#their oppressors go ‘see? we told you they were animals’

[tanadrin]

What response would you recommend to people attacking shipping? For that matter, what response would you recommend to Hamas doing that thing they did last October, which everyone has decided didn't happen and wouldn't matter if it did? I don't think the current response is good, but the alternative being offered is literally "roll over and die."

We are so far past a reasonable response to what Hamas did in October that “well what would you have done?” feels like a question that’s in extraordinarily bad faith, whether or not you mean it that way. A policy genuinely aimed at preventing massacres like the one in October starts with not illegally occupying territory, stalling a peace process indefinitely, and persistently dehumanizing and abusing a large civilian population—by the time we’re asking “how do you respond to a group like Hamas attacking civilians” we are already in the realm of abject policy failures, because a group like Hamas only exists because of Israeli policies. An honest response would be something like “fundamentally reassess our approach to Palestine.”

But if Israel has the kind of politics, and Netanyahu was the kind of leader, capable of doing that, it’s hard to imagine things getting this bad in the first place. This is one reason it’s important to put pressure on governments like the UK and US to criticize Israel’s actions, because the push for restraint is not going to come from within Israeli politics.

[manicpixieyandere]

The League of Villains

Society and Quirks

So we just finished binging all of MHA and read the remaining chapters of the manga. And damn we did not expect the League of Villains to be some of our favorite characters to ever grace this Earth! But it's kinda unfortunate the franchise the ended up in. Let's talk about that!

First let's start by talking about the LoV and what quirks represented for them. In MHA it's quite common for quirks to be used as allegories for different kinds of marginalization.

Heteromorphs like Spinner are a representation of racism.

Toga's quirk is a representation of how she loves someone and how society deems that love "wrong". Toga is shown to love both boys and girls. People beg her to "just be normal". She is obviously queer.

Dabi's body was not made to deal with his own quirk. This reads as being born disabled. He also has the common disabled experience of being told to forget his dreams and aspirations.

Twice's double quirk and the trauma that came from it lead to him developing dissociative identity disorder.

Some in the LoV were also marginalized / had a rough start without anything to do with their quirks.

Magne is a trans woman.

Mr. Compress comes from a family lineage of criminals.

Shigaraki is a League of Legends player.

(No but seriously this poor kid was abused and manipulated his whole life).

Speaking of which a lot of the LoV were abused and / or neglected as children. Most of the shit Shigaraki went through was due to All For One, but it's not like his bio dad was stellar either. We all know Endeavor gets the worst dad of the year award for how he raised Toya, but Dabi also got the AFO manipulation to a degree as well. Toga's parents were neglectful and verbally abusive.

All of this is to say; The LoV members clearly had a rough life. But they found a family in each other! They all cared for each other in their own way! Twice and Toga were very close and would take care of each other. Dabi burns down Toga's childhood home. Spinner and Shigaraki bond over video games and were genuine friends. Compress takes care of everyone and saves them. Everyone is sad when Magne and Twice die.

All of this leads to this beautiful line from Shigaraki:

He wanted to be their hero. He wanted to destroy the world not just for his own urges, but to make the world a better place for his friends, for the LoV. But did he succeed, even a little bit?

Wellll... The hero society that doomed them all is still going well and thriving. The most change to come out of their mission was a bigger focus on quirk counseling. This is definitely important but it is not the only thing that needed to change. And it only changed because of ONE PERSON. The ONE person who showed empathy for Toga. Ochaco is the one to implement this change, but she is only one person. She cannot change the entire world on her own.

This is where we just can't get past the clear biases in the writing of MHA. The villains are not treated fairly. For example the heroes get off scott free with practically EVERYTHING. Bakugo dies? Just kidding! Oh the condition for him coming back to life was now Edgeshot has to die? Nah he's fine too. Deku had an entire arc about wanting to save Shigaraki when no one else agreed, only for him to kill him in the end. And after killing him it's not like he implemented changes to help prevent whoever the next Shigaraki is gonna be. The cycle will continue until changes are made.

So as you can see there is clear favoritism in the writing. And that is something that tends to be an issue whenever you have a plot device such as quirks that represent marginalization and you have villains who are trying to fight their oppressors. Let's look at a few examples!

For animation fans an example that leaves a bitter taste in our mouth is The Dragon Prince's dark magic. Dark magic is something that is seen as corrupt but also explained to be a way for humans to have magic to fight their oppressors as they were seen as less than since they had no magic. But dark magic is also used as an allegory for drugs and addiction, so it gets messy.

For the superhero fans let's look at The Boys. Supes are a complete mess. You have them representing conservatives and cops in an "all supes are bastards way" while also having them as a marginalized race in danger of being genocided. You can't have both.

Both of these examples show messy allegories in fantasy where rising against your oppressors is painted as wrong and the marginalized are also seen in a negative light due to some other component of their fantasy (drugs and cops respectively). MHA falls into the same trap with its villains. They're fighting their oppressors. They are oppressed due to their quirks just being who they are, but those quirks also lead to violent murderous urges (decay and transform most of all). It ends up creating a scenario where you teach the audience that it's bad to rise against your oppressors, it's bad to want change.

So what could they have done differently? Without completely redoing the quirk fantasy, the simplest answer would be to REDO THE SYSTEM! They hinted many times in the series it needed to change somehow and just never did. Normal civilians even wanted it changed, not just the villains! But it just doesn't change. They needed to put more focus on that push not just from the villains but from the innocent civilians as well to prove it's something that needed to change. But it never will. It's fiction and the book is closed.

But just because it's fictional doesn't mean it doesn't represent real world events. The story teaches negative things about marginalization and how we should never make a stand. It's like telling all the women right now in America to not be angry their anatomy and rights are being taken away from them. It's telling those women to love the man who is doing this to them. It's telling queer people to just accept they can't get married or transition anymore. It's telling us there is nothing to be done. But remember that isn't true! If you keep fighting things could change. It unfortunately may not be in your lifetime, but at least we can try to make things better for the future generations so no one has to hurt like the LoV did, like real people do today.

[untitledmemes]

Dune: Part One Prompts

Part I An assortment of prompts taken from the movie Dune: Part One (2021). Adjust as necessary to fit pronoun and/or descriptor. In case of Multimuse, don't forget to specify which one/s. Reblog, please do not repost or add.

“ Dreams are messages from the deep. ”

“ Their cruelty to my people is all I've known. ”

“ Who will our next oppressors be? ”

“ It's good you're up early. ”

“ Why do we have to go through all of this when it's already decided? ”

“ If you want it, make me give it to you. ”

“ There is no call we do not answer, there is no faith we betray. ”

“ I'd like you to take me with you. ”

“ Can I trust you with something? ”

“ It felt like if I had been there, you'd be alive. ”

“ You're not taking me seriously. ”

“ Dreams make good stories, but everything important happens when you're awake because that's when we make everything happen. ”

“ I've been training my whole life. What is the point if I can't face an actual risk? ”

“ I need you by my side. ”

“ I told my father I didn't want this either. ”

“ A great man doesn't seek to lead. He's called to it, and he answers. ”

“ I found my own way to it. Maybe you'll find yours. ”

“ Don't stand with your back to the door. ”

“ The slow blade penetrates the shield. ”

“ You fight when the necessity arises, no matter the mood. ”

“ I see you found the mood. ”

“ You don't understand the grave nature of what's happening to us. ”

“ Don't be too sure it's an act of love. ”

“ When if a gift not a gift? ”

“ Defiance in the eyes. Like his father. ”

“ An animal caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg to escape. What will you do? ”

“ I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings obliteration. I'll face my fear and I'll permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn to the inner eye and see its path. And where the fear is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ”

“ If you had been unable to control your impulses, like an animal, we could not let you live. ”

“ You inherit too much power. ”

“ Do you often dream things that happen just as you dreamed them? ”

“ Did you have to go that far? ”

“ Do you see so little hope? ”

“ How does it feel to walk on a new world? ”

“ Don't be fooled by the welcome. ”

“ Let's get you out of the sun. The heat can kill in this place. ”

“ They see what they've been told to see. ”

“ If you mean to harm me, I must warn you that whatever you're hiding, it won't be enough. ”

“ When you have lived with a prophecy this long, the moment of revelation is a shock. ”

“ Sire, I failed you today. There's no excuse. ”

“ It must never be known. ”

“ Thanks for the humiliation, old man. ”

“ I have never come so close to dying. ”

“ I respect the personal dignity of anyone that respects mine. ”

“ I believe your people and mine have much to offer one another. ”

“ Name what you want. If it's in my power to grant, I'll give it and ask for nothing. ”

“ Honor requires that I be elsewhere. ”

“ You have good eyes. ”

“ If we take one step out there, we're as good as dead. ”

“ I recognize your footsteps, old man. ”

“ Everything they left us is in shambles. We've been set up to fail. ”

“ I had a vision. My eyes were wide open. ”

“ You can't know that. I barely know that. ”

“ I trusted you completely. Even when you walked in shadows. ”

“ Why are you having these thoughts? This is not you. ”

“ I thought we'd have more time. ”

“ Why don't we just cut their throats? ”

“ Don't! You are not ready. ”

“ For hundreds of years, we've run blood for blood. But no more. ”

“ Here I am. Here I remain. ”

“ I am commanded to say nothing. To see nothing. ”

“ Tell me, please. What do you fear? ”

“ Somebody help me, please. ”

“ You know who you are. ”

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

I remember when I was talking to someone about a book character (who shall remain nameless bc I don't want opinions on that character messing up my point), and I said "from an outside perspective they look like a murderer" and they told me that 'from an outside perspective' is a technique oppressors use to show the victims as the bad guys. And it's true. From an outside perspective the character I was talking about looked like the bad guy. But they were only defending themselves from people who tried to kill them.

You're absolutely right. Context is always going to be important because people don't live in a vacuum.

Sure Palestine may look like the villain, if you strip the context behind the HAMAS attack, the hostages, etc,

But if you remember that Hamas was an organisation made initially by Israel as a way to throw Palestinian political forces into dissaray and sow conflict, then what picture do you see?

If you remember that Palestine lives under occupation (with Israel controlling their food, water, electricity, medicine, etc) and has went through displacement and genocide since 1947, then what picture do you see?

If you remember that Zionism wasn't a religious creation, then what picture do you see? Sure Zionism is mentioned, but in Herbrew it's a different word from the one they use now. The Zionism we refer to is a nationalist movement founded by Theodor Herzl, and later continued by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who wrote in his essay: "Zionism is a colonising adventure and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot—or else I am through with playing at colonization". Sure Jewish people need a safe place to exist free from anti-semitism - but creating that space through colonisation and hurting other Semite groups will never be ok.

If you remember the racism that founded Israel and continues today, then what picture do you see? Do you not care of the Beta Jews who were forcibly sterilised or the Arab Jews who are treated as second class citizens?

If you remember that Media outlets are using pictures of Palestinian children as Israeli children, lying, using stereotypes and using fake ai generated images of beheaded children, what picture do you see? If you remember how Israelis refer to Palestinians as animals. If you rememeber that Israeli's watched with popcorn in their hands cheering at the IDF bombing Palestine, then what picture do you see?

If you remember that Hamas holds IDF soldiers hostage in order to free the Palestinian people, the children included hostage to Israel, both in open air prison and in jails without being told their 'crimes' then what picture do you see? If you're not willing to read the article the stats: 5200 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including 33 women, 170 minors and more than 1200 placed under administrative detention.

If you remember that. if you remember the colonisation. Then you see a different picture. But how will you see that full picture without the media?

If you remember the genocide. if you remember the colonisation. Then you see a different picture. If you research youself, (because trust me when i say this is just a small amount of the horrors that Palestine is forced to endure), you will find what the media has hidden. The full picture.

FROM RIVER TO SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

[smonk-wonk]

Me when I eat lead paint

Also a lot, and I mean a lot of people supporting Palestine aren't overprivileged (in fact many against it are powerful figures- look at how many rich celebrities are anti Palestine). Genocidal bootlickers write off supporters as upper middle class whiny little white kids when so many aren't- not to mention there's a strong history of black and Palestinian solidarity. Malcolm X was a well known supporter of Palestine in the civil rights era and personally visited Gaza, and also met with the The Palestinian Liberation Organization. Black activists supported Palestine so to continuously write off supporters as bratty stupid white kids hopping on a trend erases that history. Which is what colonialism is best for, hence the unity in anti colonialism and anti racism. It matters to me for the same reasons it mattered to my ancestors and relatives. Not that it needs to- plenty of people can be decent without those historical ties. But to reduce it to a trend and erase that history is deplorable and very much racist. These communities have a strong historical solidarity

Many poc know the immense weight of the racist reblogs in most posts like this (its even in the reblogs here and its not like op cares to comment on it so i can only imagine they agree. i wouldn't be silent on that shit idk) calling Arabs things like goat/donkey fuckers- which is how all of you sound btw. And you can't go "oh they're just saying that about Hamas!" because where are they getting that generalization from? Pretty sure it's the racist stereotype that Arabs all partake in bestiality. And there's also a lot of weight in calling them things like animals, children of darkness, beasts, and savages, more weight than some realize.

Painting a group as sexually predatory and deviant to dehumanize them is something very often used to justify killing them. Gay people, trans people, black people, Native Americans. Maybe you don't think about the claims of black people being "super predators", don't think about people like Emmett Till or events like the Duluth lynchings when you hear that kind of shit and see that image painted of a people, plenty of us do though. The language we hear every day by people on this side of history is language we've never heard from people on the good side of history. Never.

Do the good guys use words like savages? Goat/donkey fuckers, beasts, animals, people of darkness, inhuman, monkeys, sand people (or sand n*ggers if you're feeling spicy), pigs, bloodthirsty, collateral damage (in reference to human lives)? You got anything like that for me written by the good guys in history? The ones that weren't the oppressors and aggressors? Did the oppressed need to "defend" themselves by committing crimes against humanity?

