#the narrative is so clear yet people are so blind... it's a tragedy

[cleradinel]

they were insane for writing this 1 minute 25 seconds scene. the juxtaposition of lucas insisting mike obviously likes el so much vs troy and james showing up to say homophobic shit about will is insane.

#the narrative is so clear yet people are so blind... it's a tragedy #this is the first time someone suggests to mike he should like el #only for troy and james to immediately reinforce the idea that gay equals bad #know what happens next ? #mileven scenes which up to this point had been consistently framed as platonic switch to romantic framing #you do with that what you will #but i know exactly what it means to me :) #byler #sorry about my mouse showing up at the last second </3

[bluegarners]

sometimes i have a hard time wrapping my head around the complexity of bruce's love versus his devotion versus his guilt/ego. now that all may sound entirely separate, but it works like this in my head...

see, because im always thinking about dick's observation that bruce would probably trade everything to get his parents back/prevent their deaths. granted, dick might have been uncharitable in that lens, but he is also one of the few people who reads bruce accurately and clearly. to that point, i would argue that, subconsciously at least, dick also recognizes that a part of bruce will always believe that he is at the center of everything- that bad things happen because of him. connecting all of that to every death bruce has witnessed to/been the indirect cause of/believes himself to have been able to stop some tragedy but wasn't able to/etc., i think within that seemingly not nice interpretation of bruce, we get the idea that bruce believes that had his parents survived that night, the world likely would have been a better place. batman would have never existed/there would have never been a need for batman to exist. in bruce's mind, i imagine that he can't picture a world where he is not batman, fighting the good fight, and therefore any world where there is no batman is a world that is a) much better off, and b) not fraught with death and tragedy caused by his hand

now, granted, this is an interpretation of my own viewing on how dick's observation and bruce's character throughout the years has evolved. i think bruce is an egotistical person, not in the sense that he thinks he is superior to everyone in the world, but that he believes that so much around him is a result of him. i believe bruce has a hard time separating himself from the lives of those around him, a kind of "everything i touch goes to ruin" idea that constantly floats around him- an idea that, more than once and rather frequently, does get proven to him, and, to an extent, people tell him. obviously, jason's narrative is brought to the forefront. anyone who has ever been connected to bruce wayne or batman has been connected to him via some kind of tragedy. a "what's the common denominator?" situation that can be hard to overlook and is definitely not one bruce overlooks

and going back to the love versus devotion versus guilt thing, bruce loves his people and his city so much. he loves the world and protects it because despite every bad thing in it, there is clear and abundant evidence of good. just as well, bruce is devoted to loving and protecting- it is what he believes he's best at, and without it, he would be little else. there was a time where bruce was more obvious with his love, in both physical and verbal confirmation, but i believe at this point it's generally agreed that bruce shows his love in an unconventional way- despite that, he still loves and loves greatly. however, that is where the guilt comes in. his midas touch for tragedy gets in the way of his love and devotion entirely

bruce feels guilty for loving, guilty for bringing people into his circle, guilty for being batman- a force that does as much good as it does reinforce the narrative that it's all cyclical. his inability to let go of his guilty conscious prevents him from 1) showing his love, 2) letting others love him, and 3) getting better. to me, bruce is always in this insistent circle of helping, loving, realizing, shunning, and disappearing that his devotion just goes to waste and is hardly recognizable outside of his bat insignia. what bruce is devoted to is people but it gets pushed aside in favor of batman so often because of his iron grip on the past, his guilt, and his constant fear of what's going to happen to the people around him because of him

which really discredits those people who choose to stick around and stay by his side. bruce loves so much and yet is so constantly blind to how people love him, and the result is this mess of a character that see-saws between this intense display of hard sacrifice and moral ground, and a simple man who's defining trait is the family he somehow built around himself

idk where i was going with this, but my summary is essentially he is sooooooooo annoying to write for and think about because a lot of what he does doesn't make sense or apply to his character, but at the same time it does which makes it harder to recognize when he is being genuine and when he is using something as a shield or weapon against another

#this is all a mess anddoesnt make sense but yea i have a love/hate relationship with him #bruce wayne #batman

[lirance]

*slaps roof of car* yeah so I know this bad boy alan wake can fit so much sad man whump in it, and it's so tasty, and I am just feasting

but at the same time one of the things I really like about alan is that he can be such a huge asshole. yeah he's working on that circa AW:AN, yeah he's a sad little meow meow in 2, but also we all saw how he reacted to the filmmaker lying to him and that shit was unhinged. we are explicitly told alan's kin assigned cardinal sin is wrath and the games are not shy in the least in letting us know

he constantly acts without thinking through the consequences. he's the architect of (almost) all his own misery. this man is constantly building elaborate rube goldberg machines that punk himself, forgetting about it, and then starting the machine and getting so spectacularly wasted he should be featured in a ragdoll death compilation

and like, I want to be clear, part of the tragedy of all this is that alan has not been allowed to improve himself, no matter how much he legitimately tries -- the dark place steals his memories and wipes him clean, he can learn all these lessons over and over again across countless stories and attempts, and he hardly ever gets to keep them, and it's upsetting watching him struggle through all this because it's not like he isn't putting in the effort

but it's all so narratively tasty. I want the sugar along with the spice. I want asshole alan dealing with shit (or failing). for a man who hates himself as deeply as he does, he can be so astonishingly fucking blind about what his issues actually are. I love how he's so sympathetic and understanding of serena valdivia, the same way he was with rose, because he has intimate knowledge of what it's like to be touched by darkness, and you can still hear the hints of a tantrum creep into his voice when dr. meadows pushes back about the ethics of involving other people in his stories.

sometimes I want to see the alan who'd believably start a fist fight through the mcdonald's drive through window because the beautiful wife he loves so much asked for no pickles and now alice has to yank him back and apologize and somehow maneuver the car away before this becomes yet another public fucking Incident

#unfocused incoherent rambling

[goatpaste]

Please ramble on about Hot Pants

oh ohhh my friend i hope you understand the can of worms that is inside me your trying to open because

bOY BOY HOWDY DO I HAVE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS AND SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT HOT PANTS IT DRIVES ME CRAZY

I will tell you all the things I think about with Hot Pants if you will also allow me to bring diego along into this. I PROMISE im still focused on Hot Pants but he's important to my thinking I promise.

BUT REALLY HOT PANTS IS SUCH a good character in SBR. and maybe I'm wrong by I'm pretty sure she appears more than Diego does in total by the end of SBR. Hot Pants plays a pretty active role in the story usually being left to supporting and being a bridge from one part of the plot to the other.

Then they kill HP off in the most lamest, cheapest way possible that you can barely tell she died or have time to have remorse. An attack that happens to both Gyro and Johnny, kills HP instantly.

We watch Hot Pants reach a breaking point right before her death where the weight of her guilt for the sins she's held in a vice grip to her heart. She is willing to DIE to try and make up for her past mistakes, she has to, its all she known and held onto. After everything, this must be the answer to her problems, and if it isn't? god help her.

But then it just falls flat and feels like nothing. she just dies...

Hot Pants was under utilized as a character SO much. I think she could have played a WAY bigger role in many many ways.

I really wish SBR had a bigger narratives of finding connections to people after isolation through ones self or outside forces. a collection of people who have lost all their connections and seek a magic cure to fix the things that trouble and ails them and are blinded by the idea of some end goal glory that they will tear each other apart for it without thinking of the lose that can come with that. To have a narrative where they must rely on EACH OTHER and the people around them is what they need. Johnny and Gyro needed each other and others around them. they needed people to grow and shape them.

AND THIS TRULY GOES FOR HOT PANTS SO MUCH. Hot Pants has so much guilt in her heart that she has declared as a great sin that she must harbor alone. What happened with her brother was horrible and a tragedy, this was a horrible circumstance that a YOUNG HP had gone through that lead her to make a rash and DRASTIC choice. She, like all the other main guys are selfish. Weather the choice was understandable or not, in the end she chose her own safety. I WANT TO BE CLEAR. I am NOT bashing HP for this and her "selfishness" is NO where near the scale the rest of them are on, but in the act of choosing her safety over her brothers, that was an act of selfishness. And that will haunt her forever.

Hot Pants then dedicates every OUNCE of her being to repenting. So many years spent dedicated to some divine idea, but it doesn't fix anything. She can never find peace this way, to her she has done something UNFORGIVABLE. Her drive to get the corpse hoping it will be what finally take away the weight and pain of her mistakes away. HP is blinded by the idea of this magic holy corpse, just like Johnny and Diego. Yes killing her brother was horrible, it was a horrible situation, but there are far worse crimes committed by far worse people who have cared a lot less than her. Yet she still feels like she HAS to look up to the stars and gaze to a holy golden light to guide her. She HAS to get that corpse because to her there is NO other way to be forgiven. Hot Pants has let herself be blinded by the holy lights of heaven that carry the idea she can repent and feel better and make up for what she did, she's so blinded she can't even begin to look down from the stars and watch where she's walking among others grounded to earth who need her and that she needs in turn.

Her, Johnny and Diego, and even Gyro are all running in circles all hoping to obtain some goal and letting it blind them.

And this is kinda where I need to bring Diego in.

The way people talked about Diego and Hot Pants, I REALLY assumed these two were partners and hanging out together for most of SBR. but it really is just that last clump of chapters.

NONE THE LESS, their VERY good chapters and their dynamic immediately is vERY FUN and VERY interesting

and it was these two specific pages sat side by side of each other that really set me off. This is when I truly felt in my heart, that Diego and Hot Pants NEEDED each other, just like Gyro and Johnny needed one another on a narrative molecular level... That I wished SO HARD that Diego and Hot Pants HAD met sooner and traveled together if at least on and off...

its the narrative parallels that can be pulled from these pages that sent me spiraling about HP and Diego.

With Hot Pants who tried so fucking hard to reach for heavenly repent since the day with the bear. Hiding her truth and in turn forced to face people she cares about always seeing them as good and innocent, never knowing what they had done wrong in her brothers death, and feeling like she needs to bury herself in guilt and sin vs dio who was born into the bottom of the pit of society, already judged at birth and having to fucking crawl and climb his way to the top for a semblance of glory and to not let the world make him feel like less than dirt...

the way these pages are laid out, Hot Pants main big panel on the top, her whole page being in yellow/golden hues, bathed fully in a divine light that she can't even acknowledge because it will never be what will heal her. No matter what she really thinks, at this point I think she believe the only path to ever stop feeling this way is death.

Then Diego on the bottom panel, blue desaturated panels with him being in shadows. A man who never had anything good given to him in a kind hand beside from his own mother... the only kind hands he's known... and without her he has nothing, nothing but a goal to fight back on the narrative society would try to force him into. He WILL get that corpse and it will be his ticket to finally be above everything else, he will never be looked down on and he will finally have the life he and his mother deserved.

HP is the one who can only feel she had done wrong and will carry that forever, while everyone around her only shows her kindness she feels she never deserved.

While Diego is the opposite to this, he's done no wrong, nothing but be born. By the way of his birth society would already judge him and his mother, his very existence and status in society would be his downfall, and all he did was be born. A young boy who had only been shown scorn, he and his mother didn't deserve it and he will never accept it again. He will not let that corpse go, its his ticket to stand above all. A man with the biggest ego, who can no longer be conventionally good or else the world might take advantage of that again.

How much of their characters circle around their family between Hot Pants feeling she betrayed her own family, their trust and safety and no longer feeling she was deserving to be near them or cared for by them. To bury herself in holy duties hoping to one day be someone who can be forgiven by god himself. Be forgiven or by buried. Not able to see part of the healing was to forgive herself.

Then Diego who only truly had his mother to lean on and trust to be cared for in a world that only saw them as dirt, disposable tools. Then having his own mother riped away from him with no choice in the matter because the world was cruel. Now he can only have himself, the world has never shown him a reason to trust it, only to stand above it and never make him dirt again. Diego can't trust others or not be in control.

And with that I think they needed each other for these exact reasons and parallels.

They woulda been PERFECT foils for one another. HP would bust Diego's ego down a notch by not even give him the time of day to even care to let him know she's disliking him. HP could not be more indifferent to Diego. He is just some guy and he needs someone who would put him in his place. With trust in a person who neither see's him as this grand persona he's put together or as some lowly penniless boy.. shit maybe he doesnt have to stand alone, maybe he can be ok with someone else making choices. maybe with Hot Pants he doesnt have to worry their looking at him through specific leans that will predetermine how Diego will be treated and seen by others.

and HP in turn maybe just need a bit of a crazy guy to get her to do wild thing and deserve to be happy. You've worked hard and shown the world your worth something grand, take what you have earned and never let it go. Ask for more! You are alive, you got to live so dont let yourself waste away a life because your feel a lil sad. Your alive and you have so much to prove and your going to make sure the world doesn't forget it!

