#but is it because his lack of knowledge makes it factually impossible

[kiyomitakada]

if light yagami were alive in 2024 i don't think he would kill trump but i do think he would be tempted to

[laurenpomfrett-ardn632-2024]

Week 1 - A brief history of photography and the truth of an image - Part 1

The article 'A brief history of photography and truth' recalls the history of the photographic medium, from its agreed upon invention in 1839, and its development during the 19th century. It begins with Daguerre’s Boulevard du Temple (c.1838) as being credited as the first photograph with people. However, due to the seven minute long exposure, the high traffic of the bustling boulevard could not be captured. The article then questions if this is a truthful, realistic image. In my opinion, I would agree that the photograph was realistic, as its complications were due to the limitations of the technology of the time but would also agree that it did not truely 'capture' the scene.

Photography developed to using an albumen print combined with the wet collodion negatives (invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer) which created sharp brown toned images in seconds. However, they had a lack of sensitivity to blue light, meaning the sky and sea could not be accurately captured. Photographers instead, used methods such as compiling photographs and or painting scenes that could not be captured. Personally, I think that compiling photographs with different exposures would be more accurate than painting scenes, because that could be up to the interpretation of the artist which could be inaccurate if a documentary-based photo was the goal. However, if the photo was for 'artistic value', then painting allows the photo to feel alive and true to what our eyes see.

Valley of the Shadow of Death by Roger Fenton, taken in 1855, is a famous photo that depicted numerous cannon balls in a valley. This was showcased to communicate the sense of the cannon fire and danger of war to faraway readers. However, we have since learned that Fenton and his assistant Marcus Sparling rolled cannon balls into the valley. I think that this crosses an ethical line, because with tampering with the scene, it creates a different message that aimed to input fear and distress into viewers. This was deemed one of the first photographs of war, and so would have been seen as truth by people, without any knowledge of the tampering.

Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, in 1857, wrote a widely distributed essay, simply entitled Photography that stated that photographs were created through the action of the sun and were thus objective, mechanical creations without subjective, artistic value. She surmised that photography was better suited to producing ‘cheap, prompt and correct facts’. I highly disagree with this claim, as photography is a diverse medium with many interests as opposed to just journalism or documentary. I appreciate that photographers of her time thought of themselves as artists who aligned with popular artistic themes and narratives.

In the early years of photography, the human eye perceived more than a camera could. During the mid-nineteenth century, the camera began to capture more, things previously considered impossible to the human eye. In the 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge created a series of images of a horse galloping. I would agree that the camera 'seeing' more than the human eye still makes it truthful, as it purely opens up a much wider viewpoint that we can appreciate.

In 1854, Carte-de-visite, by André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, offered quick and cheap portrait photographs. In 1861, over 300 million cartes were sold in England alone. Cartes were used to take photos, which could be sent to loved ones, and put the sitter in charge of the artistry, which was a dynamic change. As an example, some people would pretend to row boats on dangerous waters. This use of the medium became a performance and has been compared to our modern day social media. However, this included faked and staged racist imagery of criminality, idleness and savageness, most commonly depicting those from African backgrounds. I like that some people were creative with their photographs and created fun and lighthearted photos with no ill-intention. However, when it gets pushed too far and it becomes a way to spread hate, that is not taking the proper responsibility as an artist.

Additionally, photographs of Aboriginal people were mostly created under exploitation, and presented them as 'passive, exotic people, frozen in time and disengaged with the changed world around them.' They encouraged the ideas of European supremacy and the control over Aboriginal people. I find this knowledge disturbing, that these people were being forced to be mocked and put down as being 'inferior' purely for not being aligned with the European way. I find that upsetting as no human being should be ridiculed and used against their will to spread an idea that they do not believe in.

Finally, the growing interest in portrait photography during the nineteenth century, combined with the lack of knowledge, provided many opportunities for fraud and exploitation. Spirit photography, most famously practiced by William H. Mumler (1832-84), lead people to believe that they could reconnected with deceased loved ones. He would use the double exposure technique to create the appearance of another human to portraits. He was tried for fraud in 1869 and was unable to rekindle his business. I do not like photographers like Mumler who clearly know that what they are doing is misleading, and is using the grief of others for his own profit. That act is morally wrong and takes advantage of vulnerable people.

Relate the article to at least one example from your personal experience (for example, where you have encountered a faked or manipulated photograph). 

The first example that came to mind would be the 'fish enlarging' trick which involves hiding the hand, pushing the fish out to fill the frame and using a wide angled lens in order to make the catch look bigger than it actually is. This is most common on social media and is used to make someone's fishing abilities look better. This is a relatively harmless trick, but shows how small adjustments can change our perception of the truth and influence how we interpret someone.

[2percentsugar]

@dougielombax Sure! Sorry this got long -- it ended up being the conclusion as I wish it existed in the video.

So like, throughout the essay, hbomberguy regularly says that he feels bad for the fans of the plagiarists he's covering. And the ultimate fault certainly lies first with the plagiarists themselves, but...

As he says, it's not impossible to notice that this stuff is plagiarized. Somerton's stuff may have been harder to catch, sure, but it's blatantly obvious that illuminaughti's stuff is content mill drivel.

A better conclusion to Plagiarism and You(Tube) would have exhorted the viewers to start paying attention to certain warning signs for plagiarism, like:

Not citing sources

Stilted language

Impossibly fast video releases

A lack of knowledge about the subject, or alternately, covering so many topics it's impossible that the creator knows much about any of them

He even makes (most) of these points individually! But the conclusion is just, like, telling people to go watch certain creators, which is great, but does nothing to address the fundamental issue. That is, our current media ecosystem incentivizes plagiarism through a series of endless scrolling and low-effort engagement bait.

I think hbomberguy falls short of making this point because it would imply that, on some level, plagiarism is the fault of the audience. But, like -- isn't it?

By the time hbomberguy called out Somerton with this video, he was making thousands of dollars a month from people who didn't factcheck some pretty basic claims, like "what else on the subject have you read" or "I'm the only gay youtuber making media analysis."

If someone is making a long video about something, they read other peoples' work to do it! And yet the fact that he rarely or never quoted other people didn't seem weird to the many, many people giving him money. They didn't evaluate his work with their own brains before donating, they just believed what they were being told.

It's not nice to say, but the only way to make sure you don't get scammed is to learn the trademarks of scams. And plagiarism is certainly a scam -- and worse, one that tends to pollute the entire rest of the media ecosystem with mis/disinformation. (This is also pointed out several times in the video.)

(I say "scam" because, even if everyone was perfectly media literate, these things would still happen. That's why the ultimate blame lies with the plagiarist themself, who uses social engineering to get away with it. But still. It could happen a lot less.)

The algorithm does not exist ex nihilo. It's built around human behavior, and wants to incentivize you to do certain things, like watching as much YouTube as possible, never going offsite even to Google simple factual claims. The longer you're entranced, the more profit.

So, like -- for your own sake and for the sake of the media ecosystem, you should change how you interact with content. Don't treat it as infinite slop, because it comes from somewhere. Where does it come from? What is it trying to tell you?

These are not idle questions, and in many cases, the answers are upsetting. If you want to avoid being the Patreon fan of the next James Somerton, you can't do that by simply cleaving to the recommendations of whoever is doing The Correctest Think. That's just another form of media illiteracy.

when i first watched the hbomberguy plagarism video i was like, so certain he was building to a conclusion abt how uncritical consumption of online content can lead to supporting plagiarists and scammers, and so we as individuals should try to vet new creators we come across and. No that wasnt his point at all. BUT IT REALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN?

[serpent-of-the-silver-plumes]

would you mind talking more about bart and unreliable narration? I always hear people say unreliable narration but I've never seen any concrete examples from media I actually consume so I'd love your thoughts

Oh absolutely!! I actually wrote a thing about this a while back but then went 'this is not well written' and it got buried in my drafts, so I’m glad to have an excuse to pull that up and rewrite it. (Also sorry, this got really long.)

Basically, at one point I was listening to a podcast (Be the Serpent, ep 4), and they categorize different kinds of unreliable narrators into three types: the narrator who knows they are lying to you, the narrator who is lying to themself (and therefore you), and the narrator who is lying because they are missing some key information. I would argue that the three main pov characters of the Bartimaeus Trilogy each represent a different type of these unreliable narrators.

Going in backwards order, Kitty is the narrator who lies because she is missing some key information, at least until the third book. As a commoner, even one who is part of a resistance movement, her knowledge of magic is extremely limited and biased. Were we to go off of her point of view alone, we would get an inaccurate view of this world and the power dynamics that exist within it: that magicians are somehow special in holding magic and that they have evil demons who work alongside them in shared mischief/hunger for power/whatever.

However, because the books include other points of view, the full impact of that unreliability is not realized.

Similarly, Nathaniel lies to himself, especially in the later books. He ignores how much he personally contributes to upholding a system that depends on the oppression and slavery of other sentient beings, and squashes down the last traces of his moral compass. I don’t think he ever really questions the system of government or if it should be there and work the way it does.

To some extent, we do see through his unreliability as well, because Bartimaeus is around to keep a check on him and tell the reader that no, the magicians and their imperialism are bad, that spirits have very good reason to hate humans, and give us other world building details that contradict what Nathaniel believes.

But some of it is about what is going on inside Nathaniel’s own head, so there is also a lot that can’t be fully seen by an outside perspective that has to be assumed by the reader. Like he will deny the sentimental feelings he has towards Ms. Underwood and the guilt he had over Kitty’s supposed death and the fact that he even remotely cares about Bartimaeus, but actions speak louder than words.

Because both of these characters’ unreliability stem from a lack of understanding, having other perspectives in the book in some ways cancels out their unreliability, and actually ties their unreliability more to their character development than as a plot/narration device. Kitty grows more reliable throughout the series while Nathaniel gets less so until the end. This doesn’t make that unreliability useless though, especially in a series aimed for children. By getting each character’s point of view, we can see where they are coming from and how the knowledge and views they have affect the way they act, but there is also someone else to point out how they are wrong, to make you question how true what each individual says is.

Bartimaeus is entirely different from the first two characters. His narration is told in first person, unlike Nathaniel and Kitty’s third person. He talks directly to the reader and goes off on tangential footnotes that are not necessarily part of the events currently happening in the story. Because of this narration style, he also has the power to lie more directly to the reader than any of the other characters.

Given his life, it is understandable how he has gotten into the habit of lying. Every moment of his existence on Earth is spent under the power of someone else, so he lies in order to protect himself. There are some instances where he lies to his masters in order to escape punishment or to lead them into danger so he can be set free, but he also lies about his feelings because he cannot afford to be emotionally vulnerable.

For the most part, I think it can be assumed that the dialogue and most actions that happen in his pov chapters are told as they are, since much of that lines up with what goes on in the other characters’ perspectives, and also there are at least a few things that show him in a less-than-flattering light that he would probably leave out or change if he could. Instead, the lies he tells are largely about his past and his emotions, often done through exaggeration or omission, and cannot be collaborated by others.

When lying about his past, Bartimaeus frequently exaggerates his prestige and role in history. In Ptolemy’s Gate, Bartimaeus says that he talked to King Solomon about Faquarl’s tendency to brag about his historical importance. Even beyond the obvious irony, in the prequel we see Bartimaeus’s time at Solomon’s court, and while it isn’t technically impossible for him to have talked to Solomon about Faquarl, the timing and circumstances make it extremely unlikely. Although his other stories cannot be proven or disproven with what we know, this instance and his general tendency to brag outrageously makes it very likely that Bartimaeus at the very least embellishes.

However, despite being super showy about his past, Bartimaeus doesn’t actually include much important information. He very rarely talks about his great feats as a thief or assassin or anything else. When he lists his accomplishments, he describes building walls and talking to important historical figures. There’s a post somewhere (if I find it, I’ll link it) that explains this as being a way for Bartimaeus to try to take control of his reputation and therefore his life; by associating with safer jobs, he is less likely to be summoned for very dangerous and morally reprehensible jobs.

He does generally try to portray himself as clever and collected and just generally more cool than he actually is. There’s a moment at the end of the first book where he describes himself as trying to calm Nathaniel who is freaking out, and then the next chapter is from Nathaniel’s pov which describes him as being the calmer one while Bartimaeus is a fly anxiously buzzing around.

I don’t remember the exact line, but in the second book there’s an exchange that goes something like this:

“____” I said calmly.

“Stop your whimpering,” Kitty said.

The way Bartimaeus portrays himself is straight up contradicted by the more factual account of the words and actions of someone else. And presumably there are plenty of other times that we do not see contradictory evidence where Bartimaeus straight up lies about how he is reacting to something.

But one of Bartimaeus’s most unreliable points centers around humans. Throughout the books, he constantly talks about the ways he has killed and would like to kill his masters, if given the opportunity. Nathaniel is an exception, one that Bartimaeus does admit to the reader, but even in the third book when he talks the most about how he would kill Nathaniel or even join a demon rebellion if Faquarl offered right then and there, Bartimaeus does not actually follow through on these threats when he gets the chance. Despite all of his talk about how much he hates humans, Bartimaeus has as much of a positive relationship he can have with as many humans possible, given the circumstances.

A lot of his unreliability centers around Ptolemy, which is what some of Bartimaeus’s biggest lies of omission are about. In the first book, we do get the sense that Bartimaeus has a soft spot for at least some humans. His excuses of saving and looking after Nathaniel in order to avoid Indefinite Confinement, while likely not entirely false, do fall a bit flat. We even get a mention of “a boy I had known once before, someone I had loved.” Although this is not explicitly connected to Ptolemy at this point, mentions of brown skin and the Nile make a pretty obvious connection to Ptolemy, especially as Bartimaeus describes taking on Ptolemy’s form several times later on. There is a less obvious hint too, “I sat on the ground, cross-legged, the way Ptolemy used to do.” Even without knowing much about what kind of relationship Bartimaeus had with Ptolemy, that kind of detail shows ‘a devotion to detail that could only come with genuine affection, or perhaps even love.’

It isn’t until the third book until we learn anything substantial about his relationship with Ptolemy, and even then he doesn’t tell the whole story. The fandom jokes about how Bartimaeus just casually mentions in a foot note that he prefers a lioness form because the manes are annoying, and it’s not until the flashback that you find out that the mane is part of what got Ptolemy killed. And even with the flashbacks, you still never see the time that Ptolemy visited the Other Place.

There are a lot of posts on this site that talk about how Bartimaeus absolutely was idealizing Ptolemy, and how there’s some evidence that he isn’t the perfectly sweet never-did-anything-wrong innocent child that Bartimaeus describes him as (notably that part where he was vaguely annoyed that people kept coming to him to ask for help and interrupted his research). Not that Ptolemy secretly sucks or anything, but it’s really easy to let nostalgia skip over the less dramatic details of Ptolemy being an actual human being with flaws.

In summary, I would argue that all of the trilogy protagonists are unreliable narrators to varying extents, and Jonathan Stroud is a genius for how he manages to make it all work.

[phcking-detective]

FOUND

Find Familiar: ch 1

Rating: E

Summary: Nines cast the spell Find Familiar, but instead of an animal, they accidentally summoned a werewolf. Gavin is just happy to have finally found his mate and start pack bonding with the half-elf wizard. His best idea for a fun bonding activity? Touching his dick of course!

***

Gavin wakes up with a warm, breathing body pressed against his own, and it's all he ever wanted.

Then reality seeps in like cold rain and he realizes it's just the one person, not a dog pile, because he doesn't have a pack. Only a wizard who maybe sort of magically owns him now.

So that's a great start to the morning.

He gets a stew started like he promised, once he finds some potatoes and carrots, one lonely haunch of meat in an icebox, and no spices beyond salt. There aren't many places to look, since the whole room is five, maybe six hundred square feet.

Gods. Gavin's a lone wolf living half-feral without a tent or even a fire half the time, and he still thinks this is pathetic.

He knows better than to touch any of the books scattered around—fucking wizards—so he doesn't try to clean anything while he waits for his new … boss? Alpha?? person, to wake up.

(He does risk moving a stack of papers to sit in front of the black leather collar on the desk. Not hidden. Just. Out of sight.)

"No celery?" the wizard asks.

Gavin bites down on a flinch and a few choice swears. Sweet Selûne shift him. Who the fuck goes from asleep to awake completely silent like that?

"No," he growls.

Nines blinks themself more awake. "Is your negative an agreement to my question or simply a negative?"

"Baby, I have no idea what the fuck you mean, but there's not any celery."

"Oh. Thank you."

The conversation ends there when he dishes out a bowl of stew, that Nines eats at their desk, one agonizingly slow bite at a time, almost as an afterthought as they work on creating papers and papers of writing.

Since the wizard is so absorbed in their scribbles they can barely notice food, Gavin strips down and takes a bath. The water runs hot straight out of the faucet, even without any signs of pipes. Sinking into a whole tub of it feels goddamn luxurious.

He's half-shifted before he even realizes, but Nines probably wouldn't notice he got out and swung his dick around like a propeller, so he doesn't force himself back. His hybrid form always feels better anyway, the best of both animals, with human hands and wolf senses, still able to stand and walk upright but with stronger muscles and thicker protective body hair.

He's still sunk down and amusing himself by blowing bubbles in the water with his near-snout when Nines finally surfaces for air on their own side of the tower.

"Gav—oh."

They turn around and blink at him. Gavin hunkers down lower in the water and prepares to force himself back, but even without actively poking the bond, he can tell there isn't any fear or revulsion from the wizard. He still pulls his snout of out the water and scents the air just to check, but … nothing.

"Good. Yes. Feel free to utilize any of the …" Nines pauses, stuck on the words. "Accommodations. Can you read?"

It's probably a fair question—especially since the answer is barely—but Gavin still hauls himself out of the bathtub and onto the sand pit so Nines will have to look at him. All the scars, the body hair almost thick enough to be a pelt, the way his bone structure is clearly halfway between one form and the other right now.

But instead of making the wizard flinch away and stop asking questions, Nines just grabs a different notebook and begins sketching him.

"Why?" Gavin growls out.

He can still speak, but just like his amount of literacy, the amount is barely. With lots of effort.

"Hmm?"

Nines looks up. Sort of. They lift their head at least, but their eyes stay focused down on their notebook, reluctantly dragged up at the very last second.

"Mm? Oh. Yes, here is your contract," they say.

They place the small stack of papers they'd written onto the dining table in the center of the room, then the two of them meet in the middle, each awkwardly taking a seat across from each other at the table, then staring at each other even more awkwardly.

"That is my brother's seat," Nines says.

