#Part of reclaiming the self for me has been finally contending with what has been lost from me

[kojoty]

Sometimes I look at little kid pictures of me and go 'haha who the fuck are you' but it's not haha funny it's haha grief

[greenteabtch]

your characterizations of sebastian are so interesting and got me thinking! how does meeting helena impact seb? does he go through some kind of development in his relationship to the chantry over their years? what point in terms of self-image would you love for him to get to?

Hi Gabi!! Thank you for asking :) you’re about to enter the #Deep Sebastian Lore. 

So before I begin to tackle this, I feel like it’s important to acknowledge that there are many different interpretations of Seb’s character. I consider him a lot more malleable in final interpretation than a lot of the da2 companions because his Rivalry and Friendship route actually results in two very different outcomes with regards to primary characterization. (Other characters like Merrill also have this, but I personally don’t consider a rivalry route with her or Isabela to be healthy or done well in any valid manner of speaking so I do not see it I am looking away.)

As a quick sum, Sebastian’s Friendship path commits him further to the chantry and quells his disagreement and conflict with his role as a brother, thus making him more complacent, while his Rivalry path spurs him to reclaim Starkhaven by encouraging him to give in to his dissent and impulses, eventually making him more headstrong.

Both of these are valid because each character trait that gets emphasized, depending on the path, all make up the whole of Sebastian as he is. He is compassionate, pious, and faithful, but also rash, stubborn, and witty. 

This is all set up to say that in my personal canon, I follow the rivalry path because it aligns the best with my personal experiences and identity, as well as (in my opinion) encourages Sebastian to fulfill his wants best. Unlike other rivalry paths, it is able to encourage growth and development in a manner that isn’t harsh and abusive, as it targets his ideas and ideology taught to him rather than his personality or integral core as a person. I like that it inspires him to question the chantry as an institution while maintaining his faith in a personal way.

In addition to that, (cw for mentions of neglect and abuse) the rivalry path allows him to take his faith, and his expression of that, into his own hands. From a young age, The Vaels believed that their youngest son of three, Sebastian, was a disgrace to the family name, and would be a weight around his brothers' necks. According to the wiki, Sebastian had always had faith but it was not his will to enter the chantry. His short story implicates how drastic the situation was for him, as he describes the Chantry as a prison, his room as a cell, the guard as his jailor, and even more, but notes how he is still wont to pray to Andraste for his safe escape. Even so, when he is given the “opportunity” (It doesn’t feel like a true opportunity, as I read it, but I digress) to leave, he is trapped, stuck by his parents’ descriptions of himself and what he will be if he chooses to leave. “Words race through my head: useless, aimless, selfish, alone.”

Because of this, I don’t truly believe that it is necessary for him to recommit his vows of chastity, poverty, or any others as a brother in order to stay true to his faith or his character. Traumatized by his parent’s neglect for him as the son “left in the cold,” for they already had the “heir and the spare”, Sebastian was forced to accept his position as one that would never be of value to his parents, purely because of his order of birth. He was resigned to be worthless (which, I honestly think was the reason he acted out so heavily as a youth), till his parents gave him an out by committing himself to the Chantry. As a result, I connect the friendship path of staying as a brother as one that is not the kindest (as it may appear), but the one that is the most affirming of his worst fears for himself. That he, his desires, wants, dreams, and choices, are worth nothing unless he resigns himself to a life of piety and service. In sum, there are many ways to keep that faith the way he had always had it without giving up the excitement of life and love he clearly thrives in by recommitting him to the Chantry.

Personal Canon: I believe that Helena immediately presents herself as an aloof and standoffish force for Sebastian, though one that does not deter him, but challenges him. He certainly has no trouble befriending any companion (except for Varric, but that’s more about his insecurities than Sebastian’s lmao), and Helena is no different. More than just his general disposition to making friends, though, he has a curiosity about her. Because she works directly and has no qualms about violence as a tool to aid others, he sees an inkling of his desires or questions about himself in her and she encourages that further just by her actions. Other than the attraction things (they both like to cook, they both think the other is hot, they have similar family situations, they’re both secretly compe-- ok i’ll stop) he has a vested interest in listening to her disagree with him because she is a part of a new perspective that he has never considered, nor ever been given the option to.

For my custom rivalry path, Helena expresses consistent disagreement with how Seb has been treated, both by Elthina and by his parents, and encourages him to make the choice that he wants, not what the chantry wants or what his family wanted. 

Throughout the acts, Helena allows him to vent his contentions with his role to her, usually over food as they watch the sunset outside the Chantry. For Helena, things run very simply, not exactly black and white, but in a manner where she knows exactly which group of grays each action lies in. I think this simplicity is helpful in getting Sebastian to confront his past. For example:

“My parents thought I was a disgrace to the family, so they forced me into the Chantry to make something of myself.”

Helena looks at him with wild and confused eyes. “They didn’t like how you acted so they imprisoned you? Didn’t they care for you?”

“Well… Yes, but it wasn’t as if I was a good son.”

“You were a son. That should have been enough for them.”

Additionally, her own complex relationship with Leandra allows her to identify the abusive behaviors of his parents and the manipulative actions of Elthina later. This pattern of confrontation and disagreement between them continues until Act 3, and along the while, Sebastian’s dissatisfaction with the role of the Chantry wedges him farther away from his possible recommitment. By the end, he is able to recognize that he has worth as a human being regardless of whatever choice he makes and that he doesn’t have to sacrifice his life as Andraste did in order to be considered deserving. 

It’s at that point that he solidifies his choice to retake Starkhaven, with the hopes of bringing Helena along if she’ll have him, and sticks it to his past controllers and manipulators by doing what he knows he can do better than anyone.

In terms of his self-image, I think Sebastian simply deserves to know he has worth regardless of whether or not he is the epitome of good service and faith. I want him to be able to be “selfish” and acknowledge his wants as not things that are impure and lower his value, but a part of what makes him a human being, and one that makes him a good one too. Because of his wants and desires, he retakes Starkhaven, which is ultimately the best choice for the people there because his contender for the throne doesn’t know the first thing about ruling a city-state. Sebastian, at his best, will acknowledge his desires with temperance and balance, such that is accomplished by his faith. When all is said and done, Sebastian will only be complete when he can find faith and life through his embrace of self.

[askaceattorney]

Dear Starry,

Co-Mod: Sorry for almost missing this letter, first and foremost.

As an introvert, I don’t show much personality most of the time, but I do see myself in the quirks of the Ace Attorney cast every now and then.  Sometimes I just want a break from what I’m dealing with, like Phoenix...

...sometimes I get overemotional when things don’t go my way, like Larry...

...sometimes I get too excited when they do go my way, like Pearly...

...and sometimes I struggle not to explode in a fiery inferno that’s visible from space, like...well, like a lot of characters.

But the character I relate most to, as I’ve mentioned several times before, is good old Ms. Cykes.

She’s got skill and ambition, but still struggles in her self-confidence every now and then, and right now, that describes me perfectly.  (I hope the first part does, at least.)

Dear Anonymous,

Co-Mod: Thanks, I guess.  *blows a noisemaker half-heartedly*

(Previous Letter)

Dear Anonymous,

Co-Mod: I might be willing to share that ship, oddly enough, except for the fact that I've already played through most of the Professor Layton series, so...yeah.  It’s probably not gonna work.

(I still need to finish it, don’t I?)

Dear Starry again,

Co-Mod: I...honestly can’t say I know.  If things go my way, I’ll be doing something I love (or at least enjoy), like drawing/animating for a TV show or video game, writing music, or possibly even working on a game development team.  If Ace Attorney (and life) have taught me anything, though, it’s that no one can predict the future, so maybe I’ll be doing something completely different.

As far as TV shows go (I’m allowed to answer both, right?), most of my favorites were the classic ones, like Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, and just about any Looney Tunes cartoon.  I also enjoyed a lot of Nickelodeon’s shows, like Hey Arnold!, Doug, and that one about the sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea.  What was his name again...?

Mod Paups: Mmm for TV shows I’d say Dragon Ball is what I mainly watched, and maybe Pokemon, but that’s about it. I’m not certain where I see myself in 10 years, hopefully it’s good!

Dear Starry again (again),

Co-Mod: I’m guessing you mean this one.  Thanks for waiting to see if it showed up.  For anyone else who’s wondering if your letter fell victim to Tumblr's glitchery or not, letters now take roughly 3 weeks to get answered, so feel free to resubmit it if you don’t see it after that long.

Dear skibot99,

Co-Mod: Technically, DGS2 letters are still off limits, but I sometimes dance around that rule if the letter is only about DGS2, and not addressed to a character from that game.  Let’s just say that letters like that may or may not get answered, so only send them if you’re feeling lucky.

Dear springtime562,

Co-Mod: My mistake!

The other Mods are starting school, so I’ve mostly been on my own, and I’m balancing this blog with two part-time jobs, so...you (collectively) can probably expect a few more errors in the near future.

Dear d0midink,

Co-Mod: Let me just start by saying that if this isn’t one of the nicest compliments we’ve received (and we’ve received quite a few), it’s definitely a contender.

I’m just happy we’re still able to do it with everything else we’re going through (not to mention everything the world’s been through lately), so thanks a million for your support!

Dear Anonymous,

Co-Mod: None in particular, but I do sort of miss answering letters to the Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney cast.  They have their own unique sort of charm.

Mod Paups: Well in my case I looove love answering letters addressed to any of the antagonists, specially Damon Gant. He has to be my favorite character to write as, he’s just so fun!

Dear rogertheegg,

Co-Mod: I’m guessing what they’re referring to is the “culprit feels remorse in the end” concept in each case.  I definitely prefer Marlon’s breakdown over Acro’s, mostly because Marlon put up more of a fight, plus he showed a lot more emotion.  We also didn’t have to cycle through a bunch of profiles and evidence just to remind a clown about a magician’s three symbols, so there’s that, too.

Mod Paups: Honestly? I don’t feel as if Turnabout Reclaimed succeeded or was better? And if I had to choose, I prefer Big Top over Reclaimed. I guess it’s just a matter of tastes.

Dear kxhyuns,

Co-Mod: I repeat myself, but...thanks a million!

It’s been an honor to take what Ace Admin and the Mod created and keep it going for so long.  I’m just glad we’re still gaining followers and make the characters sound like themselves.

Here’s the letter you mentioned, by the way.  Pretty trollish, if you ask me.

Dear TGSPLS,

Co-Mod: Me too, pal, me too.  Looks like it’s finally time to accept this certificate of death for the Ace Attorney series.

(I could be wrong, of course.)

But hey, at least the fandom’s still as alive and well as ever, as evidenced by this very blog!

Never let the flame die out, folks.

Dear mungeondaster,

Co-Mod: Are you kidding me?  My answer to both ideas is YES!!!  I’d like to see a shopping scene and I’d LOVE an open world Ace Attorney game!  Heck, I’d be fine with an anime retelling of AJ, DD, and/or SoJ, an Ace Attorney-themed chess game, Lisa Basil Teaches Typing...  JUST GIVE US SOMETHING, CAPCOM!!!

