge just as a passive beneficiary of the whole marc affair. he was still pissed at jorge in 2016, believing that he'd put a lot more effort into keeping that relationship civil from 2013-15 than jorge had... but once their teammate partnership ended for the second time, he was basically willing to call it bygones

so... if post-sete valentino knows himself well enough to understand that a sort of impersonal, shallow hatred towards his rivals is the best way to motivate himself, then how on earth did things go so badly wrong with marc? why was marc the kind of friend who could betray valentino in the first place? I had a stab at answering that question here, and I think a large part of it is the competitive context of the previous few years. the long and short of it is that valentino had spent several years in competitive wilderness, knew his time fighting for titles had almost certainly come to an end... and was perfectly primed to see marc at least in part as a successor, as someone who had made himself in valentino's image, rather than an enemy. see this bit:

and it's also discussed here:

the way this process of distancing himself from rivals works is... I reckon there's a dual purpose here. on the one hand, you just need to put yourself in the right head space to fight someone, right. you need to motivate yourself, make yourself as determined as is possible to beat the other guy. friendship complicates things, it takes away a little bit of that 'violence' that is needed to maximise performance. valentino is a storyteller, he needs his victories to mean something - and who he's defeating is a key part of the story. there's an element there of wanting to build up the opponent in his head... you can be friendly with your rivals, sure, remain more or less cordial (as he was for the most part with casey and even jorge when they were actually fighting for titles), but that's very different from friendship. conversely, it was of course also part of his toolkit to be friendly with the opposition (x):

remember, for a while there he had a reputation for being an especially friendly racer - and it's an element of his game he never entirely abandoned. he did keep a little bit of that to him, even as he cultivated some distance with his biggest rivals... you could argue there's a little bit of that 'confusion' to early years casey, for instance. ruthless as a racer and charming in-person isn't always the easiest combination to deal with

the other purpose distancing yourself from the opposition serves is as... well, a bit of a self-protective mechanism, doesn't it? defending yourself from any potential future harm. maybe there's a little bit of that with the melandri dynamic in 2005... and then, of course, with marc in 2015. it's preempting the feud, in a way, almost like a method to emotionally protect yourself in case things get ugly. it does seem fairly clear that valentino feels more comfortable in the impersonal mode of rivalry, the stuff he did with biaggi, casey and jorge. he's happy enough to admit that he was responsible for at least some of the nastiness there - which he's recently talked about with biaggi:

which, y'know, that's not a million miles off the stuff he was already saying in his autobiography in 2005:

like there's not all that much of a progression here, not too much reflection needed. he's always known that he plays his part in making these rivalries ugly - he just doesn't really think there's any issue with that. it's part of the game. he's talked more broadly about how he thinks these rivalries are intrinsic to sports, how there's something natural to rivalries being a little bit nasty, how he thinks that sometimes the nastiness makes these rivalries more honest. how it's better to just admit you hate each other. that quote linked to above in which he talks about the sete rivalry also includes this bit:

but crucially, he does make a distinction as to where he thinks sete really went wrong: by playing a dirty game. ultimately, it's the same thing with marc... in the end, he feels like those no longer were 'honest' rivalries, that an important line has been crossed - and it's the previous friendship that makes this betrayal hurt so badly. which makes it unsurprising that some of these rivalries are a lot easier to move on from than others. valentino never cared about biaggi enough to have any real animosity towards him after their rivalry ended. he got over the casey thing by mid 2013 at the latest; with jorge, they were generally fine the moment they stopped being teammates. those are the kinds of rivalries valentino enjoys... ugly, yes, nasty from both sides, featuring two guys who desperately wish to beat each other, who violently hate each other (as valentino puts it)... but ultimately, this is just how the game works. this is sports. what happened with marc was something different altogether

the other elements of the ask... well, of course marc still cares about what happened. in terms of how he changed how he presents himself towards the outside world, I talk a bit about that here - in general, there's unsurprisingly a little more wariness from his side. the knowledge that many people now hate him, an awareness that what he says will gladly be used against him... and yes, valentino has generally been quite disciplined in how he criticises marc. we've already established that this type of rivalry isn't particularly fun for valentino - and he didn't exactly enjoy 2016 either. not just because he had lost the title, but also because that increased level of vitriol and toxicity kinda got to all of them. for the first few races, he's still caught up in his own bitterness and resentment and frustration, but that's just not really how he can approach competition. he needed that slight rapprochement with marc because he needs to be able to enjoy himself. none of this was fun anymore

