#and then applied (as if it's a well-established interpretation/lens) to someone who is. not the main character of his respective work

[kindaorangey]

recently i've been thinking about rowan omondi in terms of the "supportive black best friend" trope. i've had this idea for a while that it would be interesting to see a story that deals specifically with the psychological effects of being the designated "support friend", especially in cases where that character addressing/expressing their own emotions and advocating for themself would be stigmatised because of their race... and obviously, rowan fits into this neatly, actively repressing and refusing to talk about his feelings because he isn't usually given this sort of support by his friends, it's usually him who's supporting them. and i guess on a metatextual level, once he begins to address his own emotional repression and step down from that support role, you could view it as him becoming cognisant of his own role as the "supportive black best friend".

[bitegore]

Asking about stupid tf sex heheh but how do you think the stunticons figure out their interface protocols actually. Like considering they were just suddenly made to be out of random cars and stuff. Did the knowledge come with being zapped by vector sigma. Did they even have any interface equipment?? Did their consciousness come with the upgrade? Did megatron make them dicks to begin with?? Or did the consciousness come with horniness that they at some point discover and fail tk understand- before they have to go ask hook or someone to install equipment to deal with the incomplete protocols

man if you want my headcanons on this front they are going to run kinda dark pretty fast tbh. You've been warned? also this is a bit long.

Did they even have interface equipment to begin with?

Yeah I think they did. In fact, I think it would be particularly unlikely, in my own rather intense reading-into of the text I do, that they wouldn't be built with interface equipment.

First and foremost, "interface" is vague and I'm a plug and play whore at heart; obviously they're going to be able to merge into Menasor and less textually-speaking they're probably able to do standard robot things like plug themselves into a console, right? Same equipment is used for plug-and-play sex, so they have that. Figure you're asking about spikes and valves and logistically speaking I would also be surprised if they weren't built with those for similarly simple reasons - Hook and Scrapper are both perfectionists and they were allowed to really take their time to build the Stunticons into the "perfect warriors" (look at those forcefields!), and between the fact that most of the other Decepticons are unlikely to allow themselves to be left out (status loss, not ideal) and at least most of us are writing sex as a normal thing most mecha do, it would've been obvious to like. at least Scrapper that if they were built without interface equipment they would be coming to ask for it as soon as they got a load of someone else's. Why waste the time waiting? And why, if you're a notorious perfectionist, allow the soon-to-be-established personalities of whoever gets to inhabit these bodies interfere with the simple aesthetic sensibilities of what you personally think their bodies should look like?

Now. Secondly. I didn't come up with this, but I find it particularly compelling; there is a reading in stunticon fan circles that Megatron created Motormaster to be a stand-in for Optimus Prime. Well. Let me rephase, because canonically on-screen he's the "Decepticon version" of Optimus Prime in their battle lineup, right? The fan interpretation I'm talking about takes that one step further and applies a MegOp lens to it. Megatron got sick of wanting to bang Optimus and doing nothing about it and had his team build him a subordinate who was to be "Optimus but better", under his control and conveniently born yesterday so he doesn't know to do anything inconvenient and annoying like disagree with Megatron. Obviously Megatron wasn't impressed by the Stunticons once they were alive, but I find it particularly hard to imagine that Motormaster wasn't tailored to Megatron's exact preferences in particular.

This is the dark one really, beyond this everything else is lighter.

Did their consciousness come with the upgrade (to have interface equipment)?

We might be reading this one differently!

I think I mentioned it earlier, but I read their creation as, like, almost a passion project on the parts of the Constructicons bankrolled by Megatron in search of Shiny New Toys. So their bodies were pretty much entirely finished by the time they got to Vector Sigma, and VS didn't actually give them any "extras" beyond a personality component. Likewise for the Aerialbots - I read them as having been essentially 'finished' and just dead before VS gave them personality components. I don't... really read VS as giving new bodies or much by way of upgrades on the whole during the Stunticon/Aerialbot intro episode sequence; really just "finishing" the job, as it were.

(I will find any excuse to make something into specialized equipment.)

So, like, consciousness was the upgrade there, no real extras, I guess.

You're more than welcome to read that differently though! Different interpretations are part of what makes fandom go round.

Did the knowledge of what sex was come out of Vector Sigma?

That would be too easy! Of course not LOL

The Stunticons are weird (and so are all the other fresh-built TFs on the whole, 'bot or 'con) in that they're like, adults born yesterday. They are fully mature, or at least as mature as they're getting; they have all the expectations and duties of a full-fledged adult; they're not really peers with anyone, but that's because they're new, not because they're children, you know? No one's going to be treating them like babies. My best guess would be that, since they're Decepticons, the only way the other older characters around them would be treating them different would be if they were getting straight-up hazed for being new LMAO.

And like it's not weird to talk about sex around the like new 20-somethings your asshole boss said you had to work alongside, you know? No one's self-censoring for the Stunticons' benefit, because they don't have any reason to and they also honestly couldn't give a shit if the Stunticons benefited anyway.

I think it mostly just trickled in half by osmosis and half by like...

well, I guess this is a little bit "it did come out of Vector Sigma" but machinery is not exactly like human bodies and I like to lean into the fact that Transformers are robots. Part of that is that generally the OS of a system will tell you what individual items are, and where they're located, and there are (in electronic systems, at least) part-specific programs that may or may not have documented explanation as to what they do but, like, if you Are a computer, you probably can just run them and see if you don't know. So if they didn't know they had equipment they'd certainly find out pretty fast.

And because no one is being intentionally cagey about the fact that sex exists or you bump uglies or swap cords to do it, I'm pretty sure they put two and two together pretty fast on the like base tier basics and then get extremely stupid about it really, really fast.

will admit that some of that is just kink fodder for me, though. I think bad sex ed in fiction and the resulting deeply-stupid sexual hangups and misconceptions characters can stumble into as a result are sexy as all fuck and I love watching them go. Bite each other's dicks off!!!

Or did the consciousness come with horniness that they at some point discover and fail tk understand- before they have to go ask hook or someone to install equipment to deal with the incomplete protocols

This is really fucking funny but i cannot imagine Hook being tolerant enough of imperfection and unfinished work to let anyone walk out of his workshop with incomplete coding 😭

I COULD buy someone walking down to the medbay going "umm wildrider did something weirdddddd earlier and now i feel kinda funny, hook, help, i think this means im going to die, you have to dig out my lower torso and replace it. yeah its leaking and everything it's very scary. i need you to fix me. what do you mean 'that's my valve' and 'everything seems to be working as intended' i can't concentrate at all. what the FUCK do you mean this is normal" though. that would be really fucking funny. race car encounters libido and becomes convinced it is a terrible threat

[itsclydebitches]

I keep seeing people calling Good Omens queer bating and a I can't help but ask why? I read the Aziraphale/Crowley relationship threw an Ace lens and they are clearly as close to married as they are probably going to get without stepping on holy ground.... and they love each other... why is it considered queer bating?

Personally, I think it's mostly young queer fans turning legitimate grievances on the wrong target. A case of getting so fed up with queerbaiting in media as a whole that they're instinctually lashing out at anything that seems to resembles it on the surface, without taking the time to consider whether this is, in fact, the thing they're mad at. Good Omens is a scapegoat, if you will. The equivalent of snapping at your partner after a long day. Your friend was an asshole, your boss was an asshole, the guy in traffic was an asshole, and then you come home to your partner who says something teasing and you take it as another asshole comment because you've just been surrounded by assholeness all day, to the point where your brain is primed to see an attack. Your partner wasn't actually an asshole, but by this point you're (understandably) too on guard to realize that. Unless someone sits you down and kindly reminds you of the difference between playful teasing and a legitimate insult - the nuance, if you will - your hackles are just gonna stay up and you'll leave the room, off to phone a different friend to tell them all about how your partner was definitely an asshole to you.

Only in this case, that "friend" is a fan on social media doing think pieces on the supposed queerbaiting of Good Omens, spreading that idea to a) people who aren't familiar with the show themselves and b) those who, like that original fan, have come to expect queerbaiting and thus aren't inclined to question the latest story with that mark leveled against it. Because on the surface Good Omens can look a lot like queerbaiting. Here are two queer coded characters who clearly love each other, but don't say "I love you," don't kiss, don't "prove" that love in a particular way. So Gaiman is just leading everyone on, right?

Well... no. This is where the nuance comes in, the thing that many fans aren't interested in grappling with (because, like it or not, media is not made up of black and white categories; queerbaited and not-queerbaited. Supernatural's finale is proof enough of that...) I won't delve into the most detailed explanation here, but suffice to say:

Gaiman has straight up said it's a love story. He's just not giving them concrete labels like "gay" or "bi" or "asexual," etc. because they are literally not human. Gaiman has subscribed to an inclusive viewpoint in an era where fans are desperate for unambiguous rep that homophobes cannot possibly deny. The freedom to prioritize any interpretation - yes, including a "just friends" interpretation - now, in 2021, feels like a cop-out. However, in this case it's an act of world building (they are an angel and a demon, not bound by human understanding of identity) meeting a genuine desire to make these characters relatable to the entire queer community, not just particular subsets. Gaiman has said they can be whatever we want because the gender, sexuality, and romantic attraction of an angel and a demon is totally up for debate! However, some fans have interpreted that as a dismissal of canonical queerness; the idea that fans can pretend they're whatever they want... but it's definitely not canon. It is though. Them being queer is 100% canon, it's just up to us to decide what kind of queer they are. This isn't Gaiman stringing audiences along, it's him opening the relationship up to all queer possibilities.

We know he's not stringing us along (queerbaiting) because up until just a few days ago season two didn't exist. Queerbaiting is a deliberate strategy to maintain an audience. A miniseries does not need to maintain its audience. You binge it in one go and you're done, no coming back next year required. The announcement for season two doesn't erase that context for season one. No one knew there would be more content and thus the idea that they would implement a strategy designed to keep viewers hooked due to the hope for a queer relationship (with no intent to follow through) is... silly.

In addition, this interpretive, queer relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale existed in the book thirty years ago. Many fans are not considering the difference between creating a totally new story in 2019 and faithfully adapting a story from 1990 in 2019. Good Omens as representation meant something very different back then and that absolutely impacts how we see its adaptation onto the small screen. To put this into perspective, Rowling made HUGE waves when she revealed that she "thought of" Dumbledore as gay in an interview... in 2007. Compare that to the intense coding 17 years before. Gaiman was - and still is - pushing boundaries.

Which includes being an established ally, particularly in his comics. Queerbaiting isn't just the act of a single work, but the way an author approaches their work. Gaiman does not (to my knowledge) have that mark against him and even if he did, he's done enough other work to offset that.

Finally, we've got other, practical issues like: how do you represent asexuality on the screen? How do you show an absence of something? Yeah, one or both of them could claim that label in the show, outright saying, "I'm asexual," but again, Gaimain isn't looking to box his mythological figures into a single identity. So if we want that rep... we have to grapple with the fact that this is one option for what it looks like.

Even if he did want to narrow the representation down to just a few identities for the show, should Gaiman really be making those major changes when he's only one half of the author team? Pratchett has, sadly, passed on and thus obviously has no say in whether his characters undergo such revisions. Even if fans hate every other argument, they should understand that, out of respect, Good Omens is going to largely remain the same story it was 30 years ago.

And those 6,000 years are just the beginning! Again, this was meant to be a miniseries of a single novel, a novel that, crucially, covered only Crowley and Aziraphale's triumph in being able to love one another freely. That's a part of their personal journey. Yeah, they've been together in one sense for 6,000 years, but that was always with hell and heaven on their backs, to say nothing of the slow-burn approach towards acknowledging that love, for Aziraphale in particular. We end the story at the start of their new relationship, one that is more free and open than it ever was before. They can be anything to one another now! The fact that we don't see that isn't a deliberate attempt on the author's part to deny us that representation, but only a result of the story ending.

So yeah, there's a lot to consider and, frankly, I don't think those fans are considering it. Which on a purely emotional level I can understand. I'm pissed about queerbaiting too and the knee-jerk desire to reject anything that doesn't meet a specific standard is understandable. But understandable doesn't mean we don't have to work against that instinct because doing otherwise is harmful in the long run. We need to consider when stories were published and what representation meant back then. We need to consider how we adapt those stories for a modern audience. We need to acknowledge that if we want the inclusivity that "queer" provides us, that includes getting characters whose identity is not strictly defined by the author as well as characters with overtly canonical labels. We need both. We likewise need to be careful about when having higher standards ends up hurting the wrong authors - who are our imperfect allies vs. those straight up unwilling to embrace our community at all? And most importantly, we have to think about how we're using the terms we've developed to discuss these issues. Queerbaiting means something specific and applying it to Good Omens not only does Good Omens a disservice, but it undermines the intended meaning of "queerbaiting," making it harder to use correctly in the future. Good Omens is not queerbaiting and trying to claim it is only hurts the community those fans are speaking up for.

[listless-brainrot]

hey @give-zuko-peace-and-tea, i noticed your tags on my post and i would like to respond to some of them, because while i believe you were well intentioned, there were some points that i wanted to clarify.

#this person is right #but narratively i think trans zuko makes more sense than trans sokka because sokka's character arc is about masculinity #and idk i just think if you make him trans it changes the nature of why he feels so bound by his gender roles 

why does sokka (or zuko, for that matter) being trans Have to fit within the narrative? sure, him being trans would affect the Perspective from which he’s coming from, but that shouldn’t nor is the entire narrative focus. him Being trans wouldn’t detract nor change that significantly. disregarding the fact that the southern water tribe, while more traditional, isn’t even half as sexist as the northern water tribe (disregarding the fact that bryke making either of the water tribes sexist in any sort of way is. fucked up). furthermore, it’s interesting how sokka, being More Traditionally Manly, seems to translate to “trans headcanons don’t really apply to him” through the justification of “him being trans doesn’t serve his role in the narrative as well as him being a cis man does”. which is funny, because the entire point of my post was specifically that these sorts of things (being hc’ed as gay, trans, autistic, or all three) happen to No One Other Than Zuko.