The justifications for occupying Gaza and the actions taken against innocents mirror stories I've heard passed down from formerly enslaved family members during WW2. How Hitler and other figures spoke of them, treated them, dehumanized them, assaulted them, tortured them, exterminated them. The atrocities I see coming out of Gaza are often similar to events I've heard out of the mouths of people who survived genocides. So yeah it's not like there aren't white people who also see what's going on and can't help but think back to injustices their people have faced. So again even though it's not like that generational trauma is required, you can't generalize white supporters as all performative or stupid. And plenty of Jewish people recognize what genocide looks like for obvious reasons and stand by Palestine

Also if protesting were pointless they wouldn't be trying to illegalize boycotting businesses! They're shitting their britches actually! Look at all the Starbucks closing down and all their new "holiday deals". Look at the prices of Squishmallows right now. Public protests get a lot of coverage and show just how many people strongly advocate for the liberation. People on your side of history are no different from the people who have told my people (from multiple lineages) to shut up, obey, be good, accept the lynchings and the injustice and the slavery, they're all bad and all the oppressors are doing is putting them in their place and/or defending themselves against animals. Savages unworthy of dignity

You also can't dismiss all criticism of the Israeli government's actions against Palestine as antisemitism. Any government deemed exempt from criticism deserves the most criticism. You can't dismiss criticism as if it's all coming from a place of ignorance, ignoring the context of so many people's advocacy. I don't support Palestine for followers or praise or whatever, just the right thing to do. When I see what's happening I do this crazy radical thing called having some fucking humanity. Try it sometime, it's free

I'd make sure another October 7th doesn't happen by not occupying Palestine anymore, personally

[docholligay]

As a Children’s Story for Children: Wolfwalkers

Age I was told midge should be: 7ish

Quick review: Not unenjoyable, but ultimately a bit more bland and Irish Ferngully than I was wanting and looking for. I think I expected too much of it, honestly. Not bad, though! Loved the art style.

Longer review:

I had such a hard time watching this as a seven year old because, I don’t use my phone when I watch things, which I do recommend because you notice things and gravitate toward, I think, better things, but unfortunately I have just enough grasp of the history of the area to sit there the entire time and go, “Lord Protector? Wait is this guy supposed to actually be Oliver fucking Cromwell? Did they use Lord Protector otherwise? Cromwell was a complete dick to everyone who had exactly one good idea (and it was a great one)  so I would be unsurprised. Is the year right? I feel like it is but now I don’t trust myself.” But not enough grasp of the history to actually resolve that in my mind up until the end when he was being weird and religious while dangling off a cliff and I was like, “Yeah, I’m almost sure that’s supposed to be Oliver Cromwell”*

Love the animation on this one! I would like to broadly see more diversity in styles of animation, and that’s not me particularly hating on other styles (though I do hate the bean mouth big eye rounded thing that’s so fucking popular now, even if I love the show itself) but it feels like you have three choices right now. But this I REALLY liked, and I loved how in some parts you coil.d even see the sketches underlaying the finished character. 

The story is not bad! But it’s VERY common. I mean, this has a different skin on it, and this is not me saying Cromwell’s time in Ireland wasn’t a garbage shitshow nightmare, but this is a very common kids’ story. I used Ferngully, but you see the motif of “person is part of the oppressor and learns to identify with the oppressed” come up over and over again. This is not to say that it is BAD. I am not saying that. But I am saying that Wolfwalkers did not, story wise, blow my mind and break new ground. Pretty much all of it hit the exact story beats I was expecting. 

One thing I did GENUINELY like, was showing that Robyn and her father are also victims of an absoltuely fucking insane government. And that her father could be a dick genuinely because he loves Robyn, and is afraid for her. I loved that it could make her father INTENSELY frustrating while refusing to coindemn him, and I think that is, storywise, its real master stroke. It walks that line REALLY beautifully. 

I laughed at her name literally being Robyn Goodfellow, I know as a kid I would not pick up on that but an amazing touch, especially since we know there’s no way in hell she’s not going to Learn A Vaulable Lesson about the value of the forests and the wolves and all that. 

Interesting to watch it and know that the wolves are going to be wiped out in less than 100 years, too, I’m fairly certain. So in Robyn and Mebh’s lifetime, they’ll basically see their entire pack killed, assuming they aren’t killed themselves. And if Jewlet turned to me and asked, ‘Id be like, “No they did in fact kill every single wolf in Ireland.” 

More than being interested in this story in itself, this movie made me open to the idea of watching Secret of Kells, which I’ve heard is very good but unfortunately was much hyped by one of the most annoying people I’d ever known so I skipped the fuck out of it, and perhaps I am now ready for reconciliation and healing. 

In all: Perfectly acceptable and enjoyable with a neat art style, but ulatimately a very standard kid’s story with an Irish coat of paint. Which could be neat if your kids have a lot of Irish heritage--God knows I would be singing the praises of This Exact Same Story But Jewish Tho as if it were the most remarkable tale on earth--but being have only what is statistically mandated by being a Montana Mutt, that’s not enough for it to be a must see for Jewlet. 

*I broke down and googled it the next morning. Definitely supposed to be Cromwell.

[ronnie-azumane]

Flower Rings

Hello everyone! I'm here with another Anisylum collab! This is the first time writing for my OG anime husband, so please go easy on me. But yeah! I hope y'all enjoy and check out the other works from the other creators participating!

CW: Abuse/beating, fluffy hurt/comfort, ATTACK ON TITAN MANGA SPOILERS, mentions of trauma, suicide, and death.

Life in the ghetto wasn’t a walk in the park. Sure, life could be worse, (Y/N) could be going hungry at night, slowly turning into skin and bones. (Y/N) could be shivering the night away in a flimsy tent with a single blanket to keep warm.

Although it’s a little hard to be grateful for what you have when it feels like the oppressor is always watching your every move.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the lack of justice in these ghettos provided by the Marleyan regime, however, young (Y/N) didn’t pay attention to her oppressors as much, they’re only a child after all. Why would they even want to be concerned about politics when the neighbors are playing a game of kickball?

Almost like clockwork, every week at precisely 5pm, the children born in the ghetto would gather in a courtyard and play kickball, with the ball being an old ball accidentally thrown over the fence years ago and the bases marked by old linens.

Kids of all ages gathered as usual at the court yard to divide out the teams and begin their game of ball. (Y/N) wasn’t the youngest there, but at seven years old, they were still young and scrawny, so it was no surprise that (Y/N) was one of the last ones picked.

(Y/N) sighed in relief, however, when they saw that Reiner was on their team. Reiner was three years older than (Y/N), and pretty much tied to their hip. Since both their mothers were friends growing up, they always had playdates together, playing with various figures and creating these elaborate plots to go along with them.

“We’re on the same team? Yes!” Reiner celebrates, jumping around excitedly as any ten year old would.

“You’re only celebrating because you’re too chicken to face me,” (Y/N) teased, sticking their tongue out.

A succession of ‘am not’s and ‘am to’s was promptly stopped when one of the older kids shouted that the game was about to start. Team Black would be kicking first while Team White would pitch.

(Y/N)’s favorite part of the game was kicking, so finding out that the Black Team was kicking first was music to their ears. They ran to the line, getting as close to the front as they could. Reiner held back, as he preferred catching the ball and running fast to get someone out.

(Y/N) was finally up to kick. Team Black had an out and kids on second and third base. If they scored, their team would get their first point.

The ball bounced a slight bit as it made its way toward (Y/N). (Y/N) wound back their leg and hit the ball back, aiming in between the second and third base. The ball flew and (Y/N) sprinted to first base.

What (Y/N) failed to realize was that Jameson, the eight year old boy that had a personal goal of making every day miserable for (Y/N), was waiting by first base.

As they ran toward the base, Jameson positioned himself to where his foot would ‘accidently’ get in the way of (Y/N)’s footing. Sure enough, (Y/N) stepped on his foot, causing them to lose their balance and fall to the ground before hitting the base.

“What the hell, (Y/N), you stepped on my foot!” Jameson shouted, landing a kick in (Y/N)’s side. (Y/N) yelped in pain as they curled into themself.

“You put your foot there on purpose,” (Y/N) sniffled as pain-filled tears leaked from their eyes.

“So what if I did? You still should have avoided it,” Jameson landed another kick to their side.

Reiner, who was zoned out looking at a bee buzzing around, snapped back to reality when he heard (Y/N) yelp in pain in the distance. Before he could think, he found himself running over to the two and punching Jameson square in the face.

Before Jameson could retaliate, Reiner picked up (Y/N) from the ground and ran away from the game, carrying them on his back. Deciding it was not worth the effort, Jameson let them run off as he got back to his game, but not before the team captain of the day switched him to outfield as punishment.

With (Y/N) on his back, Reiner ran to their self proclaimed happy place, if you could call anywhere in the ghetto happy. Near the entrance gate, there was a patch of grass where wildflowers grow, giving them a taste of the natural world that was unknown to them within the walls of the ghetto. He set them down and plopped next to their shuttering frame.

“How are you feeling, (Y/N), are you hurt? Do we need to go to the doctor?” Reiner asked.

“I’m hurt, but I don’t want to go to the doctor.”

“Are you still afraid that the doctor is going to give you a shot?” Reiner teased.

“Shut up! Needles are scary!” (Y/N) whined, causing Reiner to giggle.

Soon enough, the pain in (Y/N)’s side began to fade, and they focused themselves on making a flower crown while Reiner watched the Marleyan soldiers outside the gate train.

“My mama wants me to be a warrior, but I’m not too sure that's what I want to do,” Reiner sighed, lying all the way back on his back.

“How come? Isn’t becoming a warrior one of the best things an Eldian can do for Marley?” (Y/N) asked.

“Yeah, but that would mean I would have to work really hard, while buttheads like Jameson would get to play and make fun of you. It wouldn’t be fair!”

“Why are boys like Jameson so mean anyway? My mommy told me that it just meant that he liked me, but why would someone be mean to someone they liked?” (Y/N) asked.

“Is that a thing?” Reiner asks.

“That’s what mommy says,” (Y/N) finished their flower crown and unceremoniously flopped it onto Reiner’s head, earning a giggle from him. “I wouldn’t want to marry a guy like Jameson, I would want to marry a guy like you, Reiner, who’s nice to me.”

“Then how about we make a promise?” Reiner asked.

“A promise?”

“Yeah, like, we promise to marry each other now, and once we get big we actually do it?” Reiner’s cheeks were now bright red.

“Yeah! I like that! I promise to marry you, Reiner,” (Y/N) extended a pinky out.

Reiner crudely plucked a flower from the ground and tied the stem around (Y/N)’s finger. Reiner’s fingers were chubby and unskilled, so the flower ring didn’t turn out as pretty as the crown, yet (Y/N) still stared at it.

“And I promise to marry you, (Y/N).”

XXX

Reiner ended up joining the Warriors a few years later, to the dismay of (Y/N). The flower ring had since shriveled up beyond repair, but (Y/N) refused to let go of their promise, thinking that if the flower stayed in their possession, it would guarantee Reiner’s safe return home.

However, the mission that was estimated to take the four warriors a year or two to complete turned into a major failure with rumors stating that only one of them was making it home. However, (Y/N) didn’t have the time to mourn her lost friend, Marley was still causing conflict in both the battle front and the home front.

It wouldn’t be until after the Rumbling ended when (Y/N) would meet up with Reiner again. He was in the area negotiating peace with some other nations, and decided a late lunch and catch-up session with his childhood friend was in order.

“So, how was going through puberty like on an island without modern medicine?” (Y/N) asked shamelessly.

“What happened to hello?” Reiner asked, causing (Y/N) to erupt in laughter.

“I’m just sad I didn’t get to witness voice-crack Reiner,” (Y/N) wiped a tear from their eye, causing Reiner to groan.

They then began to catch up, retelling all their experiences from the past thirteen years. Reiner went into detail as to what it was like training with the man who almost killed all of humanity, his trauma, and even his suicide attempt while (Y/N) retold moments of agony in the ghetto, their dad getting drafted for one of the countless wars, and even confessed that they and Jameson dated at one point.

“You! And him!” Reiner stuttered.

“Apparently my mom was right, Jameson pretended he hated me because he couldn’t decipher his own feelings. Dumped his ass a while ago though, he started spending all his money on alcohol.”

“So I’m assuming you’re not seeing anyone?” Reiner asked.

“Not at the moment, why do you ask?”

“Well, (Y/N), I may have had ulterior motives to this lunch,” Reiner pulled out a small box from his pocket and set it on the table, inviting (Y/N) to open it up. Inside was a ring, with the centerpiece shaped as the flower that he tied onto (Y/N)’s finger all those years ago.

“What is this?” (Y/N) stuttered.

“You probably don’t remember, but one day, I gave you a flower ring with a promise. I’m sure it’s long gone by now.”

“Yeah, lost it in the rumbling. Are you really proposing to me right now?”

“No no no! This is just a reminder of that promise we made that afternoon. That promise helped me push through all the hardships I faced,” Reiner flailed his arms a bit, getting slightly flustered.

“So, a promise ring?”

“I promised I’d marry you, didn’t I?” Reiner asked as he pulled out his pinky. Smiling, (Y/N) slipped on the ring and interlocked their pinky with his.

“You did, Reiner, you did.”

[a-queer-seminarian]

Jesus flipping tables: a more accurate & respectful reading

This post shares a large chunk of chapter two of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering the Passion of Jesus. (Read the whole chapter as a PDF here.) Levine is a Jewish woman who is also a Professor of New Testament Studies.

Levine combats traditional readings of the text with their antisemitic layers by evincing how Jesus’s anger reflects the anger of his predecessors Jeremiah and Zechariah — an anger focused not on the simple fact that sacrificial animals were sold in the Temples’ outer courts, but on the way the Temple (like many of our worship spaces today) had become a safe place for corrupt oppressors, who behaved as if their daily atrocities would be overlooked by God if they paid for a sacrifice every now and again.

TL;DR: to sum up Levine’s points, she evinces how:

Jesus’s whole table flipping, whip-wielding stunt is more symbolic than practical (echoing similar stunts pulled by his people’s prophets).

Some have argued Jesus is mad about gentiles not being allowed to worship in the temple, but they very much were welcome. (There were places and rituals off limits to them, just as there are certain things non-members can’t do in our own worship spaces, like take communion or be on a committee). 

Jesus wasn’t pissed about animals being sold in the temple’s outer courts; that was normal and logical. There’s also no evidence of exploitation or unjust prices, so he’s not angry about the poor being cheated here either.

Jesus did not reject the Temple, or its laws & rituals! He followed them himself and helped restore people to them. (He even has “zeal for his father’s house.”)

Jesus also isn’t condemning the high priest or other priests with his actions here. That’s just not in the text; plus Caiaphas’s worry about Jesus’s actions inciting political violence that could harm his people were reasonable.

What Jesus is communicating with his table flipping and whip-wielding: he’s upset that the Temple is as “a den of thieves,” a place where people who sin and oppress in their everyday life feel perfectly comfortable, instead of feeling called to repent and reform. His words hearken back to previous prophets with similar concerns.

And finally, in the version of this story told in John’s Gospel, Jesus seems to be looking forward to a time when the Temple is no longer needed, for all places will be sacred and God will speak directly to everyone of every nation -- once again, Jesus is hearkening back to previous prophets who looked forward to the same thing. This is also a concept that the Pharisees were into, so stop depicting the Pharisees as “evil” or “backwards” or completely at odds with Jesus! (One key difference between Jesus’s vision and the Pharisees’ if of course that Jesus identifies a “new temple,” his own body.)

