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jamie-ann-mason · 23 days ago

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Old Souls

I have often been tagged as rebellious and rouge.

I've always had a strong sense of self and direction, even in my most lowest points of life. I have always questioned the status quo, and when you live in a world of hierarchy and preconceived norms and regulations, that tends to create social and internal strifes and struggles with those who expect compliance.

An old soul is

"a person, often a young individual, who exhibits a level of maturity, understanding...."

Much of my life, I associated myself with older people. I was drawn to the wisdom and intellect that older people displayed. Their sense of history and life experiences were appealing to me.

In 1989 I got my first job working at a coffee shop. I worked the day shift on the weekends. Saturdays and Sundays, the coffee counter would be filled with regular customers, all men, who would spend the first part of their mornings sipping joe and visiting and reminiscing with one another. This was my first real exposure to life, and really, a priceless education that I received without even knowing.

I listened with great intention as they talked about stories of the Great Depression, civil rights, and Vietnam. I learned about life, jobs, and marriage, hearing at a young age that blowjobs are really the only requirement men need outside of food - which I can vouch for and confirm to be true.

Nonetheless, I felt connected to these men who were 30,40, and 50 years older than I was. Soon, I was accepted into their unofficial fraternity, and I was invited to participate and learn from their wisdom as if I were one of their own.

I spent two years in that job. It was okay, I learned that I am not a customer service person, but what I took away from it was the relation of being an old soul, with a deep understanding of old school concepts, beliefs, and actions.

Oddly enough, it wasn't until 2016 during a relationship that I was in, that I realized what an old soul meant.

My partner at that time called me an old soul. I had heard the term several times throughout my life but never really put it together or understood it until then.

I have struggled all of my life finding my place and fitting in. I have never truly found acceptance. I think differently, I look at life and situations differently, and I have a deeper perspective than most, that always seems to intimidate and challenge authoritary, hierarchy, and routine concepts.

Authority and structure are a vital part of our world and growth as people, but when they are misused, which is mostly when I question it, it becomes a problem to those who mishandle the responsibility of structure.

Some call it black and white thinking. But to those who paint with a broad brush, they really don't have any understanding at all.

Life is simple. But it is people who complicate life.

There is a reason why pride and greed are the top two deadly sins. If you just take a moment and equate that to the world around us, it will make sense.

As I said, life is easy, and it is people who are the problem.

During my first stint in college in 1990, I was in a psychology class and wrote a leadership paper on why peer pressure was nothing more than justification for someone to make a wrong decision.

I received a D grade. The only reason I did not receive a failing grade was because the composition was well written. The proctor didn't agree with my topic and wrote that it was inappropriate for me to debunk the importance and powerful actions to adhere to peer pressure and social acceptance.

I met him after class and questioned why the concept of peer pressure outweighed the personal responsibility of solid individual decision-making? It was a question that he couldn't answer. Instead, he based his responses on societal hierarchy and the social pressures of fitting in.

It was a ridiculous and irresponsible response on his part, especially from someone in charge of educating our youth.

But sadly, this was the first of decades that I would spend challenging concepts and societal beliefs that have been predetermined and structured for us.

It is believed that old souls lived previous lives prior to their human existence, which is where their perspective and knowledge come from. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know how I feel about previous lives or additional lives after we leave this earth. Faith-based beliefs have taught us that we have one life, and that's what I was raised on and what I believe. But I'm open-minded enough to examine the other side of it as well, I just don't know how I feel about it.

Speaking directly and only for me, an old soul is based on understanding of self, purpose, and belief.

There are some days that I struggle with my purpose. Simply because our capitalistic lifestyle is prevalent to our human existence. That dictates my purpose. If it wasn't for my career, I would not be as stressed, anxious, or self isolated out of pure exhaustion. I would write more, garden more, spend time with those I love more, and take the time to view the beauty that life presents us in its simplest of forms.

I have seen some of life's most beautiful places. I have eaten expensive food, drank expensive wine, and lived the royalist of existence.

But it is pale in comparison to sharing a glass of wine underneath the radiant moonlight on a hot August night, engaged in a deep and enriching conversation with someone who teases and satisfies the deepest parts of your mind.

That is my purpose.

Human connection, intellect, knowledge, and presence.

As I enter my midlife, I am refocused on self-discovery and journey. I no longer have any interest in extravagant but focused on convenience and simplicity. I don't need to prove myself anymore, I don't need any accolades, promotions, or raises. I just need to be.

That's what I want.

To just be.

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impalementation · 4 years ago

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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 3

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

“Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

Prior to becoming a romantic interest, Spike is everything I discussed in the last section. He is an id and a mirror for Buffy, he’s prone to both romantic exaggeration and cutting realism, and his liminality suggests ambiguity. But outside of “Lovers Walk”, the writing doesn’t actually delve too deeply into Spike’s nature as a romantic. If you stopped the canon at “Restless”, you’d probably think that Spike’s love for Drusilla was intriguing, but that the show hadn’t really gone anywhere with the implications of it, and for all you knew, that might not be an important part of his character anymore. So one of the most interesting things about season five to me, is that in this season in which the writers first consciously, deliberately decide to explore the sexual and romantic tension between Spike and Buffy, they also emphasize Spike’s romanticism more than ever. The choice to define Spike by his romanticism is a choice that follows naturally from everything established about his character, but it was also not an inevitable choice. Therefore, it’s a choice worth looking at in some detail.

Consider everything that “Fool For Love” establishes about Spike, especially the things that contradict what was supposedly canon at the time. It makes Drusilla his sire instead of Angel, meaning that he is sired by a romantic connection, and as a direct result of heartbreak. It makes him a poet living in the middle of the Victorian era, an age at odds with his previous ages of “barely 200” and “126”. Meaning that the writing specifically decides to ignore its canon in order to associate him with an era in which passions would have been repressed (rather than the Romantic era of the early 1800’s or the modern energy of the early 1900’s). Moreover, the episode reveals his entire aesthetic and personality to essentially be a construct. But most tellingly of all, it reveals him to be an idealist. Spike is not just a performance artist; he yearns for the “effulgent”, for something “glowing and glistening” that the “vulgarians” of the world don’t understand. In other words, he yearns for something bigger and more beautiful than life: something romantic. Later, he chases after “death, glory, and sod all else.” Spike may be a “fool for love”, who has a romantic view of romantic love specifically, but the episode is very clear about the fact that he is also a romantic more generally. When Drusilla turns him, she doesn’t tempt him by telling him she’ll love him forever. She tempts him by offering him “something…effulgent”. (Which, in typical Spike form, the episode immediately undercuts by having him say “ow” instead of swooning romantically). The fact that “Fool For Love”, Spike’s major backstory episode, is so determined to paint him as a romantic--and in particular, a disappointed, frustrated romantic--that it is willing to contradict canon to do so, tells you that this choice was important for framing Spike and his new, ongoing thematic role.

I’ve talked in the past about how season five is all about the tension between the mythical and the mortal--between big, grand, sweeping narratives, and the reality of being human. Buffy is the Slayer, but she’s also just a girl who loses her mother. Dawn is the key, but she’s also just a confused and hormonal fourteen-year-old. Willow is a powerful witch, but she also just wants her girlfriend to be okay. Glory is a god, but she’s also a human man named Ben, and finds herself increasingly weakened by his emotions. And Spike embodies this tension perfectly. He’s a soulless vampire with a lifetime of bloodshed behind him, but he’s also this silly, human man who wants to love and be loved. He wants big, grand things, but every time they are frustrated by a Victorian society, a rejection, a chip, a pratfall, or dying with an “ow”. Furthermore, his season five storyline is all about the tension between loving in an exalted, yet often selfish way, versus loving in a “real” or selfless way.

There was a fascinating piece a ways back that discussed how Spike’s attempts to woo Buffy in season five almost perfectly match the romantic narratives of Courtly Love. In the words of the author:

The term "Courtly Love" is used to describe a certain kind of relationship common in romantic medieval literature. The Knight/Lover finds himself desperately and piteously enamored of a divinely beautiful but unobtainable woman. After a period of distressed introspection, he offers himself as her faithful servant and goes forth to perform brave deeds in her honor. His desire to impress her and to be found worthy of her gradually transforms and ennobles him; his sufferings -- inner turmoil, doubts as to the lady's care of him, as well as physical travails -- ultimately lends him wisdom, patience, and virtue and his acts themselves worldly renown.

You can see for yourself how well that description fits Spike’s arc. He fixates on the torturous, abject nature of his love, and has it in his head that he can perform deeds and demonstrate virtue, and this will prove to Buffy that he is worthy of her. But despite Spike’s gradual ennobling over the course of the season, I think it would be a mistake to see the season as using the Courtly Love narrative uncritically, or even just ironically. The same way it would be a mistake to see season two as using the Gothic uncritically. Spike is as much Don Quixote as he is Lancelot. He is a character that deliberately tries to act out romantic tropes, giving the writing an opportunity to satirize those tropes, including the tropes of chivalric romance. In particular, the writing criticizes Spike’s (very chivalric) fixation on love as a personal agony, something that is more about pain--and specifically, his pain--than building a real relationship. Over and over in season five, he is forced to abandon these sorts of flattering romantic mindsets in favor of a more complicated reality.

So at first, Spike’s “deeds” tend to be shallow and vaguely transactional. He tries to help Buffy in “Checkpoint” even though she doesn’t want it (and insults her when she doesn’t appreciate it), he asks “what the hell does it take?” when Buffy is unimpressed by him not feeding on “bleeding disaster victims” in “Triangle”, he rants bitterly at a mannequin when Buffy fails to be grateful to him for taking her to Riley in “Into the Woods”, and he is angry and confused when Buffy is unmoved by his offer to stake Drusilla in “Crush”. While these attempts to symbolically reject his evilness are startling for a soulless vampire, and although Spike certainly feels like he is fundamentally altering himself for Buffy’s sake, none of it is based on understanding or supporting Buffy in a way that she would actually find substantial. Moreover, he lashes out when his gestures fail to win her attention or affection. He has an idea in his head of how their romantic scenes should play out, and reacts petulantly when reality fails to live up to it.

But these incidents of self-interested narrativizing are also continuously contrasted with scenes in which Spike reacts with real generosity, or is surprised when he realizes he’s touched something emotionally genuine. When Buffy seeks him out in “Checkpoint”, his mannerisms instantly change when he realizes she actually needs real help (“You’re the only one strong enough to protect them”), rather than the performed help he offered at the beginning of the episode. At the end of “Fool For Love” he’s struck dumb by Buffy’s grief, and his antagonistic posturing all evening melts away. He abandons his romantic vision of their erotic, life-and-death rivalry in favor of real, awkward emotional intimacy. In “Forever” he tries to anonymously leave flowers for Joyce, and reacts angrily when he’s denied—but this time not because he wanted something from Buffy. Simply because he wanted to do something meaningful.

This contradictory behavior comes to a head in “Intervention”, the episode in which Spike finally begins to understand the difference between real and transactional generosity. Up until that point, Spike has been reacting both selfishly and unselfishly, but he hasn’t been able to truly distinguish between them, which is why he keeps repeating the same mistakes. Although he touches something real at the end of “Fool For Love”, for instance, he goes on to rifle through Buffy’s intimates in the very next episode. And so “Intervention” has Spike go to extremes of fakeness and reality. He gives up on having the real Buffy, and seeks out an artificial substitute that lets him live out his cheesiest romance novel scripts. It’s important that the Buffybot isn’t just a sexbot, even if he does have sex with her. She’s a bot he plays out romantic scenarios with the way he played them with Harmony in “Crush”, allowing him to almost literally live within a fiction. But then he “gives up” on having Buffy in a way that’s actually real, by offering up his life. He lets himself be tortured, and potentially killed, for no other reason than that to do otherwise would cause Buffy pain. The focus is on her pain, not his. For the first time, he acts like the Knight he’s been trying to be all along. He performs a grand, heroic deed that causes the object of his affection to see him in a different light, and even grant him a kiss. Yet ironically, as part of learning the difference between real and fake, he ceases to press for Buffy’s reciprocation. Through the end of season five, Spike continues to act the selfless Knight, assisting Buffy in her heroism without asking for anything in return. Which culminates in his declaration that he knows Buffy “will never love him”, even after he’s promised her the deed of protecting Dawn, and even though she allows a kind of intimacy by letting him back in her house. He proves that he sees those gestures for what they are, rather than in a transactional light. The irony of the way Spike fulfills the narrative of chivalric romance, is that his ennobling involves letting aspects of that narrative go.

In a Courtly Love narrative, the object of the Knight’s affection is fundamentally pedestalized. The Knight himself might be flawed, but the woman he pines after is not. She is “divinely beautiful” and “unobtainable”, something above him and almost more than human. This is why it’s so comic that in Don Quixote, which was a direct satire of chivalric romance, Alonso Quixano’s “lady love” is a vulgar peasant farmgirl who has no idea who he is. (Think of the way Spike asks if Buffy is tough in “School Hard” or threatens to “take her apart” despite “how brilliant she is” in “The Initiative”, followed by scenes where Buffy is acting like the teenage girl she is. Or how Giles in “Checkpoint” says that Buffy has “acquired a remarkable focus” before cutting to Buffy yawning.). Although it’s true that Buffy is beautiful, and supernatural, and profoundly moral, she is also very human, and the writing is very concerned with that humanity. Season five in particular, as I’ve mentioned, is preoccupied with the duality of Buffy’s mythic and mortal nature. Thus it becomes significant that Buffy is assigned such a heightened role in Spike’s chivalric narrative. Just Spike is at once Lancelot and Don Quixote, Buffy is at once Achilles, Dulcinea, and a coming-of-age protagonist.

And part of the “lesson” of Spike’s arc is for him to see both sides of the roles they embody. One of my favorite things about the scene in Buffy’s house in “The Gift” is how adroitly it conveys the dualities of both Buffy and Spike with simple, but poetic imagery and language. Buffy stands above Spike on her steps, conveying her elevated role, and Spike honors the way her heroic status has inspired him by physically looking up to her as he explains that he expects nothing from her. But by expecting nothing from her, and promising to protect her sister, he also honors the fact that she is a real person with no obligation to him, and a younger sister she cares about more than anything. He also honors his own duality by at once making Knightly promises, and acknowledging that he sees through his former delusions: “I know that I’m a monster, but you treat me like a man.” In “Fool For Love” he tried to acknowledge the same duality of realism and romance, by declaring to Cecily that “I know I’m a bad poet, but I’m a good man.” But at the time, he was an innocent, whose desire to be seen, and whose romantic avoidance of “dark, ugly things”, left him unprepared to understand how Cecily really saw him (similar to Spike’s insistence in “Crush” that what he and Buffy have “isn’t pretty, but it’s real” just before Buffy locks him out). Spike is a character defined simultaneously by continuous disillusionment and dogged aspiration, which is why he makes perfect sense as a character to embody a season torn between the pain of being human, and the wonder of the gift of love.

Fittingly, the season ends with Spike’s most devastating loss of innocence of all. He fails to be the hero for Buffy or Dawn (note that Knightly language he uses on the tower: “I made a promise to a lady”), and he loses the woman he loves. He may have become more virtuous, but unlike in a chivalric romance, that virtue wins him neither Buffy, nor something flattering like “world reknown.” The climax of the “The Gift” is full of romance—a god, a troll hammer, a damsel on a tower, a heroic self-sacrifice, a vampire transformed into a Knight—but the end result is that Buffy is dead, in part because he wasn’t good enough, and all that he and the Scoobies can do is grieve. Stories got Spike nothing, even when reality finally lived up to them. It is a swan song to the myths of childhood, and on the other side of Glory’s portal, Spike and the other characters will have to confront a world where those myths have been left behind.

part 4: “But I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”: Buffy and Spike as a blended self

#romanticism series #s5 #gen #buffy #spike #this section is deliberately focused on spike's arc #but not to worry #the next one focuses on buffy's side of things and the role of spike's arc in supporting buffy's in the last three seasons #they just needed their own sections to breathe #btvs

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my-bated-breath · 4 years ago

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Rage, Compassion, and the Bridge in Between

An essay on Katara’s emotions

On the spectrum of human emotion, rage and compassion exist on opposite ends. After all, rage is harsh and violent while compassion is soothing and nurturing; rage is unforgiving while compassion is all-forgiving. As such, they run a parallel course to each other, one canceling out the other whenever they do meet.

At least, that’s what we expect. We expect anger and kindness to be separate entities, and our media reflects this - a character is either severe or gentle, and in the rare case that they’re both, the contrast between their ability to hurt and their ability to heal is treated as a dichotomy. Except the human condition is not that simple, and sometimes, there is a not-so-simple story that remembers that.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katara embodies the human condition - or more specifically, she embodies the duality within it. Throughout the show, her tenderness and her wrath are balanced in a way that renders her one of the most well-written female characters in children’s animation, perhaps even in all of television. Because Katara’s anger and compassion do not simply split themselves into two identities. Instead, they coexist and coalesce into one. They drive each other; they feed into each other; they are two sides of the same coin.

But how can that be true when opposite traits are supposed to clash and counter each other’s effects?

