#I think Homelander's relationship with Earth / Humans is a little more complex than that

[arealtrashact]

Look again at that pale blue dot. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who ever was. The aggregate of our joy and suffering. Every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and every peasant. Every saint and sinner in the history of your species lived there. On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. . .

[meikuree]

list 10 different female faves from 10 different fandoms

I was tagged by @chocochipbiscuit for this ages ago but I’m only getting around to this now because I wanted to find a time when I could just sit down and GUSH about my faves with abandon... hence the lateness... thank you for the tag though, i love doing these things!! this got LONG because i am horrifically verbose, so i’m putting this under a cut:

1. aerith gainsborough (final fantasy vii): probably my earliest fictional crush/fave ever... one of my siblings used to let me watch her play ff7 when i was eight or nine-ish and i've loved aerith since then. i adore her because she's so selflessly compassionate and nurturing -- she's been through an incredible amount of loss and metaphysical loneliness (as the last remaining person of her race) but she still channels her energies towards Greater Causes and uplifting others! and she's still wonderfully modest and down-to-earth about it all and just a Thoroughly Good person in general... one of my comfort characters :,)

2. bethany hawke (dragon age 2): honestly i love all the women in the DA series & can wax poetic about them all in equal degree, such that sticking to one fave per game is in fact even harder than the time i had to sit for the final exams for my degree, but... bethany is probably one of my first picks. i've always found it interesting how she's in immediate senses the more pleasant of the two DA2 siblings to get along with and at the same time someone who is Good but willing to fudge her morals just this side of ambiguity a little. that sort of goodness that coexists with moral flexibility and understanding of practical realities is what draws me to her... basically Goodness With An Edge. also the fact that she is in fact very wise beneath her innocent/youthful exterior and Quietly Competent and is someone who gravitates towards mentoring others while in abject structural/personal circumstances in some storyline choices!! i have a type!!

3. furiosa (mad max fury road): i really love furiosa's story and the way her background and heritage drives the plot. the fact that she's tried to keep her heritage alive all these years... the way she derives her strength and identity from the community where she was raised by women... and then the moment she realises that her old community is gone always get me GODDDD. and then the fact that that moment catalyses one of the most profound realisations in the film afterwards, and leads to the protagonists turning around to revolutionise a violent regime afterwards!! it's all about the loss, and resilience, and quiet, stalwart persistence in spite of it all.

4. franziska von karma (ace attorney): i like hypercompetent characters. franziska is, in the narrative, a woman who was a hypercompetent child prodigy. but i don't love her for that; i love her for the development she undergoes afterwards when she learns to accept failure and become more emotionally measured in general (i think... it's been a while since i've played these games). i also find it very funny that she's mean and abrasive to everyone but has a soft spot for women and young girls like pearl and alternately CARES deeply about how they perceive her or goes out of her way to help them. #franziskaisalesbian anyone?

5. janai (the dragon prince): um, she is incredibly beautiful. honourable warrior who is deeply loyal to her sister and homeland and then learns to look beyond received narratives about racial enmity and hatred? i'm sold. i also love the development of her relationship with amaya.

6. ianthe tridentarius (the locked tomb): honourable mention to this horrible, gremlin girl for being the reason I picked up these books!! she’s a walking bag of moral transgressions and I Enjoy It So Much, IT IS SO REFRESHING. I also appreciate the fact that her particular brand of abhorrence is presented in the narrative free of moralitis, or sententious attempts to link it to gendered failings (e.g. the failure to embody ideal precepts of gender)... which is the treatment Evil Women are often subjected to in stories. Ianthe is Rotten, full stop, and there aren’t any notable attempts to graft an exonerative backstory over it, but also no attempts (yet) to unfairly penalise her for Garbage Moralistic Commentary. at the same time she’s not blandly, beigely villainous either; she is capable of a certain degree of care, however warped or fucked up its actualisation might be. she is complex! in all, a very delicious character. 10/10.

7. harrowhark nonagesimus (the locked tomb): breaking the one-fave-per-fandom rule for TLT because it is that special. I don’t regard harrow as a fave in the sense that I “love her with all my heart” like with aerith or bethany (gideon would take that place, actually -- she's the moral compass of the series!) — it’s more that I love the trajectory she undergoes in harrow the ninth. but I also really enjoy how thorny, difficult, and (morally, but not only) complex she is. I find the meditations on her grief, loneliness, and devotion in Harrow the Ninth comforting and beautiful, as do I the framing of her insanity/madness.

8. billie lurk (dishonored): oh boy, I love how jaded and embittered she is, and the way she's very flawed and human as well... the broad thematic flavours in her backstory of regret over committing ~irredeemable crimes~ and being haunted by your past, and dwelling within the grittier side of life are all very compelling to me! her perspective as someone who is Not A Chosen One and an anti-heroine is refreshing too

9. leliana (dragon age: inquisition): cheating for this one by counting this as a separate game from DA2, hah. she is immensely Intimidating and Cool, i love that she specialises in the domain of spymastery and subterfuge! she is also complex, but some of the things she stands out to me for are that particular brand of realistic, Rugged Faith she has, and the way she's clear-eyed about the sacrifices it takes and ruthlessness she has to wield in service of it

10. pieck (shingeki no kyojin): yes, the character i have written every single one of my 16 fics about in one form or another was bound to make it into this list somehow. honestly i DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY... it's all there in said fics! and there's too much to encompass in one brief answer. but: it's things like her quiet unassuming competence, the way she Takes Responsibility even when she could do the easier thing of resting on her laurels and/or succumbing to despair, her gritty resigned optimism, and the way she takes her obligations to others seriously & twines both ruthlessness and generosity within herself... she's a lot more complex than initially observed by many people, in my humble opinion, and there are still threads to her i’m teasing out to this date!

i’ll tag: @lightdescending @todustagain @kallistoi @leksaa90 @rose-gardens @acerinky @frumpkinspocketdimension @whiteasy no pressure!

