#answered * / thus spoke zarathustra

[heliosunny]

I have a request for a lovesick fyodor. How he would be with a darling that he loves so much and how possessive he would be of her.

LOVESICK

The first time Fyodor Dostoevsky walked into the library, you hardly noticed him. He was just another visitor, albeit one with a quiet, almost unsettling aura. You were busy organizing a stack of books, your hands moving with practiced ease as you shelved a collection of philosophical works. But then, his voice broke through the silence-low, smooth, and deliberate.

“Do you have anything on Nietzsche’s unpublished letters?”

You turned, and there he was, dressed immaculately, his dark eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made you pause. There was something magnetic about him, something you couldn’t quite place.

“We do” you replied, motioning toward the far corner of the library. “Second shelf from the top. Let me show you.”

As you walked him to the section, you felt his gaze linger on you, not in an overtly intrusive way but as if he were trying to commit every detail to memory. When you handed him the book, your fingers briefly brushed, and you caught a fleeting smile on his lips.

“Thank you” he said, his tone almost reverent. “I’ll take care of this.”

The next time he visited, he approached the desk with a question that caught you off guard.

“I’ve been reading ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’” he began, setting the book down on the counter. “Nietzsche’s prose is… evocative, but don’t you think his aphorisms feel like riddles that only he understands?”

You looked up from your work, surprised by the directness of his question. “That’s part of his style” you replied thoughtfully. “He wanted readers to wrestle with his ideas, to find their own interpretations rather than being handed answers.”

His lips curved into a small smile. “You’ve thought about this before.”

“I’ve had plenty of time to think about Nietzsche.” you admitted, gesturing to the shelves around you. “Working here gives me access to more books than I could ever hope to read.”

“And yet,” he said, tilting his head slightly, “you choose to spend your time pondering Nietzsche. What is it about his work that fascinates you?”

You hesitated, then said: “It’s not just his work. It’s the way he wrestled with questions of meaning and morality. He didn’t shy away from difficult truths, even when they made him an outcast.”

Fyodor’s gaze lingered on you, and for a moment, the world seemed to fall away. “An outcast” he repeated softly. “I suppose that’s something I can relate to.”

From that day forward, Fyodor’s questions became more frequent and more probing. He asked about your favorite authors, your thoughts on Dostoevsky’s exploration of guilt and redemption, and whether you believed in the idea of a “superior man” as posited by Raskolnikov. He listened to you with an intensity that was both flattering and unnerving, his dark eyes never leaving yours as you spoke. To you, he was a curious, enigmatic patron. To him, you were the center of his world.

One afternoon, he approached the desk holding a copy of ‘The Brothers Karamazov.’

“Do you think Ivan was justified in his rebellion against God?” he asked, setting the book down gently.

You glanced at the book, then back at him. “Justified? Maybe. But was he right? That’s a different question. Ivan’s rebellion is more about his pain than his logic. He wants a world where suffering doesn’t exist, but that’s an impossible ideal.”

Fyodor’s lips quirked upward, a rare and fleeting smile. “You’re not afraid to challenge his ideals. That’s rare.”

“Books are meant to be challenged” you said simply. “That’s how we grow as readers… and as people.”

His expression softened, and for a moment, he seemed almost vulnerable. “You’re an intriguing person” he murmured. “This library doesn’t deserve someone like you.”

You blinked at him, unsure of how to respond. Before you could say anything, he inclined his head and walked away, leaving you to wonder what he had meant. Despite your kindness, you only saw him as a regular patron—someone who frequented your quiet sanctuary. For him, though, you were so much more.

That day was the beginning. Fyodor became a regular visitor, often lingering in the quiet corners of the library. At first, he asked you questions about obscure texts, theories, and historical anecdotes. But over time, his questions became less about the books and more about you. What you liked to read, your thoughts on the world, what you thought about solitude. You found yourself drawn to him despite the unsettling air he carried. He listened to you as though every word you spoke held profound importance, his eyes never leaving yours.

What you didn’t know was that Fyodor was becoming obsessed. To him, you were a masterpiece of calmness and intellect, a rare light in a world he found insufferably chaotic. He loved the way you moved through your days with quiet grace, the way you brought a sense of peace to even the most mundane tasks. You had become his anchor in a world he wanted to destroy.

-----

One day, he stopped coming. At first, you told yourself it didn’t matter. He was just a visitor, a fleeting presence in your quiet world. But as days turned into weeks and weeks into months, you couldn’t help but wonder where he had gone. You missed his conversations, the way he seemed to hang on to your every word. You missed him.

Then, one rainy afternoon, he returned. He was different. Pale and gaunt, his usual composed demeanor was replaced by exhaustion. His clothes were slightly disheveled, and there was a faint scar on his temple that hadn’t been there before. His hands trembled slightly as he clutched the edge of the counter where you worked.

“You’re back!” you said, your voice filled with surprise and relief.

He gave you a weak smile. “Did you miss me?”

You hesitated, then nodded. “Where have you been? You look… unwell.”

“I’ve been away...” he said vaguely, his tone soft but evasive. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m here.”

Despite your better judgment, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of concern. You led him to the library’s small lounge and insisted he sit down. He looked at you with something akin to awe as you fussed over him, bringing him tea and insisting he rest.

“You’re too kind.” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t deserve this.”

“Nonsense” you said firmly. “Just rest. We can talk later.”

What you didn’t know was that during his absence, Fyodor had been embroiled in battles with the Armed Detective Agency. He had faced danger, orchestrated victories, and emerged triumphant. But it had taken a toll on him, both physically and emotionally. Through it all, thoughts of you had kept him going. You had become his reason, his anchor.

-----

For weeks, he stayed close to you, his visits more frequent and his presence more consuming. He seemed calmer, softer even, when he was with you. But there was something beneath the surface, something he wasn’t telling you.

Then one day, while organizing a new shipment of books, you stumbled upon a note. It was hastily scrawled, a list of names and locations that meant nothing to you at first glance. But the tone of the note was dark, and the implications sent a chill down your spine. When you confronted Fyodor about it, his reaction was not what you expected.

“Where did you find this?” he asked, his voice cold and measured.

“In one of the books” you said. “Fyodor, what is this?”

He sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“What does it mean?” you pressed, your voice trembling. “What have you been doing?”

He stepped closer, his presence almost suffocating. “It doesn’t concern you” he said, his tone firm but not unkind. “What matters is that you’re safe. I’ve made sure of that.”

“Safe?” you repeated, disbelief coloring your voice. “Fyodor, I don’t even know who you really are.”

He smiled then, a cold, haunting smile that sent a shiver down your spine. “You know enough. You know I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

You shook your head, fear and confusion swirling in your chest. “I don’t understand. What have you done?”

He cupped your face in his hands, his touch surprisingly gentle. “I’ve done what I must. For us. For the world I want to build. And now that you know, there’s no turning back.”

-----

You tried to pull away, but his grip tightened ever so slightly. “You don’t need to be afraid” he said softly. “I’ll protect you from everything. Even yourself, if I must.”

Despite your fear, a part of you couldn’t deny the pull he had on you. He was dangerous, yes, but there was a vulnerability in him that made you hesitate.

Fyodor’s lips brushed your forehead as he whispered, “You’re mine now. And I’ll make sure the world knows it.”

From that day forward, your life was no longer your own. Fyodor’s love was all-consuming, his possessiveness absolute. He would do anything to keep you by his side, even if it meant tearing down the world and rebuilding it in his image. And though you fought to hold on to your sense of self, you couldn’t help but wonder if it was already too late.

[david-goldrock]

You voted for, so let me translate the entire poem

Let us talk about god About blind faith, and cold logic, and a lacking purpose A pale alternative to a pointless and alienated existence About the mantle and the lady and all that is familiar And the bitter truth of the thorn in the rose And the dangers of sugar and the cold reality Let us talk about god dsgnruwhurjehgtsbvalk

That is what I managed to write before the cat jumped on my keyboard Glanced at the words, glanced at me, glanced at the words And turned to lick its own ass

"Well, what's your opinion?" I asked it, for it is known cats do not tend to spare criticism If you wanna hear "Wow what a beautiful song" go and ask the dog For the truth, turn to a cat

Left the ass, glanced at me Glanced at the words, glanced at me His entirety is a Nietzsche's mustache The eyes of the abyss that looks back at you Uberkatze that will soon herald that god is dead (supercat, a reference to Nietzsche's "uberman") Opens his moth to talk, and thus spoke Zarathustra: "For someone who claims that god doesn't exist, you write about him a bunch, do you feel threatened?"

What? Threatened? From what? A flying spaghetti monster? No I just think that faith and god is a cool concept

It scoffs and responds: What do you fuck about? You dig (talk an excessive amount about something) And are an infidel And forces to confront And freeze in your place From the horror of the truth Because Darwinist monkeys Tried to trick To pile stones That cannot be lifted And cells from a fetus And a fossilized snail And big bangs And facts that most, as all Dwarven (become small, as dwarfs) On the banks of the everyday Of 7 billion Yearning souls From the heart of each land To the shore of each sea Go and tell all these That god doesn't exist

And then it hit me: The religification has come to me in my home! Because of course, a cat that once in Ancient Egypt was a god Now that were back to writing in emoji hieroglyphs, and the cat-worshiping gets a rejuvenation on all the walls of the internet Of course the cat will stand up to the side of the messianics, the darkened, the preachers and return-in-answerers (to return in an answer is a jewish idea, which I am unqualified to explain, but in this context it means to become religious) Well - Not in my house I won't be silent and I won't accept Religious compulsion from the mouth of a creature that licks its own ass

And it tells me: From the perspective of a cat Things are a bit different There is no Damocles' sword of time that is ticking Death approaches The end of the movie And in the meantime, we eat, and fuck Without doubting The world, ourselves By Allah Ya Allah You digged With all that messing around with "purpose" We start, we decay There's no one above No stairway to heaven Hell has no elevator

Well, exactly, so why search for imagined meaning? Why not settle for what there is - We were born for a short existence, kitty Let us fulfill it instead of casting the responsibility on some kind of creator There are better things to live by

Like what exactly?

