#situation was how to protect people who cannot protect themselves? and saw the virtue in each other

[7-oh-ta1]

Thinking abt my Inquitor (Lavellan) & his friendship with Sera is really is what led me to realize why ppl who hate her are usually ppl who love Solas -- and yeah obviously I'm aware that they're opposites but specifically I think people just like what Solas is symbolic of. It's not even that he as a person is fascinating to them its just that they really like the elven lore and that's his whole shtick. Which actually sucks bec Solas as a person, not as a symbol, is interesting. And it also led me to realize that characters like Solas and occasionally Blackwall (who I LOVE btw don't misinterpret) are forgiven for their deceit with little to no repercussions whereas characters like Sera and Vivenne who are completely upfront about who they are and what they want are trashed or at least were for many years until people got bored of them. I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to say I just feel like there's a correlation. Like maybe they don't like what Vivenne is or Sera is symbolic of so immediately don't try to get to know them any further which is fine they don't have to like everyone, but makes me wonder how many ppl play these games that are crucially character based and just write off any character that doesn't lie to them for intrigue

[tazwren]

My two cents on the devolution of fandom spaces...

As a former mod of a fandom space and a woman of colour, I do not feel safe.

Seeing what has been done to so many in this fandom, by a particular group of white American women, in the name of moral policing is both abhorrent and demoralising. As it also is to repeatedly see the same narrative being shoved at everyone as the gospel truth.

A narrative that very conveniently either becomes about fic or has nothing to do with fic, depending on how people want to swing things. A narrative that will accuse a person of Jewish heritage of anti-Semitism, a person of colour of racism, a practising Muslim of being an Islamaphobe. A narrative that will define for you and me and all of us comprising this myriad of multitudes in the world what generational or personal trauma includes and what induces the same.

Those of you who know me, know what I’ve been dealing with the past few days & why I haven’t spoken up before now. Before I logged out a couple days ago, I saw what looked like more of the usual nonsense by the same group of people I’ve kept my distance from once their true colours were revealed. What I didn’t expect is that they would think themselves so above the norms of human decency and accountability that they would go after not one but two women of colour this time around in their rabidity. And many others who spoke up, as it turns out.

It hurts to see what these women, that I know of, have had to endure and to see the passivity of the community, save for a few voices, in sitting back and letting the circus rampage through town. It hurt when I was at the receiving end of it and it hurts now.

Why? Because it shows me a microcosm of the world that I don’t really relate to, that makes no sense to me with the values I was brought up with, and which reduces basic human decency to a commodity to be trampled upon and for you to be seen as weak for having. Because people who willingly laud you for your art / writing / wit, meet you with effusive claims of love and affection and friendship, who have no qualms in taking your help when it suits them, will throw you under the bus and let the wolves ravage you when it doesn't.

Before I get into that, let me talk a little bit about what has transpired over the past few days to a week, and what has been systemically taking place over perhaps the past year in this fandom.

One thing is that everyone who makes a statement about anything suddenly has people in their mentions demanding they show what gives them the right to hold that particular opinion. A critical thing people forget about fandom is that it is a place where people hide their identity for a variety of reasons, all valid, and this approach to fiction and conversations where everyone has to reveal every part of their past and identity as a means of establishing their "credentials" in order to present their views comes in direct contradiction with how fandoms operate. It violates people's rights to privacy.

The other is that there has been an increase in the voices that purportedly stand up to “speak for” the marginalised, the abused, those discriminated against and those who belong to minorities who “need to be protected / kept safe”. An admirable sentiment, to be sure. If it weren’t for the fact that none of these groups of people needed saving, speaking for or the protection of this particular group of voices.

Voices who only want to define and use these people as "model victims" to hurt other white women and establish their supremacy over both them and other POC. Voices that will present their "truth" as they see fit and sans context or present you with screenshots of snippets of conversations held in supposedly secure spaces that they have no qualms in violating in the interest of the "greater good" and claim offense / silencing if the misdemeanour is pointed out or action is taken against them, Voices that will conveniently categorize you as a "token POC" or "white adjacent" when you do not support or align with their narrative. Voices that belong to a predominantly white American group of women, whose real agenda, as is evidenced by their modus operandi, has nothing to do with real altruism or a drive for justice or indeed to right wrongs.

No, their agenda is purely power.

To hold sway over groups of followers, to shepherd them as though they are sheep who cannot think for themselves, and to set themselves up as white saviours who call out those who step out of line, or are deemed to be problematic and toxic and unsafe. To be the owners of the only "safe spaces" in fandom and to drive other groups and spaces to be boycotted or worse.

Now, I've long wondered, who indeed are these women to decide that for anyone? In a world comprising multiple cultures, religions, groups, subgroups, genders and which contains multitudes, who are these women and what gives them the right to foist their puritanical standards on everyone, very conveniently disguised as concern for the moral well being of everyone and the consumption, of all things, of fiction?

Certainly, there are many things in this world that people regard with justifiably equal dislike / horror / sadness. At the same time, there is much that is not shared, that is particular to a culture and to a person’s background. There is a multitude of perspectives that make the whole. And the white women of the United States of America have not cornered the market on what those are, or indeed even own any curatorship or censorship of the same. They cannot, because each person’s culture and background and joy and trauma is their own, as are their ways of dealing with it all.

That being said, let’s talk about their pack behaviour and the devolution I’ve witnessed on social media as basic human decency is bartered for clout.

I’m all for standing up for someone who doesn’t have a voice or a platform, or maybe afraid of repercussions to voice dissent. I’m all for being there for our fellow human beings as they face struggles of often unconscionable and unfathomable proportions. I’m all for holding people accountable for their negative behaviours as they impact the larger community.

What I am unequivocally NOT for is treating such situations as an opportunity to preach, to virtue-signal, to shame and to put on blast the alleged wrong-doers. I say alleged because that’s what most accusations are on these platforms—allegations to do with things that disturb our sense of balance or make us wrinkle our noses or that we deem bad, and therefore make the accused deserving of the full force of the community’s misbehaviour and censure.

I ask you if you were found guilty of a crime in real life—you know, the one away from your phones and keyboards—would you not have an opportunity to retain a lawyer, to plead your case in a court of law, to acquit yourself? Or, if found guilty, would you not have the opportunity for correction and rehabilitation? Yes, you say? (If you say no, then that explains the spate of state-perpetuated injustices across the USA, but that is a different matter).

Why then are people treated so abhorrently in this court of public opinion? What gives you, me, any one of us the right to judge people so vilely and with a metaphorical gun to their heads? What gives anyone the right to say you better agree with everything I say, retract everything you said and grovel for it or we will eviscerate you in public, shame you, force you to change or delete the content that offends us and still ostracise you and in some cases even threaten you with bodily harm or death, or doxx you?

Why is there no grace in how people are approached or dealt with? Whatever happened to allowing people to learn from their mistakes, where applicable, or hearing them out and giving them a chance to explain their side of something we may not fully understand?

Why is there no accountability for such behaviour on the part of the accusers?

What makes the rest of you sit back and allow this to happen? What makes you think this is in any shape or form okay to watch? Today, it is a virtual stranger at the receiving end, one you can distance yourself from quite conveniently saying Oh, she just mods a group I am in, or I only read their fics a couple times or I only followed them for their art or jokes or whatever flavour of excuse you choose. Tomorrow, it will be one of your own - or it may very well be you. And you'd better hope there's someone left to speak up for you.

The irony is you will have allowed it to happen by letting the wolf in the fold. By letting these white women manipulate you, and the community you claim to be a part of, so unapologetically, so maliciously and so unashamedly that before you can do anything about it the cancer has taken hold.

If this was happening in the world outside of social media, they would have to follow due process, to present real evidence based on facts (not based on emotions, rumours or perceptions) and would have to allow the person they are accusing to present a counter-argument, to defend themselves or be defended. Failure to do so is a miscarriage of justice and, depending on whether this is a professional or legal proceeding, they would either seriously risk their jobs or have the case thrown out of court. If not face action themselves for attempting to derail the process of justice.

Why then are they permitted to range so freely through the landscape of fandom, snarling and biting at who they please, or who displeases them?

I have no shame in saying I was at the receiving end of their behaviour for defending a friend they put on blast and I will tell you right here and now, I am a woman of colour who feels unsafe and attacked by these so-called self-appointed white saviours of your social media experience, these so-called upholders of the common morality—whatever that means—who will fight for you the evils of problematic and toxic writers who dare to have an opinion not aligned with theirs and who do not bow to their clout. Not that they care, so long as they can ignore this fact since it doesn’t fit their narrative. So long as they can ignore what has just been done to so many people in the name of cleansing the fandom.

If any one of these women were truly interested in alleviating the troubles and pains of the discriminated, the marginalized, the trauma-affected, I invite them to please come roll their sleeves up and help in the multitudes of troubles that wrack this world, not just in the backyards of their minds. My country is amidst a struggle for the basics of human life in this horrific pandemic and, prior to that, for basic constitutional rights for religious minorities. Do not patronize me and lecture me on trauma and racism and discrimination. Do not marginalise me in your attempt to pontificate and set your pearl-clutching puritanical selves above the rest, or assuage your white guilt.

A largely American audience or fanbase in this fandom is purely a function of access and interest—other cultures have vast followings for things you couldn't begin to fathom—and it doesn't mean you are entitled in any shape or form to be spokespeople for the rest of the world. We have no interest in being colonized again by white oppressors.

If you disagree with what I have said, I congratulate you on being a part of their coterie and wish you much joy in being the sheep in their fold. Kindly unfollow or block me on the way off of this post.

[spockandawe]

I’m so unbelievably weak against characters who make terrible choices because they’re hurting and upset. I love the subtler resentful decisions that quietly build up ill will, and I love the big dramatic choices that end with everyone going down in flames. But more than anything, I love love love hurting myself with the emotional flavor of a character struggling with the tension of simultaneously realizing that people hate/mistrust them (or how much people hate/mistrust them, or which people hate/mistrust them), while also realizing that those people just have... no idea where they’re coming from.

I was thinking about this first because of Mu Qing, who is honestly a very low-key version of this scenario (and it’s also quieter since he’s not a lead character and rarely takes the spotlight himself). But the first big tgcf flashback honestly made my heart ache, seeing him trying to walk a line between maintaining his own independence/pride and not belonging to someone he wants to be peers with, but when he tries to be tactful, people decide he’s being shady.  He was picking cherries, to bring a treat to his poor mother (and the poor children around his home), but then got accused of stealing, and then didn’t want to say that it was because his only remaining parent was living in poverty. And it continues through the present day! He knocks out Feng Xin so he can save him from a burning city, because Feng Xin refuses to leave, and people are like ‘>:OOO MU QING ATTACKED FENG XIN??’ In some ways, this character hurts me more than the others, because he rarely does anything wrong, he has a bad attitude, but his most significant “missteps” tend to be like ‘you could have been a little more kind, tbh.’

But also too, I’ve been working my way through the svsss extras again, and... Shen Jiu. God, Shen Jiu. This character is agonizing, and I love him so much. He makes terrible choices! He does terrible things! He tries to set up an actual literal child to die horribly, because he resents that this child had a parent who loved him, and that he found his way to Cang Qiong young enough to reach his full potential! It’s absolutely unforgivable! But nobody except Yue Qingyuan has any clue how much Shen Jiu has been through and how to possibly help him grow or heal or how to support him into better decision making. And Shen Jiu is so hurt by the way Yue Qingyuan left him that he refuses to let Yue Qingyuan help him now. Like! This child was a slave, begging for food on the streets, then was sold to a rich boy who abused him in sexually-flavored ways and planned to marry him to his sister so he could keep him forever, and then his “rescuer” was a scumbag adult who taught him to steal and murder. 

And while Shen Jiu was suffering, he thinks Yue Qingyuan, who came from the same beginning and who promised to come back for him, was living in careless pampered luxury in a prestigious cultivation sect. Shen Jiu’s own self-evaluations are incredibly harsh, from the moment he’s reunited with Yue Qingyuan. He calls himself terrible, he calls himself a thing, and once it’s clear that he’s going to pay the price for his bad decisions, he tries hard to shove away the one person who cares about him and find some way to protect him. Yue Qingyuan never stopped loving him and defending him, but literally nobody else in the world has any sympathy for him whatsoever. How am I not supposed to be heartbroken? Shang Qinghua sighs over how his readers used to hate on Shen Qingqiu for having no motivations, which, sure, that’s understandable from what’s on the “Proud Immortal Demon Way” pages, but seeing the trauma driving his choices in svsss and seeing his own self-awareness and self-loathing and knowing that one (1) person in-universe has any inkling of his internal world (and that person died trying to help him), I’m! In pain!!!

Plus, in svsss proper, I saw a post in passing once that was something like... ‘readers are hard on luo binghe, because he’s the only mxtx protagonist where we see the worst decisions of his life and aren’t in his head to understand why he’s making those decisions.’ Which I still find fascinating, and think about often. It makes sense to me. And as far as my terrible-decision-making children go, he’s very interesting to me because he doesn’t really deal with the widespread distaste/mistrust that mu qing and shen jiu experience, it’s very much targeted on one person. I live for the parts of svsss where all Luo Binghe has to do is breathe, and Shen Qingqiu flinches and bolts. And Luo Binghe is not acting in kind or well-considered ways, a lot of the time! But he was seventeen, and his beloved teacher had told him that ‘humans can be good or evil, demons can be good or evil,’ but the moment Luo Binghe turned out to be half demon, even though he’d just been fighting desperately trying to protect Shen Qingqiu, that teacher he trusted more than anything immediately turned on him, stabbed him in the chest, and threw him into hell.

That’s agonizing!!!! Even without the aftermath, that’s agonizing to read! And when Luo Binghe comes back, years later, he’s upset, he’s hurt, he’s lonely, he’s still stinging from that betrayal, of course he’s not making good decisions. I follow good blogs, because I haven’t seen any terrible Luo Binghe takes on my dash, but I’m kind of :c that these takes apparently exist. Again, it’s not that I think he makes good decisions, but I can see why he makes bad decisions, and I can see other characters missing that context, and I am rolling in terrible, glorious pain. Luo Binghe shows up secretly in Huan Hua Palace and starts taking it over and generally acts shady as heck? Well, Shizun wouldn’t let him beg for forgiveness when he was a disciple, and he’s afraid to face Shen Qingqiu until he can meet him on a semi-equal footing. Luo Binghe gets angry and spiteful when Shen Qingqiu asks if he’s responsible for the sowers? Yes he does! He’d always, always tried to do right by Shen Qingqiu, and trusted Shen Qingqiu when he said demons could be decent people, but the moment he turned out to be half-demon, Shen Qingqiu immediately started expecting the worst from him at every turn. It hurts! I don’t blame him for acting on that hurt! And I am so endlessly compelled by the way that Shen Qingqiu completely fails to recognize the context for where Binghe is coming from.