[sanrionharbor-blog]

Everything I Can Reasonably Surmise About the GOT Finale

Disclaimer: Discussion of leaks, casting, and fantheorying follows. I neither completely trust nor distrust the leaks. Many of the leaks have ended up coming true, but I sincerely doubt that they are all 100% true. I’ll wager 90% true, but would love to be wrong. Some of the leaks for 8x05 sounded worse out of context (imo they’re still pretty bad--but, for example, the bells didn’t make Dany go mad they just represented a decision she was about to make--according to commentary it was the sight of the Red Keep and what it represented to Dany that pushed her off the edge, but--). 

Anyhow, let’s jump into it:

What They Have To Squeeze In the 80 Minute Time Slot

-Tyrion’s reaction to Jaime and Cersei’s deaths

-Davos’ reaction to Daenerys

-Tyrion’s reaction to Daenerys

-Jon’s reaction to Daenerys

-Arya’s reaction to Daenerys

-Something with Sansa (I really would not be surprised if this Mad!Dany demanded a trial, or said something sinister to Jon about Sansa--but Sansa is weeks away and I can’t see them rushing up there to take care of a hasty trial anytime soon)

-Daenerys’ reaction to Tyrion’s actions 

-Brienne’s reaction to Jaime’s fate

-Whatever the heck Dany’s armies are going to do after Dany’s fate is decided 

-Bronn (dunno what interesting thing he could do though--gosh, his whole sub-plot this season really was a throwaway huh...) (Please don’t give him High Garden)

-Bran (man I wish being a Three-Eyed Raven meant more to the showrunners --the amount of lore-related plots we could have had)

-Samwell (he’ll probably just be a cameo, sadly)

-Gendry (whether he takes Storm’s End or not, reunites with Arya or not)

-Epilogue for all surviving characters

Who We Haven’t Seen Yet

The leaks haven’t mentioned characters that have been confirmed with cast listings:

Edmure Tully

Robin Arryn

The New Prince of Dorne

Could they simply be cameos? Possibly. But the leak that mentions a council consisting of Bronn just sounds...look, I can’t put it past the showrunners, but if there IS a council, my money is on Tully and/or the Prince of Dorne being included over Bronn. 

The Fate of Tyrion

If the leaks are to be believed, Tyrion will be put on trial, probably survive (I’m actually 76% sure he’ll survive), and then become part of some sort of ruling council. I think his ending could have been so much more, but they dumbed down his character arc and watered down his character so much I just can’t see them pulling off anything more nuanced than that. The best I can hope for is a thematically satisfying marriage with Sansa, or hints at their being together--and I truly mean that from both a shipping AND non-shipping perspective. Having a Stark and Lannister willingly come together, having two characters who have long dreamed of romance and suffered from abusive relationships, wow, it would just be--it would actually be something of lasting substance I could take away from this show. 

Until then, there’s always the books. 

The Fate of Jon & Dany

I will be the first to admit--I can’t believe that the Dany Going Mad arc actually made me...well, I never really supported Dany, but wow did I emphasize with her in this season. I think she’s going to experience a descent arc in the books too, but I think it will be a heckuva a lot more complex, Shakespearian, well-earned, and dare-I-say human in the books. 

That said, I’m almost 100% sure Dany will die. The only other scenario I could see...geez, I dunno, losing her last dragon and going into exile? A death could at least be poetic, thematic. It’s possible they’ll give her a spark of humanity before that. It’s too bad we’ll never get her reaction to the old dragon skulls or other haunts of the Red Keep, since they were destroyed. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if they showed her in a vision with Khal Drogo and her son--harking back to her vision of the Iron Throne covered in ash, a throne she never touches whilst she goes through another door and towards her family.

Jon will probably kill her. Man, I feel bad for Jon. I feel bad for Kit Harington. He did NOT have to be this sidelined and one-dimensional of a character. Why on earth did D&D take “good guys will always be duped by their good intentions” away from Ned’s death, and then apply that to Jon and Tyrion? Ned meant so much more than that. Jon was supposed to be Ned 2.0, in my opinion, and Tyrion is probably meant to be Tywin 2.0.--but when I say 2.0, I really mean “what those characters SHOULD/COULD have been.” Taking the best elements, learning from their mistakes, and, while making new mistakes, striving to incorporate all of the foils and flaws and make the best of it. 

Which is a theme at the heart of GRRM’s books. Making the best of our own vice and virtue, no matter the personal cost. 

The Fate of Jaime

Look, I don’t want to get everyone’s hopes up. Jaime’s dead, right? 

The only reason I bring that up as a question is because they supposedly filmed on location for Brienne’s homeland and supposedly Coster-Waldau was seen there and supposedly Coster-Waldau was paid to appear in all six episodes. 

It would be somewhat cheap to bring back Jaime Lannister back from two stabs and the entire crushing weight of the Red Keep. 

No, it really wouldn’t make sense. Doesn’t mean they might not pull that out of the hat though. I don’t know why, but because I see a 2% chance of silly plot armor plot twist, I’ll include this. 

Bran As King?

I know, I know, it’s a lackluster ending. I can sorta see the in-universe logic here, though, and I can point out at least a few inklings of foreshadowing that Season 8 has given us thus far:

If the Bran as King is true, I think THIS was the point of Tyrion and Bran having two significantly framed scenes together this season. 

Tyrion will be one of the key players deciding on who takes the throne after, I only assume, Dany is taken out. Tyrion now knows Bran’s entire story. He’s vouched for Bran and cared for him since he was a boy--telling him that his life would not be limited by his disability, for the most part. He made him a saddle to help him continue living his life. He took the time to see Bran as a human being--something even Bran himself is incapable of these days. Then, they had their second chat, after the Long Night.