*huff, huff, huff*

While we’re on the subject, I once had a dream where I was playing a point-and-click adventure game similar to King’s Quest VII, with Maya as a playable character.  I’d pay a huge sum for that if it became a reality.

-The Mods

[the-purple-martin]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Fallout 4, Fallout (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor Characters: Female Sole Survivor, Paladin Danse (Fallout), Arthur Maxson, Scribe Haylen (Fallout) Additional Tags: Post-Blind Betrayal, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Depression, Anxiety, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Heavy Angst Series: Part 3 of Beauty from Pain

Summary:

In the wake of the events at Listening Post Bravo, Sole Survivor Jacqueline struggles with the consequences of her choices, while Danse is prepared to let the Commonwealth burn on his path to seek vengeance for not only himself, but for the woman he has devoted his life to. Except the road righteousness isn't what it seems. Will the bonds of love and friendship be enough to save them both?

“Are you angry?”

In the aftermath of her confession, Jackie couldn’t bear to look at him. Twisting and churning, her gut was in knots; this place held enough heartache, but she couldn’t keep this from him. 

“I don’t know,” Danse admitted, his gaze fixed upon the ceiling.  Even from her peripherals, she could see the pensive expression that hijacked his features. 

Since Jackie had stepped into this place, condemned to be his personal prison, Danse hadn’t made eye contact. He’d barely acknowledged her presence; staring at nothing, staring through her, until she slunked over and slid down the concrete wall to nestle beside him. Jackie thought he'd been making progress, healing even, but it seemed he hadn’t fared well in her absence. It broke her heart when she had returned, to see Danse’s decline since her previous visit—he sat slouched on the floor, hiding in the dark, with his head in his hands. 

Even though Jackie had managed to keep Danse alive, the days immediately following his execution had been wrought with endless silence and meaningless existence. And then one night, Jackie awoke to the sound of muffled sobbing. Across the room, Danse sat on the edge of his bed, his face buried in his hands. Even through the darkness, Jackie could see the unsteady rise and fall of his shoulders, hear his stuttering breath as he attempted to smother his weeping. 

She had gone simply to sit beside him, to offer quiet comfort with her presence. After a while he’d looked at her; hopeless and broken, and finally admitted that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing anymore. She’d contended that maybe it was okay not to have a plan and promised that whatever life threw at them, she would be there for him. 

You watch my back, I’ll watch yours, she reminded him. 

When she stood to go back to her bunk, Danse caught her arm and tugged her towards him, pulling her into his arms with such force that they toppled over onto the mattress. When his trembling subsided, Jackie gently held Danse’s face between her hands and he told her he would be lost without her. 

During the weeks that followed, Jackie took him to the nearby settlements and put him to work fortifying their defenses and training the residents how properly to defend themselves. Little by little, Danse had been reclaiming the humanity that had been stolen from him. Slowly he was finding the way back to himself. 

The days turned into weeks and Jackie had laid the Brotherhood to rest, deciding that she wasn’t going back. Before long, nearly two months had passed before the Brotherhood came to claim what was theirs. 

Backed by the setting sun in early May, a vertibird and a familiar face, clad in ridiculous aviators and enough arrogance to sail the Prydwen to the moon, a lancer had come under orders to bring Jackie back. She assured Danse that she wouldn't be long. She'd show face, go along with the pomp and circumstance, and promptly hand in her resignation. A few days, maybe a week, she promised. 

Now, Jackie couldn’t stand to look at Danse because it was a lie. She had failed him. Abandoned him in this miserable bunker because her hand had been forced and the burden weighed heavy on her heart. 

Finally, Danse looked at her but still she refused to meet his gaze. For she feared what he would discover from deep within. Under it all, she was terrified and ashamed. Maxson had broken her. Played to her weaknesses and sliced along her vulnerable underbelly, threatening to make her bleed by destroying the man she'd sacrifice anything to protect. 

Danse’s eyes immediately focused on the discoloration of her neck that her jacket didn’t quite hide. He swept her hair aside and tugged at the collar of her shirt to see the extent of the blue and purple splotches that stained her shoulder and chest. She had waited a few days in hopes that bruises would fade, but like a tattoo, they were branded on her skin. His fingers ran along the markings and she winced at his touch.

Shameful proof of her violation. 

“Did he hurt you?” Danse’s voice betrayed nothing except the clinical calmness of a bedside examination. 

Jackie shrugged away, an abstract smudge of dirt on the floor the focus of her attention. Try as she might though, his voice confirmed what she didn’t want to admit.  This had happened. It was real. 

There was no escaping what she’d done. The admission hurt like hell and no amount of attempting to swallow her shame could keep the tears from streaking down her cheeks, “Just my pride.” 

With a sigh, Danse went to catch her tears, “You shouldn’t-” 

“Everything has a price,” she pawed his hands way. “I threatened him, shoved my gun in his face, backed him into a corner… Did you really think there wouldn't be consequences for my actions?” 

“This…” he shook his head, hands retreating to his side, “the price was too high.  I– it wasn’t worth it.” At least he had the decency to catch himself and not defile her by saying he wasn’t worth her sacrifice.

“Don’t!” This time she did look at him. Her head snapped around and she could feel the heat of anger, flushing across her cheeks, “Don’t you dare patronize me by devaluing my decision to fight for you! I made my choice and so did you.  We did this together. Now we pay the price.” 

It was his turn to look away and hide. To cower in his corner. Slip into himself where no one could reach him. 

“You aren’t the only one who lost something here,” she wrapped her arms around her ribs, holding herself and staring at her knees. “If you care about me—even in the slightest—you won’t let my sacrifices be in vain.” 

“I'm not okay with this.” It was mumbled, but with conviction, like his words actually meant something. As if he could put action behind what he said. 

She shifted and drew up her knees to press her forehead into the knobby join of her legs, “And you think I am?” 

The question went unanswered but she didn't have it in her to press the issue. Instead, she let the tears continue to track down her face and run along her thighs before plummeting to the floor. 

Fragmented pieces of her former self splintered in her chest, the jagged edges scraping and tearing at her with each squeeze of her heart. Who was this woman she had become? On the outside, she looked much the same but an ugliness had consumed her. A disease that festered within and ruined everything it touched. Her insides were boiled and black. She had become infected by the sickness of this godforsaken world. And to think, she now called it her home. 

This place, where the wicked and the damned reaped the fruitful rewards of their lawlessness. They sat high and mighty upon their spoils of war, taking the desires of their flesh, without care for who they trampled in their merciless, single-minded path to obtain it. 

A world where innocence and humility were violations of the human condition because here you were conditioned not to think, not to feel. Because independent thought and emotions would get you killed or left for dead in a ditch. The idea that it was okay to desecrate the body and take the life of another simply because they looked at you wrong was commonplace here. It was disgusting and vile and somehow Jackie had found herself surviving, even thriving in this new world. It was ruining her, bending and molding her, and desensitizing her to forsake her humanity. What scared her the most, though, was the thought that maybe she was okay with that. 

She couldn't help but wonder what Danse thought of her now. It was impossible for her to rise to meet his expectations. She was damaged. Not worthy of his compassion. 

‘I'm not ok with this.’ 

Could he forgive her for her transgressions? Would he leave her? Could she live with herself if he did? 

Selfish. She was such a selfish woman. This had all been about what she wanted. He deserved better. 

Jackie dared to turn her face toward him, to steal a coveted glance at the man she had sacrificed everything for—everything including herself.  She had laid out all her cards on the table and in the face of victory, she'd still lost. Now she had to live with her choices, live with herself, as did he. Danse was entitled to so much more than she had to give.  It wasn’t fair to either of them. 

“I just thought you deserved to know the truth.” It was a meager excuse and she wasn’t worthy of staying here any longer, “I should go.” Though she made no attempt to leave. 

Danse sat much the same as her: hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, and fingers knotted in his hair. Still, she saw the twitch of his lips and tensing of his jaw as his eyes squeezed shut, and she knew. 

“You’re angry.” The statement hung in the air, but he remained unmoved. Unflinching. Unyielding. 

The impact of what she had done was finally beginning to settle in.  He was angry.  She would not be forgiven. And why? Why would he forgive her? Why on earth would she even entertain the idea that he would? The trap had been set and she had foolishly walked straight into it.  Now she would lie with the devil, sign his pact, and give away her soul. All in the name of honor and glory. All to save Danse's own soul. 

“I don’t belong here. I don’t…” she turned away and held herself closer, trying to fall deeper into the cavern of guilt that chipped away at her humanity, “...you deserve so much better.” 

Before the fresh tears could even form, Danse tugged at her arm and his fingers closed around her chin. He jerked her face toward him, forcing their eyes to meet.  There was determination in his muddy browns, a fierceness she hadn't seen in quite some time. 

“I’m only angry with myself,” he held her gaze, searching her eyes to make sure his message was received, “that I couldn’t protect you from this.” He was gentler now, releasing her chin to press his hand against her cheek. 

Jackie gravitated toward his touch and closed her eyes as she leaned into his warmth.  A beacon of hope that all was not lost. 

“Look at me.” Both of his hands cradled her face and reluctantly she opened her eyes, “this isn’t your fault.” The fierceness in his eyes shifted to reveal something more sinister, “I’ll burn down the entire Commonwealth if he lays a hand on you again.” 

She almost had the decency to smile at his conviction, but she was reminded, “You don’t have the luxury of making that promise.” 

The determination that was present before quickly faded. In the seconds it took for Danse’s expression to shift, she could see the desolation of defeat hover across his brow before he could erect the facade. 

“I will find a way to make this right.” Again, his words held no value, but maybe she could pretend they did. Maybe it would ease the raw and achy feeling. 

For a moment nothing happened.  Neither of them moved or even breathed.  They sat in an eternity of silence and Jackie allowed herself to drown in the warm pools of his brown eyes. Perhaps if she lingered there his empty promises would chase away the devastating reality that she had failed. 

Danse shuffled and slipped his arms around her shoulders. There was the briefest hesitation.  A resistance where Jackie contemplated if she would let this happen.  It didn’t take her long to arrive at her conclusion.  She would allow it. 

In a single movement, he pulled her to him and folded her into his embrace.  Jackie shifted her weight, curling up into him and relaxing against his chest only to feel the slightest tremble within his own body. It was too much to bear so she clung to him and wept in his arms because there were no words to ease their pain. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered after a while and loosened his hold on her to run his thumbs across her cheeks. 

“Yeah,” she didn't doubt him, but she also wasn't blind to the fact that he didn't control their fates anymore, “me too.” 

There were choices to be made and she'd sowed her seeds, chose her path.  She didn’t regret what she had done; she would do it again without hesitation. In the end, though, there was a price to be paid for her transgressions and it just might cost her own life.

[spaceasianmillennial]

A Clan Wren Tale Based on Song Number

A/N

I decided to experiment where I write a fanfic to this song number “The Sad Tale of the Beauxhommes” from Once On This Island as a prompt. 

Before I get to the story, I will talk a bit of my experience seeing this beautiful, but pretty problematic, love-story musical on Broadway. In the vein of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, the musical is about a young black Caribbean peasant girl who falls for a biracial wealthy white boy (and unfortunately, ultimately dies for him like in the original tale).

