#but thats less a conflict of identity and more a conflict of ideals i think. very dramatic either way

[isaacathom]

spent all day being completely unproductive but now i have a changeling paladin ready to go at a moments notice with a whole like. Vibe established in my head. they've got a whole thing going on

the basic gist of their life, in as far as what matters, is they live in some moderate size town, they've a member of the local church, everythings grand. they're an adult, like 20s+ easy. they've been in this community their whole life, they have the identity they use most frequently, and they will only sometimes swap to masks to fill little additional roles the church might need of them. everythings chill.

they get sent out on some small task or another with a close friend of theirs, and things go poorly. not quite sure how or what, SOMETHING happens to the friend. The paladin is fine. and obviously distraught about the whole thing.

So what prompts the paladin to adventure out is a desire for two things. the first are the means to support this friend of theirs and that friend's family, who had been relying on them prior to this incident. And the second, presumably, to find a way to actually help them? (this all depends on what that something is. if its a curse or some serious injury, there has to be a reason they cant just fix it easily - ie that the nature of it isolates the friend from the community if theyre still alive, that people are loathe to interact with them or smth, or theyre just straight up dead and the paladins going more That Route, which is difficult for a Paladin given. uh. they dont get high enough spell slots to do that themselves! whoops!)

but, but, changeling, right? whats up with that part? well, their intention is that they will gain no glory for anything they do. its hard to be anonymous when seeking adventure, but if theyre someone else, well... then it hardly matters. the deeds they commit, as this heroic paladin, will not reflect back on their life back home. They will tell their friend's family that they were sent away to another temple, yknow, work is like that and so on, and just bring the gifts. hell, bring the gifts anonymously, because the point isn't to be lauded. thats the opposite of the point. the point is to help. they want to see their friend heart and hale, they want to see their family endure and thrive, because they've naught much of their own. it's something to cling to.

so out on the road, they're someone else. still a knight of this religious order, still fiercely devoted to its tenets, because that is their centre. there may be physical traits which tie together their various masks and forms, but the loyalty is there. even pretending to be someone else, or BECOMING someone else, that's hard to break. that's important to them.

things of this nature. a whole thing. itd basically never come up, is the thing! its basically something just for me as a hypothetical player. That if the party were to ever return to their home town, they'd try and slip away quietly after setting the party up somewhere, with some thing (taking advantage of their religious connections, even) before heading to their friend's house to deliver gold and supplies they'd been accumulating. just something like 'well, i head to X's house and knock on the door. And when either [the partner] or the kids open the door, they'll see the familiar face of [completely different character name] smiling brightly at them'

itd be the characters little secret. :)

[blackinquisitors]

Since Isaac is more cis identified but focuses on presentation. How do you think Arthur would handle and react to a child of his or in his care that is trans identifying? I've really enjoyed reading Bloom and Arthur's inner dialogue.

hmm that is a very good question. I think honestly it would be a very similar reaction to isaac. keep in mind in this time period, gender and sexuality werent like distinct identities like they are now, so thats why I refer to isaac as queer and stuff even tho hes technically cishet but gnc. bc for all intents and purposes it didnt matter. so for a trans kid, particularly MtF, arthur would go thru the same things he did w Isaac, struggling w his ideals of masculinity and gender/sexuality and internalized homophobia. maybe to a greater extent, bc while Isaac retained his male identity and his femininty is a quirk of character, a MtF kid would be abandoning all of that. so arthur would have a much harder time accepting that, mostly bc of the danger that that posed for his kid. Isaac can simply wear a suit to fit in. if arthurs trans daughter wanted to live as a woman, shed be risking her life daily and hed have diffculty reconciling w that

however. if he had an afab kid I think hed be more lenient. I think hed be a little proud if his "daughter" started being very masculine and adopting a male role like wearing pants and having short hair and doing masculine stuff like hunting/fishing. hed think she would be stronger and able to protect herself more, less likely to be hurt in the world, since this was a terrible time for women and sometimes disguising yourself as a man was the only protection you would have. but then if this daughter started asking to be referred to as a boy, I think it would throw arthur for a loop. I dont think he understands what transgender is. he doesnt really get Isaac either tbh. hed probably struggle with name changes and pronouns etc and would default to calling them "kiddo" in lieu of a name. a nonbinary kid would REALLY confuse him

its not that hes a massive transphobe, he just doesnt understand. but as seen w charles chatenay, miss margaret and sadie, hes not particularly bothered by gender noncomformity bc its not his business. with a kid, his main desire is to protect so thats where all the conflict comes in. but after he gets over internalized bullshit, he'll probably be like "whatever makes you happy kiddo" and not fight it further

in a modern context where there is the vocabulary and the education regarding lgbt issues, arthur isnt as initally resistant, but hes still stupid about it. despite being bisexual himself hes still like "I got you a rupauls drag race tshirt. you like that kind of thing right". hes much more accepting. all of arthurs nonsense isnt due to his own bigotry (which he really isnt bigoted, hes very neutral on every group of people except bigots) its just a reaction to the societal bigotry hes both witnessed and experienced first hand

[ask-mortarion-the-death-lord]

An interesting thought, AoT despite its myriad of problems such as trying to rehabilitate eren yeager for his actions in any way despite the inexcusable horror of said actions, is a story i would call fundamentally anti fascist. what i find interesting about this, is that i would also argue AoT better understands its position as anti fascist then warhammer 40k, despite both being a younger series in general and Aot's own problems.

that is, AoT successfully illustrates [albeit not as clearly to the surface level read as one might like] to its audience that an inherent and fundamental flaw of fascism that causes it as an ideology to fall down under its own weight is that fascism requires conflict and expansion to maintain and propagate itself. there has to be an enemy to fight and land to take in essence, as such fascism propagates conflict on a grander and grander scale to maintain cohesion as an identity and avoid the inevitable conclusion of fascism that is turning inwards and tearing itself apart.

the survey corp is only heroic so long as its enemies are inhuman monsters determined to tear apart 'humanity' for no other reason then the destruction of humanity, once the enemy is no longer inhuman monsters however these stakes change and the survey corp become gradually less and less heroic as an organization and more and more villainous in the eyes of the narrative to the point of the survey corp staging a military coup to install its own governmental figures with plans on forming an empire well murdering all of their competition. The main characters inspirational effect of his near suicidal levels of bravery and aggression become more and more uncomfortable for the people who were close confidents of him, causing said allies to break away from him and the survey corps as a whole in order to do the right thing when eren yeager will not. in that manner it displays how eren and his supporters become trapped in the fascistic cycle of violence and expansion in pursuit of an imaginary freedom and defeat of 'the enemy', well the characters who break away from this cycle attain a true freedom as it were in choosing to do the right thing. [where aot stumbles is in the implications of all this being predetermined, but overall id still regard the narrative as whole as anti fascist].

