#MY BELOVED MORAL ANTITHESIS

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

idk if someone already recommended this song but..

Wait For It

its a track from hamilton and these particular lines remind me so much of timmers

"my mother was a genius, my father commanded respect. When they died they left no instructions, just a legacy to protect"

SHHWHDIIWD IM GONNA FERAL ALSO I LOVE UR FIC TDSB UR THE BEST ILYSM MILLION KUDOS TO U

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

How tf did I not think of this one before now??? I was such a hamilton kid in middle school- this should be DEFAULT- but you are so right

And the whole theme of "I am not standing still im lying in wait"! because now all he has going for him is the time he didnt have before, time to change, hopefully for the better

[betterbooktitles]

What makes a Jesuit boys’ school so entertaining is the irreverence in the face of certain damnation. There were adult authority figures, some imbued with the ability to forgive Mortal Sin, telling us we were going to Hell if we didn’t take our morality seriously. In response, we laughed and cracked jokes. We laughed so hard, in part, because the stakes were so high. If you could mock the Most Important Question, you could likely laugh off anything.

Humor was what opened me up to the idea that I didn’t share the values of the men teaching me to be a “good” person. Humor also taught me that I didn’t have to accept any of it.

The first time I heard shade thrown at the Theology department was during my freshman year when my favorite teacher sitting in a room in the fourth floor English department, in an entirely separate building from the Theology and History classrooms asked “what movie are they showing you over there this week?” It was true that for half the year, Theology teachers showed movies 40 minutes at a time to make important philosophical points. They screened The Matrix, Life is Beautiful (watched in tandem with our reading of Man’s Search for Meaning), and, my personal favorite The Shawshank Redemption which they showed to us in the summer before 9th grade to let us know what Jesuit school would resemble: something close to surviving solitary confinement. If you had music in your mind, you might make it out. I don’t doubt the efficacy of showing these movies to us to teach moral lessons. It was a better strategy than trying to force teenagers to read. I had never heard anyone mock the department, though, especially not another teacher.

To be clear, this scrutiny, at least of the lay teachers in the Theology department was justified. They fed us one-sided anti-intellectual drivel that had almost nothing to do with Catholic Dogma. Instead of learning about a biblical text, we spent hours listening to a guy tell us evolution was “just a theory,” that being gay was a choice, and that abortion was wrong in any instance (whatever your personal beliefs, understand that it’s kind of hard to hear both sides of that argument at an all-male school where the adult men were the authority on ethics). Then they showed us clips from Fox News of Terri Schiavo and told us the “correct” Christian response to the news.

One day, again in my freshman year when I was scared to question anything because of an inordinate fear that I could be thrown out of school at any moment, our Theology teacher pressed play on The Emperor’s Club (a 2002 Kevin Kline movie about a boy’s prep school that served in our teacher’s mind as some ethic antithesis to the more beloved (and frankly more entertaining) Dead Poets Society). A student in the back row raised his hand, and our teacher paused the movie. We sat in the dark room and rolled our eyes. Make this quick, buddy. We’ve got a movie to watch here!

“Jeff?” our teacher said, lifting his eyebrows.

“Yes, I was wondering about the prayer we read before class today,” Jeff said. He was a senior, a bit portly which was only noticeable because many kids did not bother buying new dress shirts every year. Once the stress of school forced you to eat your feelings four years in a row, you wound up with a gut putting pressure on your old shirts’ buttons. “It says in the prayer…” Jeff continued, “that Jesus descended into Hell. What’s that about?” 

“Well,” our teacher said, looking excited to finally talk about religion instead of answering some weird kid’s question about the ethics of having sex with aliens should they ever land on Earth, “according to scripture, we know the gates of Heaven were closed for a time, so when Jesus died he descended into hell first to free other righteous souls…”

“Yeah, a quick follow-up on that,” Jeff said, sounding interested, “does anyone believe this shit?” 

The cackles that erupted in the room nearly overwhelmed our teacher’s angry tirade. Jeff was sent to the Vice Principal’s office to await his judgment. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment you were allowed not only to question those teaching us about religion but you were allowed to reject the faith altogether. 

From there, every argument began to collapse, mostly through funny moments:

A teacher tried to tell us IVF was wrong because “you have to jerk off into a cup. It’s not right.” One kid announced: “I’ve done weirder!” Guffaws. Cheers.

Another teacher claimed gay sex was always wrong because the sex itself was not ‘open to creating human life,’ to which a brave gay student volunteered “Oh, I’m open to it. I’ll keep trying and let you know if there’s a miracle.” Applause. 

When a teacher said video games could be considered a sin if they distract you from work, someone, half-asleep in the front row, let out a loud “Ah, shut up!” that made us all giggle.

My fellow students weren’t playing the game, arguing with the teacher on his terms, using logic. They were dismissing the arguments flippantly, and no adult could reply unless they were funny themselves. 

Read the rest here.

[lawlightautismtruther]

Light has feelings just as well as L. Those big, wet “I love you too, Ryuzaki” eyes don’t lie. (When L tells Light that he’s the first friend he’s ever had) and then the way he’s like “that’s…all it took?” (When Rem agrees to kill him) I don’t remember if I’ve said it on here before, but that’s all the proof you need. Light wished it was harder to kill him than it actually was. Kira needed to take L out for his ultimate plan, but Light is still in there and he’s not ready to let go.

Also, on the topic of the Lawlight fight, I feel like it went beyond just being L’s prime suspect and wanting to be cleared, I feel like Light hit L over it because he doesn’t want L to think he’s Kira on a personal level. I.E. that toxic “I love you so much I’m going to hit some sense into that head of yours” kind of dynamic. “I’m not the terrible person you think I am and I’m extremely desperate for you to see that. Look in my eyes, do you really think I’m that terrible?” but in trying to knock some sense into that person, you sort of prove their point by being violent. (Sickening, Yagami, Sickening)

So Light didn’t have to see L as worth fighting with, but he did

Light didn’t have to go check on L in the rain the day he died, but he did

Light didn’t have to dry L’s hair for him, but he did

He didn’t have to catch him when he fell, but without wasting a second to think, that’s the exactly what he did.

And without L, Light is pretty much void of all morality anymore. If you thought he was bad in the first half, he’s extremely scummy in the second. Without L, what’s the point of being a good person anymore? What’s the point of trying? The only thing he’s living for is the chance at becoming God. He will defend L’s name anyway, despite the fact that it’s the antithesis of Kira. L was his beloved; whether or not he’ll ever come out and say it. Whether you see it as just platonic or romantic/sexual, Lawlight isn’t just a rivalry. They truly felt for each other.

[chaotic-theatrical-weaver]

Ready set go rank your top ten TØP songs and why (purely audio)

Have them featuring images I’ve drawn where applicable! (This is totally not me wanting to be asked about the characters.)

“Polarize”: I’m super morality-oriented, and oh, if that pull isn’t something that resonates in my soul. “I wanted to be a better brother, better son…” YEAH. Go listen to Abbey Glover’s and Tessa Violet’s versions.

“Fall Away”: Same reasons as above. Also has a super pretty piano part (even if rapping while arpeggiating is not feasible)! “ ‘Cause I will save face for name’s sake, abuse grace, take aim to obtain a new name in a newer place, but my name is lame, I can’t walk and I ain’t the same, and my name became a new destiny to the grave.”

“Doubt”: It’s the perfect companion track for “Polarize”!

“Trapdoor”: I can actually play this one on piano, and lyrically, it sounds like if you took a bunch of Arthur Miller characters (specifically, Reverend Hale, Joe Keller, and Willy Loman) and made them fuse with each other. (Fun fact: All My Sons was baby’s first Miller play!)

“Goner”: This one is more hopeful than many would think. I love the bridge and the ending’s implication of a resolution! Even if Blurryface doesn’t disappear fully, it’s the assertion of control over him that matters.

“The Craving”: This is where you’d be seeing more art of the four/two/it's complicated people above if I had more time. "Say enough, say enough / Did I let her know, let her know / If I found my body in chains / I'd lay down and wait / 'Cause it's the fear of the unknown / That cripples every step we take / And I'd just hate to put this on her / But I swear that I will give / More than I take away / Mmm, the craving / Now I see intentions don't mean much"?! IT'S SO THEM. I can also play that on my ukulele!

"The Judge": "I don't know if this one is about me or the devil." As our beloved @artist-issues put it, Tyler's admission that he's as worthy of condemnation there is just...really vulnerable and honest and it flies in the face of everything the world teaches us. To me, it's like reading "I'm not the dragon. I'm not the princess either" and then getting later to "Okay, so I'm the dragon." Plenty of little girls dream of being princesses. All of us dream of being "good people," or at least "good enough" that we're basically the same. Not only are we not what we dreamed, we're the antithesis to that, but there is thankfully God's grace so that we don't always have to be. This song is the grasp for that. And you know I would be drawing the four/two/it's complicated people again for this one.

"Car Radio": I love those second-verse lines about faith and sleep and choosing our sides in this battle for our souls. Do I need to say any more?

"The Line": STRINGS! PIANO! My best friend got into TØP because of this one after quite some time of me being wild about it on my own. She had to bug me (affectionate) for a few days about hearing it and when I finally did? OH THE EDITS I WOULD MAKE TO THE FOUR/TWO/IT'S COMPLICATED PEOPLE I DREW.

"Mulberry Street": It's so Little Fires Everywhere-coded. "Keep your bliss / There's nothing wrong with this"? "Move out of our way / We're pushing sideways / Keep sidewalk under your feet"? Okay, Elena Richardson, pakialamera extraordinare. And the plinkity plink plink of the piano. How could I ignore that?

[alonelystargazer]

jjk for the fandom ask (hope i was first and also that you're doing well <33)

hi rin! I'm having a nice day today actually, and I hope you're having a nice day too! also yeah you're the first one!

The first character I first fell in love with: 

This might be a surprise to some people, but I actually was a Megumi fan when I first got into JJK 3 years ago. I always gravitate towards the dark-haired, moody, reserved guy in media lol, so of course I would end up liking Megumi. But then I met Nanami and he got bumped down. Sorry! I still like Megumi though, he's definitely a top 5 JJK character for me.

I'm putting the rest under a read more because this is really long.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: 

Hmm, I guess I would say Yuuta for this one. Not that I didn't think I wouldn't like him as a character, but he definitely jumped higher on my list after I read/watched JJK 0.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: 

During season 1 I would've said Todo, because he seemed like one of those meathead frat boy type of guys, but he grew on me during Shibuya Incident as a source of inspiration for Yuuji, and in the more recent chapters of the manga.

But now, I would say Toji. Objectively speaking, he has a complicated history that seems interesting, and he's also attractive, but also he's a deadbeat dad who tried to sell his son to the Zen'in clan, and I can't really find any justification for that. Him sacrificing himself for Megumi in Shibuya is quite emotional, but I don't think it makes up for abandoning Megumi. Maybe it's just a personal issue for me lol.

The character I love that everyone else hates: 

I could joke and say Megumi for this one, but I'm gonna go with Mahito. He's a really compelling villain character and served as a foil to Yuuji in terms of philosophy regarding humanity. And him being the one to kill Nanami and Nobara, as his final acts as a cursed spirit, really impacted Yuuji and left a permanent mark on him.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer:

I wouldn't say I loved Mei Mei, but I liked her enough as an example of a morally-gray character, someone who only looks out for herself. But then Gege showed us where she disappeared to during the Shibuya Incident and THAT whole scene was really disturbing to me and from that moment on, I wanted to erase her from my memory. We really didn't need to see THAT to get the impression that she's greedy and has secrets and all that. It was enough of an example of her taking bribes from Gojo to have the students being promoted and all that.

The character I would totally smooch: 

Hehe, well, I think it's obvious I wanna smooch Nanami and Choso, but would it be weird if I also said Heian Sukuna? Also, Kashimo (old man or reincarnated is fine with me hehe). I would also say Shoko, but she's a smoker and I don't really like the smell of cigarette smoke, sorry. She has a gf anyway.

