#THESE TWO. DIFFERENT LEVEL. ASCENDANT‚ EVEN‚ IF I WERE TO PUN.

[jzixuans]

shi qingxuan only remembered the flower, but had forgotten: xie lian ascended because of his sword.

[fermented-writers-block]

Submitted by @sepublic:

So a while back, my pal @fermented-writers-block aired a theory. To sum up the abridged version, they suggested that if the Boiling Isles was allegorical to an Underworld, and the Human World to… Well, itself, then what of a third realm above? What if there was a parallel to an angelic realm, one populated by the show’s equivalent to a race of angels/Valkyries? They speculated that Emperor Belos himself may have been one of them, cast out… And he desires the portal and access to the Human World, in order to access this hypothetical Angel Realm!

In our discussions, we came across the idea that the Human World functions like neutral territory. It is the realm between realms, the buffer/barrier between the Angel Realm and the Demon Realm. It is where the two come together, and where influences from both have leaked in, to inspire real-world myths; A callback to Eda’s line in the first episode! The Portal, as speculated by my pal, potentially is rooted in the Human World, giving it equal access to the Angel and Demon Realms respectively- As a result of the Human World being between both of them respectively!

If the three realms were bus seats, the Angel Realm might be the Window Seat, while the Demon Realm is the set right next to the aisle where people walk up and down across the bus… And the Human World is sandwiched right between! This of course means that in order for either the Demon or Angel Realm to access one another, it would be through the Human World… With only the Human World maintaining access to BOTH realms, instead of just the one!

Ergo… Given the theory that Belos intends to reconnect to this Angel Realm, it makes sense that he wants to access the Human World! To him, it’s merely a stepping stone, not his destination… The ladder he needs to reach the top, it’s his stopping point before he can progress on to the end! He has no interest in the Human World, as he claims, beyond utilizing it as a passageway to something far grander and more interesting.

But now… onto a certain idea behind Belos.

To put it simply; Fermented Writer’s Block and I think that Belos could potentially be a Satanic/Lucifer allegory. A Fallen Angel, in a sense. From a Doylist perspective, this would settle Disney’s concerns over depicting Heavenly characters as negative, as the only truly negative Angel in this sense would be a literal Satanic allegory. It’d be like Doom, in a sense!

I’ve discussed… a LOT in the past, the idea of Luz and Belos being counterparts. Even if we don’t have much within canon, there IS the association with Light, as well as the ability to communicate with the Titan to some degree. Luz’s name literally means Light… And Lucifer means Light Bringer! It’s in the name, Luz-ifer! If Belos is a twisted counterpart to Luz’s guiding light, then perhaps he’s a more literal take on the Satanic allegory…

Specifically, the idea of an Angel who was cast out of their world and fell, plummeting into a realm beneath that of the Human World! We’re already making allusions with Lilith’s name, after all. And I’d LOVE to see The Owl House tackle some more classic, eldritch takes on the Angels of old and their original interpretations, such as the Seraphs!

After all, people have noted the similarities between Belos and the idea of Christian Imperialism. If Belos were a literal ‘angel’, or the show’s equivalent, this would be a fitting twist! Fermented Writer’s Block also observed that on one page of the Unauthorized History of the Boiling Isles, Belos is depicted with almost mechanical wings, in addition to the book being somewhat burnt. What if this could imply burnt wings on Belos’ part? Especially given Belos’ mechanical, industrial motifs and deteriorated nature...

If Belos WERE a Fallen Angel, then perhaps his Wings motif amidst the Emperor’s Coven imagery is intentional. Not only does it hearken back to his true origins and identity… But it could also allude to him having burnt wings, which in itself is symbolic of a Fallen Angel, as someone who was outcast and can no longer fly! The dude IS associated with Fire, to a degree… His throne room is lit by blazing braziers. Amity and Boscha are associated with his Coven System, in a sense… Amity is indoctrinated into its values and wants to join the Emperor’s Coven, while Boscha’s ideas of hierarchy and elitism reflect Belos’ values rather well. Both characters are associated with Fire… Which, helps to serve as a unifying motif among them- Especially with Lilith, who has blue fire and was leader of the Emperor’s Coven!

It’s a contrast to Luz and her Ice, and what she stands for… Her Light is reflective, while the Light of characters like Belos is harsh, dangerous, and off-putting. If Luz were more comparable to a night star, shining amidst the darkness and providing guidance- Then Belos is like the Sun, harsh, bright, demanding attention from all… But also too powerful to be personal with, something to be regarded from a distance, and never closely looked at. This would fit into Belos’ enigmatic nature, and the idea of him heralding Day, while Luz is Night… After all, Owls are nocturnal! And if Belos is a coming dawn, then that could tie into Angelic motifs… Amidst Luz’s Night bringing an end to his Light! It’s a take on that age-old term, about the Sun never setting on the British Empire… And THAT empire is emblematic of colonialism and imperialism as a whole!

It could also allude to the myth of Icarus- A mortal who flew too close to the sun! Of course in this scenario, Belos was in fact an Angel… But there’s still the recurring theme of wanting more, of one’s circumstances not being enough, of being guided by arrogance- It’s shared between Lucifer and Icarus both, to varying degrees. Perhaps Belos tried to lead a revolt in the Angel Realm, or got too arrogant… Either way, he was cast out- He flew too close to the Sun he wished to embody, and so his wings were burnt. Clipped of the thing most emblematic of his identity, no longer able to fly and ascend… Belos fell to the Earth, and then even deeper.

It’d tie into Belos having earthen motifs, as someone who can no longer fly. Him having angelic aesthetics, underscored by demonic motifs and growls, fits into the idea of Lucifer having been a beautiful angel, only to become the literal Devil and leader of Hell and all of its horrific demons! Belos already has a decayed, deteriorated condition to him that implies he’s not in the best health. Perhaps his burnt wings are the cause of this- Or at least another symptom of whatever injuries he suffered in the past? Not only that, but returning to the Icarus motifs… If we want to get meta, we can ascertain that Dana Terrace has read Fullmetal Alchemist. She knows of Hiromu Arakawa’s artstyle, citing it as something Luz would emulate back home- And there’s that other post comparing Father and Belos!

If Belos is like Father, then there’s once again that idea of using a portal to access a heavenly ‘realm’, through the Sun, in order to access a ‘God’ figure, or beings around that level. Not only that, but Fullmetal Alchemist, from its very beginning, made a very pointed reference to the myth of Icarus, likening its main protagonist Edward Elric to him! If Father is in some ways a foil to Ed, just as Belos could be to Luz… Then it makes sense for Dana to have been inspired by Icarus by virtue of his tale being important to the themes of Fullmetal Alchemist! And if Belos IS a Satanic allegory… Well, Lucifer’s name literally means Morning Star. As Belos’ antithesis, Luz brings the sunset to his Day of Unity. They’re both outcasts to the Demon Realm, but from different worlds respectively.

Now, there’s a question- Who are the Angels? What do they look like? And where does the Owl Deity factor into all of this? Well, this gets me onto my NEXT part;

I think the Owl Deity could be the closest thing to ‘God’ in this universe, AKA an all-powerful deity who reigns above all! A while back, a background artist for the show released some art he did, depicting Luz and King resting beneath a spire. If one looks closely at the top, they can see a depiction of Belos himself! And right above it is candles, surrounding an Owl… An Owl above all. Perhaps we’re looking too deeply into this. But it brings to mind a pun, about the God of All Things… Also being the God of ‘Owl’ Things!

If the candles are lit, then this suggests fire’s association with the heavens, which fits into biblical depictions of Angels! Not only that, but Belos is right beneath the Owl… And right beneath him is a fleshy stump, indicative of his own motifs… And it’s connected to what appears to be a giant eye right beneath him! Eyes are a big motif in the Boiling Isles –and amongst biblical angels- so perhaps the fleshy stump, akin to Belos’ constructs, is symbolic? That he’s bridging the gap between the demonic world below, and the heavenly world above?

Regardless, the next portion of this theory suggests that the Owl Deity is a supreme being. Perhaps a neutral mediator between both the Angel and Demon Realms, with the Human World as neutral ground. Perhaps a weapon, utilized by the Angels? Or a powerful deity they managed to sway… More on that later. Regardless, it DOES make one consider the Clawthornes’ connection to the Owl Deity, specifically Eda’s. Her house DOES have the only known depictions of this enigmatic being, after all.

And THAT house was likely fashioned, at least partly, from a tower! Towers are known for their reach towards the skies… Could a Clawthorne Ancestor have been connected to the Owl Deity as a worshipper? A follower? Maybe they were ALSO an Angel, like Belos, albeit not fallen… Or at least, much more well-intentioned! It could bring a dark twist to Lilith’s line about Eda being with her ‘real’ family… Unbeknownst to her, Belos, being a fallen Angel, is arguably ‘family’ in the sense that the hypothetical Clawthorne Ancestor was ALSO an Angel! After all, it might better explain how Eda has access to the Portal. Not to mention that golden, blazing Owl Wraith she summons during her final battle with Lilith… Birds ARE a Clawthorne Motif, after all! And Angels have bird wings.

If Belos IS similar to Father from Fullmetal Alchemist, then it makes sense that there’s a ‘God’ he plans to usurp as a Lucifer allegory. The Owl Deity could be this god, or at least associated with the Heavens that Belos seeks to conquer and return to. That of course gets us into the symbolism behind the angelic motifs of the Emperor’s Coven. Now, when Belos first arrived in the Demon Realm, he would have been acting VERY contrary to the Boiling Isles’ values about magic at the time, and he clearly had to utilize plenty of force and genocide to make people comply. In other words, this is a dude who cares not about conforming to others, but making others conform to him…

So it doesn’t make as much sense for Belos to change his aesthetics to an Angelic one, to appease the Boiling Isles residents if he’s clearly averse to everything else they do! Especially if Angels, or what lingering memory of them there is, is seen as negative by the Boiling Isles… The point being, this alludes to Belos being genuine about his Angelic motifs, and not adopting them to appear more palatable to others; Because all of his behavior suggests otherwise, that he forces others to adapt to him, rather than the other way around!

Not only that, but if the Emperor’s Coven is Belos’ attempt at reinstating his ideal form of heavenly rule/environment on the Boiling Isles… And if the Owl Deity is a god to be conquered, then how fitting is it that his subordinate wears an Owl Mask? Perhaps it’s meant to arrogantly symbolic… That the Owl figure that Belos once looked up to, now serves him! Of course it’s only in symbols; But the idea is there, that the image and motif of Owls has been appropriated, not as a holy being above Belos, but instead as an image belonging to a subservient minion.

Now, this all leads into another question- What about the Titan? What does the Titan have to do with this? And for that matter, what of the giant Titan remains, scattered across the Boiling Seas- We know others exist, but OUR Titan is the only known intact corpse! Well…

In Understanding Willow, Hooty briefly mentions his backstory. It’s hard to discern, but he mentions how it all began with a hunt, and how there were blood-red skies before Eda and King’s dialogue cuts him off and drowns out the noise. There IS the idea of Hooty being a lobotomized and weakened reincarnation of the Owl Deity, or at least a spawn of it… Or having SOME association with it, moreso than most characters! We don’t know what killed the Titans, or why OUR Titan’s corpse is intact. There could be Doylist answers to this, maybe it’s meant to be a mystery that’s never explored, but left to a sublime imagination…

But if not, then this is where I get into a crazy idea here;

Angels are depicted as adversarial with Demons. The Titans would’ve been the first Demons, of the Demon Realm. We know one of them had Magic... And if Belos is any indication as a fallen angel, there may be a heavenly aversion to magic. Hooty recalls it all beginning with a hunt…

What if the Angels hunted down the Titans? It’d explain their sudden extinction… As for why our Boiling Isles (BI) Titan is still intact, well. Perhaps it was a lone survivor! Perhaps its Magical ability permitted it to last longer than others, before it too succumbed to death after the genocide. For all we know, its Magical ability was what drove the Angels to commit genocide upon the Titans, for fear of an uprising! Either they failed to target the Titan actually responsible for finding magic, or they kept them from spreading their craft to others by killing off anyone else who would be willing to learn.

If Hooty has a connection to the Owl Deity… Well, remember when he mentioned being haunted by his actions forever, in Adventures in the Elements? What if the Owl Deity led this ‘hunt’ against the Titans… Either as a creation of the Angels, or as a neutral mediator who was swayed to their ideas of magic being dangerous! Either way, there seems to be a recurring theme of regret and remorse… Perhaps when all was said and done, the Owl Deity rejected its actions, and banished itself to the Boiling Isles? Maybe the Clawthorne Ancestor was connected to/IS the Owl Deity… As for how the Owl Deity died, maybe it simply willed itself out of existence in shame. Maybe it succumbed to injuries from the water. Either way, the Titan didn’t erase all traces of it, which could imply some forgiveness on its part… That, or the Titan was too dead to act in outright vengeance, who knows?

Regardless, the story goes- A Titan discovers Magic, is deemed a threat by the Angels. The Angels lead a mass extermination of its kind, with the Titan the sole survivor. The Owl Deity helps lead the hunt, but comes to regret its war crimes, and dies amidst the BI Titan’s corpse, laying the foundations for the Owl House. As I said, the BI Titan also eventually dies, alone and traumatized, as the Angels head back home.

