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aboveallarescuer · 3 years

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I know you've gotten anons about the YMBQ prophecy recently but I was wondering in what context could it be obvious for the reader that Daenerys is the YMBQ if Cersei is most likely to die or leave KL once Aegon arrives and not Daenerys. Even if Daenerys takes KL later on wouldn't he technically be the one to take all she holds dear (her power as regent)?

First of all, Anon, I think it’s interesting that you say that Young Griff (rather than Arianne) would take all that Cersei holds dear in this hypothetical scenario (that most people assume will come to pass). asoiaf tumblr fandom loved (loves?) to take for granted that Arianne would be YMBQ (after all, it was/is taken for granted that she would marry Young Griff and become his queen consort) years ago. At the same time, though, I’m not sure if you’re implying that Young Griff might actually be the one to fulfill the YMB(Q) prophecy in this ask. I actually saw this theory before. So I’m going to make counterarguments to this theory first and then address your question about how and when Dany might be revealed as the YMBQ (and if that’s what you were specifically looking for, just skip to the end, though you might be disappointed by the fact that I'm not really providing definitive answers because I have a lot of doubts myself).

In a way, it makes more sense for Young Griff to fulfill the prophecy rather than Arianne. Let’s remember what Cersei wants the most, which is shown in the beginning of her very first chapter:

She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all. (AFFC Cersei I)

Unfortunately for Cersei, she can’t ever actually sit the Iron Throne, which is pointed out several times:

Cersei shifted in her seat as he went on, wondering how long she must endure his hectoring. Behind her loomed the Iron Throne, its barbs and blades throwing twisted shadows across the floor. Only the king or his Hand could sit upon the throne itself. Cersei sat by its foot, in a seat of gilded wood piled with crimson cushions. (AFFC Cersei V)

Seated on her gold-and-crimson high seat beneath the Iron Throne, Cersei could feel a growing tightness in her neck. (AFFC Cersei VII)

Cersei sat beneath the Iron Throne, clad in green silk and golden lace. (AFFC Cersei X)

As the first quote states, only the king or the Hand can sit the Iron Throne, which is what Cersei wants the most, since, to her, it symbolizes almost unlimited power ("high above them all"). Indeed, I would argue that what Cersei holds dear is the chance to reign supreme (“The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. [...] If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.”), not “her power as regent” (as you put it), which is limited by nature. After all, the king’s wife and mother can’t sit the Iron Throne. This means three things to me:

Queen consorts like Margaery or Arianne (if she actually marries Young Griff, which is far from certain) can’t take all that Cersei holds dear.

Queens claiming power in their own right but who have no claim to the Iron Throne are excluded too. In other words, Asha or QitN!Sansa (another fan theory that’s far from certain and that’s accepted as future canon) can’t take all that Cersei holds dear.

Only a she-king (that is, a queen regnant) with a claim to the Iron Throne can take all that Cersei holds dear - that’s Dany.

But then, we have Young Griff. He is a king with a claim to the Iron Throne, so he could, in theory, take what Cersei holds dear and fulfill the prophecy. However, I find that very unlikely for a number of reasons:

GRRM doesn’t highlight men’s physical appearances or objectify them in the same way that he does with women, as a lot of people have already criticized him for. He makes a point of mentioning women’s accomplishments along with overpraise for their physical appearances (though one might be generous and chalk that up to social commentary about how their society objectifies women instead of giving them their due praise for what they do). He encourages his fans to speculate about who is the YMB(Q) and pit his female characters against each other based on their physical appearances (e.g., people have criticized how Sansa stans often mention the number of times the word “beautiful” appears in Sansa’s chapters to back up their belief that she’s the YMB(Q), but the way GRRM himself wrote the prophecy lends itself to this sort of analysis) because he uses certain tropes uncritically. He portrays fat women negatively in comparison to thin women (see: Cersei (who’s said to be gaining weight throughout AFFC as she becomes more unstable) vs Dany, Lysa vs Cat, Barba Bracken vs Melissa Blackwood, arguably Rhaenyra vs Alicent). He takes an almost voyeuristic pleasure in describing women’s bodies and women having sex with women (see how Dany and Irri’s or Cersei and Taena’s sexual encounters don’t give any depth to Dany’s, Irri’s and Taena’s characters and, as far as I can tell, are mostly written to fetishize them). Consider, for instance, how 13- to 16-year-old Dany is the most sexualized character of the book series, while I’m not even sure if her male counterpart Jon is supposed to be considered attractive or not (on the one hand, he’s attracted women like Ygritte and Val; on the other hand, he’s meant to look a lot like Ned, who’s regarded as plain in appearance, especially in comparison to the hot-blooded Brandon). All of this is to say that I doubt that a man will fulfill a prophecy that remarks upon the person’s physical appearance (“younger and more beautiful”). Considering GRRM’s writing problems, a woman is much more likely to do so.

Young Griff is supposed to represent a lesser version of Dany (note that I’m talking about Young Griff as a fictional character, not as a person). After all, unlike Dany, Young Griff didn’t get to have lived experience of poverty, he didn’t get to have his skills tested, he didn’t get to apply the lessons he learned along the way, he didn’t get to take action and make mistakes and gain valuable experience and wisdom, he didn’t get to choose to stay in Slaver’s Bay solely to help marginalized people who aren’t connected to him by neither blood nor lands (which would emphasize how he doesn’t view his birthright merely as something owed to him, but rather as a means to “protect the ones who can’t protect themselves”). He could have had this sort of character development if GRRM wanted him to, but he has a different role in the narrative: he’s a tertiary character who we’re not meant to know all that much as a person or about how he would fare as king because he serves as a foil to Dany. With all of that in mind, what would be the point of having this minor character, who was introduced in the fifth book of a seven-book series, fulfill this prophecy rather than the one protagonist who the author said was deliberately written as Cersei’s foil multiple times (more on that below)?

Which brings me to a point that @rainhadaenerys made in our upcoming Dany/Cersei meta... Cersei views women with contempt because she thinks that they can only attain political influence with “tears” and with what’s “between [their] legs” (as she tells Sansa). This informs why, for example, she projects the unfounded idea that a widow must have lovers on Margaery or why she herself uses money and sex to keep her men loyal (which ultimately backfires on her). Unfortunately, it’s true that “[Cersei’s] strength relies on her beauty, birth and riches”. Because of her internalized misogyny, Cersei can’t conceive of a woman who might rise to power primarily because of her intelligence and shrewdness… Except that there is a woman who successfully conquered three cities and ruled the third and freed thousands of slaves relying primarily on her actual wit, political savviness and leadership skills rather than on sex, birthright or money… Dany. Dany is the competent, selfless ruler who could overcome many of the patriarchal limitations that Cersei couldn’t (hence why Cersei is a tragic figure). If Young Griff were to be the YMB(Q), he would simply be one of the many men (along with Robert, her brother, her father and the other Hands) who Cersei thinks wronged her and prevented her from staying in power. If Daenerys were to be the YMBQ, she would challenge Cersei’s toxic beliefs about women, which prevented Cersei from even imagining that a she-king might be the one foreshadowed to defeat her or that a woman (that isn’t her, of course) could actually be able to earn her accomplishments (just like she can’t imagine that Jaime might actually betray and kill her). Now, someone might argue that GRRM is not “woke” enough to do this, but I would disagree in this particular case. There are valid critiques to be made about how he wrote his female characters (I’ve made some points myself on the first item), but it’s still true that Dany’s character arc was written with awareness of how her gender affects her experiences. If that hadn’t been the case, AGOT wouldn’t have initially set up several men (Viserys, Rhaego, Drogo) to be claimant to the Iron Throne/SWMTW/the protagonist only to reveal that these roles are actually meant to be fulfilled by Dany, a woman. If that hadn’t been the case, he wouldn’t have had Maester Aemon acknowledge that “no one had ever looked for a girl” when they pondered on who might be AA/PTWP. So I don’t put it past GRRM to make Dany the YMBQ as a way of challenging Cersei’s entire worldview.

Indeed, I actually think that’s likely to be what he’ll write. GRRM has stated multiple times that Dany and Cersei are meant to be compared and contrasted because they were consciously written by him (specially in AFFC/ADWD) as narrative foils:

George regrets that Cersei and Dany will not be contrasted directly. (x)

His biggest lament in splitting A Feast for Crows from A Dance with Dragons is the parallels he was drawing between Circe and Daenerys. (x)

Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world. (x)

While discussing how he writes his female characters, he also mentioned that splitting the books as he did this time meant we didn't get the parallel between how Danaerys and Cersei both approach the task of leadership, which is a bit of a shame. (x)

And that one of the things he regrets losing from the POV split is that he was doing point and counterpoint with the Dany and Cersei scenes--showing how each was ruling in their turn. (x)

I think Young Griff as the YMB(Q) is very, very unlikely. If it’s not Dany, then I think Brienne (who at least is a viewpoint character that we know intimately) as the YMBQ (though I doubt it because she can only take Jaime away from Cersei and, as we saw in AFFC, Cersei was willing to separate herself from Jaime once she realized that he would question and disagree with her decisions and, in her mind, threaten her influence and power, i.e., what she wants the most) or even Cersei herself (the basis of this theory is that a younger Cersei caused her own downfall by making the choices she made. It’s not impossible considering that Cersei’s unreliable viewpoint prevents her from ever taking responsibility for her actions. Still, I think it’s unlikely because she’s been positioned as a passive participant in these prophecies - someone/some people kills her children, some person takes away everything she holds dear, some person murders her. Just like there’s a valonqar to kill Cersei, I think there’ll be a YMBQ to defeat her) are more plausible candidates. However, as I said in previous answers, Dany and Cersei have lots of clearly intended parallels and anti parallels (hence why GRRM mentioned them at least five times publicly) that people don’t often appreciate (but that I don’t want to mention here because I’m saving them for edits and that long meta). I find it hard to believe that GRRM would lay all this groundwork to contrast these two queens only to reveal that a minor character is the actual YMB(Q).

Now, the question about “in what context could it be obvious for the reader that Daenerys is the YMBQ” is difficult because, IMO, I don’t feel like there’s enough information to give you a reliable answer. First, let’s recap the most common theories, which, while I don’t think should be accepted as canon just yet, are popular for logical reasons. Here’s what GRRM said about the future events in the initial outline and interviews:

While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarian hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume, A Dance with Dragons. (x)

GRRM: Yes, three more volumes remain. The series could almost be considered as two linked trilogies, although I tend to think of it more as one long story. The next book, A Dance With Dragons, will focus on the return of Daenerys Targaryen to Westeros, and the conflicts that creates. After that comes The Winds of Winter. I have been calling the final volume A Time For Wolves, but I am not happy with that title and will probably change it if I can come up with one that I like better. (x)

He said that in his original plan (when he wanted to write a trilogy) the Red Wedding would take place in book one, and Dany’s landing in Westeros in book two. Now he says that Dany’s arrival in Westeros will take place in book 5, A Dance with Dragons. (x)

From there he started to plan a trilogy, since there were 3 main conflicts (Starks/Lannisters; Dany; and the Others) it felt it would neatly fit into a trilogy (ah!), but like Tolkien said, the tale grew in the telling. (x)

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart,” he says. “They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home.” (x)

GRRM’s words seem to indicate that Dany will go to Dragonstone ("they're both coming home") and then King’s Landing in her campaign to take back the Seven Kingdoms before she goes to the Wall to fight against the Others.

And it is quite possible that she will clash with Young Griff. For one:

Hi, short question. Will we find out more about the Dance of the Dragons in future books?

The first dance or the second?

The second will be the subject of a book. The first will be mentioned from time to time, I'm sure. (x)

For two:

"It is dragons."

"Dragons?" said her mother. "Teora, don't be mad."

"I'm not. They're coming."

"How could you possibly know that?" her sister asked, with a note of scorn in her voice. "One of your little dreams?"

Teora gave a tiny nod, chin trembling. "They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died." (TWOW Arianne I)

For three:

Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire ... mother of dragons, slayer of lies … (ACOK Daenerys IV)

Now, here are my observations/questions/doubts:

The “cloth dragon” receiving a round of cheers from the crowd seems to indicate that a) Tommen will indeed fall from power when Young Griff (who’s already in Westeros almost ready to attack) invades King’s Landing and that b) Young Griff will inspire love from the population.

The more obvious possibility is that the second dance of dragons refers to a Dany versus Young Griff confrontation, especially since she’s prophesied to slay the lie that he represents (that he’s not Rhaegar Targaryen's son, but actually Illyrio’s son and a Blackfyre). However, since Victarion is currently in Meereen with a dragonbinder, it’s very likely that Dany will lose control of one of her dragons to a Greyjoy (either Victarion or Euron Greyjoy himself) and then will arrive in Westeros with only two of her three dragons. Or maybe Euron will use one of the dragons to attack Young Griff and that will be the second dance (though I find that unlikely since, again, Dany is prophesied to slay Young Griff’s lie). Or the second dance could actually refer to Dany versus Euron.

There are alternative speculations to consider. Right now, the consensus in the Dany fandom seems to be that there’s already too much in Dany’s plate for her (uniting all the khalasars and being hailed as the SWMTW; going back to Meereen; meeting Tyrion, Jorah, Moqorro and other characters; maybe going to Yunkai; going to Volantis; etc) to go to King’s Landing, which led to people assuming that only Cersei and JonCon will be involved in the city’s burning. It’s even theorized that Dany might actually skip King’s Landing and go to the Wall instead. These theories make a lot of sense and aren’t implausible, but it’s hard to reconcile them with GRRM’s initial intention with Dany (though it’s also been argued that he may have given part of her initial role to Young Griff). Additionally, I don’t think timeline issues are necessarily a guarantee of what GRRM will do with Dany. He made Tyrion travel much faster than reasonable back in AGOT to have him meet Catelyn in the inn at the crossroads and to be taken captive by her. So I wouldn't put it past GRRM to do something similar with Dany by having her arrive earlier in King’s Landing than she reasonably would just because he wants it to happen. And, as much as I don’t want it to happen and even though I criticized the theory before, I don’t think it’s impossible (though it’s not guaranteed either) for Dany to be accidentally involved in the burning of King’s Landing (though there is a recent counter-theory to that as well).

Re: Cersei, a lot of people tend to assume that she’s going to die when Young Griff takes King’s Landing, but I am not really sure. I do think that her parallels with Aerys II will pay off and reflect her ending. But that doesn’t prevent Cersei from surviving Young Griff’s invasion and meeting Dany later. Cersei could escape to Casterly Rock and they could meet there. Or Cersei could later attempt to retake the capital again in another impractical plan of hers, which then leads to King’s Landing burning. I don’t know.

Does Dany have to meet everyone to fulfill these prophecies? I’m not sure. Does Dany necessarily need to meet Young Griff and Stannis to slay their lies? Does she necessarily need to meet Cersei so that the readership finds out that she’s the YMBQ? Will there even be an actual moment that makes it “obvious for the reader that Daenerys is the YMBQ”? I don’t know, Anon. It may end up being up for people’s interpretation. Dany might end up burning the Iron Throne, if the theory about her accidentally burning King’s Landing actually happens. Dany might willingly melt the Iron Throne and install a new form of government that gives the smallfolk more political influence. Both of these possibilities could symbolize the end of Cersei’s desire for absolute power, even if Cersei and Dany don’t actually meet. I’m not even sure that there will be a moment that outright reveals that Dany is AA/PTWP/SWMTW (even though, IMO, the foreshadowing is way too overwhelming for it not to be her).

Speculating about Dany being the YMBQ is fun for me because it requires delving into her characterization, her parallels with Cersei and canon material in general. On the other hand, speculating about how this would actually happen is, IMO, less interesting (though I still enjoy reading what other people have to say) because it’s hard to accurately predict future plot points with the current information that we have (and I resent how fandom already accepts so many theories as unpublished canon). Dany has too many places to be and too many things to do and it’s not certain that she’ll be in King’s Landing when it burns (though I tend to think she will for the aforementioned reasons), the second dance of dragons can refer to different confrontations, it’s not certain that Dany needs to meet Cersei (or Young Griff or Stannis) to fulfill all these prophecies and it’s not certain that Dany is going to be explicitly revealed as the person who fulfills all these prophecies. We still have two books worth of plot development, so I really don’t think it’s possible to predict how the actual events will unfold. Sorry about not being able to give more definitive answers... I actually ended up making more questions. But that's kind of the point for now.

#daenerys targaryen #young griff #cersei lannister #asoiaf meta #asoiaf speculation #answered

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whereflowersbloom · 4 years

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Questions

Damian found his girlfriend standing out on the lovely vine-shaded balcony, dressed in civilian clothes and staring out into the city. Night turned Gotham into an endless sea of luminescence. Skyscrapers around the city glow with the light of thousands of residents inside, creating trails of brilliance that ascend up towards the starry sky. It is quite beautiful, in its own way. The soft evening breeze caressing her ebony hair, creating wafts of lavender and rosemary in the air. Had she always been this breathtakingly beautiful? Slowly, Damian set his gaze towards the stars above. The precision that Raven studied the sky with passion, it fascinated him. It was as if she was reading lines from a story book, but instead there was a mass of speckled lights as she was connecting them, tracing invisible lines.

Raven took a deep breath of fresh night air and sighed, a mix of contentment, and something else, she couldn’t point it. “Have you ever considered what your life would be like If you had taken a different path?” Her breath hitched on the last word but her eyes had glance sideway to his large calloused hand still in hers, for someone who appeared to be controlling and unapproachable, Damian was surprisingly gentle and affectionate. The question caught him off guard. He felt a bubble of longing as he remembered her words that night at the carnival when she had called him kind and generous, nobody had ever spoken that way about him. That night something inside him changed, high and fenced walls began to crumble down.

Soaking in the view a little longer, Damian waited a few minutes before deciding to speak. He supposed that the saying that one’s life flashes before their eyes must hold some kind of truth, though he was not dying, and yet he had been dangerously close to the gates of death several times. Raven was his anchor amidst the unpredictability of their life as titans, always bringing him back from the turbulent waters. He couldn’t stop himself from recalling the most memorable moments of his unusual and complex life. He exhaled a long audible breath as he begins.” My life had been long decided before I was born into this world.” He murmured to the whistling wind, his words sounding faraway, even to his own ears. He would rather not relive any of the horrors he’d seen, the terrible acts he had committed in order to build a new world, make it better. What a blind and naive child he had been. At some point he had been ready to surrender his sword, his Robin suit, his claim to fight for others, offer her perhaps a normal life if that’s what she wished for. He would give her anything she asked for in a heartbeat. He squeezed her small hand tighter, Raven immediately noticed way he’s gripping onto it, like she’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this world. “After some time coming to the tower, I contemplated a rather uneventful, ordinary life. If my parents had conceived me under very different circumstances. If mother loved me more than her own insatiable ambitions. If father wasn’t the eccentric, mysterious millionaire Bruce Wayne or a vigilante consumed by his thirst to serve justice.” There was a tone of melancholy in his voice, the promise of a different retelling of a story. His story. “It wasn’t all bad. Mother…she used to read to me, every one now and then, nights like these. Tales about the greatest leaders in history, others about the origin of the Al Ghul dynasty. I treasured those moments.” He looked over at her, and he didn’t seem to recognize her for a moment, like the memory had been so strong it had actually confused him, taking him back to that instant. This was the most he’d ever really said about his mother. His past as an Al Ghul. Sure he’d shared some stories, about certain things he enjoyed and disliked. But he never spoke about Talia with such profound emotions. This was personal and precious to Damian. It saddened her. Saddened for the pain in his emerald eyes that he was trying to hide. Another long breath was blown between his full lips, and he deflated again, like he was accepting the undeniable truth. “Perhaps I would have met Jon at a local school and we would play basketball after classes and Greyson would be the team’s coach. Maybe we would have crossed paths at the extensive and valuable Gotham Public Library. I would have offered to treat you a cup of Earl Grey tea. A part of me believed I’d have picked Veterinary medicine as my bachelor degree.”