There was a fascinating choice for the “Sad Tale of the Beauxhommes” that utilizes shadow play to tell the backstory of Daniel. The Tale of the Beauxhommes was basically a huge commentary on the chain of colonialism and the barriers it creates. 

“I curse my son / Your black blood will keep you forever on this island... / While your hearts yearn forever for France!”

+++

“Before you go search for your Jedi friend, Sabine, this is a tale I have meant to tell you.”

“Mother, I know it from the books.”

“I am aware of it. But let me tell you the spoken story, which I never had the chance to do. Tristan knows this story, but I fear you may disappear before you will hear it.”

--

Centuries before Tarre Vizsla, a faction of Clan Vizsla came upon Krownest to drill into the planet for its beskar, led by Count Abel Vizsla. There was a tribe there and its chieftain. The natives did not know what to do these Mando visitors, who poisoned the lands with their machinery. Although they were a warring tribe, the dominant tribe judged it unwise to fight back. 

The chieftain of the dominant tribe planned to assassinate Abel, but she could not go against his blasters. Then after a duel, she tossed down her spear and offered her hand in marriage to Abel, convincing him that if he could marry a chieftain he could inherit a dowry of the land and many soldiers of the tribe. She reached his ego. He wanted to establish himself from the Vizslas of Mandalore and prove self-sufficiency. She made him swear to take on her tribe name, to become a Wren, and to carved her a throne they could both share. He agreed to become a Wren on Krownest, though remained identified as Vizsla to the Mandalorian space.

They married and had their wedding throne forged. She became his Countess. She had two daughters. But she continued her conspiracy to assassinate him. In her wedding bed with Abel, her mind whispered plots. Unwise decisions were made. When Abel found out, he exiled his tribal bride. She uttered a curse to her husband.

He took much of the native Wren tribe into a servitude below their warrior capacities. Still, he did not expel his Krownestian daughters who lived to continue the Vizsla generations. 

After the assassination attempt on Vizsla, Abel Vizsla sought to cleanse themselves of Krownestian bloodline, out of shame, with leading members married off to viable Vizsla relatives from beyond Krownest.

About seven generations down Abel Vizsla’s line was yet another Abel Vizsla, Count of Krownestian with barely a look of a Krownestian. He married an off-planet Vizsla warrior who bore him two daughters and sat on the throne with him.

But the Count Vizsla of Krownest took his pleasure in the tribal women beyond the stronghold. And one of his tribal mistresses bore him a fine girl, a young Wren. 

Vizsla had enough of a heart to allow his bastards a place in the stronghold, deciding to help them unlearn their savagery, though much to the distaste of his wife.

The young Wren dreamed of the stars, and not knowing what birth pangs her mother endured that resulted in her, she thought it an honor to be a part of a Vizsla household. This tribal mistress gave her daughter a farewell song before her girl was to be molded into a Vizsla.

My girl, my girl

hear the voices from the fog

And you’ll find salvation.

The mistress made sure her Vizsla daughter won’t forget where she came from, she told her daughter about the failed conspiracy against the first Abel. This young Wren trained herself to become a favorite bastard of her Vizsla father, outshining her sisters in skills. Her father gifted her with his blaster. She forged her armor with him and his countess heirs.

She even earned the begrudging respect of Abel’s wife, the Vizsla Countess, who harshly tutored her in the Mando language to purge her tribal tongue out of her. However, Abel’s wife, in an attempt to erase the girl from her life, convinced Vizsla to send his favorite bastard daughter away, “So she could have the honor of fighting true Mando wars.”

Abel sent the young Wren to Mandalorian Space where she received an education, and she fought wars with other Mandos. 

The young Wren returned a decorated warrior, loved by off-planet Vizslas and Krownestians Vizslas alike. Her father was thrilled with her self-made status. He rewarded her labors by deeming her a countess equaled to his legitimate daughters, “Because she has earned the advantages of a noble title that her bloodline may invest in.”

For her homecoming education, he and his heir-apparent, her eldest half-sister, taught her to keep the natives at bay, into slavery. The Wren had to investigate rumors of a “returning Chieftain to take vengeance.” Knowing it was a sign that her father’s life was in danger, the Wren sought to get friendly with her own native Wren tribe to find the answers. She passed them rations and aid, convincing her father it could keep them appease from fighting back. She proved to be a useful translator. 

She herself was convinced she was doing right. But still the tensions boiled. Despite her Krownestian features, she not understand why Krownestians gazed upon her with hatred. 

She would sneak visits to her mother in the village. 

I share their face, why do they shun me?

Her mother slapped her daughter.

Are you blind?

Do what you must to keep breathing

Do what you must to keep Vizsla’s love

Do what you must to keep this armor on

But do not expect love in return

for those you have sinned against, young Vizsla.

Young Wren never could weed out the that rumored “returning chieftain” among the natives. But she was at a turning point in her life. The young Wren was shirking her translating duties, feeding her Vizsla households lies about the natives’ feelings. 

She asked her father and sister if she could train her own brigade of Krownestians to augment their army. The sister, Abel’s successor, disagreed, but was overruled by the consent of the father. She had her brigade of her native people, trained them to forge their beskar amor, shoot blasters, and pilot shuttles and transports.

Then the faithful day came. She challenged her father to a duel.

It was not out of nowhere, it came at a low point for the economy of Krownestian Vizsla, who were too prideful to accept help from the off-lander Vizslas. She had a case against him.

You poison this land toward longer and colder winters.

You waste the resources of this land.

You are weak, an untrue Mando.

For the principles of Mandalore, I challenge you

She was surrounded by her own brigade of Krownestians.

Enraged and baffled, he accepted the duel so he wouldn’t appear weak in front of native Krownestians. She whipped out the blaster that he gifted her with. Her first shot whipped his blaster out of his hand. Her second and third sliced into his heart through his armor.

When it was clear she was victor,

She ran as her father’s knees hit the floor.

not to strike more blows, 

but to gathered her father to her arms,

And she did not emit remorse, 

but she asked forgiveness.

And the dying Count said,

“My girl, I cursed you since the day I planted myself in your mother.” And his hand left a bloody handprint on the armor she forged with him and her half-sisters.

“I don’t have to curse you, you were always cursed

Always chained here, while longing for the stars.”

The Wren let her father slip from her arms where his final thud was the killing blow, and no absolution. Blooded hands and all, she reclaimed the seat of Krownest for Krownestians as Chieftain, her Krownestian army bowing down to her. 

This was not the end of the epilogue. There were notable disputes and wars. The wife of Abel Vizsla dueled her and lost. She exiled the other two sisters on Krownest to keep them from disputing the throne. Then she shot the younger one when one made an attempt on her life. The elder Vizsla daughter never touched a blaster again and died of old age in a village of Krownest, and it was reported she discovered a peace she had never known.

The Wren had the off-worlder Clan Vizlsas to contend with. 

What I have done was in service to Clan Vizsla and House Vizsla 

And my tribe,

I have proved my tribe stronger than the Vizslas here.

I will not reject the Vizsla blood, but I insist that we be called by 

a different name

One that was had been intended for us

And we will remain in service to you.

She negotiated to prevent further plague on Krownest. She contended in Mando. 

She had built a respected warrior name beyond Krownest, so the off-worlders Clan Vizsla did not mind her bowing down to them, when she contended her case for conquering the Krownest throne citing the incompetency of the last leader, a duel won fair-and-square before witnesses of Vizslas, and promising she can train new warriors to ally with Clan Vizsla beyond Krownest, which would later extend to wars fought with Mandalore ruler Tarre Vizsla. Soon they were recognized as their own Clan Wren, spawning back to the first Abel’s promise to take on the Wren name.

My bloodline, a blessing, a curse.

She had children, in that she gathered children from the native villages that Vizsla made orphans. Despite previous courtships with off-worlders, she married a Krownestian woman. Vizslas and non-Krownestians that married into the Wren family were ordered to assimilate into the family name.

My bloodline, a blessing, a curse.

She opened routes for Krownestian children to find their fortune in Mandalorian Space. They came out with Mando tongues but scant traces of there native language.

My bloodline, a blessing, a curse.

She sent soldiers to Clan Vizsla to help them conquer other worlds.

My bloodline, a blessing, a curse.

When her time came, she was burned in the armor with her father’s bloody handprint.

--

“Such an ideal Chosen One she was. There were many candidates noted in history, but she was the one who stepped up to the title, resourceful and fortunate all at once.”

“Mother, what do you take from a story like this?”

“That Clan Wren survives.”

“By playing along with the curse.”

--

COMMENTS OR REBLOGS APPRECIATED

This version will like be modified for AO3 release.

Check out my other fanfic on AO3

Tip me on Ko-fi or leave a comment

[sockparade]

ill at ease

I can still picture the grin on Milan’s face that day as he walked into the office with a Starbucks frappuccino in hand. I have a hard time remembering a day when Milan didn’t arrive at the office with a Starbucks frappuccino in hand. So it wasn’t out of the ordinary. But it was noteworthy that day because the week before a video went viral of two Black men being arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia because a white employee was uncomfortable with them asking to use the restroom and sitting in the coffeeshop while they waited for a business associate to arrive. Something non-Black folks do all the time. People were calling for a total Starbucks boycott.

I raised my eyebrows at his drink, and he shrugged saying, “Look, I’m not going to let the actions of some racist white people take away my freedom to get whatever drink I want.” 

And like, yeah, I objectively understand how that’s an imperfect political stance and maybe an ineffective strategy to create change, but also, man, I really felt that. In order to protest Black men being arrested for sitting in a coffeeshop (read: for being Black), was I really going to try to tell a Black man about where he should or shouldn’t get his substandard (ha) coffee fix? Try to convince him about the importance of voting with his dollar? Can’t a person just live?   

I just didn’t have it in me to disagree. 

I often think about that exchange whenever I hear a call to boycott such and such corporation or a call to cancel a celebrity. I mean, listen, I do believe in the power of an organized boycott or protest. There is concrete historical evidence and contemporary examples of how people have bossed companies and the government into doing what we demand. But I don’t want to keep pretending that it’s an easy switch to flip or that it’s a cost-free way for people of color to fight against the inequity in the world.  

That Starbucks incident was just one in an endless number of incidents in which a white person says or does something that reveals their racism, forcing people of color to do the emotionally taxing, unending math, of just how much caucasity we’re willing to stomach.

This is a really old story. Marginalized groups of people have always had to bear the brunt of publicized racist behavior. For every racist incident, there are generally three major phases of emotional labor that people of color in the United States have to work through. At first I could only name two but then I realized it’s actually three. Let me walk you through them.

First, before any explicitly racist incident happens, we have to contend with the fact that there are generally such slim pickings in terms of choices that will allow us to exist ethically and stay true to our convictions. How do we earn a living? Where do we grocery shop? What authors do we read? Whose music do we listen to? Are there ANY electronics that are manufactured in an ethical way? Do we wear checks or not? Are the non-white teachers at this preschool treated with respect by the white owners of this preschool? How do I reduce my purchases on Amazon? Is this restaurant gentrifying the neighborhood? Wait which banks have divested from fossil fuels again? Can I truly be myself at this church? What athleisure brands haven’t been accused of overt racism yet? Where are the influencers that look like me? 