I think they really REALLY could have been really good pushes of character for BOTH of them. LIKE in the easiest sense to put it.. Hot Pants could make diego better and Diego could make Hot Pants worse, but in the best way for one another. Diego needs someone to realize he's just some guy and his egos only gonna get him so far. and Hot Pants needs someone to get him to stand up and be a lil selfish and do something because it makes them happy in that moment and not focused on always wondering if what their doing will settle their divine debt of sin.

OK AND MOVING AWAY FROM MY WHOLE SPECIFIC THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT HP AND DIEGO

I think we could have had VERY solid Plot with Lucy and HP

I think the tubular bells arc coulda been done WAY better with it was about Lucy and HP working together. One, to stop forcing lucy to do all this shit the adults should be doing. Two, using Lucy as a way to open up HP to the past she is haunted by in the form of her brother. Seeing her late brother in Lucy in these subtle ways and HP not knowing how to deal with these feelings. she CANT let herself get attached or connected, she lot her brother, she MURDERED her brother, she isnt allowed to replace him and be happy.

but.. she can't let it happen again. She can't let Lucy throw herself into danger... oh god she can't watch Lucy walk into the mouth of the beast, Hot Pants can't let it happen again.

Its exactly what she needs. Connections and things that ground her and make her realize killing herself to get some holy corpse is never going to be what makes her feel better...

HP and Lucy infiltration also woulda been narratively way better with like, HP seducing the presidents wife and it being funny and awkward because like.. its Hot Pants lol. im mostly just saying this because it woulda been funny.

and Lucy getting corned in by tubular bells while getting to Valentine while Hot Pants keeps up distractions. HP ultimately failing at getting all the corpse part back and mission failure because she choses to save Lucy instead of recover the holy corpse...

PLAYING IN PARALLEL TO JOHNNY AND GYRO AT THE END OF THE SUGAR MOUNTAIN ARC ALSO ALSO

I WISH MORE PEOPLE WERE FRIENDLY AND TREATING LUCY LIKE A LIL SISTER/DAUGHTER AND NOT GROSS

Lucy and HP as siblings would have meant the WORLD to me...

ANYWAYS this ended up very long, but I actually expected that to happen. I warned you lol

but YEAH im on 2 hours of sleep in the last 24hrs or whatever so this is a bit rambly and messy thoughts from me, but the general idea is there lol

LITRALLY TO if any of my beloved mutuals want to chime in I want to hear and share your thoughts on the matter,, i know some people brought up great Hp Points/HP and Diego Points in the server and I just love feeling like this talking about HP

#LONG POST #SORRY #steel ball run spoilers #jojo spoilers

[benicebefunny]

Faulty Parallels and Parables

There's some fannish consensus that "Big Week" is meant as a lesson for the show's audience. Richmond's overblown and inappropriate response to Nathan tearing down the sign is a parallel of real-life fans reacting so violently to S2 Nathan. (ETA: Here are examples of the kind of violent fan reactions I'm talking about.) I can definitely see that. Particularly in the very meta scene where actor-writer-producers Brett Goldstein and Brendan Hunt acknowledge their role in creating this reaction and beg their boss for the punishment that will relieve them of their white guilt.

However intended, "Big Week" doesn't work as a lesson. The attempted parallel between fans and the players doesn't do what it's meant to. Because once again the writing resists acknowledging racism as a structuring logic of society and the show.

Racism is at the core of both sides of the parallel (the fans' and the players' reactions), but it's not openly addressed in the writing.

"Big Week" fails as a condemnation of fan reactions to Nathan, because it

Does not address the actual motivation for fannish vitriol: racism.

Perpetuates the myth that fans were angry at something Nathan had done rather than who Nathan is.

Misattributes fan hate to Black men.

Panders to the people it should be educating.

To be clear: at a fundamental level, the fan backlash (ETA: referring again to shit like this) wasn't about Nathan ripping a sign. People were angry, suspicious, and hateful toward Nathan long before the finale aired. He'd already been determined guilty based on theories and suppositions of what he might do. Concerningly, people were reveling in his forecasted crimes; they wanted him to be bad.

Dramatic Irony is for White People

Brendan Hunt has spoken about leaving breadcrumbs about Nathan's schism with Ted. And Nick Mohammed notably explained Nathan's S2 journey on Twitter, laying out the moments that led to and hinted at his final destination. However, on Tumblr, the issue wasn't that fans weren't picking up on foreshadowing. The problem--the racism--lies in how fans reacted emotionally to the foreshadowing.

Contrast fan's eagerness for Nathan to do spectacularly wrong with how I re-watched Titanic as a child. From the start of the film, I knew the ship was doomed to sink. After watching the film once, I knew that Jack died. Yet, every time I watched, I still hoped that ship wouldn't sink and no one would die.

Watching through your fingers, hoping that a character will avoid their fate is a familiar mode of viewership for tragedies heavy on the dramatic irony. Either through outside knowledge or foreshadowing, we know something the characters don't know. No matter how much we yell at the screen (or in Jamie's case, the actors on stage), how many times we cry, "Don't go in there!" the characters cannot hear us.

The characters are doomed by the narrative, but we remain on their side. We hope and pray and beg for them to avoid the path only we can see.

This is not how Tumblr generally responded to Nathan's S2 arc. Perhaps contrary to the writers' assumptions, Nathan didn't inspire the same reaction as the tragic white heroes from English class. Despite the writers' attempts to create a race-blind narrative (which @blackstaring has explained is impossible), audiences treated Nathan less like Hamlet and more like, well, a South Asian man living in a security state.

We Do Not Watch in a Vacuum

The fannish rhetoric around Nathan's villainy matched the rhetoric used by the US and UK to justify the War on Terror, surveillance, and persecution of Muslims and anyone who "looked Muslim." In the early 2000s, entire communities and whole countries were reframed as potential terrorists.

As a result, if the US and UK governments can frame you as having the potential to cause them harm, they can treat you as though you already have. They can spy on you, lock you up, take away your rights, entrap you. Having the potential to do harm has been collapsed with doing actual harm. Another tool for persecuting racialized communities.

Through the Patriot Act, the US government obtained unprecedented access to private records and warrantless searches. If the government decided someone was a terrorist, it could pull their library records and deduce guilt from what books they borrowed. In the detective fiction of yore, gathering evidence was a way to determine guilt. In the security state, presuming guilt became the pretext for gathering evidence. And that evidence could be massaged to fit the existing conclusion of guilt.

And it's not just the government. People in the US and UK are encouraged--and, in some cases, required by law--to inform on other people. "If you see something, say something." State-sanctioned suspicion fosters Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia. Civilians are empowered to act as law enforcement.

And that's how many fans treated Nathan in S2. People were digging through Nathan's past actions, combing through S1 like the NSA reading your browser history. People identified "red flags" to justify hating Nathan for something he hadn't yet done. Moments previously considered benign, endearing, or hilarious became warning signs.

This is a very long way of saying: Racism is why fans are so angry at Nathan. Racism is why he was assumed guilty before the end of S2. Racism is why an alarming number of fans saw a brown character and thought, "I better investigate."

It's not the fucking sign. It's racism.

And the script for "Big Week" was all about the fucking sign. Racism didn't get a word in edgewise. But it was there. It was so fucking there.

Ignoring All the Racist Shit the White Characters Do

There were so many opportunities where characters could have talked about race, but didn't.

Trent, like fans in S2, felt empowered to investigate Nathan. He took it upon himself to retrieve security footage based on a hunch. He thought a brown man did something bad--and he accessed existing surveillance to confirm his suspicions. Trent chalks this up to his past in journalism. Which checks out, because journalists were frighteningly complicit in the War on Terror and the rise of the security state.

That aspect of journalism Trent likes. The ethical commitment to not reveal one's sources? He's not so keen on that. At least, not when Nathan is the source. Not when Trent has the opportunity to deflect blame from himself. Not when he can report a brown man to a white authority figure. (If you see something, say something. Right, Trent?) In that case, Trent's just "someone who respects [Ted]."

Trent smirking at Nathan falling in the security footage underscored that Trent does not respect Nathan. He doesn't care if Nathan hurts himself in pursuit of an ideal Ted placed out of his reach. Trent thinks it's kinda funny.

I am waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to ask Trent, "Would you have revealed Nathan as a source if he were white? Out of all the anonymous sources you've had in your career, why was Nathan the one you chose to betray? What was so different about him? No, no, I don't want to hear about Ted and how good he is. This is about Nathan. You harmed them both, but this is about Nathan. Why Nathan? Why did you abandon your ethics the moment they applied to him? What is it about Nathan that makes him so unworthy of your protection? And now with the video. Why were you so happy to see him fall? There are vanishingly few managers of color in the Premier League. Why were you so happy to see him fall?"

I am waiting for Ted to ask Beard, "How'd you decide that Nathan was the one who leaked my story? I mean, you didn't have any evidence, right? And there are other people who know about my panic attacks. Why did you immediately assume it was Nathan? ... Beard, if he's been acting off, getting worse and worse, and you could see all that--why didn't you help him? If it was so obvious he was hurting, why didn't you do anything for him? You didn't have to fix everything but... It feels like, I don't know, his pain didn't matter until it hurt me. Why does my pain--my pasty, freckly white pain--matter more than Nathan's?"

I am waiting for Roy, Ted, Jamie, Rebecca, Keeley--any of the white heroes--to reckon with their canonical racist actions.

But that didn't happen in "Big Week." I am not optimistic it will ever happen. Because to acknowledge racism in this respect would tear at the threads of this racist ass fucking tapestry.

Which brings us to the sign.

Ted Leads a White Supremacist Cult on Company Time

The in-universe reverence for the sign is built on racism. The team treats the sign like a holy relic bestowed upon them by their White Savior Ted. Without the White Savior trope, the sign has no value. It's just a piece of paper with paint on it. But because Ted is this Messiah-like figure, it is imbued with supernatural value.

As @kutputli touches on in a reaction post to this episode, Ted intentionally crafts a "Christlike" persona. Ted casts himself as a martyr. Ted deciding which loads to share and which to bear alone is both an expression and a source of power. Ted's conspicuous acts of self-sacrifice are not altruistic. They are means to an end and identity: the White Savior. That cross Ted keeps nailing himself to is a seat of colonial power.

Ted has created a cult-like atmosphere at the club. He uses catchphrases, meaningless aphorisms, ceremonies, and the fucking sign to bind people together and BELIEVE. He made the team burn their most prized possession in a ritual sacrifice he invented. He lies about the natural world to support his message (goldfish memories are much longer than that!). He renamed one of his disciples. That's cult leader behavior.

Ted's cult trades on the White Savior ideology. This is a belief that white people are so superior that we can--and are destined to--save all people of color from themselves. What's more, white people don't need training or knowledge or experience or fluency in the lingua franca to do all this saving. No, no, no, we possess a special white people magic that lets us just do it.

This is why rich white people have pet charities. This is why white youths think they can save the world by volunteering over spring break. This is why Ted has the confidence to coach football. He's white; many of the players aren't: ergo, Ted has magical powers.

If Ted wasn't going around like, "I am the Lasso way," no one would care about the fucking sign.

Ted is the root of the anger and violence at the sign's destruction. The buck started with him. Ted's responsibility for creating a holy relic is not acknowledged in the episode.

Ted remains the innocent, but magical, martyr. Meanwhile, Moe, Isaac Richard, and Thierry get red cards. They are officially recognized for their inappropriate violence. (ETA: I am now learning that Richard, not Isaac got red carded. My apologies. And congrats to the writers room for not singling out three Black players for punishment. Your "I'm slightly more competent than one viewer assumed I was" award is in the mail.)

This is another spot where the fan-player parallel unravels.

Addressing the Audience

Black men are not responsible for the fannish vitriol aimed at Nathan. People subjugated by white supremacy (which is what Ted's White Savior cult does) are not the ringleaders of Nate Hate. This is very much a white led movement.

Such white fans have demonstrated a staunch refusal to empathize with, relate to, or recognize their shared humanity with Nathan. These are not the people who are gonna look at Moe, Isaac, and Thierry, and think, "Oh god, that's me." If the writers were trying to convince fans they were wrong, they could hardly have picked less effective audience surrogates.

(ETA: Richard as audience surrogate hasn't proven effective either. Fan reaction to Richard's violence has been particularly laudatory. It's telling that he is getting the "short Frenchman is an adorably insane feral kitten" treatment. If viewers are seeing themselves in Richard, it is not an image of accountability.)

