#when you compare the attitude and intentions on both sides as far as the majority

[smonk-wonk]

There is FAR more antisemitism right now than there is racism against Palestinians TRUST ME

Ok

[ahdriking]

you tend to write more porn but I've read some of your meta on the end of S1 so I'm really curious what your take would be on an AU where Porsche refuses to take the minor family ring 🤔

FAm DON't EVen GEt Me STarTED.

This Idea, This Concept, lives in my brain, haunting my every waking moment. WHAT IF. WHAT THE FUCK IF.

WHAT IF this show had paid more close attention to the continuity of Porsche's emotional arc and had given us a more conclusive ending that actually addresses all the ways in which Porsche LEADING THE MAFIA is counterintuitive to his character. You know, the man who had a minor breakdown over 'collecting the debt', an issue that's never addressed again (even if you read his character development as being a steady decline into moral ambiguity because of his growing relationship with Kinn, Porsche's attitude towards the mafia families has always been ambiguous at best and openly hostile at worst) WHAT IF Porsche had actually acknowledged the way in which his relationship and feelings for Kinn would always be tempered and limited by Kinn's devotion and sense of obligation to his family and his father? WHAT IF Porsche refused to settle for second, refused to lay down his life and dignity for Kinn for scraps in return, refused to succumb to Korn's obvious machinations?

WHAT THE FUCK IF.

I feel like the one major thing missing from Kinnporsche, for me, was the clear lines between family and Porsche that Kinn was never truly forced to draw. Yes, he went against his father's wishes by falling for Porsche and entering into a relationship with him, but he also defended his father, stood at his side and even in front of a gun for him when it mattered the most. Kinn's loyalty to his father was tapped at, niggled at, but never truly tested, not in any definitive way from which we can draw conclusions about whose side he would fall on if it ever came to it. Kinn gets to have his cake and eat it too: his family, his father's approval, AND Porsche.

What does Porsche get, though?

He gets to be manipulated, toyed with, used and controlled. He gets to have his mother back, but only because Korn needed the trump card to secure his loyalty. He gets to have Kinn, but only because Korn can better control them both by keeping them close. He gets to have power and autonomy, but only at the whims of Kinn and Korn's say so. He gets to have Chay at his side, at the cost of his little brother having lost everything, information which he never even learns about.

Porsche gains Kinn by taking the ring, but he loses everything else. So what if he had refused it?

Would he have lost Kinn?

The most interesting headcanon worth exploring to me, in this delightful little hole of woe, is Kinn being forced to choose. Porsche, or his family. Porsche, or his father. Porsche, or the mafia. I think Kinn is fucking lucky that Porsche never had any wants or expectations from him about how far his feelings for Porsche go compared to his obligations. Porsche seems very understanding and sympathetic to the position Kinn is in, which not everyone would be. Knowing that you'll always take a back seat, that you'll never truly outweigh the value of something else, is a heavy burden to carry. And for all intents and purposes, Kinn pushes that burden on Porsche. Their relationship is fraught with examples of Kinn exercising power and authority over Porsche, but never truly having to accede any to him. Even in the end, Porsche is head of the 'second' family, empowered and equalised only by Kinn's grace.

So what if Porsche said no, and made Kinn choose?

I want to see Kinn faced with losing everything he's ever known, or losing Porsche. I want to see Kinn confront the ways in which he's corrupted Porsche, made him into a man he would have hated for the sake of love, and ask himself whether it was worth it. I want to see Kinn suffer with the fact that his selfish need to have everything is going to be the thing that destroys it.

I honestly don't know how it would go down. I struggle to imagine Kinn abandoning his family or mafia ways, considering how deeply entrenched they are to his very being. I equally struggle to see how he would ever let Porsche just walk away. If Porsche doesn't accept the ring, the only thing Kinn can do is try and mitigate the fallout from Korn's machinations being uncovered, and try to convince Porsche to give him a second chance as leader. Perhaps if Kinn can facilitate a life for them away from the depths of the mafia, somewhere were Porsche can be separate to it all, maybe they could make it work. But they'd be apart practically all the time, and even when they are together, the looming threat of danger would never give them peace (Along with the hordes of bodyguards following them around).

There's no perfect solution. There's no easy answer. Either Porsche sacrifices everything, or Kinn does.

And isn't that angsty.

[hobbitsnapes]

The heart of the Scout Regiment

A mini Levi Ackerman story

Summary: Since the beginning of the survey corps, not one member has changed the group like she did, if only they knew, what one persons heart, could change them all.

A/N:had this idea for a few days and went with it, I’m hoping to keep it pretty small but who knows with my imagination how long this’ll become.

In the over 70 years the scout regiment has been founded, there’s been countless brave soldiers who have joined the fight for mankind. Many brave men and women have laid down their lives, all with determined hearts to create a safe, wonderful world again. But not one, had the heart she held.

At only 28 years old, she joined the survey corps and within a year being on the team, she was ranked one of the best on the team in years.

A drive that many strived to come near, quick with her skills as she flew through the shy like a fierce angel of war, with the skills that nearly matched that of their captain.

But the one thing, the very thing that made all love be in complete awe of her, was how loyal she was to each and everyone on her team.

She was often called either the guardian angel of the group, or the heart of the survey corps. Or as some have overtime dubbed her, mum.

The sheer love she had for each member astonished them all, something that even a few took time to grow used to.

The scouts dubbed her initially as their guardian angel, for the amount of times she’s saved them all.

Majority of the time, she spent the missions keeping an eye on her team mates, especially the newer members. She was even given the position of watch over for them, with only a few killed under her belt, she was placed usually in behind them all. Eyes trained on everyone as she made sure they were safe. The amount of times she’s saved them from being eaten alive, they couldn’t count. Even at times risking her life for one of her friends, just to make sure they made it.

She was loved dearly by everyone, and loved each of them individually.

She ended up being dubbed mum by the younger cadets for the tender love she would give, always checking in on each of them in the beginning if she felt they needed it.

She always had words of Affirmation, love, and deep care to each of them. Always telling them how proud she was of them, how strong they all were. Even her criticism were of the same amount of love, never did they walk away from them feeling defeated, for her words were laced with love and care, only being spoken so they can be the best they can. A best they all in a way strive for just to see her smile and feel the love she willingly gave them, no matter what.

The mess hall was bustling with life, as everyone gathered to have dinner. With her hair tied back as she grabbed for an extra slice of bread, she walked over to her usual table.

Handing the extra slice to Sasha, the young girl looking up at her with wide eyes and large smile. “Here take it sweety, I grabbed it just for you.” She said, her signature warm smile painted on her lips. The girl pulled her into a tight embrace, one she gladly reciprocated.

One of the things she was Notorious for, was how much she loved hugging. At least everyone on the team has been wrapped in her arms, something that even their commander and captain secretly loved. But Levi loved her tight hugs for a reason that nobody knew of, not even his closest friends knew the love he Harberd for the woman.

At first, he was often annoyed at her affections, finding them irritating and pointless. The amount of times he would roll his tired eyes as he watched her launch herself into someone’s arms, he lost count.

But over the next few months, the annoyance he once had, disappeared and were instead filled with happiness, something he can’t remember feeling. His heart would flutter in his chest whenever she would beam up at him. And yes, up.

Having gotten used to looking up at his team members, it shocked him when he first met her. Standing at exactly 4 foot 9, she was the shortest member they had. Something that everyone adored, and added to her loving character.

She often would change what table she sat at, finding herself interchangeably taking a seat where she felt called to. Each person who she sat with, had smiles painted on their faces as she asked them how each of their days went, watching proudly as they often rambled to her and everyone about the most mundane thing they did. But not once, did she ever interrupt, or gave the impression she wasn’t interested. Eyes locked on their faces with a smile, she listened intently. She would look at them like they were telling a fantastic fairytale, when all they did was mop the floor.

Everyone would take their turns, never once interrupting what the other was saying unless asked a question.

Whenever someone had, she would break her eyes from the person to those who interrupted. She never gave a mean, or intimidating look. All she had to do, was look into their eyes and say “please wait your turn.” She wouldn’t even have an edge of anger in her tone, her tone matched her loving attitude she always had. But it instantly made them quiet down, unless it was a faint apology. One she always replied with “it’s alright dear.”

But, just because she always seemed full of love and joy, doesn’t mean she’s always kept up that attitude.

The few times anyone has truly seen her upset, it haunted all those who heard and especially directed to.

The first time, was the first time she lost one of her teammates. The heart shattering wale she let out as she held their lifeless body in her arms, haunted them all for weeks.

The second, was the time one of them nearly lost their lives, to protect her. Never had they seen her talk with such authority, such change to her usually calm tone. She reminded them of the position she was given, and that her job, was to protect them. But they reminded her that she was also important, that they couldn’t live with themselves, if she lost her life and they didn’t do anything about it. It was the first time she was called mum, a day that she will cherish forever.

The third and last time, was something they will never forget.

It was one and only times they truly saw her enraged.

It was bad, truly a nightmare as they all fought just to make it out alive.

She spotted one of the younger members trapped under a fallen tree, seeing they were still alive. Her heart rapidly beating out of her chest, as it nearly stopped when she spotted the 12 meter titan approaching them. She flew through the air as fast as she could, pure adrenaline coursing through each vein as was neck and neck with the beast.

Her arm stretched out as far as she could, nearly feeling the tips of her fingers hit their weak hand, feeling the beasts breath behind her. But all that was stopped, as she felt arms wrap her, flying her away from the young man. Her heart shattering in her chest as she felt Levi pulling her away.

Loud ear splitting screams of anger ripped from her throat as she spewed off every profanity she could at the captain. Her nails cutting deep scratches in his hands as she watched them be eaten, her heart breaking as tears streamed from her eyes.

Never, had anyone seen just truly how enraged she could get until they got back. Her voice booming through the large base as tears streamed from her eyes, her body shaking as words of pure heartbreak and anger shattered everyone’s hearts. Even the cold, emotionless caption had to hold in tears as he let her take out every bit of anger and heartbreak she felt. Only being stopped when she lunged at the man, being pulled away as she tackled him to the ground.

It broke their hearts watching her, her words nothing compared to the anguish and sadness in her voice. It was something that nobody wished another member to experience.

“Thank you so much mum.” She mumbled into her shoulder, making her smile as she pulled back, planting a small kiss to her forhead. “No problem sweety.” She said, a large smile on her face.

Erens eyes focused on his plate, mind swirling with anxiousness as he thinks of the next day.

He was informed of another mission the next day, something that both excited hun, but terrified the young boy.

Still having trouble controlling himself even today, he still had doubt in his mind. Fear of loosing control again, fear of hurting anyone on his team.

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt arms wrapping around him from behind, feeling her head leaning on his shoulder.

“Everything alright bubs? You’ve hardly eaten?” She asks, making a smile grow on his face.

Never did anyone think or imagine just how close they became. Nobody ever thought, that they would have one of the tightest bonds on the team. The care she holds for him, it even made some jealous for how much she values the young boy, and vise versa. The usually angry, cold man, calmed almost instantly when she was with him. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was his mother.

“Just worried about tomorrow is all.” He mumbles, feeling her arms wrap ever so slightly tighter around him. “Everything’s gonna work out, I know it’s scary, everytime we go out there it is. But we know exactly what to do, where we’re going, and we’ve got you on our side. You’re gonna do amazing, I know it.” She says, ending it with a kiss to his temple, one that makes his shoulders drop, and a smile to grow on his face.

And as she Predicted, it went smoothly, for the most part.

Since having her join the team, the death tole has greatly diminished. While there were a few, they typically would walk away with only injuries rather than the high body count they once had.

This mission, there were no casualties amongst the group. But there were a few who came back with injuries, knew that as soon as they finished, she ran to each one of them.

Her hands slowly wrap bandage around jeans arm, neatly and gently trying to keep it close to his body.

Letting out a small hiss from the deep cut on his arm, she gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry dear.” She said, voice laced with care as she tried to tie it without hurting him further. “It’s alright mum, thank you for this though.” He said, voice sounding, defeated. She was always able to read them all, even their always emotionless captain.

“What’s on your mind bubs, you can tell me.” She says, eyes looking into his. He lets out a sigh as he averts his from her stare. He knew she’d be able to tell.

“I-I almost got myself and my team killed. Again. Everyone counts on me to be great, but I can’t help but think I’m letting everyone down, I feel more like a hazard to the group.” His eye wells up with an unshed tear. He feels her thumb wipe his eye, looking at her as she cups his cheek softly. “You’re anything but that Jean. I promise, you’re a true born leader. I’m so proud of the progress you’ve made since I met you, and I’m always so happy to see how much you care about all of us. You’re anything but what you think dear, I promise.” Tears well up again in his eyes at her words, feeling them wrap around him like a blanket.

He pulls her into a tight embrace, feeling her hands running up and down his back.

Bertolt let’s put a grunt as he feels his cheek, feeling the deep cut that covered the skin. He knew it would heal by morning, but that doesn’t make the pain any less.

He watched as she walks over to him, knowing exactly why she came over.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” He says. “I know you’ll be fine, but I still wanna at least disinfect it and patch it up.” She says, a smile on her face as she sits in front of him.

He knows he can’t fight her, and even then, he wouldn’t want her to.

If there’s one person besides his friends he truly cares about, it’s her. The amount of love she’s given him since he met her was something he detested at first, but slowly he grew to not only get used of it, but loving it. The care she has in her touch, her voice, and her eyes, is something that he’s never seen or felt at such a level.

They both sat silently as she cleans his wound, a small smile on his face as she applies the lightest touch. The amount of times he’s told her that she doesn’t have to be so soft, she’s always retort back with “i know it won’t hurt, but I’m still gonna be as gentle as I can just in case.”

As she finished up patching his cheek, she gives him a warm smile, one he matches. “Thanks mum, you really didn’t have to do that.” She smiles at the young mans words. “I know, but I still like to make sure you heal properly.” The young man chuckles at this, feeling her arms wrap around his lanky frame.

The room was almost completely silent as they walk in, her arms helping to bring him to his neatly made bed.

If there was one person who could read him like a book, it’d be her.

Levi tried to hide the long gash on his peck from her, trying to put a mask on as to not let her see the deep pain he felt as they rode home. The sharp winter air did nothing but made the cut sting worse, making his face even paler from the pain he felt.

He had done a pretty good job, that was until he had jumped off of his horse when they got back, nearly falling flat on his face of it wasn’t for her being right there to catch him.

Worry filled her as her heart nearly stopped, feeling the wet patch of his suit. A gasp leaving her lips when she saw the blood that stained her hand.

She instantly started bringing him inside, not once did she let him go, even when he told her he would be fine.

His heart fluttered rapidly as he watched her, eyes looking up at her concentrated face as she cleans his wound.

She had him lay on his bed, helping to take the top half of his gear off. Now only laying in his pants and socks, chest and torso completely bare as she washed the blood from his skin.

He hardly felt her feather light touch as she cleaned him, his mind solely focused on her. He could’ve easily done this himself, as he’s done countless times. But he couldn’t help but let her, when he saw the worry in her eyes.

“Alright, this might sting a bit so I’m sorry.” She says, dampening a fresh cloth with disinfectant.

A slight grunt leaves his lips as she places the cloth to his skin, the alcohol burning his skin slightly. “I’m sorry.” She says, voice sounding pained as she looks into his steel eyes. “It’s alright, I’ve felt way worse before.” He says, a smile painted on his face as he looks at her. “I know, but I still don’t like when anything harms you.” “Then you must be miserable because I’m always in harm's way.” He chuckles, making her let out a laugh, feeling his heart thump wildly in his chest. He loved seeing her smile, feeling his heart soar in his chest whenever it was because of him. “But thank you anyway, for this.” He says, making her cheeks flush as he looks into her eyes. “Anytime, you know I’ll always be here to fix you up no matter what.” She says, hands now resting on his bandaged chest. His eyes looking into hers, a smile on his face.

[jamestrmtx]

Wish Upon a Night Sky - [Beastars | Various x Reader]

[Female, Sheep Reader | Slow Burn]

Act Eight, Scene Two | Mistranslations

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

“Have you tried discussing the problem with anyone else?” you ask, picking her shirt off the clothesline. “You shouldn’t keep this all to yourself.”

“She’s not worth the time or the trouble,” the bunny says, following you back inside. Although it’s getting late again, you have someone else with you by your side, and the area you’re in’s far more populated compared to the path you took from the library to your dorm. “And it’s not a major problem, so it’s fine.” You fold the shirt while she watches you, eyes focused and with a faint smile accompanying that expression. “Is this your way of hinting at me bothering you over stuff like this?” While it’s clear she’s joking around with you again, it’s still hard to ignore it. She elbows your hip, accompanying her actions with a laugh and a wink. “I promise this is the last time I’ll ask.”

Finally done, you hand her shirt over and tense when her hands brush with yours, a deliberate move on her part. Her ears perk and her smile grows, eyes squinting in the process. “You really need to work on defending yourself better,” she comments, taking a step closer to you. You take one back, not quite certain of her intentions. “Even if I’m joking around, you should still tell me if something’s bothering you.”

You glare at her, eager to continue with the previous topic and the bunny’s choices regarding how she handled it. “Ironic, considering what we were just talking about.”

Rather than following up to your words, Haru chuckles, tucking the shirt under her arm. “See that?” She takes another step forward, leading you to take another one back. “That’s what I’m talking about!” Her eyes hold a sharp glint to them, deepened when she takes another step, closing off distance as she continues with, “Though it’s not by much, we’re both some of the eldest students in our group, so we should try to be the strongest ones there; mentally, at least. Don’t let anyone belittle you, (Y/N), ‘cause anybody who wants the best for you wouldn’t do that deliberately.” She takes the shirt from under her arm, unfolding it to show it to you. “The stain’s not there anymore.” Then, she folds it back again, setting it aside. “You did that, and I should be thankful for it, just as I am to have you as my friend.” She smiles again, gaze still on yours. “The only reason I’ve lasted that long tolerating her bullying’s because of my attitude.” Taking a step back, Haru gives space for you to breathe, though she appears to be far from wanting to end the conversation with you soon. “...So unless you want to wait for someone to do that job for you, you should stand up for yourself whenever you’re capable of it, without lowering to the same level as whoever’s out to get you.” 

To sudden for you to even process it, Haru’s expression goes from serious to playful, face losing its tension as she sits down on the bed, leaving you to sit on the chair next to it. “So with that being said,” she continues, tilting her head over to the side and throwing herself back, keeping herself up with her arms stretched out behind her back, leaving her legs to dangle in the air. “Want to head back to the dorms now? It’s getting late.”

With a disoriented nod and a quiet, mumbled ‘sure’, you stand up, gather your belongings, and accompany Haru out of the garden shed, waiting right next to the door while she closes it and checks everything’s in place. You begin your walk with her when she’s done, taking extra care to observe your surroundings more closely than on your way to the garden. Not only were there two routes you had to take, one for her dorm and one for yours, but everyone else’s now busy wrapping up for the day. Another day like the one after leaving the library was one you wanted to avoid at all costs, even more now, remembering you have someone else with you. 