warhammer 40k retains similar aspects, the imperium makes enemies where it doesnt need to, is brutal in its zeal of implacable enemies, is always looking to expand and is barely kept together by outside pressure. what i would identify as its problem however, especially a lot of the more recent lore, is that it doesn't sufficiently answer that cycle of fascistic violence. not that it supports it per say, brass tacks 40k constantly shows the imperium is a barely coherent mess kept together more so out of stubborn resistance to its enemies then actual cohesion. its more so that as a setting 40k seems largely indifferent to the question of fascistic violence and expansion, space marines for instance. hypnosis indoctrinated children pushed through a physical and mental meat grinder to reshape them into the ideal murder weapon without a concise or at least one unwilling or unable to deny the wishes of the state. thats inherently fucked up, but then why do they still get to play the hero in most situations? why do we only ever hear about the 'good' chapters of the imperium? for me, its not a question of not having heroes in the setting at all, its more so a question of why those heroes arent more closely contrasted against a backdrop of a setting where the dressings are just dressings to hide that enemy and ally alike blend together. why we dont see more state propped up propaganda heroes, why the 'enemy' is always flawed or inhuman in some manner enough that the audience doesn't have to think about the violence around them [in regards to the setting].

ended up writing more about this then i thought i would...

[astrology-with-charu]

#Pisces #Astrology #Horoscope

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐒𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐞 & 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐄𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐀𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 :

As I mentioned in my post & podcast yesterday Mars square Neptune will become exact on 9th April and would be felt most of this week. We now delve deeper by sign on how to tackle this aspect. Mars is our drive and Neptune tends to slow it down but there is a hindrance for a more effective and inspired action that this aspect is trying to highlight before we go blazing into the eclipse season.

Listen to the podcast

The June 10th eclipse would be starting a new chapter at the point where this aspect is happening. So understanding this aspect and actions you take as a result would be very critical for the new fated beginnings June 10th solar eclipse in Gemini would bring. As Rahu was here in Jan’21 we have experienced activation of this eclipse new beginning already at the start of this year while full physical manifestation of the same will pan out during the June eclipse. Mars right now dares us to do the right thing before we enter the physical manifestation period. With Neptune its helping us put the inspiration, a collective goal, some faith behind our actions and making sure what we go after has the right purpose behind it. Neptune dissolves social, political, religious and personal boundaries that block our collective growth and block birth of a new societal ideal. It teaches us to have faith in the unknown, love unconditionally, allow barriers to disintegrate and act out of a place of inspiration to contribute to the society versus for ego gratification. It undermines success without service to collective, nothing is done fully for altruistic purpose but Neptune demands our motivations aren’t inspired by pure ego boost or societal pressures. A very creative aspect makes us sensitive to collective needs & styles so what we create if made from a place of channeling or self transcendence is bound to touch others and serve others.

Let’s put meat on the bones now by sign - check as always your rising as key indicator and if possible sun & moon for a fuller picture.

♓️ Pisces : 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞, 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲, 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠

[Archive of Previous Posts](http://emailabuddy.com/blog/)

Pisces the June 2021 eclipse is a critical one for you, as it initiates a new phase in your “home” - psychological and physical, family and country of living. You might be looking to relocate, embellish your home, add a new member to your family. Aquire a property, sell an existing property, start a home based business. This is a fated new start which might have been seeded already in December / January but its full physical manifestation would be in June while right now you are laying down some ground work for it. An important family matter might need your attention.

All these changes are focusing on making you feel more secured and they are going to grow you even further psychologically. As you road to success right now is through finding that home within or outside, so you can stabilise the ground you stand on a bit, you might be very intent on having it certain way or in a certain place. You are taking care of your desires, your needs and of those you hold close as family but there might be something that blocks you from doing that. Its an internal conflict and a very potent one for you as it rocks your critical axis. This is normally driven by the fact that with Neptune you are trying to redefine who you and when we are in that moment with our boundaries not so solid, we tend to do too much for others and sometimes even forget what we want for ourselves. You can almost feel guilty for taking the smallest of the step of self care or taking care of your loved ones is coming in the way of your ability to pursue your life goals and path which are being redefined and elevated. You are an ideal, dreamy, sensitive being and those who need you flock around it but in that process very little is left for you, yourself. Mars is hell bent on getting you peace in any way possible but Neptune cannot stop thinking of everyone else and what they think and want of you. There is a conflict within.

There might be need to be direct with family - not confrontational but direct. They may not yet understand that you are not the same person anymore. Neptune has dissolved your old self image and old path. You and your life as they knew it, is changing. And any new change in home and family needs to reflect that. You may not clearly know where your life is going but you know for sure it isn’t going to the same old place or to same old patterns. There is more to you than meets the eye and you have seen it and you want to be nothing other than that. Your life path is more real, more spiritual, more elevated though less clear than ever before. Its out of your and your family’s comfort zone. Home life can either quash or grow this new individual identity of yours thats emerging - you would like it to support so this hurdle which we might have avoided before needs to be handled. Neptune always directs to use the path of love and compassion in such tough discussions. This could be yourself you need to have a discussion with - cause sometimes we know who we want to become but our own past comfort zone and regressive urges pull us back to old “home”.

What is safe and secure has to be redefined for you and yours. Your “home” needs to have colors of your new personality. Once you feel secure in this new home, you would feel more the rigour to go after your new unpredictable life path. Its not going to be dull thats for sure.

https://youtu.be/2VRYGgHrQdE

[heartlessconviction]