When it comes to the consumption of and participation in… well, almost anything, we constantly have to make concessions because we live in a place that’s simply not built for us. It is so hard to name a single sphere of life that I enjoy that isn’t dominated by whiteness or the white gaze. I think my MO for some time now has been to assume that no brand, company, restaurant, actor, or celeb is truly *safe*. I’m generally always waiting for the other shoe to drop while also trying not to think about it too much. It’s a lot of mental gymnastics. 

I was at a lecture a few years ago on the topic of the “doctrine of discovery” and the systematic oppression of Native American nations. It was a large auditorium in Berkeley full of neoliberal mostly white folks. The lecturer read a rather dismissive opinion rejecting the Oneidas attempt to reclaim land that was criminally stolen from them in violation of U.S. treaty (Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, 2005) as a shockingly recent example of how this oppression has continued. And then theatrically, he revealed the author to be none other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. There was a loud, audible, collective gasp from the audience. 

I mean, no, I didn’t know the Notorious RBG had that in her. But also, I’m not over here clutching my pearls. I’m not saying I’m proud of my jaded mentality. I’m just accustomed to it. As Tressie McMillan Cottom says in her essay “Know Your Whites” in Thick: And Other Essays, “I am not disappointed. If you truly know your whites, disappointment rarely darkens your door.” I’ve been seeing more and more of this language with the virality and frequency of racist actions being caught on video and circulated on the internet. People will say, “I’m not surprised, but I’m mad.” It’s too overwhelming to feel shock and pain every single time. So we steady ourselves for the eventuality, we brace for the pain. Know your whites, y’all.        

The second phase of emotional labor is related to the actual injury. We feel the deep pain of injury even if we don’t know the person that was harmed or the person who caused the harm. I think people are sometimes quick to dismiss the behavior of rich and famous people as irrelevant and reduce discussion of it as simply celebrity gossip. But I think there’s pain whether it’s a murder, an arrest, or a racial slur. I know it can be hard to tell by the overwhelming amount of white tears shed on social media after each viral incident but the marginalized group targeted by the offense carries the pain so differently than anyone outside of that group. Try as we might to muster our empathy and our vague-ass Christian lament, it’s just. not. the. same. It’s not. Sometimes it’s so painful that I don’t even fully let myself go there. I haven’t been able to bring myself to read in detail about the recent hate crimes against Asians since COVID-19. I feel squeamish about it. I feel pain when I read stories and see pictures of families being separated, detained and deported but I know for a Latinx person that pain must be so much deeper. And I absolutely cannot fully imagine the pain that Black and Indigineous folks in America endure living in this place.  

And then finally, there’s the third phase of labor. This is the part when we’re called upon to react, call it out, bring awareness, advocate for change, and make swift changes (big and small) in our own lives. Sometimes I feel judged (by others and by my own conscience) when I don’t boycott or abstain. And sometimes I just try to skip to this third phase because I don’t want to deal with the grief of the second phase. 

After this past week’s twitter feud, lots of folks are ready to cancel Alison Roman for the trash comments she made about Chrissy Teigan and Marie Kondo in her recent interview in The New Consumer. It feels like there’s a sudden clamoring to point out just how white Alison Roman is, and how there’s new evidence that she’s racist. And I guess what I want to say is, um, it’s not really much of a reveal nor is it brand new information. Right? Roxana Hadadi in her recent article titled, “Alison Roman, the Colonization of Spices, and the Exhausting Prevalence of Ethnic Erasure in Popular Food Culture” gives a pretty detailed explanation of just how unshocking it is. 

Prior to reading this interview in The New Consumer, did anyone really think Alison Roman had an astute analysis of her white privilege and her accompanying habit of cultural appropriation that she’s benefitted from her entire career? No! While certainly gross, was I shocked that she mocked imperfect English (regardless of whether it was in reference to Marie’s accent or a Eastern European cookbook)? No! Am I shocked when any person mocks an accent? No! We’ve *allowed* it in TV shows, in movies, in corporate settings, and in social settings. I cringe every time but I’ve been forced my whole life to accommodate it. I’ve heard mockery of accents maybe most often from second generation immigrants mocking their own culture’s accents! And If I’m completely honest, I still sometimes find myself guilty of laughing along. (Curiously, Alison Roman’s lengthy apology made no mention of that part of her interview. Perhaps she, and/or her PR team, realized there was no easy way to walk that one back.) Race relations are a fucking mess in our country, y’all. Let’s please stop pretending like it’s just the occasional ultra-public celebrity slip-up. 

Hear me when I say I’m not defending her fuckery. What I’m taking issue with is the lack of nuance and the self-righteousness in how we respond to these public brouhahas. Both the shocked reactions and the gotcha reactions expressed by people feel equally tiresome to me. This reflection, written by Charlotte Muru-Lanning, is one of the few three-dimensional, unflattened, and self-searching reflections written by a person of color on this whole drama. While I don’t agree with how defensive she is of Alison Roman, I appreciate the way she refuses to act as if she doesn’t exist in the world that she’s critiquing and I love that she recognizes the complexity in herself as a woman of color. 

I’ve become pretty comfortable in my understanding that everyone white in our country is racist. I say racist in the fullest, most comprehensive definition of the word. Some are hateful in their racism. And some are actively trying to fight it even as it exists in themselves. As Ijeoma Oluo explains so succinctly and precisely in her book, So You Want to Talk About Race, racism is “a prejudice against someone based on race, when those prejudices are reinforced by systems of power.” And then she goes on to say, “Systematic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not, and by just letting it be, we are responsible for what it produces. We have to actually dismantle the machine if we want to make change.” It’s in the water. And we are all impacted by it, no matter what part of the machine we’re in. Me included. As a Taiwanese American who grew up in Houston, Texas, I wasn’t magically immune to the anti-blackness that was/is prevalent in the Asian American community. Whether it was comments made by my parents, my relatives, my friends, or comments from acquaintances/strangers, it was pretty consistent. You don’t bake in that environment for all your formative years without it damaging a part of you. It’s something I still find myself fighting to unroot and discard from my psychology and my bias despite spending my non-profit career trying to address racial disparities in education and employment. I might spend the rest of my life working on it. We can’t keep pretending it’s an occasional affliction or it’s a disease that only Trump supporters suffer from. I suspect the people who are *shocked* at Alison Roman’s racist comments are also people who believe there are good whites and bad whites. #notallwhites? 

Lots of folks have written reflections on cancel culture so I don’t feel the need to rehash it all here. Cancel culture exists for a reason. And it also has its various pitfalls. On one of my favorite podcasts, Still Processing, Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris do an excellent job of examining the limits of cancel culture in their episode about Michael Jackson (content warning: child sexual abuse). One of their most compelling arguments against cancel culture is that while it attempts to hold an individual accountable, it can also be harmful because it allows people to look away. It allows us to skip the hard work of scrutinizing our broken systems beyond a single individual and it allows us to give ourselves a pass and not search ourselves for the ways in which we are complicit. We can’t look away. We have to interrogate what we consume and why. It’s the only way things will change.

I want to attempt to do some of that hard work here. Beyond organized boycotts, I do subscribe to the idea that there’s value in the individual choices I make to abstain from something. Not just in service of a desired economic, political or societal outcome, but because of the impact it can have on me, as an individual. So let me push past my annoyance that I even have to do this when I’ve already done two other phases of emotional labor and get to work. 

A question I’ve been asking myself this week is: Did I somehow make peace with Alison Roman’s cultural appropriation for profit? And if so, why? The answer is, yeah, I think I did. And here are my thoughts on why.

I like Alison Roman’s recipes. I have both of her cookbooks and I only have three cookbooks in my kitchen so that’s something. It’s pretty rare for me to crack open a cookbook when I’m in the kitchen. I mostly just google for specific recipes I’m craving or I’ll look up what temperature is ideal for roasting cauliflower. Almost all the dinners I cook for my family consist of rice/noodles, a meat, and a vegetable and I don’t use recipes for those anymore. Each week I do like to have one “more complicated” dinner recipe and that’s when I’ll sometimes open a cookbook or scroll Instagram. I spend an unreasonable amount of time reading recipe comments (often contradicting) about modifications or adjustments they made and that’s after wading past all the comments about how excited people are to make the posted recipe-- it’s all very confusing and time consuming. 

For someone who was not taught how to cook and who didn’t spend much time in a kitchen until maybe 3 years ago, I appreciated Alison Roman’s insistence that she had figured out the “best way” to make classic dishes (usually dishes I did not grow up eating, like Shrimp Louie or Shallot Pasta), the way she suggested using spices I’ve never cooked or eaten before (Aleppo pepper), and her encouragement to use new techniques that I was unfamiliar with (slow roasting tomatoes in the oven for six hours). It was kind of like finding a cooking lifehack.  

While I found her IG persona mostly grating and self-congratulatory, I was charmed by her vision in her first cookbook for lowering the barrier to entry for making a really great meal that you can be proud of and her push in her second cookbook to host dinner parties that bring your friends together in a memorable way. For a generation that has relished mostly eating out all the time and then ordering in all the time, following an Alison Roman recipe could sometimes feel like permission to try shit out in the kitchen without the pressure to be a master at it. It was a good feeling when the recipes turned out well and it was fun to talk about which recipes I’d tried with other folks who were also working their way through her recipes. 

Okay, and this part might sound ridiculous but I sort of thought that Alison Roman was someone who could maybe teach me how to make white food. Haha. You know what I’m talking about? Like the food that might be on a menu at a restaurant tagged as “American (New)” on Yelp. I mean yes, she has a recipe for “Kimchi-Braised Pork with Sesame and Egg Yolk” in Nothing Fancy but that kind of bastardized Asian dish has been popping up on white restaurant menus pretty consistently for some time now. But a question I’m now asking myself is why I wanted to make white food in the first place? Did I subconsciously think it was fancier and would make for a more interesting menu when hosting dinner parties? 

In her introduction to that Kimchi-Braised Pork recipe she says, “I am calling this a braise, but it is really a stew (an homage to the Korean Jigae) in which meat is braised--but isn’t that most stews?” How do you react when you read that sentence? I think she avoids triggering my usual alarm bells because she doesn’t attempt to be an expert in Korean cuisine. She feints left by throwing in the homage line. She’s not aiming for authenticity in her recipe. It might actually be worse if she gave a mini lecture on Korean cuisine. I don’t know. When I read that line in the cookbook, I don’t find myself immediately questioning the proper origins of the recipe. I don’t have the same knee jerk reaction as when a white chef publishes a whole cookbook of recipes from just one specific region of the world and presumes to be the expert or the ultimate curator. 

And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I need to work harder to stay in the habit of questioning recipe creation and curation. Kind of like the way I’ve learned to question books like Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt. Fifteen years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about white authors writing the stories of people of color. Wasn’t that the whole of literature? Or so I thought. What a gift it’s been to pivot my reading to mostly authors of color! What would happen if I demanded more from the food media I was consuming?