Gavin raises an eyebrow but doesn't move his ass out of it. At least he put pants on before sitting down.

"I have never had another visitor," the wizard continues. "So. That has always been …"

They trail off, then grab their notebook and begin reading from it.

"My name is Nines. I am a wizard. I am thirty-two year half-elf. I do not have a gender. I use they-them pronouns. Pause for—"

They stop abruptly and look back up at him.

"… Gavin," he says. "I'm a fighter, thirty-six, werewolf. Born, not turned, so we don't really keep track of any races. You're either a wolf or you're not. Probably human though. Uh, he-him."

If they don't bother with human binary genders, maybe they'd understand just … switching genders? He thinks about it while Nines writes down what he'd said, like anything he says is actually important enough to be recorded.

Maybe he should let them get a little more attached to him before he tells them about the other crazy, evil wizard with a claim on him—and all the transformations they'd done on his body.

"Does your entire pack consist of born lycanthropes?" they ask, drawing him back into the conversation.

"Can just say wolves," Gavin grumbles. "And yeah. Haven't taken in a stray for a while."

No one does. That's why he's still—ugh, stop it. Fucking feeling sorry for himself.

"Is there a significant cultural difference between born and turned … wolves?"

Gavin stares at the wizard. Significant cultural difference, Selûne shift and collar him.

"Turned wolves don't have a pack," he finally says. "No one to share the mental load—most of the poor fuckers don't even know what's happening until they're already shifted and scared and starving. They've got just enough instinct to go back home, and then the screaming and running starts …"

He assumes he doesn't have to finish it from there. A hungry wolf sees something run, and they think prey, not child.

"I apologize if I ask simple questions," Nines states while still writing. "But I have never had the opportunity to meet a wolf in person, and so my knowledge is likely biased and incorrect. Is a coastal environment a suitable habitat for you?"

Gavin shrugs. "Sure. You gonna let me run around outside at some point?"

"Yes, of course. You may come and go as you please," Nines says. "How much land will your pack need? I do own the surrounding—"

His pack? Gavin stares at Nines as they ramble on about this land they own and how it's too rocky to support farming but has access to a cove, and the ensuing treaty with the local pod of merfolk, and—

And his pack. He has no idea what game the wizard is playing, but he never imagined it would include letting him "come and go as you please" and providing land for his—

"I don't have a pack," he blurts out.

Nines stops and blinks at him.

"Got kicked out."

He doesn't explain. It's impossible to explain just one thing, because it's all tangled together, in his mind, the words stuck in his throat. Refusing his pack's Alpha, bargaining to have his body changed and transformed, his womb scooped out so he could never be bred, never ever—

And where exactly that got him. They sit together in silence for a long, horrible moment.

"No one has need of a ninth child," Nines finally says.

"You really call yourself that?" Gavin asks in return, for lack of anything less dick-ish to say.

"Yes." Nines looks at him without any self-pity and factually adds, "It states all that most need to know. They do not need me, and I do not need them."

Gavin nods. "Fuck 'em."

"Yes. Well. I—" Nines stops and abruptly pushes the small pile of paperwork closer to his side of the table. "Here is your contract. It details what I … do need. And, expectations. I suppose the fifth clause is no longer necessary, unless you intend to create your own."

"My own … pack?" Gavin asks slowly.

"Yes."

He snorts. "I'm not going to run around and start turning people."

"Yes, that is included in the clause," Nines says. "Subsection A. Not to offend, but I thought it best to lay out a certain number of precautions first. B notes that you will be beholden to all the same laws as any other citizen, and C states you will make adequate arrangements for the full moon with myself or Knight Commander Anderson."

Gavin pulls a face at the rank. That shit's almost definitely a paladin. No sense of humor, holier than thou, and allergic to critical thinking. Just because you pledged allegiance to a deity society deemed "Good" doesn't actually mean literally everything you do is always going to be right or kind or morally just.

"He is also a lycan—" Nines stops and corrects, "A turned wolf, you called it? If expecting the two of you to … have commonalities … is unreasonable, then the subsection can be adjusted accordingly. The point is merely that you arrange for a safe and secure location each month."

"Yeah, we're not going to sniff each other's butts and be best friends," Gavin tells him. "It's probably how you feel about sorcerers and warlocks. Magic just looks like magic to me, but—yeah."

He stops when he sees Nines's face collapse into itself in the purest form of affronted disgust he's ever seen. This time, he can't stop a chuckle before it slips out.

"I can just stay here though?" he asks.

Nines unfurls their face enough to nod. "Yes. My power may be my own, achieved through my own studies, but I was sent to the same monastery as my twin. I acknowledge you have been sent by my patron deity, and I will fulfill my responsibilities to you thusly."

Gavin's eyebrows shoot up. "You're religious?"

"I worship Selûne," Nines answers.

Gavin stares at the wizard.

"Children born under the full moon often have enhanced magical ability," they explain. "She is also the goddess of navigation, quests, and all who work by night. It was the battle with her own twin that caused the formation of Mystral, the goddess of all magic. Many arcane users still worship her as such."

"And werewolves," Gavin says as how this shit all happened clicks into place.

"Your duties outlined in the contract." Nines stops and clears their throat. "Every power has a price, and mine was enacted at my birth. I have always needed certain accommodations. I realize now a mere animal would not be enough to serve as my familiar, yet a person has never been summoned before. A familiar that is both animal and person, however …"

Gavin nods at the stack of papers. "So am I your familiar or your employee?"

"Well, both," Nines answers. "You are magically bound to me, but you obviously are not a simple animal. I have made adjustments due to these extenuating circumstances, but this is a standard contract for all minions, assistants, and others employed by wizards."

He snorts. "Do I have a union?"

"Yes, subsection E, although you will need to opt-in," Nines replies, very sincerely.

Gavin taps the top paper to make a point when he asks his next question, and the paper suddenly yells the word "HEREFORE" at him.

"Oh, my apologies." Nines takes the stack from him and scribbles a few marks in the top corner. "There, the volume should be properly adjusted."

Gavin cautiously slides the papers back over, being careful to only touch the sides of the stack. He takes the first page off the top and pokes his name, one of the few words he recognizes.

"Gavin," the paper announces.

"I have paperwork I must complete to officially register you as both my familiar and my new minion," Nines tells him. "I trust you can be left to your own devices to review our contract?"

"Yeah," Gavin says.

"Very good."

Nines gets up and returns to their desk. Still no collar, only … this contract. Gavin runs his finger along the first line.

"The entity known as Gavin, herefore referred to as THE FAMILIAR, will enter into a magically binding contract with Nines, herefore referred to as THE WIZARD, to serve in the capacities of both a FAMILIAR and a MINION, as outlined by the Wizard Coalition of …"

***

Gavin nuzzles into his bed and groans. Three days of barely stopping to hunt and sleep to get here, and now it's been another three days of slowly figuring each other out.

Which hasn't been bad or anything. He got to run around outside, do a few laps around the borders of Nines's land. Cold, wet, and rocky, but he has to admit, he's kind of digging the melodramatic sea-side vibe. The air smells like salt and storms all the time, crowding out all the memories of soft earth and dense forest.

And he's got a contract. A "boss." That's the word Nines wants to use, so Gavin says that, but they both know he means Alpha.

It's good to have a job, food, and a bed, blah blah blah, he's really grateful and all, it's just—

Maybe not everyone has them or wants to indulge in them, but Gavin does for both.

And it's been nearly a week.

"Nines," he finally says.

He pokes at their bond too for good measure. The wizard won't pay attention to him unless he does. They'll look up and point their face at his face, but somehow their hand will keep writing in the scroll and they won't hear a goddamn word he says.

Even with the mental prodding, Nines barely turns their head. "Hmm?"

"I need to jack off."

Nines keeps writing for half a second before they blink and actually look at him. "… now?"

Gavin half-shrugs, still laying down. "I mean, tonight, yeah."

He's a werewolf using testosterone cream—kept in a jar in his coin purse, which was much more important to enchant to shift with him than shoes—who just formed a mental pack bond again. Full moon already past or no, his hormones are screaming at him that he needs to fuck.

But that's probably not Nines's idea of a fun bonding activity.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks, then continues with narrowed eyes before he can even reply, "Do not use my spell components."

Gavin barks out a laugh. "What—I'm gonna jack it with oblex ooze? That'd melt my fucking dick off!"

"Yes, it would."

He pauses. "Do … you know that for sure?"

Nines sighs. Deeply. "I attended an academy meant to train paladins, clerics, and perhaps the odd druid."

"All the most repressed spellcasters, huh?"

Nines doesn't deny it. Gavin snorts, imagining all the magically-inclined tithe-children being told to keep themselves pure so they can be properly donated to the gods turning into magically-inclined teenagers hit with guilt and libido in equal measure—and all the idiot fuckery they probably got up to without any actual education about their bodies.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks again. "I do not keep supplies for that on hand."

"You don't keep supplies or you don't uh, keep anything on hand?" Gavin wiggles his eyebrows.

Nines flushes and glares like they're still a prefect at that academy. "I—that is not—"

Gavin raises his own hands to prove they're above the sheets. "If that's not any of my business, sure. Figured that, honestly. Which is why I'm telling you that I've got needs, but I can just go downstairs if you want."

"Downstairs?" Nines frowns less furiously.

"That little entranceway at the door is large enou—"

"I'm not going to send you out into the hall," Nines says, like that's what will make them clutch their pearls in shock. "You can stay in your own bed."

"Yeah?" Gavin gives the wizard a once over. "I'm good with that. So good. But what I'm willing to do with pack and what you think is appropriate for a roommate probably isn't the same thing."

Nines's frown turns more calculating, like they're correcting the runes in a spell. "We are discussing you staying in your bed to masturbate while I continue my studies, correct?"

"… yeah?"

"Are you going to call me names, attempt to touch me, or—"

"No, no," Gavin rushes to reassure them. "I can just …"

He moves his hand down and cups himself, just to demonstrate that he's only going to be touching his own body, before he remembers that's not socially acceptable around humans either. Nines only cocks their head to the side though, a mild curiosity leaking through their mental bond.

And fuck, just his hand feels good right now. It's been nearly a goddamn week.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks.

Gavin shivers under the sound of their voice. "Don't need it. Get wet enough myself."

He feels the bond pulse again with that academic sort of curiosity, like Nines is going to start taking notes on him again while he jacks off. He pushes his trousers down, moving slowly enough to give his boss plenty of time to look away. He isn't wearing smalls of course. They'd just be another piece he'd have to pay to get enchanted.

Nines eyes his cock like they might sketch it in exact anatomical detail.

Gavin doesn't mention how he got it—his bargain and the Collar, the collapsed tower, the vows of vengeance—he'll get around to confessing it all eventually. But in the meantime: a fun bonding activity.

Gavin grips his cock and gives it a few strokes. Nines blinks in a way that's more like shutting their eyes repeatedly. He exhales slowly and makes himself stop, although he does still keep his hand held loosely around the base.

"If you don't want echoes, you'll have to wall off your mind on your own end," he advises Nines. "I'm uh … a little too busy here to concentrate."

"Echoes," Nines repeats.

Shit, right. Human. Doesn't seem to specialize in any divination or enchantment magic—so they probably don't have any experience being inside someone else's head.

"Yeah, that's why I offered to," He jerks his chin at the door. "Distance helps, some."

Nines does that tiny little head tilt again. "May I observe?"

Gavin licks his lips. "Yeah."

"May I ignore you?" they ask next.

"Uh, sure?"

He doesn't have any human hangups about nudity, but he's not going to whip his dick out and waggle it at anyone who doesn't want to see it. Jacking off in the same room is probably already pushing it, but then again, the rules seem to be different in boarding schools and barracks and sometimes bars but sometimes not—humans have so many weird fucking rules.

"Then," Nines says. "You do as you please, and I will do the same."

"Works for me."

Gavin gives his cock another squeeze, and Nines turns back to their scroll. Yeah, he's a little disappointed about that, but it's enough just to have his pack in the same room and know he's not alone.

Since the wizard isn't watching anyway, Gavin rolls over and shoves a blanket down around his crotch. He has a whole nest of them, all piled up on top of a mattress Nines insisted he have. They'd tried to bring in an actual bed, but it's just weird, sleeping so high up and away from the ground for no reason.

He gets a soft little mound built up and grips himself again through the blanket. Even if Nines makes him wash it after, this will make his bed smell like him and home and—

Gavin buries his face into his pillow and inhales. It still has Nines's scent on it. All the blankets do too, so now they'll smell like the both of them, like pack.

He feels a fresh jab of interest spike back through their bond and guesses Nines is watching him again. Maybe jacking off right in front of them like that was a little too much, but with everything mostly out of view now, they're back to curious again.

It only takes him a minute to build up a steady rhythm, rutting into the blankets and his own hand. He groans into the pillow and hears Nines breathe in sharply.

Echoes. He grins and keeps going.

He doesn't know what kind of needs Nines has or wants to fulfill, but he likes the thought of making them feel good. Would like it even better if he could crawl over between the wizard's legs and find out what they're working with by licking it.

"Gavin …"

The wolf whines in response to his name in his Alpha's mouth. He squeezes his hand tighter at the base of his cock against the knot trying to plump up there, just in case Nines wants it.

"Yeah, baby?" Gavin manages to growl.

"Oh."

Nines breathes the word, and Gavin can feel a small simmer of arousal bounce back and forth between them—this time from the wizard's end, not his.

"Does it always feel like this?" they ask.

He groans in answer, the only response he has to the soft wonder in their voice. He knows humans' senses are weak and dull, that they don't get hit with lust and frenzy the same way wolves do.

But hearing the awe in his human's voice the first time they feel it too makes him want to show them how good it can really feel.

"Yeah," he bites out. "Better with … you."

His canines get in the way of the words, the partial shift rippling through his body. He's never had particularly good control of it, so there's no stopping the change now when his blood's up.

"Are you wet?"

The question stabs through him. Gavin loses his rhythm with a whimper, nearly overcome with the instinct to crawl over and show his Alpha, present his cock or his mouth or whatever hole they want to use.

And he is wet. He can feel it dripping down the length of his cock, more pooling at the head, smearing into the palm of his hand.

"Uh huh," he pants.

Gavin bites down into the blankets as he ruts harder, but a sharply clicked tongue brings him back to awareness. He turns his head to the side and blearily stares up at Nines as he continues fucking his own hand.

"I would like to hear you," Nines says.

"Baby," Gavin breathes in reply.

Nines closes their eyes and shivers. Well, if they like his voice …

"Wanna lick you," he says. "Suck on you and make you—ahhh, make you feel good."

"I—" Nines stares at him with wide eyes.

"Shh, shhh." Gavin keeps making the noise in a low mumble as he slows down his pace into a dirty grind. "Gotcha baby, get my mouth on your nipples an' your neck, your mouth, make you wet too."

"I don't usually like to be touched," Nines admits.

Gavin's brain snatches onto the word usually, but he doesn't want to push. There's some shit he knows for sure he won't ever do, but then there's a lot more he just doesn't know if he really doesn't want, or maybe only in the right situation, with the right pronouns and body parts, the right person, but then how is he supposed to know if he wants it enough to try it if he won't know if he actually wants it until he's already tried it?

So that's a whole big nest of wyverns, and neither of them need to try to sort it out right this moment.

"Can give you this though, yeah?" Gavin asks.

He twists his wrist on the upstroke against the head, but then stops and holds completely still. Nines tries to strangle a whine in their throat at the lost sensation.

"… yes."

That confession sounds much better. Gavin grins at the wizard and starts thrusting again, still looking at them. Their long eyelashes and shoulder-length hair almost soften their face into pretty, but then thin lips, a straight nose, and strong jaw sharpen the effect back up again. And the ice-blue eyes set against pale skin and black hair just sends it all careening past beautiful or handsome into big words about being scary-haunting-magical that the wolf can't think of right now.

He can feel his orgasm building up, drowning in those eyes staring right back at him, but he squeezes harshly at the base of his cock. The sensation strangles at the root, like the little moans Nines won't let escape their mouth.

He probably shouldn't tempt it, but he sinks into the feeling of tightening and loosening his grip around his knot and the waves of pleasure that sends rolling through them both.

"You," Nines says but can't seem to find anymore words.

"Mmgff." Gavin huffs into the pillow and tries to make his own words work. "Good, feels good. Sorry. Won't knot if—fffuck."

If that scares you. Disgusts you. Bores you, to be stuck listening to him come and come and come while the exasperated wizard is trying to focus on their studies.

He pries his eyes back open when he hears footsteps and stares up at Nines paused in an awkward-half crouch over him, like they're not sure if they're allowed to touch. His tail makes the decision for both of them by immediately wagging in anticipation of pets and attention.

"May I touch you?" Nines still asks.

Gavin nods past a desperate whine. A hand slides up the back of his neck first, while another soothes over his bare flank. Must've kicked off his trousers at some point. All that matters is the hand on the back of his neck, pinning him down, holding him place, exactly where he should be for his Alpha.

His tail wags harder.

"May I see?"

The hands urge him to roll over, and he does, without hesitation, like a dog showing his belly when his master comes home.

Laying on his back like this, he knows the partial shift is even more apparent. Just about everything humans think they know is bullshit, but his hybrid form really does look like those shitty illustrations of big scary wolf men.

And that's without the thick, hairy cock jutting out between his legs.

He's proud of it, wanted it, needed it, but that was for himself. He wasn't trying to impress anyone, and he's not expecting a human to like it.

"Does your phallus typically have this appearance, or is it increasingly engorged due to your partial transformation?" Nines asks.

Gavin stares up at them and tries to impress through their mental bond just how many fucking words that was.

Nines flushes and tries again. "Does it get bigger when you shift?"

"Yeah," he says. "Touch me?"

He holds his cock slightly out toward the wizard in offering. Nines hums in consideration but doesn't make any move toward it. That's fair.

"Do you knot without …" They struggle with the words again. "Sex?"

Gavin strokes himself, tugging upward and pause at the head. It leaves his knot free below, not quite there yet, but noticeably swollen under the attention.

"Can. Sometimes."

"Will you show me?"

Nines stares down at him and meeting their eyes is like looking at the moon. Humans want so badly to sort everything into Good or Bad, even the deities they worship. But some things aren't good or bad, only intense.

Gavin nods, mouth slack and panting. He wraps his left hand around his knot to work it while his right keeps stroking the rest. Nines's eyes sweep up and down him like a search light scanning for a rogue.

"Feel … good?" he asks between pants.

