#who murdered Bonhoeffer?

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

“Don’t become so open-minded your brain falls out” applies to conspiracy theories, too.

[ihopeinjesus]

"But they all stood beneath the cross, enemies and believers, doubters and cowards, revilers and devoted followers. His prayer, in that hour, and his forgiveness, was meant for them all, and for all their sins.

The mercy and love of God are at work even in the midst of his enemies. It is the same Jesus Christ, who of his grace calls us to follow him, and whose grace saves the murderer who mocks him on the cross in his last hour."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Warren Throckmorton at The Throckmorton Initiative:

In a fascinating statement, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s descendants have come together to criticize Eric Metaxas’ misuse of Bonhoeffer’s work and legacy. Metaxas’ 2010 book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is being turned into a movie by Angel Productions to be released later this year. Apparently, this has moved the family to action. Here is the statement.

Descendants: Do not distort and misuse Dietrich Bonhoeffer!

We are horrified to see how the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is increasingly being distorted and misused by right-wing extremists, xenophobes, and religious agitators. As direct descendants of the seven siblings of the theologian and resistance fighter executed by the Nazis, we can testify based on what we learned from our families that he was a peace-loving, freedom-loving humanitarian. Never would he have seen himself associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian Nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.

A key figure in this abuse is Eric Metaxas, whose 2010 biography of Bonhoeffer was first published in the United States and sold more than a million copies in 20 languages. In the book, he ignored the historical context and misrepresented Bonhoeffer as a fundamentalist Evangelical. Metaxas, now a right-wing Trump supporter, regularly compares US President Biden to Hitler, speaks of 'total war' and posts photos of a gun on a Bible: “So we can now finally clearly see that Biden is our Hitler. In 1933-34. See my Bonhoeffer book for details. The parallels are staggering and increasingly obvious. Pray for this nation. PRAY.” The right-wing evangelical production company Angel Studios has secured the rights to a new Bonhoeffer movie, and this is now their advertisement on X: “The battle against tyranny begins now. Watch Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin”. The accompanying image shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer holding a gun. The history-distorting biopic, which turns Bonhoeffer into an evangelical saint, is scheduled to hit theaters shortly after the U.S. presidential election.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not a lone fighter. The Bonhoeffer family was a tight-knit unit and worked together closely during this time. Dietrich's brother Klaus and his brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher were executed for their resistance activities, just like Dietrich. They were driven by the search for truth, honesty, humanity and the struggle for freedom, the rule of law and democracy. They repudiated religious zealotry, nationalism, militarism, and blind obedience. Those who invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer to justify anti-democratic, xenophobic aspirations are either misinformed or malicious.

The tasteless trivialization of Bonhoeffer's legacy has encouraged this misuse: he was a complex thinker who was primarily concerned with ethical issues. Unlike the majority of Germans, he did not turn a blind eye to the disenfranchisement, oppression, and mass murder that took place under Nazi dictatorship. His quotes have been taken out of context and reduced to set pieces for all kinds of occasions. More recently, they have increasingly been used by many whose intentions are diametrically opposed to Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and actions; ranging from Project 2025 – the Heritage Foundation's proposed program for Trump – to the German right-wing extremist Björn Höcke.

The family of the anti-Nazi resistance fighter and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls out right-wing pundit Eric Metaxas’s penchant for David Barton-esque history revisionism about Bonhoeffer.

[victusinveritas]

Left side: In clockwise order from the top left, Dorothy Day (Catholic Worker Movement), Daniel Berrigan (Anti-Vietnam War/Ploughshares Movement/Peace activist, imprisoned for draft resistance activities), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Anti-German government from 1933-1945, when he was murdered by that same German government), and Oscar Romero (now a saint, human rights and social reform advocate in El Salvador (Liberation Theology adjacent), murdered with the approval of the CIA in 1981). And then MLK.

Right side: Christofascists you are probably very familiar with. The least persecuted people ever crying the loudest that they are being repressed. Fuck 'em all.

It's weird to think my dad knew Daniel Berrigan (fairly well, they were in the Jesuits at the same time and Berrigan influenced him to become a CO during Vietnam, though his draft number was never called (he ripped up his draft card when he received it, kept half of it in his wallet for a long time, I think it's now somewhere in his office)) and Dorothy Day (through folks who had been with CW for a long time, he said she was great but the way some Catholic Worker folks revered her was a little culty, and this was in 1960s-1970s San Francisco, where most things were a little culty to begin with) along with several people who knew Romero and Merton (not featured here but Thomas Merton is tops). Small world, I guess.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Quid est martyrium? Mortem pati pro Christo. Quid est Christianum? Christum sequi*

- St. Augustine

What is martyrdom? To suffer death for Christ. What is a Christian? To follow Christ.*

After the restoration of the western towers of the Abbey had been completed in 1995, it was decided to fill the 10 gothic niches above the west doorway with statues. The lower part of the towers date from the 15th century and the tops of the towers were completed in 1745. The niches never had statues, although this was obviously the plan of decoration.

It was decided to use the ten niches not just to commemorate saints or worthy figures from the past. So instead of traditional figures of kings or saints, the abbey decided that martyrs of the 20th century should be remembered. The West entrance was to proclaim a message of which too few people are aware: the 20th century was a century of Christian martyrdom. Although the statues are of individual martyrs they are intended to represent all those others who have died (and continue to die) in similar circumstances of oppression and persecution. Their statues were drawn from every continent and many Christian denominations.

Four sculptors completed the statues, carved from French Richemont limestone. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, unveiled the statues in July 1998 at a service attended by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The ten Christian modern martyrs are (from left to right):

Maximilian Kolbe: a Catholic priest who helped Jews in Poland and who died in Auschwitz in 1941 after offering to take the place of a condemned man.

Manche Masemola: a 16-year-old girl from South Africa who was killed by her parents in 1928 when she converted to Christianity.

Janani Luwum:  the Archbishop of Uganda who was murdered on the orders of Idi Amin in 1977.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna: a member of the Russian Imperial family (by marriage) who founded a convent but was murdered by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.

Martin Luther King: the American civil rights campaigner who was murdered in 1969.

Oscar Romero: the Archbishop of San Salvador, murdered by a death squad in 1980.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: a Lutheran theologian who was implicated in the bomb plot against Adolf Hitler and executed in 1945.

Esther John: a Pakistani nurse and Christian evangelist who was murdered by a Muslim relative in 1960.

Lucian Tapledi: an Anglican in New Guinea who was killed by invading Japanese troops in 1942.

Wang Zhiming: a Christian pastor in China who was executed in 1973 during the Cultural Revolution.

In June 1953, during Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, she entered through the west door of London’s Westminster Abbey. During her arrival, she was received by massed choirs singing “I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122, 1-3,6, 7.)

On 6 May, King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla will be crowned at Westminster Abbey. For many, this will be the first coronation they have ever seen. The ceremony will follow a pattern laid out in the Liber Regalis, kept at Westminster Abbey and which has informed the pattern of coronations since the 14th century. The service which will see the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla will include the same elements as the historic coronations which have gone before and everything starts with their entry to the Abbey. This means King Charles III will enter the Abbey through the West door and under the statues of these 10 Christian modern martyrs.

