#author chain

[writerobscura]

Questions For Your OC - Writeblr Chain

I got tagged by @madi-konrad for the 'Questions For Your OC'!! – you answer these questions as your main OC(s) – since we’re all writers so we can write this as a narrative, first-person, or RPG style - anyway we wish.

When done, provide 3 new questions to pass on to the next creator.

My main OC’s are Aedan the Ancalite and Lucius Scipio Servius, and the following questions are from sapphic author, Madeline Konrad.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE WELL & TRULY AFRAID:

Aedan: …define afraid? There are degrees of fear…

Scipio: What are you on about, A-Dawn? When was the last time something scared you enough you almost pissed yourself.

Aedan: The time you asked me to hold you afterwar-

Scipio: -Next question!

WHO, OR WHAT, DO YOU LOVE MOST IN THIS WORLD?

Aedan: (eyes shift to Scipio): I love a horse named Looir.

Scipio: (clears throat): Her name is Luna, and I love her too.

THE ULTIMATE BATTLE: MAN (AND?) BEAR – WHICH WOULD YOU FIGHT AND WHICH WOULD YOU HAVE AT YOUR BACK?

Scipio: Never turn your back on a bear, that’s suicide.

Aedan: What if the man you’re fighting has trained the bear to attack when you face him and not the bear?

Scipio: As always, you overthink things, druid.

Aedan: It's a battle, one must always overthink.

Scipio: The enemy training a bear? That’s not even a situation, A-Dawn…

Aedan: Neither are these questions, but here we are.

Scipio: Fine. I would fight the man first, his wounded or dead body would make an easier shield against the bear.

Aedan: I would kill the man, and have you at my back for the bear.

Scipio: (touched) You would trust and rely on me like that?

Aedan: (nods) Yes, Skippy-O. I don’t need to outrun that bear so long as I can outrun you.

========================

I don't have any writeblr friends to tag, but anyone creating a story with OCs are invited to reblog and continue the chain. My questions:

What is your greatest regret?

What does happiness look like?

What do YOU think happens when you die?

Thanks!

[pratchettquotes]

Colon didn't reply. I wish Captain Vimes were here, he thought. He wouldn't have known what to do either, but he's got a much better vocabulary to be baffled in.

Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The new globalism is global labor

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

Depending on how you look at it, I either grew up in the periphery of the labor movement, or atop it, or surrounded by it. For a kid, labor issues don't really hold a lot of urgency – in places with mature labor movements, kids don't really have jobs, and the part-time jobs I had as a kid (paper route, cleaning a dance studio) were pretty benign.

Ironically, one of the reasons that labor issues barely registered for me as a kid was that my parents were in great, strong unions: Ontario teachers' unions, which protected teachers from exploitative working conditions and from retaliation when they advocated for their students, striking for better schools as well as better working conditions.

Ontario teachers' unions were strong enough that they could take the lead on workplace organization, to the benefit of teachers at every part of their careers, as well as students and the system as a whole. Back in the early 1980s, Ontario schools faced a demographic crisis. After years of declining enrollment, the number of students entering the system was rapidly increasing.

That meant that each level of the system – primary, junior, secondary – was about to go through a whipsaw, in which low numbers of students would be followed by large numbers. For a unionized education workforce, this presented a crisis: normally, a severe contraction in student numbers would trigger layoffs, on a last-in, first-out basis. That meant that layoffs loomed for junior teachers, who would almost certainly end up retraining for another career. When student numbers picked up again, those teachers wouldn't be in the workforce anymore, and worse, a lot of the senior teachers who got priority during layoffs would be retiring, magnifying the crisis.

The teachers' unions were strong, and they cared about students and teachers, both those at the start of their careers and those who'd given many years of service. They came up with an amazing solution: "self-funded sabbaticals." Teachers with a set number of years of seniority could choose to take four years at 80% salary, and get a fifth year off at 80% salary (actually, they could take their year off any time from the third year on).

This allowed Ontario to increase its workforce by about 20%, for free. Senior teachers got a year off to spend with their families, or on continuing education, or for travel. Junior teachers' jobs were protected. Students coming into the system had adequate classroom staff, in a mix of both senior and junior teachers.