knowing how intensely people reacted to this rivalry is I think part of the reason why valentino is so wary of needlessly adding fuel to the fire. the casey rivalry provides the easiest contrast as it's... well, look, I discuss all of that here, but it's basically the rivalry where valentino undoubtedly did respect the other guy's raw ability but was also far more willing to take cheap shots at him when the mood struck. like, tonally that rivalry is completely different, because casey and valentino are willing to just pick the lowest hanging fruit imaginable and throw it in each other's faces. but that kinda tells you how it simply was not that serious from valentino's perspective... it's basically just years worth of extremely petty bickering between two blokes who are extremely adept at pissing each other off. no hard feelings once it's all over (from valentino's end, anyway). marc and valentino are the complete opposite. valentino barely criticises marc, doesn't react adversely to any of their on-track confrontations in 2016-17, at most drops an ever so slightly snide remark about the "special treatment" marc has for him - but clarifies he thinks that part is fine, because it's just good honest battle, right. even when marc harasses valentino with his towing addiction as late as 2019, valentino basically goes, 'well he's a dickhead, but you gotta hand it to him' (discussion here):

he also never diminishes marc's skill as a rider, is always willing to acknowledge just how good he is. there's this pair of clips I always come back to (2014/2018):

like, I do think this is kinda notable. he's sticking by what he said in 2014, he's not going to take easy shots at marc just because. again, the casey contrast is pretty funny here, because both of them are pretty sensitive to having their achievements diminished in that manner and both of them are more than happy to do exactly that to each other. it's just a far more straightforwardly spiteful rivalry than what marc and valentino have got going on. valentino is far more careful in not diluting his core complaint with any petty day-to-day complaints. and yes, I am aware that there's an obvious exception to this rule - argentina 2018. I give my take on that whole situation here, but my general stance is that I really don't think valentino was just looking for an excuse to reignite the feud... if he had been sufficiently motivated, he really could have been more bitchy in 2017 than he was. he just lost his head because marc managed to severely piss him off, he worsened a feud he wasn't actually trying to worsen, and while he never walked the comments back... well, it's kinda notable he doesn't exactly repeat them either, isn't it? for him, his grievance is still completely sepang 2015. argentina 2018 doesn't really feature. that incident is the exception that proves the rule, in a way

so yeah, mostly I reckon valentino's continued open respect towards marc's abilities as a rider is a question of convenience, of not wanting to unnecessarily increase tensions. valentino doesn't actually get that much out of keeping this feud going; there is a reason why he's been very happy to call it bygones with most of his rivals once there's no longer any competitive purpose to hating the other guy. the reason why this feud still exists at all is because it hurt him on a personal level - and that's why he still talks about it. that's less strategy and more compulsion. that being said, valentino is hardly being dishonest when he's complimenting marc as a rider; he's not saying things he doesn't really believe. he's always been aware of how good marc is, after all - and to him, that's not why they actually ended up fighting. that valentino has been so disciplined over the years in what he criticises marc about is a function of how deeply felt that rivalry is to him, almost like he wouldn't want to taint it with more lowly complaints. it'd be a healthier rivalry if valentino and marc had just insulted each other for several years straight... instead it'll continue on, unabated. a special rivalry until the bitter end

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Well, at least Fukuzawa got his wish granted, I guess.... he's finally inside Fukuchi <3

[hanayanaa]

regarding the symbolism of V's glasses:

(plain text in read more)

** addendum: when she gets posessed in the middle/end of episode 5, and she's on the ceiling, her glasses fall off, because...gravity, duh.... but it symbolizes the loss of her true self in that moment, as well as telling the audience it's V that got posessed without having a character say it. the loss of the glasses also represents a loss of innocence, as she's actively being traumatized there, since she's still conscious, but unable to control her body as Solver uses her.

after N gives her back her glasses, she comes back to her senses, therefore returning back to her true self.

oh, the glasses she had during the sentinel fight were the same ones she had during her worker drone days by the way, if you look closely at the frames, the damage is the same! she had them this entire time....

pic 1:

discord message:

idk why but the glasses still on her mutilated fucking body hurts me so bad

like almost a representation of her innocence, or her true self

.....