So...The Dark Avatar

Ok I’m not going to defend this I hate the execution, however I do like the idea of the avatar having an equal in this regard, due to the concept of Yin and Yang.  The Avatar is seen as the bridge between the Humans and the Spirits, the middle man to put it in a crude manner. However I’ve always disliked this in many respects for a show that is all about balance and different perspectives among with the many cultures it draws inspiration from the avatar themselves whilst is a balance between a human and a spirit. Doesn’t exactly have an equal or a shadow to put it simply, they are seen as this one definitive figure in the universe where I feel the concept could have been handled much differently.  My whole issue with this draws from the origin of Vaatu and Raava, whilst intending to represent Yin and Yang two opposites of the spectrum that cannot exist without the other. Their entire history contradicts this principle. Raava definitively is seen as the spirit of peace and light, her defeating Vaatu is what is defined as balance in the Avatar universe which disregards the entire principle of Yin and Yang and the cosmic duality that encompasses this principle. Yes Vaatu still survives in Raava but that isn’t duality, that is one force dominating the other and thats why I dislike the origin of the Avatar somewhat.  The concept of having a Dark Avatar isn’t whats asinine, merely the execution. As having a second Avatar that influences the world in the Shadow of Korra or whoever the current Avatar is, learning to co-exist and balance the responsibility is balance. Where the Avatar is, the “dark” Avatar lingers on in their shadow, the Avatar themselves are not deities, they are humans and as such have flaws and shortcomings. They can make mistakes which can inflict horrible consequences onto the world they are tasked with maintaining the balance off, how would this go down with two Avatars, each with their own sense of morality and ideologies that may conflict with one another? How would they maintain the balance not of the spirit world and the human world but each other? This is what mainly pisses me off about season 2 of Korra the potential of having this concept was there, but they didn’t go through with it.  Some people who have also delved into this idea proposed that Kuvira should have been the Dark Avatar as she represents all of Korras worse traits. The Yin and Yang, whilst I agree with the assessment I disagree with the choice of character. Strictly because I believe the Dark Avatar needs to represent the opposite spectrum of the role of the Avatar, not the traits of the current Avatar. As in my version the Dark Avatar from the moment they appear, is in the lore and world for good, reincarnating each cycle.  So what is the Avatars role? To maintain balance, what is the opposite of balance? Imbalance or disorder, in other words chaos. What is the opposing force of order? Anarchy. As such I believe the “Dark Avatar” has to be no other than Zaheer. Zaheer as a character and his philosophy is the opposing force to both Korra and the role of the Avatar, the shadow in the light and thus he alone has to be.  So how would I do this? Alright season 1 goes ahead like normal, however just like we did in The Legend of Aang hearing about Sozins comet we hear about Harmonic Convergence and the fact that its swiftly approaching, this roles into season two. The only things I will change here is that Harmonic Convergence doesn’t occur until Season 3, her uncle isn’t evil just misguided and is thus killed in the final battle Vaatu is still imprisoned and only 1 of the two spirit portals remain open. So Korra doesn’t lose access to her past lives let me be clear here.  Season 3 will be a longer season which ends roughly the same as it does in the original. However the start will center around Zaheer breaking out of prison through the influence of Vaatu, with Harmonic Convergence approaching whilst Vaatu is still imprisoned he does have a tiny bit of leverage on the world. I don’t believe Zaheer would fall for this, for a stubborn man in the face of his principles he is not one to be deceived so easily. Hence why Vaatu shrouds his identity by posing as Guru Laghima, I think due to how Zaheer respects the legend and lessons of Laghima having Vaatu pose as this will be the way to get Zaheer on board  Zaheer kidnaps Jinora which forces Korra to open up the second spirit portal freeing Vaatu when Harmonic convergence begins, Zaheer explains the motives of the Red Lotus foreshadowing the rest of the season and merges with Vaatu to create the Yang to the Avatars Yin. Korra and Raava battle Zaheer and Vaatu whilst Korra has the advantage of all four elements the beefed up Zaheer can combat her on an equal footing, the fight ends in a stalemate and Zaheer escapes. Harmonic Convergence ends and Korra decides to leave both of the spirit portals open, Jinora is saved etc however its a hollow victory.  Now a timeskip occurs here which leads up to Season 3 and Zaheer discovering his air bending. Now the thing that I think allows me to do this, is that the whole Air benders returning is extremely vague, whilst it makes sense for both Bumi and Zaheer you’d be hard pressed for me to believe that everybody who did gain the ability to bend Air is descended from the Air Nomads at some point, I just believe it was the worlds way of restoring balance after Harmonic Convergence and with the spiritual energy being as potent as it is in the human world now. So what am I getting at? With the universe maintaining the balance in this manner, by giving non benders the ability to bend. Its not a stretch to believe with the existence of a now second Avatar after Harmonic Convergence Zaheer doesn’t just gain the ability to Air Bend, but also the affinity of the other three Elements as well although he awakens Air Bending first.  This is where the Season 3 of the original and mine align, Zaheer isn’t just saving the fellow members of the Red Lotus to capture and kill the Avatar this time, whilst thats still his objective to achieve true anarchy and freedom. He is also saving them in order for them to guide him and teach him to master the other 3 elements.. I also believe since Zaheer would be the Shadow to Korras Light, his Avatar cycle should be counter clockwise to the Avatars.  Avatar: Water-Earth-Fire-Air “Dark” Avatar- Air-Fire-Earth-Water The season plays out like it usually does, with the Red Lotus trying to capture Korra, with each encounter we see Zaheer becoming more adept with the other elements, though his primary element will still be Air.  Korra is eventually poisoned when captured and their final battle ensues when P’li dies giving Zaheer the ability to fly once his final earthly tether is severed. So this battle instead of it just being Korra in the Avatar State and Zaheer with his air bending, we see Avatar vs Avatar, both flinging the elements at each other, both in their respective Avatar states which makes this battle all the harder for the poisoned Korra who is just trying to survive this battle.  With a few new tricks, inevitably we are back at the moment where Zaheer is trying to kill Korra by sucking the air out of her. Now with Korras Avatar state we can all agree in general its much less impressive than Aangs, it makes sense in the original season 2 with her ties to her past lives being severed. However I kinda believe its due to her having less experience but also having less of a spiritual connection than her past lives.  Aang for example, even when he couldn’t control the state we all saw how powerful it could be when he was enraged or in danger. For me this makes more sense since Aang by default has a more enriched spiritual connection at 12, than Korra ever had throughout the series, thats my headcanon I’m sticking to it, in order to explain why Korras was so weak even before losing her connection to her past lives.  Zaheer on the other hand, whilst having that spiritual connection has the disadvantage of being the first in his respective Avatar Cycle. Meaning he is handicapped, which is why even though this battle is a hell of a lot harder for Korra. In the end due to this and Zaheers inexperience with the Avatar State, he is still pulled into the wind tornado and subdued.  This makes the moment in Season 4 where he helps Korra enter the spirit world more impactful, as he is not only somewhat atoning for what he just brought onto the earth kingdom which is against his ideals of Anarchy. As the opposite to the Avatar he is maintaining the balance of their duality by assisting Korra to regain the Avatar State and her connection to the spirit world. As he states to Korra their interests align.  The only thing I will change in Season 4 is that this isn’t the last time we see Zaheer. Later on he escapes from the prison he is being kept in to assist team Avatar in taking down Kuvira, via his mastery of Metal Bending. Whilst he does this solely on the principle of his own ideals. Nevertheless he is fulfilling his role in maintaining the balance by helping his counterpart in the final battle, both Avatars co-existing and in this case working together on this common objective. 