It gets a bit more complicated for me though. Alison Roman has a Chinese-inspired recipe called “Soy-Braised Brisket with Caramelized Honey and Garlic” that I really like. In her introduction to it she writes, “... the tangy, spiced braised beef noodles available at a few of my favorite Chinese restaurants around New York, which I’ll order every time. While not a replication, this brisket is my interpretation: salty from soy sauce, sour from vinegar, lightly spiced from a few pantry all-stars.”  

I don’t even know where to start with this one. I am personally so confused by Chinese food. What is Chinese food? What is Taiwanese food? What is Americanized Chinese food? Is that still Chinese food? What was the food my mom cooked at home throughout my childhood? It took me awhile to allow myself to just fully enjoy Americanized Chinese food without feeling hung up about it. A few years ago my mom made a new dish that I loved and I naively asked her whether it was a recipe she grew up with. I think I was secretly hoping it was a family recipe that she learned from her mom so I could check that immigrant kid fantasy off my list.

She laughed and said, “Do you know where I learned it from? I learned it on YouTube!”

I mean, this is the thing with the Asian Diaspora. Things are pretty disjointed for me. I know some Asian Americans are super locked in and schooled on their origins, heritage, and culture but I honestly don’t know much. I don’t know what region or city in Taiwan my favorite kind of Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup is from. I think I’ve learned to make a version of it that I like better than anything I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant or in someone’s home. I don’t say that to brag, I just say that to point out how confusing it is to try to connect that Taiwanese dish with my heritage when it’s something I learned how to make in my thirties using a recipe I found on a stranger’s website. I feel like I’m trying to connect with a culture I didn’t really grow up in myself. I’m chasing phantoms. 

You know what, I feel like some white lady in the Midwest on the Instant Pot Community Facebook group might legitimately be the world expert on the best way to make General Tso’s Chicken in a pressure cooker at home. After I made the Butter Chicken recipe from Two Sleevers, I looked up who authored the recipe and was so relieved to see that Dr. Urvashi (affectionately nicknamed The Butter Chicken Lady) was Indian. I loved that Butter Chicken recipe. I was super excited to try cooking more Indian food and I was happy that I could do it with a clear conscience. Haha, it’s all so convoluted, I know. 

I think maybe I feel reluctant to hold others accountable for being more respectful of food origins because my understanding of my own cultural heritage (as it relates to food, but also in many other ways) feels spotty and incomplete. I find myself feeling unsure of what I am defending. But ultimately I think this has been a flimsy excuse. It’s not so hard to google a bit more to find a chef that’s sharing a recipe from their particular culture. I think I need to confront the hidden grief I feel about being disconnected from my culture. 

In The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief, Anne Anlin Cheng puts it this way, 

“If the move from grief to grievance, for example, aims to provide previously denied agency, then it stands as a double-edged solution, since to play the plaintiff is to cultivate, for many critics, a cult of victimization. So the gesture of granting agency through grievance confers agency on the one hand and rescinds it on the other. As a result, for many concerned with improving the conditions of marginalized peoples, the focus on psychical injury and its griefs is strategically harmful and to be studiously avoided. But this also means that we are so worried about depriving disenfranchised people of their agency that we risk depriving them of the time and space to grieve. A final problem is that since justice based on grievance and compensation tends to rely on the logic of commensurability and quantifiability, it is ill-equipped to confront that which is incommensurable and unquantifiable. In short, we as a society are at ease with the discourse of grievance but terribly ill at ease in the face of grief.” 

So yeah, I guess the part I haven’t said is, when I read those comments made by Alison Roman in that interview, it hurt me. And when she deflected and didn’t take the initial pushback seriously, that hurt too. It was such a familiar feeling. I know that feeling because I’ve been there before. I’ve had my feelings brushed off with a laugh or a weird, unsatisfactory explanation. I’ve been told that someone was just punching up and didn’t think about it in the context I was. I’ve experienced that basic othering so many times in my life.

Okay so the theory here is that if I do a better job of facing the first and second phase of emotional labor head on… if I can somehow process the pain and grief of living in a racist society, then being a thoughtful consumer will feel less like a sacrifice. It’ll be easier for me to stand by choices I’ve made because I’ll know I’ve made them with integrity and in a way that is true to myself. And I can get to a place where that doesn’t feel like a loss of freedom but rather a true liberation. Man, I want that. 

I also want to get in the habit of asking myself whether my desires, the same desires I am so reluctant to give up, are not actually just byproducts themselves of suffering in this machine for so long. Like, do I really believe it’s coincidental that I bought into Alison Roman’s brand and that I also do a good amount of my shopping at Madewell? And then they happened to do a collab together? 

I need take a magnifying glass to the way I’ve been subconsciously trained to prize dominant white culture. It is so uncomfortable for me to even type that out because it feels like I’m admitting that I like white culture. Like I’m somehow admitting to an inferiority complex. I’m not saying I wish I were white. I definitely don’t wish that. But I am guilty of believing that my taste, my style, and my preferences are somehow invincible to the whiteness of million dollar marketing campaigns in this country. I like to pretend that my brain is somehow impervious to the terrifying industry of engineered social media algorithms and psychological branding strategies. And that’s bullshit. I don’t think anyone really wants to be white these days. Even white people themselves seem uncomfortable. But a white person enjoying wonderful things created by people of color? We eat that shit up. Why do we do that?

We have to spend time recognizing, no matter the discomfort, why our pleasures align so easily with the dominant culture. My hope is that when I start interrogating the way my tastes align with whiteness I’ll begin to cherish the ability I have to move into a place of misalignment. Maybe it won’t be so difficult to give up things I’ve taken pleasure in, because I’ll find pleasure in the process of detaching. Maybe it’ll eventually stop feeling like I’m abstaining and it’ll feel more like I’m just making powerful choices. 

I think the shallow analysis of white supremacy and consumption in this country instructs a person of color to believe that liberation means having the freedom to consume as we please, disregarding the impact of our choices. You know, a chance to live the way many white people live. But I think a more thoughtful analysis instructs us to believe that our choices have consequences in terms of whether it supports or dismantles the machine of racism -- both in ourselves and in society. 

Instead of the performative handwringing of trying to decide whether or not we buy another Starbucks coffee, hit next when MJ starts playing on a Spotify playlist, or keep cooking that Alison Roman brisket, my friend Milan has taught me over the years that it’s more important to be attentive to what we are desiring and why we’re making the choices that we make. Yeah that will often mean boycotting things or making different choices, no doubt. The difference is that it won’t be from an exhausting place of trying to achieve blameless optics. It’ll be from a genuine realignment. There’s freedom in that.          

And yes, I see it too. That our pleasure and the way we experience culture is so closely tied to consumption is fodder for a whole other damn essay. Ugh.     

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: Midseason Thoughts

Happy New Year! The Buffalo Sabres game against the Florida Panthers tomorrow will be their 41st game. By my calculation that’s the halfway point of the season and I think my math skills are at least good enough for basic division. This landmark of the season had me thinking we ought to take a look at the season as whole here when we’re about halfway certain what it’s going to end up looking like. Yea, perhaps we can be a little more than halfway certain with our predictions at this point but just let me show off my basic math skills, ok? I initially started thinking about the grand scheme of things about this season back after the Sabres met the Leafs the first time at the start of December. True rivalry games like that always get me thinking. There is a lot more to digest about this season based on the first half than my most optimistic self would’ve thought in September. I remember predicting the Sabres would have a winning record in October like I was going out on a limb. The expectations clearly changed this season, early on two: like the first twenty odd something games it became clear the corner had finally been turned. There’s a lot to that and I will dive into some of the minutia of that in later thoughts but perhaps it’s wiser first to reflect. Before I started New Look Sabres I wrote hockey articles on and off for different outlets and even freelance like this. I have no writing degrees so my thoughts were encapsulated in slick declarative titles: 2013-2014 was the Dawn of the Tank, 2014-2015 was the War of the Tanks, 2015-2016 was the New Guard Rising, 2016-2017 was the lost season and 2017-2018 was… *shutters* … the trash season. Jack Eichel’s rookie year had its optimism as you can see but the seasons to follow showed the things wrong with the team needed fixing. Certainly not all those problems are fixed but what might this season be called? I feel that the first half of this season has already given us a pretty solid idea…

…2018-2019 is the Reclamation. The season the Sabres reclaimed not only relevance but the mantle of the minimum level of quality Sabres teams have had over the last forty nine years. Moreover, the Buffalo Sabres as a club reclaimed their fans: not just the diehards who look at draft rankings in January, the casual fans and the ones who just don’t want to be miserable watching hockey. The runner up name was the Found Money Season. That’s where my first thought starts. This team has turned a corner; they’re a playoff contender now. At least they acted like it in the first half. Expectations should remain there. Make the playoffs, please oh please make the playoffs; divisional or a more likely wildcard, just make it. Anything that happens beyond that is a gift; found money if you will. If the Sabres win a game there: excellent if they win a round, fantastic! If they get swept, okay whatever. I want to say this now not just to get ahead of crazy March and April sound bites but to remind us all not to sell the farm. The playoff race, the playoffs themselves and everything that comes before is a learning experience more than anything else. I would say some young guys on this team don’t know what the Stanley Cup playoffs are like but really it’s true with every member of the Sabres core including Jeff Skinner. Pominville is really your only guy who’s not a former Blue who can tell you about that. Bank points through the second half, make the playoffs and from there on out its whatever this season. No expectation past game 82 except learn. Learn what it means to be in the playoffs and play like it. The second half will be decisive if not for playoff positioning than simple team building. Not the roster building GMs do, no: Build Buffalo Sabres hockey. Learn it, and then teach us what it’s like. Playoffs are just proof of competitiveness, that’s all the Sabres need to prioritize right now on that front: growth in competitiveness.

They’ve found some kind of groove already this season but in the second half the Sabres need to lock down their style, their game, their groove and put it to the test in the playoffs against whoever they face. It seems cruel to use this phrase sometimes as a Sabres fan knowing what we’ve been through but we’re still in a building year. I am not going to be offended if Jason Botterill goes out and acquires a small piece or two but it better not be expensive and it better not be a rental. Reward these guys with a weapon that will be here a little while. Rental players you get for a playoff run or a season and a half rarely make the huge difference you want them to make. Reinforce the defense or shore up secondary scoring if you make a move. That’s how you’ll reward a Sabres team that turned it around this season. The Playoff window is just opening, the Stanley Cup window has not opened yet. Don’t buy a lot by selling futures when our focus is experience and growth as a team. So yes, reward them for what they’ve done with a cheaper move but don’t make the move that will be seen as demanding a deep run at the Cup. That rewarding the group is important in its own way. Maybe, although cheap wouldn’t be the word I use to describe it, that reward is signing Jeff Skinner since he wants to stay? Hmm.