The character I’d want to be like: 

I really want to be like Nanami in the sense of being a mentor to the next generation, and also like Choso in being the best older sibling.

The character I’d slap: 

Fuck ass Mei Mei lol. If Mei Mei has no haters, then I am dead.

A pairing that I love:

ItaFushi my beloved! The angst, the devotion, it's just so peak tragic yaoi. I've already said what I like about them as a ship, so I won't write a long ass paragraph, but I still have some hope for them, unlike with SatoSugu. I also like Haibara/Nanami and Yuuta/Toge as my top 3 JJK ships.

A pairing that I despise: 

*looks at the long list of ships I dislike/hate* Uhh... well, besides the incest and adult/minor ships, I REALLY hate Nanami/Mei Mei, which is something I've seen on twt a few times and it made me wanna rip the flesh off my bones. They are the antithesis of each other, Nanami who's so selfless and kind-hearted and protects children vs MM who's so greedy and selfish and is a danger to her younger brother, not just because she's a weirdo but also because she uses him for his Cursed Technique. They would never work as a ship, and it really irks me how she's the one who gave Nanami the idea for "going south".

anyway, this was fun!

[princeescaluswords]

I always find there's such a stark difference between tgt fans and soc fans, and this is could possibly be because of the way the fandom interprets the texts. Six of crows is a heist novel, about people who aren't chosen ones and just live in Kerch. You don't have to be special to be worthy of getting your story told. Soc fans get that. But Darkling fans? Well, it just *can't* be that Alina chooses to be ordinary over being the Darkling's queen, so she apparently *must* end up with her abuser, even though she does not share his morals; even though she is the antithesis of everything he is because she will never see others' lives as expendable for a greater cause. Alina is compassionate and revels in being the 99%, and Darkling fans seem to hate that. Alina was never meant to be a power fantasy, but for Darkling fans, the idea of being normal was never an option - because to them, why would you not choose to be part of the 1%; why would you not turn this into a power fantasy, even when when the author always intended for tgt to be the opposite?

Unfortunately, I have only seen the Netflix adaptation of the Grishaverse. I don't know what "tgt" stands for. However, I can talk about the unpleasant intersection I find between power, status, and ethics that occurs in fandoms. When I refer back to Alina, the Darkling, and the other characters in the Grishaverse, you should bear in mind that it is constrained by my limited knowledge, and I welcome any correction of what you feel is a misinterpretation.

When it comes to many people in our culture, they may claim to want a good story, but they tend to be quite simplistic in their value systems when they think they're not going to be judged for it. Which means they want power fantasies, instead. The problem, of course, is that power fantasies don't make satisfying stories. It's like trying to survive on a diet consisting solely of cheeseburgers.

Let me give a concrete example. In my primary fandom, Teen Wolf, I recently came across an unlabeled post-season 2 story where Jackson Whittemore -- who, for those who don't know, is white, rich, good-looking, entitled and captain of both the lacrosse and the swim team -- is talking about Scott McCall (the lead protagonist in the show but not this story) in very negative terms, complaining about Scott's lack of decency in not telling Allison Argent that her mother was bitten by Derek Hale, an alpha werewolf, while Mrs. Argent was trying to kill Scott. The bite caused Mrs. Argent to kill herself, and, for a time, Allison blamed Derek for her mother's death.

Now, they set aside the fact that the show made it clear that Scott didn't tell Allison because, by the time he figured out what had happened (he was unconscious when Derek bit Allison's mother), it was already too late to change anything, so Scott decided not to tell Allison so that wouldn't be the last memory she had of her beloved mother. You would think that people would view this as an effort to be kind, right? Wrong!

Fandom sees this as an utter betrayal, because it is Derek Hale's feelings, as a white, rich, god-looking, entitled Alpha Werewolf, that should take precedence over Scott's girlfriend's feelings. It doesn't matter that while Derek did come to Scott's rescue, he had beat, manipulated, lied to, betrayed, and tried to murder innocents under Scott's protection for almost all of the first two seasons.

Also relevant is that this is the same Jackson Whittemore, who witnessed his next-door neighbor "kicking the crap" out of his son, Isaac Lahey, and said nothing about it to anyone. This is the same Jackson Whittemore, who when he got the Bite, dumped his girlfriend and told a homeless man to go die in another parking lot, before turning into a murder lizard slave. This is the same Jackson Whittemore for whom the only solution that Derek Hale managed to come up with when this happened was straight-up murder. This is the same Jackson Whittemore whom Scott fought to save from Derek. There is no hint in this fandom story that Jackson is being a hypocrite or being ungrateful or even aware of the contradiction.

The author chose this. Jackson's signature callousness and selfishness simply vanishes just long enough for him to condemn the person who tried to save him for not wanting to hurt his girlfriend's feelings. Why? Jackson is privileged, and he has that in common with Derek, so it is obvious that Jackson will take Derek's perspective in the matter.

Which brings us back to your example. Alina is the Sun Summoner, a living saint, and incredibly powerful. Of course she's supposed to take the side of the Darkling, who is also incredibly powerful. His creation of a slave caste for his kind, his manipulation and murder of countless others, and his creation of the Shadow Fold poisons her nation. This is irrelevant to power fantasy, where power should make her perspective identical to his.

In the modern day, our culture certainly talks about the dangers of the elite, but fandom gives its participants the way to celebrate a freedom from the ethical consideration when it comes to personal power. To them, since fiction =/= reality, they can indulge in their lust for power and status regardless of the consequences. To them, there is no reason for Scott McCall to value Derek Hale's feelings above Allison Argent's; Derek is more powerful, richer, and better looking (and a guy!) so Scott should choose Derek's side. To them, there is no reason that the Sun Summoner will choose a course in life that will prevent her power from corrupting her; if she allowed herself to be corrupted, she'd have all the status of the Darkling.

The problem they have is that the artists behind both the Grishaverse and Teen Wolf, which you are free to consider trivial, still examined the world around them and came to the conclusion that power doesn't supersede the necessity for ethical thought. In other words, the artists realized that power fantasies might give momentary pleasure, but in the end, they don't produce meaningful stories.

Some people have a problem with that.

[mrtinmtz]

Death Anxiety

Part of the human condition, always there, life threatening illness, an accident, taken before the expected time, it's closer in the evening of life as we grow older, many times it is fear of suffering, illness, pain, loss of beauty, capacity, all enrolled in fear of death but they all different

Cessation of life of the body, cessation of me, i will go into a void, quite unique, Anxiety of all things, what will happen to me, Our basic anxiety is our terror of death, the fear of loss of control, Neurotic fear of death trips us up.. vs another kind of fear of death,  

Psyche prepares for death, the end of life experiences, when the soul and the body are both longing for release the relationship with death is different, death would come in a kind of winter, death comes in the long for release, in the embrace and the promise of laying down suffering

Looking forward for death's embrace, the image of death can present itself so differently depending on psyche´s orientation to the end of life, death can come as a monster, not because its evil but because its premature, death should not come in the middle of the summer, the wrongness of it, Death as a trauma

Eros and thanatos, to help people orient towards eros, the love of life, work, connection, anything anti eros is part of the death instinct, driven by loss, alienation, connected to early childhood experiences, the beloved thing is not there, a loss of a loved object, a beloved pet, a relative that moved away, the loss of the object becomes the first experience of death, something i rely on, fear of being abandoned, i have fallen in the realm of the forgotten, i am now a ghost, i am deadened, It infests other less appropriate images in the psyche

Death, the final mystery, the territory one cannot visit, facing the uncertainty, we displace that uncertainty in all kinds of life projects, make a lot of money, do good social justice things in the world, pushing our awareness of death to the background because we are leading a heroic life, we are engaged, we are getting another degree, thousands of things, my passions, achievements, If we have evidence of our own dynamism, that is the antithesis of the receding into the great dark… The death mother, the underworld, the cave, the womb, Death and rebirth central theme in most initiation rituals, The more you embrace death the more you embrace life, all of life is dissolving and recoagulating, 

The egyptian book of the dead, stages the souls goes through as it absorbs and integrates its life experience and waits to be judged and passed on to eternal life or not, the initiate, to be brought from the state of death of relative ignorance to enlightenment, In the tibetan book, the soul goes through various experiences and if they are negotiated with the right attitude the soul can reach a kind of liberation, Certain schools of kabbalah, the various worlds, encounters, various aspects of the divine, angelic hierarchies, all of these leading to some sense of understanding the life that one has lived in such a way that we can integrate what is best and come to a moral and ethical stance of what we wish we could had done better and might do better in the future, a gate, a promise that there could come another time to do better, to come closer to perfection in one way or another

Being interested in the way we function inside ourselves, examining our thoughts, complexes, reactions, going into the inner world an seeking to resolve the suffering inside of us that has ethical, behavioral, emotional, attitudinal causes in the hope that freedom could be attained within us, for jung, freedom is the capacity to most fully express the deepest and the divine blueprint that has been apportioned uniquely to us… an unique part of ourselves that is obstructed and anything we can do to unobstruct the divine spark inside of us is the path and the way, that which we fail to unobstruct is what we will have to confront after death, so why don't we do it now?

Live. live no matter what religious or philosophical tradition, there are stages of growth of your own innate potential if you really live in your potential try to be self aware, reflect, when is time to die, you will be less afraid

IF I ACCEPT DEATH THEN MY TREE GREENS, since dying increases life if i plunge into death encompassing the world

[normal-thoughts-official]

It literally angers me so much that not one person thought "isn't it a little off that a black teacher would threaten a latino student with the police?" like yes there are black people that would do that but is also has a lot of implications that pixelberry just,, decided to pretend weren't there ? Or even worse ? Pretend it was definitely the most "moral" choice like wtf

Apart, you didn't use any pronouns for me (which was really nice of you <3) but I thought it was easier to tell you, also ahahahshjs my friend has almost the same trouble as you like she is agender but uses any or all pronouns, except she's black and amab and they're very typically(?) handsome so when she used to say "any pronouns" people always went he/him and just being treated as a man, so to cisociety: she/they only to trans people any pronouns (which was funny because they I thought I was cis so I stopped using he/him as a good ally except they told me "that doesn't apply to you though??" me: "but I'm cis??" friend: "I will let you figure this out")

Also part 2 I LOVE PLAYING AS A MALE MC WHEN THE STORY IS AGGRESSIVELY HETEROSEXUAL FEMALE MC

I love it!!! Like I played open heart (don't judge) and the story is sooooo made to be a female mc akskjsjd

literally like u can tell there isnt a single writer of color in that team, there are so many pretty obvious racial implications that just. completely went over their heads. like oh my god. the way that both mr cooper AND principal flores are black/brown and BOTH threatened him with police over absolutely NOTHING like. kill <3

(dont get me started on flores lmao that bitch is the antithesis of a real school director i wanna die)

also im ur friend in that scenario rip udbdjd i can smell baby queers from a mile away and half of the time i assume ppl know theyre queer so i casually mention them being trans/bi/ace/etc and theyre like "what do you mean? im a cistraight heterosexual cisgender cis straight hetero" and im like ah. u think that huh

(shoutout to my friends reading this that were immediately assigned trans by me on sight and had a gender crisis and now are out <3 ily)

also, unfortunately, i have.... also played open heart.... twice. in my defense tho, u cant have a character be like "i am driven by community, all that matters to me is that, also im a huge self sacrificial idiot with no braincells, also i suck at flirting" AND be brazilian and expect me to NOT fall in love with him. books 2 and 3 are a scam and never happened as far as im concerned because the butchering of rafa's character is real but i love him and i would do anything for him

and honestly my flaming take is that open heart 1 is a decent book? itll never be good because any book that pushes mr sexual harrassment down ur throats cant possibly be good and ethan is THE shittiest LI of all time but it has a good plot and i like the obvious anticapitalist undertones and the discussion of how profit-driven mentality ruins healthcare. i also like how ur previous choices come back in the finale and u get to see ur patients again, its pretty nice. and every character feels like they have more or less of an arc that is left somewhat resolved (except for aurora who only gets to shine in the later books, which is a shame because i adored her from day one), so i think it's honestly a well written book. i also played with a male MC (dr bus down with cis my beloved. yes i named him that. ask me about my MCs names <3) and i liked it. i didnt feel like it was super hetero cuz honestly rafa and MC had pretty gay vibes, like the shitty flirting was so gay <3 and rafa in general, like.. community? self sacrifice? gay. sorry sir i diagnose u with homo. and also trans. because i can <3 (and also like. rafa has TITS like im sorry theres no getting around it, those are TIDDIES ma'am, not to mention that WAIST like lol. sorry pixelberry ur completely unrealistic male body means hes trans now <3)

so yeah i have. an embarrassing love for open heart. but anyone who follows me already knows i have bad taste, so

[jackoshadows]

Maybe this is me being naive and hopeful but I don't see the point of Dany dying in the books, yeah, I know what happened in the show, but nothing that happened in s8 made sense anyway. Martin spent a ot of time in ADWD with the political and economic aspects of Meereen, with all the problems that making a new system has to erase at the end the character that has that storyline and that will be needed at the end of the book for Westeros rebuilding.