The finale ends the same way, just with Zaheer fleeing and from that point on in the comics of my version, we get to experience the consequences of having two Avatars roaming around. Not only from a spiritual perspective but the political aspect as well.  Obviously I’m not a writer, and I may have overlooked some things. That wasn’t the point of this however, the point of this was to display the potential of having a “Dark Avatar.” The concept itself wasn’t the issue, it has potential. The execution not only from the misrepresentation of Yin-Yang through Raava and Vaatu but how rushed it all felt as a whole. I would love for them to come back to the concept and try again, I honestly believe the Avatar should have its opposite in such a manner. Rather than having one almighty being that burdens this responsibility on their own, it makes them an outlier in my opinion. I also had the luxury of spanning this across book 1-2-3-4, were as they clearly had to rush it out for Season 2. Anyway this got way too long, but yeah it is what it is.

[saraa-lancee]

So what issues would you like them to tackle that hasn’t already been done on the show before?

(I just want to say this is my first ask ever and I've been here since... God maybe 2013? So thank you!!)

I would LOVE to see a new dimension to sexuality. I'm also casually of the team that's "Sara herself should say Bisexual" because Bisexual has only been said once on screen and Nate said it casually.. We have a scene where Sara says tells Nurse Lindsay that Lesbian isn't a bad word yet the show kinda doesn't act that way about Bi. Bi erasure is an issue that would be interesting-- since Sara is with Ava, it would be neat to have some line of "i didn't pick a team" or just along the lines of Still Bi With A Woman.

(They also missed an opertunity with Charlie to use neutral pronouns of some kind)--> a discussion further on gender identity would be cool too. There are casual set ups for this with Charlie, like in the Shakespeare episode, but nothing is ever really taken completely seriously or honestly even explicitly. I would really enjoy a nonbinary or intersex narrative in this particular context because I feel like the team of legends (as the people the characters are) would fit really nicely with that. But it would be cool to have a trans character that Gideon helps? Because the arrowverse trans character (in Supergirl-- Nia) is already transitioned. It would be cool to have a transitioning characer in a really casual way even (a particular scenario would be New Character leaving sickbey while someone else walks in. Other person asked if New is feeling OK and New just says like "oh yeah, just my hormones.). But yeah anything with gender identity.

I always hunger for more disability stories, but based on how they Wrote Sara's blindness... yikes. I remember watching a panel or something on YouTube about how Caity was hoping that Sara was at least going to have a cane or be shown to struggle with some stuff, but the writers ignored all of that. So its kind of touchy based on that but I think it would be really neat to have someone with a prosthetic (or even just an amputation, someone born without a limb, etc.)-- it would be a beautiful narrative about 'Gideon can literally grow you a new arm' and that character firmly saying no, this is me, having this difference doesn't make me less, you aren't "fixing" me because I'm not broken, I like myself, etc, whatever.

I know that for me personally one of the best things about the show is that Sara and Ava don't have to come out, and everyone just treats them like normal, but I think some kind of homophobia narrative would be good, not to a big extent but just to the extent like in S1 when Kendra and Ray move in 1950s and that dynamic only with the girls. Like, for the show to acknowledge homophobia in such a direct way, as they did with interracial relationships. This beyond the obvious homophobia of the Nazis. (I personally can't think of an aspect where its implied, but sometimes I can miss or misinterpret implicated stuff like that).

I would love to see a return to POC cultures and narratives (narratives outside of racism) S1 with Kendra and Carter and the Egyptian culture aspect, Amaya and Zambesi aspect. We see a tad bit of this with Zari and the bollywood scene, and Japan post WW2, but they are more side aspects now. It would be neat to go to India or other places in southeast Asia (culturally), or Central/South America. Overall, I would just like to see more of that cultural aspect because human culture is something that interests me a lot and I feel like can be easily casually thrown in with time travel--- traditional clothes, buildings, and ideals (an example of the ideals is the discussion in feudal Japan about the cultures views on death).

I feel like there was a lot of potential with Hank and Sara to continue that discussion about women in power. Yes, we have discussed this before. We do it a lot in second season with the JSA and even Jonah Hex but I think Hank had a lot of potential to add a dimension to that discussion. (honestly see next paragraph for more). That whole episode with the Minotaur i would have loved if they'd been a bit more explicit with that-- yes, obviously a woman can be in charge (in Hanks mind) but he has the right to walk in there and take over because her experience doesn't matter and also we will do whatever he wants. Sara spends almost the whole time just rolling her eyes and bitting her tongue besides a light quip in the beginning asking if a girls ever punched him. in the past Sara has literally exerted dominance over men so I was just kind of disappointed with that dynamic. I love the character of Sara as an "unconventional woman" or a "strange friend" and I've noticed comments like that pretty much stopped after the 3rd season. I know some people hated those comments but I think they can be good. I enjoyed them and would like to see them again because it's literally just Sara being unapologetically herself, a strong woman, doing whatever she does, no matter how weird or unconventional it is. (Which is an integral part of Saras character to me)

BUT its also not necessarily "new" issues. Issues don't go away in real life-- we had multiple issues about Race in America with Jax, from different points in history (Slavery and the 1950s). Jax even mentions how he still experiences Rascism today. The issues don't go away and just because they are mentioned once doesn't mean they can't (and shouldn't) be examined from other points in history. IE just because the show has talked about it before doesn't mean we can't talk about it again from a different angle and/or perspective.

I see a lot of potential with Astra with the racism thing (people are nicer to me in literal Hell) but it also would have been interesting with Mona, to show a different type of racism would have been INCREDIBLE.

I also can think of maybe a scene or two that would have just been a nice touch with Zari (either one, but I have a soft spot for Zari 1.0, and I think with her life as an illegal Muslim would have been an enriching perspective) as a Muslim. They are very good to her character in the way that she obviously abstains from Liquor and Pork, and observes Ramadan. But one thing that would have been interesting is for Zari to experience early 2000s (or honesty still right now) xenophobia. Especially Z1 since being a Muslim is Illegal in 2045 there was a lot of emotional potential there. (Although I feel like I can understand why the writers didn't want to touch that because of current conflicts).

Since we're going to outer space (that was actually confirmed right? Or was it just hinted and I misread??), I think issues will have to be character driven rather than time period driven. But therin we have a lot of potential-- a race of aliens without distinct genders (wait, so your worth can be dictated based off of your genitals?? Plus sexuality stuff there), aliens confused about race (I don't understand some of your skins are different colors... and your people treat each other differently based on this?). We could introduce a matriarchal society, which the crew with Captain Lance feel particularly unphased by. Perhaps we have a completely pacifist society or aliens made of inorganic materials (debates about what constitutes as alive, what lives are meaningful, etc.) You get the idea(I adore star trek so you can imagine my glee thinking about some of those scenarios).