You pass by some flowerbeds, vibrant and varied in colors, and then a short hallway, stopping when it’s time to take a detour for her dorm. She, on the other hand, continues walking, only halting her steps when she notices you’re not keeping up with her any longer.

Haru turns around, quirking up a brow when she sees you still standing close to her dorm. “This’s the way to your dorm, isn’t it?” Her confusion changes for understanding when she sees you point at hers, provoking another smile on her face. “I still want to walk you there first,” she says, ushering for you to join her. “C’mon.”

You hesitate, saying, “Can you promise me you’ll head back to my dorm if there’s danger on the way to yours?” You frown and furrow your gaze, denoting you’re serious.

It doesn’t take much for her to agree. “I promise,” she replies, nodding.

With that agreement left between you, you rush to the bunny’s side, spare a glance at her, and resume your walk with her not a moment after, keeping your steps light to avoid unwanted attention as you both make your way to your dorm. There’s only silence on your way there, albeit a rare, comfortable kind. It’s only when she finally sees the entrance from a distance that she stops, eyes facing at the wolf waiting by the door, her crossed arms loosening when she meets with your figure from afar. It’s there that Haru stops, a trace of playfulness returning to her visage as she exchanges a look with Juno, and then back to you. “Think we could meet up this weekend?” Haru asks, words directed at you. “There’s something I forgot to ask you.”

You nod and smile back. “Sure! Just let me know when you’re free.”

The bunny returns your gesture with a grin. She stands on her tiptoes to match with your height and her lips press against your cheek, kissing you. She stays there for a moment, and while you can feel her smile against you, it’s not present when she pulls back.

Instead, there’s a mischievous look on her face, one she spares at Juno for a moment before moving back to you. “See you soon, (Y/N).”

Still recovering from the feeling, you take your hand to the spot where she’d kissed you at and watch as she walks off back to her place. Her figure grows distant, though the moment she’s just about to take the detour, she stops, straightens her posture, and turns back to your side, waving at you. 

You move your hand away and wave back at her, mouth forming a smile when you notice she’s doing the same.

Finally, she disappears, leaving you to turn back to your dorm and see Juno waiting for you, a gloomy expression changing for one of contentment when she catches you staring. She gestures for you to join her and holds the door open while you enter, silence broken when you look up at her and say, “Thanks for waiting,” followed up with a brighter smile.

She stays quiet for a while, her droopy ears lifting when she replies with, “I'm happy to."

[bthump]

What do you think separates a simple relationship between enemies/heroes and villains/etc. from a straight-up abusive relationship? And do you consider Guts and Griffith's relationship abusive?

Hmm, interesting question. It’s something I’ve always considered on a case-by-case basis rather than trying to come up with a categorical distinction. I’ll throw some thoughts on this under a cut, because it’s a fairly discourse-adjacent topic, and also it got pretty long.

First I want to make clear that I don’t think it matters if a relationship is straightforwardly abusive in canon, there’s still nothing wrong with shipping it. I could probably be more nuanced there, but honestly for me the bottom line is that I don’t gaf about the influence of fanfiction compared to mainstream media, the most problematic, abuse-romanticizing fic ever doesn’t matter at all next to a million hollywood movies where the hero is entitled to the hot love interest, even moreso when it’s a hero/villain ship which comes bundled with the expectation that it’s not meant to be #relationship goals lol.

But to answer your question, imo most hero/villain relationships have virtually nothing to do with abusive relationships. Here’s a quick defintion I got from the first google result to refer to:

Relationship abuse is a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control over a former or current intimate partner. Abuse can be emotional, financial, sexual or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation.

So first off, the characters have to have a relationship of some kind (maybe not romantic, but something other than “enemies”), secondly, a pattern of behaviour must be exhibited from one in a position of power (not necessarily overt power, it could just be the other’s emotional attachment to them) to control the other in that relationship.

So two people punching each other because one wants to destroy the world and the other wants to save the world, or because they’re on opposite sides of some other conflict, just doesn’t cut it, even if they fuck afterwards, or have a strong emotional attachment to each other, or whatever.

Even a villain imprisoning and torturing the hero over a period of time doesn’t make it an abusive relationship because their goal usually isn’t to control the hero’s behaviour in the context of a relationship, it’s to slowly kill them/hurt them for funsies/get information/prove a philosophical point/whatever. Intent matters here. Like eg, killing your bff’s other friend to isolate them and gain greater control over them bc you’re possessive? Abuse. Killing your bff’s other friend because it’s a necessary part of your Evil Plan or because they discovered that you’re evil and you don’t want to go to jail or die or whatever? Plain old villainy.

All that said there are plenty of grey areas and places where people can disagree and draw their own conclusions both about whether a relationship is abusive in canon and to what extent that even matters to them, and I think that’s perfectly fine and people should generally live and let live when it comes to others’ interpretations of and ways of engaging with fiction.

Some things to keep in mind along those lines are

authorial intent/whether something is narratively treated as abuse rather than basic hero/villian stuff

expectations within the setting and tone of the story (eg Michael Scott would be an abusive boss in real life but in a wacky comedy it’s not something we’re meant to care about)

realism and relatability (which is pretty subjective, but like eg someone might consider the protag discovering their bff tricked them into murdering their other bff to be personally upsetting bc it reminds them of a more mundane form of manipulation within irl abusive relationships while someone else might see it as too far removed from actual irl abuse for them to care about it as anything other than exaggerated villainy, and imo both reactions are perfectly fair)

power dynamic - I know this one can be a major point of contention within the discourse but in fiction if there’s no clear power dynamic and both parties actively hurt each other, as is often the case in hero/villain relationships, I’d call that toxic rather than abusive (assuming the hurts are along the lines of relationship abuse moreso than punching each other to save/destroy the world).

plain old quality of writing where something might be depicted as abuse, purposefully or not, but it sucks so you ignore it (eg technically xena is canonically a rapist but the scene where she fucks a recurring villain while he’s her prisoner was depicted as sexy so v few people in fandom give it a second thought)

As for your second question, no I don’t think griffguts is an abusive relationship. I suppose if you transpose modern mundane standards onto Berserk’s tone and setting it could have been if they’d been fucking during the Golden Age, since Griffith is technically Guts’ boss and adding sex is an abuse of a boss/employee relationship, but they weren’t, and I don’t think it’s something fic set during the Golden Age necessarily needs to be concerned with either.

The second duel contained a violently possessive internal monologue on Griffith’s part, but a) the action of fighting a second potentially fatal duel was explicitly, as Judeau directly tells us, a perfectly acceptable thing to do in the context of their lives in the setting (ie dumb mercenaries), and b) abuse is a pattern of behaviour anyway, not one bad breakup.

The Eclipse sacrifice parallels an abusive relationship (Guts and Gambino), but it’s distinct from it and extremely heightened and fantastical, and Griffith and Gambino are contrasted in terms of their relationships to Guts much more than they’re paralleled. The point of the Eclipse mirroring Gambino selling Guts to Donovan isn’t to say “this is the same kind of relationship,” it’s to say, “this is the darkness of humanity and anyone can succumb to it in the right circumstances.” Also it’s Guts’ ironic tragic consequence for abandoning the Hawks. It’s a satisfying full circle narrative and thematic thing, is what I’m saying, rather than a reflection of Guts and Griffith’s relationship as a whole, which is explicitly positioned as a positive contrast to Guts’ abusive childhood at other points in the story.

And Guts and Femto, or Guts and NeoGriffith, just don’t interact enough to have a relationship, let alone an abusive relationship.

That said, I think there’s a reasonable argument you could make that Griffith’s “if I can’t have him, I don’t care [if he dies]” attitude is a reason he makes the Eclipse sacrifice too (I think it is), and if someone wanted to take that and explore it further in fic as a potential aspect of their relationship that risks becoming, or does become, abusive that could def be IC. But conversely you could also take several aspects of Guts’ character and explore them further in a griffguts fic where Guts is abusive if you wanted.

Like Berserk deals with a lot of dark subject matter and both characters have very big personality flaws that could make either of them believably abusive in fic, but their relationship in canon, while flawed and ultimately tragic, does not constitute abuse in and of itself imo, and a fanfic where they get together and have a happy relatively healthy relationship where they deal with their issues constructively is just as in character and imo actually more thematically appropriate lol.

[human-enthusiast]

Antagonist: Buggy (East Blue - And Before This Time Frame)

At first, I was still on and off about my decision on whether or not I would make an analysis on Buggy at all. My analysis pages aren’t necessarily about the villains of One Piece in general, but more towards humanitarian or misanthropic topics reflected in their world from ours. In the first few appearances, I thought I had nothing to go off from, at least in context of World Issues. But I started writing out his characteristics and anything known about his past that could reflect on it, and then I started writing on something to reflect later after writing out other analogies with other villains and their world.

Characteristics: 

Stereotypical behavior of a pirate

Narcissism: Blames others for his mistakes (Shanks)

Treats a majority of his     underlings as replaceable/worthless

Alignment: Chaotic Evil/Neutral Evil

Worthy Notes

He was one of the recognizable characters who witnessed Roger’s execution up front.

Before this, he knew him personally and grew close with his captain.

To me, he and Shanks are friends/crewmates that had similar circumstances but different outcomes - two sides of the same coin (Important Distinction).

Buggy is a character that I both dislike and love for various reasons. If there was a person, who had a striking resemblance to him (in both looks and especially personality), there is a 100% chance I would not get along well with him. The arrogance, laugh, and overall characteristics of a narcissist that gets his ass handed to him in nearly every encounter is annoying to the point of wanting to punch him personally.

However, he also handles many of his problems and the crazy reality that is their world with great comic relief like a majority of the characters. He himself has great one-liners and funny encounters that make him a great antagonist towards Luffy and an overall character of One Piece.

He’s one of the few designated antagonists of the East Blue Arc that popped up later, not only in the same arc, but in other arcs afterwards. Alvida does as well but she isn’t treated very much like an antagonist after Loguetown. More mild and laid back as Buggy’s vice captain, without straying from her original personality.

The thing about him from the beginning is how iconic of a character he is, mixed with some stereotypical personality traits as the main character’s villain. With the listed traits above, he actually isn’t the most original kind of villain under a broad definition.

I use the moral alignment chart for these analysis and/or characters because it’s one of the easiest ways to place and understand the foundation about them. For Buggy, he could go either way for being neutral or chaotic in the evil row. He does things for his own gain. But he also does evil acts because he is under the notion that he can with no other reason. Many of the East Blue antagonists are essentially like this.

Before knowing anything about Buggy later on, and even after, I would put him in the same boat as Krieg and Arlong. These are very chaotic pirates who also display typical pirate personas. Greedy, foul playing, captains without any remorse or care for others (although Arlong, towards fishmen and crew mates, tends to be an exception). They appear to not have an underlining motivation to be the way they are. Just regular, run-of-the-mill pirates.

But taking in consideration his past affiliations on being a cabin boy to Gol D. Roger, his attitude, in tune with Arlong’s, makes a lot of sense. 

The start of the Pirate Era sparked a grand affiliation to the massive sweep of pirate crews to take to the seas. A historically popular phenomenon done in a way that no other sailor accomplished the way Roger did: conquer the Grand Line. When an ever-changing event like this occurs, you have a mix of on-lookers who are changed by this. Characters like Luffy are filled with adrenaline. A need to seek adventure, making him the perfect predecessor for Roger’s Legacy, but in a way where he can call it his own.

Then there are characters like stereotypical, unnamed pirate crews, a majority of which mainly focus on the prospect of Roger’s treasure One Piece. They physically have nothing to tie them down, so they feel it necessary to pursue that challenge. This sparks greed or a search for infamy, something that actually connects to Ace’s motivation the most, but he has a more dynamic change that alters his motivations. Compared to others, this change is due to an instance where he is showed an alternate approach on life and dreams, a somewhat more healthy version. But when this alternate approach isn’t introduced to others, they are bound to the same mindset, installing more harm along the way. 

The known reactions are like two sides of the same coin. They’re broad chances of what someone will turn out in response to this freedom on treasure hunting and adventure seeking. And the two characters that are on those sides are Shanks and Buggy.

Personally, I find this to be an excellent coincidence. Now whether Oda intended for there opposing characters to mean anything significant is up for debate. But my interpretation proceeds them as the differing approaches when they (1) lose something significant in their life and (2) in retaliation against the unfair advantages life threw at them.

Buggy takes on the evil, greedy and infamy route in response to Roger’s execution.

As selfish as he is, Buggy did care very much for his past Captain. Most likely as a father figure of sorts considering he was rather young when he first joined as a cabin boy. He was able to make bonds with the crew mates, showing the more humanistic side of him.

In the events of Roger’s untimely sickness and later execution, I say it created an unfathomable emotional downfall on Buggy. In love and loss, it can have a negative influence on someone. He doesn’t seem to stray away from a greedy persona even with the Roger pirates. However, they acted as a sort of buffer, suppressing that intent need enough where it tends to affect only him.

With instances like Orange Town in Episode 5-8, his greed has an outward impact on the people and environment. I doubt he had any monetary reasoning for docking in the small town. There could have definitely been some looting, but that probably wasn’t their main purpose. It seems more along the lines of a power move.

Throughout his stay, he ultimately uses his Buggy Balls to obliterate different sections of the town, describing it as “his idea of fun.” Now whether because he lacked the resource or motivation, he never seemed to be this destructive as a younger cabin boy. He was still capable of violence and only doing so when needed.

He offers insight about the potential in taking on negative behaviors against the world, in combination of this obtainable freedom. He takes it with a motivation in the form of retribution.

Now how does Shanks play into this?

I said before that these two are like the sides of the same coin. And this is how far it goes:

They, literally and figuratively, were on the same boat. That being the Oro Jackson’s crew and witnessing first hand Roger’s execution.

Unlike Buggy, however, Shanks wasn’t affected in a downward spiral of vengeance. Where Buggy took on the active persona of a vindictive route, he took to Roger’s will. The concept of inherited will within One Piece is a powerful notion. Especially with how it plays into the influence of a character and the world around them.

Roger’s will is directed more towards the importance of adventure and unbridled freedom. Doing something for yourself and “destroying” the world in a round-about way.

He is the opposite of Buggy by choosing the path of piracy in leniency. He isn’t necessarily upright and morally good in all regards. Because I’m certain he could have done bad things. But his outlooks on life make him move forward from the past.

Meanwhile, Buggy is situated into his past persona, and possibly due to the loss of his captain, by striving to be the King of the Pirates. Buggy has a connection to it that many others wouldn’t have known about until around Sabaody and Marineford. This need with the title is one of the defining elements of being greedy to an unexpected turn in his life.

This plays in well with his narcistic attitude in blaming others for mistakes he’s made in the past. Specifically where he blames Shanks for “making” him accidently eat his devil fruit. While he does find a use in his powers, he remains to be bitter about it. A reaction like this shows a character that ties himself with things he wish were different, believing that acting on them in the future will somehow change it. And about the only way he finds some use in it is fulfilling his desire to be at the top. A familiar form that ties him to Roger in the past.

Of course, I’m not implying that Roger’s death sparked his greed, because it is quite obvious he was always like that. No, it’s more of he represents the expected type who find satisfaction in titles. The expected results of Roger’s last words that the world paints into perspective. Buggy’s the negative aftermath that people expect when the world changes.

Because in simplistic sense, change begets destruction.