brain blast

bc every time she has the glasses on or they're shown, she's her true self, or is coming to or revealing her true self

in EP 5 when N puts them on and she slowly comes to, and in EP 6 where she drops her defenses and is genuine to Uzi

(animated emoji of guy slamming the ground)

and the fact she's been carrying them this entire time, her true self never left her

her true self is still there, behind all the layers of hurt and fear, and all her defenses that she puts up

that kind and sweet and shy girl is still there...

the one who loves puppies and blowing bubbles and waving around dumb flags 😭

pic 2:

(replying to previous message i sent saying "ahhh...now that she's lost [her glasses].....")

brain blast..... before she always had them, but she was hiding them on her body, much like she hid her true self in order to protect herself, because she's so scared of everything. But now that she pulled them out and couldn't get them to hide them again, her full self is now always going to be shown, mostly anyway

but the shattering of her glasses means two things:

1) her protective walls coming down, being vulnerable and honest with her friends and teammates

2) her hope and innocence being completely lost. She's in despair. She really, really doesn't think there's any light at the end of the tunnel for her. She's given up. She's given up, and she knows she's either going to be abandoned or die, and that right at that moment, that place of death was the most peaceful option for her solemn scared mind. She would be free from her endless cycle of pain, and her body would be torn apart to never be able to be used agsin. And her teammates no longer care for her, so she's not hurting them by dying in this way, surely. Her and her body are no longer going to be a burden on everyone either. She can finally find peace, her expression at the end is solemn, but in a strange way, hopeful and at peace. Her only hope at that point was to be released from her pain, however.

10.3 hours !!!! 🎉🎉🎉

(referring to the total hours spent literally just ranting about V at that point LOL...it's like at 12 1/2 now)

[slimynematode]

THE ELECTRONIC YET PALEOLITHIC GARDEN OF EDEN BEARING FRUIT UNTOUCHED BY OVERGROWN MEGAFAUNA OF FUTURES PAST

[skullsandcorals]

https://www.tumblr.com/skullsandcorals/738285799236321280/im-dyslexic-im-not-stupid

1. Holy shit I am so happy I found another person who gets how smart Percy is, and gets that every instance of Percy looking/getting called stupid is due to his dyslexia or people not telling him anything.

2. Which book/chapter is this from? I need to bookmark it ASAP and start shouting it from the metaphorical tumblr hills.

3. We really don't talk about how good a mom Sally is? Like yeah she's badass and gentle but like. She respects Percy. When the school system failed Percy, she's the one who still not only believed that he was smart but still acted like it and probably taught him too. Queen mom Sally Jackson right there.

1.) YEAHH EXACTLY. Or his ADHD 😭 It drives me NUTS whenever Percy is treated as the dumb + comedic guy. Like I get what they're saying and why they're saying it, but sometimes his character gets reduced to JUST that and it hurts my soul. I get that he's funny as a narrator and as a character and sometimes he can be a little "clueless" but it just feels like some people like to think of that as either all he is or a huge part of who he is. I believe I've also seen Leo get this treatment despite literally being insanely smart at such a young age so. that's...fun. They can be funny and smart too 😞

2.) It's from the 10th Anniversary edition of The Lightning Thief! It's Rick's cover letter for the first readers of the manuscript & a note from the narrator. I don't have a copy of that edition myself, but I've seen some pictures of it on Rick's blog and someone posted one of the pages on Reddit (where I got it from).

Here's the full page from Reddit (source) & the picture from Rick's blog where the page is visible (source):

3.) YEEEAHHHH I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!! What I would do to get adopted by her rn. The way she talks to him makes me kinda teary-eyed because she's just so...you can just tell how much she loves Percy and that she would do anything to make sure he grew up resilient and kind in a world that's always out to get him. She believes in him so much that it just makes me lose my mind a little. It's just so sweet and I can't help but feel so moved by it.

I'm not sure if you've read Chalice of the Gods, but there's this scene where (spoilers, kinda) Sally talks to Percy after the whole thing with Hebe and honestly this scene makes me want to sob and cry and weep

“You are a lot of things, Percy. But helpless isn't one of them.”