And that raises the question: why use audience surrogates at all? Why not address the audience directly? The season premiere could have opened on Brett, Brendan, and Jason standing in front of a curtain, out of character. They could do a disclaimer like 90s teen shows did when they had a Very Special Episode. But instead of warning about drugs or alcohol, they could just say how wrong and racist the reaction to Nathan has been. They could take accountability for their role in writing Nathan so carelessly. They could make clear that the fan reaction was unacceptable. They could say that Nate Haters should just stop watching the show or at least shut the fuck up.

But they didn't. Because that wouldn't make good business sense, right? It might drive viewers away. Nate Haters are a core demo, after all.

So, instead, "Big Week" offers an indirect, incomplete, and inaccurate parable. Audiences can choose to interpret it however they wish. No one has to learn anything if they don't want to.

The episode doesn't just fail to rebuke viewers engaged in a racist fan movement. It fucking panders to them.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #nathan shelley #meta #this is very long i am sorry

[c0rpseductor]

like i do think yotsuyu got done dirty by the narrative. let's get this clear. the tsuyu shit to me was just really uncomfortable and ableist and weird and struck me above all as Yet Another Way To Deprive Yotsuyu Of Agency, which i think just further solidified the fandom view where the sadistic war crimes she orders just sort of happen around her like weather.

but people who say this so often say it in the sense that her being done dirty was her death, and that's where i feel like, "you fundamentally missed the point of yotsuyu." it is very sad that she was abused so horribly, that she was trafficked, that she hated the society she grew up in and harbored insatiable anger - that's all very very real and tragic and compelling. but the element of CHOICE is fucking key here. of all the choices she may have potentially made, she chose to become witch of doma. she chose to torture innocents. and in so doing, and then choosing not to turn back or repent at any point, she chose the end she met.

the tragedy is that she took her hard-won agency and used it to drive herself and her people into the ground, and it repaired nothing, and it solved nothing, and it was worth nothing. sure, she eventually got the catharsis of killing her parents and asahi, and i don't dispute that she deserves that for the pain they've caused her, but like. i think no matter how badly someone's circumstances lock them into a certain path or make things feel impossible or warp their thinking, like with sustained abuse, there is always a point where they're faced with important choices about whether or not to continue the cycle they've been stuck in. yotsuyu was blinded by pain and anger and chose to continue the cycle of violence, and in so doing dug her own grave. that was her choice. and it's sad that she made that choice, and that she had to claw and fight to reclaim enough agency to make it, but death did not simply Happen to her, any more than the horrible things she did simply Happened.

[norahastuff]

penny for your thoughts on salmondean codependency ?

Sure. Fair warning it’s long (was longer but I stopped myself.)

I think it’s complicated in a show that’s had so many different showrunners because they’ve all handled Sam and Dean’s relationship very differently. In Kripke’s era (s1-5) there was a romanticization of the bond. Sure there was a lot of in-depth exploration of how they wound up at the place they were at, spoiler alert: it was all because of John and his obsessive crusade to find the demon that killed his wife. That’s all he cared about and as a result, Sam and Dean had to be everything to each other. But Kripke had no intention of dismantling that at any point because he was (and always had been) writing a tragedy. Gamble continued that too. There was no room for anyone else in their lives and it would always just be the two of them against the world. So Cas had to go. Bobby had to go.

(Actually, it's funny because Gamble didn't intend this at the time, her plan was to kill Cas off, but by Edlund creating the masterpiece that is The Man Who Would Be King, he not only saved Cas from being seen as a villain, but he also deepened Dean and Cas' relationship in such a profound way and inextricably linked the two of them emotionally. And since Cas was eventually brought back, that laid the foundation for a lot of what their relationship would become.)

Up until this point, there hadn’t really been any significant dismantling of perhaps the more unhealthy parts of Sam and Dean’s relationship. Enter Carver. He stripped things down and started to explore what drove these characters. What they wanted and why they couldn’t have it. It starts with Dean being mad at Sam for not looking for him in purgatory, which sets up the whole speech in the s8 finale of Sam’s guilt about letting Dean down, but the thing is, Dean was never honest with Sam about his year away either. He never told Sam he could have gotten out much sooner if he hadn’t stayed to find Cas. I mean Dean had assumed Sam was up there alone doing God knows what to try to bring him back, and yet still he stayed in Purgatory because things were clear there. He needed Cas. Anyway, I just find that interesting, but Cas isn’t a victim of Sam and Dean’s relationship in s8.

Who gets the honour of being cast aside? That would be Benny and Amelia, two characters they introduced in s8 specifically to highlight that Sam and Dean’s relationship doesn’t allow for anyone else to be a significant part of their life. I mean that’s nothing new, we’ve watched that happen many times before. Lisa even said as much to Dean. The thing is this time? It’s framed as a truly sad thing. That moment at the end of 8x10 when Dean has just ended things with Benny and Sam leaves Amelia, and they’re sitting alone drinking beer and watching tv is such a hollow empty moment. This is not what they want. But it’s the way things have to be.

I’m actually fascinated by Sam and Dean’s conversation in the church in the s8 finale. Not so much Dean’s assertion that there is no one else he would put before Sam, but more so what provokes it, which is Sam saying “who are you going to turn to instead of me. Another angel? Another vampire?” See the thing is Dean saying he would always put Sam first is not news. We know this and it’s not really an unhealthy statement in itself either. A lot of people would put their sibling above anything else, not less a sibling who you raised and is the most important person to you. But in this context? After what Sam said? It just highlights how unhealthy they are if Sam believes that Dean having other people in his life means he doesn’t love him enough. That he’s a disappointment to him. That’s so profoundly fucked up.

(Note, Dean tells Sam that he killed Benny for him but he doesn’t say anything about Cas. I think like I said before, this is because Cas and Dean’s relationship has largely existed out of the Sam and Dean stuff up to this point - Sam and Cas don’t even really have much of a relationship yet besides both of their connections to Dean.)

And then from here, things start getting steadily worse. But we also keep being shown how bad they are. Dean lying to Sam, taking away his free will by letting Gadreel possess him. Dean sending Cas away, Kevin dying. It’s all awful. The whole “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you line” from 9x01 isn’t really said by Dean, it’s Gadreel, but that is how Dean feels. He does think that’s all he’s good for. And over the season we’re shown how much of himself and what he truly wants he’s had to give up because of his ingrained “Save Sammy” and “Sammy comes first” mentality. It’s always been this way for him. In 9x07 we see that he had found a happy home, a good father figure, and his first love, a first love might I add that he had to leave behind with no real explanation because Sam needed him, and Sam comes first.

I mean just one episode earlier we had him rushing out the door elated about seeing Cas and spending time with him, only for their time together to come to sad and melancholic end when Dean once again leaves Cas behind without any real explanation, because despite what he wants Sammy comes first. What he wants doesn’t matter.

See I think after the Gadreel stuff comes out is where the narrative starts to get a little wonky for me. You can clearly see that this was intended to be a shorter story that they ended up stretching out to a much longer one because of renewals. There’s also the fact that this is a formula show so they can’t necessarily be separated for longer than an episode or two. S10 is a rough one to get through at times, I think the themes still mostly hold up but it’s a rough one to get through.

S10 highlights all the connections that Dean has, Cas, Charlie, Crowley even, but Sam doesn’t really have those bonds in the same way.  For Sam it’s just Dean, so he goes down a reckless destructive “do anything to save Dean!” path and so many innocents pay the price, and ultimately with the release of The Darkness, the whole world.

They skirted right up to the edge of exploring just how toxic and dangerous their relationship had become in the season 10 finale.

DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A..a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.

I can’t say evil is the right word, they were never evil, but they were wilfully blind to everything and everyone else when it came to saving each other. S10 tested my love for the show because after watching it, because there was certainly a feeling that the two of them had become the villains of this story. And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with that, it’s just after 2 seasons of this I can’t say I had a lot of faith that this was going to be properly addressed or if we were going to keep going in circles around it. Keep being shown, it’s bad and then nothing much being done to fix it. Your mileage may vary on how it was handled, but I think s11 did a relatively ok job considering it wasn’t the end of the story, and the show needed to keep going.

See from Dean’s side a lot of the codependency rests on 1. His father’s orders to always save Sammy 2. His low self-esteem where he sees himself as nothing but a blunt instrument. 3. His guilt at not being able to perfectly fulfil every familial role in Sam’s life 4. His belief that no one could choose to love him but family has to love you. 5. The unhealthy example of what it should look like to love someone that he got from John. You give up everything but them.

For Sam (and honestly it’s not as clear for me as Dean’s side is so feel free to correct me/disagree on this) 1. Everytime he’s tried to leave and create his own life it’s never ended well. 2. His guilt over wanting freedom and a normal life when he was younger (I’m referring specifically to Stanford era here) 3. His guilt over everything Dean has given up for him. 4. John. 5. Jess.

Ultimately it all comes down to isolation. They both had to be everything to each other, and the deeper they got into this fight, the more people that they lost, the tighter they clung to this notion of family and brothers. I think s11 (and 11x23 in particular) was an important turning point, both for Sam and Dean’s relationship, as well as for them as individuals. Because they weren’t alone there anymore. Cas was there. Sam let Dean walk to his death. Of course, it would devastate him, but he knew it was what had to be done. And he didn’t walk out of that bar and go back to the bunker alone. He had Cas, he had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him and talk to him. Sure Dean asked Cas to take care of Sam for him (you know after Cas offered to walk to his death with him) but Sam let him. He let him be there for him. We didn’t get to see much before the BMOL showed up and blasted Cas away, but still, we saw enough.

I think that’s a significant difference to note why their relationship was different in the Dabb era. It wasn’t just them anymore. Cas was an important member of their family and given a level of importance he’d never been given before and couldn’t have been when the story they were telling was of the dangers of their codependency. Mary was back. Eventually, Jack would become a part of their unit too. Just the two of them wasn’t enough for them anymore. This is made abundantly clear with all of Dean’s desperate attempts to get Cas to stay in s12, followed by his inability to keep going when they lose Cas and Mary in s13. Similarly, Sam really struggles when they lose Jack and fail to get Mary back later in the season.

Another big moment is Dean letting Sam go alone to lead the hunters against the BMOL in 12x22 while he stays back to try and reach Mary. Like he tells Mary, he’s had to be a brother, a father and a mother to Sam and he never stopped seeing him as his kid, but in that moment he makes a choice. He lets Sam take charge and he shows that he trusts him and believes in him. He knows he can handle it.

Sometimes it’s not even a character growth thing. Sometimes having other people there stops you from making destructive choices even though that’s still your first instinct. I’m thinking specifically of 13x21 after Sam was killed. Dean would have run headlong into that nest of vampires and got himself torn apart, but Cas was there to stop him. He was able to make him see reason.

Basically, I think that for a long time, they thought the only relationship they could have was each other, which then became a self-fulfilling prophecy because their desperate attempts to keep each other around led to them losing the people around them. They eventually started to learn that that wasn’t true, they could have more, they were allowed to want more, and that it wasn’t an either-or situation. Dean didn’t have to choose between Sam and Cas. They didn’t have to choose between each other or Jack. The same goes for Mary. Different relationships can coexist without threatening each other, and not say that their relationship in s12-15 was all smooth sailing, but it was certainly so very different from everything that came before.

(There’s maybe a point to be made about how they didn’t have anyone or anything in the finale and how that relates to the story we got, but honestly I have no idea what the intention was with any of the choices made in that episode so I’ll leave it at that for now.)

#asks #winchester brothers #my spn thoughts #long post for ts #Anonymous #spn meta

[mittensmorgul]

Mittens, I know that some people are rejoicing over Castiel's vision in 12x19, but personally, I started crying when I realized that Cas gave up so much for love and faith in his family, and got teased with that vision of the future - a paradise he wanted for them, for himself - but never approximated that in the end. It's just so heartbreaking and I feel like I'm mourning him all over again and it just really sucks. Idk.

Hi hi!

The vision also hurts my heart, deeply, but maybe for slightly different reasons...

I have been suffering throughout the last few seasons over Cas's overall arc, and this vision, in that moment in 12.19, when Cas was literally (in text! from Dean's mouth!) desperate for a win, is just excruciating to me. And I'll tell you why.

in the mixtape scene, this was Cas's lament to Dean. He wanted to come back with a win FOR DEAN, and FOR HIMSELF. He wanted Dean to think of him as the "hero" or the "savior."

I will pause to ask here: since when has Dean ever wanted that? Ever since Cas gripped him tight and saved him from Hell, Cas has struggled to step out from that role of Protector. Shield.