Change creates numerous responses that guide people, and it can be interpreted in broad groups. The results of these events divide people and their motivations, creating a diverse but also destructive world within One Piece.

~~~~~~~~

[crimethinc]

The New War on Immigrants and Anarchists in Greece: An Interview with an Anarchist in Exarchia

Filled with squatted social centers and characterized by a combative anti-authoritarian spirit, the neighborhood of Exarchia in Athens, Greece has long been an important reference point for autonomous movements around the world. The new far-right government that has come to power in Greece has pledged to crush this experiment in inclusivity and self-determination. On August 26, massive police raids evicted four occupations, including some hosting refugee families, many of whom have been sent to concentration camps; at this moment, riot police surround Exarchia, preparing their next attacks. In response, demonstrations have been called for August 31 and September 14. We interviewed a resident of Exarchia about the context of this new chapter of struggle and the prospects ahead for those who seek a world without capitalism or state oppression.

In January 2015, as the global wave of right-wing electoral victories was picking up momentum, the new left party Syriza won the Greek elections. At the time, this inspired a lot of enthusiasm from leftists and socialists in Greece and elsewhere around the world; yet we argued that Syriza would draw movements out of the streets, re-legitimize the institutions of the state without changing their essentially repressive character, and ultimately fail to address the consequences of capitalism, polarizing Greek voters to the right. As we anticipated, Syriza did not follow through on their promises to defend Greece from the austerity measures demanded by the European Union. Instead, they imposed austerity measures themselves, further polarizing Greece and confirming that there is no viable electoral solution to the crises imposed by capitalism.

Consequently, in July 2019, the longstanding right-wing party New Democracy won the national elections by a clear majority. Some corporate media journalists celebrated the victory of New Democracy as a return to business as usual, a rejection of the supposed “extremism” of both Syriza and the fascist Golden Dawn party. But the victory of New Democracy is also a victory for the far right, who have seen their racist, nationalist agenda become mainstream. They took office with the intention of scapegoating immigrants and anarchists for the failures of neoliberal capitalism and the betrayals of left politicians. Taking advantage of the summer holidays to strike, they have already begun violently evicting anarchist social centers and self-organized refugee housing in Athens, openly declaring war on all who stand in the way of their oppressive vision of order.

We conducted the following interview with an anonymous black flag anarchist resident of Exarchia three blocks from Exarchia Square following a small riot in the early hours of August 28.

New Democracy began by declaring war on anarchists, specifically on the neighborhood of Exarchia in Athens. We have seen a series of poorly-written articles from the yellow press spreading fear about “anarchist violence” and promising major government crackdowns. Why have they prioritized focusing on anarchists and specifically Exarchia as the chief enemy of the state? How much of the population do you think agrees with this characterization of anarchists?

New Democracy has shown a sort of delusional obsession with Exarchia. They refer to it as if it were the basis of the crisis here, as if it were the foundation of all of Greece’s problems. As a resident of Exarchia and an active anarchist, I can confirm that the language they use to describe my neighborhood is ridiculously overstated.

Sure, there are some issues with drug dealing and predatory mafia practices in Exarchia. The mafia recruits refugees, taking advantage of their desperate need for employment, hoping that anarchists who oppose opportunistic attempts to establish a drug market in the police-free zone of Exarchia will hesitate before hitting a refugee. This situation is the result of the poverty refugees face as they wait to receive asylum or struggle to make their home in Athens, trying to avoid harassment from police or fascists.

This is tragic, but it is nothing compared to a typical ghetto in the United States; it’s the inevitable result of the combination of the economic crisis and the so-called refugee crisis. The image of a refugee dealing drugs in Exarchia is an easy scapegoat for the right, and New Democracy has used this over and over in a cowardly manner to rally reactionary support.

Most people outside of Greece don’t understand that Exarchia is a very large neighborhood. It is only a five-minute walk from the most expensive part of the city center, Colonaki, a middle-to-upper-class neighborhood comparable to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The anarchist movement emerged in the early 1970s out of student resistance to the Junta, which was concentrated at the nearby Polytechnio, the architectural university of Athens. Until then, Exarchia was a sort of extension of Colonaki. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has become a gathering place for anarchists and squatters, but also for the theater community, leftists, intellectuals, artists, and the clients of an array of alternative bars. It is known locally as a nightlife destination on the weekends for students and partygoers as much as it is known for riots and squats.

While all of these elements coexist in a sort of chaotic equilibrium, the old inhabitants of Exarchia still complain. Unless you are one of the lucky few who have found an apartment here owned by an old person unaware of its Airbnb potential and the erupting real estate market in central Athens, or you are living in a squat or in a home owned by family, it is unlikely that a typical working-class Greek person could afford to live here. The wealthy residents of Exarchia complain to the municipal authorities. They have been doing so for years. New Democracy is responding in a way that may go beyond their whining.

For example, there is famous hill called Streffi where youth and anarchist-friendly folks go to chill with their friends and comrades. It is also a beautiful park that used to house parties and gatherings to celebrate and benefit the punk and hip-hop counter-cultures and anarchist and anti-fascist movements. Because it has a view of the Acropolis and some of the most expensive houses in Exarchia, a brutal initiative began in the summer 2018 to crush the cop-free-zone culture of Streffi. Riot police surrounded the hill before any announced event, and completely demolished the only squat in the area shortly after it declared solidarity with those trying to reclaim Streffi.

In short, Exarchia is not a beautiful utopia in which anarchists live in harmony together and with other locals. There are snitches and “good citizens” here who applaud the police.

New Democracy has been in power before; they are not something new. But after five years in exile under Syriza, they are declaring revenge on the left. Unlike Syriza, which has a realistic understanding of Exarchia, New Democracy members have a childish image of it. They mystify it as the enemy of all Greek civility and as the epicenter of all things left or anarchist.

While Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the new prime minister, is a rich kid who has probably never set foot in the neighborhood, the police are even more obsessed with Exarchia. On the morning of August 26, when four squats were evacuated, a police spokesperson went on national television to say “One finger launched a silent new vacuum cleaner which is the police, which will slowly suck all the garbage from Exarchia progressively, democratically, with a plan by police officers.” He went on to describe the 143 refugees who were detained as “dust with an annoying character.”

A police officer wearing a patch identifying his fascist politics during the evictions. It says “Come and Get It,” a slogan of the fascist party Golden Dawn.

The police felt betrayed by Syriza. They think that for the past five years, the government condoned the weekly actions against the riot police that surround Exarchia. Now the police are ready for war. As soon as New Democracy was elected, riot police guarding the old PASOK political headquarters in Exarchia beat a homeless man nearly to death. When a local journalist tried to intervene, the police made threats; one cop was quoted as saying “this is how things will be for now on.” They are emboldened now in the same way that American police and fascists were when Trump was elected. I couldn’t make a more precise comparison.

Thus emboldened, they await the next battle with great anticipation. The riot police they station in Exarchia are typically not from Athens; they choose officers with extreme right-wing attitudes specifically for that role. This is a longstanding precedent for riot police. In some ways, they enjoy the riots as much as anarchists do; they too believe that they are fighting a war. New Democracy has handed them a clear mandate to restore order in Exarchia.

We can also see that Exarchia has become the highest priority target as a consequence of the decline of more radical action from the anarchist movement. After a period of many surprise attacks and bombings following the upheaval of December 2008, many members of the anarchist groups Conspiracy Cells of Fire and Revolutionary Struggle have been captured and imprisoned, and there has been a significant decrease in so-called political terrorism. Such actions still happen, but not at the same frequency and intensity as before.

This is similar to what happened to US anarchists following Operation Backfire as a result of the FBI declaring the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts to be the number one domestic “terror” threat in the United States. After a wave of infiltration, repression, and inflated sentences targeting clandestine direct action, the US anarchist movement shifted towards mass street action. The state shifted its strategy, as well, using grand juries to harass people, demonizing classic forms of protest, and militarizing police departments.

In a similar way, owing to the shortage of actions that could be described as terrorism by any stretch of the imagination, the Greek right was forced to construct a new enemy. This is likely why they chose the neighborhood of Exarchia and focused on the local anarchist group Rouvikonas (Rubicon). Rouvikonas has quite a reputation in Athens and the media love them. Essentially, they are an anarcho-communist group that engages in civil disobedience with an aggressive edge. They intimidate bosses, throw paint on buildings, smash turnstiles at subway entrances, and organize various other actions that are inspiring and courageous but deliberately restrained in order to avoid the risk of long prison terms.

Regardless of their restraint and the fact that they are just one of many groups in the Greek anarchist movement, Rouvikonas has become the new government’s public enemy number one alongside the anarchists in Exarchia as a whole and the specter of drug dealing in the square. Unless some more pressing concern arises, New Democracy will focus on this constructed threat, striving to present themselves as the saviors of the Hellenic people, while doing nothing to truly improve people’s lives—a classic fascist strategy.

It is hard to know how many people buy into the narrative of the new Greek right. About 39 percent of Greek voters cast ballots for New Democracy, with another 31 percent voting for Syriza, 5 percent for the Communist Party, and 3 percent for Golden Dawn. It is hard to tell how much of the population believes this administration’s nonsense about Exarchia. Greece is a very polarized society, notorious for a popular skepticism of politicians of all stripes. But the residents of the countryside and the suburbs of Athens, the super-rich, and the isolated poor people who voted for New Democracy certainly subscribe to their agenda.

“Good morning from Exarchia square. On July 8, we are giving the square to its residents. The lawlessness is finished. The prohibition on entering is finished. With New Democracy, this square will be a normal square again.” After hastily recording this video, this right-wing politician fled Exarchia as fast as he could.

Of the first wave of police raids, in which four squats were evicted and 143 people arrested, the vast majority of the arrestees were immigrants, who are being moved to concentration camps. How do the crackdowns promised by New Democracy relate to continued scapegoating and repression of immigrants? How do anarchist strategies for defense against the government crackdown address the targeting of immigrants?

Of the four squats evicted, only two were housing refugees. The other two were anarchist spaces that did not serve this function. It is not easy to put all the squats that were targeted in any one category, as they are associated with different groups and different objectives. One of these squats, named Gare, has been evicted—and reoccupied—several times already under Syriza.

It’s also important to emphasize that the squats Spirou Trikopi 17 and Transito were providing housing and support to refugees in a completely self-determined manner independent of the state. Syriza never targeted this occupation, from what I understand—and this is where a new policy shift is obvious. These squats, along with several others nearby, have been providing free spaces for refugee families in conditions that are far superior to those in the state-funded detention facilities. Even if we consider the subject from a statist point of view, it actually saves the state money for refugees to be self-organizing their housing in this way with support from anarchists.

So this is an explicitly racist and fascistic act of symbolic revenge from the new government: a statement to refugees and other immigrants that they are no longer safe in Exarchia’s asylum. Many of the refugees who were arrested will probably be moved to Petrou Ralli detention center, a volatile place located in the middle of an industrial zone in Athens. Others have reportedly been dispersed to various refugee concentration camps around Athens and Greece. We hope that many of those detained will be released following investigation, but some may be deported or else remain in overcrowded detention centers in Greece.

Let me repeat this: even from a state perspective, the spaces that the police evicted were saving Greek taxpayers money and alleviating some of the impact of the so-called refugee crisis. However, just as the US government spends more money capturing and imprisoning immigrants and homeless people than it would spend simply helping or housing them, the point is to set a political precedent for society at any cost. Immigrants and refugees are not welcome here, law and order above all else, and, like all the other right-wing governments reigning over various parts of the earth today, the Greek government aims to encourage their base to blame the desperate and excluded for their suffering, rather than the prevailing order or the elites that benefit from it.

Syriza evicted plenty of squats during their time in power. But they targeted the immigrant squats that they alleged were housing people involved in drug dealing and the anarchist squats that they claimed were being used to manufacture Molotov cocktails. In both cases, they attempted to frame an ethical narrative, trying to draw a line between “good” and “bad” squats.

By contrast, New Democracy has made it clear that they have a long-term plan to eradicate not only the existing squats in Exarchia but squatting itself, along with all the refugees, immigrants, anarchists, youth, and other people who give the neighborhood its world-famous character. They aim to destroy the culture that has come to define Exarchia. This will not be a quick procedure; they have a long-term plan, likely concluding with the creation of a subway stop in Exarchia Square and a return to the good old days when Exarchia had more in common with Colonaki.

Besides the government imprisoning families who had been living self-determined, peaceful lives in Exarchia, the most striking element of the eviction of August 26 was its timing. New Democracy released the police officer who murdered the teenage anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulous in late July 2019, around the same time they officially lifted the university asylum; these were two dramatic provocations aimed at the anarchist and autonomous movements. Typically, the state has evicted squats between the beginning of July and the middle of August. While squats both inside and outside Exarchia—for example, in the neighborhoods of Kipseli and Koukaki—have been repeatedly harassed throughout the summer and continue to experience harassment at this moment, the operation of August 26 was timed to occur immediately before many people are returning from summer vacations. Carrying out these attacks at this time is meant to send the message that war has been declared on Exarchia and those who support the cop-free and anti-fascist social experiment that it represents.

To bring this back to the situation for immigrants, they are having their lives ruined once again. People are concerned about refugees committing suicide. We may see an escalation of violence on the part of desperate refugees. Many people who have faced and escaped the direst circumstances of our century have found Exarchia to be a safe place they could call home. The trauma that New Democracy aims to inflict with its reign of terror may produce unexpected results. This is a sad reality that we have to discuss. We should take seriously the severity of the emotional damage that the raids of August 26 inflicted, as well as the raids likely to come.

We hear that the Greek government has repealed the “sanctuary law” maintaining university asylum, prohibiting police from entering the universities except in emergencies. How will this effect the anarchist movement in Greece and the social context as a whole?

So far, the end of university asylum has taken place in words alone. Cops already often raided universities during riots or in pursuit of so-called criminals. Now they have changed the law so police will not need the formal permission of a university dean to enter. But it remains to be seen what this will mean in practice. University asylum is a hard-won victory a substantial part of the movement in Greece. Many people are deeply invested in it. It is not simply a matter of people sometimes running to the Polytechnic in Exarchia to avoid arrest during riots. This is a very small aspect of how the end of university autonomy will effect the movement.

Universities are important rallying points for assemblies and organizing in Greece. There are occupied spaces inside many universities that house social centers (steki) and anarchist groups. Above all, universities have served as a recruiting space for anarchists and as a venue for events. Parties and events at universities throughout Greece, from the hip-hop shows at the economics school in Kipseli to the punk shows at the law school in Neapoli, have provided important infrastructure to challenge repression and raise funds, as well as a safe and affordable space for people to gather and connect politically.

New Democracy has been obsessed with junkies and drug dealing, but no informed person would deny that the police have been intentionally pushing addicts and dealers into the universities. In most cases, drug use and dealing has not interrupted the ordinary function of the universities. But drug addiction is a major problem in Greece, where there is intense poverty by European standards and the port of Piraeus serves as a hub for heroin entering Europe. I do not blame people for their addictions; I blame capitalism. At the same time, the police have used the epidemic to target universities and Exarchia. For a long time, now, they have pushed addicts to the peripheries of the universities in hopes of delegitimizing the asylum law and undermining student autonomy. And while the drug dealing situation in Exarchia has become sad and confusing, it originated with a huge police effort in 2010 to push addicts into Exarchia.

Incidentally, in addition to pushing the drug trade into universities, police have also sought to push it into neighborhoods inhabited by (largely legal) immigrants. This is a way to consolidate drugs and crime in non-white or immigrant communities. In Athens, the neighborhood of Omonia experiences some of the most devastating heroin and meth use I have seen in this city. It also happens to be one of the largest concentrations of Pakistani and Bangladeshi business owners.

Time will tell whether the police can take control of the universities in practice. If they begin patrolling campuses, evacuating occupied centers in the universities, and shutting down parties, this would put a damper on the movement. At the same time, it would probably ignite a forceful reaction from the movement that would backfire against New Democracy.

New Democracy may be poking the wrong beast. If they push harder, rather than sticking to the slow, patient strategy of repression Syriza employed, there will be a broader backlash extending far beyond Exarchia. The asylum law is not only cherished by anarchists, but also autonomists, communists, leftists of all kinds, and, to put it simply, kids who like to party. The reaction to this clampdown has yet to be seen.

How does the state attack on Exarchia relate to the capitalist assault on the neighborhood that has been taking place through gentrification and urban displacement? What is the relationship between Airbnb and urban development initiatives and riot police?

Exarchia has always been a sort of obsession for people from the right-wing suburbs. Since the 1970s, there have been efforts to mess with Exarchia time and time again. After the 2008 insurrection, the Delta police would raid the neighborhood at random, attacking and beating people. Syriza formally eliminated the force; now New Democracy plans to reestablish it.

But Airbnb is the invisible enemy everyone is at a loss to deal with. Exarchia is becoming one of the most expensive places to live in the center of Athens, and Airbnb is almost 100 percent responsible for this sudden spike in real estate value and short-term rent hikes. Prior to Airbnb, a three-bedroom apartment could cost you 250 euros a month; now, that same apartment could generate well over 1800 euros a month if used for Airbnb.

This has drawn the attention of property owners and investors. New Democracy has been promising a new prosperity for Greece following years of recession. Yet in the melodramatic television coverage of Exarchia here, it is rarely mentioned that all these demonized alternative and deviant criminal elements are actually entertaining a huge market of alternative tourism.

In Exarchia, German, American, and Chinese tourists walk side by side the same immigrants and anarchists that the police refer to as trash. There is even a tour available as an “Airbnb Experience” called “Sweet Anarchy” describing Exarchia and its street inhabitants as if we are animals in a zoo.

What has changed in the war on Exarchia since the days before Syriza? Chiefly, this: if New Democracy is able to succeed in its long-term effort to eradicate those who defend the neighborhood’s character, Airbnb and foreign investors have created a new market that will be ready to redefine Exarchia swiftly.

How will anarchists respond to the attacks promised by the state? Are there divisions over issues of strategy?

I don’t think there are very many divisions over issues of strategy. Compared to the US, there are fewer bourgeois voices demanding pacifism in the movements here. Any strategy for the self-defense of Exarchia and the movements that define it will be welcome, whatever form it takes. Some groups are more open to using force than others are, but it’s rare to hear the sort of debate about violence and nonviolence that often takes place in the US.