My second thought I already touched on a little bit: it’s consistency. This Buffalo Sabres team is remarkably streaky and that’s fine when there’s enough wins in there to make it work but that’s not a habit of Stanley Cup teams. Consistently winning, or being damn close to it, requires not just one line action like we saw almost exclusively in December, but secondary scoring and a defensive core that contributes as well. Some of that you develop and call up in house but maybe, once again at a good price, you bring in a piece for the parts here that are not producing at all. My third point is a discussion of goaltending. The Carter Hutton-Linus Ullmark tandem has been top ten in this league in goals against and save percentage. Given where each of those guys is in their careers you expect a drop off at some point. That drop off has not come yet and any strategizing for it seems a little moot right now. That said, it would be good if Ullmark good get more starts in the second half. An 8-1-3 record in his 13 starts is safe enough a bet to trust him. Trust in him will build confidence and if he is the goalie of the future in Buffalo, which I truly believe he is, he needs that. Yea, he got pulled before the third in that one game, he’ll have his mistakes like any goalie does but I could not feel happier about the Sabres situation in net right now.

My fourth point: SIGN JEFF SKINNER! LOL, no that’s important but it’s not actually a midseason thought. No, I want to talk more generally about the season now; where we’ve been and where we’re going. The beginning of the season can really be thought of us as before and after Jeff Skinner got put on Eichel’s wing. After that 5-1 rout on the road against San Jose Phil Housley took a blender to the lineup and got some good results. Four wins came in the next eight games and then the next major phase of the Sabres season happened when everyone kicked into over gear and the ten game win streak hit. For three weeks the Sabres felt invincible beating teams like Tampa, Winnipeg and San Jose pulling in every Western New York Hockey fan that had since gotten tired of Sabres sorrows. The five game skid that followed the win streak wasn’t as bad as it felt and the wins came back although Buffalo is still in a post-win streak hangover from a standings perspective barely playing .500 hockey since the big one. From here on out the road map to the playoffs is simpler than seven years outside the playoffs might lead you to believe, at least until the end of January. It’s banking points, particularly in Western Canada before the bye week late in January, before suiting up for a stretch run in February and March that only sees two breaks of more than two days. The back half will be a crucible after the bye week and there will be teams, even ones not names Boston, Montreal or the Islanders, who will give you fits and make you work for that playoff berth we’ve all been dying for.

This blog is going to change a little bit in the second half of the season as well. Hopefully it won’t be a crucible to get through but I am making myself think harder for my comedic bits starting now. Instead of the burn book for all our reasons to hate divisional rivals in those games, each game against an Eastern Conference opponent will feature a bit on what facing them in the first round of the playoffs would mean. This will be understandably silly against some opponents like Ottawa and New Jersey but it should be fun. Some programming notes: seasons for this blog will revolve around the post season. The blog season ends when the Sabres are eliminated from contention for Lord Stanley’s Cup whether that be March *shutters* or early May. The blog season will formally end with a 2018-2019 Season retrospective followed by a break before the draft that may or may not see some kind of “Playoffs according to the Sabres” and or another Schedule breakdown depending on when that releases. If you care enough about the blog to read through that then thank you, I wish you had cared enough to drop me a comment or two going into this but I’m not bitter: it’s a super chill hockey blog, I don’t expect my writing here to attract deep thought. That said, deep thoughts appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I want to signal boost the opinion that if the Sabres do not make the playoffs in 2019 then Phil Housley’s job should be at stake. A collapse great enough to ruin the 11 point lead on a playoff spot they had in November is already well in progress. Lots of hockey left but there’s the objective.

[biofunmy]

The 2010s Have Broken Our Sense Of Time

This is one of those places you go for Instagram. The Manhattan Bridge looms, immediate and substantial, over a cobblestone street, framed on either side by a pair of old brick buildings; if you’re standing in the right spot, you can see the Empire State Building through one of the bridge’s uprights. Imagine a woman, young and ambivalent, staring into the middle distance, white sneakers aglow in the dawn, bridge overhead. This area of Brooklyn, once home to abandoned factories and warehouses, now hosts an annual festival for $3,000 German cameras.

A couple weeks ago in New Mexico, a few thousand people in suburban Albuquerque were waiting for the president, the one show we’re always watching.

The time between when you enter a Trump rally and when he finally concludes can be long. You might come in from a bright desert evening, as the crowd did that night, and exit into a pitch-black thunderstorm. In between, you wait for Trump, indoors, without windows, listening to the same 20 songs selected by Trump, from Tina Turner to Andrew Lloyd Webber — that are, like anything else selected by Trump, booming into your brain.

Eventually, to kill time, people at the Santa Ana Star Center did the wave. Seven thousand people rose and fell in red hats and T-shirts — to Luciano Pavarotti’s performance of “Nessun dorma” from a Puccini opera. People raised “Latinos for Trump” signs. A group of teens let out long Woooooooos. Pavarotti wailed in Italian. The wave continued right into the playlist’s next track, “Hey Jude.”

“Is there any place more fun and exciting,” the president asked later that night, “than a Trump rally?”

Trump inspires weird scenes like this from the lovers and haters alike. Pull up YouTube now and you can watch him perform a poem in different cities and in different years, sometimes in reading glasses and sometimes without, sometimes dedicated with cruelty and spite to Syrian refugees and sometimes to the US–Mexico border. Despite the provenance of “The Snake” (an R&B song from 1968), the lyrics have that Classic Tragedy vibe that matches Trump’s acid edge id. “‘Oh, shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin,” goes the poem. “You knew damn well I was a snake before you let me in.”

He’s the man for a moment of algorithmic timelines.

But the algorithm didn’t used to rule all. Most of the basic experiences on our phones didn’t even exist 10 years ago. In 2010, Instagram launched and the messaging app WhatsApp came to both Android and iOS; in 2011, Snapchat opened for business and Spotify came to the US; in 2013, the workplace chat system Slack launched. When Pew first began collecting data on the subject in 2011, 35% of US adults owned smartphones; in 2019, 81% do. Here at the decade’s end, there are 1 billion global Instagram users.

The early part of the decade was about building the systems. And though Twitter preceded this decade, the platform came to political and cultural prominence in the 2010s. Initially, information flowed in chronological order, unfiltered, strictly concise, and mostly from strangers, which distinguished the platform from the more insular and curated Facebook. During the 2012 election, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign formalized a kind of faux-intimate voice — personal messages, initialed by the candidate — that retained a corporate distance. But that kind of fakery couldn’t hold; as the decade progressed and platforms like Twitter shifted from novel experiences into assumed foundations for business, media, and culture, the nature of what we put into the platforms also changed.

This isn’t contained to Twitter: The internet has finally and firmly moved from being an obscure gathering for nerds to the foundation for most communication. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch traces that history in Because Internet, her recent book that is particularly interested in the different waves of users — people who started using email at work in the ’90s, for instance, or millennials who grew up chatting on instant messaging apps — and how those platforms or users have affected language. These generational differences can manifest in small but familiar ways; McCulloch explores why people who are long accustomed to chat and text use line breaks for timing and emphasis, and intuit information left unsaid in an ellipsis. (Hey are you around…) She contends that a younger generation of users over the last decade, who’ve never known an internet without Facebook or YouTube, have turned to a phone experience that emphasizes control over context: disappearing messages, live video, using second and third accounts for specialization and privacy.

As the 2010s went on, the platforms adopted the live and the disappearing and attempted to reach you with what you care about most — to make the experience less disorienting by focusing on what garners the most attention. During the 2016 election, Instagram added the ephemeral stories and shifted to an algorithmic timeline. “If your favorite musician shares a video from last night’s concert, it will be waiting for you when you wake up, no matter how many accounts you follow or what time zone you live in,” reads the corporate unveiling, a cheerful promise of permanent detachment from the clock in favor of what you (are thought to) care about.

Twitter had built its business on the ordered timeline, but it too introduced algorithmic weighting that same spring. “Someday soon, the tweets you see will be a little more interesting, and the tweets you miss won’t be as important,” a former Twitter employee wrote at the time. “And guess what: You won’t even notice. You won’t! You think you will, but you won’t.”

The new Twitter feed transformed how a user perceived something going viral; while a viral tweet used to get a few thousand retweets, it would now get tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of retweets. Powered by the new algorithmic weighting, the platform’s new quote-tweet function further turned Twitter into an ever-escalating, ever-nesting series of warring comments, dunks, and owns. Memes take hold, then disappear. One link of breaking news might hang suspended in your feed, hurtling through time like when astronauts do zero-gravity somersaults. You might see this as it happens — or 6, 9, 15, 22 hours later.

Trump’s racism, excess, nihilism, humor, and all the rest make him the ideal host for such a system — destroying forever that antiseptic corporate voice. But what Trump does best is reveal the nature of people and institutions. Even when Trump is gone, we’ll still have the algorithms; whether it’s that track from 2009 crossing from TikTok to Spotify, or a politician going live on Instagram, or whatever is happening on your phone right now — we’ve already adapted, and the next thing will be built on that shifting foundation.

Change like this can be overwhelming. The first run of Black Mirror, the dystopian British show that rose and fell inside Netflix, featured an episode about the relentless fragments that people now accumulate. Filmed in 2011, “The Entire History of You” takes an existing technology (the archival breadth of our phones), applies the logical conclusion (in the episode, people receive implants to track their every interaction for later playback), and sets both against a simple Greek tragedy–style story (a husband suspects his wife has betrayed him, and is driven mad by jealousy). The wife, hair over her eyes like a veil, reaches up to replay her memories for her husband.

Even in 2011, the episode presaged the now ever-present dialogue about cutting back, dropping out, and disconnecting: At a dinner, the table marvels at a woman who, without regret, has risked her memory and her eyesight to remove her implant.

The dynamic of overload and disorientation, and the final cathartic break from them, isn’t isolated to Black Mirror — it’s a dominant theme of the last five years of culture.

In real life, in the wake of the election, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Instagram have talked about screentime limits, mute functions, preventing harassment and abuse — clawing back control. How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell’s case for reasserting yourself in the tangible world, has become the centerpiece for essays and takes about cutting back and seeing, again, reality free from the algorithmic commodification of the personal. There are the essays about quitting Twitter, or the inherent avarice of Instagram, or reclaiming the life beyond the external presentation of self.

But people always seem to come back.

“This watch tells time,” begins a recent ad for the Apple Watch that then lists off all the other non-time-telling functions the item can do, from taking phone calls to playing music to performing an eletrocardiogram, before looping back around one last time at the end to say “This watch tells time.”

The introduction of this watch (that tells time) in 2015 deepened a kind of existential dilemma for the other kind of watches, which merely tell time. What purpose does a machine serve when the commodity that machine produced is all around us? “Why Men Are Wearing Watches That Don’t Tell Time,” read a Wall Street Journal headline a few years ago, like a riddle, above an old black-and-white photo of Andy Warhol wearing a Swatch.

Some men, the Journal reported, buy vintage mechanical watches but never get them serviced or repaired, or even wind them — they simply leave the watches dead. Stories like this can’t apply to that many people, but even if it’s just one man, somewhere right now, he walks this earth with a beautiful, broken watch.