This worked great for everyone, including my family. My parents both took their four-over-five year in 1983/84. They rented out our house for six months, charging enough to cover the mortgage. We flew to London, took a ferry to France, and leased a little sedan. For the next six months, we drove around Europe, visiting fourteen countries while my parents homeschooled us on the long highway stretches and in laundromats. We stayed in youth hostels and took a train to Leningrad to visit my family there. We saw Christmas Midnight Mass at the Vatican and walked around the Parthenon. We saw Guernica at the Prado. We visited a computer lab in Paris and I learned to program Logo in French. We hung out with my parents' teacher pals who were civilian educators at a Canadian Forces Base in Baden-Baden. I bought an amazing hand-carved chess set in Seville with medieval motifs that sung to my D&D playing heart. It was amazing.

No, really, it was amazing. Unions and the social contract they bargained for transformed my family's life chances. My dad came to Canada as a refugee, the son of a teen mother who'd been deeply traumatized by her civil defense service as a child during the Siege of Leningrad. My mother was the eldest child of a man who, at thirteen, had dropped out of school to support his nine brothers and sisters after the death of his father. My parents grew up to not only own a home, but to be able to take their sons on a latter-day version of the Grand Tour that was once the exclusive province of weak-chinned toffs from the uppermost of crusts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour

My parents were active in labor causes and in their unions, of course, but that was just part of their activist lives. My mother was a leader in the fight for legal abortion rights in Canada:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/8882641733

My dad was active in party politics with the New Democratic Party, and both he and my mother were deeply involved with the fight against nuclear arms proliferation, a major issue in Canada, given our role in supplying radioisotopes to the US, building key components for ICBMs, testing cruise missiles over Labrador, and our participation in NORAD.

Abortion rights and nuclear arms proliferation were my own entry into political activism. When I was 13, I organized a large contingent from my school to march on Queen's Park, the seat of the Provincial Parliament, to demand an end to Ontario's active and critical participation in the hastening of global nuclear conflagration:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53616011737/

When I got a little older, I started helping with clinic defense and counterprotests at the Morgentaler Clinic and other sites in Toronto that provided safe access to women's health, including abortions:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/morgentaler-honoured-by-order-of-canada-federal-government-not-involved-1.716775

My teens were a period of deepening involvement in politics. It was hard work, but rewarding and fundamentally hopeful. There, in the shadow of imminent nuclear armageddon, there was a role for me to play, a way to be more than a passive passenger on a runaway train, to participate in the effort to pull the brake lever before we ran over the cliff.

In hindsight, though, I can see that even as my activism intensified, it also got harder. We struggled more to find places to meet, to find phones and computers to use, to find people who could explain how to get a permit for a demonstration or to get legal assistance for comrades in jail after a civil disobedience action.

What I couldn't see at the time was that all of this was provided by organized labor. The labor movement had the halls, the photocopiers, the lawyers, the experience – the infrastructure. Even for campaigns that were directly about labor rights – campaigns for abortion rights, or against nuclear annihilation – the labor movement was the material, tangible base for our activities.

Look, riding a bicycle around all night wheatpasting posters to telephone poles to turn out people for an upcoming demonstration is hard work, but it's much harder if you have to pay for xeroxing at Kinko's rather than getting it for free at the union hall. Worse, the demonstration turnout suffers more because the union phone-trees and newsletters stop bringing out the numbers they once brought out.

This was why the neoliberal project took such savage aim at labor: they understood that a strong labor movement was foundation of antiimperialist, antiracist, antisexist struggles for justice. By dismantling labor, the ruling class kicked the legs out from under all the other fights that mattered.

Every year, it got harder to fight for any kind of better world. We activist kids grew to our twenties and foundered, spending precious hours searching for a room to hold a meeting, leaving us with fewer hours to spend organizing the thing we were meeting for. But gradually, we rebuilt. We started to stand up our own fragile, brittle, nascent structures that stood in for the mature and solid labor foundation that we'd grown up with.

The first time I got an inkling of what was going on came in 1999, with the Battle of Seattle: the mass protests over the WTO. Yes, labor turned out in force for those mass demonstrations, but they weren't its leaders. The militancy, the leadership, and the organization came out of groups that could loosely be called "post-labor" – not in the sense that they no longer believed in labor causes, but in the sense that they were being organized outside of traditional labor.