Maybe he's already asked, but it's hard to think right now. He tugs at the bond, trying to pull Nines's mind closer to him, get them to come down out of the sky and feel it with him. The wizard's hands clench into the robes draped over their kneeling legs.

Then they open their eyes again, and Gavin could swear their irises really have turned a silvery-blue.

"Behave."

The order thunders down their bond and into his chest. Gavin groans, the tightness coiled inside him easing another measure. He's not quite ready to unspool, but maybe—maybe just a little?

"I am asking about you."

Nines's voice changes from questioning and a little stilted to informing him of how it is, like casting a spell. Gavin doesn't have any ability himself, but as far as he knows, that's kind of how they do it. Spell casting is just telling reality what to do with enough conviction that reality up and does it.

"Do you want to be mine?"

Gavin thrusts into his hands in answer. It's sloppy and a little pathetic, because there's nothing for him to rut into. But he starts nodding again, just in case that wasn't enough.

"Like this?" Nines touches him for the second time, one hand gently curling around his throat. "To be mine."

He's coming undone. Falling apart. Food and shelter and an Alpha, their own little pack of two, someone touching him and promising to claim him.

"Suh … 'posed to be … yours."

He knows it's true, it's true, true. The call in his mind, their contract, both of them bound by Selûne.

"Yes," Nines confirms. "Show me."

Gavin comes almost before they finish speaking. He tries to hold eye contact as long as he can, but eventually his own squeeze shut as he curls in on himself with a shudder. The first wave passes deceptively quick, with just a few spurts from his cock.

But he's not done.

"Good boy."

Those hands are back again, just like before, this time encouraging him to roll back onto his belly. They stroke through his hair and scritch behind his ears when he obeys, and he thinks life couldn't possibly get any better until there's a warm body sliding onto the mattress behind him.

Then he's being spooned and everything inside him unravels without any warning.

When he's done coming for the second time, he's aware of a few things: the hand wrapped back around his throat, first. That the gangly half-human, half-elf is tall enough to almost envelope him completely. The soft murmur of praise in his ear, shifted halfway up his head now and nearly wolf-like.

Yours.

It's harder to send the thought out when he's only partially shifted. Even with other wolves, they all share best as animals, some basic concepts as hybrids, and only faint echoes when unshifted.

But being the wizard's familiar must be different, since he'd heard the summons in his head from damn near across the country, in all forms, while Nines can't shift at all.

You are mine. I will take care of you, if you allow me to keep you.

Oh yeah, that's definitely different. Wolves share senses and feelings, not full sentences.

Keep me, Gavin manages to think back.

"Yes," Nines murmurs aloud.

The third wave hits him, and he sobs as he comes for his Alpha. His body is just doing the best it can to please, still managing to pump out another two shots of cum. He can finally feel a tinge of mild revulsion from Nines, but it seems to be aimed more at the mess than himself. Bold feelings from a wizard who left a hunk of bread to mold so long they mistook it for a stoneshroom.

"Perhaps I should invest in a toy," they muse. "A sleeve somewhat akin to a bag of holding, so that it can contain all this mess."

Gavin groans in a not-sexy way. "Don't make me fuck a void."

"No, the pocket dimension would only be applied at the tip of the—"

He can't help but start laughing. Pocket dimension applied at the tip—and said completely straight. Goddamn wizards.

Nines expresses their irritation at being laughed at by nipping his ear, and yep, there's wave number four. To their credit, they do continue to hold him until he gets another brief reprieve.

"How many times does this occur?" they ask when he's done.

"Depends," Gavin scrapes together enough brain matter to say. "More with … partner."

"Hmm," Nines says, like the feral scientist they are.

Gavin flips off his pride and goes straight to begging. "Please."

He's not sure what exactly he's begging for though—not to be forced into multiple orgasms while Nines observes or takes notes, or that the wizard will get started on that right away.

"Please, please, baby."

Nines pulls him back to rest half on top of their body, which lets them switch their right hand for their left hand around his throat without him laying on top of their arm. And that in turn frees up their right hand to drop down to his cock.

"Yours, yours," he mumbles. "Alpha."

"What do you need?"

Their hand brushes his own, the one gripping his knot. He lets go for an agonizing second to press their hand against it instead. Nines lets him wrap his hand back around theirs, using both of their hands to squeeze and lightly tug the knot.

"Ah … ahhh …"

"Ask properly," Nines orders.

"Alphaaa!"

He practically wails the word, shaking apart in Nines's arms and beneath their hand, but he can't now, it's not enough on his own anymore, not without permission.

"Hmmm."

Gavin cries freely, but doesn't make Nines grip him tighter or stroke him off. His Alpha will give him what he needs, and he'll take what he's given, like a good boy.

But that doesn't mean he can't ask for more.

"Baby," he groans. "Need it, need it, I—phck, please!"

"Yes."

The final wave sweeps over him so hard he goes blind, or his eyes shut, or he's back on his belly again, face smushed into the pillow, Nines's hand still around him and the blankets beneath his cock to rut into and it's not the last because Nines tells him Again and Again, until he's coming dry, throat hoarse from crying.

And then once more after that.

When he regains consciousness again, his whole body feels sore in the best possible way. There's drool running down his chin, tacky and drying to the pillow. He has his knees tucked up beneath him, but that's OK, because this is how he's supposed to present anyway.

Except the hand reaching between his legs doesn't breach him. Something soft and wet swipes over him instead, and he can't even muster up the mental energy to be scared, to explain why that's still there, that he managed to bargain for a working cock and all his insides scooped out, but that's still—

"Hush." Nines soothes him with another hand rubbing his back. "You did very well. All you must do now is rest."

Gavin sinks back down into the delicious ache and doesn't move while Nines cleans the slick from between his thighs, then further up to his cock. The blankets he'd rutted into have already been removed at some point. He knows from experience not even the best wizard on the material plane could wash his scent out though and takes a moment to feel a little smug about it.

"Yes, you came a truly impressive amount," Nines says. "Excessive, actually."

Gavin smacks his mouth before he can speak. "Your fault."

"Hmmm."

Nines stands when he's done and moves away. Gavin manages to flop onto his side and curl up. His boss did say he could sleep now. He just needs a little nap.

He gets a flask of water shoved in his face instead. The hand petting him goes back awkward again, pat-pat-pat instead of real pets. Nines doesn't seem to know exactly what to do now that they're done, but clean up and water was still really nice of them.

Gavin finishes gulping down the flask and heaves in air.

"I have work I need to finish," Nines informs him. "Have your needs been sufficiently met?"

Sufficiently met? Fuck, he's had orgies that didn't wear him out this good.

"Yeah," Gavin answers. "Need to sleep now."

Nines smiles at him. "Excellent. Good boy."

Gavin grins lazily back at them. "And when I wake up, I'm gonna crawl over between your legs and make you feel good too."

Nines flushes and half opens their mouth to protest.

"When you need a break from your scroll-thingy, and only if you let me," he adds.

Nines closes their mouth. They don't say anything else, but that means they also don't say no. Their blush doesn't go away either. They simply stand back up and sit down at their desk, spending far too much concentration fussing over the exact alignment of all their inks and quills instead of looking at Gavin.

Who keeps grinning, even as he yawns and snuggles down in his bed. He just needs a little nap, and then after that … he has all sorts of ideas for fun bonding activities.

***

***

This fic was commissioned by one of my followers to continue the first drabble! Subscribers to my Patreon get early access to all my commissioned fics 2 weeks before they’re posted to AO3 and tumblr ^^

[thethingsihavelearned]

The Truth of the Christ

Last time, we defined truth. We determined that truth, that which corresponds to reality, is a worthy pursuit, especially in matters of religion. Today, I want to apply that concept to Jesus Christ. I want to answer the following question: does it matter whether the Jesus Christ of the Bible was an actual historical figure? Is that so significant a question, or can Christianity continue whether Jesus is real or a myth?

The reason I pose this question is because I have spoken to people over the years about what I have learned about the historicity of Jesus, and some people, even Christians, do not find the topic nearly as interesting as I do. Learning that there is substantial evidence that Jesus lived and died exactly as the Gospel writers say that He did had a tremendous effect on my life. In my formative years, I vacillated between Christianity and agnosticism precisely because I did not think the stories of the Bible were compatible with the historical account. I actually wanted to believe the Bible and to believe in God because I had been conditioned to do so by my culture in the Bible Belt, USA, but I could not believe something in my heart that I understood in my brain to be false. As a result of my admittedly insubstantial studies at the time, I thought that the Bible was a book of mostly fictional stories that some adults wanted me to believe but that enlightened people should scorn as outdated. When I learned that the Bible is actually a better account of the history it records than my high school and undergraduate textbooks, I began to give its teachings the respect its factuality earned for it. My thoughts on the Bible changed from, “It has some interesting philosophical and moral ideas that I can incorporate into my life if I feel like it,” to “It is true, and I need to do what it says.” Since then, as I read and reread the Bible every day, I have fallen in love with it, and I now use it as a sort of litmus test by which I judge all other theories and ideas. I give it the same credit I would give to an acclaimed historian’s book and actually more so because the historian’s book, however well researched and documented, could be wrong; the Bible is the inherent Word of God. I did not give the Bible its credit on face value (as some people do whose faith is stronger than mine). I needed convincing, which came by way of striding such classics as Evidence That Demands a Verdict and The Case for Christ, among others.

Circling back to my original point, because of my ‘literal’ nature, I needed to know that the Bible was true before I could believe its message, but upon discussing what I learned about the Bible with others, I have found, to my surprise, that not all people have that nature. Some people can take the teachings of the Bible whether they understand that they are anchored in fact or not. These people have that childlike faith, which Jesus praises in the Gospels, and which I did lack. That is good in the sense that those people possess that kind of faith; however, I think some of them are living in a bubble that could be burst if they listened to the wrong kind of teaching. I think, perhaps, if you are one of those people, you may be susceptible to believing a lie. Jesus also says that we should love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we never consider why we believe what we believe, we are violating that command. Furthermore, He commanded us to make disciples of the nations. If we do not know why we believe the Bible, how can we evangelize? If I do not know that the Bible is true, how can I answer the man’s question who asks me why he should believe it? I could explain to the man how he should believe it because it works for me, but then he might respond that I should come with him to the bar and get drunk because it works for him. If I cannot tell my friend that he should believe the Bible because it is exclusively true, then I am merely a salesman trying to convince him to buy an iPhone instead of a Samsung. For now, I want to take this broad concept of the importance of the truth of the Bible and narrow it to the life of Jesus. I want to discuss six reasons why it is important to know if the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life are true.

First, Jesus’ life represents the distinction between Christianity and Judaism; in fact, it defines the words. Before Jesus, Christianity and Judaism were one and the same. Actually, there was no Christianity, and there was no Judaism. There were Hebrews who believed in the one true God and were expectantly awaiting the Messiah to whom their scriptures pointed. When Jesus came onto the scene, those Hebrews who understood that He was the Messiah became Christians, along with Samaritans and gentiles the world over who reached the same conclusion. Those who believed in God, but did not understand that Jesus is the Messiah, we now call believers in Judaism. Before Christ, Jew was an ethnicity; after Christ, the term attained the potential to denote a religion as well. If Jesus was not, Christianity and Judaism are not.

Secondly, the majority of the Christian Bible focuses on Jesus. The Old Testament predicts this coming and the New Testament discusses His life and its ramifications, how He fulfilled and will fulfill Old Testament prophecy. All these depictions describe a real man who lived, died, resurrected, and will return again one day. The prophecies are incredibly specific and numerous, but consider this mathematical exercise as it pertains to forty-eight of the major, obvious prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ; the odds of one man fulfilling all forty-eight of the prophecies is one in 1 in 10157. That means that the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus proves that God inspired the prophecies to a definiteness, which lacks only one chance in 10157 of being absolute. Put another way, say one hundred billion people have lived on Earth throughout all of history – obviously the actual number is much smaller, but bear with me. Then, the odds of any random man who lived being the man of prophecy is 100,000,000,000: 10157 or 1:10157, which any gambler can tell you are pretty long odds, indeed. If Jesus did not actually exist, then no man has fulfilled the prophecy and the New Testament writers merely invented this elaborate story, and most of them were killed for their trouble.

Third, it is important for Christians and prospective Christians to know how Jesus lived this life, if in fact He did live. Christians claim that Jesus is God’s physical manifestation on Earth, that the Jesus who lived in the early years of the Annus Dominis was God in the flesh. That is an incredibly important doctrine of Christianity, one of the main points, which separates it from Islam and Judaism. We would expect that if God did walk the Earth in a fleshly body, He would live a certain kind of way. If I found some information that led me to believe that Jesus lived just like I live, that he succumbed to temptations and made mistakes, no one would be able to convince me that He is God. IT is hard enough to believe that God was a carpenter; it is impossible that God was a sinner. Jesus’ sinless, purposeful, self-controlled, miraculous life substantiates his claim to godship, which is the substance of Christianity. For Him not to have lived would make this central idea nonsensical.

Similarly, if Jesus’ sinlessness confirms His godship, then His resurrection confirms His teachings. In Deuteronomy 18, God explains to the Hebrews about the ultimate Prophet who is to come and also about God’s prophets in general. The ultimate Prophet Moses mentions is Jesus, and after this discussion of Jesus, he gives a practical method for determining whether or not a man or woman who claims to be a prophet is indeed a prophet: if what the person predicts comes true, the Lord is speaking through that person, and he or she is a prophet; if not, the self-proclaimed prophet is speaking presumptuously and is a liar. The Gospel writers record several prophecies that Jesus makes. Jesus prophecies the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred in 70 AD almost forty years after Jesus’ death. Jesus prophecies about the end of this world, which has not yet occurred as of this writing but which is surely bound to come! But he most important and most provocative of Jesus’ prophecies is about His death and subsequent resurrection: “When they came together in Galilee, [Jesus] said to them, ‘the son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life,” (Matthew 1722-23 NIV). All four Gospel writers record this prophecy multiple times in their Gospels, and its importance cannot be overstated. If this prophecy was false, then Jesus’ words can perish just as He did, but it is true, if Jesus Christ rose from the grave, it is merely our moral imperative to believe Jesus in every sense of the word. Woe is the man who rejects the words of Jesus Christ.

While these first four points are logical in nature, forming natural, philosophical syllogisms for how a person should receive them, these last two are more theological in nature. They are the basis for the theology to which the Christian church subscribes. If my distinction between logical and theological seems murky, bear with me, and our discussion will illuminate my meaning.

First, Jesus’ death served as the true sacrifice for human sin. The Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi makes one point if it makes no others, and that point is as follows: man’s sin deserves God’s wrath. You hear people say from time to time, “I just want what’s to me,” or, “I just want to be treated fairly.” My friend, you do not want to be treated fairly by God. God is perfect, absolutely moral and sinless. In fact, God is morality, just as He is truth, love, knowledge, and many other things. With that said, He created us, and He is duty-bound to punish us for our sin. Otherwise, He would be condoning our sin, acting immorally, which is something God cannot do, (for more on this, refer to my post, “Dealing with Moral Law.”) However, God built in a loophole whereby He takes upon Himself the punishment our sins deserve, namely death by crucifixion. Our sin earns for us eternal separation from God, the result of which is death. The Bible teaches that even the very best human is guilty of sin and deserving of death, and if we merely look inwardly, we see this truth in ourselves. I want to do right, and I want to be good, but I still find myself cursing sometimes and lusting sometimes. I think ill of my neighbors more than I care to admit. I do not want to do these things. I want to be like Jesus, but I find that I just cannot always carry it out. That is the main reason why Jesus had to come. On the cross, Jesus took the punishment that our sins deserve. He was our scapegoat, our whipping boy, and if we accept His sacrifice for us, God forgives our sin. Jesus’ death implies our forgiveness, the negation of which implies we are still deserving of God’s wrath – no Jesus, no sacrifice.

Then, after Jesus died, He resurrected on the third day. Many Christians celebrate Easter as the day that Jesus rose, although historians cannot tell us with certainty on what day of the year Jesus actually rose. The Gospels do make clear the point that Jesus rose on the first day of the week, which is the reason you cannot purchase a Chick-Fil-A biscuit on Sundays. Some Christian thinkers still debate on these days of the week, but on one point regarding the resurrection, there is no debate because the Bible is crystal clear: Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of a new trend. God raised Jesus, or you could say Jesus resurrected Himself, as a model and foreshadowing a “first fruits” of what is in store for His followers. All who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior will be raised after their bodily death to live forever in Paradise with Jesus. If Jesus was not literally raised from the grave, then neither will His followers be. If you are one of His followers, you would be foolish not to know for certain that Jesus resurrected. Otherwise, you are giving up the pleasures of this world and setting your hope on Heaven in vain. But take heart, Jesus did rise. Not only does the Bible explain the resurrection, but every bit of historical evidence points to the same conclusion. Christianity is historical, and it is factual. Christianity is the truth, and I take my oath on it. Next time, I will discuss why.

“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.” – I Corinthians 15:14

[alucience]

Which Osomatsu-San Brother Are You? (Personality Quiz!)

Hi hi! This is a test I made quite a while ago, but I’ve decided to post it on here. It’s a little long because I wanted it to be as accurate as possible.  *Note: This is personality based, meaning that having depression won’t automatically make you Ichimatsu and it would still be possible to get Jyushimatsu. 

DIRECTIONS: Get a piece of paper and number it from 1 to 46. As you go, write your answers as A, B, C, etc. as you would a regular test. Try to answer as honestly as possible. If you can’t decide on an answer, go with the one that feels more natural. Don’t answer the questions with a certain character result in mind; just answer as you! The answer key will be at the end. 