There’s no denying that at times, Katara’s anger and compassion serve to show two different sides of her. We even see this within the very first episode:

(on left) Katara: No that's it! I'm done helping you! From now on, you're on your own!

(on right) Katara: He's alive! We have to help!

At first, Katara’s irritation towards Sokka is what causes her to accidentally waterbend the iceberg open, in which the transcript describes her movements as “agitated.” However, as soon as she sees Aang, this irritation is replaced by concern for “the boy in the iceberg.” Hence, within a few minutes, we see how Katara can be motivated by compassion and rage separately.

Still, just because her kindness and anger are shown to be separate in many scenes that this separation applies to every scenario. Although Katara’s two opposite traits are opposite, that does not mean they are always opposing. Instead, they can fuel each other - her rage can fuel her compassion, and her compassion can fuel her rage.

Let’s see how.

Part 1 - Katara’s Rage Fuels Her Compassion

Throughout the series, Katara shares her grief over her mother’s death as a way to sympathize with others. In “The Southern Air Temple,” “Imprisoned,” and “Jet,” Katara tells Aang, Haru, and Jet about the effect the Fire Nation raids had on her, which establishes some of the most emotionally-charged scenes in these episodes. She is at her most vulnerable during these moments, laying bare a deep-rooted trauma in order to reach out and connect with someone else.

Dialogue from The Southern Air Temple

Katara: Aang, before we get to the temple, I want to talk to you about the airbenders.

Aang: What about 'em?

Katara: Well, I just want you to be prepared for what you might see. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They killed my mother, and they could have done the same to your people.

Dialogue from Imprisoned

Haru: Yeah. Problem is... the only way I can feel close to my father now is when I practice my bending. He taught me everything I know.

Katara: See this necklace? My mother gave it to me.

Haru: It's beautiful.

Katara: I lost my mother in a Fire Nation raid. This necklace is all I have left of her.

Haru: It's not enough, is it?

Katara: No.

Dialogue from Jet

Jet: The Fire Nation killed my parents. I was only eight years old. That day changed me forever.

Katara: Sokka and I lost our mother to the Fire Nation.

Jet: I'm so sorry, Katara.

However, these moments seem to distinctly lack any hint of anger from Katara’s end, so it may seem irrelevant to mention them here - that is, until we remember Katara had mentioned her mother one more time. Trapped in the Crystal Catacombs with a former enemy, she once again says that the Fire Nation took her mother away from her - but this time not with sympathy. No, this time she is filled with rage.

Dialogue from The Crossroads of Destiny

Zuko: You don't know what you're talking about!

Katara: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally! The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

As Katara sits down, tears forming in her eyes, it becomes clear that her grief has festered into bitterness and anger towards the Fire Nation. By now, her grief is her anger, and so it’s not just shared pain Katara is empathizing within all four of these scenarios - it’s also shared rage.

She is gentle with Aang because she knows the effects of loss (inducing the Avatar State); she is sympathetic with Haru because she knows what she would be driven to do to have her mother back (inciting a prison break by stirring the prisoners’ righteous anger); and she is moved by Jet’s dedication to the Freedom Fighters because she would fight for the Southern Water Tribe too (against the Fire Nation, although Jet’s rage blinds him in a way that Katara’s doesn’t).

Then, in the Crystal Catacombs, it’s Katara’s anger towards the Fire Nation that uncovers her hidden pain. Her vulnerability is what causes Zuko’s words (“That’s what we have in common”) to resonate with her so much, enough for her to offer to heal his scar.

Therefore, Katara’s relationship with anger and grief (whether it’s emotionally-driven similar to how Aang enters the Avatar state or self-righteous similar to her calling the earthbender prisoners to action) is the foundation for some of her most compassionate moments in the series.

Part 2 - Katara’s Compassion Fuels Her Rage

Just as some of her most sympathetic moments are rooted in understanding someone else’s rage, many of Katara’s harshest moments see her acting on the behalf of others’ pain and needs.

As the designated “mother” of the Gaang, the Gaang’s more silly and immature antics often aggravate her and cause her to reprimand them severely, a clash that features prominently in Katara and Toph’s relationship.

In “The Chase” and “The Runaway,” Katara shouts at Toph for lacking a sense of responsibility. However, her indignation does not simply stem from taking personal defense, but from wanting to safeguard the family she has found in the Gaang. Then, both these times, Toph learns the true motives behind Katara’s overbearing actions through a conversation with Iroh and Sokka, respectively.

Dialogue from The Chase

Toph: People see me and think I'm weak. They want to take care of me, but I can take care of myself, by myself.

Iroh: You sound like my nephew, always thinking you need to do things on your own, without anyone's support. There is nothing wrong with letting the people who love you help you.

When Toph talks with Iroh in “The Chase,” Iroh imparts some wisdom on finding mutual support in friendship, implying that Katara pushing responsibilities onto Toph is her way of solidifying and upholding the loving and supportive dynamic within the Gaang.

Dialogue from The Runaway

Sokka: I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture.

Toph: The truth is sometimes Katara does act motherly, but that's not always a bad thing. She's compassionate and kind, and she actually cares about me. You know, the real me. That's more than my own mom.

As the dialogue states, “Katara’s been the one looking out for [them].” Hence, her mothering tendencies towards Toph in “The Runaway” are evoked by her wanting to avoid the danger that Toph’s high-profile scamming is beginning to place them in. In other words, she simply wants to protect her makeshift family because “she actually cares about [Toph and the rest of the Gaang]. You know, the real [them].”

Katara’s ability to empathize with others, to see past facades and prejudices, is one of her defining traits. Earlier, in the episode “The Painted Lady,” Katara manages to see beyond the people of Jang Hui’s Fire Nation background and recognize that above all else, they are suffering from war and poverty. Consequently, they are people who need her.

As such, even the notion of abandoning the people of Jang Hui (as suggested by Sokka) enrages her because Katara is someone who “will never, ever turn my back on people who need [her]!”

Still, Katara’s desire to fight for a village of strangers cannot compare to the lengths she would take to protect Aang.

Dialogue from The Western Air Temple

Katara: You might have everyone else here buying your… transformation, but you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something, right now. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends ... right then and there. Permanently.

While Zuko was a bystander as Azula shot lightning at Aang, he was an active participant in his fight against Katara, whom, just moments ago, he shared an incredibly intimate moment with. But despite how Zuko betrayed Katara personally, it is the impact his betrayal had on Aang’s life (and death) that she focuses on. So even at her most threatening, Katara acts to protect someone else, Aang, the boy who is her friend and her family.

Together, all these instances reveal that Katara’s compassion is what grants her a protective instinct, and her protective instinct is what moves her to anger and violence.

Conclusion

Katara’s character provides invaluable insight into the relationship between compassion and rage, revealing how it is not simply black contrasting white, but a spread of grays and contradictions. After all, that is who Katara is. She is two sides of the same coin and the bridge in between.

Even more, that is the human condition - full of grays and contradictions, simultaneously negating and reciprocating, balancing and tipping the scales all at once. And perhaps human emotion, in all its breadth, cannot be contained to a two-dimensional spectrum where emotions can either be placed close together or on opposite ends - because humanity is of infinite dimensions, constructed from science, dictated by art. And yet, somehow it is a two-dimensional animated character who captures human complexity with such ease.

#atla #atla meta #katara #katara meta #my bated breath analyzes #my bated breath's posts #that's not to say that katara's anger cannot exist without compassion #nor her compassion without anger #but it's not mutually exclusive either #on a separate note i have more metas on katara written #so you can watch out for that #likes and reblogs are always appreciated #thank you all for reading!

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margarethelstone-2 · 4 years ago

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Our Sleeves Were Wet With Tears | Chapter 2

Read on AO3!

Taichi's gaze was filled with astonishment once more as he listened to Chihaya's nearly aggressive ramble, unable to wrap his head around the situation he'd found himself in so unexpectedly. He heard the words and thought that he understood the substance – he knew what Chihaya was referring to and comprehended the meaning behind her words. And yet... Something about this whole scene was just too bizarre, too unrealistic for him to believe that it was happening for real.

Too strange to have him take it for more than yet another of his feverish dreams.

Had she really gone to his house so spontaneously, after he had as much as ignored her for the past few weeks? Had she really risked meeting eye to eye with his mother, when it was obvious how uneasy the latter had always made her feel? And why had she decided to come see him now, so long after their fateful conversation in the clubroom and with so much happening since that dreadful afternoon?

Was it in any way connected – or worse, prompted – by the photo Arata had undoubtedly sent her as well?

And if so, what was the connection?

It wasn't like the message had contained any special words or wisdom, or even anything particularly nostalgic. It was a simple photo of Arata and his teammates, with a simple greeting meant to encourage them to do their best on their part so that they might meet at the Nationals this time. It was very much like the one he and Chihaya had sent him during their first year... but that was as far as the nostalgia went.

Of course, it was possible that Arata had sent Chihaya a different email, with more than just the few words he, Taichi, had received. After all, he knew for certain that Arata had spoken to her after the Master qualifiers and since that conversation had clearly taken its toll on Chihaya, it wasn't difficult to determine what he had said. He was also aware of the advantage Arata had always had over him and that Chihaya did favour him, even if she didn't fully realise it herself...

...and still, he couldn't help but think that it was not the case this time.

It was the similarity of it to the message they had sent him that made him so sure. It was not a taunt meant at him, or another display of affection addressed to Chihaya and only shared with him for propriety's sake. There was a much simpler, and much more genuine intention hidden behind it: an honest wish to inspire his friends in the same way they had inspired him before, mixed perhaps with the pride he must have felt for both himself and his new charges.

One friend reaching out to the other ones.

Friends.

Taichi's jaw tightened, his soul filling up with disgust and shame.

Had he really forgotten that that was what the three of them were, first and foremost? Friends?

Or was he just too tired pretending that he was all right with such a setup, because deep down, he realised that even as a trio, they had never been entirely equal?

Was he too much of an egoist to accept that?

"What the heck does that even mean?" he said out loud at last, letting out a hollow, mirthless chuckle that resembled a snort more than anything else. Chihaya had already managed to reach the front gate and was just about to step onto the pavement before it but now, she stopped mid-stride; if he had waited a few seconds more – or if she hadn't held back from running like she obviously had – his words wouldn't have reached her. He almost expected them not to anyway, despite her still being relatively close.

They did, however.

In for a penny, in for a pound. He had no choice but to go for it now.

"Why do you think I needed to hear that now?" he continued, careful to maintain the air of indifference or maybe even irritation, while Chihaya slowly turned around. "I didn't say I was a coward, just that I didn't want to be one. And of course I've changed since primary school; I'm not some Peter Pan who never grows up."

He could feel her stare at him, but refused to meet her gaze this time, all too aware of the effect it had always had on him. Feigning nonchalance, he adjusted the strap of his bag, hung over his shoulder and set off, descending the stairs one by one, as if he hadn't wished to get out of there just as much as Chihaya did.

The very sight of her was aggravating to him.

He knew it wasn't fair, that it really wasn't her fault that she could not respond to his feelings in kind. She had never led him on or pretended to care for him when she hadn't. She did care, she always had, and in a way, Taichi felt like an ungrateful scoundrel every time he remembered everything she'd done for him so far, never mind if it was a small smile meant to comfort him or a crazy, complex, completely over-the-top karuta tournament organised specifically in order to celebrate his birthday with him, in the most Chihaya-like way he could think of.

She wasn't the one to blame for all this.

And yet, every time he saw her, the memory of his stupid, impossible dreams came rushing back to him, always accompanied by the one of them being crushed to bits just a few short weeks prior.

It wasn't her fault, and still, he couldn't find it in him to forgive her.

Still, in the corner of his eye, Taichi saw the expectancy painted all over her face, the same perfect mixture of perseverance and dread he'd had a chance to observe more than once now. He went right past her, resolved not to grace her with a single glance, no matter how rude or cruel it might seem, and stepped onto the pavement she hadn't managed to reach in time.

He was indifferent.

He wished to be indifferent.

So why did he still listen closely, awaiting her to make the move, to turn and look after him, to catch up with him and shower – no, bombard – him with another set of half-baked wisdoms and untimely arguments? Why had he slowed down, anxious, restless, apprehensive, aching to hear her say another word, no matter how absurd it might be?

He had been so good at avoiding her lately, at numbing the overwhelming feeling of solitude by simply making sure she did not come into view – so why did he feel like he was missing her already?

Was a fleeting encounter like this all it took to make all of his endeavours worthless?

He was hopeless.

Hopeless.

Just like all of his love for her had been.

Oh, screw it.

"There's a playground nearby, if there's anything else you want to talk about," he offered, the pathetic, self-disrespectful moron that he was. "I doubt there would be any kids there at this hour, and there are actual benches to sit on. Or I can just walk you home if that's what you prefer."

He set off right after, no longer knowing if he wanted her to respond or not. A part of him hoped that she would, that there was more she wanted to say than that random, abstract proclamation she had surprised him with – that there was more thought behind it than she had made it appear at first. Simultaneously, his other half (a third? a quarter? a mere, pitiful percent?) screamed at him to pick up his pace and leave that cursed place before Chihaya could even answer, to run away and pray that the consequences of his stupid decision from the previous minute would not catch up to him.

Torn like this, he walked on, the rationality of his mind battling with the naiveté of his heart and the ardour of his soul. Step by step, he moved forward, hearing nothing but the sound of his blood pumping in his ears and his own sharp, uneven breathing. If he focused hard enough, he could distinguish his own, weary step, but even that seemed to come from a distance much wider than the one hundred and seventy centimetres separating his feet from his ears.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not hear anything from behind him.

So she hadn't followed him.

She didn’t come to chat, to pour her heart out or to clear things up with me, mostly because there's nothing to clear up in the first place; she came because she felt she needed to, because at some point, she'd decided that it was something a good person would do and obviously, she decided to spontaneously follow the wacky idea her mind had presented to her.

A totally spur-of-a-moment kind of decision, honest but rash, misguided and ill-conceived, just like about everything Chihaya does.

He felt his heart shrink, as if it was squeezed in quite a literal sense, and yet, he refused to admit to his hurt, even if only to himself. There was no reason why he should've felt surprised, no excuse for the disappointment that was threatening to take over him. He knew her; he knew what kind of person she was. Bright, outgoing, sincere. Blunt to a fault and so very, very caring that it made his head ache at times.

Still, her consideration was just like her entire self: impulsive. She always went all out and never put much reflection behind it.

As for Taichi, he still couldn't quite determine whether he found it frustrating or just very, very endearing.

Perhaps it was a mixture of the two.

The fact remained, however: the only way he could find his way to her thoughts was through incidents like this. After all, he could hardly imagine Chihaya spending her nights lying awake in her bed, unable to stop thinking of him.

Certainly not in the way he thought of her.

He fought the urge to kick the pebbles under his feet, regardless of the fact that there was no one around to see him if he had, much less to care about it. The street he strolled through was empty, and since it was getting late, there was no reason to believe that the state of things should change. However, Taichi knew better than to indulge himself with his whims, no matter how insignificant they appeared to be. He'd been raised to be that way; and no matter how much he wanted to change, no matter how grand was the amount of effort he put into achieving it, there were things about himself he simply couldn't reform.

He couldn't tell if it were those traits that had made him the unlucky loser he undoubtedly was now; but at least they helped him cope with the fallout his misfortunes had brought.

Which was exactly why he needed to stop wallowing in self-pity and focus on getting on with his own life instead, just like he'd been striving to do recently. He'd done a pretty good job so far, studying harder than ever both for his regular classes and the cram school, fooling everyone that it was his exams that had made him quit the karuta club.

Good gosh, he'd actually let Master Suo persuade him into not giving up on karuta after all, and only changed the environment of his practice instead.

He was fine, or at least, he was going to be.

The recollection of his latest, little successes made his faith grow a little, bringing back that tiny bit of optimism he'd been looking for so desperately. His chin rose a little while his pace turned brisker...

...only to have him halt in surprise at the sound of a dull thud and a hiss that came from behind him.

Taichi turned around almost involuntarily, completely taken aback and therefore totally incapable of forming even the vaguest expectation of what he was about to see. Had he had more time to think about it, he probably would have come with more than a few reasonable explanations of the sound.

For one, it could have been an ordinary jogger, whom he couldn't have seen when he'd exited through the cram school's gate, but who'd caught up to him silently while he was occupied with his own thoughts afterwards, and who now tripped over something and now was groaning in pain. It might have been a passer-by who'd emerged from around the corner, carrying an object so heavy that they had eventually dropped it on the ground.

For all he knew, it might have been a kid running from his friends in another round of tag. Out of all people, he surely was aware how fast little children could move; how quickly and unexpectedly they might invade other people's space.

All of these he could have thought of, and yet, he still wouldn't have guessed the real cause of the noise that had startled him so.

Of course, the culprit simply had to be the one person he'd been trying to ban from his mind.

How had she even got there without him realising her presence until now?