I have to agree. This was what was so disappointing for me as well with season 8. That GRRM spend an entire book on characters like Dany and Jon being leaders and having to make the tough decisions and getting actual experience and the show ending just gets rid of these characters.

I mean, we had Jon spend a chapter literally counting grain and barley and veggies in the store room. Why? We had to read Dany making the hard decisions, right and wrong decisions, compromise, lose and win. All for nothing.

The writing the show gave it’s endgame leaders was abysmal. Tyrion turned into an idiot, they didn’t care about Bran and Sansa’s qualification was making snarky comments. 

In Bran’s case, I could see GRRM taking him down the path of Leto II Atreides from Children of Dune, in which scenario he could make King Bran of Westeros work in the books. But D&D did not write ANYTHING at all for Bran. On the other hand, they were really invested in Sansa as a character, they wanted her to be more important on the show, they took story arcs and characterization from other characters in the books for show Sansa and they still could not make queen Sansa work on the show.

And the show’s ending does not gel with GRRM’s take on ruling:

We had GRRM’s entire spiel on what ruling means:

One thing that I am trying to get at in the books, the political aspect if you would, is to kind of show that this stuff is hard. I think that an awful lot of fantasy and even some great fantasy falls under the mistake of assuming that a good man would be a good king and all that is necessary is to be a decent human being and then when you are king everything will go swimmingly. Tolkien is great but we never get into the nitty gritty of Aragorn ruling. What is his tax policy? How does he feel about crop rotation?

How does he handle land disputes between two nobles, both of whom think that they should have the village, so they burn it down to establish their claim. This is the hard part of ruling be it in the middle ages or now. It’s not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler. It’s complicated and it’s hard and I wanted to show that with repeated examples in my books with my kings and hand of the kings - the prime minister if you would - trying to rule. And whether it be Ned Stark or Tyrion Lannister or Tywin Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen or Cersei Lannister trying to deal with the real challenges that affect anyone trying to rule the 7K or even a city like Meereen and it’s hard.

You know, we can all read the books or read history and say oh, so and so was stupid and made a lot of mistakes and look at all these stupid mistakes they make. But these kind of mistakes are always much more apparent in hind sight than when you are actually faced with the decision about, oh my God, what would I do in this situation. How do I resolve this thing? Do I do the moral thing? But what about  the political consequences of the moral thing? Do I do the pragmatic, cynical thing and kind of screw the people who are screwed by it? I mean, it is HARD. And I want to get to all of that - GRRM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJCb3xyWyAg

This statement here?

If I am ever a queen I will make them love me

is an antithesis of everything GRRM says above. This quote shows, to a certain extent, Sansa’s naivete at this point. The Tyrells deliberately cut off food to KL and then Margaery Tyrell distributes food to the people to win their favor.  It has  nothing to do with the well being of the people here.  Sansa sees this and thinks that when she is queen, she will make people love her and some folks think that this points to Sansa being the most compassionate, best queen ever.

That’s why Queen Sansa is so attractive to people who subscribe to the simplistic notion that all ruling entails is being beloved by the people. She’s a blank slate who has yet to negotiate or hash out deals with adults, or make a single decision that affects the lives of the people under her. She’s perfect because she has yet to do anything. The Disney fairy tale version - ironically something Sansa believed in at the start of the books. That’s why Jonsas think that we will get King Jon and Queen Sansa ruling happily ever after.

Dany should by all rights be a popular, beloved leader in Meereen. But it’s not easy. She has to hand out justice which is complicated. She has to start building up an economy from scratch - one not based on slavery. She has to deal with an insurgency, famine, disease. She has to make hard choices and she has to do it surrounded by enemies. The former slaves want her to reopen the fighting pits. Does Dany do the moral thing or what her people want?

Both Jon and Dany make mistakes. They make some emotional decisions that are not right. But to quote Leto II Atriedes when he gives his father’s ring to Stilgar in Children of Dune:

To remind you that all humans make mistakes, and that all leaders are but human.                              

Dany is not in a similar situation to the rich Tyrells who can ‘buy the vote’ so to speak, by handing out food to the starving populace of KL. Starvation that happened because the Tyrells closed off the Roseroad during the WOT5K. But Sansa is not thinking like the Tyrells here. She genuinely thinks that all it takes to be a good queen is to make her people happy - and it’s that simple.

Jon Snow at the wall, being the head of a military institution, has it easier than Dany. But, not having Dany’s charm and charisma, he has a harder time convincing people that he is making the right decisions.  By the time we reach the end of ADwD, Jon knows that he is hated by a majority of the watch.

Jon is not making decisions that are popular or liked by his men. He is making decisions based on defending the realm. Save the lives of the freefolk - and not provide more dead to the Others, save the men he send to Hardhome, prepare the watch, prepare the castles, get more food, train more people etc. He too makes mistakes - fails to read the mood of the people. Fails to take warnings seriously. Undermines the neutrality of the watch by interfering in the affairs of the realm.

Doing a re-read of the Wheel of Time series before the TV adaptation premieres, I am reminded of this line from Rand al’Thor returning to one of the kingdoms he conquered. This is the hero of the story, the good guy.

The pair gathered themselves, drew deep breaths — and saw Rand over the Maidens’ heads. Their eyes nearly popped out of their faces. Each man glanced sideways at the other, and then they were on their knees. One stared fixedly at the floor; the other squeezed his eyes shut, and Perrin heard him praying under his breath. “So am I loved,” Rand said softly. - A Crown of Swords

Ruling is not always about being popular, beloved, compassionate, always being right etc. I doubt GRRM intends it to be that way. He has given several instances of rulers and leaders in his books and as he points out none of them has had it easy. Hindsight is 2020 and all that and leader often times make unpopular decisions.

I am torn on Dany’s ending. On the one hand, I find it hard to believe that GRRM is going to kill off a character that he spend so much time building up as a ruler. She is also one of the big 5, who is mentioned as surviving till the end along with Jon, Arya, Bran and Tyrion in the original outline. Why would he kill off just Dany from the big 5?

But would Benioff and Weiss really kill off Daenerys if she does not die in the books? That’s a really big departure for a central book character. I think GRRM knows the endings of the big 5 - in interviews he has always stated that he knows Jon, Arya and Tyrion’s endings.

So whether Dany lives or dies in the books? I don’t know. It will indeed be very disappointing if she does die though. I want the big 5 to make it and have decently good endings.

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

Sebastian Shaw textually represents American values, politics, and ways of thinking, or at least used to. Not subtextually, but textually. But he hasn’t been written as such in years. And I think partly that’s because in 2009, a change was made to his history that made him have been Emma Frost’s former abusive lover, and writers prefer to focus on that---Emma is a far more popular character, and it’s a PERSONAL story rather than a political one---and because, if they go with this criticism as hard as some former writers did, they risk alienating a good chunk of their audience. Because while lots of people will agree with the message of “oh yeah don’t be mean to minorities” in a bland general way, Shaw represents a criticism of something FAR more specific, and far more culturally beloved. The American dream. I’m not reaching with this either, this is not simply my opinion, this is stated in the text itself: ”By the age of 30, Shaw had earned his first million. By 40, his first billion. He wasn’t just living the American dream, Sebastian Shaw was the American dream.” - X- Men: Hellfire Club #4” So, what does that mean, the American dream? The American dream is the ideal that anyone can make it if they work for it. That it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are, or where you come from, you can do it if you believe. And Shaw does]. Shaw is smart, he’s determined, he believes in himself, he never gives up, and he becomes a multi-billionaire for it. That’s lovely. It’s also the cherry on top of a stew of very dangerous boot-strapping ideas that blames people for their own poverty and the suffering that comes with it----suffering that ironically Shaw himself has been through. He grew up a deeply impoverished child and his mutation manifested due to literal class violence; a group of preppy college guys beat him up for being a poor kid on scholarship, for basically getting out of his place. More on that HERE. And yet despite this history, when Shaw himself becomes rich he espouses these views: “Our costumes signify our abandonment of the modern age–with its cloying ethics and bourgeois mercantile principles, where society is bent on protecting people from themselves at an cost—for a far simpler one…where a man was limited solely by the scope of his imagination, his ambition, his daring. And bound only by his own personal sense of honor. Society—the common herd–means nothing. The individual is all.” - New Mutants #22 “He [Shaw] will tolerate no inefficiency, no waste, no weak-minded liberalism.” —X-Men:The Legacy Quest Trilogy, Book Three, by Steve Lyons Bishop: “Out of the goodness of your heart?” Shaw: “Enlightened self-interest.” -  Uncanny X-Men #453 These are quotes that reflect very real-world libertarian and Objectivist politics. Shaw’s not a conservative, I should stress---as much as one might WANT to label him such, his investment in individual rights, individual self-interest, individual achievements, and personal freedoms above all else, including disdain for common morality and belief that one should set one’s own personal code of honor (which he did, very early in his writing, believe it or not), is much more Libertarian. Shaw is Black King of the Hellfire Club, I can’t really see him getting fussed over same-sex marriage or abortion the way conservatives do. His use of the phrase “enlightened self-interest” is also a real-world term in the philosophy of ethics. These quotes represent a lot of ideas that many people do find appealing---the values of individualism, of people choosing their own codes of honor rather than having them enforced by society and the government, of not being controlled by silly government things like safety regulations, the idea everyone should earn everything they have, that the government should not be trying to protect people from themselves (the term “nanny state” is often used by libertarians)---and there is even merit in them. There are good ideas here. But it’s coming from a villain. Sebastian Shaw is a bad guy. We are not supposed to agree with him. We are meant to see his point and his point of view (back when he was allowed to have one; he’s really not now) but at the end of the day, probably not to think he’s right. So, this man is textually referred to as The American Dream, he says these quotes, and he is the bad guy. A bigger criticism of these deeply held American values around “hard work” and “no big government” and individualism---for America is a deeply individualist country---would be hard to come by. Shaw also provides a comment both on how people from an underclass will turn on their own and how in fact our culture trains us to do so, and on America’s history with Communism, the antithesis of the ideals Shaw represents, and how that’s affected us to this day. Again, Shaw grew up very poor. He’s a self-made man, and very proud of that, and that is indeed the American ideal. And I think he represents very well both how people are ready to step on others once they themselves become successful enough to do so, but also how well Americans as a people are trained to RESIST what’s good for us. After all, the biggest haters of welfare here in the South (where I live) are the same poor white people who are on it. We’re a people who will vote to take away social programs and healthcare not just from others, but OURSELVES, because we are just that indoctrinated against anything that we think smells even close to socialism or Communism-----and Shaw was indoctrinated too, to a much more EXTREME degree than we are today. He’s in his 40s when he first shows up in the 80s, which means he was born in the late 30s, so he would have been growing up during the era of McCarthyism and the second Red Scare, when the American nation was actively terrified of Communism on mass scale and it was a HUGE impact on the culture. Combine that with being born in terrible poverty, and no wonder this guy grew up to embody all the worst excesses of capitalist greed and cruelty! Which is not to say he has an excuse to be the way he is, but just that, like most villains, he has a reason, and it’s actually more interesting than just “well he’s greedy” as it’s often boiled down to. But writers like to boil it down to that. It’s simple to understand...and it doesn’t take risks. You don’t risk pissing anyone off with another “greedy rich guy” cliché villain. That’s a very safe villain, very shallow, very easy to hate. You also don’t take risk with the “Emma’s evil ex” stories. That’s also a very safe villain, very easy for readers to hate and root against, and personal rather than political. But if writers today started having Shaw espouse the politics he previously did, that would NOT be a “safe” move. They would risk readers being pissed off because their own views are coming from a man who is unquestionably, irredeemably, and unrepentantly the BAD guy. Shaw believes things I suspect a great many X-Men readers believe, and will be angry at seeing critically examined and challenged. It’s easy to agree with stuff like “minorities shouldn’t be murdered” for readers, but Shaw takes on much more specific and deep issues that, while they do move the target away from the mutant minority metaphor, are worth discussing and make him a deeper, far more interesting character than he gets to be anymore….and I would like to see him be again.