Owl Deity culls rest of titans, is about to finish the Titan when it realizes the horror of what it did

Either the Titan took it out in a pyrrhic victory, or - more likely - the Owl Deity, being an entity focused on balance and neutrality, allowed itself to be killed/seriously wounded as way to “rebalance” things as much as it can for its nigh complete genocide

We know that Belos claims to enforce the will of the Titan. Well, if he’s a fallen angel… What if he’s persuading the Titan to help it get revenge? What if as a fallen angel, he arrived on the Boiling Isles and approached the Titan’s spirit, proclaiming himself as trustworthy, in an Enemy of my Enemy situation? Belos would point to him and the Titan as being wounded and rejected by the angels to some extent. Belos would have insider knowledge on his kind. If the Angels swayed the Owl Deity, what if Belos swayed the Titan to his side by offering it the chance to strike back at the Heavens for its crimes, and avenge its fallen brethren?

When Belos claims to enforce the Titan’s will, he’s not completely wrong- It DOES feel justifiable anger, though clearly Belos is capitalizing and manipulating this anger, and then passing off the Titan’s actions as solely its own, and not at all a product of Belos’ own manipulations in any shape or form. You know how I likened Belos to Father… And my past theories about Belos resurrecting the Titan, on the Day of Unity?

Hooty mentions it all began with a hunt, with blood-red skies. What if the skies are blood-red once more, on the Day of Unity? As the realms converge or whatnot… What if Belos’ weapon to defeat his Angelic brethren is none other than the resurrected Titan, wielding full access to the powers of Magic, and with vengeance in its heart? What if Belos resurrects the Titan on the Day of Unity, possibly with its body underneath HIS control as a parasite… We could have a scene mirroring that iconic moment from Fullmetal Alchemist, where a continent-sized Father rises from the ground and reaches out to the Heavens, accessing them with the Portal! Just replace Father’s gigantic form with the Titan’s resurrected, magic-fueled body!

Now, this does lead into the idea of settling the Angels as antagonists, once Belos is done and over with. Perhaps a resurrected Owl Deity will be instrumental, with the help of Luz and the others? If she’s the Night to Belos’ Day, then perhaps she needs to set the sun on Belos’ reign, on his Day of Unity! It all begins and ends with blood-red skies, after all. Perhaps with the help of a resurrected Owl Deity, Luz can appease the Titan, or at least sway it to not turn to vengeance and jeopardize the Boiling Isles inhabitants in the process. She has experience with calming down vengeful entities in the past, as seen with Inner Willow… And Luz CAN communicate with the Titan!

Especially if the Angels have grown to also regret their actions, as a parallel to characters like Lilith! Or at least, the Angels can be held in line and prevented from further massacres, with the resurrected Owl Deity. If the Owl Deity is regretful of its actions, then perhaps we could get a scene calling back to Understanding Willow… Where Belos, at the last second, sways the Owl Deity to his logic, and suggests vengeance and annihilation of the Angels! The Owl Deity, frighteningly, agrees for a moment, reminding the Angels that its genocide of them is merely finishing what THEY started, after all…!

But then Luz steps in. Alongside the others, such as Amity and Willow, Lilith and King, Eda, and so forth… She persuades the Owl Deity to have forgiveness in its heart, especially if the Angels show remorse and a desire to fix mistakes! It’d hearken back to the theme of having justified anger, but otherwise channeling it productively into fixing mistakes, rather than simply harming the one responsible for them! It’s about a productive way of tackling issues, rather than focused on punishment; Again, a theme as far back as the first scene, when Luz is punished with the Summer Camp, VS actually having her emotional issues properly addressed, and being given the chance to fix the damage.

Our protagonists could all call back to similar incidents, with Lilith citing how Eda sparing her gave her the chance to fix the damage, or at least remedy it… Instead of JUST dying as retribution! How Willow chose to still retain her feelings, but also spared Amity so the girl could change and improve as a person, instead of just killing her off and calling it a day. It’s about not only recognizing damage, but working to properly fix and recover from it- Recovery is the key word! Fixing the damage together, as Luz said- Productively fixing what was caused, instead of beating oneself over it, the way Amity and Lilith initially did!

This could lead to the Owl Deity, especially if it has Hooty’s memories, being swayed back to a good stance. It’d contrast Belos and his inability to grow, heal, and recover from his emotional and physical wounds! Either way, perhaps the Owl Deity could make peace with the Angels, or at least ensure they genuinely change their attitudes and behaviors. Belos is stopped, and the Titan can finally be laid to rest, its spirit perhaps still communicating with whoever is willing and eager to learn Magic, the same way it did!

Now, this does leave the question- Who was Belos during the Titan Genocide, if he was an Angel? Was he even alive back then? This gets me into the speculation that Fermented Writers Block made, of Private New Guy being an allegory to Belos… If Hooty was haunted by his actions that night, well. Perhaps Belos was just another young recruit, another generic Angel in the hunt- But he was inspired by the Owl Deity, maybe even saw it as someone to emulate? And that’s part of why he’s so power-hungry and bloodthirsty, because of his ‘idol’…

Yet ironically, Belos is merely projecting his idea and desire for what he wants the Owl Deity to be, VS what it actually is- A repentant, remorseful entity with a lot of guilt! Tying into the idea of characters projecting ideas/expectations onto others that just don’t exist, confusing fantasy with reality… Maybe like Private New Guy, Belos tried to seize power in the Angel Realm, and it’s why he was banished? And hey, going into even MORE mindless speculation- What if Owl Mask was MORE than symbolic of the Owl Deity, but outright the same kind of being? Perhaps they’re Belos’ attempt at recreating the Owl Deity albeit young and/or imperfect, an additional asset to conquer the Angel Realm, in addition to a resurrected Titan. Who knows?

Mind you… ALL OF THIS is one hell of a stretch. It’s an incredibly unlikely theory, that hinges on a LOT of factors… But it’s fun food for thought, is it not? And hey, if you never pick up a shovel, one will never find gold even if it IS there! It’s an extension of the Angel Realm theory, while tying together a bunch of other details here or there, and hearkening to past themes, morals, and lessons. I’m sure that even if this isn’t what Dana and the others have planned, what we WILL get will certainly be just as enjoyable- But until then, it can’t hurt too much to guess a bit, and maybe have some outlandish fun or there, right?

[bangtan-sonyeonddaeng]

BTS Reaction| Your family members fight a lot and you’re stuck at home

Namjoon 

You went upstairs to your room as soon as you heard the raised voices and closed yourself in there. You were tired of having to listen to their arguing. So you put your headphones in and immediately called your best friend. He answered on the first ring as always. 

“Hello? Y/n? Is everything okay?”

“I mean no but, how did you know?”

“It’s nearly midnight. You usually never call me this late unless something is wrong.”  You glance at the clock and your eyes widen when you realize he’s right.

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! Were you sleeping? Did I wake you?”

“Nope. I was just working on a new song.”

“Oh really? Can you tell me about it?” 

“You need a distraction?”

“Yes please.”

“Alright. Well it was probably one of the fastest times I have written a song. It got it done in just a few hours. I was feeling very... inspired.”

“Oh really? What inspired you?”

“Hmm a walk in the woods. I saw a leaf fall from a tree and the lyrics just started flowing from there.”

“Your brain amazes me, Namjoon.” He chuckles at that.

“Thank you. Do you want to hear it?”

“I’d love to!” He plays you the song and it immediately gives you a sense of comfort. You let yourself be lulled into a peaceful state by the gentle melody playing through your headphones. When the song is over you let out a happy sigh. “That was amazing.”

“Really? Do you think Army will like it?”

“They’ll love it. I know they will. It will make them feel just as comforted and happy as it did for me.” 

“Perfect. That’s what I was going for. Thanks for listening to me ramble on.”

“Oh no it’s exactly what I needed. Thank you, Namjoon.”

Jin

You had a pillow over your head trying to drown out the raised voices, but it didn’t seem to be working. It was really starting to wear on your nerves so you did the one thing you knew would cheer you up, face time Jin. You hoped he was back at the hotel now and you weren’t bothering him. He answered almost immediately. You can’t see his face as his phone seems to be laying on the counter, the camera facing the ceiling. 

“There’s my adorable sweetheart of a best friend- Hey why do you have a pillow over your head?” A loud slam of a door across the hall makes you flinch. 

“Does that answer your question?”

“Your family is fighting again?”  You sigh. 

“Of course. Just a daily occurrence in the life of quarantine.  What are you doing?” The camera moves and you immediately giggle at the sight. He has on a face mask but there are black rings around the eyes and nose that make him look like a panda. You burst into laughter when you see his indignant expression. 

“Hey what’s so damn funny? There are no jokes about this beautiful, handsome face.” 

“What on earth- are you wearing?” 

“Hey! We’re on tour in a foreign country our face masks and beauty products are limited.” You try to stifle your laughter by bringing the pillow over your mouth instead. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, I just wasn’t expecting that.” 

“It’s okay. I do look quite silly. But yet I still somehow manage to pull it off huh?”

“Sure, if that’s what you want to believe.”

“Don’t make me come over there.” 

“Oh bring it on grandpa-nda.” Jin tries to hold back his laughter because he’s trying to be mad at you but soon his loud and boisterous laughter rings out into your room. 

“I can’t possibly be mad at a fellow appreciator of dad jokes and puns. Are you feeling better now?”

“Much. Thank you.”

Yoongi 

The moment your family started arguing you went into a different room and closed the door. You pulled out your phone to text him but as usual, he seemed to have some weird sixth sense with you and had sent you a message as you were typing yours. 

Hey, just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. 

Um, not great but I’ll manage. 

You see the three dots appear as he is typing back a message but soon they disappear and your phone is ringing. 

“Yoongi?”

“Hey. Sorry I was going to just text but I figured a phone call would mean a little more. Is everything okay?”

“I mean it’s just my family again.” That’s all you have to say and he immediately knows. 

“I saw a really cute dog today.”

“You what now?”

“It was really cute. A little fluff ball. The cutest dog I think I have ever seen. I took a photo, you want to see?” Your phone chimes with a text message and you open it and look at the photo. He’s laying down on his side and has Holly in his arms. His eyes are crinkling at the corners and you can tell he’s smiling even though his mouth is covered.

“That’s Holly.”

“Yes. And he is the cutest dog in the universe. No other dog compares to my precious Holly.” You find yourself smiling hearing how fond Yoongi is of his dog. 

“Indeed he is. But his owner is even cuter.” You hear an odd choked off noise and even though you can’t see him you know he’s blushing. 

“Ah don’t say things like that. It’s not good for my heart.” 

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You look really happy in that photo though.” 

“Because I am. Being home with my family and getting to see Holly makes me happy. Um.. you know if your family is fighting a lot you are always more than welcome to come and stay with me.” 

“Really?”

“Of course. My family adores you. If it gets to be too much, you always have a home with me.” You feel tears well up in your eyes and quickly wipe them away.

“That means a lot to me. Thank you, Yoongi.” 

Hoseok

If there was one thing that could cheer you up when your family was fighting it was your own personal sunshine, Hoseok. You texted him and asked him for a distraction and suddenly your phone was bombarded with adorable selfies of him pouting at the camera, smiling, holding up a finger heart, doing multiple different adorable poses.

Feeling better now?

Of course. How could I not when I get to see your smiling adorable face?

(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄ Why do you have to say things like that you’re gonna make me blush in front of the guys and then they’re gonna make fun of me.

Sorry. I mean I just speak the truth. Nothing makes me feel better like your smile does. 

Y/n sttooop. 

Okay okay. I’m sorry. What are you guys doing?

Another picture comes through, they’re all in the photo now smiling in the practice mirror. 

Dance practice! 

Ah I’m sorry! I shouldn’t keep you then. 

Nonsense. We’re taking a break anyway. And even if we weren’t you know I’d drop everything just to cheer you up. I promised you whenever you needed me I’d be there remember? No matter what. 

You smile to yourself as you remember the day Hoseok came back to your house and was absolutely over the moon that he was going to debut. But one thing he made sure to promise you was that nothing would change between the two of you and that he would always make time for you. And he has made good on that promise without fail. 

Yes I know. And I appreciate you so much for that. No matter what time of day it is you always help me feel better. 

Good! Are you feeling okay now? Are your family still arguing?

Hmm I don’t think so. I don’t hear anything. And yes I am, much better. Thank you Hobi.

You’re welcome sunshine! I’ll call you later tonight after practice okay?

Okay. Love you, Hobi.

Love you too !! 💜💜💜

Jimin

Jimin, are you busy?

Hmm just practicing a new choreo! But I always have time for you, what’s up? 

You press the phone icon next to his name.

“Okay now you got me worried with how quickly you called me.”

“Just.. can you distract me please? Or just keep my mind off things? I just want to forget everything that is going on right now for a little bit.”

“That is a very open ended question y/n with many possibilities.” You can hear his smirk through the phone. 

“Not like that you pervert!”

“I wasn’t being serious oh my goodness. I just wanted to make you laugh. Sorry.” You giggle into the phone and hear him sigh into the other end as if he’s relieved he didn’t actually upset you. 

“I’m just messing with you, Jimin. But seriously. My family is fighting again and I just don’t want to deal with it right now.” 