I think they’re going to establish that Bran having an insane amount of knowledge/the literal memory of all of Westeros + he can’t desire anything (good or bad) + he doesn’t want to rule (WHY DOES THIS MAKE A GREAT CRITERIA) = best choice. Which, um, again still leaves us with the heir-to-the-throne situation. 

On the plus side, if Bran were king, even if he had no heirs, it would still guarantee a Stark to inherit the throne. Specifically, Sansa’s child, because of her place in the family tree. Which means it only makes more sense for Sansa to get married/implications of being married, but see below for my thoughts on that. 

Of course, the other possibility is they introduce a quasi-Republic system or slap a little Magna Carta on the side. 

Or the leak is wrong. Time will tell. 

Romance

I actually don’t have a hard time believing that Arya and Gendry will reunite. They’ve at least set up Arya’s character for a moment like that: Arya, finally given permission via the Hound to turn back from a life of vengeance, Arya who inexplicably survived an entire city falling to pieces around her, Arya who also witnessed the horror that Daenerys released in a supposed rage of “this is what happens to people who mess with my family.” Yeah. I could see Arya now running to embrace life head-on and she and Gendry being the ones to continue on the Stark line. 

BUT. 

That doesn’t mean that Arya should be the only Stark who gets an S.O. and a new lease on life and the ability to carry on the Stark line. 

The possibility of platonic Sanrion is strong. The possibility of romantic Sanrion is just that--a possibility. Again, I simply can’t trust the showrunners to follow up on their extremely vague hints regarding Sansa and Tyrion. 

But it’s like Peter Dinklage once said: when it comes to Sansa and Tyrion, “...there’s just something you can’t put your finger on about them.”

The leaks say that Sansa rules Winterfell alone. Nope, I don’t agree with that as a satisfactory conclusion to her arc. Doesn’t mean it won’t be portrayed that way, but I have no trouble believing she’ll have a much richer ending in the books. Ned himself said she would be with someone kind, gentle, and strong. Yes, Sansa is strong on her own. But ‘aloneness’ goes against the Stark motto: the pack survives. 

Sansa and Tyrion make sense on MULTIPLE levels, but frankly I don’t expect levels from GOT. I don’t even feel anti towards D&D: I’m simply unhappy, disappointed, and yes, still holding out for at least some sense of closure from the finale. If they manage to pull Sanrion through, I would be happy not just from a rose-glasses perspective of a shipper--it would be something that thematically makes sense and fulfills so many parallels:

The War of the Roses parallel (uniting two warring families together)

The Florian & Jonquil parallel (a story from the ASOIAF universe; some have thought this applied to Sandor, a knight, or to Sansa’s misplaced trust in Dontos, a fool. But Tyrion embodies the archetypes of the knight and the fool and rescues Sansa time and time again; he is also, like Florian, not stereotypically handsome)

The Beauty & the Beast parallel (Martin has only explicitly stated that Braime are supposed to be a Beauty & the Beast story, but with Tyrion being a Lannister bro as well and also having toxic love vs. healthy love as one of his struggles, I see no problem in Jaime and Tyrion both sharing a twist on this trope)

Simply the fact that both characters are intellectual politicians who were able to make the best of an awful situation and vouch for one another when they didn’t have to. 

She could provide the heir that will inherit after Bran (if Bran becomes king) [theoretically, if we assume that Sansa does not get married and that Arya and Gendry have kids, Arya’s kids could still inherit, but, um, whatever I like Sansa’s kids inheriting mmkay].

Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got for now!

[ivanaskye]

Okay, so, since I saw that post about bookstore employee recommendation shelves too-often being boring… I’ve had a hard time getting myself to stop thinking about what my recommendation shelf, if for some reason I ever had a chance to curate one, would look like.

So here we go: a list of The Good Stuff(™), which is not as well-known as it probably should be!

MEMORY by Linda Nagata.  This is absolutely the most obvious of these recommendations, to me, because hoo boy, this is a book that I have loved for a while that I have never seen in a bookstore since I first found it, lolsob, and which I’ve also never heard discussed online.  In fact, I literally think there were only 4 goodreads reviews the last time I checked…

Anyway, this book contains one of the weirdest and most complex spec-fic settings I’ve ever seen.  It takes place on a ring-shaped world where tides of silver mist kill and reinvent the landscape at near-random, where reincarnation is a known event and tiny mechanical beetles keep villages safe.

It’s also paced somewhat questionably, but in a way where I don’t mind, which I think is a recommendation in its own right.  Every single page seems like a gift, a chance to get more looks into this weird setting that never quite fully reveals all of its secrets.

Extra bonus points for literally the only love triangle I have ever liked.

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AND I DARKEN by Kiersten White.  The trouble with curating lists of not well-known enough books is that you have to ask yourself, not well-known enough to who?

So yes, this is mainstream.  Yeah, you might have even heard of it.  But I’m pretty sure that people who habitually avoid YA—or, for that matter, totally non-fantasy, no-magic-involved, historical fiction—haven’t checked it out.

And they really should.

The trilogy this book starts is, hands down, the best YA I’ve ever read, using the narrowed focus on just a couple of characters so common in YA to the best possible effect.  The world is large and complex, but through our two lead characters, we care.  

And the theme!  The theme of these books is so perfectly-executed.  It’s power vs love, inherited home vs found home, and it works so well.

Also, a really good handling of religion (mostly Islam).

And if all that isn’t enough to sound good, consider this: one of the characters is GENDERBENT DRACULA.  How cool is THAT???

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THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF KASTELIR by Sam Farren.  This is also the beginning to a trilogy, and I never hear this one talked about either.

It’s about a necromancer getting swept up by a lady night and learning THINGS about DRAGONS.  And about the weird, complex history of her world.  And everything happens all the time, and there are clashing armies and evil empires and everything you might want from high fantasy.

And it also centers around an f/f/f triad.

And a story so gripping that I really, really did not like putting these books down.

Admittedly, I’m still not convinced that the last half of the third book lives up to the rest of the series, but it was alright enough, and the series is worth the ride.