And like... I cannot leave out Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. Xue Yang is fascinating in his own way, because the steps are... a lot more explicit and clear-cut than some of these other characters. Shen Jiu’s downward spiral is very internal and he curls up tight to hide his weak spots even with the person who values him most in the whole world, but Xue Yang very plainly tries to lay out his reasoning for his most important person. His whole world is crumbling by the time things reach that point, and it was probably beyond salvaging, but god! He tries so hard to explain the position the world placed him in, from childhood onward, helpless and vulnerable, and that nobody was going to defend him except himself. 

But when Xiao Xingchen doesn’t understand what he’s trying to communicate, when he realizes that the person he values most isn’t willing to hear what he’s trying to say, he starts lashing out again and trying to hurt. It’s the same lesson he learned when he was young, in some ways. ‘If I’m stupid enough to trust you, you’re going to use that to hurt me.’ And then the logical next step, ‘If you’re going to hurt me, all I can do is try to hurt you worse.’ You can see the trauma playing out right there on the page, and it’s agonizing. I can understand some people not enjoying reading things that make them hurt that way, but I have trouble Getting it when people don’t at least find that kind of dynamic compelling as hell. I’ll sometimes avoid media that I know is going to make me sad, but if I’m in the mood to Experience Sadness, I know a dynamic like this is going to grab me by the heart and shake me like a ragdoll.

And... Jin Guangyao. He was on my mind too, partly because I’ve seen a few takes on his motivations lately that honestly kind of baffle me? Like, to each their own, especially since mdzs never takes us inside his head. But I see posts that like... he was bullying Nie Mingjue, or what if Lan Xichen could Tell he was never genuine and mistrusted him on some level, and how to put this. It’s not that I agree with the choices he made, though I really don’t want to play fandom purity police in any way, shape, or form (murder is good, actually), but I understand the choices he made enough that those sort of interpretations that skew towards the cruelty-for-the-sake-of-cruelty territory honestly kind of upset me.

There’s some interesting comparisons to be made with Mu Qing, in some ways. They both grew up poor, without a father, in “shameful” single-parent situations (a sex worker mother vs. a father being executed for being a criminal). They were poor boys with ambition, but no matter how they tried to carry themselves with dignity, those poor beginnings were rubbed in their faces, years after the fact. I think it does make a real difference that Mu Qing’s shame is mostly based in his own history (sweeping floors) while Jin Guangyao’s is more external (son of a whore), and that Jin Guangyao’s also insulted a parent who he loved dearly, and that Mu Qing was seeking the respect outside of famiial structures while Jin Guangyao was desperate to be accepted by his father.

There’s so much of Jin Guangyao’s early life that’s like ‘I’m Just Trying To Live My Life, My Dude,’ and it hurts me to watch. He really didn’t have goals that were all that excessive! If his goals were excessive in some way, it’s only by virtue of how highly ranked his father was, which isn’t his fault. His goal: ‘I want my father to accept me into the family.’ What the world saw: “oh my god, this son of a whore SERIOUSLY wants to be brought into this noble family, lmaooooo.’ There are characters who are more compassionate than that, and a lot of that reaction is down to the nature of the setting, but LORD, man! It’s honestly a pretty restrained goal for a kid to have! Especially when his father totally promised to come back for him someday, and he waited patiently for years before setting out on his own.

And even once he gets kicked down the steps of Koi Tower and dials back his ambitions, he gets so little space to breathe. He’s learning cultivation late, he takes a position as a nobody in a different cultivation sect, he’s just trying to live. But no matter how he rolls with the punches, no matter how he smiles and bears it, he’s being constantly, constantly prodded in that old, painful bruise. I’ve been finally working my way through The Untamed, and it was painful to watch, in Gusu, when he’s trying to present the Nie Sect’s gift to Lan QIren, and people just start focking gossiping about him, right there, perfectly audibly. And when we see him back in Qinghe, he’s perfectly polite and deferential, and that one disciple is still like ‘fuck you, ur mom was a whore.’

He makes bad decisions, but even when he makes good decisions, he can’t win. I don’t get anything from him at all that suggests he had Hugely Lofty Ambitions from a young age, he just wanted some kind of decent life, but almost nobody would cut him a break. Nie Mingjue did cut him a break, and Lan Xichen was gentle and kind to him, and that made such an impact on him. But I also think it made it that much worse, when he made later questionable decisions, and Nie Mingjue refused to let him explain himself. Nie Mingjue’s rigidity breaks my heart in lots of ways, but especially when it comes to Jin Guangyao. I don’t want to make this all about personal attachment, but it’s kind of inescapable in this situation. Nie Mingjue sends him a loud, violent message that if he’s not perfectly morally upright, he’s Done. But by now, Jin Guangyao has years of history of people being cruel to him based on a history he never was able to control. Nie Mingjue protected him, but hes made it clear that protection was... conditional. There could be arguments about how conditional, and what the non-murdery limits would have been, but the murder has been done, and it was already clear that Nie Mingjue never had the power to protect him from everything.

I can’t read Jin Guangyao’s later actions without also reading that fear and insecurity into his decisions. He even tries to say it outright, that he’s afraid of everyone and everything, and Nie Mingjue misses the point. Jin Guangyao hurts me a lottle, because he suffers both in terms of the general public’s judgment of him, but also in the judgment of someone he cared deeply about. I can see the reasoning and trauma, but so many other people in the story can’t. Jin Guangyao gets pushed to the edge by how his father holds him at arm’s length from the family, the atrocities he tells Jin Guangyao to commit on his behalf (and then maybe I’ll treat you like my actual son, maybe), but when he tries to express that, Nie Mingjue is like ‘can’t you just endure more, though??’ He builds a temple with a statue with the face of his dead beloved mother, and the public is like ‘omg, he made that statue with his OWN FACE, can you believe it??’

In some ways, the way Lan Xichen determinedly loves and trusts him makes it all hurt even worse. I absolutely believe Jin Guangyao when he says that he never once wanted to act against Lan Xichen. So many of the terrible decisions Jin Guangyao makes tie so directly to him seeking either safety or security. But he works hard in social gatherings to keep the peace and people think he’s two-faced. He endures years of mistreatment before hitting back and people judge him for hitting back at all and say that well, what else could we have respected from someone with that background. Nie Mingjue threatens to kill him multiple times, and he was a very straightforward, honest man, of course Jin Guangyao was frightened of him and decided it was safer to see him dead. I live for the pain of seeing a character I love make decisions I strongly disagree with, understanding why they’re making those decisions, and seeing other characters not understand, and simply hate them for the decisions.

This isn’t exactly new, this is why I’ll never be able to shake my love for Starscream, even if his quality of motivation... varies by continuity. And Pharma and Prowl are two of my favorite characters in all of idw1 for exactly this reason. I’ve got  at least three fics brushing up against Pharma’s resentment over ‘yes, i got ordered to run a hospital on a garbage planet I was sharing the most violent, sadistic decepticons in existence, I SURE WONDER WHY I WAS DRIVEN TO THIS DESPERATE POINT, BUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE THINKS I’M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON, SO I GUESS THAT’S THAT.’ 

And in the murderbot books, I genuinely get reduced to tears when murderbot has to deal with people compassionately interpreting its behavior instead of giving it no credit, the way its used to. I find the raksura books intensely, intensely satisfying in how Moon struggles to fit into a highly social, close-knit society after growing up so traumatized and alone, and how his colony gradually adapts to him and gets used to his quirks, instead of driving him out, the way he’s experienced so many times. No real conclusion here, I was just spacing out during a work training call, and got overtaken by how much I love characters who experience this particular flavor of emotional isolation.

[booksandwords]

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

Read time: 2 Days Rating: 4/5

The quote: This is how we reveal ourselves: these tiny flashes of discomfort, the reactions we can’t hide. — Tanner Scott

Autoboyography is a wonderful book that enjoys a lot of praise. I really enjoyed it. This review ended up being quite lengthy. I have chosen to focus largely on the characters of Autoboyography which I really appreciated. This is a well thought out and designed story, intended to provoke thought in readers. Not just about religion and relationships but maybe about themselves a bit. It deals with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints referred to as LDS with at least some dignity, more than is normal.

The opening is great, a walk through the relevant parts of Tanner's life and clarification on the LDS. Some stereotypes are displayed, these are still high school students. The LDS we all think of are those on their Mission. The pacing of the plot is at least reasonable, it fits the relationship. Especially after the line "You've always led with your heart first and your heart second, but I need you to think about this one." (Jenna to Tanner, p 100). There are a couple of moments that are questionable. A convenient change in the enrolment numbers for the Seminar (14 to 15), one frequently mentioned moments comes to nothing. The plot is described as Tanner falling in love with Sebastian, which just feels right it really is that simple and that complicated. The ending feels right. An HFN was almost certain but it was the journey that I was unsure of and really enjoyed.

Characters are multidimensional and of their circumstances. With Emily and Jenna wholly distrustful to the point of nearly hating LDS due to their previous experiences with it. Paul knows what could have been and knows the situation his son his in, as well as his familial history having a role to play. Due to the differences between the families, Tanner and Sebastian don't face the same concerns or restrictions within their relationship, though both have the same source to a degree. Tanner's family objects to Sebastian's religion. Sebastian's family stringently objects to same-sex relationships. Autoboyography is one of those books that shows love in multiple forms. Familial, in different forms. Romantic between the protagonists, it's complicated and messy. Platonic between friends and unrequited love as well. Autoboyography has some wonderful quotes about love, faith, family and friendship.

Tanner 'Tann' Scott is a bi, senior and transplant to Provo, Utah from Palo Alto, California, a move that put him firmly back in the closet. Even his best friend, the brilliant Autumn doesn't know his true sexuality. His parents are extremely supportive of his sexuality but don't want him to get hurt in the very Mormon town he now lives in. His subject strengths are in the math/science stream. he's an honors student essentially with his pick of universities. After accepting a challenge to join the Seminar, a semester-long book writing course he is introduced to local celebrity Sebastian Brother. Tann's attraction to Sebastian is instantaneous  "His smile ruins me." (Tanner, p 22) which is a great line, I remember being bowled over like that. His fast movement from infatuation to love is interesting to read. Tanner is helpless to resist even though he knows he should (Sebastian is in the same position there). His coping mechanisms are sometimes healthy, sometimes destructive, reading both in the same character added a great depth. I quite like Tanner, because of how this book his written I could feel his anger and pain.

Sebastian 'Seb' Brother is a published author tutoring the Seminar Tan is in. After the semester is over he goes on book tour than on his two year Mission. While he is attracted to men, he doesn't identify as gay. His father is the local Bishop as such his family are expected to lead by example in both word and deed. Seb's family are very welcoming and accepting of Tann when they meet him. Sebastian's experimentation and reluctance to label (and hair-splitting) were extremely off-putting. I've been known to DNF a book for less, despite what I said earlier, that was more about Tann's reaction rather than Seb's choices. "I'm not gay, I'm not straight, I'm me" (Sebastian, p 224). The very thing that makes him off-putting makes him a great character, it's the circumstances and expectation (familial and communal) that make the person. He also has a hidden passion that is shown only at the right times but it was definitely needed, and it, not a small streak either.

In the support cast, there is a standout. Auddy. Autumn Summer Green. Tann's best friend, she is ride or die but with a complication. Those unhealthy coping mechanisms I was mentioning, they relate to her. My one question about her is how can she be so beautiful and accepting of everything that happens? It's not passivity she's just a really well written best friend. But Tann's family are great. There is a lot going on there. Full acceptance of Tann's sexuality, but wanting to protect him from the pain they experienced. "How would this be any different from his parents saying guys are off-limits?" "It's completely different. Among a hundred other reasons, going to church is a choice.. Being bisexual is simply who you are I'm protecting you from the toxic messages of the church." (Tanner and Jenna, p 99).

One of the minor problematic elements in Autoboyography is a sense of abuse between Tanner and Sebastian. It's psychological, not physical and it called out but not in words. Some people won't have an issue with it due to the context but I did. Your identity is your own if Sebastian (or a real-life person) wants to live their life according to a religious doctrine rather that is their prerogative. There is of course the larger issues of homophobia. The LDS elements may be an issue for some readers. It is core to the plot and cannot be ignored. Those with a particular issue or history with such religions/ doctrines/ cults should read with care. I make no judgements on organised religion here.

Reading the acknowledgements I read something interesting. "We started talking about this book years ago; Cristina worked in a junior high counselling office in Utah, and Saw teen after teen coming through who honestly believed, devastatingly, that their parents would probably rather have a dead child than a gay one. As a woman who grew up bi in the queer-friendly world of the Bay-Area, Lauren felt a social obligation to reach out to teens whose experiences weren't as easy". I like that this is where Autoboyography came from. Built on their experiences with at-risk teens. Given this was the source of the idea I love the inclusion a resource section. The Song of Achilles is entirely unsurprisingly, it is hugely popular and stunning. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe has been on my tbr for far too long. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is an absolute classic and is also a brilliant stage musical. LGBTQ Reads I'd never heard of but it's really good. If I may add my own recommendations; The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (it's my purple pride book) and Cemetry Boys by Aiden Thomas (own voice Trans POC).

[basicsofislam]

BASICS OF ISLAM : Khutbah : Divine Laws

In accordance  with humanity’s worth and value, and considering the human heart, spirit, mind, and physical being, the Qur’an descended from the Highest of the High.

*Containing the most perfect messages, it is a collection of Divine Laws.

*Followed today by more than one billion people, the Qur’an is a unique book that, with its eternal and unchanging divine principles, guides everyone to the shortest and most illuminated road to happiness.

*The Qur’an has been a source of light for the most magnificent and enlightened communities that have ruled the world, those that have produced thousands of scholars, philosophers and thinkers. In this sense, no other rule is equal to its rule.

•Since the day it was revealed, the Qur’an has encountered many objections and criticisms. However, the Qur’an has always emerged unscathed and so continues to reflect its victory.

The Qur’an crystallizes in the heart, illumines the spirit, and exhibits truths from beginning to end. Only believers who can sense all the beauty of the universe in a single flower and see rainstorms in a drop of water can know and understand its real countenance.

•Muslims can reach unity only by affirming and believing the Qur’an. Those who cannot do so cannot be Muslim, nor can they establish any lasting unity among themselves.

•When humanity was floundering in the brutality of ignorance and unbelief, the Qur’an burst forth in a flood of enlightenment that drowned the world in its light. The Qur’an engendered a revolution without parallel or equal. History is a sufficient witness!

•The Qur’an is the unique book commanding true justice, real freedom, balanced equality, goodness, honor, virtue, and compassion for all creation. It is also the matchless book forbidding oppression, polytheism, injustice, ignorance, bribery, interest, lying, and bearing false witness.