She looked at him with such intensity and Damian thought her violet eyes grew deeper, darker, more reflective. She was weighing her own reflection in his eyes, trying to see through him like she always did. And they both were visualizing, a different life consisting of trivialities, a simple lifestyle, maybe in the countryside, a rather nice and quiet house, perhaps similar to the Kent farm with some slight but substantial improvements. “What about you?” He abruptly asked her, startling her. Oh she had never been sure about her own future. “As the daughter of an inter-dimensional demon. I didn’t think a future was possible for me. A happy family, a stable romantic relationship, loyal friends. Everything was endless blackness when I was trapped by Trigon. What I have right now is more any blissful future I could have imagined.” She muttered softly. This companionship between them, the mutual care, the tender loving, the sense of equality between them, the feeling of belonging to each other beyond any outer interference because they chose one another. Their family and friends. Everything was more than enough. Damian was unconsciously too absorbed at how she looked at the whole world as one precious thing, values life in every form and shape. Her unnatural powers gave her the ability to look into something and see what others can’t. It was fascinating. He was thankful too, sincerely appreciated what he had. His father, troublesome siblings adoptive or not, his teammates and Raven. He is product of the flames which burnt him, his actions, his choices and the will that made him grow formidable instead of breaking. They both were. This woman was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his human days with.

“There’s something that wouldn’t change. You. It’s always been you, Raven.” He’s got a dazed look in his eyes, a familiar bright gleam to them that hadn’t been there earlier, but he flashed her a dazzling smile at her, one that make her insides jump. Raven let his words sink in. He wanted her even if things were different and joy seeped through her whole body.

She just felt greedily wanting more time with him, every moment and experience. She loved him, from the possessive way he held her or how he kept on touching her the instant they are alone and he felt he same. They have been together for a few years now, it took them some time to announce it to their significant others. No matter how things turned out, they have this genuine, real and consuming love. That emotion when you felt like your lungs are out of air when your lover is away from you, everything was so intense and yet so tender, you were worried it would break between your fingers like crusty autumn leaves. She focused on him.

Damian looked out of his depths. He’d always been so controlled and measured, knew the weight of his every word and was completely unflappable despite whatever life threw at him, but now he didn’t. He seemed as if he was nervous, unable to spell out his own feelings. Hesitant. Could be her imagination but she sensed a slight agitation awakening in him.

“Marry me, Raven.” The words are said with his whole heart. They are genuine and honest and very him. He couldn’t hold back the words any longer. Why wait anyway? theres simply no time when you’re busy saving the world day-to-day. There’s no question to calculate when is the right right or your fated person, no formula for the correct time. Timing. There’s no use reminding about the past or the life they would have dreamed to have. The present was a gift and ultimately what matters the most. They have been romantically involved for 4 years now. He knew she was the one the moment he gathered courage to ask her out, court her properly the way he had been taught. Initially, he planned to propose differently but it felt right. This conversation only strengthened his resolve to make a Raven his wife.

“Damian.” She breathed with astonishment.

“No buts. Marry me.” He commanded with an eyebrows raised stopping her from coming up with an unnecessary excuse, content filling his veins and the marrow of his bones, flooding him with a blanket of warmth and hope. He didn’t want to wait anymore. He wanted her, now and tomorrow and the rest of his existence, and she loves him. Like he knew she’s always had her doubts on if she could be loved or she did before they started dating.

Her bottom lip trembled momentarily. She felt a bit like she can’t breathe properly, but then Damian is reaching up and gently cupping her cheek, and she exhaled shakily as he runs the pad of his thumb over her lips. He was looking at her dead serious, asking her to marry him. “I’m not taking the chance to wait too long.” Damian whispered urgently. His tone more serious than before. Her heart was hammering in her chest. They moved in together about a year ago. Were they ready to take the next step?

It felt too real all of a sudden. Too damn real, and she wants to drown in it this moment, in this bottomless sea of feelings for him. She wanted to pretend that this is real and more than that, she wanted to say yes. Damian Wayne didn’t take a no for an answer. When he was determined, he did everything posssihke to get it, one way or another. And she loves him nonetheless. Raven felt her heart flutter, her chest tightened ever so slightly as she finally exhaled. “Yes. I’ll marry you, Damian.”

“I love you.” Her voice breaking as tears are rolling down her cheeks and the small smile on her lips. It was easy to find herself gravitating toward Damian, falling back into that wordless sync they had. To feel herself being pulled into his personal space as he crowded hers. Until they faced each other with barely inches between them and her breath hitched as he snaked his arms around her, emerald eyes softened, glowing against the moonlight, they didn’t leave her, and his arms made the distance between them disappear. Their lips are barely touching but he can feel the softness, the plumpness of her mouth, like an overripe fruit. She brushes her lips against his and Damian rapidly kissed her fervently. His lips breathing silent ‘I love you’s. The low giggle that rumbled up through her could not be contained though she tried. She knew several language but no words could describe this ecstatic happiness.

Damian is overwhelmed by the sweet taste, the delicious scent, the warm feel of her. He was intoxicated and drunk off their hungry kiss. He trailed his hand on her waist up her back and feels her heart hammering against her ribs and wonders for a moment if she’s feeling as consumed by the kiss as he is. If she is as incredibly happy as he is right in this moment. He didn’t need a different life, this one was exactly what he wished for.

Damian made a mental note to ask Jon to accompany him ring shopping tomorrow. Tonight he had plans to celebrate his engagement with his gorgeous fiancée.

His lips brushed hers in a soft, tender rhythm once again. Once. Twice. Thrice. Harder, and a little bit hungrier than before, until her fingers are intertwined in his hair and his solid body is pressing against her frame. He lifted her up effortlessly, taking a few steps back, taking her back to their bedroom. Two figures bathed in tranquil starlight disappeared.

Oneshot because I need fluff. Final edit

Thank you to @chromium7sky @ravenfan1242 @deep-in-mind67 and all my readers for motivating me to write. This might be the last chapter for a while. 💜💜

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nightsnonsense · 5 years

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Perhaps this is a Hot Take™, but as a queer person old enough to have very little formative concept of Representation In Mass Media, especially beyond queer-coded villains and the occasional Butt of The Joke (looking at you, the 90s & early 2000s), I cannot begin to see how people who are part of the LGBT+ community don’t see how deeply in love Crowley & Aziraphale are.

This is only compounded, I think, by my being an adult well past the Terrible Uncertainty of Puberty and Adolescent Feelings. That’s not to diminish the impact and potential depth of falling for someone as a kid/teen/young adult of the near-18, pre-drinking-in-America-legally persuasion; rather, that is merely to say that all this talk of “but they didn’t kiss or outright say I Love You, therefore It’s Not Canon” feels like it completely oversimplifies and wraps in far too tiny a box the matter of love, especially between queer folk. It simply overlooks how much of love is so much more than that easily wrapped box.

I’m not just saying that as your local queer fan-of-many-things, used to taking scraps in this department. This is coming from someone who’s spent a great deal of time looking at romance as a whole, heteronormative and queer alike, and yes, someone who can distinguish between a Bad/Insubstantial-But-Fun-Like-Popcorn Romance and a Bad-No-Really-Just-Bad-And-Ill-Conceived Romance, and a Life-Changing-Stars-Have-Moved Romance.

What seems to be flying over the head of so many people who are upset or calling ‘queerbait’ on Good Omens is that many deep romances of the past - of all gender combos - deal in ‘I Love You’s’ that are said, portrayed, made painfully, beautifully clear without the words being uttered at all.

It comes in all forms... Physicality. Expressions. Eye contact - or the lack there of. The way words are spoken - I love you’s, in phrases and situations where I love you’s just wouldn’t fit.

Where sometimes, I love you couldn’t be said. Because of our roles, because of our jobs, because of our families.

So ways were found to say I love you, without uttering those beautiful, dangerous words.

Queer people have seen themselves in the outcasts for generations - for, I’d argue, much of history itself. Wherever we are not wanted, we band together; we see those that are also not wanted and we say “we see you, and you are not alone; we are here too. We may be different, but our stories sing the same themes.”

People far more eloquent than I have explained why queer people identify so frequently with those that love and embrace the supernatural, the fae, the otherwise estranged, the seemingly unknown, the misunderstood. We have grown to read between the lines - to see the love where even sometimes the straight creators deny it vehemently;

But, we argue, Why do you think we resonate with it? Why do you think we see love between these characters, these characters that are growing and changing because of, for, alongside one another - we see them change and learn and hope and trust again because of this one person, we see the looks they exchange, the way their hands brush by or grasp at one another, the way their emotions culminate upon loss, upon regaining.

They are the world to one another, we know, we share. We gesture to generations worth of characters, joy and sorrow and anger and hope in our faces. And you say they don’t love one another, because they share the same gender?

... forever Death of the Author, it is often preached-

-with an asterisk for us, we know too well.

But then there is the Good Omens TV adaptation, and here - here, I, a queer woman who grew up knowing the danger of holding another girl just a little too dearly, who knows the risks of saying I love you where almost every wall has ears, who knows the way you can only hope the clasp of a hand under a blanket, the held gaze across a crowded table holds a thousand thoughts, the quiet peace slipping out the window to sit in the back of a truck and stare at the stars, not daring to hope all wishes could come true-

- here I see two characters, two beings of the same ineffable gender, spending over 6000 years falling in love despite what they are told, despite what they are expected to do, despite what they are expected to value.

I see them say I love you. Again, and again, and again. Over the span of centuries.

So many I love you’s, given in ways I’ve learned fluency in as well as English.

I love you, in a glance - the unexpected crush.

I love you, in catching a slip of the tongue // in slipping up, if it’s with you.

I love you, in relief at you showing up after all // in showing up, even to the gloomy ones.

I love you, in knowing what you being caught together would mean // in knowing... what you being caught together would mean.

I love you, in your arrival only ever being good news to me // in always showing up when you’re in a bind.

I love you, in refusing you at last on an outright request // in requesting the impossible.

I love you, in truly realizing at last.

I love you, in going too fast // in walking the desperate precipice.

I love you, in the little things // in anything, for you.

I love you, in feeling temptingly safe // in empty posturing to maintain a shakey line.

I love you, in losing you.

I love you, in I can still reach you, and I will no matter what.

I love you, in being in it till the end - together.

I love you, in peace amongst one another - in being our own side.

I love you, in I found you.

I love you, in accepting myself, too.

...

For the love of the stars, of all that is good and ineffable, please, please don’t make the mistake of confusing a lack of an Ultimate Kiss or the words themselves for being the same as a show vehemently denying the romance, the partnership between two people drawn together over the course of millennia.

I love you is written in every scene of theirs - the highs, the lows, the lost, the gain, the utter joys and everything in between.

I love you, between two beings that have inadvertently become the godfathers of humanity, not just the not-antichrist.

I love you, between two beings knowing they’ve got eternity... barring interference of the holy or hellish varieties. And so far, they’ve managed just fine on staving off that interference... together.

This is a love story between queer people in ways that no other queer romance portrayed at significant scale has managed to quite touch - including how “I love you” is most often spoken in actions, in looks, in everything between the lines... and behind the lines themselves, if you know how to listen.

Please, take a step back, and listen again; watch again. See, this time, the I love you in their every action - purposefully, not in accidental homoeroticism to be later denied. The love that grows against all odds, against all pressure, against all other consideration.

I promise, you won’t be disappointed, if you just learn to see romance and love through a broader lens.

#good omens #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #long post #i love you #comes in so many more forms than just the words #and frankly #good omens is the best romance i've seen in the longest time #and i mean that

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countdown-to-destruction · 4 years

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Inuyasha Sequel: a rant

Put this up this earlier on a post I re-blogged, tried to edit a part or two where I didn’t like the way I had phrased it, and ended up messing up the whole format I wrote this in. Luckily I wrote this as a draft earlier anyways! So I did a some fixing and now I’m just copy-pasting it again and making it a text post instead. This will be very long and a little nit-picky but I wanted to make a post ever since I heard about the upcoming sequel to Inuyasha, Hanyō no Yashahime. I did put a TLDR at the end for those who don’t want to read everything. Not sure how many people in the fandom still follow me and will see this, as it's been a long time since I was actually active in the fandom, but it's hands-down both my favorite manga and anime of all time and I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately so I had to post something. Before reading this be sure to read all of the translated character bios for Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha so that this makes sense.

When I first heard that Inuyasha would be getting a sequel I was excited! But after reading up on it, to be completely honest I'm not feeling this sequel anymore. I know it’s an unpopular opinion but hear me out. Firstly, it seems like Rumiko is mostly involved in the character design aspect and the writing is up to Katsuyuki Sumisawa. The music will be produced by Kaoru Wada which is great! And from what I’ve seen and read online a number of others who worked on the original series will reunite so hopefully the story will go well. However, knowing Rumiko isn't personally writing and not knowing how much input she has or will give makes me unsure about watching. The original Inuyasha anime followed and was based off of the events in the manga, and there was no manga prior to this for it to be based on. Depending on what happens this could be an alright sequel or a total miss. Unfortunately sequels in general are known to be disappointing in some way.

Secondly, if I hear anything about Rin being the mother of Sesshomaru's twin daughters I'm out. This part will be a SUPER long and in depth explanation on why I think this way, feel free to skip if you're not interested. Please don't come for me on this, I'm here to explain my thoughts and feelings on the sequel and the theories around it so far, not start an argument. I'm more than aware that there's plenty of controversy out there on this pairing and personally I do not support it. I never saw their relationship as more than a friendship, or something akin to child and guardian as Sesshomaru and Jaken are basically Rin's caretakers up until she goes to live in the village with Kaede. He definitely cares for her deeply but I can't see it in a romantic way, being that Sesshomaru isn't even a character focused on romance to begin with. He learns compassion through Rin's second death but that doesn't mean he loves her romantically. As a reminder his main goal is to seek power and be powerful, and it's stated that he needed to learn compassion and grief in order to mature. It's what helped him learn to wield the Tenseiga at its full potential. In addition, she was really young when they first met and still was when she went to live with Kaede. The idea of Sesshomaru (an adult) having romantic feelings for a kid under ten years old (around eleven at the end of the series, and still a literal child in all ways) and waiting for her to age with the intention of marrying her sits totally wrong with me. Age wise I realize that Inuyasha is decades older than Kagome and that his father was much older than his mother, Izayoi, as well. The difference here is that Kagome was a teen when she met Inuyasha (who not just physically, but more importantly mentally was also a teen) and clearly Izayoi was old enough to conceive Inuyasha and give birth. As far as the audio dramas (more specifically "Asatte") go they're generally considered as an outtake reel and are essentially parodies, or a form of satire. Some will debate on this but realistically there’s plenty of reasons this is true, and those who take the time to properly check them out understand that. For me I've always had a headcanon that at some point in her teen years Rin would inevitably develop a one-sided crush on Sesshomaru and that he would ultimately set boundaries and reject her, seeing her as more of a close companion than a love interest and wanting her to live with someone she can grow old with. He gave her the choice to follow him and it's most likely that she would, but I think that once she began aging he would want her to have somewhere to settle, given that he enjoys roaming and seeking out other powerful beings to battle. It's strange to me that they decided to give Sesshomaru hanyō/half-demon children in general but based on the artwork we've seen it's fair to guess that they might have made Sesshomaru and Rin a pairing in this sequel.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to clarify that if you ship them together I'm not writing this here because I want to hate on your ship for no reason, or in order to create an argument on if the pairing makes sense, these are my thoughts and opinions on the matter and I’m voicing them because it’s what I believe. I already know that somebody won’t like this and will take it personally. People usually say that once Rin is an adult the pairing is acceptable but I disagree. I find it quite creepy that someone would think it would be alright for an adult to wait around for a kid to grow up with the intention to marry and/or sleep with them. Watching from a distance is the same exact thing, after making an impression on the child... let’s not normalize this. In this situation it would be grooming. We all have our own opinions when it comes to our ships and fandoms and I try to respect that but I can’t get behind this one.

Next we have the apparent lack of parental figures for the heroines. Where are the original Inuyasha characters at? Moroha's character bio says she barely knows her parents (Inuyasha and Kagome, our former main protagonists) and has been alone since she was young! It makes me think either something has happened to them or some kind of bizarre event separated them. And sorry, not related, but why does she transform by PUTTING LIPSTICK ON?? That part threw me for a loop.

When it comes to Setsuna and Towa their parents are absent too. I find it difficult to believe that Sesshomaru wouldn't keep track of his children given how he treats Rin and reacts to her going missing in any capacity. Especially if he happened to be fond of whoever their mother is. One daughter works as a taijiya/demon slayer for Kohaku and the other mysteriously transports to Kagome's era and is raised by Sota (I thought we had finished with the time jumps when the well closed but apparently not. When the Bone Eater's Well closed after Kagome's return it gave a sense of finality and closure to the story, and showed that Kagome had chosen where she was most happy and felt she belonged. I think that bringing the theme of time travel back into the sequel makes it feel repetitive, like something right out of a predictable fanfic. Props to Sota for taking in and raising a child who showed up out of nowhere though).

Another thing that came to mind when I read these character bios was why Inuyasha and Kagome's daughter and Sesshomaru's daughters are the exact same age. Of course there's nothing wrong with that. It only struck me as odd because suddenly everyone is having kids at the same time. And so far there's no mention of other characters like Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Jaken, Kaede, or Miroku or Sango's three children or where they are. One might expect that a story focused on the children of some of the original Inuyasha's main characters would feature appearances from those who had important roles in the previous series and their children. Which brings me around to wondering what made twin daughters a trend? Two sets of twin girls is a unique choice (Sango and Miroku's twin daughters. For such a small group of parental characters, what are the odds of two sets of twin girls? Where is the creativity and again why the repetition?).

Lastly, Sesshomaru's daughters lack some of the common yōkai/demon characteristics we see on Inuyasha and other characters. Their ears are human, and they have no markings or otherwise (that I noticed) with the exception of Setsuna's mokomoko/fur which is similar to Sesshomaru's. So perhaps they take more after their human mother? Given that Inuyasha seemed to inherit strong genes from his father it's interesting that they did not. Their ages also interest me as they appear to age the same way as humans do. Yōkai/demons are known to have a longer lifespan than humans and appear to slow down or almost stop aging at some point. Perhaps this confirms that the slowdown in aging occurs once they reach the equivalent of a human teen?