[kid-crashed]

Jon Kent and Damian Wayne in the Young Justice Animated Series

It’s been a good long while since Young Justice: Outsiders came out, so I feel like I can finally write about this without worrying about tagging spoilers and ruining lives or something. This is something I thought about the second this episode aired, and I’ve been waiting to write it. So here it goes!

Young Justice: Outsiders was obviously exciting for many reasons, but some of the most excitement came from introductions of well beloved characters, such as Jason Todd and Damian Wayne (seen in Episode 6) and Jon Kent (seen in Episode 9). Anyone who follows Super Sons already knows that this is a massive deal, because it establishes that Damian and Jon both exist in the same animated timeline for the very first time, as well as it being Jon’s animated debut.

While I’m obviously extremely excited for the possibility of a Super Sons animated moment, it got me thinking. The screen shots above show that Damian and Jon are both infants, likely somewhere around one (1) year old. This is completely different from the three (3) year age difference we’re used to, and while this difference might not seem like that big of a deal to some people, it has the capacity to completely change their character dynamics.

Let’s start by looking at Damian:

We all know Damian’s backstory by now; raised in the League of Assassins by Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul, until he was ten (10) years old, when he moved to Gotham to live with Bruce Wayne. It was at this point that he became Robin. This is a pretty concrete point in Damian’s character, and is very unlikely to change. At some point in the YJ series, he needs to become Robin. But lets take a minute to think about what kind of person he was at that age: arrogant, violent, stubborn, and desperately trying to prove his worth to a father he just met. At this point, he was a killer, and regularly fought with just about every member of the Batfam, Bruce and Dick in particular, as he tried to break the habits he’d been brought up with. 

In the context of YJ, we can assume that Dick would at some point bring Damian along to join the Team, but the question is, at what age? Damian joining almost immediately fits pretty well with how quickly he was introduced to the Teen Titans. But, at that age, he was hardly a team player. It wasn’t until he was about thirteen (13) that he really started developing actual friendships. However, the age Damian joins the Team - in my opinion at least - would depend very heavily on when the other “Next Generation” heroes join. 

This brings us to Jon:

Jon is known for being the complete antithesis to Damian. Rather than being raised to be a loyal machine, he was raised to be a loyal friend. Jon is a character who puts family first, and thinks of his friends as family. He’s truly a breath of childish fresh air in an industry that loves feeding us doom and gloom. While he is beloved by the majority of the fanbase, other characters were very apprehensive about him when he first got into the hero business at ten (10) years old; not-so-coincidentally, the same age as Damian. 

However, Jon is also the character in DC comics with the most amount of pressure on him. You imagine being the son of Superman for a moment, and growing up knowing that every single person you meet expects you to one day take over that title. Do you think you’d be able to handle that? Let alone at ten years old? I certainly can’t. Yet it seems like Jon doesn’t actually realize just how heavy that weight on his shoulders is.

While Supers are known for being power houses, and every team seems to want one, Jon was a kid, and very new to his abilities. He was unpolished; constantly making mistakes, misjudging his own strength, overshooting his speed and flight, and who could possibly forget when he lost control Manchester Black, or when he went full Super Nova and nearly killed the Teen Titans? It became very clear at the end of the first Super Sons run that Damian was actually the only other young hero that trusted Jon, which is why they continued to function as the newest take on a dynamic duo. 

How does this all come back to Young Justice: Outsiders? Well it’s actually very simple. All of that mistrust that characters were going to have in Jon was immediately erased the second the series did this:

Right here is the next generation of the Team. We all know it, and unlike previous heroes, this is the first generation that’s growing up together. Unlike every other iteration of the Justice League, Teen Titans, Young Justice, and literally every other team you can think of, these kids are all going to grow up watching each other’s powers come in. They’re going to know each other’s weaknesses and flaws, from weekly play dates, birthday parties, and any other hero-family get-together; some of them might even end up going to the same schools in this universe. Yes, Jon is the youngest out of them, but that just means that every single one of these kiddos is going to watch him grow up, knowing that S on his chest will always be there.

Let’s think about what we know about Jon again. He’s charismatic, funny, loyal and true, and has this uncanny ability to be able to talk to literally anyone, regardless of who the are, where they’re from, or what circumstance he’s in. You know what those traits line up perfectly with? A natural born leader. 

Growing up in this environment, where all these super kids play all the time, it’s so easy to imagine Jon growing up and being this larger than life personality that everyone just naturally seems to listen to. Jon would be the kid coming up with new games to play, and teaching them to everyone else. He would be one of the team captains when they play kickball, soccer, or any other sport. He would be genuinely interested in everyone’s hobbies and skills. He would be the one everyone turns to when they need someone to talk to. If someone’s unsure about him, chances are they’ll just do what everyone does; take one look at that S on his chest and just start listening. 

The series progresses. There’s another time skip, and Damian and Jon are now both ten years old, taking on their respective superhero mantels for the first time. As all young heroes in this series eventually do, they join the Team. Perhaps around the same time, perhaps Damian joins a few months before hand, or vice versa. But that doesn’t matter, because the effect will be exactly the same.

Damian is harsh. He’s vindictive, and unemphatic; the exact opposite of what everyone expects a Robin to be. He refuses to take orders, and is very clearly trying to fight his was to the top of the food chain. Plus, he comes right in and kicks Tim Drake out of the Robin title, someone who could very likely be the current leader. Chances are, everyone would hate Damian from the get-go. Meanwhile, everyone would be looking forward to the day Jon joins. They all knew he would. It was just a matter of time. 

Rather than being introduced to each other with a clear difference in experience like in the comics, Jon and Damian are now on relatively even playing fields because they’re the same age. Damian would have more combat skills, but Jon’s already an integral part of the group, and he’s a fast learner. Obviously they would but heads, likely even more than they did in Supers Sons. 

One of the biggest debates we see in every single season of YJ is “Ok, but who’s in charge?” This would undoubtedly come up as Damian flat out refuses that listen to any leadership if he doesn’t deem them worthy. Even at ten (10) years old, he would likely be fighting for that position of head honcho, because at this point in his life, Damian’s driving forces are his ego and his ambition. Unfortunately for him, at ten (10) years old, with that personality, and after having just left the League of Assassins, he’s completely untrustworthy. 

Jon on the other hand is a perfect candidate for eventual leader. Everyone would have followed Kon, the Superboy before him, to the ends of the Earth. Superman led the Justice League at one point, plus he’s, you know, Superman. Here we’ve got that legend’s kid, with all the makings to eventually take over the whole operation. He’s young, and pretty green, but chances are every single person on the team would have it in the back of their minds that this kid was born to lead. 

The biggest problem? Jon has a tendency to crack under pressure, and second guess himself. There is a chance that Damian rushing to be in charge would force Jon to be pushed forward far too quickly, long before he’s ready. Meanwhile, Damian’s smart as sin. No one on the Team would be able to deny that Damian’s a perfect strategist, who analyses and memorizes every skill set and strength of the people he has to work with. He can come up with a flawless plan at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile, Jon would be the kind of person to lead with his heart, and build morale on a foundation of morals and trust.

That’s going to be the conflict between Damian and Jon in Young Justice because of how they were introduced in the series, and with their lack of age gap. Damian doesn’t have the time to grow and gain everyone’s trust before Jon becomes Superboy, where as Jon wouldn’t have the chance to learn before getting pushed into leadership positions he isn’t ready for. They’re likely going to but heads even more than before, and right now, there’s no way to tell if they will ever be able to achieve the friendship they have in the comics, or if they’ll be stuck as rivals.

Is it too early to make assumptions? Yeah. Probably. Who knows what the writers have planned. But I don’t think there’s any way to doubt the conflict they just created for themselves.

[theholycovenantrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, JORDAN! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF GADRIEL.

Admin Rosey: Eeeeeee! Jordan you have no idea how much I’m bouncing off the walls because you brought us such an unparalleled Gadriel! I was hoping, with all my heart, that someone would dare to write a character that is full of such unfettered love, and you did it. All the more, you didn’t hold back with the adoration that seems to burrow itself into every single facet of the character. Your para sample was an absolute thrill to read and truly, I couldn’t have asked for someone more capable of delivering the Gadriel we all know and love. Thank you so much for this wonderful application - it had me grinning from ear to ear. Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Jordan

Age | 23

Personal Pronouns | She/her

Activity Level | I’m not in school or working right now, so I do have quite a bit of free time on my hands. However, I still have real life stuff that crops up occasionally, and I’m currently looking for a job, so  if/when?? (hopefully) that happens I’ll let you guys know! As it stands, I can on average devote a few hours each day to rp’ing, though that might vary depending on the day.  

Timezone | EST

Triggers | REMOVED

How did you find the group?  | I saw Rosey reblog the prerelease advertisement thing and the rest was history. 

Current/Past RP Accounts | https://chandlerrosen.tumblr.com/ 

IN CHARACTER

Character | Gadriel

What drew you to this character? | 

Though there were quite a number of characters I considered applying for at various stages, I kept coming back to Gadriel. Within her character is everything I’m familiar with, and yet nothing that I’ve written before. I study (or studied, technically) early modern literature and art history, with a focus on Catholic theology, so I was initially drawn to Gadriel’s background as a martyred saint. I love her grief, I love the way she grows from it while still carrying it with her. I love her fighting for compassion and pacifism, while still being shrouded by the monstrous aspect of her that has always lingered within. Her love is her driving force, and her vision all encompassing, and for the “greater good,” but she is still so selfish. More on this now!

What future plots do you have in mind for the character? | 

i. beware of false prophets [. . .] ye shall know them by their fruits

The God she loved was not always a benevolent one, but she loved Him nonetheless, the words of the scripture a familiar glaze on her tongue, weaving its way through the air as it settles around her like a warm blanket. These were the words she lived by, and the words she, in another life, died by. But now these words, and the God who fomented them, are obsolete—ash and dust, they swirl around her still, only a faint echo of their former glory. Now, the residents (those who choose to partake in religion) worship the Hundred-Eyed God—instead of fire and brimstone, this new deity promised everlasting serenity. Gadriel, like most residents of Caelum, doesn’t worship the Hundred-Eyed God, but as God’s most devout and loving follower, she is faced with the difficult task of protecting ISOLDE, the All-Seeing Priestess of the faith. Despite her best efforts, Gadriel finds herself liking the mortal, and where once Gadriel would have seen an idolator, she now sees what could turn into a friend. The relationship, however, is tenuous, and Gadriel is very reluctant to let herself become attached to the girl—it didn’t end so well for the last worshipped figure in Gadriel’s life. But more than that, Isolde feels like a punishment, or rather, like she should be a punishment. Sure, it pains Gadriel to watch new rituals when the old ones sit in her bones and on her tongue, aching to be remembered and repeated, but otherwise, her task is, at times, an enjoyable one. So when will the other shoe drop? I’m very interested in seeing how this relationship will develop, and how ESTIENNE will fit into it. The biography mentions that Gadriel would kill to protect ARAEL, presumably she would do the same for Isolde, if only out of obligation (though personal affection may one day be a reason as well). Whether it be Estienne or someone else, how will Gadriel, generally a pacifist, react if Isolde is threatened?