#the root of why sokka needs to feel like a Man is because he thinks that is the only way to have honor #so if hes trans it becomes a story of oppression and restriction from his community

i have to disagree with you here. while sokka does have his own deal with honor going on, his emphasis on being a man is moreso tied with the concept of being a leader, which is what his dad was and left him alone to do when they went off to fight in the war. his whole thing is not fitting into those big shoes he Knows he has to fulfill eventually, as the son of the chief of the southern water tribe. there are quite a few sokka centric episodes that show his core beliefs and wants (such as jet, bato of the water tribe, the library, sokka’s master, just to name a few) which are much more war and leadership-oriented, rather than gender, even if him being a man has a role to play. and if he was canonically trans, i do have to ask- why Must his story become one of oppression and restriction? why is that the only other alternative? is it because the narrative doesn’t serve him being trans? or is it the other way around? why does either have to exist or happen? why does there have to be justification for one or the other? 

trans people just... exist. they don’t have to have a reason to. again- their gender and transition influences their perspective. if atla was an lgbtq+ story Intended to be viewed through an lgbtq+ lens, it’d be different, because then his gender serving the narrative would Actually serve the narrative, with his transness being brought to light and maybe focus. but it’s not. sokka is a guy with feminine attributes. you could say that for any character. the problem lies in Only giving somewhat feminine characters the gay or trans narrative, because then, it shows that you are moreso relying on stereotypes, rather than just letting these characters exist as they are. this also plays into another thing- where are all of the trans women headcanons? where are all the trans women headcanons for women who Aren’t somewhat androgynous or masculine? do either of the previous things i said immediately equate them as “just right” for being trans coded?

#also I agree that zuko is the more traditionally manly of the two and he is very feminized in fanon and is the lightest skinned main boy #seeing the light skinned richer character as feminine and the dark skinned as butcher is messed up 

yes. the point of my post was that racism, fetishization, infantilization and stereotyping of zuko and Zuko Only leads to the butchered fanon interpretation we see today. but the point of my post Wasn’t that zuko Can’t be feminine, even if i think he doesn’t really struggle with the concept of being perceived as feminine in the exact same breadth nor capacity as sokka. i don’t particularly enjoy how the headcanoning of characters as trans (which wasn’t even in the original post, mind you- it was in the tags) took precedence over my intended, previously stated points. however, by you mentioning it to this degree, it brings up another problem- the concept of trans people Having to serve the narrative in order to exist as trans people, as well as the gearing of lgbtq+ storylines towards oppression and suffering. these are things that a cis writer writing for a cis audience often do. and again, atla is in no way an lgbtq+ story. there was no authorial intent for such characters within the story, no matter how coded they are, so the narrative service argument and their identities “fitting better” is hard to apply to begin with.

we see multiple characters struggle with their identity over the course of the series- aang is the last airbender, katara is the last waterbender of the southern water tribe, sokka is the son of the chieftain and the only man left in charge, toph is a blind rich kid who isn’t taken seriously because she is blind, and zuko is the prince of the imperialist fire nation who has to come to terms with the atrocities his people committed all while establishing his own identity as someone separate from his father.

any of them being trans would serve the perspective of those individual journeys, but narratively, this is what their journeys would be geared towards.

but that wasn’t my point.

[fandom-pardes]

According to halacha, which actions are Azula liable for?

Reposted from my Tumblr.

One of my favorite ways to study Jewish texts is to take a fictional character or situation and examine it through the lens of Jewish text and tradition.

I’ve done this before with ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Now I’m going to take up this exercise again with Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Before I begin, a few things to keep in mind.

I’m not a Talmud scholar.

There is no definitive Jewish Opinion™ about any issue pertaining to halacha. Unanimous opinions on halacha are so rare that when we find one, we assume something went wrong in the process..

Azula is a morally polarizing character in AtLA fandom. Regardless of who you ask, you’re bound to get some strong opinions about exactly what she’s done, the extent to which she’s responsible for it, and what this says about her morality or lack thereof. I’m not going to rehash those arguments. I think I’ve made it clear that I care less about whether people approve of her behavior than I do about how their statements about her reinforce harmful messages about women, people of color, LGBT people and mentally ill people.

Nevertheless, she’s incredibly interesting, and studying Jewish text is fun, so here we are.

Why examine Azula’s actions through the lens of halacha?

Halacha gets a lot of flack because it comes off as excessively legalistic. But, in my opinion, that’s based on a misunderstanding of what halacha is. Usually translated as “Jewish law,” the word halacha actually comes from the root word that means “to go/walk.”

Halacha is not a collection of rules for the sake of having rules. It’s meant to take us somewhere. You can write a library of books about exactly what that is and what it means. But for the sake of simplicity, halacha is how we show that we recognize the holiness of everything in creation. So we aim to do right by one another, by the land we live in and by the creatures we share this world with.

Before we can launch into examining the halachic ramifications of the things Azula does, we need to establish some boundaries.

Only the show counts. It’s the common frame of reference universally accepted by the vast majority of fandom. Fandom’s stances on the comics, novelizations and other tie-in materials are too variable to base an analysis on.

Word of God is immaterial. While some would use the phrase Death of the Author, Jewish tradition has a more entertaining take on it. In the Talmud, there’s a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and some of his peers. In that story, Rabbi Eliezer says that if he’s right, this or that miraculous thing would happen, and those miraculous things do happen. But the other rabbis still reject it because we don’t determine halacha by miraculous signs. Eventually, God parts the heavens and says, “Rabbi Eliezer is right.” But another rabbi responds, “The Torah is not in heaven,” meaning that the Torah was meant for human beings on earth to interpret for themselves. And God’s response? To smile and say, “My children have defeated Me.”

Now, let’s begin.

Is Azula bound by halacha?

She’s not Jewish, so no. However, all human beings are bound by the Noahide laws. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the Noahide covenant applies to all humans on all worlds. According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56a.24):

Since the halakhot of the descendants of Noah have been mentioned, a full discussion of the Noahide mitzvot is presented. The Sages taught in a baraita: The descendants of Noah, i.e., all of humanity, were commanded to observe seven mitzvot: The mitzva of establishing courts of judgment; and the prohibition against blessing, i.e., cursing, the name of God; and the prohibition of idol worship; and the prohibition against forbidden sexual relations; and the prohibition of bloodshed; and the prohibition of robbery; and the prohibition against eating a limb from a living animal.

What is Azula’s legal status?

In any case, we know the rules, and now we have to decide whether Azula broke them or not, right?

Not so fast.

First, we have to determine if Azula is of the appropriate legal status to be held accountable for upholding the Noahide laws. In other words: when she committed certain acts, was Azula an adult capable of making rational decisions?

Clear your mind of the idea that being an adult is the same as being a grownup. Instead, think of it as a term that defines when people can make legally binding decisions.

As far as I can tell, the Talmud doesn’t say when a gentile becomes an adult. However, we can use halacha as a guide.

Now for a warning.

If frank talk about the physical development of adolescents makes you uncomfortable, you might want to skip this next part. There’s nothing graphic or titillating about what I’m going to discuss, but if breasts and pubic hair squick you out, skip this part until I say it’s safe in bold like this.

According to halacha, a girl reaches adulthood when she’s twelve years and one day old and has two pubic hairs. Yeah, you read that right. Twelve and two pubes are the requirement. Before this point, nothing she does is legally binding, even if she’s really smart and claims to be fully aware of what she’s doing. After this point, her actions are legally binding, even if she says she had no idea what she was doing.

On the show, we see Azula in a range of ages. In “Zuko Alone,” we see her at roughly eight years old. In “The Storm,” she’s about eleven. In all the other episodes she’s in, she’s fourteen. So, from a legal standpoint, flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding. At that point in time, the responsibility would fall to her parents.

Um, I’m not willing to speculate about the genitals of an underage cartoon character, so for the sake of argument, I’m assuming that 14-year-old Azula meets the two pubes requirement. Thus, 14-year-old Azula is responsible for her actions.

If you skipped that last part, it’s safe to continue now.

OK, we’ve established that flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding, but in the main story, Azula is legally an adult and responsible for her actions.

We good? Alright.

Which Noahide laws does Azula actually break?

This is both easier and harder than it seems.

The laws about idol worship, cursing God, and forbidden sexual acts don’t apply to her because neither religion nor sex are portrayed as such on the show. Also, the law about establishing courts of justice is a communal obligation, not one that falls on a single individual, so that’s another one we don’t have to concern ourselves with.

That leaves the prohibitions against bloodshed, robbery and eating a limb cut from a living animal.

First up: bloodshed.

The connotation of the prohibition against bloodshed is not for general acts of violence, but actual murder.

Here’s where I think I’m going to throw a lot of people for a loop. Azula doesn’t kill anyone on the show. She tries. She comes close. She wouldn’t lose sleep over it if she did. But nobody’s dead because of her. She doesn’t even take lives as collateral damage.

One could argue that zapping Aang with lightning counts as killing, but when the Sages talk about death and dying, I assume they mean the kind where the dead stay dead, not people who are revived by magic spirit water. Furthermore, if someone’s about to kill you (and I think entering the Avatar State qualifies here), you are halachically obligated to save your own life, even if it means killing that person.

Second: robbery.

We’ll come back to that.

Third: eating a limb from a living animal.

This prohibition is often expanded to incorporate all forms of animal cruelty.

The show does portray animal cruelty. We see a prime example with the circus in “Appa’s Lost Days.”

But what about Azula? We don’t see her interact with many animals on the show, but there are two notable examples: Appa the sky bison in “Appa’s Lost Days” and Bosco the bear in “The Crossroads of Destiny.”

How does her behavior measure up? Despite her earlier behavior of terrorizing turtleducks, Azula does not harm either Appa or Bosco.

On the show, Mai and Ty Lee are seen spending time with Bosco in the throne room while the Earth King is imprisoned. So, at the very least, they treat the bear well.

So, Azula is not liable for animal cruelty.

*hands Azula her Not As Big A Jerk As She Could Have Been award*

Now, let’s revisit that prohibition against robbery.

Given the prescribed punishment (decapitation), the connotation seems to be taking the rightful property of another through violent means. That being said, the prohibition against robbery is often extended to include all sorts of theft.

This one might have some legs. On the show, does Azula take the rightful property of another, and does she use violent means to do so?

Absolutely.

A major example is stealing the clothes of the Kyoshi Warriors after defeating them in combat.

But!

The show takes place during a time of war, and the Kyoshi Warriors, as allies of the Avatar, are enemies of the Fire Nation. So does beating them up and taking their uniforms fall under the prohibition against robbery, or are the Kyoshi Warrior uniforms considered the spoils of war and thus free for the taking?

Halachically speaking, it might actually be the latter. When fighting the Kyoshi Warriors, Azula acts as a military commander during a time of war and achieves a decisive victory against an elite combat unit. Thus, she is entitled to take their stuff.

So, back to the original question: which actions does Azula commit during the show that she’s halachically liable for?

The answer, shockingly, may be: none.

On the show, we’re encouraged to think of Azula as a Very Bad Girl who does Very Bad Things. She’s calculating, ruthless and deceptive. She’s also full of herself. She’s not someone who inspires warm, fuzzy feelings in most people. But when you put her actions under the microscope, she exercises remarkable restraint compared to what she’s capable of.

Don’t worry. No one’s going to nominate her for a Nobel Peace Prize just yet. This is Azula we’re talking about. She’s not acting out of an overwhelming love for humanity. But it is interesting that despite her threats to kill, maim and destroy, she doesn’t participate in wanton destruction or wasteful loss of life.

[tarhalindur]

Rebellion’s Biggest Outstanding Question

(Big fat PMMM+Rebellion spoilers under the cut, natch:)

Homura, at the end of Rebellion, believes that she is rebelling against Madoka’s will.  But is she actually doing so?  Or is she acting in accordance with it?

Let me explain.

I’ll start with the point I’m sold on either way (and have commented on at least twice before, including my explanation of Madoka’s other big mistake): Rebellion is directly downstream of Madoka making a single mistake immediately after her ascension in episode 12, a moment when she could not afford to make any mistake at all.  Much like Madoka’s other big mistake in episode 10, this one is not obvious on the surface and only becomes clear when looking at the events through a symbolic lens.

Specifically, a Buddhist symbolic lens.

I’ll leave the full explanation there to this post, which lays out the Buddhist influence on base PMMM’s themes and imagery and on Madokami’s ascension better than I could.  (Although its author is missing a few points.  First, the shot of Madoka expanding to galaxy size is DIRECTLY out of ego death symbolism.  Which makes sense, because there’s enough accounts to suggest that regardless of whether or not it has any deeper meaning beyond brain chemistry the people who’ve had it are describing a single class of subjective experience, and “one’s consciousness expanding to the size of the galaxy” seems to be a common feature of it - I’ve read at least one account of that kind of experience from, of all people, a random Protestant minister who claims to have had such an experience on a vision trip to the Amazon and only later realized that there was precedent for that kind of experience in Buddhist traditions, and he mentions that exact expansion as part of what he went through.  Second, the flower on Madoka’s bow is a rose, not a willow... which makes sense, because “Guanyin/Kannon and the Virgin Mary are two aspects of the same goddess” has been a theory in certain parts for at least a century, and the rose has a traditional association with the latter goddess - there’s a reason they call it the rosary, after all.  (I’ve seen speculation out of a few polytheist/less orthodox Christian circles I keep tabs on that Pistis Sophia is yet another aspect of the same goddess, too...)  Third, note all the mandala symbolism floating around - most obviously Walpurgisnacht’s appearance and Kyubey’s exposition in episode 11.)

And that influence is important here, because part of the process of the escape from samsara is the breaking of all karmic ties to the world.

Except... Madoka does not do this.  She leaves one karmic tie behind.

This one, to be precise:

Now, in theory it’s possible that the tainted miracle of Homura remembering Madoka has another root.  But I have my doubts, and the biggest piece of evidence there is the OST: the track that plays when Homura meets Junko in the finale and offers to give up the ribbons is named Taenia Memoriae, aka “the ribbon of memories”.  HMM,

(That Junko scene is in this regards the single most enigmatic scene of the main series finale to me.  My instinct is that it’s drawing off of Christian mythos again, either canonical or Gnostic, but I can’t quite place what piece; I kind of want to compare it specifically to the Denial of Peter.)