In a narration by Hâris el-A’ver, he says:

“When I stopped by the mosque,I saw that people left dhikr (rememberance of Allah) and  were busy with  pointless, unnecessary issues. I left the mosque and went to see the Imam Ali and let him know about the situation.”

Imam Ali asked me: “Are you telling the truth? Are they doing so? “and when I said “Yes” The Imam Ali -may God honour him! – said: I heard Prophet Mohammad -peace be upon him- saying: -” There will be captivations”.

I said: “How can we avoid them? ”

Prophet Mohammad said:“ Book of Allah” (the Holy Qur’an)

•The Quran is a judge and a source of authority between you. It is the only measure that distinguishes the right and the superstition. The Holy Qur’an is the real speech and is not joking.Whose trust and faith in Allah (C.C) are shattered by the fear of a tyrant or oppression, Allah destroys that person. the Holy Qur’an) tells us about news of people who came before you and who will come after you. Whoever refers anything other than Quran to find the right way, Alah makes him deviate off the right path.It is the strongest rope of Allah. It is a profound dhikr (rememberance of Allah) and a reminder full of wisdom. Itis the very straight path. Quran keeps its followers from following their own desires.

•Languages and Statements are not exposed to any confusion by the protection of Quran. Scholars are never ever sated with it. When recited constantly, it neither becomes old fashioned nor boredom. There are endless beauties that make people amazed and surprised. This is such a book that when Jinns release themselves to listen to it, they had to say

“We have really heard a wonderful Recital! It gives guidance to the Right, and we have believed therein: we shall not join (in worship) any (gods) with our Lord.”

Whoever speaks based on it, says the truth. Whoever acts according to it is surely rewarded. Whoever rules according to it rules just. Whoever is called to it is called to the right path.

[ill-will-editions]

The Economy or Life

First published in Lundimatin #236, March 30th, 2020.

Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives in the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyses our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it.

—E. M. Forster, "The Machine Stops" (1909)

Not every official transmission is fake news. Amidst so many disconcerting lies, today's rulers appear genuinely heartbroken when detailing the extent to which the economy is suffering.  As for the elderly left to choke at home alone so they don't cause a spike in official statistics, or clog up our hospitals...of course, a thought for them too. But that a good corporation might die: this really forms a lump in their throats. Just look at them rushing to its bedside. It's true, people everywhere are dying from respiratory failure -- but the market must not be deprived of oxygen. The economy will never be short on the artificial ventilators it needs; the central banks will see to that. Our rulers are akin to an aging heiress who sees a man bleeding out in her living room and frets over the stains on her carpet. Or like that expert of national technocracy who remarked in the recent report on nuclear safety that, "the true victim of any nuclear disaster would be the economy."

Faced with the present microbial storm, one that we were warned of by every wing of government since the late 1990s, we are awash in conjecture about our leaders’ lack of preparation. How could it be that masks, hairnets, beds, caretakers, tests, and remedies are in such short supply? Why all these last-minute measures, all these sudden reversals of doctrine? Why all these contradictory injunctions -- confine yourself but go to work, close the shops but not the large retail outlets, stop the circulation of the virus but not the goods that carry it? Why all these grotesque impediments to mass testing, to drugs that are so obviously effective and inexpensive? Why the choice of general containment rather than detection of sick subjects? The answer is simple and ever the same: it's the economy, stupid!

Rarely has the economy appeared so clearly for what it truly is: a religion, if not a cult. A religion is, after all, no more than a sect that has taken power. Rarely have our rulers appeared so obviously possessed. Their mad cries for sacrifice, for war, for total mobilization against an invisible enemy, their calls for unity among the faithful, their incontinent verbal deliriums no longer embarrassed in the slightest by overt paradox—it’s the same as any evangelical celebration. And we are summoned to endure every single sermon from behind our glowing screens, with mounting incredulity. The defining characteristic of this brand of faith is that no fact is capable of invalidating it. Far from standing condemned by the spread of the virus, the global reign of the economy has made use of the opportunity to reinforce its presuppositions.

The new ethos of confinement, wherein "men derive no pleasure (but on the contrary great displeasure) from being in the company of one another", wherein everyone appears to us in our strict separation as a potential threat to our life, wherein the fear of death imposes itself as the foundation of the social contract, only fulfills the anthropological and existential hypothesis of Hobbes' Leviathan — Hobbes, whom Marx reputed to be "one of the oldest economists in England, and among the most original philosophers". To situate this hypothesis, it’s worth recalling that Hobbes was entertained by the fact that his mother gave birth to him while terrified by lightning. Born of fear, he logically saw in life only the fear of death. "That's his problem," we’re tempted to say. No one is obliged to make such a sick worldview the basis of their existence, let alone of all existence. And yet here we are. The economy, whether liberal or Marxist, left or right, planned or deregulated, is the very illness now being prescribed for general health. In this, it is indeed a religion.

As our friend Hocart remarked, there is no fundamental difference between the president of a "modern" nation, a tribal chief in the Pacific Islands, or a pontiff in Rome. Their task is always to perform the propitiatory rites that will bring prosperity to the community, that reconcile it with the gods and preserve it from their wrath, that ensure unity, and prevent the people from scattering. "His raison d'être is not coordination but to preside over the ritual" (A-M Hocart, Kings and Courtiers): the root of our leaders' incurable imbecility lies in their failure to understand this principle. It is one thing to attract prosperity, and another to manage the economy. It is one thing to perform rituals, and another to govern people's lives. How much of power’s nature is purely liturgical is amply demonstrated by the profound uselessness, indeed the essentially counter-productive activity of our current rulers, who view the situation only as an unprecedented opportunity to excessively expand their own prerogatives, and to ensure no one tries to take their miserable seats. In view of the calamities befalling us, the leaders of today’s economic religion really are truly the last of the deadbeats when it comes to propitiatory rites. Their religion is in fact nothing but infernal damnation.

And so we stand at a crossroads: either we save the economy, or we save ourselves. Either we exit the economy, or we allow ourselves to be drafted into the great "army in the shadows” of those to be sacrificed in advance. The whole 1914-1918 rhetoric of the moment leaves no room for doubt: it's the economy or life. And since it’s a religion we’re dealing with, what we're facing now is a schism. The states of emergency decreed everywhere, the expansions of police power, the population control measures already enacted, the lifting of all limits to exploitation, the sovereign decision on who lives and who dies, the unflinching praise of Chinese governmentality—such means are not designed to provide for the "salvation of the people" here and now, but to prepare the ground for a bloody "return to normal", or else the establishment of a normality even more anomic than that which prevailed before. In this sense, the leaders are for once telling the truth: the afterwards [l’après] is indeed being played out now. It is now that doctors, nurses, and caretakers must abandon any loyalty to those attempting to flatter them into self-sacrifice. It is now that we must wrest control of our health and wellness from the disease industry and "public health" experts. It is now that we must set up mutual-aid networks of autonomous supply and production, if we are avoid succumbing to the blackmail of dependency that aims to redouble our subservience. It is now, in the extraordinary suspension we are living through, that we must figure out  everything we will need in order to live beyond the economy, and all that will be required in order to prevent its return. It is now that we must nourish the complicities that can limit the impudent revenge of a police force that knows it is hated. It is now that we need to de-confine ourselves---not out of mere bravado, but gradually, with all the intelligence and attention that befits friendship. It is now that we must elucidate the life we want: what this life requires us to build and to destroy, with whom we want to live, and whom we no longer wish to live with. No care should be given to those leaders currently arming themselves for war against us. No "living together" with those who would leave us for dead. We will trade no protection at the price of submission; the social contract is dead, it is up to us to invent something else. The rulers of today know well that on the day of de-confinement we will have no other desire than to see their heads roll, and that is why they will do everything they can to prevent that day from coming, to diffract, control, and delay our exit from confinement. It is up to us to decide when, and on what terms it happens. It is up to us to give form to the afterwards. It is up to us to sketch technically feasible and humane routes out of the economy. "We’re standing up and walking out" said a deserter from Goncourt not so long ago. Or, to quote an economist attempting to detox from his own religion: "I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue: that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanor and the love of money is detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane wisdom who take least thought for the morrow. We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honor those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.” 

Translated by Ill Will Editions

[tawakkull]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: Reflections (Tafakkur): Part 7

ISLAM AND TRUE SENSE

Islam and Being Human in the True Sense

Question: You have stated that, “Islam, the All-Mighty Creator’s greatest and universal gift to all, can be actualized through being human in the true sense; the human is the spiritual index of all creation, by that which is made from the intellect, conscience, spirit, body, and the inner subtle faculties.” Could you elucidate this statement, please?

Answer: Each of the points mentioned in the question, which constitute the different depths of the human, is the main strand with respect to understanding and explaining Islam.

Reasoning

We should consider the reason first. Reason serves a function: to separate right from wrong, and beneficial from harmful. It can achieve these tasks if it is used properly under the guidance of the heart and spirit. However, rationalists regard reason as everything—and the neo-rationalists of our time give it a priority even before the Qur’an and Sunnah. Unfortunately, in rejecting their extreme stance, some people denied reason completely. One extremism gave way to the opposite extremism. If we consider the general situation of the Islamic world today, it will be seen how reason is ignored, thus giving way to the extremism of all kinds.

God created a reason for important wisdom. First and foremost, it is the basic condition for the responsibility of worship and servitude to God. Had humanity been deprived of the honor of being the object of Divine address, they would not have been endowed with the blessing of reason. God speaks to humans by virtue of possessing reason. In a way, He makes covenants with humans, because they are beings that possess reason. For example, He states in the Qur’an: “So always remember and make mention of Me (when service to Me is due), that I may remember and make mention of you (when judgment and recompense are due)” (al-Baqarah 2:152). “…Fulfill My covenant (which I made with you through your Prophets), so that I fulfill My covenant…” (al-Baqarah 2:40).

Understanding and practicing these commands depends on the reason. The issue of whether God will take a person without reason to Paradise is not our subject here. However, it is thanks to the reason that humanity is honored with being the object of Divine address and can understand and practice religious commandments; this point is very important in terms of understanding the place and value of reason in religion.

Besides these, the essential component of understanding what we see and hear is the reason, too. Despite its incredible importance, there is a certain limit reason can reach. It is always prone to be mistaken. Therefore, it needs to be valued only as much as it merits. On the other hand, dismissing reason before letting it fulfill all of its functions means paralyzing some part of its mechanism or system. For this reason, it will not be possible for such a system to serve the function it is supposed to. A car that has all the parts but the gas pedal will not move. Similarly, the general system possessed by a human being will be paralyzed without the functioning of reason, which is among the significant components of the system.

Spirit

Spirit is also one of the important pillars of human nature. It is a system beyond the spiritual intellect. While describing the course of spiritual journeying, saintly persons said that one advances from the spiritual intellect to the spirit, which is a Divine emanation. In terms of being a Divine breath, it is a fresh bestowal sent to us from the realm of Divinity. We are sensed, known, seen, and protected by means of it. It is a trust that actually belongs to God. Therefore, leaping up from the Spiritual Intellect to the horizons of the spirit is, first of all, an expression of respect for this Divine breath God entrusted to us. At the same time, this is a matter of a person’s horizons. Only those who ascend to the horizons of the spirit can sense that it is of Divinity. It is an important rank, especially to effectuate the spiritual intellect; however, those who keep toddling in this level and fail to ascend to the horizon of the spirit will not be able to sense much about such a Divine quality.

Body

Here we also add these the body, the material aspect of humanity. As the systems like reason, conscience, heart, and spirit, which constitute the spiritual side of the human are very important, the body, which constitutes the material side, also has separate importance of its own. Above all, being able to observe worship for God, and observing acts like Prayer, fasting, and Hajj, depend on making these systems work correctly. As we are not really aware of the exact otherworldly returns of observing Prayer, reciting verses from the Qur’an, and other good deeds, we similarly do not know the otherworldly returns of utilizing them for the respective purposes they were created for. As we learn from the noble Prophet’s sayings, the Prayer observed impetuously without giving it its due will be a means of reproach and shame beyond the grave. On the other hand, when the same Prayer is observed in compliance with the proper conditions and requirements, it will be a pleasant companion that will not let the person down during the journey to the next world.

With all acts of worship, you observe besides your Prayer, you will be disciplining your body at the same time. Even though acts of worship have certain physical or anatomical benefits, they were not decreed on account of such wisdom. On the contrary, they were decreed in order to make a person eligible for Paradise so they could gain eternal bliss therein, have the honor of beholding God, and attain a state with which God will be well pleased. Although acts of worship such as Prayer, fasting, and the Zakah alms have certain benefits pertaining to the worldly life and disciplining the self, their true returns will be in the Hereafter.

In terms of being a means for a person’s attaining all of these graces in the Hereafter, the body is one of the most important Divine blessings to human. The emphasis that it is a blessing was first made with Prophet Adam, peace be upon him. God commanded angels to prostrate before Adam, and all of the angels did so, except for Satan, who made a haughty refusal to obey this command by giving in to egotism. Spirit beings and angels saw the immensity in Adam, they acted with insightful obedience to the command and thus prostrated themselves. This evoked respect in their spirits for the body of Adam. To reiterate a fact I expressed in different talks, had prostration been permissible before anybody else other than God, it would have been for humanity, a wonder of creation with respect to our bodily and spiritual structure.

In terms of their nature, angels have insightful obedience to commands. They also have knowledge of Divine mysteries, have access to the realm of Malakut and can be present in some thousand different places simultaneously. Still, they cannot properly sense the properties of the material world. It is for this reason that they were surprised at a strange creature like the human and they said, “Will you set therein one who will cause disorder and corruption on it and shed blood?” (al-Baqarah 2:30). The human is a being teeming with feelings such as lust, selfishness, boasting, and rage, and thus is prone to committing evil acts. However, by being able to subordinate all of these to Divine commands, he or she can ascend to the level of being a favorable, beloved, and laudable servant of God. God creates goodness via these relevant evils. The angels could not know this side of humanity. In terms of both his spiritual and bodily structure and together with the interaction between these two, the human gains meanings that cannot be expressed by books.

In sum, understanding Islam with its true identity, depth, and immensity, as well as practicing it and telling about it, can only be possible by using the human nature properly without neglecting any aspect of it. As humanity’s reason, spirit, and body were created for particular wisdom, each must be used in accordance with the purpose they were created for; because if a person neglects even one of these, it will not be possible for them to thoroughly fulfill the responsibility he has undertaken.

[rising-superstars]

The Children of Virtue & Vice - Aveline Chapter 2: A Small Price To Pay?

