#i tried to word this as best as i could

[binniesoob]

yesterday I took my usual break from studying, I was celebrating taehyun's first post in days after what had happened and listening to soobin's live which, as always, helps me to take a moment off my mind and relax my nerves, when I learned in real time that moonbin passed away. i was shocked by the news and i couldn't believe it. i only know a few astro's songs and i've never been a fan of them, but i liked him a lot, i knew him a little bit through his time as an mc, for his solo music and his friendship with other idols, especially monsta x. i am very sorry that such a thing happened, i send my sincere condolences to his family and fans.

to any fan who may read this: please be kind to yourself, take the time you need, take a break from social media if needed, don't feel guilty if you don't feel like interacting with content (and i mean any type, even photos/posters), it's okay to not feel/want to listen to his music for a while. remember that it's never stupid to mourn someone, even if you never met them, your feelings are valid so let yourself feel them, cry if you need to, talk with someone. and please remember that someone else’s mental health struggles are never, ever, your responsibility, so don't blame yourself for what happened.

for anyone who finds and reads this: i may not know what you are going through, and i know the world is not an easy place at all, that it can be difficult to act due to difficult circumstances, that some people have much easier access to support and safe spaces than others.. but please take care of yourself, even on the hardest days. do what you can to put your health first always: take the time you need when you need it, get off social media when it gets too heavy, leave the people who hurt you behind even when it's hard, don't be ashamed to seek the help you may need. i hope you know that you are not alone, even if you feel like it, and you are loved, even when you think you aren't, and I hope there are and will be people in your life who show it to you how you deserve. i send you all my support for whatever you are going through. i truly hope better days are ahead of us.

and please always be kind and respectful to others as well, you never know what they are going through.

for a couple of months i've been struggling with things myself so I'm not in top shape, but if anyone needs to talk I'm here, even to just listen.

thank you for reading.

🤍

[edains]

Children of Rannoch: Notable Quarians aboard the Rayya

Children of Rannoch - A Quarian Overhaul (LE2)

(template)

[hanafubukki]

Silver’s Curse Changing

Thinking about it, but have we ever considered that Silver’s curse becoming worse is not solely one person’s fault nor is it based on self-perception only but a collective change that made it worse?

Most tend to blame Lilia for Silver’s curse becoming worse or because of Silver’s self-depreciation.

But I don’t think that’s fully the case. I don’t think the curse becoming worse is entirely Lilia’s fault nor do I think it’s because of how Silver views himself being the only reason.

As we saw in part 5, Silver accepted he was loved at the end. And for Lilia, while yes, to a degree he’s at fault because he hasn’t accepted his importance in his boys’ lives which in turn had a cascading effect. The curse becoming worse isn’t solely his fault.

What do we know about the curse? We know that it became worse as Silver aged.

But what else happens when you age?

We change. We place boundaries. We open/close our hearts. We have identity issues. Etc.

This is what I think caused his curse to become worse.

From outside looking in, Diasomnia is a tight knit family.

But when we look at them? Time has changed their bonds. So is it surprising that Silver’s curse changed with him?

Malleus -> who has always been alone and isolated, who helped take care of Silver, who taught Sebek and Silver magic, who loves Lilia -> became “Lord Malleus” to Silver and Sebek, his knights, in a way this places boundaries, didin’t it? I have no doubt that Silver probably called him something else when he was younger but that probably changed with time as well. With Lilia, it went from someone who could hear his cries to “you should act like a prince” and “you have to do better to get along with humans”

Lilia -> someone who has always kept secrets, someone who changed, who leaned to love, who hatched Malleus and woke Silver, who continued to learn and travel -> became someone who went from “Toto” to “Father”, someone who was limited to visiting Malleus and had to place boundaries as his “caretaker”, someone who is aging and dying so he distanced himself, someone who ran away from his problems when he would face it before.

Silver -> someone who loves openly, giving Lilia acorn bracelet, who knows Malleus and learned to dance from him and magic -> someone who calls Lilia “father” and Malleus “lord”, someone who had a crisis about his identity, someone who is “reserved” (Malleus can read him easily)

Silver’s curse didn’t only get worse because he wasn’t loved or didn’t believe he deserved it.

But also because of how his relationships changed over time.

The curse like him aged and changed with him. It changed as he changed.

A big factor to breaking this curse I believe is communication.

Something that we see is an issue right now with Diasomnia. And something that, as we go through our developing years, have issues with as well especially when it comes to being open and communicative with family.

While their love for each other is never in question (to us the audience), their communication with each other is the root of the problem.