Yes The tree is but a tree And the sea is but a sea But has anyone ever Seen democracy? Touched an ideology (In order to get the feeling of its texture) Or grasped an idea? Just today I hunted justice And I held a vision I hadn't met a cat That had counted its steps By a measure of morality Or a written contract Ironically you with the brain You don't have smarts Just the mercy of words That will build you a dam To stop the nothingness And to act as a reminder But the nothingness is winning I am sorry to herald And yet there's no shame in filling that which is empty Even you -

Me? I am a nihilist anyway, I don't believe in anything

Even you Rise very morning to work For money, a feeling of recognition and honor Maybe money exists if people live for it? If people are held by it? If people are worth because of it? If people fight, vouch for each other, sacrifice for it? If there's money, then there is god, why not? Nations and peoples and states ignite Flames in tens of thousands of hearts As far as I am concerned if all of them exist than god does too

Let us ask the audience, we'll do a survey here Who's more real, god, or Brad Pitt? Sorry for shoveling messages down your throats But no one ever died for Brad, the poor guy Certainly hadn't lived for him What is true: You You examine in a magnifying glass A view that's seen by a telescope Fight for flags And scoff at a horoscope If faith is a perspective Then the world's a kaleidoscope If life is a raging sea Then god is a periscope One can see with him high up And all looks clear If you hadn't begun to sink by now For this pitcher is hollow Take the word of a cat Every time over You kill god To crown under him A different hollow pitcher

You wanna talk about god? Let us talk about love Where is this love that you talk about? That you sing it?, that you write it? That you live it, you experience it You die for it, you kill for it Where is the evidence to prove the existence of this love? This catalyst, this causer The motive, the engine of life The battery of the existence, the fuel of the soul Where is this love? If there is no god, what about your love? If there is no god, what about love? If there is no god, what about love? If there is no god, what about love?

Its mustache bristles, and his eyes are boiling fire He finished And returned to lick its ass

I should have asked the dog

[hmslusitania]

I’ve been thinking a lot about Art lately. What it means, and what it means for people to create it, and what it means to be derivative, and what machines might do with it and the fact machine generated art (also called AI art in some circles) makes a hodgepodge, and the statement “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Because what is machine generated art but imitation? Surely this is flattery?

Some months ago I had the opportunity to go to the Portland Symphony. It was for nerd reasons, the performance list was the battle between Star Wars vs Star Trek, but the conductor hadn’t arranged solely for pieces from Star Trek, or solely for John Williams. He included the theme from ET, and Thus Spake Zarathustra and Blue Danube from 2001, and then the music of a science fiction film from the 1930s no one in the audience had ever heard of before. And somewhere in the middle, he included one additional piece. It was his own, the first of his original compositions he’d ever had performed for an audience.

And it was lovely! It was an absolutely delightful piece of music, and he’d structured the show well enough that we could hear the pieces he’d incorporated that were from the Star Trek theme, that were in conversation with Michael Giacchino’s new Star Trek theme, that were borrowed from Strauss, that had John Williams oozing from the semiquavers and the rests.

It was imitation, and it was derivative, and it was beautiful and full of heart. It was the answer to why imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — it’s because that level of imitation isn’t saying “I couldn’t come up with anything on my own so I borrowed yours” it’s saying “the art you created so moved me that I could not imagine trying to express this piece of my soul without incorporating this thing you created into it.”

When people select the art that we imitate and that we derivate from, it’s an expression of love. It is an acknowledgement that the other has created something beautiful that spoke to us that we now can’t live without.

When computers do it, it’s just soulless. It’s matching defined bits and slapping them together. It isn’t an act of art or love (art and love are, of course, the same thing in their own way) it’s simply… mimicry. Heartless mimicry. It cannot replace actual art and everyone who tries to pretend it can is my enemy.

[intogenshin]

Philosophies of Sumeru

I have to wonder how deliberate were the choices for inspiration in the Sumeru region

The rainforest is mainly inspired by India, followed by Iran. The two countries have common ancestors, so their religious practices had an early shared worship of nature and some of the religious doctrine meets at certain parts.

More importantly, the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, was founded by Zoroaster —more commonly known by the name of Zarathustra in the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Frederick Nietzsche

Zoroastrianism holds monotheistic beliefs in dualistic cosmology of a world at conflict with good and evil, where people have the free will to choose between the two. This influenced the abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) which largely have shaped society in the west (and beyond by the colonizing hand)

Nietzsche called himself an immoral, as he rejected the traditional values imposed by western religious institutions, his borrowing of Zoroaster's figure was deliberate as he wanted him to be the voice of rejection of the code of morals he originated:

From Ecce Homo by Nietzsche

People have never asked me as they should have done, what the name of Zarathustra precisely meant in my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist; for that which distinguishes this Persian from all others in the past is the very fact that he was the exact reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra created this most portentous of all errors,—morality; therefore he must be the first to expose it. Not only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other thinker,—all history is indeed the experimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things,—but because of the more important fact that Zarathustra was the most truthful of thinkers. In his teaching alone is truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—that is to say, as the reverse of the cowardice of the "idealist" who takes to his heels at the sight of reality. Zarathustra has more pluck in his body than all other thinkers put together. To tell the truth and to aim straight: that is the first Persian virtue. Have I made myself clear? ... The overcoming of morality by itself, through truthfulness, the moralist's overcoming of himself in his opposite—in me—that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.

Nietzsche developed his ideas at a time where the Enlightenment had disproved many Christian beliefs, hence his declaration that "god is dead", in the face of scientific proof against belief the faith people had in their religion was dying. With this loss of hope also came a loss of meaning, since there was no longer a reassurance in Paradise or an all powerful god behind creation. Nietzsche believed the loss of meaning would lead people into nihilism, an apathetic state in which people let themselves be dominated like a herd.

Nietzsche was initially influenced by Schopenhauer, another philosopher who basically ripped off the Buddhist conception of suffering as an unavoidable truth in the world, and built his westernized ideas from there without following Buddhist teachings themselves. He believed that behind this suffering, humans were motivated by the "will to life" as a survival mechanism. Nietzsche, on the other hand, believed in the "will to power" instead, meaning that life was motivated by the desire to dominate or be dominated.

To combat nihilism, Nietzsche proposed the concept of the "overman", a man who would embrace life for what it is and create his own values to give himself meaning in the universe. These new values would replace those imposed by religious institutions and would lead the herd of people.

Now let's examine the Sumeru chapter under Nietzsche's lens: the god of wisdom, Lord Rukkhadevata, has died. The people of Sumeru have become overly reliant on the Akasha, now containing knowledge manually handled by the political class which doubles as religious caste (the Chinese name of the Akademiya is Sumeru Institute of Religious Decrees). The sages manufacture an artificial "overman" they want to turn into their new god. And in the fairytale where Nahida hid Scaramouche's memories, he threatens:

The resolution, however?

The overman does not succeed.

It fails.

Azar is overthrown and the artificial god is defeated with the collective power of Sumeru citizens. Alhaitham as well, being the closest to an overman in the region, refuses to "lead the herd" to follow his personal values when he resigns as Acting Grand Sage.

Nietzsche's philosophy arrived in India at a time where the nation was under British colonial rule. Among the most prominent figures in anticolonial movements and education, Rabindranath Tagore stands out the most, a polymath who funded his own school where he taught arts alongside science and brought education to rural areas.

Like Nietzsche, Tagore wanted to break from the rigid traditions of religion and build a society with new values. But unlike Nietzsche, his philosophy was based on humanistic values and unity with the world, both nature and community, as he was mostly influenced by Indian religious philosophy, especially the concept of Brahma, a divine universal consciousness that originated everything in existence, therefore, it exists within every part of creation. The story of Apep in Sumeru is somewhat similar.

Another defining difference is their view on Zoroaster/Zarathustra: while Nietzsche is critical of the influence in morality he left, Tagore describes it this way:

All religions of the primitive type try to keep men bound with regulations of external observances. Zarathustra was the greatest of all pioneer prophets who showed the path of freedom to man, the freedom of moral choice, the freedom from the blind obedience to unmeaning injunctions, the freedom from the multiplicity of shrines which draw our worship away from the single minded chastity of devotion.

...Man realizes his divine self in his religion, his God is no longer an outsider to be propitiated for a special concession. The consciousness of God transcends the limitations of race and gathers together all human beings within one spiritual circle of union. Zarathustra was the first prophet who emancipated religion from the exclusive narrowness of the tribal God, the God of a chosen people, and offered to the universal Man.

... Zarathustra was the first who addressed his words to all humanity, regardless of distance of space or time.

For Tagore, a monotheistic doctrine offers a foundation of goodness as an ideal of perfection for all people. That is to say, it seeks the collective well being of a community and reflects the goodness of god on the people that follow him.

The motto of the religion "good thoughts, good words, good deeds", which means that good thoughts lead to good words which lead to good deeds, is echoed in all three versions of the three talent books in Sumeru (admonition, praxis and ingenuity)

He also compares the altruistic acts of self sacrifice to the philosophy of Indian tradition:

The orthodox Persian form of worship in ancient Iran included animal sacrifices and offering of harms to the daevas. That all these should be discontinued by Zarathustra not only shows his courage, but the strength of his realization of the Supreme Being as spirit.

...It has been a matter of supreme satisfaction to me to me to realize that the purification of faith which was the mission of the great teachers in both communities, in Persia and in India, followed a similar line. We have already seen how Zarathustra spiritualized the meaning of sacrifice, which in former days consisted in external ritualism entailing bloodshed. The same thing we find in the Gita, the deeds that are done solely for the sake of self fetter our soul; the disinterested action, performed for the sake of the giving up of the self, is the true sacrifice. For creation itself comes of the self sacrifice of Brahma, which has no other purpose; and therefore, in our performance of the duty which is self sacrificing, we realize the spirit of Brahma.

Where Nietzsche ethical law of will to power calls for men to realize themselves through individualism, making their own values the dominating truth of the rest, Tagore believes in a unity of all, nature, community, god and man to seek their shared and ideal values.

The philosophical ideals of Sumeru, likewise, are met in community, collectivism and altruism. The region never lost their god after all, she was just imprisoned by those with individualistic values and hubris.