For King Charles III it will have a particular personal resonance as he will walk under the soulful gaze of his great-great aunt through his father’s side (the late Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh), Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna.

Elizabeth of Hesse-Darmstadt was born on 1 November 1864. Her mother died when she was a child, and she came to England to live with her grandmother, Queen Victoria. Her childhood was Lutheran and her adolescence was Anglican. Elizabeth married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the fifth son of Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1884, and joined the Orthodox Church in 1891.

When her husband was assassinated in 1905, she gave away all her jewellery, sold her most luxurious possessions, and opened the Martha and Mary home in Moscow. Elizabeth and 17 of her companions formally became nuns in 1909. They soon opened a hospital and began other philanthropic works.

The Tsarist state collapsed in March 1917, and the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917. Elizabeth was arrested with two sisters from her convent on 7 May 1918, and transported across country to Perm, then to Ekatarinburg, and finally to Alapaevsk. On 17 July, the Tsar and his family were shot dead. During the following night, Elizabeth, Sister Varvara, and members of the royal family were murdered in a mineshaft. Elizabeth was recognised as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1984 and by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1992.

Had there been more than ten niches available, there would have been other candidates available for inclusion in Westminster Abbey. As it stands, this memorial makes a powerful statement about the fact that people are still dying for their Christian beliefs in the present age. Although most cathedrals only seem to commemorate people who are long-dead and long-forgotten, Westminster Abbey bucked the trend in a dramatic and highly poignant way.

[mattanaministry]

Mattana Ministry

Welcomes You To:

Weekly Bible Study: 3 September 2024

Theme: Bible BasicsExplained/Ten Commandments (5)

Scripture: Ex. 29:15-17;

Col. 3:9; Luk. 12:15 & Rom. 7:14-15

Message:

Don’t Steal, Don't Lie, Don't Covet

Hello Through the Word. Back in Exodus 20 today, as we reach the last of the Ten Commandments. We left off at conviction. The Ten Commandments are good, but they don't always make us feel good. If we take them to heart, they make us feel guilty. As Paul puts it:

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (Romans 7:14-15).

So what do we do?

Before we answer that, let's pick up where we left off in the Ten Commandments. So far: no other gods, no idols, don't misuse God's name, keep the Sabbath, honor mom and dad, no murder, and no adultery. Seven down, three to go.

Number 8 in verse 15:

“You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15).

If it's not ours, don't take it. Respect of property is essential to society.

Commandment number 9:

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).

Don't lie. The words here specifically refer to telling lies against someone to convict them in court, slander them in public, or gossip about them in private. No false testimony.

Now we could argue here about whether every lie is a sin. Is acting a lie? There's a clear difference between imagination and deception. But what if a lie is for safety—like the Jewish midwives who lied to Pharaoh, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer lying to the Nazis? Those are valid cases, and this commandment does not address every form of untruth. But Colossians balances us out:

"Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self" (Colossians 3:9).

In Christ, we are made new, and the new us is truthful.

Would we trust someone who takes a stand to defend little white lies. And trust is valuable. Just saying.

Good point. Commandment 10:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17).

That is nine and ten for Catholics. Do not covet. This one applies directly to the heart. It is not enforceable in human courts. There’s no thought police. But God's jurisdiction extends to our minds, our hearts, and our desires, and we will be held accountable.

The Hebrew word for covet here means just that: desire. And desire itself is not a sin. It's the direction of that desire that makes it wrong. The same word is used in Genesis 2 to describe the good and desirable trees that God made, and again in Genesis 3 to describe Eve's sin as she desired the forbidden fruit.

The first step of sin is setting our desires in the wrong direction. Desiring our neighbor's house becomes envy. Desiring our neighbor's stuff becomes stealing. Desiring our neighbor's spouse becomes adultery.

Jesus reminds us to:

"Be on (our) guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions" (Luke 12:15 ESV).

Life is more than stuff. So store up our treasures and redirect your desires heavenward.

That's all Ten Commandments. We'll see how the Israelites respond next time.

MM

Please feel free to leave a review of this message.

https://www.soulcenters.org/directory/mattana-ministry/#listing-reviews

[yhwhrulz]

Worthy Brief - January 17, 2024

Embrace overflowing LIFE… by dying!

Acts 3:13-16 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 14 But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. 16 And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

Peter and John have just miraculously healed a man who was lame from his mother's womb and Jerusalem is wonderstruck. God's goodness and power turn a cripple into a living leaping testimony. We too come to the Lord as spiritual cripples, and He offers us a life of abundant joy as a testimony to Him. This life was purchased at an inestimably high price as recounted in verse 15 above: the death of the Prince of Life. The Hebrew, "Sar Ha-Chayim" actually expresses "life" in the plural, i.e. "lives" (chayim). This plural expression for life points to the literally millions of souls who have been redeemed by the death of Yeshua, but also, to the abundant life He provides for us.

As Messiah DIED to give abundant LIFE, this pattern also now belongs to us. "Whoever loses His life for my sake shall find it”; [Matthew 16:25]. The commitment of a true disciple, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer also said, calls him to die. But this death to self, to a life centered in my own desires, opens me to the abundant life which Messiah gives, because apart from Him I can do nothing [John 15:5], but in Him and with Him I can do all things [Philippians 4:13]. A great and wonderful irony is here which is often called the "exchanged life". Believers who truly choose this "crucified life" yield abundant fruit in their communion with Yeshua.

We're naturally repelled by death as the ultimate negative, yet the pattern offered to us by our savior stipulates death as the very means to the greatest most abundant blessed and fruitful life available. He is the Sar Ha-Chayim, the Prince of Lives, offering, through death…the most abundant life conceivable!

Your family in the Lord with much agape love,

George, Baht Rivka, Obadiah and Elianna (Dallas, TX) (Pensacola, FL)

Editor's Note: During this war, we have been live blogging throughout the day -- sometimes minute by minute on our Telegram channel. - https://t.me/worthywatch/ Be sure to check it out!

Editor's Note: We are planning our Winter Tour so if you would like us to minister at your congregation, home fellowship, or Israel focused event, be sure to let us know ASAP. You can send an email to george [ @ ] worthyministries.com for more information.

[fruityyamenrunner]

In April 1945, with German defeat imminent, the Nazis' intention of staging a show trial over the Bürgerbräukeller bombing had become futile. Hitler ordered the execution of special security prisoner "Eller" — the name used for Elser in Dachau — along with Wilhelm Canaris, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others who had plotted against him.[12] The order, dated 5 April 1945, from the Gestapo HQ in Berlin, was addressed to the Commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, SS-Obersturmbannführer Eduard Weiter.