And yet, it was her, undoubtedly, undeniably her. Ayase Chihaya, the love of his life and the greatest, most unpredictable dork of a friend, now hunched and squatting, with one knee rested against the hard concrete surface while she eyed her other one attentively, instinctively pressing her scratched fingers against the more severely injured skin on her leg. With the few metres separating them (and his still fresh bemusement) Taichi needed a moment to fully absorb the scene before him, as well as its less obvious details. Despite the initial falter, his instincts soon took over him, however, and pushed him towards the wounded girl, before he could even see the grimace on her face or observe the way in which she chewed on her lower lip.

In no time was he kneeling down before her, pulling her hands away from the wound by her wrists so that she wouldn't accidentally infect the cut with one hand, while he rummaged through his hastily unzipped bag with the other one, searching for the towel and a water bottle he was sure he'd packed in there earlier.

"Taichi, no! Wait!" He heard her protest against his actions, only to ignore it completely. "It's just a scratch, nothing serious, I can handle it myself just fine here!"

"Like hell you can," he muttered in response after he'd finally found the objects he'd been looking for. "You've just pressed your dirty hands against a fresh wound, you idiot. I don't even want to know what you were planning to do next."

"No, but -"

"Just do me a favour and don't press them like that again now, will you?" he cut her off sternly. "I can't exactly hold your hands and dampen the towel at the same time, I'd need at least one other pair of arms for that. So stop arguing and keep your dusty fingers away for just a second, while I do my job over here."

Chihaya opened her mouth to argue with him some more but shut it right after under his severe glare and bowed her head obediently instead. Seeing that her opposition would not last – or at least, that her revolt would not rise again for a while – Taichi let go of her wrists and focused on wetting the fabric in his hands, before applying the now cold towel to Chihaya's injured knee. She winced under his touch, her head jerking up once more and her eyes glued to his intent countenance.

He saw her movement in the corner of his eye, felt the shudder that jolted all of her body, however, he refused to look up himself, instead making sure that his own gaze remained plastered to the cut he was supposed to be taking care of.

Not that clearing up the skin on her leg was doing any good to his sanity, mind you.

"How on earth did you even do that?" he muttered the question under his breath, if only to make his attention shift to something else, desperately hoping it would be enough to drown out his rebellious thoughts for a short while at least. "There's literally nothing you could have stumbled upon and you don't usually go tripping over your own feet; I know you can be careless sometimes, but you're not a klutz."

"I just wasn't paying attention," Chihaya answered him, her tone slightly offended, but still quieter than he might have expected. "My shoelaces had come undone and I stepped over one."

Taichi sighed, almost impatiently.

"And fell like this? What were you doing, trying to break the world speed record?"

"I tripped! Why does it matter how I fell afterwards?"

"Because I've seen you trip about a hundred thousand times since we first met and it was always due to some crazy stunts you were doing and never because you were simply distracted," he continued to parry her arguments; with every second it became more difficult for him to maintain his grumpy, cool attitude and not let his lips curl into an amused smile at both her behaviour and the memories he'd just recalled himself. "You were constantly running around, jumping over fences and climbing trees and half the time your shoelaces weren't tied, and yet you hardly ever let that get in your way. And now you want me to believe that you've hit the ground with your knee and cut it because you'd stumbled over it? When you were walking?"

"I don't know why you find that so improbable," she replied, shifting her eyes up at him for a second only to have them cast down a moment later. Unlike her most recent retort, this one was once again quiet, so much so that it was almost a whisper.

"I never thought Chihaya was capable of speaking quietly enough to be drowned out by a bell."

Was that it? Was that how she was now?

Was he responsible for that change in her?

He shook his head resolutely and lowered his own gaze onto her knee once more. He realised he was giving in to his nonsensical fears again, finding alterations where there were none, simply because he'd felt the change so acutely. Sure, Chihaya's voice was much softer than what he was used to; but to think that it was a general transformation was a little too much. It wasn't like she couldn't speak loudly or even downright shout at him – she had proven that much with the entire 'you're not a coward' scene, and even with the little comebacks she had thrown at him a short while earlier.

She wasn't mad at him, she hadn't taken offence. She wasn't avoiding him like he had avoided her, nor was she trying to daunt him with her curt, frosty answers; if anything, she'd given him the impression that she wished to talk to him but had no idea how to do it without overstepping his boundaries.

As if she had been afraid of him.

Was she?

Taichi risked another glance at her and saw that she still wasn't looking at him or even at the wound he'd been treating for her. Instead, her gaze was turned to her right, focused on some distant spot he couldn't name unless he followed her gaze with his own eyes. Afraid she might catch him staring, he looked down again quickly, however; he could figure out what had arrested her attention later on.

He had enough to think about as it was, without adding any additional information to the mix.

"There, it's all clean," he announced after a moment, taking the wet towel in his hand away; he pressed it back to her knee almost immediately when he saw that the seemingly unserious injury hadn't stopped bleeding. "It looks like it's a pretty deep cut you've got there. Nothing that would need stitches, but you certainly should have it wrapped up, and not only because of the possible infections. That is, unless you actually want to walk around Tokyo with bloody streaks all over your calves. I don't have anything of the sort so-"

"I do!" she cut him off, energetic again. Taichi raised an eyebrow at her sudden cry and she turned away, blushing. However, she continued, "I do. Just hand me my bag, please?"

He did as he was told, and passed on the bag that had somehow ended lying behind him. Chihaya grabbed the item zealously and began to search its insides, flipping the books and other tools she kept in it with as much hurry as if her life really had depended on it. Taichi regarded her curiously, suddenly indifferent to whether she decided to meet his eye this time.

It took her a good while before she found what she'd been looking for; it was a perfect opportunity for him to have a closer look at her at last.

No matter how silly his behaviour was, Taichi made good use of that time.

She was a mess; there was no doubt about that. No longer panting like she had when he'd seen her first (something Chihaya had been trying very hard to conceal and perhaps even thought that she'd succeeded, only Taichi obviously knew better), she still seemed to be anything but relaxed. Her hair looked as if she had combed them with her hands (which she'd done often enough in the past to make his guess more than likely) and her cheeks were grey from the dust, though again, it looked like she had attempted to clean it in some amateurish way.

He wondered if the slightly darker traces he saw on her cheeks really might have been the remnant of her tears, like he feared they were.

Gosh, she really cried too damn much, never mind how serious the reasons were.

He was roused from his meditation when Chihaya finally pulled out the small first aid kit which she'd been looking so frantically for and straightened up a little, relieved. She sure was glad with herself, a softer, more placid expression finally reflecting on her face as she opened it and drew the bandage and gauze packs she needed from it, and even waved them before his eyes as if to tell him that she could take care of herself now.

That darn moron.

"I can deal with it now," she said, confirming his suspicions. "If you just take the towel away from my knee I can wrap it up just fine. But you really have to move away."

"And how do you plan to do that with your leg bent like this?" he asked, simultaneously ignoring her suggestion completely. "You're still kneeling."

"I can straighten my leg anytime, so-"

"And lay it flat on the ground? Good luck moving your hand underneath when you try to go around it. Also, are you really carrying a first aid kit in your school bag?"

It was the first time Chihaya met his eye since her unfortunate fall and boy, was she vexed. "My mum made me carry one around after I stepped onto a nail and had to block the blood flow with my classmate's spare t-shirt in middle-school. She wasn't very happy with that."

"Your mum or the classmate?"

"Neither. But at least I learnt to carry these things around, and since I know how to use them, I'm going to wrap my own injury now. I just need to stand up and-"

Without a word of warning, she leaned on one arm and pushed herself off the ground, leaving the startled Taichi to stare at her helplessly. She hissed at the pain when she put more pressure on her wounded leg but said nothing, determined to carry out the plan she had formed in her head without letting her friend interrupt.

Only, his hand was still pressed against her knee... and he wasn’t going to do anything to change that.

"You're impossible," he told her instead, the faintest shadow of mirth flashing in his eyes.

"Move your hands, Taichi, I'm bandaging my knee," she ordered him, feigning deafness.

"You'd need to dry your skin first."

"I know that!"

"Not what I heard."

"I am, but I still need you to move away. Why aren't you moving away?"

"Who knows." Taichi shrugged, raising his eyes so he could meet Chihaya's weary glare. "Maybe I'm just being awful for the fun of it. Or maybe as usual, I'm the sensible one here and realise that you're gonna need help with that stupid cut. And since the only way to make you give up is by this kind of opposition, it's exactly what I'm doing now."

Chihaya's fingers tightened around the packages. "But why?"

"Who knows," he said once again. "Perhaps I'm just too used to looking after you to simply walk away and leave you to deal with it on your own. After all, I know you well enough to realise how incompetent you are."

That little jab at the end of his reply was meant to lighten the mood, to avoid a situation in which his earlier words would sound like yet another confession on his part. He wanted to make sure it didn't sound tender – that the 'looking after you' part was a statement coming from a long time buddy rather than from the love interest he so wished to be, from an easygoing, disinterested comrade and not a suitor she was so afraid of.

He wanted to turn it into a joke, and yet, it only took a second for him to realise that his tactics hadn't worked.

She didn't answer him; didn't snap or turn away, didn't huff, offended by his remark – but she didn't laugh, either. He saw her knuckles turn white as her grasp tightened even more and opened his mouth to apologise...

...but then she straightened her arms, shoving the bandages right before his eyes, while she looked away from him, again.

She nearly hit him on the nose and yet, he was too stunned to care.

"You do it then," he heard her mutter under her breath as she moved the package even closer to him. "Just... be quick about it. It doesn't need to be that precise, I only need it to last until I'm home."

He wanted to contradict her, to say that the main reason why he'd insisted on helping her out was to make sure that the dressing around her wound would not be a shoddy one; but something stopped him. Whether it was the way in which she was so determined not to meet his eye again or how her hands trembled when he finally took the cursed bandages from her, he couldn't tell; but he couldn't be more sure if Chihaya had told him that directly.

His jokes hadn't been too terrible a strategy overall – one more challenge, however, and he could lose it all.

So he remained silent, attentively drying her skin with fresh gauze before pressing another piece against the injury and wrapping it up with utmost care. It didn't matter that it was her bare skin anymore, or that the rim of her skirt was moving gently right above his bowed forehead. He was a friend, a companion. He was willing to call himself a nurse, for goodness' sake – as long as what he did was of any benefit to her.

Now wasn't he a failure.

Bet someone else, someone like Sudo, would never let anything like that happen, he thought to himself. He probably would have left her at that gate and walked away without a word, unless it was to roast her with one of his terrible lines. Actually, I'm sure nobody I know would've acted as stupidly as I have, whether it would be Nishida or Komano, or – Arata...

"All done," he announced a little too hastily, deliberately breaking his own train of thought before it could take him too far, and stood up. "I hope it's not too tight, but if it is, just tell me and I'll fix it. We don't want your leg to go all stiff and blue while you walk back home, right?"

"No, it's good. It's perfect," she answered, shaking her head. "Thank you."

Her head and gaze were still lowered when she spoke to him, so Taichi couldn't quite tell what her expression was and so he couldn’t use that knowledge to guess how she actually felt. At first, he was sure she would turn away as soon as he was done treating her wound, and just set off towards home without further delay, or that she would at least step back, no longer needing to stay in his close proximity like she had before.

They really were standing quite close now, so close that one step forward would make her forehead rest against his collarbone, literally.

And yet, she still didn’t allow him to see her face. He waited patiently for another moment, even though his heart was threatening to jump out of his chest any moment now. He stuck around, motionless and quiet, giving her every chance to flee like he expected her to, awaiting the moment when she would leave his personal space.

He couldn't imagine her wanting to be there, not after how he had treated her today – how he'd been treating her ever since the day she had rejected him.

And yet, she was still there.

"Chihaya," he whispered eventually. "Do you want to talk?"

It was a simple question, an obvious question. It was a ridiculous one, too – after all, they'd been exchanging statements back and forth, so technically, it was way past time for asking it. However, he certainly knew that it was not a simple chat he'd had in mind; and maybe it was naive of him, but he still believed that Chihaya understood it, too.

She didn't answer him immediately, and not even after some time had passed. It wasn't because she hadn't heard him, of that he was sure... but that didn't mean that he had more than the vaguest idea of why she tarried, either.

Was his question not so simple after all?

He didn't dare to lean forward, on the off chance that she would decide to look up at him after all, in which case their closeness really might become too much for him. His eyes remained fixed on her, however, boring into her hair as if to jinx her into replying at last. She didn't move; she didn't look up.

And for the longest time, she didn't make a sound.

Until...

"Yes. Yes, I do."

#Our Sleeves Were Wet With Tears #chihayafuru #taichihaya #mashima taichi #ayase chihaya #more reposting #more new arrrrt #margaretwrites

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lyinginthedark · 5 years ago

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Louis is in the desert for most of the Walls video. A very dry and barren one, which isn’t life supporting for humans.

And there is a door in the middle of it, a door he can walk through if he’s brave enough. He sits on his wall and he watches the walls fall for Harry and it can be his if only he’s brave enough to knock down his walls and walk through it. And he does;

Louis then looks into a mirror, and this is where we get the first mirrored scene in Lights up.

I see a few possibilities here; a) Louis and Harry have been called out by fans for mirroring each other before. Like a lot. It could be a Larry shout-out.

b) They are singing to themselves. Louis is telling his younger self thank you for protecting me, for putting these walls up, but it’s bittersweet because he shouldn't have had to. Harry is asking himself if he knows who he is, is he secure enough in who he is to risk changing everything by letting himself be seen for who he is? Does he want to be seen for who he is?

Further, Harry is in purple during this scene, which can mean mystery, creativity, wisdom, pride and dignity. It can also mean sexual frustration and a need to be seen as unique or unorthodox. To me, him looking in a mirror bathed in purple symbolises that he is asking himself if he knows who he is, he’s a mystery to us; is he trying to find a creative way to not be? Is he figuring out if his pride will let him be vulnerable with others, is he frustrated about not being able to be honest about his sexuality or relationship?

Louis on the other hand, is under a blue sky. Blue is connected to feelings of depth, to trust, faith, confidence and stability. Louis is telling himself that it’s gonna be okay, these walls you put up will come down and I am ready and confident that everything is going to be fine. I have faith, and I trust everyone around me to keep me safe.

After walking through the door Louis finds himself on a stage surrounded by people dancing;

He looks sad, a little regretful maybe. He wishes he could dance with someone but he isn't allowed to; not until the walls come down. I also find it interesting that Harry sayings ‘Kiss in the kitchen like it’s a dance floor’ in Lights up. Just another parallel.

He also lays down on the stage, which is painted to look like a target and Louis is on the bulls-eye. I think this symbolises that if his walls come down and he’s honest, he could make himself a target. He’s worried about things going wrong.

Another interesting point in this scene is when the couples, all of which are male/female, move away from each other while holding hands, making a space through which we see Louis. To me, this represents the needs to see beyond the hetero-normative narrative to see the real him.

In Lights Up Harry is surrounded by both girls and boys, and we can clearly see their genders, that he is comfortable with both being close to him. It’s not hidden from us at all. He isn't hiding, he doesn't have to.

In Walls Louis is also surrounded by people, but they are masked and all wearing black. It’s difficult to tell their gender at all, they are hidden from us completely; he is hiding, he isn't free. He also doesn’t look as happy or comfortable here, with people that are closed off from him and hidden from us.

Harry is also bathed in green light this entire scene, green is the colour of life, renewal and energy. It also has connotations of success, safety and environment. Could also represent the ‘Green Light’ to do something, permission and the ability to move forward.

Louis is bathed in red light in his scene, red is the colour of passion, love but it’s also the colour of danger and anger. To really mirror Lights Up, red is the opposite colour to green, it means stop, wait you can’t go further.

At the end of this scene, Harry is smiling and he’s staying. He feels comfortable, he’s safe and he feels no need to remove himself.

In retrospect, Louis ends this scene by smiling and leaving. He’s happy, but he’s ready to move on and leave the hiding behind. This is also the happiest we see Louis during this part of the Music Video, he’s accepted it and he’s leaving.

Anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk haha! Stream Walls and Fine Line! And pre-order Walls!

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margarethelstone · 4 years ago

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Our Sleeves Were Wet With Tears | Chapter 2

Chapter 2 / read on AO3!

Too strange to have him take it for more than yet another of his feverish dreams.

Was it in any way connected – or worse, prompted – by the photo Arata had undoubtedly sent her as well?

And if so, what was the connection?

...and still, he couldn't help but think that it was not the case this time.

One friend reaching out to the other ones.

Friends.

Taichi's jaw tightened, his soul filling up with disgust and shame.

Had he really forgotten that that was what the three of them were, first and foremost? Friends?

Or was he just too tired pretending that he was all right with such a setup, because deep down, he realised that even as a trio, they had never been entirely equal?

Was he too much of an egoist to accept that?

They did, however.

In for a penny, in for a pound. He had no choice but to go for it now.

"Why do you think I needed to hear that now?" he continued, careful to maintain the air of indifference or maybe even, irritation, while Chihaya slowly turned around. "I didn't say I was a coward, just that I didn't want to be one. And of course I've changed since primary school; I'm not some Peter Pan who never grows up."

The very sight of her was aggravating to him.

She wasn't the one to blame for all this.

And yet, every time he saw her, the memory of his stupid, impossible dreams came rushing back to him, always accompanied by the one of them being crushed to bits just a few short weeks prior.