But the challenge isn’t division over strategy so much as it is division itself. I think most people in the movement would say that morale is at a low point in recent memory. There are more anarchists, autonomists, and anti-fascists then ever before, but division is rampant. Many groups have a competitive attitude towards each other, nurse personal disputes, experience infighting, or refuse to work together at all. Still, I believe this will change quickly.

Many would say that 2008 to 2012 saw the peak of anarchist activity in Greece thus far for the 21st century. There were many challenges following mass police operations against the groups Conspiracy Cells of Fire and Revolutionary Struggle, not to mention the tragic deaths of three bank employees during a general strike in 2010.1 Many people experienced an insurrection, a generalized revolt people can only dream of in the current anarchist movement in the United States. Rioting and organizing both took place on a massive scale. However, following those years of struggle, very little actually changed. Austerity and poverty remained the norm, as Greece became the scapegoat for failed European policies and the new generation was forced to bear the consequences of the economic crisis.

When Syriza came to power, many anarchists fought with each other about whether to vote for them. Some argued that a Syriza government would make it easier to defend Exarchia and alleviate the suffering of those in prison, as well as mitigating the stress caused by state forces such as the Delta police. This created a great deal of division between anarchists, showing how confusing things became as what had seemed to be a social revolution quickly turned to the left, taking the stage in the theater of Greek politics.

Syriza was strategic like a snake. The party leaders knew Exarchia; many of them were leftist intellectuals and academics who used to come to Exarchia to debate over coffee or beer. They knew how to quell the movement, how to turn people against each other. They knew how to give people just enough room to breathe so they wouldn’t feel strangled. But they had their hands around our necks the whole time.

Many people from the prior generation became depressed or moved on. It was sad to see what many had thought of as a leftist government with all the right answers imposing austerity measures. It was a sad conclusion to the peak years of resistance.

However, the number of participants in anarchist and anti-authoritarian movements has not decreased. On the contrary, it has dramatically increased. Anarchism exists on a massive scale in Greece. It is hard to describe the extent of the movement and its diversity to an American audience.

During the Syriza years, there was a considerable amount of repression. The police attacked squats, but did so in a very calculated manner, so that people would target their anger internally, emphasizing small conflicts and political distinctions. The Syriza government helped to fan the flames of sectarianism in the movement by containing the movement rather than trying to suppress it.

Now, there are signs that people are coming together. A new poster is circulating calling for a mobilization on September 14 under the banner “No Pasaran.” Many groups in Exarchia that were at odds during the Syriza years are calling for this mobilization together. The assemblies that have taken place in the last 48 hours were not characterized by the infighting many of us are used to, and the number of participants has been high. People feel the pressure. They know they have to choose their battles. They have learned from the deceptions of Syriza that there is no such thing as a victory for our movements in the theater of state politics.

I think many people expected this. Some are depressed and divided, but prepared to transcend these issues collectively. Since its inception in the 1970s, the Greek anarchist movement as we know it has always been characterized by waves. As summer is ending, we see people coming together, opening their minds, and realizing the seriousness of the battle ahead.

I should note that the four squats evicted on August 26 were associated with groups that are at odds. But the dialogue that has followed has expressed unity and solidarity. Things are bad and they will definitely get worse. But I believe that people will come together. This is already happening.

What can we do outside Greece to support the anarchist movement and the freedom of immigrants there? What are the most effective ways we can act in solidarity?

For better or worse, Exarchia has been portrayed as the mecca of global anarchism. Sometimes I laugh about this, but then I remind myself to not take for granted the beautiful elements of this neighborhood.

Many would say that the answer to your question is to go to Greek assemblies and let the Greek state know that Exarchia will not be isolated, that it is loved from across the world. But I would say, in the spirit of revolutionary solidarity, that the most important thing that those who read this text can do is to continue building spaces and community wherever you are.

Exarchia has its fair share of issues, but it is generally a safe place. Considering its size, the fact that it functions so well without policing—despite so much diversity and internal differences and external pressure—attests to the viability of anarchism. Exarchia confirms that even without a police force, a major metropolitan area can function peacefully. So one way you could demonstrate your solidarity is to work towards creating more communities that celebrate self-determination, that do not welcome the police.

This year will see the first observances of important annual events under New Democracy, including Novemeber 17, the anniversary of the day 23 students were killed by the Junta at the Polytechnio in Exarchia, and December 6, the anniversary of the murder of Alexis Grigoropolous that sparked the 2008 insurrection. New Democracy has used both days to rally their supporters and argue that they must lift the asylum laws. While the movement has generally been critical of what is called anarcho-tourism, I think the attitude around this is changing. If people come to Greece for these days, they could help to protect Exarchia.

Outside supporters can also come to Greece to help immigrants independent of the state and NGOs, inside and outside of Athens. This has been going on for a long time.

It is not easy to say exactly what you should do. As I write this, I still don’t know what New Democracy has planned, nor how anarchists here will respond. But there are cops in riot gear surrounding the neighborhood, undercover cops roaming the streets, and tension everywhere. I am equally afraid and excited to see what is to come.

Many attribute these three deaths to the boss refusing to let the employees leave during the general strike and the riot that predictably accompanied it. ↩

[whitefangworldbuilding]

The Strength of Sienna Khan

I find the subject of how to address where Sienna is on the power scaling of Remnant to be both an interesting question and rather pertinent if one ever wants to write a fic about her and so I have provided my own breakdown on the matter below. 

Opening:

Now, I certainly don't mean it in a "How much Ki does she have" or "Does her Semblance make her an S Class threat" or "She can move at Mach 5". No, I more mean it in a general scaling of, who would she measure up well against in a fair fight sense.

& obviously the answer should be "Whatever doesn't break established canon too much" (Unless an AU or what have you)

However, I do feel there is a sort of bare minimum that needs to be cleared based on what we've seen, but even more, what we know.

So, time for some grounds keeping:

Now I could go into how I doubt one rises to a position like Sienna's and survives being functionally at war with something like the SDC and presumably wanted in every nation save Menagerie and likely Vacuo without being badass, but given she has allies that only means so much, Jac certainly didn't survive based on his personal strength after all, so lets move on.

Someone might argue that anything beyond what we saw in Sienna's trailer (Sorry Adam's, but I digress) to not be applicable, however we only saw her fight once and it seems anyone not at mook level didn't really struggle in that fight so it is hard to get a gauge.

We can infer a lot from the fact that despite having her presumably elite guards, and six other soldiers, plus himself and potentially Hazel on side, Adam still chose to kill Sienna by surprise before she realized he didn't intend for her to step down. This can certainly give the impression that Adam did not feel confident he could defeat her either with that back up, or at least not without severe risks, but that still only gives us so much, because we don't know what those risks were.

Still, I think as a starting point as strong, or more likely stronger/better than Adam seems like a fairly reasonable place to start from based on that and the trailer.

But we can go deeper.

One integral thing to think about when considering where Sienna might be on the overall metric and scale is this.

Cinder didn't try to recruit or intimidate her.

Now, some might argue that "Sienna didn't exist before V4" or that "Adam was High Leader before V3" or what have you. I say this.

But I don't think it matters; not just because Sienna is canon, but because as far back as V1 when Blake imagined the shadow figures who replaced the previous leader, there was not just 1. This means that even if Adam was meant to be higher up than he eventually turned out to be he still would not have been alone, eh wither would have had contemporaries or superiors right from V1 and them needing to recruit in V2 and having such a small pool of forces in V/3 really doesn't give any eight to the idea Adam had the full resources of the Fang at his command.

(Though why the boss of a massive organization would be messing about on a train blowing shit up for the lols is beyond me, hence why I don't think he was ever the leader)

This means that regardless of whether Sienna the character, her design or background, ETC, did to didn't exist specifically before V4 doesn't matter because someone always existed in the WF who wasn't submitting to Cinder as Adam was and held a great deal of power.

So what does that mean?

Well what this means is that to reach a final conclusion we need to look at Cinder Fall and her involvement with the White Fang to reach a final conclusion.

So, Cinder is someone with the training of a skilled Huntress (Seemingly), had an assassin and hallucinogenic thief and fighter on her side, and the resources provided to her by Salem, but rather than going for the High Leader of the White Fang and thus potentially netting the entire organization, she went to Adam.

And we know it was intentional because Cinder knew who Adam would be, seemingly that he had an ego given her degree of flattery and she placed great emphasis on choosing him, meaning that give her intelligence on the WF, means she determined him the best.most likely candidate to agree that would be useful. Now this info wasn't perfect because it either failed to communicate Adam's ego effectively or the political situation in the WF, IE, that they would not be willing to work for a human like this, or at least not with her plan.

But by all of this we can determine Cinder had some moderately good Intel on the White Fang, so the question  becomes...

Why not Sienna Khan? (Or whoever pre her creation, but yes Sienna Khan)

This next segment will involve a slight digression down, but please bear with me.

Cinder is someone not against bribery, flattery or threats to get what she wants, we saw all of this in her recruitment of Adam, so her avoiding this route with the WF's High Leader means a few things. Firstly it means she likely knew Sienna would not agree to such a destructive plan because it served no purpose; this objection could be moralistic or pragmatic, but Cinder would likely assume the latter given her general disposition and attitude.

But would she, would anyone object if it meant not dying? Would someone actually fight a doomed battle and die just to avoid being forced to commit a terrible act, or being subjected to slavery via threat? I doubt Cinder would believe that possible at least for someone who operates at Sienna's level in the world.

Here's the digression.

This was based off Cinder's interactions with Raven but it still feels applicable here. When Raven said that she wanted to kill her own brother, Cinder did not for a second seemingly doubt her, not even assuming something sneaky like an alliance of pragmatism to deal with her (Likely because she knows they fear Salem). No, Cinder just accepts that Raven wants her own brother dead, cheerfully in fact.

Now, say what you will about Raven but given she still has a portal to him & hasn't slit his throat while he was asleep, I think we can agree she, while willing to endanger Qrow, doesn't actively 'want' him dead or to murder him.

But Cinder was willing to accept that she did, and I feel its for much the same reason as one tumblr post mentioned. Cinder assumes everyone else is as petty and evil as she is. That might not be 100% accurate, but I think she'd definitely assume that of people like Raven, Sienna & Adam, even if she likely regards it in degrees, IE, Adam was the most likely to go along with her plan hence seeking him out.

End of digression.

This to me means that Cinder would not be acting on the assumption Sienna would object to her plans morally, or assuming that Sienna would sacrifice herself to stop them, because she likely thinks Sienna is incapable of such things.

So why wouldn't she seek her out and try to force Sienna's hand once she had half the Maiden powers? Cinder seems rather confident in the ability of power and fear to command respect and yet she didn't aim any higher than Adam despite the potential benefits.

Well given Adam was able to blits through her former guards relatively easily -though be it with a bit of shock given they didn't expect him to go that off the hook- this means to m that Sienna would be the major deciding factor here, not her guards or mooks, especially given Cinder can control Grimm and so could likely organize a Grimm attack to keep the grunts busy while she and her allies go for Sienna.

Thus, to me, this means that as far as Cinder was concerned , even with half the Maiden powers, her wonder minions and potentially Adam...

She still did not feel confident in taking down Sienna.

Or at least she was not confident in being able to force Sienna to surrender or to kill her quickly and turn her into a martyr without it being very blatantly clear that she did it, that Adam was a traitor, and generally just turning the entire WF against her or causing it to fracture apart defeating the purpose of the battle.

Given Cinder's ego likely means she has a fairly high bar before she feels threatened or like she couldn't pull off a "just as planned"; the only conclusion I can reach is that even after gaining the Maiden powers and potentially/likely/certainly Adam as an asset, Cinder still did not think she could overpower Sienna easily enough to either win, or at the very least accomplish her goals.

Conclusion

So, when we put all this together what do we get?

Well, we know that Sienna was at least a skilled fighter and one of at least comparable strength to Adam in the trailer.

We know that despite having her guards, back up and Hazel, Adam did not feel confident in either winning or at least not in a quick fight and so resorted to a sneak attack.

We can deduce that despite her powers and connections, Cinder did not feel she had adequate resources to either defeat Sienna and force her to heel, or kill her quickly and frame it on Vale to make Adam High Leader.

Thus, I reason, that Sienna Khan would likely have at the very least be stronger and more skilled than Adam, and could have put up a good fight even against partial Fall Maiden Cinder, Emerald & Mercury, enough that trying it would not be deemed worth the risks involved.

Exactly where you want to put Sienna's strength is obviously up to your own discretion, even if you follow this analyse there's still a lot of room for interpretation or extrapolation.

But I hope that this breakdown has proven insightful and well reasoned, thank you for your time.

Notes:

I almost wish I had made a video of this :D

Brainstorming Semblances could also be fun.

My main one for Sienna is that she has a 'crest' that she can store her Aura in, storing up potentially days, weeks, months or even years that when activated means she can drastically multiply her strength, sorta like Adam, Yang or Nora, but its pre-stored and has a massive gauge, This is the one I give her in the War idea (and in general) hence her being able to vaporize that cruiser, though using said Semblance can be hard, slow and painful and take a long time to recoup.

Other idea include Nine Lives, IE self Resurrection.

One idea I had in a fun little snippet I wrote ages back involved Sienna being able to forge a psychic link with animals, awakening their Aura, extra intelligence & having them fight along side her as her familiars. She had tigers :D

Another had her able to make solid, independent duplicates, or at least one that operated as an e extension of her, dividing her power in half, but letting her be in two places at once.

Another was tat she operated a bit like Cortez from X-Men, but in this case she basically cleaved off a chunk of her own Aura and infused it into others to give them extra strength and energy but could also return said power to herself if she wished to, weakening the, especially if they'd become dependent on her enhancements.

There's probably a lot of other ideas and if you folks have any I'd love to hear-em, but those are some thoughts.

[amazildoessomethingstupid]

Chapter 96: Unspoken Rule

Man I thought it would be a lot longer before I did another of these, but as it turns out I fucking hate in between pages.  Y’know, those pages between the actual good and interesting shit?  Y’know the parts that are in between the fun parts, but you have to have them to actually move characters to the good parts? The parts that are boring and filler?  Yeah as an artist/writer I hate those too and it took me most of the week to come up with a page to make it not boring as sin.  Sadly this means, ANOTHER RANT!  And this time we are taking a look at Unspoken Rule. But before we do, I’d like to share with you the bit of panic that set in and what kind of pressure I had on me when trying to force an update.  For a second I thought that this rant was going to be about…

And I was very, very, scared.

Thankfully a friend notified me that I don’t know how to count, so we’re talking about this chapter instead!  Boy what a relief that was, I thought.  But it seemed a bit disappointing.  I hadn’t heard anything of this page, seems like it’ll be a short rant.  That won’t do.  So I figured, “hey if there’s not much to say.  Fuck it, we’ll do a double feature with the carnival…”

Sadly, I have something to say.

And we start with a good lighthearted joke.  Although, that expression in the first panel throws it off a bit.  The dialogue on the initial read says snark and sassy, but the face says honest concern, but then we show it is snarky.  So the face is just, confusing.  Not worth kicking up a fuss about, but definitely a headscratcher.

Anyway, on to what’s actually happening.  Which is Mike is being nervous and back and forth about wanting to talk to Lucy and apologize.  And it’s so weird to me.  This is such a serious plot point, and major conflict in the story, yet this is played for laughs. And not even good laughs, just hollow jokes it feels almost tasteless.  But not as tasteless as this:

BIG OOF  

Alright guys, see this?

I am absolved of this being uncharacteristically brash and open.  If Taeshi can do that kind of rudeness, so can I.  Lucy is just so cold now, it feels bad.  Not out of character, not unrealistic, just…bad.

But moving from that, we get into these two.   And…

Awww…th-this is actually pretty sad. And engaging.

HEY! I SEE YOU REACHING FOR MY HEARTSTRINGS! YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY!

But seriously, this a very nice scene. It’s kind of touching, and it’s a moment I wish we had more of.  

It’s…actually very nice. The characters are finally airing their grievances, and we’re getting somewhere. I…I actually like th-

OH YOU BACKSTABBING, HACK WRITING, BITCH! ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! WHY ARE YOU STICKING YOUR DICK IN A GAS STATION MILKSHAKE?! BITCH,

ARE YOU FUCKING F’REAL SHAKES RIGHT NOW?!  WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU FEEL THE NEED TO ADD THAT?!  THIS JUST DESTROYS ALL IMMERSION, I ALMOST FELT SOMETHING THERE FOR A SECOND! BUT THEN YOU HAD TO DO SOMETHING SO DUMB!  THIS ISN’T EVEN ON THE CHARACTER, THIS IS A STRAIGHT UP WRITING ISSUE!  EVEN I WOULDN’T DO SOMETHING THIS DUMB!  IT’S SO OUT OF PLACE!  IT GIVES ME MENTAL WHIPLASH CAUSE I HAVE TO DO A DOUBLE TAKE TO MAKE SURE I’M NOT JUST FUCKING SEEING SHIT! AND YOU KNOW WHAT’S THE WORST PART ABOUT THIS FUCKING PANEL?!

IT’S IN THE PRINTED BOOK! Taeshi saw this, drew it, posted it, and got whatever feedback from it.  Then later came back, saw it, and edited a bunch of things for the book, and decided, “No that’s fine.  We’ll leave it there, that’s perfectly okay.”  And just left it there!  WHY?!  You had a good scene, an actual honest to god, good scene.  And you had to just make a dumb joke, and ruin the whole mood.  This is the sort of bad run and gun cheap gag sort of shtick that you’d expect to see from Volume 1!  Except, even Volume 1 knew when to take itself seriously, and maintain that serious tone!  I mean imagine if this happened in something like Zach’s talk with Lucy.

Any good graces this scene had, in setting up these two working out their problems and moving in a nice direction is thrown out the window now, and for what?!  What’s the purpose?  Why would yo-

Oh…Oh no…

Please, have mercy! You already stabbed my back, please don’t stab me in the heart! Please, not like this!

Aaaugh, no!  Not like this!  Poor Rachel!  It’s not fair I can’-

Wait….

I-is…Is that it?

Are you kidding me?

That’s it?  Two pages?  Really? That’s how you’re breaking it off?  This is how you’re going to stab me? Look, there’s like 3 more inches left in the knife, come on.  Push it deeper.  Twist it, I know you want to.  WHY ARE YOU HOLDING BACK? FUCKING WORK THIS SCENE AND MAKE ME CRY!  

NO FUCK YOU, WE’RE NOT MOVING PAST THIS!

YOU WROTE RACHEL’S BREAK UP. IN

TWO

FUCKING

PAGES!?

YOU WROTE OUT ONE OF THE MOST GROUNDED, HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN YOUR COMIC IN TWO PAGES LIKE IT WAS NOTHING!  WITH A HORRIBLE ONE-SIDED DIALOGUE, WHERE RACHEL IS TALKING TO PAULO WHO HAS SUDDENLY INHERITED THE EMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING OF A BRICK WALL!  HOW COULD YOU DO THAT AFTER EVERYTHING YOU DID IN BUILDING THIS CHARACTER’S ENTIRE ARC AND DEVELOPMENT!?  AFTER TRANSFORMING A CHARACTER WHO WAS PORTRAYED AS UNLIKABLE, BITCHY, ANNOYING, SLUTTY, AND DUMB.

To fleshing her out, to be deep, thoughtful, caring, and supportive.  Rachel is my favorite character, and it’s not because she’s a slut it’s because she represented something in this comic that had been absent.  

Natural character development.  That wasn’t brought on by some big event shaking their entire core, and changing them. In fact, one of the best things about Rachel is that despite how differently her character’s reception is from Volume 6 compared to Volume 1, her personality, her attitude, and her core is mostly unchanged.  

She’s still slutty, she’s overweight, she’s silly.  But a big part of why I love her as a character, and why I think many others do as well, is because never does it seem to be a negative to her.  We don’t see her get upset, or self-conscious about her weight, or her sexual behavior, because she’s confident in herself and accepts herself. Not only that, but she’s shown to take charge, stand up and not be afraid to call out what she sees is wrong. And outside of her character…

She was a role model for Paulo.  Unlike Jasmine whose relationship was more Paulo bending himself to fit her lifestyle, Rachel was a character who accepted and supported Paulo’s lifestyle, but at the same time helped steer him to do the right thing.  And in a comic where almost every fucking character is so intent on dancing around their issues and waiting until it blows up in their face, Rachel served as an example of someone who had it together.  A proactive person, who didn’t want to see these characters get worse.

