#It's more about how the nature of these media is so starkly different than anything else really

[tsukiyo-7]

Ao3 is a weird place because what do you mean the person who wrote one the most beautiful introspective pieces (about Suzaku Kururugi ndr) I've ever read has also written 67 fanfictions about Sonic The Hedgehog (in which he and Shadow fuck, if you were wondering).

[rockwgooglyeyes]

I babbled about it in the server earlier today but I might as well post something and attempt(?) to make it a little more articulate.

@bluemoonscape said that Till's cover of All-In is much more angsty than Hyuna's, and I'll admit, I went into listening with that in mind but it did prove to be true. Nonetheless, with the two of them being narrative foils, they are incredibly similar but set apart by certain fundamental differences and I think that might be shown pretty starkly in this cover. Of course, that's not necessarily true- Mizi and Ivan are foils and yet their covers only juxtaposed the circumstances of their love, both tragic in their own way, an effort in futility, ultimately pointless (as one of them was always going to die and Ivan believed wholeheartedly that Till would never love him).

To simplify it, Till's is far more anguished than Hyuna's, which is meant to be a celebration, something triumphant.

In and of itself, it feels like Till's version is more about ALNST than it is about anything else. "There's no point in fighting back, this is the march of the fools, endless cheers and applause" is reminiscent of their walk to the stadium at the very beginning, where Till flipped off the media. Not only that but the fact that now, Till is the only one left alive (that he knows of) they would truly be a march of the fools, cheered on as they walked into the gaping maw of death (some knowingly, some not). With Till's self deprecating nature and bravado, it doesn't feel too presumptuous to say that he is including himself in that "fools" because, despite how much he is going to fight to win, he may still believe that he's going to lose his round against Luka. After all, that's been the seygein's plan all along.

"Change the game with a single action, trust me and I'll show you" could be reframed to be about Till's round 2 where he smashes Freddie and barely gives Acorn a chance to sing or it could be about Ivan's sacrifice, in equal turn. "We only get one life so I'm living mine for me" is Till's resistance against oppression, his disobedience that ends with him locked up in a change but he still keeps doing it because he doesn't have any other option, not really. also the "I'll create a fantasy in this crazy world" very much feels like an echo of the fact that Till's rebellion becomes his persona as much as it is truly coming from the heart. He's creating a fantasy of the fight, of the resistance, and people like that- they like his anger, his fire, his fight, I mean, they wouldn't put it in the advertising otherwise, right?

Basically, almost all of the peppy, cheerful "hurrahs" in Hyuna's version of All-In, with Till seem self-deprecating or bitter/aggrieved. He is trying to prove a point, that he won't stop fighting, that despite the odds he'll stand up there on that stage and go all-in (but internally, he still believes that this is reckless, that this won't work, that there's no point).

[shihalyfie]

Comparing the original Best Partner character song series and the new one, and what that says about the 02 cast

So if you haven’t heard yet, a new series of 02 (it’s actually Kizuna) character songs dropped! Allegedly intended as a slightly delayed 20th anniversary project, the series is a callback to the original “Best Partner” character song album series that released during 02��s actual airing.

If you know anything about the original Best Partner series, it’s one that sets an insanely high bar, even for Digimon standards (and that’s saying something, given the deep associations this franchise has with music). The series of character songs before it, Adventure’s “Character Song + Mini Drama” series, has a…kind of questionable amount of relevance to each character; it’s not like they’re super amazingly out of character, but they don’t really tell you a lot about each character beyond some gloss details (this is probably best demonstrated in how Mimi’s song is blatantly just an AiM single disguised as a Mimi song). Best Partner, on the other hand, very intimately goes into each character’s head and their relationships with their respective partners, even putting in direct words what wasn’t stated explicitly in the series.

So does the new series live up to the high bar its predecessor sets? Answer: on top of some abnormal attention to detail on the covers, it is very obvious that the new series not only has a lot of the depth of the 02 characters in mind, but also is made in direct response to the original series itself. Moreover, putting the original Best Partner series and this one side by side reveals a lot about each of the 02 characters and what they got out of 02′s story, in a surprisingly neat summary.

Let’s go into how!

Since this is something that has a deep relationship with all of these characters in regards to the series, this particular meta would not have been possible without input from multiple people who know these characters better than I could ever hope to by myself. Thank you for all of your help.

A bit of historical context

The original Best Partner series consisted of a set of albums, one representing each pair of partners in 02. Notably, even though nowadays there’s a specific order of the Adventure/02 characters that’s used in modern media, not only does the original series not follow that ordering (as it hadn’t been set in stone at the time), it also leads with the original Adventure characters and not the 02 ones, which is pretty unusual for a series that’s ostensibly supposed to be for 02 (modern lineups will usually favor leading with whichever group the relevant product is branded with).

A lot of this probably makes more sense when you realize that the original Best Partner series was released during the first half of 02’s airing. The final album was released on August 23, 2000, four days before the fateful 02 episode 21 (yes, that means the third track on Ken and Wormmon’s album is actually a spoiler). So in other words, while the original Best Partner series accurately reflects the older Adventure group’s character development and what problems they were able to sufficiently overcome, the 02 group does not have anything about their character development from 02′s second half reflected in it at all.

That’s actually a really huge disparity, when you think about it, especially because a lot happened with the 02 group in that second half – that second half was where the emotional payoff and the results of everything that had been building up over that first half came together. So in comparison to the Adventure group, composed of people confidently talking about what they’ve decided for themselves from now on, you still have the 02 group drenched pretty deeply in insecurity. Watch 02 to the end and listen to those songs again, and you might even think “wait, this is supposed to represent these characters?” So, in essence, the new Best Partner series serves to address that gap, and what the 02 group gained and learned out of 02′s second half.

Best Partner (and its successor series for Tamers, Best Tamers) follows a uniform format: a solo song for the human partner, a solo song for the Digimon partner, and a duet between the two. (Given that, the original Best Partner series was really huge, at a whole 36 songs.) Recalling that, in the Adventure universe, a Digimon partner reflects the human’s inner self and psyche, it’s pretty extensive coverage: what the human has to say about themself, what place their Digimon partner is in relative to that, and what the nature of their relationship is due to that.

Let’s go into each pair of partners in detail!

Daisuke and V-mon

For those who love 02 and love Daisuke in particular, when you ask “what kind of character is Daisuke like?” or “what’s Daisuke’s best quality?”, you’re probably going to get answers like “forward-thinking” or “positive” or “good at uplifting others” – basically everything to do with how Daisuke is an encouraging presence who doesn’t give in easily and has a strong mentality of moving forward in the face of despair. Someone who appreciates and understands others’ best qualities, and loves them for everything they are. So when you look at his original Best Partner solo song, Goggle Boy…

But more than just saving the world I really don’t want to lose, you know

…Uh…

These goggles are my proof Given by a certain someone to me The precious thing he handed over It’s just like his Crest, you know Aren’t they cool?

…Well, that’s nowhere to be found.

This is the kind of song that might make you think “wait, this is supposed to be Daisuke’s representative song?!” (It’s possibly because of this that Daisuke’s song from The Bridge to Dreams, Tomorrow, generally tended to be far more favored among Daisuke fans, although it’s more relevant to 02 as a whole than it is to Daisuke in particular.) if you listen to Goggle Boy knowing about what Daisuke’s best qualities should be, this is almost a little frustrating, because this is the kind of thing he really shouldn’t be pigeonholed as – basically, begging for others’ approval and praise and focusing on idolizing others. Even his most insightful moments in this song come from his appreciation of something that came from someone else (Taichi), not from himself.

Well, the thing is, that was Daisuke’s character for most of the first half of 02. Of course, even in early episodes, there were many times where Daisuke’s potential for positivity and forward-thinkingness were starting to poke through, but most of the time he was rolling over trying to please others and chasing after his seniors. The real period of time he started to grow into his own about this was 02 episode 24 and its aftermath – when his time spent with his friends started to fill the void in his life and his need for validation, and the escalating situation, especially with Ken, led him to have a proper grasp of what was properly important and what needed to be done.

So when we get to his new solo, RUNNING MAN…

I’ll keep on running far ahead Let’s bring everyone along with me, today, too Really, always, thank you, Thank you so much Riding the wind, going past the sky Grasping your hands and flying I’m even starting to see beyond my dreams

Even in only one section, you can get an instant image of the Motomiya Daisuke we all know and love – someone who appreciates his friends’ role in his life, loves their company, and moves positively towards the future. Because, again, after the events of 02, and after being able to bond further with his friends and gaining his own strengths in leading everyone forward, he became able to more properly express his love for everything instead of constantly vying for others’ attention. Even the title reflects the change, from a “boy” who’s flashing the symbol of courage he got from someone else, to a “man” who’s positively running forward on his own merits.

(Interestingly, RUNNING MAN is composed by Ohta Michihiko, a legendary composer who’s made many of some of the most important songs in the franchise, and also composed many of the original Best Partner songs, including Goggle Boy. It’s interesting how RUNNING MAN is the one most like the original songs in atmosphere as a result – possibly representing how Daisuke is a simple-minded person who ostensibly doesn’t change drastically in disposition – yet has lyrical content that’s so starkly different.)

As a result, this is subtly reflected in the other two songs in each album as well – remember that V-mon is one of the partners who most “matches” his own partner in terms of disposition and mentality. So as Daisuke shifted his own priorities, V-mon did too; we go from Go Ahead! being about taking a stand and fighting, whereas Beyond the Future is about a similar forward-thinking mentality to Daisuke’s.

Likewise, the duets have different priorities as well; 2-TOP was composed of Daisuke and V-mon bickering for the most of it, and the most substantial point you could get about it was that despite their bickering, they made it work, whereas HEY-rasshai! has them almost entirely in sync (with one minor moment of deviance). It’s also interesting to see the topics covered in each; 2-TOP is about soccer, which ultimately is revealed to be a fairly incidental hobby for Daisuke, whereas HEY-rasshai! is about ramen making, which, while comical, also has a very strong tie to “Daisuke’s dream for the future, and his willingness to single-mindedly dedicate himself to something when it’s something he truly wants”. In other words, while Daisuke knew what he wanted since elementary school, it says a lot that he’s at a point where he and V-mon are now taking proactive steps to have that dream achieved, now that they’re able.

Ken and Wormmon

Like with his position in 02 itself, Ken’s is probably the easiest to see the contrast without trying too hard, but there’s still quite a lot to unpack!

When you think about it, in the modern era, it’s actually surprisingly hard to find stuff too relevant to Ken’s time as the Kaiser. The reason is, simply, that the series itself discourages this – Ken himself had an obvious aversion to dwelling too much on it, and the entire series itself has a strong theme of “moving on”. It’s not to say that the Kaiser doesn’t have a fanbase (I’m sorry if you’re reading this and find that I might be implying too hard that you don’t exist), but rather that there’s a franchise and fanart tendency to focus more on “Ken-chan” than “the Kaiser” these days, and old merch from the first half of the series will all too often get responses of “it’s really sad Ken-chan can’t be there…” Of course, 02 itself was also about accepting one’s mistakes, not pretending they never happened, so it’d be foolhardy to deny Ken’s dark history entirely, but it’s retroactively interesting to see such a prominent and persistent piece of merch like Ken and Wormmon’s original Best Partner album focus so largely on Ken’s time as the Kaiser when most of the franchise ended up trying to move on.

Starting with Ken’s solo songs, and his first one, ONLY ONE:

I’ve lived without showing my true feelings, wearing this mask

Well, this was easy to tell from the series itself, but the point driven home is that Ken didn’t want to expose his true self to others, putting on a front of “strength” and smashing his true feelings into the corner so that he could become more of the “perfect” person he thought he was supposed to be. There’s also another interesting line that one should pay attention to:

I polished the knife in my heart and put my belief in infinite power

Basically, putting up a defensive front to prevent anything from approaching his weaknesses.

Anyway, moving onto his new song, Never Ending:

If I want to be proud of tomorrow’s version of myself I wonder, what can I do? Never Give-up I’ll keep fighting, even doing someone else’s part No, I won’t be afraid anymore

First of all, the main theme of the song is about putting conscious thought into understanding how to stay true to himself – basically, understanding what it is he really wants to do and become, instead of putting on fronts and hiding it from others. Not only that, we see traces of what exactly he gained over the course of the second half of 02 – because so much of it involved constantly trying to blame himself for everything, this song is about what he came to learn in terms of proactively making it up and actively fighting forward. He’s working hard!

We also have this part:

The knife that’s pointed at someone, or at myself If it’s been let go of

Two things going on here: firstly, we have an explicit reference to the metaphorical “knife” Ken referred to putting up in ONLY ONE, talking about finally letting it go instead of bothering with this kind of front. He also points out that, in a sense, the knife was pointed at himself too, either in the sense of actually having hurt himself through this entire ideal, or in the sense that he constantly was trying to blame and punish himself for everything. None of that should be necessary anymore. Moreover, Never Ending contains a lot of references to “daily life” and the happiness that comes with the simplicity of just being alive – because that was indeed what Ken gained through his experiences, the ability to treasure living life in itself instead of aspiring to an impossible standard.

Another interesting thing about Never Ending is that it’s technically in a similar rock genre to ONLY ONE instead of being “soft”, like Ken’s personality is often thought to be. This was a surprise to a lot of people who commented on how surprisingly “cool” the song was, but this is actually completely in line with Ken arguably being one of the most openly assertive people in this group even after his reformation. Note that it’s very difficult to call this song purely angsty – it’s definitely positive and forward-thinking, and the chorus itself is partially in major key – but it has the vibe of someone who’s fully aware of everything that’s happened, is putting proper thought into it, and is pushing on despite everything. Remember, the intensity the Kaiser had originally came from somewhere; Ichijouji Ken is the same person, in the end.

In regards to Wormmon’s song, the contrast is also obvious: The Future You Dreamed of, the Future I Dreamed Of. is of course about Wormmon’s tormented feelings during the Kaiser’s abusive relationship with him, whereas can change it! is about its aftermath and how they made up (including copious references to the events of 02 episode 23). Even then, there’s a certain “forward-thinking” attitude that marks this song as being representative of being after 02’s events and not during – see the line “The mistake we made that day/is exactly the reason we’ll never let it happen again”, instead of the self-punishment and shame Stingmon expressed in 02 episode 26).

On top of that, the duet song Forever Adolescence also marks a subtle progression from the point they were at from True Strength – remembering that Best Partner 12 was released at a time when True Strength was actually a bit of a spoiler, while Ken and Wormmon obviously had made up by that point, the key line in it is still “everything truly begins from here”. So what, exactly, happened after that? According to Forever Adolescence, the decision made was to keep moving forward, and, moreover, to stay “the way they are”, especially with the nuance that it means it’s okay to not force oneself into the role of an adult and stay “young at heart”. This is really, really important in light of the events of Kizuna, the 02 group’s unusual role in it and its relevance to 02′s themes (more on this below), and how Spring 2003 referred to the pressure placed on Osamu as him being “forced to grow up too quickly” – in essence, Ken and Wormmon have firmly resolved to actively move away from that kind of pressure.