It wasn't her fault, and still, he couldn't find it in himself to forgive her.

He was indifferent.

He wished to be indifferent.

He had been so good at avoiding her lately, at numbing the overwhelming feeling of solitude by simply making sure she did not come into view – so why did he feel like he was missing her already?

Was a fleeting encounter like this all it took to make all of his endeavours worthless?

He was hopeless.

Hopeless.

Just like all of his love for her had been.

Oh, screw it.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not hear anything from behind him.

So she hadn't followed him.

Of course she hadn't, you idiot, he berated himself silently, clenching his hands into fists and jamming them even deeper into his pockets. She looked like she wanted to get away from there as soon as she could, and only forced herself to stay and talk because she thought it was the right thing to do. She didn’t come to chat, to pour her heart out or to clear things up with me, mostly because there's nothing to clear up in the first place; she came because she felt she needed to, because at some point, she'd decided that it was something a good person would do and obviously, she decided to spontaneously follow the wacky idea her mind had presented to her. A totally spur-of-a-moment kind of decision, honest but rash, misguided and ill-conceived, just like about everything Chihaya does.

He felt his heart shrink, as if it was squeezed in quite a literal sense, and yet, he refused to admit to his hurt, even if only to himself. There was no reason why he should've felt surprised, no excuse for the disappointment that was threatening to take over him. He'd known her; he knew what kind of person she was. Bright, outgoing, sincere. Blunt to a fault and so very, very caring that it made his head ache at times.

Still, her consideration was just like her entire self: impulsive. She always went all out and never put much reflection behind it.

As for Taichi, he still couldn't quite determine whether he found it frustrating or just very, very endearing.

Perhaps it was a mixture of the two.

Certainly not in the way he thought of her.

He fought the urge to kick the pebbles under his feet, regardless of the fact that there was no one around to see him if he had, much less to care about it. The street he strolled was empty, and since it was getting late, there was no reason to believe that the state of things should change. However, Taichi knew better than to indulge himself with his whims, no matter how insignificant they appeared to be. He'd been raised to be that way; and no matter how much he wanted to change, no matter how grand was the amount of effort he put into achieving it, there were things about himself he simply couldn't reform.

He couldn't tell if it were those traits that had made him the unlucky loser he undoubtedly was now; but at least they helped him cope with the fallout his misfortunes had brought.

Good gosh, he'd actually let Master Suo persuade him into not giving up on karuta after all, and only changing the environment of his practice instead.

He was fine, or at least, he was going to be.

...only to have him halt in surprise at the sound of a dull thud and a hiss that came from behind him.

All of these he could have thought of, and yet, he still wouldn't have guessed the real cause of the noise that had startled him so.

Of course, the culprit simply had to be the one person he'd been trying to ban from his mind.

How had she even got there without him realising her presence until now?

"Taichi, no! Wait!" He heard her protest against his actions, only to ignore it completely. "It's just a scratch, nothing serious, I can handle it myself just fine here!"

"No, but -"

Not that clearing up the skin on her leg was doing any good to his sanity, mind you.

"I just wasn't paying attention," Chihaya answered him, her tone slightly offended, but still quieter than he might have expected. "My shoelaces had come undone and I stepped over one."

Taichi sighed, almost impatiently.

"And fell like this? What were you doing, trying to break the world speed record?"

"I tripped! Why does it matter how I fell afterwards?"

"I never thought Chihaya was capable of speaking quietly enough to be drowned out by a bell."

Was that it? Was that how she was now?

Was he responsible for that change in her?

As if she had been afraid of him.

Was she?

He had enough to think about as it was, without adding any additional information to the mix.

"I do!" she cut him off, energetic again. Taichi raised an eyebrow at her sudden cry and she turned away, blushing. However, she continued, "I do. Just hand me my bag, please?"

It took her a good while before she found what she'd been looking for; it was a perfect opportunity for him to have a closer look at her at last.

No matter how silly his behaviour was, Taichi made good use of that time.

She was a mess; there was no doubt about that. No longer panting like she had when he'd seen her first (something Chihaya had been trying very hard to conceal and perhaps even thought that she'd succeeded, only Taichi obviously knew better), she still seemed to be anything but calm or relaxed. Her hair looked as if she had combed them with her hands (which she'd done often enough in the past to make his guess more than likely) and her cheeks were grey from the dust, though again, it looked like she had attempted to clean it in some amateurish way.

He wondered if the slightly darker traces he saw on her cheeks really might have been a remnant of her tears, like he feared they were.

Gosh, she really cried too damn much, never mind how serious the reasons were.

That darn moron.

"I can deal with it now," she said, confirming his suspicions. "If you just take the towel away from my knee I can wrap it up just fine. But you really have to move away."

"And how do you plan to do that with your leg bent like this?" he asked, simultaneously ignoring her suggestion completely. "You're still kneeling."

"I can straighten my leg anytime, so-"

"And lie it flat on the ground? Good luck moving your hand underneath when you try to go around it. Also, are you really carrying a first aid kit in your school bag?"

"Your mum or the classmate?"

"Neither. But at least I learnt to carry these things around, and since I know how to use them, I'm going to wrap my own injury now. I just need to stand up and-"

Only, his hand was still pressed against her knee... and he wasn’t going to do anything to change that.

"You're impossible," he told her instead, the faintest shadow of mirth flashing in his eyes.

"Move your hands, Taichi, I'm bandaging my knee," she ordered him, feigning deafness.

"You'd need to dry your skin first."

"I know that!"

"Not what I heard."

"I am, but I still need you to move away. Why aren't you moving away?"

Chihaya's fingers tightened around the packages. "But why?"

He wanted to turn it into a joke, and yet, it only took a second for him to realise that his tactics hadn't worked.

...but then she straightened her arms, shoving the bandages right before his eyes, while she looked away from him, again.

She nearly hit him on the nose and yet, he was too stunned to care.

His jokes hadn't been too terrible a strategy overall – one more challenge, however, and he could lose it all.

Now wasn't he a failure.

"No, it's good. It's perfect," she answered, shaking her head. "Thank you."

Her head and gaze were still lowered when she spoke to him, so Taichi couldn't quite tell what her expression was and use that knowledge to guess how she actually felt. At first, he was sure she would turn away as soon as he was done treating her wound, and just set off towards home without further delay, or that she would at least step back, no longer needing to stay in his close proximity like she had before.

They really were standing quite close now, so close that one step forward would make her forehead rest against his collarbone, literally.

He couldn't imagine her wanting to be there, not after how he had treated her today – how he'd been treating her ever since the day she had rejected him.

And yet, she was still there.

"Chihaya," he whispered eventually. "Do you want to talk?"

Was his question not so simple after all?

And for the longest time, she didn't make a sound.

Until...

"Yes. Yes, I do."

#Our Sleeves Were Wet With Tears #chihayafuru #taichihaya #mashima taichi #ayase chihaya #now let's pray i can meet the deadline and finish the art for ch 3 this week

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a-long-walk-in-the-forest · 4 years ago

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Sasuke’s mars degree exploration

Now that I’m having another look at his chart he could have a grand cross. Building on this assumption, His pluto is also likely to be farther into aquarius than I had initially thought (though it’s probably before 24 degrees). Anyways since I already did this for his moon and mercury I decided to just make this into a series and do some of his other planets as well. this post will be about his mars.

This one was a bit harder since non of them really worked as well as I would have liked them to but out of all of them 12-13 seems better than the rest.

12-13

It shows one of a powerful and independent nature, relying on his own counsel and capable of standing alone. A degree of taciturnity and reserve will add to the general inscrutability of the mind of this person, and dispose him to command the respect and regard of others. His position will be elevated, his success in life will be assured by his own innate strength, and his fortunes will remain untouched by the hand of change. It is a degree of’ STADILITY.

Whether the native is high-born or a self-made man coming of an obscure family, fate certainly has earmarked him to occupy an eminent, independent position and to hold sway over others, owing to his inborn inexhaustible force. To obey him is a matter of course, nearly of necessity. An untiring, hard worker, he is fully confident in himself, and his firmness of purpose borders on stubbornness. Laconic, or even silent, he can scan and pierce everything around himself at a glance without betraying any of his feelings. Close but long-sighted, strong but on his defensive, cunning yet intelligent, he has fortune on his side and all the good or evil qualities needed to assert oneself and achieve success, his main asset being an iron will, unshakeable and undaunted; his main defect, a selfish, despotic, scheming ambition. When other aspects point to a liking for the career of arms, this degree will bestow the gift of strategy. Should the stars point to agriculture instead, the native would be a great organizer and manager of farms.

Denotes one who is ever on selfish ends; he makes a good strategist.

Business: degree of attraction and repulsion; electricians; independent and self-reliant; stability; magnetic healing; dignity; artistic sensibilities; inclined to poetry; may be either mystical or unfeeling;

Denotes one whose work is destined to live and influence men long after he has left the earth, one of an intensely psychic nature, sensitive, and mediumistic. He will have many earthly struggles and will find many sharp rocks in the way of his progress. He suffers more from his absolute lack of sympathy with earth matters as they are at present. His wanderings in the summer lands, however, bring him infinite peace and joy in the midst of pain. It is a symbol of Reveries.

Defensiveness is very marked in this degree. However, for the most part it is well controlled. If he loses his balance defensiveness will be the result. However, it is not likely that this highly competent being will be put in this position. He, for some reason, seems to attract many people difficult to deal with. He seems to be adequate to these challenges and perhaps even thrives on having to cope with difficulties of this nature. He has a measure of compassion and understanding but his righteous indignation is potent and lasting when there has not been sufficient cause for him to relent. He has ample resources to defend himself. Although when he is sufficiently occupied in dealing with deceitful and malicious people and situations he is subject to mental distortions. These experiences may tend to color his general outlook on life. It is very difficult to remain cheerful and optimistic when most of the energy and skill that you have is taken up with such dealings. There is another not much emphasized quality here having to do with the power inherent in polarity of positive and negative charges. He seems to have some quality which enhances his ability to work with electricity and also some ability to do healing by use of the hands.

This area of Taurus, Scorpio sometimes called degrees of attraction and repulsion, often found in charts of electricians. Independent and self-reliant.

15-16 (it’s probably not this but I’ll still include it)

It is the index of a kind and benevolent nature; a generous and humane disposition; ever eager to befriend and comfort those who may be in distress of body or mind. The grandeur and spiritual loftiness of this soul will attract many friends, and the work of charity and benevolence will increase continually, gathering volume as it goes, till it reaches the ocean of human life, and enfolds all mankind. It is a degree of HUMANENESS.

Whatever the moral height of the native, foreign is the country where he is called to act, his outward appearance is nimble and ‘attractive, his wedding princely. Should other components allow, he would belong either to a secret sect or to the militant Church.

Denotes a person possessed with ardent desires; an enthusiast to the cause he espouses; a true friend and an open enemy.

May be an art collector or a person who works hard at some branch of art with little remuneration; business; associated with explosions (of nuclear plants) and bombings; the center of regeneration; the Eagle point; carefulness or (under affliction) carelessness; not a powerful degree; hardly typical of Scorpio

Denotes one who is mixed up in life’s battles and fights for every advantage. Gifted with endurance and a penetrative mind, he wins his way through obstacles only to meet more obstacles later on. But he knows, for all this, that the Power sustaining him is faithful, and he prays for peace in the midst of war. It is a symbol of Contrition.

This degree represents the most undeveloped of the Scorpio qualities. There is the dead weight philosophy of fatalism coupled with a masochistic drive to suffer. He may throw himself blindly into some kind of work but for some reason seems not to reap any reasonable benefit from his efforts. He is most likely to miss coming to grips with life in any way to produce an awareness of either the good or the bad of the action going on around him. He somehow remains detached from all meaningful contact. Of course, this is never the only degree to be stimulated in a chart. The course may be charted more clearly elsewhere and perhaps the real nature of this degree has not yet been seen in its true light. It will, however, add to the load rather than lighten it.

Not a powerful degree, and like 17-18, the natives are hardly typical of Scorpio. May be an art collector or a person who works hard at some branch of art, with little remuneration.

17-18

It is the index of a watchful, brave, but suspicious and jealous nature. Such an one will brave many dangers for the sake of mastery over the passions of others, and will be active in the attainment of the arts of conquest. Nevertheless it is probable that eventually the life will be endangered thereby, and, beyond the loss of power where it is most to be desired, the danger of a poisoned love, or a yet more sinister folly, will threaten to crush and obliterate this person. It is a degree of JEALOUSY.

A strict sense of justice, a liking for aimless leisure, unlucky love affairs thwarted by jealousy and mistrust (whether the native or the other partner is jealous, the whole of the horoscope must tell), an absolute lack of autonomy, a life weighed down by an excess of sloth. The native seems to lay little store by his own word, as he thinks little of entering an engagement and even less of subsequently breaking his pledge. Courage to act openly is conspicuous by its absence, and there is just enough courage to bear the consequences of one’s flippant fickleness or follies and to accept any sacrifice. Love for art, especially music, is deep-rooted. But one who has no character is unlikely to succeed unsupported in such a field, and there is no trace of any moral force here.

A just person, but prone to become too severe.

A musical degree; often a tall person (if afflicted; a dwarf); often works in connection with electricity or painting (artistic or other);

Denotes one for whom pleasure hides danger. His passions are high and not easy to control, and his appetites tend to follow his desires. There is a love of grace in art, movement, and sound which impels him to excitement and sensation. He attempts to influence and control, but is liable to be deceived himself in the end. Let him be warned. It is a symbol of Inflaming.

Mercury’s S Node is on this degree. It shows moral cowardice. Strangely, it does not seem to show the usual courage and wisdom of the sign. Perhaps Mercury’s S Node here rips away the mental logic of violence but without incorporating a solution by an awareness of other ways to solve problems leading to violence. There is a suggestion of an ability to work with color and vibration. Often there is sex appeal of a very surface quality. is associated with colitis, cancer, and appendicitis, w also indicates much frustration from buried resentments. Much of his action seems to indicate an attempt to escape. With Mercury’s S Node here the avenues of escape greatly narrowed.

Often work in connection with electricity or painting.

#sasuke #sasuke uchiha #sasuke astrology #degree exploration #n-astro

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brooklynislandgirl · 4 years ago

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18. Marriage Proposal {Keni}

In Your Head || {Selectively} Accepting

There have only been a handful of moments in the entire course of her life that she would admit to feeling petrified. The moment when her Master chose her amongst all of the other Padawans. The moment when Kenobi had not. The night before her Trials for knighthood, when her entire future was on the line. Hearing Master Yoda summoning all the Temple’s remaining bodies that weren’t Guardians. The heavy weight of her sabre as they travelled to Geonosis to mount a rescue. She should have been thinking of the safety of the Senator. Instead all she could do was to will Anakin to hold fast.

All of them, cut out from memory and strung together with emotions too vast and varied to define in succinct fashion. Perhaps terror isn’t exactly the right word for it. The gnawing sensation at her insides, organ and bones alike. The tremour in her limbs that have never know such a thing before. That forces her to take a seat and examine herself critically in the polished stone mirror. It guides her hand to take a tindertwig from it’s small box, strike its head until flame comes to life in a hiss of awakening, and then she sets it to the wick of the candle in there.

She closes her eyes and blows gently across the blue flame until its ember grows dark again, snuffed out. She watches the ghost of it spiral upward into the air before dissipating to nothingness. But the prayers she utters, hold overs from when she was a very small stripling dwelling in this self-same room, is not to beautiful Bellatrig, the pallid purple orb that had always been her favourite of the three that were looked on. The one whose light she sits in, careful not to be touched by any of the others. Lashes brush her cheeks as she closes her eyes, the flame casting green-glowing light against her lids as she pushes everything else out and away. Privately reaching out for the Living Force, desirous to seek out a certain facet of it. Mental fingers pour through her connection with the cosmos, the souls that are and the ones that have passed beyond. Time dilates and contracts in such a way that it is impossible to tell how long she searches through emotions and fleeting wisps of intangible that pours through her fingers like river water. In that indeterminate time she doesn’t find what she is looking for, and maybe it didn’t exist though she doubts that as deeply as any conviction she holds dear. The best she can surmise in her meditation is that perhaps she isn’t sure what to look for exactly. That she simply assumes she would feel a touch of him ~far removed and much more faint~ and she is wrong.

But it isn’t in her nature to give up so easily. She offers the vast and unfathomable depths of the Force those words she could not speak for she has no real language for them. She offers them into the Force because she would not see this thing asked unless she had the courage to seek what should have been easy to find; permission, given down by the only person who really mattered in the end.

Sweet Mother. Borrowed Mother.

Let him say yes. Let his heart be moved, because he is mine. I will be a good daughter. A good wife. There is no place for me in this galaxy without him in it. If you see fit to-

She shatters out of her reverie at the feel of a hand against her skin, fingers caressing gently the arch of her cheek. Soundless and almost a blur her own hand comes up and wraps digits around the wrist there, enough pressure to have broken normal bone for the offence of interrupting her attempted communion with Shmi.