I always say that I'm interested in the religious dynamic of the Akademiya as an institution of education. Seeking knowledge is a faith in itself, since their god has her domain in wisdom.

Tagore quotes Dr Geiger on Zoroastrianism as such:

The revelation [Zarathustra] announces is to him no longer a matter of sentiment, no longer a merely undefined presentiment and conception of the Godhead, but a matter of intellect, of spiritual perception and knowledge. This is of great importance, for there are probably not many religions of so high antiquity in which this fundamental doctrine, that religion is a knowledge or a learning, a science of what is true, is so precisely declared as in the tenets of the Gathas. It is the unbelieving that are unknowing; on the contrary, the believing are learned because they have penetrated into this knowledge.

I also find it entertaining that, as we know, ancient Greek philosophers make up the foundations for modern western philosophy like that of Nietzsche's. Ancient Greek philosophers also borrowed from Zoroastrianism in a sort of exotized way, just like their modern western counterparts borrowed from Indian tradition without minding much the credits.

[wondereads]

September 2024 Monthly Wrap-Up

Reviews under the cut

Foster by Claire Keegan (★★★★☆)

This is an incredibly short read, but I highly recommend it if you're someone who enjoys family dynamics and a simple but evocative story. While I personally enjoy longer works, I still loved the writing of this novella. So much was said with very few words, and I was thoroughly attached to the characters by the end. It's an open ending, but it has more than enough room for hope in my opinion.

Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb (★★★☆☆)

A bit unfortunate that this should be my first Hobb book, as it seems to be considered her weakest series, and I can see why. This book has an incredibly interesting beginning and end and an absolute drag of a middle. I found the politics surrounding Gernia's expansion (and its mirroring of frontier America) and the conflicting magic systems, both suppressed by the primary religion, so intriguing, but most of this book is dedicated to the main character's time at a military academy. It was highly detailed—perhaps more than it should have been. While this book had its strong points, if you're looking for an engaging military fantasy series, I recommend Protector of the Small by Tamora Pierce or The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang instead.

Neon Gods by Katee Robert (★★☆☆☆)

I'm being a bit lenient with my rating because I can see the appeal of this to some people, but this book had way too much nothing for my taste. After hitting the 40% mark, most of this story is just the main characters being willfully ignorant to the other person's feelings and insisting they can't stay together because it would be selfish. I won't lie, I skimmed the latter half of this book. I was also quite distracted by worldbuilding questions (the names in particular throw me off), which never really get answered. Perhaps not the best choice of book for a hard fantasy nut like me.

The Flower of the Family by Elizabeth Prentiss (★★☆☆☆)

There is a reason this book has fallen out of favor everywhere but Christian homeschooling circles. This is one of the earliest "girls' books" in the US, so of course there are standards for femininity that don't align with today, but the way Lucy, the main character, is treated is just abhorrent. She is a free babysitting service for her family of ten children, so much so that she is so ill that going to stay with her extended family, away from the hoard of kids that can't do a thing without her, is the only way to improve her health. I doubt anyone will be raring to read this, so I have no guilt in saying that the book ends with one of her brothers and her mother dying, thus leaving her to care for her siblings until they are all grown up, after which she is married to a nameless man with all of one sentence dedicated to it. This poor girl.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (no rating)

This is definitely outside my usual sphere, but it was assigned for my thesis (don't ask why, it'll take forever to explain). It was...a trip. That's really all I can say about it.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (★★★★☆)

This is a bit of a tough read; Harriet Jacobs' fictional representative, Linda, does not suffer what many would deem the worst of American slavery, but she does not hesitate to explain how severely dehumanized she was. Reading this in conjunction with other children's book of the time (Flower of the Family, Little Women), truly reveals how differently Black and white girls experienced childhood, something that still echoes today, even if it's less extreme. While it's not the most dramatic or easy read, I absolutely recommend this book, especially if you're looking to expand your reading on Black experiences throughout American history.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (★★★★☆)

I read the author's preferred text of this novel, but it still has the hallmarks of being written when Shannon was much younger. While the writing has likely improved, the premise is quite similar to a lot of 2010s YA dystopias. Despite being a dystopia, this book is a fantasy novel, taking place slightly in the future but after history was altered around the turn of the 20th century. I quite liked the main character, and I find the worldbuilding and magic system intriguing, though the romance was lackluster in my opinion. I really want to find out what is happening between the Rephaim and the Emim (it is certainly not just what Paige was told), so I'll definitely be continuing this series in the future.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead (★★★☆☆.5)

This was a vaguely interesting book. I think it had the potential to be better, but it's so quick-paced that it misses out on a lot of opportunities for worldbuilding, such as actually explaining how the political system of the vampire world works. Throughout a lot of this book, it honestly felt like Mead did not want to be writing about vampires. The mythology is so different that it feels more akin to fairies or perhaps an entirely new being. The relationship between Rose and Lissa is great, though I cannot believe they aren't each other's love interests with the way they act together, and the romance itself was decent. Yes, there is a crazy age gap, but as a Tamora Pierce stan I don't think I can judge. Overall, this was just a standard YA paranormal novel.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (★★★★☆)

This was my first time reading Little Women, and I did enjoy myself for the most part. I loved the complexity of the March sisters, both as individual characters and their relationships with one another, even though Jo is much stronger than me and I never would have forgiven Amy. This book is restrained by the time it was written in, but I think Alcott did a pretty decent job giving each of the sisters a happy ending (yes, even Beth, her ending is portrayed as peaceful and a welcome release) while still maintaining their personalities, even if they're a bit more subdued than when they were younger. There is debate over whether Jo underwent a character assassination, but I think Alcott did her best to give her a happy ending when a generally approved ending was antithetical to her character.

Currently Reading

Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Abike-Iyimide

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

October TBR

Babel by R. F. Kuang (rr, thesis)

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang (rr, thesis)

The Dragon Republic by R. F. Kuang (thesis)

The Burning God by R. F. Kuang (thesis)

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (rr, thesis, book club)

Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko (book club)

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (book club)

Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan (book club)

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (class)

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (class)

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush by Virginia Hamilton (class)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous (class)

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

[kaibasupremacy]

For the ask meme, if you're interested in answering: Seto for 17 + 27 and also 23 because that seems like a soft and kind of silly fun question. And also, if you'd like, Pegasus for 25 and also 23. Thank you! I hope you have a nice day/night!

Thank you so much for the ask!! I feel very honored!! 🩵🩵

It’s the first time for me doing something like this because I often feel insecure about my character takes, or because I find it hard to answer questions on the spot. Also, I probably have more for all of these questions but this is just what comes to my mind now at 2 am.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

I actually have a playlist of songs that remind me of him, or his relationship with various people from his life, that I shared only with a small number of people because I’m kind of self conscious about my music tastes >.>

But there are certain songs that I just cannot help but think of him when I listen.

“Numb” and “Crawling” by Linkin Park, the first makes me think of his relationship with his father figures, the second of the effects of his trauma.

“Hoax” by Taylor Swift is a song I cannot help but associate with his relationship with Atem. I do not really ship them but his relationship with him is in canon Seto’s deepest connection besides the one with Mokuba, and probably Gozaburo. I feel like that song represents very well Seto’s feelings of bitterness at Atem leaving.

“You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

You knew the password, so I let you in the door

You knew you won, so what's the point of keeping score?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

But what you did was just as dark

Darling, this was just as hard

As when they pulled me apart”

As for quotes:

“you keep fighting because you feel you need to earn permission to exist. you're even willing to sacrifice your own life for it. no—one can grant you that affirmation. no stamp certifies that you deserve to live”

“And I was so young

When I behaved

Twenty five

Yet now I find

I've grown into

A tall child”

-Mitski, First Love/Late Spring (the whole song actually…I know it’s a reach, but my Seto brainrot forces me to see the words “window” and “ledge” and relate them only to him)

“We do not want to be spared by our best enemies, not by those either whom we love thoroughly”

-Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell”

-Antonin Artaud

“I don’t know what’s going to come out of me,” I told her. “It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way.”

“Why?” she said.

“To make up for it,” I said. “To make up for the fact that it’s me”

-Suzanne Rivecca

As for the poem, it’s actually a rather dark one that I associate with him, Le Cœur supplicié by Arthur Rimbaud (tw for discussions of sa if anyone wants to look up how it has been often interpreted). To contextualize, my interpretation of the abuses Seto endured in his life is that they were very brutal. But I also associate it to the profound violation Seto experienced when Gozaburo stole his designs (or if you interpret it that he handed them over willingly in manga canon, how he would feel looking back at that).

27. Their guilty pleasure

Bad horror movies, because he is still the boy who built Death-T.

23. If they were a scented candle, what would they smell like? For both Seto and Pegasus.

For someone that loves scented candles, I am actually having trouble with this one. I’m going for coffee or moss for Seto. Maybe lavender for Pegasus?

25. 3 things they’d want to take with them if they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere (for Pegasus)

Not the biggest Pegasus fan or expert, but I would say a picture of Cyndia, a piece of Funny Bunny memorabilia and a bottle of wine.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

“Persophilia”

“From the Biblical period and Classical Antiquity to the rise of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, aspects of Persian culture have been integral to European history. A diverse constellation of European artists, poets, and thinkers have looked to Persia for inspiration, finding there a rich cultural counterpoint and frame of reference. Interest in all things Persian was no passing fancy but an enduring fascination that has shaped not just Western views but the self-image of Iranians up to the present day. Persophilia maps the changing geography of connections between Persia and the West over the centuries and shows that traffic in ideas about Persia and Persians did not travel on a one-way street. How did Iranians respond when they saw themselves reflected in Western mirrors? Expanding on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, and overcoming the limits of Edward Said, Hamid Dabashi answers this critical question by tracing the formation of a civic discursive space in Iran, seeing it as a prime example of a modern nation-state emerging from an ancient civilization in the context of European colonialism. The modern Iranian public sphere, Dabashi argues, cannot be understood apart from this dynamic interaction. Persophilia takes into its purview works as varied as Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Handel’s Xerxes and Puccini’s Turandot, and Gauguin and Matisse’s fascination with Persian art. The result is a provocative reading of world history that dismantles normative historiography and alters our understanding of postcolonial nations.”

https://www.amazon.com/Persophilia-Persian-Culture-Global-Scene/dp/0674504690

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

[shenobii]

@fightaers​ sent : ♗   (  accepting !  )

[blackswaneuroparedux]

There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.