Miyako and Hawkmon

I’ve pointed out several times on this blog that the actual complex Miyako was going through in 02 was that she hated herself more than anyone else in the group would be willing to criticize her – and if you don’t believe me, it’s put in a pretty heavy-handed manner in her original song, Crash and Bingo!:

Fussing about it won’t get anything done But my selfishness and problems and panic keep coming out

…and even more viciously in her own and Hawkmon’s duet, Fly High:

I can’t do anything right, besides playing around with computers

or

Everyone would be still be fine if I weren’t there

If you thought it was subtle in the main series, it certainly isn’t here: Miyako considered herself good for absolutely nothing and unable to be accepted by others for being too useless – in these songs, despite Hawkmon’s attempts to uplift her, she criticizes her own messy tendencies and considers herself a burden. Best Partner is a positive series, so it still has the attitude of “we’ll try anyway”, but it’s clear that Miyako really didn’t have the highest opinion of herself at all. Hence, Fly High also shows off the worst of Hawkmon having to deal with the fallout – with Miyako flailing around in panic and considering herself good for nothing, he’s forced to carry her around.

But come Miyako’s new solo, From Spain with Love!, we see a huge contrast all over the place:

I, who have evolved into an adult make everyone do a double-take at me when I walk by!

Exhibit A: actual confidence in herself and ability to consider herself worth something;

If I can always, always be honest with myself Even if I don’t put together some program, even if I keep screwing up Ah, you understand me

Exhibit B: understanding that she’s worth something to others besides her utility abilities, and knowing that she has friends who’ll support her despite her flaws (which is very true);

When things are feeling hard, the first thing you should do is call me, okay? I’ll take the wings of love and purity, spread them, and get there as fast as I can Ah, I’ll open up any gate I need to

Exhibit C: indulging in her capacity for helping and supporting others;

Al mal tiempo, buena cara We laugh exactly when things are hard

Exhibit D: understanding the strength to get through hard times, instead of emotionally crumbling under the pressure.

Yep, that’s exactly what her character arc in 02 was about; 02 episode 31 was a huge turning point for her because, in the depths of her berating herself for her messiness and expecting Hikari to be secretly judging her the whole time, Hikari revealed that she was outright jealous of Miyako being able to speak her mind, and Miyako shortly after ended up showing her true capacity for reaching others who needed her help and supporting them, a role she ended up growing into for the rest of the series. Note that, other than the casual remark of confidence at the beginning, Miyako hasn’t necessarily become arrogant or anything – it’s just that, by focusing her energies into how much she loves everyone and turning her “nosiness” and “sticking herself into others’ business” tendencies into positive energy to help everyone, she gained more confidence in her ability to be loved and accepted by others.

This is reflected as well in her new duet with Hawkmon, where, instead of Hawkmon dragging her around everywhere, their differences and mismatched personalities are outright celebrated, and while Miyako still has awareness of her messy tendencies, she’s no longer letting it emotionally rip her apart and has confidence that Hawkmon can be by her side to help her through it. Perhaps reflecting that, Hawkmon himself goes from the over-the-top, dramatic, high-strung Knight of Love to the more calm and straightforward Gentle Tornado, perhaps because his own partner isn’t constantly bouncing off the walls recklessly nearly as much anymore.

Incidentally, it’s not like all of this is without nuance, either; even if Miyako’s become more of a confident person, she’s not all put-together. Considering that the entire song has her gushing about how she’d be willing to drop anything to go see her friends (which was pushed forward in Kizuna itself, what with her willingly taking the same request she’d refused to do earlier just because her friends were involved, and even inventing D-3 gate exploitation just to go see them), when you get to the end, and her gushing about her fun in Spain suddenly derails into reminiscing about the events of 02 episode 42, the implication is clear: for as much as she wants to be wholeheartedly enjoying this fun trip abroad for what it is, she can’t help but let her thoughts float back to memories and friends she cares about, and her bonus conversation with Hawkmon drives it in further that, ultimately, she dearly misses them too much.

Iori and Armadimon

Iori also went through some drastic changes in character over the course of 02, so when you look at My Conclusion, it’s basically Iori at his “worst” point of black-and-white morality:

Everyone, I will be speaking my conclusion Evil will not be tolerated Even evil in itself will be defeated by justice That will always be a certainty in the end

I mean, let’s even consider the fact that the song is called “My Conclusion” in the first place. Iori’s slamming this all down like this is the end-all of everything, and you can’t change his mind! He does briefly admit that there are certain things reason itself won’t change, but it’s more like he’s on the verge of having an out, because in the end, really…

Everyone, I will be speaking my conclusion Our enemies are beyond reason Again and again, to the very end They will certainly use cowardly means to come and attack us

Rationality. No feelings involved. Evil is evil, and justice is justice. No takebacks. Life exists by rules, and nothing else.

Message to the Future is possibly one of the most interesting songs in the original Best Partner collection, because it does actually provide hints about where Iori should be going in the future, and also has a lot of things that retroactively hit a lot harder from the meta perspective. The song fully fleshes out Iori’s feelings and concerns about how to grow up into a proper adult (which was hinted to be his real motivation as to why he was so strict with himself in 02), and that, most of all, what he wants is for his “feelings” to never change no matter what happens. Iori expresses concerns about how he might change as an adult to Armadimon, and Armadimon assures him that he’ll still be “Iori”, no matter what.

So, come the new character song collection, Iori’s new solo song is aptly titled “Things That Won’t Change” – because, in the end, despite everything that changed, his feelings did not. He says it himself: the important parts that he really wanted, the desire to do the right thing and to protect others, never changed a bit at all since “back then”. What did change, however, was his way of going about it.

Rather than what someone else has decided I’ve chosen my own future now

and again:

Rather than imitating someone else This is to shout out my own future

The emphasis on this being Iori’s own choice is important because Iori has finally decided not to live by strict rules imposed on him nor by imitating others (remember, part of the reason he kept doing what he did back in 02 was because he had such a strong belief “my father would have done this”). Others had been encouraging him to “make his own decisions” from the get-go – even Hida Chikara himself had told him that he was the one who needed to decide what to do in any moment in 02 episode 5 – and after dealing with a violation of his own morals in having to kill a Digimon in 02 episode 44, one episode later, in discussing with Takeru, Iori has to come to terms with the decision to continue fighting because “this is what I have decided myself”, because it’s not about whether he has an obligation to keep fighting for the sake of justice, but because he, himself, wants to protect others, and will do what it takes to do so. There’s no more of these strict rules of “because it must be this way” or the black-and-white morality that caused him to be so initially hostile towards Ken and Oikawa, but an understanding that these things need to be decided from the heart.

Moreover, unlike My Conclusion, Things That Won’t Change isn’t written like Iori’s turning in some school essay, but rather, more than half the song is in casual-form Japanese (which was associated with Iori when he became more emotional and wasn’t keeping himself in check anymore), and is more of a thoughtful reflection of his own feelings rather than trying to pass itself off as following rules because he must.

Thus, while the duet Choo Choo Tryin’ isn’t as heavy-handed as Message to the Future, Iori and Armadimon acknowledge that they need to be forward-thinking and keep going (generally tied to the message of 02 in itself), and Iori outright discusses the potential pitfalls of becoming too stiff. Furthermore, the song has copious rap portions, which seems rather unfitting for Iori on its face – until you realize that not only was Iori sometimes willing to indulge in more fun even back during 02 (just because he was strict with himself didn’t mean he was a complete killjoy), Iori’s also just a lot more flexible-minded in general, and has a penchant for wanting to do things right when he’s given a task. (His delivery of the rap in the song isn’t monotonous nor overly emotional, but has the nuance of someone who’s trying to recite all of it with caution.)

The part that’s particularly striking from the meta perspective is that Iori and Armadimon are no longer voiced by the same voice actress; Message to the Future was essentially Urawa Megumi talking to herself. So now, Iori has a new voice actor, and in many ways has become very different from Armadimon – but because Armadimon sounds a little like Iori, you could say he’s helping preserve the childish side of Iori that’s more important than ever to hold onto, especially since Iori himself worried about changing too much. And so, Iori’s still willing to indulge in a sort of “fun” song like this, and in the end, despite everything, you understand that they haven’t drifted apart at all in the slightest.

That’s not to say that Armadimon himself hasn’t changed either – in fact, he’s changed himself in response to how much Iori has. His original solo song had a lot of easygoingness to it, and some constant reminders for Iori to please, please chill – but his new one has a much stronger sense of resolve and forward-thinking attitude, reflecting that, while Iori himself technically had to learn to embrace more emotional uncertainty through the events of 02, it was also able to give him much stronger resolve that this was something he was doing because he was emotionally prepared for it, not out of some sense of moral obligation.

Takeru and Patamon

I’ve already covered Takeru’s original Best Partner song Focus and how it’s probably not about shipping as much as the fanbase tends to pin it as, but in any case, the operative part is here:

Before I knew it, I was watching over you Still standing at a skewed angle from behind The focus of your heart I wonder, is it on me, or… No, I can’t ask

Takeru couldn’t bring himself to ask sensitive questions or be straightforward about his emotions – which is basically what was Takeru’s lingering problem over Adventure and 02, that he kept swerving around or even lying about sensitive topics and holding everything inside, until one of his triggers was hit and everything exploded. Therefore, even when an important question about someone else comes up, he “can’t ask”. Moreover, for all Takeru is known as a lighthearted and kind person, Focus is a really turbulent song with a really harsh arrangement, and it’s a pretty accurate view of all the complicated and sometimes even negative emotions that Takeru was (badly) coping with over the course of 02.

This was the whole issue with Takeru and Iori’s Jogress arc in 02 episodes 34-36 – that Iori felt he couldn’t understand nor communicate well with Takeru, and had to eventually take matters into his own hands in order to properly understand his feelings. Takeru’s further interactions with Iori were significantly more straightforward for the rest of the series, and the experience also led to Takeru being able to more openly communicate with Ken as well, since the two had been on awkward speaking terms for most of the third quarter of the series.

So when we get to Step High Step…

You lament, you don’t have confidence in yourself I’m saying this to you as I’ve been watching you You’re amazing at all times

The song features Takeru being fairly straightforward about his feelings and opinions instead of just dodging it and going for an “everything’s okay” keeping-the-peace attitude, and not only that, he’s commenting on someone else, something that he probably would have refrained from in 02 for being intrusive. Of course, Takeru was always a nice person, but he wasn’t exactly straightforward about being nice back then – and yet here we are.

Since Focus is probably about his relationship with Patamon and how he kind of wasn’t exactly straightforward about his worries with him either (see 02 episode 34), it’s also interesting to compare Takeru and Patamon’s duet songs as well. Steppin’ out does portray a progression from Adventure in that they’ve accepted they can “do things over” again after things crash down (presumably referring to Angemon’s death and rebirth), but you’ll notice there isn’t much in the way of actual communciation between the two – something that’s not only present in Le Lien, but also portrays them as outright in-sync to the point of “telepathy”. We’re talking about a pair where the fanbase has historically had doubts about how similar they were back in 02 because of how “mismatched” they seemed!

Which, incidentally, they weren’t actually – you can see Patamon pretending he’s not about to cry in his original Best Partner song Don’t Stop Pata-Pata, much like how Takeru would cover up his own emotions, and gritting his teeth and resolving to fight harder. Meanwhile, while Ring of Smiles ostensibly continues to have Patamon be “sweet and cute”, it contains a lot of important nuances of “appreciating daily life with friends”, even if Patamon himself can’t quite find words for it – in other words, it’s actually some rather insightful and thoughtful sentiments from Patamon about the importance of being with and connecting with others, mirroring what Takeru himself learned in connecting with the others around him, especially Iori.

Hikari and Tailmon

Remember, Hikari has two lines (one in Adventure and one in 02) that basically summarize the main “issue” she was dealing with in both series: she was selfless to unhealthy levels, and would prioritize others’ welfare over herself to the point of self-destruction. So in her original solo Best Partner song, Gentle Rain, she puts it pretty explicitly:

I want to always be wearing nothing but smiles But I can’t be cheerful all of the time

or:

So that I can become a greater version of myself Please give me strength

All things considered, Gentle Rain is full of Hikari’s own insecurities, and her belief that she doesn’t have enough strength to do anything for herself. She makes references to being pulled to the Dark Ocean, mainly because – as she says – she doesn’t want to go there, but she doesn’t have enough strength or willpower to resist it. In fact, Best Partner 11 is full of a lot of angst; Gentle Rain is Hikari angsting about her own weakness and inability to do much for herself, Getting up is Tailmon angsting about her painful past and everything to do with it, and Shining Star is basically a plea for both of them to be able to do anything despite all the pain. It’s all pretty severely heavy content, despite the initial sparkly-looking sentiment of it all.

Considering the circumstances, it’s not really all that surprising. Hikari spent her time in Adventure and the first half of 02 very “emotionally isolated” from the others, to the point very few people could understand what she was thinking, and while she’d never hesitate to put herself out for other people, anything to do with herself, like getting pulled to the Dark Ocean, would result in resignation “it’s over” and “I can’t do anything about it”. Tailmon came from the background of being effectively raised by the abusive Vamdemon, so 02 was really only part of the earliest portion of her moving on with her life and being able to spend happier moments with Hikari. But, of course, the real turning point was 02 episode 31, when Miyako finally managed to break through to her and convince her to not accept the inevitability of things happening to herself, to accept help with the support of others, and to not take things happening to her as a sign she’s doomed.

So when we reach Hikari’s new solo song, Tomorrow’s Blue…

I want to chase after my dreams and hopes, it’s fine even if they’re incomplete I won’t lose, I won’t stop, I’ll do this to stay true to myself

The most striking thing about the song is that it features Hikari assertively talking about her own desires and feelings, when back in 02 she basically tried to kick them out of the picture for the sake of everyone else (and, really, even in Tailmon’s new solo song, Tender tale, she outright calls Hikari out for still prioritizing other people over herself). It’s not demeaning herself, it’s not resigning herself to anything, it may have a slight admission that she’s not super-confident about everything yet, but it’s still her looking forward and choosing to pursue what he wants. It’s a big deal!

And instead of the constant angst that permeated Best Partner 11, the new album is about Hikari and Tailmon talking about their feelings towards each other – something that neither of them really verbalized that well over either Adventure and 02 – and contextualizing their importance to each other over the course of their “story”. Hikari talks about Tailmon’s role of assertiveness in helping her break out of her shell, and Tailmon generally provides an extremely accurate description of Hikari in a nutshell – that she’s a bit mysterious, that she’s emotionally sensitive, that she’s cheerful and lifts others’ spirits. What’s more, Tailmon makes a reference to the same kind of “pain” and “losing things” she referred to in Getting up, but instead of angsting about it, she positively accepts it as something that may happen in the process of protecting others. (Oh, and it and the new duet A Tale of the Light also make reference to Hikari’s photography hobby in 02, contextualizing it as something Hikari did to chronicle their precious memories.)

So in summary, Hikari and Tailmon have both been able to accept 02′s philosophy of becoming forward-thinking, positive, and accepting the help of others in order to move forward. Not bad!