“Ah I have the perfect idea to distract you then! Switch to video call.” You did and were blessed with the sight of a barefaced, casually clothed Park Jimin. 

“So what is your idea?”

“You can watch me dance! I know how much you like to. And you can tell me what you think of the new choreography for my solo. Is that okay?”

“That sounds perfect. Watching you dance is like an out of body experience I swear. Feels like my soul left my body and ascended into the heavens and I am watching an angel grace me with his presence.” 

“Ah y/n! You flatter me too much.”

“It’s true though!” He waves you off with his hand but you definitely don’t miss the way his adorable puffy cheeks have turned bright red. He walks over to the speakers and presses play to resume the music. It truly is like watching an angel. He moves like he has wings, feet barely touching the floor and movements so graceful even the most experienced prima ballerina would be jealous. You watch on in awe as he seemingly floats across the practice room. You don’t even realize you’re tearing up until he stops dancing and runs towards the phone with a look of alarm on his face.

“Did something happen? Or was I just that bad?”

“Shut up, Jimin you were perfect. Seriously. That’s why I am crying because that was the most beautiful thing I have seen in my life.” You wipe your eyes with the back of your sleeve and when you look back at the screen, Jimin is smiling. 

“Thanks, y/n. I’m glad you liked it.”

“Loved. I loved it.” He blushes again but doesn’t try to hide it this time, allowing you to see his eyes disappear as he smiles at you. “Dance for me again?” 

“Anytime you want y/n. All you have to do is ask.” 

Taehyung

Taehyung had called you, like he did every night to check in and see how your day was. Unfortunately he called right when your family was in the middle of a world war III level screaming match. You answered and he immediately heard the yelling in the background.

“Oh, sweetheart I am so sorry.” You sniffle and try to collect yourself so he won’t worry.

“It’s fine. I’m used to it by now.” Your voice cracks and reveals to him just how upset you are. 

“Stay right there. I’m coming over.” 

“What? No, Tae it’s late don’t- Hello? Taehyung?” You pull the phone away from your face and see that he has already hung up. You sigh and set it down on your bed, pulling the pillow against your ears and trying to drown out the sound. Without realizing it you end up drifting off to sleep, only to be woken up by a heavy body flopping next to you on the bed. You throw the pillow off of you and sit up feeling startled. Looking to your left you see piles of snacks and drinks from the convenience store, and a very sheepish looking Taehyung. 

“I didn’t know which snacks you’d want so I bought one of everything.” You stare at him for a moment before a megawatt smile is displayed on your face. You jump over all the bags of snacks and tackle him in a hug. 

“You’re the best. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.” 

“Of course! Anything to make you smile and cheer you up.” He opens a bag of chips and takes one out and holds it to your lips. “Open!” You do and he pops the chip into your mouth, it’s your favorite which just makes you even more happy that he remembers these little details about you. You are both in your own little world, eating snacks and happily chatting before you hear more shouting from downstairs and the frown is immediately back on your face. Taehyung pulls headphones out of one of the bags and places it over your head. They’re noise cancelling so you can’t hear anything except Winter Bear playing through them. You feel yourself immediately relax, and sway to the beat. You close your eyes and focus on his voice as he gently tugs you to your feet, and slow dances with you around the room. You have completely forgotten about why you were upset in the first place, the only thing you are focusing on is him. His voice, his hands around your waist, and the soft feeling of his lips against your forehead. 

Jungkook

Jungkook was a sweetheart, to put it lightly. He was an angel. And today was certainly no exception. You two had been texting back and forth and when your family started arguing you stopped answering him back, opting to put your headphones in and listen to music to block everything out. He got worried when you just suddenly stopped responding so he called you. 

“Y/n? Sorry were you sleeping or something? I just was a little worried when you stopped answering.” 

“Ah, sorry just..”

“Your family again?”

“Yeah...”

“What were you doing?”

“Listening to music.” 

“Hmm.. were you listening to your favorite group by any chance?” You know what he’s hinting at but you couldn’t help but tease him a little bit.

“Indeed I was. Got7′s song always cheer me up and put me in a good mood.”

“O-oh. Okay. Yeah I see why you like them. They do make good music. And they’re handsome and funny. Yugyeom is one of my best friends so if you want to meet him someday I can introduce you-”

“Jungkook.”

“Yes?

“I’m just messing with you. I love Got7 but when I am upset it’s your voice I want to hear.” He gets quiet for a moment and you can picture how flustered he is, you almost laugh but hold it in. 

“You know if you want to hear the real thing all you have to do is ask. If my voice helps you feel better I will sing a thousand songs if that’s what it takes.”

“Really?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay then. Sing for me.” He clears his throat.

“Annyeonghaseyo jeoneun Bangtan Sonyeondan-”

“Jungkook!” You immediately burst out laughing and hear his giggles soon joining yours. 

“Sorry. Just wanted to make you laugh for a second. But for real now, okay?”

“Okay.” You settle back into your pillows and bring the blanket up to your chin, getting cozy and waiting for the surely ethereal vocals to fill your ears.

“Neoneun nae salme dashi tteun haetbit.” His voice sounds beautiful. It’s unlike anything you’ve heard before. It’s like comfy fuzzy blankets, a warm fire after being outside in the snow, a hand to hold when you’re feeling down. It’s comforting. It’s warm. And it’s everything you need right now.  Without even realizing, you’ve started to drift off to sleep. But Jungkook keeps singing even though you’ve fallen asleep. He wants to make sure you stay asleep, and don’t have to listen to anymore unpleasant sounds, he wants your dreams to be filled with bright colors and happiness. And if the way your breaths are even and unstrained are any indiction, he knows he’s accomplished his goal. 

“Sleep well, angel.” 

[defensefilms]

Defense Films Names His Top 5 Favorite Rappers

In All It’s Infinite Glory And Magnanimity, Defense Gives You His Top 5 Favorite Rappers. 

5. 50 Cent 

To this day, when you need a playlist for a MMA class and the group is hella diverse, you’re not really sure which way to go with it, pop in that 50. Can’t go wrong with Get Rich Or Die Trying (the original), or even that G-Unit Beg For Mercy.

That run from late 2002-2005/06 was unlike anything you’ll ever see again. That was a perfect situation where there was organic support from fans and there were people at a business level, mainly 50, that knew how to turn it into the wave that it became and industry has been trying to replicate this ever since.

While most people remember is the numerous scandals, beefs and controversies of that time but it was the music that moved the audience. For all the ways 50 Cent’s success mirrors ruthless American capitalism, his debut album is low key one of the most inspiring albums you’ll ever listen to. 

It’s a foxhole mentality on wax. It’s me-versus-you type thinking. It’s someone has to lose and I’ll be damned. It’s who ever has to get hit, is gonna get hit. 

See the first time I listened to it, it was about “In Da Club”, “Wanksta”, you know the more palatable records that got on radio and all that but the more I listened the more I realized, it was actually built on the backs of songs like “Patiently Waiting”, “Many Men”, “Back Down”, “Don’t Push Me” and “Gotta Make It To Heaven”. On one side it’s as motivational as you can think of but it’s not the wacky kind of naivé motivational talk because it’s willing to get it’s hands dirty and go in to much grittier ideas. 

Like his predecessors, 50 pulls off the trick of balancing easy-to-listen-to records on a foundation of graphic and aggressive songs.  

Recommended Songs: Maybe We Crazy, When It Rains It Pours

4. Jedi Mind Tricks

I’ll give you props if you know who these man are but they are legends. Point blank. Violent By Design will forever rank as one of the great group albums in hip-hop history.  Vinny Paz, Jus Allah and producer/DJ Stoupe The Enemy of Mankind, gave hip-hop a shockwave they weren’t ready for, especially back in 1999.

Hip-hop as a business wasn’t ready to market a group, whose themes were rooted in topics like government control, military warfare, covert control tactics, religion and psychological warfare. To have all that in one bundle wasn’t something that big time A&R’s were ready for. 

Had they started this group in 2010, they would have walked in to a business landscape that was far more suitable to who they were as an act and as MC’s. 

Even with that JMT still enjoyed a lot of notoriety and they definitely succeeded in establishing their following, despite the odds. 

While Violent By Design may serve as the magnum opus of their body of work, their run really starts in 1997 with the Psycho-Social, Biological & Electro-Magnetic Manipulation Of Human Kind. 

Yes guy, that’s an album title. You gotta think now, I was in high school the first time I heard this and I was very into conspiracy theories and nonsense, so this album hit me right between the eyes. The idea that someone could use the medium of hip-hop in this way was crazy and the album would have been more than 10 years old when I first heard it.

No, the hip-hop historians among us will argue that Wu-Tang were a better and more influential group and I’d tend to agree, I can also bust back and say, “these dudes took Wu-Tang’s formula and gave it a whole different edge.”

 I’ll break it to you like this, Wu-Tang gave the world swordsmanship and the first projectile weapons like bow and arrows, spears and the likes. Jedi Mind Tricks gave the world gun powder, advanced modern explosives and semi-automatics. You see what I mean?

Recommended Songs: Untitled, Retaliation Remix

3. Jay-Z

No top rappers list is complete without my man. The only reason he ain’t higher is because, I rate a rapper more highly if they’re in the prime of their musical abilities. If this were an all-time list he’d be way way higher. 

Beginning with Reasonable Doubt is really the only place to start when it comes to Jay. The production, the skits, the way every sentence was so tightly wound together, the word selection and sentence construction. It’s remembered as an album of hits because of tracks like “Cant Knock The Hustle”, ”Feelin It” and “Brooklyn’s Finest” but Reasonable Doubt was really defined by “Dead Presidents”, “D’evils”, “Politics As Usual” and “Can I Live”. 

The first batch of songs gave the album some relatability, as far as depicting club vibes and nightlife glamour because that second batch of songs were all built on darker themes like betrayal, jealousy, greed, blind ambition and deception. That combination of themes as well as the production to match each one is why that album will always rank high among a certain listenership. 

With that being said, never make the mistake of thinking Jay or any man is perfect. There’s like a 3 album run where there’s moments of dope-ness but not a truly complete album. 

Still with that, songs like “Imaginary Player” and “Where I’m From” will rank among his best songs.

It’s only when you get to The Blueprint can you start to see Jay perfecting the art of crafting, whole, complete albums that bump from start to finish. The Blueprint was near perfection in this regard. “U Don’t Know”, “Heart Of The City” and “Momma Loves Me” will rank as his best efforts and yeah, I skipped a few.

The Black Album replicated the Blueprint’s listenability, while also dealing in topics that created an album that sounded very personal to Jay. 

All told, the best parts of his catalogue are so strong that there is no denying his place on my list.

Recommended Songs: Dead Presidents, I Love The Dough

2. Action Bronson

I cannot for the life of me fathom how this man doesn’t get the love but the real ones know. 

The mixtape download era (2010-2017 give or take), had many unlikely success stories. An overweight white guy, who grew up cooking in his parents deli/eatery, turned pro-chef then turned rapper, is beyond unlikely. Only the internet could allow this man to succeed and thank the hip-hop gods it did.

From 2012 to about 2018, Action was one of the only constants in my playlist. I still remember where I was the first time I heard “Brunch”. His catalogue starting with the Tommy Mas produced, Dr Lecter and boasting full collaborations albums along side Statik Selektah and the Alchemist, and of course the classic Blue Chips series. This man’s prime will be underrated. 

If you’re going to take one chapter of Bronson’s art and study it, it’s going to be Blue Chips 1 and 2. Both are thematically perfect without ever trying to be. Which is what allowed Party Supplies to make production choices that grabbed you from the jump. From the first time you hit play on the opening of Blue Chips 1, you’re hit with the sound of falling shards of glass and a violin sound that makes the opening song un-skippable. The songs themes are also a perfect introduction to the man himself. Debauchery, expensive taste, hedonism, revelry, unabashed pleasure-seeking, drug use and just enough self-depreciation that you felt you were along for the ride rather than just a fly on the wall, turning your nose in disgust. It was a perfect mixtape, at a time when mixtapes were at a crazy dumb high standard.

It’s not so much that a rapper made punchlines about food, that would be an over-simplification and really missing the trick. It’s that he made everything he said sound like the dopest thing ever and the most underrated trick about his music is that he made grown man rap without needing to be thuggin’. A rare feat. 

Bronson has since gone on to establish himself as a content creator/producer/food review guy but man, what he accomplished as a complete body of work is nothing short of astonishing.

Recommended Songs: Midget Cough, Bonzai

1. Headie One

So it’s late last year. I’m hanging with my boy Phil and Brown, we had just finished some content and Phil says “yo listen to this”. He proceeds to play Golden Boot and it hasn’t stopped bumping since. 

A UK rapper with a lyrical nous and wit that rivals even legends like Jay-Z, but rapping over trap and drill beats. What Headie One is doing is not the norm and I’m talking in terms of his lyrics, sentence construction, word selection, metaphors, he does it all and like all the greats, he makes it look easy. 

His collaboration with RV definitely helped mold him, with both the “Sticks and Stones” and “Drillers and Trappers” mixtapes giving you an idea of what Headie offers as a lyricist. He compliments RV’s brash, aggressive boasts with slightly less obvious but incredibly witty boasts of his own.