I also think it’s interesting to consider what would happen, not if Isolde is physically threatened, but if her status is somehow threatened, or if someone, say ORIAS or CASSIEL (though there are many others), challenges Isolde (an extension of the Hundred-Eyed God) as someone/something to be worshipped? Zealotry is comfortable for Gadriel, a familiar armor to lace over her chest as she draws her sword, but it has rusted and worn down, a passion without a purpose, without an outlet. I think Gadriel is far from becoming a zealot for the Hundred-Eyed God, and to be honest, I’m not sure it would ever actually happen. However, I can see this going two ways (not necessarily mutually exclusive, either): 

Gadriel develops a love for Isolde similar to the love she felt for God; it would be different, no doubt, but I think part of Gadriel’s worship of God in her mortal life came from, faith yes, but also love and a desire to be loved. Her worship of God was not entirely unselfish, but fervently pious nevertheless. Could Gadriel ever get to the point where she would take up her sword for Isolde, not against imminent danger, but against idolatry? Maybe, maybe not, and if it did, it would be, as I said, much further down the line, and certainly not as strong as the zealotry she exhibited for God, but I do think it’s an important aspect of Gadriel that cannot just be shirked because her God is dead.

Regardless of Isolde and how Gadriel may feel about her, there is still a part of Gadriel, no matter how slowly waning it may be, that fought tooth and nail to worship her God, both as a human and angel. And now, with people cropping up, Orias, Cassiel, Michael, etc. who try to fill that void He left, to be worshipped in their own right, I’m interested in how Gadriel will react. Obviously, Gadriel is not omnipotent, and therefore doesn’t necessarily know the extent to which these various figures have designs on power, on reverence. But throughout the course of the roleplay, I think as their actions reflect their intentions, and as those intentions become clearer, the familiar feeling of zealotry will crop up again, burning inside Gadriel’s bosom as it once had. Perhaps something starts it, perhaps she will see the corruption of mortals, of her fellow angels, even, and she wants to stop it. It’s not something she could do alone, at least not successfully, and depending on where Gadriel is in her development, she might not even care at first. But I still think it would be interesting to explore, and which unlikely alliances she may form to quell the rising of a new, different, idol. 

ii. should intermitted vengeance arm again / His red right hand to plague us?

For every cloud, there is a silver lining, and for every slain deity, a world to be made anew. I don’t think Gadriel has ever been motivated by power, and I don’t think she is now, either. I do think, however, that she believes in a very strong vision of the world, a vision she believed she shared with her God. Of course, without God, Gadriel now has the freedom to reshape her vision, and mold the world into, as the biography states,  “her own vision of beauty.” But that which is beautiful, is also terrible, for beauty without power is vulnerability, a quality Gadriel has shedded like a skin too tight and too itchy to ever be comfortable again. There is an anger inside her, a feeling of righteousness against those she believes have acted unjustly. Namely, MICHAEL and CASSIEL. There are many people she blames for this war, for the death of her beloved God, and Michael’s name is at the top of the list. He clipped her wings, he punished her for her pride (for is hubris not the most base of the tragic flaws?), smearing her face in the dirt of her own folly by naming her the Virtue of Temperance, forcing her to protect a being instrumental to the worship of a new, unfamiliar religion. And still, Gadriel turns the other cheek. To wage outright war against Michael would be foolish, and though Gadriel is privy to foolishness (a lingering effect of her not-so-long-forgotten mortality), she isn’t that foolish. I think the dynamic between Gadriel and Michael is very interesting, and something I’d love to explore. As he hungers for more power, as Gadriel’s resentment of him festers, infecting her life’s blood with boiling wrath, when will Gadriel decide that enough is enough. And who will stand with her? 

Now onto Cassiel. Cassiel’s betrayal of the Cherubim, of Gadriel and her own people (though really, with Gadriel’s part in the war against Michael, I think Gadriel would be put on trial regardless), is another interesting avenue to explore. I mentioned Cassiel above as being a sort of “False Prophet,” and in truth, I think she is the antithesis to Gadriel. Speaking of Cherubim, I think Gadriel and ZADKIEL would actually get along fairly well, as Gadriel is (or at least was) well-liked by her fellow angels, and liked them in return, and I think they have a similar philosophy and moral compass. Would Gadriel and Zadkiel, two angels affected by Cassiel’s actions, end up lighting the spark of retribution against Cassiel? Or will it divide them? Cassiel and Gadriel are two people driven by the notion of beauty, though their definitions couldn’t be further apart. While Cassiel’s vision is of herself, Gadriel sees an eternal peace, filial piety and the burning passion of people who join in communion as one (so really, the concept of the Hundred-Eyed God should be alluring to her, once Gadriel realizes that it aligns with her vision and she could wield it considering Isolde is her charge—I digress). Perhaps Gadriel goes against Cassiel, not necessarily for past indiscretions, but present grievances. 

To create, you must destroy, and from the ashes of the old world will Gadriel’s vision of beauty rise, sheathed in gold with a purity so simple, it can only be considered divine.   

iii. when is a monster not a monster?

The answer, of course, “when you love it.” Gadriel’s connections to Asmodeus, Arael, and Mammon are all thematically concerned with when Gadriel shows her monstrous side, if at all. With ARAEL, Gadriel’s monstrous side is not hidden, because with their level of intimacy, with its purity, Gadriel holds no secrets from Arael. It just rarely (if ever) rears its ugly head. The biography mentions that Gadriel would kill for Arael, and I would like to put that to the test. I don’t know how, or when, but I want Gadriel to become a monster, all for the sake of Arael. She knows of Arael’s grief, but I’m wondering just how much Gadriel knows of Arael’s visits to ABBADON’S domain. If she doesn’t know, then perhaps Gadriel will feel betrayed. Of course, she wouldn’t take it out on Arael, there is very little Arael could do to warrant that sort of emotion from Gadriel, but I do think it would shift their relationship. If Gadriel does know, however, I wonder if Gadriel might try to take it upon herself to help Arael (if it’s unwanted, so much the better), because Gadriel is the picture of self-righteousness.  

ASMODEUS is an interesting case with regard to Gadriel’s monstrous side. She hasn’t quite figured him out, she doesn’t know his sad past, but the glances they share, the stares that betray his longing for something else, someone else, intrigue her. And I think it makes Gadriel feel powerful, this unsaid tension between them, the notion that at any moment, it could all crumble and collapse, that he could, if she so chose. I think she wants to poke and prod at him, maybe from afar at first, and then toy with him, his vulnerability between her teeth, with only gravity (the gravity she is so adept at manipulating) to crush it, or release him from her grasp. Of course, Gadriel is not without compassion, and maybe once she knows Asmodeus’ story, she’ll feel differently. It all depends on what part of Asmodeus she chooses to see: the human, or the demon.

Gadriel’s most monstrous side, her most vindictive and self-righteous, self-satisfying, parts, are shown in her relationship with MAMMON. She spared them, not because she felt pity, not because she cared, or didn’t wish to shed blood, but to show them that she could. She held their life at the end of her blade and laughed when she removed it from his throat. Surely they still harbor bitter feelings towards her, feelings of hatred and resentment, even. In Emma’s app for Mammon, she mentions how she envisions them fighting, even to the death. I fully agree, and am looking forward to their confrontation a lot. Gadriel is, generally, soft, but I want to explore those parts of her that are more monster than divine, more human than angel. 

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes.

IN DEPTH

Driving Character Motivation | 

In Gadriel’s mortal life, her driving motivation was her love for God, and her desire to be loved by God. The picture of piety, Gadriel shirked near all else to proclaim her love for God, frustrated when others wouldn’t recognize His great power, his all-encompassing love. Even when she became an angel, she was still driven by this love, but now it was realized, it was reciprocated. And rather than have that be diminished upon conquest, it only grew stronger and more fervent. 

Of course, after the war, after her wings were clipped, Gadriel turned into the dutiful angel, obeying Michael’s orders (much to her chagrin). Now she’s driven by her vision of beauty, of peace everlasting and passion overflowing. Love is still very much part of the equation, and the love she feels for Arael, for Isolde (maybe, eventually), also motivates her. But it’s her love for God, and for his vision, that stoke the fire of ambition in her loins. I think Gadriel is tired of constantly being taken for granted, being walked all over, and is using the new world as an opportunity to turn a page in her own life. To become all that she once sought to, to fulfill all righteousness on earth, and to spread her vision to all those who will listen. 

Character Traits | 

(passionate, loyal, empathetic)

(dogmatic, vengeful, obstinate)

In-Character Para Sample | 

“Brothers, sisters, friends, lend me your ears,” she began, standing in front of her fellow angels, on trial for crimes committed against Michael, committed for God. “I stand on trial today, though I believe myself innocent of all crimes, guilty only of being consumed by love. Perhaps my love was misplaced, my loyalty misguided, but is that so unreasonable? Was that not God’s almighty power—to stir inside those who are lost the guidance to follow His will through His love?” She looked around, eyes imploring as she clutched her chest. The room was bright, the sun almost overbearing and artificial, devoid of everything Heaven held, a false divinity imbuing every corner and crevice. She had been here before. But rather than in a spotless room, she was surrounded by dust and the jeers of Romans who believed her guilty of the same crime she was accused of now: treason.

“You accuse me of treason,” she began again, and the lion’s roar in her ear was so loud, she felt as though it was standing across the room from her, not Michael, “but forgive me, I knew nothing else. If my actions offended, let us rectify the situation, together. Let us venture forth, hand in hand, brothers in arms, angels enshrouded in the divinity that is our right, into this new era. But let us not paint this era with more blood than has already been shed; for is that truly what you want your legacy to entail? Fire and brimstone—would you be any better than the God you have deposed?” She raised her eyebrow, scanning the eyes of the crowd as they shifted uncomfortably. An invisible string lifted Gadriel’s spine—perhaps it was her power of gravity, perhaps newfound confidence at the uncomfortability of the angels who wished her dead.

“And how, dear sister, could we trust you?” Michael asked, unmoved, the pinnacle of strength and composure. 

“This is new territory for both of us, brother. This world has never known God’s absence—but together, and only together, could we bring it into a new Golden Age, an era of rebirth and plenty.” Everyone was silent, pondering her words. This silence was deafening, and the lion roared louder. Her heart began to race as she saw the saliva glint off the lion’s teeth, the blood staining its fur from the last human he shred. 

“You seek to do better than God? Well do better. Ff His picture of compassion was imperfect, perfect it. His vision of mercy unfulfilled, fulfill it.” The words stung her tongue as she spoke them against her God, but perhaps she could give Michael and his legions the chance to be better, if that is what they truly sought. “Violence, retribution. This is not the way, and we both know it.” 

Silence still more. Until finally, Michael made his decision. 

“Very well, you have your amnesty. But Gadriel, this can not go unpunished.” He contemplated further, his hands steepled like a church she once worshipped at, before continuing, “your wings will be clipped, and we will watch you. Very closely.” He nodded, but she could tell this wasn’t his desired outcome. 

“Thank you, Michael, for your compassion. You won’t regret it,” she said through gritted teeth, sharp as a lion’s, before she sheathed them. Not now. Not today. Today, she lived, and she will continue to do so, if only to continue God’s work. For so it become us to fulfill all righteousness. 