- Douglas Adams

The idea of eternal return or eternal recurrence has existed in various forms since antiquity. Put simply, it's the theory that existence recurs in an infinite cycle as energy and matter transform over time. In ancient Greece, the Stoics believed that the universe went through repeating stages of transformation similar to those found in the "wheel of time" of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Such ideas of cyclical time later fell out of fashion, especially in the West, with the rise of Christianity. One notable exception is found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), a 19th-century German thinker who was known for his unconventional approach to philosophy. One of Nietzsche's most famous ideas is that of eternal recurrence, which appears in the penultimate section of his book The Gay Science.

The Gay Science is one of Nietzsche's most personal works, collecting not only his philosophical reflections but also a number of poems, aphorisms, and songs. The idea of eternal recurrence—which Nietzsche presents as a sort of thought experiment—appears in Aphorism 341, "The Greatest Weight":

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'

"Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life?"

Nietzsche reported that this thought came to him suddenly one day in August 1881 while he was taking a walk along a lake in Switzerland. After introducing the idea at the end of The Gay Science, he made it one of the fundamental concepts of his next work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra, the prophet-like figure who proclaims Nietzsche’s teachings in this volume, is at first reluctant to articulate the idea, even to himself. Eventually, though, he proclaims that eternal recurrence is a joyful truth, one that should be embraced by anyone who lives life to the fullest.

Oddly enough, eternal recurrence doesn't figure too prominently into any of the works Nietzsche published after Thus Spoke Zarathustra. However, there is a section dedicated to the idea in The Will to Power, a collection of notes published by Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth in 1901. In the passage, Nietzsche seems to seriously entertain the possibility that the doctrine is literally true. It is significant, however, that the philosopher never insists on the idea's literal truth in any of his other published writings. Rather, he presents eternal recurrence as a sort of thought experiment, a test of one's attitude toward life.

Nietzsche's philosophy is concerned with questions about freedom, action, and will. In presenting the idea of eternal recurrence, he asks us not to take the idea as truth but to ask ourselves what we would do if the idea were true. He assumes that our first reaction would be utter despair: the human condition is tragic; life contains much suffering; the thought that one must relive it all an infinite number of times seems terrible.

But then he imagines a different reaction. Suppose we could welcome the news, embrace it as something that we desire? That, says Nietzsche, would be the ultimate expression of a life-affirming attitude: to want this life, with all its pain and boredom and frustration, again and again. This thought connects with the dominant theme of Book IV of The Gay Science, which is the importance of being a “yea-sayer,” a life-affirmer, and of embracing amor fati (love of one’s fate).

This is also how the idea is presented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra’s being able to embrace eternal recurrence is the ultimate expression of his love for life and his desire to remain “faithful to the earth.” Perhaps this would be the response of the "Übermnesch" or "Overman" who Zarathustra anticipates as a higher kind of human being. The contrast here is with religions like Christianity, which see this world as inferior, this life as mere preparation for a better life in paradise. Eternal recurrence thus offers a notion of immortality counter to the one proposed by Christianity.

Of all the ideas Nietzsche grappled with and put forward with such acute intelligence and brilliance, most philosophers are apt to give his notion of Eternal Recurrence a short thrift or quitely hush it under the nearest Persian rug in their study room.

Not only is it one of the philosopher’s weakest and most unconvincing theses, it is the one that sits in opposition to nearly everything else he wrote. For Nietzsche, despite his writing appearing wistful and gothic Romantic, was essentially an empiricist. He had no time for the dualism of Plato and only a fleeting but unconvinced interest in Kantian metaphysical idling about what lay beyond the tangible world. Nietzsche wrote that all there was for sure was the here and now.

This is exactly why he was not a militant atheist in the way we understand the expression today. He felt no need to concern himself with the veracity of Christianity’s claims about the afterlife, something we cannot be sure about. He seldom railed against the theological intricacies of Christianity or the truth claims of religion because to him the only thing that mattered was how religion affected us. He objected to Christianity because he saw it as nihilist and life-negating. Or rather he rebelled against the 19th Century practice of what the church had become would be more accurate account. It taught people to be meek, humble and to accept their lot. Nietzsche was an empiricist in that he wanted people to fulfil their life in the here and now, something that Christianity was hostile to.

Yet Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence belongs strangely to the realm of metaphysics and dualism. Its fatalism and determinism contradicts Nietzsche’s exhortation for each of us to become our own masters and to become who we truly are. While he did not believe in free will, he did believe that the Übermensch could harness and master the forces of his inner ‘will to power’. Contrarily, the eternal recurrence condemns us to history and supernatural fate. The notion of ‘eternal recurrence’ reeks too much of his youthful dalliance with Schopenhauerian metaphysics.

Is there anyting redeeming about Nietzsche’s fantastical notions of Eternal Recurrence? I think so.

Christian scholars are not alone with regard to giving weight to our daily life decisions as having significant eternal outcomes. Nietzsche, on the other hand, chooses to suggest our decisions in this life have weight because how we choose to live today will be replayed over and over again unto eternity.

Of course it’s a very unusual perspective in some respects, a variant on reincarnation, which also has us returning indefinitely, but in differing capacities. Scholars have argued whether the idea is meant as a serious conjecture or a concept to make us more thoughtful about our behaviour here and now.

I prefer to charitably believe Nietzsche’s sole intent with this concept of eternal recurrence was to get us plugged in to the significance of our acts. To paraphrase in modern vernacular, to live each day with greater mindfulness.

His was a brilliant mind, but as far as I am aware he does not offer a supporting argument for the notion proposed. It is a certainty that he understood that even if we ourselves were recurring, our circumstances would not be, for times change, culture changes, history is unfolding all around us.

Nietzsche then asks us: What about you? How do you go about living more purposefully and mindfully? What would you do differently if you were knew this day would be an eternally recurring experience?

Dare we have an answer?

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

What are some of your favorite books or films? (Including any books not just fictional)

per usual, this is impossible for me to answer completely and the following list is not exhaustive.

films: 2001: a space odyssey, children of men, drive, no country for old men, 300, troy, gladiator, jurassic park, saving private ryan, hateful eight, revenant, alien, the lion king, spirit: stallion of the cimarron, mad max: fury road, jacob's ladder, fight club, starship troopers, hereditary, the green room, the witch, ex machina, logan, blue ruin, the gray, whiplash, zero dark thirty, sicario, black hawk down, there will be blood, donnie darko, her, dr strangelove, in bruges, nightcrawler, prisoners, the fountain, requiem for a dream, vanilla sky, american beauty, mulholland drive, eyes wide shut, magnolia, lost in translation, waking life, tree of life, the handmaiden, gone girl, mirror, oldboy, apocalypse now, blade runner, blade runner 2049, truman show, eternal sunshine, mr nobody, the matrix, john wick, arrival, lotr trilogy, star wars prequel and original trilogies, heat, godfather part ii, etc.

books: to a god unknown, thus spoke zarathustra, the old man and the sea, lolita, storm of steel, the spirit of laws blood meridian, east of eden, sun and steel, confessions of a mask, paradise lost, leaves of grass, the child of pleasure, triumph of death, goethe's faust, coriolanus, holderlin's hyperion, marriage of heaven and hell, songs of innocence and experience, america a prophecy, treasure island, the little prince, the iliad, the odyssey, moby dick, heart of darkness, the columbiad, the hobbit, the republic, nicomachean ethics, after virtues, discourses on livy, letters of cicero, plutarch's lives, emerson's essays, montaigne's essays, call of the wild, les fleurs du mal, steppenwolf, a portrait of the artist as a young man, the notebooks of malte laurids brigge, as i lay dying, the oresteia, prometheus bound, antigone, swiss family robinson, on the road, the federalist papers, reason: the only oracle of man, frankenstein, robinson crusoe, the king in yellow, i ching, the analects, the rigveda, bhagavad gita, upanishads, moral epistles, beowulf, prose edda, aeneid, the golden ass, satyricon, juliette, 120 days, philosophy in the bedroom, story of the eye, etc.

[bts-weverse-trans]

Namjoon’s Books (An incomplete list to be updated intermittently. Please excuse the formatting. It too will be edited/updated.)

⚠️ DO NOT TAKE OUT WITHOUT CREDIT ⚠️

Note: Author names translated into English are written surname first.

(Top left)

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나와 나타샤와 흰 당나귀 by 백석 (Poems) / Me, Natasha and a White Donkey by Baek Seok

/

하늘과 바람과 별과 시 by 윤동주 (Poems) / Heaven, Wind, Stars, and Poems by Yoon Dong Joo

무소유 by 법정, 범우사 / Non-Ownership by Buddhist monk Bopjong (interpretation of title/possible subject matter: letting go of earthly possessions)

(Poetry) 사슴 by 백석 / Deer by Baek Seok

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원더보이 by 김연수 / Wonder Boy by Kim Yeon Su

길은 여기에 by 미우라 아야코 / Miura Ayako

/ 나이의 세상 (?)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

The Moon and Sixpence (달과 6펜스) by William Somerset Maugham

/

/

/ 날개 (?)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (split into three volumes)

(Top right)

/ New York, Seoul (?)

Books and Painting by Francis Bacon

(Artist book) Chang Ucchin, the most beloved painter in Korea (1917~1990)

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유영국저널 (in order pictured: 2005, 2007, 2003) / (Artist) Yoo Youngkuk Journals

/

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손상기의 삶과 예술 / Son Sang Ki’s Life and Art

(Artist book) MANNA LEE (2014)

혜화동70년 - 이대원 화문집 / Artist Lee Dae Won’s book on life and art in Hyehwa-dong

(Artist book) Jean-Michel Basquiat from Kukje Gallery

(Artist book) Wipeout in Hong Kong - Invasion Guide 06 by Invader

(Artist book) Invasion Los Angeles 2.1 by Invader

(Artist book) Paul Klee (파울 클레)

고통과 절망이 품은 따스한 빛 손상기 by 홍가이. Contributers: 이선영, 양정무, 고용수 / Book on artist Son Sang Ki

(Artist book) Ucchin. C.