His discography though really starts to peak with 2018′s “The One”. That’s where Headie begins find a sweet spot between his lyrics, production and the themes of his songs. A mixtape like this can only exist via independent release because outside of the aforementioned “Golden Boot”, ain’t none of those songs getting any radio play especially in a country as “conservative” as England. Even in a genre saturated with gangsta/trap, “The One” stands out for what he accomplishes lyrically.

Headie would follow that by releasing “The One Two” in June of 2018 and he ascends even more in what he’s able to accomplish with the words.

 The track “Banter On Me” should be in an all-time list somewhere for being the wittiest track of all time. The song is literally just Headie finding new and innovative ways to boast, call out and bait his foes. Hip-hop/Rap has plenty of beef songs that weren’t really direct call outs to any known public figure but were still definitely taking shots at someone. 50 cent’s “Wanksta” and “Officer Down” are some examples of such songs I can think of. Those did not really have the kind of wit Headie displays here. The constant streams of alliterations, double meanings, puns, metaphors, inferences and innuendos is just astonishing. There’s a real mastery of language at play here. The song is a lesson in language, no textbooks. 

Headie has since released his debut album along with additional tracks for the delux version of the album. His debut studio release “Edna” does what studio releases are supposed to do. “Parle-Vouz Anglais” and “Aint It Different” will standout and are difinitely the most palatable songs as far as radio play. Those are the 2 songs I’d play for first time listeners. 

Recommended Songs: Hard To Believe, Dues, Zodiac

[mittensmorgul]

They are filming ep15 right now (Cas and Jack are working alone on a case) and the fact that Misha will miss one more ep due to his contract makes me think they dropped the empty deal arc. I just cant see them playing it out when they have to set up Jack to be the God killer, Cas to fix heaven, Amara plotline in 4 eps. Plus Dabb implied that Michael!Adam would also come back to defeat God in some form. Thoughts?

hmmm...

*does math in my head* *admits this is dangerous*

So we know that Misha is scheduled to be in 15 episodes this season, leaving five he will not appear in. So far, he has not been in 15.04, 05, and 10. Of the remaining unaired episodes (including the ones he’s already filmed, but haven’t aired yet), that leaves two more that he won’t be in.

And yeah, I really don’t think there’s time to explore the full weight of that deal, especially given that the entire cosmic situation has shifted since he made it. I mean, even the fundamental REASON Cas made it was so Jack would not end up in the Empty. And then Jack... ended up... in the Empty...  Kind of a dick move for the Shadow to still try and cash in on that deal, right?

I just think it’s more a factor of them having committed to end the series at the end of s15 that led to the reframing of the deal, you know? If they had intended to go on for a s16, I think it would’ve been heavily dealt with in s15, or even in the back half of s14, but instead things needed to happen to accelerate dusting AU!Michael off the table to make room from Chuck to get all uppity with the story. :’D

They could bring it up as a potential way for Dean and Cas to deal with the rest of their communication issues. Like Cas could tell Dean about the deal, and Dean react to it with a Normal Amount of upset, because it IS reasonable to be upset to learn your best friend literally sold his own happiness in exchange for what he thought would make you happy, you know? Worst Gift of the Magi AU ever. All Dean wants is for Cas to be happy, but he’s willing to trade “enjoying that in a peaceful, not world ending life” and stand by Cas’s side through all their battles to make that happen. All Cas wants is for Dean to be happy, and he’s literally willing to sacrifice his own happiness and life to make that happen.

I think this was at least partly delved into in 15.09, with the very real threat of Cas having taken on a Mark like the MoC, which would eventually drive Dean to a point where he would’ve had to lock Cas in a ma’lak box forever, effectively losing Cas forever. It wasn’t the Empty deal, but the Empty would’ve never been able to collect, because Cas would’ve never been happy after that, you know? But again, I personally think that deal went out the window the moment Jack burned up his own soul to kill AU!Michael. Because I don’t think the Empty ever really wanted Cas... I think the entity was biding its time until everything was ready to bring ALL of Jack to the Empty, as we saw in 14.20... There was a bigger game afoot, and we don’t entirely know what that is yet.

Is Billie’s plan really to kill Chuck? Or is she, like Death always has, pushing at the Winchesters (yes, including Jack and Cas) to do something specific with no intention of them actually DOING the thing, but knowing that Cosmic Level Nudge will set into motion an entirely different sequence of events? Because Death... can’t act directly. Billie has come closest to just saying it outright, in 12.06, and this was before she ascended to that Bigger Picture View of Creation:

Mary: How would it work?Sam: Mom?Mary: You just kill me again?Billie: Reapers don't kill people. Rules.

So many rules... and Billie is so, so good at working around those rules. Even better than OG Death was. 6.11 is still a prime example of how Death functions.

DEATH So, if you could go back, would you simply kill the little girl? No fuss, no stomping your feet?DEAN Knowing what I know now, yeah.DEATH I'm surprised to hear that. Surprised and glad.DEAN Yeah, well, don't get excited. I would have saved the nurse, okay? That's it.DEATH I think it's a little more than that. Today, you got a hard look behind the curtain. Wrecking the natural order's not quite such fun when you have to mop up the mess, is it? This is hard for you, Dean. You throw away your life because you've come to assume that it'll bounce right back into your lap. But the human soul is not a rubber ball. It's vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine. So... I think you've learned something today.DEAN Want to know what I think? I think you knew that I wouldn't last a day.DEATH I have no idea what you're talking about.DEAN I lost. Fine. But at least have the balls to admit that it was rigged from the jump.DEATH Most people speak to me with more respect.DEAN I didn't mean --DEATH We're done here. It's been lovely. But now I'm going to go to hell to get your brother's soul.DEAN Why would you do that for me?DEATH I wouldn't do it for you. You and your brother keep coming back. You're an affront to the balance of the universe, and you cause disruption on a global scale.DEAN I apologize for that.DEATH But you have use. Right now, you're digging at something. The intrepid Detective. I want you to keep digging, Dean.DEAN So you're just gonna be cryptic, or...DEATH It's about the souls. You'll understand when you need to.

Just like Billie’s command to Dean about the Ma’Lak box in 14.10:

Billie: And just look at you now. Do you remember visiting my reading room? The shelves and shelves of notebooks describing the ways you might die?Dean: Yeah. Upbeat classics.Billie: Well, it's the funniest thing, but they've all been rewritten. They all end the same way now -- with the archangel Michael escaping your mind and using you as his vessel to burn down this world.Dean: All of them?Billie: All of them. Except one.

Except... ALL of those books... were wrong... even that one that said the ma’lak box solution was the thing... And I think Billie was HOPING to get that EXACT reaction from Dean We’ll Find Another Way Winchester. But if she hadn’t TOLD him about that one anomalous book of fate, Dean wouldn’t have known to even TRY. And in doing so, in attempting to build that box, his loved ones realized something was super fishy (lol I didn’t intend to make an undersea pun, but there you go) with Dean, and stepped up to support him until out of nowhere, a wildly unexpected solution presented itself. BECAUSE Dean drew strength to keep Michael contained beyond the original prophesied ends... Because Billie “interfered.”

I don’t think Death actually KNOWS what will happen after she shakes up reality, you know? She just knows where to apply pressure in order to force a rewrite of destiny. This was also the entire point of 13.19-- the things you CAN change, versus the things you can’t. And how to give just the right nudge to set those changes in motion.

Well, that went off on a tangent... >.>

Point is, I don’t know for sure that Jack will end up as a God Killer (I mean even in a practical sense, the ONE THING the CW has ever said was that they were not allowed to kill God... I assume that hasn’t changed and am basing my own personal expectations accordingly...). So I’m thinking that whatever the final plan will look like... we haven’t seen it yet. Okay, now back to the point... Cas’s Deal with the Empty.

So regardless of the why (because I try to avoid using a doylist rationale like Misha’s contract or the remaining number of episodes in order to justify narrative choices, because no matter how you slice it, that’s Bad Science right there...), I don’t really see the Empty deal as a threat to Cas anymore. Unless Cas is destined for a tragic end and will be sucked into the empty in the series finale-- which, again, would mean that DEAN would also never be able to be happy, because it’s been explicitly established in text that Dean can’t be happy without Cas, and again, I don’t think the series CAN have a tragic ending, so it’s so unlikely I’m not even bothering to consider it. Except... Cas might not know that because of everything else, his own happiness won’t spell his doom, you know? Which leaves some interesting possibilities on the table for really cool CHARACTER stuff instead. Cas’s fear of finishing that conversation with Dean that Dean’s Purgatory prayer began, for example... because heck that’s treading really dangerously close to words that could make Cas happy... And could be holding him back from continuing that dialogue now, at least for a few more episodes of tension between them.

They may just bring it up again as a WTF Cas? How could you not tell me? moment, just to demonstrate that Cas and Dean truly HAVE resolved their interpersonal conflicts, by having Jack confirm that the deal is null and void because of his arrangement working with Billie and the Shadow now. Or even Cas himself already knowing the deal has been nullified when it’s mentioned in conversation, allowing them to finally have a conversation about what would make them happy, using Cas’s continued existence as a prime factor in Dean’s happiness, and Dean wanting him to stay to be a prime factor in Castiel’s happiness... I think this could be a really interesting way to use the fact that the deal had existed at all could spark that revelation, you know?

But again, all of this is just theory at this point. I could be 100% wrong about all of this. But as you said, with only 9 episodes left (and two of them theoretically not even including Cas... and heck they could do a speed run through the Empty for one of those episodes too... I have no idea what they have planned), I don’t think it’s going to be a long, drawn-out ordeal, you know? They’ve refocused all of the character arcs back into the main story now, and they’re all converging on what will eventually be the series finale, not flinging them all out in opposite directions to generate drama and angst, you know? Different point in the story, different options available to wrap up open threads.

[the-barista-district]

There had been countless days spent in this coffee shop, so many of them blended together. There were so few difference from one to another, it was nearly impossible to tell one apart. Yet, never in Brent's time here has a day stretched on so long, he feared it may never end.

Brent stepped back behind the counter, just returning from a delivery, his only saving grace today. He glanced around, only seeing Dylan and Bree working the beverage station to fill another large order.

Good, he thought. Brent would just run the counter for a while, only a few more hours and they closed and the Baristas were free to return to the Apartments or in Brent's case, hiding at Mission Groove Park.

"Brent." The voice behind him made him nearly jump out of his skin.

Brent spun around, panicked to be faced with Kyle. He hadn't been able to stay in the older Barista's presence for more then a few minutes all down. He just wasn't ready to be around Kyle after coming to terms how he had felt.

"I! I have to go!" Brent blurted before Kyle could speak. He took off, snatching Dylan's delivery order and rushing right back out to Night Vale.

"Hey!" Dylan called out, falling on deaf ears as Brent went out the door. "What is with him today?"

"I dunno, he's been acting off all day." Bree said, leaning against the counter.

"He could have just asked." Dylan huffed, starting to clean up his station before Hunter came over to give him grief over the few loose grounds.

"Do you know what's up with Brent?" Bree asked Kyle, who still standing stunned.

"Uh.." Kyle cleared his threat to get a bit of composure back. "I'm not certain.." He said, not sharing his theories with them.

"Here's another order for delivery." Tris said as they came up to the counter, handing Bree a piece of paper with the order written up.

"Thanks a latte~!" Bree said, ignoring the groans from her fellow Baristas as she started resenting the beverage station.

"Perhaps you could find a new pun for that, Bree." Tris said, raising a brow at her.

Tris stiffened as the three of them stared confused at them. Tris had never commented on such things before, it had nothing to do with coffee orders, so far out of character for a 1st Level. They realized their mistake, taking a step back from the counter.

"Excuse me? Could I get a coffee refill?" A customer beckoned from the sit down cafe area.

Tris thanked the Void, grabbing a near by pot off the warmer and headed off to refresh a few cups of coffee. They had to be more careful or come out and tell the rest of the Baristas about them ascending to 2nd Level.

Being level was nothing to hide or be ashamed of, Tris didn't even know what it was to be ashamed. Something was just holding them back from telling anyone and they couldn't figure it out. They supposed it might have something to do with it being triggered by the spark of fear. Having that be the first thing they were ever truly aware of was a terrible experience.

"Tris?" Hunter asked beside them.

Tris blinked, coming back to focus only to realize they had been pouring coffee into a fake potted plant they had by one of the tables.

"Oh no..." Tris grumbled.

"They didn't see." Hunter said with a slight tilt of his head. "They are preparing an order. Why are you pouring coffee in the fake plant?" His nose scrunched, it was such a waste of perfectly good coffee.

"I...was distracted." Tris said, handing the pot to Hunter. "I'll clean it up." They said, taking a clean rag that was hanging off the straps tied around Hunters waist.

"Okay." Hunter said, thinking literally nothing of it. "I'll take over the floor."

"Thank you." Tris said as they lifted the pot and wiped up the coffee that leaked out the bottom.

"You're welcome." Hunter replied automatically as he went to refill cups and take any additional orders.

"Do you think something weird is up with Tris?" Bree asked, glancing over at the Baristas on the floor before handing Dylan the take away carafe for their order.

"I think everyone here acts weird." Dylan replied as he started to fill the carafe. "Kyle has been acting off for days. This whole new Manager thing has been really messing with him."

"You don't think the Manager is doing anything to him do you?" Bree asked.