Overall Inuyasha was a fantastic manga and great anime on its own, and I never got the feeling that it needed a sequel. As a stand-alone it was everything it needed to be. I thoroughly enjoyed both formats of the original, though I do have a tendency to disregard certain parts of the anime. I always preferred the manga more when the anime dragged out certain scenes (Shichinintai/Band of Seven arc for example) or straight-up excluded, changed, and added others. Taking that into consideration the sequel might end up being the same for me in that way, but rather than one scene that plays out for too long or an excluded, altered, or unnecessary added scene, if it’s not any good I’ll simply disregard it altogether. When the anime comes out I certainly plan to try watching it out of loyalty to the fandom, and due to the fact that it's "technically" canon (without Rumiko being the writer I don't necessarily consider it canon, much like how some folks do or do not consider the movies canon) but I get the feeling that I'll wind up giving up on it in disappointment.

TLDR; Overall I'm left questioning if the sequel is worth watching (for me) given what I've read and heard so far, but nonetheless I will give it an optimistic try! I'm currently wondering how much we'll see of the original Inuyasha characters, if we get to find out what happened to them, if the number one pairing I'm not fond of will make an appearance (and cause me to drop the whole thing), and questioning parts of the character backstories and designs (why is there a repetitive and recurring theme of time travel and does it end up hindering or ruining the story, why do the protagonists all lack parents, and why do the hanyō/half-demon characters lack common yōkai/demon traits and does it make them more human than demon?).

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #please don't be sessrin #kagome #a feudal fairytale #internal screeching #my thoughts #my opinions #unpopular opinion

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tawakkull · 4 years

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Spirituality in islam: Khulla (Sincere Friendship)

Khulla means sincere friendship. It can also denote brother/sisterhood, or loyal friendship. Some have interpreted khulla as penetrating into the depth of something to change its nature, or enveloping it from all sides so that it gains a second nature. The Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, who always lived in the horizon of contentment, realized his spiritual essence or reached the rank of sincere or intimate friendship with God by means of the extraordinary radiances from God Almighty, and by experiencing continuous inner revolutions; it was thus that he reached his horizon of perfection in feeling, thought, endeavor, and preaching. Finally, he became the voice of a different nature, proclaiming God, the Ultimate Truth, by whatever he did and wherever he was. In return, God chose him as His intimate friend and called him “My intimate friend.”

Compared with sincere or intimate friendship’s influence on and penetrability into the heart, love invades the “pupil of the heart,” or the “seed of the heart,” which is regarded as the core of the spiritual intellect, and gives it its own color, and makes it speak in its own language. In a heart which moves and groans with love of God, nothing remains of anything other than God, and all other interests than that felt in God vanish one after the other, with the result that it is only He Who is felt, thought of, and talked about.

Sincere friendship (with God) was entrusted to the Prophet Abraham’s nature as a seed. It was an initial donation bestowed on Him in acknowledgement of his relationship with God Almighty and a gift given to him by the All-Merciful for his ingrained loyalty to Him. This initial gift or donation also symbolized that he would become an imam (leader) for those who would follow him. However, ignoring the gifts and favors particular to it, this intimate friendship with God manifested itself in the Lover and Beloved of God, upon him be peace and blessings, in the form of love as a special Divine regard or consideration for his transcending knowledge of God and intimacy with Him.

Sincere friendship is pure loyalty. As for love, it is passion, yearning, and consumption or burning. For this reason, sincere friendship is primarily marked by enthusiasm and thankfulness and then with sadness or sorrow. In other words, while it is enthusiasm and thankfulness that prevails most in people of sincere friendship, the people of love are known with remembrance, reflection, and continuous sorrow. How interesting it is that the Master of creation, upon him be peace and blessings, lived in continuous sorrow marked with hope, prayer, and entreaty.

God’s Messenger was a loving and loved one whose sincere friendship was transformed into love and zeal or enthusiasm, and he was aware of being honored with such a favor. He knew that the Almighty loved him beyond all modalities of quality and quantity, and constantly breathed love beyond measure. He demanded no station, no rank, no rewards. He had perfect knowledge of the One Whom he worshipped and so he worshipped Him, deepened his faith with knowledge of Him, and ran in the tracks of more and more knowledge. As his knowledge increased, he loved Him more, from the bottom of his heart, without expecting any return and without taking reunion with Him into consideration, and with the most serious self-possession of worship and servanthood. It was God Almighty’s extraordinary consideration for that Owner of the most powerful will among creation and a favor of His above all favors that the Prophet Muhammad was able to love and yearn for Him in a way befitting His Grandeur. He was the peerless hero of this highest rank. It was also he, upon him be blessings and peace to the fullness of the heavens and the earth, who gave sincere friendship the color of his sincerity and crowned that deep loyalty in human essence with love, yearning, and enthusiasm.

It is unquestionable that sincere friendship is a great rank and gift. All instances or breezes of familiarity, intimacy, inner peace and reassurance, and contentment that blow into the hearts of the faithful servants of God, the Ultimate Truth, are each an embroidery in the fabric of sincere friendship, or a spark from the love of or yearning for God. Moreover, the spiritual pleasures generated by this friendship, love, and yearning are a particular or universal manifestation of Divine consideration for turning toward that station, and breezes that blow on the slopes of the heart. As for love, it is the basic weft of that fabric, and it is the flame which produces that spark of sincere friendship. It is a fact that Divine acts are free from pursuing any ulterior motives, but we can say that the brightest wisdom in the creation of the universe is love. The series of creation appeared because of the Creator’s sacred love for His Art and His will to see it, and He has given the one who loves and is loved by Him most its most important, greatest result.

Sincere or intimate friendship is a means of spiritual reconciliation, agreement, and harmony between creatures on account of its essential elements of mutual familiarity and accord. For this reason, the Prophet Abraham, the sincere Friend of the All-Merciful, upon him be peace, who is regarded as the hero of sincere friendship, was a comprehensive example and leader for those who were to come later; he was one who was able to concentrate all hearts upon a certain common point. The Qur'an describes this quality of the Prophet Abraham with the following expression of appreciation: “Indeed I will make you an imam (leader) for all people” (2: 124). Indeed, he is a leader for all who will succeed him in respect of the essence or spirit of the Religion. This spirit or essence is fully developed to its final borders by means of the noblest Leader or Guide of all, who is God’s beloved and the greatest of the universal men, upon him be peace and blessings.

As clearly demonstrated by his blessed life, the noble Prophet Abraham, the sincere Friend of the All-Merciful, upon him be peace, was a pursuer of deeper and deeper contentment. As for the blessed, noblest Lover and Beloved of God, as stated in verse, “In the assembly of honor, composed of the loyal and truthful, in the Presence of the One, All-Omnipotent, Sovereign” (54: 55), he is the king seated on the throne of the greatest loyalty and truthfulness. He—the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings—was such a light-diffusing observed of Divine truths, setting his feet at the farthest point that his eyes reached, that he was not only at the unattainable peaks through his exceptional conceptions and observations, but also he is the most advanced of all, who “saw that which no other eyes have ever seen or will ever see, heard that which no other ears have ever heard or will ever hear, and witnessed that which no one else has ever conceived of or will ever conceive of.”

Pursuing the utmost friendship and loyalty was God’s special favor on God’s blessed Friend, the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, while having an established position of friendship, loyalty, and love in God’s Presence is the rank of the Master of creation, the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings. However, as stated in “Follow, then, their guidance!” (6: 90), the one who has an established position was ordered to follow, and indeed did follow, in one respect the one who was in constant pursuit of and realized God’s special friendship. This was like a king following the principle, “The host’s leadership in the Prayer is preferable,” while visiting one of his subjects, and suggesting that the host should lead the Prayer.

In another sense, a sincere friend is one who is such a faithful companion that he shares the secret atmosphere of his friend and feels his love in the depths of his heart. It is an indubitable fact that few persons have ever been able to realize such a degree of loyalty and devotion. The Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, is certainly the greatest hero of this realization, as he was particularly chosen for this special merit and had the mission of representing it in the best way. That sincere Friend of the All-Merciful is the brightest example of sincere friendship because he was perfectly loyal to his Friend, as stated in “Abraham, who discharged his due, fulfilling all his duties to perfection” (53: 37); and he was extremely sensitive in grasping the subtlety in obedience to God’s every order. Also, having assigned all his faculties, including his heart, intellect, logic, and reasoning to the fulfillment of his duty, he called to the truth and proclaimed the Divine Oneness out loud wherever and in whatever circumstances he was, addressing all the outer and inner senses and faculties of his most stubborn audience, and endured all the hardships and evils he encountered with the utmost submission to and reliance on God. In addition, he entered the fire of Nimrod with a smile on his lips, and he spent his life migrating from one place to another for God’s sake, leaving behind his beloved wife and little, beloved son in a completely desolate valley on God’s order. Furthermore, as clearly stated in the verse, “Then when both had submitted to God’s will, and Abraham had laid him down on the side of his forehead.…” (37:103), he showed no hesitation in obeying God’s order to sacrifice his son Ishmael, the fruit of his heart, the one who was a monument of forbearing and mildness and whom God had willed to be the start of a bright future. He spent all his wealth in God’s cause and the needy. In short, the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, was a perfect example in the human realm to represent the way of God. Having reached the horizon where he could be the pride of all other Prophets except the last and greatest one, he became the one whose prayer, “And grant me a most true and virtuous renown among posterity” (26: 84), was accepted. Accordingly, all the followers of the Divine Religion to come after him would remember and mention him with prayers and as an excellent memory. Being one of the most distinguished, Abraham was a brilliant fruit of the Prophets who had preceded him and the luminous seed for his successors, including particularly the greatest of them, upon him be peace and blessings. When his Lord told him, “Submit yourself wholly (to your Lord),” he responded, “I have submitted myself wholly to the Lord of the worlds” (2:131). Such Prophetic submission was a spirit or seed in Abraham, upon him be peace, and it has become a blessed tree in the Pride of Humankind, upon him be peace and blessings, and a table in the Community of Muhammad as the fruit of adherence to him. The Qur'an indicates this fact as follows: If they still remonstrate with you, say (to them, O Messenger): “I have submitted my whole being to God, and so have those who follow me” (3:20).

When the basic elements of sincere friendship penetrate the outer and inner senses and faculties of heroes of nearness to God, they save such people from partial thoughts about things and events, causing them to reach the horizon of unity in all their sensations, impressions, perceptions, considerations, logical or rational comments, and evaluations. These heroes are raised, each according to their own capacity, to a comprehensive observation of things with their reason, mind, senses, consciousness, hearts, and secrets, and this causes them to observe through the telescope of their outer and inner senses indescribable scenes, multifarious but one within the other, and bearing the stamp of the same One Maker.

Every traveler who advances along the way of sincere friendship views existence from the horizon of the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, and travels around the axis of his sainthood, which is embedded in Abraham’s Prophethood. In proportion to their ability to develop the spirit of sincere friendship, they are aware of existence as a whole, which they perceived as fragmentary or compartmentalized before. They are able to observe the drops as an ocean in one piece, and as if looking on everything from a point above, they feel that all things are interconnected with one another, all voice the same meaning, point to the same truth, and say, “God is the One, Unique,” in the language of order, good composition, and harmony, and all are enraptured with the universal testimony.

The view and perception of such travelers display manifestations of Divine Attributes of Glory, and they see all existence with the view of the All-Merciful. They are sincerely compatible with the whole of creation. They know every thing to be a part of themselves, they embrace all affectionately, sensing all things as a sibling, and referring the intentions, thoughts, convictions, and comments of others to the judgment of the All-Knowing of all the unseen. They call everyone to their embrace and to the truth, like Mawlana Jalalu’d-Din ar-Rumi, and they tolerate every improper behavior toward themselves. For they are God’s faithful vicegerents traveling in the horizon of sincere friendship vast in proportion to the comprehensiveness of mercy, and they are mirrors of God’s Attributes of Glory held up against all existence. They reflect the Divine Names in their acts and manners, and they observe all things through the different windows of their faculties. Like two eyes seeing the same thing, such travelers see all things as if a single entity but with different depths.

Sainthood marked with sincere friendship of God is the best of sainthood. It is true that there is no limit to nearness to God because of His being infinite, but every individual human being has a limit of perfectibility according to his or her capacity, which marks the boundary of every traveler who is endowed with knowledge of God. For this reason, even when a traveler reaches the seventh heaven through the sainthood of God’s sincere friendship, this forms a limit for them. If there is a single exception to this, it is the position of the one, namely the Prophet Muhammad, who is distinguished by having all human virtues to the highest degree and al-Maqam al-Mahmud. The All-Bounteous Lord of the worlds honored the Prophet Muhammad with extra favors, and he reached a point where space ends in infinity, the body is identical with the soul, and all secrets are manifest. It is a point that is impossible for even the angels or other spirits ever to reach.

God Almighty distinguished each Prophet with a particular virtue in which he excelled above the others. For example, the Prophet Adam, upon him be peace, was distinguished with the utmost purity and called the Pure One; the Prophet Noah, upon him be peace, was God’s Confidant; the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, excelled others in sincere friendship; the Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, was one to whom God spoke in a particular way from behind a veil, and called the Addressee of God; and the Prophet Jesus, upon him be peace, was a Spirit breathed by God. The most distinguishing mark or virtue particular to our Master, the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, is love—and the title, the Beloved of God, is particular to him.

During his Ascension, God’s last and greatest Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, found each Prophet in relationship with God Almighty at the level of the heaven which symbolized his particular position among the Prophets. For example, he visited the Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, at the sixth level of heaven, and the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, at the seventh. He advanced further and further until he reached the highest tower of the pure spirit beings amidst the welcoming voices of angels. He arrived at the point described as, “two bow-length’s nearness, or even nearer,” and he was honored with a special Revelation revealed with no words or speech. Through the lenses of his fully developed faculties, he observed all that is invisible, heard all that is inaudible, and knew all that is unknowable, to others. Going beyond the Garden or Paradise of Refuge and Dwelling, he reached the Sidrat al-Muntaha, marking the highest point of rise for a created being.

Our Master, upon him be peace and blessings, left the way he followed open to those who would succeed him and follow that way in the shade of his sainthood. He was perfectly generous so that anyone who would follow him could benefit from the favors to come from God along his way.

It is by virtue of the Prophet Muhammad’s mission that all saints can feel sincere friendship with God according to the capacity and rank of each; believers feel brother/sisterhood and loyal friendship with each other; and thanks be to God, those serving the Qur'an follow the way and style of the Prophet Abraham, which was developed by our master, upon him be peace and blessings. Such brother/sisterhood that arises from sincere friendship is indispensable to the service of the Qur'an and to being a good Muslim, and he regards it as a character of belonging to the Milla(way and nation) of Abraham, which is characterized by purity of intention and absolute devotion to God’s Oneness.

Our way is the closest friendship. Friendship requires being the closest, most self-sacrificing friend, the most appreciative companion, and the most magnanimous brother or sister. The very basis of this form of friendship is heartfelt sincerity. One who destroys this sincerity falls from the pinnacle of friendship. They may possibly fall to the bottom of a very deep pit. They cannot find anything in between to cling on to.

O my God! Equip my soul with righteousness and piety and purify it. You are the Best in purifying it, and You are its Guardian and Master.

And bestow the best of blessings and the most perfect of salutations and the most excellent peace upon the Start of the Prophethood and its Seal, and on his Family and Companions, all valuable and faithful.

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its-flicked-switch · 5 years

Text

Alien

| RATING M |

MSIV left the X-File fandom on the edge of a cliff that, in the absence of GA, will never be resolved to any level of satisfaction. Alien is my attempt to do what Chris Carter could not — provide closure for the series as a whole. What happens following Scully's revelations on the dock? What becomes of William, Skinner, Reyes, and The Smoking Man?

PREFACE

—

"Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow — it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it."

— Shakti Gawain

—

For the past 17 years, I have played the role of Jackson Van De Kamp. Odd, isn't it? That I would refer to playing myself as playing a role? But as I reflect on all that has happened in the past 17 years, that is the only way I know how to describe the journey that began on a farm in rural Wyoming in 2001 — a role.

Initially, everything was as it should have been. I was an only child being raised by two loving and doting parents. They attended to me and each of my milestones with the adoration and enthusiasm typical of new parents. Imagine their absolute elation at my ability to run when most babies were still creeping around on all fours and their pride in my ability to read at a first-grade level when I was only three years old. I was their miracle, an answer to their prayers for parenthood. As I continued to grow, however, it became clear that I was far more than an exceptional miracle.

My early childhood was unremarkable, until the day that it wasn't.

Tragically, the Van De Kamp's love and devotion would not be enough to silence what was inside of me. Despite their efforts, my earliest childhood memories were shrouded by a sense of unease. A deep-seated feeling that something was missing or not as it should be. In time, my parents confessed what I already sensed. I wasn't truly theirs. I came into their lives as an infant and what they knew of my biological family was limited. I have now come to understand why. The Van De Kamps were truly remarkable parents. The more I learn about who and what I am, really am, the deeper I mourn their loss. They deserved better. We all deserved better.

Van De Kamp Entry #092

Case No. 11101993717

Evidence No. 163.092

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CH1: THE WATER'S EDGE

—

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

—

The rain has thoroughly soaked through her hair and clothes, but Scully feels nothing. She remains anchored in place staring down into the black abyss below her as the divers divide the harbor into grids. When William and Spender disappeared into the depths of the harbor several hours ago, the air was cool and crisp with an overlay of mist, but the temperature has dropped ten to fifteen degrees since then and what was a soft drizzle has now transitioned into a light, steady rain.

She knows she should walk away, but she's done with that.

While C. G. B. Spender's admission to Skinner had come as a surprise, the truth had not. She and Mulder had long suspected the syndicate's involvement in her sudden ability to conceive a child. After discovering Emily and learning of her missing ova, Scully had run every test imaginable. Had there have been any ova remaining inside of her, she would have found them. This is how she knows with absolute certainty that the ova used to created William was either implanted or produced within her body by unnatural means.

Her greatest fear for William has always been that his existence was part of an agenda, and the testing she performed throughout her pregnancy and after his birth had done little to ease her fears. DNA doesn't lie. William is their son. Hers and Mulder's. Yet he isn't — at least not entirely.

Traditionally, each parent passes half of their genetic material to their unborn child. William, however, only shared half of her and Mulder's DNA collectively. The remaining half was unidentifiable and by definition — alien. When she performed the original analysis, the technology to isolate this anomaly and examine it properly didn't exist, at least not in any laboratory she had access to. Her desire to find the truth, however, had been overwritten by fear. She knew that exploring the origins and implications of the remaining half would come at a cost, undoubtedly drawing attention to and endangering their son. The decision to destroy all of the samples and data she had collected had not been a decision that she had made lightly. But ultimately, she had chosen William's safety over conspiracy and little green men.