Diasomnia might be a blabbermouth about each other, but it doesn’t mean they are blabbermouths to each other.

[fansblogs]

just by doing what i’m able, with my elbows on the table.

"So many people write songs about horrible, horrible, horrible things. Famous people are always gonna be bad, and always gonna have supporters."

[gingermintpepper]

Day 4: Aristaeus

Interpretation notes and trivia below the cut!!

All rise for the entrance of my president !! Honestly, of all the figures and characters that were up for debate when I first started thinking about this story and who I wanted leading the charge Aristaeus was not one of them. Originally, I'd always known that Asclepius and Orpheus would be worked in somehow - they've always been favourites of mine in terms of children of Apollo (even if Orpheus as the child of Apollo and Calliope is less popular classically) and I expected my pick for the third child of Apollo to be involved to be similarly mortal like Iamus or Tenes but the more I looked into Aristaeus the more I fell in love with him! Ultimately, he's meant to be both a foil and a reflection of his father - a boy who grows up thinking his father's footsteps would always be warm only to realise that following in them would lead to death and destruction. While his status as a rustic and hunting god is still important here, Aristaeus' interpretation is much more focused on his connection to the Etesian wind and his quelling of the dog star Sirius which is why his hair in particular is so long and spiralling. All in all, more than any other figure I've chosen to interpret and represent in my work Aristaeus is the god I hope more people get interested in and research! I think there are a lot of important stories in his various myths and travels and I definitely want more people to discover and fall in love with them as I have!

Some fun trivia:

Apollo's firstborn son. Because he was born mortal on account of his very mortal mother, Apollo immediately took him to Olympus to eat ambrosia to begin his transition into divinity. Apollo would continue to feed Aristaeus small amounts of ambrosia and nectar for the next ten years until the child fully shed his mortal skin and was reborn as a god.

Due to the nature of making mortals deathless (namely the fun part of the process where they are completely remade and lose their mortal memories) Aristaeus spent most of his early life with his mother and siblings where they all pitched in to reteach him his family, his hobbies, his favourite things and ultimately how to live and love. Aristaeus was very attached to his maternal family because of this and his early acts of ingenuity were mostly born from his wish to make things easier for his family.

Aristaeus is the only one of his children Apollo hand raised full time. In those days, Aristaeus adored his father and believed him completely upright and blameless, the true face of a benevolent deity and the kind of man he aimed to be when he was full grown.

They would later have many bitter arguments and conflicts, the first and perhaps most impactful of all being their disagreement over Actaeon, Aristaeus' firstborn son. He wanted Apollo to teach him stating that it was a normal thing for a grandfather to do but Apollo vehemently refused to have any part of Actaeon's rearing, stating that he was not his child and that it was highly inappropriate for him to educate another god's son. When Actaeon later dies, Aristaeus blames a not insignificant part of that on Apollo - something that only worsens when he learns that it was Artemis who cursed the boy and that Apollo was always aware Actaeon would die young.

Spends most of his time travelling from place to place. Doesn't really like Olympus and prefers to spend his time minding animals or tending to fields. Is on wonderful terms with Demeter and Persephone and often makes decadent exchanges of olive oil and preserved meat for exotic flowers and fruit for his bees.

Big fan of wind and percussive instruments. Never liked the kithara because of how finicky it is and far prefers the hand drums and reed flutes of his mother's country. Exceptional dancer.

Will sell prized cattle for high quality and highly unique jewellry. Doesn't much care for gemstones but is an absolute gold fiend and has a massive collection of bracelets, anklets, nose and lip adornments and rings. Has never been north enough to hit India but got a ton of rare and different adornments from his Phoenician in-laws when he was married to Autonoë.

Hates dogs but doesn't mind wolves. Not a big horse fan either

Unlike other winds, he cannot transform into various animal forms. He's close enough to the Anemoi that he keeps up with the gossip but he's only really friends with Notos. Gets along poorly with Zephyrus whose preference for pretty youths has often led to them getting into physical altercations when they were younger. Aristaeus still holds a bit of a grudge about it.

Has a big stupid crush on Dionysus which is embarrassing because Dionysus also put him out of a job. Due to Dionysus' relative youth, he feels a bit conflicted about such feelings - mostly because Dionysus is on extremely good terms with Apollo and Aristaeus doesn't want him to get burned.

Despite kinda despising his father, Aristaeus is a pretty decent eldest brother and regularly keeps in contact with a lot of his siblings. He often delivers mead, flavoured honey and olive oil and uses it as an excuse to chat and catch up. Currently in a bit of a tiff with Asclepius because he's worried about him and his family.