I think for me, the hard shift to comedy was at the expense of some of my favorite aspects of the show and also things that set it apart. This Found Family is so rewarding because they are all so so different but those differences enrich each other. They become better people and feel at home without having to change who they fundamentally are. And they are whoever they want to be. I feel like now the show has simply had an incredibly jarring tone shift thats trying too hard to be a comedy. (This one is just an opinion but a joke among all the serious is always just a lot more funny to me. I find myself laughing more at one liners and random stuff in the early seasons. Now it feels like 'ok, what's the next ridiculous thing.')

I think... humanity is pretty dark. But humanity also rises above. This is why I adore the episode from post WW2 Japan and to me it personally really stands out from other episodes in s4/s5. The idea of creating and destroying, pain and sadness locked inside, terror and hatred for the beings you share the planet with. That pain creates monsters. Sometimes by accident. (Sara's pain turned her into the version of herself she called a monster.). And also about embracing your passions (Mick hiding his writing). In that episode, we still have jokes about Godzilla. Garima appears and its hilarious. But it's also an incredibly powerful narrative about pain and fear and shame and gives a perspective that the western audience wouldnt... necessarily think about (the actual consequences and what the bomb actually literally did.).

That darkness makes the light so much more meaningful. If everything becomes light... than why are we still fighting?

Sorry if this is jumbled, I'm on mobile so.

Also, sorry if this is a rant or whatever. I am very passionate about this topic and oh boy if I was on a computer and had the time I'd probably repondd with a link to a doc.

[tinylavenderlesbian]

i think a lot of ppl get stuck in this internal conflict btwn like, 'the person i am', as a core, immutable, unchanging identity, whether thats a biological fact of themselves or a more spiritual kind of 'soul', and 'the kind of person life has made me' as shaped by their lived experiences and the way the former had been changed by their social/economic/etc upbringing and the way thats impacted their lives and like. i think its v freeing the realise the first thing, in whatever capacity it might exist, is much less important and isnt the ideal self that needs to be catered to, or circled around. 'being urself' doesnt have to mean striving for authenticity to a construct that doesn't exist in any kind of meaningful way

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

primes n' vowels for our good boy tower

jesus thats a lot

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

tower can actually just like go fully gargoyle and sit in one place for hours and hours. probably they did it once for days. and then the moment comes and it’s off with somebody’s head

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

i think tower laughed, like, once, and was shocked and a little afraid. i mean they know what laughter is but they never imagined it was something that would just happen. 

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

oh they just lie down and close their eyes. while they were working for mask a nice daybreak told them that even if you dont sleep it helps to close your eyes, so thats what tower does. and then they just wait until they wake up

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

for like the past five years the world has been divided into 1) boss, trust 2) colleagues, trust 3) everyone else, murder if necessary

theyre still looking for new colleagues but... its a big jump from category 3. they probably trust other abyssals easier cause thats who theyve worked with before. a deathlord would be choice but none of them will talk with tower

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

it’ll be just about anything, and they can’t figure out what it is, but the randomest things will like be a little flashback, or a moment of deja vu -- i enjoyed this, once. once they smelled a cup of wine that gave them that sensation and they downed the whole bottle trying to learn more

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

tower cusses in flametongue, which is weird cause thorns is in the east and they dont look southern (thats like walking around in china and suddenly hearing someone swear in arabic). also they dont know flametongue usually

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

at this point they just file it away to figure out or ask about later, but in the hypothetical universe where theyre actually adventuring with the hour in black folk they probably ask nevertheless later

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

black. and, actually, some dark purples. silver is trying to expand their horizons

Are they easily embarrassed?

not really? theres a moment of like social anxiety slash paralysis whenever someone asks them to make a personal decision but thats not quite embarrassment

What is their favorite number?

._. theyre numbers.

...

seventeen

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

mostly? if they want something they just take it. theyve got the charms. but if its envy over something abstract........hoo boy

Do they usually live up to their own ideals?

tower’s ideals up until now have been “serve faithfully and do what is needed” which they have done very well

Who are they the most glad to have met?

mask of winters probably but theyre starting to feel more and more conflicted about that. like, tower’s not dumb, theyre starting to realize that mask did something to them to make them like this. and yet

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

i mean they kind of do this thing where theyll listen to a whole rambling story and then just like distill the three most important sentences out. like if you give them directions they just shut their eyes after and say left, three blocks, dog, straight, smoke. ok

How do they feel about children?

kids will accept pretty much answer you give them so tower feels a lot less pressure from them. he skulks around like playgrounds sometimes and watches them play. he wishes he could look like a kid so he could actually construct his identity the regular way

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

jesus tower barely knows what sexuality they are. sometimes they look at people and theyre like oh. cool

Why are you excited about this character?

cause i love to fucking hoot and holler and make myself sad (because i love narratives about weapons becoming people again)

Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

i love tower so deeply and i think if i managed to figure their deal out or if they told me then we could get along pretty well

Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

i think they work best in exalted but i could see them anywhere you have a brainwashed and loyal assassin recovering i guess

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

INFP 4w5 back :) Thanks for answering things! I'm sorry I didn't give enough information to actually have you help me - I will do so now! I am 24. I love reading stories, both for the emotional connection to characters, and then fun of imagining myself in their adventures (I mainly read fiction). I am an artist and a writer - I do so because I enjoy expressing my views, experiences, and insights in beautiful/interesting/creative ways. I also love the act of creating in general - my mind is very

INFP cont: busy, and it helps me either slow that down or connect my brain to my body (I admittedly spend way more time in my head, but working with my hands and brain at the same time helps me feel connected to the outside world). 

So before I go on: this was a very long ask and I will therefore be ‘interrupting’ throughout in bold for my typing logic rather than rephrasing stuff down at the bottom.

Placing yourself in the story: that’s often the goal of stories anyway (and why self-insert is a whole thing) but it is consistent with Fi. Self-expression is something a lot of people like but it is particularly important to 4s. Brain-body connection as described here makes me think more Ne-Si axis but it’s hard for me to quite articulate why so...don’t quote me.

I like hanging out with my family and close friends - I hate being in crowds or in the spotlight. I find them overstimulating but also boring and I don't know what to do with body or what to say.

Pretty consistent for introverts who are intuitive (not just introverts who are intuitive but I’m going into this assuming it’s an INFP vs. INFJ thing unless I see blatant evidence for high Si or Se which so far I don’t.

I love being in nature - this is a new thing though, noticing nature for itself has only started happening since I was 20. I always liked the way it made me feel but didn't pay much attention to it in a sensory way until recent years. Now I love how peaceful and happy it makes me, how physically beautiful it is, but also all the ideas it generates in me - I think everything in nature is a symbol for something and it so fun trying to guess what those things are, or to make art out of things I find in the woods.