Extras | 

i. COMPANION: By her side, Gadriel’s companion is a LION. I’m hearkening back to the typological tradition of depicting a martyred saint with the instruments of their demise. St. Lawrence has his grill, St. Catherine of Alexandria her spiked wheel, and so Gadriel will have her lion. 

ii. WINGS: Gadriel’s wings are clipped, but not torn from her back. Right now they don’t extend past her shoulder blades, but at once they were the most radiant, pure, white of the softest down. When they grow back, however, perhaps they will be muddled and murky.

[hufflepirate]

Why I Cried About the New Dixie Chicks Song

Ok, alright, so I’m having Extremely An Emotion about the return of the Dixie Chicks, and I know a lot of folks on here are either too young to remember the blacklisting or weren’t in the country scene at the time, so here’s the whole story the way it felt to a 12-year-old girl who loved them.

You should love and support them!! This story is why!! The vague recaps of the situation in articles about the new release don’t cut it!

*********

So. Let’s start at the beginning (for me). It’s 1998. I’m 8 years old. My parents aren’t really into Christian radio, but we’re also Good Southern Baptists, so obviously the only radio we really listen to is classic rock/oldies and especially country. You can’t trust those pop music stars these days. Or, God forbid, rappers. They don’t make music the way they used to. (Yeah. I know. But I’m just telling it like it was.)

I hear “There’s Your Trouble.” The singer’s boyfriend is constantly comparing her to his ex and she is Calling Him Out and I have never thought about such a thing before because I am 8, but I am deeply certain that any woman deserves to be loved by somebody who sees her for her. This is important to me. I don’t understand why.

It’s still 1998. I have recently moved west and I am still only learning to process the new geography. I am a child. I do not yet feel the full impact of “Wide Open Spaces” the way I will come to as an adult. And yet... already the idea that part of freedom is having “room to make a big mistake” matters to me. Instinctively, I know that one day, this will be a thing I need, even if I don’t right now. I am right.

We don’t get the album. That’s fine. They’re on the radio a lot. They top the charts multiple times. They win grammys. They sell more cds than all other country groups combined. They are, if you read writeups of them, “not yet political,” but there’s something about the idea that a girl can not only want but need space and independence, need it as a necessary part of growing up, that is setting the stage for what they will become, at least from the perspective of someone who grew up hearing ‘feminist’ used as a dirty word for women who have been brainwashed by... someone?? into having a victim complex. (Again... just telling it like it was.)

The next year, I am 9. They drop Fly. I am never the same.

The first single to hit the radio is “Ready to Run.” It is bouncy and happy. The singer is not getting married, because she does not want to get married. She knows what she wants and she won’t be pinned down by expectations. I am Living, and the feelings I did not yet have about “Wide Open Spaces” are Here In Full because it is hard to imagine being a grownup for the first time, but it is easy to imagine taking off to be yourself instead of doing what everyone else wants and it makes me feel alive.

“Cowboy Take Me Away” is deeply romantic and makes my little 9-year-old heart swell with feeling. It will be years before I realize that is because she is living her life and talking about what she wants and he is just... there. She is doing what she wants and he holds her when they sleep and smiles at her in the daytime and that is all we know. It is the peak of romance, and I, too, want to walk and not run, skip and not fall. I too want to grow something wild and unruly and that thing I want to grow is me.

My parents buy the album.

“Goodbye Earl” is released as a single and starts getting played on the radio. I grab the CD out of the basket we keep them in and it lives in my CD player until my mother begins to worry about the degree to which I am obsessed with this song about murder. I do not have the words to explain that the appeal is not the murder, it is the solidarity. I am being bullied very hard in school. I have only one friend, and she is often mean to me. It will be many years before I understand the true extent of the truth they are dropping in this song, but the details are chilling and honest and disturbing and when Maryanne flies in from Atlanta on a red-eye midnight flight, I feel something I cannot put into words.

It has been 21 years and I still do not have the words to explain “Goodbye Earl.”

Trigger warnings for domestic abuse and I guess also for poisoning domestic abusers and like, murder is bad or whatever.

The album is a masterpiece. It is an experience. I am 9 years old and I do not want to fall in love, because I am 9 years old, and I am learning right now that if a boy falls in love with me when I clearly do not want to date him, that is his own damned problem, and I am singing at the top of my lungs to tell the world that I don’t want to fall in love but if I do, then screw them, I will drag everyone else down with me.

There are limits to how many vids I can drop in here, so I was just gonna drop in the ones that were important to “Hey, you should love them!!” but I can’t resist dropping this one in. This one was never a single but also like... y’all. Do you know how many times in my life I needed songs that told me it was ok to not be in love/pursuing love/dating people? And I’m not even aro/ace? Anyway, this one sounds so sad but feels so good. An indulgent vid choice, but this is my post, so??

Also the album had some bops. These will probably not convince you to like them if you don’t like the country sound/genre, because the Dixie Chicks sound was always very country, but I dug the sound of 90s country then and I dig it now, so here you go.

Some Days You Gotta Dance

Sin Wagon (Fun fact about this one, which is like........ aggressively country I can’t even. It was not a single but it did get enough radio play to chart anyway.)

And then. The end. (For then.)

It’s 2002. They drop a new album in August. I am 12 and their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” has me all up in my feels on the radio. In December, they drop “Travelin’ Soldier,” a cover of a shmaltzy song about an 18-year-old soldier who dies in Vietnam after writing letters back and forth with a high school aged waitress who loves him. It’s sad. It features a couple young enough to be relatable to a 12-year-old. I am not so foolish, at 12, that I don’t realize even though they say Vietnam, I’m supposed to be thinking about the fact that we’re at war in Afghanistan and they’re talking in the news about how we might go to war with Iraq and Congress had passed a resolution saying we could.

Here’s the thing that sometimes gets lost in things about what happened next. This song was popular. It’s anti-war, but it’s not particularly toothy. The actual text of the song is just that a young soldier goes to war, a girl he met right before he left gets his letters and is faithfully his girlfriend because... soldiers?? and then he dies and she’s sad. It’s not supportive of war, but you have to be pretty far out there not to agree with a premise like “We should be sad when soldiers die,” or “There is/should be someone who cares about every individual soldier even if other people just see them as one of a list of names/a statistic.” The song charted. The album sold well and won awards. And I missed all of it, because it takes a while for things to trickle down to a 12-year-old whose friends, at that point, listen almost exclusively to showtunes.

On March 10, lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”

Country music listeners lost their shit. Some people didn’t, of course, but a lot of people did. They called radio stations. They dramatically and publicly destroyed or threw away their CDs. People in the industry got involved, many of them in abusive ways, but I didn’t know much about that. All I knew was that one day they were ubiquitous, and the next, they were completely banned from the radio.

My local country station, or at least, the one my family listened to, was owned by Cumulus Media, who instituted a 30-day ban on the group’s music at all of their country stations (though not their general top-40 ones, apparently? I did a google this morning.) Other large media corporations mostly let their individual stations decide, though Cox Media also did a general ban. Lots of stations banned them individually, some for much longer than 30 days.

My parents didn’t make me stop listening to my beloved Fly. But the clampdown was, at least where I lived, intense and immediate. It felt like all of a sudden, they were gone. Dead in the water.

It fundamentally did not make sense to me. My parents shrugged it off with a similar attitude to President Bush, whose response had been, “The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say,” but also, “They shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out.” This was all, to me, baffling. Sure, people could decide they didn’t want to listen to them anymore, but why did they get to decide for everyone else that we couldn’t? Why did they get to ban their music?

I was 12, soon to be 13, and this whole thing was, to me, the antithesis of what freedom of speech was meant to be. I believed in freedom of speech. I believed it applied to everyone. I believed that even though, in my confused, hurting, terrified, post-9/11 12-year-old mind, I liked the President and thought we should go to war, no one should be stopped from saying we shouldn’t. I believed freedom of speech was a moral imperative, a principle for interacting with other people and respecting them even if you disagreed. I believed it meant protecting people you disagreed with, because otherwise who would protect you when the disagreeing one was you?

It was utterly baffling to me that one comment - one comment that she apologized for, because she said she’d phrased it too harshly - could so utterly shut me off from something I loved. I assumed, when she apologized, that even though she said she still didn’t believe in the war, that things would soon go back to normal. They didn’t. I turned 13 a few months later, and the Dixie Chicks were still not on the radio in my town.

By the time they put out their next album in 2006, I was running with a crowd that listened to CCM and classic rock and never country, and when I listened to country at home, the radio still wasn’t playing them, not necessarily formally, but certainly in practice. I heard that Natalie Maines had come out and said she wasn’t sorry about what she said, after all, and I didn’t like that she’d said she didn’t think the President deserved her respect, but I didn’t even realize she’d said it in the context of new music.

The 2006 album, Taking the Long Way, was a commercial success. Their song about the event “Not Ready To Be Nice” also did very well....... but not on country radio. I was still listening to country radio at the time, not exclusively, but enough that when I looked up songs that had topped the charts, I recognized more of them than I didn’t, by title alone.

I never heard the Dixie Chicks’s new album on the radio.

Here’s what my local station didn’t play. What they were too scared to play, maybe, or maybe what they didn’t want me to hear:

So, yeah.

That happened.

Badass.

But it happened without me, because the radio station was instead still playing “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” a song about women’s butts that a bunch of men wrote in a club in an hour while, presumably, staring at women’s butts. A song that sparked slogans on t-shirts in a little t-shirt shop my friends and I visited that year on a school trip. A song the middle-aged man who worked there (and with whom we were alone) referenced when he leered aggressively at my 16-year-old friend and made suggestive comments to our whole group (4 teenage girls) that made us run out of the building and race back toward the fast food places nearby where we hoped to find some of our teachers.

Country music was never the same for me after the Dixie Chick blacklisting. I knew it didn’t believe in freedom, even as it bandied the word about aggressively. I knew that it relied on everybody saying the same things and believing the same things, and it didn’t have room for me not to agree, and that was not then and is not now any kind of freedom. As the years went on, there were more and more Honky Tonk Badonkadonks, and I was less and less willing to give men a pass for being sexist and disgusting and entitled.

I miss country music, in the sense that I miss the Dixie Chicks, and I miss women like Jo Dee Messina and Sara Evans who were singing similar stuff at the time and might still be but aren’t on the radio because they’re over 40 and not also white men. I miss the way county music women made me feel in the 90s. I miss women who called out the men who’d done them wrong, who stated their own value and self-sufficiency, who sang about independence and made me believe in it. But more than anything, I miss believing in them. Some of that is of course still happening. But as much as I love Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves, I can’t ever get back there. Not really.

The thing is, I believed the Dixie Chicks when they told me I could have the space to make mistakes. I believed them that women could and would stick together. I believed them that I could be single and happy about it, that I could say no to men I didn’t love, even if they loved me, that if I wanted to fall in love, I could find somebody who would love me without ever tying my wings. And I believed I could be and do those things and still fit into the culture of country music.

I still believe the rest of it. But I’ll probably never believe that last part again.

Anyway tl;dr you should love them because they tried to be themselves and tell the truth and because they tried to buck the system, and you should love them because they never backed down, even when the system pushed back so hard that, from where I sat as an impressionable preteen, dependent on my parents and the radio, it completely destroyed them.

[thefloatingstone]

Somebody asked me for some anime recs. I asked them what kind of genres they’re into but I’m not getting a reply, so here are just some general recommendations for good stuff to watch.

I assume they meant new anime so I’m only focusing on those.

Made in Abyss (2017) (warning for Body horror, violence and gore)

The Abyss—a gaping chasm stretching down into the depths of the earth, filled with mysterious creatures and relics from a time long past. How did it come to be? What lies at the bottom? Countless brave individuals, known as Divers, have sought to solve these mysteries of the Abyss, fearlessly descending into its darkest realms. The best and bravest of the Divers, the White Whistles, are hailed as legends by those who remain on the surface.