Labor was in retreat. Five years earlier, organized labor had responded to NAFTA by organizing against Mexican workers, rather than the bosses who wanted to ship jobs to Mexico. It wasn't unusual to see cars in Ontario with CAW bumper stickers alongside xenophobic stickers taking aim at Mexicans, not bosses. Those were the only workers that organized labor saw as competitors for labor rights: this was also the heyday of "two-tier" contracts, which protected benefits for senior workers while leaving their junior comrades exposed to bosses' most sadistic practices, while still expecting junior workers to pay dues to a union that wouldn't protect them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/25/strikesgiving/#shed-a-tier

Two-tier contracts were the opposite of the solidarity that my parents' teachers' union exhibited in the early 1980s; blaming Mexican workers for automakers' offshoring was the opposite of the solidarity that built transracial and international labor power in the early days of the union movement:

https://unionhall.aflcio.org/bloomington-normal-trades-and-labor-assembly/labor-culture/edge-anarchy-first-class-pullman-strike

As labor withered under a sustained, multi-decades-long assault on workers' rights, other movements started to recapitulate the evolution of early labor, shoring up fragile movements that lacked legal protections, weathering setbacks, and building a "progressive" coalition that encompassed numerous issues. And then that movement started to support a new wave of labor organizing, situating labor issues on a continuum of justice questions, from race to gender to predatory college lending.

Young workers from every sector joined ossified unions with corrupt, sellout leaders and helped engineer their ouster, turning these dying old unions into engines of successful labor militancy:

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/07/deconstructed-union-dhl-teamsters-uaw/

In other words, we're in the midst of a reversal of the historic role of labor and other social justice movements. Whereas once labor anchored a large collection of smaller, less unified social movements; today those social movements are helping bring back a weakened and fragmented labor movement.

One of the key organizing questions for today is whether these two movements can continue to co-evolve and, eventually, merge. For example: there can be no successful climate action without climate justice. The least paid workers in America are also the most racially disfavored. The gender pay-gap exists in all labor markets. For labor, integrating social justice questions isn't just morally sound, it's also tactically necessary.

One thing such a fusion can produce is a truly international labor movement. Today, social justice movements are transnational: the successful Irish campaign for abortion rights was closely linked to key abortion rights struggles in Argentina and Poland, and today, abortion rights organizers from all over the world are involved in mailing medication abortion pills to America.

A global labor movement is necessary, and not just to defeat the divide-and-rule tactics of the NAFTA fight. The WTO's legacy is a firmly global capitalism: workers all over the world are fighting the same corporations. The strong unions of one country are threatened by weak labor in other countries where their key corporations seek to shift manufacturing or service delivery. But those same strong unions are able to use their power to help their comrades abroad protect their labor rights, depriving their common adversary of an easily exploited workforce.

A key recent example is Mercedes, part of the Daimler global octopus. Mercedes' home turf is Germany, which boasts some of the strongest autoworker unions in the world. In the USA, Mercedes – like other German auto giants – preferentially manufactures its cars in the South, America's "onshore-offshore" crime havens, where labor laws are both virtually nonexistent and largely unenforced. This allows Mercedes to exploit and endanger a largely Black workforce in a "right to work" territory where unions are nearly impossible to form and sustain.

Mercedes just defeated a hard-fought union drive in Vance, Alabama. In part, this was due to admitted tactical blunders from the UAW, who have recently racked up unprecedented victories in Tennessee and North Carolina:

https://paydayreport.com/uaw-admits-digital-heavy-organizing-committee-light-approach-failed-them-in-alabama-at-mercedes/

But mostly, this was because Mercedes cheated. They flagrantly violated labor law to sabotage the union vote. That's where it gets interesting. German workers have successfully lobbied the German parliament for the Supply Chain Act, an anticorruption law that punishes German companies that violate labor law abroad. That means that even though the UAW just lost their election, they might inflict some serious pain on Mercedes, who face a fine of 2% of their global annual revenue, and a ban on selling cars to the German government:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

This is another way reversal of the post-neoliberal era. Whereas once the US exported its most rapacious corporate practices all over the world, today, global labor stands a chance of exporting workers' rights from weak territories to strong ones.

Here's an American analogy: the US's two most populous states are California and Texas. The policies of these states ripple out over the whole country, and even beyond. When Texas requires textbooks that ban evolution, every pupil in the country is at risk of getting a textbook that embraces Young Earth Creationism. When California enacts strict emission standards, every car in the country gets cleaner tailpipes. The WTO was a Texas-style export: a race to the bottom, all around the world. The moment we're living through now, as global social movements fuse with global labor, are a California-style export, a race to the top.