The order came into the possession of Captain S. Payne Best in May 1945, and appeared in Best's book, The Venlo Incident.[12] That part of the order relating to Elser reads:

The question of our prisoner in special protective custody, 'Eller', has also again been discussed at highest level. The following directions have been issued: On the occasion of one of the next Terror Attacks on Munich, or, as the case may be, the neighbourhood of Dachau, it shall be pretended that 'Eller' suffered fatal injuries. I request you therefore, when such an occasion arises to liquidate 'Eller' as discreetly as possible. Please take steps that only a few people, who must be specially pledged to silence, hear about this. The notification to me regarding the execution of this order shall be something like:

'On ... caused by a Terror Attack (air raid) on ... the prisoner in protective custody 'Eller' was fatally wounded.'

After noting the contents and carrying out the orders contained in it, destroy this letter.

The signature on the order was illegible, according to Best.[12]

In his 1947 book, To The Bitter End, Hans Bernd Gisevius commented on the order:

When the Gestapo men killed on their own account or on the direct orders of Himmler, they did not require such complicated instructions and Hitler's orders for the liquidation of unwanted persons were not usually phrased in so tactful a manner ... (With his own end in sight) Hitler suddenly recalled the existence of 'the Zither player'; and fearfully, as if possessed by a sudden and inexplicable shame, this murderer of millions attempted to conceal his execution of an assassin who had long since been forgotten by the world public.[13]

On 9 April 1945, four weeks before the end of the war in Europe, Georg Elser was shot dead and his fully dressed body immediately burned in the crematorium of Dachau Concentration Camp.[14] He was 42 years old.

In 1954, SS-Oberscharführer Theodor Bongartz, the man in charge of the crematorium at Dachau, was determined to have been the murderer of Georg Elser, during a German court proceeding in which SS-Unterscharführer Edgar Stiller was on trial as an accessory to murder. As the SS man in charge of the special prisoners at Dachau from 1943 to 1945, Stiller was accused of escorting Elser to the crematorium where he was allegedly shot by Bongartz.[citation needed] Theodor Bongartz was not brought to account as he had died of an illness in 1945.[3]

[riverdamien]

Feet to Fire!

Feet to the Fire!

The Fifth Station

“Pilate Condemns Jesus to the Cross

Leader: We adore you O Christ, and we praise you.   

All:  Because by your Holy Cross you have saved all of creation.

                                                                       15 As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. 2 Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.” 3 Then the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 Pilate asked him again, “Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.” 5 But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.

“6 Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. 7 Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder during the insurrection. 8 So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. 9 Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” 10 For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. 12 Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do[a] with the man you call[b] the King of the Jews?” 13 They shouted back, “Crucify him!” 14 Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” 15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them, and after flogging Jesus he handed him over to be crucified” Mark 15: 1, 6-15..

Dietrich Bonhoeffer critiques unconditional forgiveness in his book, The Cost of Discipleship as “cheap grace” and tells us, “cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism with out church discipline, communion without confession, and forgiveness without absolution.

Forgiving someone without requiring repentance in action, allows them to continue their abusive behavior and allows continued suffering.”

As we see Jesus condemned, and our condemning by cheap grace let a remember the words of St. Oscar Romero: “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.”

Leader: Lord, may we looking at the cross hear the voice of Jesus calling us to turn our eyes to the sidewalks, the alleys, and street corners, and see your children, and our brothers and sisters. Amen.

                                                                                All: Jesus said: “If anyone wants to become my follower let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me!”

Daniel 3:25, 34-43; Matthew 18:21-35

In Daniel , we see Daniel in the furnace, and Azariah prays from a furnace which would make some of us self-obsessed. With no human rituals left, he asks for the balm of God's mercy. He focuses on God's wonders--and when he is delivered (3:52-90), Azariah sings praise to stars, snow, clouds, hills, rivers, birds, even "fire and heat"(66). What could destroy, instead transforms.

When we look at the homeless, drug addicted, mentally ill, the young and old on our streets and are haunted!

It is time that we lift our heads and look around us at the trees, hear the sounds of babies, and people, and see in them the beauty of God's creation, and turn our eyes to the street, and be a transforming agent. or as Oscar Romero tells us: “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.”

Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

------------------------------------------

 Fr. River Damien Sims sfw, D.Min, D.S.T,

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www.temenos.org

415-305-2124

The Twenty Second Annual Stations of the Cross

"Our Haunting!"

April 7, 2023

Civic Center

Noon-2 p.m.

Food Provided By:

AUNT BARBARA’S KITCHEN

GOOD FRIDAY IRISH SODA BREAD BLITZ ON POLK STREET

in alliance with Fr. River Damien Sims of Temenos

https://www.temenos.org/

Please help support a Good Friday initiative. Fr. River Sims aims to serve 200 folks with Irish Soda

Bread, the food that supported many Irish during hard times. It’s in the spirit of community and

nurturing.

There’s a legend that when a cross is made in each loaf before baking, all the good fairies are released. We like to believe in that.

$15/loaf payable through www.temenos.org , pay pal, or Aunt Barbara’s Kitchen/Temenos Catholic Worker, P.O. Box 642656, San Francisco, CA 94164

Aunt Barbara’s Kitchen is a Cottage Food Operation from a home kitchen in Marin County.

The business started with $10 and Aunt Barbara’s great grandfather iron skillet with the intention to build

a business model that feeds the hungry and revenue that goes to youth in college. The owner volunteers

her time to this endeavor and takes no revenue for herself, at this time. She hopes to reshape the model

of what businesses can create for communities, especially our youth, to cultivate and showcase the

power of human investment. 415 717 0151 https://barbaramcveigh.com/aunt-barbaras-kitchen/

[eolewyn1010]

Warning: This is a rant.

So, there’s someone in the Charité fandom with a few, eh, interesting(?) ships. Namely, Anni/de Crinis as a romantic ship or, more recently, Anni/Christel. Which, whatever. I don’t shit on your ship, you leave my boats alone and all that; I guess the person in question is just into villain/protagonist ships. You do you. But I do have an opinion and I’m gonna elaborate on it now. (It’s a history- and canon-oriented breakdown; feel free to ignore.)

First of all, Max de Crinis was a Nazi. I’m not sure inhowfar the person in question is aware of that because they only ever seem to be talking about the character de Crinis in the Charité show (more on that later) and I don’t think they’re German; thus they might not have the cultural background to take this with the same queasy feeling I do, but yes, we’re talking a real-life Nazi who gave his expert reports on which people were to be “sorted out” in Aktion T4. Meaning, he actively participated in the mass murder of disabled people, adults and children alike. And no one can tell me he didn’t know what he was having part in. That man was influencial, way up in the hierarchy. He lived the superiority ideology of the Nazis, he preached it. We are shown that in the series. We hear the way he talks about people, about the Dohnanyis, about a traumatized woman who thinks she has lost her child, about homosexuals, and I think it’s not far-off from what we know of historical de Crinis. He was a monster, responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands and not sorry about it. He’s not shown as a redeemable antagonist in the series, and I don’t see him at all with Anni, a character who is very much shown to be redeemable. Anni is passive and complacent, which is another category of bad, but she is, to some degree, unaware. It is at least partially a willful unawareness, admittedly, but she is young enough to have been raised unaware. And once she overcomes this, she realizes that what happens around her, what her highly adored mentor preaches and practices, is nothing she can morally justify. That’s when her redemption begins. With her breaking down crying eventually as she can’t cling to her worldview anymore, we know it’s a painful process, and it’s supposed to be.