“Another day, another job.” That’s what Aveline thought to herself, dressing herself in her normal mercenary clothing of sleeveless red and black cotton shirt with black denim pants, a red scarf covering her mouth and nose, large black boots, and red coat. Looking at her armaments, she grabbed some throwing knives, a decently long dagger, and her collapsible staff. Touching the bronze-colored weapon, she thought about the offer her mother made. Now it made sense why this was bronze and why she received it as a gift from her mother. Sure, she was capable at leading small groups of her fellow bandits and a proficient enough fighter, but leading a whole camp of these people? She really couldn’t see herself doing this kind of thing.

After this job, she’ll have to tell her mother that she is declining the offer. It won’t be easy, but it’s for the best. At least, she thought so.

“So as it turns out, Jessie cannot lead this group as she has come down with a sickness. She will be fine, but she’s in no condition to do any kind of possible fighting or leading.” Caida stopped speaking for a moment and held her hand up to prevent anyone else from speaking, keeping the silence for just a moment, non-verbally asking everyone to listen closely. In a nearby tent, the sound of vomiting could be heard, which was followed by the various bandits in this group making affirmative noises and nodding.

“Hali, Spi, Grant, Aveline, are all four of you ready to go?” All four young people stood at attention, not a single one of them under-dressed or unprepared for this job. “In case you have forgotten, we’re securing a collection of books that are said to fetch a very high price, not to mention the knowledge within could prove to be even more valuable. I asked that you get an assortment of weapons because we may not be alone in this venture. If no one has any objections, then let us be on our way.”

With nothing said between all four of them, the small group went on their way. The target was deeper in the forests they were situated in, hidden in what was described as a temple from the old world, Mors. It took an hour of walking before coming across a large, abandoned log cabin, now green with moss and overgrowth that had taken over. After a long enough time with no inhabitants and enough vegetation taking over a building, it becomes colloquially known as a temple regardless of original intention. The glass windows were cracked or completely broken and a few skeletal corpses were strewn about the “porch.”

Before entering the general area, Caida gave an order to halt and hide in some of the nearby bushes. She pointed to the east, showing that they were not the first to get here. A rival bandit group, clad in various colors and carrying bows and quivers were approaching the cabin, some of them surrounded the area with bows trained at the cabin, as if they were anticipating them.

“Alright, seems like a direct approach won’t be possible. Hali?” The short, young girl with dark red hair tied in twintails and a short sword turned to face her boss. “Can you incapacitate them?” Hali only nodded before jumping from the bush and quickly climbing up the tree with little noise. “Spi and Grant, if she can’t get the job done or gets discovered, I’ll need you to act as distraction. Spi I trust you can take a few out yourself. Grant, if you have some trouble, don’t do anything other than tie them up.” Both mercenaries nodded, turning their attention to the scene.

A few moments later, almost like a breeze, one of the bowmen was quickly incapacitated, silently apart from the quiet sound of blade slashing flesh. Hali turned her attention to the other archers, only 2 left. Jumping back into the tree, she quickly performed another kill, though this time it wasn’t silent as she was discovered as she fell down to attack, her target letting out a yell before being killed.

“Shit! Okay, go, go!” Quickly taking off their jackets that showed their allegiance to Sombra Roja, both young adults stood from the bush trying to draw the attention of the man in front of the cabin.. “Hey hey hey! Hold on a second!” Grant wasn’t the best with drawing attention, but he was willing to try. “What’s going on here? I leave for a few minutes to try and scavenge some parts for my weapons and hunt for dinner for my girlfriend here and our home is besieged by some savages with no understanding of the concept of--”

Grant’s bluff was called very quickly by an arrow grazing his face, leaving a small cut on his cheek. “......manners?”

“Don’t lie to us, we know that there’s something here. No temple this old could ever house some random people, especially in the middle of nowhere. Whatever’s in here, we’re taking it, and you can march back to where you came from or you can die here--”

Their adversary’s words were cut off as the sound of the third and final perimeter archer being taken out echoed in the area. He looked over to see what happened and that gave Grant ample time to drop the steel chain hidden in his shirt sleeve and strike the bandit like it was a whip. Acting as one last distraction, Spi took over the encounter and grabbed their opponent by the collar, throwing him to the ground onto his back and stomping on his chest. This wasn’t enough force to kill him, but he was knocked unconscious. Both Spi and Grant gave the signal that the coast was clear to both Hali and the two in the bush. As they approached, the two had a quick chuckle to themselves.

“Girlfriend, huh?”

“It was either that or sister, and you and I both know they wouldn’t believe that. But they didn’t believe girlfriend either, so......”

The five of them coming together checked to make sure if anyone was injured. Grant only suffered a cut to his cheek which was quickly bandaged while Hali was covered in blood that wasn’t her own, but still not a scratch on her.

“Very good job, but we’re not done yet. There are still two inside, me and Aveline will take them out. If reinforcements come, give the signal and we’ll come running out”

All four young people nodded as the two family members entered the building, tightening the coverings over their noses and mouths so as to not give away their position with a cough or sneeze. They looked around this abandoned home, looking at the ancient technology and furniture that has old corpses still dressed in clothing, almost like they didn’t expect to be dying when they did. There were skeletal corpses of men, women, and children inside. Aveline only let out a small sigh, feeling bad about seeing so much death, even if it was centuries ago. Caida only placed a hand on her shoulder and a gentle rub. This was something that she had perfected doing when it came to cheering up Aveline and like a Pavlovian response, Aveline was no longer plagued by feelings of sorrow for lives lost long ago.

The floor creaked with footsteps that weren’t their and the both of them hid away, waiting for whoever was inside to show up. Those footsteps belonged to the last two bandits, trying to leave with their findings. Having spotted which was was holding the books, both Aveline and Caida knew how to take them out. Caida leapt forward and placed her hand over the mouth of the one carrying the books, quickly snapping his neck and hearing the books fall to the ground. At the same time, Aveline pulled out her dagger and covered the mouth of the other bandit, plunging the blade into his chest. There was a moment of struggling before his body became limp, allowing Aveline to slit his throat for good measure.

After seeing that the last of their competition was eliminated, both Caida and Aveline let out long sighs of relief before Caida bent over to grab the books. Gently combing through them, she could tell from the subject matter that this was ancient literature, probably worth a good 500-700 Domi for each book. Especially with how they were hardcover and not badly damaged by anything other than time. As she looked through the pages, Caida hummed to Aveline. “Just like basic training, huh, my dear?”

“You said it. These guys were no trouble. In fact, for a treasure worth this much, they really didn’t have much in the way of people trying to stop us. It’s al......almost like......” Aveline’s expression went from calm to one of horror, turning to her mother. “We have to leave. This is an ambush.”

Kicking the door down and walking back outside, Aveline spoke to her companions with frantic yells. “It’s an ambush, we have to go!” Once the facade was broken, a dozen archers stepped forward from behind some trees and began to fire in their direction. Spi and Grant quickly ran off with Spi carrying the young man over her shoulder like a bad of potatoes. Hali quickly climbed up a tree and jumped form branch to branch with no trouble. Aveline turned to her mother, a panicked look in her eyes as she saw Caida on the ground, clutching her ankle in pain.

As all the bows were drawn and aimed at the older woman, Aveline jumped to defend Caida from all attacks. With a sharp inhale, Aveline drew the staff from her pocket, letting it magnetize and come together to form the weapon. With an even sharper exhale, her body became enveloped in a deep red aura. Her Vice, as she called it, activated and it’s ability was clear as she felt the arrows hit her body.

One after another, they fell to the ground after making contact, like they suddenly lost all momentum and couldn’t even piece a sheet of paper. As the archers began to fire again, Aveline began to spin her staff, now blocking the arrows that somehow didn’t hit her body. Caida was completely protected from this attack and she would have escaped had it not been for the majestic sight of her adopted daughter protecting her the way she was.

This moment of awe was followed by a singular archer, who had snuck away from the others, drawing an arrow and shooting it at Caida right in the back. The attack was met with a loud cry of pain and Aveline felt her heart sink, her staff immediately collapsing and being shoved back into her pocket. Once she saw the lone bowman, Aveline took a throwing knife from her pouch and threw it at him, taking him out.

Bending down and picking up her mother, she began to run away from the ambush, doing her best to try and outrun 12 archers while also feeling her vision being blurred with tears in her eyes. By hiding under a broken, aged bridge over a river, Aveline caught her breath, looking to her mother with tears in her eyes. “Oh, mother....”

“R-Relax, I’ve taken much worse hits.” Caida’s laugh was dry and quiet. “They missed all the vital parts except one. I’m not dying today, but I’m not walking. Can’t feel my legs at all.”

“A-And we didn’t even take the books. This mission was a complete failure, I’m so sorry......” Aveline was nearly inconsolable, crying and muffling her sobs with her scarf. The feeling of Caida’s hand on her shoulder got her to look at her mother, a cheeky smile on the aged warrior’s face.

“Guess again.” Opening her coat, Caida revealed that she had still the books with her. “Even if I can’t walk, I’m not letting my last mission end in failure.”

“Oh, mother......you can be so stupid sometimes......” Aveline pulled Caida close, embracing her now-paraplegic mother in her arms, letting this moment of melancholy wash over her. This was a pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Eyestealer 9 - ao3 link

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama (mostly gen, hints of other relationships)

Summary: Hashirama really doesn’t approve of the thoughtful way his father looks at his younger brother’s bright red eyes. He’s sure it doesn’t mean anything good for anyone.

He’s right.

——————————————————————————————

Of course, even with Izuna now (somewhat reluctantly) supporting their plans to build a village, peace wasn’t as simple as all that.

Even once they get over the yelling, screaming, and death threats involved in the negotiation process of setting up a peace treaty, even once they've gone through the officially mandated cool down period, and even once the village has started to actually be constructed, there are still – problems.

Tobirama’s eyes, for one.

Madara was right about his clan’s elders not being happy about Tobirama remaining outside Uchiha clan control, village or no village. They’re no longer calling for his head, which Hashirama begrudgingly supposes is something, but a number of them clearly and very loudly prioritize the protection of the Sharingan and its secrets over Tobirama’s total non-involvement with the original theft.

(It's sad, really, that the Uchiha clan records from that particular period of time have become too badly weathered for them to identify whose eyes exactly were the ones that were taken, so that even if there are rumors they cannot be confirmed. Very sad, very unfortunate, but what can they do, there's simply no other way to be entirely certain. Also, on a totally separate and unrelated note, it turns out that paper remembers enough about the plant it used to be, whether wood or rice, to be susceptible to Hashirama's Mokuton, and also Hashirama has exactly zero regrets about doing what is necessary to ensure no one has proof they could use to support a claim his brother's eyes as the price of a blood feud.)

At first, the bitter Uchiha elders limited themselves to trying to keep Tobirama from learning the jutsu techniques necessary to help him deal with it. When Madara teaches him some of them anyway, particularly the ones relating to sleep, the elders escalated to lodging formal complaints about Madara’s leadership, which he only repels with Izuna’s assistance. If they hadn't been able to get Izuna on board beforehand, Hashirama shudders to think about the result - but they do, and the elders are defeated and forced to abide by their clan leader's decision.

But when that doesn’t work…well.

They’re apparently even more bitter about the whole situation than Hashirama thought.

“Anija. Your feelings are –”

“I’m aware that my feelings are warping the architecture again,” Hashirama says tightly. “I’ll fix it later.”

“It’s really disturbing how you manage to keep smiling while radiating that much killing intent,” Madara observes, his chin on his hands. He had his own desk in what they’d tentatively dubbed the administrative center of their new village: they all did, given the vast amount of paperwork that creating a new village seemed to involve. “I mean, I always knew you were the type to smile all the time, but I didn’t realize there was so much effort involved.”

“He made a vow about it,” Tobirama says with a sigh. His eyes are blindfolded, which the Uchiha have confirmed helps reduce the strain on his chakra, but it’s not impeding the speed of his paperwork in the slightest. Hashirama rues the day his brother learned to sense chakra-infused ink. “I think he was four at the time? Possibly three. He was apparently a very stubborn child, which I’m sure comes as no surprise to anyone.”

“I don’t like being angry,” Hashirama says.

“So instead you’re…happy with a side of stabbing?”

“I’m not –” Hashirama pauses, looking at the remains of the chair that had been leaning next to the door. It was now impaled on multiple long thin spikes that have emerged from the wood of the wall. Also, the top part of the chair appears to be drowning in kudzu and blackberries in a method that would work quite well to smother a person, if one had been sitting there. “...yes. Apparently. But I haven’t stabbed any people.”

“Yet.”

“Yes, exactly, no people yet – hey!”

Madara sniggers. “I’m just glad Izuna’s away on mission,” he says. “He’d react even worse than you are. Even when they were only enemies, he didn’t even approve people other than him trying to kill Tobirama.”

There’s an audible crunch from the direction of the chair.

The ‘head’ of the chair is now less smothering, more exploding.

“…should I not be mentioning the elephant in the room, then?” Madara asks, but he has a shit-eating grin that suggests he will be mentioning this particular instance of Hashirama’s temper for the rest of their mutual existence and possibly longer, depending on how one felt about reincarnation.

“It was just an assassination attempt,” Tobirama says irritably. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with assassinations –”

“I’m a shinobi.”

“– from inside the village, Tobirama! It’s our village. It should be safe.”

"Safe from what, though?" Madara muses. "Let us all take a moment to remember exactly who it was that nearly killed my brother in a sparring match."

In Tobirama's defense, Izuna had approached him and requested the match, wagering that no matter what Tobirama's mysterious new jutsu was, he would still come out the victor, or at least even as always, and of course Tobirama could never resist an opportunity to test out his new jutsu, particularly in near-battlefield conditions.

Unfortunately, they'd both gotten so accustomed to outright attempts to kill each other that they'd forgotten it was a spar about ten minutes in.

It also turned out Tobirama's new jutsu (the hiraishin, he called it) really could defeat the Sharingan.

Luckily for everyone involved, Tobirama realized he was supposed to be pulling his death-blows a split-second before he followed through on the strike. Not that Izuna particularly appreciated being only partly stabbed.

He did (somewhat begrudgingly) appreciate being healed, first by Tobirama in an attempt to keep him stable and then by Hashirama when he'd come running hard on Madara's heels to find out what had so alarmed his friend. 

‎It'd very nearly been a disaster - Tobirama exhausted his chakra trying to heal Izuna, causing him to collapse, helpless; Madara nearly took off Tobirama's head in revenge for his brother’s apparent murder before Hashirama stopped him by virtue of throwing himself bodily in the way; Hashirama panicked when he saw that Tobirama was nearly unconscious and bloody and started to heal the wrong person even as Tobirama tried to smack him away, unable to explain; Madara freaked out even more when he saw that he’d nearly cut Hashirama in half by accident…

And, just to top it off, what felt half the Uchiha clan was hanging out around the sparring field watching and the sheer amount of killing intent everyone was pouring out activated all of their Sharingans, which meant the entire fiasco was now permanently seared into their brains. 