This was the Big Mistake he made in s6, right? Everything that went wrong was framed around the fact that he was trying to "protect" Dean. This is why he bought into Crowley's plan, why he left Dean in the dark even after he got dragged back into the fight, and why everything ultimately ended with Cas's literal death. Like... the narrative judged him. In 6.20, all he was left with was Dean's disappointment, and a drive to prove that he was actually right (he was not actually right...).

Even in 12.19, he was "playing them" all along. He came back under the pretense of wanting to "rejoin the team" and work together with Sam and Dean again, but really he was only there to steal the Colt on behalf of Heaven. Cas was prepared to do whatever it took to keep Sam and Dean safe from Dagon, but also "safe" from having to kill an innocent woman to prevent the birth of the nephilim she carried.

Like in s6, Cas was desperate for that win. He was desperate to "earn" his place with the Winchesters, the family he chose. He even told Kelvin before they went in to confront Dagon that he wasn't doing this to redeem his "reputation" in Heaven, he only cared about "redeeming his reputation" with DEAN.

He has no idea that Dean does not give one flying fig about Cas's ability to "protect him," he just wants Cas to Be There With Him.

And later on, this is literally the lesson Cas attempts to impart to Jack. When Jack laments the loss of his power, and believes himself "useless," It's CAS who most effectively talks to him about the fact that nobody cares about his powers, that they don't care about what he can do FOR them. They just care about HIM. Like... even in 15.18. This is the conversation he has with Jack by the Impala while Sam and Dean are talking to Charlie:

Jack: I feel... strange. I don't know if that's because of what happened to me, if it means something, or if I just feel strange because... it's over. The plan. My destiny. I was ready to die and, I wanted to, for Sam, for Dean, for the world. I wanted to make things right, and now... I don't know why I'm even here.

Castiel: Jack. You never needed absolution from Sam, or Dean, or from me. We don't care about you because you're useful or you fit into some grand design. We care about you because you're you.

So like... for YEARS I've felt like this was what Dean needed to actually say TO CAS. That he doesn't want Cas to try to protect him. He doesn't need Cas to be his shield. He doesn't need Cas to be "powerful" or his savior. He just needs Cas.

So this vision... this "manipulation" that Jack showed Cas in that very moment in 12.19, that Cas believed was "paradise" at the time, was what Cas needed to hear in that moment. That he could be "powerful," with his wings healed and made "useful" again.

Dean thanking him.

Not Dean being happy that they're all safe, that they managed to finally "get a win," but specifically thanking HIM for actually winning.

He wanted to believe he could be useful again.

And to me that was a tragic, depressing lesson that he still never managed to understand for himself by the end of the series.

If Dean ever knew what the vision Cas had considered "paradise" in that moment of betrayal of his loved ones, I personally think Dean would've been horrified. I mean, he didn't even KNOW what the vision entailed, and was pre-horrified by his personal belief about how Cas had been manipulated into running away and leaving them all in the dark immediately after they'd all just gotten back on the same page again and recommitted to working together again.

So like... This is still DEEPLY in Cas's disturbing mindset of being 100% ready to sacrifice himself to "spare" Sam and especially Dean from having to do the hard things. This was nearly an identical mindset to when he'd said yes to Lucifer in the Cage in s11 because he believed he could spare Sam from having to do that himself. Like... he truly believed he was making Good Choices in these instances, and it ended up both times causing problems he'd never even considered. S11 had Lucifer using him and nearly killing Sam and Dean, and then going on a rampage that would last multiple seasons more which directly led to Jack in the first place. And then in the attempt to bring about Jack's birth, Cas cut off all communication with the Winchesters (theoretically to protect them) and therefore they had no way to warn him that Lucifer was still on the loose and closing in on reclaiming Jack himself. It literally ended up costing them Mary (pulled through the rift with Lucifer), Crowley sacrificed himself to stop it, and Lucifer killed Cas, all because Cas ran away and tried to fix everything on his own. He desperately wanted to be the winner, here.

So to me, I can't see him getting his wings back and being truly powerful and being "Dean's savior" and him basically thinking that Dean's acknowledgement of that salvation and Dean's gratitude was his idea of "paradise?" Yeah... it turns my stomach.

Dean... would hate it.

Dean's idea of paradise... is actual free will. Of them CHOOSING EACH OTHER, choosing family and standing shoulder to shoulder as a united front against the threats that come their way, instead of yet again making the same mistake of believing that they're sacrificing themselves to spare their loved ones from having to stand up and fight at all.

It NEVER works out that way. Never has. Never would.

I mean, this is why Cas made the deal with the Empty, trading away his own happiness for Jack, believing that Dean's happiness was in having JACK in the family. The tragic blind spot was his inability to see that Dean's happiness ALSO INVOLVED HAVING CAS THERE.

And the ultimate tragedy is that Dean never got a chance to actually say that to Cas.

Because if Cas had actually known that, he would never have made the choices he did.

Which is another reason I absolutely can't credit the end of 15.19 and Jack NOT bringing Cas back, knowing that he'd done it once before, and knowing WHY Cas sacrificed himself. Jack knew the conditions of Cas's deal, and I cannot believe that any version of JACK would have allowed that sacrifice to stand for HIM. Because it was the antithesis of everything Cas himself had ever taught to Jack.

Heck... I hope that makes sense...

basically, this should've been a jumping off point for Cas to ACTUALLY understand he was just as wanted, just as needed, just as cared for, and yes even LOVED, for who he was, and not the sacrifices he could make to protect Dean (and Sam, and Jack... but ultimately for Dean).

The fact he KNEW the moment he made that deal with the Empty that the knowledge of the details of that deal would be a "burden" to Dean, that it would be upsetting to Dean to know that Cas had literally traded away his own potential for true happiness because he thought that would be what Dean would prefer... he KNEW Dean would be upset about that. He knew Dean would NOT have wanted that, and swore Jack to secrecy about it. Like... he knew he had done the wrong thing here, or he wouldn't have hidden it from Dean.

So I have a really hard time thinking of this vision of Paradise (which is already a loaded word in itself in canon, and was literally what Dean spat out as an angry insult at Cas in 4.22 before his first true "tearing up the pages" and making it up as they go moment) as anything but a glaring warning sign.

And then oh look, Cas was literally killed for it four episodes later.

Then when he came back, he went right back to believing in his "purpose," wondering WHY he was brought back. Dean's "we needed you" wasn't really clear enough for Cas to understand that they didn't need him to "protect" them or to be "useful" to them. Dean just NEEDED him. Full stop.

It's a tragedy, folks.

#spn 12.19 #spn 12.23 #spn 11.10 #spn 14.08 #castiel winchester #heck it hurts so much he never actually got the chance to understand the lessons he taught to jack #and that once jack took on the god power apparently he forgot all those lessons too.... #basically chuck won right? right #spn 15.18

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapters 269-270.  The cliff notes meta edition.

This will be a less detailed meta as I’ve just been spread too thin recently and the current events of the manga have been underwhelming to me, making it harder to engage with the content.

Having an online presence has been a double-edged sword for me and as we mark 1 year of pandemic life, it is hard for me to invest as much time in it since I have to do so many more things online for work.  Sitting down to write meta isn’t as fun and relaxing as it once was when you have 7 zoom meetings over the course of several days. Add on the fact that I have not left the county were I live since February 2020 nor I have a seen any of my family or friends . . . yeah writing meta isn’t a much of a priority.  As an aside, I think more people need to be stating that being ‘productive’ and ‘leveling up’ during these times is either unrealistic and even more damaging by creating completely unrealistic expectations of how we should respond to things.

[steps off of soapbox]

Chapter 269, quickly shows us how the chaos that Tsurumi unleashed on the divided Ainu resulted in a tragedy and Wilk is the only one who managed to survive the massacre.

Tsurumi is able to sort out that there were eight Ainu, and that Wilk staged his own death by working quickly to conceal the identity of the dead partially by removing the eyes. 

Kikuta is the first one to find the man who dies soon after discovery and Tsurumi seems to be in awe of Wilk’s escape plan.

KIkuta also shows he’s a more empathetic individual worried about how they contributed to the death of Ariko’s father.  Did Tsurumi push Kikuta away after the war since he knew Kikuta would feel bad about doing the ‘things’ needed to be done for the gold?

It further highlights that Usami and Kikuta were never on the same page.  I do like how the following page shows both Kikuta and Ariko continuing to tie the narrative that Kikuta feels a connection with the younger man.  Shiraishi and Sugimoto spot Ariko, calling him Ariko Ipopte, which is an interesting choice to use a hybrid name for him.  Kikuta uses his full Japanese name, while these men use a mix.

The final panel showing a reflective looking Kikuta walking alone in the rain really emotional connects with the grief surrounding all of this unnecessary death.  Tsurumi sought to be a leader of men by giving them love and being the stand in father for them.  I think that Kikuta is the character who is the natural and honest father figure - we know he has a deep relationship with Ariko and we also know he has some sort of connection to Sugimoto.

Tsurumi continues his ‘discussion’ of events with Asirpa and Sofia.  Tsurumi has such a complicated relationship with Wilk.  He’s both in awe of the man’s determination to survive but at the same time he wanted him destroyed at such a great cost.

Tsurumi really lays on the guilt to Asirpa that Wilk did everything to protect her - under the assumption that she’d be unfairly treated if her father had killed all of those men.  Perhaps that is the case, perhaps not.  It seems contradictory to his own actions where he gave Ogin and the Lighting Bandit’s child to Huci to care for it.  He has this weird approach to the impact of the ‘sins of the parents’ on the child  . . .

Tsurumi doggedly pursues Wilk and they immediately recognize each other and he flees onto the lake with his canoe.  By shooting at Wilk, he forces him to capsize the canoe and items sink down into the lake.  Honestly, I’m not sure what Tsurumi was hoping to achieve by this - make him swim so that he could capture him more easily.  We don’t know how skilled Tsurumi is with a rifle and I’d be more concerned about killing Wilk and loosing the information.  It seems reckless in my opinion since the ultimate outcome was Wilk appealing to Inudou thus achieving protection from the 7th.

I think Tsurumi was fueled and blinded by his emotions which only made things more complicated and drew the hunt for the gold out even longer (to the present time).

The rest of the chapter explains how Kiro felt.  First, the grief at the loss of Wilk, trying to move on my having a family, but ultimately coming back to realize that Wilk was still alive after the war.  Really, Wilk underestimated Kiro’s intelligence since he figured out that Kimuspu was the seventh man, not Wilk.  As a Kiro fan, I of course favor him, but he really showed he’s a good leader and actually willing to take risks.  What is most important is that having a family only lead him to want to fight for them - even more.

Kiro sees the flaw in Wilk’s plan of Hokkaido as an independent unit as a place for various native peoples, while ignoring all of the logistical issues that Kiro already pointed out to him previously.  The Far Eastern Federation has the flaw that it is connected by land to Russia, but would me much harder to lay siege to.  But Hokkaido as an island could easily be cut off - and with not much industry within itself, you still can’t do a whole lot with all of those raw materials if you can get industrial technologies from elsewhere.  If it were blockaded they’d be screwed.  Sure, you wouldn’t starve, but you wouldn’t be able to advance quickly.  All that gold and nowhere to spend it.

Thus, Kiro believed he was acting in regard to their original goals and had no choice but to remove Wilk from the equation.  As Wilk had become the very wolf that he had observed as a child and played with its pelt.  That is some next level foreshadowing by Noda, if I do say so.

In the end, Kiro remained much more committed to their fight as partisans than Wilk did.  You have to give it to him, he stuck to his original plans and he died believing he did the right thing.  Now, looking back at how upset Sofia was when she first saw Kiro, we know why she slapped him in the first place.  I’ll take it to mean that she was upset by Kiro’s actions but at the same time understood what he did.  But then Sofia let it go, as she would soon go on to also speak fondly of Wilk and his desire to be like the wolves.  Therefore, I don’t think Sofia was completely angry with Kiro, instead she knew the decision that was made and perhaps, she too, would have understood that there were divided in their goals once they moved on with their lives.

The next chapter starts off with the bottle mobile boys and Ariko on horseback as they determine what to do next.  Sugimoto is amazingly still not rushing in like a maniac which is out of character for him.  Are you okay Sugimoto?  Or have your encounters with Kikuta and Boutarou begun to have an impact on you without being aware of it?

The settle on letting Ariko go ahead, even though he doesn’t answer their question.  I’d say he doesn’t have a clue what side he is on.  He likely cares about Kikuta.  But he wants to see Asirpa succeed since he feels ashamed by his own approach towards life in Hokkaido as an Ainu.