The slow, murderous roll of her kohl rimmed eyes lands her gaze on her father’s features. His own is soft. It is nostalgic and she knows he is for the moment misremembering her as a small child, one far removed from the dreams of becoming a Jedi. Before she had met Anakin. It is not a comfortable feeling and she shies away from it, gaze falling back to the top of her vanity. Slides past the flickering candle flame and to the small stone pot and the brush that lays beside it, waiting for her to pick up and use. Too sacred in the moment, she doesn’t reach out for it. If she did, he would see her hands shaking. He would sense the nervousness arcing across her nerves.

There should be a river of words overflowing her banks but those do not come either as she settles back into her bones. “This should be one of your happiest of days, blossom.”

“Yes, father.” “And you are not, because....?” She hesitates. To admit fear is not what she was trained to do. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to... But she could never hate Anakin. There is nothing he could do to ever make her feel that way. So why does it bother her? Because... the basis of that fear is a sense of profound loss. She could survive many things, but never that. Never losing Anakin. She slicks her lips and continues to look her father’s handsome and youthful face despite the century of age that exists between them. She has no words to verbalise what it is that bothers her. Why she sought answers from the Force instead.

It must be the wisdom of parents then that he dips his head in a nod and brushes a thumb across her cheek, before he turns her away from the mirror. He bows his great height, just a shade taller than Anakin, to kneel before her. He picks up the sable brush and dips it into the small pot, coating the fine bristles in the fine bark powder contained therein. He then lifts it toward her oil anointed brow. Her stomach tightens as she less watches him so much as breaks down the motion to it’s constituent ritual parts.

Moreso, how there’s threadbare patches in the tapestry of it. His mother is beyond mortal reaching, so thoroughly steeped in the Force that she could not sense even the smallest fragment. She is certain that there was a womb in which she was grown but has no mother at all. If she did not share so many common features with Reliru, she might have suspected she had been a nursery seedling. Therefore, she was left alone to paint the cartuche down her brow, except that he is doing it for her. The gifts were not handed from woman to woman, a contract unspoken for their children. Instead she will have to face him and the potential of his rejection. And while she doesn’t doubt Anakin in any way, it is possible, even a little bit, that all these years she’s misjudged the meaning derived from their closeness. Just the spectre of his Senator... There is no turning back from this moment. He begins to scrawl Anakin’s name upon her brow. His breath warms her face and he is far steadier than she could ever be, every bit the battle hardened general and the erudite Prince he has always been, both greater and less than Keni herself. His voice is a low thunder that resonates in the deepest parts of her, edged by the ferally sharp smile.

“What is meant for you, will reach you even if it is beneath two mountains, galaxies apart.”

The ghost tips of the brush sweep across her skin. Not only his name but imparting with it luck, joy and beauty. They would fade into her skin before they return to the Temple, before anyone could see it, but will stain through her layers all the rest of her days. “And what isn’t meant for you, won’t reach you even if it is between your two lips.” Her father’s words raises a mist of green bright as new leaves throughout her entire body. A hue and meaning that pulls out a darker laugh from somewhere in his depths, amused for having caught his daughter in a moment of panicked shame as she scrambles for the words to deny the accusation. He shakes his head. “My little flower, did you think I did not know? From the moment I saw the way you look at him I have known. That you not only love him with the entirety of your being but too that your life together is not as chaste as you would have anyone believe. Physical expression of that love is to be indulged, not shamed into dust easily blown away by the wind. I would say the same to your young man if I did not think he would disintegrate from mortification. He does have a bit of a delicate constitution, does Knight Skywalker.”

Discomfort doesn’t even begin to describe how she feels about hearing this from her father, but at the same time she is also glad he makes no reference to his own husband in the matter. Some things can never be unheard once spoken. Though strangely enough, it bolsters her own resolve. If someone else can point to an expression, a softly intoned word, or Anakin’s very presence in the Force that isn’t coloured by her own bias, then perhaps this isn’t all folly after all. They fall into silence as he finishes the task and the benediction at hand. When he sets the brush down, he takes her hands and brings her to his feet, inspecting her as critically as he would a soldier, as Anakin has done a hundred times with his Clone Troops. Head tilted and hand framing his chin, eyes narrowed in thought. He reaches out. Lithe fingers adjust a few strands of her hair, recentring a few of the flowers braided into it, these even smaller, more simple than those that occur naturally in the dark locks. She has learned to stop hating them from the moment she realised they intrigued Anakin. Enticed him to touch. After a moment, he nods. “He’s waiting for you in the study. And do not fear. The boy would have to be insane to reject you.”

If he only understood.

Squaring her shoulders, almost wishing that she had her sabre at her side rather than a basket, she half-glides and half-marches from her chamber. Anakin had never really been in his right mind, by the standards of anyone in authority. The Council never fails to point it out. Their clan mates. Friends. Everyone believes so, and so... Anakin believes too. Doesn’t seem to realise they don’t bother her at all. The constant motion, both in his body and in his mind. She doesn’t get bothered by his long meditative forays into the Force because she knows he will always come back to her, and they spend most of their time lost within it anyway. All the things he hates and fears and worries will drive her and others away, every flaw he sees in himself whether real or imagined, they are just little things to her that make him Anakin, and therefore she loves. Would miss if they changed, if he changed for her.

Maybe it is because she’s always accepted these facets. Maybe it’s because they are so foreign, so alien as to be the exact opposite. She does not feel things as deeply, except this. She does not feel the urge to never stop, the desire to fly which she believes he associates with freedom. She is still. Rooted. That rings a smile to her lips because that is the very terrible kind of joke he would make, then point out it’s on account of her being a tree and all. Right before he runs the backs of his fingers down her bare arms. Across the small of her back. Groan and gripe as she might, she does think it funny. She just can’t tell him so.

It’s also in the way he can trip over his own limbs, the way his words are stilted and off-kilter and sometimes blur between his languages. It’s the compassion in him that will bleed him dry the moment he lets down his guard. It is the innocence he still keeps despite the worst things he has seen and experienced. Every ounce of her adores this. Every ounce of her craves to bask in the light of his Presence, and be the sheltering shadow that protects him.

Her hand hesitates on the door. Absurdly paranoid that she should knock instead of just entering the study. Absurdly sure that the pounding chlorophyll in her veins announced her to him ten minutes before she actually arrived, because it is doing that. Thundering like marching Troop movements. Pulsing at the edge of her vision. She takes a deep, centring breath.

As she expected, he’s running his fingers along the books on the shelf. Actual ones, not just copies on flimsi or datapads. The leather and velum having withstood decades, words from actual ink telling stories and legends, histories and battles, nightmares and romance. Her father’s collection is extensive, just one of a thousand luxuries. And a snake of jealousy snaps in the back of her mind. She could keep him in the fashion his Senator could, maybe better. After all, they have what the Naberries do not: aeons of selective breeding. Born to command, to conquest, to privileged, not elected.

“Za’lali.”

He turns. It is perhaps that spark of bitterness that spurs her to action. She sweeps into the room, her thin silks whispering across the plush rug at her bare feet, giving him the comeliest of views: long and toned and dusky limbs. Perfectly shaped if smaller than his by a long-shot. Shadows that are suggestive in just the right places, the gown only covering a small margin of her.

She stops a few meters away from him.

And suddenly the traditional speech, the one she has practised and practised until she could recite it by rote in her sleep....fails her.

She dry swallows, but a little of the lump in her throat refuses to go down. She feels as if she’s immolating from the inside out and is genuinely surprised there is no smoke. “...” She looks down when a second attempt yields only silence.

She looks up at him again and stricken by the look on his face, she tries a third time. “...Wh-when I look into your eyes, I can see a reflection of the two of us. Of the life I hope we’ll share together. And when we’re apart, it feels as if every light that has ever glimmered is gone, carried inside of you. Because I love you. And I am in love with you. And there is no one in all of the systems in all of the galaxy that I want to be with, for as long as you’ll have me.”

And once those truths spill forth, the rest comes with greater ease. She crouches down and sets the basket before her. “If you accept this as my truth, I promise you...” She unfurls a blanket, soft and colourful, locally woven by women of her city. “That you will always have warmth from the long cold of night.” A New shirt tailored to him, including the arm that isn’t flesh. Thistle coloured and long enough for him not to exactly need pants. “That you will always be clothed in glory and honour.” And lastly, a strange container, that she opens, and fills the room with a mouth-watering aroma. She produces a fork as well. “And that I will nourish our bond with everything I am and will be. This is what I offer. Would you, Anakin Skywalker, allow me to make a husband of you?”

#mynameisanakin #Images of Broken Light|Anakin Skywalker #Pools of Sorrow-Waves of Joy|Anikeni #Across the Universe|Star Wars AU #Warfront|The Clone Wars

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peacockxprince · 6 years ago

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𝕯𝖊𝖛𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 ❦ Self Para

𝓔𝓿𝓮𝓻 since the demigods returned from Athena’s trial, Renly has doubled his efforts in creating a spiritual connection with the Queen of the Gods. He wanted to be in Hera’s favor and earn her blessings. The help of a divine entity was always welcomed in times of great need. Luckily, two exceptional mentors led Renly to the right path of devotion. Ari has taught him the proper way to pray and commune with Hera. Meanwhile, Cooper gave some useful tips to better show his dedication and servitude. The Cupid was also kind enough to animate Argus for a brief duration on certain days, just so Renly could further feel the love and presence of his mother.

The megalithic hand of Argus carried him all the way to the temple of the Olympians at the center of camp. Renly sat comfortably on his champion’s large palm, only to carefully hop off upon reaching their destination. Much to his delight, the main sanctuary was empty. He ordered Argus to stand guard by the entrance and prevent anyone who would intrude on his privacy. Renly reveled in the almost eerie silence and smiled as he approached the marble statue of Hera, a basket filled with offerings latched onto his arm.

Renly opened the basket and carefully placed the offerings on the floor beneath the tall statue. He started with a few peacock feathers, followed by pictures of various cuckoos, and lastly some pomegranates. For flavor, he also sprinkled fresh cow milk mixed with ambrosia on the area around him. “Hello, mother...” Renly spoke with a bright smile. Hopefully she would receive him and his gifts today. “You answered my prayer during the quest. I'm here to continue expressing my thanks and gratitude.” Had Hera not intervened and stunned the wolves, perhaps Corey wouldn’t be around to grace the camp with his presence. “You even passed down your champion to me. Argus will serve me well. I just need to find a different method of permanently bringing him to life without Cooper’s help.”

Up until now, Renly still couldn’t believe he was talking to a statue. Back in the real world, he’d be mocked and teased for such a display. However, he knew how essential the help of their parents was if they were to continue on in this journey. Renly pulled a soft pillow from the basket so he was able to kneel down but still be comfortable. “I did further research about you. I’ve discovered how most of the world views you as a jealous and bitter deity. But you are so much more than that.” Hera was painted to be a cruel and wicked woman, when in the background she kept Olympus from crumbling while her husband fucked every living thing he could see. “You’ve proven through the centuries how a Queen is sometimes better off without a King.” A sigh escaped him as he too began to reach the same conclusion.

Eyes closed, head bowed, and hands clasping each other, Renly began his prayer in the ancient Grecian language. “Glory be to Her majesty...” he spoke in barely a whisper but audible enough so his voice could somewhat echo throughout the interior of the temple. “I offer my service and gratitude to Hera, Queen of the Gods. Through her help and guidance, I wish to excel in the upcoming trials.” They were ready to set off again and retrieve the artifact of Asclepius. Renly needed his mother’s divine assistance if he wished to not only survive but succeed as well. “Grant me the strength, courage, and wisdom to persevere.”

Renly opened his eyes and placed a hand on the marble statue. “Mother... I come to ask you of something else as well.” The blonde swallowed hard, unsure of how exactly to approach his entreaty. “I need you to harden my heart,” he finally managed to say aloud. A strange supplication, but lately, Renly has been distracted and enamored by his fellow demigods. Lust and desire was one thing, but he refused to allow another pretty face deter him from his true objective. “I can’t be falling in love when I’m supposed to be on my way saving you and possibly ascending into godhood. Allow me to put my feelings aside and think practically.” Again, sometimes a King isn’t essential for a Queen’s success. Renly bit his bottom lip, knowing he’d later regret making such a hefty request. He should do just fine by himself. Nevertheless, he offered Hera a grateful smile and walked over to his champion.

He bid farewell to his mother and mounted Argus’ enormous hand. “Take me home,” Renly ordered and sighed. That was enough praying for today. En route to his grand villa, he turned to the megalith warrior. “I hope mother grants my request and keeps love’s influence far away from me. Then we’d be like brothers — cold and emotionless,” he teased. Argus simply grunted in response, clearly unamused by the comment. Seems like the big brute has feelings after all.

#( ♛ ) muse #[ renly is just (ง •̀_•́)ง ]#[ finally got this out; ]

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elisaenglish · 6 years ago

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How John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor’s Pioneering Intimate Partnership of Equals Shaped the Building Blocks of Social Equality and Liberty for the Modern World

“They were imperfect, divided people and went on being so for the rest of their lives, with the rueful knowledge of human contradiction that good people always have.”

Half a century after the 18th-century political philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin pioneered the marriage of equals, and just as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller were contorting themselves around the parameters of true partnership, another historic power couple modeled for the world the pinnacle of an intimate union that is also an intellectual, creative, and moral partnership nourishing not only to the couple themselves but profoundly influential to their culture, their era, and the moral and political development of the world itself.

In 1851, after a twenty-one-year bond traversing friendship, collaboration, romance, and shared idealism, John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806–May 8, 1873) and Harriet Taylor (October 8, 1807–November 3, 1858) were married. Mill would come to celebrate Taylor, like Emerson did Fuller, as the most intelligent person he ever knew and his greatest influence. In her titanic mind, he found both a mirror and a whetstone for his own. They co-authored the first serious philosophical and political case against domestic violence. Taylor’s ideas came to shape Mill’s advocacy of women’s rights and the ideological tenor of his landmark book-length essay On Liberty, composed with steady input from her, published shortly after her untimely death, and dedicated lovingly to “the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement.”

In his autobiography, Mill painted a stunning portrait of Taylor:

In general spiritual characteristics, as well as in temperament and organisation, I have often compared her, as she was at this time, to Shelley: but in thought and intellect, Shelley, so far as his powers were developed in his short life, was but a child compared with what she ultimately became. Alike in the highest regions of speculation and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind was the same perfect instrument, piercing to the very heart and marrow of the matter; always seizing the essential idea or principle. The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in times when such a career was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life. Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with the intensity of its own.

In A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism (public library) — an elegant, impassioned, and rigorously reasoned effort to re-humanise the most humanistic moral and political philosophy our civilisation has produced — Adam Gopnik argues that Mill and Taylor pioneered something even greater than a true marriage of equals on the intimate plane of personal partnership: a vision for the building blocks of equality on the grandest human scale.

Gopnik — a Canadian by birth, a New Yorker (and longtime New Yorker staff writer) by belonging, and one of the most lyrical, lucid thinkers in language I have ever read — recounts trying, and failing, to comfort his intelligent, politically engaged, disconsolate teenage daughter in the wake of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. For consolation and clarity, as much hers as his own, he turns to Taylor and Mill:

My idea of liberalism, while having much to do with individuals and their liberties, has even more to do with couples and communities. We can’t have an idea of individual liberty without an idea of shared values that include it.

A vision of liberalism that doesn’t concentrate too narrowly on individuals and their contracts but instead on loving relationships and living values can give us a better picture of liberal thought as it’s actually evolved than the orthodox picture can.

[…]

Images illuminate ideas, and pictures of people are usually clearer than statements of principle. When I think about the liberal tradition I wanted to show my daughter, my inner vision kept returning to a simple scene, one that had delighted me for a long time. It’s of the nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill and his lover, collaborator, and (as he always insisted) his most important teacher, the writer Harriet Taylor. Desperately in love, they were courting clandestinely, and they would meet secretly at the rhino’s cage at the London Zoo. “Our old friend Rhino,” Taylor called him in a note. It was a place where they could safely meet and talk without fear of being seen by too many people, everyone’s attention being engaged by the enormous exotic animal.

They were pained, uncertain, contemplating adultery, if not yet having committed it — opinions vary; they had been to Paris together — and yet in those conversations began the material of “On Liberty,” one of the greatest books of political theory ever written, and “On the Subjection of Women,” one of the first great feminist manifestos and one of the most explosive books ever written. (One of the most successful, too, inasmuch as almost all of its dreams for female equality have been achieved, at least legally, in our lifetime.)

With an eye to the perilous erasures with which history is often rewritten — history, I continue to insist, is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgment and chance — Gopnik points to the curious disconnect between Mill’s own repeated affirmations of Taylor’s supreme influence on his ideas, and subsequent warpings and appropriations of their story:

After [Mill’s] life, generations of commentators — including Friedrich Hayek, who unfortunately edited their letters — aggressively Yoko-ed [Taylor], insisting that poor Mill, wildly intelligent in all but this, was so blinded and besotted by love that he vastly exaggerated the woman’s role, which obviously couldn’t have been as significant as his own. Fortunately, newer generations of scholars, less blinded by prejudice, have begun to “recover” Harriet Taylor for us, and her role in the making of modern liberalism seems just as large and her mind as fine as her husband always asserted that it was.