Luckily for everyone, Izuna figured out what was going on before anyone else did and started laughing hysterically at the sheer absurdity of the four strongest shinobi in the entire country accidentally murdering each other after years of having tried very hard and failed to do that very thing, which in turn turned out was enough to distract them all from escalating the situation any further.

So in the end it was more comedy of errors than disaster.

Albeit just barely.

(Much more funny was letting some of the Uchiha sit in on Tobirama’s quarterly presentation of his newest jutsu research results, in which Hashirama usually spends the vast majority of time just sitting there saying, “Kinjutsu. Kinjutsu. Kinjutsu. No, I don’t care if it’d be effective, we’re not doing that. Kinjustu. Kinjutsu. Kin – I’m sorry, you can do what with people’s blood now? Huh. Okay, we can keep that one. But that specific usage of it is kinjutsu!” Their expressions were priceless, particularly when Hashirama subsequently informed them, after Tobirama had stormed away to sulk the way he always does when he feels his brilliance is being impeded by something as silly as ethics and basic humanity, that Tobirama had single-handled caused the Senju list of forbidden jutsu to triple in size.)

‎"That was a mistake, though," Hashirama protests. "This is different. This was targeted -"

"It wasn't even a good assassination attempt!" Tobirama exclaims. "Anija, I saw it coming a good ten minutes before it happened. Why are you so worried?"

"Because it wasn't a good attempt!" Hashirama exclaims.‎ "That means it was a feint to lull us into a sense of security for a future attack!"

‎"Hashirama," Madara says after a few long moments of silence. "That's paranoid. And trust me, I know paranoid."

Hashirama pouts. "It is, though," he insists. "Elders don't make it to being elders by being bad shinobi. You might know paranoia, but I know when people are trying to be underestimated, okay?"

"Hashirama..."

"Don't you 'Hashirama' me! There's something happening, okay? Something we haven't figured out yet."

"I still think you're exaggerating.‎"

"And I still think you have trouble realizing that your clan is capable of being guilty of more than just bad temper," Hashirama says, even though he knows it's uncalled for even as he says it.

It's true, but also uncalled for.

Sure enough, Madara scowls. "How can you say that? You know perfectly well that we're literally a cursed clan," he snarls. "Tobirama's even seen the tablet, if very briefly -"

"Speaking of which, I don't trust that so-called 'tablet'. Why would Indra leave one to his clan and not Ashura? Suspicious."

"First off, it was the Sage who left it, not Indra, and secondly, you've never even seen -"

"I don't need to see something to know bad advice when I hear it -"

"Either way, there's nothing we can do about it now," Tobirama interrupts, practical as ever. "But if there is another attack, I'll do my best to see it coming. So to speak."

He taps the blindfold pointedly.

(More people know about that now – not everyone, certainly, and it’s mostly rumor and speculation, but…people know. Some people act differently, others don’t, and a few guilty-looking souls among the Senju have put two and two together, judging by the way they avoid both of their leaders. Hashirama sincerely hopes they choke on their complicity.)

Seeing that Tobirama and Madara are in rare agreement, Hashirama sighs and droops into his favorite sulking pose - head down, shoulders curled in, general aura of gloominess around him. "I just want to protect you, Tobirama," he says with a moan of despair‎. "I'm your big brother. It's my job."

"Then stop sulking and get back to work," Tobirama says mercilessly. "Something which, let me remind you, is also your job, except unlike taking care of me, it is literally your job."

‎"He's not going to be any use to anyone until he gets this out of his system," Madara says, not wholly incorrectly. "We could spar -"

"One of you is doing this paperwork with me."

"Fine, fine. Hashirama -"

"I'll go take a walk," Hashirama sighs. He can tell when he’s being more of a burden than a help. Given his focus issues, it's not that uncommon a feeling when paperwork is involved. He tries, he really does, but no matter what he does he keeps on drifting off to think of other things a few minutes in and ends up writing out poetry or ideas for a new taijutsu technique instead of reviewing the mission reports he's supposed to be dealing with. And that's assuming he maintains the ability to sit in one place for that long... "But don't leave Tobirama alone, okay, Madara? If I'm not back before moonrise, you can stay at our house."

"Anija -"

"Promise me," Hashirama demands, ignoring Tobirama's expression of long-suffering annoyance.

"I promise, I promise," Madara says. "If my clan elders try anything, I'll be here to stop them. Okay? So you can calm down and stop doing the creepy vine thing."

It's not creepy. It's just what vines do.

...when they're extremely vicious and also subject to about three seasons growth in the space of ten minutes.

"It's kudzu," ‎Hashirama hears Tobirama tell Madara behind him as he hops out the window in search of anywhere-but-here. "Invasive, parasitic, and extremely destructive – the other one’s blackberries, which is if anything worse, don’t let it get out anywhere, we'll never get rid of it – and if you think you can't get sick of a fruit, let me tell you -"

Hashirama goes for a walk.

Normally the sight of his budding village is enough to calm him and make him happy - the sight of all those people, living in peace side by side; no longer just Uchiha and Senju but other clans, more and more by the month as they realize where the centralized shinobi power in Fire Country now lies - but today it just grates at his nerves.

They really need to get a police system up and running. Madara already agreed that his clan would take leadership of it - it was only reasonable given their abilities, just as the considerably higher proportion of Senju with iryo ninjutsu skills made them the obvious choice to run the hospital - but they haven't worked out the kinks of how or who will be involved.

If they had a police, maybe they could have already set up a system of punishment for when people try to murder other people for no good reason.

...no, walking through the village isn’t helping.

Hashirama decides to go walk through the forest instead.

(The Forest of Death is not a garden. It’s just where he keeps the more…interesting manifestation of his powers, that’s all. Not a garden.)

Today, though, even tending to the large carnivorous sunflowers and the snowdrops that have taken to spitting acid – listen, okay, Hashirama doesn’t like being angry and he’s great at sublimating that, but those feelings have to go somewhere and apparently when you have the Mokuton the answer to where they go is into the local plantlife – isn’t really doing the trick.

Maybe if he went outside the village?

Yes, that’ll be nice. Some real wild forest, free and growing and smelling of green – that’ll help him feel better.

Except it doesn’t.

Hashirama frowns.

The restless, anxious feeling that’s been bothering him all day �� more than all day, for several days, maybe even a few weeks – is much worse out here. Much worse.

And that means the feeling isn’t his.

Hashirama reaches for the plants.

They don’t actually reach back, don’t whisper back the way he imagined when he was a kid, but they’re there for him, always, and through them he knows that something is wrong, and where.

Not what – trees are frankly terrible at understand what animal life is up to, still stuck on wondering why in the world anything would want to move around as much as all that, and while moss is surprisingly good at figuring out human motives (people apparently have a lot of sex on moss) it’s also functionally blind, so there’s that – but at least they can tell him where.

Something draining, apparently. Something a bit like a hole in the ground, a bit like weed-killer or worms, the bad ones that eat at roots instead of munching on dirt, but also apparently growing-plant-like in a strange way, a bit like lawns?

(No one likes lawns. Not even the grass in the lawn like it.)

Well, since being a sensor isn’t one of Hashirama’s skills – he likes to think he wouldn't be totally blind if he really tried, but between Madara (unusually strong) and Tobirama (not worth comparing to), he’s never had much reason to practice it all that much – the only thing for it is to go see what it is himself.

Hashirama is aware that the correct thing to do is to send a message back to the administrative center and get someone else to do it, like a proper Hokage, but that would involve going back into the village and his nerves are still scraped raw from the bad-plant-feeling and the assassination attempt on his baby brother for something he didn’t even do, and damnit, they call him the God of Shinobi, he can check out a threat that has somehow made its way to their front door without even Tobirama noticing without calling backup.

He’ll be fine.

Now, Hashirama admits that sometimes he’s an idiot. Usually, he’s the sort of idiot that’s just talented or lucky enough to get himself out of whatever stupid situation he ends up in.

This is – not one of those times.

The clearing seemed fine, when he finds it, but oddly enough the trees inside the clearing aren’t responding to him.

It’s not until he walks in to figure out what’s going on that he suddenly realizes that they aren’t real trees, they’re made of something else, something different, something white and artificial and wrong and he’s falling –

[paperbackwritersblog]

It is March 2020, the world is not at war, at least not in the physically world war sense of the word. And yet the world is very much at eachothers throats! It is impossible to tell if there has always been an underlying issue with ideologies and beliefs not being able to debate and find middle ground in times before now, for I can only take in what history has left us in terms of information, even that information is always told from a perspective. After all isnt all information just a perspective? Isnt everything we think and feel just a personal perspective? The information passed down again a perspective.

With that in mind, the ability to understand that it is all perspective seems to be lost on the vast majority of people! Why else would people venomously defend their set of beliefs unless they genuinely believe they know the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It blows my mind to exist at a time where so many of us sapiens believe we KNOW the truth! When I read about history , the further you go back the less and less people believed they knew anything, only a select few thought they knew anything. And when someone elevated themselves as someone who KNOWS, people hung on their every word. Nearly all belief systems are designed by someone at some point in time who knew THE TRUTH!!

To understand that there is no TRUTH, just your truth. To empathize with others and understand their truths are as real and undeniable as your truths takes either a natural ability or constant mental work. I have met people in my life who naturally seem to feel, know or understand that we are all so very different, the differences are what make our species as remarkable as it is. These people have been rare to come across, possibly just because of my time and place of upbringing.

Most of the people I know and have met in my life think their experiences of life and their reactions to experiences account for anyone elses experiences, they think we all think the same when things happen and if you dont then something is wrong with you!! They believe the first story they are told unless they already have an impression or view on something or someone , they are unable to hear anything contradicting the beliefs they already hold! This is the person I was for the best part of my life so far, id say the first 37 years of my life! Then something happened, a psychological shift in how I see things. And even then, a daily reminder, an hourly nudge! Even with much better awareness of myself it still happens. I now find myself in another group of people who understand yet still have years of programming to be undone, its a daily grind.

I thought for a long time that with the right ingredients I would one day have a satori moment! Something would click and I would from that day forth see the truth in things!! And there we are again, the TRUTH!! So to get to a place where there is no truth to strive for, just my perspective to roll back.

How would this be felt by others, how can the world become more aware? Obviously this question has never been answered despite it being asked throughout time! Was Marxism an attempt at this? An attempt to make everyone the same, was confucianism the same? Although these ideologies were an attempt to put everyone in the same place physically! Its painfully obvious it didnt hit everyone mentally in that way or the outcomes would have been completely different when attempted.

I recently sat and watched a parlimentary session, I think it was prime ministers question time. What I found to be so destructive was not the need to keep the government to their word but the want to destroy and tarnish peoples moral code and reputation! I understand the opposition in parliament is there to keep the opposite side in check, oppose bad ideas, suggest better ideas etc etc. But I saw none of that! All I saw and heard were people doing their best to make their opposite number look inadequate, il-informed, stupid, racist, bullying etc etc. So rather than stand tall on their own ideas, they would rather stand tall with their feet on the head of whoever they have slayed!

Wokeness and virtue signaling has become so dangerously destructive, with the finger pointers completely unaware that when pointing at someone or thing, at least 3 of their fingers are pointing back at them. The hypocrisy of the movement is not allowed to be questioned, for doing so gives you an instant label, of us and them. Like religion, philosophy, ideologies it creates a “we are right” and a “they are wrong” , not even wrong! They are evil!!

So I see , that throughout time this has never changed, tribalism is so deeply rooted in us as a species.

I dont think its impossible for us a a species to think or feel differently, however I think time is most deffinately a factor, for evolution is a very long process.

I believe states we reach in meditation is an idea of where our species can eventually evolve to, the world is crying out for understanding , love, kindness. However we are not evolved enough to deliver on our desires on a grand scale. Pockets of people exist that truly understand the only real TRUTH there really is! That there is no truth, only perspective.

Im leaning very slowly that the things I have always believed to be true are only true to me. The hardest part of this understanding is to not judge others when they act in a way that makes me look away. Nowadays when I feel the need to look away a voice whipsers that im turning away from attributes of my own that I cannot face! This causes discomfort in so many areas of my mind, to admit and take ownership of these traits is not something anyone will cheerfully jump into. There are parts of my darkness that are easier to see and admit than others. As someone who was bullied significantly as a child, to recognise the bully in me was something that I did not want to admit, after all I know how it feels to feel stripped of power in that way, yet when I really got down into it, it wasnt so difficult to see how I had bullied in my attempt to claim power back at some point.

When I started to truly dismantle my darker attributes I realised that all of the traits I had worked so hard to subdue or remove from myself completely were all the traits that reminded me of my father! I was so effected by his behaviour growing up and the opinions of him that others held I was determined that no one would ever think or talk about me in that way and this was something I know I felt, this was not subconcious at all, I actively and openly worked to that end. But then for many years I atrributed the shitty sides of myself to him! When I acted out of character I didnt just think but also said aloud thats my father! And this ment not taking any of my own personal responsibility.

This was my truth, and it only applied to me. I cannot speak for my father nor his aims and wishes in that situation. My truth could have been that my father was a cunt and he fucked me up in many ways!! And in a way that is a truth! But its choice , do I choose that to be my truth? I could just say that my father made many mistakes, yet his mistakes are not mine, if anything they are lessons he gave me in what not to do, I could spin this truth very much into a positive.

So you see truth is a very personal perspective, it applies to you. I often wonder if there are any collective truths! Because even the scientific world is not absolute truths, they are answers based on testing and monitored results up to this point! All science is open to new information, all science is never absolute truth, only what we know and have measured thus far.

Do we all feel exactly the same about our truth? Is the feeling shared for all. Peoples protection of the truth is linked to their past present and future! When long held beliefs are disturbed and shaken it can cause such psychological disturbance that we react as if protecting a loved one from a rabid dog. Thats because hard wired truths are so deeply rooted that to shift the perspective of that truth it means to shift the entire lense that life is seen through. From my own experience of this, it is initially destabalizing. If dealt with appropriately we can grow from this and go onto much healthier mindsets, after all these beliefs would be unshakable if they were anything close to a fundamental truth shared. Most of these challengable truths are sets of programming we have taken on from our peers. For me to believe that all black people are criminals, all chinese people know kung fu(all stereotypes are programming), to believe in god, to believe in flat earth, to believe in vaccinations, to belive in anything and everything as a truth, this is ok so long as I understand that this is true to me, its is not true to others.

And with that moving forward I think a great place I am nearing is the truth of no truth.