I have ranted and gone off on a lot of decisions and actions that these characters have done, but not once did I ever scratch my head or think twice about something that Rachel did. Her character didn’t need a bunch of insight, and excuses about hormones or “they’re teenagers, lol!” to understand her.  She simply was who she was, and I respect that.

In short…

Despite everything that my history with this comic gave me, the feelings I developed from all the bullshit that has happened in this story, despite all of that.  It was this one character, what she brought to the table, and what she did for the comic and its characters, that gave me something I thought I’d long lost, and never thought I’d ever regain.

She gave me hope in this comic.  That it would finally have its characters be proactive, regain its humor, and bring itself out of the slump it made for itself.  With this character, and the writing behind her, I believed Taeshi was finally on the right track, and was setting up something great that would grow the characters and build upon them naturally.

But that’s not what we got. And the real bitch of it is, this could’ve been a real emotional moment. A well executed front-stab.  We knew it was coming, we saw the writing on the wall, but we still needed to face the music.  It was set up to be a wonderful tragedy, where both parties are well aware of the futility of their relationship.  They understand each other, and why it won’t work, but also don’t want to let go.  And I was going to make a comparison to Two Kinds, because they had a similar scenario with Trace’s wife and the whole idea of moving on is a recurring theme… But looking back I realized something.  I don’t need to bring a comparison to Two Kinds or someone else’s comic, and no I’m not even going to draw a comparison of what I would’ve done in this situation by drawing a comparison to False Idol’s future scene (although I was thinking about that).  No, we don’t need to look too far because you know what the real sad part about this is?

We’ve had this conversation before.

And just look at it. Look how heartbreaking this is.  This is how it should’ve been.  You see that Paulo understands what she’s saying, he knows what she means and how bittersweet their relationship is.  It is one of the best moments from the newer volumes, and their inevitable breakup should’ve been a turning point.  It should’ve marked a big life-changing moment for Paulo.  Where he is sad about how he’s making Rachel feel, but he’s unsure about his own feelings. Maybe Rachel makes the decision for him and breaks it off, and Paulo realizes how hurtful his behavior is, and that he can’t play games with people anymore, that it’s not fair.  It could be the moment Paulo turns a new leaf and becomes more mature, and in seeing that; Rachel can let go taking some solace in knowing that he is a better person now.

But instead we got this…

We’re not even halfway through this god damn chapter. Well where is it taking us now?

Huh…and it seems that the writing is not going to change pace either, I wonder where this is going.

Oh boy, everyone’s getting into teams!  And oh man, Lucy’s going up against Mike!  And boy is this contrived.  And what’s even worse, is that despite how much Taeshi has shunned Volume 1 and its stupid sense of humor, and how shoddy it was.  Volume 1 wasn’t THIS contrived, and when it was, it was pretty tongue in cheek about it.  In fact!

This sounds like something Volume 1 would MAKE FUN OF.  But let’s give the benefit of the doubt maybe it’s not that bad.  It might have something going on, an-

(It’s interesting, I think I have like 3 reaction pics of Sam trying to shoot herself, but this one just can not be matched.  And it’s not even meant for the rants.)

You know what?  I’m not even gonna bother going over this part. No one will be seated during the harrowing “Will they won’t they” inconsequential dodgeball fight. Although I will say,

Not gonna lie, that actually got a laugh out of me.  Good job. Anyway, Lucy catches the ball and wins the game who cares.  But then…

First of all

Look at those arms. Damn Lucy what happened?  You’re looking like two toothpicks in a marshmallow.   But more than that.  Did I read that right?

Yeah!  It’s not like you stopped practicing Martial Arts!  Why would you?  It’s not like you had some serious physical trauma happen to stop you-

OH WAIT!

RECOVERY PERIOD? PHYSICAL THERAPY?  PFFFT WHO THE FUCK NEEDS THAT?  YEAH SURE, YOU’RE TOTALLY FINE AND CAPABLE BEING A FUCKING BLACK BELT IN TAE KWON DO.  SURE!  NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE STITCHES AM I RIGHT?

But I’m just combing cotton here, this all just fluff.  There’s really only one thing left to talk about here.

And I’ll be honest.

This.

Is…

Pretty good.

This is honestly really well done.  There’s nothing I can say about this.  It’s a very serious moment, I can feel Taeshi reaching for my heartstrings but I…I’m okay with it.  This was the moment I wanted to see.  Finally these characters air out some of their grievances.  We get insight to how they feel, we are finally getting somewhere. It’s not nice, but it’s progress an-

…

THAT’S THE TH-….

*sigh*

Fuck you too, Taeshi.

Three times.

Three fucking times in one chapter, that you set up something good.  Had a good thing going, and then decided to fuck it up at the end. That’s a new record.  Even when I expected nothing out of this chapter, you manage to let me down.  You astound me with how much you disappoint me.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were doing it to intentionally troll me. But I’m not that vain.  Fuck you Taeshi, I’ve said this before but always with the tone of hyperbole, and a bit of optimistic cynicism.  But this time I really mean it.  I have no more faith in you as a writer.  Whatever you come up with, however this ride ends.  I don’t think you will pull it off anymore.  I don’t think you have the competence to tie this up in a proper way.  At one point you could’ve.  At one point, I think you had it in you with the mindset, the creativity, and the emotional drive to tell a well-crafted story.  But not anymore, and I despise what you’ve become.    Let’s get this stupid chapter over with.

What’s next?  What are we doing huh?  What are we getting at?

Oh…

I see.  This is where we’re going huh? That’s what all this was for?

ALRIGHT! Y’KNOW WHAT? FINE! I GUESS THIS IS WHAT WE’RE DOING BOYS!  THIS IS THE NEW DIRECTION FOR BCB!  LOOK! SHE CALLED PAULO CUTE! OMG THE SHIP IS SAILING, DON’T YOU GET IT?  IT’S JUST SHIPPING! THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS! THAT’S HOW WE’RE DRIVING THE PLOT!

FUCK ALL THAT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, THIS IS WHY RACHEL GOT DROPPED!  IT WASN’T CAUSE OF CHARACTERS NATURALLY CONCLUDING RELATIONSHIPS, IT’S ALL BECAUSE LUCY’S HERE AND WE CAN’T HAVE PAULO’S RELATIONSHIP WITH RACHEL CLASH WITH THAT!  SHE’S OUTLIVED HER USEFULNESS! NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT PAULO X LUCY, OR PAULO X DAISY WHICH IS IT?  THIS IS THE REAL DRAMA YOU ALL ARE LOOKING FOR!  THIS IS HOW WE REALLY MOVE THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS!  CHOO CHOO BOYS!  ALL ABOARD THE SHIP!  LET’S JUST GO ALONG FOR THE RIDE WHERE WE GOING TAESHI?  I’M READY!  I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT TO FUCKING LOOK FORWARD TO OR LIVE FOR!  SO COME ON, WHERE ARE YOU SAILING US?

I give it a 2/10.  Until next time, guys. 

[roseate7]

- The vicious and intentional behaviour Raffl exhibited against Malkin last night merits severe reprehension and deserves two or three layers of punishment (the instigating, the sucker-punch to the head and the subsequent diving caught on tape) none of which has ever been called for and none of which he is receiving.

- The reckless way Malkin reacted to Raffl with his stick deserves a high-sticking punishment, which he received in the game. Even a cursory review proves that there was no intent to severely harm (at that close range? intended harm would’ve followed through 100%) and Malkin himself owned up to his recklessness and rightfully denied any intent to cause severe harm to Raffl.

That’s what literally happened, but uh interestingly not even the Pens fanbase has mentioned the first and instigating part. And that’s a huge problem, and a symptomatic one.

Alex Ovechkin is a “mad Russian” who is hilarious and wild, and his deliberate head-shots and high temper and low boredom threshold are all considered apiece with his appeal to fans and media. It’s hilarious and adorable! He’s celebrated and regaled for sure but hey, it’s fun to root for a guy who is such a character! What you see is what you get with him, right? Great!

Evgeni Malkin is “the Russian who doesn’t mind being second to Sidney Crosby”  who is either equal to or only slightly behind Crosby in talent, skill and record books… but that’s not fun! That’s not interesting! Malkin has self-admittedly something of a temper. So in the blink of an eye, an elite player becomes an aggressive oaf perfectly suited to his deep voice, his choppy English and size. That’s a lot more snappy than accepting him to be a complicated and misunderstood character who finds that he can’t easily translate either his play or his thoughts into Western terms. Who knows he’s denigrated and that his choice to stay on a team with Sidney Crosby will only further lessen his positive significance, and that his mistakes will stand out more strongly as a result.

Both of these cases are insults and ones that most fans and media don’t even admit or are aware they’re committing. Ovechkin’s case is unique in that he’s harnessed the bias toward him for his own advantage. He now owns that brand of xenophobia to the point where his deeply-sewn lifelong problematic political affiliations and dubious personal life are long since hand-waived and smiled upon. The big dumb Russian image is especially ironic in how in-control and smart he is with it. He is literally laughing all the way to the American banks. But Malkin’s? Is sadly not unique in it’s dejection: despite his smarts, he can’t even speak in his own defense without his accent and his English level feeding into the “big dumb uncultured animal” prejudice. (Even players who speak better English are still tarred by their accent, or get the dubious praise of “wow your English is so good!”) He can’t make the kinds of rash mistakes that occur incessantly in hockey without it cancelling out the records he’s broken or the goals he generated.

Or in this case in particular, the fact that he was a target.

And oh boy. You’re a simple-minded no-hockey-understandin’ fool if you think that an opposition facing humiliation at the hands of a rival team with a big Russian who takes provocation quickly at times, isn’t going to receive direction to draw exactly the kind of penalty Raffl got out of Malkin. It got them the make-up goal for the refereeing cockup earlier in the game (the goal that already would have ended the Pens shutout). To Raffl and the Flyers, it was well-worth the risk and it paid off. Raffl was absolutely fine with risking retaliation to his actions if the result was stopping a shutout against his time, which it did. He was also more than happy to take a strategic dive and keep his mouth shut in the hopes that it would keep Malkin off the ice even longer. This is hockey and more than that, it’s Pennsylvania hockey. That is what happened, period.

In all fairness, I wouldn’t expect the Flyers or their fans to do much else because again, that’s hockey. Raffl got away with it but in their eyes, it was eye-for-an-eye over the earlier goal snatched out of their grasp by a whistle. There was nothing shocking about last night for a battle of Pennsylvania game.

I’m also not expecting any different attitude toward Malkin from fans who look for any reason to hate the Penguins and especially Malkin. Their reasons are already heavily biased, wildly over the top and of no value to anyone but themselves.

But it should feel utterly stunning to Pens fans that they are treating Geno the way they are. That the bias against him (and the double standards he faces compared to comparable situations with other Pens players) takes a situation of clear instigation and violence AGAINST Geno, and has instead turned it entirely into part of a pugilistic, brainless and animalistic fantasy that is a far cry from the reality that Geno is the vast majority of the time a smart and calculating player who sometimes lets his temper get the better of him (more on that in a lil sec!). There’s no hemming or hawing over that fact: we all know Geno doesn’t get his just desserts for the good he does due to playing on a team with Sid. We should also realise that Geno has an entirely unjust reputation for his mistakes that Sid does not get. Was Sid for a long time an emotional player who’s emotions sometimes brought harm to himself or his team? Undeniably yes. Was it gross the way opposition fans blew up that occasional flaw into something that actively fed the “Cindy crybaby” image that will now literally never die? Oh it sure is gross!

So why then is it okay that Geno’s flaw is encourage by his team’s own fans to feed a caricature of him that is intended to blot out his talent and his intelligence?

The thing is I know a lot of people think they’re not at all falling for that stereotype, but as someone who was around for the original post-Iron Curtain Russians I am coming out of my well to say: yes you are. I begged for tickets to hockey games my poor little teenage ass could scant afford just to watch the Russian 5 in person. I idolized their play. I counted Scotty King Midas Bowman as fortunate to have them on his already star-studded team. I also insulted and degraded the Russian 5 players unintentionally for years out of ignorance and out of deep-seated prejudice. So if you haven’t been disturbed by calling a notoriously intelligent player who has turned the tide of entire games and seasons on his own at times “dumb” and “violent” or chuckled at the way he expresses himself, then you’ve got some self-examination waiting.

I’ve also got hilariously zero time for people trying to sneak in their “Malkin is a dirty player” bullshit so let’s easily clear that up:

On the end of the spectrum that absolutely defines the modern dirty player: Tom Wilson makes surgical, calculated unprovoked and often blind-sided vicious hits intended to take players out of the game. Exiting the “dirty player” realm and far from Wilson is Erik Karlsson’s suspension this year for what he argued did not merit the punishment but that was still an intentional iffy hit that needed repercussion. Then you’ve got the fact that Geno reacts badly to hits and verbal provocation sometimes. If that’s a dirty player then bye bye to all the boys you’ve loved before because defining Karlsson and Malkin as “dirty” your little shits are also dirty players. The Lady Byng is given on relative terms, not because there are hockey players with truly squeaky clean records out there. If every reactionary slash and grudge-driven whack were called then hockey wouldn’t exist. These are male athletes traveling at high-speed in a contact sport, folks.

So the reaction to last night’s incident with Geno and the follow-up needs to be re-written for accuracy at least in part by Pens fans: Raffle made a targeted series of pugilistic attacks on Geno that were not called, Geno reacted with reckless high-sticking which was fairly called, and Raffl took a dive that was visible even to Philly commentators but was not called for it. NHL Player Safety is in a turmoil of trying to find “balance” in their wildly fluctuating definitions of dirty and illegal play and the hearing coupled with a complete lack of punishment or condemnation on Raffl’s headshot is a farce.

Hoping that Geno has to miss games for his mistake as a reaction to another player’s dirty tactics is… yeah that’s wrong. You’re wrong. You gotta ask yourself why you want that, if you do. A fine on top of his punishment to make a point? Okay. Missing games? When such a punishment has previously only been for targeted illegal hits? Yeah that’s extreme and bullshit.

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: this is going to be a very different sort of book review article than the ones I usually write; namely in that the main essay doesn’t include an actual book review.

For those of you who are curious - “Permanent Record” by Edward Snowden is an enjoyable read which I have no regrets about buying, even in hardcover. Although it’s true that there are no “new” revelations about the NSA mass surveillance program and part of the story Snowden is telling has already been told from the perspective of other people involved in the later stages of the tale, I disagree with the idea that the book presents “no new information.” The author’s impassioned arguments about the need to alter the fundamental functions and purpose of the internet, his clear insight into the reasons why online privacy rights were now as fundamentally essential to a free society as our already recognized rights and freedoms and finally the exposure of the thoughts, motivations and overall rationale that finally pushed Snowden to leak evidence of the NSA mass surveillance program are all fundamentally “new” bits of information - they just aren’t leaks.

All in all I’d say it’s a good book but it’s still a biography and as such you can probably afford to wait for the softcover, unless the CIA finds a way to ban it before then.

---

The Casualties of Cacophony

As those of you who read my post on Can't You Read yesterday already know, I recently purchased the new Edward Snowden biography and I've been reading it during smoke breaks for the past three days.

After hearing from numerous reviewers that the book contained "no new information" my primary motive here was personal enjoyment but even just the act of buying the book itself was telling me a story I wasn't listening to and wouldn't understand until this weekend. I'll explain:

On the day the Permanent Record was released in the country I'm staying in right now, I went out to my local bookstore to purchase it with tampered expectations and yet still, a certain amount of hopeful expectation.

Now before I continue further here I should mention that Americans who do not travel abroad are largely unaware of the tremendous amount of influence U.S. political media and ideological thought have over the (largely) white majority of the West in general and most Five Eyes countries in particular. Furthermore this influence is typically divided along the exact same "culture war" political lines that exist in the United States, although the degree to which they incite passions often varies from region to region - the average Canadian "conservative" cannot afford to be as rabid about opposing gun control laws as the average American "conservative" because culturally the idealized tradition of gun ownership does not exist there - but the idea, even without its systemic reinforcement, does.

I mention this because my local bookstore can be said to have a distinctly Americanized "liberal" set of sensibilities and ideas; although they would likely object to that statement as all Canadians vociferously object when you compare them to Americans. This is reflected in the "balanced" book selections on the shelf (which overwhelmingly consists of mainstream liberal, or conservative writers/thinkers and or Canadian authors) and in the sensibilities of the staff, management, and ownership I’ve encountered while shopping there; all of which were (as far as I can tell) fundamentally identical to those of your average white American Democrat.

I don't say any of these things to disparage them; the shop is a small, single-proprietor business and it's hardly surprising to anyone who understands class dynamics that a petite-bourgeoisie bookstore in a rural "conservative area" isn't going to be a hotbed of left wing thought or ideology. 

Yet despite all of this, I found myself somewhat shocked when the clerk behind the counter informed me that the stored hadn't ordered any copies of Ed Snowden's new biography - so much so that I did a double take. I asked again, if only to confirm that it wasn't a question of U.S. Government censorship or the fact that I was in a country that wasn't home so the release dates had changed - no, they simply hadn't ordered it.

For my part I assumed that was a careless mistake, after all even mainstream liberals had celebrated Snowden as a heroic whistleblower when the results of his revelations were appearing in corporate "liberal" news publications like the Washington Post and The Guardian. At that point (and while still not connecting the dots) I asked the store to order me a copy and helpfully suggested that they might want to order several copies for their shelf as this was the first time to my knowledge that Snowden would be presenting his own thoughts about one of the more important scandals and abuses of government power in our lifetime.

Then I innocently went on my way and back to my busy life for a week until the book finally arrived. As it turned out (and at my insistence) they'd ordered two copies, one of which was mine.

This decision would continue to baffle me for several long hours after I left the bookstore and indeed, none of it would start to make sense until I actually started reading Snowden's book - and with that act, found that the flood of memory about the NSA mass surveillance leaks and the political circus surrounding it, came rushing back to my mind like a raging river of madness and deceit.

There is, especially for the scholar, something altogether terrifying about reading something that you already knew and realizing, as you're in the very act of reading it, that you had for all intents and purposes forgotten something important that you were never supposed to forget. After all you can’t rightly analyze society without analyzing the history that helped shape that society, and you certainly can’t analyze history that you don’t even remember.

This creeping and altogether horrifying feeling of morally inexcusable “forgetting” became my constant companion as I reviewed Snowden's work, in his own words, while reading Permanent Record. I'm not just talking about the NSA spying and online data collection programs either; those I readily remembered, although I can't necessarily say the same for the public at large around me. As Snowden recounted James Clapper lying under oath to Congress, the (now all but completely deposed) wave of Democratic Socialist governments that opposed American internet surveillance and even the U.S. government’s efforts to trap the author in Moscow so he wouldn't fly to Ecuador, I slowly realized what I'd forgotten.

I'd forgotten the sheer breadth and open brazenness of the Pig Empire's war on not just privacy, but the truth. A war conducted not just against the whistleblowers and those rare few souls in the media who would seek to help them expose abuses, violations and atrocities conducted by our governments and the ruling classes of our societies, but also on each of us, on our own feelings, our own memories and dare I say it, our own psychological well-being. A war we are all losing as I write this to you today.

To understand what I mean by that however we’re going to have to go back to the bookstore and answer the question I should have been asking the day I tried to buy a copy of Permanent Record I the first place. That question is of course “what changed?” If only six years ago, Edward Snowden was a hero in liberal media (The Guardian U.S., the Washington Post) for exposing mass surveillance and abuses by the NSA and various arms of U.S. intelligence, why was I getting a weird side-eye for even asking about the book in an ostensibly “liberal” bookstore – especially in Canada?

While I won’t claim to be psychic, I think it’s fair to say that what have largely changed are mainstream liberal attitudes towards leaks, whistleblowers and the larger American national security state. Somewhere in the culture war-fueled anger about losing the 2016 U.S election, among stories of malignant foreign hackers, Hillary’s leaked emails, the Russianization of Wikileaks, the demonization of Julian Assange, the lionization of Barack Obama and a new fascist president’s ongoing war with “true liberal patriots” in his own FBI and CIA, the original signal had been lost. More accurately, the past on some deep and purely emotional level in the larger liberal zeitgeist had been replaced with a new communal understanding that my alienation from mainstream liberal thought had prevented me from recognizing until now. The word ‘replaced’ rather than ‘forgotten’ is important here because due to social pressures and the normal human tendency to forget our own embarrassing mistakes, the memory of Snowden’s time as a brave hero in the liberal reckoning is at best extremely hazy and more often than not, completely gone from the minds of most observers.