De Crinis is at no point unaware. He is a Nazi, and we’re never shown at any time that he wants to change that. We’re never shown him in pain, up until it’s about his own life. Because there was never any indication for that in the historical person and this is a historical show.

Secondly, the character we are shown in the series. He’s married, y’know? Admittedly, his wife is extremely non-present, showing up only to die by his side, but it’s one of the things that make de Crinis behave in that condescending mentorly way toward Anni instead of being actually flirty with her. So, the ship would have to do away with the wife. Then, it’d have to away with Artur because - oh, right, Anni already has an irredeemable Nazi asshole she’s married to. From what we’re shown, she and Artur are very much in love initially. It’s not an easy separation for her. Easiest solution? Make them both single from the get-go, I guess, have de Crinis be Karin’s father; he’d conveniently be protective of his own child and stuff... and wind up as Artur, basically. Who’s all, “yeah, other people’s children, but not mine, of course”. To overcome that, de Crinis would have to realize that all human life has inherent value. Which means, he’d have to renounce his work, his loyalty to the Nazi realm, everything his life and ego consists of. All the things he’s built his reputation on, might I note. There are others who watch him. He’d be dead in no time. And if we say he was like that from the get-go, then he never gets into a position of power in the first place. Scientist? Even several of his contemporaries thought his work was worthless. (We’re shown that in series-canon, too, with Sauerbruch and Jung grinning at his self-adulation.) His hostility with the Dohnanyis / Bonhoeffers? Wouldn’t be there; he’d be fighting for their cause. His psychological torture and persecution of Martin and Otto? Why would he hunt down homosexuals if he had internalized that all human life has value and Nazi ideology is wrong?

There would be nothing left of his character. What point is there in shipping Anni with de Crinis when the latter isn’t de Crinis anymore? Just make a new character then? 

Third, his points of redemption potential? ...there are none. His favorism of Anni? Based on her being a good little sheep who looks up at him with her wide, Aryan eyes and admires him. His soft spot for kids, shown in his disgust with Magda Goebbels’ planned murder of her children? He’s appalled that the virtuous paragon of the Nazi model family is shredding yet another bit of his pretty, pretty worldview; that’s all. He doesn’t give a shit about children. He doesn’t try to stop her or talk her out if it. He tells her where she can get poison to go through with it. When Anni mentions that “Karin has been evacuated”, he doesn’t even blink. And he knows what “evacuating” means for a disabled child. He doesn’t care. He has the point of view of Nurse Käthe, of Prof. Bessau: That child’s no good; make new ones. His taking flight, knowing that he has committed crimes he will be prosecuted for? Yeah - but he doesn’t seem to suffer from it. When Anni acknowledges herself as guilty, she breaks down and lashes out, realizing what she might have been and was capable of. De Crinis? Takes flight. He’s not a bit shaken, not a bit surprised by what he has been up to. He has always known that what he participated in is wrong; he just didn’t care so long as there were no consequences for him personally. The one and only thing that made de Crinis watch-worthy in the series is that Lukas Miko is a damn fine actor who gives one hell of a chilling performance. That doesn’t make his character any less of a piece of shit, nor does it diminish my urge to go take a shower after the de Crinis scenes. I wouldn’t mind watching Miko play a de Crinis anthithesis, but that definitely wouldn’t be de Crinis.

To make this ship work, there are exactly two possibilities: Give up all of de Crinis’ character - or roll with him being the evil bastard that he is and that we are shown he is, and give up all of Anni’s character. That’s it. Just... don’t act like there’s canonically anything good about de Crinis.

Same goes for the Anni/Christel ship, btw. “Everything is the same, but Christel is not in love with Otto but with Anni”. That... means nothing is the same. It means everything changes thoroughly. Christel was always the only real threat for Otto and Martin - if she isn’t, there’s not much for them to fear in their own ranks. They’re careful; they wouldn’t have been found out without a denunciation. Means, they don’t get arrested, Otto doesn’t have to save Martin, Otto goes out to war, Otto dies before the war is over because those last months of battling were desperate and ugly (even more so than the earlier, I mean). So, we’d get a new gay at the cost of killing another? Eh. A Nazi accepting homosexuality, coming to terms with herself as an adversary of her own creeds and abandoning Nazi ideology to Do The Right Thing is not “missing dramatic content”, either. It’s Anni’s arc. And it’s a character arc that Christel, with the way she’s written, with “too much compassion is a sign of weakness”, is not capable of.

The scenario doesn’t only include Christel accepting herself as a lesbian; it also includes her helping Anni with Karin. Which brings us back to the same problem as with de Crinis: She’d have to abandon everything she’s convinced of. Accept the value of all human life. And I think her definition of a “worthy life” is even narrower than that of de Crinis; that’s why he recruits her in the first place: Because Christel is a very passionate Nazi. Much more so than de Crinis. She has a backbone, he’s an opportunistic chickenshit. He takes flight. She fights. To the very last second, she clings to her idea of the Nazi realm. When she breaks down, it isn’t for realizing that what she believes in is wrong; it is because what she believes in is lost. That’s one of the things that make me be more shaken with her than with de Crinis, even more in awe of Frida-Lovisa Hamann than of Lukas Miko: Christel never knows that she’s in the wrong. Like Anni, she’s young enough to have been raised unaware, and different than Anni, she very decidedly declines the chance to break out of this. If she’d been brought to court for her deeds, she wouldn’t have been able to defend herself, and she wouldn’t have denied anything, because in her worldview, she never did anything wrong. Realizing that would be, again, an extremely painful process and, again, it wouldn’t leave anything of her character. Why would she go on a date with Otto and propose to him? Why would she tattle on little Emil? On Hans von Dohnanyi? On Martin? Why would she be in conflict with the Sauerbruchs? Why would she lead Volkssturm kids into the hospital if she wants to protect Anni? Why are there any conflicts at all instead of all of the Charité staff being morally upright and good and a united front against the Nazis?

They aren’t. There’s a story being told, and if they’d change out these chilling, well-written antagonists for lukewarm knock-off protagonists, they’d have to make up new antagonists to make any of the story work. It’s a historical series, dealing with living amidst Nazis; inside this framework, the characters won’t function as theirselves if their core values are flipped.

Conclusion? There’s only one legit ship in there, and it’s de Crinis/Christel. I can totally see that; it’d leave both their characters intact. He could rush back to tragically die by her side - BAM, there you’ve got your Nazi-apologetic drama. Or make it Magda Goebbels/Christel, if one wants to go for psycho lesbians. Personally, I don’t care much for finding a happy end for obvious Nazis that were written as Nazis and have absolutely nothing that would turn them away from being Nazis. And I don’t see Anni being either’s romantic partner. Why on earth would she want to? Isn’t Artur punishment enough?