Favourite colour is the rich gold of purified honey, favourite food is lokma and his favourite time of year is winter.

[realtapiocafan]

ja'marr didn't even dance before he met justin

Toeleah is quiet and reserved, qualities that became a large part of Ja'Marr's personality. That's why she was so surprised to see her son dancing in the end zone after touchdowns this season, often celebrating in dance-offs with fellow receiver Justin Jefferson. Jimmy said they'd never seen Ja'Marr dance before. Not at family functions. Weddings. Nothing. Not even at his own high school graduation party. "I laugh when I see the videos," Toeleah said. "So, I'm just happy he's happy. You know what I mean? And I always told him, 'Enjoy it while you can, baby.'"

article here (warning: paywall)

[koqen]

KEI: a winning hand’s only good if you keep your cards hidden.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Numbers 14, 11-20:

And יהוה said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn Me, and how long will they have no faith in Me despite all the signs that I have performed in their midst? I will strike them with pestilence and disown them, and I will make of you a nation far more numerous than they!"

But Moses said to יהוה, "When the Egyptians, from whose midst You brought up this people in Your might, hear the news, they will tell it to the inhabitants of that land. Now that they have heard that You, יהוה, are in the midst of this people; that You, יהוה, appear in plain sight when Your cloud rests over them and when You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

"If then You slay this people wholesale, the nations who have heard Your fame will say, 'It must be because יהוה was powerless to bring that people into the land promised them on oath that [that god] slaughtered them in the wilderness.'

"Therefore, I pray, let my Lord's forebearance be great, as You have declared, saying, 'יהוה! Slow to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression; yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children, upon the third and fourth generations.'

"Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to Your great kindness, as you have forgiven this people ever since Egypt."

And יהוה said, "I pardon, as you have asked..."

Reading this really changed something in me - the thought that g-d is somebody with Whom you can directly argue against, that His ideas are ideas which you can directly argue against is something that truly makes me love g-d more.

If g-d were solely Divine, I don't think I'd have a relationship with Him. If He were strictly Perfect, I believe I'd hate Him. But here, seeing Moses literally talking g-d into an alternative tells me g-d is the mixture between Perfect and Fallible that makes it so much easier for me to love Him, to serve Him, to want to be close with Him.

I don't know, I just love g-d.

[carolkinopf]

that time period when feldspar spent more time in space than on timber hearth

[mokeonn]

Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

[parlerenfleurs]

I think what needs to happen for female characters and f/f ships is the female characters need to be more emotionally constipated. They MUST have some hard edge in there of resistance to produce the vitamin of Compelling.

It's fun if they're more unhinged, sure, but it's not just unhinged characters that are interesting and loveable. Kind characters, weird quiet characters, dignified characters, cold characters, gruff ones, it's good to have variety.

But what makes a character compelling a lot of the time? When they take a weird stance on something. A place of stubborn. An integrity of attitude. A mask they're wearing, an emotion they're sublimating. They're holding something back, they have a measure of composure, they are, in a word, emotionally constipated. Not necessarily too much! Just enough so that they have some depth! That the hidden part of two characters can collide and spark some damn chemistry!

It's the same rule as for eroticism, it is created by the juxtaposition of the hidden and the revealed.

Why do we love villains and toxic ships? They're not bland. They have that rule of erotic thing going on, emotionally. Now it's possible to not be bland at all without villainery or toxicity, but for some reason when it comes to female characters, it trips back into blandness a lot of the time. Gruffness or coldness becomes plain harshness. Vulnerability becomes boring weakness. Put two such women together and the bland collides into the bland and only brave souls with very active imaginations manage to salvage some Compelling from this. I'm afraid it's often entirely absent from the source material, though.

[autistic-fuckwad]

Can you explain what's happening with the asks? And the gore? I don't understand I'm sorry :(

im gonna try and word it simply for you since it was a bit confusing, but! some roleplaying accounts in specific fandoms ( mouthwashing, i have immediately forgotten the other one but this has happened before ) are at risk of being targeted by what is probably just a group of teenagers sending lots of gore and images for shock value. this is targeted towards fandoms they view as gross or weird, so a lot of roleplay ask blogs are turning off their asks or their media asks entirely. tldr: trolls threatening to send shocking images, rp accounts on tumblr knowing it's serious and warning people to turn off their media asks if they are a roleplay account on tumblr.

[blaithnne]

my timephoon hot take is that the episode was literally fine, it's the episodes that came AFTER it that fucked things up

[sisterdivinium]

If we are to take a deep dive, it is best to assure the place we're leaping from is stable, so let's do that by starting with the obvious.

