#i have no idea how we would even begin to dismantle the us’s influence either like | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lastsonlost · 4 years ago

Text

All this over the Japanese liking a game they don't like...

Ghost of Tsushima opens with a grand wide shot of samurai, adorned with impressively detailed suits of armor, sitting atop their horses. There we find Jin, the protagonist, ruminating on how he will die for his country. As he traverses Tsushima, our hero fights back the invading Mongolian army to protect his people, and wrestles with the tenets of the Bushido code. Standoffs take advantage of perspective and a wide field of view to frame both the samurai and his opponent in something that, more often than not, feels truly cinematic. The artists behind the game have an equally impeccable reference point for the visuals: the works of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa

“We really wanted to pay respect to the fact that this game is so totally inspired by the work of this master,” director Nate Fox said in a recent interview with IndieWire. At Entertainment Weekly, Fox explained how his team at Sucker Punch Productions suggested that the influence ran broadly, including the playable black-and-white “Kurosawa Mode” and even in picking a title. More specifically, he noted that Seven Samurai, one of Kurosawa’s most well-known works, defined Fox’s “concept of what a samurai is.” All of this work went toward the hope that players would “experience the game in a way as close to the source material as possible.”

But in embracing “Kurosawa” as an eponymous style for samurai adventures, the creatives behind Ghost of Tsushima enter into an arena of identity and cultural understanding that they never grapple with. The conversation surrounding samurai did not begin or end with Kurosawa’s films, as Japan’s current political forces continue to reinterpret history for their own benefit.

Kurosawa earned a reputation for samurai films as he worked steadily from 1943 to 1993. Opinions of the director in Japan are largely mixed; criticism ranges from the discussion of his family background coming from generations of samurai to accusations of pandering to Western audiences. Whether intentional or not, Kurosawa became the face of Japanese film in the critical circles of the 1950s. But he wasn’t just a samurai stylist: Many of the director’s films frame themselves around a central conflict of personal ideology in the face of violence that often goes without answer — and not always through the lives of samurai. In works like Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, or his 1944 propaganda film The Most Beautiful, Kurosawa tackles the interpersonal struggles of characters dealing with sickness, alcoholism, and other challenges.

His films endure today, and not just through critical preservation; since breaking through to the West, his visual ideas and themes have become fodder for reinterpretation. You can see this keenly in Western cinema through films like The Magnificent Seven, whose narrative was largely inspired by Seven Samurai. Or even A Fistful of Dollars, a Western epic that cleaved so closely to Kurosawa’s Yojimbo that director Sergio Leone ended up in a lawsuit with Toho Productions over rights issues. George Lucas turned to Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress in preparation for Star Wars; he’d eventually repay Kurosawa by helping to produce his surreal drama Dreams.

Ghost of Tsushima is part of that lineage, packing in action and drama to echo Kurosawa’s legacy. “We will face death and defend our home,” Shimura, the Lord of Tsushima, says within the first few minutes of the game. “Tradition. Courage. Honor. These are what make us.” He rallies his men with this reminder of what comprises the belief of the samurai: They will die for their country, they will die for their people, but doing so will bring them honor. And honor, tradition, and courage, above all else, are what make the samurai.

Except that wasn’t always the belief, it wasn’t what Kurosawa bought whole cloth, and none of the message can be untangled from how center- and alt-right politicians in modern Japan talk about “the code” today.

The “modern” Bushido code — or rather, the interpretation of the Bushido code coined in the 1900s by Inazō Nitobe — was utilized in, and thus deeply ingrained into, Japanese military culture. An easy example of how the code influenced Imperial Japan’s military would be the kamikaze pilots, officially known as the Tokubetsu Kōgekitai. While these extremes (loyalty and honor until death, or capture) aren’t as present in the myth of the samurai that has ingrained itself into modern ultranationalist circles, they manifest in different yet still insidious ways.

In 2019, to celebrate the ushering in of the Reiwa Era, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party commissioned Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano to depict Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a samurai. Though described as being center-right, various members of the LDP have engaged in or have been in full support of historical revisionism, including the editing of textbooks to either soften or completely omit the language surrounding war crimes committed by Imperial Japan. Abe himself has been linked to supporting xenophobic curriculums, with his wife donating $9,000 to set up an ultranationalist school that pushed anti-Korean and anti-Chinese rhetoric. The prime minister is also a member of Japan’s ultraconservative Nippon Kaigi, which a U.S. congressional report on Japan-U.S. relations cited as one of several organizations that believe that “Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from Western colonial powers, that the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that the killings by Imperial Japanese troops during the 1937 ‘Nanjing massacre’ were exaggerated or fabricated.” The Nippon Kaigi, like Abe, have also pushed for the revision of Japan’s constitution — specifically, Article 9 — to allow Japan to reinstate its standing military.

This has been a major goal for Abe as his time as prime minister comes to a definite close in 2021. And from 2013 onward, the politician has made yearly trips to the Yasukuni shrine to honor the memory of war criminals, a status of which his own grandfather was accused, that died with the ethos of the modern Bushido code. Abe’s exoneration of these ideals has continued to spark reactionary nationalist sentiment, as illustrated with the Nippon Kaigi and their ultranationalist ideology. These traditionalist values have encouraged xenophobic sentiment in Japan, which was seen in the 2020 Tokyo elections with 178,784 votes going to Makoto Sakurai, leader of the Japan First Party, another ultranationalist group. Sakurai has participated in numerous hate speech demonstrations in Tokyo, often targeting Korean diaspora groups.

The preservation of the Bushido code that was highly popularized and utilized by Imperial Japan lives on through promotion by history revisionists, who elevate samurai to a status similar to that of the chivalric knight seen in Western media. They are portrayed as an honor-bound and noble group of people that cared deeply for the peasantry, when that was often not the case.

The samurai as a concept, versus who the samurai actually were, has become so deeply intertwined with Japanese imperialist beliefs that it has become difficult to separate the two. This is where cultural and historical understanding are important when approaching the mythology of the samurai as replicated in the West. Kurosawa’s later body of work — like the color-saturated Ran, which was a Japanese adaptation of King Lear, and Kagemusha, the story of a lower-class criminal impersonating a feudal lord — deeply criticized the samurai and the class system they enforced. While some films were inspired by Western plays, specifically Shakespeare, these works were critical of the samurai and their role in the Sengoku Period. They dismantled the notion of samurai by showing that they were a group of people capable of the same failings as the lower class, and were not bound to arbitrary notions of honor and chivalry.

Unlike Kurosawa’s blockbusters, his late-career critical message didn’t cross over with as much ease. In Western films like 2003’s The Last Samurai, the audience is presented with the picture of a venerable and noble samurai lord who cares only for his people and wants to preserve traditionalist values and ways of living. The portrait was, again, a highly romanticized and incorrect image of who these people were in feudal Japanese society. Other such works inspired by Kurosawa’s samurai in modern pop culture include Adult Swim’s animated production Samurai Jack and reinterpretations of his work like Seven Samurai 20XX developed by Dimps and Polygon Magic, which had also received the Kurosawa Estate’s blessing but resulted in a massive failure. The narratives of the lone ronin and the sharpshooter in American Westerns, for example, almost run in parallel.

Then there’s Ghost of Tsushima. Kurosawa’s work is littered with close-ups focused on capturing the emotionality of every individual actor’s performance, and panoramic shots showcasing sprawling environments or small feudal villages. Fox and his team recreate that. But after playing through the story of Jin, Ghost of Tsushima is as much of an homage to an Akira Kurosawa film as any general black-and-white film could be. The Kurosawa Mode in the game doesn’t necessarily reflect the director’s signatures, as the narrative hook and tropes found in Kurosawa’s work — and through much of the samurai film genre — are equally as important as the framing of specific shots.

“I don’t think a lot of white Western academics have the context to talk about Japanese national identity,” Tori Huynh, a Vietnamese woman and art director in Los Angeles, said about the Western discussion of Kurosawa’s aesthetic. “Their context for Japanese nationalism will be very different from Japanese and other Asian people. My experience with Orientalism in film itself is, that there is a really weird fascination with Japanese suffering and guilt, which is focused on in academic circles … I don’t think there is anything wrong with referencing his aesthetic. But that’s a very different conversation when referencing his ideology.”

Ghost of Tsushima features beautifully framed shots before duels that illustrate the tension between Jin and whomever he’s about to face off against, usually in areas populated by floating lanterns or vibrant and colorful flowers. The shots clearly draw inspiration from Kurosawa films, but these moments are usually preceded by a misunderstanding on Jin’s part — stumbling into a situation he’d otherwise have no business participating in if it weren’t for laid-out side quests to get mythical sword techniques or armor. Issues like this undermine the visual flair; the duels are repeated over and over in tedium as more of a set-piece than something that should have a component of storytelling and add tension to the narrative.

Fox and Sucker Punch’s game lacks a script that can see the samurai as Japanese society’s violent landlords. Instead of examining the samurai’s role, Ghost of Tsushima lionizes their existence as the true protectors of feudal Japan. Jin must protect and reclaim Tsushima from the foreign invaders. He must defend the peasantry from errant bandits taking advantage of the turmoil currently engulfing the island. Even if that means that the samurai in question must discard his sense of honor, or moral righteousness, to stoop to the level of the invading forces he must defeat.

Jin’s honor and the cost of the lives he must protect are in constant battle, until this struggle no longer becomes important to the story, and his tale whittles down to an inevitable and morally murky end. To what lengths will he go to preserve his own honor, as well as that of those around him? Ghost of Tsushima asks these questions without a truly introspective look at what that entails in relation to the very concept of the samurai and their Bushido code. This manifests in flashbacks to Jin’s uncle, Shimura, reprimanding him for taking the coward’s path when doing his first assassination outside of forced stealth segments. Or in story beats where the Khan of the opposing Mongol force informs Shimura that Jin has been stabbing enemies in the back. Even if you could avoid participating in these systems, the narrative is fixated on Jin’s struggle with maintaining his honor while ultimately trying to serve his people.

I do not believe Ghost of Tsushima was designed to empower a nationalist fantasy. At a glance, and through my time playing the game, however, it feels like it was made by outsiders looking into an otherwise complex culture through the flattening lens of an old black-and-white film. The gameplay is slick and the hero moments are grand, but the game lacks the nuance and understanding of what it ultimately tries to reference. As it stands, being a cool pseudo-historical drama is, indeed, what Ghost of Tsushima’s creators seemingly aimed to accomplish. In an interview with Famitsu, Chris Zimmerman of Sucker Punch said that “if Japanese players think the game is cool, or like a historical drama, then that’s a compliment.” And if there is one thing Ghost of Tsushima did succeed in, it was creating a “cool” aesthetic — encompassed by one-on-one showdowns with a lot of cinematic framing.

In an interview with The Verge, Fox said that “our game is inspired by history, but we’re not strictly historically accurate.” That’s keenly felt throughout the story and in its portrayal of the samurai. The imagery and iconography of the samurai carry a burden that Sucker Punch perhaps did not reckon with during the creation of Ghost of Tsushima. While the game doesn’t have to remain true to the events that transpired in Tsushima, the symbol of the samurai propagates a nationalist message by presenting a glossed-over retelling of that same history. Were, at any point, Ghost of Tsushima to wrestle with the internal conflict between the various class systems that existed in Japan at the time, it might have been truer to the films that it draws deep inspiration from. However, Ghost of Tsushima is what it set out to be: a “cool” period piece that doesn’t dwell on the reasonings or intricacies of the existing period pieces it references.

A game that so heavily carries itself on the laurels of one of the most prolific Japanese filmmakers should investigate and reflect on his work in the same way that the audience engages with other pieces of media like film and literature. What is the intent of the creator versus the work’s broader meaning in relation to current events, or the history of the culture that is ultimately serving as a backdrop to yet another open-world romp? And how do these things intertwine and create something that can flirt on an edge of misunderstanding? Ghost of Tsushima is a surface-level reflection of these questions and quandaries, sporting a lens through which to experience Kurosawa, but not to understand his work. It ultimately doesn’t deal with the politics of the country it uses as a backdrop. For the makers of the game, recreating Kurosawa is just black and white.

172 notes · View notes

fortylessonsbeforeforty · 3 years ago

Text

Lesson 30

I learnt the importance of being unapologetically ME! I read a quote recently that said something along the lines of that in life we aren’t finding ourselves, we are becoming ourselves, which I loved, but at the same time didn’t entirely agree with. For me, I think sometimes in life, we do get lost. Lost in the expectations of others that we think we ought to be living up to. Lost when we are in different relationships, personally and professionally. And at times we need to rediscover ourselves, which I understand in a sense is how we become our authentic self. For me, turning thirty was a defining point in my life where I first remember I truly felt I was ME!

I saw a psychic medium in my late twenties and one thing that really hit home for me, was when she suggested I needed to release the self-made guilt, responsibility and loyalty. She told me to release old ways of doing things — old ideas, beliefs and notions. It made me reflect on the person I was and the decisions I was making in life; whether or not they were for me or to please the people around me. I came to see that the ‘plan’ I had for my life was created based on the ideas and beliefs of others and what society said was ‘normal.’ The greatest internal battle was the desire to be who I wanted to be and who I knew I was versus who I thought my family, friends and society told me I should be.

This realisation that I was living a life for others and not completely for myself wasn’t entirely a bad thing. I realise now, that some of my best qualities and characteristics have been shaped by my family and loved ones. I had to reconcile the idea of who I wanted to be with the person (I thought) others wanted me to be and ensure I wasn’t compromising me in the equation. In an episode of ‘The Secret Life Of Us,’ Dr Alex Christensen returns to her high school to speak to current students. She explains the weird feeling she got when she was called ‘Doctor’ for the first time and how she hadn’t yet seen herself as a doctor. She said:

“I understood that people were seeing me from a different perspective from the way that I’d always seen myself. And so, in a way, I had to rethink my own view of myself. It’s a critical moment for us all. But what’s more important, I believe, is how we use this realisation. When we understand this, when we embrace all our contradictions, only then are we equipped, fully equipped to find our true place in the world.”

After seeing the psychic medium, I felt a confidence to embrace the contradictions of who I was, rather than feel ashamed and hide them. For so long I had felt afraid to express certain parts of me, for fear of people not being accepting of who I was. This in turn made it hard for me to like the person I was, because it was a person I was pretending to be. Savage Garden’s song ‘This Side Of Me,’ explores this idea of wanting to showing one’s true self. Darren Hayes sings:

And in the dark I want to find that golden glow within

’Cause I am not afraid to let you see this side of me

It was after seeing the psychic and turning thirty that I feel I began to take steps towards truly becoming happy with who I was and the me I wanted to be and have people see. I began the work of getting to know the me I wanted to be and letting that side of me shine.

When studying to become a teacher, it’s made clear that you need to be very reflective. It’s drummed into you that you need to be reflective at the end of each lesson, of your teaching style, your behaviour management, how you set up the room, the list is endless. I have no doubt that reflection is a natural part of all professions, but it’s showed me the importance of using this skill in all aspects of who I am, not just the teacher in the classroom. If we aren’t reflective, we can’t grow. David Chang discusses the importance of self-reflection in his memoir, ‘Eat A Peach,’ using the analogy of a lobster. He says:

“There’s an old myth that lobsters are immortal. They never show signs of getting old. They don’t slow down until they day they’re cooked and eaten. Lobsters grow by molting. They shed their old shell to reveal a new, soft shell that will eventually harden around them. By the time they’re done, there’s no sign of the lobster they were. It’s an exhausting, dangerous process. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and leaves them exposed and vulnerable while they’re in the middle of it. Want to know the only sign a lobster is dying? It stops molting. Never again would we fear the gruelling work of breaking ourselves down and gluing ourselves back together again. That cycle of building and destroying and rebuilding is not something to overcome. The human equivalent of not wanting to molt is trying to make life easy, refusing to grow or be self-reflective.”

Sometimes we are forced into situations that allow us the time and space to look inward to ask ourselves if we are on the right path. The global pandemic has been one of those times that has allowed us the opportunity to do so. No matter where we are in the world, Covid-19 has had an impact on us, some more so than others. I really enjoyed the conversation between @taylorswift and Jack Antonoff as they discussed recording ‘folklore’ during this period of time. Jack said:

“In our dismantling of all our systems of life that we’ve known in the pandemic we’re left with two options. Either cling to it and make it work of just say “Ok, I guess I’m gonna turn a new path and get a frontier mentality. Everything’s a blur so I’m just gonna rewrite it.”

I know for me it was a great opportunity to think about what was important to me and what I could leave behind. Letting go of all those things that weren’t contributing positively and productively to the person I aim to be. It made me think about how I spend my time and the notion that I had to ‘use up’ my whole weekend seeing people and doing things, otherwise it was a wasted two days. It made me realise the importance of prioritising the things I love and how it’s more about quality over quantity. It’s a sentiment that @taylornation reflected on with Jack, saying:

“There’s something about the complete and total uncertainty of life that causes endless anxiety, but there’s another part the release of pressures you used to feel. Because if we’re going to have to recalibrate everything, we should start with what we love the most first.”

It reminded me that in times of any disaster, whether it’s a global pandemic, a health scare, losing a job or the breakdown of a relationship, the importance in taking the time to discover who you are. Finding yourself in order to become who you want to be. And sometimes that may take time, as Taylor Swift sings in ‘happiness’:

And in the disbelief I can’t face reinvention I haven’t met the new me yet

It may take some time to find the new person you want to become after a disaster. Similarly, we can find ourselves changed in the blink of an eye after a completely unexpected event. Things happen that will change us and Katharine McPhee’s song ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ is a good reminder of that.

I found love when I least expected it I found faith from a night of no regrets I found me in a place too crazy to mention Let’s say that life is stranger than fiction

I found love from the strength of letting go I found faith from the nights spent on my own I found me in a place too crazy to mention Let’s say that life is stranger than fiction

Another thing that I’ve learnt is to be open to all experiences and how they might influence and change us. Never be so rigid in our own mindset, that the things around us could change us for the better. It’s one of the things I love most about travelling, especially when I go outside of my comfort zone, travelling alone. I know for a fact that part of who I am today, I’ve become because of the people and places I’ve met on my many overseas adventures, especially those unplanned moments where a crazy chance of coincidence lands you in the right place at the right time with the right person.