What Scully had told no one, not even Mulder, was that she had kept the most critical sample of all. Hidden in a secure location amongst hundreds of thousands of other samples, she had stored William's umbilical cord, preserving not only his DNA but his stem cells. She could not, in good conscience, given what she and Mulder had experienced with the alien virus, destroy the key to the greatest mystery of their lives. Preserving his cord wasn't just about science. It was also about security. She had lost Mulder once, and the thought of going through anything like that ever again was unbearable. Their enemies had waged war on them before, and there was little assurance that they wouldn't come for them again. William's miraculous conception only served to further convince her that the truth was far more sinister than they had been previously led to believe. In that sense, what Spender had told Skinner was true. He was, at least on some level, responsible for the science that helped to created William — but a father, he was not.

Scully isn't sure where Mulder is at the moment, but there is little doubt in her mind that he is somewhere nearby taking the brunt of Deputy Director Kersh's wrath. The fact that she has been standing on the docks for over an hour and hasn't been approached or questioned by anybody is most certainly his doing. Were it not for Skinner, she and Mulder would both likely be in handcuffs and in the bowels of the justice building.

The call she made earlier to Tad O'Malley had been reckless, bordering on insane, but it had to be done. The days of hiding in the shadows were over. Remaining silent all these years had bought them time but not freedom. Too much had been lost to let this fall below the surface yet again. This time, those responsible will not be able to contain the blowback.

The vibrating phone in her pocket pulls her away from her thoughts and back into the harsh reality of her present surroundings. The only reason she even attends to it is that she thinks it might be Mulder, but it's not. It's her brother, and it's not the first time he's called. Tad O'Malley's broadcast in combination with tonight's body count has created quite the media storm with her and Mulder at its center.

Bill's hatred for Mulder still remains unmatched. If she can give her brother credit for anything, it's consistency. With the recent loss of their mother, she knows she can't continue to send him directly to her voicemail. He never calls, so the fact that he has called seven times in the last forty-five minutes tells her that he is about to reach his limit. If she doesn't answer soon, he is likely to turn up unannounced.

Deciding that answering the phone is the lesser of two evils, Scully takes a deep breath and hits accept, getting right to the point because she knows her brother well.

"Bill, this is not a good time. I'm going to have to call you back later."

Bill is well-connected and not above pulling rank to get the information he wants. Odds are, he already knows that she is not one of the casualties in tonight's bloodbath, leaving him with only one other reason to call, and she is in no mood to argue with her brother about Mulder or the X Files.

"Jesus Christ, Dana, what the hell is going on? Are you okay? I swear to God if Mulder —"

She cuts him off quickly because she doesn't have the energy or the patience to listen to his long list of grievances against Mulder.

"Mulder wasn't the source, Bill. I was. This isn't about the FBI or the X Files. This is about William."

She says William's name to shut him up, and also because she doesn't want him to hear it from another source. Given his high-security clearance, it's certainly possible he will find out elsewhere if she doesn't tell him herself, assuming he doesn't know already. Even though they haven't had a pleasant conversation in over a decade, he's still her brother, and he still deserves to hear it from her.

"I've seen him, Bill. Spoken to him. Mulder and I both have. He's…," she hesitates because she can't be certain that her line is secure. Swallowing the lump in her throat and steadying her voice, she finally settles with, "gone."

It's not a lie, but it's not the truth either.

"William? Dana… what are you talking about? And what do you mean gone… Jesus, is he…? How can you —"

"I can't talk about this right now. Tell everyone that I am okay and that I will be in touch as soon as I have a more secure line."

"Dammit, Dana, I —"

Ending the call, she switches off her phone and slips it back into her pocket. Scully knows that at some point she will have to level with her family and tell them the truth about William, but not now — not today. Her frozen fingers sink deeper into her damp pockets in search of her mother's quarter medallion.

The mystery surrounding its origin doesn't bother her as much as it used to. If anything, it has been a great source of comfort. Scully's mother and sister were the only members of her family to ever support her decision to join the FBI, and their support and relation to her had cost them their lives — her sister directly, her mother more so indirectly. Scully's abduction, cancer diagnosis, and subsequent hospitalizations in combination with Melissa's murder and William's adoption had undoubtedly aged her sweet mother at least two decades. Her brothers continue to assert that she died of a broken heart. They are probably right.

The conversation she and Mulder had on the church pew earlier this week immediately comes to mind. Can she live with the results of the decisions she has made? Were they the right ones? As she runs her fingers over the outer ridges of her mother's quarter, she silently prays for the clarity and strength that will be required to face whatever comes next. While she cannot predict the future, she does know one thing with absolute certainty: their son is not dead.

The dive teams won't find either body. She can't explain how she knows. She just does. With her hands buried deep in her pockets, she takes one last look at the churning waters below before turning and heading back towards the chaos. There is nothing left for her here.

Making her way back towards the warehouse in search of Mulder, Scully spots Skinner almost immediately. He's sitting in the back of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket speaking to Kersh and two other agents that she doesn't recognize. Skinner's eyes look tired and defeated, but he still manages to give her a nod and a slight smile. She returns the gesture just before disappearing behind a second ambulance. Words with the deputy director will have to wait. She needs to get out of the rain and find Mulder. As she navigates her way through the maze of tape and haphazardly parked emergency vehicles, she stops abruptly when she hears her name, turning to find Mulder walking towards her.

His stride embodies purpose and confidence, but as he gets closer, she can see the fatigue in his step and the concern in his eyes.

"I've been looking everywhere for you."

His brow furrows as he reaches out with one hand to lightly touch her shoulder, the other quickly finding the tips of her hair and side of her face.

"Scully, you are soaking wet, have you been standing out in the rain all of this time?"

Before she can respond, he's slipping off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders, pulling the hood up over her head in an attempt to protect her from the rain.

"I've been on the docks. They haven't located Spender or… or William," she says, her voice unsteady.

He swallows and nods, averting his eyes off into the distance as if he is looking for someone.

"Let's get out of here," he says as he takes her hand.

Neither of them speaks as he guides them through mayhem. She's surprised to see his silver Mustang up ahead and wonders how in the world he managed to move it without erupting World War III. Only Mulder could remove a car from an active crime scene and walk away unscathed. He unlocks the passenger door and places his hand protectively on the top of her head as she eases down into the seat. Moments later, she feels the car shift under his weight as he slides into the driver's seat, but she doesn't look at him. Her eyes are entranced by the rain splattering against the windshield — her mind on their son. He's out there. He's cold, wet, and has nowhere to go. And instead of looking for him, they are leaving. His words, spoken through Mulder, are still reverberating in the recesses of her mind.

"We can't protect him. No one can … let him go … he knows you love him."

A sickening feeling hits her in the pit of her stomach as Mulder puts the car into reverse and starts to drive away. Tonight, she is abandoning her son for the second time. The tears she has been holding back for the past several hours now flow freely. Mulder notices them but says nothing. Instead, he turns on the seat warmers and angles all the vents in her direction before reaching for her hand and intertwining his fingers with hers. It's not until his hand joins hers that she realizes how cold she is, but it's not just the cold that causes her tremble. The raw emotion brewing inside of her is paralyzing. She tries to speak but opens her mouth only to close it.

The first few miles are silent because neither of them knows where to begin.

The minutes continue to tick by until she can't take it anymore.

As wonderful as the heat feels as it hits her damp hair, skin, and clothes, she turns the intensity of it down to quiet the obnoxiously loud fan, not wanting to raise her voice to be heard.

"He's not dead, Mulder. Neither of them are."

It's not the most profound thing she could have said following the bombs she has dropped on him today, but it's a starting point.

"Scully…"

"No, Mulder, listen to me. I can't explain it. I can't explain how I know. I just do."

He's quiet for a moment, briefly giving her his eyes before he responds.

"Do you want me to turn around?"

"No."

Her voice is soft and raspy from the cold, but the answer comes easily, for the answers they seek are not at the bottom of the harbor.

Unable to look out into the dark, miserable night any longer, she closes her eyes. There is so much more she wants to say… so much that he deserves to hear but not here… not like this.

The drive home takes a little over two hours.

They finish it with their hands joined in silence.

---------

AN: As always, a HUGE thank you to my betas @kikocrystalball, @admiralty-xfd and @suilven19 for their edits and encouragement... because nobody gets there alone ;)

To follow the Cleaning Up After Chris Carter Series, click here.

#msr fanfic #post my struggle 4 #XF season 12 #the x files #x files fanfic #mulder and scully #william arc

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 5 years

Photo

youtube

I’m five minutes in and already this seems like something beamed in from an alternate universe. Did this crowd just cheer “doctoral degrees” and then, specifically, “psychoanalysis”?

This big arena debate world where people cheer academic qualifications like wrestling belts is obviously Peterson’s world. And it’s really off-putting. He sits in his chair looking expectant and deep in thought, occasionally letting slip a brief acknowledgment of the surreality of the situation. Zizek, on the other hand, looks bewildered. When his introduction is concluded, he simply shrugs and does a brief facepalm.

Peterson, by contrast, barely flinches. He’s obviously used to this… And that’s the weirdest thing of all.

I’m not really sure what I’m in for here as I sit down to watch this. I’ve heard interesting things about this debate from those who have already watched it — apparently it’s not a complete waste of time — and so I have been tempted to give it a go for myself…

But I’m already aware of the kind of discussion I’m hoping for — and unlikely to get — and this anticipation is probably going to inform my viewing for better or worse…

So, first things first, I feel like I should declare my biases.

I like Zizek (generally speaking). He’s the sort of cantankerous sniffling voice I’m happy to have in the public sphere. I have a soft spot for him, in a way, because, perhaps like many other people my age, he was the first contemporary “Public Intellectual” that I paid any attention to; the first living philosopher I remember hearing and reading about.

However, that’s not to say I know his work all that well. The only book of his I’ve read with any seriousness is his first: The Sublime Object of Ideology — which is still a good read — but the majority of the rest of his written work is unknown to me. (Those films of his are, at the very least, entertaining.) I have, however, read a lot of his earlier articles and writings on communism, but I’ll come back to those shortly.

My understanding of Peterson’s general project is even more limited. I haven’t read his book. All I’ve seen are a few lectures and some click-bait “Peterson destroys…” YouTube appearances. That being said, I’ve found very little to admire or relate to in what I have heard him say. (I’ve previously critiqued one of his UK television appearances here.) But he’s nonetheless on my radar as a cultural figure and I have found his discussions around masculinity to be interesting, if only because of what he leaves out.

I want to briefly talk about Peterson’s views on masculinity because they seem integral to his overall position and you can see much of the same logic that is applied to this topic leaking out into his other opinions. For instance, on at least one occasion, he’s compared the modern “femininsation” of men to the Nietzschean death of God. It’s an apt comparison in some respects — although I’d take it more positively than he seems to do. His argument seems to be that men have lost their purpose, their drive, their grounding, like peasants without God, or a state without its sense of nationhood — the latter being a particularly important similarity, I think, when considering his popularity amongst hypermasculine nationalists. Point being: men are lost without their own inflated (and gendered) senses of self. Peterson is here to give it back to you. It’s not a bad project in and of itself, but he’s pretty terrible at it. His success despite this perhaps says more about the depths of the crisis that we’re willing to accept him as a savior.

What Peterson decries as taking the place of traditional gendered duties and positions within society is what he regularly defines as “contemporary nihilism”. This nihilism is, of course, a huge freedom to many others who have felt traumatically constricted by societal expectations and in contemporary philosophy more generally we have seen the emergence of a new nihilism which explores the outsider epistemologies of occultism with as much rigour as scientific rationalism — you could say it was precisely this crossover that gave the world Reza Negarestani — and so Peterson’s nihilism is, in itself, a very limited concept.

Ray Brassier’s old nihilism, for instance, is a nihilism that grounds itself on the “meaninglessness” of rational truth, which is to say, nihilism is an attempt to decloak oneself of the stories and “realisms” which we allow to structure (but also inevitably limit) our realities. Truth and meaning are not the same thing and so a life of facts and rationality is far closer to nihilism than the popular conception of the term allows. By contrast, despite warning of its dangers when it applies to something he doesn’t believe in, Peterson seems to champion the adoption of ideologies in order to give your life meaning. It is in this sense that he’s often positioned by some as fascist (or at least fascist-adjacent).

Masculinity, for Peterson, appears to be just such an ideology in being held up as an Idea that gives gendered subjects purpose and a sense of duty. But what is odd about this is how much Peterson otherwise critiques ideology. Because, for Peterson, it seems ideologies are only ever collective. Individualism, in particular, is not an ideology…

youtube

… And that’s ridiculous. As Zizek writes himself:

[I]deology is not simply a ‘false consciousness’, an illusory representation of reality, it is rather this reality itself which is already to be conceived as ‘ideological’ — ‘ideological’ is a social reality whose very existence implies the non-knowledge of its participants as to its essence — that is, the social effectivity, the very reproduction of which implies that the individuals ‘do not know what they are doing’. ‘Ideological’ is not the false consciousness of a (social) being but this being itself in so far as it is supported by a false consciousness.

He defines ideology as Marx does (at least implicitly): “they do not know it, but they are doing it“. Such is Peterson’s argument — don’t pay attention to any of that stuff which supposedly defines (or fails to define) your existence, just get on with it; tidy your room. (His insistence on personal cleanliness is, I’ve always felt, near identical to an army induction into self-presentation, and if that isn’t the ultimate immersion in ideology then I don’t know what is.)

Today, despite Peterson’s attempts to rehabilitate it, we see that the particular ideology of patriarchal individualism has been in crisis and so the left embraces the ideological crisis of masculinity, understood as a by-product of a broader crisis of patriarchal capitalism, in order to encourage the emergence of a new consciousness; the emergence of something altogether different. This is not to try and destroy men as such — well, okay, that depends who you ask… — but rather the ideology of Masculinity. In response to this general vibe, Peterson’s blinkered response to this is to try and save patriarchal capitalism by focussing on the individual and selling them an anti-feminist magical voluntarism.

What Peterson doesn’t get is that the argument is not that this crisis of manhood is a result of capitalism’s “failure”, per se — which is presumably why Peterson wants to defend its honour — but rather that this crisis is a direct result of capitalism’s own internal development and indifference.

(It would also be interesting to see what other takes people have on this, actually: “the feminisation of men” — a marxist feminazi psyop or a by-product of free market automation reducing the need for big strong physical labourers? You’d think Peterson, for all his citing of anthropological evidence, would be more on board with the latter, but he’s not… Responses on a postcard!)

The relevance of modern masculinity, and its crisis, to this particular debate is that masculinity is, more often than not, framed as an ideology in being not just a gender but a gender identity. To be a Man, in the sense that Peterson describes, is — sociopolitically and, that is, ideologically speaking — not that different from being a Communist. It is a declaration that says something about your view of the world and how people should expect you to act within it; indeed, how you should expect yourself to act within it. In this way, his is an individualised ethics — and that is how many contemporary men’s groups, for better or for worse, present themselves on both the left and the right, in defining masculinity as an ethics first and foremost — whilst communism instead strives for a collective and communal viewpoint, a “collective subjectivity”, a collectivised ethics, far broader than Peterson’s consideration of (but of course not ignorant to) these kinds of identity markers.

I want to keep this in mind going forwards because I think Peterson’s framing of masculinity actually gives us a good entry point for talking about communism (and his particular framing of communism) and this may help us understand just how flawed and limiting his conceptions of both these things are.

As I mentioned in passing, over the last few years I’ve started to read more and more of Zizek’s earlier work — particularly his articles on communism and, specifically, “the Idea of Communism“. When writing my Master’s dissertation back in 2017, reading a lot about Maurice Blanchot and his Bataillean conception of “community”, the Idea of communism emerged as a central framework through which the questions Blanchot (and others) raised have been continued into the present, and Zizek — as a writer and an editor — at one time contributed a fair amount to this discourse.

I’ve written a lot about the “Idea of communism” before on this blog, albeit under various different guises — the Idea of communism as an event horizon; as a “community which gives itself as a goal”; as a sort of ethical praxis in and of itself, a sort of politico-philosophical First Principle, rather than a solidified (statist) political ideal — it’s under the surface of a lot of my patchwork stuff.

To be clear, what I mean by the “Idea” of communism here is perhaps something akin to the Platonic Idea. To quote Plato himself, writing about his own philosophy:

There is no treatise of mine about these things, nor ever will be. For it cannot be talked about like other subjects of learning, but out-of much communion about this matter, and from living together, suddenly, like a light kindled from a leaping fire, it gets into the soul, and from there on nourishes itself.

The Idea, in this sense, is a sort of ephemeral thing, an event in a process of becoming. It is fuel for discourse and politics but is not, in itself, either of these two things. It’s something else unique to philosophy.

To many this may sound like the beginning of some wishy-washy apolitical intro to communism, but the intention here is to emphasise — what Deleuze & Guattari, in What Is Philosophy?, call — “the Concept” of communism. (This is, arguably, also the intention of U/Acc, in giving philosophical priority to the Concept of Acceleration over its conditioned political vagaries which leave the concept in the corner to their detriment — i.e. the rejection of a state-accelerationism on the same terms as a state-communism, with both being as sensical as the other despite how the latter is so often understood.)

The Concept, in this sense, is a provocation, an invention. To pin it down, to attack it or defend it, is to condition it and use it — which is fine in most circumstances — but there is always something that comes first which we mustn’t lose sight of in the process putting concepts to use. We must be “critical” — just as Peterson describes his preferred mode of thought, which we’ll discuss in a minute — by which I mean that we must not lose sight of the process of engineering which produces the concept when we put it to use. That is the purpose of the Idea or the Concept: that which philosophy always hopes to produce: the simultaneous product of and originator of thinking. (I’m writing on this in relation to accelerationism for somewhere else at the moment so I won’t go into this too much further or else I’ll start plagiarising myself.)

The Idea of communism, then, becomes this original seed which existed before the horrors of state-communism and continues to exist after them. It is a communism produced communally, lidibinally; a kind of communist consciousness; an outsideness; a view to that which isn’t. It is, in this first instance, the Idea of the future, of the new, of what is to come, held in the minds of those affected by it at the expense of that which is. When Kodwo Eshun called himself a “concept-engineer”, this is no doubt what he was positioning himself in favour of, and against the “great inertia engine”, the “moronizer”, the “futureshock absorber.” That’s what the Communist Manifesto calls for too. It’s a provocation, a call to revolution, not just of politics and economics but, more fundamentally, of thought and thinking.

Masculinity — reconfigured as a concept — (and femininity too, for that matter) can be thought of in much the same way, as a becoming, which may signify certain horrors, past and present, but as a future may instead be something which gives itself as a goal. And there is every chance that that goal might be unrecognisable to our current sense of the cloistered Ideal.

Like it or not, the best word we have for this process, related to gender anyway, is queering.

Everything else is cage.

Anyway, I’m rambling…

What does any of this have to do with anything? Well, it has everything to do with Peterson’s opening statement.