Conclusion and digression

Despite how these songs are almost polar opposite in portraying their before-and-after development of the 02 kids, nobody’s really argued that any of them are out of character! In the end, it’s a pretty succinct depiction of what these kids were dealing with and what they grew into by the end of the series. Seriously, I never, ever want to hear that these kids were underdeveloped nor that they didn’t go through any significant development over the course of 02 ever again. That’s just not true at all, and this simply happens to be one of the many illustrations of how.

Moreover, the songs themselves and the “conversations” that came with the new albums solidify firmly that the 02 group has extremely tight relations with their partners even at this time – with Daisuke actively consulting V-mon for help, Miyako, Takeru, and Hikari actively dragging their partners everywhere with them, Ken having Wormmon be his effective alarm clock, and Iori being so close with Armadimon that his Nagoya dialect is rubbing off on him. Daisuke, Miyako and Hikari have a huge point made that, regardless of the rather easygoing way they’re going at it, they’re very aware of what they want to do from this point out and are following it with gusto (and while it’s not stated in words, Iori carrying a huge textbook, presumably a law one, with note markers all over it drives the point home that this applies to him, too). It’s a really, really huge contrast to what was going on with the directionless Taichi, Yamato, and Sora effectively neglecting their own partners back in Kizuna – and further reinforces the reason the 02 group was in such an unusually favorable position during the movie.

[starkeristheendgame]

Hi! Are you still taking prompts? If yes, can you do a Starker one, where Tony is oblivious, and Peter doesn't know what to do, and ask for help to a close friend of Tony and they try to make him jealous by pretending to date and Tony is like of course he is with him he's everything i'm not and having a total breakdown and peter realize that they hurt tony instead and ask for forgivenes and end up together, pleasee? Thank you! If you aren't please just ignore this!

Against my better judgement, my prompts are never closed! Thank you so much for this super sweet/angsty prompt, Nonnie! I realised after finishing this that I never directly included Peter asking for forgiveness, but I hope this feeds you just the same! ❤

TW: Angst | Hurt/Comfort | Self-worth issues | Jealousy | Alcohol mention

SFW

Harley Keener is two years Peter’s senior and nicer than Peter could have ever imagined. When Tony had first started to talk about the ‘the first one he pseudo-adopted’ and how Harley had grown into more of a ‘mini me’ than he could’ve imagined, Peter had felt an uncomfortable twist in his gut. 

What if Harley was better than him?

What if Tony liked Harley more?

What if, with Harley around, Tony didn’t want Peter around anymore?

He needn’t have worried, though. Harley wasn’t as ‘outwardly’ nerdy as he was, but he was more than happy to gush over the latest Star Wars LEGO offerings, and Tony snarked them both in equal measure. It was surprisingly like having another Ned around, and it took less than a week for Peter to feel stupid for having worried about his place besides the two of them. 

Tony even joked that Harley was the ‘prototype’ and Peter was the ‘updated model’, to which Harley had just rolled his eyes, knocked Tony’s spanner off the table like a cat and gone straight back to talking to Peter about ComicCon.

They became fast friends, and Peter supposed that was somewhat why he tended to forget there was a second person in the lab with them here and there, starkly (heh) reminded of it when Harley flopped down next to him on the penthouse couch one evening and said; “so how long have you been in love with Tony?” 

He could have cried. The Avengers he was around almost every other day for the past two years brushed off his doting as a hero complex and ‘mentor crush’ and it had taken Harley Keener less than three weeks to call him out on its true nature. 

Naturally and mortifyingly it ended up with Peter sniffling against Harley’s shoulder, wailing about how Tony was out of his league, how every single possible thing that could was against them, and how worst of all; Tony wasn’t interested. 

“He’s interested,” Harley had shrugged, gingerly plucking a tissue from the box and holding it out to him. He’d been somewhat cryptic about the basis of his statement, but had enthusiastically proposed a manner of ways in which it could be proven. And Peter…

Peter agreed to one. 

He didn’t know why. He wasn’t exactly a glutton for punishment and he certainly didn’t get his kicks out of being humiliatingly, crushingly rejected, but...But Harley had said so make jealous. Tony always wants everything, and when he thinks he can’t have something he just tries harder to get it and Peter had inexplicably said yes. 

Unfortunately (or fortunately, Peter didn’t quite know which) the only real, viable option was...Harley himself. None of the other Avengers would work; since they were all taken, straight and/or highly unlikely to be receptive to fake-dating a teen half (or more) their age. 

Neither Ned or MJ had access to the Tower or could really be around any SHIELD, Stark or Avengers activity, and that left quite literally no-one else but Harley. 

“I mean, in a way, its perfect. I’m the grandmaster of the plan anyway, and you don’t have to wordy about hurting my feelings or me falling for you. We can collaborate flawlessly to get you some Grand-Daddy dick,” Harley hummed around the stick candy in his mouth, and Peter wasn’t quite sure what part of that sentence offended him the most. 

“Does literally nobody want me?” he pouted, bottom lip pushed out dramatically as he kicked Harley’s leg out of the way and picked up the PS5 controller. 

“Hey, chin up, munchkin. You’re prettier than half the girls I know. I’m just not wired that way.”

“You’re straight?”

“I’m not anything. It’s like asexuality and aromantic, but both,” Harley pulled a face, clearly trying to remember the term, then shrugged. “Ah, I can never remember it. Anyway, point is, I’m not interested in anyone. You’re a little cherub, for sure, but you’re cute like a cat, not suck-my-dick cute.”

And, well. Cute like a cat? He considered that a high compliment. 

Thus, Operation Get That Grand-Daddy Dick (Peter did not name it) was underway. They both agreed to keep it natural and subtle, since Tony walking in on them half-naked or all over each other was just likely to spook him off. They’d edge into it; hint that they were spending more time together, act a little cosier, maybe get caught holding hands after a week or two. 

In truth, it wasn’t all that different to how they had been before, except that Harley made his smiles even softer, a little more secretive and let his gaze linger when he was sure Tony would notice. They sat and stood closer together than before, and here and there Harley would press a lingering hand to his back or arm. 

They made sure when one or both left they secreted away just out of sight and took a little too long, standing close together by the elevator and making sure to hug ‘longingly’ (whatever that meant in context) should Tony happen to peek. 

And yet for all his smarts, Tony didn’t seem to particularly notice anything amiss until the first time that he spotted them ‘romantically hugging’. Harley was actually a very good hugger, and they stood in front of the elevator together, with Peter facing it and Harley facing the lab. Harley had his chin over Peter’s shoulder and his hands low and tight on his waist, holding him close. 

“Spotted,” Harley whispered quietly, and moments later Tony spoke up. 

“Well that looks cosy.”

Tony’s voice was carefully level, no betrayal of emotion as Peter shyly disentangled himself from Harley, taking a step away as though caught doing something he shouldn’t. He didn’t have to fake the heat in his cheeks when he glanced up at where Tony stood, arms folded, and he fumbled with the strap of his backpack, glancing across at Harley before he gave Tony a meek smile. 

“Um, I’ll-- I’ll see you Friday, Mr. Stark!” he chirped, shuffling around Harley and into the elevator. Tony was still staring at him as the doors began to close, and Harley turned, casting him a wink and a finger-waggling wave. Peter waved back sheepishly and the moment the doors were shut, he whipped out his phone. 

[To: Thing 1] Did he look mad? It looked like he looked mad. Omg. U gotta tell me anything he says :// [19:31]

Harley did in fact text him back two hours later, though there wasn’t much to report. Tony had made a few flippant remarks that could either be parental interest or slight jealousy, and had dropped the subject after a short while in order to focus on his latest project.

Peter slumped. There was snails who had a faster moving love life than he did. With a groan, he stuffed the last of his anxiety snacks in his mouth and flopped back against his pillow to discuss the next step with Harley. 

Social media was their next plan of attack. Tony followed Peter on Instagram and Twitter, and had his Snapchat even if the older man rarely used the platform, so they were going to up the pressure by hanging out outside of the lab (which they did anyway) and posting it to social media. 

It was too soon to cancel plans with Tony to hang out with Harley (and frankly, Peter didn’t want to anyway) so they simply both made themselves unavailable on certain other days, or hung out together without mentioning it to Tony beforehand. 

They got ice cream at the park, went to the art museum downtown, visited several different cultural/ethnic based stores and went to the arcade to kick ass at air hockey over the course of a few weeks, all while keeping up the poorly secretive touching and closeness at the lab. 

And he’d still have more luck getting blood from a stone.

Tony seemed...Either completely oblivious, or just completely unphased. Whilst Peter caught him watching them here and there with an unreadable expression, Tony never directly asked them or overtly commented on what was happening. There was the odd, “enjoy the park yesterday, kid?” or “saw your post the other day, you should try this place next,” but never anything along the lines of what Peter hoped for. 

Even Harley was starting to doubt his original statement that Tony was definitely interested. 

Especially when Tony was the one who started cancelling plans, telling them both to ‘go enjoy themselves’ and ‘live the lives of young people’. He didn’t do it all the time, but here and there they’d both receive a text telling them not to come today. The lingering looks got longer and more weighted, but even so, Tony made no move in either aspect. 

“I think I’m just gonna have to give it up,” Peter admitted to Harley one night over the phone, hanging upside down in his bedroom with the phone dangling on a web besides him. 

“Maybe he’s just not ready for anything right now?” Harley suggested on the other end, between the frantic sounds of tapping buttons. 

“Maybe-- Oh, hang on. I’ve got an inbound from JARVIS. It might be Avengers stuff,” Peter hummed, quickly twisting to tap on the screen to accept the incoming call from JARVIS. 

“Hey, J. What’s up?” He greeted the AI, blinking at the call screen. 

“Apologies for the disturbance, Mr. Parker, but protocol deems that when Mr. Stark is in distress I establish contact with someone on his emergency list in order to inform them.” The AI’s voice was as smooth and unhurried as ever, but Peter frowned at the screen. 

“Distress?”

“Yes, Mr. Parker. Sir’s heart-rate is elevated and he is displaying significant symptoms of sadness, including light drinking, darkened lighting and angered viewing of your social media.”

“Angered viewing of my social media?” Peter echoed, fear ratcheting up as he dropped from the ceiling and moved to tug on a pair of shoes. Fuck, had he let something sip? Was there something in the background of his photos? Had someone figured out who he was? He was hopping towards the door on one foot when JARVIS spoke again, and he had to hop back to pull his phone down from the web. 

“Why is he sad over that? Did I do something wrong?”

JARVIS was silent for a short while, as though the AI was debating on how best to respond. 

“I... Believe Sir may be feeling lonely. Or unworthy of company. There have been a multitude of such instances over the past several years,” JARVIS replied after a pause, as Peter locked the web shooters around his wrist and tugged the Spiderman mask over his head to avoid any cameras, crawling out of his window and leaping out into the brisk air. 

It didn’t take long to swing to the Tower, especially not when panic and concern had him pushing it, testing his muscles and leaving him slightly out of breath by the time he slipped onto the top landing console. 

JARVIS directed him through to the penthouse and up the set of 12 steps that lead to the ‘upper level’ of it, to an open doorway that revealed Tony Stark sprawled out on his bed, staring blankly at his phone with a neglected, half-open bottle of whiskey loose in one arm, like a newborn babe. 

“Mr. Stark?” he asked softly, and Tony’s gaze flit up to him, clearing immediately. His mentor cursed and jerked upright, almost sloshing the whole bottle over his bedding. 

“Shit! Kid! Wh’r you doin’ here?” Tony’s voice was just hinting on slurred, the same easiness and lack of concentration that came when you’d had a shot too many. Or five. Peter’s heart cinched as he stared at Tony gingerly putting the bottle on the bedside table, at the redness of his eyes and the messiness of his hair where he’d been running a hand through it, over and over. 

“JARVIS called me. He said you were sad,” Peter managed after a moment, hands wringing the mask between his fingers nervously. He’d never seen Tony like this, this...uncomposed. He looked haggard, tired and sad, and it made Peter feel empty and adrift, unsure of how to approach this new version of the man he loved. 

“Fucking snitch,” the older man grumbled half-heartedly, and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Shit. Don’t-- Ignore me, kid. Adults my age are entitled to a night like this once in a while. Go back home, I’m fine. Fuck, you didn’t leave Harley for this, did you?”

“Harley?” Peter parroted, brows furrowing as Tony waved a hand. 

“Go on, kid. Get. Make the most of being young and pretty with someone young and pretty.” Tony reached for the bottle again and Peter found himself striding across the room, placing himself in the way of Tony’s outstretched hand and the whiskey. Tony’s fingertips brushed his stomach and recoiled like he’d been burnt by the contact.

“Mr. Stark, do you think I don’t want to hang out with you anymore?” he asked after a moment, voice fragile. God, he’d hoped to maybe make Tony a little jealous, but nothing like this. He hadn’t wanted to hurt him. And he clearly had. There was nothing but rawness in Tony’s eyes when the older man looked up at him. 

“I’m not taking it personally,” his mentor attempted to joke, but it came out bitter and too flat to land lightly. Peter’s heart cinched in his chest and he shuffled to sit on the edge of the large bed, teeth on his lower lip as Tony turned away from his gaze. 

“Mr. Stark, I’ve never...I’ve never not wanted to hang out with you. Even if I have other friends, too,” he pointed out tentatively, and Tony scoffed lightly. 

“You’re too good for a world like this, shortstack. For someone like me. You should be trailing after someone like Captain Uptight,” Tony muttered lowly, and Peter scowled.

“You’re not less better than he is. Both of you are good people. Both of you make mistakes. Both of you save the world.”

Tony’s brows pinched, and he breathed out something that just barely sounded like then why aren’t I good enough?

Making an executive decision, Peter toed off his sneakers and crawled further up onto the bed, picking up Tony’s arm and settling down against his side, curling up under his arm and wrapping his own around Tony’s waist. 

He could feel Tony’s heart thumping wildly in his chest, could feel his breath hitch and the hesitant way that Tony let his arm settle over Peter, fingers curling in his hoodie. 

“You are,” he offered simply, squeezing gently. “This is my fault. I was acting like a dumb kid, and I thought... I should’ve known that it was just gonna end badly.”

“Is being my mini-me really that bad?” Tony choked out, and Peter pushed himself upright, alarmed. 

“What? No! Mr. Stark, being around you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t ever ever regret being around you! I just... I have to…” He trailed off for a moment, frustrated, then prayed to Harley for forgiveness and sucked in a deep breath. 

“I’m not actually dating Harley. At all. He doesn’t like people that way. Any people. We’re not boyfriends and I don’t want to stop spending time with you to spend time with him. I like spending time with you and you’re still my hero. Tony Stark or Iron Man,” he stated firmly. 

Tony looked at him for a moment, then looked away. 

“You should be with Harley, kid. Or someone like him. Not someone like me. Not someone with my history. I’m a shit person, kid. All this Iron Man stuff hasn’t even wiped half my scoreboard clean. Someone like Harley... He’s the better parts of me. Like you. He’s worth your love”.

Tony seemed almost startled at saying that word, twitching a little before he attempted to turn away from Peter again, gaze finding the far end of the room like he wished he was anywhere but here. 