[florenceafternoon]

war shows character and James Potter proved his

[fideidefenswhore]

'Thus he ended his speech, and he doesn't say That he had wronged or spoken ill of the king, But he prayed that God long keep the king In life, in happiness, [in honour], and in contentment. And when, to the people in attendance, he said, With a steadfast countenance, "Pray for me," With a firm heart he presented his head To the sharp blade that carried it off in one blow. [And not fearing the great cruelty Of the sharp blade [...] Each one seeing that people bore great grief from it] The [three] who had to die afterwards Said nothing, as if they intentionally Had entrusted Rochford Alone to speak for their conscience [...] [The Queen] was still so curious [...] Therefore, they tell her that her brother had shown The greatest strength of any man ever seen [...] The story of the death of Anne Boleyn : a poem by Lancelot de Carle, JoAnn DellaNeva (Translator, Editor, Writer of added commentary)

"'I will,' he said in a good lawyerly fashion, 'not in this point arouse any suspicion which might prejudice the king's issue.' Unwilling to drop his line of questioning, Hales next claimed that George had spread malicious reports which called into question the paternity of Anne's child, Elizabeth. George did not dignify this with an answer. He knew his own sister." Hunting the Falcon, John Guy & Julia Fox

"But George refused to answer the question with the required yes or no, not wishing, he said, “to engender or create suspicion in a matter likely to prejudice the issue the King might have from another marriage.” Nor would he respond to any suggestion that he had spread a rumour that Elizabeth was not Henry’s. The idea that he believed Elizabeth was not the king’s child and that he had repeated such an untruth was, to George, so contemptible that he would not even dignify it with a reply." The Infamous Lady Rochford, Julia Fox

"George Boleyn's real 'crime' was to be Anne Boleyn's brother and Princess Elizabeth's uncle. He was intelligent and spirited enough to mount a powerful defence of his sister. He was powerful enough to provide the focus for Boleyn followers and, especially, those who would assert Elizabeth's rights as heir to the crown." Anne Boleyn, Josephine Wilkinson

[sisterdivinium]

If we are to take a deep dive, it is best to assure the place we're leaping from is stable, so let's do that by starting with the obvious.

The subject in both of these sentences is the same: the Halo. Both of these characters have borne it. Both sentences present the same grammatical structure and answer directly to one another despite the distance in time and space between one and the other's utterances. To Ava, the receiver of these conflicting messages, both claims prove themselves to be ultimately true, for the Halo acts as a gift, in granting her a second chance at a life she never had, and also as a burden, as it imposes on her responsibilities and demands of her sacrifices she would otherwise have never known.

But the show itself openly invites us to dig deeper, so we should not be contented with the obvious alone.

If there is always more, then we must peel back the surface and peek at what is underneath if we are to grasp at least a fraction of the functioning of Warrior Nun in different levels—be it in small scale, pertaining to the characters themselves, or be it in large scale, including how all of it relates to us as viewers in the end.

These two moments of season one are but a fragment of the show’s comprehensive universe, but we will examine them closely to see just how much meaning we can find in them, deceptively simple as they seem.

As mentioned above, the grammatical structure of both sentences is shared between them: “the [subject] is a [noun]”. This could lead to some sort of direct description we associate with the act of definition, of explaining what something is, as in “the pope is a man” or, to use the same reference as Mother Superion and Shannon do, “the Halo is an object”. In fact, had this been the case, we would have been closer to Ava’s own conclusion of the Halo being “a hunk of magic metal embedded in [her] back”, as this is a characteristic anyone could ascribe to it upon examination.

Yet the words used by both former warrior nuns are “gift” and “burden”. If they describe the Halo, then it is not in terms derived from objectively observable traits it possesses (such as it being made of metal), but in a wholly subjective manner. When Mother Superion and Shannon say the Halo is this or that, both imply that it is this or that as relates to themselves. In relaying what the Halo supposedly “is” to Ava, they pre-interpret it for her, infusing it with their own points of view—their beliefs. What they say of the Halo is much more a reflection of who they are than anything the Halo in itself could be.

A) The gift

A gift is, as we know, a present. It presupposes a giver and a receiver, as well as some degree of gratitude on the part of the latter, even if justified by politeness alone.

Mother Superion, embodying the authority of the Catholic church, framed by candles and an altar behind her while making use of short, straightforward affirmations, does not need to clearly state who occupies these positions: we can safely infer that the giver here is God and the beneficiary of this divine benevolence is Ava. A definiteness is patent in the sentences that follow—here is the power of the institution at work, for if Mother Superion starts out by “defining” the Halo, now she defines Ava through it. An inversion takes place, as the woman allows the object to define the woman (as “God’s champion” who “fights in His name”) rather than the other way around. The church, the Halo construct Ava as a subject, subjecting her to certain ideas of what she should be. She is the warrior nun despite having no say in it, not being a warrior and much less a nun.