Off he goes alone to figure out how to rescue Asirpa.  Really, a terrible idea since sure he’s a tough guy, but we don’t know what his fighting skills are like in the first place. . . . At least he isn’t a hothead, so sending him in alone will be less of a disaster than Sugimoto.

The action returns to Tsurumi trying to turn up the heat on Asirpa.  She asks him about Kiro’s fingerprints at the crime scene - a lie that Tsurumi fed to Inkarmat to get her to help him.  He writes it off as him doing a good thing for her - she closed a chapter of her life - then again - he doesn’t know that Koito let Tanigaki and Inkarmat escape.  The next several pages are a slow psychological technique that builds up to Tsurumi reveling that the bullet that killed Fina and Olga had been from Wilk’s pistol.  Dum da duuum!

So, according to Tsurumi it is Wilk’s fault all those Ainu died.  That he should have never left Russia for Japan.  That even his time in Russia resulted in Fina and Olga’s deaths.  Everything is Wilk’s fault!

This page ends with how Tsukishima let go of the woman he had loved and his memory of her - yet Tsurumi kept the bullet and the finger bones of his family!  We can see that Tsukishima is barely holding it together, so upset by this knowledge!

As a master manipulator of people, Tsurumi thanks Sofia for what she has contributed to the story - he can help her feel better by telling her that she did not kill his wife and child. . . .  on no, he only uses it as a way to add even more pressure on Asirpa!

To Tsurumi, Asirpa is no child, she is the direct tie to all of his anger and pain and his twisted soul.  

I mean, he kept Wilk’s skinned face and he’s using it to get her to break! What is more interesting is after the initial shock, Sofia quickly regains her calm while Asirpa - well she’s clearly buying into Tsurumi’s explanation of things.

She is thinking about how her father ‘turned’ Tsurumi into the person he is before her . . . . I’d be willing to say that Wilk influenced Tsurumi - as much as Tsurumi influenced Wilk.  Yet, Tsurumi as a human being is responsible for his decisions and he alone can respond to them in a constructive or destructive way.  It is clear Tsurumi went for the latter.

Sofia’s calm in this pressure situation is clear as she asks him if it was for revenge.  She’s a smart woman and has lived long enough to see these types of things through.

Tsukishima is ready to kill Tsurumi - it would make him a hypocritical leader - having him let go of his own earthly attachments only to serve a man bent on revenge.  Koito is listening closely as well, unsure of how he’s going to respond.

Tsurumi makes it clear he could have killed Asirpa any number of times.  I think this is another case of Tsurumi playing a verbal slight of hand.  He’s asked if he’s doing this out of revenge, and his answer is - I haven’t killed her yet.  Gee, based on how messed up you are Tsurumi, we both know that there is more than one way to take revenge. Killing someone in retribution is one way to take revenge or the worse way - make their life a living hell.  It is clear that Tsurumi is going for the second one to break Asirpa.

There is a dramatic two page spread as he explains that he is doing this for Japan - and the implied increasing militaristic activities of the late Meiji government to expand their domain.

If feels - like a performance to me as a reader.  The pages are remarkably light in tone giving it an optimistic and feeling of purity.  Yet, Tsurumi is a broken and corrupt man . . . cruel in his intentions.  He only says this as a way to combat anyone who were to contradict him . . . .

It is too perfect - too convenient - too good for Koito and Tsukishima to believe in my own opinion. As both of the men seem relived to have heard these very words as a type of closing statement.

Tsukishima looks relived that Tsurumi is continuing on the behalf of all of their fallen comrades and families.  Again, this sounds too perfect like Tsurumi’s speech isn’t for Asirpa nor Sofia, it is for Koito and Tsukishima who are eavesdropping.  Since Tsurumi is a next level planner/manipulator he likely came up with this well rehearsed speech to placate all issues around his inability to move on from his family’s death.  It makes him look mature and that he’d moved on from his more basic human needs.

Koito looks like he’s trying really hard to believe Tsurumi and how Tsurumi’s words would comfort Tsukishima.  But is that how you really feel Koito?  That face looks - so - fake.  Like Koito is overdoing it again and is actually unsure how to react.  So, he he looks elated, Tsukishima will feel better - or something.

What I really want to know is why they are just there hiding and watching Tsurumi?  If they are wanting to think independently and beyond Tsurumi why do it while hiding?  It seems no matter what either man may think, they are still under Tsurumi’s thumb as far as how they react to his behavior and the current events.

And I’m gonna have to hold things here while I find a way to read the  more recent chapters with non-shady software to decompress the files since I’ve been using Mangadex the entire time I’ve been reading GK (in addition to the english versions of previous chapters).

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #asirpa #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #kiroranke #tsurumi tokushirou #sofia #wilk #sugimoto saichi #Shiraishi Yoshitake #warrant officer kikuta #ariko rikimatsu

[bladekindeyewear]

Okay so, I have no idea who Aesma is. What does "Turning Vriska into Homestuck's Aesma" mean in this context?

I really don’t want to get into it much, as Kill Six Billion Demons is truly incredible from top to bottom so far and I think it’s more fun to go in blind.  Ideally, ignore everything I have to say and go read it some time.  (Be sure to read the text posts under every so-odd page, the sometimes-present hover-over alt-text too, et cetera.)  Like, don’t even read this post, even though it isn’t really a spoiler.

However, to sum it up if you want it.....

In the mythological pantheon outlined in K6BD, Aesma is the mother of chaos and quite seemingly the embodiment of the Id.  In stories of her exploits with titles like “Aesma and the Three Masters (and the lessons she never learned)”, Aesma is depicted as the epitome of willful selfishness and ignorant wickedness, a committer of atrocities both intentional and inadvertent -- and is also the most beloved of the Creator’s children by said Creator, not just for stripping bare the hubris of others, even the Divine, but for embodying the selfish drive of Life that distinguishes (and in this Creator’s view, should rightly distinguish) the living from nothingness.  She is selfish to the point of stupidity, egotistical in a way that is constantly self-defeating, and yet a paradoxically shining example of an attitude one must embrace in some respect to truly strive in life -- and an example none that live should believe themselves above.  Even the angels begin their prayers with her name in deference, though not exactly entirely admiringly.

You COULD say that some of the writers of Homestuck^2 love Vriska a bit more than the average fan, to say the least, and a little more than Andrew did.  And you could both judge from the story’s current contents and expect from the known views of said writers that they are PERHAPS more likely to focus on how awesome she is than the pain and suffering her continued refusal to learn anything will keep bringing down on everyone.  Showing her toxic flaws off, sure, but at the same time (in some crucial ways) having the narrative almost “forgive” them because she gets results. NOT that they've quite done so YET, not entirely! But they might.

That possibility worries me.

As far as Vriska went, the pre-Epilogue ending of Homestuck was pretty perfect for the story’s themes:  Vriska DID get to save the day, glory-hogging and fighting Lord English in the way she THOUGHT she wanted... but in the process was denied the Ultimate Reward, was in fact rendered irrelevant in the ways that ACTUALLY mattered and was left excluded from the happiness promised to those who decided that creating the next world and living in it mattered more to them than cosmic victory.  She chose relevance over everything else, and Paradox Space cursed her by granting her wish. (Never learning her lesson... and paying dearly for it, in ways she doesn't even realize.)

The Epilogues undermine her further.  They show that she was barely a cog in the machine that resulted in Lord English’s defeat.  They give her a second POTENTIAL chance at eventual happiness, but do so by “banishing her to irrelevance” and thrusting her into the “non-canon” storyline.  It was revealed recently in HS^2 that the history books of the Candy timeline didn’t even really give her actions any credit.

So... pretty much the worst thing I could imagine Homestuck^2 doing -- and I COULD imagine it doing this, unfortunately -- is taking this nigh-unrepentant abuser who has barely regretted her actions and torn the souls and potential out of characters like Tavros who were doomed never to recover from it, and “correcting” this ending a bit.  To have her potentially ruin an ENTIRE POST-VICTORY EARTH with another meteor apocalypse (or try to), to continue her same selfish attitude portrayed in FURTHER “heroic” light, and then have the narrative ITSELF imply that everyone should be thanking her in the end????

There are some good lessons to learn from Vriska’s better qualities.  However, K6BD’s mythological stories of Aesma treat her depiction VERY carefully, or I guess I should say heavy-handedly -- leaving NO illusions or ambiguity about the evil of her actions, the caustic ignorance inherent in the lessons she refuses to learn, turning a selfish perpetual-child into an almost-pitiable one that ultimately DOES “lose”... even as the story cautions everyone not to pity her, as to think oneself too much “better” than her is a grave and arrogant error.  That deliberate, clear nuance would be LOST if the same reverent narrative treatment were ultimately given to Vriska.  Homestuck^2 would become a vehicle to forgive her abuse, her choice of ignorance, as something that can be ultimately padded over or mulliganed at the last minute.  The stories of Aesma carefully depict her to show that if she had learned ANY lesson -- ANY at all in the multiple opportunities given to her throughout her storied life -- she could have been not just the Creator’s most beloved, but truly the greatest in every respect WE value.  And the tragedy that she does not is both unforgivable / deserving of mockery, AND a cautionary, frank depiction of Humanity itself as sharing that same blind failing.

Homestuck is another work that constantly tries to show the value in people who are flawed -- even dangerous.  (Unsurprising that they’d share this, given how K6BD began as an adventure on the MSPA Forums.)  Trying to blindly do the SAME to Vriska as Aesma, though, to finally end the story of the Homestuck series as one that gives her her “due credit”, risks communicating an awful lesson that her crimes were “worth it” despite trampling over the will of almost everyone else who exists, both inside and outside canon.  If it’s not done VERY, VERY CAREFULLY.

I hope they avoid this route altogether, and instead -- since it’s unlikely she’ll purely “die” achieving relevance at the cost of happiness again -- have her finally accept SOME degree of mediocrity in a way that actually learns her a fucking lesson for once, and doesn’t just let Vriska shut her sins into the closet and lean casually on the door, after a brief show of considering contrition or a disproportionately-small sob that her victims’ roiling, broken ghosts would roll their eyes at.

#Kill Six Billion Demons #Homestuck #Homestuck^2 #KSBD #Vriska #Aesma #K6BD #ksbd spoilers #k6bd spoilers

[arabhamlet]

why you should read the heartless divine

hello guys! i haven’t used tumblr in a while, so i hope i tag this correctly, but i really needed to write this post to promote a book i think many, many people will enjoy reading for a number of reasons, and i figured i should give it a shot.

the heartless divine is varsha ravi’s debut novel, self-published last november through amazon. it is a ya fantasy romance inspired by mythology and sangam era india, and you can purchase it as an ebook or as a physical copy on amazon.

i 100% recommend it to anyone who enjoys mythology, reincarnation/soulmates, tragic but tender star-crossed romance (and not in a generic ya way either), or just anything with complex plot, character, and relationships—which, i realize, basically means everyone, but in my defence it is really good and worth a read no matter who you are.

what’s it about?

the heartless divine follows two paralleling narratives. the first is set in the distant past, and follows suri, a princess forced into being an assassin by her warlike family, as she is betrothed to the boy king of a neighbouring land after being assigned the task to kill him once the wedding is complete, only to find her plans going off-kilter when she encounters kiran, a strange prophet who predicts his own incoming death and the catastrophe soon to occur. the second is set in modern-day, and follows a reincarnated suri, with no memories of her past life, who finds her life inexplicably tied to a changed kiran, who she does not remember but who remembers her.

the plot is a bit more complex than this, and this is really just a quick summary, but more than that it’s a story about humans and our relationships to each other, to mortality, and to fate.

i highly recommend it - it can be a little slow to start off with, but once the historical plot starts going i found it pretty much impossible to put down. even though it’s been a few months since i read it, i find myself going back to it pretty much constantly. it’s fantastic both as a ya novel to read for fun, and as something far more complex with so many themes, characters, and dynamics to unpack.

but if you need a bit more encouragement:

why should i read it?

as i mentioned, the plot is incredibly engaging. unlike a lot of ya, as well, the heartless divine is super character-based and has incredibly strong characters in its protagonists. the past storyline also has a running mystery - and the reveal at the end as to who is the real villain definitely caught me off-guard on my first read. the past storyline is also deeply tragic in many ways, hitting you emotionally to great effect, and the climax is absolutely one of the most impactful climaxes of any ya book i’ve ever read—i’m making an effort not to spoil anything while writing this, because the pure emotional punch of the climax should be read completely blind.

ravi’s writing is absolutely gorgeous. she has an incredible command over the written word and wrote some incredibly amazing prose in this book. her writing is at once poetic and also incredibly versatile, fitting into beautiful romantic declarations and sharp dialogue and tense scenes of conflict. i won’t include any massive chunks, but here are some of my favourite lines:

Where does the divinity go, then? he had asked her. She had shrugged. To the sky. That is where all divinity goes after it is dead. But the sky was too far away, and there was not enough left of him, divine or not, to guarantee safe passage on a trip so long.