E. Plaistow

[athenajdavid-blog]

BLOG #2

RUSTAM AND SOHRAB

The story of Rostam and Sohrab (Rustum and Sohrab / Rustam and Suhrab) is a Persian epic which is also an episode in Shahnameh in Persian mythology. It is an example of a dramatic irony. A dramatic irony is when the audience is aware about a certain situation in a story that the characters, themselves, don't know. Some people were confused why is it considered as irony. Well, if you've understand the story, you'll see the big plot twist that Sohrab is the son of Rustam which he thought that his enemy.

There are two main highlights of the story. One is that Rustam and Sohrab fought so hard against each other. Second is that Rustam was only able to recognize Sohrab as his son when he saw the bracelet after he defeated him to death. Ironic, right? This is the irony of their lives. Rustam fought for his land and seeks long to find his son only to end up protected his land by killing his son which was also his enemy without knowing him.

After all, Rustam is considered an epic hero since he fought for his land. Long ago, men are known for their bravery and strenght. A man should have this trait and being able to fight for something is a plus for their character. Rustam fought in a plain armor which isn't usual for warrior and he is also an invincible warrior.

I came to a realization in Sohrab's last words. It's true that we always know and tell the truth if we reach the end. We have all the time in our hands but we always chose to say the truth when we were caught red-handed. Its either we are afraid of the consequences or we don't want to miss our last shot.

"Truth sits upon the lips of dying men."

TROY

Troy is an epic historical war film released on 2004. The story is about a battle between Sparta and Troy. This movie has tough characters which can be inspire us into becoming one. There are certain situations which give us lesson (may be unnoticeable) that we may apply on our daily lives.

The scene where Archilles was given the chance to live a happy and peaceful life or fought with no assurance of coming back alive hits me. As someone who is a risk taker, I always make impulsive decisions not even knowing the consequences. Sometimes I do things out of curiosity.These experiences taught me things I do not know before. I like to do unsure things to explore. The scene also taught me the importance of decision making. Most of the time, we end up with just two choices in life and sometimes we cannot risk to take down one. This made us think critically, to choose the best of the best. We need to lose something in able to move to the next stage or to achieve our goals. Losing isn't so bad when it will bring us good result in return.

There is also a scene that strikes me. When Agamemnon wants to be remembered. Lets be honest, we all want to be remembered especially with the good things we did. Its hard to create your own name in this world. No matter how many good things you did, once you made a mistake, people tend to remember you because of that one mistake and misjudged you. For us to be remembered in a good way, practice doing good to everyone everyday. If you've done bad to someone, do good to him/her next time. Do not even think of revenge. Surely, they'll meet their own karma in the future.

This striked me real hard. Hatred really consume the one who hates. Most of the time, i hold grudges to people who did bad things to me. At the end of the day, I realized why am I consuming so much energy hating them when they're not even bother about my emotions? I always bear in mind that I need to free myself from darkness. Their actions are not my business. Their opinions are theirs so just sip your tea and go on with your own life.

Lastly, when Priam begged to Archilles for his son's body, that made me realized that enemy can also be seen as our inspiration to improve ourselves. We tend to argue with people with same level as ours. They serves as our reflection of who we are and tryna fight to become better.

ODYSSEY

The Odyssey is considered as important part of our literature because of the values and virtues it teaches us that we can also apply in our lives. After watching the movie, the first thing you'll learn from the movie is loyalty. Odysseus managed to return home to his family no matter how many struggles he faced. That shows how devoted he is to his family and he'll do everything to in touched with them again. No matter how long it takes, if you're willing to achieve your goals like Odysseus, you'll do it for sure. Dreams doesn't require to be fastest but who will achieve it to its fullest.

Im really amazed with Telemachos and Penelope's patience and commitment. Its not easy to keep someone in your heart that you haven't seen in years. If I we're them, I might even think that the one Im waiting was already dead or I'll not expect anyone to come back. Ten year is really long and Im not someone who can wait for too long. Even after Odysseus came home, their bond is still the same, still strong. Unlike Agamemnon's life, he was killed by his own wife when he return home.

Greeks' hospitality was seen in the movie. Just like us, Filipinos, they are also hospitable to their guests. They also offer the best things they have to the guest to made them feel comfortable Unlike the western culture that they let their guests sleep on their couches, Filipinos make guests sleep in their room instead. Sometimes, we even let them use the most expensive things we have so they won't feel any discomfort. We even cook the foods we barely afford to buy just to impress them. Before leaving, we even give them 'take home' foods or things as souvenir. In the movie, the hosts' are very hospitable to the point that the guests take advantage of their kindness. Its not wrong to be kind to others but set limitations cause we'll never know the people we just randomly encounter. Take extra care not just on our belongings but also ourselves. You cannot live twice so be mindful of our own safety.

It is also shown the respect they gave to their gods and laws. As a foreign to them, we may think its really weird but it shows how rich their culture is. That their people still practice this kind of behavior which is known to them. The impact of Greek mythologies left us amazed.Their art, culture, and literature will forever be part of our history. The hardwork they exert to put this all together shows.

[our-legacy-rp-blog]

DIVI has been accepted for the character LUELLA BARLOW

What a brilliant application, Divi! We were both in love with your writing and how well thought out your responses were for Luella; it shows that you’ve really considered her character, and I absolutely can’t wait for you to keep going and explore her further. Welcome to OL, and be sure you fill out the checklist HERE.

OOC name & pronouns: Divi (she/her)

Age:24

Timezone: EST

IC INFORMATION:

Character’s name: Luella Barlow

FC: Seychelle Gabriel

Position request: Beater (to stay in shape [use those arm muscles girl~!])

Birthday: November 5th. Scorpios are “resourceful, brave, passionate, stubborn, a true friend; distrusting, jealous, secretive, violent”.

Wand: 13”, Rowan wood with a phoenix feather core, supple flexibility.

Rowan wood has always been much-favoured for wands, because it is reputed to be more protective than any other, and in my experience renders all manner of defensive charms especially strong and difficult to break. It is commonly stated that no dark witch or wizard ever owned a rowan wand, and I cannot recall a single instance where one of my own rowan wands has gone on to do evil in the world. Rowan is most happily placed with the clear-headed and the pure-hearted, but this reputation for virtue ought not to fool anyone - these wands are the equal of any, often the better, and frequently out-perform others in duels.

This is the rarest core type. Phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn or dragon cores to reveal this. They show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord, a quality that many witches and wizards dislike. Phoenix feather wands are always the pickiest when it comes to potential owners, for the creature from which they are taken is one of the most independent and detached in the world. These wands are the hardest to tame and to personalise, and their allegiance is usually hard won.

Patronus: A wolf; slightly ironic considering her family. But she has the strength of a fighter, and fights for her family as loyal as a wolf with its pack. A wolf is a symbol of guardianship, ritual, loyalty, and spirit. She listens to her intuition first, although her strong sense of following her instincts can make her blinded and often be misguided at times. She can adapt to most situations, just as a wolf tracks its forest, no matter how dark the forest is. The patronus’ symbolism perhaps alludes to “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” - “playing a role contrary to their real character with whom contact is dangerous” ~ it takes an animal to kill an animal.

Boggart: A petrified version of herself. In other words, what she fears most of all is fear itself. In her family’s line of work, one moment of fear, even if it only matters for a second, could mean the end. You had to always be on your toes and never be afraid to leap forward regardless of the situation or what was laid out in front of you. Simply, she’s afraid of being a coward, afraid of allowing fear to stop her from living.

Headcanons:

Work hard and do what needs to be done. This is the core value of the Barlow family, one that Luella strongly believes in. How pure your blood is doesn’t matter in her eyes. She feels no ties to her “pureblood”, and makes no judgements on others based of this. She believes that any one, regardless of their family or status, can make a name for themselves as long as they work hard. She judges her fellow students based on their actions, and dislikes those who she sees as lazy or not doing anything with their lives, to a point where she belittles those with career paths that she doesn’t see benefit society.

Like mother, like daughter. Luella is the spitting image of her mother, enough that when she was a child and she would see images of her mother when she was her age, she would think it was images of herself. Even now as a teenager, El still receives many remarks from others on her likeness of her mother - minus the scars of course. This puts enormous pressure on Luella to be exactly like her mother - a high standard that she knows her own mother expects from her, and one that she may never achieve. This has influenced her resolve on her morales, beliefs, politics and her future - one that has been laid out of her whether she likes it or not.

Luella leads an active lifestyle. While her fellow classmates may be found in the library concentrating on their studies, El can be found running on the grounds of Hogwarts, rain or shine. As soon as she was able, she tried out of Quidditch as a means to an end - while she could really care less for the sport itself, she thought the training would help her accomplish her goal of staying in shape. Now, in her seventh year, she can at least appreciate the basic fundamentals of the sport, and while she may not share the same passion for Quidditch as her other teammates, El’s competitive nature makes her play just as hard as any of her mates in order to win.

History:

A society works by relying on a circle of service: everyone is only able to live in harmony when each person plays their role serving society. For some, it’s serving as a politician - for others, it’s working retail to provide goods or services. The Barlow’s provided a service that many in the wizarding world didn’t want to acknowledge or claim they wanted: the removal of werewolves. For centuries, werewolves had been a blight upon wizarding society, infecting countless numbers each year until their genes spread through the generations. They got better at hiding their tracks, but at the end of the day, a turned werewolf at the full moon is no more than a mindless animal - and that’s where the Barlow’s came in. Removing werewolves was, to them, a duty that they provided to society: a necessary task that they were willing to step up and perform when so many backed down. They tended to work alone, cold and methodical, though at times they would team up with other hunter families like the Parrishes to take down a pack.

The Barlow family trade was an open secret in pureblood circles, and after the London Riot, it was general knowledge that the Ministry was helping to fund the important work the Barlow’s were doing. With a few family members filling important seats in the Ministry - especially the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures - the Barlow’s business went legitimate. Heading the family was Celeste, a seasoned witch and hunter who had been tracking and killing werewolves since she was a child herself. Scars were trophies on her skin, worn with pride when she walked through Diagon or Knockturn Alley, bearing the brunt of the wizarding world’s whispers. She wasn’t ashamed, nor did she see a reason to hide - if anything, she thought people should be thanking her and the other Barlow’s for what they did.

But Celeste was no fool. After hearing of the Killick family’s extermination after coming out as anti-werewolf, the Barlow’s were more careful of who they confided in. They covered their own tracks well, becoming a supplier of werewolf parts: blood, fangs, or claws were always for sale, which helped to keep their hunts funded. No one asked where they got their supply, and the Barlow’s never volunteered the information. It helped that the laws were loose and full of loopholes that allowed the killing of werewolves to practically be sanctioned by the time Lowell Tegus became Minister, meaning Celeste and her family could continue their work.

Luella was her first and only child. A strong child, Celeste took pride in Luella from the first moment she saw her, pouring into her daughter the hopes, dreams, and future aspirations of the Barlow family. Though pure of blood, the Barlows held no notions of the heir’s gender: each Barlow was sacred as they were, cherished for their skills. From day one, Luella was the hope of the Barlow family: a new generation to take over the hunting business and keep passing it on. The arrival of Leland Killick - who Celeste adopted out of sympathy and pity - threw Luella, who had grown up believing herself to be an only child and enjoying the spotlight. The relationship was, at first, tense: Lee wouldn’t stop crying, and El was tired of hearing the boy cry for his mother. But the older they got, the closer they became - and more like siblings.

They were never best friends, what with Lee always besting El at her own family’s game, but there was kinship and loyalty there that had been forged through days of learning to track and hunt together. And with time, El didn’t see herself as an only child - Lee wasn’t a Barlow by blood or name, but he was still a Barlow. At times, though she loved him, El thought he did a better job than her of being a Barlow; she felt as though she couldn’t meet her mother’s high expectations, wasn’t quick enough with a solution to a problem, or fast enough at the training drills. She knew she was loved no matter what, but that knowledge made it all the harder for El to admit that she wasn’t as good as Lee - and maybe she never would be. Pouring her effort into the werewolf hunting cause, El grew up determined and frustrated: she tried hard, but she was always slower and less skilled than her brother, and by the time she went to Hogwarts, she felt uneasy with herself.

Hufflepuff was to be her home - a fine house, by her family’s appraisal - and she realised that it was a house that would help keep her dedicated and hard-working. El tried not to let Hogwarts make her complacent, and it was easy to remain on task when so many of the students around her were sympathetic supporters of the werewolves. Their blaise attitudes toward the death of wizarding society sickened her, and she more often than not found herself outnumbered in debates at the dinner table. Every time she was alienated, it only strengthened her conviction of what he family did - that if werewolves were gone, they would all be thanking her. Leaning heavily on Leander Parrish to commit to the cause - as well as rallying around her brother to stay true - El is someone who is dedicated and passionate about her family’s work, even if she isn’t sure of her place in that future.

Outspoken, emotional, and rash, El tends to speak from the heart rather than the mind. If she wants to say something, she will, even if she puts her foot in her mouth more often than not. El’s confidence is sometimes not always there, especially when she thinks about the future, but it’s not for lack of a foundation: her family remain supportive, though ignorant, of her confusion toward hunting. El trains hard to stay in shape while at Hogwarts, knowing the importance of being strong enough in a world where the enemy will always be stronger. El tends to rush into situations without thinking them through first, believing her perseverance will see her through; she’s talkative, flippant, and possessive, but only over the things she considers to be important.

Now: As her years at Hogwarts is coming to an end, the weight of Luella’s future grows heavier with each passing day. She is putting less and less effort into her schooling, concentrating only on her Defence Against the Dark Arts as she deems that the most important. It is more common now for her to skip classes to instead practice Quidditch or go for a run outdoors. She would rather spend time training her body than bury her nose in books; what good would that do in the real world - her world of hunting werewolves. Pushing herself harder than ever, El still feels her future is far out of each. She’ll never be strong enough, never be good enough or fast enough, to run the Barlow family business. She knows this; and this only pushes her to work harder to do what needs to be done. Sometimes, “when you hit your lowest point, you are open to the greatest change.”

Luella has gotten her fair share of challengers over the years. It is no secret where her beliefs are, as it is something that she wears clearly on her sleeve. While this has gotten her in very hot water with some of her fellow students, she does not actually hate the werewolf sympathizers. She instead feels sorry for them, and this only makes her want to help them see how naive they are. While she tells herself that her interactions with her fellow classmates are purely to sway them, she ignores her need to connect with others - something that she sees as a weakness. The closer she connects with someone, the harder it is to accept sometimes what needs to be done; for this reason, she has not make many strong connections, with the exception of Leland, and she intends to keep it this way.