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BLOODLUST by Auryn Hadley.  This is another one where I ask, well known to who?  This is the start to a reverse harem epic fantasy series that basically everyone in reverse harem circles is talking about, but which I don’t think anyone outside those circles knows about.

I’m still not caught up to the series—and it isn’t even entirely finished yet—but I’m most of the way through the fifth book, and so far, it’s good.  I’d basically describe it as liberation porn: it’s about a marginalized non-human series rising up, with the main character growing from a confused smol to a great leader, and making massive equal rights strides every two seconds.  There’s plenty of conflict and difficulty, but also a lot of “HELL YEAH, ANOTHER PERSON HAS BEEN CONVINCED THAT EVERYONE IS PEOPLE!”

The MC also builds her contingent of (male) lovers slowly, developing really good, well-thought-out relationships with each one.  People attracted to dudes will probably actually enjoy this series more than me, but I have to say, I really like especially the third guy added to the harem!

(Ignore the weird CG covers, though.)

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MEDUSA UPLOADED by Emily Devenport.  Heavy breathing, guys, this is the best SF I’ve ever read.

This is way high-tech, probably hard SF, set on an oligarchical generation ship without being depressing, somehow.  One of the keys to this intense lack of despair is the often-freeing nature of much of the technology people have access to, even when it’s the very same technology that the people in charge try to use to control their subjects.  For instance, the brain chips everyone has can be programmed to contain the entire database of music humanity has ever made on them, so the main character just listens to symphonies all the time.   But in tyrant’s hands, people can also be forcibly implanted with chips that prevent them from seeing anything the tyrants don’t want them to see… but then, those implants can be overridden by other rogue elements…

There’s just, a lot going on, all the time, and there’s real joy in this book.  The main character may have never seen a real flower in person until a particular scene midway through the book, but she can wander through mindscape gardens anytime she wants, and communicate telepathically with other people… including adorable androids.

Who send “<3” symbols to each other.

While overthrowing the government.

GODS IT’S SUCH A GOOD BOOK.

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THE NEWCOMERS by Helen Thorpe.  So, uh, I may have forgotten while I was starting this list that I’ve also read some really good nonfiction lately.  This book is among it.

This follows a single year in a high school ESL classroom mostly comprised of refugee teenagers, and holy shit, the sheer humanity in this entire book.  The complexities of learning a new language are counterpointed with information about why these students are no longer in their original homelands, what their families are going through, what the refugee resettlement process in the US is like…

And just, how much people they are.

Gods, I love people.

Honestly, this pretty much should be required reading for the current political climate, so… go get this book, and also please do shove it at your conservative relatives.  Maybe they’ll learn something.

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GOD IS NOT ONE by Stephen Prothero.  Another nonfiction, which could probably be retitled, Everything About World Religions You Wanted To Know But Were Too Afraid To Ask.  This primarily gets into the differences between religions, and is a really good read, especially if you want to break free of the ‘maybe all religions are US white Protestantism’ mindset.  (Hint: they’re not.  Like, not at all.)

Obviously, religion is a really big subject, so this book doesn’t have everything—it only covers eight religions, and I know my girlfriend can verify that it misses a few things about her branch of Buddhism, for instance.  But it’s still probably a lot more than your school ever taught you, even if you were lucky enough to take a comparative religions class.

(Also, if this sounds like your jam, go ahead and check out his other book too, which is about why people in the US know so little about the religions that are right around them.)

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So yeah, those are some recommendations!  If you want a better idea of if they apply to you, consider some of my more well-known faves: literally Brandon Sanderson’s entire body of work, NK Jemisen’s Broken Earth trilogy, LoTR, The Wicked + The Divine.

[momzoneonline]

MOVING TO CANADA IS A JOKE...The Economic, Military, and Social Integration of North America

Eh? I can think of scores of reasons to move to Canada (or opt for the Mexican Riviera) . . . any place but Babylon the Great: The USA. The War in Iraq . . . or better yet: The entire Military-Industrial Complex sucking the life-blood out of Americana for starters. Or, how about the whole hedonistic culture of greed, avaricious appetites, and super sizing all things godly and ungodly--from Hollywood to Mega Churches; indeed, ours is a "city set on a hill which cannot be hid" but the closer you get to this glittering jewel, the more it resembles the "Little Shop of Horrors," you know, that flesh-eating plant crying out: Feed me, Seymour! Conspicuous consumption of a nation which spends $1.8 Billion more each day than the whole earth combined and finds herself some $14 Trillion in debt (National Debt + Balance of Payment/Trade Debts) is a bit too much, wouldn't you say?--after all, she represents but 5% of the world's population.

Come on, half the eagle is in a declared state of emergency and the overt identification by Big Brother of all things human is prepared and/or is itching to pounce upon American liberties once thought sacrosanct by both the ACLU and the NRA by euphemistic legislation called Patriotic Acts, and finally, a cashless society where all of us are implanted with chips awaiting true identity and debit through scanning devices at your local Safeway.

The clock is ticking. Peak oil, where American's "zero sum game" is played out--for you to gain I must loose--refuses to share her bounty with the Asian tigers of China and India; and, of course, they are more than pleased with our indulgence. Like Rome, our legions amongst the world's "provinces," are stretched thin--and the draft can't be all that far off if we're to maintain our economic edge and SUV-lifestyle (latest stats for the past two years show that 58% of all vehicles purchased in the USA are SUVs, pickups, or plain old gas guzzlers). And, as if these outrageous consequences weren't enough to abandon ship--toss in the worst natural disaster ever to afflict the homeland: Katrina; man, wait till we finance that one!