One last thing: if you’re unfamiliar with the various Gospel versions of the “temple cleansing” -- Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:11-17, Luke 19:45-46, and John 2:13-17 -- or want to reference them as you read this post, visit this webpage to read them all.

Without further ado -- the excerpt from Levine.

________________

The incident known as the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ is described in all four Gospels. Most people have the idea--probably from Hollywood--that this is a huge disruption. When we see this scene depicted in movies, we find Jesus fuming with anger, and we inevitably see gold coins falling down in slow motion. Everything in the Temple comes to a standstill. ...But we are not watching a movie: we are studying the Gospels. 

Here's what we know about the actual setting. We begin by noting that the Temple complex was enormous. It was the size of twelve soccer fields put end to end. So, if Jesus turns over a table or two in one part of the complex, it's not going to make much of a difference given the size of the place.

The action therefore did not stop all business; it is symbolic rather than practical. Our responsibility is to determine what was symbolized.

For that, we need to know how the Temple functioned.

The Jerusalem Temple, which King Herod the Great began to rebuild and which was still under construction at the time of Jesus, had several courts. The inner sanctum, known as the "Holy of Holies," is where the high priest entered, only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to ask for forgiveness for himself and for the people. Outside of that was the Court of the Priests, then the Court of Israel, the Court of the Women, and then the Court of the Gentiles, who were welcome to worship in the Temple. 

The outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, is where the vendors sold their goods. The Temple at the time of Jesus was many things: it was a house of prayer for all nations; it was the site for the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot/Pentecost, and Sukkot/Booths; it was a symbol of Jewish tradition (we might think of it as comparable, for the Jewish people of the time, to how Americans might view the Statue of Liberty); it was the national bank, and it was the only place in the Jewish world where sacrifices could be offered. Therefore, there needed to be vendors on site.

Pilgrims who sought to offer doves (such as Mary and Joseph do, following the birth of Jesus, according to Luke 2:24) or a sheep for the Passover meal would not bring the animals with them from Galilee or Egypt or Damascus. They would not risk the animal becoming injured and so unfit for sacrifice. The animal might fly or wander away, be stolen, or die. And, as one of my students several years ago remarked, "The pilgrims might get hungry on the way." One bought one's offering from the vendors.

And, despite Hollywood, and sermon after sermon, there is no indication that the vendors were overcharging or exploiting the population. The people would not have allowed that to happen. Thus, Jesus is not engaging in protest of cheating the poor.

Next, we need to think of the Temple as something other than what we think of churches. A church, usually, is a place of quiet and decorum. ...The Temple was something much different: It was a tourist attraction, especially during the pilgrimage festivals. It was very crowded, and it was noisy. The noise was loud and boisterous, and because it was Passover, people were happy because they were celebrating the Feast of Freedom. ...We might think of the setting as a type of vacation for the pilgrims: a chance to leave their homes, to catch up with friends and relatives, to see the "big city," and to feel a special connection with their fellow Jews and with God. It is into this setting that Jesus comes.

______________

Driving out the Vendors 

...It seems to me that Jesus, in the Temple, was angry. But what so angered him? I hear from a number of people, whether my students in class or congregations who have invited me to speak with them, that the Temple must have been a dreadful institution; that it exploited the poor; that it was in cahoots with Rome; that Caiaphas, the High Priest in charge of the Temple, was a terrible person; that it banned Gentiles from worship and so displayed hatred of foreigners; and so forth. ...Some tell me that the Temple imposed oppressive purity laws that forbade people from entering, and so Jesus, who rejected those laws, rejected the temple as well. No wonder Jesus wants to destroy the institution.

But none of those views fits what we know about either Jesus or history.

First, Jesus did not hate the Temple, and he did not reject it. If he did, then it makes no sense that his followers continued to worship there. Jesus himself calls the Temple "my Father's house" (Luke 7:49: John 2:16). ...

Second, Jesus is not opposed to purity laws. To the contrary, he restores people to states of ritual purity. Even more, he tells a man whom he has cured of leprosy, "Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them" (Mark 1:44; see also Matthew 8:4; Luke 5:14). 

Third, Jesus says nothing about the Temple exploiting the population. As we'll see in the next chapter, when we talk about the widow who makes an offering of her two coins, Jesus is concerned not with what the Temple charges, but with the generosity of the worshipers. 

Fourth, we've already seen that the Temple has an outer court, where Gentiles are welcome to worship. They were similarly welcome in the synagogues of antiquity, and today. They do not have the same rights and responsibilities as do Jews, and that makes sense as well. When I [a Jewish woman] visit a church, there are certain things I may not do. We might also think of how nations function: Canadians, for example, cannot do certain things in the USA, such as vote for president; nor can citizens of the USA vote in Canadian elections.

As for Caiaphas...Caiaphas is basically between a rock and a hard place. He is the nominal head of Judea, and he is supposed to keep the peace. Judea is occupied by Rome, and Roman soldiers are stationed there. Caiaphas needs to make sure that these soldiers do not go on the attack. He needs to placate Pilate, and he needs to placate Rome. 

At the same time, as the High Priest, he has a responsibility to the Jewish tradition. Rome wanted the Jews to offer sacrifices to the emperor...but Caiaphas and the other Jews refused to participate in this type of offering because they would not worship the emperor. The most they were willing to do was offer sacrifices on behalf of the emperor and the empire.

When Jesus comes into the city in the Triumphal Entry, when people are hailing him as son of David, Caiaphas recognizes the political danger. The Gospel of John tells us that the people wanted to make Jesus king (John 6:15). Caiaphas has to watch out for the mob. Caiaphas also has to watch out for all these Jewish pilgrims coming from all over the empire celebrating the Feast of Freedom, the end of slavery. When he sees Roman troops surrounding the Temple Mount, Caiaphas has to keep the peace. And Jesus is a threat to that peace. But none of this has to do directly with Jesus' actions in the Temple. He is not at this point protesting Caiaphas's role.

Sometimes I hear people say that Jesus drove the "money lenders” out of the Temple. That's wrong, too. Money-lending was a business into which the medieval church forced Jews, because the church concluded that charging interest was unnatural (money should not beget money). Yet people needed, then and now, to take out loans. The issue for the Gospel is not money lending but money changing. These money changers exchanged the various currencies of the Roman Empire into Tyrian shekels, the type of silver coin that the Temple accepted. We experience the same process when we visit a foreign country and have to exchange our money for the local currency.

So, if Jesus is not condemning the Temple itself, or financial exploitation, or purity practices, what is he condemning? Let's look at what the Gospels actually say.

According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, ...the concern is not the Temple, but the attitude of the people who are coming to it.

In Mark's account Jesus begins by saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?" (11:17). Indeed, it is so written. Jesus is here condensing and then quoting Isaiah 56:6-7... Jesus' rhetorical question should be answered with a resounding “Yes!"--for the Temple already was a house of prayer for all people. More, he is standing in the Court of the Gentiles when he makes his pronouncement. ...Thus, the problem is not that the Temple excludes Gentiles. 

Already we find the challenge, and the risk. Are churches Today houses of prayer for all people, or are they just for people who look like us, walk like us, and talk like us?

How do we make other people feel welcome? Is the stranger greeted upon walking into the church? Is the first thing a stranger hears in the sanctuary, "You're in my seat"? When we pray or sing hymns, do we think of what those words would sound like in a stranger's ears? ...

Matthew and Luke drop out "For all nations," and appropriately so, for they knew it already was a house of prayer for all nations. Matthew and Luke thus change the focus to one of prayer. And prayer gets us closer to what is going on in the Synoptic tradition.

___________

Den of Thieves

Jesus continues, ‘But you are making it a den of robbers’ (Matthew 21:13). Here he is quoting Jeremiah 7:11: “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?”

A "den of robbers" (sometimes translated a "den of thieves") is not where robbers rob. "Den” really means "cave," and a cave of robbers is where robbers go after they have taken what does not belong to them, and count up their loot. The context of Jeremiah's quotation -- and remember, it always helps to look up the context of citations to the Old Testament -- tells us this.

Jeremiah 7:9-10 depicts the ancient prophet as condemning the people of his own time, the time right before Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple over five hundred years earlier: “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’ -- only to go on doing all these abominations?" 

Some people in Jeremiah's time, and at the time of Jesus, and today, take divine mercy for granted and see worship as an opportunity to show off new clothes rather than recommit to clothing the naked. The present-day comparison to what Jeremiah, and Jesus, condemned is easy to make: The church member sins during the workweek, either by doing what is wrong or by failing to do what is right. Then on Sunday morning this same individual, perhaps convinced of personal righteousness, heartily sings the hymns, happily shakes the hands of others, and generously puts a fifty-collar bill in the collection plate. That makes the church a den of robbers -- a cave of sinners. It becomes a safe place for those who are not truly repentant and who do not truly follow what Jesus asks. The church becomes a place of showboating, not of fishing for people. 

Jeremiah and Jesus indicted people then, and now. The ancient Temple, and the present-day church, should be places where people not only find community, welcome the stranger, and repent of their sins. They should be places where people promise to live a godly life, and then keep their promises. ...

___________

Stop Making My Father's House a Marketplace

John's Gospel says nothing about the house of prayer or den of robbers. In John's Gospel, Jesus starts not simply by overturning the tables, but also by using a “whip of cords" (since weapons were not permitted in the Temple, he may have fashioned the whip from straw at hand), and driving out the vendors. Jesus when says to the dove sellers, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" (John 2:16). He is alluding to Zechariah 14:21, the last verse from this prophet, "and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day."

In John's version of the Temple incident, Jesus anticipates the time when there will no longer be a need for vendors, for every house not only in Jerusalem but in all of Judea shall be like the Temple itself. The sacred nature of the Temple will spread through all the people. He sounds somewhat like the Pharisees here, since the Pharisees were interested in extending the holiness of the Temple to every household.

The message is a profound one: Can our homes be as sanctified, as filled with Worship, as the local church?

Do we “do our best" on Sunday From 11 a.m. to 12 noon, but just engage in business is usual during the workweek? Do we pray only in church, or is prayer part of our daily practice? Do we celebrate the gifts of God only when it is time to do so in the worship service, or do we celebrate these gifts morning to night? Is the church just a building, or is the church the community who gathers in Jesus' name, who acts as Jesus taught, who lives the good news? 

Jesus' words, citing Zechariah, do even more. They anticipate a time when all peoples, all nations, can worship in peace, and in love. There is no separation between home and house of worship, because the entire land lives in a sanctified state. Perhaps we can even hear a hint of Jeremiah's teaching of the "new covenant," when "no longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the LORD,’ For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:34). Can we envision this? Can we work toward it? ...

[bee-ingsofficial]

Donated anonymous essay, the author has difficulty with english grammar, so please, reading carefully without jumping to conclusions is advised]

"Nonhuman identity IS affected by systemic issues"

Nonhuman identities get pushed aside and get told that we cant claim oppression because laws arent made about us.

But im here to say that this is an incorrect and albeit irresponsible thing to think.

Oppression, yes , oppesssion and NOT just descrimination, do not exist in a vaccum. And laws against gender freedom, ND, disability , and mental health DO impact species identity.

While it may not be writen down, our systems have barred us in the form of redeculing our identity into "insanity" and oblivion. Ridicule to minimize the severity or seriousness of some identity or group, ie societally not being taken seriously, thus being shooed out of the serious positions for various reasons.

There are some differences in how oppression manifests, but its core goal is the same-- to keep a ceartain group in the shadows, not just segregate them.

Typical cis animals in society DO have a history of oppression, and in fact are the symbol of the worst types of oppression, so much so that the lack of humanity and animality have become the social archetype of being unworthy of offering rights.

Humans have degraded the archetype of the animal so much as they do not see themselves as animals, and use animality, the absence of the human, against minorities.

So when we transspecies beings, especially transspecies being born into minorities that are targets of being called "animals" and "not human" have to deal with the internalization that being an animal is bad, and should be rejected , because the culture we were assigned when we were born in human society has told that being an animal is degrading, unworthy and undesiravble and we should not become what our oppressors say is the bottom of the bin.

Unraveling that convoluted relationship with animality is an experience hightened especially if you are percieved as a minority in human society, whether you identify as that minority or not due to your species identity.

But this is not the only thing that can consider us in the spectrum of oppression. Transgender laws, although not targeted at us on paper. Can still hinder us at some level getting care, or applying for opportunities is we choose to live an out life.

We can be denied expression or fired because people against transgender identity isnt going to magically think we are not a threat and treat us differently because we are transspecies.

If we think we are safe because we are put out of view , we are not.

There is not much documentation of how society affects transspecies beings, and perhaps one would need to be out to feel it, and most of us ARE hiding. it looks like we can pass by undetected which is true sometiems, but if you poke ur paw out just enough ur treated like the other queer folk that get shit from bigots and societal systems, but our own flavour of "ok well treat you like animals then" Most of us are afraid jobs will be taken out of our reach, we will be harassed and i have very good reason based on my experience (which i will not say due to privacy and trauma concerns) that my life can be in danger from those who percieve me as a threat.

And i find it so irresponsivble that nonhumans on the internet have the audacity to tell a being that has the guts to say they believe they are oppressed because they are part of other oppressed minorities and find their experience of being nonhuman in the world similar. How dare you. A stranger on the internet, think you have the knowledge to make a conclusion that the trauma and difficulty this being went through and conclude it is not in any way similar to the experience of other marginalized identities they may be a part of, and even if you have crossed identities, and say to them, look, im nonbinary and nonhuman too and its not the same" you are going to sound like a person lucky enough to have never experienced what they did personally and think that that means it doesnt happen. To say "actually you arent oppressed. Oppression is when laws against you are pushed on you because thats the only way we know the govt or church has power over you." Is to say "i know u more than urself, stranger on the internet." that being is most probably skimming their experiences because no one should write their trauma saga with a system in society to prove they are oppressed to a stranger. No one wins anything for saying " im oppressed", especially on this hellsite as a nonhuman.

Intersectionality is so important to understand because no oppression is in a vaccum, What if ur non-neurotypical? some see their nonhumanity as Neurodiverse conditions, which, non-neurotypicals in general are agreed to be systemically oppressed.

By the time (some) laws are passed, the actions it reflects would have been happening as an unspoken rule for a long time. Does it matter if we are banned or shunned from an opportunity officially or not? is it only validly oppression when we are bannned and shunned when a paper says we are in a world riddled with unspoken systems that bar so many? If I call up a church with an active conversion therapy program right now, the church will have no problem accomodating me in conversion therapy amoung the gays and genderqueer, in my conservative state, even if theres no systems officially against us, theres nothing protecting me from the church taking me in. there are so few of us in the lime light, but i , an it/its, am just a nother vegetable in the soup of what the bigots are against. Official or not , systems like church are out of my control, who doesnt understand my species identity has power of over whether i make it, if i am out. in some way or another. And to be unaware of that, to think we only face individual prejudice and discrimination, is actually irrisponsible and arrogant of our judgment in the various transpecies and other nonhuman experience, and alienates fellow nonhumans for what? Some fake approval of outsiders?