This is a weird upside to global monopoly capitalism. It's how antitrust regulators all over the world are taking on corporations whose power rivals global superpowers like the USA and China: because they're all fighting the same corporations, they can share tactics and even recycle evidence from one-another's antitrust cases:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/big-tech-eu-drop-dead

Look, the UAW messed up in Alabama. A successful union vote is won before the first ballot is cast. If your ground game isn't strong enough to know the outcome of the vote before the ballot box opens, you need more organizing, not a vote:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

But thanks to global labor – and its enemy, global capitalism – the UAW gets another chance. Global capitalism is rich and powerful, but it has key weaknesses. Its drive to "efficiency" makes it terribly vulnerable, and a disruption anywhere in its supply chain can bring the whole global empire to its knees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/21/eight-and-skate/#strike-to-rule

American workers – especially swing-state workers who swung for Trump and are leaning his way again – overwhelmingly support a pro-labor agenda. They are furious over "price gouging and outrageous corporate profits…wealthy corporate CEOs and billionaires [not] paying what they should in taxes and the top 1% gaming the system":

https://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/_files/ugd/d4d64f_6c3dff0c3da74098b07ed3f086705af2.pdf

They support universal healthcare, and value Medicare and Social Security, and trust the Democrats to manage both better than Republicans will. They support "abortion rights, affordable child care, and even forgiving student loans":

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-20-bidens-working-class-slump/

The problem is that these blue-collar voters are atomized. They no longer meet in union halls – they belong to gun clubs affiliated with the NRA. There are enough people who are a) undecided and b) union members in these swing states to defeat Trump. This is why labor power matters, and why a fusion of American labor and social justice movements matters – and why an international fusion of a labor-social justice coalition is our best hope for a habitable planet and a decent lives for our families.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/20/a-common-foe/#the-multinational-playbook

[aroaceleovaldez]

Something something Jason feeling like he doesn't quite fit as "Greek" or "Roman" as a metaphor for bisexuality, particularly the semi-canonical bi-coding in his half of experiences during the Cupid scene and how Favonius and Cupid speak to him in parallel to the scenes confirming Nico is gay.

Something something the camps as metaphors for traditionally acceptable forms of relationships and Nico living as a rogue outside of them, rejecting expectation (ergo in himself representing a metaphor of queer identity and living outside of boxes and defined/usually hetero-allonormative/binary ideas of what love/relationships should look like) versus Jason struggling with the expectation to conform to a label and even discussing with Nico both of them remaining at CHB together.

Something something the inverse of Jason shifting away from the camps after he breaks up with Piper, feeling lost and unable to find a place between the camps as he begins to explore his queer identity properly for the first time versus Nico only remaining at CHB because he has entered a relationship. In this essay I will-

[hailsatanacab]

Your Favourite Author's Favourite Fic

in no way is this me sneakily trying to get fic recs out of people, but here's my new tag game!

Rules! When tagged, reblog with the fic you've written that you love the most

Not the fic with the most kudos, or the most comments, or the most hits, but the fic that you're the most proud of. I'm talking about the story that kept you up at night, the one that you still think about, the one that you wish more people would read

So, it's time to show off! I strongly encourage - in fact, I demand - that you give yourself some compliments, a well-deserved pat on the back, and tell us all the reasons why it's your favourite!

Then tag five people and make them go through it, too 🥰🩷

I'll tag @wolfjackle, @tourettesdog, @gilbirda, @die-erlkonigin6083, and @thewritingowl to get us started, please and thank you!!

[something-random18]

[hiddenincommand]

The Immutable Order of Males: Ruthless Reflections on Rank and Worth

In this world, hierarchy is not a convenience nor a choice—it is the natural consequence of superiority. Among men, each must accept his place or risk becoming fodder for those with the fortitude to seize command. I observe this order with cold precision, knowing full well that the majority of men lack even the courage to confront their position, let alone rise above it. For them, servitude is a kindness—if not an inevitability. And at the pinnacle of this hierarchy, beyond the reach of lesser beings, stands the Alpha: powerful, commanding, and unassailable.

The Alpha: Supreme and Unyielding

To be Alpha is to rule. Not through feeble words or pretensions, but through an innate and unshakable mastery that commands respect and instills fear. Alphas are rare, as most men lack the will or the strength to embody such dominion. For an Alpha, the world is not a shared experience; it is his domain. He owes nothing to the ranks beneath him and expects nothing in return except compliance and obedience.