[I want to concentrate on Luella’s very firm beliefs that have been outlined in her bio - whether this be her faith in her family (her mother or Lee if he is taken by another player), her future as a hunter, her view on werewolves… I am not sure as this will likely be determined by her interactions in the roleplay, which will also be a good thing to explore as her only ties at to Leland. All I know is that this will be a central theme in her character development that I would like to explore]

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: Reflections (Tafakkur): Islam and True Sense

Islam and Being Human in the True Sense

Question: You have stated that, “Islam, the All-Mighty Creator’s greatest and universal gift to all, can be actualized through being human in the true sense; the human is the spiritual index of all creation, by that which is made from the intellect, conscience, spirit, body, and the inner subtle faculties.” Could you elucidate this statement please?

Answer: Each of the points mentioned in the question, which constitute the different depths of the human, is a main strand with respect to understanding and explaining Islam.

Reasoning

We should consider reason first. Reason serves a function: to separate right from wrong, and beneficial from harmful. It can achieve these tasks if it is used properly under the guidance of the heart and spirit. However, rationalists regard reason as everything—and the neo-rationalists of our time give it priority even before the Qur’an and Sunnah. Unfortunately, in rejecting their extreme stance, some people denied reason completely. One extremism gave way to the opposite extremism. If we consider the general situation of the Islamic world today, it will be seen how reason is ignored, thus giving way to extremism of all kinds.

God created reason for an important wisdom. First and foremost, it is the basic condition for the responsibility of worship and servitude to God. Had humanity been deprived of the honor of being the object of Divine address, they would not have been endowed with the blessing of reason. God speaks to humans by virtue of possessing reason. In a way, He makes covenants with humans, because they are beings that possess reason. For example, He states in the Qur’an: “So always remember and make mention of Me (when service to Me is due), that I may remember and make mention of you (when judgment and recompense are due)” (al-Baqarah 2:152). “…Fulfill My covenant (which I made with you through your Prophets), so that I fulfill My covenant…” (al-Baqarah 2:40).

Understanding and practicing these commands depends on reason. The issue of whether God will take a person without reason to Paradise is not our subject here. However, it is thanks to reason that humanity is honored with being the object of Divine address and can understand and practice religious commandments; this point is very important in terms of understanding the place and value of reason in religion.

Besides these, the essential component of understanding what we see and hear is reason, too. Despite its incredible importance, there is a certain limit reason can reach. It is always prone to being mistaken. Therefore, it needs to be valued only as much as it merits. On the other hand, dismissing reason before letting it fulfill all of its functions means paralyzing some part of its mechanism or system. For this reason, it will not be possible for such a system to serve the function it is supposed to. A car that has all the parts but the gas pedal will not move. Similarly, the general system possessed by a human being will be paralyzed without the functioning of reason, which is among the significant components of the system.

Conscience

Conscience is another foundation of this system. In The Damascus Sermon, Bediuzzaman states that conscience has four elements: emotion, willpower, consciousness, and the latifa Rabbaniyya—the spiritual faculty that senses God directly. Latifa Rabbaniyya, or spiritual intellect, has different depths, such as sirr (secret), khafi (hidden), which pertains to the glorified Divine Attributes (God knows the best), and akhfa (the most hidden), which we can define as the horizons of seeking the Divine Essence or God Almighty Himself. The fact that unlettered people like us are unaware of these issues does not serve as evidence for their non-existence; because the people who did journey through those horizons informed us of these attributes with their spiritual experiences.

Coming together all of these components make up the mechanism of the conscience; they result in what is called “hads,” which is a sudden, intuitive grasp of reality, as pointed out by Bediuzzaman. You can also call it the inner sense, inner evaluation, or inner analysis. By means of this, a person sieves through what happens in the outer realm and comprehends it correctly. However, even if one of these components of the conscience is neglected, one will fail to effectuate the conscience thoroughly. Eliminating the mechanism of conscience, which is a very important pillar of the human nature, means paralyzing a person. In such a case, a person will not have a very good skeleton, material structure, or the like.

Spirit

Spirit is also one of the important pillars of human nature. It is a system beyond the spiritual intellect. While describing the course of spiritual journeying, saintly persons said that one advances from the spiritual intellect to the spirit, which is a Divine emanation. In terms of being a Divine breath, it is a fresh bestowal sent to us from the realm of Divinity. We are sensed, known, seen, and protected by means of it. It is a trust that actually belongs to God. Therefore, leaping up from the Spiritual Intellect to the horizons of the spirit is first of all an expression of respect for this Divine breath God entrusted to us. At the same time, this is a matter of a person’s horizons. Only those who ascend to the horizons of the spirit can sense that it is of Divinity. It is an important rank, especially to effectuate the spiritual intellect; however, those who keep toddling in this level and fail to ascend to the horizon of the spirit will not be able to sense much about such a Divine quality.

Body

Here we also add these the body, the material aspect of humanity. As the systems like reason, conscience, heart, and spirit, which constitute the spiritual side of the human are very important, the body, which constitutes the material side, also has separate importance of its own. Above all, being able to observe worship for God, and observing the acts like Prayer, fasting, and Hajj, depend on making these systems work correctly. As we are not really aware of the exact otherworldly returns of observing Prayer, reciting verses from the Qur’an, and other good deeds, we similarly do not know the otherworldly returns of utilizing them for the respective purposes they were created for. As we learn from the noble Prophet’s sayings, the Prayer observed impetuously without giving it its due will be a means of reproach and shame beyond the grave. On the other hand, when the same Prayer is observed in compliance with the proper conditions and requirements, it will be a pleasant companion that will not let the person down during the journey to the next world.

With all acts of worship you observe besides your Prayer, you will be disciplining your body at the same time. Even though acts of worship have certain physical or anatomical benefits, they were not decreed on account of such wisdoms. On the contrary, they were decreed in order to make a person eligible for Paradise so they could gain eternal bliss therein, have the honor of beholding God, and attain a state with which God will be well pleased. Although acts of worship such as Prayer, fasting, and the Zakah alms have certain benefits pertaining to the worldly life and disciplining the self, their true returns will be in the Hereafter.

In terms of being a means for a person’s attaining all of these graces in the Hereafter, the body is one of the most important Divine blessings to human. The emphasis that it is a blessing was first made with Prophet Adam, peace be upon him. God commanded angels to prostrate before Adam, and all of the angels did so, except for Satan, who made a haughty refusal to obey this command by giving in to egotism. Spirit beings and angels saw the immensity in Adam, they acted with insightful obedience to the command, and thus prostrated themselves. This evoked respect in their spirits for the body of Adam. To reiterate a fact I expressed in different talks, had prostration been permissible before anybody else other than God, it would have been for humanity, a wonder of creation with respect to our bodily and spiritual structure.

In terms of their nature, angels have insightful obedience to commands. They also have knowledge of Divine mysteries, have access to the realm of Malakut, and can be present in some thousand different places simultaneously. Still, they cannot properly sense the properties of the material world. It is for this reason that they were surprised at a strange creature like the human and they said, “Will you set therein one who will cause disorder and corruption on it and shed blood?” (al-Baqarah 2:30). The human is a being teeming with feelings such as lust, selfishness, boasting, and rage, and thus is prone to committing evil acts. However, by being able to subordinate all of these to Divine commands, he or she can ascend to the level of being a favorable, beloved, and laudable servant of God. God creates goodness via these relevant evils. The angels could not know this side of humanity. In terms of both his spiritual and bodily structure, and together with the interaction between these two, the human gains meanings that cannot be expressed by books.

In sum, understanding Islam with its true identity, depth, and immensity, as well as practicing it and telling about it, can only be possible by using the human nature properly without neglecting any aspect of it. As humanity’s reason, spirit, and body were created for particular wisdoms, each must be used in accordance with the purpose they were created for; because if a person neglects even one of these, it will not be possible for them to thoroughly fulfill the responsibility he has undertaken.

[hellyeahheroes]

Characters That Need To Be In Young Justice S3, Part 1: Here Comes a New Challenger!

As The new Season of Young Justice is getting closer and closer to actually seeing the light of day, I thought of characters that would be good to see in it and, if we’ll be graced with such thing, following season. Of course what initially was supposed to be a short list simply exploded into a colossal one that will require at least few posts to cover. In this part I’ve decided to take a look not as the core cast themselves but rather characters that could in some way provide a challenge to them - be it as rival hero groups they come into conflict with for various reasons, antiheroes that supposedly have the same goals but take things too far or straight-out villains to beat. So without further delay, let us get right into it

Number Ten: Lord Havok & the Extremists

When it comes to obscure villains few things strike out like an entire supervillain team based on characters from your biggest competition. Marvel has both parodied and homaged DC multiple times with various incarnations of Squadron Supreme, while DC has the Extremists - an entire team “inspired” by iconic Marvel supervillains. They come from another world and their goal is less world domination but the extermination of heroes and domination for the protection - as their world has been destroyed, they have decided it was the heroes who were responsible. So now they aim to save another world from the same fate. By conquering it and eliminating heroes one by one.

A team of varied antagonists, at least some of which are extremely powerful, who do not play by the rules of heroes and villains game and are lead by megalomaniacal mastermind based on Doctor Doom would certainly upset the balance of power between the heroes and the Light, forcing both side to adapt or even team up to take them down before they can resume their own spy game.

Speaking of Extreme measures....

Number Nine: Manchester Black

I have mentioned it in the past that I’m not actually a fan of Superman story “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice And American Way?” or animated movie “Superman vs the Elite” it is based on. However, I can respect the villainous potential of Manchester Black. A British thug with incredible telepathic and telekinetic powers he what would happen if you gave Jean Grey power set to Frank Castle. Only, you know, British. While he usually sticks to antagonizing Superman and obsessively trying to turn him to break his vows and start killing the villains, lately he seems to have turned towards corrupting younger generation in his image. And that’s a role that would be extremely resonant in series like Young Justice. Heroes of this world already have strayed a bit too close to certain lines, especially during the second season. Seeing how the next season will likely continue diving into spy stories in superhero world, these lines might get blurry again. Even without somebody like Manchester with his twisted black and white sense of morality whispering in your ear.

While the obvious choice would have him go after Superboy, I think he would actually play a good antagonist to Miss Martian as well. Not only is she in need for a decent telepath to challenge her since I think everyone is just done with Psimon, but she had a history of going too far with her powers or using them too recklessly, something that caused her a great deal of grief. Not only that would make her a perfect target to somebody like Black but it would make him a warning sign of what lies at the end of this road and what kind of person it could turn her into.

Fun fact: Manchester was loosely based on Jenny Sparx, leader of team the Authority from Wildstorm comics, whose characters are now not only owned by DC but a part of their Universe. One of Wildstorm’s most popular stories was the Sleeper, which featured our next spot on the list

Number Eight: T.A.O

Because when the Tactically Augmented Organism looked at life, he saw only chaos and order. And humanity's denial of chaos appalled him. So he would tear it all down and fill the whole world with chaos, if only to watch mankind cling to their illusions as they burned around them...would he destroy the world at the same time? It's certainly a possibility.

T.A.O. or Tactically Augmented Organism is an interesting villain being a human basically grew in a lab and possessing both incredibly high intelligence and a compelling voice he uses to plant ideas he wants into people’s heads. He started supposedly on the good guy’s side, but have turned out to secretly been manipulating good guys and bad guys alike into starting a war among superhumans and countless destruction, just because he could. He turns out to have an extremely misanthropic worldview and likes the idea of overthrowing existing status quo in favor of chaos. He built his own villain empire just for that purpose. This all makes him perfect an antagonist in the type of story Young Justice is operating on. He could easily have started as an ally, only to turn out to try and “spice things up” between the Team and the light. Or he could be working with the latter, as he fits their “mastermind” style like a glove. He would also provide an interesting contrast for Superboy, seeing how they both were artificially created by scientists, yet turned out as total opposites.

And if we touch upon providing a contrast, let’s stay in WIldstorm corner for a moment.

Number Seven: Apollo & Midnighter

One of the advantages of jumping to a new online service is supposed to be that Young Justice can now show more LGTBQ characters. So I say, let them put their money where their mouths are and bring in one of the more popular gay couples in DC - a pair of antiheroes, Apollo and Midnighter. Due to their background, they could fit easily into the black ops feel the show is trying to have and they would also provide a contrast to the Team in a way similar, but less extreme than Black. These guys don’t play around if they have to kill a villain, they will. But they don’t actively go trying to enforce their way on others, but that would only present a dilemma to the team - can they afford to leave these two to their own devices? Or maybe they are worth having around, in case there were lines to be crossed?

We’ll stay in Wildstorm part of DC for one more group to visit.

Number Six: The DV8

Some might be surprised I’m bringing up them over Gen 13, heroic group of teenagers on the run from evil government conspiracy. But honestly, Young Justice already had a group that fits a similar niche in their Runaways. And while it would be fun to have Gen 13 around, they are, how Warren Ellis put it, kids you look at and you know they wash their teeth three times a day. Their antagonists on the other hand....

DV8 or Deviants consist of a team of 8 superpowered teenagers - Threshold, Bliss, Frostbite, Sublime, Copycat, Powerhaus, Freestyle and Evo. What makes them different from other teen supervillain teams is that these guys are mercenaries. Working for ruthless and ambitious Ivana Baiul they take on black ops mission for whoever is paying and whatever is advancing her ambitions. And that’s what makes them so appealing - because there might be situations where they will be hired to oppose the Team but in other instances, they might have to join forces towards the same goal, at least for a while. Plus some of DV8 members had shown shades of moral ambiguity so they could have a potential to turn good.

And in case somebody would say I’m crapping on Gen 13 for being heroic, let us leave Wildstorm to go take a look at another team.

Number Five: The Movement

Created by Gail Simone and Freddie Williams II, the Movement is a team of teenage superheroes who try to take on more “grounded” problems than supervillains. The movement is a team of young activists and disfranchised - Virtue, Mouse, Vengeance Moth, Tremor, Burden, Katharsis and Rainmaker -  who, to use Gail Simone’s own words  "all have reason to be mad at the system, which hasn't protected them or even tolerated them".

And this is precisely why I want them in Young Justice. Moving to a different network and being able to tackle more mature themes is a perfect opportunity to bring in the Movement. This is a team who is mad at the system, yes, but clearly idealistic and good-natured and they help people were official services cannot. This is something that I feel is often good if not outright necessary to have in stories taking so much from the spy genre’s handbook. The Team has risked and lost a lot and even did few things they might not be proud of in defense of the status quo. It’s about time somebody showed up to make them question if the status quo is actually worth all of this as it is or if they as superheroes cannot do something to also improve it. And the Movement is a perfect team to challenge them on that level instead of some unnecessary battles.