The Idea of communism is seemingly an alien concept to him. The very Idea of philosophy seems alien to him, for that matter. He’s a man of blinkered systems and boundaries and “truths”, and to such an extent that “truth” ends up undermining his own arguments. His pursuit of an absolute logic — so common to many North American conservative pundits; “facts don’t care about your feelings” — only makes the holes in his reasoning more apparent. Encapsulated in a wall of logic that he has built around himself, he starts to undermine his own apparent superiority by being incapable of giving himself the room to breath and produce thought. He’s like a real life Vulcan, his ironic flaw being the bemusement which erupts from his consideration of the adaptability of those illogical and mentally vulnerable humans (read: leftists).

What makes this difficult for some to see, however, seems to be the effort Peterson puts into superficially privileging the opposite within his own work. Early on in his opening statement, for instance, he says:

It doesn’t seem to me that either Marx or Engels grappled with one fundamental — with this particular fundamental truth — which is that almost all ideas are wrong … It doesn’t matter if they’re your ideas or something else’s ideas — they’re probably wrong. And, even if they strike you with the course of brilliance, your job is to assume that, first of all, they’re probably wrong and then to assault them with everything you have in your arsenal and see if they can survive.

Such is philosophy — and, on that note, I’m reminded of a particular passage from Deleuze and Guattari’s What Is Philosophy? where they write that the Greeks distrusted the Idea, the Concept, “so much, and subjected it to such harsh treatment, that the concept was more like the ironical soliloquy bird that surveyed the battlefield of destroyed rival opinions (the drunken guests at the banquet).”

And yet, for Deleuze and Guattari, the Concept doesn’t seek truth. It might emerge from certain judgments and appraisals, from thought, but truth is not its end. If truth were the goal for Marx and Engels, it might be called the Truth Manifesto. But it’s not. It is called the Communist manifesto because communism is its goal — a politics of multiplicitous and unruly communality.

Here we see the first glimpse of Peterson’s own nihilism — again, despite his apparent rejection of that -ism and its affects on thought. We might ask ourselves: What is it to introduce your position with a statement as vacuous as “almost all ideas are wrong”? Deleuze and Guattari, again, do a far better job of articulating the stakes of this suggestion which, again, seem totally lost of Peterson:

A concept always has the truth that falls to it as a function of the conditions of its creation. […] Of course, new concepts must relate to our problems, to our history, and, above all, to our becomings. But what does it mean for a concept to be of our time, or of any time? Concepts are not eternal, but does this mean they are temporal? What is the philosophical form of the problems of a particular time? If one concept is “better” than an earlier one, it is because it makes us aware of new variations and unknown resonances, it carries out unforeseen cuttings-out, it bring forth an Event that surveys us. But did the earlier concept not do this already? If one can still be a Platonist, Cartesian, or Kantian today, it is because one is justified in thinking that their concepts can be reactivated in our problems and inspire those concepts that need to be created. What is the best way to follow the great philosophers? Is it to repeat what they said or to do what they did, that is, create concepts for problems that necessarily change?

From this we can say that the prevalence and continued existence of “Marxists” and Marxism is that the problems Marx (and Engels, of course) pointed to remain relevant today because we remain under the problematic system of capitalism. Many further concepts have been added to the arsenal but the original ground remains unresolved. Capitalism — as another -ism — endures for the same reasons. We have yet to settle the problem of capitalism as a response to the end of feudalism and instead treat the conceptual framework of capital as eternal rather than temporal, a being rather than a becoming.

Now, the Idea or Concept of communism can perhaps be summarised in similar terms. Communism is the name of a becoming-to-come, a postcapitalism. Peterson, instead, in wanting to rehabilitate what we already have, doesn’t get this. But still he continues to use the language of someone who does whilst nonetheless remaining trapped in his own circular argument.

For example, again in his opening statement, he calls Marx and Engels “typical” — as opposed to “critical” — thinkers because they accept things (that is, the problems of capitalism) as they are, as given and self-evident (to capitalism), and don’t think about their own thinking, which is to say that they also present their critiques to their readers as if they were self-evident. Peterson says no — these problems are inherent to nature, not capitalism. But in shifting the goal posts rather than engaging with the text directly he portrays himself as guilty of what he decries in them.

In doing this, Peterson sidesteps the entire point of the Marxist project, particularly as it is framed in the Manifesto: a project which attempts to systematise a deep understanding of capitalism (as in Marx’s Capital) and then critique the material reality of capitalism, provoking action against it (as in the Manifesto). If anything, Peterson might have come out of this better if he’d read anything but the manifesto. Instead, he misses the entire point, failing to get under the skin of Marxism because he fails to acknowledge its attempts to get under the skin of capitalist realism and reveal to us the ways in which that which is, that which we see and accept as the nature of reality, is instead a contingency. In this sense, “all ideas (capitalism tells you) are wrong” could be the brainlet summary of the Manifesto in itself, and in this sense, if it is an ideology, it is one which defines itself by what it escapes.

It is here that the circle of Peterson’s argument completes itself before its even really begun. What is it to critique critical thinking in this way? What is it to critique critique through naturalised tradition? Does this make Peterson a critical-critical thinker? Or is he instead just a critical-typical thinker? Either way, his is a position that eats itself. Peterson, however, seems good at supplying the gall to ignore your own inability to take your own medicine.

This is the entire problem with Peterson’s argument going forwards too, which might be summarised as: “Marx and Engels say that this is self-evident within capitalism and must be challenged — I say, actually it is self-evident within nature and nature is sacrosanct so back off.” Peterson’s form of “critique” is simply to take pre-existing critiques of our sociopolitical world and place them within a broader (supposedly) scientific context and, in the process, turn his own critical thinking back into (by his own definition) a typical thinking. He’s literally bending backwards over his own arguments.

Take, for instance, his analysis of the first “axiom” of the Communist Manifesto — his summary of Marxist historical materialism being that the very engine of history is economic class struggle. Peterson flippantly throws out the relevance of economics and says, sure, class struggle exists, hierarchies exist, but they exist in nature too so why are we so upset about them and put all the blame on economics?

In framing it this way, he seemingly misses the main point that our hierarchies are not “natural” — they are instantiated by capitalism as an economic system. To say that hierarchies have always existed ignores the sense in which economics defines class. It is to ignore the very nature of our hierarchies, in the present epoch, as economic — that is, how economics forms them — which we can interpret as not just being about how much your earn but also how much you are worth, connecting slavery to wage-slavery and encompassing the fallouts of both. Contrary to this, Peterson’s is the sort of argument that takes scientific observations of the natural kingdom and then uses them to reconstruct a sort of secular Divine Right of Kings. It is a gateway to a racist and eugenic thinking.

It is from this flawed analysis that Peterson goes on to make the point that went viral in the aftermath of the debate. He says:

it is finally the case that human hierarchies are not fundamentally predicated on power and I would say that biological / anthropological data on that is crystal clear. You don’t rise to a position of authority that’s reliable in a human society primarily by exploiting other people. It’s a very unstable means of obtaining power.

This clip has done the rounds online already, as it gets a very audible laugh from the crowd, and rightly so. It’s perhaps the most moronic comment anyone could make — but it is also a comment that can be split into a right half and a wrong half, further demonstrating Peterson’s circular reasoning.

People do rise to positions of authority through exploitation — that is true not just of capitalism but the feudalism that birthed it and it is also, arguably, true of the animal kingdom too (depending on how you define exploitation — the exploitation of behaviours, habits, circumstances?) — but it is also right to say that this is an unstable means of obtaining power. Rather than that instability meaning people don’t do it, it leads to the sort of resentment and protest that Peterson dismisses as unfounded. His entire logic system starts to fall into place. Reading the Communist Manifesto at aged 18 and presumably reading it with all the nuance of an 18 year old, Peterson has embarked on a career of self-fulfilling criticism based on the logical fallacies of a teenager.

From this point, it is very hard to take anything else he says seriously. What follows is a long, meandering and confused rant that ends with the basic point: “Actually, relatively speaking, the poor are richer now than they once were… As are the rich…” Thank you, Dr. Peterson. Truly insightful.

I’m left wanting to bail out at this point. I feel like I’ve wasted 40 minutes of my life but I try and stick it out for Zizek’s opening statement at least.

From the outset, it is far more interesting. Taking on the three topics of the debate’s title — Communism, Happiness, Capitalism — he considers the ways in which “Happiness” is not such a simple and virtuous goal for us to give ourselves, especially under a system like capitalism which does all it can to grab the steering wheel of our desires. (It’s an argument I’ve made myself before when writing about Mark Fisher’s Acid Communism — a communism that is “beyond the pleasure principle”.) Zizek says:

I agree that human life or freedom and dignity does not consist just in searching for happiness — no matter how much we spiritualise it — or in the effort to actualise our inner potentials. We have to find some meaningful cause beyond the mere struggle for pleasurable survival.

Zizek’s statement from here is actually quite brilliant, and subtle. He eschews any temptation to echo Peterson’s polemic book report and instead implicitly skewers everything wrong with Peterson’s own body of work and, indeed, the entire situation of their meeting under the cover of the debate’s own title. It’s very cunning.

For instance, he says a few minutes later:

Once traditional authority loses its substantial power it is not possible to return to it. All such returns are, today, a post-modern fake. Does Donald Trump stand for traditional values? No. His conservatism is a post-modern performance; a gigantic ego trip.

Whilst Zizek takes firm aim at Trump, Peterson lingers on the edge of his seat. You wonder how much he knows that he is also in Zizek’s sights. Whilst Peterson through criticisms at a 170-year-old target that just don’t stick, Zizek DESTROYS his opponent in a philosophical proxy war.

If Trump is, according to Zizek, the ultimate postmodernist president, Peterson appears, by proxy, to be the most successful postmodernist public intellectual — the attack-dog of YouTube conservatism, the spewer of the very postmodernism he declares his enemy through his snake-oil salesman act of Making Men Great Again as a neo-traditional ideology.

Zizek powers through point after point from here and everything starts to blur into one. It’s not easy to follow without the post-stream benefit of stopping and starting, but there is substance here — substance, I am nonetheless told by the better informed, that Zizek has already repeated again and again through his most recent books and public appearances. There is nothing new here, but it is in part worth listening to just to see Peterson’s face. He is out of his depth. And it shows.

Whereas Peterson’s history lesson is under-informed, Zizek’s history lesson, encapsulating the 20th / 21st century development of hegemonic ideologies, ends simply with a door through which Peterson blindly walks, being the capstone to Zizek’s own argument simply by being himself. Little else needs to be said. The undertone of Zizek’s argument seems to be: “You want postmodernism? You’ve just seen a masterclass… And wasn’t it shit!” It’s very entertaining.

But honestly, I’m burnt out. It’s hard to adjust to Zizek’s rapid-fire drive-by of our contemporary moment after Peterson’s lacklustre ahistorical ramble. Maybe I’ll come back and watch the follow-up back and forth at a later date… But I doubt I’ll want to blog about this any further.

UPDATE: This, from Quillette of all places, is spot on:

The debate about whether there’s a straight line from Marx to Stalin is an important one, especially given the revival of interest in socialism in the contemporary West. Everyone should want the key participants in that debate to be as well informed as possible. Marxists should want to sharpen their minds by having to confront the best versions of anti-Marxist arguments, while anti-Marxists should want a champion for their position who knows Marx’s writings inside and out. Unfortunately, as he’s shown on many occasions, Jordan Peterson doesn’t fit this bill.

#xenogothic

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x9zaire · 4 years

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MLK DAY 2021

Today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King .Jr day and the impact that he had on the fabric of American history, with his work as being the head of the civil rights movement. This is an important day not only for Black Americans specifically but for all groups who have taken the blueprint of civil disobedience, non-violence and the moral imperative to stay the course . But the civil rights movement and all that it stood for is bigger than MLK and the unsung heroes who followed his lead. The Civil Rights movement was a culmination of the hopes and dreams of America's once enslaved population. It was the reason for all of our actions from the underground railroad to the civil war(and every other war), reconstruction on up to civil rights. The ultimate aim of Black America was simple: We wanted to be Americans with the same rights and protections as every other American, but due to the scars of history and the and the reality of privilege and guilt in this society we can say that this dream has not yet been fully realized even though we can say that we have made leaps and bounds toward that dream. But this dream was best articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King JR. on his march on Washington in 1963. But this dream was also articulated by the beginner of Black exceptionalism and intellectualism W.E.B Dubois and the N.A.A.C.P for ages before the civil rights movement. Personally, I never fully realized the power and greatness of this man until just recently, see I had grew up in the 90's and it was all about the movement that would come after the civil rights era; the black power era with its emphasis on masculinity and defiance epitomized by the Black Panther Party and in my era of rap music especially Tupac Shakur and his vision of Thug life. Going back deeper was my awakening due to the teachings of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad and his protege Mr. Malcom X who as we know was both highly critical of the civil rights movement and Dr. King. Turning the other cheek, non-violence, loving thy neighbor epitomes of civil rights and of black christian ethics was never given the light of day to the reality that faces black males in the ghetto: survival by any means and besides we always looked at those tactics as weak because somehow back then black folks especially the males was somehow scared of the white man and loved him so much that he would give up his manhood in order to be accepted by him. So even though I respected the man i always put him in a "uncle tom" status until i actually read in depth his story and the circumstances he had to face. I read about how he never wanted to be a preacher but had to because he daddy was one. I read about how in college getting his doctorate he was reading everything else besides theology science, reason, he ran into Ghandi and his work of non-violence and civil disobediance. I read that after his studies he would take his post at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where he just so happened to become thrown into the civil rights movement. He had no grand strategy of changing the landscape of American race relations he had no pre-conceived notions of grandeur hell he was a ladies man good with the honeys so what changed? If anyone knows anything about God and religion we know that every prophet or great man never wanted to be one, God just came into their lives and boom everything changed and this is what happened with Dr. King God brought him to do his bidding and the rest is history. And who else better than Dr. King remember his father and grandfather was baptist ministers in the south so you know that tradition stretched back all the way to slavery, so as the chosen one of that staple of the black community we can say that Dr. King also was the best product that the black church had ever produced; full of contradiction yes but his ability to deliver a message to tap into the souls of not only black people but to the christian conscience of America has not been reproduced by any one and the only person who came close was probably Obama during his first run for president. So Dr. King was not only the best that the Black church had to offer but of what christianity had to offer cause let us be clear Billy Graham with all his stadium crusades was not in favor of integration or of blacks in general and christianity had been hijacked by white supremacy but it was Dr.King and black folks in general who lived the precepts of jesus christ to the T as was put on display during the civil rights movement. When I really looked at how much hate this man and the regular people who followed had to endure then i see at how much more powerful his emphasis on non-violence really was and at how it takes more strength for a man not to hit back than it is for a man to hit back. I look at how those who did take up arms against their oppressors and question how did their revolution end up? I look at the inability to compromise and move forward because the hate is to deep on both sides and the line is drawn in the sand like an unwinnable game of tug of war, who really wins in the end? I won't say that we've made it to the mountain top and with black lives matter entering the public space and with the tea party and the recent events in washington we see the tug of war even in America but can we really say that we aren't better off without the voting rights act the civil rights act and in time the war on poverty crusade of lyndon B Johnson? I had to go back to the hate that King faced in chicago, in florida and i must say that is more manly than anything malcom x ever said or whatever the black panthers did but back to king. His story just points to the greatness inherit in anyone person Dr.king rose to the occasion and he delivered and that is why he is maybe with Abraham Lincoln the greatest American ever born.

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justjesusthoughts-blog · 7 years

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Evidence for God

There is overwhelming evidence that God not only exists, but that the words he gave us through the Bible are true and inspired by him. In the following, I will lay out some of the main points of evidence for God and Christianity, but I will still barely even scratch the surface. You will find that the more you look into evidence for God, the more you will discover.

Martyrs- When Jesus walked the earth, he gained many followers, and he even had 12 close ones called his "disciples" who followed him everywhere he went and learned from him. They, along with many others, including people who were not his followers, were with Jesus when he died. They witnessed him being nailed to a cross, they saw him take his last breath, they watched as the soldier stabbed him in his heart to make sure he was dead, and they buried him. Three days later, these same people watched in complete shock and awe as the same Jesus walked amongst them, performing miracles and showing off the holes in his hands, feet, and sides. Thousands of people who witnessed his death gave eyewitness accounts to the writers of the gospel that they saw Jesus with their own eyes just days after he was killed. Not only this, but most of his disciples, and many of his family members, friends, and followers were murdered later on because of their belief that Jesus was God in the flesh and that he came to bring forgiveness to anyone who would turn from their sinful ways and follow him. Even in the face of painful deaths, torture, ridicule, isolation, and excruciating pain, hundreds of people did not waver in their beliefs or take back what they had said. Think about this: if these people were lying, and just trying to trick people into believing something for their own gain, why would they die for it? There's no way all of them were crazy. The only explanation could be that they truly saw Jesus die, they saw him resurrected, and these things convinced them beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything Jesus had said was true. He was the son of God, and his message of forgiveness was so important that they would rather die than give up on telling people about it.

The Bible's Consistency- Have you ever played the game "telephone"? The game starts with one person whispering a word or phrase in the ear of the person next to them and then that person whispers it in the ear of the person next to them, and when you get to the end of the circle the last person tries to repeat the original word or phrase. After being passed around so many times, it is usually so twisted and changed that it hardly even matches the original. If the Bible was conceived from human minds, this is what you may expect it to be like. Inconsistent, with conflicting views and stories, which would make it completely unreliable. But this is in fact the opposite of what we see in the Bible. The Bible contains 66 different books, written by 40 different authors over the span of 1,500 years. It wasn't put together into one book until recently. As a result, many of the authors never read each other's books or even met each other. They all claim to have received their words from God. The Bible never once contradicts itself. Not. Once. Even different accounts of the same event may present different details of the same story, but they never disprove the other by contradicting the other. There is one common, unifying theme throughout: of God's vast power and greatness, and of his love for the people he created which ultimately results in him sending his own son to die to save us.

Prophecies: R.C. Sproul once said, "The very dimension of the shear fulfillment of prophecy in the Old Testament scriptures should be enough to convince anyone that we are dealing with a supernatural piece of literature... God himself has planted within the scriptures an internal consistency that bears witness that this is his Word." The Bible contains about 2,500 prophecies (predictions) about future events such as the life and death of Jesus Christ, the end times, and important historical events. The only prophecies that have not been fulfilled are the ones that are about the end of the world, about 500 of them. The other 2,000 have all been fulfilled to the letter. The Bible not only backs this up, but scores of other historical records as well. The odds of all of these prophecies being fulfilled by chance without any errors is less than 1 in 10 to the 2,000th power. So basically, the chance of these coming true by chance and not divine intervention is next to impossible. Here's an example:

Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel's King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah's (Jesus's) death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.

For examples of a few more of them, go to http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible.

You can also Google biblical prophecies and see examples of many others.