Sometimes the circumstances of life, will force you into situations where you begin to forget who you are and the person staring back at you in the mirror is unrecognizable. In the musical ‘Waitress,’ the protagonist, Jenna comes to the realisation she has ended up in a life, not of her choosing. She sings in ‘She Used To Be Mine’:

It’s not what I asked for Sometimes life just slips in through a back door And carves out a person And makes you believe it’s all true

It’s easy to believe sometimes we are the person based on the circumstances life lands us in. I love the quote, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” We don’t have to be defined by the failures we’ve faced, the health diagnosis we’ve been given. We choose who we want to be. I love Jenna’s epiphany in the song where she is determined to make a change for herself.

And you’re not what I asked for If I’m honest I know I would give it all back For a chance to start over And rewrite an ending or two For the girl that I knew

We will inevitably face people who will try to tell us who they think we are or should be, based on information they’ve heard (whether it’s true or baseless rumours). They’ll make assumptions about us before they even know us. We have no control over the version of ‘us’ that other people choose to see us as, because the truth is, we only ever know the version of a person that they chose to show us. At the end of the day, we should not put too much time and effort into the thoughts and opinions others have of us. I’ve always loved the saying “Lions don’t lose sleep over opinions of sheep.” Billie Eilish reflects on this very thing in her song, ‘Not My Reponsibility’:

Who decides what that makes me, what that means? Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?

I’ve learnt to drop any mask that I’ve worn, choosing to be unapologetically me. What you see is what you get. And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to be around me. I’ve come to really LOVE ME! I’ve seen different variations of self-love quotes over the years and have remixed my own that I’ve used in countless pep talks to students, colleagues, family and friends over the years.

“The one person that you will spend your entire life with, is yourself. So you better love yourself as much as you can.”

So whether you are finding yourself or becoming yourself, the most important thing I’ve learnt is to base it on what you love. We attract what we are, so it makes sense to embrace the things we love and let go of the nuanced complexities we create to fit into different groups we think are cool or popular, but just aren’t us. In the closing words of Taylor Swift’s song ‘Daylight,’ which closes the ‘Lover’ album:

I wanna be defined by the things that I love Not the things I hate Not the things that I’m afraid of, I’m afraid of Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night I, I just think that You are what you love

#unapologeticallyme #taylor swift #jack antonoff #folklore #savage garden #david chang #katharine mcphee #waitress #billie eilish

1 note · View note

crispipaper · 4 years ago

Text

A polite letter to J.K. Rowling By a transgender fan of Harry Potter (TW. Suicide and trauma)

Dear JKR,

My name is Alex Hernandez, and I have identified as a Harry Potter fan since I was six years old, and a non-binary/ transgender individual since I was sixteen. I recently read your essay concerning your opinions about transgender individuals, and your claim that by providing information you were ‘protecting natal girls and women.’ I was extremely disappointed when I read your piece, both as a queer person and as a Harry Potter fan. The factual information you provided was ill-informed and often taken out of context. The opinions you shared were harmful to many members of the trans community, and perpetuated stereotypes that we have been trying to dismantle for years.

What stood out to me most in your essay was the insinuation that the only way a person could truly be considered transgender is if they underwent hormone replacement therapy and/or gender confirmation surgery. This is simply incorrect, as there are many people (myself included) who happily identify as trans that have chosen to or cannot undergo those types of treatments. It also completely leaves out the identity of non-binary, a-gender and gender fluid individuals, who do not subscribe to the binary gender identities that accompany these types of treatment. It is also not as simple to gain access to these procedures as you seem suggest, even within your home country of the United Kingdom.

In your writing, you state that “a man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law.” According to the official website for the government of the United Kingdom, a person who wishes to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate must be over the age of 18, have documented proof of a diagnoses of gender dysphoria, have lived as their intended gender for at least two years, and intend to live as this gender for the rest of their life (https://www.gov.uk/apply-gender-recognition-certificate). This clearly shows that a person must provide more than just their word in order to gain legal recognition of their gender by the British government. You are correct that surgery and hormones are not prerequisites for obtaining a GRC, however, medically transitioning is not a prerequisite for being a trans person.

You also cited a very controversial study performed by Doctor Lisa Littman the supports the theory of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. According to this study, children and young adults are more likely to come out to their parents as transgender after engaging online with other trans individuals. Dr. Littman claims that according to the survey she conducted (which was directed at parents of children who had recently come out as trans), gender dysphoria can just appears out of nowhere during puberty, and that internet forums and peer pressure is a large contributing factor to this. However, there are several things wrong with her writing. To start, the survey she conducted in order to obtain her data was targeted at parents of children who had recently come out as trans and only posted to websites that were about parents questioning their teen’s recent coming out. She asked irrelevant questions about the child’s mental health, including whether or not they had been diagnosed with a mental illness prior to coming out, or if they had experienced trauma at some past point in their life. Although I understand that the article was taken down and re-reviewed, the author did not rescind her findings, and simply used the republication as a way to clarify what she had previously stated.

The other aspect of your writing that stood out to me as particularly harmful to the trans community and those questioning their gender identity was the supposition that one could just “choose” to be trans because they have experienced trauma. Your experience as a survivor of domestic and sexual assault are real and valid, and your trauma regarding these situations is real and valid. However, this does not give you the right to suggest that you might have chosen to transition during these times in order to escape abuse. Transitioning (in your case) from an Assigned-Female-At-Birth (AFAB) individual to a male identifying individual does not automatically exempt you from abuse and violence typically experienced by cis-gendered women. It is not a choice people make because they have experienced a trauma. It is a recognition of what has always been true to them, that they were previously unable to freely express.

Here’s where you seem to be missing the point. People who choose to transition from a female to a male are not trying to “escape womanhood.” What they are doing is finding ways to freely express themselves in the most authentic and truest way. For example, say you were born with red hair. But for years and years your family was dying your hair brown because it was more “socially acceptable” to have brown hair. You knew that you had red hair, and that wasn’t something that anyone could take away from you, even if they were trying to cover it up or pretend like it was brown. And one day, you meet a group of people who have naturally red hair, who are flaunting their red hair and making a point of not dying it to fit societal standards. And maybe you don’t agree with what these people are doing, and you continue to dye your hair. Or maybe, you realize that you’ve always preferred having red hair, and now you’ve come across a space where it’s ok to be a red head. These people understand what it’s like to have their hair dyed for years and years, and want to embrace their naturally red hair. That’s how it is for trans people. A trans man was always a man, he was just born into a woman’s body, and socialized as a woman. But once they encounter other trans people, and realize that these people will accept and love him for his true self, then he will “come out” because he realizes that he was always a man and now finally feels comfortable expressing that.

I also want to take this opportunity to share with you my own personal journey of gender exploration, since the stories of non-binary trans people are often overlooked and rarely heard. I was assigned female at birth. I was given a traditionally female first name, and socialized as a girl for the first sixteen years of my life. However, even as a little kid I had a sense that something wasn’t quite right. When I was younger, I really didn’t like my name, and always wished I could have been called Amber or Ashley. I knew that I was not the person I wanted to be, but I didn’t have the language or understanding to really figure out how I was feeling. As I grew up, I came to embrace my feminine name, and to enjoy traditionally feminine things such as princesses and makeup.

Fast forward to high school, when I was beginning to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community. Before I got to high school, I didn’t know a single queer person my own age. Existing on the internet at the time, I encountered many stories of trans people, but the only ones I ever saw were of binary trans individuals. I knew that I didn’t want to be a man, but I also knew that I didn’t really want to be a woman either. So I cut my hair short and started wearing clothes that showed off less of my figure and that attempted to obscure my female form. When I was fifteen, I was doing a presentation on LGBTQ+ identities for school, and came across the term “non-binary individual.” At the same time, I was taking a class where we were learning about the history of feminism, and how many ancient cultures saw femininity and masculinity less as physical forms and appearances, but rather as energies that a person could embrace. Both of these streams of information collided, and I suddenly realized I had words to describe how I’d been feeling this whole time. I didn’t want to identify as a binary woman, and I didn’t want to identify as a binary male. Instead, I wanted the language that would allow me to feel comfortable traveling between these two energies.

My personal definition of what it means to be a non-binary individual is a person who embraces both masculine and feminine energies, and can express themselves as one, neither or both. I keep my hair long and have chosen not to go on hormones or have reconstructive surgery partially due to trauma I experienced as a child, but also because I want to keep these aspects of feminine energy close to me. There are days where I feel more masculine, where I wear “mens” clothes and attempt to present as a more masculine individual. There are days where I want to feel more feminine, and I choose to wear skirts and makeup because that is what helps me to embrace my feminine energy. And there are days when I want to combine energies, so I will present myself as some combination of masculine and feminine presentations.

All of this is just to say that when you, a person who has considerable influence especially on younger children, make these inflammatory statements and harmful claims, you are effectively telling children that this is not a world where they can be as authentic to themselves as possible. You are creating a hostile environment that encourages other people who share your ideas to be more vocal, which honestly does more harm than good. Many of those statistics that you quote about rising rates in teen and transgender suicide are often because people who feel forced to conceal their true identity would rather not exist in a world that won’t allow them to be who they really are. So if you are truly interested in changing public perception of transgender individuals, while continuing to support the education of children and the protection of women, I would suggest reading literature that directly opposes your view points, and having conversations with people (particularly trans people) who have real experiences and are willing to share them with you.

Sincerely,

Alex Hernandez (they/them)

#tw suicide #tw trauma #tw transphobia #Harry Potter #HP #JKR #JKRowling #trans #lgbtq

51 notes · View notes

revlyncox · 4 years ago

Text

No Human Being is Illegal on Stolen Land

This address was written for the Washington Ethical Society for indigenous People’s Day Sunday, October 11, 2020, by Lyn Cox.

One of the things I notice about the values expressed in the story, “Grandmother Spider Brings the Light,” is that none of the characters attempt to keep the sun for themselves. In this legend, we are entering a paradigm in which the basic necessities of life are shared freely. In the world of the story, members of the community are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of all. The warmth of the sun is something that would be ridiculous to hoard. Part of the sun’s worth comes from the way it shines on the whole community, and the way in which the whole community works together in response. Each character makes suggestions and participates in the work, and even the setbacks give the whole community something to learn from. Proximity to raw power leaves its mark on some, and this is another reason to take turns. In the world of the story, people understand that their well being is bound up together.

These values stand in sharp contrast to the values brought to this continent by European conquest and colonization. The colonization mindset is still a strong current in United States law, policy, and culture. The assumptions of colonization influence ideas and customs about property ownership, the scale of impact of moral choices, and what it means to be an American. The way we understand class, race, education, the use of force in civil society, and so much more is tangled up in the mindset of colonization. Among the urgent issues arising from these roots is that of immigration justice. The way we understand who is welcome in our communities and how we demonstrate that is filtered through the assumptions of colonization. Justice for Indigenous people is one aspect of the project of dismantling systemic racism. Economic justice is an aspect of dismantling systemic racism. Immigration justice is an aspect of dismantling systemic racism.

The abstract concepts can be dizzying when we first become aware of the connections between all of the issues that bring suffering and division in our society. Today’s Address has a lot of history and facts, and we’ll put out a document with references and links after Platform. We might begin by focusing on our relationships, and on understanding that our interrelatedness extends beyond our immediate circles. We show up for our neighbors because of our common humanity, because we are connected in community, and because our liberation is bound up together. We work to understand how the myths of colonization have affected our minds so that we can clear away the obstacles to rich and full relationships with all of our neighbors and loved ones.

The impact of injustice for Indigenous people and for immigrants is closer to home for some of us than others; WES includes people from a variety of backgrounds. When we add just one degree further to include the consequences for our spouses, children, and close loved ones, many of us have a very personal view of the effects of systemic racism in affairs related to Indigenous communities, in policies toward immigrant communities, and in a variety of government actions that fall especially heavily on people of color. If it’s not you or someone in your immediate inner circle who is impacted by any given manifestation of systemic racism, it is almost certainly a friend in this Zoom room or someone close to them. Shifting our priorities to be rooted in love means remembering that threats to Indigenous sovereignty, cruelty and abuse in our immigration system, out-of-control policing that destroys lives in favor of property, all of these things affect specific human beings-- people we care about.

Indeed, the very assertion that the people we care about are human beings, with human rights -- people who deserve dignity and self-determination -- flies in the face of colonization. So let’s step back a bit and look at the roots of that philosophy.

In her book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz traces the roots of the European mindset of conquest back to the Crusades, heading into the Inquisition and to the enclosure of public lands in the 1600s. She writes that the privatization of the common lands, creating a permanent underclass of landless poor, was both an expression of the trend in European conquest and also one of its mechanisms. “The traumatized souls thrown off the land, as well as their descendants, became the land-hungry settlers enticed to cross a vast ocean with the promise of land and attaining the status of gentry.” In essence, what happened with enclosure was to more deeply codify the idea that a few people mattered but most didn’t, and that property mattered more than the majority of people.

Meanwhile the Crusades, which was an attempt to take control of lucrative trades routes, also brought new avenues for oppression. Dunbar-Ortiz reminds us that this period brought us the papal law of limpieza de sangre, cleanliness of blood, beginning in 1449. Clean blood referred to ancestry that was exclusively Christian. So, in other words, even converting to Christianity did not bring legal equality to those whose ancestors were Jewish or Muslim. Some people are more important than others. Only some people are really human.

It is not an accident that this is the same period of history that brought the Doctrine of Discovery. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V decreed that so-called Christian nations had permission for the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian territories and peoples. This became a cornerstone of international law. In 1823, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the discovery rights of European sovereigns had been transferred to the new United States. Indigenous ways need not be respected, according to the Supreme Court in 1823.

Some people are more important than others. Only some people are really people. And who gets to be a human being, who gets to have human rights, is inextricably tied with the thirst for wealth and the desire of conquering nations to extract resources and labor from land and people not their own.

These are not natural laws. These are not ethics that are universal for all people. Civilizations all over the world have shown that other ways are possible, ways built on mutual relationship and community thriving. But the baseline assumptions of conquest helped make all of the misery of colonization possible. These baseline assumptions fed the lies that justified the enslavement of human beings, generation to generation, because the extraction of wealth for the few was more important than the human rights of the many.

We can plainly see the destruction that this worldview brought to all of the places that were targeted for conquest. But it wasn’t done destroying lives in Europe, either. There may have been periods of uneasy peace, when it seemed like enlightenment might eventually bring liberation to all, or at least to all who could be admitted to European universities. But the bargain was still built on inequality, and in times when there was land or wealth to be gained by the few, or in times when scarcity arrived and the ruling class needed someone to blame, the illusion fell apart. Felix Adler, educated in Germany in the 1870s, absorbed the hope that it was possible for people to regard one another as full human beings. But the powers of division had been dug too deeply. The legacy of dehumanization was still there, and the horrors of World War I and World War II showed that, once again, only some people were regarded as human.

It has been observed that the phrase “illegal immigrant” was not in popular use until World War II, and it was first used to describe Jewish refugees. You may recall that the potential arrival of these refugees in the United States led to another layer of racism and cruelty in U.S. immigration policy, on top of the racism and cruelty in laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. The attempt to keep out Jewish and Eastern European refugees, based on concepts of race rooted in blood, brought immigration quotas to carefully control who was allowed in. Having no place to go, those subject to Nazi persecution were tortured and slaughtered. It was this experience that led Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to coin the phrase that makes first half of the title of this Platform, “No human being is illegal.”

Wiesel said, “Know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”

Yet, in 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice instructed U.S. Attorney offices to refer to undocumented immigrants as “illegal aliens.” Immigration attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath explains that this term is used to “dehumanize immigrants and divorce [us] from thinking of them as human beings.”

Are we clear how we got here? Are we clear about how the dehumanization of Indigenous people, the dehumanization of people who were enslaved, and the dehumanization of immigrants and refugees, even unto this day, are all related? When it benefits the few to exploit people and land and all of our relations in order to extract wealth, that system rests on the idea that only some of us are humans, only some of us are worthy, only some of us deserve human rights. There are lies that are told to make it seem like some of us have provisional worth, conditional humanity; lies that try to entice us to help maintain this system -- lies such as purity of blood, or the superiority of the Euro-American definition of civilization, or that scarcity comes from the arrival of other poor people rather than from rich people hoarding wealth.

We need to untangle all of it so that we can remember that we are in relationship with each other. Colonization has been part of Western civilization for so long, it has infected our minds and hearts. Few of us are immune from subtle messages about the worth or lack of worthiness of people, especially people who do not contribute to wealth as it is commonly measured.

Our liberation is bound up together. Like the people in the story, “Grandmother Spider Brings the Light,” we can operate with a different mindset, one of collective well-being and shared wisdom. To get there, we will need to re-think our assumptions about the way people are permitted to live and move in the world.

That brings us back to re-thinking the rules and customs around us, a network of assumptions that rests on colonization. Basing the United States legal system on the belief that Indigenous forms of government were and are not valid and that Indigenous value systems were and are inferior meant that the treaty rights and governmental systems of sovereign Indigenous nations have not been respected. If we take Indigenous sovereignty seriously, different solutions become evident.

When we consider the issues of immigration justice, to take one example, many assume that the United States government is the only entity that can determine who remains within and who is expelled from this territory between Millinocket, Maine, and San Diego, California, let alone the territories currently known as Alaska and Hawaii. Elizabeth Ellis, Assistant Professor at New York University and a citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma, questions this paradigm. She writes:

“If we reposition ourselves, and think about migration not as American citizens, as documented or undocumented, but as settlers who have built lives and identities on Indigenous lands, and often at the expense of Indigenous peoples, this conversation looks very different.”

She goes on to say: “In articulating support for these critical [immigration] reforms, many typically appeal to humanitarian sympathy and visions of a modern world that provide all humans with the right to migration and citizenship. Yet we often forget that Native people have been fighting the United States’ efforts to carve borders into their homelands and territories for centuries and, in many ways, we have come to see exclusionary borders as a natural and normal state of international relations. In this context, then, including Native people [in the conversation] both bolsters challenges to US borders and provides alternative models of relationality and nationhood that may help us reimagine solutions to our current humanitarian crisis.”