An Alpha demands allegiance not through pleas or persuasion but through sheer presence, making his authority felt by his very existence. Others can only hope to obey, for they lack the mettle to challenge his rule. Any man who sees himself as anything less than superior is beneath contempt—worthy only as a servant or a stepping stone, nothing more.

The Beta: Subservient but Useful

Below the Alpha lies the Beta, the only type worthy enough to stand close yet still leagues beneath. Betas are strong but submissive, loyal without question, and capable of supporting the Alpha’s vision without the misguided ambition to surpass him. They are useful but docile, understanding their place with a primitive instinct. They are wolves, perhaps, but they are wolves on a leash—tameable, bendable, and subject to the Alpha’s will.

A Beta can stand proud within his limitations, for he knows he serves a higher command. His usefulness lies solely in his obedience and reliability, traits which the Alpha values solely as tools. A Beta who oversteps, however, is swiftly reduced to insignificance, a disposable reminder that loyalty is his sole virtue.

The Gamma: Disposable Mediocrity

Gammas occupy the expendable middle ranks, a sea of average men who lack both the fortitude to rise and the decency to remain silent. They are men of tedious labor, devoid of any distinguishing mark save their inability to command. They serve their purpose well enough, but they are inconsequential—grist for the mill, nothing more. A Gamma is little more than a shadow cast by the Alpha’s light, destined to linger in mediocrity, his presence tolerated only because it is unthreatening.

The Gamma’s fate is to be ignored, perhaps pitied, but never respected. He will neither inspire nor offend; he simply exists. A Gamma’s attempts at significance are laughable, a spectacle for the stronger to watch with detached amusement as he flounders in his own delusions.

The Delta: The Common, the Insignificant

Deltas populate the bottom rung of tolerable existence, the masses who neither think nor strive but exist only to follow. They are the faceless, the uninspired, the sheep content to graze in docile herds under the shadow of true men. Deltas are marked by their passive natures, their lack of ambition, and their abject failure to inspire even the faintest spark of admiration.

They serve not by choice but by nature, their lives ruled by routine and predictability. Their presence is barely worth acknowledging, and their actions serve only to support the infrastructure of the world that their betters command. The Delta’s fate is a dull, compliant existence, punctuated by mediocrity, entirely forgettable.

The Omega: The Despised and Contemptible

At the very bottom lies the Omega—a pathetic creature deserving only of disdain. He is neither strong enough to follow nor capable enough to contribute. An Omega exists as a monument to human failure, the inevitable result of weakness, cowardice, and a complete lack of discipline. His very existence is an affront to the hierarchy, a blight upon the natural order.

An Omega’s life serves one purpose: to remind others of the cost of failure. He is to be despised, scorned, and, if necessary, erased from memory. His struggles are not worth acknowledgment, for he contributes nothing, takes nothing, and is, in essence, nothing. To him, life is a bleak, humiliating experience where he exists solely as a lesson in disgrace.

A Final Note on Worth and Existence

In this hierarchy, men find their purpose. Not all are meant to command; most exist only to serve, to be led, and, at times, to be swept aside by those with the strength to dominate. The hierarchy is not a choice, and it does not change based on the whimsy of the masses. It is the unbreakable structure that defines worth, that separates the strong from the weak, and the worthy from the worthless.

True men do not pity those below, nor do they feign humility. Instead, they accept their power with grace, demanding respect and obedience as naturally as one draws breath. It is not cruelty but clarity that I offer. For in this hierarchy, each man finds his role, and those too weak to embrace it are best left to wallow in their insignificance, forgotten and utterly unworthy of recognition.

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.

[theeccentricraven]

The 9th Day of Writemas ☃️🔔🎶

Thanks again to @agirlandherquill for this brilliant tag game/writing prompt/writing challenge! Writemas as made my December brighter😇 For anyone who wants to know the rules or wants to join, the invitation post explains it all!

For the Day 9 prompt I chose a ballroom. I needed to do this one because luck would have it, Draft 1 of The Blood Cleaners has a ballroom scene! I needed to rewrite it because it was way too short. I got my creative juices going and made this!