Jesus was who he said he was- The ex-atheist turned Christian C.S. Lewis once said, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” One of the arguments for Jesus being the son of God and not just a great teacher is this: that the only three options for us to believe is that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or he was who he said he was. Those are the only three options, considering that Christians and atheists alike cannot deny at least the existence of Jesus based on historical evidence. If he was a liar, he would not have been able to do the things he did. Eyewitnesses reported Jesus performing many miracles: healing people they had known their whole lives who were blind, deaf, and paralyzed, calming a storm, multiplying a few fish and a couple loaves of bread into enough to feed 10,000 people, and even bringing people back to life who had been dead for days. A liar also probably wouldn't allow himself to be tortured and die if he was just trying to trick people. Add to these the fact that he himself resurrected from the dead, and it's pretty easy to tell that he wasn't just trying to fool people into thinking he was God. Second, he could not be a lunatic. Thousands of people would not follow a lunatic or someone who was not what he said he was. Look at Jesus's words and you can see that what he says are not the rantings of a madman. He was intelligent, he was consistent in his teachings, and his teachings make sense in light of the person he claimed to be: God. Not only that but his followers later were tortured and died for what they believed. That many people just don’t die for the random teachings of a madman- what he said they believed to be true based on what they witnessed and saw in him.

History does not contradict the Bible, but reinforces it- The more historical records and artifacts that are found, the more confidence we find in the Bible being true. Nothing that has been found has contradicted the Bible, but agrees with what the Bible says. Not even atheists dispute the historical accuracy of the Bible. Here are just a few of many examples (again, you can find tons of examples just by googling):

-A common flood story: In Genesis, the Bible tells of a great flood that wiped out almost all of mankind and animals. This has been proven scientifically, and also historically. Other cultures, such as the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, and the Egyptians all have records of a great flood in primordial times. Even Native American cultures have legends about a great flood. The reality of a great flood occurring at this time is also now supported by fossil evidence.

-In Genesis, the story of the tower of Babel tells how in the beginning of the world, all the people spoke one language but God confused their language and created many others. Ancient Sumerian and Babylonian tablets have records of this event occurring.

-The Bible's records of the Kings who ruled in certain countries and times have been shown to be completely accurate. In addition, the Bible chronicles many battles, wars, and the downfalls of many civilizations which have likewise been recorded in other sources.

While this alone doesn't prove that the Bible was divinely inspired, it does add more depth to the reliability of the Bible. The more reliable we can find the Bible about historical things, the more we can count on the reliability of other things. For example, think about the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. He told the townspeople there was a wolf about to devour their sheep several times when there wasn't a wolf in sight. Then, when there was actually a wolf about to kill all their sheep, they did not believe him because he had lied so many times before. If the Bible was wrong about historical events, we would not be able to confidently say that it was right about other events, like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, because people would be able to point to that and say, "Well it was wrong about this battle or this king's reign so how can we trust anything it says?" It's like if there was a weatherman who was accurate 100% of the time. Suppose he told us it was going to snow in Southern California in the middle of July. We might think that's crazy or outrageous, but if he had been right about other seemingly impossible predictions before, we would be more likely to believe him.

The Bible predicts many scientific findings YEARS before they were discovered- The Bible talks about many scientific things that were not discovered until centuries later. However, it does not predict even one thing that is inaccurate. Many other religions, books, and cultures have predicted future scientific discoveries but none with the accuracy of the Bible. If a human were to predict future scientific advancements you would expect that they would be wrong a lot, probably more times than they were right. But what we see with the accuracy of the Bible is exactly what you would expect if it were inspired by God himself- it contains no errors. Here are a few examples of many:

-The Bible says the earth is round; for years it was believed the earth was flat. Isaiah 40:22 says, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth."

-The Bible says that the earth hangs in space: "He stretches out the north over empty space, He hangs the earth on nothing." -Job 26:7. It was widely believed at this time that the earth was supported by something. Other cultures believed the earth sat on the back of a turtle or an elephant, while others believed gods like Atlas held it up.

-Job 38:16 talks about "the springs of the sea." Until the 1970's, scientists believed the ocean was fed by rivers and rain. It wasn't until we were able to create the technology in the 70's to explores the depths of the ocean that we found out the ocean is fed by underground springs.

-Blood is the source of life and health: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11), and "For the life of every creature is its blood, its blood its life" (Leviticus 17:14). At this time, people with all kinds of medical conditions were usually treated by being "bled" to get rid of whatever was infecting them and making them sick. Now we know that blood is essential for life and that we must have enough of it to stay alive and functioning.

-The Bible also contains many instructions to the ancient Hebrews about sanitary laws that were not discovered until much later. For example, God warns against drinking out of stagnant pools of water, which we now know cause diseases like cholera. He also instructs them to bury their feces and to bury it away from their camps. Soldiers were even dying in World War I due to keeping their waste too close to them, so the Bible was way ahead of its time in this. This also shows us that even when we may not understand God's commands or see the point in them, God sees the bigger picture and ultimately has our best interests at heart.

Personally, one of the most compelling aspects of Christianity is in the sheer complexity of our universe. If we were even a fraction of an inch closer to the sun, we would burn up. If we were a fraction of an inch further we would freeze. We are sitting on a ball, covered in 70% water with a core of magma and lava, spinning at thousands of miles an hour and yet we don't fall off. I see God in the beauty of nature and in the variety. There's caterpillars with their tiny little legs and their antennae for sensing and then there's massive elephants with trunks that act like an arm to reach to the tops of trees for food and to reach down to drink from pools of water. Then there's humans, the most complex and remarkable creatures of all. We have thousands of nerves for sensing the world around us, and we have more nerve endings in the places we need them like our hands. We have all these systems in place inside our bodies to maintain homeostasis like our blood buffering system. God could have created us like the plants to eat: he could have created us so that all we have to do is stand in the sun and get our energy. But he created all kinds of different foods for our enjoyment and creativity. He gave us feelings, which we aren't always thankful for but don't they make life worth living? That feeling you get when you see someone you love that you haven't seen in a while. That feeling you get on a still, quiet morning watching the sun rise before the rest of the world is up. That high you get when you do something daring, the peace you feel when you're in nature, the love you feel when you look at your kids or your spouse or your friends. God is present in everything around us. There's no way something this spectacular arrived out of nothing, and I think deep down we all know that. The problem of a God arises when we realize that the presence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, righteous, perfect God means that we have someone to answer to at the end of our lives. That we can't just live our lives the way we want to and get away with it in the end. But the good news is that God doesn't exist just to judge us or give us a bunch of rules to follow that we can never accomplish. God gives us rules to live by because he loves us. Think about it, if a parent let their child run around and play in a busy street all the time, the kid might love it. No rules, no one to answer to, just complete freedom. But that's not loving the child. If a parent truly loves their child they will set boundaries and tell them to play in safe areas because they don't want them to be hit by a passing car. Even if the child doesn't understand it, it is up to the parent to do what is best for the child because he or she loves their child. And it is up to the child to follow the rules because even if they don't understand the rules, they trust that a loving parent knows better than they do and that the rules their parent is setting is for their own good. In the same way, God sets rules for us. He tells us not to be jealous of those around us, because he knows jealousy is going to make us dissatisfied with our own lives and cause us to not be thankful for all the ways he has blessed us. He commands us to take care of the poor and the widows because he wants all his people to be taken care of. He commands us to love him with all our hearts, souls, and minds because he knows that ultimately, we can never be fully satisfied by anything but a relationship with him. And God doesn't expect us to be perfect either. He knows we will mess up, but lucky for us his forgiveness never runs out. He sent Jesus to die the death we deserve so that we can stand blameless and pure before him. He doesn't seek to take from us, but rather to give. He doesn't want to take our freedom from us, he wants to set us free from the weight of sin. He wants to provide us with the joy, peace, security, ultimate acceptance, and sense of purpose that we can only get from him. He only asks that we stop running from him and instead run to him, turning from our old selves so that he can make us new. He wants you so desperately, but he loves you so much that he gives you the free will to choose him for yourself.

#evidenceforgod #god is real #evidenceforchristianity #evidenceforjesus #jesuschrist #jesus #jesussaves #god #godisgood #iloveyou

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eksbdan-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/10/29/sacrifice-for-sin-sins-of-the-world-how/

How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World By His Own Sacrifice? Only one way. Part 2. The Messianic Secret

Sacrifice for Sin and the Real Messianic Secret

This is an article in a series. Please see:

Christ on the Cross Part 1: How can a person die in sacrifice for the sins of the world? Only one way.

Well, I think that’s a pretty ambitious opening to the treatment of a topic of theology that has become about as domesticated and prosaic as cosmology in A Brief History of Time. In that, you never have to deal with the implications of origins as long as you construct a reason that sounds at once sufficiently sciency and mysterious to account for it, like “quantum fluctuations.” Our theology is pious sounding, but in its explanation of Christ and the Cross, we find only God dying for “sin” and nothing more that would deal directly with how and for what sin(s). The only thing I’m doing is what I believe is framing the right questions. If we’re honest they are going to lead us to some very un-prosaic answers if what we are dealing with is very un-prosaic.

But did you ever stop to reflect on the fact that Jesus asked far more questions than he answered, with the intention of those receiving them supplying a correct answer? Did you ever wonder why Jesus always told those who received the blessings of his healing and teaching not to respond by going around saying “this is the Messiah, this is the Messiah, this is the Messiah? Even to demons? But if Jesus was only speaking a revelation of God with its depth ending in “I am God,” or “I am Messiah, or “just believe in me and you will be saved,” why all the intrigue? I know these are pretty radical things for him to say from what is, apparently, only a man. But do we really think that what is quintessentially radical in the identification of someone who is far more than a man is a name, a conclusion of identity, rather than a motivation for its acceptance or denial?

I speak of the “Messianic Secret” spoken of in scholarly circles,” first brought to a depth of discussion by William Wrede. See Matthew 16:16-20, Mark 1:43-45, Mark 8:27-30, Luke 9:18-21,Mark 3:11-12. But if we think that this secret is only found here, we would be way off about the extent and significance in the disclosure of the Father by Jesus. It’s not really found by our scholars anywhere else only because it’s obsessed with categorizations that help maintain boundaries that keep anything of the strange and remarkable out of reach of themselves and their pedestrian audiences. After all, if the truth was not fought and worked over, what would be their job? Jesus, however, has not kept these precious transcendent truths from the street because if he didn’t it would put him out of a job. He does it not because it’s low value in relation to one’s ego, but because it’s as precious as God himself and, for faith, it is God himself. And he’s not keeping it by confusion and relegation, he’s keeping it safe by giving it under another appearance. There is no parable, no story, and very few theological statements found in the Gospels that are uttered without the reporter assuming a subtext for which the reader is expected to engage. The Messianic Secret does not occupy only several verses there, the Messianic Secret is the Gospels.

A lot my meditation on the Cross is going to come at it asymmetrically, keeping this fact about us and our adversary, with the real truth that Jesus preached in mind, not that of the adversary. Why we don’t get it is habitually because of the way we have determined to use words. Not because of the biblicality of doctrines, but the biblicality of our assumptions about ultimates expressed by ideas through words.

We all know that after Christ’s resurrection and after the Holy Spirit founded the Church the Messianic Secret was surely not the method of evangelism practiced. The one crucial mission of the apostles became openly contending for and convincing everyone that Jesus is the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. But why was this a secret when Jesus was walking the earth? When his Person was on full display before everyone, and the full fulfillment of his messianic credentials were in the process of manifestation?

Well, obviously, as I said, your not saved by a Truth until it is fully manifest for you, and he wanted the people to supply the answer that was coming upon them for themselves. But in Jesus’s work of throwing out Messianic symbol after symbol and expecting those sincerely looking for him to supply the signification, my question is if the image of Him on the Cross is not his greatest of such intentional messianic secrets that lives on as our judge as to our true affections for Truth.

Wrede thought that this strategy of Jesus was the same as his refusal to give answers to his parables, as in Mark 411: “And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.” So do I. But Wrede also thought that he was trying to reduce the confusion that was arising from the difference between what Jesus thought his messianic ministry and his non-messianic ministry. Thus does scholarship, at every available turn, attempt to sacrifice the theological and soteriological implications of the idea and confession of Messiah so that attention turns to issues which power effects only from the fringes of possibility.

But what if I were to tell you that, far from the case, the reason Jesus was doing this with those outside of his circle was not that he had a theological problem arising that he wanted to put the kibosh on, and not even just because he wanted people to admit on their own that he was the Messiah, but that he wanted them to admit theology and religion itself is all to be in every corner of the earth contained in that Truth of “Messiah?” This comes out beautifully in Matthew 16:13–16; Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:18–20:

Mat:16:13: “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

In reply, Jesus said “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Now, this is very clear, is it not? I mean, take up any commentary for the cause and effect of this faith and you will find this rendered something like here, in the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible:

“but while Peter may be a rock in his role of confessing Christ (v. 16), he becomes a stumbling block in his role of resisting the meaning of that confession, namely, Jesus’ calling to the cross.”

John MacArthur does not buy that this is only about Peter. It’s about the confession of faith upon which Christ builds the Church. Here, he correctly identifies what that confession is, but won’t go past the Personal definition:

Jesus used a play on words here with petra which means a foundation boulder (cf. 7:24, 25). Since the NT makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation (Acts 4:11, 12; 1 Cor. 3:11) and the head (Eph. 5:23) of the church, it is a mistake to think that here He is giving either of those roles to Peter.

We can go way back to Adam Clarke, who does the same thing in a different way. Notice here that he correctly mentions and puts into the exposition a reminder that “Christ” means “Messiah,” and this refers to that confession upon which the Christ will build the Church. He actually quotes the great messianic prophecy of Psalms 118 in support. He calls this the “precious faith,” the foundation stone of it.

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Upon this very rock, επι ταυτη τη πετρα – this true confession of thine – that I am The Messiah, that am come to reveal and communicate The Living God, that the dead, lost world may be saved – upon this very rock, myself, thus confessed (alluding probably to Ps 118:22, The Stone which the builders rejected is become the Head-Stone of the Corner: and to Isa 28:16, Behold I lay a Stone in Zion for a Foundation) – will I build my Church, μου την εκκλησιαν , my assembly, or congregation, i.e. of persons who are made partakers of this precious faith. That Peter is not designed in our Lord’s words must be evident to all who are not blinded by prejudice.

This looks promising. Having identified the foundation stone as the confession of Messiah, the mountain, that the smaller rock, Peter, represented, Clarke continues in his commentary on verse 19:

The keys of the kingdom – By the kingdom of heaven, we may consider the true Church, that house of God, to be meant; and by the keys, the power of admitting into that house, or of preventing any improper person from coming in. In other words, the doctrine of salvation and the full declaration of the way in which God will save sinners; and who they are that shall be finally excluded from heaven; and on what account

Did you catch that? “Messiah” is equal to “the doctrine of salvation and the full declaration of the way God saves sinners.” But Psalms 118 is a messianic prophecy. Of such like are surely equal to “Messiah,” but Clarke implies that such revelation as Psalms 118 is not the way in which God saves sinners, but only by its distilled, doctrinal conclusion “you are the Christ,” or the person of “Messiah.”

You could go on and on and on. Messianic Secret? Its effect upon those outside Jesus’s inner circle is on full display here and it goes way beyond a few verses.

Of every conceivable opportunity to apply “Christ” to its most natural and unforced signification, messianic prophecy, they just can’t and won’t go there. This when they already know and believe John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The “doctrine of salvation” is “Christ,” the Personal idea? In other words, a religious proposition, something you can handle without any knowledge about it and still feel like your handing and loving something divine. None of these or any that you will find put “Christ” the equal of anything but another conceptual object to faith, whether the Person of Jesus, the Person of Peter, the idea of a theological conclusion or a “Christ” which simply means Jesus. Never to what the Bible repeatedly says is it’s only eternal, demonstrable, transcendent knowledge and the final revelation God gave to the world to forever stand in judgment over all those who would so vainly use the word “spiritual” or “faith” again.

The Messianic Secret is simply the intentional display by Christ of things which have a natural appearance and are switchable to stand either for another mundane thing or an eternal and holy thing. The unfaithful choose the mundane thing as conclusive evidence upon what value God places on eternal things. But basically Christ says “choose what is of the world and what is of heaven.” The only conclusive evidence of what is of heaven here is not “the doctrines of salvation” but God’s promises and supernatural fulfillments by Christ, and that kind of scripture is occupied by only one of its categories.

But Jesus won’t tell you this openly. It’s up to each person individually to set the ultimate value of what he sees spiritually. It’s not about what Adam Clarke, John Macarthur or anyone else thinks, its what you think. And trust me, what you think that is heavenly is not for this kind of faith again another person or object, whether form or abstract, which could allow you to take the thing as sufficient and miss its substance while still qualifying for Heaven. This is not anything about the pagan religion of things and ideas. This, for the first time, is about what knowledge, information, raw phenomenal appearances of the divine God solely ordained to demand representation by things and ideas in the world. Not “Jesus,” not “Christ,” not “the doctrines of salvation,” not a feeling, not tradition, not anything that can be taken as a self-contained revelation when it’s only a possible signing device for revelation.

The Messiah, that Person, and his confession, Him and the equal to him of his informational, prophetic entity, are set as the King, the ultimate leader over every notion of spirituality and its expressions by human beings from his point forward. Christ’s representative body on earth, the Church, was to be granted this key of understanding and by it exclusive heavenly access.

If no one answered Jesus’s messianic question, “what is the greatest truth and the greatest reason for faith in God possible” it’s still open for them. It’s not given to be a pandering religious conclusion and a doctrinal statement, but a spiritual question and then answer and above all. One which the world hates, and this rejection, since they have refused the ultimate, is the quintessential sin. There are other sins, but they are at best only symbols of this one.

That person who rejects or misdirects the Messianic Secret in their core doesn’t hate spirituality, “God,” purity and righteousness, and “Truth” the ideas, when they have a choice over their meanings. What they really, really, really hate is Truth the certain Person bound inextricably to a single, certain Truth, of specialized and proprietary knowledge, is going to be what will judge hearts. Judged for how it is known and regarded, and over which they have no further religious control.

Spiritual, unknown and viscerally reviled things hiding and lurking in the shadows that jump out and grab them and kill them is what they abhor. But they also want to be free to deliberately wander in places where these spiritual things hide and lurk in the shadows, just well protected from the things hiding there that jump out to grab them and kill them. They want to play around in the unknown and remain unscathed by its inevitable revelational threats. People want certainty and control over things not certain and out of their control, but also don’t want a certainty that makes them safe from its threat when what makes them safe involves them independently making the decision to search for it in places where the answers could be personally depreciating and uncomfortable, of foreign origin, unpredictable and not voted on.

This, of course, applies to spiritual truth, not usually physical truth, unless they are considered crazy. No one in their right mind would decide to deliberately put their bodies at risk and say for the sake of freedom “I will ignore that warning sign about the bridge being washed out and proceed at 70 miles an hour.” I’m talking about spiritual truth, where we really act crazy.