[antihumanism]

There is this recurring pitfall in arguments that wastes so much time: the question of blame. The silliest example of this that I can recall was an argument about the deliberately blasphemous Lil Nas X music video, where someone pointed out that he was trolling and must have expected people to take the bait, and someone else immediately flipped out because how dare anyone say that a queer artist is at fault for the response he receives. Of course, the original statement didn’t involve moral judgment, it was simply noting predictable results from a particular action deliberately undertaken, but it was interpreted by the other person as being a moral judgment and so two people wasted a lot of time arguing about something of no consequence. Ultimately, Lil Nas X fucked neither of them for all their spent time.

More recently, there’s that post floating around about some American university seeking to develop the infrastructure necessary to move people in remote areas of Africa from cooking using wood fires to electric cooking. It is a simple fact that cooking with wood fires is less efficient, in terms of energy use and CO2 release, than cooking with electricity, and that using wood fires can drive deforestation, and that moving to electric cooking would therefore be better, so long as the infrastructure of industrial civilization survives, but it was immediately seen as a statement of blame against the villagers and so useless rage pours forth because how dare someone say the villagers are bad. Except no one said that. Given that the story was about an American university, there is no doubt some imperialist angle involved, but even that isn’t a matter of blame. It is the same game played by people saying “oh, my use of plastic bags (a petroleum product) didn’t cause an oil spill or fire.” Explain that to the fire, friend, I am sure it is a good listener. It isn’t a matter of blame; it doesn’t matter how morally pure you argue yourself to be if you die in the end, and we all will.

Blame is also, of course, the same obsession that drives Alex Jones. Every episode of his show includes at least one hysterical outburst about how people are saying he is “bad” (because he is anti-mask and anti-vaxx) when really he is “good” (because he is anti-mask and anti-vaxx) and it is the “leftists” who are “bad” (because they are pro-mask and pro-vaxx). Like everything Alex does, it is stupid and of no use. His angry insistence that he is “good” and his opponents are “bad” only impresses his dwindling audience. Viruses don’t recognize his language, climates don’t recognize his language, the earth itself is indifferent and only laps hungrily at the blood which is spilled across it.

I do not mean to deprive anyone of their right to vengeance (as if I could). Of course, those who have been wronged have the right to retaliate as they can, and let no one grouse about the guillotine. Murder should be legal, I stand by that, and in the fruitless discourse about how the distinction between victim and abuser is queered blurred by cycles of violence, let me say that every victim has the right to seek the ultimate retaliation if that brings them closure. In context, nothing matters because death comes for us all, so you can take solace there, or you can reject that solace and send your enemies a little faster through the kitchen.

Some might say these ideas of “good” and “bad” are useful, that they are a social technology, but are they? Bacteria in a host will communicate with one another as they coordinate their relationship with the host. Pathogenic bacteria will engage in quorum-sensing, not expressing pathogenic genes or launching their assault until they are sufficient numbers to have a chance at victory They don’t need to see the body is “bad” and the immune system doesn’t need to see the body as “good” in order to defend it with merciless violence.

There is no blame or guilt or morality or any of it in any of it. Every system just does as it is would always have done in its circumstances, and frequently they impact each others operation. Whether hate or love warms your heart, it is of no consequence. Bonhoeffer was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler and wrote a whole book about the need to love one’s enemies. These facts are not in conflict, anymore than Travis’ love for the yellow cur was in conflict with his need to put it down. There is no need to ascribe blame or special fault in order to kill someone.

If you can let go of questions of morality, then you can behave much more effectively. If you can’t or won’t, then you will still march through the kitchen with the rest of us, but it might benefit you to at least play with the idea a bit before we go.

[bookshelfdreams]

Charité S2 and the rule of three

(I told you I wasn’t done talking about this)

To put it briefly, the rule of three is a narrative device where the same scene is used three times with slight variations. The first two build up tension, the third releases. You have almost definitely encountered it before, in fairy tales, jokes and other stories; stand up comedians love it because it is very simple to put to use and very hard to screw up.

In Charité, it is a major part of the plot structure and used (rather cleverly I think) to make a point about power, complicity and resistance.

(beyond this point there be spoilers)

The first time goes like this. Psychiatrist Max de Crinis wants to evaluate amputee Paul Lohmann because he suspects him of self-mutilation. From his first second on screen, de Crinis is set up to be surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch’s antagonist, who did the amputation and assures us that de Crinis “wouldn’t dare” actually accuse Paul of anything. Sauerbruch thinks he is outside the system; that his reputation and his skill put him in a little bubble where the regime can’t reach him, nor anyone he decides to let into that bubble. The manner in which Paul is introduced leads us to believe that he is a main character (indeed the first episode seems to set up a completely different story than what the season ends up being, and that’s super interesting but also a rant for another day). He’s also a war hero and someone the regime doesn’t have a grudge against. One of our focal characters, Otto, rushes in to save him! Things look good!

But Otto, who does not know how to work in the system, blunders it. And Paul is murdered.

This is how “subverting expectations” can be done right; not “hah, bet you didn’t see this coming!” but “what did you expect. This world is cruel and no one is safe. Wake up”. It is also our first hint that in this world, no one can remove themselves from the system. People who are willing to serve the regime are granted power; anyone else is fair game.

Later in the show, we meet Hans von Dohnanyi, a resistance fighter, who Sauerbruch takes on his ward to free him from prison. He is very sick, he had a stroke, and Sauerbruch vows to protect him. He still believes in his bubble - as long as he is there, nobody will dare touch von Dohnanyi. But once, more the regime sends its loyal servant de Crinis to evaluate him (this time it is about whether von Dohnanyi can be transported back to prison). We up the stakes; this is not a common soldier who may or may not have shot himself, but an actual enemy of the state. This time, two people try to speak for the patient; one is de Crinis’ predecessor Karl Bonhoeffer. He fails, because the regime has taken all power from him, and also, because de Crinis is petty and insecure. The other is Sauerbruch himself, who barges in to rescue his patient. He realizes now that he cannot just throw his name at people and expect to get his way. He strokes de Crinis’ ego and subtly threatens him, and he seems to succeed.

However, we (the audience) know it’s hopeless. We know what Sauerbruch doesn’t want to believe: that his power is an illusion. We also have the hindsight of history and know that Hans von Dohnanyi eventually was murdered by Nazis. As soon as Sauerbruch is not physically present at Charité, de Crinis writes his evaluation and von Dohnanyi is taken away to his eventual death.

This is the second time.

Then, towards the end, Martin Schelling is arrested for being alive while queer. De Crinis is once more tasked with evaluating someone; this time, he will send Martin to a KZ to be murdered. Things have never looked more bleak. He may be one of Sauerbruch’s favourite employees, but no one (neither the characters nor the audience) believes this provides safety anymore. Except for an offhand comment, Sauerbruch isn’t even a part of this story line. Nobody barges into the interrogation, and Martin is not an important person like von Dohnanyi or someone the NS regime might find valuable, like Paul. Then there’s also the wider cultural context in which the story is told - we (the audience) are very aware of the Bury Your Gays trope. We are also aware of narrative parallels and foreshadowing, and we know that death in a KZ would be a well-estabished ending for Martin. So, this is definitely it. His life is over. Nobody can save him now.