Gopnik reflects on the intellectual and ideological resonance at the heart of Mill and Taylor’s love, which in turn became the pulse-beat of our modern notions of political progress:

What they were was realists — radicals of the real, determined to live in the world even as they altered it. Not reluctant realists, but romantic realists. They were shocked and delighted at how quickly women and men began to meet and organise on the theme of women’s emancipation, but they accepted that progress would be slow and uncertain and sometimes backward facing. They did more than accept this necessity. They rejoiced in it because they understood that without a process of public argument and debate, of social action moved from below, the ground of women’s emancipation would never be fully owned by women nor accepted, even grudgingly, by men.

They had no illusions about their own perfection — they were imperfect, divided people and went on being so for the rest of their lives, with the rueful knowledge of human contradiction that good people always have.

In that singular Gopnik fashion, he then inverts the telescope, turning from the cultural perspective back to the intimate microscopy of this uncommon bond between two uncommon visionaries. Between their ideals and the their vulnerabilities, he locates one of the largest truths about love:

Theirs is one of the most lyrical love stories ever told, for being so tenderly irresolute. Recognising that intimate life is an accommodation of contradictions, they understood that political and social life must be an accommodation of contradictions too. The accommodation was their romance. That meant that social accommodation could be romantic, too. Love, like liberty, tugs us in different directions as much as it leads us in one. Love, like liberty, asks us to be only ourselves, and it also asks us to find our self in others’ eyes. Compromise is not a sign of the collapse of one’s moral conscience. It is a sign of its strength, for there is nothing more necessary to a moral conscience than the recognition that other people have one, too. A compromise is a knot tied tight between competing decencies.

[…]

The great relationship of [Mill’s] life would be proof of his confidence that true liberty meant love — relationship and connection, not isolation and self-seeking. What we want liberty for is the power to connect with others as we choose. Liberalism is our common practice of connection turned into a principle of pluralism.

When Taylor died of a mysterious malady only seven years into their marriage, and nearly thirty years into their partnership, the devastated Mill erected a monument to her, made of the same Carrara marble as Michelangelo’s David and inscribed with these words:

HER GREAT AND LOVING HEART

HER NOBLE SOUL

HER CLEAR POWERFUL ORIGINAL AND COMPREHENSIVE INTELLECT

MADE HER THE GUIDE AND SUPPORT

THE INSTRUCTOR IN WISDOM

AND THE EXAMPLE IN GOODNESS

AS SHE WAS THE SOLE EARTHLY DELIGHT

OF THOSE WHO HAD THE HAPPINESS TO BELONG TO HER

AS EARNEST FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD

AS SHE WAS GENEROUS AND DEVOTED

TO ALL WHO SURROUNDED HER

HER INFLUENCE HAS BEEN FELT

IN MANY OF THE GREATEST

IMPROVEMENTS OF THE AGE

AND WILL BE IN THOSE STILL TO COME

WERE THERE BUT A FEW HEARTS AND INTELLECTS

LIKE HERS

THIS EARTH WOULD ALREADY BECOME

THE HOPED-FOR HEAVEN

Gopnik’s A Thousand Small Sanities is a worthy read in its entirety, drawing on the personal to illuminate the political, clearing the clouded lens of the past to magnify the most pressing questions of the present in order to answer them with equal parts reasoned realism and largehearted idealism. Couple this particular fragment with Jill Lepore on how Eleanor Roosevelt revolutionized politics, then revisit Henry David Thoreau, writing in Taylor and Mill’s era, on the long cycles of social change and the importance of not mistaking politics for progress and Thomas Mann, writing in humanity’s darkest hour, on justice, human dignity, and the need to continually renew our ideals.

Source: Maria Popova, brainpickings.org (18th June 2019)

#quote #women writers #love #freedom #equality #all eternal things #love in a time of...#intelligence quotients #progressive thinking #depth perception #the marriage of true minds #stands on its own #elisa english #elisaenglish

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mayacatmaster · 6 years ago

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Only at a certain stage I was told that this (form) had been born and this is "me." .. But to whom???

If I don't pick up it... as 'me; mine; myself' & "real; true'.

*** *** ***

Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be and there will be no gap.

By imagining yourself as separate you have created the gap.

You need not cross it.

There is nobody else.

All is you and yours.

Just don't create it.

This is a fact.

-I Am That, Ch. 37. ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

*** *** ***

There are umpteen methods but I give only one method. I am telling you -you know you are -to the exclusion of everything. Just be. That is the only method. Why do you want to start this practice or that practice? ~Nisargadatta Maharaj *** *** *** Why do you still consider the phenomena? See who the Seer is. BE HERE NOW. *** *** *** Now, self-inquiry…: Who-see-who identify with any kind of “I am this or that!” as “me; mine; myself” &”real; true”, now??? Who-see-who identify with any kind of “I am this dreamer or that!” as “me; mine; myself” &”real; true”, now??? Who-see-who identify with any kind of “I am in this dream or that!” as “me; mine; myself” &”real; true”, now??? Remember you are the seer beyond any kind of “I am in this dream or that!” And this seer can check out old-time-space-reality-room, suddenly …. if you don’t want it. And this seer can check in New-time-space-reality-room, suddenly …. if you really want it. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😍😘😗😙 As a 3d-life-movie-phenomenon. You are the only witness of it. How can you lose this understanding, this insight? *** *** *** This Place Is A Dream. Only A Sleeper Considers It Real. Then Death Games Like Dawn And You Wake Up Laughing At What You Thought Was Your Grief. -Rumi *** *** ***

See the mind.

You stand aloof from it. You are not the mind 'and the Self will remain over. ~Sri Ramana Maharshi

*** *** ***

If You Want To Make Something A Fast Reality, Write It Down. ~ABRAHAM If You Want To Make your belief system as if it belong to another, Write It Down. ~ Seth If You Want To examine and self inquiry your belief system as if it belong to another, Write It Down. ~ Seth

*** *** ***

Via and thanks "Maurice Frydman":

As long as you pay attention to ideas, your own or of others, you will be in trouble.

But if you disregard all teachings, all books, anything out into words and dive deeply within yourself and find yourself, this alone will solve all your problems and leave you in full mastery of every situation, because you will not be dominated by your ideas about the situation.

- Nisargadatta, I AM THAT ch 50

*** *** ***

Note to the empathy: Observe, don't absorb. *** *** *** The world painted on your screen of consciousness and is entirely your private world. Once you realize that the world is your own Projection, you are free of it. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj *** *** *** Life is the movie you see through your own unique eyes. It makes little difference what is happening out there. It’s how you take it that counts. ~Denis Waitley *** *** *** Experience is determined by yourself--- not the circumstances of your life. ~Gita Bellin *** *** *** In this 3d-life-movie, usually you consider it ‘ ‘true; real” & ‘me; mine; myself”,… specially your belief system about yourself, another people and world. *** *** *** A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of "I" and the person acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the "I" and the "mine". The teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is nothing of yours in this, except the little point of "I am", which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. "I am this, I am that" is dream, while pure "I am" has the stamp of reality on it. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj *** *** *** Losing the false ego is awareness and abiding firmly as awareness is true clarity. ~Sri Ramana Maharshi *** *** *** Unless you identify correctly who you are, how can you identify others correctly? Recognize your real Self - Nisargadatta Maharaj *** *** *** Who or what-really-you are??? You cannot transcend what you do not know. To beyond yourself you must know yourself. *** *** *** When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere. In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. At the moment of realization the person ceases. ~ Nisargadata Maharaj *** *** *** The jnani is the supreme and also the witness. He is both being and awareness. In relation to consciousness he is awareness. In relation to the universe he is pure being. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj. *** *** *** In this 3d-life-movie, usually you consider it ‘ ‘true; real” & ‘me; mine; myself”,… specially your belief system about yourself, another people and world. *** *** *** Write all your belief system down, make list about your belief system. Examine, self inquiry your belief system as if it belong to another people’s. *** *** *** Don't go off to sleep as a slave to the mind; be its master. Form this habit, become absolutely detached and master of your mind. *** *** *** So…: Leave others alone for some time and examine yourself. There are so many things you do not know about yourself – what are you, who are you, how did you come to be born, what are you doing now and why, where are you going, what is the meaning and purpose of your life, your death, your future? Have you a past, have you a future? How did you come to live turmoil and sorrow, while your being strives for happiness and peace? These are weighty matters and have to be attended to first. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj *** *** *** In this 3d-life-movie. The moment we stop pick up our thoughts about our world are ‘true; real” & ‘me; mine; myself”, we stop being attached to our past and we find the space to let go of ideas that no longer serve us. *** *** *** Many of your problems now result from spiritual ignorance. ~Seth *** *** *** If you are really a little alert, scientifically observant, methodical, systematic study, then sooner or later you will come out of it -- because how can you go on repeating? *** *** *** Remove all titles.. no matter of what kind of holy scriptures/gurus/religion/moral And their preach/teachers can help me and mankind as an alignment-deliberate-creator??? *** *** *** Spirituality does not come from moral/religion. *** *** *** You're gonna piss off a lot of people when you start doing what's best for you. *** *** *** Never put someone or me in a egoism-standard-box, said kiss ass is most high duty, saint, good deeds replace another's Source. *** *** *** Real beautiful/saints/virtue/moral/religion is one heart don’t kiss any kind of dark tyrant ruler’s ass, no matter of who or what. *** *** *** Rare is moral/religion not use egoism-standard-box, said kiss ass is most high duty, saint, good deeds replace another's Source. *** *** *** Spirituality does not come from moral/religion. It comes from our soul. We must stop confusing moral/religion and spirituality. Moral/religion is a set of rules, regulations, and rituals created by humans, which were supposed to help people spiritually. Due to human imperfection religion has become corrupt, political, divisive and a tool for power struggle. Spirituality is not theology or ideology. is simply a way of life, pure and original as given by the Most High. Spirituality is a network linking us to the Most High, the universe, and each other. *** *** *** Seth: You create your own reality according to your beliefs and expectations, and you do so individually and en masse. Until you learn this, you learn little. You are a multidimensional personality, and within you lies all the knowledge about yourself, your challenges and problems, that you will ever need to know. Others can help you in their own way...but my mission is to remind you of the incredible power within your own being, and to encourage you to recognize and use it. - Seth, The Nature of Personal Reality *** *** ** You are walking into the future of whatever you do with your mind. So where is your mind? *** *** ** If I have a little bit wisdom, I'll assume everything I've learned from my childhood is “wrong”(Maya; illusion; fake; false), Never pick up it as 'me; mine; myself' & 'real; true', unless them can Pass through myself self inquiry~~~^^ *** *** ** Why do you still consider the phenomena? See who the Seer is. BE HERE NOW. *** *** *** As a 3d-life-movie-phenomenon. You are the only witness of it. How can you lose this understanding, this insight? *** *** *** This Place Is A Dream. Only A Sleeper Considers It Real. Then Death Games Like Dawn And You Wake Up Laughing At What You Thought Was Your Grief. -Rumi *** *** *** Physical pain is not about something being wrong with your body. Pain is about Energy Alignment or mis-Alignment. Pain is just exaggerated negative emotion. It means there is some conflict between your desire and your belief. It means there is some conflict between what you are wanting and what you are actively and often thinking. ~ Abraham-Hicks ~ *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** Via and thanks “Veronica Deshler”: *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** You are walking into the future of whatever you do with your mind. So where is your mind? *** *** *** The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person mere intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare. ~Eckhart Tolle *** *** *** Seeing unhealthy patterns in your family/social and deciding that those patterns end with you and will not be passed down to future generations is an extremely brave and powerful decision. *** *** *** So…: I deleted all the perfect repeat the work-eat-entertainment-sleep-kiss ass-cycle people yesterday. Good morning my friend! ~~^^ *** *** *** Because…: Connection doesn’t care about the laws of the land. Your soul/heart will be pulled to the place it belongs. *** *** *** Why do you still consider the phenomena? See who the Seer is. BE HERE NOW. *** *** *** As a 3d-life-movie-phenomenon. You are the only witness of it. How can you lose this understanding, this insight? *** *** *** This Place Is A Dream. Only A Sleeper Considers It Real. Then Death Games Like Dawn And You Wake Up Laughing At What You Thought Was Your Grief. -Rumi *** *** *** Via and thanks "Sangha of Love": The most you can know is "I am that." But the more you know that—if someone asks you, "What is that that you are?" You don’t know what that is. You can’t say what that is. You just know that it’s what you are. You can call it emptiness, or consciousness, or God, or spirit, but still there’s a certain mystery to it all. What can you know about nothing? When you realize you’re the great emptiness, the great nothingness, the great pregnant nothingness from which everything comes and to which everything goes—what can you really know about nothing? We can only know something about something. Like, when nothing becomes a flower: now you can know something, or you can pretend like you know something. It’s a flower, it’s orange, it’s red, it’s beautiful, it’s ugly, it’s fresh, it’s dying. You can know, or think you know, something as soon as something comes into form. You can know the texture, or the feel, or the taste, the touch, the sense of the thing. But you can’t know anything, ultimately, about the unknown, about your true nature. All you can know is that you are that. 💙 Adyashanti *** *** ** I want mastermind with Source. I want to come into alignment with other humans who also want to align with Source! ~AH *** *** ** Socrate's Way： Mirror the most simplest “Cosmic Principle”(Tao; Source; Ma at; Brahma) in every area ….^^ *** *** **

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connywrites · 6 years ago

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Shallow

now on [ao3]

“I don’t know why I…feel like I need to fight all the time,” Leo admitted. He didn’t notice at all the way he cupped Markus’ cheeks in his hands, looking over his face for any sign of severe injury, as if the android’s wounds would react like a human’s and thus be left irreparable.

“What are you looking for?” Embarrassed, Leo blinked, shaking his head and stepping back with an awkward shrug.

“You did it when I was punched in the face, last time. Guess it just sorta…happened.” Markus’ eyes lit up for a moment, realization striking him with a bit of excitement; he reached out to grab Leo by the arm to share the way his body seemed to jumble in anticipation beneath him, but decided against it as he remembered Leo’s specific sense of personal boundaries.

“That was important, Leo. Do you know what that means?” Looking lost and a bit more tired, Leo did nothing more than throw a gaze that showed he felt overestimated. Pausing, Markus looked sympathetic before he continued speaking, his voice softer with less of a rush to his phrases this time.

“You showed sympathy. Even many androids have difficulty with this. I haven’t seen you go out of your way to check on someone else before.” Leo’s only thought was about how he refused to have this conversation, turning to make haste towards the living room.

“No, wait!” Markus’ voice wasn’t so vigor as still excited, wanting to share this revelation with the person who should be reveling in it in the first place.

“Leo, this isn’t a confrontation. I mean it in a good way.” Markus felt disheartened that Leo never seemed to want to listen, no matter what he was telling him, even when it was a good thing. While he understood to a limited extent how difficult it was to come to terms with yourself, Leo avoided even the slightest hint of it, improvement or not, like the plague. This was what made communicating difficult, and the reason Markus insisted he’d have to follow close behind if he wanted to make his way through to Leo. Again.

“We have to work on this. Anyway, thanks for caring. It’s a good sign, even if you don’t like being told—” Leo whipped around to shoot him a cold glare, licking over his chapped lips and tapping his fingers together to keep himself from swinging punches.

“Remember what we talked about? Not to talk to me like a fucking counselor?” Momentarily stunned, Markus felt ashamed of himself for becoming so overbearing again. In the routine of trying to adjust to Leo’s aggressive personality, he’d began to pick up some confrontative quirks as well, and they weren’t terribly useful or productive secondhand habits.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” There was no right way to talk to Leo; he just had to soften his tone and try his best, hoping Leo was feeling gracious at the moment with his mood. Today wasn’t his lucky day.

“I hate hearing about all that brain bullshit. You don’t want me to treat you like a computer, I don’t want you to treat me like a weird chunk of meat. It’s annoying and makes you look like a jerk.” As the realization dawned on him, Markus took a moment to step aside for himself this time, leaving Leo looking annoyed with a useless shrug, smacking his hands to his sides in defeat.

“Whatever, man. Sorry I punched you.”

"It's just like, I want them to shut up, and it's that easy. You know what makes people shut up? Fists. And bullets."

The serious tone about a matter from a man like Leo, still full of youth and anticipation yet so vicious and opposing, brought unpleasant flashbacks upon Markus as he sat there, listening.

"You wanted me to shut up?" The question immediately felt silly spoken outside his head, considering Leo's nature of shutting out what he didn't like.

"Do you always act like you're the only one in the room?" That time the inquiry was sharp, intended to pry into the part of Leo's consciousness that got him to actually stop and think. It seemed to work as he paused, offense drilling into his chest, causing him to puff up his stature as he often did when feeling threatened by anyone physically larger than him.

"Oh, come on, Markus. You started a war. Don't act like you don't understand wanting someone to just shut up and deal with it. I've never had to use fire to prove my point. I've done a lot of shitty stuff, but I've never shot anyone. My fists are all I've got, dude."