Now, there’s two other pieces here that are worth noting.

1) While Homulilly is described as the Nutcracker Witch in Rebellion, Homulilly’s name and Witch card are first revealed in the PSP game, and there she goes by a rather different epithet: Witch of the Mortal World, nature is karma.  Which is rather on the nose (the Mortal World [shigan] being another term for samsara), but then that’s probably by design - main series PMMM is not subtle at all when it wants to make a point.  And it is this epithet, not the Nutcracker Witch, that the Doppel versions of Homulilly in MagiReco draw off of, which suggests the staff considered it important.  (There’s a second distinction in the latter, because Moemura’s version of the Doppel implies that Homulilly’s nature was originally slightly different again - Witch of the Mortal World, nature is closed circuits - but I think for our purposes here this is a difference without true distinction, much like the Witch of the Near Shore pun for swimsuit!Moemura’s version of Homulilly.)  And there’s echoes of this even in Rebellion: the Clara Dolls are of course referred to as the Children of the Mortal World, plus of course the obvious “Homulilly’s Rebellion barrier as the Mortal World” take.  (Which, hmm.  Hello second-order symbolism - Homura failing to “break out of the egg” as failure to escape the cycle of samsara.)

2) The red ribbons of course suggest a very specific form of karmic tie - the Red String of Fate.  And you can be very, very sure that the staff intended that, too.  To drag a certain piece of key animation back out from storage:

While it’s hard to tell at this size, it sure looks to my eyes like the two ends are specifically tied around the girls’ pinkies.  You know, exactly where the proverbial Red String is said to be tied.

Or, to put it another way: AI YO.

Everything in Rebellion is downstream of this.

But all this is prologue.  Now that we have established the mistake, we can address the actual outstanding question: Did Madoka intend to make that mistake?  People have noted the applicability of Junko’s comments about intentionally making a big mistake when backed into a corner to Homura’s actions in Rebellion; do they also apply to the action Madoka took that led to that?

I am not sure.  Both cases are consistent, and I’d put about even odds either way.  But it’s the affirmative case I want to lay out here, to show that it does in fact exist:

- Let’s start with the one point someone else might bring up that I don’t really weight: Madoka’s final conversation with Homura in the flower bed.  This one, I think, can mostly be discarded.  We have word from both Kyubey and Sayaka that Madoka does not have her memories here; I can’t see both of them lying here.  (Also remember that Kyubey seems to have restriction that is sometimes said to apply to demons, at least under certain circumstances: he cannot directly tell a lie.  This is of course a very different thing from having to tell the truth, as episode 9 alone is enough to attest, but in this specific case it’s a boost to his credibility.)  If there’s an actual argument here, it’s a second-order one; it is possible, especially given her divine abilities, that Madokami was running a Xanatos Gambit and counting on her amnesiac projection to unwittingly relay her true feelings.  (In which case I would have to grab a certain infamous line from another well-known anime: “Just as planned”.)

- That one shot of Madokami’s gloved, scarred arm reaching down through the window to touch Homura.  Operative word scarred.  (And honestly, looking at one of the subs for that scene again Madoka’s comments there look potentially consistent with her actually supporting of or at least accepting Homura becoming a demon...)

- Mata Ashita, specifically the lyrics thereof.  With the perspective of the full series, Madoka’s character song is fairly clearly from the perspective of Madokami, and it’s suggestive that she is not entirely happy with the results of her wish and ascension.

- The fact that Rebellion happened at all.  There’s a complaint that I’ve seen regarding the mechanics of the Incubators’ plot in Rebellion: logically, by the wording of Madoka’s final wish the Incubators’ plan to use the Isolation Field to block the Law of Cycles should not work, since part of Madoka’s wish was to rewrite any rule or law that would prevent her from destroying Witches with her own hands, including the one the Incubators set up with their Isolation Field - doubly so if you take Madokami’s statement can see every world that ever existed or could ever exist and apply it to the Sealed Reality the experiment generates.  Except... there is one way that argument fails, regardless of anything else: namely, if Madoka saw what the Incubators were doing and intentionally allowed their experiment to proceed.  And at this point there is precedent for her doing something very similar; AIUI in her Magical Girl Story in MagiReco Madokami does something very similar wrt the MagiReco timeline, deliberately declining to destroy it despite its continued existence conflicting with the Law of Cycles.

(- Magia.  This point of argument I’m not convinced of either, but let’s lay it out.  (Honestly, even if I’m right I’m not sure how much of this was consciously intended, but creations can have a life of their own - especially creations where fucking natural disasters delay them so that they’re released on the most appropriate day possible!)  There’s two pieces to this, one I’m more sure of than the other:

1) The visuals.  Here’s the spot where I feel most solid about interpreting Magia: the ED visuals are clearly a reference to Madokami’s ascension.  (The show loves hiding that sort of foreshadowing in plain sight, why would you be surprised?)  Note the second half particularly, both Madoka’s hair lengthening and the starfield she’s running past.  (I think the order of the four other girls in the first half is probably how long they held out without Witching out.)  That leaves two issues, one more obvious to Western audiences and one less so.  First, that enigmatic and ominous shot of Madoka in fetal position (appropriate - her request in 10 and then her wish in 12 can be rephrased as “don’t let me grow up”) in the eye of Mephisto.  Second, there’s a point I’ve seen raised in analyses of Connect: in Japanese cinematography, motion from right to left indicates a correct course (unlike its Western equivalent, where the opposite applies)... and for the entirety of Magia Madoka is moving left-to-right.

2) The lyrics.  This is the part I’m less sold on, but once again let’s lay out the affirmative.  My line here derives from a hunch: Connect is famously from Homura’s perspective despite appearing to be from Madoka’s, perhaps the inverse is also true?  I’m still not sure there, but especially if you’re considering the TV version it can work... provided the lyrics are specifically from Madokami’s perspective again.  Grabbing the wiki version of the translation: “The light of love lit within your eyes will transcend time” sure fits better if we’re talking about Homura rather than about Madoka, likewise “with this power that can break even darkness” sure sounds like a better fit for Madokami to me.  And in that case the most interesting stanza is the second: “Swallow down your hesitation.  What is it that you wish for?  With the direction of this greedy admiration, will there be a short-lived tomorrow?”  The former two lines  are quite consistent with Homura’s decision in Rebellion (and I note the visual of Homura biting down on her Soul Gem to break it!), and “tomorrow” is consistently a reference to the possibility of Homura and Madoka meeting again in other PMMM songs (Mata Ashita again, Colorful, Connect full version) - which is realized courtesy of a greedy admiration, no less.  So.  Magia’s full version might count, too - there’s lines there that are harder to square from a Madokami perspective (”if I can move forward without hesitation then it’s fine if my heart gets broken” especially), but “Someday, for the sake of someone else, you too will wish for great power; on the night love captures your heart, unknown words will be born” fits Homura’s fall better than Madoka’s wish, I think.)

- If Madoka’s mistake in 12 is intentional then it more closely mirrors her (unintentional) mistake in 10: she’s implicitly asking Homura to once again do something she can’t and stop her from/alleviate the effects of her making a mistake.

- At a Doylist level, if they go for a proper happy end (either in Walpurgis no Kaiten or in a hypothetical sequel to the same) I’m not sure there’s any way they can get there without using this interpretation.  (In general, the two outcomes that make the most sense to me are “Akuhomu becomes the core of Walpurgisnacht, cue ending scene with Moemura making her wish” (the Logic Error ending, consistent with the Eternal Return of the Self; cue MagiReco as the way out) or an ending based on the answer to this question being yes - the easy version being a movie of everyone except Homura fighting to let Madoka rejoin the Law of Cycles only for her to surprise everyone with some sort of ending based on “actually, I was counting on her to do this from the start”.)

[vampiremourning]

i am mildly delirious so stay with me but--

obviously i love how you can play your clan of choise whichever way you want bc i love to see how people get subversive w tropes (see: me thinking way too hard about the ventrue lmao) BUT! there is such a special place in my heart for unapologetically punk brujah. it absolutely makes sense to me that a clan known for rebelling for have a sizeable percentage of people from the punk subculture, where the whole driving force behind it is, you know, very much rooted in anti-establishment sentiments & fighting for fundamental changes you want to see in the world (absolutely not speaking of b*neheads or other unsavoury posers here, fuck that lmao). 

the true brujah might approach things from a ‘philosophical’ standpoint, but ykw as someone who did quite a bit of studying on (specifically the ancient greek genre) that, most philosophers are either like. the chaotic sort of ballsy individual that, sure, might get a conversation going,(”Behold!!! A MAN”) but definitely aren’t what i’d call level-headed individuals or even particularly justice driven. like i feel like that part of the clan is more likely to be the ‘well actually’ type of person. (not saying that’s bad either at all, because i think those characters can be incredibly fun & interesting, i just think the sense of superiority that gets associated with the ‘true’ brujah might be a bit misplaced on their part. it’s the difference between thinking and doing i guess? both are valuable in their own way, but not suited to every environment or problem.) 

based on the types of people brujah tend to embrace + the fact that coming into that clan means that whatever sort of righteous passion or anger that already existed gets amplified, im really not surprised that theres a more recent immediate association with them being on the side of protestors and pushing for positive change. whether that just stays within vampiric society or leaks out and affects humans i think varies wildly based on location and alignment, and ofc there will always be outliers. but i think that characterizing them as the ‘sjw snowflake’ types is largely just incorrect, or maybe an interpretation of fanon, because i would never in a million years look at the punk scene and think to apply those labels to it. maybe im just biased (im goth myself, but theres enough crossover interactions i think, that i can say i have a decent idea of the sort of people who get drawn to the scene) but thats always been the lens i viewed them from.

i think a corporate brujah would be an interesting approach, as well as people who might not necessarily fit that generalization of ‘brujah heavily inspired and characterized by punk subculture,’ but like i don’t think i’ll ever get tired of seeing people come up with characters who do mesh with the kind of thing you expect to see from that clan. because it’s not boring! in fact i usually think that there’s a lot of heart behind it from the creators, and it’s not a limiting character template in the slightest. you can do so damn much with it as a baseline, you know?? 

im just gfhgjh very tired and ive been thinking about this for a bit and im sure it’s not a particularly original thought either lmao. punk brujah have my whole heart and that’s something i will stand by

[esperanzagalaxy]

what do you think of Botticelli's version of Virgil? :o

��  DA I'M SO SORRY THIS ASK IS. 10 MONTHS OLD. IT WAS SENT BY THE TIME I WAS SUPER NOT ON TUMBLR SO I'M. I APOLOGIZE. AUGH    but onto your question, cause it is such a fun one, are you mayhaps referring to this gentleman? if so hold on tight because this got a little long and i'm neglecting my day job and i am Unhinged. you've unleashed the art history beast

so! you meant him, right? cause we get a lot of straight up Funny dantes throughout art history but virgilios tend to follow a stricter line of design, in my opinion, much more on divine comedy depictions than on regular ol' Life Of Vergil paintings, but fact remains, i'm willing to bet the default image of virgilio you have comes from either that classic mosaic depiction of him with the muses, or the marble busts with the real good hair and lips. that is what i, at least, have seen 98% of classical and contemporary artists go for. cause, like. that was him. possibly. that’s as much confirmation as we can get.

now, botticelli, good ol' botticelli. my man sandrito. his virgilio is A Treat. now: take into account that when i mention the classical depictions we are most likely to have in mind, those pieces are possibly from the xix century. y'know, doré, wicar, ingres, and so on. That is our handsome prettyboy virgilio. 

botticelli was painting his own divine comedy over 300 years before them, but only over a century after the completion of the poem and dante's own death. i won't lie to you, i sincerely don't know When the famed mosaic and busts were found or if botticelli had access to them -but i'm willing to bet he didn't. that said, our boy sandro simply did not have the long history of depictions that the artists that came way after him did have -he was among the first to make his own dante, virgilio & co! (and this is without even talking about his version of the kingdoms. Man)

 might sound like i'm going around in circles but it's to tell you this: in botticelli's time, the Tendencies with which virgilio was later depicted hadn't been established yet. the favored canon was another one, and when you have no idea How this important person looked like, you do what's always been done in european art: make them an ideal according to what an ideal is in your own time!

 and what was the ideal in botticelli's time? in the comedy virgilio is meant to be, among many things, the figure of the Wise Guide. for a european man in the mid to late 1400s, What was a wise guide? it had to be a man, he had to be white, he had to be Older, experienced, he had to Look exprienced and wise, so he'd be Aged and Bearded, but he still had to look respectable and regal -this virgilio is basically a socrates, or a plato! isn't that a delight? it falls into line with a representation i think botticelli Did actually know of, which was giovanni di paolo's, a contemporary of his! 