So . . . isn't it about time to flee to Canada or head for the Mexican Riviera? Eh? Canada's a safe haven for pot-people and same-sex marriage is the rage. Crime's relatively low compared to the lower 48 and the death penalty's been outlawed for nearly thirty years. Finally, most of the 125,000 Viet-Nam Era draft dodgers who fled to Canada stuck around and now constitute the leading edge of all the above progressive life-style. Wow, we're talkin' about socialized medicine for all--a veritable paradise compared to the inflictions of them patriots down under. Cheap drugs (includes tons of cannabis), affordable housing, tiny military budget, etc., etc.--a little cold, but you'll get used to it.

Finally, if Hollywood's collective apoplexy over President Bush's election can be believed--we're outta here . . . a few of these righteous indignations (unfulfilled) are duly noted, if for nothing else, their entertainment value. Notwithstanding the Hollywood stars and directors who claimed exodus was their only option under Bush--Barbra Streisand, Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Robert Altman, Lynn Redgrave, Pierre Salinger (now deceased), and Cher--all found the allure of Babylon on the Hudson irresistible; so much for leftist vibratos. Misquoted or just plain fluff--they all abide within the walls of the crystal palace celebrating the party atmosphere, as they star in a movie sequel to the "Left Behind Series" entitled: Talk is Cheap, Follow Us falling in love with a single mom quotes.

ECONOMIC INTEGRATION VIA NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA--Enter the "Three Amigos"

Patriots would exclaim we're selling off and out America; globalists would see dollars galore; socialists would see an on-going rip off; and a whole bunch of people in the middle could care less (a.k.a. "victims anonymous").

Meanwhile Deanna Spingola in "Building a North American Community" (July 15, 2005) keeps telling it like it is:

"While our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers having been spilling their blood in the sands of Iraq under the guise of restoring the country to the Iraqi citizens, our president is in the process of giving our country to the elite One World Order insiders. While our president is requiring protected borders in Iraq, he is obliterating, not only our southern, but our northern borders." Actually, Deanna (and you've got to read her entire article) is referring to the Bush/Fox/Martin meeting (USA/Mexico/Canada) held at Baylor University in Waco, Texas on 23 March 2005, where they were busy about establishing the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" - to wit, the SPPNA's troika:

"We, the elected leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, have met in Texas to announce the establishment of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

"Over the past decade, our three nations have taken important steps to expand economic opportunity for our people and to create the most vibrant and dynamic trade relationship in the world (i.e., NAFTA; my insert). Since September 11 2001, we have also taken significant new steps to address the threat of terrorism and to enhance the security of our people. "But much still remains to be done. In a rapidly changing world, we must develop new avenues of cooperation that will make our open societies safer and more secure, our businesses more competitive, and our economies more resilient.

"Our Partnership will accomplish these objectives through a trilateral effort to increase the security, prosperity, and quality of life of our citizens. This work will be based on the principle that our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary, and will reflect our shared belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic values and institutions. It will also help consolidate our efforts within a North American framework, to meet security and economic challenges, and promote the full potential of our people, by reducing regional disparities and increasing opportunities for all."

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS--They're at it again!

Now don't go conspiratorial on me . . . hee-hee . . . don't need to . . . let the truth speak for itself:

It was on May 17, 2005 the CFR formalized its "Independent Task Force" to review at length the parameters of such a three-pact agreement among the USA, Canada, and Mexico. This 31-member force de jure was chaired by John F. Manley, Pedro Aspe, and William F. Weld and vice-chaired by: Robert A. Pastor, Thomas P. d'Aquino, Andrés Rozental. Cooperating with the CFR's efforts were the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales.

Indeed, the composite document released by the aforementioned is the very title of Spingola's article . . .

No wonder that Spingola and other American patriots view this as the "Great American Give-a-way!"

Take a gander at their timid prognostications and guess why moving to Canada's a joke . . .for what NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) could not destroy, FTAA (Free Trade Area/Agreement of the Americas . . . a.k.a. "Building a North American Community") fully intends:

"We are asking the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada to be bold and adopt a vision of the future that is bigger than, and beyond, the immediate problems of the present . . . they could be the architects of a new community of North America, not mere custodians of the status quo." (Canadian co-chair, John P. Manley, Former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance). CHRISTIANS ARE THE MOST VULNERABLE

Now, listen to Spingola's assessment of all this--and, don't think she's some brainless Libertarian gone amok down in Texas somewhere . . .

"This basically means that Americans must give up their freedoms and hard won sovereignty along with all resources for the greater good of the 'New Community.' It is a socialistic equalization designed to make slaves of everyone in all three countries. This will occur as a result of the secret, subversive activities of our ruling elitist who have never sacrificed anything except their integrity. When it comes time to sell this socialistic venture, Bush will adopt his multipurpose 'Christian' stance and use every possible guilt maneuver to encourage this good hearted Christian country to open our hearts to the less fortunate. This is a ploy to make all of us less fortunate. There will be many who will fall for this scam under the pretext of Christianity. If we think Christians are media maligned now, just wait! We will be the most hated inmates in the camp!" Wow! Powerful projections here, right? I'm sure we'll somehow meet up with Spingola one day--if not in glory, then in some gulag cell contemplating how all of this got out of hand . . . I mean, if Shirley McClain went out on a limb, Spingola's going out on a twig:

"All of this is done under the facade of protecting us - from terrorists? The worse terrorists we face are those who serve in our government. Another day that shall live in infamy, 9/11, has done much to serve the purposes of those whose main goal is to establish the One World Order. What an opportunistic event! It couldn't have worked any better if they had planned it!" O CANADA - VIVA MEXICO - Life is good!

Of course most Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans can't stomach all of this unification at once; thus, the GREAT TRANSITION awaits us all:

Unified military command? Listen to what the CFR plans for your future:

1. Establish a common security perimeter by 2010. 2. Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers. 3. Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities. The CFR web site is effusive in its sacrifice of sovereignty:

4. Create a single economic space: 5. Adopt a common external tariff. 6. Allow for the seamless movement of goods within North America. 7. Move to full labor mobility between Canada and the U.S. 8. Develop a North American energy strategy that gives greater emphasis to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases - a regional alternative to Kyoto. Hey, and let's shoot the gap - listen, we're talkin' INTEGRATION BIG TIME . . . and we're not whistling Di

[brutefemme]

Well... here we are again.