(Artist book) 김우창과 김훈이 본 오치균의 그림세계 / The Art of Artist Oh Chi Gyun Seen Through the Eyes of Kim Oo Chang and Kim Hoon

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(Bottom left)

장자 / Zhuangzi (Chinese philosopher)

모멸감 by 김찬호

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (화성에서 온 남자 금성에서 온 여자) by John Gray

당신이 옳다 by 정혜신 (psychologist)

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (총,균,쇠) by Jared M. Diamond

The Story of Art (서양미술사) by E. H. Gombrich

곰브리치 세계사 (예일대 특별판) by 에른스트 H. 곰브리치 / The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich (Yale University Special Edition)

변신 / Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

(Bottom right)

Blank

(Catalogue raisonné) Chandigarh: Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret by Jacques Dworczak

The American Century: Art and Culture, 1950-2000 by Lisa Phillips

달도 따고 해도 따리라 (선화랑 김창실의 삶과 예술사랑) by 김창실

나의 문화유산답사기 10 : 서울편 2 by 유홍준 / My Cultural Heritage Answer Machine (Seoul Edition 2) by Yoo Hong Joon (Cultural Heritage Administrator)

나의 문화유산답사기 9 : 서울편 1 by 유홍준 / My Cultural Heritage Answer Machine (Seoul Edition 1) by Yoo Hong Joon (Cultural Heritage Administrator)

WHANKI MUSEUM Highlights

/

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(Artist book) Casa Wabi

Trans cr: Amy @ bts-weverse-trans © Please credit when taking out

[demoisverysexy]

The Nature of God: A Speculative Theology

Ok, so I’m a huge theology/philosophy nerd, and I’m in the mood to write some, share some ideas. So if that doesn’t float your boat, get out while you still can! But I can say that my takes on religion might be out of the box enough for some people to maybe consider staying longer than they might normally. I hope you enjoy this, or at least can tolerate that I’m posting this. :P

cw: religion

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

- from Dante's Inferno. An inscription written above the gates to Hell

One of the best refutations I can think of to classical theism goes something like this:

What does God worship?

In classical theism, God (or whatever we're using to fill God's shoes here) is an omnipotent, omniscient being/thing that created the universe. As such, everything that exists is simply an extension of that God (or alternatively, their will), and all meaning is dependent upon the existence of this God-being.

To my mind, this reads as a sort of indirect nihilism. Meaning exists, but only because something put it there. But where did God get that meaning in the first place? Why did they pick that particular meaning, or create this particular universe? As far as I can tell (and I really ought to do a full study of this), most Abrahamic religions offer roughly the same answer: That God is unknowable, inscrutable, and incomprehensible, but still perfect. By grace of being God, any decision They make is the Correct Decision, and we shouldn't question why things take the forms they do. Even formulations that propose that this reality is a corruption of God's original plan fall to this trap, as the corruption arises from God's creations, and God allowed them so his plan could be fulfilled. Meaning itself, then, is apparently arbitrary and indecipherable, and ultimately meaningless. This, to me, cheapens religion, by making all meaning and truth utterly irrelevant. In trying to make God the sole arbiter of truth, truth becomes dead.

God is dead, and we have killed him.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

But I would like to take this a step further. I would like to focus not just how this hypothetical world affects us, but God also. How lonely and isolating it must be, to be the sole arbiter of truth and existence! Before you, there was nothing. And then from you, all existence, truth, and meaning came to be, formed from nothing. Everything that exists is an extension of your will, of yourself. Do you too feel the pang of meaningless, God? What does your love mean if it is fundamentally built upon nothingness? You are, in effect, the only being that truly exists. Our existence is contingent upon your favor. We are built out of nothing, and we are the way we are because you willed it to be so. We have no choice in the matter, and no freedom to choose in a way that matters. Even the love we offer you exists because you willed it to be so.

To me, this God reads as supremely lonely. Nothing they create exists in a way that matters, and they are constantly trying to create creatures capable of loving them. This is futile, however. Even if we were to be raised to their level of Glory, at our core, we never had the ability to choose it ourselves. What a sad and hollow existence! God here is something to be pitied. Loved? Maybe. But first pitied. There is nothing they can love or devote themself to that could ever matter, or love them back. They are in the same boat as us in this hypothetical universe.

I cannot accept this formation of God. I think we can do better.

What if God didn't create everything that exists? What if there is no ex-nihilo creation? What if matter has always existed, and the formations it takes are constantly in flux? What if God's power is not the power of a monarch? What if their power arises from the multitude? What if God, powerful and perfect though they may be, is, in some vital way, more like us then we had previously thought?

All things Bright and Beautiful

The first consequence of freeing god from the burden of being the only being that can truly exist is that now the world can speak for itself. Free from the tyranny of being fully and completely reducible to the Sole Author of creation, things exist independently. However they came to be, they cannot be boiled down to their origin (or any other thing!) without losing something in the process that makes them vitally themselves. Not that such reductions are not at times useful or necessary, but it is to say that any reduction, or attempt to define something in relation to something else, will inevitably fall short. Things do not fit together like puzzle pieces. They are too messy and individualized for that to ever work. And because we no longer can apply a universal standard to everything, the world arrives to us perfectly as itself. Not an inferior copy of a more perfect truth. It never needed to be.

This is not to say that judgements cannot, or should not, be made. It simply means that now our judgement calls must be more local. We must evaluate things within their own context.

With all this in mind, I think that it is time to re-evaluate God. In this new formation, God could not be omnipotent or omniscient, as this would imply the same sort of deterministic hell we had just escaped from, and that everything can be reduced down fully and completely to this God. But what use is a God who is not Omnipotent or Omniscient? Even if they are merely powerful and wise, what makes them special? Why should we care?

The answer, to me, comes in the form of what sort of love God has for us. A theistic God loves us because we are reducible to their will. everything we are is directly because of them. This to me, does not read as love, as it requires nothing on God's part: It is not a challenge to love something that, at the end of the day, is an extension of God's will, as opposed to a being that exists in its own right.

But a nontheistic God is different. Whatever work they put into creation (And they couldn't have done all the work, as resistance is in the nature of things), they cannot account for the ways in which creation has created itself. We can say God plays a part in creation, but so do the pieces of creation themselves. As the marble shapes the way the artist forms a sculpture, or language shapes the stories a writer can tell, so too does the nature of things shape how God interacts with us. God interacts with everything that exists in a way that is individual to it. They must, otherwise no communication or interaction is possible. Interaction is a two-way street.

Therefore, God's love is highly individual too.

God has power, true. But they do not have control. They cannot fully predict or anticipate the ways that we will interact with them, or how their interactions with us will shape us (and them in turn!). God is aware of this. We are, no matter how much God works to help us, out of their hands.

And yet they love us, and have committed themself publicly, repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, to devote themself to us.

What a beautiful God this is! How wonderful it is that their love for us is not contingent. That they love us so fully and deeply, despite (and perhaps because!) of our flaws and foibles. God didn't make an extension of themself to love: God committed themselves to love something that they could never fully anticipate. God chose to love us, fully and completely. God wants to work and live alongside us, and to share with us in our joy and sorrows, individually, despite the costs and hardships.

This God, in many ways, is more limited. This is a riskier God. This God cannot have control over every aspect of our lives, as no matter how powerful they are, control is impossible for them. They cannot guarantee anything to us. And so loving them comes with no guarantees of anything, either. Not wealth, not success, not even safety. All God can guarantee, at the end of the day, is their love, devotion, and their commitment to work to comfort and help us.

I would take this God any day over an omnipotent one.

[letusmeetagain]

On redemption and blindness

I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate. And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance. And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance! To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" into "Thus would I have it!"—that only do I call redemption! - Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra

This is probably a unique way to see redemption. I understand the intention of Nietzsche to offer an different way to approach redemption and guilt or to overcome the talions law or other Christian conceptions about mistakes and sins.

I’m glad that age isn’t an important criterion for Isayama. Growing older doesn’t guarantee that characters will reach enlightenment. It doesn’t matter if the warriors were children and Eren is an adult. Someone can argue that it’s not logical but I find it quite interesting that adulthood doesn’t imply necessarily wisdom. Characters can live their whole lives in the wrong and redemption can happen even before death after a long life like with Kenny or Karina with a proper impulse of their environments.

So, for now: Eren is standing in the wrong fundamentally driven by his spirit of revenge and he doesn’t understands.

Kenny is a good example of what it feels like not understanding the source of every beauty. His struggles involve trying to understand why he admired Uri and why Uri was different. He wanted to see the same things. This struggle culminated when he discovered that this power wasn’t the reason behind Uri’s compassion. In reality, Uri was dealing with the power he was entrusted with. Every founder were partly enslaved to this power and the preech about peace and love was nothing but a farce. The true miracle was actually Uri’s personality and this gesture. The guilt of not being able to create a paradise.

Eren’s case is then similar to Kenny’s. Surrounded by a violent world with no freedom and having a violent nature sleeping inside his mind, he understood things through his own worldview and was blind to the true reasons behind Armin’s sight.

Eren’s natural response to the dream he couldn’t see was projected with rage onto an external obstacle. He never thought that maybe... he was the one being unable to see went past his mental walls or the way his environment influenced his mindset. To him, it wasn’t about accepting the freedom he had to dream but about searching for any obstacle to blame for his impossibility to reach his dream. He felt his state as a lack of freedom:

“This, that I want to do, I can’t reach it because something is restraining me”.

But the final goal was something abstract. It wasn’t something he could wrasp on an ontological level, thus, he kept searching for support in Armin, who was the one with bright eyes and able to recognize it. So he asked him...

To this point, Eren has to overcome this mindset... his spirit of revenge* in nietzschean terms and the very reason why he CAN’T be considered an übermensch. Nobody prevented him from this dangerous development regading this wrong vision of freedom that brought us to this mistake that has to be redeemed.

According Kenny’s confession in the end... everything he did, he did it searching for redemption for his own life. His goal was to understand Uri’s view: the very moment when he saw for the first time a victory through kindness and modesty. Although he tried from the wrong perspective, he was trying to overcome his own weakness.