To the clerk behind the counter I wasn’t asking for a biography about a heroic whistleblower, but instead a bound volume of lies written by a traitor whose very existence represented a threat to their now-entrenched image of the iconic and canonized last liberal President (Barack Obama) and whose “decision” to hide from “justice” in the now thoroughly hated Russia proved where his true allegiances had always lain. Besides, even if in some unlikely event Snowden was innocent and Obama had gone after the wrong guy - leakers and traitors represent a grave threat to our beloved intelligence agents who are, as you all know from hours of repetition on Rachel Maddow, the only thing standing between everything you love about America and the sinister iron grip of Vladimir Putin.

From the mainstream liberal perspective I might as well have been asking them to fetch me a copy of the latest work by Lee Harvey Oswald at that point. Nothing about Snowden or his earth-shattering leaks had changed, but because the larger feelings about Snowden had been altered, both the leaked information and the author himself were now perceived in a new and wholly less favorable light.

In the often quoted but rarely understood science-fiction novel about authoritarian states entitled 1984, author George Orwell’s central character Winston chillingly observes that “who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past.”

What Orwell meant by this is that the powers of the day control our understanding of, perceptions about and feelings towards the past and in doing so can have a tremendous amount of influence on our actions in the future. Of course in his novel the Ingsoc government had absolute control to write and re-write the historical record of society but the author was also engaging a metaphor that cast light on the nature of this truism in even a “liberal democratic” nation like Britain in the late 1940’s. It is not enough to simply acknowledge that “history is written by the victors” but one must also be aware that the writing and analysis of our society’s historical record (which is often conducted in real time by the news media) is largely conducted by upper class writers who are ultimately employed in the service of some aspect of establishment power or another – whether we’re talking about mainstream corporate media companies, the American government itself or the elite educational institutions that churn out historians, journalists and the general class of television punditry.

At this point you might find yourself protesting that despite their upper class backgrounds, the media, publishing houses and academic institutions don’t work for the government and in some broader sense that’s true, but in terms of the facts on the ground in the war against truth, it’s also hopelessly naïve. Setting aside the obvious reality that corporate media and elite educational institutes are themselves part of what any sane person would identify as “establishment power” the fact is that the American government does actively seek to influence the records of our past, both in real time and in its own files.

We know from revelations like “Operation Mockingbird” and the periodic unmasking of intelligence agency employees in the public eye that at least some of “the news” is directly written by folks with very clear ties to U.S. intelligence. From incidents like the Valerie Plame Affair, we know that the government sometimes purposely leaks top secret information to the media for its own nefarious purposes. We know that official government sources and interpretations of events are almost invariably broadcast unaltered and without serious challenge in mainstream media outlets - how many stories in the past month have you read that contained information from “a senior administration source” or “an undisclosed official at the State Department?” I’ll bet it’s happened significantly more times than you’ll remember.

This reinforcement of the establishment line even filters all the way down to your local news, where police department summaries of “officer involved shootings” are routinely broadcast as if they were the established facts of the case with few, if any questions asked about whether or not the department might be somehow motivated to lie about why some cop shot someone in broad daylight, again.

Not sinister enough for you? Okay, how about the Bush administration’s decision to retroactively classify thousands upon thousands of government documents and legal opinions that had already been released to the public, thereby effectively erasing America’s own arguments against the illegal activities the administration engaged in - like mass surveillance, extraordinary rendition (read: kidnapping) and the now rarely-mentioned and almost forgotten CIA torture program? Sort of puts the now infamous Karl Rove quote “we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do” into a new and terrifying perspective, doesn’t it?

Please keep in mind that these are only the direct ways the state, virtually any Pig Empire state, influences the media and thereby our collective real-time record of history; there are quite literally a myriad a indirect ways the state influences the media you consume as well. A good example might be simple access to the information a journalist needs to write stories; if a news outlet is consistently critical of the government and skeptical of the claims made by its officials, how long do you think they’ll keep getting off the record statements, leaks and interviews from people aligned with that government? How about the right-leaning billionaires who own modern media companies, do you think they align with the interests and power of the government? Well they probably should in America at least - thanks to the magic of corporate lobbying and Citizens United they own most of the politicians who work in that government after all. Once you realize that Jeff Bezos owns both the Washington Post and Amazon, the latter of which currently has the cloud computing contract for the CIA, the idea that you can separate establishment power in the state, from establishment power in the private sector (even in private media) starts to look more than just a little bit obtuse.

Of course as Michael Parenti discussed at length in his still spectacular 1986 work “Inventing Reality: the Politics of the Mass Media” not even a corporate news outlet can lie away some stories without irreparably damaging their credibility. Presented with the opportunity for a scoop, irrefutable evidence and public outcry bolstered by outrage among even the average “liberal” voter the corporate media was forced to turn against their own political allies and go along for the ride on the “Edward Snowden is the greatest hero of our time” train - although not without fastidiously printing government lies and denials as if they were fact in the very same articles that proved Snowden’s accusations.

Over time however and under the relentless crushing weight of op-ed after op-ed, an edit here, an omission there, one tiny smear and suggestive bit of framing at a time and the story starts to change. You can’t actually alter history but by subtly washing Snowden’s story in the ongoing smears against Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and other whistleblowers while casually omitting the subject or context of the author’s still mindbogglingly important revelations, you can start to change feelings about the past and the rest is basically a self-reinforcing cycle with a highly predictable outcome.

Memories of complex technical information about online surveillance fade, and the constantly reinforced feeling that leakers and whistleblowers are harming our brave and decidedly “anti-Trump” intelligence agencies in their battle against the dastardly Russian menace and Vladimir Putin, takes their place - until one day, just over six years after Edward Snowden risked his life and freedom to blow the whistle on an ever growing American police state, some clerk at a small town liberal bookstore is eyeing you up as a potential terrorist when you ask about purchasing the Snowden biography in broad daylight.

Understood in that light, perhaps the most alarming thing about Orwell’s quote as spoken by Winston in 1984 is the fact that the author didn’t know about and had no way of conceiving of the internet. Here after all is an environment where editing the record of the past is as easy as pulling down one article and publishing a new one under the same URL as before - and if you don’t think that is happening online, even in stories published by major news corporations you simply haven’t been paying very much attention.

Nor could Orwell have imagined that between social media, the comments section and twenty-four hour cable news programming, we would create a media environment that intrinsically favors outrageous or controversial lies over “boring” and nuanced truths. He could not have predicted that eventually the average American media consumer would become so bombarded with marketing, propaganda and contradictory information that all too often the facts of current events would be lost, replaced only by a wave of vague and hard to pin down emotions that in turn color the observer’s future observations - even observations about the now forgotten facts themselves.

One man however did see it coming and long before the internet existed in its present form - Canadian professor and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan. Combining his study of the effects advertising had on society with some alarmingly prescient observations about the fundamental ways “electronic media” was altering man’s relationship with the world, McLuhan predicted a society totally immersed in a cocoon of endless media content which served more to inspire feelings and emotions than to inform - an idea partially captured in his most famous phrase “the medium is the message.” In the case of ongoing Snowden coverage in the mainstream media, the contents of the stories themselves (and indeed, the author’s act of heroism on behalf of global society) have clearly taken a backseat in favor of defending the national security state and establishment power as a whole over time.

Although this probably isn’t what McLuhan ultimately meant by his famous phrase one can certainly say with a certain amount of bitter irony that in the Snowden story at least, the medium has indeed become the message - the problem is that the medium, corporate liberal media that directly influences mainstream liberal attitudes and opinions, doesn’t like the message our intrepid whistleblower delivered and now after years of subtle propaganda, neither do most of the people consuming that media.

Perhaps the saddest part of it all is that reading “Permanent Record” makes it clear that Snowden himself has almost no idea that this massive cultural shift in attitude towards him has even occurred. Frankly, how could he? Trapped in exile, he didn’t directly experience the slow and often subtle media reconstruction of public confidence in the national security state over these past six years. Having been purposely shut out by both the American government and the mainstream media, Snowden was unable to participate effectively in the ongoing discussion around whistleblowers and the demonization of leaks. In far away Moscow it may not have even occurred to him that hostile feelings towards Julian Assange on behalf of newly-anointed liberal saint Hillary Clinton would poison the liberal discourse towards all other “leakers” like himself.

In some ways the war against truth as it pertains to Edward Snowden has already been won by the national security state. Sure the author’s leaks promoted some legal restrictions on the NSA’s power but even Snowden openly admits that this isn’t nearly enough to effectively stop government mass surveillance. Indeed, Snowden himself and a few of the more famous journalists who told his story are really the only triggers that jog the public memory left in this story. The author exists as a living reminder that freedom and democracy are a sham in a post-internet world and that’s why he will never be pardoned and never be allowed to return home so long as this establishment remains in power - not just the government, but the whole corrupt oligarchy and all of its elite corpse merchants.

All wars, even propaganda wars, have causalities.

- nina illingworth Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog. Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

[otome-asylum]

Kings of Paradise - Yosuke Sagara MS Review (Season 1)

Yo. All I have to say is what the hell... Like, in the best way possible. Yosuke is. Well. Wow. My sister played Yosuke’s route before I did, several months ago, and for some reason I thought she told me I wouldn’t like it. Therefore, I went in a little apprehensive, but I was completely blown away by this story. I don’t even know where to begin. I thought, honestly, like his personality would be similar to that of Ota Kisaki from Kissed by the Baddest Bidder (sorry, I know I keep comparing all of them to KBTBB characters, but they remind me a lot of KOP...).

It was not.

Before I get too far into my own feelings, I would give this route a very generous 9/10. Eventually I’ll be through with characters from Kings of Paradise, and then I’ll move on to other titles. :) As I said, I was COMPLETELY blown away by this story. I was a little sad at first, considering Yosuke refers to MC as “merchandise” on more than a few occasions, and it’s a little sucky that he doesn’t start realizing her worth until clients of his start giving him little bonuses because they enjoyed her company so much. He’s got weird baggage, much like the rest of them, but he’s so clumsy about his emotions. It was so cute to watch him develop his feelings and struggle with things that were unfamiliar to him. I really loved it. The whole premise of Yosuke’s route is that MC is his “merchandise,” as in, someone he is going to train so they know how to act in higher society, in the business world, etc. I wrote down some notes while I was playing his route. I thought that he was a little misguided in the way he treated MC and viewed the world at large, but that he had genuine intentions of wanting to find her a man that would make her happier than anyone else. While I would say that he definitely views her as more of an object in the very beginning, he very quickly starts seeing her potential and the character that lies beneath her “boring” exterior and past. I know that the story needs a premise, but it really bothered me that he viewed her as property in the beginning, or an extra special bargaining chip to con the rich out of money. (Hence the 9/10.) However, I loved watching him try and change his tune, trying to make her happy, and just generally keep himself in her good graces because he cared what she thought of him. 

He is weirdly detached, almost alien, in the beginning. (Side note: please play his POV. It’s wonderful.) In the first chapter, he starts his training by trying to see how she reacts in more sexual situations, and she is not having it.

There’s no better way to get a feel for the kind of guy she likes without making a move on her, other than, you know, maybe asking her what she looks for in a man. Maybe. But what do I know? I thought this part was hilarious, and I love MC in Yosuke’s route. She’s very feisty and outspoken for a Voltage MC. Yosuke is also very flippant. If you’re into anime, which you might not be, that's cool, his attitude reminds me of Kisuke Urahara from Bleach. Flippant, noncommittal, hiding a deeper seriousness and pain, that sort of thing.

I also wrote down that he’s awkward and doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but that he’s trying his best. (For instance, when he’s in a really good mood, he likes to give people extravagant gifts, including a rather pricey antique pearl necklace once he starts falling for her but doesn’t realize it yet, but also amazing gifts to the other Paradise members.) Throughout the majority of his story, he keeps trying to set MC up with rich, powerful men (who are all crazy about her), but all her feedback on them are things like “He was nice,” or “He was a gentleman.” It’s very funny because they’re giving Yosuke crazy approval and desire to actually date her seriously. All the while, Yosuke and MC are falling for each other and not realizing it because they both have very different things on their minds. Somehow, romance is on neither of their brains so they can’t see the brewing chemistry. I like that MC is the one to kind of kick-start his heart again. However, it’s very frustrating that he really doesn’t listen to her. She says repeatedly that she’s not ready to jump from one marriage to another, or that she’s not looking for love, but he refuses to hear it, more concerned with making money (in the beginning) than whether she’s ready for whatever he has in store for her. The one who has the most promise as her future partner is a Chinese billionaire by the name of Yanghua Lee. He’s very sweet, accommodating, genuine, and gentlemanly--but the more time she spends with Yosuke, of course, the less she cares about other men. Not that she really cared about them in the first place...

He just doesn’t get that she’s not interested, and that almost makes him more adorable. Frustrating, by god, but adorable nonetheless. It’s when he and MC make love on a “training” trip to the Maldives that he starts falling hard for her, and as I said earlier, you can see it in the way that he starts buying expensive presents (like that necklace) for her to try and show his appreciation (that he’s confusing with romantic feelings). I adored watching this love grow, and watching Yosuke slowly realize his own emotions. He is awkward, and he is clumsy, but I also said that his emotions and his intentions and feelings were genuine ones. I really feel that. He’s a bit...childish, but more in the way that he doesn’t know how to convey what he’s feeling in words, or without giving something extravagant. (Also, I just have to say that the sex he and MC have? Absolutely choice. He and Shun are on the same level, but express it differently. I’d say Shun’s is a pure, passionate loving, while Yosuke’s has those qualities, but it’s also a little more teasing.) 

Final verdict, do I recommend? YES, MA’AM. I’m having a bit of a dilemma here, because I adore Shun, and he will always be my favorite in KOP because his kind of love is my absolute bias, but Yosuke. My dude. This route? The SEX? Phenomenal. I loved this story line. I loved Yosuke’s character development, especially because you could really see him struggling with his own emotions and predispositions. Taki is one of the ones who speaks to Yosuke about his spending habits when trying to genuinely give someone a gift because he cares about them, and it’s sweet as hell because Yosuke’s so bashful. 

In the Bodies on Fire ending (I think?), he’s still so awkward with expressing what he wants and his feelings, but it’s very him. He’s really such a sweet man, and someone who needs practice expressing his love in words, but he’s a pleasure to read. Also, Yanghua is one of the best side characters Voltage has ever created--at least in the love rival department. He concedes loss to Yosuke amicably, expressing remorse that he couldn’t be the one to make MC happy (because he had developed real feelings for her), but that, ultimately, Yosuke was a good friend, and he wanted to see him and MC happy. I appreciated that more than I think Voltage would understand.

If you get the chance, and you feel so inclined, please read his story. It really is something I haven’t yet experienced in a Voltage game. (As another aside, I love that KOP is extremely mature for what Voltage usually puts out. I’ve been very impressed and enthralled with the content of these stories since I started the game.)

Happy playing!

[heartists]

zoey’s cat hierarchy.

cat pokémon, like real cats, have a solid and well-defined pecking order in any community they form. this encompasses both big and small cats, intact and fixed cats, dead and alive cats--if there’s more than one cat on a team, you can bet they’ve formed a ranking. in human-owned clowders, dominance is usually determined by how well a cat does in matches compared with the rest of its teammates; there are occasionally individual spats for dominance, but that’s more important in feral clowders. dominance affects things that we humans would consider petty, such as who gets to eat in what order, who gets to play with what toys first and who gets to sit where in the house. but dominance also affects things that humans would consider important, such as self-respect and propriety of behavior.

the rank of zoey’s cats are as follows.

1. ZOEY

surprise! you thought i was going to start with an actual cat, weren’t you? well, in her feline’s eyes, she’s not merely the lowly human they’ve trained to serve--she’s one of them. just as owen grady is the alpha of his velociraptor pack, zoey is the alpha of her clowder. by no means is she the only human who is viewed this way: being seen as lesser is fine if you just want to keep the cat as a pet, but to get a cat to listen to you in battle, you have to convince them that you are a leader, not a servant. 

this keeps her accountable, as any being’s position as alpha cat depends almost entirely on their competence. character of course is a must--an alpha cat that nobody likes won’t stay in power for long--but the nicest trainer in the world won’t do if they are a poor leader. unlike dogs, cats are predisposed to be skeptical, self-interested and assertive about their beliefs; this means that unlike a dog’s loyalty, a cat’s loyalty is always conditional. if following you is no longer a good deal--whether you make stupid mistakes in battle or suddenly start treating your cat like dirt--then the deal is off.

2. GLAMEOW

as the cat nearest and dearest to zoey’s heart, this feisty feline naturally takes the beta spot. she is the de facto leader of the ying cat tribe, second only to zoey when the trainer gives commands on the field. for the most part, zoey lets glameow run the clowder how she wants; she’s noticed that even after accepting a human alpha, cats prefer to settle issues within their own species. glameow is bold and assertive, and isn’t stepping down anytime soon. as zoey’s longest, most consistent companion, and one of her strongest and smartest, she has more than earned her position of top cat--and she knows.

3. MISMAGIUS

he’s by far the oldest cat on zoey’s team--he was a luxray who served her father as a military pokémon, and spends much of his time reverted to his past life form. in times past, glameow tried to defer to him as the beta--many people think she was zoey’s first cat, but in reality, her love of cats started with him. he commands a position of extreme respect among all of zoey’s pokémon as a war vet who fought team galactic and died in the line of service.

there’s one major reason why mismagius isn’t the beta still, even though he’s by far the strongest pokémon on zoey’s team: his guilt. once upon a time, he’d stayed faithfully by zoey’s father’s side through the earliest parts of his current trainer’s childhood; he served as her father’s primary support for his war trauma, and zoey has vague memories of his comforting presence, both in mismagius and luxray form. but as team galactic activity in snowpoint grew worse, he found living there more and more unbearable--it was a trigger for him. eventually he decided that it took such a toll on him, he had to leave the city for his own mental health. too ashamed to admit he was leaving, he instead quietly snuck out at night without even a word to the family he loved, leaving a devastated PTSD-wracked father and his sobbing child behind. he became zoey’s pokémon years later to make amends, and even though he was forgiven by both parties, he still feels like his behavior shows that he doesn’t deserve to be beta.

4. ESPEON