The subject in both of these sentences is the same: the Halo. Both of these characters have borne it. Both sentences present the same grammatical structure and answer directly to one another despite the distance in time and space between one and the other's utterances. To Ava, the receiver of these conflicting messages, both claims prove themselves to be ultimately true, for the Halo acts as a gift, in granting her a second chance at a life she never had, and also as a burden, as it imposes on her responsibilities and demands of her sacrifices she would otherwise have never known.

But the show itself openly invites us to dig deeper, so we should not be contented with the obvious alone.

If there is always more, then we must peel back the surface and peek at what is underneath if we are to grasp at least a fraction of the functioning of Warrior Nun in different levels—be it in small scale, pertaining to the characters themselves, or be it in large scale, including how all of it relates to us as viewers in the end.

These two moments of season one are but a fragment of the show’s comprehensive universe, but we will examine them closely to see just how much meaning we can find in them, deceptively simple as they seem.

As mentioned above, the grammatical structure of both sentences is shared between them: “the [subject] is a [noun]”. This could lead to some sort of direct description we associate with the act of definition, of explaining what something is, as in “the pope is a man” or, to use the same reference as Mother Superion and Shannon do, “the Halo is an object”. In fact, had this been the case, we would have been closer to Ava’s own conclusion of the Halo being “a hunk of magic metal embedded in [her] back”, as this is a characteristic anyone could ascribe to it upon examination.

Yet the words used by both former warrior nuns are “gift” and “burden”. If they describe the Halo, then it is not in terms derived from objectively observable traits it possesses (such as it being made of metal), but in a wholly subjective manner. When Mother Superion and Shannon say the Halo is this or that, both imply that it is this or that as relates to themselves. In relaying what the Halo supposedly “is” to Ava, they pre-interpret it for her, infusing it with their own points of view—their beliefs. What they say of the Halo is much more a reflection of who they are than anything the Halo in itself could be.

A) The gift

A gift is, as we know, a present. It presupposes a giver and a receiver, as well as some degree of gratitude on the part of the latter, even if justified by politeness alone.

Mother Superion, embodying the authority of the Catholic church, framed by candles and an altar behind her while making use of short, straightforward affirmations, does not need to clearly state who occupies these positions: we can safely infer that the giver here is God and the beneficiary of this divine benevolence is Ava. A definiteness is patent in the sentences that follow—here is the power of the institution at work, for if Mother Superion starts out by “defining” the Halo, now she defines Ava through it. An inversion takes place, as the woman allows the object to define the woman (as “God’s champion” who “fights in His name”) rather than the other way around. The church, the Halo construct Ava as a subject, subjecting her to certain ideas of what she should be. She is the warrior nun despite having no say in it, not being a warrior and much less a nun.

At first sight, it wouldn’t make sense to interact with Ava in these terms, especially if, by this scene, Mother Superion has already read her file. It wouldn’t be difficult to deduce how expressions crafted with religious colours might impact an audience that does not show any religious proclivities. Furthermore, the tradition of rhetoric has always taught that speakers ought to adapt to their listeners if they wish to get their point across, so either Mother Superion is incompetent at communication, lacking sensibility and skills, or she is making a calculated move—one that is fully supported by her hierarchical position. After all, superiors seldom need to rationally convince their subordinates of doing something given how the latter are compelled instead by power dynamics to get in line—or else.

The strategy doesn’t really work on Ava.

In semiotic terms, we could even argue that there is something confusing happening in this scene—a narrative phase of manipulation (wherein someone tries to get someone else to accept and do something), we could say that it contains hints of both seduction (a positive commentary on the interlocutor—it’s not just about anyone who can be god’s champion, so this is a positive distinction) and intimidation (the threat of negative consequences if the interlocutor doesn’t comply—there is an implied order in the sequence, meaning Ava cannot refuse to be “God’s champion”). Ava might not share in this world-view, but it is what the church and its followers propose: a gift from God is a positive value. Being chosen by God to do something, even fighting and possibly dying in the process, is a positive value. Lilith is standing right there beside them and, at this point, she would surely agree and see nothing of this exchange in a negative light.

Yet Ava isn’t a nun and indeed she does not perceive any of these “honours” as being desirable. Mother Superion’s stance, the image she presents of herself as a strict nun herself when Ava has been mistreated by them all her life, equally gives her no reason to be persuaded, much on the contrary.

The manipulation fails. Ava is told God gave her the gift of life… And that now she is to endanger and potentially lose that very same life as some sort of gesture of gratitude. The logic is unimpressive at best and frankly absurd at worst.