1.) Do you tend to feel the need to “recharge” after socializing with a group, even if it’s with friends? Or do you generally feel more energized?  A.) Recharge B.) Energized 

2. Do you prefer making decisions based on how you think people will be emotionally affected, or what you think will logically be for the best?  A.) It’s almost always better to make decisions through a logical approach B.) I naturally put into serious consideration the feelings of those around me, even if it affects my final decision

3. Do you find yourself often organizing precise plans for the day, even to the point of keeping a physical or mental checklist or schedule?  A.) Yes; it sometimes causes stress when the plans don’t go accordingly B.) No; I enjoy keeping my options open and seeing what happens as I go

4. Do you consider yourself a person who’s more in-tune with the physical world around them, or are you more often than not stuck in your head exploring thoughts or daydreams? A.) I am more aware of my surroundings and the information I receive from it B.) I am more interested in contemplating ideas and concepts 

5. Are you naturally an optimist or a pessimist?  A.) Optimist B.) Pessimist

6. Are you good at naturally making new friends and meeting new people?  A.) Yes; I can be open and accepting of new people in my life B.) No; I can be reserved and shy away from new people in my life

7. Do you strongly believe in the importance of fine arts (drawing, playing musical instruments, writing, etc.)? A.) Yes, it’s a reasonably significant part of my life. B.) No, it’s only a small part of my life, OR it doesn’t affect my life

8. In general, are you easily intimidated by people (friends or strangers) around you? A.) Yes, I find myself nervous, shy, or insecure in the face of many people B.) No, I’m confident in myself and typically am not afraid of people

9. Do you generally like being the center of attention?  A.) Yes; I am often the life of a party B.) Sometimes; I can be the life of the party one day and the simple observer the next C.) No; I typically take the role of the simple observer

10. Would you prefer that people find you intelligent or warm-hearted? A.) Intelligent; I want to be looked up to for my knowledge B.) Warm-hearted; I want to be admired for my kindness and empathy

11. Are you a thrill-seeker? A.) Yes; I love excitement and adrenaline B.) No; extreme excitement and adrenaline don’t please me

12. Are you a risk-taker? A.) Yes; I can be seen as careless or risky B.) No; I’m often reluctant to take risks

13. Would you or others consider you an impulsive character? A.) Yes; if new information is brought to me I often act on it immediately and carelessly  B.) No; I can stop myself from making any quick and possibly careless decisions

14. Do you feel you often set personal standards higher than those around you do? A.) Yes; sometimes I feel like nobody is working as hard as they could be OR I beat myself up for not living up to impossible standards  B.) No; I think my standards are average (or below) 

15. Are you easily affected and put down by the words of those around you? A.) Yes; one remark can ruin my day B.) No; I don't let negativity hurt me

16. Do you enjoy following your own path and even leading others, or do you tend to follow and listen to the leaders? A.) I'm a leader; I follow my own path by making decisions for myself B.) I'm a follower; I follow others by basing my decisions off of people I look up to

17. In typical social settings, are you prone to feeling relaxed and carefree, or timid and aware? A.) Relaxed B.) Timid

18. Are you more dependent on “street smarts” or “book smarts”? A.) Street smarts; I've learned from plenty of experience  B.) Book smarts; I’ve learned from others’ experience through books, school, or other 

19. In science, do you prefer to work with facts and figures, or ideas and theories?  A.) Facts B.) Theories

20. Would others consider you naturally excited and enthusiastic, or generally mellow and cool? A.) Excited B.) Mellow

21. In general, are you more prone to take advantage of others, or are you very careful to give as much as (or more than) you receive? A.) I can take advantage of others, sometimes without realizing it B.) I’m careful to give as I receive

22. Do you believe you lack in self-confidence? A.) Yes; I’m told I’m too negative about myself B.) No; I have a balanced level of self-confidence OR I catch myself with too much self-confidence

23. Are you strict to follow rules, or do you tend to break them? A.) Strict B.) Lenient

24. Do you prefer harmony over clarity? A.) Yes; I’m uncomfortable during meaningless conflict and try to avoid it, often by changing topics B.) No; when facts need to be delivered or conflicts need to be addressed, it’s more important to work with it, even if it means causing a couple bad moods

25. Are you seen by people as too loud or too quiet? A.) Loud; I’m often told I need to lower my voice B.) Quiet; I’m often told to speak up

26. When receiving compliments, do you verbally accept them or verbally/subtly deny them? A.) I accept compliments when given, even if I don't believe them B.) I find myself quickly denying compliments and shrugging them off

27. Do you live in the future and ride on possibilities, or are you focused on the present and the things currently happening around you? A.) Future; I need to focus more on the now and stop stressing about what's to come B.) Present; I need to think more about consequences and where I'm going in the future

28. Do you feel you get your sense of control by taking charge of your environment and making choices early on, or by keeping your options open and making choices only when the time comes?   A.) Make choices early B.) Keep options open

29. Are you considered by others as stubborn and opinionated, or as an aimless drifter? A.) Stubborn and opinionated; I’ve already made up my mind about things B.) Aimless drifter; I’m open to new ideas, and am flexible to change

30. Would you consider yourself as “practical, realistic, and factual”, or as “idealistic, theoretical, and a possibility-seeker”? A.) Realistic B.) Theoretical

31. Do you tend to be more responsive to people who approach you in a calm, intellectual demeanor, or to people who immediately appeal to your feelings and demonstrate empathy? A.) Calm, intellectual demeanor B.) Demonstrates empathy

32. Are you someone who enjoys engaging in group brainstorming, but feels drained after doing so independently? A.) Yes; this describes me B.) No; this does not describe me

33. Do you often find yourself telling others your plans, but never following through with them? A.) Yes; I'm more talk, less action B.) No; I'm reliable and I always do my best to stick to my word

34. True or false: You see beauty in things others might not notice. A.) True B.) False

35. Do you often find yourself breaking boundaries without meaning to do so? (Physically, vocally, emotionally etc.) A.) Yes; others tell me that I need to respect them or “keep out of their bubble” B.) No; my boundaries are well-established and I’m more keen to seeing others’ boundaries as well

36. Are you very passionate about your beliefs and opinions? A.) Yes; I’ll fight for something I believe and will feel attacked if it's criticized or insulted  B.) No; I have my beliefs but will not be hurt personally if it's criticized or insulted 

37. Of the following, please pick the two things you desire the most: A.) Companionship B.) Acceptance C.) Popularity D.) Love E.) Attention F.) Excitement

38. Are you more often than not likely to speak before you think? A.) Yes; I've criticized myself for being unable to keep my mouth shut B.) No; I make sure I know what I’m saying before it’s said

39. Do you often bend the truth or “sugarcoat it” to spare someone’s feelings? (Think about something small, such as when you're asked by a colleague if they look nice in a dress they just bought.) A.) Yes; someone's happiness is more important than a small truth B.) No; someone should always know the truth, even if it hurts

40. Is it rare for you to get openly irritated? A.) Yes; you have to work hard to cause me to be visibly annoyed  B.) No; If I get irritated, I’ll verbalize it and not hide it 

41. Do you believe you can be an intimidating person? A.) Yes B.) No

42. True or false: You speak smoothly and relaxed during social interactions rather than appear awkward or nervous. A.) True B.) False; I may stutter nervously or use the word “uhm” a lot 

43. Would you take long and difficult steps towards a great future, even if you were comfortable and stable where you were? A.) Yes; I’m always challenging myself and pushing for new goals B.) No; I’m already happy

44. When you feel threatened, upset, or scared, what is your natural response? (For instance, what’s your common response to a friend startling you from behind?) A.) Fight; I might accidentally swing at them B.) Flight; I might jump in fear and turn, maybe stumbling back or backing away a couple feet in the process C.) Freeze; I might make a slight jump, but otherwise freeze completely.

45. Do you get easily embarrassed? A.) Yes B.) No

46. Do you enjoy engaging in philosophical discussions and giving input? A.) Yes; they interest me, and it’s fun talking about possibilities and theories B.) No; they bore me or upset me in some way

Good job! You’ve completed the quiz! 

Your results are based on a point-system, so the answer key is set up in a way where one answer can rack up points for multiple characters. I’ll walk you through this part! (It’s simpler than it looks!) 

As you can see above, I’ve written out my answers for each question. Below that in green, I’ve drawn a T-chart for each character to keep track of the points. 

Here, I’m marking off questions as I match my answer with characters on the left chart. I circle the ones that matched my answer, then add tally marks to my little T-chart over there. For example, on question 3, I put A. On the answer key, the only character with A as their answer is Choromatsu, so I put one tally mark under Choromatsu’s name. 

And now I’m done! I got Choromatsu by one point, with my second result as Jyushimatsu! (Probably because I’m less logical and more emotional. Basically, I’m Choromatsu if he was a horrible emotional wreck.) 

Also, in case you’re curious, here are (probably) the MBTI types for each brother: Oso (ESFP), Kara (INTP), Choro (INTJ), Ichi (ISTP), Jyushi (ENFP), Todo (ISFP) 

I hope that wasn’t too complicated. Feel free to reblog with your own results! 

(Please don’t repost this quiz on other sites without permission) 

[pamphletstoinspire]

The New Primitives

When a man ceases to believe in God, observed G. K. Chesterton, he becomes capable of believing in anything. It looks like we may now have reached the “anything” stage of human history.

As faith in Christianity recedes in the West, a strange thing is happening. Having shaken off belief in God, people are not becoming more rational, they’re becoming more gullible. They believe that babies in the womb aren’t really human beings, that same-sex “marriage” is the equivalent of real marriage, that there are roughly 52 varieties of gender, that boys can become girls, and vice versa. In general, they believe that wishing makes it so.

Rejection of God does not lead to a flowering of civilization, but rather to a primitivization. Many of the ideas that are now current are pre-scientific and even anti-scientific. Science is solidly on the side of those who say that babies are babies, and that boys cannot become girls, yet when science comes into conflict with today’s magical beliefs it is rejected out of hand. For many, the ultimate source of truth is not reason, or science, or God, but feelings.

It was belief in a rational God who created a rational and ordered universe that provided the main impetus for scientific study centuries ago. Christian and Jewish scholars thought it worthwhile to study the nature of things because the nature of things was considered to be rational and discoverable. Thus, the scientific revolution was a product of the Judeo-Christian world.

But suddenly all bets are off. For many, belief in the imperial self has supplanted belief in God and a rational world. The wants and desires of the individual self are paramount. If your 12-year-old daughter decides she’s a boy, you’d better go along with her desires because the reigning doctrine holds that her gender is a matter to be decided solely by her and her doctor.

Of course, the imperial self is not really imperial at all. Now that God is considered dispensable, the state has become the ultimate authority. As a result, the wishes of the individual are only considered legitimate if they coincide with the wishes of the state.

So what we really have is not simply a regression to magical thinking, but a merging of the primitive impulse with the modern totalitarian state. The mumbo jumbo ideology of transgenderism can only survive if it is backed by state power. But the new primitives don’t know enough history to realize that they live in an increasingly unfree society. Moreover, as long as they get their daily dose of sex and “soma” (marijuana, fentanyl, etc.), they don’t really care. However, there still remains a sizable number of Christians, Jews, and other believers in Natural Law who can see that the new normal is actually quite abnormal. Unless they spill the beans, the lies about the facts of life will be made mandatory. Everyone must be forced to believe. And liberal progressive primitives and their allies in the state will move to crush those who don’t comply.

Thus:

Police in the UK are investigating individuals who challenge gender ideology on social media.

A Canadian judge allowed doctors to give hormone treatments to help a girl “transition” to become a boy against her father’s wishes. The same judge later forbade the father from referring to his daughter as a girl.

UK authorities threatened to take an autistic boy from his parents when they objected to sex-change treatments proposed by doctors.

The state not only reserves the right to decide your child’s sex, it now, apparently, thinks it has the authority to decide his religion. A regional court in Schleswig, Germany, imposed a fine on parents who refused to let their son go on a school trip to a mosque. Meanwhile, in neighboring Denmark, state authorities have threatened to take away the eight-year-old foster daughter of foster parents who had raised her from infancy. Their crime? The mother had expressed criticism of Islamic terrorism on her blog. The authorities said this showed poor judgment, and they called into question her ability to parent.

The rapid ascendancy of Islam in recent times is itself evidence of social regression. Though Muslims believe in God, he is not the same God that Christians believe in. Rather, Allah is a willful God who is not bound by the laws of reason. Like an absolute and capricious tyrant, his laws are arbitrary and subject to change. The remarkable lack of scientific progress in the Muslim world is simply the logical consequence of belief in this erratic God.

Because it borrows from Christianity and Judaism, Islam is an advance over most primitive religions, but in comparison to Christianity it is a decidedly primitive faith. It sanctions beheadings, amputations for theft, stoning for adultery, polygamy, subjugation of women, and even sex slavery. One might think that the new primitives would be appalled by Islam — especially because they consider the subjugation of women to be a great evil. But some taboos are more important than others, and one of the supreme taboos of our times is the injunction against judging other cultures. The sins of Islam can be wiped away simply by repeating the incantatory chant “They have a different culture.” The villager may now be a part of a global village, but he still thinks like a villager. The village chiefs and elders have decided that Christianity is a thing of the past, and that Islam is a vital part of the coming multicultural future. The villager nods his assent because he has no other points of reference. He is willing to believe anything the authorities say.

A society that elevates Islam over Christianity is a society that is taking a step back in time, yet that is the direction in which large parts of the West are headed. Churches in Europe are largely empty, but mosques are full. Many cultural observers predict that Islam will be the dominant religion in Europe well before mid-century. The ultimate irony of rejecting the Christian God is that you may end up with the God of Muhammad in his place.

In any event, our society seems to be taking the fork in the road that leads to a dark and superstitious past. For several decades now, educators have claimed to be teaching youngsters to think critically. Increasingly, however, the thought processes of Western citizens resemble the thought processes of their tribal ancestors in the bush and the savannah. More and more, you are encouraged to think of yourself as a member of an identity group — your tribe. You are not expected to think for yourself; you are expected to think as your group thinks.

This tribal thinking is not confined to college students and Democratic politicians. It has also infected the professions. Most professionals, after all, are graduates of group-think universities and doctrinaire graduate schools. So it should come as no surprise that they might have difficulty thinking for themselves, even when it comes to such basics as the differences between the sexes.

There is, for example, hardly any research evidence to support the use of hormones and surgery to help confused youngsters “transition” from one sex to another. And there is certainly no biological evidence. From the biological perspective — that is, from the perspective of factual knowledge — the whole transgender project is an impossible one. Moreover, most of the research that is available shows that the “treatments” used in transitioning carry great risks to the physical and psychological health of children and teenagers.

Yet doctors and therapists continue to plow ahead with the transgender project despite its grave risks. Transgender ideology is the newest and most fashionable ideology. It is what the “best” people in the tribe attest to, so it must not be challenged. If you dare to oppose their agenda, they may well come after you or your child — not with pitchforks and torches, but with a court-issued summons.

The “brave” new doctors who recommend pumping children full of hormone blockers or mutilating their bodies are like the witch doctors of old. They mutter incantations (such as “social construct” and “gender dysphoria”), they wave their hypodermics to ward off skeptical thoughts, and, since they are considered the experts on everything from emotions to ethics, parents feel they have no choice but to let them go ahead with the ritual.

The word “primitive” is not necessarily a pejorative term. When applied to people who lived long ago or to people living today in isolated tribes in remote regions, it is simply a descriptive anthropological term for those who have never developed a civilization. But it’s another matter when civilized people fall back into primitive modes of thought and morality. In that case, the pejorative meaning is well deserved. They are, as Saint Paul said of those whose minds are darkened by sin, “without excuse.”

William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, gives us a picture of a rather rapid descent from civilization to savagery. Marooned on an island, all but a few of a group of English schoolboys are soon painting their bodies, wielding spears, and making offerings to an imaginary beast.

In the conclusion of the 1963 film version of the story, Ralph, the sole holdout for civilized ways, is being pursued by the pack of savage boys. Exhausted, he falls face down in the sand awaiting his fate. But when he looks up, he sees, towering over him, a British naval officer dressed in a dazzling white uniform — the personification of civilization, order, sanity, and security. And because Britain had not yet entered its post-Christian stage at that time, the officer might also be seen as a representative of God — the Christian God of justice and mercy.

Ralph begins to cry — presumably, for what has been lost and found again. So might we all cry over how much has already been lost of our Christian heritage. After we dry our tears, we must set about to regain it. The alternative is a rapid descent into darkness.

BY: WILLIAM KILPATRICK

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

[echo-bleu]

Day 18: Burnout

Based on the prompt list here, I’m writing little ficlets for every day of April, for #AutismAcceptanceMonth.

Fandom : Leverage, The Librarians (can be read without knowing either fandom though)

Series : This is set in the same universe as Every Chance We Get.

Title : A Place We Can Share

Prompt : Day 18 is Burnout

Read also on AO3 and FFNet.

[implied self-harm, mentions of blood and death, autistic burnout and depression]

I am extremely late with this challenge. I had a crazy weak, and I wasn't really inspired by the themes. I may do them anyway later, or just skip them, but for now I'm just going to go on with today's theme.

“Jacob Stone, IQ 190. Accepted at the Sorbonne and Cambridge for arts degrees, turned them both down. For the past twenty years under a fake name you've secretly been writing literature on European and Native American art history, all while working on an oil rig five miles from the town where you grew up.”

Jake sighs, when he thinks about it again on the plane to Munich. This is all factually true, so why does it sound like the worst possible summary of his life? Beside the fact that his IQ was last tested when he was eight, and IQ isn't a valid measure of anything anyway, there is nothing in Eve's file that he can deny.

But it's what's missing that makes it all wrong.

The number on his IQ assessment doesn't say the reason he took the test in the first place, that he didn't speak until he was nearly five. That when he did, he sounded and moved and acted so wrong that no one except Mom and Eliot would even come close to him. It doesn't say about the years of bullying, and then the years of constant effort to make every part of his personality fit into what people wanted him to be, even if it meant cutting the circle with a saw to make it square.

The universities he turned down don't mean anything near as much as the one he went to, the letter of acceptation that he and Eliot celebrated by getting drunk in their bedroom, the idea of being separated tearing at them. Because Eliot wasn't a college type of person, but Jake was. Jake was supposed to get a degree, probably a PhD, and go on and become a Professor.

The articles he's published, the knowledge he's accumulated, don't reflect how he failed at actually getting the titles he usurps by putting them behind false names. They don't tell the story of the semester he spent at Harvard, getting further behind every day, exhaustion seeping into his bones until getting up for classes became impossible. Until Eliot came to get him, on the first day of winter break, and found him bleeding out on the floor of his bathroom.

No one who knows about his passions understands why he works at his father oil rig. No one but his family knows about the half-year he spent hiding in his big sister's guest room, unable to take on the constant assaults of the outside world. They don't know that the moment he started to come out again, to get better, Eliot came back from the war and it was Jake's turn to take care of his battered, changed brother. They don't know that the one time he seriously considered leaving the oil rig he'd ended up working at for lack of a better option, the day he received a letter from the Metropolitan Library in New York, a soldier in uniform came to the house, and presented his father with a folded flag and a single dog tag.

They definitely don't know about the years it took him to dig himself out of the hole that opened up under him that day. He hid it well. He hid everything well, for so long. Every move, every word, everything calculated, until no one remembered the awkward little boy who didn't speak but sat and read adult-level books of architecture all day. Including himself.