Markus was surprised both by Leo's clarity, the rough disposition he'd been raised in, as well as how right he was; but it was an unfair comparison in his opinion, as he'd had to fight by the masses and that wasn't something Leo had dealt with. Still, they both have done whatever it takes to defend their own lives, and he wished Leo could see that was the point he was trying to make.

Leo had forgotten the feeling of twisting guilt, keeping him awake with the nagging truths that always emerged in imagined voices that tore him down. Something internal that sounded external and never failed to remind him how useless and pathetic he was. A couple told him to kill himself on a semi-regular basis. One in the far back sounded like his mom in her worst moments, and any other whisper of his psyche was a replica of negative memories composed into something new and relevant. Mental illness and learning disability had yet to grace his ears with any hope of success, leaving him to firmly believe all the mistakes made in his life were his fault alone, simply for being how he was. It ultimately led up to an intolerable personality that no one wanted to be around, therefore inevitably leaving him on his own again. The way he acted always seemed to be a weird combination of feeling like he was on top of the world, or below the deepest layers of hell yet deserved worse, depending, and it generally changed with the flip of a dime or less. Markus had no idea how to navigate it, but sometimes he said the right thing and got him to calm down; figuring out what it took was another riddle in itself.

“Why are you so afraid of success?” Blinking, Leo raised his eyebrows, reminding himself not to be so surprised an android didn’t understand the complicated emotional aspects of life that confused most humans on a daily basis.

“Okay, that, you’re never gonna get. I…don’t think,” Leo corrected himself, realizing his selfishness in assuming again. On second thought, there was no way he could be so sure, as Markus continued to surprise him with the amount of depth he actually did seem to experience emotions. It was confusing and strange, but over time he started seeing it more naturally; it was the majority of his skeptical personality that still had a while to work past.

“That’s the hardest thing. People work their asses off to do something good or useful in the world. Most of the time, it’s not worth it, nothing happens.” He remembered Carl begging him countless times, offering to pay for whatever school or university he wanted; drop the drugs and get an education. You could become something great. Leo hated the way he insisted he had talent, as if he could make something of himself from dirty gutter water when Carl had the world in his hands; it felt unfair and mocking, the way only a rich, comfortable family member sneezing lies and false hopes down to his homeless, beggar dropout of a son could do. He didn’t mean to lie to you, he reminded himself, but wasn’t sure if he believed it.

“I bet you’ve heard dad talk about it all the time. The art industry is fake, any of it, all of it is. If you can draw, or you’re pretty, or you split your tongue in half, or do a cool trick, then you’re cool and popular and you get a bunch of money. None of it means anything – it just screws over low-lives that can’t do anything useful, like me!” While Markus had a solid understanding of politics and how they worked, he’d never considered it from a personal standpoint as he’d never had any real reason to, leaving him withdrawn as he listened to Leo.

“All rich people do is give money to other rich people while poor people can barely get by with a fucking dayjob, and that’s without talking minimum wage or felony charges.”

“Your father gave you plenty of money, Leo. You spent it on drugs.”

“That’s not the point!” Leo snapped his fingers before they tangled in his hair as he steamed over what the original topic was, realizing he’d derailed himself.

“Okay, whatever. It’s just, the system’s rigged and I’m not gonna let it fuck me any harder.” Markus visibly winced from the image the words painted in his mind.

“I said success,” Markus notified him.

“What you’re talking about is failure.” Leo scratched his head, almost missing the wisdom in a moment of confusion, but after a second of forced focus, he caught on.

“Uh. Yeah. I mean, I guess.” Of course he’d never made the connection before, when every outcome depended on how he took on the next challenge, and that never went well. He’d never succeeded, so he never expected to, and thus never saw a reason to try, a self-fulfilling prodigy of his own fear of working hard only to fail.

“It’s harder to stay sober if you don’t have long-term goals. Right?” Markus reminded himself not to talk over Leo, lest he get smacked across the face a few more times.

“Yeah, they mention that,” Leo replied, although reluctantly, averting his gaze with a sigh.

“Any job in the world. Which one would you want?” Leo scoffed with a twitch of one eyebrow, quirking it and tilting his head as if he couldn’t believe the words he’d heard.

“Oh, that’s cute. You read that from the therapy book? Haven’t heard that question before.” Markus waited patiently until Leo’s body posture slouched and lowered, signaling he was ready to continue on without further antagonization.

“If I had to work doing something all my life to earn sleeping and eating, I might as well do something useful. I’d build, but I can’t measure anything. Farming means knowing how to take care of plants, and you think that’s easy? No way! Everything’s complicated, o-or overdone, or overrated and underpaid and I don’t want to deal with it. Okay? Not school, not a job, nothing. I’m not slaving under some fatass for a car I’m never gonna afford to funnel money into until I die. It’s just… I can’t do it.” Dad’s inheritance will be enough, he thought, but not only didn’t want to say it, but he wasn’t entirely sure with how undependable his spending habits were—there was a reason he wasn’t supposed to have it yet and he knew that, whether he liked it or not.

“What would you do under different circumstances, then?” Markus continued.

“Just, because you wanted to.”

This question struck him silent for a long minute as Leo wasn’t sure what to say. Did he have actual interests? For the most part, he did what he had to for the sake of getting by, not necessarily for fun or leisure.

“I think you don’t like anything to do with obligation,” Markus pointed out, keeping his voice calm so as not to agitate Leo further with his words. The sentence was already slightly accusatory in nature, but he was hoping to hold Leo’s attention long enough to explain himself properly.

“You’re fine with plants, but farming sounds impossible to you. I know you’ll find ways to make money if it suits you, but not if you have to. If you look at the world that way, of course you’ll bring yourself to failure without even trying. Literally.” Leo wore a brighter tint on his cheek in the moment of surprise at being called out so well, considering he’d never been confronted so precisely before.

“It’s complicated,” he excused with a stiff shake of his head, avoiding the subject with a step to the side as he turned to walk towards the kitchen. He didn’t have to see Markus following him to know he was approaching, turning to deflect him as soon as he’d neared the dining table.

“You know what will get you by in this world? Knowing your needles, plants and your guns. What can kill you and what can save your life. The kind of glock that officer shot you with? Those wounds would kill a human on the spot.” In a moment of feeling brave, he pulled up the waistline of his shirt, revealing a few of the scattered scars across his torso before pointing to a deeply engraved, round one on the right side of his chest, a few inches below and to the right of his nipple and tucked between where a pair of ribs were if he didn’t take a deep breath. Markus blinked with a sympathetic lift of his eyebrows as he eased his expression.

“I know that you want to stand for the same sorta thing,” Leo aggressed.

“But you getting shot, and this? It’s not gonna be the same. You can’t feel pain, and no matter how many emotions you think you have, you’ll never know agony.”

“Leo, both of us can breathe, and bleed, and die. Thinking and feeling is all part of that experience,” he explained, yet didn’t sound so sure, even to himself. Leo’s point was made and understood, as Markus agreed that he was right in the fact there was never going to be a way for himself to experience or understand physical pain. His frustration was less in the difference of comparing events and tragedies, like how Leo seemed to be dealing with, and moreso in the fact he wanted to aid Leo with metaphorical weapons to fight in this war yet felt helpless as he had nothing to offer, and Leo was only widening the gap between them.

Leo wanted to argue back but stopped beforehand this time as something within him made him realize spilling the words wouldn’t be worthwhile for once. Arguing about death and injury was depressing, anyway, and it wouldn’t get either of them anywhere; so, dropping the subject, he left.

Again.

#leos writing has been ???? sorry its choppy #but its been teaching me some things...showing me some ways #dbh: leo manfred #dbh: markus #detroit: become human

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iammumblrrr · 6 years ago

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A Father’s Advice: Learning from past mistakes

September 27, 2017 1:52 pm

“Things not said. Advice not given. Envelopes unstamped. Regrets enveloping me. Is it easier there, I wonder? I ponder, I guess. Yes, I guess. Yes.” — William Hill, Poems for My Son

So begins the opening episode of season two of This Is Us, A Father’s Advice. (SPOILERS AHEAD!) We hear William reading the words against an opening montage: Present day, the kids on their birthday. Randall running, excited about a new year and the possibility of adopting a baby. Kate and Toby relishing her decision to try out for a position as the lead singer in a band. Kevin filming in L.A., with Ron Howard, for his new movie project.

New beginnings and old mistakes. Sometimes we find ourselves locked into patterns we don’t even realize we’ve fallen into. It is so easy to ignore the signs. And sometimes, it is too late, when we discover the truth, to correct our course. But then again, sometimes, miraculously, it’s not.

Chrissy Metz as Kate, Chris Sullivan as Toby and Justin Hartley as Kevin in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

In romance novels, we talk a lot about the conflict. The thing that stands in the way of our hero or heroine gaining everything they desire. Oftentimes that conflict comes in the form of another person. Usually in romance novels, it’s the person our hero or heroine is falling in love with. But oftentimes, especially in real life, the real conflict is internal. A person’s worst enemy is often themselves, their own doubts and fears standing in the way of finding true happiness.

Self-sabotage is perhaps one of the most insidious forms of conflict, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the lives of the Pearsons. All of them in some way or another are locked into the patterns of the past. Jack trying to be better than his father. Rebecca trying to live up to her own potential and failing to see that she already has. Kate trying to cope with her image of herself and the way she believes that others see her. Kevin certain, deep inside, that he is the worthless sibling. Randall striving for perfection and, by so doing, setting himself up for perceived failure every time.

So the hope for the family as we open this second season is that new beginnings mean learning from past mistakes. But first they have to take that initial leap, and even more important, they have to recognize what it is that they truly want.

Sterling K. Brown as Randall in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Last season’s premiere began on Jack, Kevin, Kate and Randall’s birthday. And this season brings us back again to that date. A seemingly new beginning for Kevin, Kate and Randall paralleled in the past with the haunting reminder of Jack’s perceived failures and impending death.

Framing a series with the known death of a character is a common device, but in this case, Jack’s death is almost more relevant than his life. As if his impact on his family has taken on new dimension, in part, because he is gone.

I’ve mentioned before how losing someone changes your image of them. Freeze-frames it, if you will, into a moment of both clarity and obscurity. Details are etched and lost. Traits are embellished and covered over. Memories are reshaped into what we need them to be.

I’m not saying that we lose track of the reality of the people we love, but I do think we see what we want to see. And sometimes, this revised reality comes at a cost. To our spouses, our parents, our siblings, our friends and to ourselves.

In some ways, that truth is the heart of This Is Us. It’s what calls to us every week and every episode.

As we move beyond the opening montage, we find that the new beginnings are never easy. Kevin is happy with his new job in Hollywood, and the crew surprises him with a birthday cake. But as he walks away from the studio, Sophie calls from New York to tell him she isn’t coming after all. Her mother is ill, and she can’t get away.

Justin Hartley as Kevin in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Kevin is following one dream at the risk of another. But unlike last season, this time he seems to realize what is at risk, assuring Sophie that he understands and that he and L.A. will still be there when she can get away. It’s the same dilemma he faced when he lost Sophie the first time all those years ago. But maybe this time it will be different.

Meanwhile, Randall finds that Beth isn’t as open to adoption as he’d hoped. Beth is feeling left out of the decision making. Feeling plowed under by Randall’s enthusiasm and refusal to listen to her objections. She accuses him of trying to replicate the miracle of his life — honoring his two fathers — by re-creating his adoption. As she stalks away, she angrily tells him all they need is a baby from a fire station to make it perfect.

Back in L.A., Toby is working to build Kate’s confidence as she dresses for her singing audition, but when Kevin walks unannounced into the apartment and immediately takes over, Toby feels threatened. As always, Kate turns to Kevin, and he assumes the protector role. Old habits can be very bad for new beginnings. Especially the power of connection between twins vs. the newly built trust between lovers.

Randall, meanwhile, goes to his mom to try and make sense of both Beth’s hesitation and his own desires. When he asks Rebecca about his adoption, she replies, “It’s complicated.” And he responds with, “That’s something people say when they don’t want to tell the truth.” Which resonated with me, because it is sometimes so difficult to explain the why behind an action. And particularly to do so in a way that makes one appear sympathetic even when that isn’t the complete truth.

Mandy Moore as Rebecca in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Rebecca does tell him what happened, though, painting herself as the hold-out and Jack as the one who pushed for the adoption despite her doubts. She goes on to tell him that sometimes someone in the relationship has to push for the big things. At first Randall sees himself in his father in relation to his situation with Beth. He is the one who must push for the right thing. But gradually he sees beyond the surface of his mother’s words and realizes that his marriage is not the same as his parents’ was. Each relationship is unique. And although he still wants to follow in Jack’s and William’s footsteps, he realizes he must do so in his own way.

Meanwhile, across town, Beth considers the situation while sitting in William’s favorite spot, remembering the wisdom and friendship he gave her, despite her doubts about letting him become a part of their family. And it is his advice that leaves her considering the possibilities of Randall’s suggestion to adopt rather than just the limitations of the idea. It is the wisdom of the father, in this case the father-in-law, that again guides Beth as she considers her problems with Randall.

Back in L.A., Kate, surrounded by beautiful, skinny women, chickens out of auditioning, but when she arrives at the birthday celebration restaurant (which Kevin in his own insecure way has completely bought out), she lies to Toby about what happened. Then when the truth comes out, he realizes that she had already confided the truth to Kevin. Toby again feels left out and angry at Kevin because of his close relationship with his sister.

Chrissy Metz as Kate in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Kate, ignoring the bickering men in her life, sucks it up and realizes she has to give it a go, and so heads back to the audition.

Back together again, Randall and Beth talk, with him admitting that despite loving his parents, he doesn’t want his marriage to be the same as theirs. He recognizes that his relationship with Beth is different. And that he has spent his life struggling to be perfect and then dealing with the fallout when he, not unexpectedly, continues to fall short of his goal. He tells her that she is the reason he is strong. That together they are imperfectly perfect. And that he doesn’t need to adopt to honor his fathers.

Beth responds by taking him to William’s special place where she presents him with William’s poems, now leather-bound. And then points out that maybe the strength in what his parents did wasn’t adopting a baby in the face of their loss — but helping a child who desperately needed them. And that perhaps, that’s the path they should choose — adopting an older child who needs them. One who can come into their “perfect” world and not only benefit from their love, but make them all stronger in the process. Guided by both William and Jack, both Beth and Randall have found the strength in themselves and their relationship and come together as partners. Learning not just from the successes of the past but the failures as well.

In L.A., Kate returns to the audition, forces a chance and is rejected. Angry and determined to stand up for herself, she fights against what she believes is her dismissal on the grounds of being overweight. The man holding the auditions asks for a woman on stage to sing the song Kate just auditioned. The singer is amazing. And the man tells Kate that the amazing vocalist is only the backup singer and that Kate wasn’t rejected because of her looks, she was rejected because, vocally, she isn’t ready to compete at this level — yet.

Chris Sullivan as Toby and Justin Hartley as Kevin in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

Meanwhile, Kevin and Toby have a meeting of the minds, and Kevin admits that he is the guy in the room who is always trying the hardest, knowing that he’ll never be good enough. And that Kate is the one thing in his life he’s ever gotten right. Toby understands, but also insists that he’s part of Kate’s life now and should be the man she turns to.

When Kate returns to tell them of her deserved failure and how much she is revved to turn it into success, she suggests they go out for birthday celebration drinks.

As the final montage begins, set again against William’s wisdom, a revised version of “It is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all,” we see Kevin look to Toby and pass on birthday drinks, saying he has an early call — ceding the stage, as it were, to Toby. And when he gets home, he finds Sophie waiting. She’s managed to get to L.A. after all. And Beth and Randall come together again as they contemplate the possibility of adopting an older kid.

William’s revised advice with time and perspective? “It is better to have loved and lost surely, but try not to lose at all.”

Throughout the episode, in the past, we have seen Rebecca’s and Jack’s pain as they are seemingly torn apart by Jack’s action at the club (the ending of last season). And when Rebecca finally comes to bring Jack home, he reveals the truth of what he believes is his ultimate failure. He has become his father. He is an alcoholic and has kept it a secret. He tells Rebecca that he can’t come home until he’s found a way to deal with it.

Milo Ventimiglia as Jack in This Is Us. (Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC)

For a moment, they stand on opposite sides of a closed door, their anguish apparent. And then Rebecca knocks on the door and tells him that she’s his wife and that they’ll deal with their problems together. “Get in the car,” she says. And then assures him as they drive home that a few months from now everything will be all right.

Flash-forward in the past to Rebecca driving in the car alone, wearing a Steelers jersey, a Ziploc of what looks to be Jack’s effects sitting in the car beside her. Then teenage Randall and Kate at Miguel’s, both of them in tears as Kate cries that they need to find Kevin. He needs to hear the “news” from her. Then a flash of Kevin in a cast, kissing a woman (presumably Sophie). And finally back to Rebecca as she stops in front of their house, the mailbox saying Pearsons in stark detail as the camera pans out to yellow police tape and the smoldering remains of the house.

Whether or not we are seeing the aftermath of Jack’s death, one thing is clear: Everything can change in an instant. And there is never enough time. Which makes it all the more important to live every day as if it was the most important. And to treat the people we love as if this is the only time with them we’ll ever have. Because nothing is certain. And tomorrow — it could all be gone.