Did you miss me? 

I guess I’ll always come back here. I’ll always be just a sad girl on the internet, and honestly, I’m here for her. (Although, I do use they/themme pronouns now.. wassaaaaap post-binaarrrryy!) I always come back here when I need to speak in a way that feels good; a way that I constantly ignore because I still think people don’t care (but here’s the secret: it doesn’t matter if no one cares. It only matters if I do.) Also, I haven’t had a working laptop in over a year because Apple really has all of us by the balls. I digress. I’m rambling to avoid as per usual. My mouth is always too fast while my fingers are painfully slow. My mind is a cosm traveling in no direction in particular. Well, maybe it is traveling in a direction... inward, toward itself. 

I have a lot to say. No one is surprised. 

It usually takes me a while, but I always find what I’m looking for by looking back. I would say it’s a cool little trick, but it’s not -- it’s kind of fucked up. 

Ehhh, I’m working through it. 

I did run into this post though and really fell into it. 

So... five years ago to my five years ago. Here we go. 

Hey Kirsten, 

You actually did change your name finally. You found it so beautifully too, like it was made for you. You’ve emerged into this new world you’ve built for yourself as kali diwa, and it fits in every possible way. It was right after a free POC Yoga class at the East Bay Meditation Center (Yes, you still do yoga, yes, you only do it with other brown folx around, and yes, seriously fuck yes, you live in Oakland. And bitch, you fucking love it.) where your teacher chose to honor Kali Ma, imploring her to burn all things that no longer serve you. It struck a chord, a strong vibration of both nostalgia and enlightenment, then you went home to watch Bourdain go to the Philippines again and that fool showed you exactly what you wanted to see: Kali - the ancient Filipino martial art that is intrinsically tied to the resistance of your homeland and your blood. How you could say no when revealed itself to you. And the best part? It’s yours, fully. 

You’re in Europe now, you as in 2015 you, and I know you feel so many things right now, but it’s okay. These are lessons you need to learn. You’re always exactly where you need to be at all times. You say that a lot now in 2020 and people kind of hate it, but they also love to hear it so... you’re gonna keep saying it. It’s a good reminder. This trip will be unpacked over and over and over again. So keep those eyes wide and that heart open - it will show you truth. 

After Europe, you come home with nowhere to go, but back to LA. You lived in a hostel again, which you didn’t want to do after living at that atrocious AirBnB situation, you know the one where there the host used a completely different name than what was given to you on the website, where you were told to tell people that you were “just a friend staying,” where there was no doorknob when you moved in, where the upstairs roommate had to walk through your room to get to theirs, where you only had a broken hot plate and lived off of sardines, and the windows had a privacy film on them that was made entirely of scotch tape, and that weird landlord that smelled homeless wouldn’t stop asking you if you were a lesbian (FYI, you kind of are so that fool clocked the shit out of you -- also never do that again). But after that, you lived with a slew of equally, if not more, horrible roommates that made you really question what the fuck you’re doing in LA, being unemployed, doing comedy, and generally just end up feeling like a loser. 

It’s okay. People find you and it's very kind. You end up dedicating a few years of your life to Philz, yes that Philz, New Manhattan Philz. It’s amazing until it’s not. They sell out hard. You didn’t even know what a Mint Mojito was before you started (which makes sense, there would be no reason for you to have ordered it before) but bitch bet you know what it is now. 

You finally dump stop talking to Colin, but then you tie yourself to some weird men. It’s gonna suck, but you do this a lot. You needed to, they were important to your growth and how you relate to your self worth. You’re also just horny as shit so, fuck it the fuck up. You really lean into being sexually liberated in a different way. It’s still really hard and confusing. 

In a year, you’re gonna spend Valentine's day realizing that you’re falling in love with yourself. Amidst the chaos of your love life, you find you. 

You find good homes that teach you so much care and kindness that it makes you want to scream. You and Yadira (one of the best roommates you’ve ever had) spend a wild summer together and then both end up living in the Bay - she inspires you to move back. She literally just texted you back right now so you can FaceTime tomorrow. It’s sick. 

You spend a year listening which doesn’t make sense now, but it will. It saves you, creates a new world for you that actually feels good and real. People hold you here, hold you how you needed it then. It’s as full as you can muster and it feels good until it doesn’t. So you do what you do best, you move.

I know right? Again? This is the part where you go back home. It’s the best decision you’ve made so far. 

Honestly? Honestly. 

You come home to go back to school. City College of all places. Wild, I know. But you know education has always been a pillar in your life. One of your favorite feelings of all time is actively feeling your brain take in new information. Learning is like magic and you want to experience it constantly. Also it’s free, which makes it socialist as fuck. You dive deep into social justice, a place you never thought you’d be, but honestly after Europe, after that last year in LA, it all makes so much sense. You are supposed to be here. The classroom is a fucking stage and you live for it. Nothing makes you hornier than a good debate and the sound of your own voice. Everything just feels better when you do it with your mouth. You join the sexual health educator program, end up being a healthy relationship counselor (I know - healthy relationships - this is where you do that learning thing), and working in sexual violence. It’s like Law and Order SVU, only not at all. It’s healing, it feels like good work as a survivor. You realize that comedy was never your girl, sex was. (Honestly, it’s both - it can be an “and” statement; you’re very complex. You also say that a lot now, again still annoying, but good reminders, so people can’t really get mad at you… right?) You also dive deep into gender stuff, racial stuff, all the good things. You start to become full. 