Ellis gives a number of historical examples and contemporary applications in her full article. We’ll send out a link after Platform to a document with all of the links related to today’s Address.

Remembering that we are all related, then, we include immigration justice and supporting Indigenous sovereignty among our action plans for anti-racism and anti-oppression. As we heard in the reading that Karen shared, we can think of this in terms of restitution, in addition to being simply ethical and in right relationship with a goal for the common good. Not every person can do everything, yet we can coordinate in this community and with our community partners to embrace the whole circumference of the ethical manifold. We do this not simply out of compassion, but with recognition that another world is possible, a world of right relationship, and we hope to live into that world to make it as real as possible as soon as possible.

This Indigenous People’s Day weekend, there are two action items that might interest you. There is a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, “The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policy in the United States,” which aims to help us come to terms with the atrocities committed against Indigenous children and their families through boarding schools. Contact whoever will listen to you in the U.S. House of Representatives to let them know your thoughts on this bill. There is a lot of history to unpack, and this is a place to start. While you’ve got the attention of your favorite Member of Congress, you can ask them about the Native American Voting Rights Act. Indigenous voters are subject to many of familiar voter suppression tactics, such as reduced polling places and interrupted mail service. Check out the Lakota People’s Law project for more information on both of those. https://www.lakotalaw.org/

I asked R. of WES’s Immigration Justice Team for some other ideas about how we can work together toward collective liberation. R. reminded me of the Food Justice Initiative, which is connected with Sanctuary DMV. The Food Justice Initiative is a “systemic program rooted in justice” that helps immigrant families, regardless of immigration status, access mutual aid in the form of food and other necessities. Keep in mind that the COVID relief bill blocked aid to families in which any person in the household is undocumented. The Food Justice Initiative (article in the Post) gives us a chance to stay in touch with our neighbors and the needs they identify for themselves.

WES’s Immigration Justice Team has also been monitoring the situation of Binsar Siahaan (article in the Post), who was snatched from his faith community, Glenmont United Methodist Church, when ICE showed up and lied about the purpose of their visit. WES members may recall your past support of Rosa Gutierrez Lopez, who has been living in sanctuary at Cedar Lane UU congregation. R. points out that the strong organization of the Sanctuary team at Cedar Lane made it much more difficult for ICE to try the kind of underhanded tactics that they used to arrest Binsar, and that community support makes a tremendous difference. If you are on WES’s Immigration Justice action email list, stay tuned for possible actions we can take to support Binsar and help him return to his family.

R. told me, “Doing support work changes you as it changes the world. You meet people who are not anything like you, from different races, classes, faiths and world-views. It is the antidote to helplessness in the time of neo-fascism, as well. There are so many opportunities to join in.” He said WES members have written letters, gathered materials and funds, and attended vigils. The work is ongoing.

Humanism, to me, is a worldview in which we seek human solutions to human problems. And most problems are human problems; the few problems that are facts of the natural world are made exponentially worse by human choices to favor greed and selfishness over the recognition of our interrelatedness. Intellectual rigor and a humanist outlook lead us to dismantle the fallacies that undergird conquest and colonization; to note clearly the common roots of injustice affecting Indigenous peoples, people of color, and immigrants; and to turn toward right relationship in our thinking and in our practice. Let us remember that we are all related, and that our liberation is bound up together. So be it.

2 notes · View notes

elmidol · 4 years ago

Text

The Kaleidoscope of Reality

Three Blind Tooke Part Three Death Is An Art

Read On AO3

Three Blind Tooke

Part Three: Death is an Art

Chapter Sixty-One: The Kaleidoscope of Reality

Of the colors and the shades

In this kaleidoscope of childhood,

I never saw that shapes they made,

Nor their meaning ever understood.

The Knights of Ren had boarded the Night Buzzard ahead of Kylo Ren. You stared past his shoulder at the modified starship while digesting the information he had given you. Though you were not benched, you would not be on the front lines alongside him and the warriors you had accompanied on other missions. This was to better utilize your skillset as an LDS, which was why you were not opposed to the idea. It was more that you were suddenly quite afraid as the reality of the war hit you anew. The losses that you had endured had compiled one after another until there you were, unsure if your mother yet lived. Aware that you did not want to lose Kylo, not for a second time. You released a shaky exhalation and clutched the helmet more tightly against your abdomen.

His eyes roamed your face. Neither of you wanted to say words of farewell. There were no cheesy or overly sentimental lines to share either. The silence was a comfortable one. An understanding. You traced his features with your gaze to assist in once more memorizing them. This was who you were fighting for. You felt your head bobbing in gentle nods despite not having made a conscious decision to do so. Kylo mirrored the movement, albeit a single time. His feet carried him away from you in the next breath, which you released while watching him leave. Only as he headed into the Night Buzzard did you abandon that position in order to enter the ship that would take you to the same planet.

Four ships including the Knight Buzzard, that was all that Kylo had gathered for this. The Star Destroyers belonging to the Order of Ren would be nearby for if the First Order worked to show its full might. From what the scouts had revealed, however, Armitage Hux was taking a different approach now that the weapon that had destroyed Naboo had been dismantled. He was deploying ground troops and, if their intel was accurate, was there himself. This fact alone caused your lips to curl upwards at the sides, a cruel smile gracing your face. You strapped yourself into your seat then rested your head against the wall and closed your eyes.

There were stormtroopers and officers alike in the shuttle with you. The majority of them were Force sensitive, however there were at least three individuals you knew to be ‘normal’, like you were. They had defected from the First Order to join the Order of Ren not because they were being persecuted by Supreme Leader Armitage Hux, but due to their personal beliefs. Time and again they had put their lives on the line. Your respect for them grew, more now that you had joined the cause in full. Kylo Ren would require guidance, as would any leader, however you were more certain that he could rule the galaxy with fairness. To help temper his anger would be to assist the galaxy in finding peace after the war. This was true for Force users. It was equally true for those who could not master those mystical arts. The First Order would work to eliminate Force users. The Resistance was foolishly anchored to the past, to the leaders of old rather than transitioning into what the galaxy had become or was becoming.

It was the Order of Ren that drew from the past as well as the future. Kylo Ren worked to utilize the artifacts of Jedi and Sith alike, to merge the Light and Dark--ultimately this would assist in driving away fear. He wanted power, yes, however he also made clear that he did not oppose others having power either. Rey, for instance, was a being he openly embraced. He had praised you for your strength since the beginning. Kylo Ren was a man of action who would commit to the deeds himself; he did not hide behind an army like Armitage Hux did. He did not lead from behind as Phasma had. His Order was not the First Order that you had opposed. It was not the Resistance either. Kylo Ren did not move to shove the role of hero onto a legend nor force the young to become symbols of hope simultaneous to the previous generations maintaining the true roles of power, of political influence.

Responsibility and accountability. You breathed out through pursed lips. If one pulled the trigger or handed another a weapon, they were accountable. But so many leaders hid, you realized as time dragged on. They did not put themselves on the frontline. Kylo Ren did. He was reckless at times. Foolish even. Yet he earned your respect and the respect of those who followed him. Even where he had viewed others as pawns, he had taken it upon himself to commit to the cause in full. Armitage Hux was a dictator. The Resistance was a fumble to reinstate senators that valued their own self-interests rather than those they were meant to represent. Kylo Ren was ready to relinquish the chains of the past to move forward into this new era.

In truth, you still did wish that the Resistance and the Order of Ren would merge. You lamented over the knowledge that Leia Organa was not allowing this--and it was, you thought, out of fear of the past. The terror that her son would become a combination of Vader and Palpatine. So instead of working to ensure that he wouldn’t by guiding him, she had sent him away and now fought against him even when he had metaphorically extended his hand to her. The repetitive rejections were felt by the galaxy as a whole. Three sides to this war in place of two.

“Are you ready for this?” One of the officers was speaking, and it was the lack of an answer that prompted you to reopen your eyes, which allowed you to see that you were the recipient of the question. You hummed out an affirmation despite feeling a sudden conflict within yourself; not knowing the extent of what you were agreeing to did not sit well with you. This could well be a battle between the First Order and the Order of Ren. You were ready for that. This could be a threeway fight, in which case the lines blurred. You wanted to shrink away from such an experience, however you knew that you wouldn’t.

Your hand skimmed along the length of your weapon. Kuruk would be fulfilling his role as a sniper in a different location from yours. In this, it was similar to what had occurred when you had assisted in taking down Phasma. Rage was beginning to boil within you as you thought of how much you wanted to target Hux specifically. That would be to the detriment of the mission. If you had the opening, you would take it, but your priority was to pick off any larger threats that you could. Those aboard the shuttle that carried you would split off save for one officer and a Force sensitive stormtrooper. These two would ensure that you were safe. This was not the first mission any of them had been on, a fact that allowed you a modicum of comfort.

After glancing towards the pilot of the craft, you returned your gaze to the officer who had spoken and gave a verbal reply to accompany the previous nod. “Yes.”

“There will be civilians present.” You sucked in air through your teeth, your chest expanding. The information was not new to you. That did not detract from the fact that it was, in your opinion, poor taste to focus on it. The presence of civilians was one of the main reasons Kylo had given you a blaster in place of a blade. The threats that you would target were those that would be using civilians as shields. In response to your forming scowl, the officer’s eyes flickered away. “It’s been different with him in charge… Well, different than when he led the First Order as well.”

A truth that you had come to embrace, to adore. It was one of the reasons that you had been able to join Kylo at his side and fight for him. Kill for him. The First Order under Kylo Ren’s rule had not been concerned with protecting civilians. Guilt by proximity, no contact necessary. This was different. You now understood the officer’s concern was not for you but for themselves. The deflection was very similar to how Kylo had always been around you, and you found yourself beginning to smile gently as though to comfort this person.

“Don’t let fear of failure or death stop you,” you said. Your voice was soft, tone level without being condescending. “We’re going to see people die. We aren’t going to be able to save them. It’s a cold fact of war.”

There had been an emphasis on the success of the mission overriding the value of life when these Order of Ren members had been a part of the First Order. This mission was the value of life. You thought of Leia in that moment. How she had inspired you, the hope that she had given you. Your mind drifted to Kylo. You placed a hand over your heart while bowing your head. In that brief pause, you wished that you were able to feel the Force so that you could reach out to him in the bond that you shared. It had sapped much of your strength to do so with Rey, and even that had been clumsy on your part. The upcoming battle meant that you had no energy to waste. Not that expending strength would be a waste, it never would be when it came to Kylo.

“Mm.” The grunt echoed from all Force sensitives in the shuttle with you. You once more turned towards the pilot. The planet loomed in view, as did numerous First Order vessels. Some of those were engaged in dogfights with what you knew to be Resistance starfighters. The Resistance pushed towards the planet as best it could similarly to what the craft you were on was doing. The turbulence jerked you back and forth. There were ysalamir in some of those First Order ships and on the planet. You knew this based on the reactions of and expressions worn by your comrades.

I’ll protect you from death, you silently promised them, your grip on the weapon in your hands tightening. You willed away anything that would be a distraction or weaken your resolve. The sounds of the dogfights drifted away until the beating of your heart was all you could hear. An invisible caress assisted you in further relaxing; Kylo was with you, always with you even while you were physically apart. You had both come back from death, you remembered, you had both mastered its art.

Within minutes of landing on the planet, your two long term companions for the mission were falling into rhythm. They raised their blasters to cut past any foe that would hinder your movements as you sought an ideal location that overlooked the battle, which was more widespread than you had hoped. The First Order had poured a multitude of resources onto this planet. That, or the Empire before it had. Not only did this planet contain families that were known to produce Force sensitive offspring, it housed technology for weaponry.

And something far more sinister than that, you thought, your gaze cutting to the stormtrooper accompanying you. The ysalamir presence did not kill all of their heightened senses. The moment that the ship had broken atmosphere, more than one of those aboard had commented that there was something on the planet. Someone, you recalled them claiming.

The Resistance presence left you hoping that what your allies sensed were the Force sensitives that you knew; Leia, Finn, and Rey along with the stormtroopers that had left the Order of Ren. Jannah, you remembered Ap’lek saying when he referenced one of the stormtroopers. Your stomach clenched at the Knight’s name. Stars, you wanted him there with you on the mission.

Pushing forward and dismissing those longings, the three of you worked your way away from the thick of things. You laid upon your stomach then began to adjust your weapon. Stared through its scope and scanned the individual fights that comprised the battle. Your gaze was drawn to activated lightsabers. Finn was there on the ground. He was engaged with two First Order stormtroopers that were using laser axes, and his training with the Skywalker twins was revealed with how easily he was able to twist away from their blows. The next lightsaber you located was Kylo’s. Its red glow illuminated its victims as it cut through them and moved on to the next. General Organa worked her way through First Order soldiers. It took you aback to see her there on the battlefield. There were six Resistance members with blasters keeping her way clear.

You followed the trail she was making for herself and grit your teeth as you beheld Armitage Hux. His hair was immaculate despite the setting. An energy shield kept him safe, otherwise you would have pulled the trigger, not caring if you gave away your location. In that you were, to an extent, foolish. What caught your eye next was the lightsaber to his left. You furrowed your brow. Your breath caught in your throat and you mouthed the words what the…? The robed woman had her hood drawn up, however the angle you were at allowed you to see her face. Such a familiar face though it possessed differences as well that made you refer to her as Not-Rey.

Not-Rey had cheekbones that were a little higher than the Rey you knew. Her features were harsher yet elegant. Harsh because of the cruelty in her gaze, you noted. This woman was older than Rey, at an age that indicated she could well be your friend’s mother or aunt. Perhaps an older cousin. Empirical secrets--you thought of the lists, the one of the children that had been sold to Brendol Hux for experimentation and the one of planets with known Force sensitive families. To locate Rey’s family. You felt a growl rising as you realized the calculated cruelty of Armitage Hux. To combat Rey, he sought out what he knew for a fact to be a great weakness of hers: family.

Is this why Leia wanted the chip? You felt ill at ease and hated that you were in the dark on these matters. Focus on what you can control. You directed the scope elsewhere. A buzz along the back of your neck urged you to look back at Not-Rey and Hux, however you ignored it as best you could for the time being. There were, as had been pointed out, civilians present.

A First Order officer had a woman held captive, his arm extended over her shoulder to fire at a Resistance opponent, who wavered and thus was caught in the arm. You took aim at the officer’s side then paused. If he shifted at all, you would hit the civilian woman instead. Another shot from the officer, the Resistance fighter crumpling to the ground. One life lost, one that you may have saved but at the risk of another’s life. You clenched your teeth again. Waited for the First Order officer to turn--which he did in order to use the civilian as a shield against a different opponent. If you fired your weapon, the blast might cut through both bodies. You had to wait for her to move.

“Shift, you kriffing little...there.” Your finger pulled the trigger, the blast clipping the First Order officer in the right side, obliterating that section of his torso without wounding the female. The shot caused his grip on the woman to falter. Cleared to fire with no risk to the civilian, the Resistance fighter fired twice and killed the target.

You trailed your gaze, amplified by your scope, along the battlefield. Finn had killed one of his opponents. The other shuffled to keep after him as Finn worked to join Leia. She had five escorts at that point, two of them wounded and staggering. The next individuals you sought were the Knights of Ren. As you found one, his opponent was taken by a blast you knew to have come from Kuruk. Vicrul killed three First Order stormtroopers in the time it took you to quickly scan his position. When you found Cardo, you fired your blaster at an enemy that was coming to him from the side while he was engaged in battle with two others.

The officer assisting in keeping you safe peered through their electrobinoculars. You knew that they were observing Hux with how they growled then gasped. They had noticed Not-Rey. “Is that...no… Who?”

“This is likely her birth planet,” you muttered. “He came here for a reason, and she is likely it.” A powerful ally to replace Phasma, one who could counter Kylo Ren and Rey. She would not be as well trained in the Force as they, yet that hardly mattered. Rey would hesitate, her thirst for her past so strong. It would cause a rift between her and Kylo. Multifaceted reasonings, you noted, had directed Armitage Hux to this location though he had no love for the Force.

You scanned the battlefield in the opposite direction so that you were able to check the status of the shields that protected Supreme Leader Hux from your wrath. There were no perceivable weaknesses. Not-Rey had failed to draw away from Hux’s side. The angle of their bodies suggested that they were like-minded, the solidarity that existed between them causing your stomach to roil. They had a history, though how far that extended was not information you were privy to. You speculated that they had met subsequent to Kylo’s death. Or had it been close to it? Had Not-Rey been one of the pieces that had given Hux enough confidence to officially pursue Kylo’s death? It hardly mattered in the end. No matter what, this was the result.

Next you searched out Kylo’s position. He was moving in closer to Hux although more First Order troops worked to obstruct his path than they did with Leia. You looked to her and discovered that another of her allies had been lost along the way. She twisted her wrist in order to deflect a blaster bolt from a First Order stormtrooper. It bounced off her blade and hit one of the shooter’s allies. You resumed targeting the First Order troops that were grabbing civilians or else cornering some of your allies.

Above, the Millennium Falcon swooped into view and shot at two of the Walkers that the First Order had deployed. You felt the muscles in your legs tensing. It was difficult to not wonder who the pilot of the famous ship was. Poe Dameron? Rey? Some other Resistance hero? Aware that it ultimately did not matter, you committed yourself to your duty. You pulled the trigger, injured another, and fired upon more. At times it was to kill, other times to injure, and there were several instances where you fired your weapon to damage objects. All of it was to save the lives of your comrades and protect the civilians that had been caught up in this war. The Falcon passed overheard multiple times throughout. It eliminated the first Walker with no issue. For the second, it took a third run before the technological behemoth was downed.

The stormtrooper by you fired upon one of the First Order enemies that had come too close to your location. The officer was in contact with other ground troops. He read off coordinates for you to transfer your attention to. You obeyed without question; what was important was that you were useful and could fulfill your duty. As much as you wanted to fire at a faster rate, you knew better than to give away your position.