[mali-umkin]

Ugh sometimes I hate to see what the woke 'culture' has become, especially when it's young people desperately trying to conform to it. I've just seen someone reblog a post about not eating meat saying that 'not eating meat is great and it's so important for the environment and animals!! But obviously if your culture makes you eat meat don't stop it's beautiful!!' word for word.

Generally speaking, this kind of rhetoric much too often implies that 1) only white cultures are oppressive 2) non-white cultures are this kind of poor, cute wee curiosities we should protect at all cost and in fact be very patronising about 3) culture and traditions are a valid reason for adopting oppressive behaviors and unethical lifestyles, an argument which is seen by all as completely invalid in the Western World but retains all its legitimacy when it isn't about white people.

This is not as progressive as you think, and very ignorant of... The world's history outside of Europe, basically? It is right and legitimate to criticise non-white cultures, it is right to think one's culture is never a justification for any kind of oppression. What isn't right is to think people all have a similar mindset and relationship with their environment; to think people all have the same possibilities and motives, to think people all have the same power to act, or the same responsibilities. But these considerations should always be examined, they are not inherent to the discussion of cultural differences. As someone who grew up in a half white, half East Asian culture, I am tired of hearing non-white cultures being talked about as exempt from 'white' moral or ethical considerations, under false pretexts of tolerance and amendment for the past; exempt of any change and capacity to change for the better, and being pushed out of debates because 'not all cultures have the same ideas of morals, and social justice movements do not take their roots in the same reflections, etc'. Instead of actually opening the debate, be it on feminism or LGBTQ+ rights or veganism, while recognising and taking into account one's cultural background, the discussion doesn't take place, or only takes place (and I am not saying this is not right, but this is limited) when white people are/were responsible for local oppressions through cultural means. As a child of recent colonial history, of 'both sides', I have learnt about the Western European influence in Asia my whole life. I have also seen, my whole life, oppression and discriminations in these countries that are deeply cultural and have nothing to do with white people. Those aren't discussed except by local activists. I guess all I want to say is, while recognising you are privileged, while understanding your country's history is one of terrible oppression and your standards may not be those of other people, refusing to criticise or campaign against some things because they occur in non-white cultures (non-white cultures! Four continents and hundred of countries! Is this vision of the world even right? Or is the wokeness very fond of not going further than the oppressors vs oppressed rhetoric?) isn't progressive at all. This isn't where you should be careful.

I was once told criticising sexism in Cambodia and in Buddhism was racist and anti-religious. I was asked to just shut up and 'know my privilege'. Meanwhile, there were plenty of discussions about the Church, it was and still is called out for its actions. You know what this is? Under the pretext of knowing your place and privilege, we refuse to have an open debate on things that aren't culturally white. This I have seen in all kinds of social justice areas. The fact something must be done, and discussed with the people in question, discussed differently, doesn't mean it must not be discussed. Raising awareness and imposing one's views is not the same. I understand this is well-intentioned, but the way I see it, such black and white mindset only has one result - oppressions and discriminations in the Western World can be talked about, but what happens anywhere else, if unrelated to it, cannot be, or is talked about but with much more difficulty and misplaced conciliation.

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 137 Review

I can't unsee it.

-rubs temples-

Ok, I know I’ve been absent the past two chapters. I’ll get to why and what I thought of 135 and 136 in this post, but for now…jeez, this chapter.

It was badass and dumb and sometimes both at the same time.

Where do I even start?

-sound of pages being leafed through-

Ok, then.

I actually really like Zeke’s character. He is unironically my second favorite out of the cast.

When we first see Zeke, he’s in his beast titan form. He’s lumbering, hulking, unsettling.

He’s a titan that can talk. He’s a titan that can control other titans!

And he wiped out humanity’s second strongest with ease. I forget his name. It was Mickey, right?

Worst than that, actually. He ordered his titans to kill Mickey with all the gravitas of ordering a side of fries at McDonald’s.

Iirc fans were wondering if this new character would be the main villain of the series.

He went on to wipe out the Survey Corps at Shighanshina, and after that we learned he singlehandedly foiled his parent’s right-wing conspiracy when he was a kid.

Zeke was a mastermind who shouldn’t be taken lightly…right?

Welp, the more we saw of Zeke, the more obvious it became that he wasn’t actually all the impressive.

He wasn’t very good at being a warrior. Honestly, it seems most of his high marks comes from his unique royal blood powers, and the good will be built with Marley when he turned in his parents. TFW cronyism.

He foiled the restorationists plot, but really he was just an abused kid who wanted to get away from his parents.

He killed Mickey, but Zeke was a King Kong sized titan and Mickey was caught off guard and unarmed, so…yeah, ofc he won that fight.  

Zeke has royal blood powers, but that doesn’t say anything about his intellectual prowess or anything.

The Survey Corps was wiped out at Shighanshina, but the circumstances of that fight strongly favored him. The Survey Corps were trapped in the city, so all Zeke had to do to win was sit on his ass and do nothing.

And he almost died anyway.

Levi got the drop on him because of his own incompetence. He let himself get distracted, which created the opening for Levi to strike.

Throw in his gullibleness towards Eren, his bumbling demeanor, and his totally emo philosophy, and the true nature of Zeke Jeager became undeniable: this guy is a fucking moron.

Like.

A real fucking moron.

And that’s why his character is unironically so great!

Zeke’s character is such a brilliant subversion of audience expectations.

We were all made to believe that this guy was a Big Fucking Deal through what turned out to mostly be circumstantial reasons.

In reality, he’s an idiot who’s been failing upwards his whole life.

Zeke got as far as he did because he’s really lucky. That’s all he has going for him.

I liked the more fleshed out version of his world view we got here. It is appropriately emo.

My read on Zeke has always been that if he existed in real life he’d be an extremely online philosophy bro, so seeing his outlook on life being effectively copy pasted from 4chan was just delightful.

Zeke is 2deep4(chan)u.

Life exists to multiply. All actions are explained by this singular drive. As such, life is hollow and we’re better off dead.

Imagine that is how you see the world.

Life sucks. It’s an existence of suffering driven by a desire to ensure more people are brought into this world so that they can toil away ensuring that yet more people are brought into this world to toil away ensuring people are brought into this world.

On and on and on and on.

To Zeke, this is the cycle of violence.

Not war which begets war which begets war, but rather life itself.

One suffering existence that begets another suffering existence that begets yet another suffering existence.

That is the context from which the euthanasia plan came from: it was an extension of this broader world view.

Everyone gets a dose of pain in this world, but Eldians especially get shafted. If anyone deserved release from this nihilistic existence that is “being alive,” it’s them.

Hence, Zeke’s plan to sterilize Eldians so they can die out peaceably.

…

It’s hilarious how easily Zeke is disabused of this notion.

I’m not sure if it works from a storytelling perspective, but it tracks perfectly with what usually happens when emo philosophy bros like Zeke have their beliefs challenged.

The emo bro will go on a self-absorbed rant about how nihilistic life is. For sake of example, let’s say the reason is because morality is just an opinion and nothing is objectively wrong.

The n the guy he’s ranting to will drop a critique on the bro so devastating that they’re left speechless:

“What about murder? Isn’t murder objectively wrong?”

Emo bro: -surprised pikachu face-

I swear to God this happens a lot. I don’t know if transplanting that into this pivotal storytelling moment works, but I sure as hell enjoyed it.

But, yeah, while we’re talking about philosophies, let’s look at some others.

Armin thinks there is beauty in pointless moments. Moments that are meaningful only for the people who partake in them. They’re an expression of the love they have for each other. Those moments are worth cherishing and protecting.

He’s right, but you know who also thinks that way?

Eren does.

Superficially, anyway.

When Eren starts rumbling the world, he thinks of his friends and the fun they’ve had together. He’s doing it for them.

Of course, he’s hurt them instead, but that’s still his logic, however deranged it may be.

What separates Armin from Eren is their sense of boundaries.

There are places that Eren is willing to push on towards that Armin is not.

For that, Eren thinks Armin is weak. All Eren had to say to him when they spoke at the restaurant was how useless Armin was.

Armin can’t go the distance. He can’t do what’s necessary. He takes options off the table too easily. He wanted to negotiate instead of seeing the truth that war was inevitable.

To Eren, that’s weakness.

In reality, it’s empathy.

Armin cares about people. Even people who hate him.

Eren doesn’t. If you’re his enemy, you’re dead to him, period.

Eren has no soul.

He may have slept under his enemy’s roof, ate his enemy’s food, and saw the good in them for himself, but he’s still killing them.

I don’t care if he’s crying on the inside. I don’t care how many times he said he’s sorry to Ramzi.

That actually makes it worse.

Eren made the calculation, the conscientious decision, that the lives of billions of people across multiple civilizations were worth less than that of his race.

Not even his whole race; just the subset of his race he was most familiar with!

Eren and Armin represent two widely similar, yet subtly different philosophies.

For Eren, the world is beautiful, but you have to do cruel things to protect that beauty.

The world is cruel because it is beautiful.

For Armin, the world is beautiful, but it is plagued by cruelty.

The world is cruel, but also beautiful.

SNK made the right choice. Armin was rightly depicted as the superior worldview.

(I have some gripes about how endemic the series seems to think cruelty is to the world, but we’re ignoring that now.)

Ymir is more of a wild card than I thought she’d be.

It seemed straightforward.

Ymir had been beaten and enslaved her whole life, so when Eren offered her freedom and treated her life a human, she sided with him.

That still looks to be what happened, but it seemed like Ymir also genuinely wanted to destroy the world with Eren.

The world treated her with cruelty, so of course she’d want to burn it all. Makes sense, right?

But Ymir, it turns out, is a lot more complicated than that.

She was beaten, enslaved, raped, hunted like an animal, and after all that, she still believed in this world.

She saw two lovers together, and that embodied what made the world worth getting attached to.

Those two lovers were her conquerors. Her oppressors.

She saw the love between two of her slavers, and instead of resentment or jealousy, she simply knew it was beautiful.

If people threaten his freedom, Eren wishes death upon them.

When Ymir is literally enslaved by them, she still acknowledges the beauty of their romance.

It’s a cool layer of complexity to add to their dynamic. They’ve been through similar shit, but they couldn’t be more dissimilar.

My guess is that Ymir is sympathetic to Armin and everyone came back to life through her help.

I know Armin Zeke the credit for that, but…that makes no sense?

Eren defeated Zeke when Ymir sided with him and he started the rumbling.

Eren, via Ymir, is in control, not Zeke, so it makes no sense for Zeke to be able to do any of this.

The only explanation is that Ymir broke from Eren and now Zeke is her new best friend.

…Yeah, this is the part where I talk about the bad stuff with this chapter.

The exact mechanics of how all of this went down is very underexplained.

Zeke being able to reveal himself like he did can be chalked up to Ymir’s power, but if it’s true this was purely Zeke’s doing, then…how?

How was Zee able to do that if Eren is in control? Why would Eren even put Zeke there instead of encasing him in crystal and keeping him physically close by?

This whole final battle has been very underwhelming for me, which is why I didn’t do a review for the last two chapters.

The premise is pretty bland.

The Alliance’s main opposition in this fight are mindless drones. The titans they’re fighting have no humans inside them, they’re just puppets. NPCs.

What drama there has been here has been the same fucking crap we’ve been dealing with for the past few volumes.

Yes, Mikasa, Eren has to die.

I know this is hard for her, but my patience has run out.

Eren told her to her face that they had to kill him if they wanted to win, and then when the Alliance is riding on Falco’s back, they make the final call to kill Eren and this is the face Mikasa makes.

Like this is the first time she’s heard it.

This is the face you’d expect from a child, not a grown ass adult. 

That was the moment I became convinced Mikasa would probably die in this fight.

Her head is too far up her ass as this point.

She is utterly incapable of processing the obvious fact that Eren hates her.

Yes, he’s theoretically destroying the world partly for her, but he’s also deranged and too self-absorbed to see that he’s hurt her. He has no real regard for her. 

It is beyond annoying that there has been almost zero progression for her character on this issue.

If by this point in the story, she had accepted that Eren had to die, but was still visibly coping with that, then all would be well.

What’s frustrating is that just when it seems like we’ve progressed past that stage, we learn we haven’t.

I also feel that a lot of the major beats of the fight were pointless.

A major point in the battle comes when Armin gets eaten by the Okapi titan, and Mikasa, Annie, and the rest have to rescue him. But Armin didn’t seem to be in any danger of dying, and him being sent to P A T H S was actually a good thing in the end because he was able to win over Zeke.

The whole deal with the explosives around Eren’s neck was also pretty badly handled.

You’d think the hard part would be getting the explosives to the neck and securing them to it, but nope. Pieck took care of that in a couple of panels, and the real meat of the fight is doing the very last thing they need to do to win.

It’s very tedious and contrived.

Instead of a fight that’s interesting because they have to wrestle their way through titans while carrying the bombs, we get a totally generic fight because the story breezed through the hard part and all they have to do now is push a single button to win.

But in the end that entire sequence was pointless because Armin decides to blow everything up anyway.

Jean’s shining moment?

A total waste.

Reiner’s shining moment...wrangling that worm thing?

Also a total waste.

Armin was going to blow it up anyway. There is no way you can say that Eren would have survived Armin’s explosion but for Reiner and Jean’s efforts.

It just defies all common sense.

So yeah, this whole battle was a pretty lackluster climax.

Looking to the future, I think this is it.

There’s only two chapters left, so we need to start wrapping up. My guess is Eren’s likely dead and next chapter starts the epilogue.

Tally-ho.

---

I made a post about all the character’s chances of living or dying by the end of the manga. I figured I’d update those death ratings here.

Eren: Likely Alive --> Lean Dead

Historia: Likely Dead --> Toss Up

Mikasa and Reiner: Lean Dead --> Lean Alive

Annie: Lean Alive --> Likely Alive

Jean and Connie: Likely Dead --> Lean Alive

Pieck: Toss Up --> Lean Alive

Zeke: Lean Alive --> Ded

You’ll notice I’m still rating most of the cast as having a significant chance of dying.

While I do feel that this is probably the end of the battle, I’m choosing to be cautious in my choice of ratings.

Mayhaps Eren will pull a come from behind victory.

Ya never know.

[rk1kheadcanons]

AU after the revolution Connor becomes a “symbol of escaping your oppressors (esp sexually-conservative parents)” by becoming Markus’ partner and is very uncomfortable with everyone using him as just an object to project their fears and fantasies onto. He gets called a thot and “Markus’ good little slut” just for kissing and he hates it, the amount of pron people make of him makes him puke. No matter how hard they try, they can’t ignore how fetishized/objectified their relationship is becoming

You have no idea how vastly I love you for your prompt, Anon.