Peter fidgeted, then sucked in a deep breath. “Please don’t hate me after this,” he fumbled out quickly, then rolled half on top of the older man, hands fisting in the front of his shirt as he leaned forwards. 

The kiss was awkward and clumsy and couldn’t have lasted for than two seconds before Tony pulled away, eyes wide and voice rough. 

“Kid, what-- You can’t--”

“If you say you’re not interested, I’ll respect that,” Peter interrupted. “Or if you say I’m too young or whatever. But if you say anything along the lines you of not being enough, or not being worthy, or-- or-- Or whatever it is you feel you aren’t... You’re wrong. The reason me and Harley were acting like that is because I was trying to make you jealous.”

“What-”

“And I know its dumb! I don’t it was childish and I never thought it would hurt you like this. But I’ve lo-- I’ve really liked you. For years. And I know you’re a lot older and we might never be able to be...To be...Normal. I guess. But I want whatever I can get with you, because you’re worth it,” Peter barrelled on, desperate to at least be heard before Tony kicked him out. Except when he trailed off Tony was just... Staring at him.

“It’s just... Hero worship. You still think I’m some magical superhero and you--”

“No offence, Mr. Stark, but you don’t know what I think. Not when it comes to you, clearly,” Peter cut in, cheeks heating at being so brash. Prior to this he wouldn’t have ever dreamed about being so direct and forceful against Tony. 

Well. Not in any PG-rated sense, anyway. 

“Just... We don’t have to talk about it now, okay?” eh offered, sliding off Tony just a little so he was back up against his side, wriggling around until he could grab the faux fur throw on the bottom of the bed, pulling it up over both of them. Tony remained quiet at his side, just watching as he got them both settled. 

“Just... I’m gonna stay, alright? Right here. With you. Because this is where I want to be, and its where I’m gonna stay until... Until you tell me to leave.” His lower lip threatened to wobble with mounting emotion as he lay his head on Tony’s chest, feeling the thick ridges of his scars beneath his shirt. 

A moment later, Tony’s hand settled lightly over his head, fingers sliding tentatively into his hair. 

“And if I never tell you to leave? If I’m selfish and never want to let you go?” the other man whispered. 

“Then I guess that makes us both selfish, because that would make me happy,” Peter mumbled into his chest, wrapping his arm tighter around Tony’s waist. The room went silent for a while, save for their breathing and Tony’s heart thumping beneath his ear. 

“Okay,” Tony rasped after a moment, and Peter smiled. 

“Okay, Hazel Grace.”

“...What?”

“Nevermind. You’re too old for that reference.”

“You’re a little shit.”

[dailyaudiobible]

02/17/2021 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 4:1-5:19, Mark 2:13-3:6, Psalms 36:1-12, Proverbs 10:1-2

Today is the 17th day of February welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you, hump day, as we move to the center of one of the 52 weeks that we have. I guess there’s 52 hump days, 52 centers of every week and here we are at another one crossing through the middle, heading into the back half. It's wonderful to be able to share some time together around this Global Campfire to just step in, step in and out of all the other stuff that's going on, and just take our place, relax, exhale, allow God's word to speak into our lives. And, so, let's continue the journey. We began the book of Leviticus yesterday. We will continue that journey today. Leviticus 4 and 5 and we’re reading from the Common English Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. Well…I got a great idea. Let's talk…let's talk about something we like to talk about. Let's talk about sin. Let's talk about sin, our probably favorite, one of our top favorite subjects to talk about, right? Sin. It’s like a confusing word. We know when we've done but it but it's unclear like exactly what the parameters are. So, let's begin by just trying to come to some sort of maybe common understanding about what we’re even talking about because there’s plenty of definitions for sin and…but…but it seems like from a biblical perspective sin is basically doing what we know we’re not supposed to do before God. And maybe even a better way of understanding that is simply asking ourselves, “could I have done that in the name of Jesus? Like, could I have done that representing the king and the kingdom?” And that makes it stark enough for us to go, “okay, now I know what we’re talkn’ about. Now I have some handholds here to understand what we’re talking about.” God has an order to things. We see it in the Scriptures, but we see it in the natural rhythms of life itself. And this perfect order, like if we were to say, “the way things were supposed to be” or “the way things that…the way things are supposed to be”, like perfectly in order according to the Lord's will, then that would be called shalom. So, in effect. Sin is willingly interrupting shalom, whether in our own lives or whether in the lives of others, but sin is destructive, it leads to destruction because it separates us from God. And, so, if we want to perpetually live separated from God, then we are talking about the worst possible scenario that could ever happen. So, it actually is a big deal, it will kill us and separate us from God. So, kind of like a very, very toxic poison. If you have children you probably…like if they’re young children, like toddlers, you probably don't let them play under the kitchen sink, right? Probably because there's some toxic poison under there of some sort that is to be used for different purposes besides ingesting. And, so, we would want to impress upon our toddler that that's off limits, that opening those cabinets is not allowed and if they persist we might even spank their hands, or we might even put them in a timeout, like we might punish them in some way so that they get clear because if they get into that cabinet and we don't catch it, and they drink that poison it's gonna destroy them. So, hopefully we’re kind of on the same page here. This is largely what we’re talking about in the book of Leviticus today. It just comes in the form of sacrifice, and we just have no way really to relate to animal sacrifice in most of the cultures that we live in. And, so, we come to this point in the Bible, this kind of notorious point in the Bible we’re you’re like, “what is going on here? I don’ relate any of this. What does this have to do with my life? This is so boring. This is like laws and rules and customs that nobody lives by anymore. What's the big deal here?” And, so, this is where a lot of checking out happens and so we miss what's actually going on, a discussion about the results of sin. And as God is weaving this into the culture it's tedious, it's a tedious thing. So, we can just glaze over, yawn, and go, “I don't…we don't have to sacrifice animals. Thank God. Jesus is the last sacrifice” and just brush the whole thing off not understanding that there’s something really really deep going on here. Imagine that you did discover that you were…you were sinning whether unintentionally or whether you absolutely in rebellion did something that you knew you were not supposed to do and that you definitely could not do in the name of God. If…I…I mean I was gonna use like our…our…our pets as an example because that would be the closest example, we can get to to bring context, but let's just skip that. Let’s just say we had goats or we had sheep or whatever and we fed them every day and we talked to them every day and we brushed them and we knew them and they were kind of part of the fabric of our family culture and they were…they were part of the story, like we got milk for our children or we made cheese whatever…whatever…whatever. Imagine that you have to go select one and that you…you have to select the perfect one, like your favorite one, like the best one, the most perfect thing of them all, and you have to take that and you have to put your hand on it before the priest, you have to put your hand on its head, and you gotta take a big blade and you have to slice its throat, right? And you have to bleed the blood out and the life leaves them and then…then it's brought before the altar. Like if you had to do that it would be a stark reminder that sin is costing something. It's costing something beautiful and perfect. It's costing because it's…because it's destroying. And, so, this animal serves as a stand in for what is deserved. So, I don't know how to make this more clear other than like that would be hard to do right? Sin is the blade at your own throat. We’re not beginning to read the story of the bloodthirsty, angry, vengeful God. We’re reading the story of a God who wants us to starkly, clearly understand what will destroy us and separate us from Him, which is the last thing that either one of us wants. It's a deterrent. It's a…it's like a road closed sign - don't go down this path that leads to destruction. And let's remember, nobody had to sacrifice anything if there wasn't sin. And let's remember that that is the work of Christ. And we can think about animal sacrifices as barbaric, but didn’t we just read the crucifixion a couple days ago in the book of Matthew for the first time this year? How much more barbaric can we get? And what we are observing is the last sacrifice for sin once and for all. So, as we continue this journey let's…let’s do…let’s stay rooted to the story. Like, I know we’re reading the law in the book of Leviticus and I know that the law is like I said, it’s not riveting reading, but it is not purposeless reading either. So, let's stay rooted to where the journey is taking us and where God is leading us.

And I use that as a dovetail. Can we talk about something else for a quick minute? I know we’ve been talking already for a few minutes but today…today is a very important day that ties in with all of this, a very important day on the Christian calendar. Today is known as Ash Wednesday and this inaugurates a season known as Lent, a season that leads us right up to the day before Easter, 40 days from now. And most years I point this out and I say generally the same story, which is I didn't grow up knowing anything other than the name Lent. And Ash Wednesday, I mean, I grew up seeing people with black smudges on their foreheads, occasionally moving around a city or a store or whatever, but not really even understanding what the point was. Maybe you have that smudge on your forehead today because you’ve gone to an Ash Wednesday service somewhere or maybe you're familiar with the fact that this day inaugurates a season of repentance and lamentation of considering deeply what sin cost and where it leads. Everything that we just talked about. Jesus becoming that final sacrifice, that it cost the life of the precious beloved Savior is something that we should contemplate and meditate upon because it's our sin. So, for centuries and centuries and centuries brothers and sisters all over the world have entered into this time of lamentation of fasting of repentance. And we may…you know…if we’ve never observed Lent or ever even understood really what the…what's going on, then we may consider…well…it's when you fast something, right? You decide you’re…you’re not gonna eat chocolate. That was like the most popular thing that…that I had I ever heard…like I’m not gonna eat a candy bar, I’m not gonna eat sugar for Lent. Or fasting social media for Lent. Or I'm going to fast certain foods for Lent or certain behaviors for Lent. That's great, that's fine, it's important even. When we fast something that we crave then every time we crave what we are fasting it is an inherent reminder of why we are fasting, and we can press in to that. But I have to tell you, it's maybe even less about fasting candy bars and more about understanding that this is a season in the year that is leading us to resurrection day. And resurrection day represents all things being made new within us again, that the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead, restored us to God, but sin separates us from God. And, so, really, to embrace Lent is to put everything on the table, not just candy bars. It’s to put everything on the table with open hands and say, “God I embrace this season that is leading me to all things being made new, but a season that reminds me that sin leads to death. And, so, I'm opening my hands and I'm loosening control over my life and saying what is here that is separating me from you? Identify that and show me how to walk away from it. Even things that I think, or thought were good habits and behaviors. Like Anything that is distracting me in some sort of way. I'm…I'm allowing you to take out of my life whatever needs to take…be taken and I'm allowing you to put into my life what needs to be there. And I'm allowing you to rearrange the things that are in my life so that they are aligned with the way that you would have me go in this next season of life.” So, this is a season to slow some things down and not be so frantic, to give some space to contemplation, some space to consideration, quiet consideration about what it took to give us the freedoms that we take for granted and still understanding that sin only leads one place and that is death. So, that's a little about Lent. Maybe you've never observed Lent in any way before, it was a little weird or whatever. Maybe it's not so weird. Maybe that the trajectory that the Christian calendar gives us, to contemplate the…the important parts of our lives helps us after the same fashion that the law that we’re reading the book of Leviticus, where everything that these people do reminds them of something deeper. Lent actually does this. And, so, maybe something to consider as we move through the next weeks toward new life toward resurrection through the end of the winter and moving into the springtime here in the northern hemisphere. Lent let's us sit with where we are and hope for where were going.

Prayer:

Jesus, we thank You. We thank You in advance, we thank You continually for Your sacrifice, for Your love that is so profound that it is really impossible to articulate. We’ve been trying to find the right words for thousands of years and we've said many many beautiful things, but it's still beyond us, Your beautiful life sacrificed in exchange for our rebellion. And as we enter into this season, we want to sit with it. We…we ask Your Holy Spirit to make it stark and clear to us what's happening when we when…when we participate in sin, because when we participate in sin against our brothers and sisters, against You, we are perpetuating darkness, we are bringing the darkness and allowing it to have its way with us. Your sacrifice informs us that that is not how it has to be. So, come Holy Spirit. Show us where we are. Show us what's going on inside. Show us the things that are drawing us away from You and toward destruction. Help us to own these things instead of blaming somebody else or some other set of circumstances. Help us to own our lives, own our sin and repent because we know that we are ashes to ashes and dust to dust. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Song:

Worlds Apart - Jars of Clay

I am the only one to blame for this Somehow it all ends up the same Soaring on the wings of selfish pride I flew too high and like Icarus I collide With a world I try so hard to leave behind To rid myself of all but love, to give and die To turn away and not become Another nail to pierce the skin of One who loves More deeply than the oceans More abundant than the tears Of a world embracing every heartache Can I be the one to sacrifice Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow To love you - Take my world apart To need you - I am on my knees To love you - Take my world apart To need you - Broken on my knees All said and done I stand alone Amongst remains of a life I should not own It takes all I am to believe In the mercy that covers me

Did You really have to die for me All I am for all You are What I need and what I believe are worlds apart And I pray To love you - Take my world apart To need you - I am on my knees To love you - Take my world apart To need you - Broken on my knees On my knees I look beyond the empty cross Forgetting what my life has cost Wipe away the crimson stains Dull the nails that still remain More and more I need you now I owe you more each passing hour Battles between grace and pride I gave up not so long ago So steal my heart and take the pain And wash the feet and cleanse my pride Take the selfish, take the weak And all the things I cannot hide Take the beauty, take my tears Sin-soaked heart, make it yours Take my world all apart Take it now, take it now And serve the ones that I despise Speak the words I can't deny Watch the world I used to love Fall to dust and blow away

I look beyond the empty cross Forgetting what my life has cost Wipe away the crimson stains Dull the nails that still remain So steal my heart and take the pain Take the selfish, take the weak And all the things i cannot hide Take the beauty, take my tears Take my world apart, take my world apart I pray, and I pray, and I pray Take my world apart Worlds apart

[coldwind-shiningstars]

I'm asking your opinion on lwj because your takes on him are very close to my own: I have read truly spectacular modern aus in the mdzs/cql fandom, but i almost always end up thinking that they don't really take the unpredictability, inconsistency and social requirements of the modern world and how starkly different those are to the mdzs universe into account. Even if you don't hc lwj as autistic, I just can't see him comfortably networking as a corporate ceo. Any opinions (or fic recs)?

Oh thank you! :D I'm glad to hear this! Unfortunately I don't really read a lot of modern AU stuff -- there's really only one fic I can think of that might fit with what you're asking for here, and it's primarily Nie Mingjue/Lan Xichen, with lwj in the background. the way thirst holds water: link here. If anyone else has any recs pls let me know!

Also, yes you're 100% right! I think it's very similar to the "wait... lwj as chief cultivator?" thing? Where superficially it might seem like he'd be good at something like that, but it doesn't actually fit with his skill set or what he's comfortable with. Even if you don't hc him as autistic this is not someone who enjoys socializing, refuses to engage in polite small talk or white lies, and hates interruptions to his plans and routines.

I've talked a bit before about The Environment Contributes Significantly To How Disabled You Are in relation to lwj, and... yeah, I think he would find some things much more difficult in modern times but also some things easier! I can see modern lwj actually being much more social because he can text/email/dm people much more easily than he can speak with his mouth to them, so he's got a bunch of musician friends scattered all around China that he sends music scores to and they talk about music theory and stuff. He doesn't have a Weibo or anything, so not a lot of social media but he does do Social Technology like texting. But his sensory issues and getting really upset when his routines are disrupted are significantly more prominent. So him being semiverbal/frequently nonverbal is much less of a barrier to socializing than it is in canon, where we have Xichen desperately trying to get him to make friends! But it's much harder for him to maintain the routines he needs to stay calm and centered and happy just because of the asynchronous nature of so much modern life. I can see him always having headphones on.