"I don't think so. Probably just threatening or something. We are lucky nothing bad happened after the last one." Dylan said, finishing filling the containers. "Where's this one going?"

Bree picked up the paper again.

"The radio station." Bree said, shaking her head. "Those interns still don't want to leave there, the District is the safest place."

"I'll take it!" Dylan blurted, a bit of embarrassed steam escaping him.

"You just want to see Cecil." Bree teased.

"What?" Dylan sputtered, despite its truths.

"So he just decided you were his son? That's so brew-tiful~!" Bree laughed at Dylan's disgusted face at her pun. "You and Brent get dads, that's so sweet."

"Yea, well...I like it..." Dylan mumbled. "He's really nice to me. It's like...I matter outside of this place." Dylan shrugged, unsure how to explain it.

"Go on then, I won't keep you." Bree said, smiling widely. "Tell your dad I said his show is Koloa tea~"

Dylan rolled his eyes, picking up the carafes and heading out the door so he didn't have to suffer her puns anymore. The rare moments that he missed the blissful ignorance of being a 1st Level.

"Dylan out on the delivery?" Kyle asked, having come back from restocking some of the last of the baked goods for the night.

"Yep, out to the radio station." Bree said, side eyeing the older Barista. "So what's up with you and Brent? You two have been weird since that party with the funny eggnog."

Kyle instantly released a bout of embarrassed steam, his face changing shades as he looked at her.

"I! Look! He! It's Dylan's fault for-I mean! It's complicated okay?" Kyle sputtered, tripping over his words. He sighed as she gave him an amused look as he was floundering. "Bree, look it's just...something I'm figuring out, it's nothing for you to worry about."

"Yea, sure, cause that was all so coherent just now." Bree rolled her eyes. "Just make it less complicated, cause it sure isn't subtle." She said, walking over to the order counter to greet a customer.

"Hello! Welcome to Brewed Awakenings! What can I get started for you today?"

[thejoonmoon]

why you should stan namjoon: his ability to manipulate and play around with the korean language

A little while ago, I asked a question about whether Korean music sounds like gibberish to non-Korean speaking listeners. Majority of those who answered said yes and for the most part, many just try to recognize certain phrases or the overall gist of the song when you are listening to it. Now this sort of got to me because as a bts fan, the members play around with words in their songs and they honestly have some of the most poetic/complex lyrics in the industry and it’s really interesting for me, a Korean-American, to be able to hear and distinguish that. But for non-Korean speakers, you guys can’t really do the same. An awesome example of this is Namjoon because well- he is just a genius, a modern-day poet. So, I’m going to try my best to try to point some of the word play in his lyrics out because I think you guys would find it just as interesting as I do!

1)  흥탄소년단/Fun Boyz

저 위 정상들이 보이지

일상에 상을 하나 더해 난 이상해지지

정상인 상태로는 정상에 못 가요 baby

trans:  “You see the peak over there, right? Add one more prize to my daily life, I’ll get weird. You can’t reach the top by being normal baby”

In this verse, Namjoon uses the word “정상” which can mean two different things depending on whether you use it as an adjective or a noun. As a noun, it means “the peak” (like the highest point of something). But as an adjective, it means “normal”. In the first line, he uses it as a noun- asking a question if you can see it. But in the third line, he uses the word in both ways. If I were to translate the last line stiffly it would be something like: “in a normal state you can’t reach the peak”

In the second line, he also does another word play.  일상 is a noun that means “daily life” while 이상 is an adjective that means “weird” or “abnormal”. However, he also makes a math pun in the line. The first syllable of  일상 is  일 which is the number 1 and the first syllable of  이상 is  이 which is the number 2. So literally, if you “add one more” to  일상 you get  이상. Add “one more” to daily life, you get weird.

Also! Note the repetition of the syllable “상” (sahng) through out his verse!

2) 고엽/ Dead Leaves

모든 낙엽은 떨어지듯이

영원할 듯하던 모든 건 멀어지듯이

너는 나의 다섯 번째 계절

널 보려 해도 볼 수 없잖아

봐 넌 아직 내겐 푸른색이야

마음은 걷지 않아도 저절로 걸어지네

미련이 빨래처럼 조각조각 널어지네

붉은 추억들만 더러운 내 위에 덜어지네

내 가지를 떨지 않아도 자꾸만 떨어지네

그래 내 사랑은 오르기 위해 떨어지네

가까이 있어도 나의 두 눈은 멀어지네

벌어지네 이렇게 버려지네

추억 속에서 난 또 어려지네

trans:  “As if every autumn leaf has fallen, as if everything that seemed to last forever is falling away, you’re my fifth season. Even if I try to see you, I can’t. Look, you’re still blue to me. Even if our hearts do not walk, they walk instinctively. Our lingering affections, like laundry, hang piece by piece. Only the crimson memories fall above my dirty self. Even if I do not shake my branch, it keeps on falling. Sure, for my love to ascend- it falls. Even if I’m near by, my two eyes grow further- they’re falling away. Like this, I’m being thrown away. I become young again inside my memories.”

Not only is his entire verse extremely poetic with his usage of analogies and personification and overall language but another thing that you have to make notice of is the fact that he raps in alphabetical order.

From the line 마음은 걷지 않아도 저절로 걸어지네 down, the verbs at the end of the lines follow alphabetical order.

The part of the Korean alphabet he uses is (from left to right) ㄱㄴㄷㄹㅁㅂㅅㅇ. Order-wise, and not by actual sound, its equivalent to the English alphabet would be abcdefgh.

Now pay attention to the first consonant of the first syllable of the last word of each line.

걸 어지네 , 널 어지네 , 덜 어지네 , 떨 어지네 ,떨 어지네 ,멀 어지네 , 버 려지네 ,어 려지네

ㄱ,ㄴ,ㄷ,ㄸ*,ㄸ,ㅁ,ㅂ,ㅇ

a,b,c,cc*,cc,e,f,h

*ㄸ is a double consonant, meaning that it’s the stronger sound of ㄷ. In some alphabets, the double consonants come after its single consonant- meaning that Namjoon was still technically following Korean alphabetical order

One more thing to note is his repetition of the verb ending “-네”. This is typically used when the speaker is just taking notice of something and it implies that they have been taken aback by whatever has happened. For example, if you haven’t seen somebody in a long time, you might say something like “You’ve gotten prettier/more handsome”. In Korean, you would use the verb ending “네” for this situation and say something along the lines of “__ 예뻐졌네” or “__ 더잘생겨졌네”

So similarly, in this verse, it’s as if Namjoon is first discovering that hearts will walk instinctively, that his lingering affections hang piece by piece, that his love must fall in order to ascend, that he is becoming young inside his memories, and so on and so forth. It’s slight, but it adds a new level of depth to how you interpret his lyrics.

3) Always

난 세상을 이해하기 위해 사는데

세상은 날 이해한 적이 없어 왜

아니 딱 절반이 모자라

날 해하려 하잖아

trans: “I live to understand the world, but the world has never understood me- why? No, precisely one half is missing. It’s trying to hurt me.”

In this verse, Namjoon uses the verb 이해 which means “to understand”. When he says “precisely one half is missing”, he literally meant one half of 이해 which is 해. The verb 해하다 means “to hurt/injure” which is why he’s saying that “it’s (the world) is trying to hurt me.”  The world lacks one half of understanding him, which is why it’s trying to harm him.

Again, another thing I’d like to talk about is how he says 날 해하려 하잖아. Typically, the verb ending “하잖아” is used when you want the person/people you’re addressing to take notice of something. So, for example, if you’re craving something when you just ate- typically your friend would say something like “but we just ate!” And if you’re talking in Korean, it would be here that your friend would use the verb ending 하잖아 and use the phrase “방금 먹었잖아!” (you just ate!)

By saying 날 해하려 하잖아, it’s as if Namjoon is asking us to see that the world is trying to hurt him, it’s as if he’s implying “can’t you see this?” So it adds a whole entire new spectrum of emotion to his lyrics and I just wanted you guys to clearly hear the song the way he wrote it.

[thataspdfeel]

I'm curious, what are you most attracted to in your partners? Is it similar traits in all of them or different ones like their sense of humour etc.? Sorry if this is a weird question but you've said before you like when people ask about them so I thought I would.

i was so excited to get this and then forgot to answer it :/ im an idiot

also gonna put this under a cut cause this is gonna be hella long cause im a fucking romantic dork

god though i could wax poetic. they’re all so lovely. like they have traits in common but also are unique. they all have brown eyes but theyre unique. like my husband has these eyes that remind me of warm chocolate. like a chocolate fountain kind of warm chocolate. dark and smooth but reflect the light. my wife’s have tinges of gold in the irises like flecks of gold leaf. and theres a dark ring around the pupil and one around the edge of the iris. theyre fucking magical

my boyfriend’s eyes are almost black and very deep. darker than the night sky and full of warmth and mischief. but its like theyre never ending, like he can see the innermost parts of whoever he’s looking at, like your soul is written on your forehead

lmao i love eyes can you tell

they all have these goddamned sinful eyelashes and my boyfriend’s are the longest. theyre as dark as his eyes and when he’s embarrassed, he gets all shy and they brush against his cheekbones like how dare you sir. how dare you be beautiful even when youre embarrassed. i look like a fucking tomato. rude

my husband’s look gold at the tips with the way the light catches them. like yknow how fake eyelashes have purple or red at the tips? like that except gold. like what??? the fuck??? rude

they all have very soft hair though my boyfriend’s is the longest. i cant wait to get with him irl again cause i wanna braid it. he’s got a bony face and it frames it so well. it’s so dark brown its almost black and it’s fun to see him try to sweep it out of his face cause he refuses to tie it up

my husband has these wild curls. we were looking up how to take care of them and that’s how we found out hes ethnically jewish. (which makes sense considering he’s german) they get so thick and heavy and they’re so soft and lovely to nap in. which i do on a semi regular basis. its so soft and lovely and i love when he grows it out. he just doesn’t look right with shorter hair. and he has this beard that grows funny, makes him look like jedidiah if yknow what i mean. he has such a baby face without it and he loves beard scritches it’s so cute how happy he gets

bluh im bouncing all over the place i just??? love them?????? so??????????? much???????????????? there’s so much to talk about!!!

so i guess i’ll just try and make a list of the things i love about them

husband:

cheerful, bubbly, very sunny personality. the human incarnation of a very excited dog (which can be A Lot sometimes)

extremely kind. would give you the shirt off his back. often laments that he stopped carrying cash years ago every time he sees somebody who could use some despite the fact that we’re always broke

a proper southern gentleman??? like im fat so im used to people not holding doors open for me fucking ever and being really goddamned rude in general. he ALWAYS holds doors open for me, opens the car door for me both to get in and out of the car, and gets pouty if i try and carry my own bag. it’s so sweet??? ive literally never had that before and even after three and a half years, it’s still so charming

he will do literally anything the fuck i ask. he’ll say no and im like oh ok and he’ll tease like “finally! i said no! and got away with it!” just to make me giggle and then does it anyway

on this note, he also always cooks as much as absolutely possible. even though his spine gives him problems, he does his best to keep me off my leg

he’s always so concerned about my well being. like if there’s not a disability cart at the front of a store, he makes me sit down while he goes and chases one down. if im stiffer than usual due to a cold front, he’ll remind me to take pain meds every four hours

he’s trying to learn japanese because he knows i dont have anybody to practice with here in the states. just for me and not any other reason

adores animals. even if he finds a dog annoying, he’ll still fawn over it and give it as many pets as it wants and won't ever snap at it even if anybody else would. he’s got these large hands and he’s kind of clumsy but this goes away around animals. he’s just so careful and gentle like i never ever worry

drags me out of my introverted cave because he knows social interaction is also good

has introduced me to some of my favorite books and video games because he’s verious conscious about what somebody likes and works to be like “hey, i think youd like this” and is almost always correct??? amazing

has 0 sense of style but doesnt mind somebody who knows better keeping him from absolute disaster

dude is a damned good cook. ive gained like at least a solid 25 pounds since he moved in and started cooking regularly

SPEAKING OF COOKING, we met on the tail end of my anorexia when i was doing my best to recover and still slipping up. he never made me feel bad about it but always encouraged me to eat. he eats SO much (think shaggy rogers) that i always felt comfortable eating in front of him. he always reminds me to eat and asks if ive eaten that day. honestly, i wouldnt be at this level of recovery if it hadnt been for him

is amazing at caling me down holy fuck

wife:

met her first, of the three of them, ironically so ive known her the longest but been with her the shortest. we dated a few months in hs but there was a chick she wanted to date like right there (and i was in japan) so i was like oh go for it. well, they broke up and we got back together and it’s been lovely ever since

she has this snorting laugh that’s adorable to listen to and it makes me feel more comfortable laughing (because i think i sound like a damn goose)

SHE HAS SO MANY GODDAMNED FRECKLES ON HER CUTE LITTLE FACE THEY’RE ADORABLE AND AMAZING AND VERY FUN TO KISS BECAUSE SHE SQUIRMS

she has a goddamned button nose for chrissakes

and these really wide hips too like i felt bad about my hips years ago cause theyre p wide but shes adorable and has wide hips too. she kinda made me love them (even though hers are better)

she’s genderfluid so i get to be gay all across the gender spectrum (im agender) and she’s so beautiful and handsome and v amazing

we were both homestuck fans at the height of it (like we still are) but her cosplays are just really well done??? shes so talented