Redemption for Nietzsche meant a continuated cycle of self-overcoming/creation and the aceptation, love and reafirmation of our stories and fate as everything we have done and chosen during our lives. Guilt is detrimental and opressive. Past can’t be changed (there’s no undoing it), so there is no point on being enslaved to guilt. “The will can’t will backwards” but we can keep willing in the future. Redemption is not about being slave to the guilt but a learning process of overcoming our weakness.

If being wrong about a dream or a goal lead us to do wrong, when we choose paths that are detrimental for others and ourselves as Nietzsche said, redemption lies in the understanding of our weakness and overcoming them. It means to live with pride about our past and having confidence in ourselves to do things right in the future. It’s about dignifying our mistakes that in the end, are also part of the stories we wanted to create. Without this, we wouldn’t be who we are.

In his last moments, Kenny could bring understanding and relief to Levi. Despite his self-concept as someone unable to take care of Levi, he couldn’t leave him to die.

In the end, he took another path and entrusted Levi with an important gift for humanity. Kenny left the world giving up the dream that was wrong, understanding the truth behind his struggle and redeeming his story as he decided out of his own will.

I expect something similar for Eren in the future when he overcomes his spirit of revenge and his blindness.

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” Nietzsche

---------------------------------

* spirit of revenge, easy explained, is born from the ressentiment we have when we can’t accept how things are, our weakness or when we can’t deal with the wrath caused by our past. Ressentiment means here the reaction humans have towards disadvantages by nature, laws or the system against others that enjoy privileges. (See in Eren, Gabi, Karina... etc.) It’s a revolution against fate, past and time.

“For  that  humanity  be  delivered  from  revenge,  that  for  me  is  the  bridge  to  the  highest  hope,  and  a  rainbow  after  long  storms”  

“And so he moves stones out of wrath and displeasure, and he wreaks revenge on whatever does not feel wrath and displeasure as he does. Thus the will, the liberator, took to hurting; and on all who can suffer he wreaks revenge for his inability to go backwards. This, indeed this alone, is what revenge is: the will’s ill will against time, and its “it was.”  Nietzsche

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 51.01 - King’s College, London vs Glasgow

In preparation for tonight’s episode I replaced the flat tyre on my bike, which, if you are like me and refuse to actually take in any information when watching ‘How-To...’ videos, and instead opt to try and wing it, becoming incredibly riled in the process, is one of the only things in the world which has the potential to be infuriating and rewarding in equal measure. 

The maddening moment you realise that you have put the tyre on with the arrows facing in the wrong direction (because who knew that you could put a tyre on backwards) is matched only by the sweaty and oil-stained sense of accomplishment when the machine is finally back in one piece and all pumped up.

Likewise, the watching of an episode of University Challenge ebbs and flows in a similar way, with crushing troughs as you squint with your brain to try and figure out in which language Paxman has asked a question, followed by immense peaks as you pull an answer out of the bag before any of the contestants on the show. The same could probably be said of watching the England national team over the past month and a bit, with the rewarding part coming as a massive surprise to most in this country. 

Anyway, that particular campaign featured a tense 0-0 draw between England and Scotland, and tonight’s series of University Challenge opens with another such encounter, as King’s College, London take on the University of Glasgow (if you’re new around here, you’ll note that I am excellent at segues). 

Glasgow have an odd record of appearing in the opening match of a series, with this being their third consecutive curtain-raiser! The series before that they were on the second episode, and they also opened the batting in 2015. I don’t know what this means, and it probably doesn’t mean anything, but of their previous three such matches, they have a 2-1 record (although they did make it through to the play-offs in their one loss).

Their side this year is comprised of quizzers called Fairbairn and Cairns, whose names surely contain the highest number of consecutive rhyming syllables in the history of adjacent University Challenge contestants. If anyone can beat that please let me know. They also have a massive frog as their mascot. Make of that what you will. King’s are mascotted by a small lion, and have a member called Beard, though he does not have a beard. 

King’s Rashid gets the first starter of the series, recognising three clues relating to the word orange, and the Londoners take two bonuses on historical quotes. Glasgow’s Thomson hits back with Sylvia Plath, but they can only manage one bonus on sportspeople. No matter, Thomson buzzes in with another and they have the lead anyway. 

Neither team recognise the British netball league table for the first picture round, but Fairbairn picks up the bonuses with the next starter on Andre Geim, the first person to have one both an ig Nobel and Nobel prize.

Rashid stops Glasgow’s little run with a brilliant early buzz, and they close back within five points with two bonuses on the actor Lakeith Stanfield. Glasgow captain Cairns hits back with Dave Brubeck (Cairns looks like the kind of guy who would relish a bit of Dave Brubeck, so this is not all that surprising). 

He gets the next starter too, and Thomson recognises Johnny Cash for the music round (in one of the easiest music questions of all time, imo). They then struggled with Alicia Keys (’is that Emile Sande, it would be so embarrasing if we didn’t get Emile Sande’) and Common (’name a modern rapper, please’), before knocking Jay-Z (’is that Jay-Z? Yes, that’s Jay-Z’) out of the park.

A neg from Darulis lets King’s in for the first time in a while, but he makes up for it with Thus Spoke Zarathustra to take the next one. Glasgow are forty five points clear going into the second picture round, but this goes to King’s. The painting in question is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte which is one of the only paintings I can ever remember the name of, although I was still beaten to the punch by Bedwin, who takes a second ten pointer in a row to put some real pressure on the Scots. 

There is then a neg from King’s, but Glasgow can’t pick it up and Bedwin takes her hat-trick with Helvellyn (she beat me to the punch again on this, despite the fact I climbed Helvellyn on Friday!). All of a sudden there are only five points in it! They could have tied it had they not gone with socialism instead of fascism for one of the previous bonus set, but it didn’t matter in the end because Beard takes the next starter with Tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold (although Paxman tells him he would have only needed The Field of the Cloth of Gold part) and there are five points in it the other way. 

They get another ten points with a few bonuses on marine ecosystems and there sounds the gong.

Final Score: King’s College, London 115 - 100 Glasgow

A very low-scoring game that, but entertaining nonetheless. Glasgow seemed very likeable, so its unfortunate that they have to go home, but you can’t be scoring 100 in a series opener and hoping to go through. Congratulations to King’s, who reach the second round for the second year in a row. 

Its good to be back, isn’t it! Thanks for returning if you are returning, and thanks for popping in if its your first time. I do this every week, so I’ll be back soon for UCL vs St Hilda’s College, Oxford

[hobbitsnapes]

The Red Hoods Protègè chapter 12

Older Damian Wayne x ofc

(Photo made by my lovely friend @tyuuniverse)

Summary:Red hood has taken a young vigilante under his wing and subsequently changes Damians life forever. (I suck at summary’s)

Each day that goes by, his wounds start to heal. Bones start to go back into place, each cut scabbing over, some like the one on his cheekbone turning into another scar. Each time he lifts his body, Excruciating pain doesn’t flood him. Each step growing easier as the date go by. But the one thing that grows more painful, is his heart. Each time he thinks of her, a pain shoots through his heart as he remembers. Each time his face rubs across his silk pillowcase, it brings him back to the softness of her dress that she wore countless times. The feel of the warm bedding surrounding him reminding him of the warmth she had whenever she would hug or lean into him. Each night he dreams of her soothing laughter. But as if his brain wants him to suffer, he simultaneously hears her scream out when the blade cut into her back. The two images of her warm smile gracing her face, and the look of shear pain and hurt when he found her in the bathroom. Any touch to his lips reminding him of the feel of her lips on his. The warmth that once flooded him whenever he thought about her, now a deep pain, that almost feels hollow. Each day he sinks further and further into pain due to thinking of her. Pain and anger fueling him each time. ‘Why, why does she do it? She knows it’s not right. She knows the difference.’ He thinks. Thoughts flossing his head of the what if’s, all the times he should have known, and all the confusion flooding him. He had been raised from birth to kill, not knowing anything different until he was 10. She knows that she shouldn’t do this, that taking a life is not the answer. But she does it anyway. Why, why was the one person he fell for, had to be fighting the same battle, but on the other side?

He’s very thankful, each person in the house coming to aid in his recovery. Tim even coming in to give him a bowl of pumpkin soup. And each one being either kind enough, or too afraid to bring up the situation at hand. That is until today.

Damian sat in his bed as he red Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The soft tick of his clock, along with his breathing creating a soft background in the room. That is until footsteps come to his door. A soft knock of 3 and a pause, along with 2 more knocks telling him who is at the door. Since Damian was young and first living at the manor, he’s had a fear of someone coming into his room that he doesn’t know. Reminding him of the days when he’d be fast asleep, and a member coming in with sword in hand to train him as instructed by his mother. So each member of the family created their own specific knocks to alert him of their presence. Even though he’s learned over the years who it is by their footsteps, he finds it kind they keep the tradition up after all these years. The door opening as Damian turns his head to be greeted by dick. He had been staying for a few days to help with Damian, and to help on a case for their father. “Hey Damian, how you feeling today?” Dick asks, eying the sharp scab that runs down his cheekbone. “I’m feeling much better today, thank you.” Damian looks back down to his book as he says this. A sigh coming from his eldest brother. “No Damian, I mean, how are you feeling?” Dicks tone telling him exactly what he means. “I told you, I’m fine.” Damian says with a soft bite to his tone. Growing irritated at the fact that he’s asking. “Damian, you can’t keep bottling it up. We all see what’s going on, I get it. You don’t want to go to Bruce because, well the guy doesn’t know how to handle anything having to do with feelings. But I’m here, everyday. I see how this is bothering you. I hear you at night when you think nobody’s up. I see how much you’re hurting. I want to help you Damian.” Dick puts his hand on damians shoulder. His eyes pleading with him. “If it makes you feel better, no I’m not fine. I don’t want to talk about it because it’s just going to do absolutely nothing in the end. It’s not going to erase all the blood she’s laid on the ground. It’s not going to make me feel any better. I don’t need to lay out a sob story about this. I’ll get over it eventually. And until then, don’t ask Grayson.” Damians voice is void of any emotion, but with a venomous bite when he spoke of her. His eyes glued to his book the entire time. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t try.” Dick says as he leaves the room.