  yep that’s him in red and dante in blue! (wonder where else have we seen a dante dressed in blue... ;)) ). the fact that vergilius turned out to be a fucking Snack came after, and since us artists have always been going hearteyes after our subjects and muses, artists started to latch onto those younger portraits of the vergster and ended up on the other side of the spectrum -which is, ignoring the fact that he was way older than he's normally depicted as when he reads the aeneid to augustus and octavia, which is a Whole 'Nother Topic (i only know one other old vergil and i don’t like it. wack). back to botticelli’s!   now, do you wanna know the REAL awesome thing about botticelli's virgilio? get ready because this is beautiful. botticelli didn't make him into just Any kind of wise guide. botticelli's virgilio is the magician. the magician is a FASCINATING medieval archetype that found its zenith in Merlin. and what's our and their default image of the magician? old bearded dude! but let's talk about two wild things about the magician: first is that he and magic in general were ever present in the Collective mind of the people in the xv century. people would see this virgil and Would see the magician in him! it wasn't just any old dude, part of the public might not have known who virgilio was or why he was important, but This dude in the image? i'd trust him! good for the guy in red! remember that though art is famed for its elitism it's also developed for CENTURIES the capacity to teach and explain only through images. magician virgilio was Accessible. JUST LIKE THE DIVINE COMEDY BC OF HOW AND WHY IT WAS WRITTEN!!!!!    ahem. and second, the magician is a figure that carries incredible dynamics and meanings with it. the magician is not an evil figure, unlike, i believe, witches and wizards (i think the word is wizard. bear in mind that i'm translating from spanish terms and some are tricky). it's more of a mash between druids, alchemists, but all through a very academia lens. the magician is a Keeper of Knowledge, and that makes him Powerful. this means that a great part if not all of his power depends on the keeping of the Secret. i'm sure you can see & imagine how keeping knowledge Away from people has just... been A Thing for centuries and centuries, esp in cultures built on inequality. so the thing is that if the magician has this power, for them to be able to share it or Entrust it to another, is a big fucking deal. and that's the thing: the magician can have Initiates. the initiate is the inexpert person that a magician takes under his wing and effectively Opens Up The World to them. they share knowledge otherwise forbidden, they're let into the Secret that brings them into contact with what all these self entitled white dudes from the middle ages believed make them Greater than the rest. as such, the magician is fundamentally the one who has skills that others do not, he is someone with the capacity to Change the world around him, he is a Transformative force, he can Accelerate and Cause things. where the alchemist tries to understand and imitate nature, the magician is believed to be one capable of Controlling it. it's worth remembering that an immediate distinction between white and black magic is made, one seeking good and the other bad, hence the differentiation between magician and wizard/witch, where the first of the latter two is usually considered something more Rural than academic, and the latter is just straight out evil because misogyny and racism. i'm sure you can see how, in a profoundly catholic place and era, white magic was also easily linked to miracle making, despite how shifty some bits sound. in short, the magician is a very respected figure in which numerous traditions and wisdom converge.     now! does any of this ring a bell? try applying all these magician traits to virgilio, who was a poet now turned babysitter, being seen through the eyes of a man in the late 1400s. what is a poet if not someone who sees Beyond what ''regular people'' see? what is a respected Epic poet if not something of a prophet? what is a guide if not someone who Knows about what surrounds him, does not fear it, and has the capacity to Explain it to his charge? does the one who guide you through hell and back not Transform you in any way? isn't the relationship between an expert and an initiate who teaches you about the world around you and beyond it not only the next best thing to your love for your god, but also a direct reflection of what it means to be a poet who chose to follow on another greater name's footsteps? virgilio is part of the transformative force that drives dante to change. he is a figure of utter control and rationality. where latter artists would dress him as a roman, either in whites or colors of glory or suffering/passion (gold and red), botticelli dressed his in purples and blues, the (very expensive) colors of royalty & heaven, the world beyond, and trust me when i say that using ultramarine blue on a pagan poet is a big fucking deal, because that hue was Reserved for the virgin mary. goes to show you the respect sandro had for his virgilio, as well as a clear belief in dante's own vision that virgilio pretty much deserved the recognition of any other cool christian if it wasn't for the Rules. and do you wanna know what other figure worthy or respect for his wisdom was dressed in ultramarine blue. THAT'S RIGHT. MERLIN!!!!!!!!    (wipes off sweat) so to summarize, what I think of botticelli's virgilio, is 3/10 on apperance because come on man where the fuck is my hot virgilio? good clothes though but sandro was in the textile industry so he should know; and 10/10 on concept for being a beautiful, EXCELLENT convergence & display of beliefs and traditions that, to my knowledge, no other artists really tried to show with such force in latter interpretations of the comedy. sandrito if you're out there

  apologies for any mistakes! it’s been a while since i’ve had to be Exact about my art history musings but i can’t go into full investigation mode right now. hopefully there’s no blatant misinformation jdsfaasd 

 thank you for asking and i hope you’ve been as safe and healthy as can be!  

[titaniumelemental]

Someone in a non-binary Facebook group I’m in is talking about being worried about yesterday’s Supreme Court decision talking exclusively about “sex” and not mentioning gender, and that by saying “people can’t be discriminated by their chromosomal sex” they’re making “connections that are inspired by TERF talking points.” I’m trying to wrap my head around what’s going on with that opinion.

I get that “sex is real” is a slogan of the enemy, and people are going to pattern match to that. But come one, just because they say they’re only advocating against “sex-based discrimination” doesn’t mean we should take them at their word that that’s all they believe and ignore the key other component which is that evil males are oppressing defenseless females and they view everything through that lens.

Complicating the issue is the fact that the common liberal SJ framework for discussion discrimination or mistreatment is always polarized as a distinct power gradient, and doesn’t really handle well “you can’t discriminate against this feature in either direction.” There’s a lot of focus on how reverse racism doesn’t exist, or heterophobia doesn’t exist, or sure “patriarchy hurts men too” just not in a way we’ll ever treat as worth caring about. We might admit mistreatment of individuals based on those traits can sometimes exist, but we won’t go so far as to say we’re against it. The most important thing is to emphasize that it doesn’t matter relative to “structural oppression” and honestly it would be better if people who are hurt on an individual level but not by structural oppression should really just stop talking about it because it’s distracting...

As you can see I think there are some weaknesses to that framework, and this is another one of them. If you’re so stuck on that frame, then it’s hard to interpret “can’t discriminate based on sex” as something that cuts both ways. You can’t discriminate against anyone based on whatever their sex is and based on whatever way their presentation or behavior is perceived to not match it. That doesn’t fit the “one group oppresses another” framework, which encourages people to pattern-match to the TERF version that oppression of afabs is the only thing that matters, but that’s not what’s actually happening.

This isn’t establishing a particular sex as the special one that must be protected (as in the TERF position.) It’s establishing that sex is not permitted to be a factor in employment decisions. It’s not saying that physical sex is the thing that matters, it’s saying that physical sex shouldn’t matter and that you should be freed from an expectation by your boss that you look or act a certain way based on it.

Basically, I think this decision aligns with my existing ~liberal feminist~ leanings in which I believe we should first and foremost treat people as individuals who all deserve respect and equal opportunity, not as pawns in a struggle between groups first and individual people second (if at all.)

I don’t think transphobia as sex discrimination can cover 100% of the issue, specifically I don’t think this ruling has anything to do with access transition related health care? I’m also wondering how it applies to people trying to get their work to use neutral pronouns, because the employer can truthfully say they wouldn’t use “they” for anyone regardless of assigned sex. There’s probably many more complicated implications I don’t at all understand, but this is still a big positive in the exact direction groups like Lambda Legal have been fighting for for years. I don’t want to see people discount that just because their social circle has decided that TERFs are the only ones who are allowed to talk about sex discrimination

[bigskydreaming]

Small response ask to that anon who brought up Chris Priest and your response of DC should focus less on Bruce being abusive to his kids. Not sure if you noticed the up and down of the Batman comics but it seems the arc that have him being a caring dad has less asshole dad and abusive dad in them and yet the arc that have Bruce hitting the boys or kicking them out of the house has Bruce not acknowledging the boys as his sons and even the writers say Dick is more of a brother of partner than son.

Oh for sure, its absolutely true that a huge part of the problem with the Batman comics is the sheer inconsistency in writer visions of the characters - which is why IMO its up to DC’s editorial staff to maintain internal consistency for how the characters officially relate to each other at the very least. 

Like I’ve said before, you can’t roll back the clock on them being his kids once you’ve established they’re his kids. People haven’t forgotten that Tim was adopted by Bruce in the old continuity just because they decided to have his parents alive in the New 52 - and ‘teenage kinda sorta ally’ is an inherently weaker emotional tether compared to ‘actual adopted son’ so when presented with two options, most people aren’t going to give a shit about their attempt to ‘unbond’ a character from their actual parent and will stick with viewing them as father and son, whether DC likes it or not.

So its just plain foolishness IMO for DC to attempt to apply any sort of ambiguity to Bruce and his kids. Along with his biological son Damian, Dick, Jason, Tim and Cass at least have all been officially adopted by Bruce (or in Cass’ case, they were stated to be starting adoption proceedings last we saw before the Reboot). Like....those are just hard facts, no matter how much people try and ‘undo’ that if they don’t personally like the idea of Bruce as a father of five....fans are not going to cooperate and its just sheer stubbornness to pretend otherwise. People before the current writers and editors made a creative choice to have Bruce adopt these kids. Readers liked it. Readers know what they like and once given the option of having Bruce the father of five, you can protest all you want as the ‘official’ overseers of Batman, but you can’t erase what was already written, and you can’t ask readers to forget they liked something better than how you’re currently trying to push it.

But that’s just me being like hey DC what if you weren’t a flock of fucking dumbasses, just to try something different for a change.

And related to your ask, there’s absolutely a direct correlation in my mind between the DC writers who intensely dislike the idea of Bruce as a father and writing him as being callous, insensitive, aloof and outright abusive with various of his kids. Because it all goes hand in hand with them - they dislike the idea of Bruce as a dad because they’re all about him being the brooding lone wolf whose entire life is just an endless pursuit of justice for the sake of others because he’s convinced himself that he can never be happy and shouldn’t try. YAWN. But this view of Bruce is outright threatened by the warm, caring father Bruce rendition, so they try and erode the latter as much as possible in pursuit of the former....

Only to later have writers revert to the latter and erode the former.

And around and around and around we go. And they all keep trying to reset things that fundamentally CAN NOT BE RESET because this is the problem when you staff a creative industry top to bottom with fanboys who can’t and won’t separate their personal desires from their professional shepherding of these IPs. And so each new crop of writers tries to write Batman and related characters the way they like them, most often the way they remembered reading them as kids through the lens filter of nostalgia, and thus Bruce’s kids’ status flip flops either officially or unofficially every five to ten years, Hal Jordan is replaced by Kyle Rayner is replaced by Hal Jordan and a wave of new diverse characters are created in the span of a couple years and ten years later no one’s heard of any of them except for Jaime Reyes.

And its the reason IMO that superhero comics have never grown beyond a niche industry despite the VAST appeal of superheroes that superhero movies have proven still exists....and its why superhero movies will end up in the exact same stagnated niche if they don’t learn from the former’s mistake and let their characters grow and age and be replaced by new ones rather than just rebooted versions of the old one, because there’s only so many times you can go round and round on the merry go round before people just flat out stop caring because you’re not doing or saying anything new.

Change is good, except for when people refuse to let it happen because they’ve settled for what they know as being the optimal plateau, never to truly be reached past because the unknown and untested is scary and might bite.

Anyway. All of that is to say yes, I agree, and as a PS I just have to froth at the mouth a little on a personal note because god do I hate the interpretation that Bruce and Dick are more like brothers than father and son, lololol, and can’t refrain from mentioning that any time its brought up even in passing. 

(This is totally not directed at you btw, just the concept itself, lololol, sorry). 

People can talk about the smaller age gap between them all they want, but the fact of the matter is, Dick isn’t Damian, and the relationship between Dick and Bruce has NEVER been nearly as ambiguous or as open to interpretation as the one between Dick and Damian.

Because the contrast between the two is Bruce had something that nobody who is just an older sibling has over a younger....absolute uncontested parental authority, total responsibility for his education, living arrangements, emotional development, etc....with no other comparable figure in the younger’s life occupying a same or even similar role. Dick occupied that role for Damian for about a year of his life, but Bruce has occupied that role for Dick every single year since his first parents died. It might have taken awhile for them to individually and together VIEW their dynamic as parent and child, but from the moment Dick stepped foot into Wayne Manor, Bruce started out day one as someone who stepped into the role of sole guardian and caretaker with no prior emotional attachment.....and that just is NOT a sibling. That’s a legal guardian or parent.

(And yes, Alfred was there of course, but despite being viewed as a father figure to Bruce himself, Alfred never ever ever once has been shown to occupy an equal position to Bruce in Dick’s life....he’s very firmly slotted into the grandfather role himself, and has never stepped forward to definitively intercede between the two of them or usurp or even truly challenge Bruce’s parental authority of Dick).

If people want to say that at times Dick and Bruce’s dynamic has been more relaxed and they’ve related to each other as more like siblings than parent and child due to the relatively small age gap between them (still well over a decade, like yeah Bruce would have had to have been fourteen or so to have Dick himself, but the point is he DIDN’T, and he was already completely done with education and globe-trotting and was firmly established in his life and life’s purpose by the time he became Dick’s guardian, so the small age gap is not quite as influential as I think some people try to make it out to be - the reality is the Bruce that Dick met as a child couldn’t be any more decisively in the ‘adult/equivalent of a parent’ category in Dick’s eyes if he were five years older....it wouldn’t have changed a single thing about their actual situation or the positioning of their dynamic.)

But anyway, my point just being that yeah, due to the relatively small age gap between them, I can see people making a case for them at times enjoying a more relaxed camaraderie more akin to brothers than father and son, but the part that’s a pet peeve is when people try and outright replace the idea of them having a father/son dynamic with one where they’re brothers and partners and equals because.....no. Bruce always had full authority and guardianship of Dick from the day he met him, and he’s never been anyone BUT the figure who occupies that role in Dick’s mind, no matter whether the name for that changed over time. And that’s not a sibling, because even siblings who end up raising their younger siblings after the death of their parents, say....except for extreme cases like Dick and Damian, they usually still already have prior connection and perceptions of each other....like the younger, if already Dick’s age when raised by someone Bruce’s age....like, if they were siblings and Bruce ended up raising Dick himself, Dick would still have an image in his mind of a time before their mutual parents died, before he shifted into that parent role....and thus there’d be some ambiguity. 

But like I said, Bruce always (and without exception or alternative) from day one existed as the one responsible for Dick’s care, the one responsible for raising him, the one who got the ultimate say in every aspect of his life from education to what he ate to whether he could go hang out with his friends...and call that whatever you want, but that’s a parent. Not an older brother.

And more importantly, that dynamic between parent and child, rather than between older and younger sibling, is never going to fully shift into true equals. There’s a degree to which our parents will always be our parents and exist on a different footing than us in our mutual perspectives. There’s no getting around that. And Dick will never ever be positioned to be Bruce’s brother-figure rather than his son. Never someone who can challenge Bruce on ACTUAL equal footing rather than always with the vestiges of ‘this is the man who raised me’ and ‘I raised this man’ hanging over them. 