OH MY GOD SHE MAKES THIE CHICKEN SOUP WITH HOMEMADE NOODLES I WOULD SLAP AN OLD LADY FOR

i dont know about the rest of her cooking (sadly) due to limited time around each other but i cant fucking wait tbh. her cookies kill me tho i love them

an amazing fashion sense. im a dumpster compared to her

an amazing writer and artist and i die every time she sends me something like my soul fucking ascends

she loved me BEFORE meds which i think is amazing. like what a lovely human being yknow? im a dick without meds and she loved me anyway and i love that about her

she speaks german and she makes it sound beautiful and i cry

her singing voice is so angelic and it kills me when she sings because everybody should hear this lovely person sing

she is hyper empathetic and it makes her so lovely and kind and wonderful. she completely understands how i feel about things and why even when no one else does and is very good at de-escalating me when im upset

we’ve just known each other for something like 7 years now? like i dated her post my abusive ex and she lit up my whole world with happiness at being treated well. then her ex was abusive and just... we get each other? in a way where her husband and my other two partners dont. its a pain the others dont understand so we go to each other during these times of pain in a way we cant with other people. it’s a very special connection

she’s a goddamned goof and i love it

my boyfriend:

motherfucker is so skinny which is the opposite of me and for some reason it works?? idk like it worries me but it’s also unique. love it

we dated almost my whole senior year of hs but he broke up with me because he thought he didnt have the same depth of emotion as i did for him and didnt want to “hold me back” from somebody better. like??? can you imagine?????? how fucking kind

recently started dating again like it took him fourish years for him to realize SHIT I MADE A MISTAKE so he’s a little slow but he’s so very thoughtful

he’s a goof in a different way than the other two. dad jokes. never ending fucking dad jokes. and goddamned puns. he never stops. dont tell him i love them because then he’ll never let me tease him again (i pretend like its The Worst)

so. fucking. dramatic. always flips his hair in the sassiest way possible. its super gay (he’s bi)

he doesnt do a whole lot of romance or saying WHY he feels certain ways. he feels like it cheapens the emotion. but, on the rare occassion he doesnt let this bother him, his poetry he sends me about how he feels makes me fucking cry. it’s so beautiful. i love it

he works watering at a plant nursery and complains about how the bees always use him as a landing strip. it’s adorable

he’s so resourceful?? this is best seen when playing minecraft cause he makes some damn cool structures in some really nice places. i love playing it with him just to see what he builds and how (especially since im a boring, lets make this house a square kinda ho)

he’s so camera shy??? no selfies no skype at all. he’s so bashful and it’s super cute i love it

got me into DnD like yes thank you for this enjoyable nerdery

the sole reason i passed math in hs. like not only is he smart but hes also really good at explaining things to people? definitely a talent for teaching people things

he was my best friend for the longest time like all three of them are my best friend but he was the only one who was my best friend FIRST and then romance blossomed

like im demiromantic so i need a strong connection to fall in love like it was a solid few months of dating my husband before i began to love him. i knew my wife for awhile and got close so same general story. but my boyfriend and i were more friends to lovers and i love that about him

his dad is half italian so he talks with his hands and it’s so overdramatic that he hits people with them on a semi regular basis just gesturing. he once accidentally knocked my glasses all the way across a room cause i had walked behind him and he made a sweeping gesture. hilarious

one time, i had food poisoning and the pain was so bad, i had to crawl under his kitchen table until my mother came to take me to the base clinic. he sat with my head in his lap and brushed my hair out of my face and cooed gently at me to try and soothe me. it was so sweet and ive never forgotten about it

motherfucker, with the help of my sister, dragged me into homestuck

he’s so damn shy about affection that holdling his hand in public makes him blush. it’s even worse if i steal a kiss. fucking adorable

things all three have in common that i love:

good in bed. it sounds silly but this is important to me because while i dont necessarily need sex to form a close relationship to fall in love, it definitely helps

idk how this happened, i really dont, but somehow everything i like lines up nicely with everything they like??? and if im not into something, they can find it with each other and vise versa. lmao wtf how did this happen to line up idk

kind, generous, sweet, and helpful although all three show these qualities in different ways despite having them in common

love me??? like honestly it sounds so silly that id love that they love me but im such a flawed, terrible human being that it leaves me in deep awe that not only does one person love me but three??? how??? amazing people to find something in me to love and to keep on loving despite all my problems. beautiful

creative, smart, and inventive each in their own right. they fucking astound me and take my breath away

beautiful cuddlers (not being sarcastic, promise)

husband is a goddamned heater but boyfriend is a living block of ice. then wife is one of those who’s in between but she steals your heat and then hours later gives it back which is the worse option of the three. like it starts out all nice but then you end up surprised hours later because youre fucking dying of heatstroke

so we have two heatstroke, drowning in sweat options and then losing your limbs. it makes trying to set the thermostat a fucking nightmare

they all love to read and honestly? i couldnt be with anyone who doesnt like a good book

can hold lively, in depth discussions about things

hubby tends to lean more towards “would it be immoral to fuck a succubus” type morality questions and superhero dissection type things

wife is all over the place and can carry on a conversation about goddamned teapots if she so chose. no idea how she does it

boyfriend likes to entertain more morbid thoughts and psychology but also likes to analyze things. like homestuck. we still fucking dissect homestuck

very intelligent. blows my dumb ass out of the water. beautiful

like gaming various amounts and various kinds of games. hubs likes any and all. boyfriend likes dnd, monster hunter, minecraft etc kinds of things, not really one for cards or board games. wife prefers to craft but will occasionally engage in board games or cards, less so in video games but tends to stick to pokemon. it’s nice

they’re all very physically beautiful though in different ways. hubby is barrel chested and german with very strong arms and big hands, a bright and sunny smile. wife is small and round with tiny, artist hands and a sweet, pixie face. boyfriend is thin, long, and gaunt with pale skin and dark hair (kind of like damien from dream daddy tbh)

i could go on but ive been making this post for like well over two hours now and i figured maybe i should stop. it’s long as hell and idk if anybody else would have read this whole thing but basically i fucking adore my partners??? so much??? and there are so many things about them to love???

i just love them so much and could go on and on for hours about why i love each of them and how lovely they are and how they make me feel

ksdjrfgh im so sorry this is so long theres just so much to talk about //sweats

[moonlitgleek]

Say Shaena lives or Robert has a sister, does Tywin go for his Cersei-Rhaegar match? Who marries Cersei then?

Oh Tywin would always try to make that match. He probably had it in mind the second Cersei came out of the womb. He did not come up with it in response to the absence of potential brides in Rhaegar’s near vicinity. This is a man obsessed with the glorification of House Lannister, who sees Lannisters on a completely different level than the rest of the houses. For his golden daughter to wed a dragon is a very natural thought to him, and something he’d pursue regardless of the scenario (unless, you know, he has no daughters to match with the crown prince).

Now Shaena or the hypothetical Baratheon girl (I’m giving her a similar date of birth to Shaena, or near enough. Though Renly is speculated to have been an attempt for a girl for Rhaegar to wed, he was born after Tywin had suggested the Cersei-Rhaegar match and been rebuffed so he does not fit the scenario) would be a natural choice for Rhaegar’s bride, especially Shaena but considering Aerys was unhappy with his marriage to his sister, Tywin might figure that Aerys wouldn’t be quick to match his children. Regardless, I imagine  Tywin would push his timetable in suggesting the Cersei-Rhaegar match to preempt any betrothal between Rhaegar and whichever girl exists, though he’d still be refused. He’d still sulk and bide his time to make a move, which probably would have involved getting whoever married Rhaegar killed.

I mean, it’s obvious that nothing could deter Tywin from pursuing that dream. Rhaegar’s actual marriage to Elia Martell did not. It’s not a mere coincidence that Cersei remained unpromised more than two years after Rhaegar actually got married. Wanna bet Tywin was counting on Elia’s poor health killing her during childbirth leaving Rhaegar a widower in need of a new bride? Tywin was biding his time and waiting for an opportunity to pounce. Oh he certainly could not have predicted Robert’s Rebellion but he knew that Aerys and Rhaegar were going to have a showdown sooner or later, and that provides options for him if Elia proves stubborn enough to not die of natural causes alongside her babes. Getting her and the children killed and blaming it on Aerys’ faction is one. Arranging a “mysterious” cradle death for baby Aegon and suggesting Elia be set aside since she can’t have more kids and Rhaegar needs to secure the succession and the future of the monarchy, especially since Viserys, already showing signs of his father’s madness, should not be allowed to ascend to the throne is another. Meanwhile Cersei is in the wings waiting to swoop in and replace Elia.

Don’t discount Viserys as a possible tool in Tywin’s schemes as well. It all depends on the scenario, of course, but if Tywin has a chance to secure a match between Viserys and Cersei, he would…. and then conspire against Rhaegar and throw him to the wolves. Pun not intended.

Failing all that, and assuming Tywin gives up on a match with a Targaryen, as I said, the best political alternative are the Southron Ambitions bloc who we know Tywin was already looking towards. If Tywin tries to make a betrothal before 279, Robert Baratheon is the best choice who could also give him a shot at Cersei’s queenship. Hey, people who had even smaller shot at ascending the throne for they were low in the line of succession did manage to ascend the throne. Anything could happen, especially if someone was actively trying to make it happen. Though it’s worth mention that if this attempts happens after Steffon’s death, it’s very possible that Robert rejects the match in favor of a betrothal to Lyanna since Robert’s main drive when it came to his betrothal was to be Ned’s brother. Hell, even if it’s before Steffon’s death, Steffon might very well be reluctant to attract Aerys’ animosity and paranoia by allying himself with Tywin. But if Tywin only reaches out after 279, Elbert Arryn is the obvious choice (and only one of two at that, the second being a young Edmure Tully).

[mouseymatchmaker]

Super excited about this blog, good luck with it! Could I request a DRRR!! and Attack on Titan matchup? A SPN one would be dope too, but you don't have too, if it's too much work. I'm pan, so either gender is fine by me. My zodiac sign is virgo, moon sign taurus and ascendant gemini. My MTBI is INFJ and my Chinese zodiac is Ox. All that put together makes me very perfectionistic and stubborn. I'm harsh on myself, but there's nothing I hate more than seeing others bash themselves down. –1

My friends tend to tell me I’m a very good listener and I put others before me. I make the lamest puns and I’m probably a living meme by now. Despite that, I’m grumpy 80% of the time, but the sass takes over mostly. My hobbies are playing video games, writing, drawing and art in general, I love all stuff horror and creepy, it’s fascinating to me! Cats are the reason I live, whenever I see one I make it my obligation to pet it. There’s also most likely caffeine flowing through my veins. –2

I can’t function without a cup of coffee in the morning. Or two, or approximately 10 :^) I’m mostly chill and have a “fuck it” attitude. Sometimes things need to be done and there’s no way around, so I hate wasting my energy on whining about it. It’s why sometimes I come off as a little cold. If someone told me they wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore, I might say “that sucks, but alright, if that’s what you want.” I can be furious though, if someone is attacking my friends, i.e. –3

Hmm… This is a toughie :3DRRR

The minute I saw that you were a good listener and put others before you, I knew you were meant for Celty (Mousey is currently in hiding from Shinra right now T.T) 

She would love to play video games with you, be careful as when she starts to lose you might find that your console has been invaded with shadows. Try games where you’re on the same side :P Horror and creepy stuff will be totally chill with her unless it’s aliens… Never take this headless bae near aliens! 

I feel you on a personal level with the coffee Sweet Muffin XD I don’t think I know much for Celty’s coffee habits but she’d happily chill with you and make coffee for when you wake up, assuming she’s awake before you :D 

You both seem pretty chill and laid back, you’d really compliment each other in that sense. You would both literally be mamas for the kids of Ikebukuro because they get two people who are chill, will listen to them and offer potentially different advice depending on their perspectives :D

Attack on Titan

This may come as a surprise but I think that the guy for you is Marco! This man… this man right here dude, he will be by your side to help bring up other people and will never let you bring yourself down

(never gonna give you up, never gonna let you doooown!… I apologize for nothing!)

He’ll be happy to have someone listen to him and put him first, he does that for others so it would be nice for a change, however that’s not to say he would take the for granted from you. It just means he knows that here is a person he can let loose to and rant to if needed. I think this guy is more of a dog person, but let me tell you, if he found a cat that would play with him and purr and just never leave him alone, even the fury of Levi would not make you two part with the precious little kitty. He is your kitty partner! Marco is also the man who would laugh and shake his head in shame at your puns but would also happily start a pun war just to see who could come out with the worst stuff XD

Overall, this little bean will balance out listening and communicating with each other and will just be happy to be there laughing with you with the most terrible jokes that would make even titans run in the opposite direction.

Supernatural

Your man is my man, I see you with Dean Winchester!

He’s definitely a guy who needs someone to listen to him, someone to bring him up from any slumps he’s worked himself down into. Alternatively, he needs someone to be there to be the one to tell him to stop whining and keep calm and carry on (my wayward son!) In which case, you seem like the one for him :D This guy will also be able to do the same for you albeit he might be a lot harsher with it. You’ll both balance each other quite nicely I think and you’ll be on the same wavelength. 