You feel yourself becoming a whole human being and then the world rewards you with a sweet lil queerbb. You’ll like them, they’re from Hawaii and came back to SF by way of Portland. It’s gay af and you’re into it. It’s kind, the healthiest relationship you could muster in puppy love. You feel how young it is, how it’s mostly about sex and suddenly, it doesn’t feel as good. It didn’t have the longevity to match you. You break it off kindly, and you’re thankful for it. A gentle experience for your first relationship ever, at 25. But then you spiral a little. The queer scene in Oakland is good but also a complete mess, but so are you. You go back to Spain, it feels like torture. You run into that pub crawl dude you fell in love with (read: made a fool of yourself in front of by getting ostentatiously drunk and throwing yourself onto him. Remember? It would have had happened like… last week) and it is sufficiently awkward. And you cry. You cry literally everywhere. 

26 is the year that you definitely just lean into tears… and it won’t stop. *insert thumbs up emoji*

You get a therapist, you lose a best friend, and you find yourself again and again and again. You only take what serves you. 

You realize that sex, your favorite girl, has deceived you for years. She has told you that this feeling is the one you crave, but it’s empty, housed in the desires of men and nothing for you. You have had enough. You have had a taste of what healthy sex can look like and nothing else is as sweet. It’s unfair. After 12 years of having sex, it’s only at 26 where you know that this is true. It’s so fucked up. So you stop. 

Really. 

It’s the most rewarding and devastating journey you’ve ever taken and it’s still. so. fucking. hard.

You create bonds with people who live close to your soul in a way that has never felt as real as it does now. You find connection everywhere and it’s electrifying. You feel powerful all the time. 

Once, you had a full moon ceremony in your backyard in Oakland (this is what you do now because you’re so annoyingly and unbelievably queer) and your friend Tiara, who you instantaneously knew you needed in your life, looked you in the eye and said “You’ve spent your entire life being fire, it’s time to become ocean.” It changed you. You listened. 

You have your dream job, working in the gayest place on earth, besides Disneyland, cause you already did that one. You work in a queer sexual health clinic, fully tied into the make up what makes San Francisco great, but also so fucking complicated and it feels good. Your job is driving a huge RV bus and  swabbing buttholes all over town. It’s brilliant. You’re on the precipice of change. You feel more alive than you ever have in your entire life. You feel in control. 

Everything has felt so special and complete, growing every day. And you’re just so goddamn thankful. You feel lucky, which I bet is super weird to hear considering you drunkenly just considered having sex with that short German guy in a suit who wants to be Barney Stintson. (Do you regret that? Yes. You do.) 

And in the face of all this gratitude, the world is still so unbelievably hard. 

We are in a bizarre time where you’re currently stuck in a pandemic quarantine with the funniest roommate and some kid who walked on to your bus one day to get his asshole swabbed. You just spend your 28th birthday in lock down. It was weird, and beautiful, and kind. You cried like you always do on your birthday, but it might be one of your favorites. It was complex, just like you. 

And you currently feel like your body is betraying you in ways that you did not at all foresee. And it fucking hurts.  

You’re reckoning right now. You’re doing a lot of reckoning with things you thought were done, things you thought you’ve laid to rest years ago. Things that felt fine, but they surfaced in spaces you didn’t expect. It’s unkind, but you don’t have to be. You are full like the moon. Just because you can’t see her wholly, does not mean that she isn’t always full. You are always full.

Authenticity is the key to being taken seriously. Remember that one, you’re gonna need it. 

Love you, boo boo

kali diwa 

P.S. You don’t bone as hard as you did before, but there’s more days to be had... it’ll find you.

[banthropology]

“The recognition that people are increasingly ‘moving targets’ ... of anthropological enquiry is associated with the placing of boundaries and borderlands at the center of our analytical frameworks, as opposed to relegating them to invisible peripheries or anomalous danger zones” (Malki) 

In a global moment of a mass migration unparalleled in recent history, and one of borders becoming bloody ‘landscapes of death’ (Kulka 2013), the reframing of anthropological attention called for by Malkki is imperative. Such movements of people, finance and ideas are “rendering national borders porous” (Sharma & Gupta 2009; 6) and as such are calling into question discrete conceptualisations of nationhood, sovereignty, illegality and statehood, and casting light on the machinations that uphold these structures. This contradiction between the innate permeability of borders for some bodies and goods, and the evermore ostentatiously militarized borders of nations is at the heart of what De Genova (2013) dubs the ‘Border Spectacle’ in which the migrants are rendered illegal, liminal persons; seen to have committed an “unpardonable transgression of the presumably sacrosanct boundary of the state’s space” (2013; 1183). Thus, delving deeper, this paper deconstructs the logic behind current ‘sacrosanct’ border regimes  and the ways there  are maintained and naturalised.  Borders, rather than exercising a binary of inclusion versus exclusion, keep bodies in 'selective circulation' (Andersson 2016;27), becoming moving targets not only of anthropological interest but of state performance of power and corporate exploitation.  

Whilst the quote provoking this paper implies the studies of boundaries is a relatively novel phenomena for anthropologists, arguably this focus builds upon a legacy of the discipline’s interest in the “betwixt and between” (Turner 1967;97). Ideas of liminality, developed initially by Van Gennep in 1909 and elaborated upon by Turner in the 1960’s explicitly linked space, time, identity and differentiation (Shields 1991). This liminality characterises the border itself, and the lives of migrants, an “articulation of contradictory elements” (Bhabha, 1994) and blurred social orders that occurs at boundaries. A borderland, either physical or conceptual is always “a zone of contested space, capital, and meanings” (Kearney 1991; 52). This contributes to the creation of what Sarah Buck-Morss describes as the “wild zone of power”; a blind spot in “which power is above the law” (2002: 8). It is in this blind spot between the law and its application that the suspicion and precarity that characterises the lives of many of those who cross borders, finds its place (Asad 2004). Employing anthropological analysis, and ‘thick description’ ethnographic practices, can actively help to deconstruct this blind spot. 