Today, for the first time in twenty years, that little boy has stopped crying and banging on the door of the cell Jake locked him in, inside. That door is now ajar, and a little light is coming through. And Jake is fucking terrified of what letting the little boy out might mean.

[orthodoxydaily]

THOMAS SUNDAY 2019

Reflection written by Ever-memorable Archbishop Dmitri (Royster) of Dallas (Edited for space and a teensy-weensy bit for clarity_by Father Basil Rhodes)

Photo: His Eminence Archbishop Dimitri of Dallas

When the disciples had gathered on the new Passover (Pascha), the Lord’s Day or Resurrection Day, Jesus entered the room where they were — "the doors being shut … for fear of the Jews" — stood in the midst of them and showed them His hands and side. Christ then greeted them with that salutation, retained by the Church through the ages, with which the priest greets the faithful at each of the important parts of the Divine Liturgy and other services: "Peace be unto you."....Continuing, we are told that the apostles "were glad when they saw the Lord." Once more Christ’s words prior to His Passion are brought to mind: "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one can take from you." (John 16: 22) This joy that our Lord promised His disciples is, like peace, that which is experienced in the Divine Presence. It is the same joy felt by Christians after all these centuries when they participate, through the divine worship of the Church, in the blessings of the Kingdom to come. Particularly in the Eucharist an almost inexplicable joy is experienced in an encounter with the risen Lord, in communion with His Holy Body and Blood. "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20) "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." (John 6:56) In the Eucharistic gathering Christ’s glory is revealed to His disciples and they are thus strengthened and confirmed in their faith in the promises of Christ, ready to return to the world from which they were called out. "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1Peter 2:9) (The Greek, “ecclesia,” from which we get the word Church means, called out.) Let’s continue:

Now "Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came," and when the others told Him, "we have seen the Lord." He, responded, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." (John 20: 24-25) Thomas is like so many of us in that he would require tangible, visible proof that Christ is really active in the lives of His people, caring for creation, and that He was what He claimed to be: "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." (John 14:9) Some today desire generally that kind of evidence even for God’s existence, "irrefutable" evidence making it impossible for man not to believe. That type of unquestionable, undeniable proof, we can say, will be put forth only at the end of this age, when "the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him" (Matthew 25:31). At that time it will indeed be quite impossible for anyone (although some may try in vain) to deny "the King of kings and the Lord of lords." (Deuteronomy 10:17; Revelation 19:16)

God’s most important gift to man, that which identifies him as a creature made in the image of God, is free will. The Lord honors this gift. He loves man and would have man love Him freely in return. God, therefore, will not force man to accept Him, but would have him approach his Creator in faith and trust. We would do well to remember the example of St. John the Baptist. He bore witness to his Lord saying, "Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29) Yet after being arrested, in a moment of hesitation or doubt, the Forerunner sent his disciples to Christ asking, "Are you he that we expected, or should we look for another?" (Matthew 11:3) At first glance this question seems strange, indeed contradictory, for "the greatest born of women" to be asking. It is thus important to note that Jesus does not seek to answer it in some "definitive" way, irrefutable in John’s mind. Rather He responds in terms of an invitation, still beckoning His servant to place his trust freely in Him: "Go and relate to John again those things which you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, who does not stumble because of me." (Matthew 11:4-6)

Near the end of the Gospel passage, after Thomas exclaims, "My Lord and my God," Jesus says to him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Faith: this is the way that God would have us come to Him. "Faith," says St. Paul, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). People sometimes lament the fact that they did not live in Apostolic times when it would have been possible to see for themselves and talk face to face with the Incarnate Lord. In the minds of many, this would constitute tangible proof of God’s existence and alleviate any doubts concerning Christ. But would it? Israel was prepared for almost two thousand years for the coming of the Messiah. Miracles were performed by Him in the peoples’ midst. Yet, in the end, those who heard and saw Jesus for themselves wound up shouting, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him." Only a few individuals stood with Him at the foot of the Cross. One really has to wonder seriously if we would have been any different given the chance. For regardless of how and when the Lord chooses to reveal Himself it is always possible, in freedom and because of sin, to explain away that revelation.

A primary emphasis here is that the historical period in which one exists makes no difference as far as one’s relationship to Christ is concerned and his or her ability to know the Truth and live by faith. We have the mystical Body of Christ, the Church’s sacramental, liturgical life, and the Lord’s promise to be with us always. We have "received the Heavenly Spirit," and are blessed with the examples, testimonies and presence of countless saints who have gone on before us. We are literally living, right now if you will, in Apostolic times. So it seems as though we are missing the mark if we begin to demand, from God or from ourselves, objective, factual knowledge in terms of "proof," before we can come to faith. At some point a "leap of faith," will be required, for as mentioned above, so-called concrete evidence can always be discarded if that is what is desired. On the other side of that "leap," though, is the knowledge that we all seek. Once there, there is no lack of proof. But without this faith no amount of knowledge or evidence will suffice. There will always be room for doubt, and opportunities for man in his "wisdom" to deny what is so plain and simple to all who have truly found the narrow path that leads to life. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

[cobaltscoutj-blog]

An attempt to correct some.... misconceptions

In light of recent events, most notably, the Josh Burner vs Lily Orchard situation, people supporting either side have had their differing opinions. These range from claiming Lily is guilty of the crimes Josh has accused her of, therefore, she should be given a civil lawsuit, to Burner having no basis to sue. However, many have also demonstrated some misconception of the law. This is regarding American law, specifically, as nobody knows whether the supposed trial will happen in Canada or the US.

I’d like to start by saying I have no personal feelings or connections with Josh or Lily. I do enjoy content from both parties. Some have accused me of “white knighting” for Lily on a YouTube comment, but in reality, when I see a situation like this, I have to do my homework and make sure the facts aren’t twisted.

Regarding my thoughts about those two, Lily’s definitely an arrogant and pompous asshole, but she’s definitely not the spawn of Satan (She’s definitely not the worst person I’ve met, trust me), while Josh’s biggest mistake is his ineptitude in handling serious matters. Josh seems like a nice guy who’s dealing with certain problems in real life, but I’m not sure, I don’t know him personally. People have claimed Lily wrote a piece of child pornography, abused many people, or that she has “ulterior motives” for housing abuse victims in her server. That is a discussion for later, so this post addresses the allegations Josh has made on that Cease and Desist letter only. I’m not doing this cause I’m a “friend” of Lily or Josh, but if people are going to make claims, I’d like them to have the proper research and backing for it, rather than citing emotions, and believing any insult online is “slander.” It’s great to have an opinion on this matter, but it means more to have an informed opinion. I made sure to do my homework on the law, and conversed with a former Columbia University Law student regarding this topic.

Succinctly, Libel is written defamation of a private figure, while slander is oral defamation of a private figure. In order for statements to be defamatory, they need to be/demonstrate/result in:

1. Factually false statements.

2. Reckless disregard of the truth.

3. Provable damages to the figure. (Mainly, financially)

Josh will inevitably have a difficult time proving harassment or defamation to himself, because he is a public figure. Since Josh is a prominent member of the Brony analysis and YouTube community, he is a public figure on the internet. He regularly posts reviews, skits, commentaries, etc. All of this inherently subjects him, or anyone who uploads similar types of content to criticism (as long as it’s legal). By putting himself out there on YouTube, he has made himself a public figure within that sphere.

Break it down! http://gph.is/Z0CcZN

“Twisting words, and speaking lies about my conversations with Patchwork Heart”

I am not sure what to say for this one, since the call failed to record properly and there is no audio coming from Josh’s end. This one is honestly up in the air. Since the evidence of the call has been damaged, it’s really difficult to prove whether or not Lily has lied or twisted words about it. We can only go on the “he said, she said” basis, which the court will not accept.

 “Deliberately and maliciously placing calls reasonably expected to be private in a public sphere for the intent of defamation.”

Both Burner’s and Orchard’s territories (Texas, United States and Nova Scotia, Canada, respectively) have the “one party consent law.” This basically means that people can record their own conversations with other party, since the recorder is taking part of the conversation him/her/self. Either one recording the call is fair game. I’m not sure why Josh included “deliberately.” However, malice is almost irrelevant to Lily’s action of uploading the conversation. Malice regards libel or slander, while the uploaded conversation was just.... a discussion about what to do with Brony DnD. The video just had the conversation as it happened, and nothing that would damage Josh's reputation. If Josh was worried about defamation from the video, that would imply he did or said something he's not proud of that he doesn't want the audience to know, but a lot of what he said is just up to interpretation. Her uploading the video was meant for the audience to listen to what actually happened, and then letting them decide what to think of it (Whether or not Josh is a “pedo enabler” or a “liar.” But this isn’t the main topic). Defamation applies to recklessly false statements, but portraying the situation as it happened (uploading the actual conversation) is the complete opposite of defamation.

“Using your fanbase and friends to send repeated and unrelenting harassment and false-flag my videos or videos I worked in, especially the Brony D&D videos as shown below.”

Harassment is really difficult to prove for a public figure like Josh. I agree, it’s really scummy of Lily to send her fans and friends on a dislike spree of the Brony DND videos. However, since Josh is a public figure, visible to anyone who types in youtube.com, this one is really difficult to prove as harassment. Plus, he can shut off the ratings bar if the dislikes bother him a lot. Regarding the false-flag problem, it shouldn’t be an issue if the flagging has failed. The decision to remove a flagged video is ultimately made by YouTube, and not the people who flag it. Since the false-flagging has failed, I doubt that the court will tackle this. The false flagging was just petty on the fans’ part.

Josh is trying to prove harassment, but on YouTube, he is subject to any opinion made based on the facts. Anyone can disagree on opinions. It’s also fair game to make an interpretation about someone based on his actions. Although people may disagree, it’s still legal, as long as it’s not blatantly false.

Moving on.

“Repeating and relentless use of ad-hominem attacks against me in public settings.”

Ad hominem is a logical fallacy where one’s argument is loaded with personal insults. Josh also linked the reader to a post where Lily compares Josh to Captain America, when he mentions “Hail Hydra.”

As offensive as it may be, it’s not violating any rules and to suggest a comparison to a comic book character being a felony is ridiculous. I doubt this will go through.

“Stealing my ideas simply to spite me.”

While I do agree copying ideas proves someone is unoriginal, Josh and Lily didn’t copy each ideas word for word. The original creator (Jello Apocalypse) of the “Review in 10 words or less” concept made his regarding Disney movies. The two did copy the concept, but since they added their own wrinkles to it (Making it MLP-based), none of them can be guilty of plagiarism. While it is very petty and childish of her to one-up Josh, it’s still legal. Wanting to one-up someone on the internet is the equivalent of wanting more “Gold stars” than others as an elementary school student. I don’t think there are any laws saying “you aren’t allowed to one-up another person, since it’s out of spite.” I doubt this part goes through.

Now let’s go to where Josh claims Lily has made defamatory statements.

“I bullied Patchwork Heart into relenting about Brony D&D.”

As mentioned somewhere above, this call lacked anything coming from Josh’s end, so this claim is honestly up for grabs. Lily made this claim based upon what Patchwork Heart themselves said on a tumblr post (I can’t find it). Since the call regarding their conversation failed to record properly, Lily’s in reasonable territory to claim Josh did so, since there is nothing to prove that Josh DIDN’T bully Patch (I’m not saying he did. It would just be difficult to prove either side). All Lily could work with was Patch’s tumblr post, since they were the only ones with Josh in that call. Lily formed an opinion based on the limited knowledge she had to work with. Since it’s impossible to prove whether Josh did bully Patch or not, I don’t think this will hold up in court. The only way Lily could be guilty of defamation would be if the call between Josh and Patch was somehow corrected to play Josh’s audio, but there is no record of anything Josh may have said to Patch.

“I said ‘wildly racist’ things when you were working for me.”

Whether Josh had said these racist things, nobody except for Lily and Josh themselves know. This sounds like a personal problem they had with each other that could be corrected if they decided to compromise and discuss this. Unfortunately both are more concerned about a power struggle more than anything, making this an unrealistic solution. I’m not sure what to say about this. Moving on.

“I am a fake Marine.”

Lily had never actually claimed that. In her “Guard Break” video, here is what she said regarding Josh’s status as a Marine.

“Mr. Burner wasn’t actually in the military. He was in the Marine Corps’ band, the ceremonial ‘I’m helping’ of most military branches. And to presume some kind of genuine authority out of that is to claim that the children who participate in the royal Navy Seal Cadets have any genuine military experience.”

What Lily did in this statement was make a somewhat arguable opinion regarding a fact. The fact of the matter is that Josh was in the Marine Corps’ band. Lily’s opinion is that since playing in the band and actual combat are completely different, he shouldn’t try to act as if he has “military authority.” While this is offensive to many people (I can’t blame anyone for thinking that), it’s on legal territory since she isn’t calling Josh a fake marine. She acknowledges Josh was in the Marine’s band, and uses an (pretty bad, but still legal) analogy to describe what she thinks of it. Saying someone is a fake marine is different from what Lily said. Her claim is equivalent to saying Josh is a sorry excuse of a marine. Offensive? Yes. Illegal? No.

“I am a fake Christian.”

To be honest, as a Catholic, I and many others have no idea what Christianity is about. It’s generally common knowledge that Josh is a Christian and takes pride in that. It’s also known that he has conservative beliefs. What Lily essentially did was call him a hypocrite, since both have principles that inherently conflict. Others may disagree about Josh being a hypocrite. Calling someone a hypocrite for their beliefs is definitely offensive, but doing so is merely an opinion made based on the facts. I doubt attorneys will handle this aspect of the lawsuit, should it happen.

All of these claims made on Josh’s C&D Letter won’t realistically pass through the court or lawyers. Lily’s statements about Josh amount to opinions formed based on actions or facts about Josh. Josh, being a public figure like Lily or many other YouTubers, isn’t legally protected from such actions. Trying to file a harassment lawsuit as a public figure is extremely difficult to get through, since lawyers won’t take a case that’s as gray as this one. Furthermore, Josh’s subscriber and patron count have increased and will continue to do so. It’ll be difficult to prove damages if both increase, since they inevitably make more money for him. If the sub count or patron count had dropped, then he can realistically prove damages, but since the opposite happened, it’s almost impossible. Calling someone an enabler and a pedophile are different since pedophilia is clear cut, while enabling someone can be interpreted as such through many different actions, making it unclear.

HOWEVER

This does not mean I condone Lily’s actions. Nevertheless, she is not legally obligated to stop being an asshole to people. Just as she has her rights to criticize and insult others, she’s also fair game to receiving it as well. Nothing is stopping anyone from criticizing her or vice versa, JUST AS LONG as it isn’t blatantly false. If it’s an opinion formed based on the facts, it’s fair game. Still, there is one action mentioned on the C&D that puts her into dangerous territory...

“Threatening physical harm / to kill me / saying I should die.”

Her claiming she will put a gun to Josh’s head puts her on thin ice legally. Of course, she can possibly defend herself, saying it was a hyperbole. However, she really does need to back off the violent remarks. This is really the only claim I can find on the letter that a lawyer would actually consider. Anything regarding harm or death puts the person on a fine line between claiming it was a hyperbole and actually making realistic threats.

OVERALL

While I don’t justify any of Lily’s actions, Josh’s biggest mistake seems to be his lack of experience and ineptitude in handling these kinds of situations. A lot of what Lily did is morally wrong, but the law won’t stop her from doing so. Some of the claims are difficult to prove for either side, since the conversation failed to include everything mentioned. I don’t want this to appear as if I’m “white-knighting” Lily Orchard while “trying to find Josh guilty.” Neither side is entirely correct or wrong about it. Here is a suggestion I’d like to make. You both almost had the chance to end this within 10-30 minutes on a Discord conversation. You both almost had the chance to stop all the dislike sprees and drama. But you both valued the power struggle more than actually solving the problem. Lily’s suggestion of Josh pushing for the delisting of the Brony DND videos (while making them viewable by link) in exchange for her removing 4 videos that talk about Josh, honestly seems reasonable. Both sides get what they want. Both sides can walk away from each other. Both sides don’t have to talk to each other or think about each other. Her last email that resorted to calling Josh a child was unnecessary, but throughout the email exchange, I thought she was being somewhat... civilized. Josh didn’t have to act defensive and him focusing on the call being “on his terms” may have prolonged this whole debacle. I can’t blame him for thinking that way. Lily has been unforgiving to Josh, and he doesn’t want to appear to be a pushover. However, there are some times, when you need to swallow your pride and be willing to compromise. Lily didn’t need to write that final email insulting Josh, and Josh didn’t need to disregard the deal over a power struggle. It could’ve all just ended. Of course, Lily could have some “ulterior motives” behind discussing this with Josh, but for the sake of everything, take everything at face value and try to fix this together. If one of you goes back on your word, the (theoretical) conversation would be uploaded to hold either party accountable.

-J (Sorry for the long post, but it was necessary. Kudos for reading.)

[tudorscharlot]

Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer/Dexter Fletcher, 2018)

31 Halloweens of October #34

(An important note about the following tirade: I know that this film was written by Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan and that it was directed by Bryan Singer and Dexter Fletcher. But it is obvious from the course of its labored, years-long development and from the final product itself that this film was made in strict accordance with the views of Brian May and Roger Taylor. And I hold them ultimately responsible for the film that was made.)   This is the most deeply offensive film I've seen in years (probably since I saw Nymphomaniac: Vol. II). The music of Queen is so important to me on an emotional level and on a fundamental, worldview level that it would be fair to describe my devotion to it as religious. And I know I'm not alone on planet earth in feeling that way. Fuck this movie and everyone responsible for it forever. Do not go and see this. Don't give them your money and don't give them any sense of validation that what they've done is acceptable. (After seeing the cringe-inducing trailer, I vowed to never give this film a cent of my money. But then I was unexpectedly given a free ticket to see it. I went to see Suspiria for the second time in 24 hours with my best friend, but the theater it was showing in was having technical problems. The theater manager gave us tickets to a later showing of Suspiria and offered us free passes to anything that was playing right then, as well as free concessions. Even though I was now essentially being paid to see this film, I still only reluctantly accepted the situation.) It feels like a cheap shot to come at this movie over the chronological inaccuracies. The last thing I ever want to be is one of those "ACTUALLY..." guys who misses the poetic forest for the literal trees. I don't think it's critically important in a non-documentary, narrative film to be 100% accurate on dry, historical details, especially when it benefits the narrative structure to make slight revisions and combinations of events. Liberties taken in service of the spirit of the larger truth are fine by me. But the extremity of what they did in this film is egregious, lazy, and ultimately just confusing. So yes, I am going to go there, right now. The vocal version of "Seven Seas of Rhye" was not recorded during the sessions for Queen. "Another One Bites the Dust" was recorded three years after "We Will Rock You". Freddie Mercury did not release his first solo album until four years after Roger Taylor released his first solo album and one year after Roger released his second solo album (which goes some way toward debunking the notion that the band viewed Freddie's solo projects as a betrayal). Freddie did not return from an extended period of isolation in Munich and beg the band to perform at Live Aid. Queen just had completed the massive, nearly year-long world tour for The Works less than two months before their appearance at Live Aid - it had not been years since they played onstage together. The band did not decide to start sharing all writing credits equally until they recorded The Miracle three years and two albums after Live Aid. And, as far as is publicly known, Freddie Mercury did not find out that he was HIV-positive until 1986 or 1987. (And this is all off the top of my head.)