Riko, daughter of the missing White Whistle Lyza the Annihilator, aspires to become like her mother and explore the furthest reaches of the Abyss. However, just a novice Red Whistle herself, she is only permitted to roam its most upper layer. Even so, Riko has a chance encounter with a mysterious robot with the appearance of an ordinary young boy. She comes to name him Reg, and he has no recollection of the events preceding his discovery. Certain that the technology to create Reg must come from deep within the Abyss, the two decide to venture forth into the chasm to recover his memories and see the bottom of the great pit with their own eyes. However, they know not of the harsh reality that is the true existence of the Abyss.

Pros:

Ghibli artists working on the backgrounds and environments

likeable characters

crushing atmosphere

incredible world building

Really compelling mysteries

Very emotional

Cons:

The manga its based on has a lot of lolicon bullshit. But the anime has doneits best to either remove or downplay those elements as childhood innocence rather than the author being a creep

Ends without clear answers as we have to wait for season 2

Not for you if you dislike violence or body horror

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime (2018)

Thirty-seven-year-old Satoru Mikami is a typical corporate worker, who is perfectly content with his monotonous lifestyle in Tokyo. In the midst of a casual encounter with his colleague, a knife weilding maniac attacks them. Satoru, in shielding his co-worker and his co-worker’s new girlfriend, is fatally stabbed, and dies.

And then he wakes up again. But now, in the body of a blob of slime. In doing so, he acquires newfound skills—notably, the power to devour anything and mimic its appearance and abilities. He then stumbles upon the sealed Catastrophe-level monster "Storm Dragon" Veldora who had been sealed away for the past 300 years for devastating a town to ashes. Sympathetic to his predicament, Satoru befriends him, promising to assist in destroying the seal. In return, Verudora bestows upon him the name Rimuru Tempest to grant him divine protection.

With a goal now, the newly named Rimuru sets out to explore this fantasy world, stumbling into situations where other people need help, and since finding ways to live peacefully is much less hassle, Rimuru does his best to settle conflicts and help people to get along. Mostly because he’s got nothing better to do.

Pros:

Likeable, chilled out protagonist who acts and behaves like an adult

Not the average wish-fullfilment harem-in-disguise type stuff you expect from the average Isekai show

Characters focusing on trying to help each other and be kind without coming across as cheesy or unrealistic

Fun powers and “how are you gonna fix this mess?” situations

Cons:

occasional anime tiddy

Mob Psycho 100 (2016) (If you’ve seen season 1 already then watch season 2)

An Eighth-grader Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is possibly the most powerful psychic on earth. Which is the only thing he has going for him which, in his opinion, isn’t much. Due to his powers going crazy if he gets overwhelmed by his emotions, Mob has spent his life suppressing his feelings, both negative and positive. As a result, however, Mob is an extremely socially awkward and shy person who struggles to connect to people.

The story follows Mob as he tries to find ways to better himself as a person, aided by the fake psychic Reigen who both uses Mob’s real psychic powers to exorcise ghosts, but also uses his fake con-man skill of charming people and being a smooth talker to help people fix their problems rather than have them rely on a psychic for help. He also acts as a mentor to Mob, not on how to be a better psychic, but on how to mature into a good, capable person. Because according to Reigen “Having psychic powers is just a skill. Some people can run fast, some people can can sing well, some people are good at studying, some people are funny, and some people have psychic powers.”

Now if only the assortment of Cult leaders, Ghosts, Secret organizations and Powerful psychics trying to take over the world could leave him alone.

Pros:

A subversion of the “I must get stronger!” shounen story where the character is already the strongest and needs to focus on being a better person instead.

Probably the best animated show to come out in years

Good uplifting morals

A wacky off-beat art style and sense of humour

Genuinely complex and 3 dimensional characters who are likeable

Really relatable in many ways

Cons:

I can’t think of any tbh

Then we have anime I have on my “to watch” list and come highly recommended but I haven’t seen yet. But I want to recommend them anyway

A Place Further Than The Universe  (2018)

a “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” show.

Filled with an overwhelming sense of wonder for the world around her, Mari Tamaki has always dreamt of what lies beyond the reaches of the universe. However, despite harboring such large aspirations on the inside, her fear of the unknown and anxiety over her own possible limitations have always held her back from chasing them. But now, in her second year of high school, Mari is more determined than ever to not let any more of her youth go to waste. Still, her fear continues to prevent her from taking that ambitious step forward—that is, until she has a chance encounter with a girl who has grand dreams of her own. Spurred by her mother's disappearance, Shirase Kobuchizawa has been working hard to fund her trip to Antarctica. Despite facing doubt and ridicule from virtually everyone, Shirase is determined to embark on this expedition to search for her mother in a place further than the universe itself. Inspired by Shirase's resolve, Mari jumps at the chance to join her. Soon, their efforts attract the attention of the bubbly Hinata Miyake, who is eager to stand out, and Yuzuki Shiraishi, a polite girl from a high class background. Together, they set sail toward the frozen south.

The Promised Neverland (2019) (warning for violence and gore)

Surrounded by a forest and a gated entrance, the Grace Field House is inhabited by orphans happily living together as one big family, looked after by their "Mama," Isabella. Although they are required to take tests daily, the children are free to spend their time as they see fit, usually playing outside, as long as they do not venture too far from the orphanage—a rule they are expected to follow no matter what. However, all good times must come to an end, as every few months, a child is adopted and sent to live with their new family... never to be heard from again. However, the three oldest siblings have their suspicions about what is actually happening at the orphanage, and they are about to discover the cruel fate that awaits the children living at Grace Field, including the twisted nature of their beloved Mama.

Zombieland Saga (2018)

There’s a good chance you might have heard or seen this one floating around tumblr as its one of the really big, really popular anime to have come out that features a trans main character written and presented in a positive light.

Zombieland Saga is both a satirical parody of Idol anime, a complete embracing of what makes idol anime enjoyable, and a criticism of how the Idol industry treat women and young girls. A lot of the girls in the idol group are the complete opposite of what is considered a “good Idol” from one girl being trans, one girl having been an Oiran many many years ago (a historic proffession for women where they play instruments, perform tea ceremonies and entertain paying guests. As well as being very high class prostitutes) as well as debating and comparing the ideal of an Idol as they were seen in the 80s versus the modern interpretation.

Zombieland Saga is at both times the complete antithesis of everything an Idol anime should be, while also being one of the best examples of the genre at the same time. It also features really well written characters with emotional depth and arcs to them and boasts a lot of good humour to boot.

Yuru Camp△  (2018)

Another “Cute Girls Doing Cute things” anime

While the perfect getaway for most girls her age might be a fancy vacation with their loved ones, Rin Shima's ideal way of spending her days off is camping alone at the base of Mount Fuji. From pitching her tent to gathering firewood, she has always done everything by herself, and has no plans of leaving her little solitary world. However, what starts off as one of Rin's usual camping sessions somehow ends up as a surprise get-together for two when the lost Nadeshiko Kagamihara is forced to take refuge at her campsite. Originally intending to see the picturesque view of Mount Fuji for herself, Nadeshiko's plans are disrupted when she ends up falling asleep partway to her destination. Alone and with no other choice, she seeks help from the only other person nearby. Despite their hasty introductions, the two girls nevertheless enjoy the chilly night together, eating ramen and conversing while the campfire keeps them warm. And even after Nadeshiko's sister finally picks her up later that night, both girls silently ponder the possibility of another camping trip together.

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai (2018)

You’re gonna look at this gif and that title and think this is some Light-Novel sexy fantasy wish fullfillment bullshit, but I absolutely assure you it’s not.

The rare and inexplicable Puberty Syndrome is thought of as a myth. It is a rare disease which only affects teenagers, and its symptoms are so supernatural that hardly anyone recognizes it as a legitimate occurrence. However, high school student Sakuta Azusagawa knows from personal experience that it is very much real, and happens to be quite prevalent in his school. Mai Sakurajima is a third-year high school student who gained fame in her youth as a child actress, but recently halted her promising career for reasons unknown to the public. With an air of unapproachability, she is well known throughout the school, but none dare interact with her—that is until Sakuta sees her wandering the library in a bunny girl costume. Despite the getup, no one seems to notice her, and after confronting her, he realizes that she is another victim of Puberty Syndrome. Mai’s unapproachability and air of not wanting to interact with people has manifested that it is now borderline impossible for people to physically notice her. Or in some cases see her at all. As Sakuta tries to help Mai through her predicament, his actions bring him into contact with more girls afflicted with the elusive disease.

Bunny Girl Senpai is an anime that deals with Societal pressures, especially as they apply to teenagers, as well as being a criticism of the Japanese mentality of “not rocking the boat” and in dutifully conforming and falling in line with what society dictates is “proper behavior”. It has the running theme that this mentality of just accepting the way things are and not doing anything to change it is unhealthy, and does more harm than good.

Dororo (2019) (warning for violence and Gore)

A samurai lord has bartered away his newborn son's organs to forty-eight demons in exchange for dominance on the battlefield. Yet, the abandoned infant survives thanks to a medicine man who equips him with primitive prosthetics—lethal ones with which the wronged son will use to hunt down the multitude of demons to reclaim his body one piece at a time, before confronting his father. On his journeys the young hero encounters an orphan who claims to be the greatest thief in Japan. 

An anime adaptation of one of Osamu Tezuka’s manga, but deciding to go for an updated, darker art style to match its mature tone.

Dororo is currently still airing but so far reviews are extremely high.

Anyway I hope those are enough to give you at least one new show to check out.

[kendrixtermina]

Thoughts and Feelings about“Change Your Mind”

I really wish I could rewatch this motherfucker somewhere but I have to sleep and go to work 

Well on the one hand the main story lines are pretty much done for, on the other, the fallout alone could fill another season, and I’m actually glad that they’re not relegating that to the epilogue but actually going to show it

I assume season 5 will be Steven working with the Diamonds to improve homeworld, explaining things to Jasper, integrating the former corrupted gems on earth, finding out the deal with pink pearl, further developing Steven’s new fusions etc. 

Other open questions involve gem origins and peridot’s renewable energy project, but I suppose that will come up as Steven tries to make the Empire less... imperialistic. 

I understand why they wanted to air this in one piece, you couldn’t leave the younger viewers hanging with some of these creepytastic scenes and no resolution

There’s various concepts I feel reminded of. 

There’s this idea of “tzimtsum” in kaballalistic thought, about how God created the world - In order to create a being apart from himself, he “hid” some aspects of the being, the ones that would seem - So every part of creation reflects one aspect of god, but none shows the complete pictures of it, and because everything has some aspects of god but not others, it is unique - so all humans are made in gods image, but still be different from each other.  

Maybe Pink Diamond would be something like Lucifer in this analogy, part of the creation but as far from the god as you can get while still existing, and somehow their antithesis (stretching the analogy here, of course Judaism has no counterpart to Lucifer let alone the positive-ish early modernity interpretions of him - but of course, White Diamond isn’t exactly a benevolent God either. )

First of course Star Trek, like the ep where Captain Kirk is split into what at first seems like his good and evil half but is more like his animal instincts and higher reasoning, or in Voyager, when B’Elana Torres is split into her human and Klingon halves. 

I guess Garnet wasn’t completely wrong in his being something in-between fusion and human reproduction, his gem half could be considered A Pink Diamond, but not the same one who created him - He must be fricking powerful to shrug off WD’s beams like that, like how Stevonnie still has “boosted” versions of Steven’s abilities despite Connie being human, Steven’s probably like Pink Diamond, but ‘boosted’.  

Steven’s victory certainly showcases how it comes from both sides of his heritage. It involves making WD laugh/embarassed like what Pink used to do, but unlike her, he has the communication skills from Greg - I don’t think Pink ever talked to Blue in that way, she didn’t seem aware of what the other Diamonds were thinking at all, any more than she really understood Pearl’s lingering knot of complexes. It’s just not a skill she could have picked up before Greg - when? From whom?  