The concepts of a ‘bare life’ (Agamben 1995) or Turners ‘undifferentiated raw material’ can both be applied productively to understand the “peculiar temporalities and bodily dispositions” which define this liminal existence (Andersson 2016;29) and create refugees as an “objectified undifferentiated mass” (Malkki 1992; 65). Understanding migrant relationship with states and borders  as a space of relations rather than an unambiguous line is helpful for thinking beyond the dichotomies through which migrant residence is typically analyzed, such as legal versus illegal (Reeves; 2013). Liminality exists alongside other postmodern anthropological categories focused on the multiplicity of states of being, which recognises that “identity is always mobile and processual, partly self-construction, partly categorization by others, partly a condition, a status, a label, a weapon, a shield, a fund of memories” (Malkki 1992;37).  As such, the fragmented anthropological approach is germane when one recognises the reality of borders both real and imagined as “spaces of encounter, interaction and exchange” (De Genova 2013; 1185) rather than discrete differentiation.  

Nations are imagined. Whilst this statement risks stating an obvious anthropological truism established by Anderson (1991), this is at the heart of why borderlands are now being studied with such interest by anthropologists. The instigating passage regarding “moving targets” originates from Malkki’s discussion of the naturalisation of people in a certain space; examining  what it means to be rooted in a place and the botanic language of roots, soil, territory, that implicitly recognises the sovereign spatially discontinuous units of modernity. This naturalisation of ethnic roots along a spatial axis, with little or no room for overlap, becomes “self evident” (26;1992), contributing to our overall understanding of space as generally discrete and disjointed (Sharma & Gupta  2006). Thus, turning the analytic lens to borderlands, and the migrants that cross and occupy them “illuminates the complexity of the ways in which people construct, remember, and lay claim to particular places as "homelands" or "nations."  (Malkki 1992; 25)

This way of thinking the world, with intrinsic division between cultures and societies as there is between discrete spaces (Sharma & Gupta 2004) is strongly linked to what Malkki terms the ‘sendentarist bias’ in our thinking. Sedentarism actively territorialises our identities and nations, and creates an image of territorial displacement as pathological. This sedentarism is an active force, embedded in the national order of things, creating a climate of suspicion around those that do move (Malki 1992). Refugees become representative of ‘matter out of place’ and who should be returned to their proper place (Hammond 1999:228). In this way  “the autonomy of migration and its politics of mobility precede and provoke the state’s politics of immigration control and its spectacle of borders” (De Genova; 1192). Here we see the self-sustaining link between sedentarist understandings of nationhood and the border spectacle:  dividing the earth with a cartographic precision creates the role of the nation state as an identitarian project that “upholds the priority of the ‘natives’ against all presumed outsiders” acting to “enhance the efficiency of the obscene inclusion of migrants as ‘illegal’” (De Genova 2013; 1193).

Exploring this relationship more closely, I turn now to the contemporary material reality that this bordered epistemology of nations and peoples has created; which at our present moment has reached peak militarisation, expense, and politicisation (Anderson 2016).  Rather than seeing it as an unintentional side effect, De Genova  (2013) highlights how exactly this hyper-inflated display of hostility renders migrant illegality ‘spectacularly visible’, obscuring them from the lens of citizenship and the rights that it pertains.  The term ‘spectacle’ here draws from Debord’s theorising of modernity:  “just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing” (1967;5).  The spectacle of the militarized border conjures an unrelenting crisis of migration, reinforced by hyperbolic political rhetoric, and as such the system becomes self sustaining.  This is demonstrated clearly by Andersson in the example of the 2015 border reforms and panic, which were “ happening at a time that migrant apprehensions were already at their lowest numbers in about forty years” and when “ the Border Patrol had already doubled in size since 2005 and quintupled since 1993” (2016;4). Thus the border becomes not only the site “where America’s sense that it is under siege can be properly enacted.” (Harding 2012 ;116) but where insecure political actors display their own patriotic xenophobia by promising ever more boundaries, exemplified now more than ever in Trump's promise to build "big fat beautiful walls" (Quoted in LA Times 2016)  

Reaching beyond the analysis of the effect of the physical border, mobile bodies carry with them this spectacle, the violent external reality of which is internalised. In this I draw again from De Genova who describes the how “indefinite social condition of deportability” remains as a ‘disciplinary’ feature, even for those allowed through the border legally (2013;1189). This exemplifies the ‘governmentality’ of the border system examined by Fassin; an ever present threat that polices behaviour of all migrants (2011). Foucault’s (1980) dispersed understanding of power is useful here, recognising the simultaneous existence of contradictory forces that shape this control:  various state actors attempting to pacify the threat of mobility and populist outcries of the electorate; private companies relying  on cheap and precarious migrant labour; and migrants themselves navigating the system and finding new paths between the cracks in the border.  We all become implicated in the ‘dirty secret’ of borders (De Genova 2013; 1189); externally and internally “the frontier is all around us” (Bohannan's 1967;1). 

Ultimately, it is this recognition of the totalizing spectre of the border, implicating all of society and its structures, that has necessitated a turn to border scholarship. Deconstructing borders becomes an important tool in the broader deconstruction of the culture as discrete, reified and territorialised. Applying an anthropological understanding of the border spectacle productively highlights the porous nature of borders, which operate as filtering mechanisms for the unequal exchange of value (Kearney 1991). It is thus in the interests of the corporate and state machinations to discourage interrogation of the border spectacle; the ambiguity of which allows this unequal exchange and diluted forms of citizenship.  Appadurai and Breckenbridge describe the flow of international finance as the “vanguard of human migration” (1989;ii) but fundamentally it could be better described as a vanguard of border creation; facilitating the autocratic reign of the market economy (DeBord 1990) which necessitates a free borderless world for finance and capital, but a bloody warzone for human bodies. If this characterisation seems hyperbolic, the fact that 33, 293 people have died attempting to cross into Europe since 1993 (Dwyer 2017), reminds us that it truly is not.  

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