I took this prompt on for many reasons.

As an ally, it's imperative to respect and uplift all forms of love. It becomes a problem when we actively seek it out for the "entertainment value." There are people behind those alternative lifestyles with their own struggles on a daily basis. They are human, not 2d paper and pen figment of some of all perversions. They're not here to be anyone's form of sexual excitement, period. If someone asked me now why had so much more homosexual pairings instead of hetero, I got my receipts for each and every one of them, and I promise "they so cute" is not my first thought. If it is for you, well might give this a thought or two. And, no, I am NOT singling anyone out, never that.😌

Anyways, I'm off my soapbox now. I just felt l I owed it to my friends out there to say that they aren't just "quirky, gay babies, uwu."

That said, you'll have to pry booty shorts-wearing, nail polish bedazzling Connor from my cold, dead hands. I know he can be a BAMF, break my neck, and still be adorable while doing so. That's just gospel, sis. 😏

Markus and Connor had decided to go public with their relationship sooner rather than later for a myriad of reasons. There was a history between the two that no Android alive now would forget.

The famous deviant leader and the infamous deviant hunter now in a romantic relationship was the talk of New Jericho.

Of course, those hurt during the period of time that Connor had not Hu deviated was the louder voice heard from the masses. They didn't establish the 'ex' on deviant hunter for a reason. They were bitter, intimidated, and above all else, felt the relationship between the two men betrayed something that Markus had pledged to them. So long as Connor was just there acting as the security on his off time from the DPD, no one cared. As soon as he showed true signs of his deviation, that he could indeed understand the concept of emotions like love... Well, to many that was unacceptable. What about their friends and possible lost lovers in the original Jericho? They, the murmuring androids, knew that he would have been shackled to his programming, that until it was broken, he would have been just as much a slave to his protocol as they would have been in his place.

The funny thing about emotions though is it tended to make you irrational.

Connor was forever cautious when at New Jericho despite Markus and North, Josh, and Simon finally taking him under their wing. He heard those murmurs, though. It wasn't like he did not have good hearing. Then there were the social protocols that let him know that others were uncomfortable around him. Maybe they glanced away upon looking at him or more obviously changed positions to get away from wherever he strolled.

Connor hated the feeling but he wore the mass shunning like a Scarlet Letter around his neck.

Markus and the others knew of Connor's treatment. Markus often publicly condemned the behavior. It worked for some, others revolted against it. That's when they changed tactics.

Connor immediately became apprehensive about the sudden change in behavior over the next month. No longer did those who meet him look away or run from him, but more and more an odd behavior happened in some.

Connor was met with blushes, flustered looks while others, male, female, or other, looked at him with a look that could only be described as hostility mixed with lust. It caused him to recoil away from those who wore those looks, recalling how North had confided candidly in him, shared memories of how she'd been treated. Those human faces matched those of these Androids.

Markus had come to him without him knowing, so caught up in the sea of emotions he was, pulling him away.

When Connor looked at the other man, his face looked tired. He looked overall defeated and hurt. Before Connor could ask, Markus took him back to his office and gently sat him in his office chair behind Markus all in one desktop he used to interface with when going over things. It was not long before North busted in the office, Simon right behind her, both taking there side by Connor. Josh came in lathe st closing the door and locked it.

Connor was wary. What was going on? Markus began talking to him telling him about how about a month or so ago a new online group had been created, a forum. It revolved around their relationship solely. He told Connor that the maker of the room was in custody, as well as several of the main instigators, that he was heartbroken that this was happening, that he should have done more and to not concern himself, he was taking care of it and to never look at the site as they worked to close it down for good.

The LED on Connor's temple pulsed yellow and Markus had to stop him from searching for it, instead interfaced with the PC front of him on his desk. He knew Connor would want to go to it regardless. He was too inquisitive for his own good.

The website seemed pretty benign, it even had a cute shorthand for their relationship as 'RK1K' or 'R1000'.

Connor gently shed the human skin and interfaced with the site.

It was wasn't cute or sweet at all if the tightening if his other hand on the armrest indicated with the squeal of leather in the starkly quiet room. North's fiery glare was in one screen as well though she gently pulled his fingers away from the chair willing him to grab at her own hand, even if his strength in his stress crushed it. Simon placed a resting friendly hand on his thigh, sad eyes turned up to him.

Markus wrapped his arms around his lover's shoulders and rested his head on one shoulder, also taking in the devastating effects of what misguided hatred could do again with Connor.

The tears came naturally to his eyes as he took in the sheer volume of disrespectful post one after another. Pictures and videos edit made to look very realistic of Connor in a very harmful or demeaning role in his relationship with Markus.

They really did have him as if he was just Markus' slave, literal pet, or even more insulting, just a hole to use, eluding Markus still remained with North but they agreed to this arrangement due to her history as a known sex model. This was insulting to not only him but also North, cheapening her struggle.

Others said that this was his new attack on the android leader: get him used to him, in a relationship with himself, and then when they were in the throes of passion he'd strike like some twisted black widow.

The group chat was abhorrent. Connor to them was little more than a beautiful carcass. He meant nothing to them but they'd be willing to bed him. The female-presenting androids made him little more than just some sort of soft, weak invalid that lived only for Markus to dominate in and out of the bedroom. Others just lusted for them both, striping everything that was Markus and Connor away to nothing but rutting animals, nothing further.

The screen turned off with the withdraw of Connor's hand from it. He was up and out of the chair on his way, away from here. He could not do this with these people.

Markus was right after him.

North and Simon were calling all Androids on the campus for a meeting while Josh had been working on ways to fully dismantle such an awful website.

About time Markus caught up to Connor, he was in a self-driving cab, whisking away from New Jericho, Markus knew most likely to Hank's House called his own to go there.

The meeting went exactly as one would expect from two extremely pissed leaders, one who could remain level headed regardless, and the third finally joined giving the names of the known accused and that the site was permanently shut down. There was no grumbling because they knew that it would be more issues. They all have seen Connor flee the compound, markus on his heels.

For however angry North was, nothing would compare to Markus when he showed that side of him to the people that caused this and the others that cast a blind eye to this sort of abuse, allowing for it.

When Connor reached Hank's door, he knocked hard but couldn't see well due to the tears. His face was flushed as they poured down his face. It was not long before the older father figure lieutenant let Connor inside just as Markus pulled up in his own taxi.

After Hank was assured Markus was not the cause of Connor's distress, he was admitted into the house as well. Markus immediately went and held on to Connor. They were both hurting from that level of hatred.

Of course, Markus would be upset and just as hurt as if the subject matter was him. He loved Connor and the sheer disrespect for the one he cared for was a slap in the face to him, as well.

The situation was explained to Hank, who was livid for them both, and sad that the other Androids couldn't see Connor for himself. Dad powers activated and Connor would stay with him for a while, away from Jericho.

Weeks pass, Markus is hurting and the rest of the leaders can see just how much Connor helped with smoothing the frayed edges in Markus own personality when he was tired, hurt. He tended to be snappish, not meaning to be. While he still did everything required, the whole of Jericho started to understand the gravity of the situation.

Sure, there would still be those who just treated the situation like Markus lost a favorite toy like Connor wasn't even a person, to begin with. As if Markus was throwing a tantrum in the face of genuine mistreatment.

Others though would likely see the pain they caused, fear what would happen if, though unlikely but improbable, Markus decided to walk away from all of this as a leader in the Deviants for his lover.

There are very real rumors.

It's not like they don't see Josh counseling his friend and brother daily when Markus anxiously paces the floor, the sometimes bitter and harsh words directed at no one stating the same grief he feels from this strife of his people and who he's chosen to love in the end. Or how he leaves all things that can be to the three leaders now, where before it wasn't an issue to wear that heavy crown of leadership primarily. Or how when he can he sneaks off to the old human Lieutenant's house to see the ex-deviant hunter and second he can because of that love.

Yeah, the vast majority of people are feeling like they fucked up, including any androids who dared to join in with this witch hunt for Connor and they were part of the group he directly deviated and saved from Cyberlife.

Fractions start to happen among the group, those for and against Connor's presence like finally some of those saved remembered some semblance of loyalty to him. North is fucking done with this shit. All she knows is that she misses her awkward murder baby that is so much more than just arm candy to Markus and it takes both Simon and Josh to keep her from charging into another dispute of Connor this week.

"Shut the fuck up! You have no idea what you are talking about, the person you are trying to tear down just because of his past and programming."

Of course, she'd vested. It was an explicit reminder of her own life before Jericho and how people, human and Android, loved to devalue someone with a sexual abuse past.

Connor's was mentally and emotionally abuse he suffered. The abuse was abuse at the end of the day. He had confided in her. She had seen Amanda...

From that day on, it seemed quieter about the Connor subject.

Six months.

It took six months of Markus creeping to see his lover that felt an outcast, North railing at any Android who dared speak ill of Connor, and Simon and Josh going to see him at the old lieutenant's house.

Simon had missed Connor, too. Though he was quieter about the whole thing, it didn't mean he didn't suffer the same.

Connor was so unique. He could be so cold and calculating in the heat of the moment, gun out, ready to go. But in private, talking about the 'family' dog Sumo, sharing snapshots of him, and talking about a new soft sweater he thought Simon might like as well.

Simon helped Connor with his identity as a homosexual man and as such, they bonded together. Between him and North scheming when they had a night out, it was so hilarious and refreshing.

He missed him.

Josh enjoyed Connor's brand of humor. It was dry as the Sahara, and typically delivered deadpan and it murdered him. Connor did laugh like a madman, but it was typically in Markus presence at his dry humor or sarcasm.

All the while Connor was gone, Markus and Connor talked about the dilemma. Whether Markus came and got him for lunch or they met after work at Hank's place, they talked about it, kept their communication strong, and their relationship stronger. It had been hard for them, and blame had been spread, mostly hurt fueled from Connor's side to Markus initially that this even happened under their leadership. Markus mutely had taken it, feeling as though he could have done more. Then Connor would apologize, realizing that his past was not anyone else fault but his own, that he deserved this treatment to which Markus would rally against, telling him he was good and kind, no he most definitely did not deserve this disrespect. In time, the storm calmed between them and Connor knew what to do.

On a cool, wet morning in October, Connor Anderson moved back into New Jericho, back into the living quarters with one Markys Manfred. Sure, there were murmurs but nothing like before.

One android saw this again felt some sort of way about Connor and his existence at Jericho. Just as she readied her verbal barbs, another shut her down before she could even start.

Connor witness it; Markus did too, as did North, Simon, and Josh as they were welcoming him back. A majority of people saw this brave soul stand up for one of their leaders as they had never done before.

It makes a difference in the way Connor is perceived and treated. Instead of the leadership having to police the situation, the fear of another common android speaking out for Connor and against the naysayer's curves the negative vibe that attempts to take hold again.

Connor is now welcomed back by the majority of New Jericho, not the minority, and things are back to running smoothly as before he left.

[mischief-and-tea-by-the-sea]

Holiday prompts: 8, 11, 20. FUCK MY SHIT UP

And white the fading forests grow

If anyone had told Kate Pryde years ago that she'd wind up spending a whole holiday season at a quaint little (little being relative) cabin in the New England wilderness instead of the Xavier School or any other large gathering of mutants, she'd have laughed them right out of her face.  If anyone had said she'd be spending that season with Emma and Christian Frost, Bobby Drake, and Loki, she'd have noped herself away and never speak to that person again.  

And yet...

"Kate, explain your lovely little candle tradition again, please?" Loki requested from where he fussed with the 12' Douglas Fir, trying to turn it to the perfect angle for decorating.  He glanced over his shoulder to see the look of surprise on the spritely brunette's face.  "Robert attempted to explain it, but he's so busy making eyes at Christian that I think he missed details."  

Bobby pouted from where he sat at the table with his boyfriend, Kate, and her girlfriend – okay, so they'd only been dating a couple of weeks, but Kate thought she was important enough to bring out to Loki's cabin in the middle of nowhere for the winter holidays – Danni. He reached out with the hand that Christian wasn't holding, and he gave the wooden dreidel a spin.  

"I didn't miss details, Loki.  I just...well, my parents weren't exactly orthodox.  Or even practicing.  Jewish stuff was on a need to be convenient basis with them.  Or when my grandmothers visited, so it wasn't as ingrained in me as it was Kate," Bobby defended himself.  He blushed a little when Christian lifted his hand and kissed it.

Loki walked over, rolling his shoulders until they popped.  His eyes fell on the dreidel as it spun and spun, finally slowing down to land on a character he didn't quite recognize.  Well, he could read it, but he didn't understand its meaning.  It wasn't as if he hadn't encountered many of Earth's cultures over the centuries he was alive and popping down here for visits, but he hadn't blanketed himself in most of them other than the more northern ones that based their religious practices off of what they'd learned about Asgard.  

"Alright, so what does that mean?" Loki asked, nodding toward the toppled dreidel.  "Robert spun it, so what does he...gain or...lose, I'm assuming is the object of the game?"

Kate just smirked a little even as Bobby's pout grew.

"It landed on Shin.  It means to 'put in'.  He has to put pieces of his gelt...his chocolate coin...into the middle. Which means that the three of us have a chance to win it."  

Loki reached out for the shiny gold 'coins' that were stacking up at the center of the table.  His hand hovered over them, however, and he looked from Kate to Bobby.

"May I?" he asked, hearing Frigga's voice in his head to not touch without consent.  When both Bobby and Kate nodded, he plucked one of the coins from the middle and studied it.  "And this is chocolate?  Inside this gold..."  

Emma walked closer and set her hand on Loki's lower back, stroking across his spine with her thumb.  

"It's not real gold, darling.  It's gold foil wrapped around chocolate," she told him with an indulgent smile.  

"Ohhh...that is a charming tradition," Loki remarked. "I do like chocolate, and dressing it up as a treasure when it is one makes it even more fun, doesn't it?" He set the coin back onto the table right where he found it then wrapped an arm around Emma's shoulders, snuggling her against his side.  "And this is a holiday like Yule...or Christmas?"

So they didn't just hover, Loki summoned one of the other chairs close, and he eased into it and tugged Emma into his lap. He didn't miss the looks of surprise that the two X-Men snuck to each other.  

"No, it's...well..."  Bobby looked to Kate for help.  "Sorry, Loki.  I'm just really bad with all the details.  I can make the latkes, I can light the candles, and I can play dreidel and apparently lose all my gelt, but it just wasn't the biggest of traditions in my house," he apologized and squeezed Christian's hand back.