Within the framework of the church, however, it makes perfect sense. Misattributed and misconstrued as it might be, the motto of credo quia absurdum is still pertinent: “I believe because it is absurd”. That a god should grant life only to claim it back through violence is perfectly acceptable if one believes in this god’s unquestionable authority rather than seeing this demand as something ridiculous or cruel.

The very concepts of God, service, battle, duty, blessings only make sense to the faithful, something Ava isn’t. She’s just a puny little individual resisting the pressures brought upon her by a powerful institution.

She and Mother Superion are only speaking over one another, not really having a conversation; Ava doesn’t care to listen to what the church has to say, she doesn’t take it seriously, and the church likewise does not take her individuality, her person into consideration.

However, we would do well to remember that Mother Superion is not simply a mouthpiece for the church—she is also Suzanne, lowly little individual with lowly individual desires and resentment just as Ava.

And, regardless of the effacement of self that monastic as well as military institutions enforce on their members, just as Ava’s subjectivity isn’t neatly negated by direct statements in line with reigning dogma, Suzanne’s own subjectivity also seeps through her words and attitudes. If not blatantly, at the very least there is a remarkable struggle taking place within her, suggested by her use of language as well as her demeanour.

The Halo, after all, defines her as well.

If bearing it is the greatest honour, a mark of God’s favour, if it defines a person, then losing it has an equal power of definition. The distinction it confers on someone is inescapable, for good or ill, and either one dies gloriously as “God’s champion” or one survives it, survives its removal, and is deemed rejected and unworthy by this so magnanimous God. The Halo soaks up all of the positive value ascribed to it—meaning those who lack it adopt a negative one in contrast, be it Suzanne who had it and lost it or even Lilith, who should’ve had it and didn’t.

Still it is considered “a gift”, something given by God… One could say it is a form of grace.

Suzanne’s noun and Vincent’s verb have the same origin, of course, the same stem. Despite the argument between them in this other scene, ultimately there is agreement between the two of them judging by their choice of vocabulary and Mother Superion’s reaction immediately afterwards. If this were not true in some degree, there would have been little need for Mother Superion to correct Ava in the first place, for Ava calls the Halo “a hunk of magic metal”, yes, but she also refers to it as “top prize”, as a reward—which, unlike “gifts”, are meant to be earned, to use Vincent’s comparison. There is a mixture of concepts here.

Without wanting to overcomplicate this text, let us say that ideology is a certain way of understanding the world and that it constructs and is constructed by our discourse, our use of language. One of the functions of ideology is that of attempting to smother contradiction, to smoothen the world’s complexities, simplify them, rationalise them away, however incapable it truly is at accomplishing that given how reality is too complex to be so tamed. Here, then, we see a notable sort of contradiction in Mother Superion’s discourse (in her ideology) that isn’t easily solved: a detail, a problem left out from the thought system. She agrees that grace, in the form of the Halo or not, is given, yet she treats it as if it were earned. This is a crack in the wall; it’s an idiosyncrasy, proof of a subject torn between the different voices that compose her subjectivity, the fragments, the different discourses that, put together, make her up as a whole.

What could be more contradictory than calling something which has scarred her physically, mentally and emotionally a “gift”?

If we create and are created in turn by means of discourse (“you are God’s champion”), if we can only understand and interact with the world when it is mediated by discourses and their correlated ideologies, what would it have meant if Suzanne had assigned another value to the Halo?

The inversion of values would certainly have ejected her from the church. If the Halo, to her, gained negative value, thus allowing her to retain some amount of positive value, her participation in the institution would be impracticable. She would be at odds with the dominant ideology, its structures, its rules… And she would face the resistance Ava faced by assuming such antagonism.

And sure, she might have regained some sort of “freedom”, but what would she have then lost? Resentment or not, there appears to be one central, recurrent positive value, one central desire to most characters in Warrior Nun and it would not be far-fetched to assume Suzanne shares in it herself and is unwilling to part with it.

B) The burden

Needless to say that if there is a generous deal of “burden” to Suzanne’s “gift”, there is also some “gift” in Shannon’s “burden”, judging by her mentioning the family she gained through bearing the Halo. Curiously enough, the dynamic of receiving something and paying for it with that very “gift”—Shannon getting a family and losing it by the very same means—is identical to the dynamics involved in getting Ava to accept her fate as warrior nun, by “paying” for the “gift” of life by risking that very same life in battle.

Shannon has received the “gift”—and fulfilled her role to perfection, allowed to thank God for it personally… If the Halo was taken from Suzanne, Shannon is the one “taken” because of it, alongside other ex-bearers.