Anyway, like I said, pet peeve, and I always get a little grrr about people suggesting they’re more brother and brother than father and son because its disingenuous in my mind....there’s never been any kind of reality to it. And more importantly, its one of those things that only really seems to serve one purpose - and that’s to lessen Bruce’s responsibility to Dick, because if they’re just brothers, then the times when Bruce has done less than stellar as his parent, let’s say - like, those aren’t as big a deal or big a failing or an injustice to Dick if Bruce is JUST his brother and not actually his father and thus not actually responsible for filling that role.

Its the exact flip side of why I argue that its shitty to heap the kind of expectations on Dick that fandom usually does....because he’s NOT Damian’s father or any of his siblings.....but the key point I always bring up there is that this is more than just a matter of labels, but rather due to the fact that someone with significantly more and undeniable parental authority than Dick exists for all of his siblings....Bruce himself.

And that’s why Dick will never truly be Bruce’s equal within the family rather than his son - he doesn’t carry equivalent power even if equivalent expectations or responsibilities are heaped on him. And that’s why Bruce will never truly be Dick’s equal rather than his parent - because from day one, he DID carry sole parental power and responsibility for Dick. And there’s no getting around that and no changing that.....unless you CLAIM that Bruce is ‘just’ Dick’s brother DESPITE all the evidence of him being the only parent Dick’s had since he was eight years old.

And the other thing that bugs about the Bruce is more Dick’s brother than parent thing....even if Alfred has never officially been designated Bruce’s father, there’s never been any doubt that they are far more a parent/child dynamic than an older brother/younger brother. And all of Dick’s siblings have unequivocally been interpreted as Bruce’s children.

So.....

According to the Bruce is more Dick’s brother than parent argument, Dick is the one and only member of the Batfamily who just....doesn’t get to have a parent figure after he loses his parents at age eight? He never needs or wants one after that point? Bruce is more kinda just his brother and partner and Dick wants it this way, because he loved his parents, and so the eight years he got with them was all the parental love and guidance he needed, he was all set, no need or desire for any more after that point, because that’s how it works, apparently, if you love your parents and they die while you’re still a kid, sorry but you can’t have new ones? You can have a guardian but not another parent, you already filled the ‘I had parents who loved me’ quota so whether you only got eight years with them or eighteen, that’s all folks, but its okay because its not like you’d even want parents again if you had even just eight years with ones already?

LOLOL.

Yeah. 

DISLIKE.

[deliciousmeta]

According to halacha, which actions is Azula liable for?

One of my favorite ways to study Jewish texts is to take a fictional character or situation and examine it through the lens of Jewish text and tradition.

I’ve done this before with ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Now I’m going to take up this exercise again with Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Before I begin, a few things to keep in mind.

I’m not a Talmud scholar.

There is no definitive Jewish Opinion™ about any issue pertaining to halacha. Unanimous opinions on halacha are so rare that when we find one, we assume something went wrong in the process..

Azula is a morally polarizing character in AtLA fandom. Regardless of who you ask, you’re bound to get some strong opinions about exactly what she’s done, the extent to which she’s responsible for it, and what this says about her morality or lack thereof. I’m not going to rehash those arguments. I think I’ve made it clear that I care less about whether people approve of her behavior than I do about how their statements about her reinforce harmful messages about women, people of color, LGBT people and mentally ill people.

Nevertheless, she’s incredibly interesting, and studying Jewish text is fun, so here we are.

Why examine Azula’s actions through the lens of halacha?

Halacha gets a lot of flack because it comes off as excessively legalistic. But, in my opinion, that’s based on a misunderstanding of what halacha is. Usually translated as “Jewish law,” the word halacha actually comes from the root word that means “to go/walk.”

Halacha is not a collection of rules for the sake of having rules. It’s meant to take us somewhere. You can write a library of books about exactly what that is and what it means. But for the sake of simplicity, halacha is how we show that we recognize the holiness of everything in creation. So we aim to do right by one another, by the land we live in and by the creatures we share this world with.

Before we can launch into examining the halachic ramifications of the things Azula does, we need to establish some boundaries.

Only the show counts. It’s the common frame of reference universally accepted by the vast majority of fandom. Fandom’s stances on the comics, novelizations and other tie-in materials are too variable to base an analysis on.

Word of God is immaterial. While some would use the phrase Death of the Author, Jewish tradition has a more entertaining take on it. In the Talmud, there’s a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and some of his peers. In that story, Rabbi Eliezer says that if he’s right, this or that miraculous thing would happen, and those miraculous things do happen. But the other rabbis still reject it because we don’t determine halacha by miraculous signs. Eventually, God parts the heavens and says, “Rabbi Eliezer is right.” But another rabbi responds, “The Torah is not in heaven,” meaning that the Torah was meant for human beings on earth to interpret for themselves. And God’s response? To smile and say, “My children have defeated Me.”

Now, let’s begin.

Is Azula bound by halacha?

She’s not Jewish, so no. However, all human beings are bound by the Noahide laws. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the Noahide covenant applies to all humans on all worlds. According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56a.24):

Since the halakhot of the descendants of Noah have been mentioned, a full discussion of the Noahide mitzvot is presented. The Sages taught in a baraita: The descendants of Noah, i.e., all of humanity, were commanded to observe seven mitzvot: The mitzva of establishing courts of judgment; and the prohibition against blessing, i.e., cursing, the name of God; and the prohibition of idol worship; and the prohibition against forbidden sexual relations; and the prohibition of bloodshed; and the prohibition of robbery; and the prohibition against eating a limb from a living animal.

What is Azula’s legal status?

In any case, we know the rules, and now we have to decide whether Azula broke them or not, right?

Not so fast.

First, we have to determine if Azula is of the appropriate legal status to be held accountable for upholding the Noahide laws. In other words: when she committed certain acts, was Azula an adult capable of making rational decisions?

Clear your mind of the idea that being an adult is the same as being a grownup. Instead, think of it as a term that defines when people can make legally binding decisions.

As far as I can tell, the Talmud doesn’t say when a gentile becomes an adult. However, we can use halacha as a guide.

Now for a warning.

If frank talk about the physical development of adolescents makes you uncomfortable, you might want to skip this next part. There’s nothing graphic or titillating about what I’m going to discuss, but if breasts and pubic hair squick you out, skip this part until I say it’s safe in bold like this.

According to halacha, a girl reaches adulthood when she’s twelve years and one day old and has two pubic hairs. Yeah, you read that right. Twelve and two pubes are the requirement. Before this point, nothing she does is legally binding, even if she’s really smart and claims to be fully aware of what she’s doing. After this point, her actions are legally binding, even if she says she had no idea what she was doing.

On the show, we see Azula in a range of ages. In “Zuko Alone,” we see her at roughly eight years old. In “The Storm,” she’s about eleven. In all the other episodes she’s in, she’s fourteen. So, from a legal standpoint, flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding. At that point in time, the responsibility would fall to her parents.

Um, I’m not willing to speculate about the genitals of an underage cartoon character, so for the sake of argument, I’m assuming that 14-year-old Azula meets the two pubes requirement. Thus, 14-year-old Azula is responsible for her actions.

If you skipped that last part, it’s safe to continue now.

OK, we’ve established that flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding, but in the main story, Azula is legally an adult and responsible for her actions.

We good? Alright.

Which Noahide laws does Azula actually break?

This is both easier and harder than it seems.

The laws about idol worship, cursing God, and forbidden sexual acts don’t apply to her because neither religion nor sex are portrayed as such on the show. Also, the law about establishing courts of justice is a communal obligation, not one that falls on a single individual, so that’s another one we don’t have to concern ourselves with.

That leaves the prohibitions against bloodshed, robbery and eating a limb cut from a living animal.

First up: bloodshed.

The connotation of the prohibition against bloodshed is not for general acts of violence, but actual murder.

Here’s where I think I’m going to throw a lot of people for a loop. Azula doesn’t kill anyone on the show. She tries. She comes close. She wouldn’t lose sleep over it if she did. But nobody’s dead because of her. She doesn’t even take lives as collateral damage.

One could argue that zapping Aang with lightning counts as killing, but when the Sages talk about death and dying, I assume they mean the kind where the dead stay dead, not people who are revived by magic spirit water. Furthermore, if someone’s about to kill you (and I think entering the Avatar State qualifies here), you are halachically obligated to save your own life, even if it means killing that person.

Second: robbery.

We’ll come back to that.

Third: eating a limb from a living animal.

This prohibition is often expanded to incorporate all forms of animal cruelty.

The show does portray animal cruelty. We see a prime example with the circus in “Appa’s Lost Days.”

But what about Azula? We don’t see her interact with many animals on the show, but there are two notable examples: Appa the sky bison in “Appa’s Lost Days” and Bosco the bear in “The Crossroads of Destiny.”

How does her behavior measure up? Despite her earlier behavior of terrorizing turtleducks, Azula does not harm either Appa or Bosco.

On the show, Mai and Ty Lee are seen spending time with Bosco in the throne room while the Earth King is imprisoned. So, at the very least, they treat the bear well.

So, Azula is not liable for animal cruelty.

*hands Azula her Not As Big A Jerk As She Could Have Been award*

Now, let’s revisit that prohibition against robbery.

Given the prescribed punishment (decapitation), the connotation seems to be taking the rightful property of another through violent means. That being said, the prohibition against robbery is often extended to include all sorts of theft.

This one might have some legs. On the show, does Azula take the rightful property of another, and does she use violent means to do so?

Absolutely.

A major example is stealing the clothes of the Kyoshi Warriors after defeating them in combat.

But!

The show takes place during a time of war, and the Kyoshi Warriors, as allies of the Avatar, are enemies of the Fire Nation. So does beating them up and taking their uniforms fall under the prohibition against robbery, or are the Kyoshi Warrior uniforms considered the spoils of war and thus free for the taking?

Halachically speaking, it might actually be the latter. When fighting the Kyoshi Warriors, Azula acts as a military commander during a time of war and achieves a decisive victory against an elite combat unit. Thus, she is entitled to take their stuff.

So, back to the original question: which actions does Azula commit during the show that she’s halachically liable for?

The answer, shockingly, may be: none.

On the show, we’re encouraged to think of Azula as a Very Bad Girl who does Very Bad Things. She’s calculating, ruthless and deceptive. She’s also full of herself. She’s not someone who inspires warm, fuzzy feelings in most people. But when you put her actions under the microscope, she exercises remarkable restraint compared to what she’s capable of.

Don’t worry. No one’s going to nominate her for a Nobel Peace Prize just yet. This is Azula we’re talking about. She’s not acting out of an overwhelming love for humanity. But it is interesting that despite her threats to kill, maim and destroy, she doesn’t participate in wanton destruction or wasteful loss of life.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Anarchy: The Life and Joy of Insubordination

In this essay I substitute “wage-slave” for “worker” since there are many different ideas of what “work” could mean. I am also considering the fact that “worker” is socially loaded with congratulatory appraisal as it conceals the true nature of it’s meaning: slave. Here I criticize “wage-slave” as a role and identity assigned to individuals by a system that requires their physical and mental subjugation en masse. The “wage-slave” is only such, as long as one fulfills that role and identity. Beneath that role and identity is a chaotic uniqueness which arms the individual with emancipatory potential.

When people ask “What is “anarchy”?”, my answer is rarely a reference to the popular philosophers of history who define it academically as an “ism”. My personal relationship to anarchy is one of constant exploration and discovery. For me, what differentiates anarchy from any other political idea is the anti-politics of its practice. As an anarchist, I have no inclination to recruit a mass of people to overthrow the establishment. I have no desire to construct persuasive programs encouraging the “worker” to join a party, vote, fight for better wages -let alone remain as a wage-slave. All I have is an anarchist project of my own: the reclaiming of my life from wage-slavery and social control. It is a project of self-preservation armed with hostility to all that attempts to categorize, confine, and control me.

Things we come to familiarize ourselves with like presidential elections, the police, banks, and wage-slavery are all social systems constructed to maintain order – an order maintained through coercion, disempowerment, and fear. Together these things make up the governmental establishment which occupies and applies ownership to geographical locations. The maintaining of this occupation relies heavily on an apparatus that monopolizes violent force, as well as the subjugation of any persons residing in these locations. The subjugation of a population of people wouldn’t succeed without the normalized logic of submission and psychological warfare. In order to gain access to the monopolized resources needed to survive, the conquered population of people are forced to reproduce and maintain the establishment through wage-slavery: enslavement in exchange for a monetary wage. At the root of this social control is the domination of the individual – a domination which reinforces the logic of individual submission to the group. For the sake of the leftist wet-dream, imagine every individual wage-slave deciding to quit their job, all at once, and all those who didn’t have a job deciding against getting one. Those few who monopolize resources would quickly lose everything and everyone they needed to protect them. With the expropriation of violent force, these individuals could unite and destroy those maintaining hierarchical power. But as years have shown, the continuity of capitalism and the slave-master relationship is complex and reinforced in a variety of ways.

As an anarchist against work, I will still validate the wage-slave’s stress and fear of poverty, their personal justifications for submitting to slavery and the colossal misery that accompanies these things. I can not deny the power of materialist accumulation, consumerism, and the toxic escapism which acts to distract and pacify outrage. I have seen apathy personalized as a lifelong commitment, embraced by those too emotionally defeated to break the chains of capitalism’s captivity. The idea of mass revolt would be ideal, but is unfortunately utopian. The workplace is constantly evolving to be more accommodating to the wage-slave. This includes, but not limited to, serving as a remedy for boredom, a platform for social networking and emotional comfort through economic security. These small personal relationships with work play a big role is stunting efforts to organize mass worker revolt. In other words, many people enjoy wage-slavery, and will even sabotage efforts to organize against it. It is inaccurate to assume people are one monolithic mass willing to rise up against the establishment. But rather than relying on a mass revolt, there is the power of uncontrollable, unpredictable individual revolt. These revolts are composed of cells or “lone wolf” individuals who make revolt a daily practice rather than a future phenomena to wait for. As an ex-wage-slave, I will validate the unique history and personhood of a wage-slaving individual, their desire for freedom and the suppressed rage that accompanies their contempt for what they do. I will validate their hatred for every social construct of domination that compresses them. I will validate a wildness they keep caged up in fear of being called “crazy” or “weird”. I will validate a behavioural uniqueness they possess which society would attempt to pathologize and eliminate to maintain psychiatric standardization.