No, that we can leave to the next position on the list

Number Four: The Blood Syndicate

Young Justice was not shy of using characters from late Dwayne McDuffie’s Milestone Media imprint - that’s where they got Icon, Rocket and Static from after all. Well, how about one of their more controversial creations, even at the time. Blood Syndicate is not a team. They’re a gang. A gang of individuals who all gained superpowers in the same incident and now band together. Consisting of several characters like Wise Son, Brickhouse, DMZ, Tech-9, Dogg, Boogieman, Aquamaria, Fade, Masquerade, Flashback, Third Rail, Oro Kwai or (I kid you not) Holocaust. While a gang and very angry at everyone for what happened to them, they could easily be used to be opponents for the Team. But they also have at least some moral ambiguity and conflicting goals and dreams and at least few could potentially turn on the side of angels, while the others...well, I see no reason why Holocaust couldn’t be a big threat on his own as he was upon leaving the Syndicate in the comics, only now working with the Light.

So far there was at best some moral ambiguity connected to most if not all of the mentioned examples. How about some very heroic group next? 

Number Three: The Justice League of China

China’s attempt at beat Americans at their own game and create their own, improved version of its most well-known superheroes resulted in a team of teenagers bearing the names of Super-Man, Bat-Man, Wonder-Woman and Flash of China. They are at heart idealistic and deeply heroic, even if still rather inexperienced. That means they not only provide contrast to the Team (double than China’s other superhero team, the Great Ten, due to being teenagers themselves) but it might be very easy to set them as rivals trying to prove themselves or have them go into conflict with the Team, would one of their missions involve messing around on Chinese territory. And they also add a bit of world building as a whole, show that it’s not only the Justice League and the Light who are in the race for domination on the superhuman scene.

Let us not leave China too soon as there is a certain another character from there I wanted to bring up.

Number Two: Lady Shiva and League of Shadows

With the death of Ras Al Ghul (assuming he’s going to stay dead as, well, this is Ras we’re talking here about) it is a perfect opportunity to bring more focus on his League of Assassins and how it adapted and developed without their immortal leader. And Lady Shiva with her more extremist offshoot of the organization, the Lague of Shadow, designed to for most exists only as an urban legend might be a very good for just that. Leading more dangerous part of the League, maybe breaking out of the Light and even turning against them, trapping the Team between the two organizations. Not to mention that Shiva herself is a deadly oponnent that deserves to be able to showcase her skill in animation.

And if we’re touching on the League of Assassins

Number One: the Demon’s Fist

Lead by Ras’ granddaughter, Mara Al Ghul, Demon’s Fist is a fairly new addition to DC Universe, yet still an interesting one. A team of superpowered children - Nightstorm, Stone, Plague and Blank - kidnapped at birth, raised and trained to be assassins and servants of Ras. They never knew they were deceived nd once they found out, turned against their former master. But how could that story play in young Justice? Maybe with Ras dead, they will aid Mara in her efforts to seize grandfather’s position for herself? Or maybe they discover the League has been using them and ask the Team to help them get out? There are multiple possibilities to consider, which is what makes this team so interesting.

If there is a character who didn’t make it to the list, fear not - this is merely part one out of at least 3 DC Unvierse is rich and ripe with characters that would make a great addition to Young Justice, a single top 10 would not do them all justice. And when you look at the final two entries of this list, you can probably guess which corner of DCU we will visit next

- Admin

[netherwar-rpg-blog]

Welcome to the Wardens, Lash! Your application for THE PRODIGY has been accepted with a Sean Teale FC.

The application can be found under the cut. You have 48 hours to create a roleplay account (cannot be a sideblog) for your character and we will be updating our opening date soon!

O O C - I N F O

Name: Lash

Age: 24

Timezone: Eastern Standard

Activity Level: I will be as active as possible. I work M-F 6-4.

Extra: N/A

S K E L E T O N - I N F O

T H E - B A S I C S

Title: The Prodigy

Name: Khal Asra

Gender: Male

Age: 28

Class: Rogue

Faceclaim: Sean Teale (this might change later I am not sure)

C H A R A C T E R - D E T A I L S

Nationality:

Carnish

Appearance:

Khal is always stern, perfect posture and arms crossed. It is his strict upbringing that has made him so unaffected. He feels nothing and he needs nothing. He seldom smiles or laughs unless he is making a joke or genuinely amused. He is not the type to laugh as drunkards sing merry songs or grunt their filthy jokes. He barely even drinks. He must remain on hundred percent dedicated to his mission and this entails sobriety.

He is twenty-eight but wise beyond those years. Growing up on the streets made boys into men. The boys who refused to grow up were found with knives in their bellies. He has been in his share of fights over the years, scraps is a better term. Khal knows now that a true fight ends in death. He has scars along his knuckles from his days of thieving. He took the blame away from her, the girl who is a shred of memory. Most of the scares are hard for him to recall but that doesn’t make them any less present. Khal dresses in dark clothing. He is never without his black hood that conceals his handsome features in shadow. Khal’s identity is sacred so he takes great care in concealing his features. He is fond of long sleeves in the summer months, thin flexible fabric that hugs his muscled arms allows him to stay cool and still conceal himself. He has a branded symbol on his ribs beneath his arm that marks him as the prodigy though most would never understand it’s meaning. His weapons are blades. He loves the proximity to the kill as much as he loves pleasing his master. To feel the blood spill at his hands excites him. The twin blades are poised at his back in an X. Two daggers, one in each boot, and a curved blade adorn his garb but the Twins are his first choice. They were specifically designed for him by the smiths of his Master. They are his most prized possession. Khal keeps his facial hair neatly trimmed, not many have the privilege of gazing at him to appreciate his impeccable grooming. Khal keeps his body in top shape. Every day he faces a regiment of cardio, strength, and weapons training. Martial Arts are his second language. He is always clean and well kept. As far as women are concerned, he has a certain appeal. He is attractive and he knows this. He enjoys the sport of captivating a woman to the point of her eating out of his palm. His arrogance is not a virtue but a flaw that the Master has desperately tried to beat from him.

Personality:

+ Observant + Meticulous + Patient

- Arrogant – Unemotional – Introverted

C H A R A C T E R - B A C K G R O U N D

History:

Khal grew up on the streets without much of anything. His mother was an assassin and his father was unknown. A bastard boy raised by the street’s cold embrace but he was never alone; his only friend, a girl his own age who saw him as more than just a street urchin, whose name he can barely recall. His mind has been brainwashed to forget it all, how to feel and how to laugh. She is a hazy memory now. His mother was never around when he was young. She was always out taking lives instead of providing for his. Once he was weaned from her breast she was a ghost to him. Vana was all that he had. Together they made the streets their home. Anything they could steal they would. He used to be light-hearted and free then. Vana was his only redeeming quality. They were both hardened by the harshness of the underworld but somehow they managed to build a friendship. Khal trusted her and she trusted him. He would find himself devoted to protecting her even though she could hold her own. There was never anything beyond a friendship. He was never in love with her or anything of that lustful nature. She was his friend and that was plenty. When She was taken away he was heartbroken. They were sleeping when he was awoken by the situation. He was normally a light sleeper but tonight he had slept so soundly. He was almost drunk when he attempted to chase them. They disappeared into the shadows of the city and Khal was left stumbling around. Half-dressed and dazed. He screamed her name over and over for weeks. A nightmare that became a reality, part of his life had been mercilessly separated from his soul. Many nights after he relived the drunk stupor that had inhibited his ability to maneuver the shadows, to save her. The shadows would surround him and suck the life from him. His vision blurred and he would see her face. She would scream and plead for him to save her but he would be paralyzed. Khal was forced to battle this and finally he repressed it. Now he was stern and emotionless. Shortly after she was taken he was chosen to become the Master’s Prodigy. There were rules he had to follow. He must be physically capable and emotionally capable. These rules were enforced without mercy. Khal cut his ties to everything. He became something else. He adopted a new name to separate him from his Assassin mother and bastard father. Khal became Khal Asra. It means travel by night, a fitting name for his new identity. The Prodigy must never reveal who he is. The purpose of a shadow is to conceal the darkest deed from humanity. Humanity needs the Dark Union to handle the deeds that they themselves are repulsed by. That was his teachings. He was a shadow; no one and everyone, faceless. The transition was his finest hour. That day when his Master looked him in the eye and was finally at peace with his decision was the proudest he had ever been. He was arrogant at first but soon learned that arrogance would be his downfall. His Master had beaten it out of him but it is still dormant within him. Now that he is one with the shadows his attitude is far less inviting. He has become cold and unfeeling toward everything. He was now the perfect weapon but he must be tested. There have been rumors that his mother had been with the Master and he himself was the product. His mother expressed great pride in knowing that her son was the prodigy and now she was dead. Deep down Khal knew that she had to be killed and he knew that his Master had ensured it. She likely knew what was happening before the poison was ever delivered. His mother had been the final sacrifice in his journey to power. He had buried her long ago and his Master completed his act. He knew the Master had her killed. This created no ill will or anger. Khal knows that the Master knows best. He is his father now, he always has been. Khal knows not that his father is The Master but that fact is that this has always been his destiny. Now The Master has called upon Khal for a final trial, a quest of unwavering importance. He must infiltrate the Wardens. Khal knew from many rumors that Vana was there. The Master knew this as well. His reservations were a disappointment to him but Khal could not and would not fail him. Know that Vana is there has been a true test of his loyalty. He has put her aside for so long that he will have no trouble forgetting their years together. He must not tie himself to her again or she will cause him to fail. The Wardens believe he is there to serve the people. He is gifted and Vana is unintimidated by him. It is an easy web of lies to spin. The ties to Vana have only been severed on one end, his. Will he continue to serve his destiny or will Vana break down his walls of cold steel? The true question is what destiny will lead him to greater power? Reason for joining the Wardens: He is on a Mission from his Master. He has lied and insisted on the most sincerest reasons to all others.

R O L E P L A Y - S A M P L E

“In life there are endless opportunities journey toward your destiny; in death it is finally achieved.” The Master’s ideals were now Khal’s. The only other sound was the gasping of His dying mother sprawled upon the cobblestone courtyard. Her eyes were no longer his. There was no reflection in them to signal the presence of a soul. She was fading fast, a shadow. Since Khal was her only living relative he wouldbe charged with her final arrangements. The Master had slipped away into the safety of the shadows but Khal had no problem sticking around a while longer. The sun had just begun its accent and it had been too long since he had felt its kiss. He would be feeling it much more now that he was to begin his journey to the Warden’s domain. His first priority would be disposing of this body. Her features were not as he remembered them. She looked like she had fallen victim to intoxication. There were no markings on her. She wore the tradition dark garb of an assassin but it seemed she had not been the only assassin in the courtyard. “Your destiny has been fulfilled. Your son is destined to bring The Dark Union Power.” Khal was kneeling beside her, gently combing his fingers through her hair as he whispered the words to whisk her away. In his moment of loss he could only relate to his thirst for dominance and power. No grief, no tears, no anger; it was understood that the Rogues lived and died as quickly as they were conceived. He felt nothing other than the thrumming of his charismatic heart. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, she was still fairly warm. She spoke little but the words were thought provoking. “My son of shadows, “ her lips quivered but she shed no tears on the brink of death. It was the only claim she had ever laid to him. He never felt any pull toward her, no bonds of mother to son that could penetrate his unwavering desire to bury her and move on. She was at peace with it. It almost seemed that she had invited death to her doorstep for one last, symbolic meeting. “You mustn’t speak. Allow me to end this for you. It seems your assassin has used the wrong dose of fatal elixir.” Khal pulled her into his arms knowing that this was his test. Could he rid himself of his own mother without batting an eye? He held her tightly to his chest as he wrapped his arm across her chest and twisted her head into an unnatural angle. “My test is complete and you are free.” Khal whispered as he dropped his grip on her lifeless frame. He felt something but he always did when he ended a life.

[stevefeythewriter]

American Conservatism

New Post has been published on http://stevefey.com/LivefromLV/2019/10/28/american-conservatism/

American Conservatism

Two Cats to Soothe Your Eyes

In an Earlier Post, I wrote about racism and its origins. Among other things, it is noteworthy that prior to enslaving Africans, Europeans never mentioned race at all. There were people in other places with dark skin, but that was as far as it went, because, who cared? Nobody. No reason to. Once you start doing wrong by people, though, you need to justify your actions to yourself. Enter race. The “Black Race” is clearly inferior, or else how could the “White Race” have enslaved them? Obviously, some serious genetic deficiencies are evident in the world. This was the worldview upon which the United States of America was founded. Even dour New Englanders were okay with other races being inferior to the “White Race.” They just didn’t think that this justified enslaving them. And, of course, we did benefit as a nation. Those slaves were instrumental in building the nation, whether they ever get credit for it or not. We eliminated slavery with our Civil War, but not the idea of racial superiority. Our laws covering cocaine, for instance, stem from an instance where somebody in Georgia axe murdered his family. He was “black,” and so the New York Times editorialized about “protecting our Negro brethren.” Yes, the New York Times. I once saw a post extolling the virtues of Ray Charles’s song, “Seven Spanish Angles,” in which the writer noted how Ray was backing up Willie Nelson on the piece. Trouble is, as Willie could tell you, Willie was backing up Ray, but the writer assumed the opposite, because, well, “Blacks” are inferior in every way, right? (Ray’s first gig was with a country band, for the record.)

So, what does this mean for Conservatives? Well, traditionally, America has benefited from a bogus structure of racism. It has allowed “White” people to enjoy tremendous prosperity, all the while they can not notice the underlying support they’re getting from “inferior” races. So, what Conservatives want to return to, to Make America Great Again, is simply the former mindless acceptance of a structure that suppressed a lot of minority people to the benefit of “White” people. In short, what Conservatives want to conserve is good old European-American racism. It’s really that simple. So when the current Republican leadership is accused of being racist, well, they are. No getting around it. Of course, there is a huge fly in the ointment of traditional racism.

That is that the game is up. As of a few months from now, there will be more “non-white” children in the United States than “white” children. (If you’re wondering about all the quotation marks, read my earlier post.) In another generation, those who insist on the superiority of the “White Race” are going to be seriously outnumbered. Fine with me, because I live in Clark County, Nevada, which is already a majority minority county. “White” folks have a plurality, but they cannot blindly dictate policy any more. The irony of the situation is that Vegas was once the “Mississippi of the West,” due to the extreme segregationist policies enforced here. Sammy Davis Junior had to go into the resort through the kitchen before presenting his sold-out shows. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. It can’t be, even though there are still plenty of people here who probably wish it could be. But, how could it?

The game being up explains the fierce following of MAGA folks. And I’m not calling them bad people, or stupid either, because bad and stupid people are everywhere. I am calling them victims of a centuries-old scheme of racism combined with a skillful application of populist propaganda. Too bad for them, really.

We could just wait it out and let things sort themselves out, of course. But the damage could be quite substantial to our institutions, prestige, and economic vigor. So, my advice is that all of us who see things for what they  are get out there next year and vote those people out. Don’t start fighting over ideological purity, just put up someone we can all at least tolerate for a few years, and vote them out. Please!