He’ll match your sassiness and one up you every time, Dean is a sassy queen and will allow no one to take his crown. However, I think memes are not really up his street and will frighten him. Coffee is a given with his job, so be prepared to have coffee wars over who needs to make the next cup. Horror and creepy are definitely his thing so if you want to know about the real deal, I think he’d be happy to share this info with you to a certain extent. 

Overall, he’s a passionate guy who would be able to share a great many wonderful things with you but communication may be an issue with this guy…

[republicstandard]

Can Multiculturalism Work? Part III: The View from 5,000 Feet

Can diverse people of all cultures get along? Yes, but only if there is One Culture to Rule Them All.

Also, leftist compassion is naïve and unconcerned with outcomes. It’s been a minute, but that’s about where we left off last time and the time before. Since then, the forces of the Left have lost their minds over the recrudescence of the Third Reich in the person of Orange-Hitler, whose stormtrooper battalions are putting immigrant children in concentration camps, or something.

(function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:10817585113717094,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7788-6480"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.lockerdomecdn.com/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

Okay, perhaps a lot has happened in the month or so since our last installment. But the idea behind this column has always been the big picture, the wide-angle lens. Now that we’ve heard the case for hegemonism and taken a stab at unmasking liberal compassion, let’s take a look at the view from 5,000 feet—the reactionary view.

The reactionary view is conditioned by the idea that power exists, and power is reducible to force. Of course, the whole point of force is violence, which is equivalent, by some lights, to conflict plus uncertainty.

“But wait,” you say, “I’m a ‘90s-to-early-2000’s kid, and I distinctly remember all those girls screaming for the Backstreet Boys. Why, I’ll bet you if Howie had told them to, they would have fought to the death for the chance to become impregnated with his child—and that would have made for a much better music video.” You’re right, dear reader, it would have made for a much better video, not least because the idea of a Backstreet Boys groupie going full Red Sonja is really, really funny.

No matter what, in the end cultural power means some degree of control over physical power, and physical power is always the final argument.

This is easy to prove if you take a moment to think about it. If you hop in a time machine and try to fight Mike Tyson at his peak, you are going to lose because Peak-Quality-Mike-Tyson has a greater capacity to project physical, muscular force in a violent fashion. On the other hand, even Peak Mike Tyson is going to lose to a grizzly bear or a gorilla.

The point of this silly digression is that we can step around moral questions about who should win or who we want to win in order to see who will win. Not that anyone is particularly interested in dressing up a Tyson-fights-grizzly match in morality—but it is a good frame to keep in mind.

The more power you have, the more force you can bring to bear (pardon the pun) to solve a violent problem, which is simply a matter of conflict and uncertainty. Got it? Great. Now strap in, because we’re rocketing 5,000 feet up and hundreds of thousands of years into the past.

We’ll be taking a ‘Martian’ view of history, in the Dan Carlin sense: trying to make sense of history through a wide-angle lens, as if we were Martians—or trying to explain it to Martians, take your pick.

Five thousand feet is almost a mile high (it’s pithier to say than ‘The View from 5,280 Feet’), and that still leaves us in the troposphere, the lowest level of the atmosphere of the planet Earth, the third planet around the star called Sol, in the galaxy Milky Way—but 5,000 feet is high enough, and 300,000 years is far back enough.

As it so happens, 300,000 years, or a bit more, is how far back Homo sapiens seems to have been a going concern. Without going into our hominin ancestors’ much older and extremely fascinating history in the African continent (we weren’t always Homo sapiens, after all), we all lived in hunter-gather societies until the much later advent of agriculture about 12,000 years ago—and then only in a select grouping of societies in a part of the Middle East.

Self-control became an important feature for individuals who were reproductively successful. And self-control translates into conscience.

According to one incredibly intriguing theory, modern Homo sapiens evolved morality in the context of hunter-gather bands hunting for ungulates, hooved mammals. This early morality was rather concerned with the sharing of meat with a mentality of equity. It made sense for every hunter and his family to get a more-or-less equal share of the meat for every kill, because that kept everyone happy, healthy, and (one presumes) motivated for the next big kill.

Besides, in an era before refrigeration, the best possible larder for all-that-aurochs-steak-you-can’t-eat-in-two-days was your band members. If you feed them today, then they’ll feed you tomorrow, and the day after, and probably the day after that—however long it takes, until it’s your lucky day and you kill the aurochs again.

Anthropologist Christopher Boehm’s entire theory about the origins of conscience and altruism is utterly absorbing and very well-argued. Here is the extremely short form, in his own words:

“People started hunting large ungulates, or hoofed mammals. They were very dedicated to hunting, and it was an important part of their subsistence. But my theory is that you cannot have alpha males if you are going to have a hunting team that shares the meat fairly evenhandedly, so that the entire team stays nourished. In order to get meat divided within a band of people who are by nature pretty hierarchical, you have to basically stomp on hierarchy and get it out of the way. I think that is the process.

“My hypothesis is that when they started large game hunting, they had to start really punishing alpha males and holding them down. That set up a selection pressure in the sense that, if you couldn’t control your alpha tendencies, you were going to get killed or run out of the group, which was about the same as getting killed. Therefore, self-control became an important feature for individuals who were reproductively successful. And self-control translates into conscience.”

Where did power lie in these hunter-gatherer bands—which, to be clear, were the default setting of human social organization for most of the time Homo sapiens have been around on this planet? Who had power?

If we follow Boehm’s ideas, power resided in the band. The members of the band united in a kin-based grouping, a grouping which probably would have happened anyway—primates do tend to be social creatures, after all—but a grouping which gained added and special importance as a result of human culture, language, and big-game hunting.

The greatest social threat these people would have faced was bullying alphas, the worse of these being prehistoric psychopaths who were capable of murder. On that note, we should probably acknowledge Steven Pinker’s magisterial work The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, which establishes in no uncertain terms that primitive societies were far more violent than modern civilized societies, and various civilized societies have undergone massive declines in violence in more than one context and time period.

The rest is easy to summarize. Humans invented agriculture, not once but on several different occasions in staggeringly different parts of the world, and that in turn allowed different agricultural societies at different times on different continents to evolve into advanced civilizations, with hierarchical class structures, priesthoods, and occupational specialization.

Those civilizations also set about trying to conquer the world, or at least their various parts of it, by military conquest and, with time, through religions that attempted to go beyond the purely local, the particular, and reach for a more universal vision.

(This book is good, and so is this one, and this one).

We’ll use our time machine to barrel through thousands of years, taking snapshots of historical tableaux as they pass.

Alexander the Great battles Darius III at Gaugamela.

Roman legions and ships swarm across the Mediterranean and much of Western Europe.

Norse longboats up the Seine. Mongol horsemen thunder out of the Eurasian steppe and conquer practically everything. And something about Buddha and Christ and Muhammad.

Also, we learned to make bread out of air (we’ll come back to that).

Where did the power of an Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Genghis Khan come from? From their armies, to be sure, but also from the societies those armies were drawn from.

Let’s simplify: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and every other conqueror, king, and princeling had power because of the rules governing power in their societies—rules that included inheritance, office, and personal achievement.

Our snapshots capture a few more images—the Albigensian Crusade, the Ottomans taking Constantinople, the Tokugawa establishing their bakufu in Japan, Louis XIV building Versailles, seizing Strasbourg, and expelling the Huguenots, his contemporary the Kangxi Emperor suppressing the Revolt of the Three Feudatories…

We note the ascendancy of faith in so many of these societies, and how it has changed the ways in which they organize religious activity. This seems significant, but as Martians observing it from 5,000 feet, we are detached from the elaborate thought-worlds of deities, saints, martyrs, and miracles, and the social, cultural, and political systems they permeate.

We skip over a few centuries, confident in our ability to make sense of what we are seeing with only a few snapshots.

A world in which the most powerful nation on earth is gripped with guilt over its racist past—oh wait, we landed in a New York Times series.

Or maybe MTV Decoded.

Or Huffington Post.

Or maybe even NowThis Politics.

Hey, Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).

Clearly something has gone wrong. We have somehow become stuck in a cultural milieu in which deconstructing whiteness is an actual thing, and Tim Wise has a career lecturing his fellow whites on their Whiteness and ‘White privilege.’

We descend from our 5,000-foot height to try to make sense of it all.

Through numerous conversations and some Martian mind-reading technology that allows us to abstract patterns of thinking into major themes, we make some interesting discoveries that only leave us more confused than ever.

There seems to be a conviction, among many but not all inhabitants of this strangely self-hating civilization, that the past until recently was more or less irredeemably evil. The nature of the putative evils seems to reflect patterns of gender and family organization, ethnic conflict, nation- and empire-building, invasion, and enslavement which we have been observing around the world to a greater or lesser degree.

And yet, not only do the denizens of this strange new world believe that their past is particularly to be reviled, in seeming ignorance of the rest of history, they insist on putting the blame on one particular group which has been historically dominant.

Monuments are toppled because they represent too offensive a reminder of said group’s historical domination. Business owners bend over backward to appease the demands of individuals belonging to particular groups that can claim ‘victim’ status. It even infects fringe movements ostensibly devoted to liberty.

We recall something about religious guilt and wonder if there is a connection. Or—we go back a few frames, a few decades—perhaps China’s Cultural Revolution?

All of this is incredibly baffling. How can a civilization be so gripped by the desire for abnegation and effacement?

The more we look and analyze and reflect, the more baffling it gets.

These societies seem to be possessed by a kind of Cultural Revolution against their own cultures, against the peoples that made them possible in the first place. This is, apparently, social justice and multiculturalism.

How can we get un-stuck from this frame? Let us scan our archives, spin the globe, and choose a non-Western country; and then construct a computer simulation of an alternate version of that country, in our Ship of the Imagination.

Our alternate version of that country will be an anti-country, in which the Cathedral, which is to say the mass media and higher education forces of Good and Correct Opinion-Making, will be turned against the dominant culture.

Flick-flick-flick-flick.

Our choice is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Drawing on our archives, we quickly realize this country has historically been known as Persia. It also has a rich and distinct cultural and historical heritage, and is very ethnically diverse.

Perfect.

We program our simulation, sifting through centuries and then millennia of information about history, culture, and everything else, and then we put on our VR glasses, push the button, and poof—we’re in Anti-Persia.

Since our purposes are rather specific, we’ll zero in on Anti-Persia’s Cathedral, the mass media and institutes of higher education that function as its organs of Correct Opinion-Making.

The first thing we notice is that the Anti-Persian Cathedral does an awful lot of complaining about ethnic Persians and ‘Persianness.’

Major newspapers amplify the grievances of middle-class college students from the Azeri, Gilaki, Kurd, Arab, Lur, Baloch, and Turkmen minorities. These ‘Persons of Anti-Persianness’ (PAPs) complain about how Persian everything is in historic Persia.

(function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:10817587730962790,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-5979-7226"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.lockerdomecdn.com/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

There are college courses about Persian privilege, many of which seek to ‘deconstruct’ Persianness as a myth.

“There’s no such thing as a real Persian,” the line goes. “Persian identity was a weapon created by the shahs to marginalize PAPs.”

Professional Anti-Persian activists rail against Persian identity, ‘Persian supremacy,’ ‘Persian privilege,’ and Persian historical figures.

The history of Anti-Persia reads as one long history of unending, unrelenting horror, persecution, and suffering, all of it meted out by Persians on a dizzying array of Babylonians, Lydians, Egyptians, Greeks, and other victims.

The Achaemenid Empire, the greatest Persian imperial state and one of the greatest empires in world history, is demonized and reviled for its imperial conquests.

Indeed, the movie 300 is practically required watching in college history courses across Anti-Persia, and is received not as a mythologized action movie but rather a heroic and stirring tale of anti-Persian resistance (‘anti-Persian’ with a small a, not to be confused with Anti-Persia the anti-Persian Persia). It is treated perhaps something like the TV miniseries Roots.

Persepolis in Shiraz, Iran. Ninara – Flickr

And on and on it goes. The Sassanids are reviled like the Achaemenids, but the conquering Muslim Arabs and the Umayyad and ‘Abbasid dynasties are actually talked up as a way to help Arab minority students feel affirmed and empowered beneath the suffocating weight of Persian privilege and Persian supremacy they must endure every day in Anti-Persia.

Worse, the peerless verse of Firdawsi is denigrated and attacked for its anti-Arab, Persian supremacist bent:

But for the Persians I will weep, and for The House of Sasan ruined by this war: Alas for their great crown and throne, for all The royal splendor destined now to fall, To be fragmented by the Arabs’ might; The stars decree for us defeat and flight. Four hundred years will pass in which our name Will be forgotten and devoid of fame.

Firdawsi, writing in the late 10th to very early 11th century, wrote the above verses from the perspective of a Sassanid Persian general in the 7th century (think of it as historical fiction) facing an invading army of early Muslim Arabs. In Anti-Persia, they are deemed hate-speech, and trigger warnings are placed on literature courses teaching this most venerable classic of Persian literature.

Even this is not enough for the cultural Vandals, and a coalition of them organize to demand the complete removal of Firdawsi from literature courses.