Here there are no euphemisms. Shannon has lived the consequences of being “God’s champion” until the very end, so she has no need for distorted truths meant to keep things in order, to avoid questioning the principle of order itself which is the institutional view. There is still a struggle (there is always a struggle) as she admits to finding something positive (a family) through her loyalty to the cause even if the cause is what kills her and other women like her. The contrast between Mother Superion’s speech focused on individual responsibility and Shannon’s avowal of how it is “too great for one person to bear” tells us more than enough about how they each envision individuality, community, the possibility of action, who can make it come about—how life and death, different paths, different destinies, inform perception of the same thing.

Their values are inverted.

Mother Superion’s “gift” is Shannon’s “burden”; Mother Superion’s tendency, while alive, to value death (“You fight in His name”) is countered by a dead Shannon’s valorisation of life (“So much promise unfulfilled. So much life unlived. And for what?”) The scenes are in direct opposition to one another, they respond to one another as mirrored images.

So much so that the reply is not merely linguistic, hidden away in dialogue, but quite evidently displayed in visual terms as well. A mirror offers us reflections that are inverted—left in place of right, right as left—and so are these scenes inverted in relation to one another: in the moment of saying the sentences we’re concerned with, Mother Superion and Shannon stand in much the same place. If we do not notice, it is because the camera pans around in different angles—with the former, we watch the scene from a point at Ava's left, while the latter is shown from an angle at her right. We are literally treated to reflected images, seen from opposite points of view.

Colour, too, guides our reading of both scenes set side by side. With Mother Superion, we are in the realm of the church and its associated earthly tones as established throughout the first season, whereas Ava’s vision of Shannon paints the dream church in a shade of blue. Blue is, of course, the hue which had been mostly tied to Jillian Salvius, to ArqTech, to science. With science comes the concept of reason, as opposed to the sepia haze of faith.

Mary is also drawn against a backdrop of bright blue sky when she is investigating the docks and relying on her reason rather than her faith concerning Shannon’s death.

Shannon’s opinion on the Halo might be just as subjective as Mother Superion’s before her, but it is filtered through personal experience and observation, through reason rather than blind belief in a mission.

Yet we are forgetting something. Ava, having died already, claims there is nothing on the other side. If that is so, why is she meeting Shannon now? And why is this meeting taking place in circumstances that reflect previous events in an inverted manner?

As dreams often reuse what we have lived when awake, re-rendering our memories, transforming them, so it is possible that Ava is not having a vision but a dream—that she is talking not to Shannon, but to some facet of herself, Ava, manifesting as Shannon after connecting with her memory through the warrior nun book.

As Ava clings to it and the knowledge it affords her, it would make sense for her conscience to finally figure out a proper retort to what she heard of Mother Superion in that earlier moment, a retort fuelled by new information and by her own reasoning. At the very least, it would be more plausible to consider this hypothesis than to assume her vision of Shannon is a real communication with her spirit granted by the Halo, for, if we are witnessing a new phase of manipulation, then the message being transmitted this time concerns the Halo’s “lifecycle” itself—and how it must be brought to an end. If it is sentient as some characters believe, why would it let Ava meet Shannon and be exposed to the idea of working against the Halo’s own interests of perpetuation?

After all, the implications behind Shannon’s words are evident: again, if the Halo also defines the woman, then it defines sister Shannon, sister Melanie and all other warrior nuns going back to Areala with one word which will soon apply to Ava and whomever follows: that word is dead, crushed under the burden.

And this time, the message, a sort of compassionate provocation (“a burden too great to bear”—even for you), hits its mark, inspiring Ava to end the tradition and be the last warrior nun.

We are not in the semantic field of religion, even if it is there, in the background, being answered to; here we are not speaking of God or battles fought for this distant general in the sky, but of family, of women slaughtered in the name of a mission. This is no longer some ethereal question but an immediate concern. Whether this is Shannon or Ava herself subconsciously masquerading as Shannon to facilitate her own “awakening”, the point gets across now that it is transmitted in language that makes sense to Ava, now that there are common values between speaker and listener.

One could even hypothesise that, at this point, Shannon being a former warrior nun lends credibility to her words in Ava’s mind as she is a woman experienced in this role Ava is supposed to play.

If so, we can also understand the bridge of empathy that is built between Ava and Mother Superion later on when it is revealed that Suzanne, too, was a halo bearer and that she, too, has carried this “burden”. Both forge new understandings of one another through this common background and a personal exchange that is nothing like their first encounter—when the “gift” is said to have rejected the older nun, when its “burden” is divulged to Ava.