“Oh, will she….” The unfinished question had you turning yet again to where Armitage Hux stood with Not-Rey. Leia and her entourage had managed to work their way through the shield, which flickered for a moment before resealing itself. You narrowed your eyes while peering through the scope of your weapon. Such behavior from the shield indicated that it had been released by one of those using it as protection.

Your finger quivered on the trigger. If you fired a shot, it would not penetrate the shield. There was no way for you to protect General Organa nor those who were being picked off by Not-Rey and another of Hux’s guards. The First Order Supreme Leader smiled cruelly while stepping around Not-Rey so that the woman could engage Leia in battle. Their lightsabers clashed, reminiscent of how Kylo and Leia had met one another in the cavern after years of being so far apart. You stared at the red-bladed lightsaber that was in Not-Rey’s possession; you had taken for granted that the First Order would have kyber crystals beyond what the Knights of Ren and Kylo had taken. Or had Not-Rey made the lightsaber before Hux had come to the planet?

Not-Rey ducked around one of Leia’s attacks then twirled while aiming at the older woman’s head. Leia raised her hand. Her blade caught the other one. She blocked a kick aimed at her hip with the heel of her hand. It weakened her grip on the lightsaber, however Leia recovered quickly enough that there was no lasting impact.

You scanned back towards the remainder of the battle, looking for the individual Knights of Ren and then Kylo himself. He sliced one of his opponents in half, his hand reaching out as he struggled against the ysalamir effects so that he could call upon the Force and drag one of his enemies into his grasp. The other staggered forward rather than fly into Kylo’s grip. This was far too reminiscent of the set-up Phasma had arranged with Hux that had resulted in Kylo Ren’s death. You clenched your jaw, your frustration mounting.

“How is she faring?” you asked your two companions in regards to the Resistance Leader. You fired your blaster at an enemy that was but a few feet away from Kylo. Anything you could do to assist him, you knew that you would.

“Hux’s mystery woman has been trained in combat.” It felt like a punch to your gut. Snoke had been exploring alternate routes for controlling Force users that Kylo Ren had never been made aware of. Beyond the Knights of Ren. Beyond Kylo. Beyond Rey and the other children used in experiments.

You tracked along the path that Kylo would be required to take to make it to Armitage Hux and Not-Rey. There were no targets that you could assist in eliminating. Continuing on, you focused your weapon on Supreme Leader Hux then switched to Not-Rey. She and Leia were evenly matched. Their blades locked.

Through the scope you saw Hux move nearer to Leia. His arm twitched, a blade slipping from his sleeve into his hand. Your heart raced in your chest, your pulse pounding in your ears. Hux reached around Leia as Not-Rey swirled her wrist and ensured that Leia’s hands remained occupied, her blade held captive. Before the Resistance Leader--General Organa, who had been your hero; Leia, who as your mother-in-law--could react, Hux jerked his hand and the blade he held across her throat. Red erupted in your vision. You screamed.

It was not only your own pain that enveloped you. Not only your own rage. The pounding anger that threatened to explode from you was coming from the bond. Your trembling hands were barely able to direct your scope away from the woman’s crumpling body to her son instead. You felt impossibly hot. Tears slipped from your eyes although you did not initially realize that as the wetness you felt or as the fluid obscuring your vision.

Kylo had stopped walking. His eyes were trained on the ground. Or you assumed they were, for his back was to you. He was standing there, rigid. His hand clenching more tightly around his lightsaber, which remained activated.

There had already been cries of death on the battlefield. Ones that had faded into the background as you tried to process the fact that this was reality. The death you had witnessed was no illusion. The pain that you felt, your own and his, was a part of reality. A pain that began to morph into darkness, which crept outwards in tendrils that developed prongs and split off into spears. These invisible weapons pierced through the ysalamir that threatened to eliminate their presence simply by existing. The creatures exploded in showers of gore. Thus the power that had been contained was amplified. It grabbed hold of the throats of Kylo Ren’s enemies along with some of his allies. You watched the bodies raise into the air. Their legs kicking. Their hands clutching at their necks. Their eyes bulging before also bursting.

Blood spilled from their mouths just as your heartbeat, the one you heard in your ears, devolved into a high-pitched squeal. You dropped your weapon and grabbed either side of your helmet. Your breaths were shaky, forced. Grief was not the only hand squeezing your heart.

The Millennium Falcon took another pass, cutting in front of your view--you would have missed it had it taken an alternate route. From its opened ramp descended a warrior clad in white. You dropped your hands away from your ears though still you shuddered and felt your body protesting the power of the Dark side, which was rising in potency. The Resistance warrior, whom you quickly recognized as Rey, landed yards distant from Kylo. She hit the ground running towards him. Her lightsaber was on her hip, the weapon she had chosen to utilize was the lanvarok that you and she had used together.

You felt her through a bond as well, albeit one that had been weakened ever since she had cut you off. Her determination and the lack of bloodlust halted you from seeking to fire your blaster. You clumsily grabbed up your weapon all the same. Peered through its scope and saw to a greater extent the slaughter that had occured in the aftermath of Leia’s death. Her child mourned her in rage. You relocated Armitage Hux. He stared at the battlefield as well, his mouth set into a frown. Not-Rey spared him a glance before she headed for the shields. A flick of her hand, the shield was extinguished for the split-second it took her to leave its safety. Your finger found the trigger. Before you could pull it, however, you found yourself faltering. Not-Rey ignited the other half of her lightsaber, the dual-blades both a red that was identical in shade to Kylo’s.

Terror rippled through you, a sense no less intense than what you had felt mere moments before when Kylo’s powers had spiked. Rey, too, took notice of the other woman. Of her relative, you reminded yourself as Rey turned only to stumble. She walked backwards as though on autopilot. Her feet carried her nearer to Kylo Ren, who raised his head. You rolled; grateful that neither the stormtrooper nor the officer that were your companions impeded the movements, you repositioned yourself to where you could see Kylo’s face.

His eyes, as you had suspected and feared, were much as they had been when he and Luke Skywalker had been battling over the two halves of the Sith amulet. With a swipe of his lightsaber, more soldiers fell to their knees. Not-Rey mirrored his actions. She cut down people indiscriminately. There was no one she viewed as an ally, not a single person worth saving. Between them was Rey, a spot of Light between the Dark. You pulled the trigger, hoping that somehow you would at least harm Not-Rey. Instead she extended her hand in your direction. The blaster bolt froze midair. You felt fear creep into your body.

This preceded the sensation that a hand had gripped your throat. If you had wanted to scream, you would not have been able to. A gurgle erupted instead. Somehow you kept hold of your weapon. Stared through its scope, which allowed you to witness Rey fire the lanvarok at her relative. Not-Rey swung her lightsaber in an arc to deflect the projectile, which dodged the plasma blade. Barely able to breathe, you saw that Rey was wielding the Force as she had trained to do. She altered the projectile’s route and forced Not-Rey to relinquish her hold on you lest she be injured.

Where are the Knights of Ren? Where’s Finn? The questions tumbled one after another through your mind. All the pieces were falling. Armitage Hux hid behind a shield and let others bloody their hands. He headed in the direction of a ship that would take him to safety. Kriff. I’ll kill him!

It was with revulsion that the First Order Supreme Leader considered Leia’s body. He spat on her as he walked by. Stormtroopers had moved to meet him. They surrounded him. More ships were pouring from the skies. Resistance, First Order, and Order of Ren. The deaths were nowhere near finished, although you feared that this would not be the final battle that you would witness in the war--if you survived. The shield would protect Hux if you tried to fire. Not-Rey had the Force to stop you. You felt helpless, foolish. Much as you had during countless missions with the Resistance where all you could do was observe the slaughter. You watched the battle through a scope.

I cannot be in this position again. You refused to be helpless, to be of no help. The raw agony and rage that you felt from Kylo was a darkness that would extinguish him. You leapt to your feet, slung the blaster strap over your shoulder, and took off running before your two companions had the chance to question you.

The Knights of Ren were in various locations. They were locked in their own fights or else heading for Kylo, albeit cautiously. One was injured, the damage sustained from Kylo Ren’s reaction to his mother’s death.

Kylo rose to his full height again and took a single step in the direction of Not-Rey. They matched one another step for step after a pause. Between them, Rey had switched so that she was perpendicular to their path. She moved in reverse though not in retreat. Her intention was to prevent herself from being caught between their blows. Finn and the Knights of Ren were fanned out. Power rippled from the pair of Darkside Force users. Rey bared her teeth. Her eyes locked with yours, and you knew in that moment that her bond with Kylo was a burden as she fought to swallow the grief of her loss. The grief of realizing that a member of her blood-family had assisted in killing the woman she had adopted as her found-family.

Not-Rey and Kylo charged one another, their lightsabers clashing so violently that you realized they truly would have cut through Rey to get to each other. Their bloodlust spiked, palpable to you from more than the bond. Rey tossed aside the lanvarok and grabbed hold of her lightsaber. You, aware of her intention, dropped down to your knee and fired at the shields that had for so long protected Hux and now blocked no one. You expended the full energy of your weapon, not a soul stopping you. Kuruk, from wherever he was located, assisted you. The angle of the blasts were what gave away his identity. Cardo, too, began to shoot at the shield. It crackled noisily. Kylo and Not-Rey’s strikes were a louder roar.

As the shield weakened, Rey extended her arm and began to call upon the Force. Leia’s saber wobbled before it began to fly in the right direction. Except it bypassed Rey’s hand and landed in Kylo’s. He ignited it, hammering with his lightsaber at the weapon of Not-Rey and using his mother’s blade to cut an arc in the direction of the woman’s throat. She pushed off of him with her foot against his thigh. Flung herself backwards and twisted to take a swipe at Rey, who clumsily dodged. She had not recovered from the likeness they shared. Rey did manage to avoid being cut. That did not mean she had the upper hand. This Not-Rey had secured. She executed a similar maneuver to the one that had sealed Leia’s fate. The difference now was that there was no Hux to sidle up behind Rey and slit her throat.

Instead there was Kylo Ren, who was Not-Rey’s opponent. His red blade narrowly missing Rey’s head as Not-Rey dropped down to her knees to avoid the man. Leia’s lightsaber cut through part of the woman’s cloak, which she then whipped off and let fly in the wind.

You wanted to get closer, to help somehow. There were stormtroopers closing in from all sides, encircling all who had thus far survived the battle. So many corpses, you realized. Many of them a result of Kylo’s Dark side energy--would that ever fade away? Would he become the man you knew him to be? Masters of Death without being monsters.

You tossed aside your blaster. In the next second, Finn had drawn up to your side. His body was angled into a defensive stance, albeit not one that marked you as his enemy. “She’s gone,” you whispered. He nodded, his expression pained. The First Order was closing in, and what remained of the Resistance and Order of Ren were grouped together. As though in an unspoken truce, you were all of you working to defend one another from the First Order troopers that had arrived. Waiting for reinforcements of your own to properly land. Realizing that no one knew what to do with Kylo. Neither Finn nor Rey were moving to harm him. The Resistance had witnessed that Kylo had cared about Leia.

Did that justify the deaths that had occured as a result? It’s war, you wanted to say. Yet the reality was I don’t care. I can feel his pain like it’s my own. You placed a hand over your heart and tried to catch your breath.

“He’s not leaving an opening.” There was a strain in Finn’s tone that you knew was from the loss of Leia and the sense of helplessness as he watched Not-Rey and Kylo engage one another in combat. The clash of their sabers sent a shockwave that knocked you to your knees. Many others faltered as well, a few landing on their backs. The Knights of Ren, Finn, and Rey recovered most quickly. They each had a hand extended, palm downwards, towards the ground. You envied their ability to call on the Force to assist themselves. Finn was considering soldiers on the battlefield beyond those nearest. His eyes landed on civilians--or those you had assumed to be civilians. “What brought you here?”

The question caused your brow to furrow. “What....” Finn was slipping a pistol into your hand as you considered things. The First Order, the very reason that Leia Organa had come to this planet, had died there. After a beat, you remembered the chip that had been obtained from Millicent’s collar. That was why you were there. So what had alerted the Resistance to the presence of Armitage Hux? “There is a list of planets regarding Force sensitives. This was one of three, alongside Naboo and another, that… Wait, what brought you?”

“Leia and Rey sensed something. It called to Rey.” The temporary lull in separate skirmishes as the shock of Kylo’s power dissipated. Finn and you moved so that you were back-to-back. He used the Force and lightsaber to deflect blasts that were directed at the pair of you. You, meanwhile, took aim and fired. There was a comfortability, a rightness being with him that had never left no matter the times your paths had separated. Circumstances had failed to be favorable, and yet your friendship had endured. It was with him that you had first laughed as you had before joining the Resistance. Before you had been captured.

How wrong it felt to consider that Leia, who had just been murdered, had been one of the reasons this alliance had failed to come into fruition. You choked on a breath, on a sob, felt tears threatening to form anew. Heat traveled throughout your body and into your limbs. This sensation was not foreign to you. It was how you had felt when you had met your mother after believing her to be dead. The judgment there. The momentary wish that it was your father you were seeing. So human. So selfish. So cruel. You pulled the trigger and ended another life.

“He wants to kill Force sensitives. He doesn’t care. Why is she fighting for him?” Your voice was rising in pitch. Both you and Finn turned to consider Rey and how she fared against the pair of Darksiders. Not-Rey caught Rey’s blade with one side of hers simultaneous to deflecting a blow from Kylo, who used his mother’s saber to thrust at Rey. She ducked, relinquishing hold of her blade then catching the deactivated saber as she rolled forward to disengage from the pair. This appeared to have been his intention--to have Not-Rey to himself. The two twirled, their two blades utilized in different ways.

Finn reached towards Rey, halting a blaster shot that a First Order officer had fired so that the young woman could remain focused on Kylo and Not-Rey. “I was taken as a child, and I wasn’t the first. If the Empire was running experiments”--you knew it was-- “on Force sensitives, they might have pacts with families.” In which case the implication was that Not-Rey had been training to uphold the First Order that Snoke had been Supreme Leader of. You ran your tongue along your lips whilst continuing to shoot. You explained the information on the experiments that had increased Rey’s abilities. “You’re thinking Hux and...her…” You nodded though you knew he could not see you with how the two of you were standing. “He located the remnants of the experiment.”

“Grafted them into her or whatever, yeah.” For you, it explained how the Skywalker twins had not sensed this woman’s power, what with how strong it was. The palpable darkness of both Kylo and Not-Rey spiked again, the two of them feeding off one another. “I thought he had killed my mother with ordering the destruction of the Hosnian system. But Kylo kept her alive. And yet I… I didn’t even try to shoot to protect her. His mother. My mother-in-law. Leia is...I did nothing.”

The words that you said, you realized, were not only your own feelings. The anguish in the bond resided there underneath the rage that worked to stomp it down. Kylo Ren was angry with himself for not saving his mother, for saving yours instead. The selfishness of it--the fact that he remembered you would have preferred your father while he preferred his mother. He had been incapable of killing her, would not have done so as long as he could choose. By leaving Armitage Hux alive when he had become Supreme Leader of the First Order, he had doomed all of Naboo. He had doomed himself, perishing temporarily. Had lost the one member of his family that he adored with all his heart despite her betrayal.

He was tumbling in darkness without his mother to reach him. Rey was doing what she could, however she was also being consumed. By loss. By betrayal. By the realization that the family she had longed for was her nightmare. You fired another shot. Looked at how the Knights of Ren were on the periphery of the battle and were fending off any who might interfere with Kylo’s desire to attack Not-Rey or harm him at all. Yet they were not aiming to stop him. They would not be able to do so even if they tried.

When Aris had died, you had been assaulted with guilt. You had placed the weapon in her hands that first time. The guilt that you felt through the bond surpassed that beyond anything you would ever be able to articulate. He was alone, the last of his family gone. You, too, had felt that when you had believed your parents both perished. Except you hadn’t had to endure watching their deaths. You had not been alone. He was. While Rey had found her family, he had lost his. Alone. Enraged by the fact that he had not killed Hux, that Rey’s face was an echo of this woman, who had assisted in his mother’s death. All while he had done nothing. He could have stopped this, was meant to be a Master of Death. Rey’s conflict was something that fed into his despair. He hated her in that moment.

“I have to go to him.”

“Are you crazy? He’ll kill you!”

He might, you thought as the tears trickled down. Yet he was grasping at his anger to drown out his sorrow. Your desire to go to him was not rooted in self-preservation. As Ap’lek had said about Aris, it was not about you. This was about the death Kylo himself had felt. It was about him.

You repeated your statement to allow Finn to prepare himself for the sudden absence of your back against his. You rushed forward, doing what you could to avoid injury, and passed by Trudgen on your way. He cut through two enemies to allow you to pass, and you hissed out gratitude with what breath you could spare. Rey had gone for Not-Rey, knocking her away from a strike from Kylo that would have beheaded her had he succeeded. The rage spiked again. More terrified screams from nearby soldiers who were cut through the Force tendrils also pierced the flesh of your arms. You felt blood beginning to pour from your wounds. They were, thankfully, shallow enough that you did not drop your weapon.

Kylo aimed for Rey with his mother’s lightsaber. His own nearly caught you as he twisted to kill whoever had dared to draw close. Those amber eyes landed on your face. Rey, now no longer occupied with Kylo, was able to prevent Not-Rey from pursuing Kylo or you. She worked to batter at the other, to attempt to gain a more offensive position and drive Not-Rey away.

The crackle of Kylo’s red lightsaber was at your throat. Perpendicular to it. His arm bent as he took a step closer, closer. You had reached up and removed your helmet. Tossed it off to the side so that he could see your face. He was drowning in darkness. Tumbling, tumbling, alone, hurt. A child without his mother. A child who had been abandoned and who now had no hope of ever having his mother fully see him for who he was. Without hope that she would embrace him--as she had embraced you.

Why did you hug her? He had asked this though both of you had wondered why she had not pushed to hug him. Why she had not embraced him. Why she had waited so long. She had sent him away in fear of this Darkness that not threatened to consume him. You had run towards it--towards him. After all these deaths. You were not spitting out that he was responsible for them. You were standing there with his blade at your throat.