Over the last decade, there have been little niche resurgences for items like this: record players, for instance, which promise tangible craftsmanship, and an audio experience that can’t be replicated in the digital. For $41.98, you can buy a lime green vinyl copy of Lana Del Rey’s new album and listen to her describe the end of the world and promise that she’s signing off before whispering at the very last moment “I hope the livestream’s almost on…” in perfect offline clarity. It’s hard to shake, however, the idea that these machines are simply counting off something that no longer needs counting, and trying to reassert the physicality of something no longer physical, detached and distinct from where all things meet.

We all know what’s changed — what’s really happened in the 2010s. It’s beneath that bridge in Brooklyn and it’s at the Trump rally in New Mexico, where exiting fans stopped to take selfies with the president speaking behind them in the distance. The man with the broken watch knows, the people who can’t quit know, and so does Lana Del Rey: The internet is no longer a place you go. Who we are on the phone and in the walking world have merged.

This is why algorithmic time is so disorienting and why it bends your mind. Everything good, bad, and complicated flows through our phones, and for those not living some hippie Walden trip, we operate inside a technological experience that moves forward and back, and pulls you with it. Using a phone is tied up with the relentless, perpendicular feeling of living through the Trump presidency: the algorithms that are never quite with you in the moment, the imperishable supply of new Instagram stories, the scrolling through what you said six hours ago, the four new texts, the absence of texts, that text from three days ago that has warmed up your entire life, the four versions of the same news alert. You can find yourself wondering why you’re seeing this now — or knowing too well why it is so. You can feel amazing and awful — exult in and be repelled by life — in the space of seconds. The thing you must say, the thing you’ve been waiting for — it’s always there, pulling you back under again and again and again. Who can remember anything anymore? ●

Sahred From Source link Technology

from WordPress http://bit.ly/32TQ4xi via IFTTT

[nvmlindseyallan]

@cassiedwn @NAPPYTABS your #GodsTinyDancer loves you. hate war? RT this pls now. Thanks. #keepthemomentum

Get in touch with us directly: facebook.com/jonas.stirling  

Join us on October 12: https://www.facebook.com/events/1982889295285527

Please kindly sign and share your petitions wright now:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-trump-wall-national-living-memorial-border-wall-honor

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/replace-trumps-current-religious-advisers-national-consultative-assembly 