Also, and this is Specifically related to the autism headcanon, I feel like in canon some of the things he has problems with especially re: Xichen and being raised by Xichen were related to "he is Strange and we don't know why," and while getting an Official Autism Diagnosis isn't always great and a lot of autism therapies are flatout abusive (and... the Lans would definitely be the kind of people to think ABA was Necessary) in many ways it might be really helpful and meaningful for him to have a framework for WHY he's so different from the people around him and to know that there are other people out there whose brains work the same way.

[xhxhxhx]

Herman Khan, The Emerging Japanese Superstate (1970):

[The] Japanese are something between the West, with its general Faustian attitudes and concept of "dominion over land and animal," and China, India, and many primitive cultures, which usually try to fit man into the environment in a natural, noncoercive, and nondisturbing manner. The Japanese are somewhat willing to make changes in the environment and to assert their will and fulfill their objectives, but they tend to do so less grossly, less starkly, and with greater moderation, care, and even love for the environment than is characteristic of the root-and- branch restructuring common in Western tradition.

Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons (2001):

Writers on Japan today mostly concern themselves with its banks and export manufacturing. But in the greater scheme of things, for a wealthy nation does it really matter so much if its GNP drops a few percentage points or the banks falter for a few years? The Tang dynasty poet Du Fu wrote, “Though the nation perishes, the mountains and rivers remain.” Long before Japan had banks, there existed a green archipelago of a thousand islands, where clear mountain springs tumbled over mossy stones and waves crashed along coves and peninsulas lined with fantastic rocks. Such were the themes treasured in haiku, bonsai and flower arrangements, screen paintings, tea ceremony, and Zen – that is, everything that defined Japan's traditional culture. Reverence for the land lies at the very core of Shintoism, the native religion, which holds that Japan's mountains, rivers, and trees are sacred, the dwelling place of gods. So in taking stock of where Japan is today, it is good to set economics aside for a moment and take a look at the land itself.

When we do, we see this: Japan has become arguably the world's ugliest country. To readers who know Japan from tourist brochures that feature Kyoto's temples and Mount Fuji, that may seem a surprising, even preposterous assertion. But those who live or travel here see the reality: the native forest cover has been clear-cut and replaced by industrial cedar, rivers are dammed and the seashore lined with cement, hills have been leveled to provide gravel fill for bays and harbors, mountains are honeycombed with destructive and useless roads, and rural villages have been submerged in a sea of industrial waste.

Similar observations can be made about many other modern nations, of course. But what is happening in Japan far surpasses anything attempted in the rest of the world. We are seeing something genuinely different here. The nation prospers, but the mountains and rivers are in mortal danger, and in their fate lies a story-one that heretofore has been almost entirely passed over by the foreign media.

H. P. Lovecraft, describing a creepy New England hamlet doomed to be the setting for one of his horror stories, would say, “On viewing such a scene, who can resist an unutterable thrill of ghastliness?” For a modern traveler seeking something of that Lovecraftian thrill, nothing would do better than a trip to Japan's countryside.

During the past fifty-five years of its great economic growth, Japan has drastically altered its natural environment in ways that are almost unimaginable to someone who has not traveled here. In the spring of 1996, the Japan Society invited Robert MacNeil, the retired co-anchor of The MacNeil/Lehrer News-Hour, for a month's stay in Japan. Later, in a speech presented at the Japan Society in New York, MacNeil said that he was “confused” about what he saw, “dismayed by the unrelieved banality of the [800-kilometer] stretch from Hiroshima to Tokyo, the formless, brutal, utilitarian jumble, unplanned, with tunnels easier on the eyes.”

Across the nation, men and women are at work reshaping the landscape. Work crews transform tiny streams just a meter across into deep chutes slicing through slabs of concrete ten meters wide and more. Builders of small mountain roads dynamite entire hillsides. Civil engineers channel rivers into U-shaped concrete casings that do away not only with the rivers' banks but with their beds. The River Bureau has dammed or diverted all but three of Japan's 113 major rivers. The contrast with other advanced industrial nations is stark. Aware of the high environmental cost, the United States has decided in principle not to build any more dams, and has even started removing many that the Army Corps of Engineers constructed years ago. Since 1990 more than 70 major dams have fallen across America, and dozens more are scheduled to be dismantled. Meanwhile, Japan's Construction Ministry plans to add 500 new dams to the more than 2,800 that have already been built.

To see at close hand how the construction frenzy affects one small mountain village, let us take a short journey to Iya Valley, a picturesque fastness of canyons and peaks in the center of the southern island of Shikoku. When I bought an old thatch-roofed farmhouse in Iya in 1971, people considered this region so remote that they called it the Tibet of Japan. Villagers subsisted on crops such as buckwheat and tobacco, as well as forestry.

Over the next twenty-five years, young people fled Iya for the prosperous cities, and local agriculture collapsed. With its dramatic landscape and a romantic history going back to the civil wars of the twelfth century, Iya had a golden opportunity to revive its local economy with tourism and resorts in the 1980s. Yet in a pattern that repeats itself in countless regions across Japan, Iya failed to develop this potential. The reason was that the village suddenly found itself awash with cash: money that flowed from building dams and roads, paid for by a national policy to prop up rural economies by subsidizing civil-engineering works. Beginning in the 1960s, a tidal wave of construction money crashed over Iya, sweeping away every other industry. By 1997, my neighbors had all become construction workers.

Most foreigners and even many Japanese harbor a pleasing fantasy of life in the Japanese village. While driving past quaint farmhouses or perusing lovely photographs of rice paddies, it's tempting to imagine what bucolic country life must be: oneness with the seasons, the yearly round of planting and harvesting, and so forth. However, when you actually live in the countryside you soon learn that the uniform of the Japanese farmer is no longer a straw raincoat and a hoe but a hard hat and a cement shovel. In 1972, for example, my neighbor Mrs. Оto farmed tea, potatoes, corn, cucumbers, and mulberry for silkworms. In 2000, her fields lie fallow as she dons her hard hat every day to commute by van to construction sites, where her job is to scrape aluminum molds for concrete used to build retaining walls. In Iya Valley, it makes no sense to ask someone, “What line of work are you in?” Everyone lives off doboku, “construction.”

More than 90 percent of all the money flowing into Iya now comes from road- and dam-building projects funded by the Construction, Transport, and Agriculture ministries. This means that no environmental initiative can possibly make headway, for Iya has become addicted to dams and roads. Stop building them, and Mrs. Оtо and most of the other villagers are out of work. Without the daily pouring of concrete, the village dies.

The most remarkable paradox is that Iya doesn't need these roads and dams; it builds them only because it must spend the construction subsidies or lose the money. After decades of building to no particular purpose, the legacy is visible everywhere, with hardly a single hillside standing free of giant slabs of cement built to prevent “landslide damage,” even though many of these are located miles from any human habitation. Forestry roads honeycomb the mountains, though the forestry industry collapsed thirty years ago. Concrete embankments line Iya River and most of its tributaries, whose beds run dry a large part of the year because of the numerous dams siphoning water to electric power plants. The future? Although traffic is so sparse in Iya that in some places spiderwebs grow across the roads, the prefectural government devoted the 1990s to blasting a highway right through the cliffs lining the upper half of the valley, concreting over the few scenic corners that are left.

If this is what happened to the “Tibet of Japan,” one can well imagine the fate that has befallen more accessible rural areas. To support the construction industry, the government annually pours hundreds of billions of dollars into civil-engineering projects-dams, seashore- and river-erosion control, flood control, road building, and the like. Dozens of government agencies owe their existence solely to thinking up new ways of sculpting the earth. Planned spending on public works for the decade 1995-2005 will come to an astronomical ¥630 trillion (about $6.2 trillion), three to four times more than what the United States, with twenty times the land area and more than double the population, will spend on public construction in the same period. In this respect, Japan has become a huge social-welfare state, channeling hundreds of billions of dollars through public works to low-skilled workers every year.

It is not only the rivers and valleys that have suffered. The seaside reveals the greatest tragedy: by 1993, 55 percent of the entire coast of Japan had been lined with cement slabs and giant concrete tetrapods. An article in a December 1994 issue of the popular weekly Shukan Post illustrated a ravaged coastline in Okinawa, commenting, “The seashore has hardened into concrete, and the scenery of unending gray tetrapods piled on top of one another is what you can see everywhere in Japan. It has changed into something irritating and ordinary. When you look at this seashore, you can't tell whether it is the coast of Shonan, the coast of Chiba, or the coast of Okinawa.”

Tetrapods may be an unfamiliar word to readers who have not visited Japan and seen them lined up by the hundreds along bays and beaches. They look like oversize jacks with four concrete legs, some weighing as much as fifty tons. Tetrapods, which are supposed to retard beach erosion, are big business. So profitable are they to bureaucrats that three different ministries – of Transport, of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, and of Construction – annually spend ¥500 billion each, sprinkling tetrapods along the coast, like three giants throwing jacks, with the shore as their playing board. These projects are mostly unnecessary or worse than unnecessary. It turns out that wave action on tetrapods wears the sand away faster and causes greater erosion than would be the case if the beaches had been left alone.

It took some decades for this lesson to sink in, but in the 1980s American states, beginning with Maine, began one by one to prohibit the hard stabilization of the shoreline; in 1988, South Carolina mandated not only a halt to new construction but removal of all existing armoring within forty years. In Japan, however, armoring of the seacoasts is increasing. It's a dynamic we shall observe in many different fields: destructive policies put in motion in the 1950s and 1960s are like unstoppable tanks, moving forward regardless of expense, damage, or need. By the end of the century, the 55 percent of shoreline that had been encased in concrete had risen to 60 percent or more. That means hundreds of miles more of shoreline destroyed. Nobody in their right mind can honestly believe that Japan's seacoasts began eroding so fast and so suddenly that the government needed to cement over 60 percent of them. Obviously, something has gone wrong.

[chibimyumi]

In the Shadows of the Spotlights – Kuromyu 2015

First of all, thank you, @rmglawliet for your interest and prompt for analyses. Thank you @lambsthroat, @inarislair and @downthebitterrabbithole for your interest and compliments. As my blog is dedicated to only Furukawa-era Kuromyus, I shall start with the first Yunbastian musical: The Lycoris that Blazes the Earth 2015

Details in the Shadows of the Spotlights

The main differences between the manga and the musical are brought by the result of different possibilities that come with different media type.

Unlike in manga, stage portrayals allow for what can be called a simultaneous panelling. With manga, as pages and panels are limited in both size and number, a mangaka must often choose to sacrifice certain things for the sake of aesthetics. Just imagine every single panel to be drawn in panorama featuring every single character’s reaction just because the mangaka is indecisive. Nope, not pretty. On stage however, the opposite is true; even if the centre of attention might only be on one character, whoever is present also on stage –however far in the background – cannot be ‘out of view’. This is where skilled performers and concrete character interpretation become essential to a good production. The most memorable examples in my opinion are brought by Sebastian and Madam Red.

1. Hints in the Background

The first scene for analysis is when Ciel first meets up with Madam and Lau in the London town house. When we meet Lau, he behaves like nothing but an utter and complete airhead. He gives nobody reason to suspect he is not the ‘dumb foreigner’ as dictated by Chinese stereotype. In this rendition, ‘nobody’ seemed to include Madam Red and Grell as well. Though I personally think Araki laid emphasis on the clown aspect of Lau a bit too thick, he does fit in with the goofy half of the Lycoris musical. While I would have loved to see how Lau would function as a more subtle bridge between the musical’s starkly contrasted serious-vs-goofy tone, he is what he is. The only problem is that I personally find it hard to believe how this Lau could have survived this well in 19th century supremacist England as a foreigner, let alone made his way through the ranks to becoming branch leader of a crime syndicate… but that’s just me perhaps.

♪The air is filled with darkness and a beast-like stench, unlike anything you have ever seen. You could hold your breath and desperately try to keep your calm. But once you set foot in there, all that is left is being consumed by madness ♪

Lau joins a comic song where he enjoys gossiping and taunting Grell together with Madam, and Madam seems to enjoy his company, until Lau suddenly displays a sudden hint of intellect and wit previously invisible in him. At this, Madam who was originally sitting to the side of the table springs up in seeming paranoia.

She appears to try to assess Lau from closer up and subtly shifts towards the man. The second Madam gets up, Sebas already takes notice and makes to collect the empty cups. Sebas’ action here gives us a hint that he has been paying a very close eye to the duo and is constantly on alert. This is perhaps the first indication that Sebas already knows something is wrong with Madam and her butler.

Grell meanwhile, notices the increasing distress in her mistress and approaches her, convincing her to remain calm and sit down. A very small but telling detail is when Madam is about to sit down again, she waves a gesturing hand to assure Grell that everything will be alright. This small gesture is easily overlooked, and yet is a powerful detail in storytelling. To spectators who are already familiar with the story, it adds layer to the characters and is almost a spoiler to cracking the case. To unfamiliar spectators, it is subtle enough to not spoil the outcome, but does give them a glimpse of the deep bond in this master-servant relationship.

2. Not ineffective, just nasty

The second scene that can serve as splendid example is Sebastian’s passive aggressive upside-down reading previously mentioned in this post. Here however, I shall go into more analytical detail.

Another hint we are given that Sebastian knows more than he lets on is the scene where Ciel and Madam play chess. Sebastian has been ordered to go through the list of suspects over and over again, because Ciel remained dissatisfied about his report that “other than the Viscount of Druitt, none of the humans present at the party could have committed the crimes.”

「ドルイット子爵以外の人間には不可能です」 “Druitt shishaku igai no ningen ni wa fukanou desu”

Although translated to English, ‘none of the humans’ sounds like such a blatant give-away that people might even doubt Ciel’s intelligence, in Japanese this phrase is art itself. ‘Ningen’ means ‘human kind’ as well as ‘people’. In Japanese however, though the word explicitly stresses the type of species, to average listeners, nothing about the phrase would sound out of the way. (If there’s something similar in a language that you know, please share! I’d love to know how this ‘hint’ would best be translated in other languages.) Sebas could have opted for equally natural alternatives such as 人 hito, meaning simply ‘persons’, or 容疑者, yougisha, meaning ‘suspects’, of course. But why would he? This specific wording is a very subtle way of Sebastian to hint at his master that he is headed in an altogether wrong direction, without giving the boy the satisfaction of getting the answer presented to him on a silver platter. Sebastian cares little that his sense of humour would come at the expense of more human lives. What the demon does mind is that his master would make him put up with more of the boring paperwork, again.

This annoyance was not explicit because no lines were given to Sebas in either manga or musical script. Though Sebastian remained graceful, his true sentiments probably boiled down to a simple ‘bitch, please’. In the shadows, Yunbastian would display his irritation with the attitude of a five year old in the most elegant fashion ever to be seen in theatre.