At first sight, it wouldn’t make sense to interact with Ava in these terms, especially if, by this scene, Mother Superion has already read her file. It wouldn’t be difficult to deduce how expressions crafted with religious colours might impact an audience that does not show any religious proclivities. Furthermore, the tradition of rhetoric has always taught that speakers ought to adapt to their listeners if they wish to get their point across, so either Mother Superion is incompetent at communication, lacking sensibility and skills, or she is making a calculated move—one that is fully supported by her hierarchical position. After all, superiors seldom need to rationally convince their subordinates of doing something given how the latter are compelled instead by power dynamics to get in line—or else.

The strategy doesn’t really work on Ava.

In semiotic terms, we could even argue that there is something confusing happening in this scene—a narrative phase of manipulation (wherein someone tries to get someone else to accept and do something), we could say that it contains hints of both seduction (a positive commentary on the interlocutor—it’s not just about anyone who can be god’s champion, so this is a positive distinction) and intimidation (the threat of negative consequences if the interlocutor doesn’t comply—there is an implied order in the sequence, meaning Ava cannot refuse to be “God’s champion”). Ava might not share in this world-view, but it is what the church and its followers propose: a gift from God is a positive value. Being chosen by God to do something, even fighting and possibly dying in the process, is a positive value. Lilith is standing right there beside them and, at this point, she would surely agree and see nothing of this exchange in a negative light.

Yet Ava isn’t a nun and indeed she does not perceive any of these “honours” as being desirable. Mother Superion’s stance, the image she presents of herself as a strict nun herself when Ava has been mistreated by them all her life, equally gives her no reason to be persuaded, much on the contrary.

The manipulation fails. Ava is told God gave her the gift of life… And that now she is to endanger and potentially lose that very same life as some sort of gesture of gratitude. The logic is unimpressive at best and frankly absurd at worst.

Within the framework of the church, however, it makes perfect sense. Misattributed and misconstrued as it might be, the motto of credo quia absurdum is still pertinent: “I believe because it is absurd”. That a god should grant life only to claim it back through violence is perfectly acceptable if one believes in this god’s unquestionable authority rather than seeing this demand as something ridiculous or cruel.

The very concepts of God, service, battle, duty, blessings only make sense to the faithful, something Ava isn’t. She’s just a puny little individual resisting the pressures brought upon her by a powerful institution.

She and Mother Superion are only speaking over one another, not really having a conversation; Ava doesn’t care to listen to what the church has to say, she doesn’t take it seriously, and the church likewise does not take her individuality, her person into consideration.

However, we would do well to remember that Mother Superion is not simply a mouthpiece for the church—she is also Suzanne, lowly little individual with lowly individual desires and resentment just as Ava.

And, regardless of the effacement of self that monastic as well as military institutions enforce on their members, just as Ava’s subjectivity isn’t neatly negated by direct statements in line with reigning dogma, Suzanne’s own subjectivity also seeps through her words and attitudes. If not blatantly, at the very least there is a remarkable struggle taking place within her, suggested by her use of language as well as her demeanour.

The Halo, after all, defines her as well.

If bearing it is the greatest honour, a mark of God’s favour, if it defines a person, then losing it has an equal power of definition. The distinction it confers on someone is inescapable, for good or ill, and either one dies gloriously as “God’s champion” or one survives it, survives its removal, and is deemed rejected and unworthy by this so magnanimous God. The Halo soaks up all of the positive value ascribed to it—meaning those who lack it adopt a negative one in contrast, be it Suzanne who had it and lost it or even Lilith, who should’ve had it and didn’t.

Still it is considered “a gift”, something given by God… One could say it is a form of grace.

Suzanne’s noun and Vincent’s verb have the same origin, of course, the same stem. Despite the argument between them in this other scene, ultimately there is agreement between the two of them judging by their choice of vocabulary and Mother Superion’s reaction immediately afterwards. If this were not true in some degree, there would have been little need for Mother Superion to correct Ava in the first place, for Ava calls the Halo “a hunk of magic metal”, yes, but she also refers to it as “top prize”, as a reward—which, unlike “gifts”, are meant to be earned, to use Vincent’s comparison. There is a mixture of concepts here.