this cat was low on the ranking of felines as an eevee, having formerly been one of zoey’s weakest pokémon. but a while after she evolved, she and zoey learned a technique straight from chinese meditative practices that made her toweringly OP: the calm mind god technique, which you can read about here and here. subsequently believing herself capable of defeating any opponent, she developed a god copmlex and challenged glameow for supremacy over the group. when glameow defeated her, she was forced to accept it…for the time being. she’s biding her time, watching for weaknesses, waiting for the right moment to claim what she thinks is rightfully hers. truth be told, however, she’d be a piss-poor leader: she thinks that the others are inherently beneath her, which rankles with her teammates’ feline pride--no alpha cat ever lasted long who had that attitude, because cats--unlike dogs--simply won’t put up with it.

5. PYROAR

born blind and seemingly without a hope of making it in battle, zoey’s half-vaporeon hybrid pyroar quickly rose up the ranks to become one of her most successful pokémon. he’s like a water-type toph, capable of sensing movements through sent and air or water currents. he used to take fifth spot, but with a series of recent wins he outpaced froslass in terms of his success rate, allowing him to advance up the ladder. he’s complacent with where he is right now, and has no intention of challenging for dominance--he feels like he’s earned a high rank through his strength and prowess, but feels that taking a spot from mismagius or glameow would be overstepping his bounds.

6. LEAFEON

though one would think that she’d outrank pyroar due to her seniority compared with him, leafeon is actually content to be where she is right now. she’s in a friendly competition with pyroar to see who can score the most wins, but if she loses, it’s no skin off her back. really, being the dominant cat on the block was never a priority to her; she’s just content to lay in the sun and photosynthesize. and yeah, sometimes she has to yield her spot to a higher-ranking cat, but when that happens she just shrugs and moves elsewhere.

7. FROSLASS

the ghost sister of zoey’s glameow, froslass is eternally bitter that her sibling lived while she died--and she’s also eternally bitter about her place in the pecking order in general. she believes she deserves to be beta, even alpha, even though her win record compared with those of the cats above her says otherwise. 

her low ranking also has to do with her personality. she’s literally had beef with every single other cat on this list; if she challenged for dominance, at least one of them would back up the cat she challenges. she constantly guilt-trips zoey and glameow for attention, and if glameow leaves her alone for even a MOMENT when she’s needy froslass tells her that she isn’t being a good sister. she’s said that leafeon is the weakest one among them and should be at the bottom, and to the shock and horror of all those who love leafeon, has attacked her for the sake of beating her up. hell, she even pissed off klefki, who never fights with anybody. the last straw came when she insulted mismagius’ record as a war hero, saying that anyone who fought and died for a human cause was nothing but a fool who deserved to get shot. this opinion would actually be popular among many cats if you look in the right places--but this is not so among zoey’s cats, as they were raised by someone from a military family. 

even though froslass thinks she deserves to be beta, no cat will follow a leader that they think is unjust. unless she changes her behavior, she’s pretty much shot her chances.

8. KLEFKI

by all accounts, they shouldn’t be here. when they use the calm mind god technique, their strength actually exceeds espeon’s due to the fact that they aren’t corporeal, rather a disembodied spirit of a sylveon that zoey trapped in a set of keys. however, like leafeon, klefki is incredibly laid-back and doesn’t give a fucking shit about who is top cat. all they care about is constantly honing their ability to play pranks on zoey, and perhaps someday find a clever excuse to leave her leadership.

9. PERSIAN

this newcomer to the squad could probably claw her way up the ranks in no time due to her aggressiveness and ambition, but like all newcomers to any clowder, she starts at the very bottom. try telling that to her, though. she doesn’t know the meaning of “know your place,” and when she tries to boss around the higher-ranking cats she gets all pissy when they don’t obey. she lacks nothing in terms of power, but she has yet to figure out that advancing oneself in a clowder depends on one’s personality as well. cats are stereotyped by humans (and dogs) to be assholes, but the truth is, cats have a zero tolerance policy of assholish behavior among their own kind and anyone who exhibits it is roundly punished. it’s a lesson that zoey and her pokémon are all too willing to teach.

[cyb-by-lang]

it must be a thursday (3/?)

Kei has more friends than just Isobu, and it’s high time she ran into one.

Chapter Three: Path of the Seeker

Gustav surprised me with a gift on the morning we got to the first big stop I’d be around to see.

“You can’t make it anywhere in the Empire without papers,” Gustav said with a grin. In his ink-stained hands, he held a sheaf of papers and dropped them in her hands. “I didn’t know if you’d want a last name, so I just picked something that sort of sounded right. Just make sure to memorize it so the Crownsguard don’t catch you in a lie, all right?”

Given that I was not, in fact, named “Caretta Schiavoni” and probably didn’t look the part, I had to wonder where Gustav had gotten the idea. Aside from Molly, Desmond, and Gustav, I hadn’t exactly heard anybody else make much use of last names.

Ah, well. I’d been lying since I got here.

“Thank you very much, Gustav.” I bowed deeply over the glorified passport. “You’ve been very kind to me.”

“It’s all right. One good turn deserves another, and you’ve been a model guest.”

“Can you two please hurry that up? The station’s just around the bend,” said Desmond, and Gustav took his place at the head of the caravan with a spring in his spindly step.

Is that like your ninja registration number?

A little. As I checked on Isobu to make sure he was still locked in a costume trunk in the back of my wagon—driven by Ornna—I replied, In hindsight, I probably should have asked about official documentation before. I’ve just never been in a contiguous empire long enough to think about it.

We have been skating laws with wild abandon. Doing so is more fun. Isobu sent me the image of the inside view of the trunk to confirm he was still there, then added, Have you told any of them your plans?

Not yet. Once we get safely into town.

Isobu hummed a sad little note. Then, I hate this.

I didn’t have to ask what he meant.

Even putting aside how much freedom Isobu won for himself over the years, being slammed back down into a shape he didn’t ask for had to be a major setback. The freedom to move in the world didn’t feel complete when he couldn’t be sure he’d keep it. I didn’t know enough about this world to be sure if Isobu’s appearance would let him really wander freely, like he had when we were out in the Grand Line. Every day he had to spend like this, he was kicked in the face with reminders of his relative powerlessness. Worse yet, I’d heard him calling for his siblings late at night on my watch. There was never any response.

We’ll make it back to them, I assured him. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but we’ll go home.

Isobu grunted something indecipherable and ignored me. Fair enough.

Honestly, letting that conversation lie was as much for his benefit as it was mine. I didn’t really want to talk homesickness.

I did, however, want to talk about my job with the circus. Gustav’s passport thing said my work specialty was “sword juggling.” Being asked to prove that sounded like a terrible idea for everybody.

“Ornna,” I began quietly, “once we reach town and Molly and Yasha start their rounds, can I spend a little time on my own instead?”

Ornna snorted. “Do whatever you want. You’re a grown woman.”

No snide comment about how I’m not a member of the circus anyway? She must like me. “Thank you, Ornna. I’ll make sure tell Gustav.”

And to be honest, well, I might’ve just wandered around street corners and explored the town. New places with German names were definitely outside of my experience as either a jōnin or an adopted pirate, and I’d heard weird things about Oktoberfest in a lifetime or two. Even if this was just any fishing town, I at least wanted a chance to take a damn bath. I’d been listening intently to the carnival crew for any indication of what civilized life was like compared to the life of a roadie, though, since I hadn’t asked questions, I only knew that Molly was magnetically attracted to bathhouses. Road dust and road sweat and no internal plumbing made for a very grumpy Kei, gotta say.

But I started picking out little flickers of something as we entered Trostenwald.

I’d known for years that people with chakra suppression skills could slip by me if they were good enough, especially because my range was a fifty kilometer radius. The best of the best, like Orochimaru, tended to be the types who could waltz right up to me and do jazz hands behind my head without me noticing. ANBU weren’t quite as good, and most shinobi far less stealthy than that.

Rin wasn’t even trying.

I stuck around long enough to help set up the big top tent and the performers’ common areas. Yasha ended up not needing my help at all, so all I had to do after that was make sure no one else wanted an extra pair of hands in the mix. But after Ornna and Toya both shrugged off any assistance with makeup, because they’d done shows without my amateur ass before and intended to continue, I let Gustav know I’d be taking a day off and disappeared into the city.

I probably didn’t read half the signs, honestly. I skipped checking out breweries and apothecaries, didn’t get anywhere near Crownsguard strongholds or the seat of any government, and doubled down on my earlier resolution to avoid people.

This somehow put me on the opposite side of the entire city from the circus, still chasing the sensation of an autumn afternoon. Subtly, of course. (Or under a transformation technique to make myself look human again.) Even if I hadn’t seen anyone spit at Molly or Bo while on the road, I knew enough to guess a country with established racial slurs for my current appearance probably had an attitude behind it. The power to punch people out on a whim was more useful in lawless backcountry when the only people around wanted to use your bones as soup stock. In an established city? Hah, no.

The chakra jumped from one alleyway to the next in my mind’s eye. While perhaps not my best plan, I sent a pulse of my chakra outward as I passed in front of the second row of buildings. Rin wasn’t much of a sensor unless in the middle of an exam, but hopefully she’d pick up something about me she recognized.

It didn’t take that long.

As soon as I spotted a familiar figure, I was already heading right for her. “Is that really you?”

Rin, though short and slight compared to a lot of the local humans, probably would have stood out for other reasons. I hadn’t seen a single Asian-adjacent person in the week I’d been hanging with the circus. Logically, I knew small towns didn’t tend to be the most diverse places, but I’d met or seen at least twenty nonhumans. The only one with Asian features had been my reflection. Rin’s long, dark hair was bound up in a braid and she wasn’t wearing skirt and blouses she preferred in Konoha—due to transformation chicanery—but she was still recognizable.  

Not exactly the same as my situation.

“It’d be hard for me to be anyone else.” Rin ducked her head a little and looked up at me through her bangs. “So. How was your week?”

Her normally-dark eyes were entirely different, reflecting light like a cat’s and her irises were streaked with blue, green, and purple. Her smile wobbled uncertainly. Rin’s hair caught the light strangely, reflecting red and violet in turn. Her chakra felt different, with an edge I couldn’t fully identify. Most of the chakra signatures I was used to were half-sensory data generally incongruous with people. I could compare them to shadows, or cheerful little fires, or lightning strikes.

I’d never run into a variation that felt like singing.

It felt like the damned mission objective from before this clusterfuck started.

Ugh, thought for later. I replied instead, “Not even a week. It’s…been interesting. Sorry I didn’t come find you sooner.”

“I mean, it wasn’t so bad. Not the worst survival training I’ve had!” Then she hugged me hard enough to make me think of crying uncle, if I hadn’t been doing the same right back. Dammit, I’d missed Rin. “But we’re both safe. That’s something. ”

“I went straight into survival mode,” I admitted after we pulled apart a bit. She still had one of my hands in hers, and was performing a medical scan even as I spoke. “There were some travelers who dragged me out of a river. I came in with them just this morning.”

“That’s…a little more adventurous than what I’ve been doing,” Rin said. She peered up at me, curiosity alight in her eyes. “Kei, you’re not using Isobu’s chakra, are you? It doesn’t quite feel like that, but your biology is very different right now. What happened?”

“Well…” I dropped the pretense of still looking human. “I got a makeover.”

Rin paused with her mouth dropping open in shock. Now that she knew where my horns were, she hesitated for a second with a fingertip a little above the central one. Even as she touched it, her expression was briefly unreadable even as her chakra started to jump up and down in excitement.

“Been thinking of filing that one down,” I mumbled.

“You look a little like an oni,” Rin breathed, a smile slowly spreading across her face. There was no way I was getting away from her now, and I’d never been happier to be on the recieving end of Rin’s fantastic gush sessions. “This is why your scan was so strange! Do those horns weigh you down? And the tail—that’s Isobu-san’s tail with fewer plates, isn’t it? Did someone modify pants for you? Are you feeling strange any other way?

“Um… So about...” I made a sweeping motion to encompass everything that had changed about my body.

“So I’m glad you’re here. You’re still Kei, even if you’re different-looking now.” Rin nodded firmly. “Aside from the obvious, nothing really changed! So, what else is different? You were vague about the week.”

“I… I’m pretty sure I joined a circus.”

Rin said nothing for a second.

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s what throws you off?”

“I really can’t imagine you wearing makeup and performing for the public.” Rin was obviously biting down a laugh. “You don’t even put on foundation during ceremonies back home!”

I rolled my eyes. “With one exception. And when you’re doing all the work for me.”

“Exactly!”

Still, we were making our way out of the alleyways and back toward the rest of town. I didn’t particularly care about being seen as a tiefling once I wasn’t alone. Some things invited a fight. A pair of foreign tourists would probably invite scams first, provided no one decided to ask for papers I was sure Rini didn’t have. It was Rin’s first time in a world where she wasn’t aligned with the legal authority anywhere. Konoha backed us. Nobody here would.

“I’m going to need to get Isobu to translate for you when I can’t,” I said while we walked. “The main language here is the same one those star people spoke. Sorry.”

To answer me, Rin sighed, “That explains a lot.” Rin’s focus stayed mostly on me as we walked through town, though I could see her glancing around at the various buildings that didn’t look at all like home. Hadn’t seen any steeple roofs yet, though.

I am about as happy with this as she is. The circus does not know I can talk.

Rin was adaptable, though. She got along well with Isobu in at least a theoretical sense, because to my knowledge they almost never directly interacted. Rin’s focus was on medicine, so she had a fantastic time quizzing me and other experts about how Tailed Beasts lived and could function as chakra given form. I’d never met a Tailed Beast I didn’t think Rin would gush over, because her fascination overrode what most people could consider healthy fear.

It was kind of the opposite of how Isobu interacted with most of the circus. Isobu had a lot more fun messing with them that he ever would with Rin.

“How’s this town been to you?” I asked instead.

“Not super great.” Rin put a finger to her lips as she thought. “I mean, I didn’t get anything like the negative reaction I’ve seen directed at other people, but I can’t talk to anyone here. I’ve been stealing a lot.” She paused for a second as we ducked past a pair of halflings hawking fish, sizing them up before continuing her thought. “Things feel tense here. It’s not just about me. You can feel it too, right?”

The humans are mobilizing.

I repeated this remark for Rin’s benefit, and her brow furrowed.

While maps were in short supply in the era before printing presses—which was a fact I hated for several reasons—I knew enough about the local geography to figure rural Trostenwald and the villages I’d passed were in the southern end of a massive empire. I couldn’t recall offhand what the other towns were called without a way to check my spelling, but I’d been listening to town criers. Such as there were, in such tiny communities.

Somebody up to the north and east was trying to start shit.

“That said,” I added once I’d explained my limited information, “I wanted to mention the whole ‘human’ thing we keep using as shorthand.”

“I know neither of us are fully human anymore, but I don’t want to call anyone ‘yōkai’ when it doesn’t fit.” Rin eyed the street again, and between the two of us we picked out at least half a dozen different races without a problem. A fifth of the town’s population seemed to be halflings, while humans made up a decent chunk of the other eighty percent. That said, there were also half-orcs besides Bo, a single humanoid white dragon without wings, and half-elves here and there. “It’s disrespectful even if no one else understands me. But do you know what everyone would be called?”

“I’d have to ask a few specific questions, but yes. Mostly.” I pointed at my face, at my flat yellow eyes and otherwise quite eye-catching palette. “I’m a tiefling, for example.” Or I looked the part, at least. “There’s another one in the circus, but he looks different. Ten to one Isobu’s influence is the reason I look specifically like this.”

I heard that.

“Interesting. That must mean there’s an established population, right? Or more than one. The horns are probably…genetic?” Rin looked thoughtful again. “Hm… Outside of Curse Seal transformations, I’ve never seen humans with tails or horns. That said, transformations outside of surface-level techniques are definitely possible. I’d only have to look at the Inuzuka clan know that.” She thought that over. “Any idea how this happened?”

“Not a damn clue,” I admitted. “I just—maybe that mission…” If only I could remember clearly what the hell had happened.

“Could be,” Rin agreed softly.

But the rest of that conversation was put on hold by a quick hand signal as I spotted a familiar duo winding their way through the streets. They hadn’t seen us yet, but frankly? If anybody could miss a pair like Molly, the walking kaleidoscope, and Yasha, death metal incarnate, as they passed out fliers with smarmy charm and a solid dash of silent intimidation, I hadn’t met them yet.

Rin followed my gaze in the brief second I gave myself away. “Circus?”

“Circus,” I confirmed. As we changed our path from aimless wandering to an intercept course, I added, “And they think my name’s ‘Caretta’ right now. In case it comes up.”

“I don’t speak their language, remember?” Rin reminded me mildly. When I looked, she had her hands clasped demurely and amusement sparked faintly through her. “I’m sure they’ll be looking to you first.”

Bleh. “We really need to get Isobu on this translating thing.”

Ugh.

Rin fell entirely silent as we sized up the Nestled Nook Inn, which was two stories tall and probably only large enough to have half a dozen rooms. Not impressive, but my standards were fucked and the circus probably had an established circuit even in these small towns.

Molly and Yasha wouldn’t stay long, because the shock of a walking rainbow headbutting his way into an unrelated conversation only worked so many times with witnesses. Which was why Yasha was there. Molly might’ve been taller than either Rin or Kei were, but Yasha could pick up two grown men and bash them together until they stopped causing trouble. Being a bouncer must’ve been interesting. No one would cause trouble this early in the morning, right?

With that middle finger firmly directed toward whatever patron of luck I’d already pissed off by existing, I headed inside anyway.

Rin followed, though she stayed back to keep any eye on the entire room from a spot beside the door. She was enthusiastic and bright when everyone around could understand her comments, but she wasn’t nearly as imposing as anybody in this roughneck place. She was happier keeping in the background unless she had to watch over genin. Or the civilians that genin inevitably ran roughshod over while trying to help.

Funny how Yasha was doing the same thing, just on the opposite side of the doorway. I didn’t make it past either of them.

“—It’s just five copper. A steal. At five silver, it would be a steal, at five gold?” Molly rattled off, his spiel landing two table’s worth of fish. I picked out two humans, a blue tiefling—who looked a lot more like Molly than she did like me—a half-orc and a tiny figure who might’ve been a halfling. There was a tiny part of my brain that said “adventurers!” before it went quiet under Isobu’s laughter. “Worth every penny. But if you’ve got the five copper to spend, we would happily have you all.”

The blue tiefling was starry-eyed already. “Do you perform?”

Molly hardly missed a beat. He did look like a sword-juggler or something, after all. I sure didn’t. “Ah. I’m less of a performer and more of an intermediary for these parts. I do on occasion perform. I can read fortunes—”

“I was going to ask if you read fortunes! Can you do one now?” the blue tiefling asked, almost bouncing in her seat.

Molly grinned. Hook, line, sinker. “I knew you were going to ask that.”

“Oh my gosh, you’re so smart. Look at this guy, he knows everything!” And with that, she made a space for him at her group’s table without a second’s pause.

“Yasha,” I said in an undertone, because there was no way I was throwing Molly off a roll like that.

Yasha did fix both odd-colored eyes on me, just for a bit, and Rin stood tall as she realized I’d called someone out by name. Especially a name she’d easily be able to pronounce. Yasha’s gaze flicked to Rin, widened a bit, but there was a nervous edge there. She wouldn’t want to talk about it.

“Is everything going well?” I asked.

“I think so,” Yasha said, already turning her attention back to Molly’s audience with an air of trying really hard to avoid a conversation. I didn’t know what that was about. “Um, excuse me.”

“Yasha’s quiet,” I told Rin once she was embroiled in that little scene. “You’ll like her.”

“Have we seen what we need to?” Rini asked, though she couldn’t quite hide the tiny spark of curiosity. It wasn’t as though this town was swimming in doctors or biological standouts other than the obvious. Her interests were pretty well self-contained.

“Yeah, mainly. I could try to catch them on the way out, but it seems like they’re busy.” A thought occurred to me. “You know, we kind of match?”

“Hm?”

“Brightly colored tiefling and someone with slightly less obvious nonhuman features. It’s kind of neat.”

Rin smiled, her long braid waving behind her as she swayed from side to side. “To Isobu?”

“Sure.”

In a town where the only famous export seemed to be three kinds of beer, ale, or whatever it was this week, people drinking in the streets probably wouldn’t have put most people off. But since Rin disliked the smell and taste of alcohol, we cut past the crowds wherever possible. In no time at all, we were in the circus staging area well ahead of the impending night crowd.