She had always been afraid of hope, in the same way she figured most people were afraid of black holes. Desire was something that consumed, she knew, and to desire impossibility was to let it consume you entirely. hearts splintered with love and splintered with loss, and to fear one was to fear both—it was safer to resist them both, to draw thick, black demarcations in shining permanent marker, explicit, clear lines that gently reminded her of what could and could not be desired.

“You live as though you are already dead,” she whispered. each word sunk into him, cut through his heart with clean, sharp blades. “You live as though your life is nothing but a prerequisite for death, for true purpose. Have you ever fought to stay alive? Have you ever allowed yourself to think of life as something to love?”

They had the same fine boned face, hollow-cheeked and haunted, the same air of a saint that had burnt away to nothing and held the ashes himself. And yet, they were not the same. It was a twisted, imperfect projection—it was him, but not all of him. This was his savage divinity laid bare.

What were love stories but dreams of worlds where the sun and moon could linger beside one another long enough to learn the language of the other’s heart?

ravi also has an incredible grasp on the themes that she’s writing with. above all, the heartless divine is about humanity and what makes people human—our relationships with each other and with our own place in the world. and in my opinion, she expresses these ideas with great maturity and wisdom.

however, for the most part, the heartless divine’s greatest strength is its characters. kiran is a deeply complex character, a prophet caught between his duty to die as a martyr and his desire to make his own choices and follow what he truly loves. he has a complicated relationship to humanity, but no human more than himself, as he struggles to understand the parameters of his own humanity—the place where his mortality ends and his divinity begins. at first, the kiran of the past and the kiran of the present seem deeply separated from each other, but as the story progresses you begin to understand the tragedy of how kiran became who he is in the modern-day.

at first, suri seems like a typical ya female protagonist, but as the story progresses and she begins to let her guard down a bit more, you really start to see how interesting and complicated she is as a character. she doesn’t believe in gods or fate at the beginning of either storyline, but by the end she slowly starts to accept hope into her heart—ending in two very different ways—and advocates for ignoring fate and following the life you want, desperately searching for the happy ending that you deserve. she also has a deeply captivating character voice, and was, certainly at the beginning, my favourite of the three pov characters.

but my personal favourite character is viro, the primary antagonist of the past plotline (though—no major spoilers—he finally makes an appearance in the modern plotline very close to the end). most people i know who have read the heartless divine feel similarly about viro. ravi makes him a deeply compelling character, fleshing out his motivations and reasoning and in turn writing one of my favourite relationships in the book in his complex brotherly relationship with kiran. i don’t want to spoil much about him, but he is a really interesting character and, though technically the antagonist, is just as compelling as the protagonists.

on the same note, before i talk about the romance in the book, i have to mention viro and kiran’s dynamic, as i feel it drives the past plot in many ways and is deeply interesting. the two are adoptive brothers, and find themselves butting heads almost constantly over their different ideological stances; and though it’s clear they love each other, soon enough you start to worry if love is enough.

onto the romance, and of course i have to talk about suri and kiran, because—how could i not. they’re literal soulmates! two souls who find each other in every lifetime! they’re kindred spirits no matter what, in both past and present, two people who understand each other deeply on a metaphysical level, and no matter what their scenes together were a great joy. they’re a romance where both of them help each other grow, even when surrounded by chaos and catastrophe. here’s one of my favourite lines in the book in case you need some more explanation. this is romance.

“‘Love is dangerous, blinding,’” he quoted, voice soft against her cheeks in an empty semblance of amusement. He pulled back slightly, just enough that she could see the gentleness, the raw warmth in his gaze. The clean lack of regret. “And yet, I see you so clearly.”

it’s perhaps less explicit—but bear in mind this is the first book in a series—but ravi also sets up the dynamic between viro and his guard, companion, and best friend tarak in a way that...is practically impossible not to read as romantic. i won’t spoil it because it is something you have to see in person, but some of the most emotionally charged scenes in the novel deal with their dynamic. here’s another line for good measure. they really said we do it for the girls and the tenderyearning gays that’s it.

Tarak let out a ragged sigh, lost and despairing. Viro reached up and put a hand on his, traced the lines of his fingers. he watched him do it, entranced by the movement and saddened by it as well. Finally, he asked, “If I begged, would you stay?” Viro’s fingers stilled in their movement, suddenly hyper-aware of the way Tarak’s hands shook upon the embroidered fabric of his tunic. as if he couldn’t bear to hold him tighter, as if the mere action would wrench him away.

the world building is also incredibly well done, as is the mythology ravi sets up and the folk stories she tells. also, for good measure, ravi is an indian writer and her story is, as aforementioned, deeply inspired by sangam india. i don’t necessarily have the cultural context to interact with the worldbuilding completely, but from where i stand it’s immensely well done.

the second book in the series is currently being written, and i recommend picking up your copy of the heartless divine soon before the series continues. once again, it’s available on amazon, and here is its page on goodreads and thestorygraph in case you want to add it to your tbr!

also, for good measure, shoot me a message here or on twitter (where i normally am) if you do decide to read it and want to discuss it! for good measure, here’s one of my favourite lines from the book—just as a closing statement.

“I want to hear all of your stories,” she said, fierce as fire. “Every single one. I don’t care whether they have happy endings or not.”

#bookblr #book recommendations #book recs #yalit #ya lit #diverse ya #diverse fantasy #ya recs #booklr #ya recommendations #books #the heartless divine

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

My brain is rotting

Maybe isntead 

All dumb shit - (x)

“ Whether or not you believe Lena Luthor was behaving out of character on Supergirl season 5 or not, there’s no denying that Lena has a lot to make up for and make right on Supergirl season 6. “ 

yeah, out of character. She was never manipulated by her brother, never killed people,never threw a tantrum, never did morally wrong experiments, never was sure she is right when she wasn’t, was never blinded by her emotions, blah blah blah

It’s clear that there is a lot to be done with Lena Luthor during Supergirl season 6 after a season of her siding with her brother and the writers consistently destroying the relationship between Lena and Kara over the big Kryptonian secret.

What a lot? All they need to do is put the bitch in jail. Tell me, why Lena won’t admit on public she was hapily helping Lex with lobotomizing whole fucking humanity? That she kidnapped and enslaved people? Why? Because she KNOWS she would end in a jail. What makes her a fucking coward. What makes her redemption a SHIT.

If there’s any way to make sure this is done (and done correctly), it’s to bring Lena into the fold and give her a pivotal role in these stories. Let’s start by making her a super friend.

 Pivotal. LOL. She HAD pivotal role in season 5 and that’s why this season SUCKED BALLS. And she was a superfriend. And guess what? She used Kara and manipulated them all, put them in DANGER, because she was butthurt. 

Making things right needs to be Lena Luthor’s top priority on Supergirl season 6. She really screwed up. (I personally don’t agree with the narrative that the show painted of Lena’s actions, as it was very clear that her past abuse and trauma was clouding her judgment and she was actively being manipulated by one of her abusers, but nonetheless…) Her relationships are in shambles, but for the first time in her life, she has the chance to put the pieces back together.

I’m dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Her top priority should be going to police and confessing her crimes. But we all know she won’t, because she is a coward.

Sure, you don’t agree because Boo Hoo Hoo Luthor showed her true colors. Yeah, sure, she had traumatic past and Lex and Lilian abused her all the time, we just don’t know how exactly. Plus, sorry not sorry, your traumatic past don’t give you the rights to kidnap, enslave, manipulate, lie and torture people. And plan to lobotomize whole humanity because you are too poor to go to theraphy... WAIT.

STOP excusing abusers and toxic people’s behavior. It’s fucking disgusting. Especially when all what they have to do is cry (crocodile tears) and help to fix shit THEY CREATED. ONCE AGAIN. 

The abuser she first SHOT IN COLD BLOOD and then happily work with, when he was magically brought to life, because oh yeah, he made Luthors look good. LOL

Her relationships are in shambles and it’s her fault. What first? She had that chances in s2. 

Lena’s finally seen the light and the truth about who Lex and Lillian are, so it’s given her a new lease on life, one where she can begin to put her past behind her and move forward for the first time in her life. She can, hopefully, start to have a life that isn’t constantly dragged down by her family. And I think the best way to do this is to make her an official super friend.

I’m dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying. Lena shot Lex with cold blood because she knew who he was. And then she was still manipulated by him. For the THIRD TIME. And she had that life in STARCITY and she threw it away, because she wanted to be a LUTHOR. Once again, it’s on HER. She could walk away every fucking second. But she chose to stay. And do horrible

On this point I’m pretty sure she is a dumb bitch that can’t learn on her own experiences what makes me wonder about people calling her a genius. 

Lena’s often kept out of the loop until the very end when she invents some life-saving device and stops the villain, which is tiresome and shows that the writers truly don’t understand the complexity of the character and how impactful her relationships with the other characters could be.

How many times the shit she “helped” to fix was HER fault? Because she knew better and didn’t listen to her friends? This is IN character and writers know exactly who she is. Sorry not sorry, canon.

I’m not saying that Kara and company are going to immediately trust Lena to be on their side and always do the right thing. That will be part of the tension of Lena joining the group at first, proving that she’s capable of helping them and being a positive addition to their group. With Lex on the loose (hopefully not for long), this provides the perfect opportunity to begin Supergirl season 6 with Lena in the fold, finding more reasons to keep her there along the way.

Sure, once again Superfriends need to offer their hand to their ABUSER and invate her to their circle. So she can fuck shit again. Positive addition, yeah - butthurt, complains, eternal bitching about how people call her Luthor, being always right, not listening to the others. But oh yeah, she can produce more kryptonite to torture Kara. Once again, why keep her? Put her in the jail, case close.

(...)now is the time that Supergirl seems to be relying heavily on the team element, and leaving Lena out would be disastrous. The entirety of the Lena vs. Kara story on season 5 could have been avoided if Lena was brought into the fold earlier (and seeing only a few alternate realities doesn’t convince me that there was no way Kara could have told Lena earlier… that’s a pathetically easy way out of the story and the writers surely know it).

Sure. Blame Kara once again for rightfully protecting herself. And sure, CANON can’t convince you that telling Lena earlier would have changed a shit. Some people can’t understand that Lena is the pathetic control freak and has to know everything, because if not boo hoo hoo, people call her a Luthor.

This is canon Lena Luthor. I’m sorry she doesn’t fit your headcanon.

 And aside from Kara, Lena needs to work out her relationships with the others, too. She had minimal scenes with Alex — which is the second most important relationship to develop next to Kara and Lena’s on Supergirl season 6 — on season 5 and Brainy, too. But have Lena and Nia even been in a scene together? That’s a tragedy in and of itself. Plus, Kelly was the only one on good terms with Lena, and that could grow into a beautiful friendship, especially because of the relationship that Katie McGrath and Azie Tesfai share off-screen.

Her most important relationships are: her and her ego, her and her last name, her and her mommy issues, her and her brother. What she needs to develope is a fucking conscience. 

And Jesus Christ, leave Nia out of her fucking clucthes, we don’t need her corrupting poor Dreamer (aside of the fact Dreamer is protective of Kara and is going to show Lena her middle finger in s6). Why we need being tortured but going through Lena making friends with everybody?

Lena’s been a series regular on the show for three seasons, yet she’s continuously the person left out. Nia’s a superhero and knew Kara’s identity before her, Kelly has close ties with Alex and Kara even if she’s not officially in on the secret yet, and Brainy instantaneously became part of the group when the Legion showed up during season 3. Because of the ridiculous good vs. evil story, Lena has not been allowed to grow and develop real relationships after three seasons. Supergirl season 6 must rectify that.

LOL, she was in the cricle. All the time. She just didn’t know Kara’s secret. But sure, it kept her form growing up *dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*. All of the characters that knew earlier were worthy Kara’s trust. Canon showed Lena was and is not. She is ruled by her BUTTHURT. That’s the problem with Princess Lena. She was blinded by her emotions by MONTHS. And for sure it will happen again, because Miss Luthorgirl is unable to understand her own fucking flaws and blames everyone but herself.

After painting Lena out to be a villain for the entirety of season 5, Supergirl season 6 absolutely cannot follow their history of major interpersonal developments occurring off-screen with Lena, especially when it comes to her relationship with Kara.