In an interview, Furukawa shared with us that his Sebas would obey his master’s instructions, so reading is what he would do. But he would not hesitate to let his master know just how foolish these instructions were. Passive-aggressive loud turnings of the pages and upside-down reading are what were due. Sadly the loud turning of the pages is inaudible in a grand theatre, but the upside-down reading can be witnessed in its full glory. No, it was not a coincidence, and I can assure you. Even if it was just so that the stack of paper was wrongly sorted, nobody besides Furukawa could have seen that the words were upside down. So why would Yunbastian bother? Turning paper with gloved hands is tricky! (Seriously, you try it yourself).

This seemingly small gesture is more important to the entire flow of the story and the characterisation of Sebas’ character than one may suspect at first. Sebastian is designed as a demon butler to whom the even most herculean of tasks seem like a doddle. The way that it has been revealed in the manga that Sebas had always known whose tail his master should have been after seemed a bit of out of the blue. In the musical version however, thanks to this ‘simultaneous panelling’ I mentioned before, the revelation was turned into an inevitable result of a gradual development in time. The manga left me personally wondering why Sebas didn’t help Ciel solve the Ripper case sooner. The obvious reasoning is that he simply couldn’t, be it because of order restraints or even personal incompetence. As it turns out in the musical however, Sebas was not ineffective, he’s just nasty.

The small hints in the backgrounds did not only show us how savvy Sebas had been, but also function as a warning that behind the elegant façade, a nasty jester hides. This is perhaps the first example we get of Yana-sensei’s claim that ‘she was beaten to the punch by Yunbastian.’ Glimpses have been shown, but we did not get any explicit confirmation that Sebastian is a nasty demon with an even nastier sense of humour until 2018 in chapter 138. During the run of Lycoris back in 2015, we already see that Furukawa foresaw how petty and tempestuous Sebas truly is behind his concocted beauty.

3. That Demon, Still Butler

The third and final scene I selected for analysis is the one with Undertaker after Madam’s funeral.

After the funeral, Undertaker brutally taunts the boy about the loss of his aunt, but Ciel buffs up and lies: “I prioritised catching Jack the Ripper over saving her life. I left her to her fate… with knowledge. Even my own blood relative.”

In the manga, Sebastian’s reaction ⇈ to Ciel during and after the funeral had mostly been a stoic and disapproving one. This is to be expected, as without Sebastian, Ciel would simply have been useless at his own job in this case. It had been Sebas who had given all the puzzle pieces to his master, and it was also he who had to lay all the pieces into its frame. Ciel was only there to see that the job be done the way he wanted it to be done, but otherwise only served to slow the case down. Sebastian’s attitude? If you see fit to waste my time I would happily waste yours too, my Lord.

Yunbastian too has grown rather spiteful by the end of this arc, but he is sassier than Sebas in the manga. While Sebastian in the manga seems to merely disapprove, Yunbastian raises a very judgemental eyebrow. He said nothing, but the eyebrow may as well have been knitted into a frown spelling ‘oh-really-now?’

Then, although Undertaker was hardly a threat at that point of the manga, when he grabbed the boy by his collar in a somewhat aggressive manner, Yunbastian turned immediately and stays on alert from that point on. However subtle this gesture, we are once again reminded of the sole reason Sebastian is on Earth. He is still bound by the terms of his contract, and is therefore first and foremost Ciel’s mother butler.

All in all, I think that both Akane Live and Furukawa Yuuta made very significant contributions to their characters that Yana herself admitted to have failed to portray in the manga (I shall add the source when I find it again). Although the Jack the Ripper arc is very interesting and beautiful, I do wish the manga could have been fleshed out a bit more. I personally found the solemn-vs-goofy balance a bit askew in the Lycoris musical, but the actors really did give the characters so much more depth and layers.

Thank you all for your interest and compliments, and also for reading this long fan-ramble disguised as an in-depth analysis!

[merrillmastersenglish]

Discussion Post 4

Prompt: 

The last half of Chun's Updating to Remain the Same applies some of her theories to practical issues.  Three specific topics she discusses are the "leakiness" of Internet friends, the "outing" of people on YouTube (Amanda Todd and Jonah Mowry), and cell phone addiction.  Chun explores whether these real-life digital spaces and devices are making us dependent upon digital media and, perhaps, helping us to escape and/or reject physical reality.  Is the truth digital?  Are we so far down the digital highway that there is no going back to old versions of truth, or can anything (or should anything) be done to re-instate traditional, empirical truth in our lives?  Write an original post where you agree/disagree with/negotiate Chun's ideas.

In her book Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media, author and researcher Wendy Hui Kyong Chun’s argument about the habitual nature of media centers around the question “Why have networks become the concept to explain everything new about our current era” and in doing so-- she lay bare the framework for the analysis of networks, networking, and connectedness in the 21st century. Chun ends this exploration with a call for “us” to create spaces in public “domains” where we can loiter-- creating our own privacy within the public sphere. What Chun fails to conceptualize is that we may already be too far gone for this to happen, and (especially in a post Trump era) we may be too divided to come to any sort of consensus that would or could result in real change. Our country is plagued by racism, sexism, and classism-- and new media actively reinforces these tropes. There is no incentive for them to not be reinforced-- and as Chun herself notes-- even if there were an incentive, many times the solution to the problems are more restrictive than the problems themselves. In order to be able to embrace spaces that are public in which we can “loiter” there has to be unwritten rules that are embraced by a majority share of the population-- a doctrine which exists to define norms, and a system to reinforce those norms.  Absent of these things, it is impossible to imagine a world which embraces previous “truths”-- but it is equally problematic to assert that there is a truth that existed previously that is better than where we are now. When combining these two things together it is clear that there is no easy button to the problems that are created at the hands of new media, but in order to even begin approaching this problem we must embrace one central truth: to create a space of absolute truth, we must ourselves become absolutely truthful, and to do this we must analyze the current shortcomings of new media (really, media in general), define systemic problems that plague our society, and create intersections so that we can foster growth, acceptance, and change.

Centering on new media skips past the problems created by “old” media-- and absolves them of their sins. In reality, new media may be the go to of our current generation, but old media such as newspapers, radio, and television are the paver stones that laid way for new media practices and in many ways continue to drive the policies implemented by new media companies. This is truer now more than ever-- when the United States just went through a political administration that was so problematic that they alienated not only a large portion of the population but also the reporters who covered it. While one of the biggest worldwide pandemics in modern history played out in real time-- a tug of war in way of words created confusion among the masses and caused a large swath of the population to question where to even turn for facts. Many people glued themselves to political coverage during the Trump administration if for no other reason than to watch the train wreck in real time-- and now that there is comfort in the practical decision making of our current administration-- people have turned away from the media, and caused Trump to be right about at least one thing: the president whose life echoed the lyrics of ‘without me’ by Eminem did cause news ratings to plummet (Farhi). Beyond the current generation and our crises though, older versions of media perpetuated the crisis of drugs, “reverse discrimination,” promiscuity of women, cyberporn, entitlement culture, cancel culture, and more. Media -- new or old-- thrives on crisis.  In fact, a famous saying in the news industry is “if it bleeds it leads” which is just another indicator of the insipid hold that crisis has on the lives of citizens.  Further though, when crisis is not dominating, the need for crisis is so strong within the citizens of this country that they create their own crisis via sharing personal information in any type of tell all format that they can imagine. From biographies, autobiographies, blogs, vlogs, and other venues-- people are willing to share almost anything-- and others (even if they are not as brazen) are willing to listen-- and in fact are quite rapt by the stories of crisis that play out before them. If there is one thing that can prove this is it the dominance of crime shows and ultra dramatic stories on channels like Lifetime. 

None of this is to say there is no change happening in the media industry-- in fact, that is far from the truth. Media, like any industry, is constantly evolving and changing, but the pace at which they evolve is problematic. Like new media, earlier media forms are not incentivized to change, and often find themselves on the tail end of a change curve-- often waiting to change until things are too distasteful to society to continue. A great example of this practice would be the use of mug shots in stories. A close personal source revealed to me that large media conglomerates are just now talking about discontinuing the use of mug shots and perp walks in stories.   The reasoning they are using is that they rarely follow up on stories, and the prevalence of new media means that a mug shot used for a story can haunt a person for years. One recent incident would be George Floyd-- who while a victim of police brutality-- took center stage through mug shots plastered across media platforms. The net result was an uproar over the use of a victim’s previous mug shot. People decried the practice and lobbied hard to change it because doing such a thing would unduly prejudice a potential jury in favor of a plaintiff due to the “history” (or assumed history as it is) of a victim. Media acts as though they are on the cutting edge-- choosing to acknowledge this problem now as though it is new, but let’s be real-- this has been happening for years. The media’s role in engrained bias is obvious, but they are often unwilling to examine their problematic practices until they absolutely have to. 

The late arrival of systemic change in the media industry plays an enormous role in the perpetuation of systemic problems such as racism, classism, and sexism because the policies of these media conglomerates perpetuate these systems through the reinforcement of stereotypes, continuation of dangerous tropes, and an overzealous embracing of the shock factor that goes hand in hand with doing these things. The moral outrage that happens when a black cop kills a white woman is much greater than when a white man rapes an unconscious woman in a park. None of this is to say that one crime is worse than the other (comparison is a slippery slope, right?), but the mere fact that the punishment and word choices publicized about these things are so starkly different is problematic in its own right. In fact, until just this year MPR reported that Mohammed Noor was "the only law enforcement officer ever convicted of murder in Minnesota for an on-duty incident" (Romo). Noor, who was convicted of 3rd degree murder, was ultimately sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. On the other hand, in another incident involving a white woman-- Stanford student Brock Turner-- facing a 14 year prison sentence-- was sentenced to a mere 6 months in jail by a California judge because the judge feared that a longer sentence may have “a ‘severe impact’ Turner” (Baker). These cases probably seem as though they are worlds apart, but they are not -- because they lie at the intersection of stereotypes about women. One case contained a white woman who was scared in an alley-- in her pajamas-- and that poor woman was just looking for big strong men to save her.  The other woman was a slut who attended a party and got too drunk; she was probably asking for it. BuzzFeed started it’s story about the letter that Turner’s victim wrote by introducing a line of questioning: 

-- which while sad, aptly describes the stereotypes that women face when attempting to find justice for themselves in the world. Stereotypes that Chun describes in detail when discussing the case of the Steubenville rape and subsequent trial of hometown heroes of the football caliber. Chun aptly notes in her analysis that “rape is also difficult to prosecute because conviction usually and unfairly relies on the perceived virtue of the victim: the victim must be impeccable and must be able to describe traumatic events coherently-- a nearly impossible task given the effects of post traumatic stress disorder” (98). 

Of course this is just one simple example of how the media (including Web 2.0) perpetuates myths about marginalized groups, but it would take volumes upon volumes to discuss the innumerable examples in which this happens. These things do need to be discussed and addressed to move on, but we also need to create spaces where intersectionality can exist so that people can learn from each others’ varied experiences and lenses. Rhetorician Kenneth Burke centered on this idea of intersectionality when he talked about finding common ground to relate to each other. One of the serious limitations of new media is the ability to silence those who have differing opinions and move away from them. By doing this we relegate people into groups, and create systems of oppression by building our own defined groups of hate and love. Chun discusses these communities in her book when she references Saidiya Hartman’s ideas of shame-- noting that Hartman claims that “slut shaming can be seen as an attempt to create community-- decent community-- by attempting to make certain women objects of shared shame” (157). She furthers this point by citing Sara Ahmed and noting that she argues that “hatred generates community-- more properly, communities (of the hated and the loved)-- by aligning the particular with the general: I hate you because (you are a slut, etc). Hatred as an ‘investment’ projects all that is undesirable onto another, while concealing any traces of that projection so that the other comes to appear as a being with a life of its own” (157). In arguing about the divisiveness of communities, these two women also open an opportunity of convergence-- creating communities of intersectionality.  Many times we find ourselves divided along political or religious lines, but in intersectionality we can discover that while we may have different beliefs we are also more alike than we think we are. Burke’s ideas are central here-- we must find common ground in order to create safe spaces to loiter online. 

Of course, all of these things are very utopian.  Perhaps I am a cynic, but being a child of the foster care system, having children with special needs, and teaching students of varied ethnicities tells me that it is often easier to state that something WOULD work than it is to put it into practice. Paolo Frarie argues in the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed that the oppressor will work to continue oppression because he knows full well that it is not in his best interest to end said oppression (34). I want to believe that we can change, but change would take radical ideas to work-- and radical ideas would take cooperation of people across the political spectrum.  We will not to that space if we cannot confront reality and find intersectionality though. Is it possible to find change and to create safe spaces to loiter in new media? Perhaps-- but it is just as possible that oppressors in new media could simply find new ways to assert their oppression onto the oppressed so as to not lose their power. 

Citations:

Baker, Katie J.M. “Here's The Powerful Letter The Stanford Victim Read To Her Attacker.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 17 Mar. 2021, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra.

Blake, Aaron. “Analysis | The Vexing 'Lab Leak' Theory on China and the Coronavirus.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 24 May 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/24/fix-china-lab-leak-0524/.

Farhi, Paul. “Trump Predicted News Ratings Would 'Tank If I'm Not There.' He Wasn't Wrong.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 23 Mar. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/media-trump-bump-slump/2021/03/22/5f13549a-85d1-11eb-bfdf-4d36dab83a6d_story.html.

Freiere, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin Education, 1972.

Kyong, Chun Wendy Hui. Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media. The MIT Press, 2017.

Romo, Vanessa. “Ex-Minneapolis Officer Sentenced To 12 1/2 Years In Death Of Unarmed 911 Caller.” NPR, NPR, 7 June 2019, www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730691678/ex-minneapolis-officer-sentenced-to-12-1-2-years-in-death-of-unarmed-911-caller.

[living-deciduously]

I can’t sleep.

I’m definitely having some elevated hormones or something right now, because I’m feeling all of my feelings at once. And I keep telling myself that that doesn’t make what I’m feeling less true or honest, that devaluing my feelings based on hormones is a product of social conditioning and emotions ARE hormones...but sometimes I think that makes it worse. But I also believe I need to get them out, and address them without fear or embarrassment. So strap yourself in and bring some fucking high protein snacks because this might be a long one. 