Could be either Ne-Si or Ni-Se for what it is; the age of onset is making me think tertiary sensing, plus the guessing the symbol rather than being more decisive makes me think Ne.

I also really love history and fantasy. History because I ideloize old ways of doing things (like gardening, pioneering, etc) ideal and exciting. I try to incorperate those things into my life and would like to be a homesteader or live in a bus one day, because it feels really free, and also I think connects us back to the way humans are meant to live.

Idolization of an idealized past is often weaker Si (nostalgia/sentimentality are often low Si things, contrary to popular belief that it’s higher Si. Seriously, talk to the average ESTJ, they have no nostalgia unless something changed drastically for the less efficient.)

I care a lot about people and social justice, but it tires me out, so I don't actually spend a lot of time engaging. I like listening to my friends and helping them sort out their feelings. I used to be really bad at DOING things for my friends, but I started to realize it was hurting them, so I am trying more and more to not just be a listening ear, but actively engage in their lives. I'm always torn between wanting to help people and make the world a better place, and just being free and doing what I want and find life giving.

At this point I’m already as you can tell leaning towards INFP much more. This also seems more INFP, with your Fi slowly realizing and maturing to a point where you are better able to care for others and meet them on their terms rather than your own.

I think A LOT, and I am very interested in understanding theories, concepets, anazlying people.

All intuitives like concepts, and while I dislike the assertion that introspection is the sole purview of introverts or intuitives, they definitely do it a lot.

Why I'm wondering if I might be an INFJ instead of an INfP? Mainly because two people I respect mentioned they thought I might be.

Yeah...without more than just “caring & empathetic” I wouldn’t put too much weight on it.

I had always thought I was just an INFP (MAYBE an ISFP, but I don't feel like a doer enough or in touch enough with the physical world - other then finding it super beautiful and day dreaming about it).

I’d agree, I’m really not getting much Se from your asks.

But they specifically thought my Fe seems very high - I am emotionally expressive, I care a lot for others, and I'm very sensitive to the emotional feel of people/places/situations.

So, sensitive to the emotional feel and emotional expressiveness are just feeler things. Without rephrasing the whole Fi/Fe post I always refer back to, I find that while high Fi users’ feelings tend to come from a more internalized place sometimes or are less typical in some of their reactions, they still are pretty emotionally expressive especially compared to your average thinker. There are a lot of very reserved IxFJs and very expressive IxFPs and the uneven stereotypes of constantly crying INFPs/IxFJs hiding their emotions for the sake of harmony hammer that point home.

I also tend to get hunches about situations and people, like what might happen or that I should/shouldn't do something, or about why someone is upset/happy, and am right pretty often (is that maybe dom Ni? with some Fe? or is that also Ne?)

Hunches can be anything; intuition is specifically preferring them over physical evidence (sensing is the opposite, so sensors often ignore their hunches if there’s evidence otherwise). Hard to tell because hunches are also related to thin slicing in neuroscience which is just a brain thing. Also this can be Si that you don’t realize is working - like, you’ve seen it before, but don’t consciously realize it.

I also wonder if my constant thinking and trying to figure things out (like obsessively trying to figure out my type) is Ti?

Eh, humans are curious and we all like to think. Ti is a specific approach to logic that for some reason got credit for way more (hint it was David Keirsey)

And I love talking about my feelings and am very comfy with it, which apparently lots of INFPs aren't?

Some aren’t, some are, see stuff above re: emotional expressiveness.

I also avoid conflict in public - I don't avoid it at all with my family, I avoid it moderately with good friends, and won't get into public debates. However, I will speak up in public if I think someone is doing something really wrong.

Could be enneagram 9 which is pretty common in Fi doms; it’s also just part of upbringing, that it’s not polite to start an argument in a lot of social situations, but okay with people you’re close with or if it’s something egregious.

I feel like I have a hard time expressing my opinions well verbally (Im fine writing), and it makes me afraid I won't say what I actually mean, and I also am afraid of the rage I feel in conflict and don't want to hurt others feelings by unleashing that.

W/r/t expression, that sort of conflicts with some of the emotional expressiveness you’d mentioned earlier, but either way tracks more with introversion than anything else. Fear of strong anger makes me wonder if you’ve enneatyped yourself correctly, though obviously I can’t tell if it’s your greatest fear. But I’d take a seriously look at 9 gut fixes.

I also don't like people trampling on my beliefs, so often just won't express them with those I'm not real close to. But I've read that high Fi users don't avoid conflict, and high Fe users do? And I am very willing to consider other people's points of view and MAYBE change my opinion, but thats pretty rare. I'm also a very empathetic listener - I think before speaking, ask good questions, and make noises to assure them im listening, which Ive also read is Fe. is that enough info?

Not liking people trampling on beliefs is pretty universal - even people who behave in an extreme doormat way usually don’t particularly like it deep down. For conflict avoidance see notes on enneagram 9. Openness to other points of view could come from Ne seeing different options, or Fi accepting other’s opinions as being able to coexist with your own usually; it’s also just a healthy adult thing to do regardless of type. Same goes for listening - those are all learned skills and so ask yourself if you did those when you were younger. I did mostly by the time I was 24 but I sure didn’t when I was 17, whereas people with higher feeling, and to some extent higher Fe more than Fi, tend to pick those up a bit more naturally and therefore earlier.

ah one last thing! I take a very long time to make descions - I want to make sure I'm doing/getting the best/right thing. which also seems not very INFP?

Not sure where you got that idea - indecisiveness until you know the optimum response is EXTREMELY INFP. Specifically Ne.

And I get very afraid of not having the idealized visions and dreams of the future I crave - I'm okay with the exact details being flushed out over time, but there are general dreams I will not give up. I've read thats more Ni then Ne?

It is but given the context of everything else, I think this can come from Fi if you see those dreams as identity, and ultimately everyone has goals and dreams.

Oh shit, thought of more things. I SUCK at finishing things - it takes crazy hard work for me to finish a project. I just get... bored and move on. Or procrastinate because other things are more interesting in the moment. But I'm also fairly academic and analytical - can INFP's be that? I find it very stimulating and when Im interested in a topic I want to learn EVERYTHING about it and understand it fully. And I hate when I have a mental problem that I can't solve. I will obsess.

INFPs can be analytical but it’s not your primary way of going about the world (nor is it for INFJs for that matter). Do you like it a lot in specific, lower-pressure contexts (say, academia)? That can be you exploring lower functions. It’s worth considering how you go about being analytical, and whether it seems more Te or Ti. The unsolved problem issue also depends on context, and learning everything can be Ne wanting all the information to fuel a very divergent thought process.