None of this should matter, but it does matter. Because the moment that Brian May and Roger Taylor slapped their names on this thing as executive producers, the nature of the project and its relationship to the Queen oeuvre changed. What is this movie, and who is it for? Queen is one of the biggest bands ever, but I would still argue that a biopic about Freddie Mercury ought to be aimed primarily at people already familiar with him and Queen and the music they made. It should be for the fans, and the filmmakers should assume a certain basic level of familiarity with their story among viewers. And in that case, they should know that having all of these historical inaccuracies is only going to irritate devotees like me who have a deeper-than-Wikipedia knowledge of the subject matter. And, whether or not these inaccuracies irritate me, I'd certainly expect them to irritate the two men who lived these experiences and who exercised serious executive control over this movie from start to finish. Why would Brian and Roger sign off on such an error-riddled version of their own story? I mentioned Wikipedia up there, and I've read at least one review that snarkily described this film as an adaptation of the Wikipedia entry for Queen. I think that even that is giving it too much credit. This film is like an adaptation of a Buzzfeed "25 Things You Might Not Know About Queen" list (with an emphasis on the factual inaccuracies those lists always have). Bohemian Rhapsody is clearly not intended as a thoughtful love-letter to serious fans of Queen. So does that mean it is aimed at the widest common denominator - a promotional item designed and deployed to attract record-buyers (or Spotify-streamers) unfamiliar with the band? And to stoke nostalgia among extant fans who may then be enticed to buy whatever new reconfiguration of Queen's Greatest Hits is being released along with this film? On the one hand, yes, obviously. I'll never fault living artists (or the estates of deceased artists) for working to keep their valuable bodies of work alive in the public consciousness and available to new generations of potential fans. But there are tasteful, thoughtful, discerning ways to do this (see the recent John Lennon Imagine boxed set or Queen's own Made in Heaven album). Careful and caring artists or estates share archival or celebratory releases that add substance. Greedy people who've lost the plot completely offer up crass, sloppy, tasteless cash grabs. And that's what this goddamned movie is. And what virtually everything Brian May and Roger Taylor have done in the name of Queen over the last two decades has been. I say "greedy" and "cash grab," but I don't think this is just about money. It's also more abstract. There's an idea and an image of Queen that is very real for them and for me and for so many people in the world, and it is precious. But Queen is in the past. Queen as we know them and want them ended when Freddie Mercury left us. It's not right and it's not fair, but what was can never be again. No matter how many Queen + whatever asshole tours or holograms or biopics are shoved at us. On the other hand, though, this film is a far more dangerous thing than just a promotional cash grab. It is a piece of propaganda. When Brian May and Roger Taylor made themselves executive producers of this film, it became canon. Which confers on this film and its creators a much higher level of responsibility with regards to the legacy of Queen. And every person who made this film failed to be honest or faithful to Freddie and the idea of Queen. It's shameful. Even if Brian and Roger set out to share an honest but loving account of the story of Freddie and Queen, such an endeavor is impossible in their hands. It is impossible for two members of a four-person group to present their own version of events and group dynamics to the world as though it were an official and objective record of what happened and get it right. Even free of conscious, questionable intentions, they are too close to be objective. But I do not believe they are free of conscious, questionable intentions. This film never disputes Freddie Mercury's genius talents as a performer or songwriter. And it is generous in its portrayal of his kindness, sweetness, and wit. But it also presents him as a pill-popping sexual deviant whose pursuit of a solo career in the 1980s was an ego-driven affront to the unity of Queen, rather than the healthy and fairly standard outlet for expression that any artist a decade in with a massively successful band tends to engage in (see also: Roger Taylor, for fuck's sake). And it also presents him as the only real source of discord in the band. This is all in striking contrast to the presentation of Brian and Roger as blandly stable family men dedicated wholly to the vision of Queen. (There are a couple of winking references to Roger cheating on his wife, but these references lack the weight of similar events in Freddie's story.) An important side-note: It should also be mentioned that John Deacon is presented as basically a non-entity whose only contribution is to frequently make silly faces that are eerily like Andy Samberg mugging (seriously, find a still or clip of this actor in this movie - it's fucked up). In real life, John Deacon more or less permanently parted ways with Brian May and Roger Taylor in the late 1990s. It has been widely assumed (he may even have said so at some point) that this was because he didn't like the way they were handling the legacy of the band. Fast-forward to 2018 and this film's portrayal of John seems to be grinding a major axe of butt-hurt at him. It's so fucking petty. But back to Freddie. What do we know about Freddie Mercury, the private citizen? We know he was extremely private and largely refused to ever discuss his personal life with the press. That doesn't mean that it's strictly off-limits and inappropriate to discuss his private life in a film about him now. There are private things about Freddie (both personal and professional) that the surviving members of Queen definitely knew. Jim Hutton and others have shared personal things about Freddie over the years since his death, as well. I believe it's okay to respectfully reveal private details in the service of telling a great artist's story. The problem here is that Brian and Roger have shot any credibility they had as reliable or unbiased sources. If they can't even get the decade and order in which two of their biggest hits were recorded - if accurately representing something as verifiable and relevant to the development of their work as that isn't important for this film, why should and how can we believe anything this films tells us that can't be verified beyond "the executive producers say it happened"? If major events in their recording and performing career can be juggled around willy-nilly to fit the desired narrative arc, how we can trust that the same wild liberties aren’t being taken with unverifiable closed-door meetings and private arguments? I'm SURE that Freddie Mercury was sometimes flamboyantly egotistical in the studio and backstage. But I'm equally sure that every other member of Queen was just as egotistical, just as often. They never would have accomplished the things they accomplished if there weren't huge amounts of ego and ambition and personal investment between them. But I do not buy that this film accurately represents Freddie's temperament, his ego, or his behavior in many of the specific situations it reenacts. It doesn’t get his style. Watch any video of Freddie performing or being interviewed - this film doesn't get him at all. I'm not queer and I'm not Parsi, but the way this film handles Freddie's relationship with his ethnicity, with his family, and with his sexuality feels pretty boilerplate and cliched. It doesn't strike me that any particularly negative stereotypes are being indulged, but it does feel like a lot of simplistic movie tropes are employed to quickly dispense with these matters. I am glad that so much attention is given to Freddie's relationship with Mary Austin, but it nonetheless feels tonally wrong. I think that their relationship was beautiful and I don't think this movie quite gets it. And sure, what the fuck do I know? Very little. But I know they were lifelong companions in ways that went far beyond sex, and that she was the love of his life. And I know that I can't trust that the two guys who were there are representing it truthfully now. I'd rather take Freddie's word for it. And UGH. What the ever-loving fuck is up with Rami Malek's prosthetic bucked teeth in this movie? Let's get something straight: Freddie Mercury was a physically beautiful man. My god, he was. It is an obnoxious insult to have some guy prancing around like fucking Nosferatu playing at being Freddie Mercury. No serious actor would need fake teeth to play this role, and no serious filmmaker would ever even consider such a thing. All this heavy, meta shit aside, this is also just a bad movie on the most basic level. It is so bloated with unnecessary show-off shots, rock and roll biopic cliches, embarrassing dialogue, and one-dimensional performances that even hearing some of my favorite music ever at high volumes in a movie theater couldn't transport me. Some serious acting talent was assembled here, and some of the cast do an admirable job with what they were given, but this movie has no heart. Bohemian Rhapsody makes Freddie Mercury a caricature. It tries not to, and it really is mostly a very flattering caricature. But it's a reduction that fails terribly in its mission to show us who Freddie Mercury was. Freddie Mercury deserves infinitely better than this film. This film should not have been made. If they had gotten everything perfectly right, it would still be a pointless and distasteful exercise. Go watch any video of Freddie Mercury performing or just talking and the emptiness of this film becomes instantly clear. (Note: I’ve tagged this film with my October horror film viewing because this film is horrible.)

[superchartisland]

A: Boulder Dash II (First Star Software, Commodore 64, 1985)

When I was seven or eight, I took my notepad and pens and started creating my own version of Commodore Force magazine. I imitated its multiple-reviewer approach to games reviews with my family members in place of its writers, complete with caricatures next to each review. A decade on from my imitation games magazine, still imitating formats that I loved, I initiated something similar with Stylus Magazine's multiple-reviewer feature The Singles Jukebox, getting my brother and sister to join me in reviewing new music releases.

AAA started from my brother Martin's plan to do a big video game blog project, and my suggestion for it to be a chronological history of popular games in the UK, with no small debt to Popular. From there and observing the lack of historical games sales charts came the idea of doing one game for each month, starting from just before when Martin was born. This involved an attempt to reassemble a sequence of the most popular games through a combination of memory, online information and magazine scans, guesswork, format partiality and the occasional outrageous fiddle. Any presentation as definitive is meant with humour.

I have loved reading everything Martin has written for it, and started joining in on writing some entries and loved that too. So I've decided to do a bit more of it, and write up my own pieces on the same set of games, a perspective from Player 2. Except as someone nearly two years older, it seemed right to start off by taking things a bit further back, to the time of my own birth. So the first thing I'll be covering will be the path from August 1985 to May 1987. Martin's entry #0 and #1 were on a behemoth of the Japanese video games industry and a behemoth, of its time at least, of the British computer games industry. And by happy coincidence, seeing that my first game got reviews in July, August and September 1985 lets me place my starting point at another massively popular Commodore 64 game with deep personal resonance.

The first game I wrote about and assigned in my role as family video games magazine editor was Boulder Dash II. I wrote that I was pleased to discover that it was a Rockman clone, which showed a good knowledge of the language of influence and a less good factual knowledge, because the game I obsessively played and somehow knew as Rockman was in fact the original Boulder Dash. That game's levels are burned deep into my mind in a way that its sequel's aren't quite, as familiar as they are.

Explaining Boulder Dash without reference to familiarity with some form of the genre isn't that easy. It's a most computer game-y game, with a concept which is easy to take in through  playing it but much more difficult to explain; it has board game echoes but is nonetheless impossible to imagine existing without the immediate feedback of interactivity. It takes place in a series of caves where you control a character moving from one space to another on a big square grid where any item takes up one space.

You can freely move up, down, left or right in a way which suggests a top-down view, as do the movements of the games enemies. Then there are diamonds (which you have to collect to complete a level) and rocks (which block you) which are, unlike you, subject to gravity and fall down the screen if there is nothing in their way. They're held in place by blocks of 'dirt' supporting them to their place in side-on view space, and that dirt is removed if your character moves across it. 

The critical mechanism: a rock is held up by dirt -> you move onto the dirt and instead you are now holding up the rock -> you move away and it falls into the space below. Thinking about the contradictions of Boulder Dash physics, the way that it exists as two different dimensional planes knotted into one space, is a real head-spinner.

It keeps you too busy to have a chance to do much pondering about that, though. You start moving rocks to get to those diamonds, and if you make one wrong decision you can block off your path, or drop a rock (or diamond) on your own head for instant death. Enemies move around the levels and you often have to drop rocks on them instead. You can outpace a falling rock, but only just. As such, rocks act as barrier, danger and tool, all in one, and turning them to your use needs both quick thinking and frequently quick reactions. 

As soon as things reach a certain level of complication, trajectories get too difficult to plan for, maybe why the game generously doesn’t stop when you drop a rock on your head but lets you watch things carry on falling into place as long as you like afterwards. The game alternates moments of careful assessment and planning with moments of fast action and sometimes exhilarating panic, and it’s a combo that you’ll often see come up in my favourites as we go on.

In truth, the original game’s careful exploration of the possibilities of its mechanisms is a much stronger piece of design from start to finish. Boulder Dash II, with little else to distinguish it, gets hung up on complications and set pieces, like the first level Cave A’s wall that magically converts falling rocks to diamonds for no apparent reason, and doesn’t give the unadorned gameplay the confidence it deserves. Occasionally these set-pieces are brilliant, though. 

Cave B’s management of rocks and diamonds pouring through narrow apertures drives exactly the perfect balance of thought and action as you try to prevent diamonds getting trapped in the unstoppably forming heaps. Cave I’s non-stop runaround skipping between enemy patterns is a delightful change of pace. 

Playing Boulder Dash II jogs happy memories but beyond that I can still easily see why it was the first game I wanted to rave about in my nascent imaginary magazine career. It’s nice to make it the first for this new enterprise too.

Twenty-five years on from that and more than a decade on from when I looked up to The Singles Jukebox so much I set up my own imitation of it, I write for and help run the real thing, putting forward songs to be reviewed by 6+ writers. It's a big part of my life. In one conversation about the Jukebox's direction with the site owner, he explained that his preference for reviews from multiple people's perspectives was a long established thing. It went back, he said, to growing up reading video games reviewed that way, in Zzap!64 magazine. A little later I discovered that his Zzap!64 and my Commodore Force were one and the same magazine, under different names. Sometimes thinking about life and the way things knot together is a real head-spinner.

[seenashwrite]

do we know anything about john winchester's parents, besides Henry? Do you have any speculation as to why the boys were named after Mary's parents? We learn from Henry that he hadn't abandoned young John. Thanks to Abaddon. But I need more!

Ah, an autopsy. Everybody gown up. Grab the rib spreader. This is gonna be a good one. Characters like Millie are my most favorite when it comes to writing in the vein of “based on…” and “adapted by…” because we have little information on them, meaning we can fill in those cracks ourselves, but at the same time? In this case, at least? The little bit we’ve got on Millie holds a lot.

Brief disclaimer: I am of the opinion that the writers (excepting Kripke, who was playing the long game with a five-year plan) aren’t doing as much foreshadowing and employing other sneaky-tricksy, deep-seated literary gambits as I’ve noted more than a few viewers assert; it seems to me that the writers backtrack and use past plot points (broadly, that is - evidence has shown us that, on the whole, they aren’t precise canon adherents) to bolster present/immediate-future arcs. However, it gives us the opportunity to expound upon the more minute things/characters they’ve forgotten about and/or left to languish.

Let’s do a list of knowns vs. unknowns about The Mysterious Mrs. Winchester, because the former’s more important than the latter when getting our brains on task for an adaptation/based-upon piece, a.k.a. fanfiction. I have used her as a pivotal player (in the backstory) for my big story, so minus some specific lines I just pulled from a script, the following is coming from my (canon-based) notes. You have come to the right person #humbly #not really #Millie’s my jam 

Check this out.

Millie has only come up twice in the show, most recently on Lady Antonia “Brain-Diddle” Bevell’s grossly incomplete mood board, then in a flashback during a conversation between Henry and Josie. Watch your step for that turd of exposition dump up top:

Catch that? 

Item #1: Millie is aware of Henry’s job / The MoLs

Perhaps she’s even met Josie - decent speculation, Josie is her husband’s partner, at least for now, in the context of their novice/initiate status, and Josie felt comfortable referring to Millie by name to Henry, vs. saying “Your wife is lucky to have you.”

To what degree is Millie in-the-know? Specifically, is she aware of the paranormal bend of it all? That’s a crack we can fill. She could very well be under the impression this is some sort of niche government division.

I vote “no”. I think Henry would’ve said, “Except she doesn’t know, Josie. She doesn’t know what we deal with, how dangerous the work can be. All she’d know is that she’s become a widow….”

A little sidebar to bolster my claims of her being in the know - whether Henry had, in the past, started tip-toeing down the road of cluing in John on his work is unknown, but he sure as shit was starting to edge there based on the whole “What’s that pin mean” - “You’ll find out” exchange. Now, Henry’s smart, and smart people know that telling your offspring to keep things secret from the other parent is a dumbass move, from beans to beanstalks, and particularly when they’re in mouthy toddler beansprout stage, that crew can’t keep anything secret, it ain’t how they’re wired.

So Millie knows, and I think Millie knows about the bumps in the night. I think she knows Henry’s father and grandfather were members. And she knows that means John’s on deck. And she knows that’s bad news. Here’s why.

Item #2: Millie & John move from Illinois

Henry went missing in ‘58, we’ve no idea when when she moved. Was she from Illinois? Did she move alone? Did she have family somewhere? Did she go there first? Did she go straight to Kansas? Why did she end up in Kansas? Nobody knows. We’ve zero knowledge of anything in this area. Plot away.

But we do have the knowledge she got herself and her son the hell outta Dodge. She left friends. Took John away from his friends. Left the house she shared with her husband. Again: did she lose the house? Did she not have a skill set that would’ve = decent employment? Do the MoLs not have some sort of killed-in-the-line-of-duty spousal/family payout? Was it a crappy one? Got me.

Point is, single motherhood is tough now, much less the further back in time you go. It’s possible she did just fine on her own.

But let’s talk probable.

Item #3: Millie remarried & put down roots in Kansas

When we meet adult John, a random in town tells him “Say hello to your old man for me.” 

[glances around] 

Cool.

Now, the writers - when they had to do the whole MoL thing in order to get us to the bunker so there was a stable set piece for consistency or budget or whatever - absolutely forgot this one-off comment that was made in the infancy of the show, guaranteed, hundred percent, no way I’m wrong. Same goes for the one-off “comes from a family of mechanics” line that some fans glom onto. 

These are canon misfires that piddled into the ocean, never tore through the hull of another ship, and are No Big Deal. [yes I know the difference between cannon and canon, I’m being cheeky, nobody “@” me] Upshot is, we get to stick it into the Millie file. Make stepdad a mechanic. Boom. Done.

In any event, I use the phrase “puts down roots” because this is where John returned to when he left the service, got a job as a mechanic, ultimately started dating this chick named Mary, so this was home. We can reasonably assume, then, that he’d lived there for most of his life, given how young he was when he signed up for the service*.