Damians feet briskly walk down the many steps to the cave, his suit already on apart from his mask. He enters the room and is met with dick and Tim at the computers, a large map on the screen as red dots appear on the screen.

Bruce walks out in his full suit, his mask in his hands as he walks over to the computers. “Damian, I don’t think it’s a smart idea for you to go out tonight.” Bruce says as he eyes his son. His brow furrowed slightly. “It’s been a month father, I’m healed up and besides I know tonight is a hard one.” “I’m not talking about that, I know you’re fine physically.” Bruce says with his eyes glued to Damian. A sigh leaving Damian at this. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not gonna let this one thing stop me from this. Besides, you do it all the time whilst seeing Selina and my mother.” “Fine.”

Each day she wakes up, her mind grows darker and her heart shrinks into pain further. Her once bright sapphire eyes, a dull pale grey. Red rims her iris, and darkness’s covers around them. Her once glowing skin, a translucent sickly color. Her smile no longer reaching her eyes. Her once loud laughter, now nonexistent. The apartment falling into a silence, as if her lack of brightness has dimmed each end of it in a blanket of grey. She’s unable to cry after the first few days. As if her body can no longer produce tears to cascade down her face. But the pain in her heart growing to the point it covers her entire chest in a sharp stab. Is this what all those movies talked about? The feeling that all you want is to bring back all the memories that are neatly tucked in your mind, memories that once filled her with warmth and glee, now a shooting stab as it cracks through her from the inside. All she wants is to forget. Forget the way his emerald green eyes looked into hers with the purest form of admiration and joy. How whenever she made a joke, he’d fight the ever persistent smile that grew on his face, until he finally caved and let out a chuckle. In the beginning, he was on edge a lot, almost looking to hide the brightness inside of him. When they kissed, it’s as if she strung fairy lights along his spine, and they lit from the inside out. Each time she thinks about him, a pain shoots through her each time. His last words echoing in her mind. Causing the pain to return. But she didn’t want to stop thinking of all the times they had. She wished that she could go into her mind, and live in there like a bubble. Be back to the days his hands held onto hers as they walked to the park, to the days when he’d sit beside her and drape his coat across her. She was never cold when he was beside her, but she loved the heavy weight and sent that enclosed around her from it. All she wants, is to forget the pain. But live in the past when he looked at her like she hanged the sun each morning.

A soft knock comes through the door. Alerting Jason of the one person he could think of to help. He opens the door and is met with firey red hair, and enticing green eyes. “Thank you so much for coming, I know it was such a short notice with how busy you are-“ “Jason.” Artemis puts her hand on his shoulder, her eyes locked with his. “It’s not a problem. After you told me what happened, I would come regardless of what I was doing. Now, where is she?” A soft smile plays on her face, a slight blush dusting his face. “She’s in her room, again, thank you.” “Again, it’s not a problem jason.”

Sandys eyes are drawn away from her notepad to the door, a soft knock is then Accompanied by the door opening. There stands Artemis, her hair tied up in a tight bun but with one small bit hanging off the side. A crisp white top and black pants is worn rather than her usual batling attire. “Hey sweetheart, what are you up to?” A sigh leaves sandy as she looks up at her. Her eyes are puffy and dark, exhaustion clear in her face. “Dad asked you to come by didn’t he?” Artemis sighs and looks away from her. “He’s worried about you, you are his little girl after all.” Sandy sets her notepad down on her bedside table, slowly sitting up against the wall next to her and tucks her knees up to her chin. Artemis comes and sits beside her, her eyes brimming with tears that refuse to shed down her tired face. “I don’t know what to do. All I want is to go back, go back to when he looked at me like I poked holes in the sky to make the stars. I miss how warm he was whenever I’d sit beside him. I miss the way I’d make a stupid joke, he’d fight the smile that was so clear on his face and then he’d break. I miss everything.” A sob leaves her, her voice hiccuping as she tries breathing. “B-but at the same time, I wish I never met him. I-I let him make me so happy. I-I hurt so much whenever I think about him. It’s like this deep, sharp stab that trickles out of my chest and onto the rest of my body. It’s the pain that knowing it’s only a memory and that it’ll never happen again. I want to forget everything. But at the same time, I miss how happy he made me. God the look on his face when he saw me. And-and that, he called me a monster.” Sobs now falling like rivers down her face, her voice horse and her eyes tired but filled with endless tears. Artemis puts her arms around her, letting her cry in her chest. “You’re not what he said sweetheart. You gotta remember that he’s hurt too. You both are on different sides fighting the same battle. I don’t know him well, but from what I do know, he lashes out when he’s hurt. Give it some time. It hurts right now and that’s okay. It’s okay to hurt. It’s what shows the level of love and care you still have. You’re both loving, but stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. You didn’t let what happen to you make you cold. You didn’t let it kill your good heart and soul. Just your heart alone, could defeat any Amazon I know. Trust in me, it will be better one day.” Sandy lays back down onto her bed, looking away from her, her eyes still filled with tears. “I can’t tell if it’ll get better, or that I’ll grow used to it.” Artemis sighs, bending down and placing a kiss to her forehead. “Time will tell sweetheart.” And with that, she leaves the room.

As sandy approaches her door, she hears the muffled sounds of voices from the other room. Her heart beats faster as she tries to listen in, but the voices are drowned out by the sound of the tv playing. It sounds as if Jason and Roy are there, but there’s more than them. She slowly opens her door, her head peering out of the door and into the kitchen. She walks out slowly, holding her breath as she approached the living room. Her heart beating loudly in her chest. Thst is until she enters the doorway to the living room, confusion taking place as she eyes what could only be described as the biggest blanket fort in the living room. All furniture is covered with multiple blankets and pillows. Before she can do anything, a loud cours of yells startle her, causing her to let out a large scream. She grabs a hold of a small picture frame beside her and throws it, causing it to hit against, Roy? The large redhead clutching his groin and falling to the ground, letting out a pained groan. “Goood fuck me, you couldn’t have aimed s little higher or lower? I might want kids one day.” Jason lets out a large laugh at this, a larger, more deep laugh is heard beside her, and when she turns, she’s met with a large chest and a bone crushing hug. “Bizarro have not missed young angel! Bizarro hate young angel!” “Alright big guy I love you too, now you gotta let me go okay? I can’t breathe.” Bizarro lets go of her abruptly, his hands on her shoulders looking at her in fear. “Me not sorry! Bizarro want to hurt!” A soft smile covers her face as she looks at the large Kryptonian. “I know big guy, don’t worry.” She looks around the room, Artemis standing with a large smile on her face with a box in her hand. Roy is still on the ground in a fetal position, and Jason looking at her with a soft pleading smile.

“I’m legit only doing this because I love you.” “Arty, hand over the gold glitter please.” Jason wonders is sandy and Artemis were some witches at this moment. What was supposed to be a fun night of movies, food and family time, has turned into both girls putting makeup on him. No wait, he does remember how it started.

Over the last close to 2 years being the daughter of Jason, sandy had mastered the art of the puppy eyes. And with just one look from her, and a look that matched hers from Artemis, he knew his manly persona was out the door.

As sandy applies the sparkling gold to his lids, she can’t help but have a giant smile on her face. Her father, who is one of the manliest men she’s ever met, is letting her do this just to make her happy. She feels close to tearing up, she’s known he loves her dearly. But the fact that she lets him do these things, and throws an entire sleepover with what is now her family, moves her heart so greatly, it causes tears to threaten.

“Okay I just need one more thing, where’s that red gloss? Ah! Right here!” Sandy takes the goopy gloss and applies it to jasons matte red painted mouth. The blue in his eyes are highlighted due to the rose gold Smokey eyes along with fluttery lashes. His cheeks flushed with a hint of rosy rouge. He had even let her pluck his eyebrows for the final affect to be perfect. Refusing to admit to how badly his eyes watered due to it. His lips a deep glossy red to finish the look. Both girls had wide smiles covering their faces. “You look reeeaall pretty dude.” Jason turns to his right, sitting beside him is Roy with a shit eating grin covering his face. That is until sandy lets out a small chuckle. “Oh if you think so, then lets give you a makeover next!”

Jason and Roy had Donned many outfits in their lives. They thought when they were the sidekicks to both green arrow and Batman were the most embarrassing things they’ve worn, were nothing compared to this.

Jason would a skin tight, deep plunging v neck dress that he prays to god wasn’t his daughters and stiletto black heels and a very crappy long black wig that looks like it’s from 1985. He doesn’t ever want to remember all the maneuvers he had to do to as the girls put it, ‘tuck.’

Roy was just as embarrassed as his best friend. Wearing a very tight black crop top that he swears would give a nip slip if he badly raised his arms. To cover his lower half, he wore what he could only describe as the tiniest skirt he’s ever seen in his life. He swore that he might as well just be naked due to how small the fabric was. Thigh high white heeled boots covered his legs to his knees. And a bright little mermaid wig to top it all off.

Both men looked at one another in pitty, knowing neither one will ever live this down. But knowing that this will make sandy happy, they gave a silent nod and walked out into the living room.

Both men walk out into the living room together, swaying their hips to the beat of toxic. Both girls let out a yell and a hard laugh, as they watch both men walk in strutting their stuff like it’s nobody’s business.

Both Artemis and sandy couldn’t contain their laughter as they watched both men dance impressively well. With both men doing a horrible job at lip syncing to the song as well. They couldn’t keep the tears flowing out from laughter once the dance was finished, Jason having done a full split and saying “I’ll kill you all except sandy if you speak of this to anyone.”