So many norms, roles, and identities shoved down our throats from birth - is it really a surprise that the oppressed “workers of the world” haven’t smashed capitalism to pieces by now? Where in the prison of society do we find the encouragement to not only be our unique wild selves, but to also weaponize our hostility towards the societal apparatus of control? Individuality, often promoted within the confinement of a pre-constructed identity – one assigned at birth and necessary for the functioning of capitalist society – is defined by society rather than the chaos of indefinite, ungoverned self-discovery. Due to the anthropocentric lens through which we view the world, wildness is moralized as an evil savagery in need of domesticating and management. Wildness is the enemy of the technological colonization of the natural world. So what does anarchist wildness look like? Anarchy as wildness refuses the control and domination of socially constructed systems which subjugate individuality. Where ever there is social constructs attempting to subjugate individual uniqueness, there is a politicized program at play. This program (which often attempts to acquire a dominating position) is responsible for normalizing a standardized way of life in which individual people are reduced from complex ever-changing beings to the identity of “worker”, or - for the sake of this essay -“wage-slave”.

What does it mean to be ungovernable? Within ungoverned self-discovery come questions of survival. Without the instinct of survival, the capitalists who profit from the products of my labor would have no leverage to enslave me. Food, shelter, etc. are essentials that require the labor of others to maintain. Under systems that require a mass of people to maintain, individuals are discouraged from finding the power to acquire their own food and/or create their own shelter. Today, shelter (industrial buildings fixed up with plumbing, electricity, etc) are manufactured by one group of people (wage-slaves) and sold to, and occupied by others (consumers). Alienation can be found here where those purchasing or renting space have no direct connection to its construction. Just the same as when people purchase food in grocery stores, they are disconnected from the true source of that food (slaughterhouses, for example) since someone else puts in the work to harvest, process, and package it. The leverage capitalist society maintains over every individual is that of survival. Through monopolizing resources, those with the most can enslave those with the least. So what way do anarchists survive if they refuse the role and identity of “wage-slave”? If an individual decides to arm their desires with action, how does that individual refuse enslavement to a boss or master and continue maintaining access to resources? Under capitalism, the expropriation of resources from those who monopolize them is considered illegal. This is where anarchism breaks away from the civilized notions of social reform and finds affinity with illegality.

I can only speak for myself when I talk about illegalist anarchy since for every individual, their interpretation will be influenced by circumstances unique to their experience. There is also an entire history rich with illegalist anarchy taking place in the early 1900s around the globe, and continuing on today. For the purpose of this particular essay I will be focusing on illegality related to resource expropriation as an argument against wage-slavery. So from this perspective, illegalist anarchy is the refusal to confine my anarchist activity to an above-ground, liberalized, mass-appeal activity. It is the daily practice of experimenting with methods of survival that refuse the limiting moral code of law and order. It is the weaponizing of chaos from which I find courage and strength in joyfully discovering new ways of surviving – all of which circumnavigate wage-slavery. I have grown sick and tired of bosses, workplaces, and forcing my body to wake up with the sound of a blaring alarm. I am in full retirement from wage-slavery at the age of thirty-three, and I have absolutely no desire to turn back. So, how do I eat? How do I survive without a paycheck from a workplace to sell my labor? A reality that is often difficult to remember is that everything one needs to survive already exists all around. In addition to poly-crop guerrilla gardening and foraging, food is stockpiled high in grocery stores. Tools for creativity and sabotage are hoarded by hardware stores. Dumpsters are filled to the brim with a variety of resources. What has been stolen from the individual is a sense of direct connection to these resources. Through learned consumerism, people see themselves as merely consumers- basically, “If I don’t have the money for this food, I just go hungry tonight.”. Through fear, capitalism along with the state has pacified a healthy outrage that could motivate us to take the resources needed to survive. This is another form of alienation – but one that keeps the consumer passive: if you make something with your own hands, you feel more connection to it as yours. But when someone else makes it and you see it in a store window, there is no direct connection. Therefore, there is less emotional justification for outrage or motivation to break the barrier of law and fear. Similar to the factory jobs I worked where a single product was put together by multiple people. If each person is only responsible for producing a piece of the whole product, there is no direct connection between the production of that product as a whole, and the individual worker. Therefore, the wage-slave doesn’t develop a relationship with what they produce, because a single product is produced by multiple people.

Rather than celebrating individualism, this process glorifies workplace collectivism- a useful tool in encouraging productivity and unifying “workers” for the common good of capitalism. What is socially discouraged in the individual is a creative rebellion that crafts plans and ideas on how to undermine the security apparatus that protects resources. Store cameras, Loss Prevention officers (or as some of us call them for short “LP’s”), magnetic security devices attached to items, etc. While one individual spends their time and energy at work and maybe planning what bills to pay next, the ex- wage-slave individual has the opportunity to utilize free time to experiment with different ideas on how to get shit for free. Eight hours of committed work at a factory (or grocery store, office place, etc.) could be eight hours of strategic planning, assessing, and experimenting with illegalist activity.

Another opportunity is the wage-slaving individual experimenting with illegalist activity within the workplace. Of course, the stakes are a little higher since the individual would have surrendered personal information to obtain the job, but an inside-the-workplace perspective can offer an opportunity to exploit weaknesses in work-place security. Though, personally, I haven’t met many people who take much advantage of this. And this is probably due to the fact that they depend on the job in a way that outweighs any advantages of work-place theft.

Coming back to the anti-work perspective on illegalism, when it comes to the resources of survival, the time not surrendered to wage-slavery can be time put towards careful planning, personal fear-assessment, and target seeking.

As society forces us into schools to begin the indoctrination sequence of behavioural conformity and obedience, we have very little opportunity to learn about ourselves and our capabilities. Between school and our homes, playgrounds and neighbourhood streets, we’re allowed a regulated time-frame of play. From my own perspective, play is the materialization of imaginative desire, exploration, and discovery. Each of these are fundamental tools necessary in observing and comprehending one’s environment and their relationship to it. Embedded in that relationship is a “self” that is composed of experiences and personal desires. But with such a narrow time-frame, a young individual only has a limited scope of exploration and instead, with development, begins internalizing the rhetoric of consumerist, productive, and responsible adultism.

For real though - what can most people say about themselves and the lives they live? Aside from a few forms of escapism or maybe hobby activities that stem from personal desire, many peoples lives are just wage-slavery, paying bills, paying for materialist shit and wage-slave some more to stockpile (save) money. Shit, people spend most of their lives using the present to prepare or secure a future- the existence of a future which is often taken for granted in the first place. So how much can one know about their self when so much of the “self” is being constricted, conditioned, and defined in terms of wage-slave productivity? Whether class or social, the status of an individual under capitalism is determined by their access to, and relationship with, materialism. But what about a “self” unbound by capitalism, and insubordinate to materialist representation? Or a “self” that refuses the traditional categorical assignments of social constructs and embraces life as anarchistic existence? A life of illegalist anarchy then allows for the limitless possibilities of creating one’s self day by day.

In my opinion, refusing the wage-slave role and identity destabilizes social control on an individual level. Since it is a firm work ethic that must be drilled into the individual to secure the foundation of capitalism (or any system that requires massified subjugation for its sustainability), individuals who refuse wage-slavery are subjected to a variety of social pressures including personal judgement, ridicule and the threat of poverty. To build up a confidence in one’s self that is immune to the social pressures of being talked down to (as well as a confidence in ones creative, determined self to avoid poverty), is to reclaim power as an individual. It is a power that reclaims “self” from the role and identity of “proletariat”, “worker”, or “wage-slave”.

Like chaotic negation to all socially fixed identities, there is power in contradicting the social identity and expectation of the “wage-slave”. This power also undermines the assumption that “the group” (or formalized organization, society, the masses etc.) is stronger than the individual. If “the group” is unable to subjugate an individual, that individual carries the potential to inspire the emancipation of other individuals from “the group”. A group, or systemic establishment, is only as powerful as the subservience of the individuals who comprise it. Without subservient individuals to reinforce the power of “the group”, there is no group - only empowered individuals.

The power of presidents, politicians, the police, and the military industrial complex, economic systems of every form and social constructs require the subservience of individuals. Without individual participation, the continuity of any system unravels. This is what makes individuality not only important but also powerful. Under capitalism, refusing wage-slavery requires courage; assimilatory subservience is psychologically coerced with the threat of starvation and poverty. The logic of submission is only negated through a fearless self-confidence and the desire to become socially ungovernable.

Could an individualist anarchist change the world? As unlikely as it seems, who am I to say no? Different people are inspired by different things. To some, a personal relationship with someone else’s words can shatter a worldview. Those same words armed with the actions of an individual could spark flames of social insubordination, possibly multiplying into spontaneous fires of joyful emancipation. It is not the leadership of deceptive, double speaking academics or committees (invisible or not), political schemes, or popular catch phrases that ignite personal rebellion. In my opinion and experience, it is the discovery and re-claiming of “self” as powerful, unique, and wild. From this perspective, anarchist illegality negates the domesticated conformity of internalized workerism. Illegalist anarchy confronts law and order with insurgency, preserving wild chaos as individuality against the homogenizing effect of society. To reclaim and reinvent one’s life as a daily exploration of personal adventure is anarchy against the socialized guilt and pressure to abandon rebellious youth.

Wage-slavery is the enemy of play, individuality, and freedom. Social systems require the subjugation of individuality to either homogenized membership or fixed group-identities in order to maintain their existence. With all social systems the formula is similar: individuality is surrendered to the group in order to be granted access to resources. Under capitalism, the wage-slave - or in Marxist terms, “the proletariat” - is an identity pre-configured with the role of reproducing capitalist society. This includes an individual surrendering their mind and body to a master in exchange for a wage that serves as the permission slip to access resources. But to the anarchist individual armed with the illegality of resource expropriation, anarchy is survival without permission.

Anarchy can not be experienced through history books, the reformation of work places nor the confines of a new societal system. Anarchy breathes with the rhythm of the wild in constant flux, ungoverned by anthropocentric laws and order. I rejoice my anarchy in the transformative abandonment of the role and identity of “the proletariat”. There is no great future revolution on the horizon to organize or wait for. There is only today, with no guarantee of tomorrow. There are no charismatic leaders to open the door to freedom. There is only the power of anarchist individuality defined by the liberating ammunition of desire.

[weaselandfriends]

Hymnstoke XIII

Have you heard the story of bladekindEyewear the Blind?

In infinite folly, this man strapped knives to his eyeballs, depriving himself of sight. Nonetheless he was known as the wisest man in Homestuck Tumblr, with a wicked pack of classpect analyses. As Homestuck progressed through its lengthy sixth act, he developed a wide sleight of theories as to how it would end and what it would mean when it ended that way, focused most famously on each character's SBURB class and aspect (classpect for portmanteau).

When Homestuck ended, and then ended a second time, he turned out to be wrong.

In a recent post, he made this comment about his wrongness:

BlastYoBoots  04/26/2019:  part of why all my theories were wrong is that they were arrogant and misguided and just all-around regrettable and I thought I "knew" what Andrew morally wanted out of a story when he wasn't after the same thing at all

I bring this tale to your attention not to drag our Sosostris through the mud. In fact, I'd say he's unduly harsh on himself here. He may indeed have had a decent grasp of Hussie's moral purposes regarding Homestuck—in 2013. It has been a long six years since then, during which Hussie followed in the footsteps of other noted New England authors J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon and vanished off the face of the planet. It would be fair to theorize that what Hussie "wanted" out of Homestuck changed considerably in those years. And the truth is, because Hussie has disappeared so utterly, any illusion of knowing his "moral" goals has completely dissipated. It's not even clear at this point how much of the Epilogues he wrote. What statements can possibly be made about authorial intent outside of baseless conjecture?

Mr. Eyewear had the unfortunate position of writing critical analysis of a work that was not yet finished, a position not often imitated by critics throughout the ages. It's relatively easy to look at a work by a long-dead author and make some grand, sweeping statement that "this is what it means." Because the author is literally dead, Death of the Author becomes much less controversial to apply. Even now, after the dust has settled, a new installment of Homestuck may unexpectedly arrive that obliterates any previous critical insight on what Homestuck "meant." Homestuck is ostensibly over, but the Epilogues left plenty of room for continuation.

Someone who read the previous Hymnstoke installments came to me and said (paraphrased), "Do you really think Hussie knows anything about Gnosticism? It's far more likely he googled it and used a few names here and there to sound smart." Thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be his modus operandi for the Pale Fire and Waste Land quotes I wrote so lengthily on in previous Hymnstokes as well. Wouldn't it make so much sense if Hussie googled "Literary quotes about April" and put in the Waste Land quote without ever having read the poem, without understanding its historical or literary context?

Would it matter?

Hussie may or may not be ignorant of literary history, or his own literary moment. In that Stanford interview he flatly denied any knowledge of "post-irony." But the author's ignorance doesn't excuse the work from the world. Homestuck itself is rapidly becoming a historical work, fading from the immediate cultural consciousness. Yet it has left a mark. How many works will be created in the coming years that draw heavy inspiration from Undertale, which itself was heavily inspired by Homestuck? And if we take Homestuck's most explicit inspiration to be Earthbound, what works inspired Earthbound? What works inspired the works that inspired Earthbound?

Whether Hussie knows what DFW stands for or not is inconsequential. Homestuck is not a work in a vacuum, neither the beginning nor the end. Con Air, the Greek Zodiac, Insane Clown Posse—whether the reader knows what those things are doesn't matter within the space of Homestuck, because Homestuck invented new meaning out of them all. Whether Hussie, the author, knew what Gnosticism, post-postmodernism, or Dadaism were—I would argue that is similarly inconsequential. Homestuck repurposed all of those -isms, either knowingly or unknowingly, into something new. It is the act of repurposing that is the most important part, not whatever those things were before.