[* Note: I state vs. suggest because I have extensive character autopsies done on both John and Mary; I’ve covered a bit of my Mary diagnoses elsewhere; just letting y'all know it’s why I tend to state things about them vs. quantify it with “My impression is…”, etc., because I’ve got a decently robust pile of evidence to support my statements; J & M aren’t the topic here, though]

I actually like the misfire line about mechanics, and I like saying that stepdad is a mechanic, because it tracks with items #1-4 above, and gives us…

Item #5: Millie didn’t want John to be in the Men of Letters and made critical life choices to prevent such

Two points for this item:

—> She went from being the wife of an academic professional involved with covert ops to being the wife of a mechanic

This isn’t impossible or strange or noteworthy in-and-of itself. I’m not saying it is, not shitting on blue collar workers or persons who specialize in a trade vs. those on a scholarly track. I don’t mean to infer that Millie - as a single mom in the early ‘60s - lowered her standards or something, that she was desperate for a husband and took what she could get; on the contrary, based on how important knowledge and order was to Henry, how he looked down his nose at what he found to be the pedestrian lifestyle/life choices of hunters, I’d assert that Millie was quite intelligent and perhaps even “upper-crust”.

But that sharp turn, regardless of the impetus, does go to our Millie profile. It’s just interesting, that flip of her switch, especially when you combine it with the move from her established life with a young child.

—> She never told John the truth about Henry’s disappearance

Why? Why would you do that to your kid? Why would you allow him to have the impression - and the heartache from - believing he was abandoned?

Because - what trumps everything (or should) for a parent?

Protecting your kid.

The Namesake Question

Real answer: the characters didn’t exist at the time the show’s skeleton was being assembled.

Moving on to the answer(s) we can divine based on canon…

First obvious answer, on the Millie front, is they had two boys. Yeah, yeah, could’ve been “Miller” or her maiden name or something, and we don’t know their middle names, etc. Knock it out, throw it in as a plot point. And true, it’s not like they went with, say, Henry and Sam. The Dean character could’ve pulled off the nickname “Hank”, admittedly difficult as it is to imagine from our current vantage point. So, you’re right - it’s a thing. 

Again, I’ve long had autopsies done on John and Mary, adding to them over seasons 11-13 (when I started watching in real time), and those are lengthy, winding roads that do branch off of the Millie highway, but aren’t the topic here. Just a reminder that all the things I’m presenting below in a factual tone, I’ve got evidence to back it up.

Based on John and Mary’s behavior, their choices, their parenting styles, we can paint a pretty clear picture in our minds of their childhoods. For John, we’ve covered the broad sweeps of his to the extent we can by way of examining Millie. For Mary, we have more, and have seen her parents and their behavior, their choices, their parenting style. I don’t see the Campbells as putting family first above all (they put the mission first - sound like anyone else we know?), whereas Henry has been shown to love his wife and son more than anything, so had John been exposed to him? Wow. We probably wouldn’t recognize him.

But as it stands, John doesn’t have an instinctual reaction to put family above everything else. Neither does Mary, as we’ve since learned. Dean does, vehemently, and as Sam matured, his instinct has changed to be this way, as well. It happens - some of us, either purposefully or unintentionally, end up replicating our childhoods for our children; others, like Dean and Sam, strive to do the opposite. Even siblings growing up in the same environment can go different directions - it’s a crap shoot to a degree, whether when, upon leaving the house, you go out the front door or the back.

So while I don’t see that Mary was particularly close to Deanna and Samuel, I do find there’s enough to support that John wasn’t close at all to Millie. Absence of evidence does not = proof, true, so the lack of him talking about his mother alone doesn’t exactly make a solid case. Having said that, there’s multiple reasons (again-again, that’s for another time) based on solid evidence (i/e, John’s actions/decisions), which have me leaning towards he and his mother being anywhere from distant to estranged, not covering that list, but one that’s germane to our current topic is this:

When John got busy investigating Mary’s death - or letting folks assume he was working through his grief by ditching his business and checking out on being a father - he left Dean and Sam with Mike and Kate Guenther while he was off drinking and researching, perhaps others (and yes, Bobby later, but I’m talking about initially, in their hometown) if the Guenthers were unable, and who knows who all if he left for days at a time.

So why did John and Dean and Sam not ever stay with Millie? Why were Dean and Sam not left with their grandmother? She was right there.

Well, the answer is that the writers didn’t think of Henry (and by extension, Millie) til seasons later, but for us, it’s a crack that could be filled, a nice deep one, too. 

Three possibilities:

(1) Millie had died prior(2) Millie and John were not close, possibly estranged(3) Millie did help watch after Dean and Sam

Numbers 1 and 2 are plausible, and it actually could be both. Could also spin it to where Millie was dead, stepfather was alive (we have evidence of that, see above, RE: rando dude’s “Say hi to your old man for me”) and John wasn’t comfortable leaving Dean and Sam with him, or there was some reason the stepdad was unable to take care of them, or maybe John loved stepdad dearly and would have stayed with him/left the kids with him, but stepdad had died or remarried or moved away before Dean was born. Fill in that blank yourself.

I don’t find number 3 very probable, as it’s not mentioned in John’s journal. He specifically mentions Mike and Kate several times. He even mentions Missouri meeting Dean and Sam, how they really took to her immediately. He would’ve mentioned Millie.

I say all that to say, the lack of naming one of the boys after Henry is of note, but not mysterious for me because John was under the impression that his father ditched him and his mother. And, um...

.

INT. DINER – DAY

We see a close-up of a black-and-white photograph of HENRY holding a baseball with his arm around a young boy holding a bat. HENRY is sitting at a table holding the photograph. DEAN and SAM are standing at the counter.

SAM Driver's license says he's Henry Winchester from Normal, Illinois. He knows Dad's birthday, the exact place where he was born. Dude, that's our grandfather.

DEAN I'm just saying before we break out the warm and toasties, let's not forget that, uh, H.G. Wells over there left Dad high and dry when he was a kid.

SAM But maybe he didn't run out on Dad – I mean, not on purpose. Maybe he time-traveled here and, I don't know, got stuck.

DEAN Yeah, well, either way, Dad hated the son of a bitch.

.

So name-wise for the Winchester side? Miller, Mills, a maiden name - I can see something as a namesake for Millie still being plausible as one of their middle names; a Henry namesake never had a chance in hell. 

And despite neither John nor Mary behaving as if they truly buy into the whole FAMILY IS EVERYTHING stance, Samuel and Deanna died a horrible death, and not far away - it happened when both John and Mary were in the mix, Mary specifically. I don’t see her having to push very hard to get John on board with naming their kids after her parents following a shared traumatic experience.

Alrighty, then.

We can send some samples off to the lab, I hear the Stynes run a really thorough one not too far from here, but I’m pretty satisfied - pass me the sutures, time to tag and bag.

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That was gross, I’m so apologizing. 

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[whispers] I’m totes not. 😏

Hello, person who has read this far! See HERE for how to make an appointment with Dr. Nash.

[diddykongfan]

(my heart is a kaleidoscope)

arc one, dark kingdom/dark curse, 3/?

in which Emma’s pursuit of staying in Storybrooke (and her search for information on the other Guardians) begins in earnest, David is not in a coma, and we get our first glimpse at one of the other Guardians - Aurora, as it happens. Also, Graham POV and a Tuxedo Mask appearance, and a second battle that proves I can’t, as yet, write action sequences.

With Henry at school, her mind made up to stay in town, and the knowledge that attacks are more likely to happen at night – yesterday’s mid-afternoon attack being the rare exception rather than the rule, at least according to the kid who is her only source of information in all of this – there’s not much that Emma can actually do other than peruse the classifieds in the paper for items number one and two on her list of priorities; a place to stay other than Granny’s, someplace where she can come and go from, both to fight monsters and to find the other girls out of town, without raising too many suspicions, and a part-time job while she’s in town. Again, something that she can come and go from without raising too many questions.

She does this seated once more at the counter of the diner, nursing a mug of hot cocoa with cinnamon; places like this are the best places to get to know a small town. Her position allows her to observe the people that come and go, to see Storybrooke and get a feel for the town and its residents, without raising undue suspicion or drawing too much attention to herself.

She is, for all intents and purposes, a tourist, until it’s known that she’s staying. A tourist in the diner? Even if tourists are as rare as it has been suggested, in Storybrooke, a tourist in the diner is practically normal. At least as far as most small-tourism-towns are concerned, and Storybrooke certainly seems to believe it’s a small tourism town – if the picturesque-but-outdated atmosphere and lack of major industry are anything to go by, anyway.

And while she could just as easily browse the paper in the privacy of her rented room, well… It’s a nerve center. Possibly the nerve center of the town.

Everybody needs to eat. Cooking for themselves? Optional, especially when there’s a so much easier alternative available.

It’s basic human nature, because people get busy, or lazy, or bored, or lonely, and they go out to eat instead of staying home and cooking, and, yes, she might be exploiting it a little. But there’s not a better way to get the lay of the land around here, even if Henry is right and most of the town is clueless about the way things truly are – and she needs to start getting a feel for the routine of this place if she’s going to stay.

It’s not a good sign that within an hour, she’s discovered that, in the morning edition at the very least, there are no jobs, apartments, or other rentals in the classifieds of the paper.

None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

That was the most obvious place to start that part of her search, and the lack of anything is… Not encouraging. To put it mildly.

“You’re not going to find whatever it is you’re looking for in the Mirror,” the waitress, Ruby, speaks, clearly addressing Emma – as there’s no one else around with the paper – pausing as she works on brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Yes, she’d come to that conclusion herself. “It’s just a biased trash rag.”

That was not a conclusion she’d come to – though, admittedly, aside from the article on the attack, she’s only read the sparse classifieds. Half a dozen times, to confirm she hadn’t missed a listing that would happen to be exactly what she’s looking for.

“How so?” The article on the attack had been as factual as it probably could be, given the circumstances. Most of the witnesses had still been unconscious when Emma left, and a kid crying monster is easy to dismiss as traumatized, however truthful their story might be, mysterious heroes captured on film and all.

“The editor, Sydney. He’s completely in the mayor’s pocket. If she wants mud slung, he’s the one that does it. And come on, you can’t have missed the puff piece about her under the fold. Hate to call the robbery a good thing, but if it hadn’t come along then Regina would have been the headline. Just like every day.”

Ah. That kind of biased trash rag. And if Regina holds the paper, she probably has more sway than she should over other departments of the town as well. Seeing how the investigation of the “robbery” goes will be a clue as to her hold on the local law enforcement.

Though – it could always be worse. The kid’s testimony about Sailor Moon could have been brushed aside in its entirety to paint her as the attacker instead of the one to fight the attacker back, making her into public enemy number one.

“I wouldn’t expect that level of corruption to reach the classifieds?” Honestly, she can’t quite see how the mayor controlling the news – or at least having a sycophant in charge of the news outlet, because if she fully controlled it letting the article calling Sailor Moon a hero run wouldn’t make any sense – relates to that part of the paper at all. But there’s no way Ruby didn’t notice where in the paper her attention was focused – and she still brought it up.

“That’s not corruption. I’m not sure any of it is, precisely. Still, whether Sydney’s actually corrupt or just eager to please his crush, the classifieds is just… Storybrooke. There’s nothing here. This place is nothing. Nobody’s gonna move or anything. Why bother?” And the woman shakes her head, looking entirely disgusted with the situation. Even with the forewarning from Henry that everyone is miserable here, she hadn’t quite expected that sort of open bitterness, not really.

But that’s what she’s here to fix, right? The reason that she can transform, the reason that Henry even bothered coming to find her. That bitterness, that misery and unhappiness, Sailor Moon is supposed to be able to do something about it.

Which is a pressure that she didn’t want or need in her life, but by now she’s somewhat used to the fact that things don’t go the way that would be most convenient for her. She can deal with this, just like she’s dealt with everything else she’s been handed – and at least this time, there’s the promise of finding out where she comes from at the end of it all.

“And if I was interested in finding a place to stay of my own here in town?”

“Like… Staying for the kid?” Ruby raises an eyebrow in her direction, her tone barely masking her bafflement at the idea of someone wanting to stay in Storybrooke. “You could just extend your stay at Granny’s indefinitely. You’re not gonna find a house. There’s a couple apartment buildings in town, but if they have anywhere for rent… Well, you’d actually have to go down there to find out. They know they’re not getting anyone by putting it in the paper. No one comes here. Let alone moves here.”

There’s a thinly-veiled run while you have the chance in that sentence, but Emma ignores it. The chance pretty much left her the moment she took the bait and tried to transform to prove that she couldn’t – and was wrong.

“Yeah, for the kid,” she agrees, even though that’s only part of it. It’s the path of least resistance, in getting people to stop questioning why she’d be willing to come to Storybrooke. It’s convenient, and there is truth to it – no matter how much else is at play. “And if you have any tips about jobs, those would be appreciated.”

“The arcade,” Ruby answers her, not even pausing to think. “It’s on Park, a couple blocks north. David needs help there, even if he doesn’t know how to ask for it.”

…

“Crescent Beam!”

The shouted attack catches its unsuspecting target off-guard, giving their unseen assailant the upper hand – foe blinded by the flash of light that her magic created, the urban legend known as Sailor V manages to get close enough to her target to actually physically knock them out.

Legally speaking, she’s a vigilante, but, then again, legally speaking her targets don’t actually exist. It’s a funny little gray area, that.

The Evil Queen probably hadn’t known exactly what she was doing, taking such a long time to unleash her Curse after announcing, very publicly, that she was going to cast it, and ruin everyone’s lives except her own. Ways between worlds were rare, true, but if she had thought that the worst of the worst wouldn’t find a way to save their own skin rather than let her trap them in time and make them permanently miserable, boy, had she been delusional. Or, if not the worst of the worst exactly, those with the means to find a way across and the selfishness (or self-preservation instincts?) to get out and save their own skin.

This guy, he hadn’t even had magic back home, hadn’t been anyone even particularly notorious. A footnote in their land’s history, if that. But he’d been rich, which is probably how he managed to make his way across realms before the curse hit. In this world, he’d adapted his criminal activities and built a new empire.

The cops already had a warrant for his current false identity. She was just knocking him out before he could run and set himself up another new life. Honest. He already had a bag and new fake I.D.s packed when she showed up and everything. Okay, and maybe she was also rummaging through his things for evidence of the Enchanted Forest to remove from the premises before some cop found it and possibly activated a terrible magical artifact leaving them with some ancient curse on their head on account of not knowing what they had on their hands.

Sleeping curses and their ilk weren’t exactly easily identified or countered in the Enchanted Forest, after all, and cops seemingly dropping dead after touching a sharp but otherwise unremarkable antique would be the kind of thing that would be almost impossible to fix here.

August insists that only she and the others will have magic here, in the Land Without, and no matter how cursed an artifact is there is no way it could hurt someone as long as it wasn’t anywhere near the Evil Queen’s playground, but, better safe than sorry, if you ask her.

She doesn’t find much, this time – a few baubles and jewels, glittering with fairy dust diamonds – but she takes it anyway, just to be sure – because who hasn’t heard stories about cursed rings or necklaces? – before returning to her motel room as discreetly as possible and dropping her transformation, letting Sailor V fade back into the deepest parts of Aurora.

She hates the way de-transforming feels. Like being sapped of all her strength, her magic so far out of her grasp as to be untouchable. Her talisman still gives her the ability to channel her transformation, yes. But it’s different in this place than it was back home – when they were training, the magic was always there, in the very air, at their beck and call transformed or not.

They had more power and precision transformed. But they always had magic. It was a benefit of the blessing that made them Guardians – back home, it was a benefit. Here, not feeling that when she isn’t fighting is like losing one of her senses, as overdramatic as that sounds.

A glance around the room confirms exactly what she suspected she would find on her return, when she left: August is there, waiting, like he always does when she’s out fighting, and she rolls her eyes at the way he stares at the diamonds when she sets them on the nightstand. She’ll have to find somewhere much, much safer for them, soon, but for the moment there isn’t anything else to be done.

“You did good out there tonight,” he praises, like he always does, and she wonders if he actually expects her to act like nothing had changed the last time she had actually gone out, three months ago, when she had come up against Maleficent and her memories had broken through the haze of her mind.

The Dark Fairy couldn’t shift into her dragon form here, fortunately, had no spells or minions or tricks to give her the upper hand, was just as subject to being in the Land Without Magic as anyone could be – but childhood fear of falling victim to the same sleeping curse as her mother had very nearly lost Sailor V the battle.

“Emma’s birthday was days ago,” she reminds, and she doubts he didn’t know it himself. “When are we going to find the others and do what we came here to do, Pinocchio?”

“Things are in motion.” He’s frowning, probably because she used his real name, and, well, good. When they were young and in training, he had been like an older brother to them – to Emma, especially. But she knows that there’s something he’s not telling her, because he had come through to this world too, somehow, and he had done it with his memories intact, unlike the rest of them, and he had told her she had power and given her back her talisman and molded her into Sailor V, knowing all the while everything that she had forgotten. Everything that she truly was.

V. He hadn’t even bothered to tell her that she was, properly, Sailor Venus. Had only recruited her, once time was almost up, to be V.

Would he have ever told her, if she hadn’t remembered?

She doesn’t like what her gut tells her about that any more than she likes his constant stalling about getting the others now that she does remember. They were supposed to start unravelling the Dark Curse on Emma’s 28th birthday – two days ago. The twenty-third day of the tenth month.

We still have work to do out here, away from the town the Curse created, he’d said first, when it had devolved into a shouting match about a week after she knew who she was. Lately, when he bothers showing up at all, it’s just things are in motion.

Not from her perspective, they’re not.

…

The arcade actually pleasantly surprises her, when she finds it.

It’s clean, well-lit, clearly stocked full of games with titles… Actually pretty recent, and even the ones that aren’t brand-new are big names. Aside from the games, there’s an entire area of booths on the same side of the room as the counter, and there are quite a few college-aged kids sitting at said booths, or the counter, drinking milkshakes or coffee, with maybe a burger and fries, as they type away at laptops.

The place even has a sticker on the door proclaiming there’s free Wi-Fi, the only such sticker she’s seen in town.

All of which makes for a good first impression, especially with Ruby’s claims that it’s all run by one man.

Never actually having been to an arcade before – with foster families uninterested in letting the kids that were little more than a paycheck to them go somewhere that would cost them money like that, and a lack of time, reason, or interest once she was on her own – she’s not actually sure what she expected.

It wasn’t this, though.

She makes her way to the counter, sitting at the first open seat she finds; while they aren’t hard to come by, exactly, the crowd already gathered has taken everything close to the doors.