INFP 1,000: And I forgot the thing. I also orgionally started questioning because of my love for sensing things - I love physical beauty in home decor, nature, clothes, etc, and I love being in nature. When I was a teen and very stressed/unwell I overindulged in sensory things like sex/food/drinking/cutting, because it made me feel alive. In the same way now, engaging my senses in healthy ways makes me feel alive. But I do feel pretty crap at it. Which made me wonder if I had inferior Se.

OK so this isn’t directed at you but good lord does inferior Se get almost as much of a mythical out of proportion blow-out as dom Ni. A lot of inferior Se-credited unhealthy behaviors, while definitely present in dom Ni users, are also fairly universal. Namely, all the sensory things you mention will lead to endorphin rushes (hence the feeling alive - it’s brain chemistry) and all are pretty common coping mechanisms for depression, anxiety, or stress to the point that two of them are on the PHQ-9 depression screening. You would be hard pressed to find someone who’d never indulged in at least one under stress, and most people have indulged in several. This has been my PSA that typing based on inferior Se behaviors is a dangerous game for exactly that reason.

Anyway: overall, I see strong evidence for INFP and I’d look at enneagram 9 for some of the more conflict avoidant parts; perhaps more than 4 even though it could just be a strong 9 gut-fix as the second part of your tritype, and maybe a 5 head fix for the analytical stuff. Unless you have more details on the people who typed you INFJ I can’t really refute their arguments,but I see much more INFP for the reasons above.

[mininecro]

Current Hibari characterization is butchered by the tyranny of the masses. Will you adapt? Or will you perish like a dog? *read more link* *10k meta essay*

how to write hibari????? I can't seem to grasp his character so any tips? 

show me the hibari meta. im ready 

i hate all of you

Entry level: 

Hibari's tendency towards animal metaphors isn’t ever made clear - he obviously considers them animal metaphors, considering his ‘bite you to death’ and how he frames crowds as herds, but their actual extent is up in the air.

However, what we do know about it is that Hibari uses the “herbivore” moniker specifically for cowards. If he hates someone who isn’t a coward, he gives them a title or nickname (like with Yamamoto, Reborn, and Gokudera, who he refers to by their most identifiable traits, Dino, who he gives a sarcastic nickname, or Xanxus, who he just straight-up insults). If he respects someone, he refers to them by their name. He does this to Yamamoto later in the story, and his future self does this for Tsuna. 

At no point does he ever refer to someone as a “carnivore”, because he respects brave warriors, and if someone is brave and strong enough to earn his good favour, they earn the privilege of being taken seriously, by being referred to as their given name.

Hibari currently refers to Yamamoto by his full name and Kusakabe Tetsuya by just his name. He might be taken to referring to Reborn and Shouichi by their names if endeared to them. It’s unclear how he’d refer to Gokudera. He’d never refer to Xanxus by his name because their desires are fundamentally at odds.

There’s a notable exception in Tsuna, who Hibari doesn’t really respect, but understands enough about his strength that he’s unwilling to call him a herbivore. Tsuna’s ingenuity and raw power outranks his “cowardice”, so Hibari would prefer to call him a Small Animal. Hibari also loves small animals and wants to care for them, so this is also pretty gay

I haven’t reread the series in a while so I’m missing a few details. But you know

Intermediate Level: 

He is just as much of a theatric edgelord as Mukuro is and thats why they can never get along. They both eat that “mortal enemies who cannot stop until the other is defeated” except they fundamentally misunderstand what the other considers a “mortal enemy” - Hibari’s objective is to Win, while Mukuro’s objective is to control, and both of them just misunderstand each other to be on the same page. If Hibari Won, he’d completely blow Mukuro off, because his mental dramatic character arc has been completed. Hibari and Mukuro are the edgy version of the Gokudera/Yamamoto dynamic and it’s a greatly underutilized comedy routine. How dare Amano reduce it to 1 panel in the Rainbow arc, like a coward

ANYWAY, Hibari is a fucking chuunibyou and since no one believes me I’m back with receipts

Volume 2, chapter 16:

Hibari talks a lot. He has something to say every time he’s prompted. It’s incredibly important to him that he’s the most important thing in the room and he has the respect of everyone around him, and having a dominant personality is key to that image. The difference between him and a Fucking Chuunibyou is theoretically nothing, but in execution it’s more that he makes good on his threats. 

But they’re still theatrics, because immediately after asserting dominance, he does this: 

His goal was just to dominate everyone with the minimum possible effort. Tsuna got smacked, so he’s been Adequately Dominated, but the other two fought back, so they needed to be knocked out. Since knocking out is dangerous, though, he’s made sure to take care of them afterwards.

Hibari isn’t a wild animal or anything. He meticulously cares for anyone he “bites”. If they’re fine, like Tsuna ends up being, he’s like “yeah, just sit on the couch for a second and rest for a little bit”. It’s only after Tsuna crosses him again that he goes back to violence. 

Hibari isn’t a rampaging delinquent, he’s a selfish asshole who associates violence with control, and that’s why he’s an abuse survivor in all my shitty AUs

But back to the theatrics and him being a chuuni fuck

Volume 6, Chapter 43: 

hhHFHAHGAHGSKJGKGSGKSHFAH

Hibari just, clearly likes peaceful time alone? Looking at the trees? There’s no reason for a human being to say shit like this without blinking unless they think it sounds cool. Hibari curates his self-image meticulously. 

Before I move on to exaggerate the point, here’s some other micrometas:

hibari is attractive enough to be sexually harassed by Hetscum, King Of The Restraining Orders, making him one of the only few characters explicitly handsome, which is important because Amano draws everyone hot and I need some sort of justification for the cold sweat I broke into when I saw 10YL Hibari for the first time

(also he looks like a pretentious nerd in these early chapters so its worth noting in general)

Hibari’s entire character arc is literally the fact that he has the exact same problem. It’s possible that the reason Dino pisses him off so much is because he feels embarrassed at the implication of hypocrisy. 

The fact these 2 expressions happen in abrupt sequence is so fucking funny I love him (also, proof again that he isn’t a wild violent animal intent on abusing others - being contradicted doesn’t anger him, he just assumes Winning will solve the problem, because, I’m sorry to say, Hibari is not a thinker, which I’ll get to later)

BACK TO THE CHUUNI ISSUE

Volume 5, Chapter 38: 

And then he doesn’t do anything to Tsuna.