In all of this, we notice a curious thing: Persians are not allowed to organize on the basis of ethnic Persian identity. The slightest whiff of Persian identitarianism produces screaming calls about ‘neo-Sassanids’ and ‘neo-Safavids.’

The Cathedral, of course, reinforces this at every opportunity. Not only are pro-Persian nationalists and activists labeled ‘neo-Sassanids’ and ‘neo-Safavids,’ they are branded as ‘hate groups.’

Scanning the brains of every person in Anti-Persia, we have to admit that we do find flickers of ethnic in-group preference, much of it subconscious, in the Persian population. However, they are not exceptional in this, and other groups appear, if anything, to have stronger in-group preferences—or at least to be far more vocal about them.

These preferences are certainly associated with some antipathy toward other groups, but the curious thing is that despite the Persians being demonized, they are not particularly given to antipathy toward Arabs, Azeris, Balochis, and the rest—on the contrary, they are desperate to ensure that they do not say anything that might smack of pro-Persian bias, or of prejudice against other groups.

They use a curious word for such prejudice, aryism, which we eventually untangle to mean ‘preferring one’s own people’ and also ‘disfavoring other peoples.’

Can other groups be aryist, either to each other or to Persians? Opinion is divided, with some claiming there can be a sort of ‘reverse aryism,’ but many others—and certainly the most respectable—all agree that aryism is particularly a sin of Persians against everyone else in Anti-Persia, because Persians, and Persians alone, possess power and systemic advantage, which connects to the structural and systemic aryism under which PAPs suffer.

The third thing we notice is that despite all the demonization and complaints hurled at them, the Persians seem to be necessary for keeping Anti-Persia running. They are well-represented in political life, even in the media and higher education (the Anti-Persian Cathedral), business, the skilled trades, all of it.

They also foot a disproportionate share of taxes—yes, even though they are the largest group—consume less welfare than many other groups and have relatively high rates of law-abidingness.

Yes, Persian guilt is quite the phenomenon, but what’s the logic behind it? Why are so many Persians gripped with this overpowering need to feel guilty for the (putative, arguable) ‘evils’ of their forefathers?

After all, as some brave Persians point out, it is hardly as if Anti-Persia has a uniquely brutal history—have you heard of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the conquest of Mexico, and the American Civil War? Other countries and cultures have done great evil too!

If we want to explain why Anti-Persia is Anti-Persia instead of Persia, we need to really look at the ruling ideology and see how it benefits the power structure.

Of course, we’ll also want to try to understand why Anti-Persian society accepts this narrative and goes along with it.

True, people do not like to incur the anger and displeasure of their peers, but why do their peers believe it? Ultimately we have to come up with some kind of answer for why this set of ideas, instead of some other, more pro-Persian set of ideas, rules Anti-Persia.

The declaration of Shi'ism as the state religion of Iran in 1501 by Shah Ismail - Safavid dynasty

When we look at the politics of Anti-Persia, we notice that there are two major political parties, each of which uses quite distinctive language. True, Anti-Persian citizens often grumble that they are too much alike, but everyone knows they are playing two different games.

The first major party claims to champion the average person, no matter who they are or where they come from. They believe in something called hamsar, a concept we might translate, in our questionable Anti-Persian, as “everyone should receive what everyone else receives.”

We’ll refer to them as Party H for now.

The second major party (also) claims to champion the average person, no matter who they are or where they come from. However, they believe in a couple of different things. While they pay lip service to the Hamsar Doctrine, they’re more concerned with something called taarof. While this might be more literally translated as “manners,” for this party—Party T—it essentially means “doing things the way they have long been done."

This belief in taarof intersects to a degree with a belief in something called azadi, a peculiar idea that means “acting in a manner one has willed to act.”

How do Party H and Party T manage to run Anti-Persia between them? How do they engage with the dominant ideology of Anti-Persianness, and what is their stake in it?

For Party H, the doctrine of hamsar is politically important because all Anti-Persian citizens should receive what everyone else receives, but they do not. Again, Persians generally do better than other groups, although of course not all Persians manage to do as well as for themselves as other Persians, economically speaking.

Best of all, Party H has held enough power—sometimes overwhelming power—at high enough levels in the past in order to put into place a set of arrangements in which the government takes some money from everyone who earns money and redistributes it to those who do not earn above a certain level, or at all.

Party H sells this set of policies to the voters as mehr, meaning “strong positive affection.”

As a consequence, Party H’s voting base includes most of the non-Persian groups in Anti-Persia, who usually vote overwhelmingly for H candidates. However, it also includes many Persians. These Persians tend to see Persianness as an elitist concept, one they associate with the departed shah and the traditional landowners and tribal chieftains who composed much of the pre-Anti-Persian elite—and with the heads of the major businesses who, in effect, replaced them.

As for Party T, a big part of their game is playing off of Party H. They claim allegiance to some form of hamsar, but also claim Party H has gone too far and neglected taarof, doing things the way they have always been done.

Something struggles to reassert itself in our memories.

To be sure, Party T also believes in azadi, “acting in a manner one has willed to act,” but even this seems to be almost a reaction to hamsar, since after all, “everyone should receive what everyone else receives” rather conflicts with the notion that everyone should be able to act in a manner they have willed to act.

What in the world is going on here?

We dig into our archives, our thoughts flickering through hundreds of years of historical events and personages. Entire centuries dissolve and are abstracted into historical patterns and narratives in the blink of an eye.

In passing we note the Axial Age of 800-200 BCE, the great transformation of belief from the particular to the transcendent across so much of the ancient world, including Persia. Interesting, but not quite what we are looking for.

(function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:10817585113717094,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7788-6480"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.lockerdomecdn.com/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

We note the great revolutions of the period sometimes called ‘modernity,’ and realize that a major theme here is the involvement of the people—conceptualized as a super-organismic whole—in political life.

We note the Industrial Revolution, and note in particular the leveling effect of moving from a world in which 19 out of 20 people on Earth lived on less than $2.00/day to a world in which fewer than 1 in 10 do so.

We note in particular the spectacular development of the Haber-Bosch process for converting atmospheric nitrogen to fertilizer. Thanks to this process, without which about 40% of the world’s population would starve to death, obesity is a growing global public health problem.

Something struggles to reassert itself in our memories.

Social levelling… hierarchy… food…

Christopher Boehm’s words: “In order to get meat divided within a band of people who are by nature pretty hierarchical, you have to basically stomp on hierarchy and get it out of the way. I think that is the process.”

Have we solved the riddle of Anti-Persia? Let’s see if we can construct a reasonable narrative. Traditionally, Persian society was hierarchical and built on taarof, “doing things the way they have long been done.”

But then a revolution, or a series of them, turned Persia into Anti-Persia. The older revolutionary rhetoric centered on the idea of azadi, “acting in a manner one has willed to act,” but with time the Hamsar Doctrine, “everyone should receive what everyone else receives,” took root and has grown and grown ever since.

All of this was fundamentally possible because of the changes in economic organization and technology which resulted in large concentrations of people gathered into the cities, where they could put pressure on the nerve centers of power to a degree unprecedented in traditional society.

With the throne vacant and the altars toppled, Anti-Persia became a mess of ethnic and class tensions. Over time, the tyranny of rising expectations meant that the focus of revolutionary efforts moved from ‘merely’ abolishing class distinctions and establishing reasonable working conditions in Anti-Persian rug factories to abolishing Persianness itself.

Anti-Persianness and anti-aryism caught on as a power-strategy because it could weaponize ethnic, class, and gender grievances against the old Persian elite and the businessmen who effectively replaced them, and Party H was born. This power-strategy now operates as a feedback loop between Cathedral and populace, who agitate for ever more hamsar and claim to be ever more oppressed, even as the industrial technology and the alchemy of air allow poor people to become fat.

Party H has not been able to dominate political life entirely, however, and the result is a never-ending tug-of-war between the party of more-or-less permanent revolution and the party of putative resistance to said permanent revolution. The tug-of-war provides some measure of stability, but over time Party H has moved the dial of Anti-Persia decidedly toward the Hamsar Doctrine of “everyone should receive what everyone else receives.”

As Anti-Persia becomes ever more anti-Persian, it also becomes ever more multicultural. After all, if Persia was an oppressive historical monstrosity, and if hamsar should replace Persianness, why not import people from foreign lands beyond Anti-Persia, the better to dilute Persianness?

On the basis of this logic, Party H colludes with big business interests—despite its officially anti-business rhetoric—to import large numbers of Hephthalites as cheap labor. The Hephthalites vote for Party H to give them ever-more lavish benefits paid for by the Persians, justifying this as reparations for past Sassanid aggression.

One may choose to believe that Anti-Persia will progress toward a multicultural utopia. Another possibility is a socially fractured country, paralyzed by ethnic and class conflict and a wave of uncontrolled Hephthalite crime it cannot bring itself to be honest about. (After all, to call out Hephthalite crime would be aryism).

The world dissolves around us, and the simulation ends.

What is the great lesson of Anti-Persia? Is there a lesson, or is it simply an incredibly silly exercise?

Anti-Persia may well be preposterously silly—surely no society could be that self-effacing, after all—but as silly and unrealistic as it is, it points us toward an important truth. If the people hold power through the Party H-Party T system, that power-strategy is every bit as much a question of control over force, over conflict plus uncertainty, as all the other historical scenarios we have engaged with.

It is the nature of all revolutions to denounce the past. Anti-Persia poses as a new dispensation, aggressively brandishing its curious revolutionary doctrine of hamsar and its anti-Persian culture of critique, but it is nothing more than a power grab. History has not ended, only turned over a new leaf.

From this perspective, multiculturalism is simply a part of an anti-hegemonist power-strategy. It provides cheap Hephthalite labor to big businesses, and discourages ethnic tensions and in-group preferences, particularly on the part of the slim Persian majority, which could conceivably get in the way of anti-Persian ethnic tensions and tolerance of non-Persian/PAP in-group preference.

Multiculturalism, and the broader complex of Omni-Compassionism, relies on division and lends itself quite readily to animosity. It pits poor against rich, women against men, and non-Persians against Persians. It also pits everyone against Persian nativists and identitarians who want to revive Persian identity, take pride in Persian history and culture, and end the mass migration of Hephthalites.

Opposition is dangerous for Omni-Compassionism, because it requires so many people to make so many sacrifices. From the vantage point of 5,000 feet and 300,000 years, it is easy to see that in-group preference and between-group conflict, whether at the level of the band, tribe, kingdom, ethnic group, or religion, constitutes a much more common and easy to understand pattern than universalism.

The fact that Omni-Compassionism and its Hamsar Doctrine creates winners and losers means that there will always be an incentive to reject it.

Perhaps Omni-Compassionism will yet triumph over those who would reject it, girdling the globe with a monoculture that is equal parts secular humanism and “social justice.”

Perhaps the intellectual history of the 21st century will be told as a sort of dialog between Steven Pinker and the various causes funded by George Soros.

Perhaps… but perhaps not.

In the end, the greatest weakness of Omni-Compassionism may be the way that it encourages identity when it is against the hegemonic identity of any given country. Not only does this ultimately incentivize some Persians to fight back against anti-Persianness and the Great Hephthalite Replacement, it also requires Omni-Compassionism to keep pushing, long after it has worn out its welcome.

Omni-Compassionism has gotten much mileage out of branding the Persian resistance, the nativists, nationalists, and identitarians, as “hate groups.” It is likely, however, that if Omni-Compassionism ever managed to eliminate all Persianness in Anti-Persia, it would immediately run into challenges keeping its diverse coalition together.

Meanwhile, endless Omni-Compassionate demands—for Persian gold, for Persian culture, for Persian identity itself—are breeding a new generation of awakened Persians.

Perhaps the future of our imagined Anti-Persia is not yet written. Perhaps it will defeat Omni-Compassionism and reclaim its identity, culture, and sense of self-determination and destiny.

Can multiculturalism work? This was our original query. From the vantage point of 5,000 feet and 300,000 years, we have to admit that we cannot claim, with perfect knowledge, whether multiculturalism of the anti-hegemonist sort can work. Perhaps it can be made to work.

However, we know that Omni-Compassionism, including multiculturalism, is not the first effort at a universal unification of humanity. The great universalizing religions of Christianity and Islam constitute two of the more successful attempts from the premodern world. The histories of both faiths are riddled with sectarian fighting and bloody wars even between nations of the same sect.

Looking down from our lofty height, our eyes piercing the veil of time and taking in three hundred millennia, we admit we cannot know for sure—and yet, we can see the many fault-lines and fractures, the many aspects of human nature and human social nature that Omni-Compassionism must paper over in order to be made to work.

On the other hand, we have any number of examples of societies with a dominant culture and identity of some kind working very well. Some of them, such as the Achaemenids, Romans, and Ottomans, were sprawling hegemonist multicultural empires.

(function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:10817587730962790,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-5979-7226"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.lockerdomecdn.com/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

The wager the multiculturalist must make, then, is that the ideology of Omni-Compassionism will be able to outweigh the many forces that oppose it—conservatism, tradition, nationalism, patriotism, and simple in-group preference. It must continue to do this even in the teeth of a demographic situation which is projected to be increasingly unfavorable to it.

A utopian ideology versus the weight of three hundred thousand years… now that is an interesting bet on the future of a civilization.

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine https://ift.tt/2tvX4Rw via IFTTT