Without wanting to overcomplicate this text, let us say that ideology is a certain way of understanding the world and that it constructs and is constructed by our discourse, our use of language. One of the functions of ideology is that of attempting to smother contradiction, to smoothen the world’s complexities, simplify them, rationalise them away, however incapable it truly is at accomplishing that given how reality is too complex to be so tamed. Here, then, we see a notable sort of contradiction in Mother Superion’s discourse (in her ideology) that isn’t easily solved: a detail, a problem left out from the thought system. She agrees that grace, in the form of the Halo or not, is given, yet she treats it as if it were earned. This is a crack in the wall; it’s an idiosyncrasy, proof of a subject torn between the different voices that compose her subjectivity, the fragments, the different discourses that, put together, make her up as a whole.

What could be more contradictory than calling something which has scarred her physically, mentally and emotionally a “gift”?

If we create and are created in turn by means of discourse (“you are God’s champion”), if we can only understand and interact with the world when it is mediated by discourses and their correlated ideologies, what would it have meant if Suzanne had assigned another value to the Halo?

The inversion of values would certainly have ejected her from the church. If the Halo, to her, gained negative value, thus allowing her to retain some amount of positive value, her participation in the institution would be impracticable. She would be at odds with the dominant ideology, its structures, its rules… And she would face the resistance Ava faced by assuming such antagonism.

And sure, she might have regained some sort of “freedom”, but what would she have then lost? Resentment or not, there appears to be one central, recurrent positive value, one central desire to most characters in Warrior Nun and it would not be far-fetched to assume Suzanne shares in it herself and is unwilling to part with it.

B) The burden

Needless to say that if there is a generous deal of “burden” to Suzanne’s “gift”, there is also some “gift” in Shannon’s “burden”, judging by her mentioning the family she gained through bearing the Halo. Curiously enough, the dynamic of receiving something and paying for it with that very “gift”—Shannon getting a family and losing it by the very same means—is identical to the dynamics involved in getting Ava to accept her fate as warrior nun, by “paying” for the “gift” of life by risking that very same life in battle.

Shannon has received the “gift”—and fulfilled her role to perfection, allowed to thank God for it personally… If the Halo was taken from Suzanne, Shannon is the one “taken” because of it, alongside other ex-bearers.

Here there are no euphemisms. Shannon has lived the consequences of being “God’s champion” until the very end, so she has no need for distorted truths meant to keep things in order, to avoid questioning the principle of order itself which is the institutional view. There is still a struggle (there is always a struggle) as she admits to finding something positive (a family) through her loyalty to the cause even if the cause is what kills her and other women like her. The contrast between Mother Superion’s speech focused on individual responsibility and Shannon’s avowal of how it is “too great for one person to bear” tells us more than enough about how they each envision individuality, community, the possibility of action, who can make it come about—how life and death, different paths, different destinies, inform perception of the same thing.

Their values are inverted.

Mother Superion’s “gift” is Shannon’s “burden”; Mother Superion’s tendency, while alive, to value death (“You fight in His name”) is countered by a dead Shannon’s valorisation of life (“So much promise unfulfilled. So much life unlived. And for what?”) The scenes are in direct opposition to one another, they respond to one another as mirrored images.

So much so that the reply is not merely linguistic, hidden away in dialogue, but quite evidently displayed in visual terms as well. A mirror offers us reflections that are inverted—left in place of right, right as left—and so are these scenes inverted in relation to one another: in the moment of saying the sentences we’re concerned with, Mother Superion and Shannon stand in much the same place. If we do not notice, it is because the camera pans around in different angles—with the former, we watch the scene from a point at Ava's left, while the latter is shown from an angle at her right. We are literally treated to reflected images, seen from opposite points of view.

Colour, too, guides our reading of both scenes set side by side. With Mother Superion, we are in the realm of the church and its associated earthly tones as established throughout the first season, whereas Ava’s vision of Shannon paints the dream church in a shade of blue. Blue is, of course, the hue which had been mostly tied to Jillian Salvius, to ArqTech, to science. With science comes the concept of reason, as opposed to the sepia haze of faith.

Mary is also drawn against a backdrop of bright blue sky when she is investigating the docks and relying on her reason rather than her faith concerning Shannon’s death.