As Ava recognises Shannon, so do Ava and Mother Superion eventually recognise one another as well—so do they begin to comprehend how they did carry similar values, only obscured by their dissimilar ideologies and their resulting language use. If no other, then the value of family is what binds them together through Suzanne’s new disposition to embrace all of her sisters and Ava’s newfound conduct in considering them her sisters to begin with. They come closer in the catacombs and, at last, meet halfway by season two.

Yet we, the viewers, as touched by this miscommunication that ends well as we may be, after all of this talk of gifts and burdens, we remain none the wiser on what the Halo actually is.

C) The energy source

As previously exposed, we are kept in the dark because most sentences that speak of this iconic object in the series are subjective, focused on the characters’ own relationship to it or their ideas about it rather than any substantial data on what it might truly be apart from a “hunk of magic metal” currently in Ava’s back.

Perhaps because we spend so much time with the nuns, satisfied as they are with the logic of plain belief instead of concerned with tangible, provable things that can or should be explained. The most we get is the information on how the Halo is some kind of weapon, an amplifier attuned to the bearer’s body and soul.

Enter Jillian Salvius.

While her understanding of the Halo is admittedly insufficient, her research on it limited, her available vocabulary and scientific knowledge too slim (!) to encompass such an item, she does not say something like “the Halo is a mystery” or “a conundrum” as she says of Lilith later on. It would be true, just as it being a “gift” or “burden” is true considering those who called it thus, yet Jillian uses another sort of language instead.

Being a scientist, doctor Salvius opts for what we consider to be appropriate scientific modes of speaking, that is, by creating an impression of objectivity. It is not her personal reaction or opinion of the Halo that she offers, but whatever traits she can see or learn of in that moment: an energy source, an object that defies physics, a foreign body of undefined material. Ava “translates” this as being “an alien battery”, but the fact is that we are served a definition of the Halo unlike those we had before. It isn’t much, but for once we are not given a character’s personal interpretation of it…

Or so it seems. We none of us are capable of being fully objective, for none of us can rid ourselves of our selves—Jillian posits the Halo as an energy source, which seems innocent and impartial enough, but soon afterwards we understand what that means to her.

In themselves, the words “energy source” don’t carry many other connotations. Yet, for Jillian, these words that seem so neutral and “scientific”, so clear cut, do not sustain the facade of objectivity. She has spoken of energy before, it is an active component of her research, a common word in her lexicon; to Ava, “energy source” is “a battery”, but to Kristian and Jillian, who are part of ArqTech, who know what goes on within its walls, these words automatically acquire another meaning.

Yes, that of a battery, but one with a very specific purpose. Under the guise of neutral discourse, a very personal interpretation of the Halo, just as if it were a “gift” or “burden”, lies hidden. It is an energy source—one that doctor Salvius can potentially use to power her contraption. It is a “solution”, perhaps even a “gift”, of circumstance if not of god.

And it, too, defines Ava despite herself. When it fails, Jillian says she was wrong about Ava, not the Halo, thus conflating the two.

In the end, even she who might well be the smartest character, the one most closely connected with science and concrete knowledge, cannot guard herself from letting the unsaid (or “unsayable”) slip through her lips. She, too, in spite of her apparent objective language, exhibits a subjective kind of relationship with the world around her, influenced by the ideologies that cross her being.

D) Ending thoughts

Perhaps, when all is said and done, we are never truly able to follow that maxim we’ve seen more than once on Warrior Nun.

Perhaps we simply cannot think or act if we do not perceive things as at least partially related to ourselves.

It is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as long as different views can coexist, as long as they do not trample one another, as long as one person or group don’t elect themselves as the owners of truth, attempting to eliminate all who do not follow them as Adriel tried to do. In a democracy, in a place and a moment in history where there is freedom of thought and creed and speech, the phenomenon of various voices competing for the spotlight, taking turns under it is normal and healthy.

Warrior Nun gives us a fascinating insight on the multiplicity of voices that compose a society, even if there are elements of it which seek to suffocate those voices. It is a microcosm where different ideologies, through language, are confronted with one another, where they struggle to make sense of things—and where each of those points of view over a given subject might carry a morsel of truth. The Halo is a piece of metal and a gift and a burden and an energy source; none of these ideas or perceptions necessarily exclude the other, none is “more correct” than the other because, if so, then the question would be: as regards which character?

To Ava, at least, it is all these things and maybe more.