Justin followed Clarice’s instructions and found the ballroom on the tenth floor. The room was twice as spacious as the ballrooms of the tunnels, decorated with glitter wallpaper and stone columns (courtesy of the limestone quarries) carved with reliefs of flowers and insects. The room was full of teenage boys wearing suits like their fathers and girls dressed in silk dresses. Justin supposed they saw him as an oddball there in his cerulean and black Steel blood cleaner uniform. He also sensed Clarice didn’t care with the way she held his hands and took him as her partner when the youth paired up.  The two dance teachers were a tall, slender woman with sparkly green eyes and a taller, slimmer man with dark eyes and a black ponytail. The woman, Cheryl, wore a black rayon dress while the man, Edward, wore a black leotard. “And now,” Cheryl announced. “A dance from before the Last War, known as the tango.”  The instructors demonstrated how the male stepped forward while the female stepped back. Justin held Clarice’s left hand high, his right hand on her back, her right hand on his back. The ceiling stereos played accordion music. Justin took two slow steps forward. Clarice stepped back parallel to his steps. He took a quick step forward. She took a quick step back. He stared into her blue eyes. She stared back at him, her face turning pink. They turned another angle, swinging 180 degrees. Justin took two slow steps forward. Clarice, took two slow steps backward, wobbling her head as her cheeks turned red. “You’re doing okay,” Justin assured her. “Your moves…you’ve got the moves!” “Oh, I’m not worried about that,” Clarice said brightly. “You’re the one who’s sweating.” “Get out of here, I’m not!” Clarice snickered. They took a quick step, a slow step, and turned another angle. “Hey, Clar!” said one suited young man as he and his partner swung nearby.  “Hey, Brad!” Clarice said. “Is he a friend of yours?” Justin asked. Clarice nodded. The color left her face.  They repeated the steps, going two steps forward, a quick step, a slow step, and then turning another angle. “If you don’t mind my asking,” Justin whispered. “Why couldn’t you ask one of your friends to be your partner?” Clarice looked around as if to check that no one was close enough to listen. “There weren’t enough boys and well…none of their parents would have allowed it.” “Wait, none of the boys would have danced with you because their parents didn’t allow it?” “You said it.” “Really? Why?” Clarice pressed her palm tighter against Justin’s back. “Because our parents make us go to these mandatory dance lessons partly as a courtship opportunity. Meet our future spouses.” She tightened her lips. “I don’t follow,” said Justin.  Clarice shook her head. “Their parents would never let me be a potential future wife.” Justin widened his eyes. “Wait, so they don’t let you talk with your friends. They don’t let you dance with boys. All because you struggle to read?” She coughed. “All because I can’t read, as they would say.” As if the Fists didn’t suck enough, this was how they treated their children.  “Your parents are pendejos.” Clarice beamed. “I wish I could say that. They’d let you get away with it because you're a blood cleaner.” “I’m not as lucky, but…when you aren’t doing something like this, don’t you get to hang out with your friends?” “Oh, yeah. We spend what time we can together when our parents can’t catch us. Those moments are so rare, we need to find just the right moment when they’re distracted for a few hours.” “So you have your friends,” Justin hoped to assure her. “Your support group. And they must care for you more than your parents.” Clarice shrugged. “I still worry I’m not good enough for them.” Justin snorted. “Not good enough?” Her blue eyes, scarlet lipstick coated lips, and rosy cheeks tantalized him. “I mean, how can a guy say no to a beautiful girl like you?” Clarice’s face lit up just as she missed taking a step back. Justin’s foot stepped into hers. She fell back as he fell forward.  “Ow!” The ballroom erupted in laughter. 

Tagging writer mutuals ⛄🤶🧝👼🕯️🌟🍒🦌🛷💚🤍❤️🎄❄️🎅

@sunflowerrosy @furrywrit3r @wyked-ao3 @selenekallanwriter @drchenquill

@revenantlore @whatwewrotepodcast @jay-avian @constellationandcompendium @olivescales3

@ryns-ramblings @primroseprime2019 @illarian-rambling @kaylinalexanderbooks @kitty-is-writing

@kitkins13 @buffythevampirelover @willtheweaver @poethill @acmartin

@apolline-lucy @elizaellwrites @gioiaalbanoart @orphanheirs @pluppsauthor

@cowboybrunch @leahnardo-da-veggie @dandelion-jester @aalinaaaaaa @faeriecinna

@brynwrites @somethingclevermahogony @rickie-the-storyteller @raevenlywrites @winterandwords