 It started a few hours ago, when I was tagged in one of those question memes that float around Tumblr. The third question down was “Talk about someone you have been in love with.” It broke me.  Romantic love is so starkly defined in our (human) culture, and I’ve never experienced it the way I’ve been told that I should. I have loved and been in love with more people (men) than I can remember, and I firmly believe that love can be defined in infinite ways and looked at from infinite angles. I’ve loved so hard I hurt myself, and so lightly that barely felt it...    I was in love with a friend of mine when I was 13, as much as you can be in love with someone at that age. As it turned out, he was/is gay. We’re still friends, and I still care about him even if we don’t see each other or even talk that much. Personal history is enough for me to keep caring about someone, even when I run out of things to add to it.  I probably loved a hundred different guys in high school, but don’t we all?  I loved a man in college, who I never “officially” dated, but we had a...something. It ended very badly, and I’m not going into it. But I did love him while I was with him, and that counts. We’re on decent terms now, and he’s married. I am truly happy for him.  Ironically, I barely liked the first guy I kissed. I told myself I did, but I did it because he was good-looking and somewhat interested in me--and god actually normal enough to take home to my parents. But that ended before it even began, and honestly I’m grateful for it.  I loved a guy I made-out with at a party, a friend of a friend who I’d been attracted to for a while. I was thrilled to actually have someone genuinely like me back, for real this time! But I got scared. Really irrationally crazy scared to the point where I couldn’t make it to a second date. We had real chemistry and I was terrified of it. We reconnected briefly last year, but that chemistry was gone.  There’s a man I’m only in love with when he’s onstage. But in the real world I just like him, and I think that’s okay.  I could have fallen in love with a tall, smart, creative man I met incidentally, but I didn’t have enough time to do so before he moved in with a woman that he loved already. I don’t resent that. Sometimes timing is just bad.  I love a man who I’ve had long discussions with on why a relationship between us wouldn’t work out. He has a debilitating mental illness, and I am not emotionally equipped to deal with it on that intimate a level. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. We stay friends. Sometimes we cuddle, in his words, “for that sweet dopamine rush.”   I love one of my dance partners, but not enough to act on it. He has the clearest eyes I’ve ever seen.  I loved the former coworker I dated for two months. I’d already known him for two years, so my feelings didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. He and I clicked mentally, which for me is very rare. When we got together we talked for hours, and were naturally honest and direct with each other. But I broke it off because I couldn’t see a real future in it, and I didn’t want keep seeing him “for fun” or to “see where the relationship goes.”  There were other places where we were incompatible that mattered, and ultimately it was pretty mutual. I do still miss him sometimes, but less and less. He was also the first man I ever enjoyed being (non-sexually) physically intimate with. I’m asexual, I should mention that. Not everyone who reads this will know. But I wanted this to be written and read as truthfully as possible. By the way, none of what I’ve written so far is how I answered that third question. I actually thought of one person instantly, and at the time completely hated that I did. Here’s what I wrote: I do have this one friend. I’ve known him for several years, and I’ve never not had feelings of some kind for him. They have varied from simple friendly affection to wanting to pin him to a wall, with a stop on every part of the spectrum in between the two. That said, my feelings make absolutely no sense at all. We only see each other once or twice a year. We are absolute garbage at having a conversation when we’re alone together. We’re social opposites. And he has no romantic feelings for me. I’m not hypothesizing here either, I KNOW. But despite all of these things, my feelings for him never entirely go away. Even recently, when it seemed like he started to avoid interacting with me on social media (which is still kind of happening), they didn’t disappear. I did get angry because I didn’t think I’d said or done anything to make him want to ghost me, but under all of it the feelings were still there. ARE still there. Every time I see him showing manic fanboy enthusiasm for something, or making a stupid facial expression, or talking about how much he loves his grandma…I just crumble. I slide right back into the stupid irrational place I started. The worst part is I want to tell him all of this so badly, but I’m not willing to risk potentially losing his friendship and hurting myself that much.  It was admitting this^ to myself that broke me. Rereading it still hurts more than writing about all of those other men did. Here is my most stubborn and vulnerable self, and I hate her. I’m crying while I type. I feel so stupid and small for investing so much emotional energy into someone who barely sees me. Someone who likely doesn’t want or care to look harder. I don’t hold him accountable for that. I have no grounds to make demands.       There’s a decent chance that he and I will drift completely apart, and only do the online FB friend thing where we acknowledge each other’s birthdays and make witty comments back and forth. I mean, that’s actually what we’ve been doing for a while. I just have make myself come to terms with it. I can do that, right? This was incredibly hard to write. I often feel empty, or listless. I feel contentment too, but not often happiness. So when my brain decides to turn all my emotional dials to 11 at once, well it’s a fucking ride if anything. But as I get older I find I’m learning how to really think about those emotion dials and how they effect how I interact with the people and the world around me. I’m learning to acknowledge, and even slowly change the things about myself that I don’t like. What I wrote here was a fraction of me, but it’s a step forward. Lastly, my friends, if you read this and recognize yourself, please be kind.

[flowermandalas]

15 Self-Help Books that Really Helped

If you type “self-help books” into Amazon’s “Books” category, you’ll get more than 675,000 hits, and their “Kindle” category lists nearly 300,000. That’s a lot of self-help!

But how many of these books have actually helped? And how many books outside the “self-help” category have been even more helpful?

Just for kicks, I drew up a list of the 15 books that, over the course of my lifetime, I’ve found most helpful, either personally or professionally. Here they are in the order in which I read them.

What books have been helpful to you, “self-help” or otherwise?

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake

I first encountered this part visionary / part comic / part poetry / part etching long poem in 1969, in an English class, while an Engineering student at Cornell University. I had grown up a kid scientist, and my hope was that I’d become a NASA engineer. I was also very much in my head and not so much in my body, in the world of logic and not so much the world of emotion. Blake’s poem convinced me I had to change all that or else live out my days a reduced version of myself. This powerful piece reached out to me over 200 years and 6000 miles and changed not only my focus (from Engineering to English major) but also set in motion a process of actualizing the more suppressed parts of myself, a lifelong activity that began then and there. Thank you, Mr. Blake!

Tales of the Dervishes, by Idries Shah

I read this book in 1970 in what officially was an English Composition class but was really a class in what for me were radically different ways of thinking and seeing. Tales of the Dervishes, a collection of Sufi teaching stories, was my first introduction to Eastern thought. The tales are in the form of parable, and they’re intended to be understood differently according to the ability of the listener/reader. Some I still vividly recall and have used in conversations with friends and therapy clients. I went on to study with a Sufi guide for a while, and learned from him a Sufi meditation practice aimed at increasing intuition and creativity that seemed to open up a kind of 6th sense. Remarkable stuff. I’ve since migrated to Buddhist practices, but I continue to find the Sufi teachings and practices intriguing, and my experience of them began here.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig

Sitting in front of me on my desk right now is the copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I bought in August, 1974, and carried with me on my own motorcycle trip from Buffalo, out to Indiana, down to Baltimore, and finally up to New York City, where I stayed for 6 years. I was a year out of college, still trying to figure out what to do when I “grew up,” and Pirsig’s book came out shortly before I started my trip. Though at the time it seemed clichéd to take such a book on a motorcycle trip, and it was one more heavy thing to add to the already overstuffed pack strapped behind me on my little Yamaha 200, it turned out to be exactly the right thing to guide my inner journey, and even helped me diagnose and repair a motorcycle issue that led to my seizing a piston in Ohio.

It’s been 42 years since I read this book, and when I flip through it and see the sentences I underlined I’m sometimes puzzled by those choices, but it still leaves a feeling in my chest of almost indescribable  longing, wonder, excitement, and calm. I can’t say many other books have had as lingering an effect, so this one makes the “Books that have inspired me” list.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee and Walker Evans

James Agee and Walker Evans’ book of lyrical prose and hard-edged images was one of three books I brought with me when I moved to NYC in 1974, and one of a short list that had a major influence on me as a young writer. This was the first book I’d encountered that looked and felt deeply about a group of people largely ignored by the rest of the country, and it directly influenced my own several-year project photographing and interviewing the people I encountered living or working the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. I have yet to encounter anything that quite matches it in its powerful synergy of prose and photographs.

The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller

I encountered this book in the mid-80s, a year or two into my first serious round of psychotherapy, and it was as if all the lights suddenly went on in a previously dimly lit room. Although it’s been a long time since I read The Drama of the Gifted Child, the shock of recognition – of the dynamics of my family, of my role in it, of the roles filled by my siblings, my mother, and especially by my father – became starkly revealed in a way no amount of discussion or dream analysis had approached. There’s something compelling about how some authors can strip away the confusion surrounding a complex psychological set of interactions and lay bare the bones of it, and Miller did that for me in this book.

Iron John, by Robert Bly

In Iron John, Bly translates, interprets, and expands a little-known Grimm’s Fairy Tale that depicts the path of a young prince growing into manhood. Bly uses the folktale as a frame for the larger story of how men of the last few generations have been taught to be men mainly by women and, more recently, also by the media. He portrays what has been lost and gained as a result. I read this book shortly after it was published in 1990 and found it to be the brightest lens on men, and what was difficult about being one, I’d ever seen.

Bly, a poet I’d first encountered at Cornell  University at an anti-war rally, not only precisely and lyrically delineated mens’ problems, he also outlined a solution and taught it to large gatherings of men.  (I attended a weekend workshop he held at Brandeis University.) Bly sought to bring together older and younger men to promote a return to a male apprenticeship process lost in the industrial revolution and the nuclear family. His aim was to help us break out of our extended boyhood. Bly’s book and his gatherings of men greatly enlarged, for a time, a nascent Men’s Movement that roughly paralleled the Women’s Movement of the 60s and early 70s. Today, I still recommend Iron John to male clients, and also to women who want to understand men.

Life After Life, by Raymond Moody Jr.

In 1993, I had a near-death experience as a result of a series of medical errors. At the time, I’d never heard of a near-death experience. This was the first book I read that opened my eyes to what I had gone through. Several others followed, as well as a subscription to the International Journal of Near-Death Studies, membership in a group of near-death survivors, and eventually, transitioning from a PhD program in English to one in counseling psychology. Nearly a quarter of a century later, it’s still not clear to me exactly what the meaning of an NDE is, but Moody’s book did a credible job of documenting the phenomenon, one I still find more valuable than the extraordinary claims of those who have more recently, and famously, written about near-death experiences.

Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh

I read Being Peace about 20 years ago, and then again in 2014. It was the first book by the Buddhist teacher and writer for me, and it is, I think, a seminal work, capturing in one short volume the essence of what he would go on to explicate in his many books since this one. The first time I read this book, I had never heard of Thich Nhat Hanh and was attracted to the title. I read it in a couple of sittings. The second time through, I read the book in short bursts, one section per week, in the company of other people who also follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings. It took several months to complete the reading, and it was a far more profound experience. Each short segment has layers of meaning and emotion that take time to settle into the soul. Highly recommended as a first place to meet this wise teacher and his work.

Focusing, by Eugene Gendlin

Although it was ten years or so between the time I bought Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing and when I actually began to use this technique in my personal life and my therapy practice, in many ways it is now at the heart of both. In the late 60s and early 70s, Gendlin teamed up with pioneer psychologist Carl Rogers to try to figure out why some people seemed to get better with therapy while others did not. After screening for all the factors one might suspect made the difference – therapeutic training and approach, experience, types of problems clients came in with, demographics, etc. – it turned out that the dominant factor was something clients either came into therapy doing (and they got better) or didn’t do (and they usually didn’t). Gendlin realized that this factor was a natural human quality, and he created this book, and many others, to help those of us who didn’t natively do it learn how.

I have practiced Focusing for many years, and I have taught it to a wide variety of clients so they can do it themselves. Easier to do than to explain, Gendlin’s Focusing handbook nevertheless does an excellent job of summarizing the rationale behind it, the technique itself, and what to do if things don’t seem to be working.

The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine N. Aron

Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person is one I wish had been written decades ago. It helped me understand that I’m a “highly sensitive person” – someone who takes in, on both a sensory and emotional level, more than most people do. There are a lot of us – according to Aron, some 20% of the population, a figure validated by an independent study done by Harvard and the University of Toronto a few years after Aron’s book was published. Being “highly sensitive” is a blessing and a curse: We can’t screen much out, so all kinds of things bother us that don’t bother most people, but we also have more data available at a conscious level, and sometimes we can do things with that data that people who automatically screen more out cannot. The simple test for this type of sensitivity is on Aron’s website, hsperson.com, and her practical advice for how to cope with this characteristic is a uniquely valuable resource.

When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, by Manuel J. Smith

This is the book I most often take off my shelf and show to clients. Even if all you learn from it is the “Broken Record” technique for saying no and sticking to it, and you accept that his “Assertiveness Bill of Rights” really does apply to you, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty will change your life for the better. I wish Manuel Smith had written it 50 years ago!

The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook, by Edmund J. Bourne

This book is the most helpful book on anxiety I’ve encountered, and one I pull off the shelf to show a client almost as frequently as When I Say No, I Feel Guilty. Bourne knows anxiety from the inside out, and his comprehensive work on the subject is a balanced approach comprising psychoeducation, tools, and strategies that anyone suffering from anxiety can benefit from. His approach to understanding and healing the damage from mistaken beliefs alone is enough to make the book a worthwhile purchase. His chapter on panic attacks has helped many of my clients completely overcome this disorder. A must-read for therapists and anxiety sufferers alike.

Art & Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland

Art & Fear is the most concise and friendly companion to anyone trying to define themselves as an artist that I have so far encountered. In a series of concise essays, Bayles and Orland (a photographer and potter, respectively) put forth most the anxiety-provoking aspects of being an artist and offer sound, accessible wisdom on how to stay grounded, motivated, and focused.

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

Pressfield’s concise assault on Resistance and his distinction between the professional and the amateur artist helped me break through some substantial blocks along the way to creating my book Paths to Wholeness and inspired at least one artist I know to start making the transition between hobbyist painter to pro. Highly recommended for any creative person who feels held back by the mundane. His last paragraph is a terrific sendoff, the culmination of all that came before: “Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas, by David J. Bookbinder

If you don’t blow your own horn, journalist Jimmy Breslin once said, nobody else will. Writing Paths to Wholeness was one of the most powerful self-help activities I’ve engaged in, in a life of practicing self-help. In it, I tried to distill into one volume the best of what I’ve learned as a therapist, writer, photographer, and person. Paths to Wholeness contains 52 potent essays and striking Flower Mandala images by a spiritual seeker (me!) who, having traversed his own winding path toward awakening, now guides others to find balance, build resilience, overcome fear, and to expand their hearts by listening deeply, inspiring hope, and more fully loving.

P.S.  If you find what you read here helpful, please forward it to others who might, too. Or click the social share and email buttons on this page.

Books: Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas Print: Amazon  –  BookBaby  –  B&N  – Books-a-Million eBook: Kindle  – Nook  – iTunes  – Kobo

NOTE: Paths to Wholeness is now available at the following Boston-area bookstores and libraries:

Cabot Street Books & Cards, 272 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA 01915 The Bookshop, 40 West Street, Beverly Farms, MA 01915 Boston Public Library (main branch) Brookline Public Library (main branch) NOBLE Public Libraries (Beverly Farms and Salem) MVLC Public Libraries (Hamilton-Wenham)

Please let me know if you find it in other locations!

Also available: 52 (more) Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief 52 Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief Paths to Wholeness: Selections (free eBook)

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Copyright 2017, David J. Bookbinder http://ift.tt/2oskRQ1 http://ift.tt/2ospoC2 http://ift.tt/2osp7Pj

P.S.  If you find what you read here helpful, please forward it to others who might, too. Or click the social share and email buttons on this page.

from 15 Self-Help Books that Really Helped

[solatgif]

TGIF: ROUNDUP FOR NOVEMBER 22, 2019

"Reconciled" is the theme for SOLA Conference 2020 and registration opens on December 1st. Check out our conference page and watch this 1-minute video of Pastor Harold Kim, Senior Pastor at Christ Central of Southern California and President of SOLA Network, sharing about this year's theme.