There are attempts to implant a hegemonic interpretation of facts. The very story of Areala, Adriel, the Halo’s trajectory along the centuries, how this is “the way it has been for one thousand years” is a strategy to cement a singular view. The repetition, the constant reworking of tradition, telling this story over and over with each warrior nun… That is the church at play, ideology trying to fill in any gaps, keep things as they are, conserve them and the structures that organise them, guaranteeing that things have one certain sort of sense and not another, one value, one meaning.

But life is not stagnant and people are not all swallowed whole by ideology even when they subscribe to it willingly, as a member of a church would. There are always things that cannot be explained, things that are beyond the scope of ideology—contradictions, pesky little details that escape the invisible goggles with which we look at reality. The truth is that it is far more complex than we can contain it with a few buzzwords, man-made or divine. There is always another side, always a reply, a constant dialogue between our different ways of seeing, understanding, being and, therefore, speaking.

A more visible example comes from those scenes in season two where Yasmine and Adriel are both telling the exact same story, only through their own perspectives, interpreting it in their own ways.

The show provides many opportunities to see how varied human voice can be, how the point of view of whoever is telling the story bears a mighty influence on the narrative, whether consciously or not, malicious or not. That, in turn, may inspire us to look around us, in the real world; to look at how we are representing things, others and even ourselves as well as how others represent us through the words we use.

This is not an exhaustive study, long as it is. As said before, it is but a glance at two scenes, two little lines of dialogue which are, however, intimately connected with others, with the stuff of the entire show—with the stuff of life. We could write more on how possessive pronouns and other sorts of phrases with the idea of the Halo “belonging” to someone or being “owned” by someone are used, just to remain in the area of discourse about the Halo alone.

But the present text has given all it had to give and its author does not wish to be a burden on her readers any more than she already has been.

[nothing-new-under-the-sun124]

The Celebrations of Queen Mary’s Rise to the Throne

In London on the 19th, in contrast to the silent reception of the heralds for Jane, Mary’s proclamation was joyously received: ‘bonfires were without number, and what with shouting and crying of the people and ringing of the belles, no one among us could hear what another said, besides banqueting and singing in the street for joy. Another anonymous London chronicle recorded similarly ‘the joy whereof wonderful for some caste money abroad, & some made bonfires through the whole city: the praises were given to God in the churches with te deum & organs, belles ringing & every where the tables spread in the streets, meats & drinks plenty, and wine given freely to many men’…although Guaras’s witty and ironic literary allusion comically exaggerated the people’s love, English sources bear out his reading of the public mood.

Mary and Philip: The Marriage of Tudor England and Hapsburg Spain by Alexander Samson. Page 33

[gatorinator]

Ok the parody book covers had me rolling, and I was delighted to get snippets from two of them on the website. Sadly (although also probably luckily) I’m not sure they did one for the Book of Mormon parody

Again, probably for the best. But as someone who is LDS, and who has read the Book of Mormon extensively, I figured I’d take a crack at a snippet of what could be in this version of the Book of Bill.

3 Bill

Chapter 5

Followers of Cypher call themselves the Anti-Bill-Cyphies—They are commanded to build a portal— A man like the cedars of Lebanon breaks the portal—Cypher causes a famine on purpose not by accident—Those who intercourse around will find out. About 2084 B.W. (Before Weirdmageddon).

1 And it came to pass that in those days, the followers of Cypher did go forth unto the land, to build a portal.

2 And they called themselves the Anti-Bill-Cyphies, for they were the followers of Cypher.

3 And it came to pass that I, Cypher, spake unto them, saying, Hey idiots! Wanna have the time of your lives? Why don’t you take a crack at portal building? I’ll make you rich and famous, all the babes will love you! Their feet are gonna be tinkling with sooo many bells, you guys are into that right?

4 And they built a portal after the manner in which I showed them, which was sick as hell.

5 And they did pray unto me, saying O Cypher, we know that thou art a god, and we know that thou art the sickest god, and whatsoever that means we know not, but we do believe it.

6 And it came to pass that there was a twerp, who was like unto the cedar trees of Lebanon, who did come. And in the night, he snuck into the portal, and verily he did take a big old stick and bash it to pieces.

7 And on the next day, when I saw what he hath done, I did not throw a big tantrum, don’t believe what hath been written. I remained very calm and collected, and then caused every animal in the vicinity to lose their teeth. And thus the animals couldn’t eat, and a famine came about the land, which was totally what I meant to have happen.

8 Yea, and even the man like unto the cedars of Lebanon starved to death, THAT WILL SHOW HIM. And thus we see that those who fornicate about, will thusly figure out. Amen.