So bladekindEyewear observed Homestuck through the lenses of knives strapped to his eyes. From that perspective, he conceived of what the facts (the text of Homestuck) "meant." I'll also be looking at Homestuck through a certain lens. Neither lens is the same as Hussie's lens. No lens except Hussie's can be Hussie's lens: that is something the postmodernists realized, that "truth" was fragmentary and differed from person to person. Perhaps even different within each person; the Hussie of 2013 may have a different lens than the Hussie of 2019. Put succinctly: No absolute truth exists.

But Homestuck, I feel, moves beyond the problems proposed by postmodernism. In Homestuck, differing lenses, even completely opposite lenses like "irony" and "sincerity," "science" and "magic," "time" and "space," or "author" and "reader" (as seen in the Epilogues) become blurred, indistinguishable, ultimately reconciled as essentially the same thing. It's that reconciliation that I think is Homestuck's most meaty—or candiey—thematic component.

With that in mind, let's continue.

What is under the rug is much worse than any trap you can imagine.

It is a member of a species that you do not recognize, with a ghastly furred upper lip.

I don't even know who this is. Jeff Foxworthy? I guess I might not be a redneck.

Soon these lugs will learn to show you some respect. You made this town what it is after all. Wasn't nothin' but a bunch of dust and rocks before you got here.

Okay. I was right. I knew it, all along when I was reading the Epilogues I knew something was off. I felt certain, and now it's been confirmed for me.

Homestuck does not use smart apostrophes, while the Epilogues did.

For those not in the know, a smart apostrophe is curved based on the text that comes around it, like so: ’

A regular apostrophe, by comparison, is not curved: '

As you can see in the quoted text, Homestuck proper uses your regular dumb apostrophes. Which is good, because smart apostrophes are the devil. They frequently get slanted the wrong direction and conflict aesthetically with Homestuck's monospaced, geometric Courier font. Yet all throughout the Epilogues, smart apostrophes are used. It drove me insane. I hate those things.

Can't overthink this time stuff.

I guess I should actually talk about the Intermission. Internally, it's pretty straightforward, borrowing liberally from Problem Sleuth. But what exactly is its purpose? Yes, on a purely plot level, elements of the Intermission return in Act 5. Spades Slick remains a character who exists all the way until Collide, although he is one of the unfortunate casualties of Act 6's awful ending and is too dead to get any kind of relevancy redemption in the Epilogues, unlike similarly extraneous Act 6 characters Jane and Jake.

Fundamentally, then, the relevance of the Intermission extends only as far as Cascade, with elements malingering longer but never amounting to anything new. Many things will extend only as far as Cascade, which eventually becomes Homestuck's midpoint. In earlier Hymnstokes, I mentioned a few times that I didn't think I had much to say about Act 5. I said that because, while Act 5 is impressive from a technical standpoint, it's a lot less dense in meaning compared to early Homestuck or Act 6. It functions a lot like a machine with many perfectly-placed parts (or rather, parts that were retroactively made to look perfectly placed, depending on how improvisational you think Hussie wrote) that slot together like a machine, rifle, or clock to create a flawless cascade of storytelling. I'll talk more about this kind of "clockwork storytelling" when I actually get to Act 5, but for now one might consider the entire Intermission to be one of those perfectly-placed pieces, and the Spades Slick storyline culminates in Cascade to slot alongside the other pieces in a satisfying way.

One might also interpret the Intermission as a primer for certain elements that will become important in Homestuck proper, such as the aforementioned "time stuff" that gets its first real exploration here before becoming a convoluted but finely-wrought entanglement in Acts 4 and 5. Toss in vague foreshadowing to Lord English and the Intermission's existence is at least purposeful, regardless of whether one considers it necessary.

But what about structurally? I mentioned in the previous Hymnstoke that the Intermission is similar to Act 5 Act 1 and Act 6 Act 1 in that it dramatically downscales the tension, introduces a slew of new characters, and shakes up the tone of the story. Each of these three parts are nostalgic for "Old Homestuck," the Homestuck that is more like Problem Sleuth, and they feature many text commands and faffery like what you see in Act 1. By juxtaposition, then, each emphasizes how far Homestuck has developed across its run, and the differences only become more striking each successive iteration.

The Intermission is probably the fragmenting point. In Homestuck proper, there are no more kids to introduce. John, Rose, Dave, Jade, for each of them we've cycled through the database-structured INTERESTS and INSTRUMENTS and WEIRD PARENTAL FIGURES. Bit by bit that kind of content will vanish in favor of a new sort of storytelling, and the Intermission is where it becomes obvious that this is happening. Jade's introduction already subverted most of the established tropes, and the Intermission reads like a parody of them, with the Midnight Crew's set of traits being plaintively ridiculous (each keeping a different kind of candy in their backup hat, each having a different kind of smutty material, et cetera). Act 5 Act 1 will also be parodic in its approach to these database traits, but I think in a less effective way, as the differences between the kids and the trolls are less extreme than the differences between the kids and the Midnight Crew. Furthermore, the Intermission really drives the nail into the coffin of Problem Sleuth, severing Homestuck finally from its predecessor. Act 6 Act 1, by comparison, is more of a wistful yearning for Act 1 than any kind of new take—which might itself be meaningful in the grand scheme of things.

Still, it might come in handy down the road. Lord English is supposedly indestructible. He's rumored to be killable only through a number of glitches and exploits in spacetime. The doll may ultimately help you work the system if it comes to that.

This line, along with the way Problem Sleuth ended, was probably the primary driver that led to people expecting a final boss fight with Lord English on par with the one with Mobster Kingpin. Although the Epilogues were a fantastic ending, it's still underwhelming to think about just how poorly-conceived Collide and Act 7 turned out to be. Of course, the Problem Sleuth sort of ending is definitely more of a "clockwork" storytelling style, and Act 6, as has become clear by now, has a much different style.

Dirk, the ultimate inheritor of the clockwork style—he specifically describes storytelling in terms of machines—has as one of his INTERESTS robotics and technology. Lord English, likewise, is surrounded by a clockwork motif. Of course, these characters will eventually become explicitly linked via the method of Lord English's creation. But unlike many other INTERESTS, which turn out to be irrelevant, this machinery fascination ties in to Homestuck's final thematic dichotomy. But more on that when we reach the Epilogues.

29/1000 CLOCKS DESTROYED

I guess we know what side of the dichotomy Spades is on.

This is the same calendar Dirk has in his apartment in Act 6. I remember I once had this theory that the Midnight Crew would be reunited at the end of Homestuck even though the B2 Hegemonic Brute was dead because it would be revealed that Hearts Boxcars was still in Dirk's calendar and would come out riding Dirk's mini Maplehoof.

I don't know why I had this oddly specific theory, and it was probably obvious it wouldn't happen.

And thus ends the intermission, with an eye toward the next bizarre deviation in the storyline (Act 5 Act 1).

It's been awhile since I last read Homestuck. My memory of Act 4 is dodgy, so I might actually stumble upon something new. But as I mentioned earlier, the Intermission is the big, obvious breakpoint between the old, Problem Sleuth style of Homestuck and the new, clockwork style. The database-driven character creation will gradually fall away (minus a parodic revival in Act 5 Act 1) and narrative elements will become more consistently introduced with an eye specifically toward Cascade. For many people, this is when Homestuck starts to "get good," and I think it's because there's something innately satisfying about a finely-crafted machine slotting into place. There is a kind of intrinsic beauty about it, art for art's sake if you will, and that is also what seems to draw Dirk toward it.

But more next time.

[theosirianischosen]

How House of Anubis helped save my life

Please be warned this is a long story, but I finally got up the courage to write this all out.  Every word of this is true.  It explains how I got into House of Anubis, what was going on in my life at the time, and how the storyline from season 1 actually helped save my life.  It’s crazy to think about HOA this way, but I honestly think I wouldn’t be here without it (and no, it has nothing to do with me drinking the elixir of life)!

Trigger Warning: Bullying by authority figures, slight ableism, depression, suicidal thoughts

Transitioning into high school can be hard for everybody, but it was especially hard for me.  As I stated before on this blog, I am a Christian.  In fact, I started high school at a private Christian school.  However, what you may not know unless you follow my main blog is that I am autistic.  Specifically, I was diagnosed at an early age with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Because of my Asperger’s, I need certain accommodations for me to succeed in school.  These include extra time on tests, projects, and assignments in certain cases, and getting a notetaker to take notes for me.  Now, in the US, it is required by law for public schools to provide these accommodations for people with disabilities.  However, the same requirements do not apply to private schools, like the Christian school I went to.

At most public schools, they have a whole special education department that helps those with disabilities, often with their own sections depending on the needs of the children.  However, as you can imagine, a private school doesn’t have the funds for a whole department.  So at the Christian school I attended, there was one teacher designated as the learning coordinator who, among other things, essentially is the entire special education department.  For the purposes of this post, I will call this teacher Marijke.  (Yes, that is in reference to the villain from HHA.)  It’s also important to note that Marijke wasn’t just the learning coordinator, but also the English teacher for every Freshman at the school.

Every child with a disability that needs accommodations in schools has what’s called an IEP (Individualized Education Program).  This document describes the needs of the child and what accommodations need to be in place for the child to succeed.  It is reviewed at least once per year.  At the last IEP meeting before my freshman year, Marijke was in attendance.  She was asking good questions and taking notes.  Based on how everything went at the meeting, my mom and I thought we would have nothing to worry about when it came time to start high school the following school year.  Boy, were we wrong!

Early on in the school year, Marijke wasn’t following my IEP, but rather the notes she took from the IEP meeting.  This might seem like a small difference, but it isn’t.  The notes were basically her interpretation of what was talked about at the meeting, and these notes didn’t 100% match up with the actual needs detailed in my IEP.  For example, she didn’t provide notetakers to my classes because she wanted to see if I could do it myself first.  Keep in mind, the need for notetakers wasn’t just a generalized instruction inserted into my IEP.  I was actually tested thoroughly before the IEP meeting.  The result of this test shows that my mind can’t keep up with taking notes and paying attention and learning what’s being discussed in class at the same time.  My mind can only focus on one or the other.

Another theme Marijke kept mentioning whenever I didn’t like how my accommodations were being handled was that I needed to be prepared for college, and she has helped people in the past and while they might not have liked her methods at the time, they later came back and thanked her after they had graduated high school.  First of all, I was a freshman in high school.  Anyone starting high school would need some time to adjust to this new environment before even thinking about college.  In fact, trying to prepare someone for college as a freshman in high school is doing so prematurely.  Most people don’t know what college they want to go to or what they want to study at that age, and even if they do, these ideas change over time.  (I was no exception to this; as a Freshman, I wanted to go to MIT and later work for IBM, but I later got into filmmaking, and I wound up going to a local tech school for an associate’s degree in digital media.)

Second, and this is most important, autism is a spectrum disorder.  No two people with the same diagnosis will have the same needs.  And I’m not just talking about those who are nonverbal and need full-time care vs. someone like me who can take mainstream classes and generally become a fully-functioning member of society.  Everyone in the latter camp will all be very different as well.  Some (like me) would need notetakers, others wouldn’t.  Some (like me) are very skilled at math and science, others are not.  And I’m not even talking savant-level stuff here.  Autism affects everyone on the spectrum differently.  So saying that her approached worked for Joe Schmo years ago does not necessarily mean she would be successful using the exact same approach on me.  In fact, odds are that it wouldn’t work, as I was pointing out.

Now, as I alluded to above, I frequently advocated for myself and explained to her what I actually needed.  However, Marijke didn’t take too kindly to that, accusing me of questioning her authority.  Marijke was essentially taking the “my way or the highway” approach, and it wasn’t good.

My mom tried to get the principal involved early on, saying that Marijke wasn’t meeting my needs.  At first, he appeared to be concerned for my needs and although a little hesitant, he appeared to be on my side.  That all changed once he talked to Marijke.  He then completely sided with Marijke on everything, saying that I shouldn’t be questioning Marijke’s methods and that I should just listen to her as an authority figure because she knows best.

This was a source of stress and depression for me.  It wasn’t just the notetakers that were the issue.  Extra time on tests and projects wasn’t being provided, and assignments were another source of issues.  For example, my math teacher established a rule that late math assignments could be turned in up to one week late and it would be given full consideration without penalty.  After that, it would turn into a 0 and couldn’t be changed.  Another thing worth mentioning is that Marijke held what was called a structured study hall, which is essentially like a study hall period except with a structure provided by her.  This isn’t uncommon in public schools, either.  But when I became behind in Marijke’s English class, in the structured study (which took place BEFORE math class), she tried to get me to work on late work in her English class, citing the rule that I had up to a week to hand in the math homework without penalty.  Keep in mind, I wasn’t behind on one or two assignments, but rather a lot of work.  While I wanted to turn in everything that was late in Marijke’s class, I didn’t want to do it at the expense of falling behind in another class, especially when I had no set time limit on turning in Marijke’s late work but only one week to turn in late math assignments.

I tried explaining this all to my math teacher.  Just like with the principal and my mom, at first, he sided with me.  He then went to talk to Marijke in hopes that he could help me, but he came back siding with Marijke completely.

Another example of her not meeting my needs was her idea of helping me develop social skills by participating in a roundtable discussion with other students.  It’s not that it wasn’t a good idea, but rather it didn’t help me with any of my other social issues (as I will explain below), and it felt like just a regular class activity as opposed something that would actually help me.

Eventually, things really got out of hand with me and Marijke.  Marijke essentially became a bully.  She didn’t care for what I had to say about my needs, insisting on doing things her way.  Whenever I talked to another teacher about my troubles with her, even if they didn’t switch sides like the Principal and math teacher, Marijke found out that I had talked to them (somehow) and said she didn’t like me doing that.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t seem to find support from my peers either.  Some of the friends I made in middle school just thought I was using my Asperger’s as an excuse for things, and none of my other friends seemed to care.  And of course, Marijke took issue at me talking to my peers about my troubles with her.  (But come on, what high school student doesn’t complain to their friends about teachers they don’t like?)