But then, our other focal character Anni Waldhausen comes into play. And she, who cannot leverage her name or expertise to force de Crinis to let Martin go, nonetheless succeeds. Because she has recognized what a fraud de Crinis is and knows exactly how to play him. Because she is able to leverage her status as a loyal servant of the regime (and because she knows keeping up appearances is the only way for her to protect her daughter and brother). It works, but only because de Crinis is already thinking about a possible future where the NS regime might collapse. He knows he is not only complicit but guilty; and Martin is insignificant enough that the possible advantages of showing him mercy outweigh the satisfaction of sending him to his death.

And once more, our expectations are subverted, and this time it really is the cheap “Hah, bet you didn’t see this coming ;)” variant. Because this time, it is not about shocking us into realizing how cruel this world is; it is about making us realize that it is up to us to change it. It is about showing that ultimately, inhumane ideologies will always be their own downfall. It is about saying yes, horrible people did horrible things, but it is up to you to do what you can to save even just one person. To make the world a tiny bit better.

[girlactionfigure]

Resisting Hitler from Within

He planted a bomb on the Fuhrer's plane

Hans Dohnanyi was a German attorney and resistance fighter who saved Jews and plotted to assassinate Hitler while working as a high-level advisor in the Nazi regime’s Ministry of Justice.

Hans was born in Vienna in 1902 to Hungarian immigrants who were well-known musicians: his father was a composer and his mother was a concert pianist. Hans grew up in Berlin after his parents’ divorce and went to school with the Bonhoeffer brothers, Dietrich and Klaus, members of a prominent family of intellectuals and Christian theologians. Hans and the Bonhoeffers became close, lifelong friends. Hans studied law in Berlin from 1920 to 1924, and after graduating he passed the bar exam and started working as a lawyer at the Hamburg Senate. He married Christel Bonhoeffer, his friends’ sister, in 1925.

Hans became a prosecutor at the Reich Ministry of Justice in 1929, and within a few years was promoted to high-level government advisor. After Hitler came into power in the early 1930’s, Hans continued working in government, becoming advisor to Hitler’s Minister of Justice, Frank Gurtner. In this role, Hans had high-level security clearance, and interacted with top Nazis including Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and Goring.

The year 1934 was a turning point for Hans. The “Night of the Long Knives” was a bloody purge of Nazi officials believed to threaten Hitler’s power. Eighty-five people are known to have been murdered on Hitler’s orders, and historians estimate the death toll was much higher. More than a thousand perceived political opponents were arrested and many disappeared. The murders were committed extrajudicially, without trial or sentence. At this point, Hans’ eyes were opened to the dangerous immorality of the Nazi regime, and he refused to stand idly by. Hans’ first act of resistance was openly opposing Nazi racial policies, which led Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary and right-hand man, to demote him to a position with less prestige and access to sensitive information.

Hans continued working for the Nazi regime so that he could compile evidence of their egregious human rights abuses. Meanwhile, he connected with other important government and military officials who also opposed Hitler, such as Hans Oster, a general in the Wehrmacht (German army) who was the head of counterintelligence.

In 1942, Hans Dohnanyi arranged for two Jewish lawyers from Berlin, Friedrich Arnold and Julius Fliess, to flee Germany and find safety in Switzerland. Hans forged documents and called in favors from his contacts within Hitler’s own government to save the lives of Arnold, Fliess, and their extended families – thirteen people in total. Hans traveled to Switzerland to make sure the Jewish families were allowed in, and he also provided them with money to support themselves.

Meanwhile, a coup was brewing against Hitler, organized by German army officer Henning von Tresckow. Hans joined those plotting Hitler’s assassination, and he played a crucial role in the scheme. In February 1943, Hans planted a bomb aboard Hitler’s plane while the Fuhrer was visiting the Russian front. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons the bomb failed to go off. The Gestapo never suspected Hans of being involved in the assassination plot, but they were suspicious of his activities and thought he might be helping Jews. On April 5, 1943, Hans Dohnanyi was arrested by the Gestapo on charges of foreign currency violations for transferring funds from Germany to a Swiss bank to help the Jews he’d saved.

The judge, Karl Sack, was a member of the anti-Nazi resistance himself, and he repeatedly delayed Hans’ trial to buy some time. However, in 1944 Hans was sent to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp for political prisoners. While he was there, the Gestapo discovered that he’d been involved in another failed plot to assassinate Hitler, the 20 July Plot. They found some documents implicating Hans, and accused him of being the “spiritual head of the conspiracy.”

Hans was tried before a kangaroo court, and on Hitler’s direct orders he was sentenced to death. On April 8, 1945, Hans Dohnanyi was strangled with a piece of piano wire. His longtime friends, Dietrich and Klaus Bonhoeffer, were also executed that day for their involvement in the assassination plot. Exactly one month later, Germany surrendered and the war in Europe came to an end.

In 2003, Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem honored Hans Dohnanyi as Righteous Among the Nations for saving the Arnold and Fliess families, at great risk to his own life.

For rescuing thirteen Jews from certain death, and for his involvement in two plots to assassinate Hitler which led to his own execution, we honor Hans Dohnanyi as this week’s Thursday Hero.

Accidental Talmudist

[aowski]

A Cracked Foundation

A few years ago, I had a leak in my basement. Water would appear on the floor after a rain. Initially, I thought it was just a small crack in the foundation. As I prepped the surface to patch it, I discovered not just a small crack but the complete absence of concrete beneath the surface! Where there should have been solid material, there was nothing to keep out the elements and provide support. In order to fix the leak, I had to accept the fact there was a serious gap in the foundation that had to be addressed.

With all the turmoil in America in these first two decades of the 21st century, I am perplexed at the state of the church. With some notable exceptions, the largest church denominations are not “bending the moral arc towards justice” in America. Sadly, much of the church in America seems to be reveling in personalities and policies that maximize injustice for those who have suffered so much already. It is as if church members cannot see others outside their orbit as human beings. Unfortunately this is not new. Indeed, in the first half century of America’s history,

“The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other” —Frederick Douglass 

After the Civil War, lynchings replaced chains as a means of subjugation in the South. The tacit approval and participation of church members was well known at the time. As Reinhold Neibhur put it:

“If there were a drunken orgy somewhere, I would bet ten to one a church member was not in it… But if there were a lynching, I would bet ten to one a church member was in it” 

I am a student of religious, political, and economic history. One thing that has become abundantly clear to me is those histories are inextricably linked. The evolution of Western Europe, colonization of the New World, the subjugation of indigenous peoples, slavery, the founding of America, and the Industrial Revolution, all have the same roots. 

As a student of political history, I have studied the works of Hannah Arendt, a German-Jewish philosopher. She lived in Germany until 1933 when she moved to France to escape the Nazi regime. When the Nazi’s occupied France, Arendt was briefly detained, but by the sheerest stroke of luck she was released and escaped to America. After the war and the Holocaust, she tried to understand, to grasp an evil that was so pervasive, yet so shallow and rootless, that “It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface”.