"Sweetheart, I don't think you're offending our host by not being Mr. Trivia," the elder Frost sibling said sweetly and stood up to fill crystalline punch cups full of homemade egg nog for everyone.  

Emma made herself quite comfortable in Loki's lap. The only one missing from their little holiday away from everyone else had assured her that he was on his way, but for the moment, she was content with this motley family she'd somehow managed to accumulate.  Many times throughout her life, each family she'd claimed had built up into a monument she could trust enough to be vulnerable around only to crumble under the weight of betrayal and indifference.  Even now, she worried that letting these few, these happy few into her heart lest it shatter her heart like that diamond bullet.  

"Kate, you grew up in the faith with all the traditions and background," Emma replied in a tone more gentle than the sassy Queen was known for.  

Kate set the dreidel in motion before standing up to take two of the cups from Christian, one of which she offered to Danni before touching a kiss to the top of her girlfriend's blonde crown.  As she reclaimed her chair, the dreidel stopped again and fell over, making Bobby crow a little as it once more fell onto Shin.  She stuck out her tongue at him and tossed a chocolate coin into the middle of the table.

"Yes, I did.  I mean, my family wasn't Orthodox, but we kept the holidays and most Sabbaths...when Dad wasn't working late at the office.  I went to Hebrew school.  I think I learned even more from Erik," she explained and set her cup on the table out of the way.  

"Thank you, Christian," Loki stated as he took one of the cups from Emma's brother.  He took a sip and let the thick eggy liquid sit on his tongue for a moment before he swallowed, tasting the bourbon and nutmeg keenly.  "This is...very strange but delicious," he added. "If you'd rather not explain, I understand.  I'm just curious as your world has so many mystical options to choose from." Then those verdant eyes of his sparkled with the mischief he was known for.  As if tempting her, he added, "I'll show you mine, Kate, if you show me yours."  

"Hey now," Danni pretended to sound jealous and made a dramatic show of slinging her arm around Kate's shoulders. She kissed her cheek then plucked up the dreidel to take her turn.  While the wooden toy spun and spun, she gestured between Loki and Kate.  "By all means, babe, lay it all out on the table. If nothing else, I want to learn about all the shiny pagan holiday stuff from Asgard," the tattoo artist stated before turning her eyes to what her prize or predicament would be.  

Kate met Loki's and Emma's eyes and shrugged a shoulder.  

"Fair enough.  I'll tell you all about it, if nothing more than to impress my lady," she replied and gave her girlfriend a flirty smile.  

The dreidel stopped and fell over.  It landed on a boxy looking letter without a bottom.

"That looks very similar to Uruz," he stated. "The rune of strength," came the codicil.  

"It's hay," Kate said.  "It means that Danni gets to take half the pot.  That is what's at the center of the table.  Go for it, babe" she explained and encouraged her girlfriend.

While Danni collected her portion of the loot and Christian reached out to spin the dreidel, Kate started into the history of the Jewish rebellion against the Greek and Syrian oppressors, but she became more animated when she spoke about the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem and how there was not enough olive oil to burn all seven candles of the Menorah, but they lit the first anyway.  It was a portion of the history that she and Erik Lensherr discussed most often, especially because she saw the hope out of oppression, and liked to think that she reminded him of that to soothe his cynical heart.  

"And when they thought they only had enough oil for one day, it burned for eight days," Kate finished.  

She took a drink of her egg nog and looked at the others.  The dreidel had been completely forgotten, even though Christian's spin had earned him the other half of the pot, while everyone listened to Kate the Storyteller. Blinking over their rapt attention, Kate cleared her throat.  

"So, now you know about Hanukkah, Loki," she mused, smirking at the way the King of Jotunheim huggled his arms around Emma and buried his face against her shoulder.  

Loki eased Emma from his lap and carefully set his cup onto the table where it wasn't in anyone's way.  He walked around until he stood between Kate and Danni, leaned down, and kissed Kate's cheek.  

"Thank you for explaining," he told her in the tenderest of voices.  

And for good measure, he touched his lips to Danni's cheek.  

"And welcome to this strange little family," Loki replied at her look of confusion before he made his way back to the tree to don its finishing touches.  

Bobby looked down at the center of the table and the dreidel and finally nudged Christian to point out that he'd won the rest of the loot, but without warning, his boyfriend tilted his head and delivered a sound kiss to his lips instead.  Something that Bobby wasn't going to turn down at all.  

"I'd say get a room, you two, but you'd just tell Danni and me to do the same," Kate teased as she looked at her meager winnings, knowing that her girlfriend would likely share a chocolate coin or two.

"Besides, you both have a room here, Katherine," Emma stated as she, too, stood up and finished her egg nog.  She took hers and Loki's cups to the kitchen to set in the sink then walked over to join one half of her significant others at the tree. She set her hands on his back; she'd already picked up on a little tension before she couched his strained shoulder blades.  

"What has you worried, darling?" she asked mind-to-mind so as not to concern the young ones.  

"Oh, you know.  Thinking that Anthony should've been here by now.  Pepper assured me that she wasn't keeping him any longer than necessary.  Otherwise, he would've driven her mad," Loki responded the same and tilted his head when Emma rested her chin on his shoulder. He touched his lips to hers then went back to adding shimmery crystalline ornaments to the branches of the tree.  

Kate and Bobby watched Emma with Loki.  Of course, Christian would recognize a more settled demeanor to his sister than years past, but it was truly the former two mutants who could see more of a difference because they'd lived through her pining over Scott.  While Danni and Christian headed into the kitchen to wash up and to check on the slow-roasting prime rib in the oven that they'd all been smelling since noon, Kate leaned closer to speak to Bobby where they wouldn't be heard.  

"Can you believe that our White Queen is so happy? With Loki?"  

"And Tony Stark," Bobby concluded. "It's weird, Kate, but...I don't know.  Seems right. More right than...all the rest." He shoved a piece of unwrapped gelt into his mouth then offered one of his few left to Kate.  

*

Another hour and a half later, they all stood outside the 'cabin', which was actually more elegant and upscale than the term 'cabin' would imply.  Snow dusted their boots, and they were all wrapped warmly in layers of shirts and coats, scarves wrapped around their necks, and beanies covering their heads and ears.  Kate held onto Danni's hands, and Christian was snuggled with his back to Bobby's chest.

Of course, the cold didn't bother Bobby at all; just as it didn't affect Loki now that he'd come to grudgingly accept the benefits of his Jotun biology underneath the Aesir glamor he continued to wear.  

"What are we looking at again, Loki?" Christian was the one to ask.  "I mean, the snow on the trees is beautiful.  The snow...as far as our eyes can see is lovely, but...we're just standing out here staring at...well, I'm not sure."  

Loki peeked over Emma's head at the others, making sure they all would have the best view of the horizon.  Then his longing gaze fell on the driveway again and the car that had yet to appear.  

"Soon, Christian, you'll see.  It is, after all, the Winter Solstice," Loki explained and nodded to where the sun was just beginning its descent toward the horizon, turning much of the scenery in the distance into silhouette.  "The longest night of the year.  I believe in your Iceland, the word for it is Vetrarsólstöður, which is very close to what it is on Asgard."  In fact, Loki repeated the word for Winter Solstice in the language he'd been raised with, and it sounded nearly identical to the Icelandic term.  "In our tradition, as in many of yours dating before the influence of Christianity, it is the death of the sun through the coldest months of the year," he added.

"I have several friends who are Asatruar...and plenty who are Wiccan of some variety, and that's pretty much how they celebrate it, too," Danni announced then kissed Kate's hands through her gloves.  

Just as the sun dipped down a little further, and Emma leaned closer into Loki's side to comfort his worries, a cherry red SUV of the newest models not even out on the market yet for public purchase, no less stylish than the Audi R8 Spyder of the same color, pulled up to the cabin and stopped just behind all the other cars.  The lights cut out, and the door opened and slammed closed before a figure dressed all in black and red ran over to the group gathered in the snow.  

"I didn't miss it, did I?  Bambi, tell me I didn't miss your thing," Tony asked and nearly pleaded, his voice catching in his throat as the thought of missing his S.O.'s holiday moment tore into him.  "Sorry I wasn't here soon.  I had to stop for the extra food and cake and..."  

"Anthony, shush," Emma scolded gentle and reached out a hand to the newcomer.  

Just as Loki did, and Tony rushed over, giving the others a polite but perfunctory greeted as he set his hands into his lovers' and happily let them fold him into them.  

"You didn't miss it, ástin mín," answered Loki in a hushed tone.  "It's just started."  

And together, the bundles of lovers watched as the humongous fire-orange sun lowered herself to the horizon and below until she was all gone, leaving in her wake a blanket of black sky and twinkling stars and the first quarter moon that smiled on all of them like the Cheshire Cat.

At that moment, while they all held still and silenced in the last moments of the sun and first moments of the longest night of the year, the trees around the cabin appeared to shake away their snow cloaks, and bright white-gold and green fairy lights sparkled into existence. Everyone's gasps of surprise made Loki smile, and the Trickster – this fallen prince of Asgard and forgotten prince of Jotunheim – felt a longing that he'd ached to be fulfilled at last find its way home.  

(Title taken from Loreena McKennitt's "Snow" on To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987) and Songs for Winter Gardens (1995), and again on A Midwinter Night's Dream (2008).)

Holiday prompt list can be found here.

[potteresque-ire]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - My Rambling Review

This is a book that at times floors me, at times frustrates me.

(Under the cut, because 1) rambling and 2) spoilers)

I’ll lay out my frustrations first — then, I’ll do a 180 degrees turn around and explain why these frustrations also make the book such a haunting, powerful read for me. All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It’s just that, while reading, I also kept thinking:

This book is a several edits away from a masterpiece.

I’ll begin with this. I can’t say how much I adore Suzanne Collins’ dedication in driving home the themes of the Hunger Games in TBOSAS. The nature of war and how it serves a tool for those who want to retain power, the opposing view of whether human nature is inherently good or violent or self-destructive. 

Control, chaos, contract.

But this is also why, I think, the book stumbles in places. The themes are given such a strong, at times heavy-handed treatment that they threaten to swallow up other elements of storytelling. The plot, the characterisations etc have all at times given way to serve the themes, and the story’s believability is compromised. The Hunger Games, as a series, requires more believability to work than a novel about our world because of the sheer brutality of the games, both inside and outside the arena. This requires a sure hand in the writing. Suzanne Collins accomplished that in the original trilogy — I never doubted the existence of these games, and the horror that is the Capitol that has created and enjoyed them. But I did have moments of doubt while reading TBOSAS.

I think, if I have to sum up the shortcomings of TBOSAS, it is this: everything in this book is about war and totalitarianism. Every plot point speaks to these themes. Every major character is a walking symbol of a set of ideals related to these themes. Everything they think and do, every backdrop of their thoughts and actions including the imageries, the songs, the objects (compact, compass, snakes etc), all serve the themes in some way. This undermines plausibility of the story because actual human beings aren’t like that. Actual events don’t happen like that. Our lives are pulled in multiple directions by numerous purposes, most of them trivial. The trivialities may not serve any larger themes but they round us, complete us as humans. They provide the context, the texture of who we are.

Because only the aspects of them connected to the themes are told/emphasised, The characters in TBOSAS are prone to reading flat, textureless. Dr Gaul (DG) is the most extreme of examples. She feels no more than a voice (not a human) for the singular purposes of bringing up questions about the themes. Other major characters are relatively spared, but the issue is still evident in places. The thoughts of Coriolanus Snow (CS) are too focused on several issues (poverty; the three Cs; how the Plinths offend him, for example). Lucy Grey (LG) is somewhat saved by her songs and her mystery is her draw, but the same mystery also prevents us from engaging emotionally with her. Sejanus Plinth (SP) repeatedly tries to defy the Capitol, which is noble, but does little else that we’re aware of. His presence seems to serve as a contrast to CS rather than being a person on his own. The secondary characters suffer even more under the weight of the themes:  the mentors, for example, are so similarly unlikeable that they border on cartoonish for me. It makes sense in the trilogy that Katniss doesn’t know much about those in the arena with her and their mentors; it makes sense that her descriptions of them veer towards two-dimensional and therein lies the tragedy of the Games — Katniss and Peeta are fully aware that every tribute is a human being but they’re robbed of any chance to treat them as such. In contrast, the mentors in TBOSAS are CS’s childhood friends. CS may be self-centred and calculating, but he’s too observant to see his friends as all alike. Symbolically, I can understand why the mentors share certain traits — they will be the audience for the next 65 Hunger Games, after all — but the implausibility of these mentors undermines the plausibility of the 10th Hunger Games itself, as CS sits among them.

The shortcomings in characterisations are reflected in the plot. The romantic scenes between CS and LG tend to get into the discussions of the nature of the Games, of Panem and the Capitol’s rule very quickly (for example, the one by the Lake, the one during their final trip out of District 12). It allows a direct compare-and-contrast between his views and hers, but at the plot level, it makes their romance, healthy or not, difficult to believe, which makes some of CS’ decisions hard to believe. Sometimes, I almost sense a disinterest in the writing, a hastening in the pace at what are significant plot points that don’t directly serve the themes (for example, the confrontation in the shed). And there are many of such beautiful plot points in this book, fantastic moments when things don’t go as expected or the writing nails the scene and brings the emotions to the max (The last hanging. * Sigh*). But this book, like CS, isn’t interested in lingering in those moments. This book, like CS, doesn’t allow itself to veer out of emotional control.

Related to the plot too is that I feel the treatment of the tributes before 10th Hunger Games is a bit too heavy handed, and as a result, fail to achieve the chilling effects of the games in the original trilogy. How the tributes are dumped in a zoo and treated with veterinarians, how they’re treated in the funerals etc … the cold-heartedness of these acts, the villainous nature of the Capitol is so overt that it’s difficult to imagine the Capitol’s citizens going along with them (watching the tributes at the zoo, for example; the fans outside the arena during the games). The luxury offered to the tributes before the Games in the original trilogy adds on a whole layer of brutality, because it’s there to appease the conscience of the Capitol citizens, because it’s equivalent to fattening the pig before slaughtering it. The 10th Hunger Games misses that. Like everything else, I understand this choice of presentation at the symbolic level (more on that later), but it also makes some of these sequences read almost caricature, if the Games were a human. It’s Evil spelled out for all to see; it’s evil for evil’s sake.

Okay, so this seems to be a long list of complaints. If you get here, you must be wondering, how come I said I enjoyed the book? What is there left to be enjoyed, if the characterisations, the plot and the pacing all have somethings left to be desired?

And my answer is: this book is a very different book if I adjust my perspective, think of everything in terms of its themes and symbols. After this adjustment, TBOSAS becomes a very different read.

It’s also brilliant.