Thomas Hwang wrote A Response to my Complementarian Sisters after we published Soojin Park’s Letter to My Complementarian Brothers. For further reading around the web, check out How to Be a (Complementarian) Woman of Influence, Why Women Are Critical To the Mission of the Church, and Lies That Keep Women from the Word: Busyness Is Not the Problem.

You can now watch our new Facebook banner video on IGTV. Our November SOLA newsletter is scheduled to be sent next Friday evening. Subscribe via email so you can stay up to date. If you have something to share with our readers, tweet me @musicgoon or email me at aaron@musicgoon.com. And on behalf of the SOLA digital admin team, I would like to wish our readers a warm and happy Thanksgiving holiday.

LINK ROUNDUP

1. Daniel K. Eng: Finally Belonging: The Reception of the Parable of the Prodigal Son Among Asian Americans

The Journal of the Asian American Theological Forum features SOLA editorial board member Daniel K. Eng’s article on Asian-American values (honor and shame and Confucian values) and experiences (immigration, the model minority, and liminality).

2. D. Cheng: Praying for Hong Kong Can Be Politically Disruptive—Even in America

“Why Chinese diaspora churches remain silent while Christians in Hong Kong take to the streets.”

3. Public Religion Research Institute: The Working Lives and Struggles of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California

“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are an important and fast-growing part of the California workforce. They have been the fastest-growing racial groups in California since 2000, with immigration fueling much of the growth. Although statistical averages show that AAPIs as a whole exhibit relatively high levels of employment and earning power, this report reveals significant areas of concern.”

4. Eda Yu: How Hip-Hop Dance Groups Have Helped Asian Americans Find Belonging

Writing for Vice.com, Eda Yu highlights how hip-hop, while rich in it’s own culture, helps create new community.

5. Gabe Bergado: Brenda Song on Her New Series Dollface, the Disney Channel Years, and Growing Up

Writing for TeenVogue, Gabe Bergado profiles Brenda Song where she speaks candidly about Asian American representation and why she never got to read for Crazy Rich Asians.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. 5 Leadership Questions Podcast: Abe Cho

“In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins is joined by Abe Cho, the senior pastor of Redeemer East Side in New York. During their conversation, they discuss creating everyday missionaries and why protecting Sabbath is vital for being healthy.”

2. Midwestern Magazine: The Whole Counsel: Preaching & Teaching All of God's Word

Articles include: Preaching the Whole Counsel by Jason K. Allen, Discipleship in the First Gospel by Patrick Schreiner, and What is Biblical Theology? By Dr. Andreas J. Kostenberger.

3. The Gospel Coalition Podcast: Don’t Pit Eternal Good Against Common Good

Collin Hansen interviews Stephen Um, asking him about the relationship between common and eternal good, and how the gospel empowers churches that seek the salvation of souls and also the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice.

4. Aaron Lee: Book Reviews

This week I reviewed The Heart of the Preacher by Rick Reed and The Sacrifice of Praise by Herman Bavinck.

FROM SOLA

1. Moses Y. Lee: 10 Traits of a Humble Leader

“Recent stories of celebrity pastors and worship leaders apostatizing has me thinking about the idea of Christian leadership. Whether leaders reluctantly fall from grace due to moral failure or publicly renounce their faith on Instagram to be more “authentic,” one thing is clear: humility is not a contributing factor.”

2. Hannah Chao: Who Would Want to be Poor?: Inspired by “Parasite”

“Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been raised in Korea. While watching Parasite, I felt fortunate to be born in America. The film starkly depicts the class divide between the rich and the poor, often by literally placing them on different floors of a house. The result is bleak.”

3. Michael Agapito: How Jesus is Both God and Man: The Chalcedonian Creed & the Two Natures of Christ

“If there are two central mysteries of Christianity, they are the Trinity and the incarnation. Although the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople ensured once and for all the church’s teaching on the Trinity, it left open the question of how to understand the personhood of Jesus. Put simply: If Jesus is God, then how can we “reconcile” Jesus’ divinity with his humanity?”

4. Thomas Hwang: A Response to My Complementarian Sisters

“Once again, I know I may catch flack for writing this response. I might have said things that came off wrong. In a world where identity politics permeate our social media interactions, I know I’m not supposed to say anything to my complementarian sisters except, ‘I’m sorry.’ But as I’ve learned from marriage, seeking dialogue and understanding tends to be more effective than apologies.”

5. TGIF: Roundup for November 15, 2019

In case you missed it, here are some headlines from last week: Effective Ministry to Asian Americans, The Rise (and Stall) of the Boba Generation, A Key Way that Christians around the World Can Contribute to Gospel Growth in China, and Behind Hong Kong’s Protesters - an Army of Volunteer Pastors, Doctors and Artists.

[idolapps]

into the new world - girls' generation

OOC INFO

NAME/ALIAS, PRONOUNS, TIMEZONE: EJ, female, est

RESERVATION: pristin

MEMBER PROFILE

FACECLAIM: kim mingyu (seventeen)

NAME/STAGENAME: lee taehyun

BIRTHDATE/AGE: april 6, 1994 / age 22

COMPANY/POSITION: leader, main rapper, lead dancer of 360°Z 

HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 185 cm/68 kg

TRAINING PERIOD/JOINING YEAR: training period: 3 years

INTERESTING FACTS: His fans adore him for his “tsundere” character. Having attended an elite boarding school in the States where he studied Mandarin for 6 years, Taehyun is highly skilled in English and Chinese. He’s also a skilled basketball player. He knows how to play piano and guitar, and although these skills are rarely used in performance, he finds them useful in composing.  

STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: 

(+) RAP&DANCE – taehyun’s capacity as a rapper and dancer certainly satisfies and mostly exceeds industry standards and beyond. having first developed both skills as self-taught endeavors, his flow, style, rhythm, and choreography are individually unique and distinctly natural. although his deep register and long, lean frame were birth-given virtues, the intensive training he underwent through his time at galaxy has refined and polished his skills in these areas.

(+) COMPOSITION – besides writing his own lyrics, taehyun has produced many of his own beats, mixtapes, and songs throughout his musical career. from being a teenager pursuing a hobby, an underground artist vying for recognition, and a galaxy trainee striving to stand out, he now regularly contributes to his group’s releases to whatever extent he may. in fact, composition and producing are areas in which he seeks to improve his skills the most, especially as his career progresses.

(+) PROFESSIONALISM – despite having debuted not too long ago, taehyun is exceptionally professional, a great advantage for someone in the entertainment industry. he’s very good at maintaining a positive public image, as he regularly monitors and keenly perceives what fans, the media, and the public want from him. furthermore, he has a knack for picking up social cues and reading people, seemingly always knowing the right thing to do and say at any given time – useful for interviews, variety shows, and extricating himself from tricky situations. though he denies it, he is a bit of a perfectionist and will do a quality job with whatever is assigned to him.

  (–) VOCALS – singing has never been his standout talent, and he acknowledges it. sure, he can do the rapper-singing thing (e.g. drake), but that’s about it. he’ll gladly leave the singing to the vocals.

(–) COLD REALIST – simply put, lee taehyun is a perfect example of a boy who grew up too fast. perhaps you can blame his past, but he’s a cynic and harsh realist. some have labelled his insensitivity to others’ emotions as a symptom of some sort of psychopath, but trust me, he knows and understands very well how you’re feeling. he just doesn’t see why he should cater his behavior to your emotions and whims. there won’t be any “dreams come true!” or “I want to inspire people through my music!” cheese coming out of this mouth. he didn’t cry a single tear after his debut showcase, and although it’s been less than a year, he’s already over the rookie’s honeymoon phase of his career. he’s not heartless or mean – just a hard, cold realist. the world’s not all fluff and kittens, so should he pretend that it is?

(–) EGO-DRIVEN – though he doesn’t quite own up to it yet, lee taehyun is a creature of his ego. by nature, he’s not a bragger or show-off (probably because he’s self-confident anyways), but he does secretly enjoy when his ego is fed. he keeps it to himself, but he does have a habit of judging people against his own standards. at worst, he can be rather stubborn, overly competitive, and reckless in pursuit of something if it catches his attention. in his defense, he’s been rather successful with anything he’s wanted thus far, at least to what meets the eye. and for the demons he does truly struggle against, he shoves them under his ego to be dealt with later. after all, right now he’s young, talented, attractive, leader of one of the most popular groups in the industry, with thousands of fangirls screaming his name. he’s unbound and unobligated, and the future only promises further treasures – or at least so it seems.

  BIO/PERSONALITY:

Born in April 6th of 1994, Lee Taehyun grew up in a family that owned one of Korea’s most prominent conglomerate corporations. As expected, his early childhood was without a visible care in the world, golden spoon in hand, reporters and cameras shoved in his face. Designer clothes, top chefs, expensive private tutors, and trips around the globe – yet it wasn’t until age 12 that he learned who he truly was, what he truly was. Summoned to his father’s office one evening, he left as Lee Taehyun, of course the son of CEO Lee Hyunbae, but not of his wife. A bastard son, born to a woman he’d never met or seen, raised with siblings from another womb. It all made sense now, how different his “mother’s” gaze towards him was so starkly contrasting, depending on whether his father was in the room. After all, there he was – a living, breathing, talking reminder of her husband’s infidelity. But perhaps most importantly, there he was – a gigantic threat to the value of the family company stock.

Within the next month, he was shipped off to an elite boarding school in the States for the purposes of receiving an “elite education,” but it was clear to him that he was being shoved away for hiding across the ocean, away from nosy newspaper reporters and competitors who wished to see his father’s company stock falter. The moment he learned what his identity truly was, he was removed from his entire life as he knew it. However, he was compliant throughout middle and high school. Lee Taehyun became that one guy whom everyone envied but couldn’t bring themselves to hate – low effort, high grades, star athlete, had his fair share of adolescent “fun”, but never got caught. He was a real typical golden boy, but behind the scenes, he struggled with his own demons and fumbled with the mysteries he never had the chance to answer. He found solace in music (particularly hip-hop and rap) and dance, and increasingly so, he found himself in the school’s recording and studios, up late at night writing lyrics by the moonlight. Upon graduating from high school, he was shocked to be immediately pulled back to Korea to enroll in college, since his older half-brother was proving himself rather incapable of becoming heir. Again, his father whispered him false promises, that a Korean college degree would mean better “business connections.” But this time, Lee Taehyun wanted none of it. If his father, his family, or anyone at all thought they could push him away and call him as they wanted, they were in for an unpleasant surprise.

Reluctantly so, he enrolled in college, but his true energy was spent in Seoul’s underground hip-hop scene, as he started making ripples in the rap game and joined a dance crew. About a year in, he was casted by Galaxy Entertainment, though he had never had the slightest interest in an entertainment career, yet alone an idol career. He stuffed the scout’s business card away in his pile of books, but as the pressure for him to keep up his grades and intern in the office grew stronger, the more and more appealing the offer became. After all, the trainee contract provided him a place to stay, allowance for food, and the opportunity to deliver a vicious slap in the face of his father. He called in for an audition as a sign of rebellion and signed the contract as a declaration of secession. The day he moved into the trainee dorms was the last day he’d spoken to a family member to this very day.

Trainee life for him was strange to say the least. He’d grown up mostly emotionally alone and was accustomed to making unilateral decisions, not around dozens of other trainees whose desperation and stress he found draining. He hadn’t lived in Korea for the past 9 years, and he didn’t dare to tell anyone about his familial background. Furthermore, he was a rather intimidating character at first impression – towering height, tanned complexion, deep voice, sharp features. He was far from the super friendly, talkative, or welcoming type. He hated sucking up, hated the whole hierarchy of “seniors” and “juniors” – in his world, skill and ability were the only measures of status. Yet by some lucky strike, he managed to find some friends and colleagues amidst the crowds of peers he found mostly mundane and plain. Most importantly, it turned out that he was rather good at what an idol needed to do – rapping, dancing, composing. And most of all, surviving. After three years, the debut came, and although he couldn’t quite consider it a dream come true, it was a promising start.

---

Taehyun is generally cool, but not necessarily cold. His mannerisms are suave and charming, smooth talker and sharp tongue. He’s not your typical ray of sunshine, but knows when to smile and how to do it convincingly – but don’t expect much cuteness from him whatsoever. Off-camera, he’s reportedly not the most easily approachable. It’s not like he’s hostile or socially awkward by any means, but people often say he seems mature or serious for his age, and his towering height and dark eyes don’t help his cause. However, initiate interaction and he’s talented at holding a conversation, a little blunt, a little teasing, likes to keep people guessing of his true intentions. His closest friends get to see the more free-spirited, romantic side of him, but this is very rare. He’s slow to trust others, but gain his trust, and he’ll pay back with a strong sense of loyalty and justice. He’s not too outwardly friendly or warm, but still seems to know a lot of faces within the industry. He prefers to keep his public and private life separate, and it is generally hard to read beyond his placid façade.

Within his group, his general mantra as a leader is “you do you,” but the moment any of his members do anything to jeopardize the group’s success or test his patience, he’ll serve justice where it is due. He’s definitely not the warm and caring type of leader upfront, and when he takes care of others, it’s generally more subtle and behind the scenes. Admittedly, he can get a little hot-headed and cutthroat in rehearsal or training – he believes in “work hard, play hard.” Occasionally, he can be coldhearted and demoralizing, but only he’s allowed to do that to his members. He won’t tolerate anyone else disrespecting his group.

Regarding trainees, he’s probably indifferent. Chances are, he has no idea who you are – he doesn’t really strive to be a role model or a popular, caring senior. He generally won’t treat you any differently for being a trainee, and for god sake, he doesn’t want you to suck up to him, though he won’t tolerate disrespect. He has no specific expectations, but if you’re sincere, hard-working, and talented, then he’ll probably treat you well enough.

[captainblogger100posts]

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/

Nature

Image

Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.

They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.

But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.

Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.

“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”

Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”

On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.

Image

Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.

It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.

“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”

Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.

Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.

“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”

So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.

“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”

Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”

Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”

But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”

DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.

Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.

Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.

By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”

And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.

The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.

“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”

Image

Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.

“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.

Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”

Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.

But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.

“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.

For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”

But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.

As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.

Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58

[blogcompetnetall]

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/

Nature

Image

Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.

They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.

But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.

Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.

“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”

Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”

On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.

Image

Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.

It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.

“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”

Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.

Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.

“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”

So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.

“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”

Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”

Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”

But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”

DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.

Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.

Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.

By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”

And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.

The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.

“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”

Image

Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.

“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.

Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”

Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.

But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.

“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.

For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”

But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.

As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.

Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58

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Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/

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Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.

They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.

But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.

Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.

“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”

Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”

On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.

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Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.

It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.

“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”

Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.

Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.

“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”

So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.

“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”

Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”

Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”

But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”

DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.

Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.

Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.

By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”

And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.

The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.

“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”

Image

Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.

“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.

Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”

Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.

But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.

“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.

For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”

But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.

As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.

Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |

Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58