With spiritual truth, the threat is unseen and so are its laws. You can make them inside your head anything you want, but the cold, cruel reality is that the spirit is not an optional dimension that exists only in your imagination. It’s real, as real as the space in your head in which you are allowed to say “I am human,” and far more real and permanent than the physical space. Real self-preservation is not the protection of your physical body, it’s of your soul.

Is it any wonder then why Jesus rejected those who would not publically admit the one spiritual Truth that could save them spiritually but was also the most unmanipulable, obvious, demonstrated and axiomatic? That people with no self-preservation instinct for their spirits will not be saved when they demonstrated openly and willingly that they don’t really care about whether it lives or dies? That you keep driving at 70, because you hate confining, restrictive spiritual laws and conditions over you that can’t be changed but, still, somehow, in some way, of your own, believe that your obedience to spiritual law will allow you to live forever?

Well, you know, this is only the stuff of religious blather. What evidence do you have that there is such a spiritual sign “the bridge is out,” that there is such a threat, or even that there is a bridge or a car that you are spiritually driving toward or in?

Christ on the Cross is the greatest single event and image of human history after his vindication as Truth in the resurrection, Do you believe that? Yes? Then why? That is Jesus’s messianic question to you. Until you honestly answer that, and unless you show yourself for the real lover of truth you say you are, count yourself on the side of it as signifying just a man dying on a piece of wood, and on the side in which all men and pieces of wood fall after their self-satisfying function ends on earth.

Self-satisfaction does not get you satisfaction unless what satisfies is what ultimately preserves you.

Continued here: How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World Through His Own Sacrifice? Only one way. Part 3. Preparation for Sacrifice.

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jayne-hecate-writer · 7 years

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Blade Runner 2049 A review

warning: This blog post contains spoilers. Do not read this if you have not yet seen this movie. Trust me, this movie deserves your attention.

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It is not often that I walk out of the cinema and wish that I could erase a movie from my mind, but this is what I felt after seeing the sequel to one of my all time favourite movies, the 1982 classic cult film Blade Runner. Now with a statement like this, I feel that I need to explain myself, after all this sounds pretty damning, but it really is not. I want to erase this movie from my mind so that I can see it again and revel in my time with this story.

You see, I absolutely loved this movie; I know that some have complained that with a run time of almost three hours, it is a bit long. But for me, it could have gone on even longer. I sat almost in rapture watching this movie; for me it was an experience, an epic in story telling that frankly is not only beautiful to look at, but has a narrative that explores our very nature as living beings.

First of let me discuss the main character within this story, Kay (played by Ryan Gosling), a replicant who faces bigotry and abuse every day from his colleagues in the Police force. He is also forced to endure constant checks to ensure that he remains on task and does not deviate from his programmed role. He is in every way other than name a slave and he functions in this world with a brutal clarity, taking out the escaped Nexus 8 replicants that escaped after the great black out destroyed all of the data records. Oh yeah, before you watch this movie, it really helps to watch the three short films that lead into it from the original film. Not only are they fantastic movies themselves, but they fill in some details that would otherwise be story gaps. This means that with these short films, Blade Runner 2049 does pass the three hour mark and to my mind this is not only acceptable, but should be encouraged. Fuck the short attention span and the low brow sci-fi that is a glorified war movie, with what ever kind of space race makes for eye candy on screen. No, this movie is something important, it has a depth to it that is going to require repeated viewings and frankly I cannot wait to see it again.

The first fight scene with Dave Bautista of Guardians of the Galaxy fame is horrifying and brutal. However these are not the over riding emotions that we feel during this scene, what we feel is ultimately the sadness of watching an innocent life snuffed out because it is deemed to be of less value than a real human being. From this point, the film sets out to discover what it means to be a real human being and there are moments when we are led along a path that would imply that our hero is more special than his brothers and sisters that come from the same factory. The reveal though that he is just another ordinary replicant is not heart breaking, but so poignant. All of the replicants share this dream of being real, but only one of them ever was.

As the story progresses we encounter the dusty world of post apocalyptic Las Vegas and it is here that something important is said to us in visual form. A simple comment on the nature of society, the bee hives. They mean so much more than the initial moment suggests. They too are slaves to their existence, with no plant life around them, they take only sugar water from feeders and create their honey for human consumption. If they are real or not is never discussed, but in this world it is safe to assume that they too are replicated. Shortly after this we discover Deckard and we find him to be even more of a derelict than he was. He is still a drunk, he is old and faded, weak and widowed following the death of Rachel. Kay and him come to an uneasy peace and the question on his humanity remains unanswered in real terms.

However, I feel that there are pointers here. We are told that the Nexus 8 replicants have unlimited life spans, unlike the old Nexus 6 models from the original film. There are hints that Deckard is maybe a Nexus 7, given that the Blade Runner units are mainly replicants. Then there is the comment from his old friend Gaff when he is asked why Deckard left. “There was something in his eyes.” Can they make the point any more ambiguous? Probably, but it would be unkind to do so.

There is one big reveal in this movie that is not only heart breaking, but gives us hope for all replicant kind. Rachel and Deckard conceived a child together, but Rachel unable to safely give birth died and the child was removed from her body and hidden. We meet her earlier in the film than we realise and she reveals a great truth that we are unaware of at that time and when we realise later on who she is, our hearts are broken once again.

I notice though that I have barely mentioned the main antagonist in this movie, the replicant Luv, the childlike assassin sent out into the world by her creator and designer of the new breed of replicants Wallace. She is as deadly as she is child like, she kills with the intensity of a child ripping the wings from dragonflies. There is a cruelty to her, that is not seen in any other character with in the film. She is the only replicant in this film who we do not route for, despite her childlike innocence. Given that she murders at least three people on screen, it is hard to say that she is innocent, but here again we know that she is simply a slave, doing the bidding of her master and god alone knows what else he requires of her to satisfy his misanthropic lustings.

The truth is that there is just too much here to discuss in a two thousand word blog post. Blade Runner 2049, set in an alternative universe to our own, is a bleak dystopian nightmare full of such sadness and horror, despite the technology. This is a story about loneliness and the search for truth, freedom and love. This is a critique of slave cultures, it is a critique of the capitalist system where the low waged are forced to survive at a level that borders on global poverty. This is a critique of our attitudes towards sex workers and how dehumanised they are. Most of all though, this is a visual essay on the philosophy of what it means to be alive, to be real.

Worthy of note is that it appears to be only the replicants who express emotion. They cry, reveal angst for the things that they do or the things that happen to them. The human characters never cry and here again, we see even Deckard, his eyes leaking tears. Was this another hint that he too is a replicant. Given that all of the humans are dehumanised emotionless monsters who will abuse their replicant slaves, I would suggest that this is the case. When Luv herself cries as she prepares to murder yet another victim, we know that she too is aware of the enormity of what she is about to do and yet, as a slave, she is powerless to do differently.

This was an epic, a work of art and a philosophical minefield that shows us humans to be the predatory monsters that we truly are. As I watched the end titles climb the screen I knew that I had not just watched a movie, I had witnessed something important. Two days before I had been sat alone in my office contemplating my own end and I had wished deeply to see something beautiful. Then I saw this movie and I got my wish and more besides. But this was not an easy on the eye beauty. This was a devastating beauty. I was not the same after seeing this movie, something fundamental in me had changed and my desire to see something truly beautiful had been sated. This is not an easy movie to watch, far from it, this is brutal and cruel trip through a world where children are sold to whatever person can afford to buy them from a Dickensian slave owner. It is never stated outright if the children are human, but we can pretty much assume that they are. The factory conditions in which they are forced to work is straight out of Oliver Twist, this is not subtle, this moment is blasted into us, the punches are not pulled when it is explained that the children can be bought for whatever purpose at a price. What kind of an awful world is it that children can be treated so? Well actually, this is taken straight from our own. The world of Blade Runner 2049 is soul crushing and vile, tragic and brutal.

So it was for these reasons that I wanted the movie removed from my mind so that I could go into the dark once more and be moved as I was. I want to feel that emotional attachment to this world once again. I want to be spiritually moved by this movie again, I want my heart to be split open and I want all of the torment to mean something again. This movie is important as a work of art and as a critique of our species. When I got home and thought about this film some more, my dam burst and just like our down trodden replicant heroes, I wept. Yet despite the over all sadness of this movie, despite the bleak world and the terrible things done to the people we are reliably told are not real people, there is a feeling of hope in this film.

I am sad to report that the movie going public have not embraced this movie as well as they should. But then this was always going to be the case. The action loving, beer swilling patrons in our showing that kept repeatedly leaving to buy more beer or use the facilities could not and did not sit there having the same spiritual awakening that I had. But then this movie was not made for them, this movie was made for the people who deconstructed the original and broke down every point of reference to our own culture. I heard a rumour that Philip K Dick was not overly fond of the film that his book inspired, which for me is a great shame. However, even if that rumour was true, I very much think that he would have looked at this film and seen it for the masterpiece that it is.

It is true to say that there are some clunky moments, particularly with the product placement, some would say that the pace is slow at times, but these are barely criticisms given the enormity of the project. I felt connected to this movie in ways that I barely felt to the original, despite my love for it. As such I can only say again, this movie is an important piece of art. Some may accuse it of pretension, but every second of footage is essential. I truly hope that when we see this movie on DVD, we get the extended, unedited full story that we deserve. I could happily spend four or five hours in this world, just to feel the devastation of my soul once again. So yeah, if it were possible, I would wipe this movie from my mind and then I would see it again and again and again.

#blade runner 2049 #beauty #distopia #dark futures #sci-fi #philip k dick #philosophy #replicant #blade runner #harrison ford #ryan gosling

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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I think one of the things about SPN that is so interesting is... characters lie. All the time. And we aren't always given obvious reasons to suspect they're lying until later when they say something contradictory. I saw a post the other day about Rowena and how she'd mentioned Crowley was conceived during an orgy (something I'd forgotten) and it occurred to me with later information we had... that doesn't sound likely if she knew who the father was and was abandoned by him. (1/2)

This has a point that's relevant, sorry. What I was referring to is the post about Becky and how we don't know why she and Chuck broke up because there is conflicting info, so we have to make our best guess. In a weird way, "canon" isn't canon, because a surface text reading doesn't account for characters being disingenuous. We aren't told which is the lie and which is the truth every time, we kinda gotta figure it out for ourselves using what we make of the characters and additional context(2/2

Hi there! And if this isn’t a potentially loaded question, I don’t know what is. And it’s something that’s even been raised as a question in text on multiple occasions, which makes it a valid thing for us to question and carefully consider. You may have seen this old post I reblogged a little while ago with an addition about context:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162709800125/mittensmorgul-i-offer-this-up-as-a-metaphor-for

Congrats, you’re the anon I was referring to in the little blurb at the bottom of that post :D

I’ll start by saying that yes, we know the characters are capable of lying. In 6.03, Dean tells this to Ben in plain words:

Dean: Ben, I know you're lying... Because I lie professionally, that's how. Now tell your mom that you broke the damn thing and take it like a man. Okay? Okay.

He lies professionally. In 5.03, he explains why he lies to Cas, by lying about it:

Dean: Seriously? You're going to walk in there and tell him the truth?Castiel: Why not?Dean: Because we're humans. And when humans want something really, really bad, we lie.Castiel: Why?Dean: Because that's how you become President.

Dean’s explanation of why they were going to lie to the cops was also a lie. Walking into the police station and politely informing them the gas station explosion was caused by an archangel taking his vessel would’ve resulted in them being either laughed out of the police station or locked up on a 72 hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Yet Dean didn’t need to explain that to the audience, because we’re supposed to understand that fact. That’s where critical thinking skills come into play. We understand the humor of what he said to Cas anyway, without having to be led by the hand and told that Dean was joking there.

So I’d argue with your assertion that “Canon isn’t canon because characters lie sometimes.” It’s all still canon, because the characters DID say these things, but it’s up to us if we accept or reject the surface text reading as honestly intended dialogue, or sarcasm, or humor, or a misdirection, or a warning that there’s something deeper happening beneath the surface layer text. Sometimes the surface layer text sets off alarm bells because it directly contradicts other facts that have already been established, and in those moments we’re SUPPOSED to react by yelling out at the TV, questioning the character’s motives for saying something we already understand to be incorrect, you know?

It’s still incorrect to assume that EVERYTHING the characters say is a lie, or untrustworthy, or unreliable. Just because a character CAN be unreliable as a narrator doesn’t mean that they’re ALWAYS unreliable as a narrator.

It’s our jobs as viewers to apply critical thinking skills, combined with our previously established understanding of the characters, and the information we already have about the situation the characters are dealing with on screen, and then interpret the subtext and visual narrative cues the show has established over more than a decade of telling us this story, and not just make willy-nilly random assumptions about scenes, but incorporate ALL of that into an educated assessment of what’s most likely.

Because despite all of that ^^, and the fact that multiple interpretations are certainly possible, and character motivations and unverifiable statements (like Rowena’s story of how Crowley was conceived, or even Crowley’s story of having sold his soul for “an extra three inches below the belt” since that’s another character statement I’ve personally always doubted) are more open to potential interpretation than things like entire plotlines and situations that are directly contradicted by events we have seen or will see with our own eyes, not all interpretations of those larger events are equally probable.

It reminds me of the scene in 2.14, after Sam-possessed-by-Meg told a very one-sided and hurtful version of the story of how her father had died, having been shot in the head by John Winchester, leaving room for Jo to doubt whether it had been an accident that her father could potentially have survived if John had tried to save him instead of shooting him. Meg was deliberately trying to upset Jo, and it worked, to an extent:

JO: I know demons lie, but ... do they ever tell the truth too?DEAN: Uh, um, yeah, sometimes, I guess. Especially if they know it'll mess with your head. (Another swig.) Why do you ask?

Thing is, your very first assumption there, that the characters lie all the time, is equally untenable. Because just as often as they lie, they DO tell the truth. Not everything they say is equally open to interpretation or doubt. For a random fun-fact, like the situation in which Crowley was conceived, didn’t affect the larger narrative. It only provided characterization for Rowena. This was how she CHOSE to present herself when we were first introduced to her, but then we watched her character develop over the next few seasons. We began to understand her, her history, her motivations.

We saw her less as a carefree villain and more as a woman who’d been used, abused, wronged, and who’d reinvented herself multiple times as she amassed the power to not only take back control over her own life, but in search of revenge against those who’d wronged her. In 11.09 we learned the painfully harsh truth about why she may have originally been so flippant about Crowley’s father. And again in 12.11 we learned yet more reasons why she’d carefully crafted her cool facade, during her conversation with the witch who’d once thought of Rowena as little more than a disposable sex toy. So understanding Rowena’s history with the benefit of later canon and context, it not only helps us understand that her original self-narrative was a lie in the first place, but it gives us the ability to understand why she would’ve told that particular lie about herself. This is how you write complex, three-dimensional characters with depth.

Now with the Chuck and Becky situation, we have learned many things over the years about both of those characters, as well. Ultimately it doesn’t matter to the narrative why they broke up, nor does it matter whether Becky was telling the truth about why. The only thing a varied interpretation on whether she was lying there could potentially change is how we feel about her as a character. Do we sympathize with her? Do we have a greater insight into her as a “person” and what her motivations in life may be? Does a varied interpretation also affect the way we view Chuck as a character, especially when taken through the lens of late s11 Chuck episodes where it’s confirmed not only that he was God all along, but also in 11.20 we see through Metatron’s questioning of him, his motivations, his entire autobiography, that Chuck was sort of veracity-impaired as well? Being able to question the veracity of Becky’s statements all those years before lends us a greater understanding of Chuck as a character, too. Especially once we understand the depth of his denial over the original act that made all of creation possible in the first place.

Ultimately it doesn’t affect the larger story, other than to support our understanding of the characters, and offer a depth to explore the characters more fully.

That’s just good writing. It forces us to question things, forces us to really think about things, and hits us on an emotional and sympathetic level that colors our interpretations.

If the narrative just came straight out and told us all these things, it would be boring. The characters wouldn’t be three dimensional. We wouldn’t be able to think about them as if they were real people. They’d just be paper cutouts with words written on them telling us exactly who they were and what their motives and intentions were. There’d be nothing to actively engage us in the narrative.

That said, this is why looking at isolated incidents out of context of the rest of the things we already know and understand about the characters will often lead to wonky interpretations that don’t really work when viewed in context with the rest of the narrative.

I think this kinda-sorta addresses your question? I hope? This is such a difficult topic to discuss, because it does introduce subjectivity into the narrative. The thing is (and this is partly where the concept of “meta” differs from “headcanon” or “speculation”), at least the way I approach it, meta is grounded in postmodern literary critique, and not just random commentary on random things without a foundational understanding of how stories are told.

Not everything is as open to interpretation as everything else. There are rules to this gig, and actual meta will at least acknowledge that those rules exist. :P

#spn meta meta #this is how stories work #context matters #Anonymous

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owl-eyed-woman · 7 years

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Attack on Titan Season 2 Episode Analysis - Episode 10 (Episode 35)

After two relatively subdued episodes, this episode finally ramps up the pace and gets this concluding conflict moving. AOT is once again showing off its remarkable ability to stuff its episodes full of plot, tone shifts, exposition and character development, yet still somehow remain cohesive and balanced.

But I’m not going to talk about that today. Ultimately, what makes this episode soar is its long overdue character study of one of AOT’s most compelling subjects, Ymir. Everything we could possibly want to know about Ymir is here: her formative years, her trauma, her psychology, her thought process. This character who has concealed herself from others and from the audience for so long is finally revealed to us in all her shades of grey and it’s everything I could ever want.

We start off with a brief reminder of Ymir’s treacherous decision to side with Reiner (as if I could forget). This time though, we get to see how Reiner and Bertholdt feel about this sudden reversal. Understandably, Bertholdt has numerous reservations about trusting the person who once devoured their friend. Reiner is confident though that she will be an asset for one simple reason; he believes he’s already figured Ymir out. In Reiner’s mind, Ymir is a simplistic person with simple motives and desires; here lies his arrogance.

Fundamentally, Reiner’s categorisation of Ymir underestimates her emotional complexity and disregards her agency. While he accurately deduces the basic outline of Ymir’s life, character arc and devotion to Christa, his assessment is superficial and reductive. Yes, he can describe the gist of Ymir’s life and motivations, but he doesn’t truly comprehend the weight behind Ymir’s experiences or even conceive of her as an active agent in this story. In a sense, he only understands Ymir in theory, functionally disregarding any emotional turmoil or potential for change. He’s classified her as a known quantity, when, like any human, she’s a wildcard.

This is in stark contrast to the rich and nuanced look we’ll get into Ymir’s past and inner emotional life later on in this episode. AOT itself is actively rejecting Reiner’s reductive interpretation of Ymir and showing us the true Ymir in all her complexities.

But that comes later. Right now, the scouts are quickly closing in and it’s time to move. Eren is his usual rambunctious self and struggles valiantly, even punching Reiner with his stumps (an image I will treasure forever). This revolt is quickly quashed by Reiner, of course.