Shannon’s opinion on the Halo might be just as subjective as Mother Superion’s before her, but it is filtered through personal experience and observation, through reason rather than blind belief in a mission.

Yet we are forgetting something. Ava, having died already, claims there is nothing on the other side. If that is so, why is she meeting Shannon now? And why is this meeting taking place in circumstances that reflect previous events in an inverted manner?

As dreams often reuse what we have lived when awake, re-rendering our memories, transforming them, so it is possible that Ava is not having a vision but a dream—that she is talking not to Shannon, but to some facet of herself, Ava, manifesting as Shannon after connecting with her memory through the warrior nun book.

As Ava clings to it and the knowledge it affords her, it would make sense for her conscience to finally figure out a proper retort to what she heard of Mother Superion in that earlier moment, a retort fuelled by new information and by her own reasoning. At the very least, it would be more plausible to consider this hypothesis than to assume her vision of Shannon is a real communication with her spirit granted by the Halo, for, if we are witnessing a new phase of manipulation, then the message being transmitted this time concerns the Halo’s “lifecycle” itself—and how it must be brought to an end. If it is sentient as some characters believe, why would it let Ava meet Shannon and be exposed to the idea of working against the Halo’s own interests of perpetuation?

After all, the implications behind Shannon’s words are evident: again, if the Halo also defines the woman, then it defines sister Shannon, sister Melanie and all other warrior nuns going back to Areala with one word which will soon apply to Ava and whomever follows: that word is dead, crushed under the burden.

And this time, the message, a sort of compassionate provocation (“a burden too great to bear”—even for you), hits its mark, inspiring Ava to end the tradition and be the last warrior nun.

We are not in the semantic field of religion, even if it is there, in the background, being answered to; here we are not speaking of God or battles fought for this distant general in the sky, but of family, of women slaughtered in the name of a mission. This is no longer some ethereal question but an immediate concern. Whether this is Shannon or Ava herself subconsciously masquerading as Shannon to facilitate her own “awakening”, the point gets across now that it is transmitted in language that makes sense to Ava, now that there are common values between speaker and listener.

One could even hypothesise that, at this point, Shannon being a former warrior nun lends credibility to her words in Ava’s mind as she is a woman experienced in this role Ava is supposed to play.

If so, we can also understand the bridge of empathy that is built between Ava and Mother Superion later on when it is revealed that Suzanne, too, was a halo bearer and that she, too, has carried this “burden”. Both forge new understandings of one another through this common background and a personal exchange that is nothing like their first encounter—when the “gift” is said to have rejected the older nun, when its “burden” is divulged to Ava.

As Ava recognises Shannon, so do Ava and Mother Superion eventually recognise one another as well—so do they begin to comprehend how they did carry similar values, only obscured by their dissimilar ideologies and their resulting language use. If no other, then the value of family is what binds them together through Suzanne’s new disposition to embrace all of her sisters and Ava’s newfound conduct in considering them her sisters to begin with. They come closer in the catacombs and, at last, meet halfway by season two.

Yet we, the viewers, as touched by this miscommunication that ends well as we may be, after all of this talk of gifts and burdens, we remain none the wiser on what the Halo actually is.

C) The energy source

As previously exposed, we are kept in the dark because most sentences that speak of this iconic object in the series are subjective, focused on the characters’ own relationship to it or their ideas about it rather than any substantial data on what it might truly be apart from a “hunk of magic metal” currently in Ava’s back.

Perhaps because we spend so much time with the nuns, satisfied as they are with the logic of plain belief instead of concerned with tangible, provable things that can or should be explained. The most we get is the information on how the Halo is some kind of weapon, an amplifier attuned to the bearer’s body and soul.

Enter Jillian Salvius.

While her understanding of the Halo is admittedly insufficient, her research on it limited, her available vocabulary and scientific knowledge too slim (!) to encompass such an item, she does not say something like “the Halo is a mystery” or “a conundrum” as she says of Lilith later on. It would be true, just as it being a “gift” or “burden” is true considering those who called it thus, yet Jillian uses another sort of language instead.

Being a scientist, doctor Salvius opts for what we consider to be appropriate scientific modes of speaking, that is, by creating an impression of objectivity. It is not her personal reaction or opinion of the Halo that she offers, but whatever traits she can see or learn of in that moment: an energy source, an object that defies physics, a foreign body of undefined material. Ava “translates” this as being “an alien battery”, but the fact is that we are served a definition of the Halo unlike those we had before. It isn’t much, but for once we are not given a character’s personal interpretation of it…

Or so it seems. We none of us are capable of being fully objective, for none of us can rid ourselves of our selves—Jillian posits the Halo as an energy source, which seems innocent and impartial enough, but soon afterwards we understand what that means to her.