“I didn’t pull the trigger.” It was not about you, but also you knew him. Knew that he deflected. That it was harder for him to admit his shortcomings. If someone met him halfway, it was easier. It felt less vulnerable.

Kylo’s eyes wandered along your face. “I had this power all along. I could have stopped it.” I could have saved her. You placed a hand over your heart. The hand that held the name Ben Solo. He lowered the lightsaber, its crossguard so near the digit. If either of you twitched, you would be harmed. You were not afraid. And if he asked you to, you would push forward and impale your finger on the blade. Instead of saying tooke, he said your name.

“Kylo,” you said, returning the gesture. Reaching out for him. Not an idea. The entirety of him, the man lamenting the death of his mother, whom he had failed to save. “This won’t bring her back.” Your voice cracked near the end. His thumb hit the switch of his weapon, deactivating it. The thrum of his mother’s blade did not die away. His eyes were intense and did not soften in the least. “You have to control who you kill.” Because there would be more death, but you could not stand to witness the casualties rise in the wake of his rage.

Here he reactivated his lightsaber while turning away from you and extending his arm. You stared at the offered hilt of Leia’s weapon. You holstered the pistol that Finn had given to you and took hold of the lightsaber. The Knight of Ren had been assisting in training you more recently. You knew how to handle a blade--that Kylo was offering you this specific one hit differently. This was not only a weapon to kill. It was a weapon to save him, to join him, to help defend the vulnerable part of him that so few were welcomed to see.

You were not as skilled in lightsaber combat as any of the others and thus you did not aim to pursue Not-Rey. As for the First Order enemies that had rushed closer, you turned to them and caught a laser axe on the blade. The force of the blow knocked you, their power more than you had thought. You were not alone, however, and Finn surged forward to cut at the laser axe as Trudgen swung his large vibrocleaver at the First Order stormtrooper’s midsection. With the pair in wordless camaraderie, you moved onto the next opponent, attempting to stay as near Kylo as possible.

The Dark power he exuded had lessened though it had not disappeared entirely. You knew that it could spike at any given moment. All he would have to do was remember the sight of his mother’s throat being slit. Remember that he could only watch. Recall that he had wanted her to accept him and it was too late for any of that.

Your grip on the lightsaber hilt tightened as you placed both hands on it and altered your stance. There were two fighting forms that you had studied, and this one would better allow you to block any incoming blaster fire. Maker, though, you wished you had the Force to help your reflexes. The bleeding wounds that had formed on your arms from Kylo’s power stung and ached with the next attack. The battle was different now that you were not observing it through a scope. Things were swirling faster. Your focus did not alter as frequently. That would mean your death. More than that, you merely wanted to be there for Kylo.

Not-Rey deactivated then reignited one end of her lightsaber, this resulting in her able to successfully injure Rey. The wound on the woman’s leg did not bleed. It was cauterized immediately. She dropped down and would have been beheaded had she not snapped up a hand and call upon the Force to halt the blade mid-descent. Kylo attacked the woman then, their blades meeting in a flurry of blows that you could barely keep track of; even if you had not been forced to divide your attention between that battle and the enemies coming at you, you would have had such difficulty.

A blast from a starfighter forced you to jump backwards. Another volley, a strafing run that left Kylo, Rey, and Not-Rey no choice but to break apart from one another. This frustrated Kylo, rekindled the negative emotions that dwelled within him. In accidental unison, Not-Rey and Kylo reached for the offending ship. Together their power snapped the craft in half, rendering it a ball of fire. Pieces of the starfighter rained from the sky. Some cut into foes, others into allies. The durasteel bounced and rolled, cutting up the land. A section nearly hit the Millennium Falcon, which was in pursuit of three First Order TIEs.

What caused a scream to erupt from you was the portion that bounced off the ground and impaled Cardo, who was knocked onto his back. The enemy he had been fighting moved to take advantage of the situation. You roared in fury, rushing forward. Kylo Ren whipped around at the sound of the cry. His hand, palm facing the enemy, was quickly clutched into a tight fist. You heard the crunching and crackling, the snapping of bones. All these noises soon complemented by the sight of blood spewing from the man’s orifices and wounds as his bones were made to saw through the flesh meant to contain them.

He can’t lose anyone else. Not today. You lunged for the First Order stormtrooper that had moved in despite the display of Kylo’s might. Leia’s lightsaber blade gutted them milliseconds before you dropped down to your knees. You were ripping off your jacket and wrapping it around the wound, doing your best to not jostle or remove the durasteel that had impaled him.

You had gone from watching the battle through a scope to now feeling it through the bond, which was filled with rage and a growing bloodlust as despair crackled through Kylo in blows that tore at his soul. Memories stirred of the shower you had shared. The ashes and the blood that had covered you both. The phantom tears that had threatened to fall, that he would not allow himself to cry. So you cried for him and you pleaded, “Don’t die, Cardo.”

She’s already gone. She’s gone.

The mantra, in his voice, resounding in your head. Cardo took a shuddering breath. You could not breathe a sigh of relief as an Order of Ren medic trooper arrived. There was only so much that they could do, and the enemy was closing in. The dogfights multiplying in number rather than dwindling down. It was an insult that Armitage Hux had--at least, as far as you knew and had seen--escaped. He had left the planet after spitting on Leia’s still-warm body. His victories felt like they were mounting, multiplying, swallowing you as they consumed Kylo.

I am the Dark and the Light.

I would be a monster without you.

You swallowed thickly, forced yourself to rise to your feet. There was nothing you could do beyond watch the medic attend to Cardo. He weakly nodded at you as though he understood. Whether he lived or he died, he wanted you to do this--you turned away from him and ran towards Kylo for a second time. Ran in the direction of the man who was aiming to kill Not-Rey, who in turn was smiling wickedly. As though she did not care whether she lived or died; she merely wanted to experience the joy of battle. It terrified you to think that this could be Kylo if the Darkness took him in full. You could not and would not allow that.

He would never, you swore, be without you.

#kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo ren smut #kylo ren imagine #three blind tooke #death is an art

2 notes · View notes

getyourblisson · 4 years ago

Text

A Look At January 2021

January is a month that always calls us to be in peace. It is a natural time to consider allowing unconditional love to flow throughout the entire year, and not just at the holidays. We have been programmed to make this a busy month; and to be proactive in lots of doing and activities and starting anew with all kinds of things in our life. However, we rarely take the time to simply be in peace, gratitude, and heartfelt love.

This year may be a bit easier to do that, as only those that are closest to us will be able to tolerate us being a bit absent minded or distracted. This year the energy favors us allowing the hustle of the holidays and the new year’s celebrations to settle down. This will be a great time for focusing on our dreams, and simply being in Divine or soul or God connection. It will be best to set aside making decisions where possible, since it is likely to be hard to focus on things.

Communications can also be a bit confusing, puzzling, and things just may not come out right. Be forgiving of others if they are rubbing you the wrong way with what they say; or if they forget about something. In most cases, it will not be intentional. This can be a wonderful time for partners and those in relationships to sit down and communicate their dreams; and to consider what it would take to set them in motion. Again, don’t get too hung up on the words; but explain what the vision looks like, because you may find that you are on the same page even if you are using different words for things.

This year the codes call us to find peaceful paths, and to consider how the dreams that we have will lead us into greater personal freedom; and how they will allow us to be more of who we are in this world. They call us to consider what allows us to stand strong in our own self. Just because one is self-sufficient and independent, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like others. It just means that they are coming from a space of being whole. It means that they are not dependent on others; and this allows them the greatest opportunities to live a life that they love.

During this month, more people may seek out the simpler things in life. There may be a desire to set aside worldly things, in favor of making things easier to handle. This is a time for us to consider how much flexibility and options we are creating for ourselves. Consider what changes would be required for you to have less stress, more personal time, and still be able to take care of your needs.

So often we do not need as much as we think that we do. Many tend to associate having personal time with being bored. The gift about personal time is that we get to choose what we want to do and invest our time in; instead of it being a requirement or having to follow strict schedules. With our current influences, this is a wise time to consider what you would like to do or be a part of for yourself; and not because you have to or are obligated to do with others. This month, particularly favors donating time towards a charity, volunteering somewhere, brainstorming for future events, and offering up acts of compassion such as helping a neighbor.

This can be a great month for exploring options, possibilities, and even making connections; as long as we are not pushing ourselves into making decisions. If you have work to do, then it is best not to procrastinate on that; otherwise it may be hard for you to get it done. For those that find themselves being jolted into “reality” by some sort of danger, consider what you have been ignoring; for this is trying to teach you something that you haven’t been paying attention to. It is best to avoid traveling during this time if possible, since people are not able to fully pay attention.

From January 1st – January 19th we will see world leaders coming together to implement changes that have never bene considered before. A sort of joining of forces which dismantles long standing rivalries. Their focus will be to bring closure to that which has led to so much greed by some; and leaves others to suffer.

We will likely see a strong focus around living more responsibly; and what changes need to be made to bring forth greater peace on and with Earth. This can bring arguments within families, as some try to maintain wealth and power; while others seek a world filled with greater humanity. During this time, we are likely to see many meetings of those in power to discuss how to bring this forward; and to observe how division and separation happened to begin with. There will be consideration given as to how to keep that from happening again.

During this time, those that are in greed are likely to be left behind. There is no room for over inflated egos, conceit, and battles. Nothing done in greed and destruction will succeed.

We have a VERY strong God and Divine presence among us; and only where people work together as a team, and in love and compassion will things succeed. This is a time, where we must care about one another; and any attempts to destroy the spirit, or to be controlling or dictatorial over others, or to create suffering will bring the downfall of those with such motives.

During this time, we must set money concerns aside and work from the heart. We must treat others as loving souls, from our own God and Divine presence. This is especially true where there are those with physical and financial issues.

We do need to take extra care of our health at this time, since it will be easier to catch illnesses. Our immunity tends to be weak; so, it is important to focus on high or nutrient dense foods, vitamins, probiotics, and things that otherwise nurture our digestive tract. This can be a wonderful time to do a cleanse, fast, or reset for your body.

From January 20th through the rest of the month, we will likely discover how wisely we have been living. Where we have implemented wisdom and used our energy wisely, we are likely to start seeing results and successes coming forward. Likewise, the choices that we make during this time, can lead to great success.

This time favors being connected to our creative energy. We might consider this a trial or experimental stage. Once an idea is formed, it is important to test or try it out experimentally before setting it into full force. This gives us the opportunity to see what is working and what is not.

It is during this time that we can really learn and see things with greater clarity. That makes this a wonderful time for taking classes or teaching them. It is a great time for researching things more. Art classes, music classes, dance classes and anything related to the arts will be favored at this time. It is also an excellent time for all forms of self-expression, journaling, and learning about your own self or how the Earth works.

We will do best to find our balance and to approach things with harmony. How well are you balancing your own masculine and feminine energies? Too much of either one can lead us to create an unfavorable future for ourselves, through reactive and highly emotional behavior. Thus, those that are in strong imbalances and being either strongly aggressive or strongly emotional, are those that you need to take time away from or create space with; at least for now.

Highly, charged reactions are likely to come from those that are not getting their way. This includes those that try to hold others captive in some way, such as with threats or brainwashing; or those that are abusive, and use fear to keep people in stress, anxiety, and controlled. Strong reactions surface from those that are operating in lies, deceit, and manipulation. They want to restrict others from moving forward and seeing success. There is a desire to bring a halt to the success of those working in pure intention and Divine alignment.

Those that are in this space, will likely try to throw others off balance in some way; and try to get them into a space of reaction. They are seeking to create a rebellion and a revolution. They want to create a war. This will backfire on them, as those that get stirred up will not battle among themselves but turn on the perpetrator.

Protests done at this time, will not be so much of an open war; but will be one of silently withdrawing all that supports the perpetrator. This would be like walking out of a store where you are mistreated, and never shopping there again. You simply take your business elsewhere.

Those that are lacking in integrity will be brought to the surface where they can be seen; and then quietly taken away. People simply will not tolerate those that try to restrict and limit their freedom; especially if they are doing it through deceptive means. The key however, is that where things get stirred up, is also where we still have lessons to learn; because we cannot move forward in our own lives or as a collective until this lesson is learned. Lies might seem small, or just fudging the lines; but when we allow that, we open the door to greater issues.

In summary, this month is about being in peace, and residing in unconditional love. It is an excellent time to focus on our dreams and visions, and what nourishes our soul. Remember to be forgiving of honest miscommunications; but do not tolerate lies and deception. When considering what choices to make, consider which options provide the greatest amount of freedom and flexibility. Consider what changes create less stress, more personal time, and still allows you to have what you need.

Focus on what supports unity and brings closure to suffering. Decide how you can work with others, instead of being at battle with them; and know when to walk away due to others being unwilling to work as a team instead of controlling everything. Find outlets for self-expression, and spend time doing creative things or being around creative energy. Focus on creating balance and harmony; and don’t let yourself be pulled into battles. Simply withdraw your energy, where integrity is lacking.

I welcome you to reside in unconditional love. What if you spent this entire month standing in unconditional love?

I welcome you to discover what nourishes your soul, and put your time into that. What if everything that you did nourished your soul?

I welcome you to forgive others without tolerating lies and deception. What if you surrounded yourself with only those that were trustworthy and lived in integrity?

I welcome you to choose what gives you freedom and flexibility; and to consider how that reduces stress while still giving you what you need. What if you created a low stress lifestyle?

I welcome you to focus on what supports unity and harmony; and brings closure to suffering and domination. What if you were able to work with others harmoniously as equals, respecting and appreciating what each of you has to offer?

I welcome you to engage in or participate in things that are creative. What if creativity and play removed blocks and obstacles? What if allowing creative energy to flow, created Divine connection and opened your abundance energy? What if self-expression allowed you to be appreciated for who you really are?

What To Focus Our Actions On

From January 1st – January 6th we will want to stick to what we need to do for our own self. This is a time for meeting our responsibilities and obligations. It is a good time to work on cleaning up any loose ends. We will do best to stick to what we can handle on our own at this time.

The key with this, will be to focus on those things that need to get done; but also, will create the space and room for us to focus on the things that are really important to us personally. In some ways, you may say it is about setting yourself up to be successful on your own. It is laying the groundwork for what you would like to do.

During this time, it will be beneficial to spend time reflecting on your life and experiences. If we are to make our dreams successful; then it is important to realize where we have come from, and where we have been. To have actions produce something beneficial, it is important that we do not repeat what has not worked for us; but to consider those pieces that have timeless value for us. Look at what you have used before, that you can use again now.

This time also favors celebrating anything that is coming through and is successful for you. While you need to be personally accountable, make your own choices, and do your own work; it can also be valuable for you to spend time socializing with those that are close to you, and will rejoice in your successes.

From January 7th through the end of the month, is a time for taking command of your own life. This is a time for you to take charge and bring things to completion. You are in a position where you can inspire others through self-compassion and integrity. If there is anything that is disrupting your peace and turbulent for your soul, then it is time to bring closure to it.

During this period, it will be good to look at what needs to be done for you to be standing in wholeness. It is a time for gathering together all of the loose fragments and pieces; and deciding which ones fit and which ones do not fit. If you are feeling uncertain about things, or not wanting to be in a lead position for one reason or another; then consider who you may want to observe or align with. If you take this course, then make certain that they are working in integrity and purity. Make certain that they are showing you how to be in command of your own life, instead of trying to control your life.

If you are feeling completely lost for some reason at this time, or simply cannot get your head together enough to focus on anything; then let this time be one that is filled with conversations with your soul self and God. Reflect on when and where you feel Divine presence; and in what things that you do which allow you to feel whole, complete, or soulfully free.

This time calls us to put a strong focus on our health. This is a great time for us to make changes that nourish and support our bodies. I have found that a strong relationship with my body, and supporting it physically; makes a huge difference, not only in how I feel, but in every area of my life. It creates a strong partnership between my soul self and human self, which is rooted in love and self-care. The value of this relationship can support you in every aspect of your life.

I welcome you to focus on what you need to do for yourself; and to be proactive in your own self-care. What if you only chose things that were healthy for you in body, mind, and spirit? What if you chose what you wanted, instead of letting others choose things for you?

I welcome you to take care of what needs to get done, so that you have room for more of what you love to do. What if you were in a position to do what you wanted, because everything else was already taken care of?

I welcome you to consider what is timeless. What if everything that you needed or wanted you already have?

I welcome you to take charge of your life in a way that is inspiring others through self-compassion and integrity. What if honoring yourself and your own journey was inspiring others around you?

I welcome you to consider what wholeness is for you. What if everything that you did was approached from a space of wholeness?

What To Focus Our Thoughts On

From January 1st – January 8th it will be important for us to understand and consider how we are using our power in the world. Too often we misuse our power without even realizing it. One way to check in on this, is to consider if our choices and actions are helping or hurting ourselves and others. Are we sharing where we are abundant, or being selfish and greedy?

It is interesting to consider the concept that how we use our power, directly connects with whether we experience abundance and how abundant we are feeling; or whether we are in battle with others over material things. Simply put, the wiser we are, in how we use our power and influence in the world; the more abundant we become. Power used unfavorably right now, will bring harsh downfalls.

Family arguments can arise at this time; and those that create them are doing so to either have a sense of control and power, or from a space of greed. Keep in mind that just because you choose something different from what your family chooses, it does not make you bad. At this time, it is important to stay out of taking sides and you will do best to simply be in observation.

This is a good time to consider where compassion and acceptance exist in your life. Which people and situations are allowing you to be you; and nourish and support you being in your soul self? This is a great time for a personal retreat, and to do deep soulful work on yourself. Take time to be aware if your mind is focused on material things or soulful things. It is not the time for us to worry about finances and material things; but a time for us to trust in our soul and God, and to reside in Divine presence.

From January 9th through the end of the month, it is a time to keep our focus on handling what needs to get done in our own life. If you have worked with the influences of the last few days, then it should be clear to you what needs to get done. It is important that you do not let others distract you; or persuade you otherwise. Those that are trying to get you to do things their way, may have good intentions; but they may also be trying to pull you off course. Either way, you need to be accountable; and that means you must decide what is best for you.