And to top it all off, there were also a group of boys who were bullying me and wouldn’t stop (and it’s not like the principal or Marijke did anything to stop it, even going as far as saying I was making it seem like I was enjoying it), and girl troubles.  That’s a long story in and of itself, but long story short, a girl I liked didn’t like me back.  Even though she said we could still be friends, she certainly never acted like one.  At most, all I felt like I could say to her was “Hi” and “Bye” because anything more wasn’t acceptable to her and I had to keep my distance.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking me, “Why didn’t you just leave the school?”  At the time, I actually wanted to get a Christian education at the Christian school.  I kept looking at it through the lens of trying to make things better at that school as opposed to leaving for a public school.  Keep in mind, had this been a public school (or even a private school who got funding in some way from the government, such as with a school lunch program), what Marijke and the rest of the staff were doing would have been illegal, or at the very least we would have had legal options.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case, and so I truly felt I had nowhere else to turn.  I even started becoming suicidal.

Anyway, as I was deep in this whole situation, I discovered House of Anubis on Nick on Demand one weekend.  I remember seeing previews for it earlier.  It appeared to have a supernatural element based on the previews, and I wanted to see what it was about.  Believe it or not, the character I connected to the most was Patricia.  Early on, I saw her concern for Joy mirror my situation with Marijke.  Every teacher seemed to work together in covering up what really happened to Joy.  That’s just like how every teacher at my school was defending Marijke, even when her methods were not helpful at best and a form of bullying at worst.  While I believed Nina had nothing to do with her disappearance, I became frustrated with Patricia over how the teachers and police were involved.  There seemed to be nowhere for her to turn to, and that’s where I felt with my situation with Marijke.  And to top it all off, Patricia and Jason essentially embodied how I felt it was like whenever I tried talking to another teacher about my situation with Marijke.  My math teacher essentially was Jason Winkler.  He heard my story, sided with me, went to Marijke, and came back on her side.  Jason heard Patricia’s story, sided with her, went to Victor, and came back on his side.  Victor was just like Marijke in my book.

At the very least, House of Anubis helped save my life in the sense that it stopped me from killing myself in this situation.  I kept watching to learn more about the Joy/Patricia/Victor part of the mystery, in the hopes that maybe something could be used to help improve my situation.  Obviously, even though I did like the show, finding that miracle solution in the show didn’t happen.  Marijke, the principal, and the rest of the teachers weren’t a part of a secret society trying to become immortal.  But I truly felt it was like a conspiracy.

Eventually, my mom got involved again, talking to the music department about the issue.  Every freshman had a music class and was a part of a chorus, and I also was in Band as well as the musical, which was a production of The Wizard of Oz.  The musical was another reason why I didn’t want to leave this school.  If I left, I couldn’t be a part of the musical.  Keep in mind, I didn’t have a major role.  I was one of the Winkies, but I still wanted to be a part of the show.  This is important to note because my mom was looking to see if I could switch to a public school.  At this time, I was more open to the idea, but I still wanted to be a part of the musical.  In order for me to join the public school, I would have to leave BEFORE the musical and therefore I wouldn’t be able to be a part of it.  At this point, while I was thinking about maybe joining the public school my sophomore year, I still wanted to see the musical through and not leave during my Freshman year because of it.

The musical was another source of tension between me and Marijke.  Knowing that I was only a Winkie, she often wanted me to only be at practice when I was needed.  I’m not talking about one-on-one early rehearsals with the Winkies.  I’m talking about a few weeks prior to the show full-length rehearsals where generally everyone was expected to be there.  Her reasoning?  She wanted me to work on schoolwork WITH HER!  Again, as the learning coordinator, Marijke felt I needed more time with her so I could get stuff done.

At this point, the teachers in the music department were already aware of the situation and how my mom (and I) just wanted to keep me away from her.  Unlike the math teacher and the principal, they were a bit more helpful.  The only time it mirrored the Jason/Victor incident was when there was talk of me potentially moving my structured study from Marijke’s classroom to the music wing.  It wouldn’t have been as structured, but it would at least give me some space from her.  Unfortunately, Marijke wasn’t all too happy with this suggestion and it only happened once.  After which, I was expected to go to her classroom as usual.

However, eventually, my mom got called into a meeting with Marijke and the principal.  This time, she invited our pastor along to try to help ease the situation and be another advocate for me and my needs.  At the meeting, though, she didn’t get a chance to speak up much at all.  Instead, the principal and Marijke essentially accused her of bearing false witness to the music department for trying to help me get out of Marijke’s grasp and advocating for actually getting the help I need.  The pastor didn’t do much of anything except pray for my mom while it was all going on.  And as if that lambasting wasn’t bad enough, because of my mom’s past (which I won’t get into, but I will say she was subject to abuse as a child), her PTSD started going off because of this meeting, and now she started becoming suicidal as well.  However, something was about to change.

My mom and I usually attended at the time monthly local Autism Society meetings.  On a day of one of those meetings, my mom was slated to go, but I wasn’t.  However, I insisted on going and I did go to the meeting.  It was about bullying.  Not only did it open my eyes to what Marijke was truly doing, but after the meeting, I eventually confessed about my suicidal thoughts because of the Marijke situation.  As a result, the next day my mom called me in sick while I had an emergency appointment with my counselor (who was a psychologist).  As a result of our conversation, I realized that what I was being subjected to wasn’t worth the ability to be a Winkie in The Wizard of Oz.  Furthermore, there would likely be other opportunities to be in a musical the following year at the public school.  So, with that in mind, I decided to leave the Christian school and enroll in the public school.  Talk about perfect timing: I would have had to have known that very same day if I was going to switch to the public school in order for me to enroll.  Even pulling up to the Christian school that day to clean out my locker, I felt at peace with my decision.  I was finally free!

Needless to say, I was in a much better environment at the public school.  I wasn’t bullied by anyone (student or teacher), and all of my needs were being met.  And, of course, I kept watching House of Anubis for the following two years!  I was really glad I switched schools.

So, that was my long-winded explanation for how I discovered House of Anubis and how it helped save my life.  I’m sorry it got so long; I’m not good at writing very concisely.  If you decide to reblog it and you read this far, please mention VCRs and motor cars in the tags.  Thank you for reading this far!!

[giantpredatorymollusk]

ratcliffe et al. (2014) present a compelling model of the relationship between trust, trauma, and the perception of linear time in their paper “what is a ‘sense of foreshortened future.’” first, we’ll establish the mindset of the normal, non-traumatized, well-adjusted, basically trusting human being; someone who “takes it as given that their foot will land on a flat surface as they take a step forward, and that the coffee they are about to sip will be warm.” such people experience the past, present, and future through the lens of their evolving internal life narrative, which is rendered intelligible in large part through contact with other people, who lend it context, salience, and meaning.

however, those who lose trust in other people due to some form of trauma (generally also losing trust in circumstances and in “the world” overall) will find their life’s narrative slowly eroding away. they find it more difficult to imagine potential in their future, due to their increasing inability to trust other people and “the world” to allow it to have any meaning; and because of this lessening in their ability to evolve their “life narrative,” they also end up in a difficult relationship with the past: basically, it means that they are no longer as able to re-interpret or contextualize it. this results in memories (especially the traumatic ones, for example in the well-known case of PTSD-induced flashbacks) being re-lived, rather than recalled in the normal way (within the context of an ongoing life story). so, this view of the future makes it much more difficult to move on from the events and circumstances that caused it, which leaves one trapped, circularly, in one’s current mindset: unable to trust in the future or to leave the past behind.

summary over. now, the fun part:

In many other contexts, conflicts between explicit evaluative judgments and anticipatory style are commonplace. For example, someone who is bitten by a dog may then experience dogs as menacing and unpredictable, despite “knowing full well” that the incident was anomalous. The point applies equally to the more profound and pervasive effects of interpersonal trauma.

yeah, that’s... pretty much how it works, isn’t it. it doesn’t take that much to give people kind of irrational (like, valid, but irrational) mistrust of certain things for the foreseeable future.

Relations with other people serve to shape and re-shape our experiences and attitudes. Even mundane and short-lived interpersonal interactions can be self-affecting... “By our very attitude to one another we help to shape one another’s world. By our attitude to the other person we help to determine the scope and hue of his or her world; we make it large or small, bright or drab, rich or dull, threatening, or secure. We help to shape his or her world not by theories and views but by our very attitude toward him or her. Here lies the unarticulated and one might say anonymous demand that we take care of the life which trust has placed in our hands”

god.

We all know people in whose company we would prefer not to go shopping, not to visit a museum, not to look at a landscape, because we would like to keep these things undamaged. Just as we all know people in whose company it is pleasant to take a walk because the objects encountered come to no harm. These people we call friends, good companions, loved ones.

Interactions with others can thus facilitate changes in perspective, which are often subtle but occasionally quite profound. After interacting for a prolonged period with a particular person, the world might seem strangely impoverished or, alternatively, alive with new possibilities... a sense that “this is not all the world has to offer,” an appreciation that there are other possibilities, however indeterminate those possibilities might be.

fuck

[However, a traumatic event survivor] no longer believes in the very possibility of human connection; he envisages no one who will be present to him and for him if he returns in his mind to the places of horror, humiliation, and grief from which he barely emerged and which continue to haunt him.

Consequently, one’s predicament is not experienced as a contingent one; the world no longer offers anything else.

:|

When trust is lost, traumatized people feel that they belong more to the dead than to the living... Existential death, Rouse explains, 'is not an actual event, but a comportment toward the ever-impending possibility of [our] own impossibility.' 

my high school notebooks were kind of depressing:

and. i do suspect i am often unable to leave that exact past version of myself behind. the version that didn’t have “likes” on tumblr for emotional support during distressing times. this paper offers a model of how more functional people deal with that stuff, at least in part: they’re better at having trust in circumstances, and they have a life narrative that still has potential that they’re working on, which i think basically gives perspective when thinking of past events. to break a self-reinforcing preoccupation with the unchangeable past, i think a new circular phenomenon is required: the ability to borrow the ability to trust other people, so that you have the requisite trust in other people’s minds to allow yourself to borrow things from them in the first place. can this be done? could i do it?

anyway. don’t think i’m presenting this as like the "solution” to overcoming trauma, mindset is important i assume but also like... if i personally lived somewhere else then i think i’d feel better, for example, there’s a limited extent to which you can just think your way out of these things. but this model is fascinating to me, and i do think it’s useful in a diagnostic way, like articulating a problem clearly so it can be identified, like just studying a disease, even if that doesn’t quite cure it. okay, so i just reached the point where i’m questioning why i’m doing this. see you later kids, remember to like and subscribe

[ladyluscinia]

Fandom rambles under the cut but you have to be cool about them

Went to throw an old reblog into my drafts so I could maybe reference the point I made easier, and I realized that ourflagmeansgayrights person had blocked me. To be clear - this isn't about them. We only really had one exchange that pretty much ended on mutual "well I fundamentally disagree with your interpretation so idk" and then I mostly started scrolling past them in the tag and rarely seeing any reblog chain with them on my dash, but it had gotten to the point where they were like... the one major and active poster from that circle of meta I saw (vs the misc. people that pop up with opinions every time the tag starts in on a topic but don't really establish a presence beyond that).

They certainly don't have to interact with me and I wasn't interacting with them, but now. Like. It's not an option at all. Which doesn't really mean anything for one particular pair of strangers - definitely not enough to warrant any sort of obligation not to block someone - but at the same time it's relevant to acknowledge that it's not just one or two or five really, is it?

I think it's fascinating, entirely predictable and logical, and simultaneously kind of worrying how efficient this fandom is at walling out takes they hate. I've barely blocked anyone but I don't have to. They've done it for me, and now I go along entirely unaware of these blogs existing, much less seeing their posts. And I know I'm an outlier and most people are very liberally using the block button... which is frequently a good call judging by how hostile the Izzy Hands opinion camps can get. Like, in terms of making fandom a nicer and chiller place to exist in, I think all the Izzy city-states are doing wonderfully. Trimming your dash and tag searches to show people that make you happy and not people insulting you or writing upsetting things about your favorite character or making you angry is a generally positive and encouraged thing to do. It's fandom. It's fun.

But also Season 2 is coming, and another factor of fandom that I definitely enjoy and find important is the way fans collectively get together and analyze things. And I think we are getting real close to or have reached the point of no return where that is going to be really hard for a lot of fans to engage in.

I mean, with all the wildly divergent takes on Izzy, a lot of people must be wrong? He can't be all of these things at once. And if you are wrong but have been pretty quiet about it you might be able to change course with minimal fuss, but for people who have posted meta in Season 1? And likely been extensively blocked for it if it got any sort of traction?

Say Season 2 immediately shows I'm wrong and they are right, and I'm absolutely supposed to be looking through Lens A and setting aside Lens B. Cool. There are extensive existing posts that break down how Lens A applied in Season 1, and presumably a bunch of new posts being made about it in Season 2... and good odds I can't see any of it in the tags or reblog from any of the meta writers. Everyone I can interact with was a Lens B enthusiast and we're all just kinda looking at each other and either quitting the fandom or trying to piece together how Lens A applies among ourselves. Or maybe it's still not entirely clear whether Lens A or Lens B applies, but again, I can only interact with people sticking to their guns on Lens B and can't even see the new arguments for A, plus if I start posting about Lens A then I might get excommunicated from the B group.

Meta writing is maybe going to be a struggle for a lot of meta writers, and tbh whichever group winds up "right" is probably not even going to notice. And if you have been "wrong" up til now, whether or not you are willing to adapt or reconsider may have little to nothing to do with whether you can have any community access (or even just fun) trying to do so. Which kinda sucks.

There's not really a solution here - two fandom needs are competing and they are both of value, and the broader issue of how good is blocking for a community vs how good it is for an individual is also a debate with no real answer. Hell, I've made this post before. But today I realized that maybe my last window into a different city-state was closed while I wasn't looking, and it gave me thoughts.

🤔

(Also, only slightly related thoughts... what was the last straw? What final offense did I commit??? I'm so curious)

Oh wow ofmd season 2 meta really is going to be completely restricted to people within your Izzy Hands opinion city-state, huh?