Not painiting. She was the villain. Yeah, all we need is focusing on Lena’s being sad and uspet and Kara trying to fix shit again. Because we don’t suffer from it since s2. 

Maybe instead of wasting time on a white privileged white bitch, who makes the same msiakes all the time and never paid for it, who kidnapped, tortured. enslaved and lobotomize people and her friends, let’s focus on dansen, developing Kelly, focusing more on Alex and Alex and Kara, giving Nia more screen time. I wonder, why the author thinks Lena and her whiny ass should get anything more?

This goes for all relationships, honestly, not just those involving Lena. While I do think everyone should get these moments on-screen, it absolutely has to happen with Lena if we’re going to believe her journey going forward. Making all of these moments happen off-screen is quite a bad habit that has constantly dragged Supergirl down, but should we actually get to see the emotions and growth exploring during Supergirl season 6, there’s a lot of potential, particularly because of how talented this cast is.

Sure. But the others, REAL representation, are not that important as Lena and her privileged ass. Who needs her journey going forward? She had her chance. She fucked it more than once. 

And now, amazing how this person totally IGNORED that Lena kidnapped, killed, lobotomized, enslaved, tortured Kara and hurt her physically and emotionally like NO ONE EVER HAD, that she supported and happily worked with a mass murderer and terrorist, that she planned to DESTROY Kara and her family. Like all she did was some bad things, but it was not her fault that much, because her family abused her and Kara lied to her, what a crime!, let’s not talk about what she really has done. The shit since s2. The list is LONG. Because, ha ha haaaaaa, Lena doing bad things, while being “blinded by her emotions” is NOT only s5.

Lena Luthor is not a poor victim of circumstances and her family. Her crying and helping people fixing HER shit is not a redemption. Her apologizing to Kara is not REDEMPTION. All of she has done is still THERE. If she wants redemption, she needs to PAY for her SHIT and earn it. 

The problem is, I don’t give a flying fuck anymore. She can rot in jail. And tbh, this is what she deserves. 

Kara deserves better. Superfriends deserve better.

#anti lena luthor #anti sc #my shit #gmo lena #antilena

[wa-sabi]

PARASITE: My analysis (spoilers)

There’s so much to unpack in Parasite I don’t know where to start from. I have to say this was a magnificent thriller with that hint of horror that in my opinion really added to this film (and only Asian directors can so skillfully slide in without trashing the story by doing so). I don’t think I’ve ever been hanging on my seat as long as I did with Parasite.   There are three narrative layers, one for each family: the Park’s, the Kim family  and finally housemaid Moongwang and her husband. There is most certainly a descending social hierarchy between these people, explicitly portrayed  by the location of their respective houses: while the Park’s live in a luxurious mansion flooded by light, the Kim’s share a semi basement enlighten by a narrow window at the street levels that not so occasionally becomes a toilet to drunk passersby and finally the housemaid hiding away her husband from loansharks in the underground bunker of Park’s house, where there is no light, no fresh air. I won’t recap the story since I assume you’ve watched it already, but I will focus on the dynamics among these groups of people instead and the symbolism this film is so rich of.  I’ve found this movie incredibly dynamic as the director for two hours keeps taking us up and down a flight of stairs: we follow Mrs Park up to her kids rooms, and then we’re going down again to the living room; the housemaid takes us to the basement and then up again. As the movie gets to its core we go even lower through the asphyxiating corridors of the bunker and then out and away from its moldy walls. Beyond the blatant metaphor of stairs standing for a social ladder these people climb on and fall from, it was such a great device to create dynamism and tension in the story, which is set almost entirely in that single house.  If we were to consider Parasite a play, then the Park’s house would be the stage, with the peculiarity of their owners being completely unaware of what unfolds around them and beneath their feet. They live in a blissful state and differently from anyone else around them, their concerns are minor. In a couple of scenes we find Mrs Park asleep and because of this condition, this sort of narcoleptic state, she becomes the emblem of the class she belongs to: around her is poverty, hunger, deception and violence, yet she is blind to it all and the moment  it is all revealed before her eyes at the birthday party, she cannot stand the horror of the reality she ignored and she collapses unconscious. This is the undying reality of this world: so much misery is consuming this society yet those in a position of power and privilege more or less consciously ignore the existence of it.

So the real action takes place away from the Park’s eyes and even though this movie is a rollercoaster, the real climax is reached upon the discovery of the bunker. The Kim family is drinking together, watching the rain fall down as they daydream about their future: a moment of genuine happiness that is disrupted shortly after upon the arrival of the previous housemaid. To me this was the highest point of the movie and truly unexpected. The story moves into a different dimension and if up to that moment we have watched the poor slowly creep into the rich house through lies and deception, as we are visually taken underground to the bunker we switch from the parasite/host narrative to the parasite/parasite battle. It’s the beginning of a bloody conflict, the Kim’s on one hand, the maid and her husband on the other, fighting for the place of a slave.

There is a significative piece of dialogue that takes place between Moongwang (the maid) and Choongsok (Mrs Kim), right before the rest of Kim’s family accidentally reveal themselves, so making it clear to Moongwang what happened up to that moment: Moongwang asks Choongsok help, calling her “a sister in need” as she begs her to keep the secret and bring food to her husband, but Choongsok immediately refuses to identify with her, dismissing the title of sister in need and threatening to call the police as she stands in a position of power over Moongwang and her husband, even if only for so long. In that moment we can see how Mrs Kim is not willing to abandon what she considers her position of privilege in order to sympathize with the couple who shares with her more than she would like to admit. She shows no understanding for who happens to be lower than her (even if just by little): her only concern is to protect what she unrightfully gained. And in the lack of solidarity of fraternity we see the rich/poor juxtaposition being reproduced among the lowest classes. It only takes a bit of power for the one who holds it to abuse it on those below. It’s the survival of the fittest that knows no mercy.

The reason why I really enjoyed Parasite is the complexity or it, it is intense and holds a lot of meaning. It doesn’t simply come down to anti capitalism, because if it’s true that it shows us humans turning savages in their desperate quest for money and comfort, engaged in a constant conflict induced by a hierarchical structured society, it also portrays the fixity of that structure. Aspiring to reach the top of that pyramid, believing to fit among those staying at the top, is mere fantasy. And when Mr. Kim and his son Kiwoo realize that for themselves there’s no turning back to the tragedy. Starting from Mr Kim, it’s because of a smell, his smell, the smell of the corpse, that finally he stabs Mr. Park. For the ceo that smell crosses the line as it is the only thing giving away Kim Kitaek’s background. The Park believe him (just like everyone else in the family) to be an experienced driver, a professional in high demand, yet the only thing that brings them closer to the reality of that semi basement he lives in is too much for them and causes a great nuisance. Because that smell isn’t the sign of a poor hygiene but the symbol of his social status. And that status, the reality he comes from, will be stuck with him forever even if he was to sit on the highest throne of the world. If Kitaek strives to better his condition, right when he believes to have elevated himself, his smell clings onto him reminding him where is it that he really belongs to. It is impossible for him to become different.

Moving over to Kiwoo, by the end we see him in Dahye’s room, standing absorbed in thought by the window and asking her “Do I really fit here?” and few minutes after he is collecting the rock from his backpack and going downstairs most certainly go get rid of the maid and her husband, the only obstacle to his family ascending. But tragicomically enough, his chosen weapon ends up crushing his own head. I would say that stone is among the main actors of this movie. When he receives it from Min together with the tutoring opportunity, it becomes for him a sort of prophecy, awakening in him an ambition, a sense of hope. Perhaps the hope to climb the mountain that rock comes from. In the end he actually goes on top of that mountain, finally leaving the rock in the river, maybe hinting at the fact than rather than wealth it brought him misfortune. But until that moment that rock sticks with him all the time, just like his helpless sense of hope: at their lowest, on the night of the flood, he sleeps holding it over his chest. But ultimately that hope deceives him and his family more cruelly than they deceived anyone before.

There is no happy handing for them: his sister dies, his father disappears, it’s just him and his mother left exactly where everything began. The same house, a new host and Kitaek being the new parasite, the story repeats itself unchanged.  Now it’s at the ending that the director becomes the most cruel. We’re made believe that despite everything Kiwoo could really save his family from the despair they lived their whole life, I believed it, you believed it, everyone believed it, only for our imagination to be crushed on the sight of Kiwoo in the semi basement, daydreaming about a better future when he will free his father. Personally I take it as an open ending: what condemned the Kim family to their tragic ending was probably the lack of morality they acted with. I want to believe that Kiwoo will get a second chance in life, hopeful that he will use this opportunity righteously. Being honest, just like being nice, is easy when you’re rich, but it takes courage when there’s no reason or reward for it.

#parasite #bong joonho #spoilers

[tomasistrill]

“Don’t look; but I Think The Elephant In The Room is Wearing An MF Doom Mask..”

By @tomasistrill

December 12, 2019

The Manifesto

“I am the elephant in the room;

bringing doom,

really soon.”

-TOMMY TRILLY

-Form & Shape

The image is sized to be square to eligantly frame my thesis of the symmetry that outlines all things asymmetrical.

Using dimensions of 1080x1080pixels gives the piece functionality & purpose as cover artwork for an important project being manifested as we think, speak & breath.

The color scheme is purposely & purely monochromatic. Starting from left to right; the viewer will immediately see that black is the dominating color of the composition.

However, dominant, is nothing less than an understatement. When working with black on this piece; I found myself compulsive, aggressive & even manic at times.

I strayed far from my initial concept of having the black fade to an almost white tone; never truly giving my viewer the graceful embrace of a pure white.

Instead; my fanatical usage of black lead me ever deeper into the enigmatic labyrinth of my subconscious & a graceful awareness of the courage to create.

-Ethos, Pathos & Logos

The toxic love affair between my creative mania & the color black conceived a scene no longer so two dimensional; contrasted with a character that will never be anything more than it’s two dimensions.

The character is depicted in the center of the room. However, because he cannot escape his two dimensional existence, the center of the room is a place he can only observe from afar. He doesn’t understand why none of the people in the room pay attention to him.

His body language communicates a lonely disposition; arms hanging at his sides, hands [possibly] in his pockets & eyes staring far into the abyss; painfully conscious of his glaze matched by the depths of true existence.

On the left & right of our self-ruminating character; reads “S†≡≡Z.”

A word meaning to have style with ease; made popular by hip-hop on the East Coast. In my meditations on the word, came to me, the most clear understanding of grace & what it means to have it.

Bruce Lee describes it as the effortless flow of water; taking the shape of whatever contains you; the body containing the mind & the mind then containing the soul.

This journey inward in search of the holy S†≡≡Z requires you to courageously be yourself purely in the face of adversity. Everytime you choose fear over courage; you’re taking steps outward & away from the S†≡≡Z!

-Spiritual Subliminals

Diving ever deeper into the art & the messages it has for us; we’ll turn our focus to how the word “S†≡≡Z” is communicated to the viewer. Using things such as; color, form, shape, symbology, typography, etc. I was able to effectively communicate ideas to the beholder, in a very visual, yet subtle way.

“S - - -Z”

The “S” at the beginning represents a wavelength that’s smooth from crest to trough.

While the “Z” at the end presents an opposite, but equal wave; this one being more aggressive in it’s frequency.

This is the inevitability one faces in making the decision to be themselves.

Sometimes the wave is S & sometimes the wave is Z, but if you know how to surf; the ride is always steezy.

“- † - - -“

The letter “T” here serves at a ✞ symbol standing for the divine power of love & forgiveness within Man.

“- - ≡ ≡ -”

The arrangement of three horizontal lines is an angelic numerical sequence “111” that tells the intuition to take action.

Encouraging you to keep following your spirit; if you see this listen to your gut/heart.

The double “EE” sequence is made of three horizontal tic marks, similar to a traditional capitalized E, but instead here we see “≡” used; one of the eight trigrams used in Daoist cosmology meaning “Heaven.” 乾 Qián ☰ Heaven|坤 Kūn ☷ Earth|震 Zhèn☳ Thunder|坎 Kǎn☵ Water|艮 Gèn☶ Mountain|巽 Xùn☴ Wind|離 Lí☲ Flame兌 | Duì☱ Lake

This rendering of “S † ≡ ≡ Z” is then contrasted across the longitude of the entire ensemble; painting a polarizing picture of the age old existential struggle of the inner against the outer.

The only usage of a true white tone is in the first occurrence of S†≡≡Z; in the darkest section of the piece. Then, almost mockingly, right in the middle of the lightest area, we see the return of darkness; in the second & final occurrence of S†≡≡Z.