During this time, it is important to operate conservatively where finances are concerned. Know that you have plenty; but it is best to work with only what you have in hand. Look to earlier points in your life to see how you have gotten through, when there was little to work with. When we work with what is in hand, we naturally nourish our soul by not adding extra burdens and responsibilities into our life.

This is a time where we can learn a lot from those that lack integrity. The key is what are you learning about yourself from them. It is amazing, how deceptive people can teach us a lot about things like how not to get taken advantage of, what we like and do not like, what we want to do, and who we want to surround ourselves with. Use this knowledge, to bring closure to that which is not supporting you, and for strengthening you to live in your soul self.

Around our world, this is a time where we might see an increase in death or strange happenings. While this can be normal where Winter is present; this year’s energy seems to bring things about through accidents or ways that don’t seem possible to have happen. This will not be a good time for traveling. While we want to be aware of what others are doing, we will do best to keep our focus on our own self and processes.

I welcome you to take a look at how you are using your power in the world; and know when you are and are not using it wisely. Are there people or situations that trigger you to misuse your power? What would it be like if all of our choices helped ourselves and others?

I welcome you to consider how the way you are using your power, directly influences your ability to be abundant. What if using your power wisely, allowed you to feel and live abundantly?

I welcome you to stay in observation and do not take sides, especially where family is concerned. What if by observing things you were able to see clearly who and what is and is not operating in Divine alignment?

I welcome you to handle what you need to get done; without allowing others to distract you, or tell you what to do. What if you felt confident in making all of your own choices; and didn’t need others to tell you what to do? What if you accepted that you know what is best for you?

I welcome you to work with what you have; and avoid adding to your responsibilities and obligations. What if you already have all that you need; and using that generated greater “luck” and blessings for you?

Connecting To Our Soul Self

From January 1st – January 8th people are wanting to walk away from those people and situations that are focused only on greed, materialism, and money. It is likely, that we will feel very suffocated and heavy in those situations where this is the main are of focus. People will not want to deal with family issues; and there is a desire to bring closure with those that mistreat us, even if they are family.

This time favors being alone; over being in abusive situations that are full of conflict. This is a great time to restructure our priorities, and how we will set ourselves free from what weighs heavy on our soul. This can lead to downsizing or living a simpler life, in order to create greater freedom or to live in a life that we love.

It is at this time, that we can nourish our soul by creating a favorable relationship between the soul self and the human self. This starts with self-care. If we are to create a strong relationship with ourselves, it is important that we develop ways that keep our body strong and healthy. This includes everything from eating healthy, to exercise, to taking time to be soulful. I like to start and end my day with soul time.

While the human self can rebel a little with anything that it perceives as restrictions, it is still important to realize how much it is gaining from making shifts. The key is to realize they are not restrictions, but ways of loving yourself. Many people connect this with dieting at this time of year. I have learned that the body needs very little to function on; however, it also needs some physical world indulgences.

In order to do that, I will allow certain days for that; or find healthier forms of those indulgences. This means that I am not depriving myself of anything; but giving it a time and way to happen that is not destructive, such as one day a week or a few days every few weeks. I might choose dark chocolate covered strawberries instead of cake. Food has a powerful effect on our emotions, thoughts, and sense of self-worth; and too much damaging food, or a diet of refined and processed foods breaks our connection with our soul self, and can pull us into dark spirals. Good and healthy food is all about loving yourself.

From January 9th through the end of the month life may feel a bit stagnant. We may feel a bit challenged by those that try to manipulate us; or deceive us out of doing what is best for us. Our soul may feel a bit worn by the world, especially if we are being attacked for creating successes in our life. Those that are trying to ruin your success, are those that are feeling very insecure within themselves. They do not know how to create their own successes; and as a result, try to copy you.

This is an important time for us to consider the soul lessons that we are getting at this time. It is a great time to reflect on the lessons you have learned along the way; and to consider how to use that wisdom to create successes moving forward. This is a very strong period for learning about yourself, and for researching things that are very important to you.

It is an excellent time to start a new course, or to begin work with a mentor. Take the time to consider how old concepts can be brought out in current times. How is the past teaching us what works and what doesn’t work? What forgotten methods hold the key to a successful future? This is a time where suppressed technologies can be brought forward, such as Tesla’s work. We could easily see them brought into use at this time.

I welcome you to walk away from people and situations that are focused on greed and materialism. What if you brought closure to all that mistreats and disrespects you?

I welcome you to restructure your priorities to relieve yourself from what weighs heavy on your soul. What if living soulfully was your biggest or top priority?

I welcome you to strengthen the relationship between your human and soul selves. What if they held a strong, loving, and harmonious relationship with each other; and were rooted in self-compassion and self-care?

I welcome you to sit still and consider what you need to learn or work on; before moving forward with things in your life. What if your success is only waiting on you to realize something that you need?

I welcome you to consider how the past can help you create a favorable future. What if the new greatest thing, is based on something that already exists or has already happened?

The Code Journey

2021 Version now available

#The Code Journey #Jesse An Nichols George #compassion #enlightenment #conscious #conscious living #practical spirituality #wellness #well-being #wholeness #enrichment #January 2021 #astrology #numerology

1 note · View note

aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

Ghost of Tsushima Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/30n9aM4

This Ghost of Tsushima article contains spoilers.

Ghost of Tsushima is as epic as the classic Akira Kurosawa movies that inspired it. And in the spirit of those movies, Jin Sakai’s long journey to free his homeland from the Khotun Khan and his Mongol army concludes in brutal fashion.

Main protagonist Jin goes through a lot, both internally and externally, on his journey, while wrestling with the traditional, samurai notion of “honor,” whether or not it’s worth dying for, and what honor is worth when innocent lives are on the line. Fittingly, the game’s finale sees Jin come face to face with two opponents who are ultimate representations of honor and dishonor.

Needless to say, there’s plenty to unpack in Ghost of Tsushima‘s final moments. I’m going to delve into the conclusion of Jin’s tale in-depth, exploring the complexities of his relationships and the repercussions of the tough decisions he’s faced with.

What does killing Khotun Khan really mean for Jin?

In the final battle scene of the main story, Jin and his allies Yuna, Sensei Ishikawa, Norio, Masako, and Kenji storm Khotun Khan and his army at Port Izumi, blowing the unsuspecting Mongols to bits with explosives and slashing what’s left of them to pieces, clearing a path for Jin to finally finish the one-on-one duel he and the Khan had at the beginning of the game.

Of course, the fight doesn’t wind up being a fair one because Khotun has no honor. Jin fights Khotun one-on-one for a while, but then the Khan retreats to his ship, where Jin must take the Mongol leader down as his armed cronies rain swords, spears, and fire arrows down on the Ghost’s head. When Jin finally defeats Khotun, the dying Mongol utters the words, “Kill me and another will come. We will be remembered.”

To this, Jin replies, “No. You will be forgotten,” before slicing Khotun’s head off of his gigantic shoulders. Killing the Khan doesn’t end the invasion — there are still Mongol encampments strewn all over Tsushima. But I believe Jin’s victory symbolizes something much deeper for him personally.

Throughout his journey, Jin has struggled with the nature of honor. It’s virtuous to fight enemies head-on, in a fair fight. But what if your enemy refuses to fight fair? Is it worth risking the lives of your people in the name of honor, or is it justifiable to use the art of deception to gain an unfair advantage against an enemy as unscrupulous as the Mongols?

In the context of Jin’s story, Khotun Khan represents what happens when a warrior succumbs completely to the allure of dishonor, or “the way of the Ghost.” When Jin tells the Khan he will be forgotten, he knows that because he’s taken up the ways of the Ghost himself. Jin will be forgotten, too. All of Jin’s sacrifices to save Tsushima will not be attributed to him or clan Sakai, but to the Ghost.

What is the significance of the peasant and his cart?

Shortly after Jin and Lord Shimura meet at their old sparring circle in Omi Village, they happen upon a peasant whose cart is stuck in the mud. He tells them he’s headed North to join the Ghost’s army and they help him get his cart back on dry ground. Lord Shimura even wishes him well, telling him to avoid Mongols.

Jin has no idea what the peasant is talking about — he hasn’t started an army. But Lord Shimura enlightens him, explaining that the figure known as Ghost has now taken on a life of its own. Jin’s actions as the Ghost — particularly his open defiance of Lord Shimura’s orders when they retook Castle Shimura from the Mongols — have encouraged the people of Tsushima to question their leaders in a way that dismantles the foundation of tradition that samurai and the shogun were built on. Essentially, Jin has sparked a revolution.

There’s a lot of foreshadowing going on here. As we later learn, Lord Shimura is leading Jin to a duel to the death, but as they help the peasant and discuss the repercussions of the manner in which Jin has chosen to fight the Mongols, it’s clear that Shimura harbors no anger toward his nephew. He still loves him, but he’s disappointed and mourns what they once had. They were meant to be father and son, but the fact of the matter is, Jin has undermined everything Shimura worked his life to defend and uphold, and what’s worse, he’s now inspired the people of Tsushima to follow suit.

Why does Lord Shimura fight Jin to the death?

At the Sakai family cemetery, Lord Shimura reveals to Jin that he’s been tasked by the shogun, who have branded Jin a traitor, to kill him. Jin believes that he’s inspired people to stand up for themselves, but in Lord Shimura’s eyes, there is only one way to lead one’s life: with honor. And because Jin has chosen to use dishonorable tactics to defend Tsushima, he must pay for his transgressions.

What this all boils down to is that Lord Shimura is so unshakably committed to honor and samurai code that he intends to kill his would-be adopted son in the name of it. He’s an honorable samurai, and he refuses to compromise. “You have no honor,” he scolds. “And you are a slave to it,” Jin retorts. This is the inevitable impasse that these two warriors, the last samurai of Tsushima, have arrived at.

There’s a generational aspect to this finale that resonates with the current sociopolitical state of the world as well. Lord Shimura is devoted to tradition to an almost fanatical extent. He represents an older generation who are in power and whose stubbornness and refusal to listen to reason in times of crisis cause them to risk innocent lives in the name of upholding the status quo and protecting archaic notions of right and wrong. Sound familiar?

Games

Ghost of Tsushima Directors Explain Akira Kurosawa’s Influence

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Is Ghost of Tsushima Coming to PS5?

By John Saavedra

Jin, of course, represents a younger generation that dares to challenge old ideas and who aren’t afraid to rail against tradition if it means finding a better way to protect their people. They aren’t afraid to call out their elders on their bullshit and take a progressive, evolved approach to leadership.

Remember: Despite Ghost of Tsushima being set in ancient Japan, Sucker Punch is an American developer. It likely isn’t a coincidence that Jin and Lord Shimura’s eternal debate over tradition vs. progressivism bears a resemblance to the elevated generational conflict that has gripped the US in recent years.

Are Lord Shimura and Jin father and son?

Despite Jin and Shimura’s irreconcilable differences, there’s one thing that’s crystal clear when watching them ride on their horses together through Omi Village: they still love each other. This is the tragedy at the center of the story. Because these men have chosen diverging paths, there is no longer a way for them to coexist at all. And yet, they are family and they care for each other deeply. It’s a paradoxical situation, but Shimura had tried his best to bring Jin back to his side of the fence.

Earlier in the story, Lord Shimura lovingly reveals to Jin that he’s publicly announced his intention to adopt Jin as his son, adding that he demands Jin stop using deceptive tactics in battle and face his enemies head-on (no matter the cost). But then Jin poisons a gaggle of Mongols at Castle Shimura, a spectacularly dishonorable display that saves the lives of countless Tsushima denizens and thoroughly embarrasses Lord Shimura in front of his new shogun buddies.

This act of defiance forces a rift between Jin and Shimura that seems insurmountable, and they never make the adoption official. But in their samurai showdown (sorry, had to) at the Sakai cemetery, they seem to still be referring to each other in familial terms, almost unmistakably like a father and son would. Actually, if you die during the boss fight, Shimura actually calls Jin “son” before sticking his katana in his spine. Brutal.

Technically, Shimura and Jin are not father and son by the end of the story. They’ve chosen separate paths and they will never walk side by side again. But at that moment, in their hearts, they are father and son through and through (this is reinforced even further depending on whether you choose to let Shimura live or not when you defeat him — more on that shortly). “Our final day together,” Shimura says moments before they cross swords. “It is beautiful.”

What is the meaning of the final haiku?

Before Jin and Shimura’s epic fight to the death, they each write down the final words of their respective clans in the form of haikus. As in all of the other haiku moments of respite in the game, you’re given three options to choose from for each of the three lines of the poem. The words are profound encapsulations of their fraught relationship over the years.

Line 1 options:

Eyes that saw my pain

Hands that shaped the world

Strength in every step

Line 2 options:

A fate neither of us want

Destiny divides our souls

A bond broken forever Line 3 options: I fight without hope This is where we part Will death redeem us? The most intriguing option of all is, “Will death redeem us?” I believe Jin is being skeptical here, asking himself whether killing each other is the only course of action, as the shogun suggest, or if it’s all just a pointless, empty display of “honor” in the most antiquated sense. What’s the point of them fighting each other? Is it the right thing to do? Jin doesn’t think so. Essentially, the haiku just reinforces how insanely depressing the characters’ predicament is. There’s a finality to Jin’s words, and the most heart-wrenching thing about the poem is that he has chosen to make the final words of the Sakai family a miserable breakup letter to/about his uncle, who isn’t even a Sakai!

What happens if you choose to spare Lord Shimura?

Once Lord Shimura is defeated, he requests that you grant him a warrior’s death. “Honor me,” he pleads. You are presented with a choice: You can either spare him, essentially spitting in the face of the ideals and philosophies Shimura dedicated his life to, or you can grant his wish and let him die on his own terms.

If you choose to spare his life, Jin stands tall above his beaten uncle and refuses to kill him. “I have no honor,” he says. “But I will not kill my family.” Shimura, heartbroken, tells his nephew that, “The Ghost will be hunted for the rest of his days,” to which Jin replies, “I know.”

Jin choosing to spare his uncle is the ultimate act of defiance. In his mind, he’s eschewing tradition and choosing to lead his life not by blindly following old traditions, but by carving his own path and thinking for himself. At the same time, he knows that his uncle doesn’t see it that way, and he knows quite well that he’s just denied his mentor his dying wish. This is heavy, heavy stuff.

Jin then puts on the Ghost mask and walks away. He knows that his defiance won’t come without a price. He’s giving up his life as a samurai and his relationship with his uncle to fight for his people in the way he sees fit. It’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

What happens if you kill Lord Shimura?

This is where things get really Shakespearean. If you choose to kill Shimura, Jin makes him a promise: “I will make sure you are remembered as a great warrior, a wise leader, and a father.” Shimura is appreciative. “Thank you, my son,” he says, as if indicating that Jin has won back his respect. “Find me in the next life.”

It almost feels like an act of mercy for Jin to kill his uncle. Yearning for a warrior’s death isn’t a foreign concept for Jin — he often talks about the guilt he harbors for surviving the Mongol invasion at Komoda Beach when his samurai brethren didn’t. While his values may no longer align with his uncle’s, to let his one-time mentor leave the earth on his own terms is like a parting gift, a sign of utmost respect for a warrior who was uncompromising in his beliefs.

Ghost of Tsushima is out now on PlayStation 4.

The post Ghost of Tsushima Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3fRUdZi

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

kneesheee · 6 years ago

Text

Little Devil

warnings: threats of death | mention kidnapping | mind manipulation | canon-typical violence

|five|

Jason sat back in one of the chairs as he cleaned the crowbar in his hands. His eyes tracked the movement of the man in the middle cell. The man had crying and screaming himself hoarse as he and Jamila took out his companions. It had gotten to the point where Jamila walked into the cell and forced him to silence or she’d give him a real reason to scream.

He hasn’t done anything since.

Jamila herself had hosed her body down until it was clean enough for her to venture upstairs. She had showered and now she was resting in Roy’s friend Kyle’s room. The space cop sometimes came over with Roy when he and Connor were on good terms. They descended into Roy’s workshop and more often enough Kyle was bringing back metals from Planet Vegeta to fix whatever they broke in there.

Whatever.

He needed to go check on Talia. He didn’t know how long he had been down here. Jason stood to go change when an alert went off on the computer behind him.

His computer was better in ways that Oracle’s ad Batman’s weren’t. They searched for crimes and put pieces together. His idea came from a movie. Captain America: TWS if he was sure. The algorithm was wonderful and once he told Talia about it and let her watch it herself, she stopped at nothing to find someone who could make her something similar if not better. So yes, Jason has his own Project Insight except it was filtered. Potential targets were filed away by threat level.

People were like chess and Jason found that he liked moving pieces into his corner. Almost two-thirds of the people that pop up either work for Head Industries or the League now.

If only he could convince Talia that Tony Stark was not that suitable to be her superhero crush.

(“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong Habibi… he is a man with great influence and an incomparable mind. His morals are unbreakable with knowing when to sacrifice them for necessary evils. My only complaint would be this Marvel continuously writing him to be their sacrificial lamb and unorthodox villain for the sake of making Private Rogers look well. [Its Captain America, T?] Have you not watched the movie Jason? Steven Rogers was made captain to sell war bonds and disrespected a chain of order. It was for plot development that he was made into a captain. In a real world, none of his actions would have suffice. Anthony is practical and though his jokes fall short, it is quite easy to see that he makes up for it. And besides, what kind of woman would I be if I didn’t appreciate his appreciation of a strong woman. He clearly sees females as the superior sex.)

Jason shook his head and paid attention to the details crossing his screen. Roy was calling. He rose a brow and answered.

The red head looked frantic. His green eyes were lit with worry and grief. “Jason! Jay, please. I need your help! Connor’s been kidnapped by the League of Shadows!”

Well fuck.

Damian was brought out of his musings as his communicator went off. He spared a glance at his mother who was recreating a picture that Todd had hanging on his wall.

The person on the other end didn’t even give Damian time to speak before they began barking orders, “Get to the Batcave. The others will meet you there. I’m bringing a guest.”