My thoughts are rough — I’m not familiar with the Hobbesian theories, but I’ll try to explain my alternate view of TBOSAS via my understanding of the 4 major characters, Coriolanus Snow (CS), Lucy Grey (LG), Sejanus Plinth (SP), and Dr Gaul (DG). I think of them as the major characters because I feel they each represent a set of perspectives regarding totalitarianism and the wars and chaos associated with it. In the books, these perspectives are engaged in a Hunger Games of their own, a battle raged because the governing set of perspectives, the one of Dr Gaul, is failing. The victor of this Game doesn’t get the Plinth Prize, but decides the fate of the Districts and Panem. I’d summarise the 4 perspectives as follows:

DG (Dr Gaul) is the closest to the classic villain. She views the line between the Capitol and the Districts as not the line between good and evil, but between winners and losers, who are violent animals without the line. The line is rigid and unmovable and must be maintained via constant war. She wants to make a totalitarian regime.

SP (Sejanus Plinth) is the closest to the classic hero. He also sees the line between the Capitol and the Districts, and as clearly and insistently as Dr Gaul (he insists he’s from District 2 throughout the book). The difference is, he sees it as the line between the oppressors and the oppressed, the evil and the good. He wants to break the totalitarian regime, make the line obsolete by making one side disappear. The road to achieve his ideals also involves war.

LG (Lucy Grey) refuses to acknowledge the line between the Capitol and the Districts. She has no trouble becoming friends / lovers with those who are from the Capitol as long as they do not commit the same brutality, while her sympathies also lie with the rebels who’re brutally treated. She has no interest in wars, in the making or breaking of any regime. She is her own judge of who’s good and who’s evil, who’s the oppressor and the oppressed and contrary to DG (and eventually, CS), she believes humans are inherently good.

CS (Coriolanus Snow), on the surface, also sees the line between the Capitol and the Districts. Unlike DG and SP, however, he sees it as something fluid, which can be erased and redrawn to suit a purpose. The line CS sees doesn’t demarcate good vs evil, or winners vs losers. It separates CS and what CS wants. Like LG, CS has no true loyalty to the Capitol or the Districts, has no inherent interest in wars or making or breaking a regime. Unlike LG, however, he is open to participating in them as long as there are rewards to be reaped. As such, CS has no qualms cheating in the Games, which does far more damage to the Capitol’s image of strength and control than anything else (by making LG a victor despite her unthinkable odds but more importantly, making her a person instead of an animal), or later on, taking over SP’s place in the Plinth’s family.

DG, despite being the game maker, is the first loser of this Hunger Games between the ideologies. Her control is cracking. Her Games are a bore, and discontent and hunger have lent chaos to the Districts, like the fight in the dark in District 12. Chaos is also in the Capitol when CS, discontent and hungry in his own way, begins to erase the line between the Capitol and the Districts by showing up in the train station with a rose. Despite her powerful façade, DG is also weak against LG and SP. LG defeats DG’s snake mutts easily in the arena. DG has to give SP chance after chance, given his father’s ammunition empire.

DG’s strength is that she’s aware of her weaknesses, and willing to adjust her tactics in exchange for the control she craves. I don’t think she’s grooming CS as much as she sees something in him that she doesn’t have. The something that is symbolised by the compact — the remaining humanity in CS after the war that allows him to gain the trust of LG and SP. DG fails to even pretend to have that. Like the 10th Hunger Games she’d staged, like her dumping the tributes in the zoo and abusing them, her intent is too obvious, her distaste too overt and … tasteless. Even the Capitol audience aren’t keen on her designs; they go to the zoo to watch the tributes but skip the Games. She needs a CS who knows how to re-package the Games as something that appears fun and harmless and beautiful, like LG. LG who can make tributes in a cage look dignified, who can entertain and sing DG’s snake mutts into oblivion.

SP’s strength is, of course, his moral fibre, which is also his weaknesses. He’s too idealistic; his inability to accept compromises, especially when he’s still too young to bring about actual changes to the Capitol, render him useless towards his goal — even if he doesn’t meet his end, what good can he do for the Districts, for Panem, once he heads North (with the likes of Billy Taupe)? I find myself agreeing with CS when he talks SP out of the arena — morality is of limited use if it can’t be translated into meaningful actions. I also (somewhat shamefully) find myself agreeing with CS’s frustration / bitterness about SP’s constant, vocal insistence that he’s District, if only because I find it disrespectful to the actual suffering the District 2 folks must be going through. As the Plinth heir, SP is in a very powerful position to bring about reforms to Panem if he can be a little more patient, a little more scheming, … a little more CS. Instead, he constantly engages himself in largely performative acts that compromises his own potential. Acting out in front of Dr Gaul. The bread crumbs for Marcus, even. It’s touching, yes, but does it change anything? No. The bread ritual isn’t the same as Katniss’s funeral for Rue; Katniss and Rue are both tributes. SP gets out of the arena because of the privilege he has in spades but fails to see in himself. He should also know, because he’s seen it before, what happens to whichever tribute who would’ve killed him if CS doesn’t show up.

That said, it doesn’t mean SP doesn’t do any good; it’s just that the good he’s done isn’t what he’s intended, which, perhaps, makes SP’s end even more tragic than it is. I think SP and his idealism have inspired CS to be a better person. I believe CS, despite himself, like SP more than he admits and SP delays his final turn for at least a while. SP may not have helped anyone in the Districts as he’s wished, but he’s close to changing the mind of someone who’ll one day decide the fate of everyone in the Districts.

LG. Her strength is her independent thinking. She isn’t naive about the Capitol-Districts line she refuses to acknowledge — she knows where the snakes are. She knows that better than anyone else. On the surface, she appears to be the weakest among the four, the girl in a rainbow dress whose only survival skill is her ability to manipulate snakes. But someone can sense evil and manipulate it to their advantage is a threat; someone who doesn’t buy into the Capitol’s propaganda is a threat, especially those who remember that the cruel laws and “traditions” (the Games) the Capitol attempts to pass as “lessons” are artefacts and therefore, transient. Transient things are weak; subservience to them is then an option, not a must. LG and her kind can be even more threatening to the Capitol than the rebels, because while the latter can be rid of with sentences of treason, the LGs of Panem cannot be removed the same way because they haven’t acted against the regime. They cannot be sentenced for singing songs about the good and bad in humans, about human emotions, about the day to day sightings of their human neighbours, dead and alive, about the humans that arch between reality and imagination and prophecy. They cannot be hanged for knowing songs that predate Panem and the Capitol, for being the mockingjays that still have the jabberjays in them but nonetheless find a way to sing whatever they choose.

DG, I believe, fails to fully grasp the danger of LG, but CS does. His biggest fear of LG is that she can locate snakes, that she can see through him. They bond at first as they both sees themselves above the Capitol-Districts line, but once the Games are over, the cracks between them almost immediately begin to show. She thinks of her knowledge of snakes as self defence. He sees it as something she’ll coil around him one day. Like a hope — LG is CS’s chance of getting back the humanity he lost in the war — and also like a rope.

The weakness of LG is, of course, that she’s after all, just a girl in a rainbow dress. Even if she wants/needs to, she doesn’t have the power to make any changes to the Capitol. She can only run once perceived as a threat, but she can’t fight back.

She can’t fight CS, the ultimate winner.

All through the book, I keep shifting my own mind lens to see how I would perceive CS if I cannot read his thoughts, if I’m like everyone else around him. And I realise how he … smells like roses through a significant portion of the book, given how unifying awful his classmates are except SP. He’s the first mentor to treat a tribute like a human. He helps his classmates (Arachne and Clemensia; the mutts attack on the latter isn’t his intention). He’s the only Academy student who’s kind to SP and while he’s forced to save the latter, he does so with tact and an understanding of SP’s thought processes that can only come from friendship. Do we judge a person with his actions or his thoughts? I’d say, his actions, and from an outsider’s perspective, CS does seem to be the one who can change Panem for the better. He does seem to be the one who can fix the Capitol from within, who can get it to rethink its treatment of the Districts while preserving its own dignity as the ruling class. And herein lies the greatest strength of CS—he’s a diplomat; he’s all about soft power. He knows how to work within a system (eg. his cheating), how to wage a war without firing a shot. He can be everyone’s ally and at the same time: while he’s making a major contribution to the Hunger Games by his betting proposal, he’s also destroying the Games at its foundation by equalising his Capitol self and his District tribute (picnicking with LG at the zoo in front of the camera, for example). When DG says she destroyed the records of the Games because the mentors’ death makes the Capitol look weak, I wonder if it’s a lie. Aside from my suspicion that DG staged the arena attack — her intention being to remind the Capitol of the Districts’ “evilness” and draw the Capitol to watch the Games as revenge — I believe DG is aware that CS and LG are chiefly responsible for making the Capitol look weak during the Games. The invention she’s proud / confident enough of to go on an interview right before its introduction into the arena turns out to be pets in their collective hands.

My understanding is, DG sees CS as both her potential successor and potential threat. Her campaign is to find out where he stands and to get him on her side: her extra homework for him, the breadcrumbs she lays down for him (the peacekeeper-ship, the officership) are all to corner him to out of his diplomatic exterior and to force him take a stand, to bait him to take her stand.

The ones doing the tug of war with DG are SP and LG — if this is a war for CS’s soul, then SP represents his conscience, and LG, his humanity.

SP loses first. Between conscience and safety, CS picks the latter. This is a decision I can understand on some level; many in our world, too, have opted for safety (from being ratted out, punished by association) instead of speaking out against injustice, especially when the injustice is committed by those in power, especially when the association is also protected by power (CS is not entirely wrong in thinking that SP may be able to buy his way out of the jabberjay incident, given his privilege). LG goes second and last. The choice between humanity and power isn’t as much a more difficult decision to make as it is reserved for relatively few, for those already with power within their reach.

CS is aware of that.

It takes a 500+ page journey for CS to make a conscious choice of giving up his humanity. He misses it, and I believe his pain is real. He misses the humanity he lost during the war, symbolised by the loss of his mother who left him with the rose powder in the compact. The rose powder he smells for comfort. I think Suzanne Collins deserve major kudos for using CS as the sole narrator of TBOSAS. It’s a risky move and doesn’t always pay off, but it offers a unique, in-depth perspective in how real world villains come about. CS starts out as talented but also mundane in that on the scale of morality, he starts out as neither exceptionally evil nor exceptionally good. He’s neither the classic villain nor the misunderstood villain. His views of the world is still being shaped, and the book doesn’t shy away from the messiness of the process, the back and forth between CS’s better and worse thoughts, the discrepancies between his thoughts — including what he perceives as his motivation — and his actions.

CS so desperately wants to be believe he’s in love with LG and the renewed, post-war humanity she represents. He’s so convinced that he’s already in love. But he never truly is (he dislikes LG’s songs), because the rewards LG can offer him turns out to be far from enough. The rewards humanity can offer him turns out to be far from enough, not in a world where war, where the Capitol and the likes of DG have already so de-valued humanity. A life with LG will be about digging worms from the soil. Free, but poor in every other way. It may satisfy his conscience, but SP has already been killed at the Hanging Tree.

CS fails to kill his humanity as he did with his conscience. CS cannot fully divorce himself from humanity, being human himself. And so LG disappears into the woods.

With all this in my mind, the climax of the book, in which CS hunts for LG by the Lake, is both emotionally and intellectually intense. As his actions become more and more threatening, as he starts with a seemingly concerned search for LG and ends with firing shots at the echos of “The Hanging Tree”, his taking the stand of DG is complete. As a reader, his decision has been evident for a while, but this is when he faces and owns his decision himself, and the chapter is haunting as it is powerful. At that moment, CS turns into DG’s most powerful mutt, a human mutt but with its humanity left only as a veneer, like the compact he’ll get back from Casca Highbottom with his mother’s rose powder long disposed in the trash, with his only hope of a new rose powder — his renewed humanity in the form of LG — long banished into the unknown by his peacekeeper’s rifle. CS becomes an actualisation of DG’s and his own belief that he’s but an animal that requires constant control, which in turn requires with constant war. It’s an apt end for TBOSAS because by then, the fate of the Districts, of Panem for the next six decades is sealed. Because by then, the return of humanity into the Capitol, in the form of Katniss Everdeen, is also sealed.

No matter how much jabberjays there is in them, mockingjays will find a way to sing whatever they choose. 

[ianxfalcon]

One of the things I really liked about season 3 of TDP was the way it presented prejudice and confirmation bias. While the show has always been trying to paint both sides as equally in the wrong (or in the right, depending on perspective), the sympathy has always been somewhat skewed towards the side of the elves and dragons. I think a lot of it has to do with our own preconceived notions about the fantasy genre, where humans tend to be treated as the evil or misguided; short-sighted, prejudiced, unfairly fearful of magic. And the magical creatures have in turn been used as a stand-in for various oppressed groups. There is a tendency in the fantastical genre to treat humans as the Real Monster. And even when TDP wasn’t trying to do that, it sort of leaked through anyway.

I don’t know how much of it was intentional, but the way the conflict has been presented to us in the earlier seasons has clearly been biased in favour of the elves. When we first see Ziard in the prologue, all we see is him killing magical creatures, stealing their essence for some unknown purpose, and the way it’s shown makes it look truly horrifying and evil.

Then, season 3 rolled around, and it painted quite a different picture of the same scene. Clearly, humans were the oppressed group here - the only beings in Xadia, the land of magic, that have none. “Lesser beings,” as Sol Regem calls them - in such a way that it seems quite clear this is a common view of them. This is how the magical beings see them, as lesser. They are surrounded by powerful beings, immortal beings, and they are just... human. Maybe they weren’t oppressed oppressed, maybe there was peace and equality... but how equal can you be, really, when you are powerless, when you know that if the more powerful beings - the ones that already view you as lesser than them - decided to crush you, you’d be helpless.

Sure, stealing the essence of other living things might be immoral. But is it really any worse than killing an animal for food? In this particular situation, is it that different from killing an enemy soldier to protect yourself and your friends? Obviously, we still don’t know the whole story yet, but this is at least worth discussing, right?

Just think about what actually happened in that scene. Sol Regem told Ziard that he had to give up the magic, his one protection against his oppressors. Ziard refused. Sol Regem responded - and by the way he acted, this was clearly his plan all along - by killing completely innocent people. Ziard used dark magic to protect his people and his home. When we first saw him, all we saw was him draining the life force of presumably innocent creatures. Now, with the context, we know that he was killing enemies, to protect his people. Is that wrong? And, more importantly, in what way is it different from what Sol Regem was doing?

This results in confirmation bias on two fronts. To the Xadians, this proved that humans were dangerous and evil, because look - this one human stole the life force of our kind, and he blinded our king. And that’s all they know, because Ziard is dead, he can’t tell his side of the story. To the humans, this proved that they really do need dark magic. The more powerful beings did turn against them, did run them out of their homes, all because of what one human did. All because of prejudice. If they can do that, what else will they do? We need dark magic, it’s our only defense if they decide to go even further.