His responsibility is all uniquely him and due to his upbringing with the CG’s and wanting to help him more, tho, both his parents where free spirit hippy bohemians, but it was Steven who decided “Nope, I WANT to fix it, because I can”, not because he owes it to anybody, even when no one could fault him for running. 

Also, Frankenstein (the Novel not the film) - The original Victor was a sympathetic, even admirable character, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to have empathy with the monster, though Adam was in many ways alike to him and initially didn’t wish to be his enemy.  Because while the gems relate to White Diamond as their goddess and the other Diamonds see her as their mother, she seems to regard them as extensions of herself. Maybe she would, as their creator. Gods are expected to smile benevolently upon their followers and solve their problems, Mothers, while they are flawed humans,  are supposed to love their kids as they are and realize that they become their own persons, but artists frequently tear up their own work if they’re dissatisfied with it, because it’s supposed to be a reflection of their existence, so they might hate it for not reflecting them well enough - 

i often regret tearing up half my teenage fanfics, but I’m able to view them different now that I’m - Back then, I felt like they reflectzed badly onto me - but if had kids and treated them like my fanfics or crumpled drawings, well, that would scar them for life. 

You could certainly see this as a metaphor for narcissism, particularly in the way WD judged everything by how much it was like her, to the point that she would ‘overwrite`’ ppl’s personalities with her ideas of how it ought to be, while lacking a solid identity of her own apart from being “perfect/the best” by default, but that only goes so far because the gems literally are her creations who take their characteristics from various aspects of her being. 

She’d have a completely different conceptual framework to anyone else, though she’s certainly not “above it” in any way. 

I don’t think she was completely unaffected by Pink’s dissapearence either, if you want to complete the Stages of Grief analogy she would be Denial or Bargaining. Most likely,  she was growing increasingly frustrated with her ability to make her empire “perfect” like she ought to and that’s why she started keeping to herself more and assuming that Pink couldn’t be dead. 

She seemed like the knowing one when she was as much in denial as anyone else - you can tell they had a complicated relationship because of how White saw herself in her, that might be why she indulged and preferred her, but then again she didn’t always like what she saw and felt that Pink represented parts of her that she didn’t want to see. 

It’s not without reason that Steven tells her to “get out of her own head” and try to see the world for what it is rather than her preconceived notions of what it is or means. You could perhaps relate that to 

When she realizes that she’s actually dead - that’s when she has her breakdown. 

You could even draw a parallel to “Romeo And Juliet”, where the older generation only realizes how much its ways were fucked up when it gets their beloved children killed for just trying to live happy lives. 

Cal Gustav Jung would certainly remind us that what irritates us about others are often things that irritate us about ourselves, that we may be liable to “see the world as we are” and never is that more apparent than when we view everything through some skewed belief system, or when we hate - people hate people who blur boundaries because they don’t want to confront the ambiguity within themselves, or act as “superior” and merciless because they’ve rejected their own mortal fragile humanity.

Another observation is that when you set up anything as the “default” you create pressure not to deviate from the norm and prevent its members from experiencing their individuality. (see societal pressure on heterosexual men, or Euro-Americans saying they ‘have no culture to celebrate’ - maybe instead of becoming a devouring plague upon your fellow men, you could actually appreciate European culture? Like, read some books, eat some cheese, learn a language, listen to some classical music, vote for worker protection laws?)

It speaks for PD that she even tried to save other aliens at some point. steven stepped completely out of her shadow the moment he was able to feel sorry for her, like “Geez, she had to live like that? No wonder she turned out the way she did!” he pretty much calls the other Diamonds out at some point, like he gets a secure sense of the differences between them when he realizes how much better off he’s been in his own life. Like, UGH. 

For my part, I don’t believe the “best of the worst” thing was true, and more of an “evil cannot comprehend good” moment from White, if not outright projection. (after all, White seems to view all other Gems as imperfect copies of herself) If anything, Pink seemed upset that she got stuck being the leader even as “Rose Quartz” (see the Beach scene in “Greg the babysitter”) - but of course Steven, not being Pink, wouldn’t know whether or not White is right. 

Other Thoughts:

In the earlier scenes you could see a lot of parallels to less than ideal family situations, and how people might end up acting as proxies of the problematic person, almost sprouting their words, in the name of keeping the peace, and how people in such an environment may have no idea of how it’s not normal

You CAN talk down such a person (I know of multiple people who made a bona fide job out of talking sense into literal nazis and clansmen, person by person - their tactic was generally to find whatever problem their rage came from), but there’s a difference between “flawed” and “awful” and I do think it came through that White is a piece of work quite unlike, say, Connie’s mother, and that Steven’s dealing with her because he wants to for the good of society, because he’s the bigger person and secure in himself,  not because he owes it to her or anything

It seems like they went for “awesome” rather than “beautiful” with Steven’s fusions. The designs are kinda gaudy, but even so, once you getpast the gaudy design, it’s kind of touching how Steven’s and Garnet’s fusion is essentially a motivational speaker who sprouts encouraging advice nonstop. Garnet was always Steven’s Mentor and  as well as the main person (besides greg) to teach him morals, as well as generally encouraging & supportive, but Steven of course encourages and supports her too, and both like doing that for others

I love Peridot’s short shorts and that she and Bismuth repaired the ships/ went a-tinkering together. It took me a bit to notice that it’s supposed to be shorts and not just her old outfit with starts instead tho

Voice of Reason!Connieis a gift that keeps on giving

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: What Kind of Little Sister is Demon Slayer's Nezuko, Anyways?

  Watching Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba as an only-child was a little awkward. Not because I couldn’t sympathize with stories about siblings, but because, frankly, I wasn't expecting such an emotional rollercoaster. Like many stories about siblings bonded by trauma, Demon Slayer's fixation on Tanjiro and Nezuko's relationship makes any conflict feel dramatic. Classics like Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist series similarly thrive on escalated sibling feelings — literally spilling blood for each other because of how intense this flavor of kinship gets. However, unlike Fullmetal Alchemist, Demon Slayer isn't solely a brother-in-arms kind of story but something very specific and different. It’s a little sister’s story in a morally ambiguous world.

  No Such Thing As Black And White

    Nezuko, Demon Slayer’s deuteragonist, is the catalyst for Tanjiro’s demon-slaying adventures.  But besides her transformation serving the plot, Nezuko also serves us something else — an unexpected twist on what we've come to expect from the “little sister” or imouto archetype. 

  "Does Nezuko even need to be here? How is a little girl going to help Tanjiro, really?"

  I asked myself these questions after I saw teary-eyed Tanjiro carrying his now demonfied little sister down a mountain in the first episode credits. All that suffering for what — plot devices?

  Is Nezuko even relevant to Demon Slayer's world and premise? Short answer: yes. Long answer is yes, again. Because Nezuko is, intentionally or not, partially in-conversation with all the baggage associated with the beloved little sister badge of honor ... trope ... whatever you call it. Before I continue, I'd like to clarify I'm only speaking for Nezuko in season one of the anime, not the manga which concluded serialization last year.

  Answering my first question: “Does she even need to be there?” Nezuko’s a demon, the categorical antithesis to the moral boy scout that is Tanjiro. But unlike “evil” demons, Nezuko doesn't eat people. Not because she can't, but because she forcibly abstains from it. In a setting where the dichotomy is seemingly "good" demons versus “bad” demons, Nezuko is a gray anomaly. She complicates the black and white world we naturally presume Tanjiro blindly jumps into. Nezuko makes that world messier, making the stakes all the higher.

  S is for Sister, S is for Spectrum

    Second to the protagonist, little sisters usually serve a supportive role, even if they’re not blood-related. The imouto is sometimes a precious object to protect — more prize than real heroine. Still, many series play against the type, like Oreimo and Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- where the “little sister” characters charmingly insist on their independence from “big bro.” Even this season, we have anime like So I'm a Spider, So What? and Tokyo Revengers with sister supporting characters — but rarely do we see them in a position as uniquely displaced as Nezuko's.

  To answer my other question: “How’s this kid going to help Tanjiro?” If we go by the typical little sister playbook, another version of Nezuko might be spitting comebacks like Kirino, Oreimo’s titular poster girl imouto. Or from another angle, a little sister can be plain horrible like Guilty Crown's antagonist little sister, Mana. If Kirino and Mana are their own spiced-up flavors of sisters making their brother's life hell, where does Nezuko fall in this sibling pantheon?

  Again, there’s a short and a long answer here. Short: Nezuko saves Tanjiro too often not to be useful. Long answer: Nezuko is the fiery heart tying Demon Slayer’s family themes in a pretty bow. It’s too simple to say "Nezuko’s a deconstruction because she can fight!" because many imouto, especially in fantasy settings, have exceptional character traits. Nezuko’s plot-assigned role as little sister should be embraced without being an accessory. While not an obvious critique, Nezuko’s so captivating because of her sister-ness, not in spite of it.

  Tanjiro is constantly coping and mourning. He's an emotional kid, and for good reason: someone he loved is no longer her old self. In fact, Nezuko's explicitly described as a violent liability by Giyu and the Demon Corps. And although I generally hesitate to compare American comic books with manga, the phrase “women in refrigerators,” coined by writer Gail Simone in 1999 is useful here. The term is shorthand for female comic characters conveniently killed off, handicapped, or “fridged” specifically to push a male character’s development forward. Ironically, it’s because Nezuko travels inside a box that I recalled the trope. Narratively, she must be semi-passive because sunlight hurts demons, an understandable piece of world-building that doesn’t “fridge” Nezuko. To borrow this analogy in the wider context of anime’s fascination with little sisters, you can almost read Nezuko in a “half-closed fridge” scenario we rarely see.

  Because It's Personal

    Let’s look at two pivotal arcs in Demon Slayer so far: Tanjiro’s arrival in Asakusa and the spider family battle on Mount Natagumo. At this point in Demon Slayer, we understand demons typically don’t work together — until we meet Susamaru and Yahaba. They’re total opposites, yet work together nonetheless. This pair working for Muzan is contrasted to Tamayo and Yushiro, good demons seeking a cure for Nezuko’s transformation. Nezuko proves herself in combat against Susamaru, however, her best is seen at Natagumo. Trapped by Rui’s Demon Blood Art, Tanjiro is helpless until Nezuko unleashes her own technique to save him. It isn’t raw deus ex machina girl power that leaves Rui dead, but the unbreakable sibling bond Nezuko shares with Tanjiro. Rui’s failure to spin a family is a tragic mirror to a viable big brother/little sister trust. Whether blood or found family, you still need empathy and teamwork to make the dream work.

  Demon Slayer makes this clear: being a demon is lonely. But since Tanjiro and company don’t live in a black and white world, even demons replicate mortal faux pas. Because of Nezuko, Rui recognizes his cruelty toward other demons, people, really, no matter what “role” he tries assigning them. Tanjiro’s strong, but with Nezuko, he’s stronger. Demon Slayer paints the little sister archetype as a functional part of a bigger picture. Love, not punitive fear, is what forges the most loyal bonds. In the end, it’s always personal, Twelve Kizuki or no. Nezuko resonated with even “only-child” me because she's proof that family, no matter where they’re from, are complex people who grow in unexpected, sometimes undesirable ways. Yet, we must always accept them. Or in Nezuko’s case, cool but terrifying man-eating demonic transformations.

  For what it's worth, the slice-of-life manga Umimachi Diary tied with Demon Slayer in Kadokawa's Da Vinci magazine’s end-of-year manga ranking in 2019. Fans of Koyoharu Gotouge's hit might already share some sensibilities with Akimi Yoshida’s manga all about sister dynamics. Maybe these two titles tying together means nothing, but to me, it says fans will always want stories that sincerely depict the full breadth of what family means and our roles in them.

  Are you a big Nezuko fan? How do you feel about little sister characters? Let us know in the comments!

      Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more. Zenitsu probably didn't write this.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Blake Planty