There, she waits for a few minutes before noticing when a man, probably around the same age as Mary Margaret, stands from behind one of the machines, which plays a little tune like it’s turning on, and makes his way behind the counter, toolbox in hand. Though he wears no nametag, he must be the David that Ruby spoke of – it’s the obvious conclusion.

He is just as strangely familiar to her as Mary Margaret, and for a moment she doubts that she should go through with this course of action. Only for a moment; there is no reason that this sort of almost-recognition should dissuade her. Rather, she should take it as a good thing – Henry’s theory is that if she gathers the others and breaks the curse, anyone in this town will regain their memories. He’s not as sure about her own memories, since she wasn’t cursed, but even if they don’t come back, people that she almost-remembers should remember her.

Logically speaking, anyway.

So when he arrives in front of her, asking if he can get her anything, she has thoroughly pushed that glimmer of doubt aside.

“Ruby at Granny’s said you might be looking to hire some help.”

…

Find me, find the Silver Crystal and find me. Help me. I need you.

He doesn’t usually sleep in the middle of the day, but that he dreams of the girl, shrouded in darkness and yet radiating light, is no surprise. She haunts him, always.

This time, though, was different. Just before he woke, there was another image – a white wolf, bi-colored eyes, a forest that was neither Storybrooke’s nor the one in which he first remembers waking. While his dreams of the girl are always tinged with a need to help her, the other image, the wolf, fills him with a sort of melancholic nostalgia, like it’s somehow a memory of something he had held dear and lost.

But he doesn’t know for certain. Just as he doesn’t know how he’ll find the girl or the crystal that she asks for.

“Someone didn’t get enough sleep last night, then.”

And no, he hadn’t, though he cannot account for the why or the how of it. He does not recall tossing and turning, lying awake. And yet, put simply – when he awoke, it was as though he had not slept at all. As such, he does not bother to correct the observation, for even as the unsubtle attempt at conversation is unwelcome— it is true.

And a response is what the observer expects, most likely, so it is best not to rise to the bait. He has maintained careful distance from others since arriving in this place; to change that course now, simply because he’s tired, would make no sense.

Though he stays, he remains apart.

No amount of prodding on Granny’s part, no matter how well intentioned, can do anything about the fact that most people make him uncomfortable and always have. It may be a lonely existence, but it works for him— and most days he isn’t falling asleep in the middle of the diner, anyway.

Though he is persistent in his silence, coffee is placed in front of him, unasked for, already in a to-go cup.

“That should at least get you home for a rest, child. Don’t know what you’re doing here in the first place, tired as you are.”

He doesn’t know either, not really. It’s something of a habit – as much of a loner as he is, he still has lunch at the diner daily, a routine he doesn’t stray from. Get up, go to the shelter and do what he can for the animals there, have lunch at the diner, spend his afternoons doing the volunteer work that Mary Margaret conned him into, teaching the kids about the woods around their town – go back to his small apartment, have dinner alone, fall asleep and have that same dream.

None of it is exactly glamourous, but it’s a life. His life.

“You didn’t need to do that,” he breaks his silence in the objection, but… He doesn’t like the attention. The act of care throws him; it always has, from the very first time he actually remembers even the slightest hint of concern being directed at him.

Neither care nor concern has been in abundance, the past fourteen years, but every instance has left him off-balance – like he’s waiting for something worse to balance it out.

Trust issues, the social worker had said about his wary nature when it came to having care or concern directed at him, gone on about how it was common in abandoned children. He hadn’t asked if the girls with names had exhibited similar degrees of mistrust in others; he wasn’t supposed to know about them in the first place. He suspected he wouldn’t have gotten a straight answer about it, anyway.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Bad for business to have you asleep in the middle of the diner.”

He attempts a grateful smile, wrapping his hands around the warm cup. “Then I suppose I should thank you and get out of your hair.” Takes a sip, letting the coffee start to do its job.

Even as he walks from the diner to his apartment, he tries to keep an eye out for more changes, more evidence that things are different. He’s not the only one that noticed the clock tower, and that makes him more certain than earlier that there must be something going on.

And then for the first time all day, he sees the picture and headline splashed across the front of the Mirror, on a copy that someone had left on the bench just outside his building. It’s the picture that draws his attention – the woman.

Sailor Moon.

That is a change.

…

David seems nice, Emma has decided. A little harried, but willing both to hire her and let her set her own hours, no questions asked. Maybe it’s a little too convenient, but it works. For the moment, anyway.

And that marks one item off her to-do list, leaving “find a place other than Granny’s” and “start looking for Belle” as priorities one and two. She may wait to confer with Henry on ideas to find Belle; he had, after all, both found her and been the one to suggest Belle should be their next recruit. Finding people may normally be her livelihood, and she might be a loner. But she has help – even if he is ten – and she doesn’t want to face this whole Guardian thing alone. It’s too much, and she’ll admit that it will be a relief to have a team.

But for now, she does have Granny’s, and she does have the contact information for the office of her former social worker. And while she doesn’t expect trying to call the woman who put her in a system she ran away from will yield much information about the other girls that were found with her – well, it’s the only potential lead that she has.

She just… Well. Has to figure out the best angle to come at a conversation from to get information. Somehow, just telling the woman that she thinks she’s found a link to the origins of the five of them that were found that day, and that she’s looking to contact the others in order to look into it together, doesn’t seem like it will go over believably enough to work. Particularly not coming from a place of being the one that ran away.

What she needs is her laptop – securely in her apartment in Boston. With it, and the arcade’s Wi-Fi, she could probably get in some decent research of the public records that would have surrounded the five of them, possibly come up with a plan for the phone call that, at this point, she may have to make. If the town’s library wasn’t closed, she would check there for a public computer with internet access.

As it is, she knows she’s low on options. Call without a plan. Wait and hope Henry has an idea.

Drive to Boston and back, today, to pick up her things. Not the worst idea – she didn’t exactly pack a bag, having intended to drive as long as it took and be back in Boston, never to see Storybrooke again, more than a full day ago.

Not the best idea either. Her leaving town when she has a room for a week would be noticed by Granny and Ruby, at least, and it’s getting close to noon— At four hours there and four hours back, that will mean Henry doesn’t get to have the Operation Rabbit meeting he’d thought they should have once he got out of school, possibly thinks she’s changed her mind about staying. It also doesn’t take into account potential traffic – potentially rush hour traffic – or the time it would take to pack up what clothes and things she needs and load it into the car. Or stopping to eat.

Tack on an hour for a rushed lunch and fast-food dinner, and an hour to pack, and she doesn’t get back to Storybrooke, if she leaves now, until near ten at night, at the soonest – when there’s potential for a monster to strike at literally any moment, especially once the sun goes down.

No. Not the best idea. Better saved for when she has a better idea where she’ll be making her base of operations.

…

When Henry walks out of school, his plan is to try and find Emma. She knows when the school day ends; making his way through town to find her should be easy enough. If all else had failed, the backup plan of waiting at the castle had to work. They need to discuss Operation Rabbit, and make a plan!

But when he gets out of school, his grandpa is waiting at the gates.

He likes Grandpa Henry. He does. Even if he doesn’t believe his mom loves him, he believes Grandpa Henry does.

But Grandpa picking him up greatly reduces his chances of meeting Emma without his mom finding out – and she will freak if she finds out about Emma being Sailor Moon, about the fact that they’re working to break the curse. She already confiscated his book and found the missing pages about the Guardians. Well, not the actual pages. Those are stashed in his backpack, to give to Emma later. But she found that pages were missing and demanded to know where they got to – and she must want those pages because she knows what she’ll find on them: the identity of the five girls who can and will break the curse.

So. He just has to get Grandpa to let down his guard and let him out of sight… Or get Grandpa in on Operation Rabbit. From the book, he knows Grandpa didn’t think the curse should be cast, though with it in place, convincing him that it’s real and should be broken is probably more trouble than it’s worth.

Leaving him with Plan A: gain Grandpa’s unquestioning trust.

“Is something wrong, Grandpa?” The question makes sense – rarely does someone collect him from school. His mom can’t be bothered, and Grandpa is usually something of a shut-in, staying in the house because it’s more comfortable than running around town and he’s not in perfect health.

“You’ve run off two days in a row, now. Your mother didn’t think you should be left to walk home without escort.”

Yeah. He thought it was something like that. Including the unspoken bit where “she’s a very busy woman who couldn’t possibly spare the time to deal with him herself.”

“I wasn’t gonna run off again.” Emma is still in town, after all. He doesn’t have to go and bring her back. Not like he’d thought he might yesterday, when it’d seemed like all she wanted to do was drop him off and then go back to Boston and never look back.

Has to sneak around town and meet up with her, yes, but he’s perfectly capable of doing that without pulling a vanishing act.

“And she didn’t insist anyone get me to school.”

“Yes, well, the school would have called her if you didn’t show up today, after what’s happened of late. Once school was out would be the greater chance for you to disappear. Shall we head home?”

He doesn’t have much choice in the matter, he knows, and he nods, falling silent because gain Grandpa’s trust means he can’t fight this. He thinks about asking if they can stop at Granny’s for hot cocoa – maybe Emma’s there and he can slip her a message – but decides against it. This is punishment for running, clearly, and while Grandpa is usually a pushover when it comes to getting things he wants, asking for a treat during a punishment is more than a little obviously a bad idea.

He’s not stupid. He’ll be on his best behavior, and find another way to get to Emma. Because he has to – because nothing will get better if he doesn’t. Storybrooke depends on Emma. On Sailor Moon and the Guardians.

He needs to help— He must. The book appeared to him. That has to count for something, right?

After a block or two, he attempts to divert attention away from himself.

“Paige said that she saw a monster at the jewelry store last night.”

“Paige was exaggerating, most likely.” Grandpa Henry… Didn’t have his answer at the ready. He hesitated. Does he know something more than what the Curse should mean he knows? Probably not – but it’s a thought that requires further investigation.

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she witnessed an attack. One which was, if the report in the Mirror is anything to go by, violent enough that your friend was the only witness left conscious – and only because someone else interfered and put a stop to things. Seeing something that violent can do funny things to memory.”

“But how could a normal thief take down that many adults before Sailor Moon showed up?”

He should leave it alone. He knows that he shouldn’t have kept talking the moment he starts to speak; pressing his luck with Grandpa, pressing the idea of the Curse on Grandpa – it’ll just make it back to his mom, that he’s doing it, at this point. Still, he asks. A normal thief doesn’t make as much sense as a monster – the fact that he knows the truth aside.

“They’re still investigating that, Henry. But there will be an answer – one that doesn’t involve a monster. You’ll see.”

…

When the sun sets, she’s made no further progress on any of her tasks. When she had headed in the general direction of the school, assuming Henry was out and they could have a meeting about strategy, however quickly, she had seen he was with the older gentleman the mayor had introduced as her father, when Emma had first gotten Henry home.

She makes a decision, as the sun dips below the horizon.

She puts the “do not disturb” sign on her door, holds the brooch tightly, and transforms, using the window as an exit to head to higher ground and keep an eye- or ear- out for monsters.

The rooftops of Storybrooke don’t exactly provide excellent cover, or much at all, but they’re something. And not many of the people she sees are bothering to look up in the first place – meaning that she’s not likely to be spotted unless she actively tries to draw attention to herself.

The first hour of her patrol, she sticks close to the main roads. Greater population means more effective place to attack, if the monsters are trying to gather energy, like Henry suggested before her fight with Morga. More people means more energy, it’s simple logic.

The second hour, she widens her circuit around town, just in case. The third, she begins to wonder if, on other nights to come, she’ll be able to find and prevent attacks without an all-night patrol to maybe stumble across them as they happen. If there will be a way to predict them – or at least to reach them sooner, before any civilians get knocked out.

As the town clock tower strikes midnight, her transformation-enhanced-hearing picks up something that sounds more like breaking glass than anything else. It’s followed by indistinct swearing and a hiss that definitely doesn’t come from a human being.

So she, again, follows the sound, being lead to a bar with signage proclaiming it The Rabbit Hole. One of the front windows has been smashed from the inside, and through it she can see a snake-like green creature, its tongue flickering as it takes in the scene before it.

She can’t, through the window, see any of the bar’s patrons.

She doesn’t make the same sort of entrance this time, doesn’t kick down the door. Walks through like it’s a normal night and she’s come in for a drink or two.

The thing looks like a giant cobra, except for in coloration, a dark but vibrant emerald green – and in the fact that it has a pair of arms on what would be the upper body, were it a more humanoid creature. Despite the noise of the door being opened, it doesn’t look up at her right away, instead grabbing one of its victims off the floor, dragging the man up towards its fanged face. Pays no attention as the door swings shut behind her, as her heeled boots click across the floor closer to it. The tiara is a ranged weapon – though she doesn’t know if it will be as effective against whatever this thing is as it was on Morga. Still, she’d rather the creature’s attention was on her than on the innocent.

“I guess you monsters didn’t get the memo, then.”

The thing pauses. Drops the man from its hands, twisting to see her. Flicks its tongue again.

“One Guardian might get lucky against Morga,” it states, voice rasping, “But Morga was weak and thought too highly of herself. There is only one of you. You cannot keep on indefinitely. Even if I fall, another will take my place. And another. And another. You will fail. Alone.”

The tail is longer, faster, and more easily maneuvered than she would have guessed, whipping out and catching her behind the legs, causing her to lose her footing. She rolls out of the way when it turns back to attempt to crush her, scrambling to her feet again. It becomes a matter of dodging – just like it was with Morga – until she scrambles behind the bar, where there’s no room to be knocked off her feet again.

The tail slams down on the counter, repeatedly, either attempting to hit her or throwing some kind of tantrum because she’s just out of reach no matter how the thing moves around the room, but with all the flailing she’s not sure that she can get a good shot in with the tiara. Could the tail deflect her weapon away? She doesn’t know – and she doesn’t want the answer to be yes. So she remains in position, her tiara at the ready in her hand, waiting for her chance—

Until something whistles through the air, and, with a series of thuds, the tail is pinned to the bar counter by five roses, identical to the ones that the mystery man in full formalwear threw yesterday. Her eyes follow what must have been their trajectory to see him by the broken window, a smirk on his face.

So. He’s going to keep showing up to these things, then? Fine by her, as long as he keeps helping. She acknowledges his help with a nod – and then she turns her eyes away from him, releases the tiara towards the monster, which, like Morga, turns to dust in a flash of light on contact.

When she looks back to where he was, he’s gone, his roses still in the counter the only proof he was ever there. Then again, his job here is done – and so is hers.

She leaves the way she came, out the front door and back up to the rooftops – and doesn’t notice any of the unfriendly eyes that watched the confrontation from the shadows.

[maddysacademics]

Sociology Course Findings: Week 2

This week we focused on sociological theorists, starting with the 3 founding fathers of sociology, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim; however we’ll also be looking at theorists from a feminist and post-colonial perspective

I evaluate social reality very often, certainly in recent years as my interest in politics and sociology has increased; often I way up the advantages of an alternate way of organising society, as capitalism had a frequent tendency to be cruel and unfair. I like to think of communism and socialism and the differences between them, as well as which system I prefer. I’m on the fence, but I enjoy this, as I like being able to debate myself in my head

I think theories and theorists are important in all subjects: media, politics, English literature, sociology, psychology etc. Theories are often thought of as a result of someone’s life experiences and outlooks, for example I would probably not be able to come up with a theory on post-colonialism because I am not directly effected by it (other than in means of privilege, which often goes unrecognised), whereas Paul Gilroy created an excellent post-colonial theory about racial hierarchy which shapes my understanding of media everyday. This is also key to theorists and theories. They really shape the way you perceive and understand everything around you, and they can teach a lot too

In science, theories are concluded from a series of hypothesis, which are tested with cause and effect experiments, such as kicking a ball produces a force would be a hypothesis for Newton’s laws of motion, and this could be proved by kicking said ball and examining the cause and effect of the forces; however sociological theories are different. You cannot prove a theory from just cause and effect as societies are too complex. For example, to examine the theory that being poor will lead to an early death, we need to know things like gender, fitness, hobbies, addictions, profession, level of education, level of poorness, etc.

My preconceptions about communism were pretty bad; I didn’t know the correct definition and I thought of it essentially as what happens when you take ‘sharing is caring’ too far. I didn’t really have any preconceptions of capitalism, considering I have lived under it all my life, I just knew I did not want people to be hungry and homeless as if made me upset when I applied Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance. Marx definitely makes the normal seem strange; why do we work jobs we do not feel satisfied from? Why does everyone obsess over money which is literally paper? Why do we allow such a harsh divide between the top 1% and the bottom 1%? It puts a lot into perspective- I 100% believe socialism or communism would be more ideal.

I was unfamiliar with Durkheim, but he was famous was theorising that suicide rates were climbing as a result of capitalism. I understand his 5 points and completely agree that capitalism is an interruption to the natural way of life, creating envy, impossibly high hopes, too much choice in professions, and weakened religion, family, and nation. I think the last point is interesting, however, because surely if you believe suicide happens as a result of capitalism, communism/socialism is an ideal state? In which case religion would be abolished, family would be more communal, and nations would be united not separated. 

Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy is very interesting to me, and something I find to be factual. I can 100% confirm that I act differently around all of my friends, family, teachers etc. Some people may be more different person to person than others (I think that I retain a lot of the same qualities) but there are definitely at least subtle changes for everyone.

The 3 major theoretical perspectives are functionalist (eg Marx), critical (eg Durkheim)  and interactionist (eg Goffman). Between each function, their focus differs on things such as societal outlook, level of analysis emphasised, key concepts, and view of the individual

Functionalism is often criticised as it’s seen to be deterministic, focuses on positive functions over negative outcomes and is ideological

Sylvia Walby is a feminist sociological theorist who proposed that the patriarchy is created by 6 parts: paid work, women are paid less than men household production, women in the UK did 6 hours of housework on average where as men did 2 (2013); culture, behavioral expectations are different between a man and a woman, we have to ask why; sexuality, double standard for sexually active men vs women, added to the notion that men have a sex drive that must be released some way or another; violence, men have always been violent against women and also against other men; and The State, which is still patriarchal, racist and capitalist today.

Edward Said is a post-colonial theorist who worked on the concept of orientalism; this is really interesting to me personally as I feel like I lack knowledge of the treatment of Asian people in our community. He suggested that the orient is both portrayed as uncivilised, resulting in dehumanisation and brutalisation, but also exotic, resulting in infantilsation and romanticisation

Conflict theory focuses on the competition between groups within society over limited resources. Functionalist theory views society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.  Symbolic interactionist theory focuses on the relationships among individuals within a society (micro-level)