In themselves, the words “energy source” don’t carry many other connotations. Yet, for Jillian, these words that seem so neutral and “scientific”, so clear cut, do not sustain the facade of objectivity. She has spoken of energy before, it is an active component of her research, a common word in her lexicon; to Ava, “energy source” is “a battery”, but to Kristian and Jillian, who are part of ArqTech, who know what goes on within its walls, these words automatically acquire another meaning.

Yes, that of a battery, but one with a very specific purpose. Under the guise of neutral discourse, a very personal interpretation of the Halo, just as if it were a “gift” or “burden”, lies hidden. It is an energy source—one that doctor Salvius can potentially use to power her contraption. It is a “solution”, perhaps even a “gift”, of circumstance if not of god.

And it, too, defines Ava despite herself. When it fails, Jillian says she was wrong about Ava, not the Halo, thus conflating the two.

In the end, even she who might well be the smartest character, the one most closely connected with science and concrete knowledge, cannot guard herself from letting the unsaid (or “unsayable”) slip through her lips. She, too, in spite of her apparent objective language, exhibits a subjective kind of relationship with the world around her, influenced by the ideologies that cross her being.

D) Ending thoughts

Perhaps, when all is said and done, we are never truly able to follow that maxim we’ve seen more than once on Warrior Nun.

Perhaps we simply cannot think or act if we do not perceive things as at least partially related to ourselves.

It is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as long as different views can coexist, as long as they do not trample one another, as long as one person or group don’t elect themselves as the owners of truth, attempting to eliminate all who do not follow them as Adriel tried to do. In a democracy, in a place and a moment in history where there is freedom of thought and creed and speech, the phenomenon of various voices competing for the spotlight, taking turns under it is normal and healthy.

Warrior Nun gives us a fascinating insight on the multiplicity of voices that compose a society, even if there are elements of it which seek to suffocate those voices. It is a microcosm where different ideologies, through language, are confronted with one another, where they struggle to make sense of things—and where each of those points of view over a given subject might carry a morsel of truth. The Halo is a piece of metal and a gift and a burden and an energy source; none of these ideas or perceptions necessarily exclude the other, none is “more correct” than the other because, if so, then the question would be: as regards which character?

To Ava, at least, it is all these things and maybe more.

There are attempts to implant a hegemonic interpretation of facts. The very story of Areala, Adriel, the Halo’s trajectory along the centuries, how this is “the way it has been for one thousand years” is a strategy to cement a singular view. The repetition, the constant reworking of tradition, telling this story over and over with each warrior nun… That is the church at play, ideology trying to fill in any gaps, keep things as they are, conserve them and the structures that organise them, guaranteeing that things have one certain sort of sense and not another, one value, one meaning.

But life is not stagnant and people are not all swallowed whole by ideology even when they subscribe to it willingly, as a member of a church would. There are always things that cannot be explained, things that are beyond the scope of ideology—contradictions, pesky little details that escape the invisible goggles with which we look at reality. The truth is that it is far more complex than we can contain it with a few buzzwords, man-made or divine. There is always another side, always a reply, a constant dialogue between our different ways of seeing, understanding, being and, therefore, speaking.

A more visible example comes from those scenes in season two where Yasmine and Adriel are both telling the exact same story, only through their own perspectives, interpreting it in their own ways.

The show provides many opportunities to see how varied human voice can be, how the point of view of whoever is telling the story bears a mighty influence on the narrative, whether consciously or not, malicious or not. That, in turn, may inspire us to look around us, in the real world; to look at how we are representing things, others and even ourselves as well as how others represent us through the words we use.

This is not an exhaustive study, long as it is. As said before, it is but a glance at two scenes, two little lines of dialogue which are, however, intimately connected with others, with the stuff of the entire show—with the stuff of life. We could write more on how possessive pronouns and other sorts of phrases with the idea of the Halo “belonging” to someone or being “owned” by someone are used, just to remain in the area of discourse about the Halo alone.

But the present text has given all it had to give and its author does not wish to be a burden on her readers any more than she already has been.