I managed to make introductions to the group without stumbling too badly over myself, or maybe Ornna was just taking pity on me for once. The line was pretty thin with her, and despite the language barrier Rin busted out the mission diplomat skill-set like it’d never gathered dust in the first place. It mostly consisted of bowing with perfect poise and prompting me with observations to translate when I couldn’t think of anything worth saying, but overall I think we made a decent impression. Rin even got to keep her real name, because Rin didn’t give a shit about nicknames.

Which she would get, and in spades, once the rest of the group got back. Probably.

Rin went to retrieve Isobu—who was apparently stalking Kylre to a degree that was genuinely worrying poor Toya—Gustav pulled me aside for a second.

“How can I help?” I asked automatically.

“I hate to ask,” Gustav said as I wrung my hands, “but do you mind just sticking around for the show tonight?”

“I—huh? I mean…” I blinked. It wasn’t like I was that familiar with this town. And even if I was, comfort zones were a thing. I was, by however narrow a margin, much more inclined to follow the circus around than I was to rent a room in Trostenwald with the money I didn’t have. “I mean, I don’t…”

I’d just introduced Rin to them., so I kind of wanted the afternoon off. And the evening. An afternoon of catching up was not making up for the week I’d avoided thinking about my situation for fear of triggering my homesickness like a rising tide. And Rin needed help getting around, too. I wanted to sit her down with a local encyclopedia so we could pool our ignorance and start figuring out how to get out of here.

“Not as an attendee,” Gustav clarified quickly, and suddenly his hesitance made more sense. Slightly. “Could you help out around the grounds for a few hours? I know we haven’t paid you, but it seems like Molly and Yasha are going to be drawing quite a crowd. We could use just a little help.”

Because I was a pushover, I said, “Just let me know where you need me.”

“And your…” Gustav paused, grasping at a word before settling in, “Partner? Well, she can hang around. And you can both attend the show for free if you like. I know Ornna will complain, but you’ve earned a ticket for anyone you can name. Just one, though, or Ornna actually will have me by the ears this time.”

I couldn’t decide if Isobu was going to be offended more over not being invited or not counting as a person.

Both.

You’ll be a closed-captioning device. It gives you an excuse to talk the entire time!

I thought you said people who talked in the theater went to hell.

Like that’s a deterrent for you.

True.

“I’ll be there, Gustav,” I said, and that was about the point when Rin and Isobu came back. I did my best to surreptitiously point them out to Gustav. “But I’ll be in the city instead of attending if I can have the evening off. I hope you understand.”

Gustav’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, I think I do.”

Isobu had wrapped both of his outside tails around Rin’s waist, with his hands gripping the shoulder pads of what only looked like a plain, long coat. His little spiked head poked out from behind Rin’s thick braid of faintly iridescent hair, and his eye glared balefully at me for having asked him to submit to such an indignity. As though he didn’t like riding on people’s shoulders and ordering them around.

Pff.

“Oh, hey Gustav?” I said, before the ringmaster could amble away.

“Hm?”

“Watch this.” I cleared my throat and, with a wicked little smile hidden deep down, I said, “Isobu, speak.”

Isobu glared at me harder. “I am not some pet performing tricks! I demand compensation for this flagrant abuse of my talents.” Silently, while Gustav looked between the demonic turtle and Rin—who was looking as innocent as a possible ventriloquist could—Isobu added, Did I do that right?

Perfectly.

Even with her charming smile I had to admit Rin was a likely culprit, and Gustav zeroed in on her immediately. “Nice trick.”

Rin shrugged, once she’d heard Isobu’s quiet translation. “I can’t tell him what to do.”

“Damn right.”

Isobu and Rin ended up spending most of the afternoon trailing me around. While they did get to have lunch with me and the circus crew—though Isobu didn’t eat—most of their day consisted of training. I worked to help set up the evening’s show, as biddable as any roadie, though sometimes Ornna would pop by and tell me to tie knots differently or else something would tip over. Sometimes I’d overhear Isobu and Rin’s bursts of Japanese as the pair talked, with Isobu acting sort of as a guide where I couldn’t.

“That is Kylre, who smells as much like sulfur as fish. Kei told me he is a lizardfolk, and he is very close with Toya.” Isobu said while they walked past the “dressing room,” which Kylre was about a half a meter too large on each side to fit into. Luckily, his Devil Toad act didn’t really require anything.

Rin didn’t hold her as they passed, but it was clearly a close thing. “You can smell that too?”

“No, but Kei did.” Isobu swung so his weight was mostly on Rin’s right shoulder, allowing him to peer over the left better. “Toya is their singer, and she sings almost as well as me.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Rin told him, clearly humoring my anti-conscience.

“Caretta, I need you over by the stage to help Bo!” Gustav called.

“Got it!” I responded, and left them to their work.

(“Not to make a judgement, but doesn’t Kylre feel…strange somehow? He reminds me of you, but only now that I can see him properly.”

“I noticed that, too. No one else seems to want to make a fuss. Or they are oblivious.”

“I see.”)

Eventually, the sun started setting. On my chore route, I’d passed Molly’s fortune-telling station and waved to him, though he’d been busy with a pretty clueless customer and I’d been carrying ten kilos of rope and another coil of safety lines. He winked back, and I was already on my way to the tent to help sort out whatever needed sorting. I wouldn’t get to see the show, but there’d be other nights. I liked Gustav’s crew well enough, but I’d been to the Ringling Brothers show once. I had some idea what everyone was in for.

Only there wouldn’t be any motorcycles.

“Time to go,” I said, once I had passed my last coil of rope off to Bo. The half-orc waved me off, wishing me a peaceful evening, and I joined Rin and Isobu before we all disappeared into the night.

See, my only real plan was to find a used bookstore and introduce Rin to local literature, solely because she had to be dying of boredom in a country where she couldn’t speak the primary language. Maybe we could have sparred a bit to make sure neither of us had lost our edge despite the changes my body had gone through. Hell, we could have watched moonrise just to enjoy having someone else around who understood our situation.

I heard, the next morning, that the carnival’s show that night turned into a horror movie.

So did mine.

[theplaguezine]

MORTIIS

Interview with Mortiis by Daniel Hinds

(conducted November 1999)

Mortiis is the elusive musician that started his career as bassist for the notorious black metal outfit known as Emperor, before going solo and heading off into uncharted territory.  Using synths, he has created some stirring, epic-length pieces that blend dark ambient with medieval folk and even some classical music elements.

Released through Sweden's Cold Meat Industry and his own Dark Dungeon Music, the drow elf produced four full-length albums before signing with Earache for his latest, The Stargate.  Using the vocal talents of Sarah Jezebel Deva (ex of Cradle of Filth) and Kalle Metz, this album shows Mortiis developing a much broader and deeper sound than ever before.

After a string of dates here in the U.S. with Christian Death, Mortiis and crew were just about to cross the border into Canada when I got a chance to chat with him via cell phone…

Could you tell me a bit about the storyline of The Stargate and what inspired it? I guess musically I was inspired by Basil Poledouris - he did the soundtrack to the first Conan movie, for example.  Musically, that's about the only thing I can put my finger on.  As far as concepts and stuff, there's a myth in certain cultures that you can travel between different dimensions using stars - use them as gates.  I just found that concept very fascinating and it inspired me to do something along the same lines and incorporate that into the whole Mortiis thing.

The CD booklet says "to be continued..." at the end - will it be continued on the next album? Probably not the next album, but at some point in the future I would like to make a second one.  It's not actually finished.  I have the rest of the concept worked out, the storyline so to speak.

Did you come up with the concept before writing any of the music? Sort of.  I think I had some basic musical ideas, maybe a few raw demos or whatever lying around, but I think the storyline was pretty much figured out before I did the music.

In the past, your image has always been very mysterious and in the shadows, but on the Stargate, there are very clear pictures of you on the cover and back cover and tray card.  Why the decision to make yourself more visible this time out? I think I always wanted to do that.  The fact that it turned out the way that it did [in the past] gave people a certain impression - it's not like that was intentional.  We didn't have any professional photo shoots back then, so basically it was me and my girlfriend with an amateur camera, taking photos in the marshes.  That kind of thing, which tends to give things an obscure angle.  So when I had the chance to work with more professional people as far a photo shoot, it turned out differently.  That's how I wanted it from the beginning anyway.

Are you pleased with Earache so far?   Yeah, I guess.  You know the way it is with labels, they can be bastards, but what can I do?  What can I say?  We have a contract.  But I think they're doing a pretty good job, though.  I'm getting to do a lot more shit now that I would have never done with another label.

Do you still have a connection with Cold Meat Industry?   Yeah, sure.  Not at this point, because I'm doing the U.S. support and stuff, but when I'm back home, we do talk.  I'll check in and see what's going on and stuff like that.

How about Debbie at Blackmetal.com? Yeah, how about her?  (laughs)  We were kind of not talking for a long time.  I did a San Francisco show a couple weeks ago and she turned out at the show, she and her guy Elden, they do this thing together [blackmetal.com], and we talked and things were okay.  We exchanged new phone numbers and stuff, so I think that dispute is probably in the past.

How is the tour going? Not very good.  I mean, someone has not taken responsibility for promotion - the promotion is horrible.  I don't know who to blame anymore and I don't want to mention names, but it just seems like no one is doing their job, basically.  We had these posters printed up and we've done like 23 or 24 shows so far and I've seen those posters up at about 3 of the shows.  That's very annoying.  Plus the fact that my album should have been out in the U.S. and Canada at least a month ago, before the tour started.  That got screwed up, so I'm pretty much doing a tour for a record that's not actually out.  If you look away from that, we are getting a good response, which is very good.  People show up at a show that is pretty much not being promoted, they get to hear music they've never heard before, and still at some of the shows we're getting an amazing response.  I'm pretty happy with it, despite everything that's fucked-up about the tour.

Have you done any major touring in the past? No, this is my first tour basically.  I'm being introduced to a pretty rough world right now (laughs).  Is it supposed to be this fucked-up all the time?  But I'm getting the impression that it's not supposed to be this bad.  I've talked to the other people we're touring with who have done this a lot of times and they're like, 'This is a fucked-up tour!'  So, I guess I'll try it again.  Maybe.  (laughs)

I understand that Dark Dungeon Music is closing down.  Is that true?  Why? Yeah.  I was the only guy working at that label.  I was doing everything and it just took up all my time.  I saw my music fall to shit - I could mention a couple of records that I've done that I should have never done or should have taken a lot more time doing.  But I didn't have the time because Dark Dungeon took up all my fucking time.  So, it just came to a point where I realized, okay, this is not working out.  I don't want to do the label anymore.  I hated going down and doing it every day, I hated every minute of it.  I don't want to deal with all these people, I don't want to have all these worries, 'Is he gonna pay me?,' 'Are they gonna pay me?,' 'When are they gonna pay me?' and blah blah blah.  I hated it and I still hate it.  So I put it down.  I want to make music; I don't want to be in the business side of it.

You've always released your music on vinyl.  Is there a vinyl version of The Stargate?  Is that important to you? The Stargate is available on vinyl.  We have a bunch of it in the van.  Vinyl forever!  It is something that I used to be a lot more fanatic about in the past.  I've come to accept CDs.  I mean, you have to accept the day and age that you live in.  If you didn’t do that, you'd be in big trouble.  Time will not wait.  But there's nothing wrong with being a bit nostalgic; I just try not to take it too far.

What is the status of your other projects? I put them down.  Just like with Dark Dungeon Music, I pretty much put everything down the same day, except Mortiis.  This is what I'm going to do now, fuck everything else.  I want to do one great thing instead of a bunch of mediocre stuff.

Is there anyone you would like to collaborate with musically in the future? I don't know.  I could probably come up with a few names, but I don't want to say, "I want to work with this person,' as it might create problems or something.  I'm sure there's a whole bunch of people I'd love to work with, but I'm so used to working alone it's hard to come up with names.  I've never really bothered with other people, never paid attention to anyone else.  I'm starting to change that, I'm starting to look into what other people do and it's pretty healthy, actually.  It's good to be on top of things.

Was it kind of a different experience working with vocalists on this album? Yeah, I was nervous.  Before they came out, I was really nervous.  Like, oh my god, I haven't worked with anybody since Emperor back in '92 and that's like six years at that point.  I don't even know how to collaborate.  But it worked out really good.  It took a little longer than we expected, but just a couple days, no big deal.  But it definitely worked out really good and I definitely plan to continue to work with other people.  It can only make things better.

Would you like to score films at some point? Everybody asks that and I always say that I don't think I'm good enough.  Definitely not good enough.  I mean, I know what I do and I can compare it to movie soundtracks and I'm like, okay, damn.  I'm a long way away from being that good.  That's how I feel anyway.  I mean, I'd love to do it, but I don't consider myself good enough.  That's just me being my worst critic.  At some point, I would like to try something like that out, but maybe not this week.  (laughs)

When you write songs, do you hear the whole work in your head or do you start with one instrument and build it up from there? Kind of both, I guess.  I think I know kind of how I want the song to sound, but it never really turns out like that.  I start realizing, okay this didn't work out, that didn't work out - maybe 50% of what you had in mind stays with you.  The rest is just something that popped up during the writing process.

I read that you are working on a book… That is something that I've been working on for several years.  It's pretty much like the young days of Mortiis up until the day he decides to leave the world he was born into.  It's all very symbolic and reflective of what goes on this world and my own state of mind.  It'll be out next month, as far as I know.

Who is publishing it? Oh, Earache I guess.  They're doing like a limited edition thing, a box with The Stargate CD and the book.  Sometime in November.

Are you happy with how the book came out? Well, basically, if I were to do it today, 90% of that I would have never done.  It's like a diary almost of the last few years and it's the oddest thing to see the changes in the attitude.  In that sense, it's very interesting.  As far as me being very naïve and evil and shit like that, but as you grow and develop, your mind matures a little bit and becomes more realistic.

www.mortiis.com

[aspoonofsugar]

Could you write a meta where Touka and Furuta foil each other?

Hello anon!

So, first of all I direct you to this useful meta written by @hamliet where she talks of the foiling among Rize, Furuta, Kaneki and Touka. It has very great imputs if you are interested in Touka and Furuta as foils.

That said, my answer will mostly compare Touka and Furuta through their relationship with respectively Ayato and Rize.

First of all both Ayato and Rize were probably Touka and Furuta’s main playmates. After all Touka couldn’t interact freely with other children because of her being a ghoul and so she is shown spending the majority of her free time playing with her brother:

Furuta too is said to be the kind of child who would prefer to play with the daughters rather than with the other sons:

And we know he was fond of a daughter in particular:

So we have two characters (Furuta and Touka) who are brought up in two different environments which are both far from being optimal or privileged ones.

As a matter of fact Touka’s identity as a ghoul in a society made for humans is what prevents her from partecipating in normal social activities like attending school and what forces her to live in a precarious economical situation:

On the other hand Furuta is born in a family where one’s destiny was decided the moment they were born:

In short Furuta and Touka are two individuals who have been both discriminated because of their ghoul lineage, even though in different ways. This discrimination is something they had to endure since they were children, but despite this they found warmth in a person who was both a peer and family:

This relationship becomes (for different reasons) so important for the two characters that they, despite being children, vow to protect the other person:

However, this innocent and altruistic wish gets complicated because, in a sense, both Touka and Furuta project on Ayato and Rize what are actually their own hopes and desires.

Here, Touka argues that her choice to go to school is one she made with Ayato in mind, so that she can learn more things useful for the two of them to live peacefully together. However, she fails to consider that “living peacefully as humans” might not be what Ayato truly wants.

Let’s notice that Touka basically repeats this pattern when she starts her campaign to get revenge for Hinami:

She claims she is acting for Hinami, but she doesn’t even think to ask her what she truly wants and her actions lead Hina to escape and fall in Mado’s trap.

Comparing Touka’s actions toward both Ayato and Hinami is something the narrative itself invites us to do:

Touka in the beginning of her arc basically flip flops between her desire to be human and her anger to be born a ghoul. Ironically she loses Ayato because she acts on the first one, while she risks losing Hina because she acts on the second. This happens because in the end it’s not that Touka’s desire to integrate with humans is good and her anger is bad or vice versa and so she has to choose the right one, but simply because Touka fails at communication. She has good intentions, but she assumes that what she thinks is the best thing for her loved ones is what her loved ones want, while in both cases it isn’t.

All Touka’s arc in TG is basically her struggling with this tendency of hers and trying to understand how to communicate with others without imposing on them. This is also why her actions at the beginning of :re make total sense:

She being willing to let Kaneki free is her showing to have made progress when it comes to this particular flaw.

This is how Furuta describes how he feels about Rize’s actions after he freed her:

Here it’s made obvious that Furuta is projecting on Rize what he wants. Why shouldn’t have Rize enjoyed her freedom? Furuta isn’t entitled to choose how Rize should spend her life and this even if he thinks Rize is spoiling the chance he gave her (as she did).

So, both Touka and Furuta work hard to give Ayato and Rize opportunities they themselves wish to have, but their efforts aren’t repaid because in the end Ayato and Rize’s wishes are different.

Touka and Furuta’s reactions are opposites. Touka becomes passive and doesn’t attempt to follow Ayato, but spends her time in loneliness thinking about her brother:

Whereas Furuta acts to force his will on Rize:

In :re we have seen Ayato and Touka’s reconciliation:

Touka shows Ayato she understood where he was coming from and supports him, but at the same time doesn’t accept that he cut her off from his life to protect her.

On the other hand here is where we left Furuta and Rize:

Furuta is calling for Dragon (who is probably Rize) to kill him basically completing the narrative he told Kaneki in chapter 101.

Another interesting comparison between the two couple of siblings is that narratively Ayato and Rize can be seen as representative of respectively Touka’s ghoulish part and Furuta’s human one.

Ayato is Touka’s link to the ghoul world in contrast to Yoriko who is her link to the human one:

It’s not by chance that eating Yoriko’s food is what weakens Touka’s kagune, while we see her with two wings when she protects Ayato. This is because Yoriko and Ayato are representative of the two sides of Touka’s character: Yoriko is the Touka who loves school and wants to be a teacher, while Ayato is the Touka who had to live in the streets without parents. This is also why when Touka starts her friendship with Yoriko she and Ayato grow distant, while when Touka is able to reconcile with Ayato she has already lost touch with Yoriko.

@linkspooky wrote this beautiful meta about Furuta where an interesting reading of his character is given. According to this interpretation Rize can be read as a symbol in Furuta’s mind of his own humanity and vulnerability. So if Ayato is for Touka (who tries to integrate with humans) a connection to her identity as a ghoul, Rize is for Furuta (who does his best to act as a villain wearing mask after mask) a connection to the person he was before he transformed himself into a two-dimensional villain.

Basically both Touka and Furuta are characters who suppress parts of themselves and through their relationships with others we see how they are progressing with these parts of themselves as well.

So we see Touka being hurt and unable to come to terms with her ghoul part through her interactions with Ayato in TG and how she can’t dare to think she can have a human life through her avoiding any contact with Yoriko in :re. While we can see Furuta trying to imprison his feelings and what makes him a human through his treatment of Rize. So it’s not surprising that he calls for Rize/Dragon to come “out of the cage” after his own feelings have just exploded in his face:

Finally it’s interesting to note how both Furuta and Touka decide to stay within the system. Touka tries to comform herself to the human society, while Furuta stays within the Washuu hierarchy. However, once again their attitude toward the systems they are in is different. Touka chooses to stay in the system and avoids to fight it directly, while Furuta stays within it to control it and destroy it in the end.

It’s interesting also because in contrast to them both Rize and Ayato leave the system their siblings decide to remain within, but with opposite attitudes as well.

Rize lives outside the system, but doesn’t do anything to actively fight the Washuu despite knowing the truth behind them and the CCG, while Ayato leaves Touka in order to destroy the cage:

Both Rize and Ayato talk about freedom and probably consider themselves freer than Furuta and Touka, but they do so for completely opposite reasons: Rize because she could escape the place she was born, while Ayato because he can fight the world he lives in. Obviously the two of them are both wrong and are not freer than Furuta or Touka. All four remain prisoners like birds in a cage.