Arendt caused me to think about the origins of racism and anti-Semitism in “Christian” Europe. It turns out that Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation, had planted a seed of hatred for the Jews by writing a vicious anti-Jewish publication.  Earlier in his public life, Luther was benevolent to the Jews, but over time he grew frustrated with what he viewed as their “obstinacy to my own kind actions” for failure to convert to Christianity, and specifically his version of it. I was absolutely shocked as I read it. Luther’s seven step program for persecuting Jews was the blueprint of the Nazi pogrom. I have found some Lutherans to admire, especially Dietrich Bonhoeffer, himself a martyr of the Nazi’s. Yet I found myself deeply troubled by Luther’s writings. How could the founder of a major sect of Christianity promote such vicious hatred of a people? Moreover, how could I be so ignorant of it?

One might ask what does European anti-Semitism have to do with American  racism? I believe Anti-Semitism is the root of the White Supremacy upon which colonization, subjugation, slavery, and racism are built. It has been there all along, just under the surface. If you doubt me, recall the slogan chanted by the racists marching in Charlottesville. Most White Christians probably viewed the open racism and anti-Semitism on display in Charlottesville as extreme and repulsive. They would be offended at the suggestion that they approved of such things. However, it is the everyday racism that we fail to notice. We can’t see it. Our world is “White” and our White world is “Christian” or expected to be so. 

As White Christians, we like to believe that we are living in a post-racial society. Murders of African Americans at the hands of police or self-appointed vigilantes are diminished as unfortunate but rare occurrences. We don’t believe it is happening because it isn’t happening to us. In our minds, when extra-judicial killings happen, we salve our consciences with the belief these are a random occurrences, not systemic. We certainly don’t want to hear about these issues on Sunday morning. We believe that the job of the church is to tell us we are “saved” by Jesus’ blood. A place to offer us a benign absolution of whatever trivial sins we believe we may have committed.

White Supremacy persists in the White American Church because the church is built on multiple cracked foundations. Jesus may have told Peter to put down his sword, but Constantine picked it up again. It was used with abandon during the Crusades. It was picked up again during the Spanish Inquisition. The Kings of Spain and Portugal were blessed by Pope Sixtus IV to pursue a “Doctrine of Discovery” as moral cover for the subjugation of American and African peoples. Anti-Semitism was firmly planted in Europe by Luther and his “The Jews and Their Lies”, a poisonous seed that would germinate virulently in the 20th century. 

All of these these foundational cracks aren’t at the surface of our contemporary Christian awareness. We like to believe we have a firm foundation for our faith: Jesus Christ. Yet the rains of injustice still pour down. The roof of our White, Christian structures keep us dry. Our passive acceptance of injustice and our indifference to its victims point to a problem we don’t want to face. It’s raining outside. We need to go into the basement of our Christianity and check the foundation. The white washed coating must be scraped off its walls. Our foundation leaks. The puddles on the floor however, are not water, but blood. The blood of injustice. 

[the-lily-blooms-late]

pause for a short Merlin rant

Ok so if there is a leader, who has undeniably committed mass genocide... why is assassinating that leader a bad thing? Uther has literally hunted down every person marginally connected with magic and murdered them. But the sorcerers who are trying to kill him are somehow the bad guys? 

Enough already with this respectability politics crap where the sorcerers somehow have to rise above their oppressors and take the high ground even as they’re being cruelly and relentlessly persecuted. Merlin should’ve let Morgana kill Uther. Merlin should’ve let Gilli kill Uther. Why did he keep protecting the man that, again, COMMITTED MASS GENOCIDE? And I don’t buy the bit about Arthur being forever turned against magic if it killed his father. Arthur must be held accountable for his own beliefs on magic and his own actions against it.

Look, I know the Bible says submit to authority. But even Dietrich Bonhoeffer (respected Christian theologian) was involved in an assassination plot on Hitler. Sometimes leaders are so evil that it is right and just to stand against them. And Uther is plenty evil enough to qualify.

Uther should’ve been assassinated. And the assassins should have no moral qualms about the assassination.

[entamewitchlulu]

so i did a reading challenge this year and i wanna talk about what i read

transcription under the cut

i did Popsugar 2019 and wanna talk about what i read:  Book Reccs and Anti-Reccs 

1.) Becoming a Movie in 2019: Umbrella Academy (vol 1) by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

4/5. A fascinating take on superpowers, dysfunctional families, and the apocalypse. Can get pretty gory, confusing here and there and you have to pay close attention to panels for lore, but overall an entertaining romp.

2.) Makes you Feel Nostalgic: Circles in the Stream by Rachel Roberts

4/5. Middle grade novel about the magic of music, belief, and of course, friendship. Definitely written for kids, and has some unfortunately clumsy Native rep, but overall an absolute joy to dive into once again.

3.) Written by a Musician: Umbrella Academy (vol 2) by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

4/5. Ramps up the confusion to ridiculous degrees with some absolutely bonkers, unexplained arcs, but still fun to watch this dysfunctional family do its dysfunctional thing.

4.) You Think Should be Turned into a movie: All That Glitters by Rachel Roberts

4/5. Continuation of Circles in the Stream, but with more unicorns, more rainbows, and more fae, which makes it automatically even better than the first.

5.) With At Least 1 Mil. Ratings on Goodreads: 1984 by George Orwell   

1/5. I understand why it's important and all but wasn't prepared for some of the more graphic scenes and the overall hopelessness of the message.  Would not recommend or read again.

6.) W/ a Plant in the title or cover: The secret of Dreadwillow carse by Brian farrey

5/5. A fantasy world where everyone is always happy, save for one girl and the princess, who set out to solve the mystery of their kingdom. Poignant and great for kids and adults.

7.) Reread of a favorite: Cry of the Wolf by Rachel Roberts

4/5. Yet another installment in the Avalon: Web of Magic series, which clearly I am obsessed with.  Please just read them.

8.) About a Hobby: Welcome to the Writer's Life by Paulette Perhach

5/5. A welcome kick in the pants, chock full of great advice told without condescension, and full of hope and inspiration for writers both new and old.

9.) Meant to read in 2018: The Poet x by Elizabeth Acevedo  

4/5. Absolutely beautiful coming of age novel told in verse.  Do yourself a favor and listen to the audiobook version.

10.) w/ "pop," "sugar," or "challenge" in the title: Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy

2/5. I think maybe I just don't understand this genre.  Or maybe the translation was weird. I was confused.  

11.) w/ An Item of Clothing or Accessory on the cover: Our dreams at Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani

4/5. It had a lot more slurs/homophobia than I was prepared for, but otherwise is a very touching, relatable collection of queer characters living in a heteronormative world.

12.) Inspired by Mythology or Folklore: Ravenous by MarcyKate Connolly

3/5. A girl goes on an impossible quest to save her brother from a child-eating witch. Really wanted to like it more because I loved the first one, Monstrous, but it dragged a little.

13.) Published Posthumously: The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones

3/5. I adore Diana Wynne Jones, but this one was missing some of the magic of her other books. Not sure if it was because it had to be finished by someone else, or if I just grew out of her stories.

14.) Set in Space: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

4/5. Powerfully written story of a girl straddling tradition and innovation, who wields power through mathematical magic, surviving on a spaceship alone with a dangerous alien occupation after everyone else has been killed.