This beautifully illustrates; when the world is dark, the individual will intuitively become the light he so desperately seeks.

We can then safely assume if the world becomes illuminated in mankind’s brilliance; the individual will only find peace in the shadows of his own world.

Narrative-

MF Doom:

A character/persona written by british-born EMCEE Daniel Dumile.

From his upbringing in Long Island, New York to his controversial rise to infamy; his story is trill hiphop lore. He became a man deep in the minds of millions & they don’t even know his name.

Initially, rapping under the alias Zev Love X, he formed the rap group KMD & signed to Elektra Records. Just before the release of the group’s second Album, boldly titled “Black Bastards,” the doom rapper’s late brother DJ Subroc was struck by a car & killed.

That same week the group was dropped from their label & the album was scrapped. Dumile left the industry & lived essentially homeless from 94’ to 97’.

He then left New York to settle in Atlanta, Georgia. Still recovering from his wounds; the rapper would don the iconic DOOM mask & take revenge "against the industry that so badly deformed him".

Thus the notorious villain of the hiphop underground MF DOOM was born.

He is often praised as not only one of the illest lyricist to ever do it, but also as a genius producer.

However, inspite of his immaculate discography & significant respect from industry legends, he is still widly unaccepted by the community he’s devoted his life to.

The Elephant:

Elephants are known as a keystone species; meaning it has disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance.

In fact, by simply existing; the elephant has the power to inflict change in the world it lives in. They, as all animals do, move across the earth manifesting their every desire; unconcerned with anything & everything that isn’t necessary to life.

Effortlessly laying the foundation on which nearly every other speices, within it’s domain, inevitably builds it’s existence.

They themselves embrace a matriarchal lifestyle; in which the feminine is the primary power within society.

Family Groups, consisting of mainly females & children, are led by the eldest female matriarch; with many of the males choosing a more solitary existence.

The elephant recognizes itself in a mirror; demonstrating a capacity for self-awareness found only in apes & dolphins. They also morn their dead & show signs of stress when loved ones aren’t well.

It is well known that the elephant’s memory is stone; able to recall locations of watering holes, family members, vast migration routes, etc. all over their 70 year lifespan.

Conflict:

It’s no surprise that elephants have inspired many literary, mythical & religious cultures; traditionally the elephant has been a symbol of strength, power, wisdom, longevity, stamina, leadership, sociability, nurturance and loyalty.

We see these things reflected in political ideologies of the American Republican Party; who’ve used the elephant as a mascot since 1874.

Conveying a message to undecided voters to preserve the values of the past & to have noble principle guiding your actions.

On the surface level this is honorably patriotic, but as I dived ever deeper; I found a story of people divided simply by perspectives based on how reality presented itself to the misdirected & misguided naiveté of the ignorant & innocent.

The parable of the blind men & the elephant originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent. A group of blind men, who never encountered an elephant before, all touch a different part of an elephants body & insist they know exactly what it is in front of them; based on their limited experience, they all go on to describe what they understood the elephant standing in front of them to be. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". Another man, whose hand reached its ear, said it seemed like a kind of fan. The third man, whose hand was upon its leg, said the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. A fourth man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

In this parable; I found a moral of the subjective truths we face every day in our common lives.

All of these men share a deep common attribute of blindness & thus will cling to shallow differences in sensual experience & each man will have a different ideology for why he does so.

Man will neglect fellowship with his fellow man if, in his limited experience of reality, he finds it to be a necessary action in his life.

Unfortunately for a more modest man; life is often misunderstood by his neighbors.

Perhaps he dreamns of power, so he creates the illusion he has a higher knowledge of the elephant. Maybe he’s a coward & would rather formulate an opinion than walk away, because he fears rejection from the group.

Man has a habbit of claiming to know the absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience. As they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences. Which may be equally true; only ever able to justify their claims with fear or courage.

Resolve:

Courage requires immaculate moral responsibility & higher knowledge. To stand in the face of destiny with the heart of a warrior is an endeavor most men can no longer dream of.

It requires too much & so most men spend their lifetime in the same predicament the elephant himself is in; standing in a room being ignored by those whose hearts call out to him! To be the elephant in the room is a tragedy largely ignored.

The expression "the elephant in the room" is a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, problem, or risk that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable or is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous. This same sociological & psychological repression operates on the macro scale of modern society.

Should something as conspicuous as an elephant be overlooked in codified social interactions? Of course not. You are the elephant in the room.

Conclusion:

Not only has he not forgotten; but the elephant himself, in all his divine S†≡≡Z, stands in a room full of people he remembers from the beginning of time. They talk of the old days; almost every word hinting at his presence in the room, but they just go on rambling as if the elephant himself isn’t standing next to them. They’re completely oblivious to the fact that there’s a god damn eight-foot seven-inch Asian elephant with a fucking MF DOOM mask on right there. He’s tired of being ignored; soon he will escape from his interdimensional hell & bring doom.

#manifestation #manifesto #doom #mf doom #elephant #republicans #evolve #ideas #deep #meditation #steezy #steez #grace #art #writers on tumblr #writing #writers #new poets on tumblr #not poetry #poety&rhythm #hip hop #tao #astrology #the elephant in the room #love is blind #poetryportal #spilled ink #twcpoetry #monochrome #new age

[militant-holy-knight]

The murderous radicals who set off bombs and killed hundreds on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka chose their targets with ideological purpose. Three Catholic churches were bombed, and with them three hotels catering to Western tourists, because often in the jihadist imagination Western Christianity and Western liberal individualism are the conjoined enemies of their longed-for religious utopia, their religious-totalitarian version of Islam. Tourists and missionaries, Coca-Cola and the Catholic Church — it’s all the same invading Christian enemy, different brand names for the same old crusade.

Officially, the Western world’s political and cultural elite does its best to undercut and push back against this narrative. The liberal imagination reacts with discomfort to the Samuel Huntingtonian idea of a clash of civilizations, or anything that pits a unitary “West” against an Islamist or Islamic alternative. The idea of a “Christian West” is particularly forcefully rejected, but even more banal terms like “Western Civilization” and “Judeo-Christian,” once intended to offer a more ecumenical narrative of Euro-American history, are now seen as dangerous, exclusivist, chauvinist, alt-right.

And yet there is also a way in which liberal discourse in the West implicitly accepts part of the terrorists’ premise — by treating Christianity as a cultural possession of contemporary liberalism, a particularly Western religious inheritance that even those who no longer really believe have a special obligation to remake and reform. With one hand elite liberalism seeks to keep Christianity at arm’s length, to reject any specifically Christian identity for the society it aims to rule — but with the other it treats Christianity as something that really exists only in relationship to its own secularized humanitarianism, either as a tamed and therefore useful chaplaincy or as an embarrassing, in-need-of-correction uncle.

You could see both those impulses at work in the discussion following the great fire at Notre-Dame. On the one hand there was a strident liberal reaction against readings of the tragedy that seemed too friendly to either medieval Catholicism or some religiously infused conception of the West. A few tweets from the conservative writer Ben Shapiro, which used phrases like “Western Civilization” and “Judeo-Christian” while lamenting the conflagration, prompted accusations that he was ignoring the awfulness of medieval-Catholic anti-Semitism, and also that his Western-civ language was just a dog-whistle for white nationalists.

But at the same time there was a palpable desire to claim the still-smoking Notre-Dame for some abstract idea of liberal modernity, a swift enlistment of various architects and chin-strokers to imagine how the cathedral (owned by the French government, thanks to an earlier liberal effort to claim authority over Christian faith) might be reconstructed to be somehow more secular and cosmopolitan, more of a cathedral for our multicultural times.

This seems strange, since as Ben Sixsmith noted for The Spectator, “it would never cross anyone’s mind to suggest that Mecca or the Golden Temple should lose their distinctively Islamic and Sikh characters to accommodate people of different faiths.” But an ancient, famous Catholic cathedral is instinctively understood as somehow the common property of an officially post-Catholic order, especially when the opportunity suddenly arises to renovate it.

As with monuments, so with beliefs. Consider the fascinating interview my colleague Nicholas Kristof conducted for Easter with Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, long the flagship institution for liberal Protestantism. In a relatively brief conversation, Jones declines to affirm the resurrection, calls the Virgin birth “bizarre,” shrugs at the afterlife and generally treats most of traditional Christian theology as an embarrassment.

But is Jones a Richard Dawkins-esque scoffer or a would-be founder of a Gnostic alternative to Christianity? Hardly: She’s a Protestant minister and a leader and teacher for would-be Protestant ministers, who regards her project as the further reformation of Christianity, to ensure the continued use of its origin story and imagery (and its institutions, and their brands, and their endowments) for modern liberal and left-wing purposes. It’s another distilled example of the combination of repudiation and co-optation, the desire to abandon and the desire to claim and tame and redefine, that so often defines the liberal relationship to Christian faith.

If you aren’t a liberal Christian in the mode of Serene Jones, if you believe in a literal resurrection and a fully-Catholic Notre-Dame de Paris, this combination of attitudes encourages a certain paranoia, a sense that the liberal overclass is constantly gaslighting your religion. That elite will never take your side in any controversy, it will efface your beliefs and traditions in many cases and be ostentatiously ignorant of them in others … but when challenged, its apostles still always claim to be Christians themselves or at least friends and heirs of Christianity, and what’s with your persecution complex, don’t you know that (white) American Christians are wildly privileged?

This last dig is true in certain ways and false in others. It’s true that conservative Christians in the United States can fall into a narrative of martyrdom that doesn’t fit their actual position, true that the presidency of Donald Trump attests to their continued power (and their vulnerability to its corruptions!). On the other hand the marginalization of traditional faith in much of Western Europe is obvious and palpable, and the trend in the United States is in a similar direction — and residual political influence is very different from the sort of enduring cultural-economic power that a term like “privilege” invokes.

But if the equation of traditional Christianity with privilege has some relevance to the actual Euro-American situation, when applied globally it’s a gross category error. And so the main victims of Western liberalism’s peculiar relationship to its Christian heritage aren’t put-upon traditionalists in the West; they’re Christians like the murdered first communicants in Sri Lanka, or the jailed pastors in China, or the Coptic martyrs of North Africa, or any of the millions of non-Western Christians who live under constant threat of persecution.

One of the basic facts of contemporary religious history is that Christians around the world are persecuted on an extraordinary scale — by mobs and pogroms in India, jihadists and United States-allied governments in the Muslim world, secular totalitarians in China and North Korea. Yet as an era-defining reality rather than an episodic phenomenon this reality is barely visible in the Western media, and rarely called by name and addressed head-on by Western governments and humanitarian institutions. (“Islamophobia” looms large; talk of “Christophobia” is almost nonexistent.)

This absence reflects, once again, the complex combination of liberal impulses toward Christianity. There is a fear that any special focus on Christians will vindicate the jihadist narrative of a clash of civilizations. There is a certain ignorance of Christianity’s enduringly and increasingly global form, an inability to see Christianity as anything save a reactionary foe or a useful supplement to liberalism. There is a fear that narratives of global Christian persecution will somehow help the conservative side of Western culture wars. (“Sri Lanka church bombings stoke far-right anger in the West” ran the headline of a worried Washington Post “analysis,” as though the most worrying consequence of dead Christians in South Asia were angry conservatives in America.) And there is a sense of Christianity as somehow still “our” religion, the dogmas discarded but the emphasis on self-abnegation retained — albeit in a strange fashion that ends, as John O’Sullivan put it recently, by taking “the good Samaritan to be a parable of why Christians should be the last people to be helped.”

Unfortunately the various conservative alternatives to this liberal muddle are not always more helpful to persecuted Christians. George W. Bush’s conservative-Christian naïveté helped doom Iraqi Christians. American-conservative support for Israel creates blind spots about the struggles of Arab Christians. The conservative nationalism that succeeded Bush’s idealism often treats Christianity instrumentally and forges its own alliances with persecutors.

At bottom all these failures illustrate the unusual and difficult position of traditional Christianity in Europe and the United States. The old faith of don’t-call-it-Western-civilization is at once too residually influential and politically threatening to escape the passive-aggressive frenmity of liberalism, and yet too weak and compromised and frankly self-sabotaging to fully shape a conservative alternative.

But those difficulties and dilemmas are also a luxury relative to what our fellow Christians face. I have no clear prescription for Western Christianity to offer in this column, but I do have an admonition: It is First Communion season in America as well as in South Asia, and when our children ascend in joy and safety to the altars of our churches, the photographs of Sri Lankan first communicants laid out as martyrs should be ever in our thoughts. 

#Christianity #terrorism #politics #persecution