But while Reiner puts Eren in a chokehold, Bertholdt and Ymir get a quiet moment to reflect on their shared past. When Bertholdt confronts Ymir about the fact that she devoured one of his comrades as a titan, Ymir simply admits she can’t remember and apologises for that. It’s a deeply ambiguous resolution with no clear enemy or right answer. In the end, Bertholdt gets no emotional catharsis from confronting Ymir because she’s not truly guilty and Ymir has to acknowledge something she’s responsible for but had no real agency in.

Still, this is a strangely subdued and even gentle scene. It really speaks to who Ymir and Bertholdt are as people and how they perceive their place in this world. Ymir and Bertholdt aren’t like Eren; they aren’t agents of change, constantly struggling against the will of the world. They’re realists with blood on their hands, resigned to their lot and just trying to make it through alive. They’ve got no time to hold grudges.

With Ymir’s compliance, their escape might have been just as calm and composed as this interaction. However, when Ymir realises that the scouts are in pursuit and that, by extension, Christa must be chasing them as well, everything changes.

For Ymir, the time to capture Christa is now, and she desperately tries to convince Reiner to turn around and fetch her. Faced with the prospect of missing this chance, Ymir, one of the calmest, most in control characters in the entire show, starts to lose her composure. She’s shouting, she’s desperate and she’s clearly panicking. For Ymir, a life without Christa, the one person who truly cares about her, would be truly unbearable.

This is a genuinely intense moment of conflict between Reiner and Ymir. However, Reiner decides that they can’t take the risk and that they must prioritise their own escape, assuring Ymir that they will surely retrieve Christa at a later date.

Though Reiner makes the logical choice, for Ymir, this dilemma cuts to the root of who she is and why Christa is so important to her.

AOT has thoroughly established by now that Ymir and Christa understand and love each other so much because of the ways their past experiences and trauma mirror one another. To recap; both Ymir and Christa made a choice to sublimate their identities at the behest of a larger, more powerful community, erasing their true self and robbing themselves of agency. However, though we learnt the context of Christa’s choice way back in episode 5, Ymir’s origin and the specifics of her experience have remain purposefully obscured. That is, until now.

Finally, as Ymir faces the prospect of never seeing Christa again, the shocking truth of Ymir’s origins is revealed.

As a child, Ymir lived in absolute poverty, homeless and orphaned. Her life was forever transformed, however, when two mysterious men chose her to be a figurehead in a strange religious cult, giving her a new purpose and a new name – Ymir. It’s telling that Ymir’s loss of identity was at the hands of a cult, a potent symbol of a toxic, assimilating community that erases the self in favour of a seemingly cohesive whole – there’s a reason they all wear the same ugly dress.

At first glance, it appears as if Ymir had no agency whatsoever, with this role simply thrust upon her. Just as Ymir argued for Christa though, this lack of agency is an illusion. You see, Ymir’s apparent passivity was, in and of itself, a choice not to act. In the end, her commitment to passivity, willingly submitting to this cult, effectively disempowered her. She is ultimately complicit in the loss of her own agency and, implicitly, her sense of self.

The question remains though; why would Ymir decide to lie about her identity for so long and remain within this obviously toxic community? As a child of the streets, the material benefits were undeniably a factor. Ultimately though, Ymir lived this lie for so long because she wanted to believe that she was needed. By being a part of this community, Ymir was granted meaning and a purpose that she never thought she could have.

Tragically, this suggests a fundamental lack of self-worth on Ymir’s part and a deep loneliness that not even Ymir acknowledges. Ymir began life as an impoverished orphan. No one cared about her, no one wanted her, and no one needed her. She had completely accepted that she was worthless. So when a community came along that gave her a purpose and quite explicitly relied on her for its very existence, Ymir was finally able to find value in herself. After years of living like this, Ymir’s self-worth became dangerously reliant on her relation to this community, and divorced from any internal, personal understanding of herself.

Again, the similarities with Christa are startlingly clear. Both Christa and Ymir’s self-worth was, at one time, reliant on extrinsic factors that they believed validated their purpose and value. From this viewpoint, one’s value is not intrinsic to oneself, but rather depends on an external perspective to grant meaning and worth. This is such a destructive and unhealthy viewpoint that Ymir and Christa continue to deal with the repercussions of it to this day.

Ymir’s place in this toxic community, however, is suddenly and violently brought to an end when soldiers arrive to eradicate the cult. As the figurehead, Ymir is immediately scapegoated and accused by her own followers of deceiving them of her divinity. Could this be the turning point for Ymir to finally realise the depths of the lie she’s been living and her complicity in erasing her own sense of self?

Tragically, this young Ymir has constructed her entire identity and life, however false it may be, around the fact that these people need her. So at this moment, when her followers need her most, she takes all the blame herself with nary a second thought. It is a selfless act of sacrifice for the community that has given her meaning and it is ultimately pointless. The entire cult, Ymir included, is jailed, beaten and turned into titans as punishment. In a cruel form of poetic justice, Ymir’s willingness to efface her identity for this community, resulting in the figurative loss of her self, now leads to a literal loss of her personhood, as she is turned into a mindless titan. Now that’s a metaphor.

In the wake of this horrifying sentence, Ymir realises that her ultimate deception was not lying about her identity; it was believing that she was truly needed or, rather, that there was any meaning in being needed by others.

So when Ymir miraculously regains her human form, she is given a second chance with as many choices and paths as there are stars in the sky. She has symbolically been reborn, and now all Ymir wants is to life her life as she wants - for no one but herself.

With this newfound freedom and agency, Ymir makes a commitment to honesty and to herself and the Ymir that we know today is formed. In Ymir’s mind, her greatest error was basing her identity and self-worth in having a clear, essential place in a community. So in order to correct that, Ymir takes the opposing path, reasserting her identity and reclaiming her self-worth by placing herself above all others. Her selfishness, as cruel as it may be, represents a symbolic commitment to finding worth from within rather than toxically relying on it from without. This is why she so violently rejects any moral obligation to other people and the mere concept of altruism. For Ymir, this selfishness and self-centredness is, in and of itself, a form of empowerment.

But then she met Christa. When she heard of her plight, Ymir felt something like concern for Christa and an almost selfless desire to give Christa a second chance to reinvent herself, not as others dictate, but as how she herself wishes to be!

In Christa, Ymir saw a kindred spirit who was still beholden to will of a toxic community, unable to assert her identity or grant herself freedom from her obligation to others. This crucial similarity is undeniably a huge part of why Ymir is so immediately drawn to Christa. But there’s something else that Ymir has refused to admit that shows us the most vulnerable, hidden part of Ymir’s being.

Ymir has predicated her new life on complete independence from all people, isolating herself as a point of pride. Without realising it though, I think Ymir is heartbreakingly lonely. Yes, it is important for Ymir to find meaning and self-worth separate from others, but her isolation is just as unhealthy as co-dependency. She doesn’t really express it openly, but this loneliness and desire for love is there in her utter devotion to Christa that even surprises Ymir herself.

This is why Christa is so important to her; she fulfils a need for affection and love that Ymir wasn’t able to recognise until now, when she and Christa are on the brink of absolute separation.

Thus, this episode culminates in Ymir facing this truth: she needs Christa and will do anything to ensure that she is always with her. Ymir may not have to be needed by others to find meaning, but she certainly needs Christa to have any joy in her life.

So despite their kinship, or rather because of it, Ymir makes her choice: either they kidnap Christa now or she’ll turn on them. Ymir is doing a dark, dark thing here and she knows it. But still, she knows that she can’t live without her.

I’ve impressed several times throughout this analysis just how similar Ymir and Christa are. But this episode truly shows us that though Christa and Ymir have nigh identical life experiences, ideologically and morally, they’re incredibly different people. Christa is naturally altruistic and genuinely wants to help people; Ymir is selfish by choice and only wants to help herself (and Christa). Ymir realises this too; she knows that their morals are fundamentally opposed and that Christa won’t condone, understand or even forgive this incredibly selfish choice she’s making. But Ymir’s commitment to honesty means she’s willing to face what she needs for her own wellbeing and commit to this decision, no matter how much it may hurt the person she loves.

So Ymir manages to capture Christa and spirit her away with Reiner. With this choice, Ymir takes a step into a deep, dark abyss and I don’t know if she can come back from it. This episode has managed to show us the humanity of a deeply flawed character, culminating in a cruel and immoral choice we can still empathise with even if we can’t condone it. AOT’s characterisation continues to astound me with just how good it can be, even when it hurts so much to watch.

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ais-n · 7 years

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Hi, Ais! How detailed do the mission reports have to be? I always wondered about what Sin read about Boyd's valentine mission. Was it very cut and dry, and to the point (ex."I was used as a prostitute for the first few months and they kept me high on Slide")? Or would it have been a more thorough description about being used and how Slide affected him? Would some of his resentment and anger have bled into the report or would he have hidden his feelings so as not to show any weakness?

Hi :) So, Sonny and I never specifically discussed it so I can’t say for sure. I can only say what makes sense to me, which could conceivably change if we ever talked about it and if he had a different perspective.

My thought is this: It depends but generally they’re supposed to be detailed enough to explain what happened, how, and, if known, why. In a normal mission he wouldn’t be able to write something really oversimplified but it also depends on what happened. Theoretically, though, they should objective enough to explain the situation and circumstances, but also include explanations for actions taken that may have been out of the norm or that otherwise is of note.

MORE BELOW THE CUT - CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR FADE! (Also is long as hell jfc)

So for example, in a normal mission he might have written something like, “I entered the compound through the third door from the west on the southern side. This location was deemed ideal due to the overgrown trees which hid it from view of the cameras located at the southeast corner, and due to its proximity to the access to the basement. Upon my entry, I was met with unexpected resistance from a hostile who was in the area at a time we had noted from previous research should render this area empty. I dispatched the hostile and hid his body in a nearby room before proceeding downward.”

And so on. The level of detail can vary if what they’re dealing with is routine expected behavior on a mission. Boyd’s more detailed because that’s his personality (he’d rather be very exact and overachieve than feel like he left something to be desired) but another agent probably could have written that same report, explaining that same situation, with something like, “I entered the compound in the predesignated location and was met with low-level resistance before proceeding to the basement.”

Both would be acceptable if the mission was successfully completed and there were no issues on it, because whether Boyd explains in detail which door he entered and why there was a hostile there, or whether another agent just says they got inside and met some minor resistance, either way the mission was successful and either way there aren’t any long term issues. If that base was blown up by the agent for example, ultimately it doesn’t matter if Boyd explains about that hostile and the specific door and etc etc, because everything was destroyed. It’s really a moot point what happened if it doesn’t affect future missions. As long as the Agency knows what happened and if they have to deal with any other shit in the future as a result of anything that happened here, and as long as the Agency knows it was successful, the level of detail can vary.

In a long term mission like the Forakis mission, I doubt the Agency expects incredibly detailed explanations of everything that occurred because that would make for a very long report. In that case, it would be more important to highlight notable events or circumstances, making sure to include anything that could be a detriment to the Agency or future missions, and overview the specifics of how the mission’s end goal was completed. All the rest of what happened isn’t as important to the Agency administration as it would be to the agent’s psychiatrist in helping them cope upon their return, but the Agency would still want to know enough to know if they have a “damaged” agent on their hands, and if they need to take extra precautions or steps in dealing with them when they return.

The Forakis mission for Boyd was a game changer in a lot of ways. It became a significant event in his life that split his viewpoint into Before Cyclone/Aleixo and After Cyclone/Aleixo. Before Slide and After Slide. This was for many reasons that you already know but it also affected the way he functioned as an agent, when he returned to find Hsin gone. He ended up becoming a “better” agent according to the Agency because he finally became consistent; finally focused fully on his tasks instead of being worried about and/or distracted by his partner -- a weakness, they ultimately would have seen it, since he was supposed to be the one who kept Hsin from being distracted, not get distracted himself.

Another difference in how he functioned as an agent, I feel, likely was seen in his reports. Whereas before he still had enough faith and loyalty to the Agency, despite everything, that he had gone above and beyond in his documentation in his reports, detailing things that didn’t need to be detailed on the off chance it should be important to the Agency or other agents later -- after Aleixo, his reports became curt, cut down, distant. He wrote his reports more like the other agent example I listed above.

Because he no longer trusted the Agency after Aleixo. He saw them as an enemy collecting information on him to use against him later. He saw them as an organization that took those details and compiled it to sit in a database somewhere, waiting for the moment they could pull it out and twist it all together into a weapon meant to rend his heart and soul. That’s how he felt afterward; a clear departure from how he had felt before.

That distrust and disinterest in providing details includes the report he gave the Agency about the Aleixo mission, not only because of his distrust of them but also because of his hatred and resentment of what had happened. And because of the humiliation he felt, the hatred he felt toward himself, all the jumbled emotions that made him want to protect every detail of what occurred with his life, so no one could piece it all together and learn exactly how to destroy him the way he felt he’d been destroyed in Aleixo’s care.

He wrote as short a report as he could for the Agency’s benefit; something very dispassionate, very to the point, paring the horror of those months down to simple sentences like the one you gave as an example. He probably wrote it with a bit of dissociation, maybe something like, “Sex personnel at Cyclone are controlled by the usage of XRT-330, a powerful narcotic which directly affects the central nervous system, drastically increasing libido while simultaneously removing all inhibitions. The drug is highly addictive, which makes it an effective means of control, dissuading any thoughts of escape.” before turning his attention to explaining about Aleixo in the terms of an agent assessing Aleixo’s usefulness as an informant or prisoner of the Agency.

Shapiro references that, actually--

"I should think the report would suffice," Boyd said.

"The aim of the report was the mission overview and includinginformation on Aleixo Forakis," Shapiro replied calmly. "As I'm sure you recall,you didn't include many details about your treatment itself. In order to properlyhelp you, it's important that I understand what you experienced. This will alsohelp me understand any reactions you may have. In addition, talking throughit can sometimes help you deal with the repercussions."

"You don't need more details to know what happened. I was availablefor rent day and night and expanded my skills to marketing when Aleixo tookme in. The end."

Boyd gave next to no details about what actually happened to him in his official report to the Agency, because he didn’t want anyone to know. The report made it clear the sort of area he’d been held, the general sorts of things he’d been expected to do, the way Cyclone had controlled him and the others through Slide, and contained minimal explanation of how he had come to Aleixo’s attention in the first place (namely, through Aleixo’s nephew who was a guard on Boyd’s level, and who also had been in the vehicle when Boyd was picked up originally, and who had been intrigued by him since then). In the course of explaining Aleixo’s compound and the situation with his family and more, Boyd dispassionately referenced some limited aspects of what had been expected of him in his new position at Aleixo’s home but he didn’t go into details by any means.

The Agency did have some knowledge of what transpired beyond his report, because when he first returned he was still really fucked up and he said and did things in his rehab which gave them an idea of some of it. Aleixo likely also provided some context of the sort of thing that happened in general or some of what happened directly to Boyd, in whatever conversations arose during his interrogation and/or assessment from the Agency, but the Agency would have been more focused on how to use Aleixo than they would have been on finding out details of Boyd’s experience.

Boyd never told even Shapiro the extent of what had happened, but of all the people on compound Shapiro had the best idea. Because he was the sort of doctor who took patient confidentiality very seriously even in a twisted setting like the Agency, Shapiro never fully detailed everything told to him to the Agency, but he did provide some of the additional details in order to explain or emphasize differences in Boyd’s behavior upon his return, and warnings about what may trigger Boyd unnecessarily which could detract from his use as an agent.

The mission report Hsin saw likely would have been the one Boyd wrote with minimal details as to the exact specifics of what happened. I’m not sure if he also gained access to Shapiro’s notes as well; he might have, at which point he would have gotten more context and more depth. No one but Boyd knows all the specifics, however, and those details will remain untold most likely. The absolute last thing Boyd ever wants is for Hsin to know more about what happened -- to learn about the things Boyd hated so much he never wanted anyone to know.

Or maybe a better way of saying it is that Boyd distrusts everyone with the knowledge of details because he thinks they’ll use it against him, except his friends who he doesn’t want to know because he finds it humiliating, and especially except Hsin because he knows those details, that knowledge, will hurt Hsin. Even knowing as much as he does, Hsin had a breakdown. Boyd probably doesn’t specifically know that but he would guess it would affect Hsin greatly to have known even as much as he put into the mission report. And Boyd purposefully kept out the worst parts in his mission to the Agency as well as his discussions with Shapiro where possible, and Shapiro respected Boyd’s privacy by not reporting every detail he was told. Which means Hsin knows enough to know what happened and to have been devastated and infuriated by it, but not so much he has to be plagued by the details of what exactly occurred the entire time.

As a side note -- The person aside from Boyd who knew the most is probably Aleixo. Whereas Boyd kept the details close to his heart to protect himself and his loved ones, if Aleixo had ever been within hearing distance of Hsin and knew what Hsin was to Boyd, he would have reveled in the chance to list in excruciating detail everything he did and had done to Boyd just to see Boyd in pain, to see the panic and fear and hatred in his eyes, knowing Hsin would learn all the things Boyd didn’t want him to learn. He would enjoy the idea of trying to destroy their relationship or at least the ease of it. He would want to see Hsin look at Boyd in a different way. Probably Hsin would just get pissed at Aleixo and not treat Boyd any differently, but Aleixo would want to destroy what they have, and even if Hsin didn’t react the way Aleixo wanted, it would be enough to Aleixo to violate that last bit of privacy Boyd had, to try to twist the knife in deeper and hurt him in all the ways he knows how. No matter how Hsin responded, Boyd would still react with panic, and that distress and visceral pain would make it worth it to Aleixo.

I actually kind of wanted that to happen, tbh -- I wanted to find a way to have Aleixo and Boyd meet back at the Agency, to see if they could have a conversation whether or not Hsin was around. I even started to write a side story where I could show Boyd and Aleixo having to interact before the whole Danny thing was resolved, with Hsin nowhere around--just them, Aleixo trying to take control and Boyd finding a way to fight his former captor. It didn’t work out, though--there wasn’t really a good place to put it, and it didn’t really make sense for them to find a way to meet, and I didn’t really like the story I’d started to write, so I had to leave it without that interaction.

But I wanted to include that side note in case for some reason someone ever reads this who is planning some fanfic or something, and they were trying to think of things likely to happen. Just an FYI to that sort of person or sense of curiosity: Aleixo would want to take control back from Boyd and fuck him over with it however possible as a means of revenge and to force him back down in his mind to the servitude Aleixo believes he deserves, because he’s resentful and angry of Boyd and wants to hurt him for destroying Aleixo’s life. Damaging the relationship that let Boyd complete the mission would be a poetic way to do so from his point of view, because it would be a way of taking the last sense of freedom away from Boyd even if Aleixo himself was imprisoned and Boyd was able to walk free. If that makes sense.

Anyway hopefully that answers your question... I rambled like hell, as usual. Sorry ^^;

#ask ais #icos #in the company of shadows #fade spoilers #Anonymous

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