15.) By 2 Female Authors: Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

2/5. Ostensibly a story about a revenge pact in a small island town, but leaves far too many dangling threads to attempt alluring you to the sequel.

16.) W/ A Title containing "salty," "bitter," "Sweet," or "Spicy": The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith  

3/5. It's okay but I literally just never know what anyone means at any time. Are they being reticent on purpose or do i just not understand communication

17.) Set in scandinavia: Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura

2/5. Technically and historically accurate and well made, but the story itself is not my cup of tea.  Very gory.

18.) Takes Place in a Single Day: Long WAy Down by Jason Reynolds

4/5. A boy goes to avenge his murdered brother, but ghostly passengers join him on the elevator ride down. Stunning and powerful character-driven analysis.

19.) Debut Novel: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

4/5. Charming and then surprisingly heart-breaking comic about Nimona, a shapeshifter who wants to become a villain's minion. Really love the villain/hero dynamic going on in the background, along with the dysfunctional found family.

20.) Published in 2019: The Book of Pride by Mason Funk  

4/5. A collection of interviews with the movers, shakers, and pioneers of the queer and LGBTQ+ community.  An absolutely essential work for community members and allies alike.

21.) Featuring an extinct/imaginary creature: Phoebe and her Unicorn by Dana Simpson

4/5. Incredibly charming, Calvin and Hobbes-esque collection of comics featuring the adventures of Phoebe and her unicorn best friend.

22.) Recced by a celebrity you admire: The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen

2/5. Recced by my fave author Brandon Sanderson. An unfortunately disappointing anthology proving that any story can be made uninteresting by telling the wrong section of it.

23.) With "Love" in the Title: Book Love by Debbie Tung

4/5. One of those relatable webcomics, only this one I felt super hard almost the entire time.  Books are awesome and libraries rule.

24.) Featuring an amateur detective: Nancy Drew: Palace of Wisdom by Kelly Thompson

4/5. REALLY love this modern take on Nancy Drew, coming back home to her roots to solve a brand new mystery. Diverse cast and lovely artwork, though definitely more adult.

25.) About a family: Amulet by Kabu Kibuishi

4/5. Excellent, top tier graphic novel about a sister and brother who have to go rescue their mother with a mysterious magic stone. LOVE that the mom gets to be involved in the adventure for once.

26.) by an author from asia, Africa, or s. America: Girls' Last tour by Tsukumizu

4/5. Somehow both light-hearted and melancholy. Two girls travel about an empty, post-apocalyptic world, and muse about life and their next meal.

27.) w/ a Zodiac or astrology term in title: Drawing down the moon by margot adler

3/5. A good starting place for anyone interested in the Neo Pagan movement, but didn't really give me what I was personally looking for.

28.) you see someone reading in a tv show or movie: The Promised NEverland by Kaiu Shirai

4/5. I don't watch TV or movies where people read books so i think reading an adaptation of a TV series after watching the series counts. Anyway it was good but beware racist caricatures

29.) A retelling of a classic: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Rey Terciero

5/5. We can stop the Little Women reboots and retellings now, this is the only one we need. In fact, we can toss out the original too, this is the only one necessary.

30.) w/ a question in the title: So I'm a spider, so what? by Asahiro Kakashi

4/5. Cute art despite the subject matter, and a surprisingly enthralling take on the isekai genre. Love the doubling down on the video game skills.

31.) Set in a college or university campus: Moonstruck (vol 2) by Grace Ellis

2/5. An incredibly cute, beautiful, and fascinating world of modern magic and creatures, but unfortunately falls apart at the plot and pacing.

32.) About someone with a superpower: Moonstruck (vol 1) by Grace Ellis

4/5. Though nearly as messy plot-wise as its sequel, the first volume is overwhelmingly charming in a way that overpowers the more confusing plot elements.

33.) told from multiple povs: The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet by becky Chambers

4/5. Told almost in a serial format, like watching a miniseries, a group of found-family spaceship crew members make the long journey to their biggest job ever.

34.) Includes a wedding: We Set the dark on fire by Tehlor kay mejia

4/5. Timely and poignant, a girl tumbles into both love and resistance after becoming one of two wives to one of the most powerful men in the country.

35.) by an author w/ alliterative name: The only harmless great Thing by brooke bolander

3/5. Much deeper than I can currently comprehend.  Beautifully written, but difficult to parse.

36.) A ghost story: Her body and other parties by Carmen Maria Machado

4/5.  It counts because one of the stories in it has ghosts. A sometimes difficult collection of surrealist, feminist, queer short stories.

37.) W/ a 2 word title: Good omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

4/5. Charming, touching, and comical, probably the best take on the apocalypse to date. Also excellent ruminations on religion and purpose.

38.) based on a true story: The faithful Spy by John Hendrix

4/5. Brilliantly crafted graphic biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his assistance in fighting back against Nazi Germany.

39.) Revolving around a puzzle or game: the Crossover by Kwame alexander

4/5. The verse didn't always hit right with me, but the story is a sweet, melancholy one about family, loss, and moving on.

40.) previous popsugar prompt (animal in title): The last unicorn by peter s. Beagle

5/5. Absolutely one of my all-time favorite books, it manages to perfectly combine anachronism and comedy with lyricism, melancholy, and ethereal beauty.

41.) Cli-fi: Tokyo Mew Mew by Mia ikumi and Reiko Yoshida

4/5. Shut up it counts

42.) Choose-your-own-adventure: My Lady's choosing by Kitty curran

3/5. Cute in concept, a bit underwhelming in execution. Honestly, just play an otome.

43.) "Own Voices": Home by Nnedi Okorafor

3/5. The storytelling style was definitely not my style; while the first book was slow, too, it felt more purposeful. I found my attention wandering during this installment.

44.) During the season it's set in: Pumpkinheads by rainbow rowell

3/5. Cute art, but precious little substance.  The concept simply wasn't for me in the first place.

45.) LITRPG: My next life as a villainess: All routes lead to doom! by Hidaka nami

5/5. An absolute insta-fave! Charming art, endearing characters, an incredible premise, and so much sweet wholesome fluff it'll give you cavities.

46.) No chapters: The field guide to dumb birds of north america by matt kracht

3/5. It started out super strong, but the joke started to wear thin at a little past the halfway point.

47.) 2 books with the same title: Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roger

4/5. A brave and enduring personal story of growing up in and eventually leaving the Westboro Baptist Church. Really called to me to act with grace and kindness even more in the future.

48.) 2 books with the same title: unfollow by rob williams and michael dowling

1/5. How many times do you think we can make Battle Royale again before someone notices

49.) That has inspired a common phrase or idiom: THe Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

4/5. Definitely good and deserves it's praise as something that pretty much revolutionized and created an entire demographic of literature.

50.) Set in an abbey, cloister, Monastery, convent, or vicarage: Murder at the vicarage by agatha christie

3/5. I just cannot. physically keep up with all of these characters or find the energy to read between the lines.

ok that's all i got, what did y'all read and like this year?  (oh god it’s gonna be 2020)