When the Sunfire Elves test Amaya and they see that she is pure of heart, they dismiss it as an outlier. When they test Viren and see that he is, well, Viren, they see it as proof that all humans really are evil. Except Viren is the actual outlier; most humans we’ve seen in the show are much more like Amaya than they are like Viren. It's like judging all elves based on Aaravos. Speaking of, Aaravos is infamous amongst the elves, presumably for being a prick. Yet they don’t seem to see him as a representative of their species (or maybe all Startouch Elves really are Like That, who knows?).

That’s prejudice for you. I don’t know, I just really liked the way it was presented.

[deogenezen]

A Leader’s Great Influence

Hello! We are Group 3 and today we proudly present to you our blog! 

To give you all a short preview, when all our essays are compiled, it revolves around one topic - A Leader’s Power in Effect to his or her Followers. 

                                                   ✯

─── ──── ──── ❝ Ways of being a Leader ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Alfonso Herrero)

          Napoleon, who is the leader of Animal Farm, and Duterte, who is the President of the Philippines, have some similarities and differences on how they run their government and how they rule their people. Sometimes, one leader is better than the other in how they do things. With so much power in their possession, Napoleon and Duterte used their powers in many different ways that made their own followers have conflict with themselves or their supporters into their enemies. 

          These two leaders have a distinct way of addressing their followers. They both have others who act as a dictionary to make the people understand what they said or did. These two leaders have others twist their words and actions to make it less controversial. Duterte has Roque as the Presidential Spokesperson, as he is the one who sometimes, sits in front of the cameras to repeat what the president said. Napoleon has Squealer to explain his actions to the other animals to make them think that Napoleon is not breaking the seven commandments.

          Both of these leaders have lied to their followers multiple times. These promises were made as a way to gain the favor of everyone. Back at the 2016 election, Duterte promised to fight for the West Philippine Sea. Right now, all we see is him being friendly with China and just letting them take what is rightfully ours. Napoleon lied to the animals because he broke majority of the rules that he implemented for everyone. An obvious commandment he broke was “Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy” as we read in the last chapter that he was walking on two legs. 

          These two leaders, no matter what they do, they will always have some people who will not always agree with them. While they experience the same thing, they have different ways on how to respond to those people. Napoleon will kill anyone who will go against him. Like how he killed the chickens because they weren’t willing to give up their eggs. He killed other animals as well because they confessed that they had been working with Snowball all along. As for Duterte, he answers back to his critics in a non-professional way and acts immaturely. When he receives criticism from anyone, he will take it as a personal attack and not as a way to improve himself. An example of this is how he responded to Leni Robredo’s criticism against him during Typhoon Ulysses. He answered back to Robredo by saying that she herself was not doing anything and that she was just sleeping with another man while the Typhoon was happening. 

          Both Napoleon and Duterte have a special group of people that will help them intimidate their opponents and anyone who will try to go against them. This show of force is a way to strike fear within people so any sort of resistance against them will be discouraged. Duterte’s way of intimidating people is with the use of the Military and Police. He uses the military and police against the communist party of the Philippines and any drug users. Napoleon has his dogs that he stole from their parents when they were born. Napoleon uses the dogs to chase Snowball out of Animal Farm and to kill animals who confessed their crimes. 

          The people in their land work hard for the benefit of everyone else, but they were treated differently. In the Philippines, when you’re a taxpayer and already retired, every month you get a pension depending on how much you contributed during your working days. Another benefit is that you are granted benefits from PhilHealth if anything happens to you or to anyone from your family. Napoleon treats his people differently. He bosses everyone around only for the benefits of himself and not for other animals. He has no respect towards them and doesn’t care about their contribution to the animal farm. He killed the chickens because they did not want to give up their eggs and he killed Boxer because he could no longer do his work properly. 

          Napoleon and Duterte have some similarities and differences on how they run the land that they lead. One similarity is that they lied to their people to gain their favor and one difference is how they treat the people who work hard for the benefit of their land. While our officials are terrible leaders right now, we’re lucky they aren’t worse than other leaders were.

                                                  ✯

── ─── ❝ Perfecting Absolute Fascist-Communism  ❞ ─── ──

(By: Allan Dela Cruz)

          In animal farm, Orwell explicitly made direct allegories to real-life counterparts. Among which include the creation of animal farm; in which the real-life counterpart would be the Russian revolution – seeing as the animals overthrew the “Czar” in this case. The different and diverse class system and their familiar government system named “animal system” which screams of the modern-day socialist system built by Marx. But the most prominent similarity by far is the representation of totalitarian dictators, in this case, Napoleon; is to Stalin. 

          Both leaders assert their influence in both the military and the constitution. Both have played their own share of politics – and both have won with ruthless force and became dictators. Using both of their absolute and authoritarian power to corrupt and exploit too much of what is, “necessary”. And both having been an inspirational leader. These are the qualities that Orwell clearly wanted to point out to his readers. In terms of contrast, while both leaders are downright power-hungry. I think with Napoleon; he is more interested in his personal (or his kin’s) goals and gains compared to Stalin. While Stalin is greedy, greedy in a sense for the “betterment” of his country, I mean all classes regardless of noble-born or peasants as he was one of the people who revolted against the much privileged and unfair Czars that it only made sense to him for Russia to reform. Stalin's problem was his means to get there, which involved the gulags that made them no better than the 3rd Reich. I do not think Napoleon and the pigs care about the other farm animals, as they focus too much on their self-interest and abuse it to the point of exploiting the other animals. While Stalin technically exploited his citizens, his “first plan" [also called the great turn] – industrialized and modernized Russia in just five years. Russia turned into a once primitive and backward empire - whilst taking no heed by the Czars - into a prospering union – with the help of the gulags of course. While back in animal farm, while they have their own version of gulags – albeit less brutal – the benefits they get from it anyway is almost nonexistent, and that most of it just goes immediately to the pig’s self-interest.

          That being said, I think what Orwell’s trying to aim at is that the nature of totalitarianism can be easily distinguished – albeit the way he portrays it can be exaggerated – and that it must be avoided, which is propaganda really.

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── ❝  The Practice of Abuse in the Russian Revolution ❞ ──

(By: Eurick Gamboa)

          Orwell has allegories hidden in the story Animal Farm. It overlooks the Russian revolution. The Animal Farm also focused on the system dictatorship, symbolizing Napoleon. There was also a social class system which was called the “Animal System”, which shows the modern day socialism system. Orwell's main message in Animal Farm is that power can corrupt, even when idealism is at the start. The allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917, where the Bolsheviks overthrew the tsar to establish a communist regime.

          One of the novel’s most impressive accomplishments, is its portraits of not just the figures in power, but also the oppressed people themselves. Animal Farm is not told from the perspective of any character in the story. Rather, the story is told from the perspective of the common animals as a group. Foolish, loyal, corrupt, and hardworking, the animals gives Orwell a chance to tell how situations of oppression rose, not only from the motives of the oppressors, but also from the naiveness of the oppressed. When presented with a situation, one of the characters, Boxer, prefers not to be suspicious, so instead he repeats to himself the mottos such as, “Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder.” Animal Farm demonstrates how the inability to question authority criticizes the working class to suffer the full extent of the ruling class’s oppression.

          One of the Commandments was “All animals are equal”. However, this equality was shortly diminished and the pigs began to bend the rules until inequality returned to the farm and the pigs gained power. Orwell used the animals and their actions to make the reader think about equality and inequality. Before 1917, the majority of Russian people suffered from great inequality. They had far less money and food than the ruling classes. However, before the rebellion in Animal Farm, Mr. Jones takes everything that the animals have been keeping or have been caring for away from them. After the Rebellion the animals were free from the tyranny of Mr. Jones and seek to establish equality amongst themselves once and for all. 

          In conclusion, Orwell's message warns readers about allowing smart, selfish politicians to abuse power and gradually take away civil rights and independence. He warns his readers about the various methods of manipulation and propaganda used by oppressive regimes to crush and control the people.

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─── ──── ──── ❝ Napoleon and Trump ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Breanna Geronimo)

          The boar, named Napoleon, is the leader of animal farm. He became the leader of the Animal Farm (also known as Manor Farm) when the animals rebelled against the humans, specifically Mr. Jones which was the owner of the Manor Farm. The current President of the United States now is Donald Trump, he won his position last January 20, 2017 and his term will end on January 20, 2021.

          Napoleon is a corrupt leader because he only does things that benefits himself. One example was when he stole the idea of Snowball, which was to build a windmill. Another example is that he would also use Squealer to tell all of the animals lies and anything that will make him look correct and good. He is also a greedy leader because he wants all the power of being a leader to be his. He also has a tendency to get too much of everything/ tend to get things that he does not need. An example is when he and the pigs drinks all of the milk and does not give/ provide for the other animals. In my opinion, he is a leader who does not promote/ give equality, because he does not treat the animals equally. For an instance, he said that “no animal, shall sleep in a bed” then he changed it to “no animal, shall sleep in bed, with blankets.” He changed the rules so that he and the pigs can sleep in a bed, while the other animals aren’t allowed to.

          Trump as I have said is the President of the United States. He is a corrupt president, because just like Napoleon, he would do anything that can benefit him and his family. For an instance, he corrupted the tax system and funded his own taxes (David Halperin, Oct 26,2020). President Trump can also be a greedy leader because he eviscerated health care, because of his hatred for the former President of the United States, Barack Obama. In my opinion, I also do know and believe that he is a President who does not give/ promote equality. For an instance, He calls “Black Lives Matter (BLM)” a symbol of hate. I do believe that what some of the Americans did was inappropriate (like breaking glass of buildings and stealing) but he still does not have the right to say that it was a symbol of hate. Because what the Americans only wanted was for them to have equality.

          Both Napoleon and President Trump are leaders of a certain area/place and they can also tend to be corrupt and greedy leaders. The only difference that I can find between Napoleon and President Trump is that Napoleon is a fictional character and President Trump is not. They are also not the same type of animal Napoleon is a boar while President Trump is human. I just hope that someday people will be able to learn from people who are trustworthy, kind and loving to their country and countrymen.

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─── ──── ──── ❝ The Rule of Dictators ❞ ──── ──── ───

(By: Liezl Montemayor)

         Lives dictated by leaders, such as Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos, had their followers struggle with threats, abuses, and inexorable deaths. These two leaders are corrupt and used all means to keep their power and wealth all for themselves. Because of how much they wanted to satisfy their greed for power has brought many to rebel against them. Therefore, corrupt and dictating leaders, such as themselves, must be impeached for a better society.

          To start, Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos have quite a similarity in their excellent side of leadership traits, though they will soon break their image of good leadership in the future. An example of Napoleon’s leadership trait is uniting and directing the animals to a specific goal. He also organized the structure of power of the animals on the farm. On the other hand, Ferdinand Marcos treats his officials with civility and respect. He also approved building infrastructures to increase the economic growth of the Philippines.

          With such leadership, there is no doubt that the threats and civil strife will arise against Napoleon and Ferdinand Marcos’s position. Luckily, they could see this coming and used their power to threaten and terrorize such menace against them. For Napoleon, he used his loyal dogs as a shield to protect his position. Meanwhile, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, which will soon bring abuse, threats, and deaths among his country’s people.

          The dogs, Napoleon raised were used to kill and terrorize the animals who dared to threaten their master’s position. They were monsters that got brainwashed with the teachings they learned from Napoleon as they were isolated when young. Because of such a horrific event that the animals experienced, Napoleon’s greed has shown that the surviving animals could no longer differentiate pigs from humans. At the same time, Ferdinand Marcos was no different from being greedy with all that he possessed. He violated human rights of his citizens through armed forces and other means. Then, time went by that these violations could no longer be tolerated, and people started to perform reformist oppositions, revolutionary oppositions, and religious oppositions.

          Greed to gain power is the paramount satisfaction of leaders that corrupt and abuse their followers and environment. To attain a prosperous state, a leader must have a great passion and qualities that may influence everyone and everything that surrounds them. Keep in mind; dictators have pros and cons that significantly affect their followers and the situation itself. Goals are set for citizens to seek development of their environment, not its destruction. Eyes must open to free oneself from lies and fear because a life dictated like a puppet is not a solution for a better society everyone aims for.   

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References used for the Blog: 

More Equal Than You- (Napoleon Animal Farm) by Stardust-Legend on. (2018, January 24). DeviantArt. https://www.deviantart.com/stardust-legend/art/More-Equal-Than-You-Napoleon-Animal-Farm-727346398

References used by Herrero:

References used by Delacruz:

PLOT SUMMARY, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9w7mp3/revision/1#:~:text=Animal%20Farm%20was%20written%20by,Russian%20politicians%2C%20voters%20and%20workers. 

World war I Russian revolution, Ducksters Education site, https://www.ducksters.com/history/world_war_i/russian_revolution.php#:~:text=The%20Russian%20Revolution%20took%20place,country%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union.

Fascism, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/26/stalin-was-a-greater-fascist-than-bandera-or-mussolini/

https://www.slideshare.net/prime_metin/animal-farm-17943780

References used by Gamboa:

https://www.history.com/topics/russia/russian-revolution

http://links.org.au/russian-revolutions-1917-paul-le-blanc

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/george-orwell-s-message-in-the-novel-448825

https://www.achievementfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Ideas-8.pdf

References used by Geronimo:

https://twitter.com/pinkpolitical/status/1001824330446237698?lang=ga

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53261067

https://www.republicreport.org/2020/ten-reasons-trump-is-the-most-corrupt-president-in-u-s-history/

References used by Montemayor:

Human rights abuses of the Marcos dictatorship. (2020, December 16). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuses_of_the_Marcos_dictatorship

(n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://study.com/academy/answer/what-made-napoleon-a-great-leader-in-animal-farm.html

Three important leadership traits from Ferdinand Marcos. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.fef.org.ph/gerardo-sicat/three-important-leadership-traits-from-ferdinand-marcos/

Arillo, C. (2015, November 13). Marcos's unmatched legacy: Hospitals, schools and other infrastructures: Cecilio Arillo. Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://businessmirror.com.ph/2015/11/13/marcoss-unmatched-legacy-hospitals-schools-and-other-infrastructures/

Animal Farm. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-napoleon-from-book-animal-farm-contribute-129633

How Napoleon Takes and Maintains Control Of Animal Farm in George Orwell's Novel. (n.d.). Retrieved January 04, 2021, from https://www.bartleby.com/essay/How-Napoleon-Takes-and-Maintains-Control-Of-P3JR8GAZTJ

M. (2017, February 12). ANIMAL FARM. Nerdy254. https://kathmandupost.com/opinion/2017/12/06/dialectics-of-dictatorship. (2017, December 6).