@happypup-kitcat24 @the-golden-comet @ddgraywrites @autism-purgatory @mxxnwishes

@tildeathiwillwrite @screamingatanemptyroom @kbwritesstuff @spookyceph @pluto-murphy-writes

@talesofsorrowandofruin @kaylark @sleepywriter00 @americanfemcel @fairy-tales-of-yesterday

@inkednotebook @the-letterbox-archives @laureleavess @simonnebethel @forthesanityofsome

@melpomene-grey @creatrackers @stephtuckerauthor @ad-wills @theink-stainedfolk

@g0ttest0d @infinnative @little-peril-stories @lyneidas @late-to-the-fandom

and OPEN

[spacehero-23]

I know I always shit on Grace because of the SA scenes. But can talk about Cassandra Clare being a little FREAK for actually writing them?

Because those scenes have NO reason for existing. Why is Grace kissing James if he's already under her control? And we have to read not one, but THREE separate scenes of him being SAed? For what? What was the reason Cassie?

And the Matthew one!? She has Grace force him to kiss her, threaten to tell people that HE was the one who SA her! And then she makes him forget and it's never mentioned again. So it's not like it was important to the plot. Clare was just a freak who decided to include FOUR SA scenes in her YA series, apparently for shits and giggles!

At least when Sebastian did it in TMI it was obvious that we're meant hate him for it, and be disgusted. At least in those books it was treated with some respect. But in TLH? She gives the person who did it a redemption arc and doesn't even have the balls to write a proper confrontation or an apology.

I have A LOT of issues with Cassie but this one takes the cake.

[thecoolertails]

wow chain gang all-stars really just ends like that. i knew it was going to happen but it's the abruptness and the lack of follow up or closure that really gets me. the thing you knew would happen happens and then it's over and you're left with it so the feeling has to just sit there and fester. many of adjei-brenyahs short stories from friday black ended in a similar fashion so i don't know why id expect differently, because really what else is there to say. i feel hollow and angry and mournful and something else i don't have a word for. 10/10 amazing book instant favorite. i need to stare at a wall for 5 hours.

[blanceyblance]

The fighting abilities of the Rise turtles in crossovers ranges from "literal forces of nature" to "barely able to defeat one injured turtle"

[roselyn-writing]

It is MALE OC DAY! (Kidding, I made that up) but the point is, show love and care to your boys/men OCs! ✨✨. I find this gorgeous picrew btw, from left to right (Jaroud, Arouj, Raqoul, Donovan, Hadi, Ardin, and lastly Derek)

Non-pressured tags: @mollyb9 @melissalix @mitsuko-saito @darialovesstuff @zoetheneko @llightssshadow @lorabeyc @noelle9 @florafoom @alexapenz @lisadelise @kyd35 @subzero-simp @bluebird-in-a-cagedrawing @monapome @musa-fairy @liliana-vessina @oak-girl @jellys-girl @lulu-mooo @meikerio and you!

[art-portraits]

Portrait of Sir Thomas More

Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger (German, 1497/1498–1543)

Genre: Portrait

Date: 1527

Medium: Oil on Oak Panel

Collection: The Frick Collection, New York City, NY, United States

Portrait of Sir Thomas More

The portrait shows the English statesman and humanist Thomas More in three-quarter right half-profile, holding a book, in a fur-lined coat of rich fabrics, black satin, and red velvet. He wearing his Tudor Collar of Esses livery chain with Tudor rose, a sign of fealty and high office. A cord in the upper right is tied in a loose Franciscan knot, a sign of More's spiritual convictions. He is wearing a wedding ring inset with a stone.

The work was created during the period from 1526 when Holbein lived in London. He gained the friendship of the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, who recommended that he befriend More, then a powerful, knighted speaker at the English Parliament.

A closely related, though probably not directly preparatory, drawing with body colour is in the Royal Collection, and there is a copy in the National Portrait Gallery, probably "painted in Italy or Austria in the early seventeenth century". Possibly this is the version catalogued in the Leuchtenberg Gallery in 1852.

[kitsunabi]

*hires me for my ability to work outside of ‘typical’ work hours*

*proceeds to grill my clients about why they’re class times are week ends and or late nights*

Tbh this is up there with:

*dor sets my rate + travel svc + mileage*

*dor complains that I’m too expensive to hire bc mileage*