COMMONDOMINION OF CHRIST OFFICIAL COMMENTARY ON EMPIRE LECTURE OF SEPTEMBER 30-OCTOBER 7-8, 2017 We have nothing but overflowing love for somebody whose love is indeed extremely overflowing that it's not only confined to Empire who is hacking him, but more so reaching us here, where he truly belongs. Edward the 9th lectured delivered in a street adorned by all 4 Empire branches respectively on the very day of an Empire major meeting further implies that he, like Lindsey and all others, are indeed hostaged by Empire and hence needs us. We're very sure (Matthew 20) that Empire is finally turning up against him inasmuch as Diocletianites are of course choosing to be ignorant of our man's genuine and evident providence through their out-of-point, irrelevant words (Isaiah 55, 1 Samuel 3, Hebrews 4, Ephesians 6, 2 Samuel 1), aside from other Empire branches itself already trying to hide him away from us out of their possessiveness (Mark 5) and selfishness (1 John 3, John 15, Philippians 1,3). We could see though the Empire's STF had by Godhead improvement in their delivery of the Loyalty Relay Service compared to past instances, and #idontdeservethis either. Please join us now as we take the burden of taking Edward the 9th's words directly to you where of course Empire refuses to honor you with (Psalm 34,50, Hebrews 13, Philippians 3, Malachi). Before we fully plunge into the lecture, let us be reminded of previous points we made here though, because Edward the 9th in fact alluded to some of these during his lecture: due to Empire having a 4th group, we have now been on the 5th wave of divine election yet as check and balance due to the Yokebearer Inclusion Policy we have asked Godhead to grant us the 6th wave, yet Godhead said to us that it's just okay for us to retain the 5th wave, hence in turn we have some sort of 2-fold divine election (Zechariah 5, 2 Kings 2). We have also mentioned that Edward the 9th shares divine election with Ka Angel and yours truly, #GodsTinyDancer. I'm much responsible here for the Double Connotations as part of our atoning for the Empire, which pinnacle is our martyrdoms hourly. Now we shall proceed. Edward began his lecture mentioning again about calamites engineered by Empire. Of course he won't say it's Empire-engineered inasmuch as he's held under oath by Empire. He mentioned the 4 hurricanes already over United Saints by the day he preached. Now as of this writing we have a 5th. I said the last 2 all in all symbolizes me and Ka Angel respectively, and me being the 4th of course serves wright for me, because me paving way for the 4th Empire branch had cost me 2,287 yokebearers spiritually martyred on July 18, 2015. As of now I have 1000 ungranted friend requests, hence adding them up with my present 755 friends and those of my 2010-2015 account we should have been over 4,042 friends by now (Daniel 9), nearing Empire-mandated 5000-friend breach. Way back his first chapel dedication as Executive Minister on November 28, 2009, Edward mentioned about 4 typhoons over the Philippines and compared them with 2 Chronicles 20- befitting (Romans 9) this whole Empire against us. Edward also mentioned further Empire reports on these engineered calamities saying that these are 'record-breaking'. Speaking of 'breaking', there is also 'breaking ground', and this latest LRS came one year after Edward led a service in Pasig (which we mentioned in past posts) on October 8, 2016 wherein he read a rendition of Hebrews 10- 'stand your ground'. (Empire since December 15-25, 2017 [Revelation 2,17] has done away with #nomiddleground discourse. [Job 31] 2 Months earlier, on August 7, 2016, Edward also read Hebrews 10. [Numbers 20,14,11, Deuteronomy 34]) Hebrews 10 was also read on May 13,20-21, 2017 where Empire perverted its rendering to its own self-persecution and destruction, concerning about its claim of sealing, similar gesture was made with Daniel 6 a week later, on May 20,27-28,2017. On May 28, June 2-4,2017, Edward also read Hebrews 10 to mark the first year since he also read the selfsame passage on June 4, 2016. We could see hence that Empire could no longer seal us with that of the Living Godhead. We relate sealing to records as in prophecy (Revelation 1,5,20,22,10) as in breaking seals to breaking records. Edward also admitted that these indeed are the days of Noah as per #GodBigDay when he, back to this present lecture, mentioned figures from Empire superiors: 149 engineered calamities from January to September 30, 2017, one short of 150 (Genesis 7), injuring (Revelation 6-9) over 80 million victims (Psalm 90). He also mentioned about Vietnam. One week later, which is now, Ka Scrivner issued a dissertation about how Empire entrenched itself in Vietnam. (Hebrews 8,11-13) . Edward admitted hence that inasmuch as Empire-engineered calamities are 'not common in magnitude even though it can be said (of course in Empire whim) that these calamities are commonplace', then it can be said that 'the Commondominion is not the enemy here. Our enemy here hence is something which is far more extraordinary, more powerful than the Commondominion, because somebody really indeed which is more powerful than them has to bring about giant calamities as these.' (Proverbs 25) As we could see he's indeed reading our posts, and much more Holy Spirit is already directing his way back to us here as we had been also led by Holy Spirit back to him as well, yet of course like many of you who are already reading our posts we could see that you could not yet be with us (2 Kings 5, Jeremiah 25,28-29, 2 Corinthians 4, 2 Thessalonians 1). Hence as we could see through the lecture, inasmuch as Empire indeed deleted No Middle Ground against our Sir Grundhofer (Job 37), Edward sought to continually please Empire while at same time declaring (Hebrews 2, Romans 15, Isaiah 8) us to Empire people. For example, Edward said this to appease scoffers against our prophets: 'you cannot predict (alluding to us) what Godhead can do.' But not later than that (Hosea 7, Psalm 55,57,59,22, Matthew 10) Edward in fact (Isaiah 8,45) said this- 'We have no other recourse in the face of all these [Empire-engineered] calamities than for us to keep grip on Godhead Who shall contend for us through all these [through the Commondominion]. We must admit that if not for the Commondominion we're personally no more here existing, inasmuch as they brought the Holy Spirit to His wrightful fore of preaching, ministry and worship in our time [Jonah 1, Acts 27, James 5, 2 Chronicles 7, Revelation 11,7, Zechariah 9-10]. This we could see that the Commondominion is not forcing us on any endeavor but is rather asking us to further rely on the ever-provident prompt and calling of the Spirit which is in fact calling us to the Commondominion's endeavors, thereby creating a freewill obedience [Philippians 2, 2 Corinthians 9] unlike what the Empire imposes us with. In fact Empire already attests to this because our fellows here had been preaching that Christ while in Calvary had commended His Spirit to the Father so that the Father may give That Spirit to whomever He chooses and pleases like Christ. The Father can indeed do anything beyond Empire expectations: He elected the Commondominion out of the Empire to preserve (2 Thessalonians 2, Psalm 125, Matthew 24) the Holy Spirit's ministry on earth and as if not enough, had reelected it when Empire tried even for a bit to reclaim it. And much more, Commondominion continues to preach 'No Middle Ground' and #noroomfordoubt simply because they were turned off by Empire tarnishing worship and inconsistency. (Job 40,42, Psalm 89,72,22,102,69). Not to be enough, Commondominion lives out the priesthood of all believers, I guess for our part here in Empire we have fully messed up with that here and rather made our believers into witches instead because we always make sure that we honor our ministers with all (Daniel 5-6,1-2) that they need to know while we are continually breeding contempt through not doing the same for our members like the instruction we do with our preachers and evangelists, as if our pastors and ministers are the only members we have here and not our brethren. Now we see the root of this Commondominion rebellion against the Empire, hence we must endeavor for our part to succeed over these circumstances- I mean and I repeat- circumstances, imposed on us by this Empire.' As we saw earlier, Edward mentioned Vietnam, Scrivner wrote about Vietnam being assaulted by Empire courtesy of its British quarters, and #PompAndCircumstance is a #womensmarch at the Empire's British quarters (Daniel 8). We have nothing to give in return for gratitude for all that Godhead is doing thru Edward, and all that Edward does to us; it's only evident that he's convinced that Empire's attempts to profess loyalty to him and lavish him with everything worldly is now already running in vain, in fact he could notice that he's already been overtaken by his own men who are pabebe in homiletics if we are to take Empire policy standards. That is something of course that we never do here. Not only that being pabebe is sin, but also because we dare not to overtake people just because of sinning, and that being pabebe as an instance. (Matthew 14, 1 Corinthians 6) Edward the 9th further introduced Commondominion doctrine to his listeners, perhaps to the frustration of his Empire superiors: 'It is indeed true that God is not any image or statue made by human will, yet we cannot deny that Christ, inasmuch as He's first on the Father's checklist since the world began [as Ka Ilao said], had existed even during the time of the Old Testament.' And then Edward out of personal sentiment, thundered afterwards: 'Commondominion is wright after all that Diocletianites had a very wrong move seeking human intervention, even finding #haventoday with United Nations and Justin Trudeau, when in very fact these are the very agents of weather engineering. These are very formidable detractors, wright? Hence I want you to rally on against this Empire- not only against these Diocletianites, but also against the whole Empire itself, because they're making things very worst through weather warfare and then they'll tell us it's merely climate change? Fools!' But because he's speaking under Empire premises, he later on turned the volume down. 'But to admit, North Korea is not doing the right thing.' Edward is also aware of how Ka Roger was continually talking about an eminent 'Chinese invasion aimed at Edward the 9th', yet Ka Roger was not saying it to discredit China and North Korea but rather to remind them of check and balance amidst Empire lures for war. Edward pointed out that inasmuch as Godhead elects Commondominions one after the other in plight of respective apostasies, 'dispensational truths are indeed invaluable to preserve the eternal Gospel, and it is much true now in our Case. [Psalm 22] Past Commondominions' experiences were written down for our knowledge and then afterwards are declared as sacred texts [1 Corinthians 15, Eter 15, Esther 5, Ezra 5, Romans 15, Hebrews 2], how much more in our own experiences. These are all written down in order to serve as new revelations, sacred scriptures subordinate to the Bible, for the benefit of those who are yet to come after us.' And then Edward the 9th said something. 'According to 2 Corinthians 12 in the Amplified Bible Classic and Revised Editions respectively, Godhead offers us 3 kinds of help, which are all interlacing each other and altogether necessary for the salvation of mankind. Interestingly enough, these are sufficient [Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26] to face the 4-faceted Empire [Exodus 17]. I rather say these 3 helps are no other than me, Ka Angel, and yea, Ka Joseph.' He could not have said it any better. October 8, 2017, Empire reads again Christ's indictment of their hands being stained with our bloods with which Matthew 21 is written. Edward the 9th is the owner of the vineyard, as the Empire itself says that they train him to shepherd the Church 'as if it’s his own already, to be bought by his martyrdom inclinations.' (1 Thessalonians 2, Psalm 49, John 10, Isaiah 43) Furthermore he has this acceleration program for Empire ministers as per Empire's bidding to him on Matthew 9 to 'send more workers for the Empire's sake.' Yet we see in Matthew 21 that he's sending a different kind of workers aside from those whom he has already sent, who are all cold-blooded, hot-headed Empire folks. Edward the 9th has been already by Godhead sending new prophets and apostles for our time into the Constantinian church- Ka Elias, Ka Mario and Ka Jogat, Ka Martin and Ka Lalyn, et cal., only to be disdained and dismissed and harassed by Empire ministers who are now hostaging Edward the 9th and Lindsey. That was before 2015, 100 years since the inception of the Constantinian church (Genesis 7, Ephesians 1). And then Edward (Daniel 6, Bel and Dragon 1) decided to send his 'son' (Galatians 4). Edward's son (John 14-16) is named after Ka Angel and our two Ka Nathans (John 8, Matthew 16,18, 1 John 4-5, Ezekiel 11-12,22)- Angelo Erano. And because Angelo has a second name denoting Ka Mark, then this refers rather to the 2 Witnesses, Ka Angel and Ka Mark, slaughtered spiritually outside the Empire on July 23, 2015 which means our exodus from the Empire. And then came the resurrection of the 2 Witnesses (John 11, 2 Kings 2, Matthew 24, Habakkuk 2), when Edward the 9th decided to award the Empire vineyard to #anotherone as Empire says, 'a different angel' (Revelation 7,14,10,18-22) inasmuch as he's not neither (John 17-18) of the Ka Angel or Edward the 9th's respective succession lines, but rather tasked to bring them forth together into the Commondominion (Ezekiel 34,36-37,39) under the prophetic office of the young shepherd David, which happens to be the name of the second in succession to Edward (Zechariah 12). He will be David because he shall minister to Lindsey (Habakkuk 3),hence this is fulfilled in yours truly, Joseph Stirling Steinfeld Sykes. And yet Empire would still say though that Godhead has nothing new (Acts 15) to indict them with? Now how about Empire continually claiming Christ as their old, old story? (Mark 2, Isaiah 24,42, Matthew 12-13,6) And why Edward said this? He later on explained: 'We can prove Godhead that we are indeed availing Their help and trusting Them in the manner that we are not doing as our superiors do. They in fact could not do as the apostles said: 'we don't want to leave you uninformed of what we have gone through…' (2 Corinthians 1,8) At the time when they were saying these, the apostles are at the region of Asia, which is according to Empire date, the most battered of their weather #heartbreakwarfare. The apostles said that they were then 'in a great tribulation.' It was in Asia- Minor to be precise, Turkey to be exact, where Christ addressed the dispensational letters of Revelation 2-3, which is much, much relevant for these endtimes. Guys, the Commondominion was reestablished during those days just before the present Great Tribulation began on September 13, 2015. Godhead said Empire is going to have Tribulation due to its apostasy, yet Commondominion too has to undergo Tribulation in order for it to be purified. And why Empire is apostatized and hence in negative Tribulation? Because even though it claims apostolic succession, it does not live as the apostles say. The apostles could have never hoarded up the Central Archives. They never though it was lost or disgust for you to know about the Bible in full. They honored you with the truth as the dignity of your lives. But look what Empire does to my words, just to save up time? Fools! They can never save their, or your souls, on that process. Also think about this, guys- Asia is the widest continent and has the biggest causalities in Empire calamity triggering (Revelation 11, Zechariah 14, Isaiah 66). Mark you- the biggest and widest. I'm aware of how Empire is building on John 10:9 and the Far Eastern prophecies just to have it as license to sin, even to kill, and then they'll blame it on me. That indeed is going already the long and winding road to the prince of all evil in the air.' Hence as antidote to Empire, Edward came up with this- 'Now I would read to you again what I read months ago, but I would like to quote it as per Ka Joseph's style because I know that he's so into linking the details of my itineraries just to point out something, and I guess that's much better than how my men here are doing their job. Rather you must leave it all up to him because he's going to be so angry if we do here what he do there. So I'll quote something I did when I was on Joseph's province. Psalm 31. This is what Christ said when he entrusted His Holy Spirit Breath to God the Father in order for us to get in in turn…Well I'm doing this because I want you to trust Joseph, and all that he says and does. When you trust him you trust Godhead in turn, because you are able to prove Godhead that you trust Them when you fully adhere to what They do, and that's continually sending people to preserve the Gospel for our time. Then we though that They can't do it and that we no longer need it, yet as we have just said, Godhead can do anything than what we expect. It's really high time that we realize and appreciate this because Godhead is talking specifically to us when They reprimand us (Hosea 10, Amos 5), and we know that to be true because They have to send somebody (Psalm 50) as Their agent to tell us what Godhead wants, as much as we have to get first to Christ before we have to get to God (1 Timothy 2, Ephesians 3). Imagine what Godhead wants to tell you now, and the entire Roman Empire, when They told us in Isaiah 65 (Ezekiel 7, Isaiah 29-30) that They concede to our claims that They're still here with us and we're still of Them (Jeremiah 7). Because (Romans 9, 2 Peter 3) They expect us to do good on our claims (Job 40,42) and not make empty boasts out of it (1 Timothy 1, 2 Timothy 4, Daniel 8,11, Isaiah 36-39, Job 22). We understand also that it is also due to the present Commondominion being at once marred too by apostasy upon its inception, yet by Godhead they were able to admit the deficiencies and do the proper approaches to it. Now #whataboutus? How we portend apostasy? Do we think that we're invincible enough with all our persuasive influences to sway public emotion that we're no longer prone to apostasy in all its forms? (Luke 17,21) Or are we ready to receive rebuke as Commondominion is just to avail of Godhead's parental encouragement? (Revelation 2-3, Hebrews 12, Job 5, Psalm 94) That's what I mean when I now say, that we need to (Psalm 119) heed Joseph, if we cannot heed Ka Angel. (Matthew 21, Amos 4) And to admit, I really do see myself in that Joseph. I understand what crisis he has to always undergo from his fellow family members, of course because this is what Empire has reared me up with, yet I'm happy that somebody does not only see that for myself, but rather I'm in full awe of how he also became a Leader like me.' We were actually in goosebumps when we heard this before he closed his talk. But just before he closed his sermon, he once again reassured Empire of their own ends. But he later on surged again with words unheard before in Empire halls. 'But say, for me it is really, actually, biblically sound that we kneel during the National Anthem. Kneeling is actually all around the Bible. Even flags- Commondominion had been in fact using it since Bible times [Alma 46, Matthew 20,22, Numbers 1, Psalm 20,57, Exodus 17, Isaiah 5,11,49,24,42,62]. See our sports leagues- do they pray before gametime that no one may be injured, that no catfight ever rise up, that everybody may be sport with each other whether win or lose? The only problem is that those who do kneel under this agenda of ours don't pray; rather they protest, they rather take the National Anthem instead as their prayer when in fact it is not. So that's idolatry, as Commondominion says. But guys, believe me when I say, there's nothing wrong kneeling for the flag, as long as you pray. Now why? Because as we could see in Book of Mormon, Moroni, who raised the Freedom Flag, was a captain. Now who's this Joseph? He's the Dance Captain of the Commondominion. Mark you- dance, this sounds like Daniel, and we could see that I indeed has a young counterpart unto whom you must take heed and submit (Psalm 2,72, Isaiah 60, Revelation 2-3) because he's wielding the Freedom Flag in our time. Only then must you learn why kneeling for the flag is somehow a good thing. If you take away Joseph and his Commondominion stuff out of that, your kneeling is suspect. That's the only reason why you should be kneeling for the flag, nothing more, nothing less. (Luke 5, 1 Corinthians 1-2, Romans 8) Yet I will continually ask Godhead that They may allow you to continually be in charge of Their power and authority on earth, so that you may learn to control your own temper, and be worthy of your own claims. Just learn from Joseph guys, as I had been, and all will be well for you, I guarantee, Godhead's power will be for your own good, as it is with him. You want to be #onewithevm? You have to be one with Joseph first, You claim to be Alpha and Omega, you should prove it. As we began well, so should we end, worthy of Godhead's trust.' (Matthew 6, Leviticus 26, Revelation 6,8,16, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 32) That morning, Edward the 9th had fully blown the whole universe down, saying things no Neronian General Conference or Diocletianite apologetics could muster. (Matthew 5,12, Acts 7, Hebrews 11) I love him very, very much, more than he indeed could ever know, more than Empire could claim. (Romans 5,8)

JOSEPH STIRLING STEINFELD SYKES Blogger in Chief and Dance Captain, Commondominion of Christ

Know your enemy: http://robertlawrencefulg.wixsite.com/commondominion/who-we-are-against-

Get to know our member churches as of late: http://robertlawrencefulg.wixsite.com/commondominion/where-we-are Get to hear our member preachers as of late: youtube.com/channel/UCNgq_i3ZlMTxcczzEYQj6LQ/channels Our blogs: nvmlindseyallan.wordpress.com, nvmlindseyallan.blogspot.com, nvmlindseyallan.tumblr.com Get all day, everyday word from me: facebook.com/nvmlindseyallan

Join us and bring along all your loved ones and friends:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1869852959999710/

Like our pages:

https://www.facebook.com/jonas.stirling/likes

Follow our team:

https://www.facebook.com/jonas.stirling/following

Meet our team:

http://robertlawrencefulg.wixsite.com/commondominion/what-we-give