Damian only spared a minute to stare at his phone before he was abruptly standing up. His mother looked up at him and was on her feet and in a defensive position before he could even blink. Damian tilted his head to the side and hummed. She was favoring her right side leaving herself vulnerable to attacks to her left and then he saw the knife in her hands (and where the hell did, she get that---Todd was going to kill him).

“Pack a bag. We will be staying at castle for an undetermined amount of time.”

She roamed her eyes around the room three times before nodding her head and walking away to what she showed him to be her room.

Cain walked over to him and tilted her head. She ran a hand through his hair, and she was one of the few people who could do so without risk of being stabbed. Damian sighed through his nose, “We need to leave and return to the Cave. Todd is bringing a guest.”

He could feel her nod before she was following his mother. Damian wondered just who this guest was. He hoped it to be their enemy, so that he may show them what happens when one attacks the Al Ghuls. The demon inside him cried for blood. This dastardly attack on his mother cannot stand and someone will have to pay.

Damian smiled a cruel smile. Yes, whoever Todd’s guest was will pay dearly for causing harm to his mother.

All Al Ghuls knew where the Batcave was located. It wasn’t a secret. They knew where it was, how to get in there detected and undetected, hidey-holes, and how to navigate the computer without raising alarms.

Personally, Jamila never bothered with it. She was content to living her life traipsing the globe making a name for herself that would one day rival her parents.

And yet, somehow, here she was standing in the cave with all the bat brats staring at her. Well standing wouldn’t be the right word. She was lounging across their debriefing table cleaning her nails with one of her knives. Her green-blue eyes tracked everyone’s movement and took note of the many exits and passageways she had been forced to learn.

And then-

Her knife fell from her hand.

Jason moved next to her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Jamila gave a full body shudder as she saw what her stupidity led to.

“Kalh,” the word dropping from her mouth. She was sure she would’ve sunk to the ground if Jason was not supporting her.

This miniature version of her aunt looked at with something akin to suspicion and recognition.

She drank in the similarities to the woman she knew to the child standing before her. She took deep pleasure in knowing that she looked like her aunt instead of her mother when she was an infant. It wasn’t long before the butler was whisking her away at Jason’s order.

“Who are you to claim relation to the Al Ghul line,” her other cousin demanded. Jamila turned her head to look at him and quite honestly, she found him lacking. Oh, so she can see the potential. She can see where he would’ve been great. But it’s this idiotic way of ignoring his instincts and obviously ignoring his birthright that makes him unworthy of her attention. It’s no wonder that he fell to the end of the line of succession regardless that it was only because of the death of their grandfather.

Jamila only manages to stop herself from sneering. Jason informed her of his infuriating plan. Announcing her as the heir? It was the reason they were in this mess to begin with! And he just goes and saddle her with a title she does not want! That she threw away!

She can feel Jason sigh because he just knows how she’s going to react.

And react she did.

Pulling herself to full height, Jamila looked down her nose at her younger cousin. Honestly, even Anastasia wasn’t this infuriating, and that little spoilt princess made Jamila want to travel back in time and put her knife through her egg.

“I am your superior in all that matters. I am the Demon of Death. The snake cloaked in poisons with more blood on my hands than a blood bank. I am Jamila Al Ghul-Wilson. Daughter of Nyssa Raatko and Slade Wilson. Rightful Heiress to the Demon’s Head.”

“Rightful,” the one Jason fondly calls replacement questioned. She ignored the spluttering from her youngest cousin that she was lying. As if she wanted to be born to either of her parents.

Jamila tilted her head to the side, “Jason has informed me that my half-brother has been kidnapped. It is obvious that my Mother has taken him and with Mistress Talia compromised, Mother has the right to the throne. She doesn’t know about me, so she’d name my brother her heir.”

The blue idiot that had once thrown her cousin-heart in Arkham sneered at her, “Why should we even trust you? We might as well beat you and Nyssa and dismantle the League of Shadows. It’ll save us a lot of trouble.”

Jamila smirked, “You? Beat me? Don’t make me laugh.”

He puffed up and took a step towards her and Jamila’s smirk widen. She could feel interest piquing in her and her fist clenched ready to lay down the truths.

“I’ve beaten your father and Cass beat your mom—”

Jamila snorted, “Irrelevant. I’m a better fighter than both. Lady Shiva has said that I am better fighter than herself. So, you and your Cass- “

“Mila,” Jason groaned. “Do you have to antagonize everybody?”

“It’s a part of my charm,” she shrugged. “We need a plan and we can’t really do anything until the Mistress is back to her rightful age.”

She pulled a jump drive out of her pocket and handed it to Jason. He had already read all the information on there and copied it to his own computer. Jamila smirked. She also knew he made the data unable to copied again to try would upload a virus on the device download so viscous that no data would ever be able to be added.

Her cousin looked at her with amusement in his unmasked eyes as he moved towards the Bat. Her eyes tracked the Batman’s movement and she couldn’t see what her aunt saw in him. He was so plain.

Jamila trailed her eyes around the room before the sound of people entering caught her attention. She glanced over at the newcomers. She quirked a brow when she saw Jason’s friends.

The clone that Jason took after like a father to a son bumbled down happily alongside the Amazon with the eye-catching thighs. Jamila was suddenly glad that she had her own mask covering her face. Those thighs looked completely delicious.

Following behind them were the alien princess that Jason also befriended. Jamila trailed her eyes down her body. Now this was a woman. She didn’t understand how Jason managed to control himself with such beautiful women surrounding him. And honestly, it is no secret between the two cousins that they both have a thing for strong women.

Following behind them was the red head archer. The one Jason told her was the adopted brother of her mother’s son. And from the way the others following behind could only be his family. Her lips curled back in a snarl.

She had no use of compromised agents.

Jamila could feel a heavy stare on her, and her gaze trailed across the room until she could see Lady Shiva’s daughter staring at her. Jamila wondered what she could read through her body language before she shrugged uncaringly and made her way to Jason’s side.

“Remind why I exactly did I allow you drag me here with these imbeciles,” the Farsi language dripped off her tongue like water and she inwardly smiled. She had done her research on all of them, and she knew for a fact that none of them spoke Farsi. But she almost remembered Jason mentioning that the alien had to actually kiss people to learn new languages and well Jamila knew a lot of languages.

“Because we have to stop your mom and we have strength in numbers,” Jason replied absently as he and the Bat looked over the information on the junk drive. Jamila glanced up at it and inwardly snorted. She hoped that they weren’t thinking of leading an attack going by the old structure of the compound.

“But- “

“You can also use them as distractions while you proceed to beat the shit out of your mother and declare yourself the best of the Al Ghul lineage.”

Well it was true. It was she who took down her grandfather for good after all. Though it was also nice to have facts and her mother, and her brother was the one Al Ghul she hadn’t fought. Damian hadn’t counted. He would need help to beat her just like Anastasia. She will fight them when they are older and more experienced. She scowled, “Damn you and my competitive nature.”

“What are the two of you talking about?”

It was the blue idiot again. She whirled around ready to continue her verbal onslaught when Jason placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Its none of your business, Dickhead.”

Jamila inwardly smirked before she turned back towards the computer. She noted the routes that they planned on taking. “Shouldn’t we be focusing on fixing Aunt Talia instead of planning the attack?”

“You know Batman has to be prepared. Uh… you know he has contingency plans for his contingency plans.”

If she didn’t stop now, she was sure her face would be stuck in a permanent scowl. “In other words, he’d rather be an idiot and focus on the problem that Connor has been kidnapped instead of the obvious connection that this is just a ploy.”

“Well when you put it that way… Ouch!”

Jason rubbed the back of his head from where she had slapped it and the two of them stood glaring at each other. His eyes to her mask. She sighed deeply and it felt as if a weight had gathered on her shoulders.

“We need the Mistress to be back to her right age. It’s imperative- “

“Okay enough of this! How can you expect us to work together when we don’t even know what you’re saying!”

She was going to shove that escrima stick so far up his ass.

“Jamila knows what’s at stake and I trust her to have our back.”

“You might trust her, but I don’t,” he exclaimed. His fist clenched and his gaze darkened with every glance he spared the cousins. Jamila was struck with a sudden realization and she laughed aloud.

“By the demon, he’s jealous!”

Honestly, she couldn’t stop her shaking shoulders if she tried. It was just hilarious.

“What,” Jason’s words were followed by an almost immediate denial of, “No I am not,” from the Dickhead?

“Hate to say it ‘Wing, but you totally are,” the blonde and purple one stated. “You’ve been in this weird state of confusion and jealousy since everything started. You’re almost bad as B.”

Jamila perked with interest before turning to look at Batman. He was jealous?

“This family is fucking weird,” Jason grumbled before pointedly turning away. “Can we focus on the mission now? I think we’ve got a good plan to rescue to Connor.”

They all moved to crowd around the screen even Jason’s friends and the Arrows. Jamila stiffened and quickly moved away. She knew none of them well enough for them to be so close in her personal space.

She sniffed disdainfully from her reclaimed spot on their debriefing table returned to cleaning her nails. She paid little attention to the plan they were going over and honestly, it was a shit plan. Going in through the cover of night? Cliché. Taking down the systems? Predictable and inclined to fail by the five multilayered and encrypted security systems. Hit them before they see you takedown? Unlikely to work with the patrol.

“It won’t work.”

It was as if the world stopped. She rose a brow in challenge.

“What?” Roy asked with such heartbreak on his face that she might have felt guilty. But she didn’t know him. Didn’t care for him. Didn’t care about him. So no, she didn’t feel guilty.

“It will not work,” she shrugged. “The compound has changed for one. These plans you are looking at come from Construction 855b. It hasn’t looked like that for six months now. I should know. I was there when the changes began.”

“You didn’t think to let us know before we started planning,” the Dickhead growled. Jamila sighed deeply.

“I do not like you and it is only out of respect for my cousins that I have not beheaded you.”

She took little notice of how the yellow bat took a cautious step away from her and closer to Lady Shiva’s daughter.

“Mila,” Jason groaned and pressed his hands into his face. She shrugged.

“I have already stated that we cannot do anything until Mistress Talia is back to her rightful age.”

“I’m sorry, but who are you again?” She switched her gaze to the person that had spoken. The Green Arrow. Her mother’s second husband.

She smiled sweetly, “I am Jamila. Jason’s cousin.”

The alien flew close to her and Jamila deserve a reward for not stabbing her in the eye. “Ahh, you are cousin in the picture on Jason’s nightstand. It is nice to finally meet you. I am Koriand'r.”

A small smile pulled at her lips. It was not fond. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

But the peacefulness couldn’t last long because the Blue Idiot was back, and he brought a friend. The girl glared at her suspiciously and Jamila stared back blankly. “You’re hiding something,” she accused.

“I am hiding a lot of things,” Jamila stated. “‘Tis not a crime. And it is none of your business.”

“Its my business if it leads to any of them getting hurt,” she shot back, and Jamila smiled sharply. The Blue Idiot narrowed his eyes at her before moving to once again complain to Jason. Idiot. “And as I have just stated, it isn’t any of your business.”

“I don’t trust you,” she sneered. And Jamila laughed again, “The feeling is quite mutual.”

The girl searched her features before sighing, “Look- “

“No, you look… I care for none of you. I do not like any of you and if you died, I would not shed a tear. The only people on this property that are worth my attention are Jason, Damian, and my aunt. I am only here out of loyalty to them. You all want to rescue Connor and I do not blame you for that but getting my aunt back to her rightful age is the only way. And I care not for your opinion. It hasn’t been worth anything ever since the words ‘You’ll never be Dick Grayson’ tumbled out your mouth. Do not think that I do not know who you are Barbara Gordon. Because I do and I do not care.”

“Why is getting Talia back so important to you,” the blonde asked as she walked over. If she had been trying to be intimidating, then she needed work.

“She is my aunt.”

The blonde (Stephanie, her mind supplied) looked at her in frustration, “Well yeah, I get that. But why is it more important than saving Connor? I mean she’ll still be here if we go after him first.”

Jamila rolled her eyes at the ignorance being presented in front of her. She cast a glance around the room and notice how they seemed to have garnered everyone’s attention, “Look you guys don’t trust me. I get that. Jaycee’s word isn’t enough. But Talia is my aunt and the only person standing in this room besides me and Jason that she cares for is Damian. You don’t want to help her? That’s cool. That’s fine. But if you so much as think you’re going to stop me… ME… from helping her? I will kill all you right now and fix her myself.”

She laughed at the way they all tensed defensively. She rose a brow watching how the archers’ fingers flexed as they controlled themselves. Batman attempted to stare her down, “We don’t have the time to spare- “

“Make it,” she cut him off. “The Mistress is way more important than my brother right now.”

“Brother,” the Green Arrow choked. She sneered, “You are so not my father.”

She turned back towards the back, “Mother will do nothing to Connor now that she has him, but she does want Talia. She will stop at nothing to get her. Right now, she’s protected. None of Nyssa’s operatives can enter Gotham without facing death.”

“We’re not- “

“Tawaquf,” she stated and watched as all the Bats and Jason freeze up. Weapons were pointed at her and she flipped out of the way as the alien princess and amazon headed for her. “I apologize for the distress Jason, but I do not have the patience to play these games with them.”

“Undo whatever it that you have done, and I will not kill you quickly,” the Amazon snarled. Jamila smiled in challenge. Now that would be a good fight. She turned her head in interest ready to apply pressure. She could feel something awakening in her as its power seeped through her pores. It coated the room before wrapping around her in a cocoon.

“I will like to see you try,” she teased. She could see the way Shiva’s daughter attempted flinched away. She could see how Jason and Damian both wanted to move forward and embrace her.

“The Lazarus Demon,” she heard. Her gaze flittered over towards the Green Arrow and Black Canary. She saw the way the Amazon flinched away. “You recognize my friend? How?”

Then she shook her head, “Never mind. That is irrelevant. The code word I used was a trigger into an automated system that my grandfather had injected into the blood of all operatives of the Bat including you, cousin mine. You might not remember but the Mistress has used it on you plenty because of your past with the pits.”

Jamila moved towards the Bat computer and began to search. Jason had told her that the Bat had most of the things needed for the scientific part of the cure. It was the magical part that will be a problem. But like her cousin, she’s had some fun traveling through the multiverse and she met people.

She turned towards the others in the room. The Outlaws and the Arrows. “I will help you that I promise, but Mother will be prepared for retaliation. By kidnapping Connor, she knows that you all will follow. This can either go two ways. She will believe that Jason will follow you out of loyalty and thus leave Mistress Talia vulnerable. She may cannot get any of her operatives in here but that doesn’t mean she cannot pay someone else to.”

“Pay,” Roy cut in. His eyes widened, “Deathstroke?”

“Yes, the League has been a longtime customer to Mr. Wilson. Stealing the daughter of the demon will be child’s play to him. While she might expect you all, she might not expect Batman and his brood. She will think that Jason somehow managed to convince you all to stay back and guard the Mistress. The other part is that she does expect Batman. The compound has undergone construction made to slow you all down. She will employ these added additions.”

The Black Canary nodded her head as she cautiously moved closer. Jamila’s gaze turned to her and she could Lazarus turn its attention on her. “It makes sense. We all have a connection to Connor and using him can be a distraction for her to get Talia and for her to do whatever it is that she wants to Connor simultaneously.”

Jamila nodded, “You will need someone who knows the compound as it is now, and I only know half of it. I do not know all of it and I rather not run in blind. And these new additions are meant to stall. Any second waiting is a second we cannot afford.”

“Call up your magical contacts. I need someone to bless this bottle and bridge a contact with—” Jamila inwardly winced and her hand automatically raised to cover her now bleeding nose. She ground her teeth together, “Bridge contact with the ancient goddess Manat.” Another hand rose to her ear and she inwardly growled at Lazarus. She didn’t even worship Manat.

“Are you okay,” the Green Arrow questioned with concern on his face. Fatherly concern at that. Jamila never had a father and the only mother figure she had was her aunt.

“Just peachy,” she growled. She could feel a heavy stare on the side of her head, and she turned to see her cousins looking at her. “Harar,” and then regained control of their bodies again. A pity that she will not be able to use it again and a blessing that Mother would not be able to use it at all. “Let’s just get this over with.”

#little devil #Talia al Ghul #talia al ghul imagine #taliaalghulweek2018 #Jason Todd #jason todd the red hood #Jason todd x oc #talia al ghul is jason's mother figure #Tim Drake #damian wayne #dick grayson #barbara gordon #batfam au #fuck batman #roy harper #cassandra cain #Stephanie Brown #bruce wayne #koriand'r

9 notes · View notes

emeraldspiral · 6 years ago

Note

Why do you think Kylo Ren specifically is the target of so many comments about neo-Na/zi allegories and is critiqued in a poor way in general? Is it just about the way we consume media right now? Like, are there going to be hot takes after his arc is complete about how the story would’ve been so much better if he had died a villain and how the redemption arc was insensitive and awful?

Star Wars was already a huge franchise with wide and far reaching appeal before TFA came out. Then SJWs took one look at the black and female leads and the white male villain and saw an opportunity to make themselves out to be somehow acting for the betterment of mankind (and get lots of followers/make sweet clickbait money), simply by liking Star Wars, liking Finn and/or Rey, liking F1nnRey or St0rmpilot, and especially hating Kylo Ren/Reylo. This created a potent collision of typical ship war drama that’s been around for forever crossed with the cancer that is modern identity politics.

If TFA had come out 10 years ago the hatedom would be just as large because there would still be people who just can’t abide someone liking something they don’t.But everything is so much worse now because everyone’s equipped with a bunch of poorly thought and/or poorly understood rhetoric and buzzwords which embolden people to think that their every petty thought and emotion is an objective moral fact that justifies everything from rude comments to putting needles in cookies and sending CP to CSA survivors. It used to be you just talked shit about someone’s OTP and felt smug like you really knocked them down a peg and now you feel better about your own shit taste in waifus. Now those shippers/character stans aren’t merely annoying foolish plebs for their failure to recognize the superiority of your favs. Now they are an Evil That Must Be Stopped. Now you’re not just a petty jackass, you’re a Brave Hero serving your community. And the best part is, you didn’t even have to do anything. Just do exactly what you would’ve done anyway (and would normally be admonished for). Just remember to flash your Ron Swanson “I can do whatever I want” permit disguised as a set of moral principles.