Jason and Artemis sat together on the floor, watching fondly at the sight in front of them. Bizarro had fallen asleep on the couch laying flat on his back. And sandy lay flat on his chest, her small size compared to his massive body making her look miniature in size. The faint smile on her face as she curled up into him causing both of them to chuckle. “You’ve done a great job Jason.” He turns to look at her, brow slightly raised and head tilted to the side. “What makes you think that?” He asks. “All that you do for her, you would walk to the ends of the earth and beyond for her. The love you have for her, and give her, shows how much she means to you.” Jason looks down at his lap at this, a faint smile on his face. “I just can’t help but feel like I’m fucking up all the time.” “I’ll be honest, you fuck up a lot.” This causes Jason to chuckle. “But, one thing you haven’t is being a parent. Sure, you messed up when you lied to her about your true past, I’ll still never understand why you did that.” Jason lets out a large sigh at this. “It’s because, everyone who gets involved with that family personally, they all get hurt or killed. I was just so scared that it would happen to her, and it did.” A tear falls down his cheek at the confession. She wipes it away from his face, bringing his face from looking down to her eyes. “It’s not the family that has that Jason. It’s our line of work, they don’t have a curse your on them that makes everyone there get hurt. It’s a fact of life. You need to stop worrying so much. I get it, you don’t want her hurt. But the more you pull her away so she won’t, the more she’ll run. She was lied to keep safe enough from her parents. And about them, they still are your family. I know, you’re hurt for what they did to you. But they still care about you. You just never let them try. Family is everything. When you and someone you love are hurt or in danger, family is what protects you. And don’t worry about not being good enough to take care of her. She’s done such a transformation since I met her, and that’s all because of you. You’re an amazing father Jason.” Tears stream down his face now, the last line causing the majority of them. “Thank you, so much.”

Both of them knew they would see each other again. It would take a naive fool to think that they would never see one another again. But that didn’t prepare them for tonight.

“Robin, I need you to get past the first 3 guards at the door.” “Got it.” Damian silently creeped up behind them, taking them out within seconds. Bruce came down shortly after, having been watching from afar. Both men enter the bank silently. Surveillance Footage confirmed two faced and his men were behind the current robbery. They both grapple up to two separate gargoyles on the walls. Watching over the men as they frantically run around similar to chickens due to the alarm going off. “Two faces thugs won’t hear us over the alarms. Be quick and hard.” Damian noded over to his father.

Damian dropped down onto 4 guards, taking them out all at once. “ITS THE BAT AND ROBIN!” All hell broke loose when one of the men spotted him. Men cane running to both of them as they took each one out.

Damian ran up to one of them who was grabbing for his fallen gun, but before he could reach him, a shot was heard and the man fell to the ground. Blood spewing out of his head and onto the floor. Damian whipped his head around, spotting the one person he hoped he wouldn’t see tonight.

Guns firing and alarms going off fill the outside of the bank. Both sandy and jason jumping off their bikes and running in as fast as they can. They spot 5 guards in the entrance of the bank, knowing they were there to stop from anyone getting in or out. Jason looked over to her, nodding his head to her to signal her to take them out.

She ran over to the men, taking out her hunters knife and slitting the first man's stomach. She then jumped up onto the seconds mans thigh, swinging her leg around his head whilst simultaneously swinging her left leg around his left arm. Slitting his throat as she swung her body around his arm and onto the third mans body, stabbing into his jugular as she took him down to the ground. She eyes the next two men and ran over, sliding down to the ground and swinging her foot into their legs, knocking both men to the ground. She took her knife and slashed both of their throats in the process. She looked behind her to Jason, nodding her head and running in.

She knew he’d be there, but that didn’t stop the pain in her heart when she watched him from afar.

She watches as he takes out men left and right, she can’t help but just freeze up when she watches him glide through the crowd of men so fluently, as if the wind itself was guiding him.

She watches as he runs up to a man, but she sees the gun in his hand about to aim for his head. Her heart pounds out of her as she raises her gun and shoots the man in the head. Damian turns to her direction. And even with his mask, she knows he sees her. A pain shoots through her heart as she watches him make what could only be the slightest hint of pain grace his face, before he turns away from her.

A sharp pain floods through his heart as he sees her, gun in hand, just looking at him. He turns and runs the other direction towards the vaults.

She runs after him, seeing that he’s running into a large group of armed men. Knowing he’s not thinking straight she runs in, taking out men as she goes that he didn’t get to.

She sees him in the middle of 15 men, 7 of them with guns, 8 without. She grabs her knife and takes out 4 of the armed men. Then going after 3 unarmed men in her way.

He watches her as she glides through each men, knife skillfully taking out each men without her getting hit once. “I’VE GOT THIS!” He yells out to her, growing angrier by the second of seeing her trying to help him. “YEAH TOTALLY LOOKS LIKE IT!” She yells back, growing even more irritable due to the fact that he’s angry at her trying to help him.

Both of them are back to back as they take out each men coming towards them. They both look at one another as all the men drop to the ground. Though they can’t see their eyes, pain paints both of their faces.

They both run out of the room, sprinting towards their partners. They keep looking at one another when they hear them yell, eyeing them as they both work their hardest to take out the ever flossing of men.

It’s as if time, sound, and sight of the room stops when she sees a man raise his gun, and aim at him. “ROBIN!” She screams out when she sees the bullet fly out of the gun, and into his side. He lets out a large cry of pain as he drops to the ground. Time slows down and anything around her is black as she sprints over to him. It’s like her legs are in slow motion as tears gather in her eyes and spill onto her mask. Her chest bursting out of her chest as she runs.

When she reaches him, she sees the blood soaking his suit. The red panel of his suit a darker red from it. It thankfully didn’t hit any artery’s as it’s not spewing out. She crouches down to his, his face contorting in pain. She reaches for his shoulders and hip, trying her hardest to get him up without putting any pressure to the wound. “Come on! I need to get you out of here!” She yells out. She slowly brings him up, putting his arm around her shoulders, and varying the brunt of his weight as she moves to the outside.

They reach the entrance to the bank, him groaning in pain the further they get. His steps growing slower as his body tries falling to the ground. “Come on robin, were almost there! Just a little bit more okay?” She pleads our, he lets out a large groan as he takes a few more steps.

They reach the outside, the chill in the air sending him to the ground. He lets out a pained yell as he tries falling down, she reaches and brings his weight into her arms and she tries dragging him as safely as possible to the grass. Her muscles screaming due to his much larger weight.

She sets him down onto the ground, a weak groan leaving him when he lays down. His hand had been clutching his wound the entire time. Blood slowly trickling past his palms. Her heart beating rapidly as she watches him. His once red flushed face taking on an almost pale colorless tone. She reaches and takes the mask from his face to know if he’s passed out or not. His usually alert forest green eyes are slowly closing. She reaches around and takes off her leather jacket. The inside having cloth to fight off the cold, and for times like this.

She slowly takes his hand away from his wound, and instantly applies the jacket to it. A groan breaking through him due to the pain. His face scrunches up and he bares his teeth. “I know I know it hurts, but I need to stop the blood.” She pleads out. She takes her knife and cuts away the middle of his suit, having trouble due to the material. She opens it and puts the cloth inside his suit. Another groan leaving him.

His eyes blink slowly, alarming her as he’s having trouble staying awake. She uses her other hand up to his cheek, cupping it. “Hey hey hey, stay awake for me okay? Look at me.” He opens his eyes and watches her, the once angry scowl on his face gone, now looking tired and almost pleading. “Everything is gonna be okay.” She reaches for his other arm, pressing the button on his arm and brings it to her mouth. “Batman, robin has been shot. We’re outside near the large oak tree. Try and hurry he’s blacking out!” “Men are surrounding us. I’ll come as fast as I can angel.” She lets go of his arm, again bringing her hand to his face to keep him awake. His cheek is warm to the touch. Bringing her back to-she can’t think about it due to the pain it shoots through her.

She stays there with him for what feels like eternity. Her heart pounding in her chest each time his eyes close. “Hey hey hey stay with me, please. I’m gonna make sure you get out of this. Just please stay with me okay.” At this point she has removed her mask due to the tears flossing down her face. He’s having trouble keeping his eyes open, scaring her each time.

Tears stream down her face the more his eyes shut, a pain that she only felt when she watched both her parents die flooding her. “Please, robin promise me you won’t go! Please promise me!” She yells out. A tear falls down from his eye, she wipes it away as more tears fall. “I-I promise.” He weakly groans out. A smile graces her face, tears still falling. But the small response from him slightly soothing her pained heart. The moment dying when he lets out a large pained yell. She looks down and sees blood soaking faster through her jacket. She reaches for his arm again and presses down onto the speaker. “HOW MANY MORE DO YOU HAVE!” “We have a handful of guys left!” “GET THE FUCK OUT HERE AND LET MY DAD HANDLE THE REST! PLEASE THIS ONE TIME! ROBIN IS DYING!” She screams out into the speaker.

She watches as Batman runs out of the building. Bruce running faster as he sees his son laying on the ground. He crouched down to him, grabbing for the jacket. Sobs wreck her as she watches as Bruce tries stopping the blood. “Here’s the key,go to the tumbler and in the backseat there’s a bag. Go get it and bring it back.” Bruce says urgently. She nods and sprites towards it. Unlocking it and flying into the back, sporting the bag, grabbing it and running as fast as she can back to them.

“Okay go in and grab the gauze.” She grabs it and hands it to Bruce, she watches it in amazement as it fuses to his skin. “Something I had made when your father was robin. It’s reinforced with a technology that combines with the skin to stop blood from leaking out. From the looks of it, it didn’t hit any organs. It did pass through most of his side. That’s where most of the blood is coming from.” “Then why is he nearly passing out!” She says to Bruce. Not understanding how a superficial gash could cause him to nearly die. “Maybe it was because his heart rate was and is escalated. The adrenaline levels decreasing, the pounding of his heart along with the blood loss could cause him to pass out.” Both of them look down as they hear him let out a groan. He looks around and spots his father first. He then turns and sees her face. Relief flossing her knowing that he’s alright. “I need to get him back to the tumbler and to the cave to make sure everything is alright.” Bruce says. “Here let me help you get him back in.” She goes to reach for him but he moves out of the way. “Get away from me.” He groans out. Pain shoots through her chest at his words. “Damian I’m trying to hel-“ “DON'T call me that! I don’t need help from somebody like you!” After all the pain she felt that night, his words shoot through her heart harder than anything else had. Tears fall down her face as it feels like pain is swarming through her, trickling from her chest outwards. “Fine. I was just trying to help you is all.” She says, getting up and running. Running as far as she can from him.

Tags: @comic-nerd-dc @psychovigilantewrites @comic-brew

[shenobii]

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