And yet the beauty of This Is Us, is that nothing ends forever either. Jack lives on — in the hearts of his children, his friend and his wife. He still touches their lives, as does William. We are, in part, made up of the people who came before us.

The best stories are universal in nature. Not necessarily big in scope or earth-shattering. But rather simple stories that touch our hearts and feed our imaginations. The Pearsons resonate with all of us in one way or another. We mourn their losses and celebrate their successes. We let their lives touch our own.

Maybe because they are us.

I’ll see you next week!

#This Is Us #Dee Davis

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sian22redux · 7 years ago

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Faramir Fridays

ok.. I have some time today and thought I would get back to regular posts if possible, and remembering that I never did get around to posting from my TVM talk, I decided that is what I shall cover today--- my hypothesis of how the character came to be.

It will be about 17 images of the slides from the talk..and a few written points..so after the first few I will put them under a cut... (note: not to be reproduced without permission)

Faramir, Tolkien’s sensitive, reluctant warrior who declines the Ring, arrived quite late in the story of The Two Towers, appearing suddenly, and to Tolkien’s surprise, at a pivotal moment in the creation of the chapters ‘Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit’ and ‘Window on the West’.

Ithilien’s Captain of record at that point, one Falborn, son of Anborn, was just finalizing his interrogation of Frodo and had been amusingly dressed down by Sam, when much lore and history of Gondor and Numenor began to be discussed. And, although a substantial part inevitably was cut to go into the Appendices, there was much that JRR wished to keep. To do that he needed a new character

The name Faramir is most commonly translated as ‘sufficient jewel’ from ‘mire’ the Quenya for jewel and ‘far’ the Sindarin for sufficient or enough. In the Peter Jackson version of the character this was a deliberate slight, that he was essentially lesser than Boromir—the steadfast jewel. Perhaps, there can be a different take. If name is destiny, Faramir, named for a Prince of Gondor who defied his father’s orders, is actually, quite simply, enough. A modest, yet noble man, with just the wisdom to resist the Ring and a play a pivotal part in Sam and Frodo’s story.

Despite this, and his enduring place as the most popular minor male character, Faramir has not often been a subject of critical analysis.

The character was conceived of and came to fruition in less than a week in early May 1944 and the relevant chapter, ‘Window on the West’, according to Christopher Tolkien, was written at great speed. May 4th there was no thought of him but by 11th he had appeared. How was an author famously obsessive about revising, one who took a decade and half between first sentence and finalized manuscript (and in so doing converted his protagonist from a hobbit called Trotter to a scion of Numenor) able to fully realize such an enduring resonant character so swiftly?

I suggest to you that it was because he had a model to draw from…. his childhood friend Robert Quilter Gilson

Robert Gilson, an artist and designer, was a member of the famous ‘Tea Club and Barrovian Society’. Hewas born in 1893 in Harrow on Hill, where his father, Cary Gilson, taught Classics. In 1900 the family moved to Marston Green when Cary became Headmaster of King Edward’s school. There, the TCBS tight circle formed, and like the others of the group, he went on to study Classics at Trinity College. His letters are a wealth of knowledge. He wrote daily, to family and friends, from university and from the Front where he served as a Lieutenant in the Suffolk regiment. He shared many qualities with Tolkien: a love of lore, and antiquity and history, but also strikingly many more with Ithilien’s Ranger.

The influence of Tolkien’s war on his writing is fertile ground for study, be it the allegory of evil mechanization in Grond; or more direct examples in his imagery of the Dead Marshes, or Sam—the doughty british batman. Tolkien was part of a generation turned their grief to work, from Everest expeditions to his own scholarship-- it was a fertile time after that great conflagration.

With respect to Faramir much has been made about him as the embodiment of a modern warrior archetype, and Tolkien, when asked by a pesky journalist which character, presumably Gandalf, he was most like, replied “Faramir,” noting though, that he lacked the character’s essential courage.

I am going to suggest that Tolkien drew on a man very like him in many ways but one who also was demonstrably courageous: Gilson.

Creating characters readers connect with is one of most important challenges for a fiction writer, for a good use of characterization always leads the audience to relate better to the events taking place in the story. Physical and psychological traits, sociological and biographical details all lend themselves to creating character. Much of what we know about Faramir in the book comes from indirect characterization.. through the lens of Sam and Frodo, how he relates to them, and they to him, and his own actions. This approach is considered more effective because it slowly discloses the inner turmoil of the character, over the course of the narrative and lets the audience understand.

For the process of this I like Alexandra Sokoloff’s quote:

‘I think all writers are always collecting characters as we go along...[stored in] the back of our minds like the shelves full of buttons and ribbons and fabrics and threads and beads in a costumer’s shop.’

This surely lends richness…but also requires one has the 'bobs and buttons’ stored.

Below I shall compare the two men, real and fictional, through the lens of the character components outlined above.

First are superficial similarities…

Faramir is typically depicted as more finely featured then his brother..an influence artists pick up, presumably from Finduilas of Dol Amroth and her descent from the elleth Mithrellas and Imrazor, the first Prince. In fact, Legolas remarks on Imrahil’s elven features in RoTK. Gilson had something of the Numenorean look given to Faramir: fine features, dark haired, and, as John Garth notes, calmly apprising eyes; a feature remarked of Faramir by number of characters in book.

Next we consider psychological traits. The above slide and below, via direct quotes from letters and the books, and John Garth’s extensive overview of Gilson’s own letters, illustrates a number of key commonalities.

Both were good leaders, loyal yet also thoughtful and poetic, but for Gilson this new role did not come naturally: he agonized over it. In a moving letter from Albert Bradman, his batman, to Cary Gilson, Bradman noted that Robert was ‘loved by all the men in the Platoon, and I may say Company, as he was a very good officer and a good leader.’

Of course, Pippin’s thoughts when first viewing Faramir, bowed and weary, at the entrance to the citadel run this very way.

There are sociological similarities between them as well. Both were conservative, as was typical of men of their social rank; pacifists and compassionate by nature, at ease across society and with people of every class.

Both had a love of the archaic. For Faramir it is exemplified by his words to Sam and Frodo, and in his delight in tutelage by Mithrandir. Gilson, similarly loved an earlier time, for him it was Renaissance painting and sculpture and 18th century Neoclassical styles that looked back to earlier era. Both men enjoyed atypical, one could say unsoldierly pursuits. For Gilson it was art, design and even embroidery. For Faramir this was music and lore. Tolkien speaks of this deliberately, that these pursuits made men superficially judge him less courageous.

Both have a reverence for wild spaces and living things. Faramir was quite evidently at home in Ithilien and dreamt of making it the garden of Gondor once again. Gilson, restricted in what he could say in his letters from the Front, spoke frequently of his enjoyment of being on the move, in the beauty of the French countryside.

Both were modern soldiers in the sense used by Stephen Carter-- highly skilled, yet classically trained and not caught by conventional views of martial glory. Both were marksmen. Gilson’s eye for artistic detail transferred to riflery, where he won the Shooting 8 of the Officer Training Corps.

It is in their biographical details that the similarities become almost uncanny. Like the classical element of fairy stories, both lose a parent, their mothers, at a young age. Both men lived under the shadow of important, larger-than-life fathers who were the ‘rulers’ of their worlds. Faramir's being the ruling Steward and scion of Numenor; Gilson’s the headmaster of King Edward’s school,’ the self-contained world in which Tolkien and Gilson lived. Cary Gilson was an intimidating, formidable man, who moved in important circles but unlike Denethor, loved his son greatly, however much, in keeping with his era, he did not show it publically.

Gilson, like Faramir, followed his duty, if not his heart. The first of the TCBS to enlist, he left Cambridge where he had undertaken studies chosen for him by his father. Like Faramir, he struggled to live up to parental expectation at times, finding it hard to achieve grades expected in a subject he did not love. Ultimately he was confident enough to defy his father’s will and societal convention: just before the war, he announced he would give up Classics to study Architecture…something considered a ‘trade’ in those days, not a vocation.

Both loved above their station and were initially rebuffed. Faramir’s true love is of course Eowyn of Rohan, niece of, and sister to, a King, Gilson’s was Estelle King, the daughter of the American Consul. They became friends on holidays in the Scottish Highlands but she was at first utterly shocked and flummoxed by his declaration of love. Gilson went off to France thinking his suit was lost but it was not so. On shore leave they became engaged. Letters between Gilson and the adventurous King, who was serving in Holland as a nurse, detail and deep affinity.

Most heartbreaking of all is the echo of Gilson in Faramir’s charge on Osgiliath: another personally courageous scholar-soldier, calmly leading his men against overwhelming odds into a rain of endless slaughter. Gilson’s battalion went over the top the first morning of the first day of the battle of the Somme, one that would in live infamy. Gilson, the last officer surviving in the midst of battle, he unflinchingly and briefly took over leadership of the entire company. The Suffolk Regiment’s loss that day was the largest of any single battalion in their division. 70% of the officers and 50% of men, far greater than Gondor’s retreat.

Unlike Faramir, Gilson did not survive. He was killed by a shell burst that morn.

Tolkien said of his friend’s death that ‘something has gone crack’, and it was so seminal a loss that for the first time in a decade he said he felt ‘a mere individual’.

Geoffrey Bache Smith of the TCBS memorialized Rob in his poem “Let us tell quiet stories of kind eyes”

To conclude, I suggest Tolkien was able to paint such a resonant portrait in so short a time, to develop a fine characterization of a sensitive poet-soldier, adored by his men, driven by duty to do what goes against his nature, by drawing upon one he knew in life, subconsiously or otherwise. And in this we have another influence of the Great War and his childhood friends on Tolkien’s work.

Acknowledgements and Sources below:

#Faramir Fridays #faramir #meta #Tolkien in Vermont #characterization

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smarmykemetic · 7 years ago

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in another life, nephthys is sitting in a morgue. her fingers go over a body in little searching rivers. she will bring the hearse around and help the body in. in this life, she feels sometimes her real job is protector of the living, not of the dead. who else needs it, after all? the dead are the dead. she arranges them like flower petals. her funeral home comes smelling of coffins, but softly, welcoming. she is known for taking “hard cases,” makes a mangled body look beautiful, the same way she did once, a long time ago, for osiris, who calls her sometimes, when he remembers. anubis and neph get together and shit-talk. she likes dark wine a lot. he likes taxes. osiris is busy. sticks his hands in the dirt and shifts it around. when monsanto comes, osiris floods. catch him out with the bees. catch him telling them the right way to go, but gently. a good leader who is tired, right. had the pride dragged out of him. he likes superman a lot. feels a certain je ne se quoi connection to someone who can’t see through lead. osiris, half-there, half-gone. scattered to the ends of the earth like seeds. anubis - when he’s not folding a fitted sheet - lives in the world of forensic science and judging. dual degree, because he like being busy. meticulous. gets the details right. walks in the world of law and feels a little thrill (just quietly) whenever sentencing someone he knows is guilty. listens well, and always decorates tastefully. eats in tiny bites. likes to cook by weighing things. actually just likes to weigh things. he has a long love-hate relationship of digital scales - so accurate but so unbeautiful. a digital scale takes the uncertainty out. it knows how much a feather heart would be. it is unlike the scales of his hands, the sensation of good/guilty. the word “fair but harsh” follows at his feet. he likes wreaths, the arrangement of something dying. his guilty pleasure is crime tv, although neph won’t watch it with him any more because he can’t help but say things like “in reality, that wouldn’t be sufficient evidence” or “98% of murders go unsolved” or “i can tell by his eyes that he’s guilty”. hathor - twin to destruction - runs a couple’s spa. loves weddings and planning weddings and being at weddings and dancing at weddings. has an elaborate ballroom for elaborate parties where elaborate people go. of course situated on 500 acres of farmland with free-range cows. if you’re really nice to her and she’s really drunk, she’ll let you ride one. always knows what kind of bottle to bring to a party, loves long dresses that flow around her. knows instinctively if you need a hug and is always good for one. once dressed up as sekmet for halloween, to which everyone said “too soon.” has long hair and really bad at palm reading but loves giving advice about your love line. known for massages that are brutal but effective: a little hint of harshness, her twin’s reflection. cries at proposal videos and has a girl’s night every month where they all get together to watch chick flicks. most of them love it, sekmet pretends to hate it just because she likes to complain loudly. sekmet. poor lady. the problem with identical twins is that everyone thinks they’re one and the same person. hathor sprang from a mirror on the day that sekmet looked into her own destruction and split the love she has in her heart with the evil she had wrought. it was lonely, at the end of the world, and her sister came from that loneliness. wears a different pair of glasses every day of the week, always has a biting reply that is unfairly funny. loves glasses that have absurd rims, mostly because she likes watching people squirm when they want to mention them - “do you like them?” she grins, knowing they do not, knowing they will not tell her that, her eyes the unblinking sun glare she’s so good at. she hides in the shadows, doesn’t smile unless you’re uncomfortable, still agrees to get her nails done with hathor every week (coffin-shaped acrylics, obviously). absolutely knows your deepest insecurity instinctively. best friends (and maybe more than friends) with bast. they go motorcycling. bast, made kitten-woman from lion-heart, often gets underestimated, and she’s okay with that. a cat knows when to sheathe claws. how to purr in the right way only to save the fangs for a later day. loves winged eyeliner. buys low, sells high. also runs an all-inclusive women’s shelter and very good at group therapy. the group homes for “lost girls” sprawl across the country. she seems like she’s always there, ready. the minute things get tense and a girl starts acting up: suddenly, her green eyes, watching. that unnerving promise that the protection she offers does not include protection from the growl at the back of her throat. loves stock markets mostly because it’s watching a string, but with data. will also never admit that out loud for any reason ever even if it meant her life was forfeit. kind of has a thing for sekmet, kind of, because, like, who couldn’t. maybe it’s kind of happened a few times oops. often pranks ra, because, like, who wouldn’t. ra works on weekends in animal rehabilitation because where else can you get a hawk in this economy. tired, but good with a smile. teacher at a very fancy art school where he likes to see how many times the words “be creative” can be used in a day. really into that one “miley what’s good” moment from nicki minaj, which he still references even though it’s been a year. tagged it @aset. actually has learned how to get along with osiris, because being in charge honestly got to be too much stress. has convinced hathor his real name is greg. every year he changes it up to something more absurd. last year it was bob. when she gets drunk at the end of the year with sekmet, she always begs him to tell her the truth. he says “okay, okay, okay.” then convinces her it’s Microsoft Word. also owns a large collection of “#1 Dad” mugs. regularly challenges horus to arcade games. horus works in the department of defense. tries to actually defend things, works with the “eye in the sky” and media intake. really likes how cool his eyepatch makes him look. time in this world is so specific, and there’s so much to take in while his eye is wandering. it used to be a lot harder to watch over things. he secretly cries at the movies where the son says “no mom, i’m living your dreams!” but still gets coffee with aset. aset keeps her hair in a bun and her chin up. nobody tries her. on trains, there’s a big circle of space around her, even at rush hour. she bleeds authority. mogul at large, although her interests vary. whatever will bring her upwards, quickly. marriage counselling is quite fun, but she’s thinking about being a divorce lawyer soon. and yet, despite all this fire in her: sweet. knows when to make cookies. she did what she had to do to survive. if you’re loved by her, you’re safe. she doesn’t love often, but when she does, it expands to swell the entirety of space. has a collection of sand dollars and lipsticks. excellent at making someone feel a little less alone. she won’t comfort you with a hug. she’ll show up and be there and somehow, in that knifeblade power she wields, you feel better. whole. set is at the edges. turns out the problem with immortality is that everyone remembers that one time you cain-and-abel’ed your brother. “it’s like,” horus said once while drunk, “can i even trust you anymore?” it hurt worse than set expected. family didn’t matter that much until he was left without it. works in dentistry where he can put people in pain for a fee. secretly covets the color pink; that softer blush than the reds people paint him in. protector of the wild ones, the ones no one else will look after. the darker souls who are still asking for saving. he understands sibling jealousy a lot. sometimes calms people down, sometimes revs them up. cries in bathtubs. feels himself, full of rot. why is it that the gods were made so human, and he, so cruel, so twisted, so evil. to spit at him is good, after all. he breaks like a branch in a storm. goes to pride parades in a mask, wishing for a courage he doesn’t know the name of. he calls toth just to hear him breathe, and then immediately hangs up. and toth? in the land where words are so permanent and impermanent, where wisdom is both a click away and away from those who doesn’t want to see it - doesn’t he suffer the greatest. it was one thing when libraries weren’t a thing. it was another when the world is now a constant updating stream. he feels the echo chambers like bracelets on him. now there’s information everywhere - but nobody willing to actually read. how terrible, how frustrating. and yet: for every person who doesn’t understand “don’t believe everything you read”, there’s another book being quietly self-published that strikes his interest, his longing. in this life, when he can, he turns the computer off and goes for a walk. when he writes come, the gods come. and they talk.

modern (kemetic) gods.

this piece was written for me by the lovely @inkskinned. Thank you so much Raquel!!

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