Ultimately (disregarding the people who decide their film, character, or ship preferences purely on an insincere politically motivated basis, who don’t really care about any of the characters or ships) the reason Kylo Ren/Reylo suffers so much from The Discourse comes down to the same reasons any character or ship got shit on in the days of yore.

1) Adam Driver/Kylo Ren is not everyone’s cup of tea.

People who identify with Rey may want her to end up with their ideal man and can’t stand the thought of her choosing someone they don’t find attractive.

People who are attracted to Rey may want her to either stay single so they can imagine her with them/their Mary-Sue character, be a lesbian so they can imagine themselves as her girlfriend, or want her to be with a man who’s more like them in terms of personality or looks more like how they wish they looked.

People who do find Kylo attractive may only want him paired up with other attractive men for hawt yaoi smex.

2) Kylo/Reylo is popular.

Even people who ship a ship that doesn’t involve either party may still be jealous, annoyed and/or resentful of Kylo/Reylo and pray for a world where all the great fanartists and fanfic writers would make content that caters to them instead, or not make anything at all so they never have to see anything they don’t like/don’t care about.

3) Kylo is a divisive character.

People who are fans of Vader, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Finn, Poe, or another character that Kylo hurts/competes for popularity with/resembles/has more screen time than/etc… may feel that hating Kylo=defending their honor. People may also just plain not like Kylo for any number of reasons.

4) Kylo’s a main character.

It sucks when a character you don’t like gets a lot of screen time, plot significance and/or character development because you have to contend with them being part of the discussion and, if they’re popular, spawning 200 pieces of fanwork per second of screentime.

5) Reylo is canon.

If Reylo were really as unlikely as some people claim it is, the Reylo/Kylo hatedom wouldn’t be nearly as loud because it wouldn’t be a threat. But it is, very much so. Trashing the ship and the character is how these folks cope with it. Proclaiming that it would be morally irresponsible or illogical is how they reassure themselves that their ships can still be canon and Kylo can still be brutally murdered by his own mother. They bully Reylos and the actors/creators because they believe the majority can influence if not outright dictate the direction of the story.

“Can’t let the Reylos be because if there are too many, the creators might think Reylo is a good idea (assuming it wasn’t the plan to begin with). Gotta dismantle them so our voices telling the creators they’d better not dare make it canon are the only ones that can be heard!”

There will absolutely be hot takes. Nuclear takes. Takes hotter than a thousand suns at the end of this trilogy. Not one will be worth a single moment of your time.

#kylo ren #reylo #star wars #star wars tlj #tlj #the last jedi #star wars the last jedi #anonymous #ask #asks #anon

76 notes · View notes

truck-fump · 8 months ago

Text

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power? One man is...

New Post has been published on https://robertreich.org/post/744315857923080192

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power? One man is...

youtube

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?

One man is especially to blame for why corporate power is out of control. And I knew him! He was my professor, then my boss. His name… Robert Bork.

Robert Bork was a notorious conservative who believed the only legitimate purpose of antitrust — that is, anti-monopoly — law is to lower prices for consumers, no matter how big corporations get. His philosophy came to dominate the federal courts and conservative economics.

I met him in 1971, when I took his antitrust class at Yale Law School. He was a large, imposing man, with a red beard and a perpetual scowl. He seemed impatient and bored with me and my classmates, who included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham, as we challenged him repeatedly on his antitrust views.

We argued with Bork that ever-expanding corporations had too much power. Not only could they undercut rivals with lower prices and suppress wages, but they were using their spoils to influence our politics with campaign contributions. Wasn’t this cause for greater antitrust enforcement?

He had a retort for everything. Undercutting rival businesses with lower prices was a good thing because consumers like lower prices. Suppressing wages didn’t matter because employees are always free to find better jobs. He argued that courts could not possibly measure political power, so why should that matter?

Even in my mid-20s, I knew this was hogwash.

But Bork’s ideology began to spread. A few years after I took his class, he wrote a book called The Antitrust Paradox summarizing his ideas. The book heavily influenced Ronald Reagan and later helped form a basic tenet of Reaganomics — the bogus theory that says government should get out of the way and allow corporations to do as they please, including growing as big and powerful as they want.

Despite our law school sparring, Bork later gave me a job in the Department of Justice when he was solicitor general for Gerald Ford. Even though we didn’t agree on much, I enjoyed his wry sense of humor. I respected his intellect. Hell, I even came to like him.

Once President Reagan appointed Bork as an appeals court judge, his rulings further dismantled antitrust. And while his later Supreme Court nomination failed, his influence over the courts continued to grow.

Bork’s legacy is the enormous corporate power we see today, whether it’s Ticketmaster and Live Nation consolidating control over live performances, Kroger and Albertsons dominating the grocery market, or Amazon, Google, and Meta taking over the tech world.

It’s not just these high-profile companies either: in most industries, a handful of companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

This corporate concentration costs the typical American household an estimated extra $5,000 per year. Companies have been able to jack up prices without losing customers to competitors because there is often no meaningful competition.

And huge corporations also have the power to suppress wages because workers have fewer employers from whom to get better jobs.

And how can we forget the massive flow of money these corporate giants are funneling into politics, rigging our democracy in their favor?

But the tide is beginning to turn under the Biden Administration. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are fighting the monopolization of America in court, and proposing new merger guidelines to protect consumers, workers, and society.

It’s the implementation of the view that I and my law school classmates argued for back in the 1970s — one that sees corporate concentration as a problem that outweighs any theoretical benefits Bork claimed might exist.

Robert Bork would likely regard the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts with the same disdain he had for my arguments in his class all those years ago. But instead of a few outspoken law students, Bork’s philosophy is now being challenged by the full force of the federal government.

The public is waking up to the outsized power corporations wield over our economy and democracy. It’s about time.

#Uncategorized

0 notes

bac17d-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Paper #2

A community can be defined as a group of people that have banded together for a common reason. If we were all to be asked why we have chosen our specific communities, the answer would most likely take little thought. Although, we as individuals have a tendency to form opinions about those who decide to be in communities that are different from our own. This is simply because we do not understand their “why”. I have chosen to extensively research and write about the community of Republicans in the United States. This is a community that possesses characteristics and beliefs that are different from my own, but it is intriguing to me to understand and analyze why the Republican Party feels so deeply connected to their community and how this connection enables them to interact with one another.

The Republican Party began almost two hundred years ago at a protest in Wisconsin. They were first known as what were called “Free Soilers” and originally banded together as antislavery activists. At first, they did not want to end slavery in the South entirely, but they wanted to prevent its expansion westward (History.com Editors). Ironically, when they first formed as opposers to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, they were known as the Democratic Republican Party (Republican Party). They began due to three separate traditions, all having a large impact on their creation. According to the article Republican Party, the Second Great Awakening, which was a religious revival movement, put an emphasis on individuals seeking their own salvation in order to make the world a better and more productive place. This belief still remains today. Also, the formation of the Republican Party early on was also heavily influenced by Henry Clay and his economic policies. He firmly believed in imposing protective tariffs that would help construct things such as roads and rivers for the public. The last tradition that had an influence on the creation of this community was the idea of nativism. Americans who were part of this Republican Party believed they were very first people to arrive in the United States. This belief stemmed from the idea that white skin meant one was superior to others. According to the article, this fear of being overtaken by immigrants caused Republicans to continue to band together and strengthen their community.

The goals, purpose, leadership, and values of Republicans today are what have kept the community alive and their people closer than ever. These aspects of the Republican Party have ensured that not just anyone can declare themselves as a member of this community. Certain beliefs and definitions must be met. Richard Dagger goes into detail in his article about the controversial definition of a Republican as well as who fits this definition’s description. He makes his opinion clear when he states, “republicanism rests on the conviction that government is not the domain of some ruler or small set of rulers, but is instead a public matter-the res publica-to be directed by self-governing citizens” (Dagger 701). This is one of the most important aspects of the Republican community. Individual work is highly important to them and they believe in an extremely limited amount of government intervention. According to the article, What is a Republican?, the core belief of the Republican Party states that the government should only intervene when the level of which the individual is at is not high enough to help society function. Not every member of this community shares the specific beliefs and values that have defined the Republican Party overall, but this limited government intervention idea is one that almost all agree with and has been the reason for their continued strength and bond.

As I stated before, not every member of the Republican Party agrees on the specific details that surrounds their community. Although, the majority of the members of this party do share similar beliefs in basic human aspects of life. Extending off the idea that government intervention should be limited, the article, What is a Republican?, states that Republicans believe that a health care system run by the government will eventually lower the efficiency and productivity of society. They also believe that marriage should be the traditional unity of a man and a woman. Homosexual marriage or marriage outside of a natural-born male and woman should not be legally sanctioned. They believe that immigration can be harmful to the country, especially according to current president Donald Trump, an outspoken Republican. Republicans have, for quite some time, believed that although some immigrants should be able to legally enter the United States, they should not be given the same rights and freedoms as those who were born here (What is a Republican?). This idea goes back to the original tradition of nativism, which helped begin the Republic Party. This community also firmly believes in the right to bear arms declared in the Second Amendment, despite the tragedies that have repeatedly occurred, including Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Columbine High School. William Vizzard makes it clear in his article that Republicans will not change their mind on this matter anytime soon. He makes a bold statement when he says, “it would take a presidential assassination to rekindle [the attention on the issue of firearms regulation]” (Vizzard 882). These centralized and commonly found beliefs within the Republican Party have been the main reason that the members have decided to join it. It is natural and easy to get along with those who share the same ideals as you. This has helped the Republican Party communicate effectively with one another.

One of the main reasons I chose to research and write about this specific community is because of the its differences from my own. I have labeled myself a Democrat from the time I was able to understand what it meant. The differences between Democrats and Republicans is enormous and the hostility between the two groups is unavoidable. According to Gregory Marchant and John McCreary, some of the main differences between the two parties can begin at a very early age. These authors believe that Democrats focus more on health and growth, while Republicans tend to focus on money and image. In an article from the Congressional Digest, the hostility between the two communities is evident. This article contains information about the plan of the Republican party to “make American great again”, President Trump’s famous slogan throughout his campaign and even during his current presidency. While stating their plan to restore greatness and efficiency to America, this article also contains negative comments towards the Democratic Party. Specifically, it states “the President and the Democratic Party have abandoned their promise of being accountable to the American people” (Congressional Digest 7). In this quote, they are referring to former Democratic President Barack Obama. After this quote, the article goes on to claim that Democrats and Obama have been the main reason for the doubling of debt, inability to control borders, and dismantling America’s system of health care (Congressional Digest). In my opinion, the Republican Party as well as their beloved President Donald Trump have brought numerous disasters in their short two year reign as United States President. Before researching this community, I never truly understood the anger that the two communities have towards one another.

The genres of communication used by the Republican Party are widespread and typically help them communicate with many different people at various times. Republicans are found all over the United States, so genres such as newspapers and television are extremely important when one wants to get their word across to their fellow community members. During the most recent presidential election, livestreams of debates were constantly broadcasted across many different channels on television. When it came down to Hilary Clinton, a Democrat, vs. Donald Trump, a Republican, millions of viewers tuned in to watch their respective parties speak about political ideas and policies while trying to convince America that they were the best candidate. Donald Trump’s expressive and loud behavior on television helped him communicate his ideas to all Americans watching, and he successfully made his words heard to his Republican Party. This television stream was a way for this community to keep up with policies that their party’s nominee felt was best. Television was not only used to record debates, but it was used by Republican candidate Trump to keep viewers updated on his beliefs and the people that would be helping him if he were to be elected in office. According to Carole Joffe, Trump further declared his anti-abortion stance by hiring Mike Pence as his vice president. Pence is largely known for being strongly opposed to abortion and gay rights. This selection of his vice president was announced on television and gave Republicans even more reason to vote and support their candidate, as well as band together to ensure that their party would eventually have the most power in the United States.

Another genre that is utilized by the Republican community includes blogs. Typically, Democrats and Republicans are extremely opinionated due to their only being two main parties to join. There is the idea that you are either one or the other. Blogs have been created for years now that allow Republicans to find a place where they can write and interact with those who feel the same way about government issues as they do. One of the most common blogs available to anyone who feels the need to use it is called Red State. According to Republican Views, this blog must be read and used by anyone looking for a platform to voice their opinions and increase their knowledge about their community. Red State’s main purpose is to inform and educate those that use the blog. They allow for quick and easy registration and as I stated before, anyone can use it. Users write their own blogs, read others, and comment on different pieces to express their opinions. It is also used to endorse Republican candidates running for positions in office (Republican Views). Another instance with Republicans using blogs to communicate with others includes State Representative Steve Vaillancourt. When two women were running for New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District, Vaillancourt irrationally blogged about the Democratic candidate and said, “does anyone not believe that Congressman Annie Kuster is as ugly as sin?” (Newton-Small). This brutal statement against the opposing party was visible by many and received support as well as criticism from all different people in each party. This easy-to-use genre of communication clearly enables Republicans to interact with one another on a daily basis.

There are many constraints within the genres that the Republican Party chooses to use. Groups that meet with one another to discuss their similar interests do exist in places like cities or towns. Some cities are known for being more Republican dominated, so it is possible to rally together one or two hundred people. In my hometown of Boca Raton, the elderly population has made it a largely Republican community. During his campaign for presidency, Donald Trump made an appearance at our local amphitheater that can hold hundreds of people. Many people gathered there to witness the man in person and hear his speech. Clearly, small group gatherings are possible and genres such as group chats and Facebook groups do exist to help communicate with one another. Although, as I mentioned earlier, Republicans are a large group of people that are spread all across the United States. This constrains communication genres that only allow for a small amount of people. In order to campaign for presidency, Trump was not going to use group chats, Twitter posts, or Facebook apps to get the attention of as many viewers as possible. He had to use genres such as television and television networks, such as ABC, that would attract the attention of millions of people. When the tragedy of Stoneman Douglas High School occurred this past February, the president had to address the nation on the steps that would be taken next. Instead of turning to smaller social media platforms, he decided to make multiple appearances on TV and was quoted in many different newspapers and magazines in order to speak to a larger crowder in a quick manner.

The affordances in these genres are also very clear. The large audience that can be reached by television and newspaper allows messages to be spread all over. When rallies or speeches are broadcasted on television, typically one person is speaking at a time. This concentration on one person helps community members understand what is being said and helps the individual on screen communicate with their community. On the smaller side, social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram afford people the opportunity to follow and keep up with those in the Republican community. Instagram and Facebook have different features that help Republicans interact with one another. On Facebook, one can make a post that anyone can comment on and spark a discussion. On Instagram, Instagram “stories” allow people to create a poll option. A question can be asked, along with a picture and a poll option, and followers are able to vote which they believe is best. Percentages are then shown to indicate the choice that holds majority. Each genre is specifically used to keep these community members in constant contact with one another.

The impact that genres of communication have had on the Republican Party community members has been enormous. Part of the question that I wanted to answer when I first started my research included how the deep connection to their community allows Republicans to communicate with one another. Since they all feel such close ties to their political agendas and personal beliefs, these community members have been able to keep the community the way it is. One of the bests examples of when the use of genres has helped the Republican community communicate with one another was during the Brett Kavanaugh trial that recently occurred. In summary, Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court nominee, was accused by Christine Blasey Ford, a former high school classmate, of sexual assault back in high school. The United States has always regarded a Supreme Court position as one of the most powerful and respected positions in the land. It is given to someone that represents stands for, but unfortunately does not receive the same amount of approval today than it has in the past (Ball 30). This ongoing trial was broadcasted on television networks, in newspapers, magazines, and almost any other genre that one can think of. It appeared on Instagram and even the President of the United States took to Twitter to discuss his views on the events of the trial. Although Kavanaugh denied the claims entirely, the main argument by the Republican Party for his innocence was backed up by the idea that actions occurring in high school should not follow someone decades later.

Anyone who kept up with the trial was able to see that Ford’s statements genuinely appeared as the truth. Kavanaugh’s lack of confidence in his responses as well as his lack of complete cooperation also hinted at the potential for the accusations to be proven true. I will admit to the possibility of being biased because of my own Democratic background. This trial caused the Republican community to heavily back up their Supreme Court nominee. Many protests and gatherings were held to oppose the Democratic protests and gatherings. Republicans all around the country banded together and took to multiple social media platforms to voice their opinions on that matter. They continuously worked together and interacted with one another to build a support system around Kavanaugh. This communication and willingness to work together to support a member of their community is proof that Republicans feel a deep connection within their community and to each other.

This research paper has required me to learn about another community as well as understand where the community’s members are coming from when it comes to politics. Throughout this process, I was able to interview my roommate about her Republican background. Her responses were not out of the ordinary and were mostly what I had expected. Although, there were a few answers she gave that caught me by surprise. My roommate, Kayla, agrees that Republican background may have stemmed from the way she was raised. She said that although her family did not pressure her to believe in what they believe in, she naturally gravitated towards their beliefs and values. This included being a Republican. Most of her family members, including her extended family, are members of the Republican community so it seems natural that she would follow this path. One of Kayla’s most surprising answers included the topic of abortion. I had asked Kayla if she agreed with everything that the typical Republican believes in. She responded that she agrees with most, but she full heartedly disagrees with their stance on abortion. She believes that a woman should have the right to choose and no one should be able to take that away from her. She also mention that she believes she feels this way because she is a woman herself and feels comforted knowing that she can do what she wants with her body. This belief was determined outside of politics.

Clearly, being able to research, analyze and write about a community that I do not belong to has given me a further understanding of what the Republican Party is all about. Although I do not agree with almost of all their policies and beliefs, I can appreciate that they have felt strongly enough to band together with common goals in mind. This is how my own communities that I belong to have come together. I have also learned throughout this research paper that different genres are used for different reasons. Not every community will utilize the same genre simply because it is not warranted. The widespread use of television and larger outlets such as newspapers and magazines makes sense for communities like the Republican Party but would not make much sense for a community such as book clubs at Florida State University. Understanding the best type of genre of communication to use within the community is imperative to enabling that community to effectively communicate with one another.

1 note · View note