I don’t even have to comment on this. Hibari’s just a weirdo

Volume 34, Chapter 330:

Hibari has, at this point, witnessed Tsuna recover from a snapped neck and kill god. He saw this with his own two eyes. Tsuna asserted dominance over the closest this series has to the literal devil, eater of dimensions, and he only a few chapters earlier explicitly told Tsuna that he respects him so much that to defeat him in battle is a grand ambition of his and complimented him on his ingenuity and specialized power.

Hibari is lying here. He is lying through his teeth. He has finally entered tsun territory. He knows this conflict is important to Tsuna and is affording it to him, but because he painstakingly maintains self-image, he has to make it out to seem like he’s doing this for entirely selfish motives. “Wait for you to be killed”? What could that possibly afford him? Nothing, but it sounds cool, so that’s what he goes with.

it’s worth nothing that he’s functionally identical to Mukuro in this respect, except while Hibari communicates that he cares for Tsuna through Manly Warrior Affordances, Mukuro straight-out attacks Tsuna and compensates for his feelings with constant hostility. Both are funny but Hibari’s is full of more warmth and companionship so that one’s the best.

Anyway, god I forgot how cluttered and ugly the paneling had gotten during this arc

Chapter 335:

It’s not as if he’s giving Tsuna special treatment, either, because he does the exact same “I could...BUT I WON’T” half-hearted dismissal when he comes upon a somewhat exhausted Mukuro. Everyone knows that Hibari hates Mukuro and wants to fight him, but Mukuro has just defeated the enemy as an ally, so he chucks a tonfa at him and says “reaction time is shit, get some sleep”. Hibari was slighted by being defeated, but he has garnered respect for Mukuro, but he can’t tolerate having these opinions concurrently, because he’s incredibly straight-forward and it doesn’t mesh with his “character”

Look at his dumb face. He’s entered Full Tsun.

Expert level: 

Hibari is super fucking Autistic and loves his friends

I mentioned before that he’s not a thinker. It’s not as if he doesn’t try - his observational skills are actually pretty good, and he composes a lot of reasonable conclusions based on the evidence he’s provided. For example, after fighting Daisy:

But he often falls into logical stopgaps, and his method of resolving these are...less than ideal.

Situation: Hibari meets with a conflict to his worldview, image, or judgement

Conclusion:

He hits it until it stops being a problem.

Hibari is like a Sims character that will scream at the wall that used to hold the door they were about to walk through for 30 minutes instead of rerouting. He doesn’t care about being crossed, because he can easily understand it and control that variable, but he is hideously offended by contradiction. If his worldview is challenged, he gets pissed off.

This is the primary reason he and Dino struggle to get along - the entire basis of teaching Hibari is the assumption that Hibari isn’t already right about everything. Dino has to challenge everything about Hibari’s preexisting notions, and Hibari hates him for it. Dino’s lessons excel the most when he feeds into Hibari’s view of things, which is why the 2 things that got through to him by the end is “anger is power” and “flexibility is strength”.

Hibari’s forthright, carefully maintained image also affects how he communicates with people. He talks a lot, sure, but it’s usually to talk at people about how fucking cool and above them he is. He rarely actually communicates his interest in others, which is why him talking to Tsuna about what he likes about him is so important.

It’s also why this tiny panel-and-a-half is one of the best Hibari moments in the series:

Since when?? Have you respected Yamamoto?? He’s given zero indication of being fond of him until now. There’s absolutely no basis for this immense respect he’s solemnly presenting. He’s been mostly scornful of Yamamoto during the Daily Life arc. Hibari says this with such assuredness that he definitely thinks that liking Yamamoto Takeshi is in line with his character, unlike with Tsuna or Mukuro, who he also secretly grew fond of but is unwilling to admit as much, but Hibari just flies this like a fact.

Hibari Kyouya is fully capable of being friendly with others, but he struggles to operate outside of camaraderie. He definitely cares for Kusakabe, and they grew close over the years, but the first thing he says when he sees Kusakabe (10YL) “herding” up with a bunch of unconscious teenagers is “you’re fired”. 

Again, great basis for my AU fanfic where he’s an abuse survivor, especially when Mukuro, a canonical abuse survivor, has the same problem (with a different way of coping), but it also says a lot from the perspective of someone with Autism - he wants to become close to others, but communicating basic ideas like that is entirely beyond him. Hibari only operates in his comfort areas, and is hostile to being forced out of them. 

And yet Dino, who is the only character besides Kusakabe who has spent a significant amount of time around him, described Hibari to be similar to his ancestor, and when he gives reasons for that conclusion, he also mentions...

And this is observable! Because Hibari's reactions are missing from scenes he has no engagement in, like this one:

We can actually pick out scenes where he mentally checks off people as “worthy”, like this one:

This is also where it’s more apparent that Hibari respects strength/bravery. Shouichi is obviously a cowardly mess of a person, but when he says “we are WINNING”, Hibari makes note of him.

Anyway in conclusion Hibari is a gay autistic chuuni and I love him. Here’s Hibari getting mad at Squalo for being around without permission, something he previously expected of his friends

“mu.”

[infobeanie]

CROW CILLERS S04E02: GAIGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

There are some people who can only be seen from the outside. They move around in this world, forming impressions in other people’s minds as they go, and it is these impressions that form the substance of their character. The same could be said for all of us, but it’s different for these people - they seem to exist without internal integrity, without a common thread of personality which could link their disparate behaviors into a picture of a coherent being. Their actions make no sense when removed from the particular social situation in which they perform them; they do not speak to any continuity of identity. To ask them to explain themselves, one quickly learns, is a futile endeavor. Their true form is slowly mapped out, by those who care enough to stick around, through comparisons of testimonials and conflicting evidence. They are called empty, they are called fakers, they are called sociopaths. But I don’t think any of these things are true. I see these people as the vessels of society, the true representatives of our kind. They are martyrs for their cause; they have sacrificed coherency in an attempt to represent, in all its contradictions, the basic truth, or basic truths, of this world. They bear the burden of exteriority, having given up their soul to the tides of nature. One might as well call the moon inconsistent. 

I start at the end of the episode, because there’s nowhere else to start with Harlyn. She’s already dead, for one thing. For another, when she was alive, she lived as one of those vessels, identifiable only through other people’s conclusions about her. “Gaige Against the Machine”, a strange, subtly crafted episode, traces one particular conclusion of Harlyn, the one drawn by her former lackey and her polar opposite, Gaige. 

The strangeness of the episode is a necessity of form. Harlyn could never be a lead character, even for an episode focused on her, because it would be like trying to get a solar system to orbit around a lack of a sun. To stabilize the narrative, we need someone with presence we can gravitate towards, someone real. And just as Harlyn did, Cate Wurtz selects Gaige as a prime candidate for the job.

Gaige is a man of substance. Not in the traditional sense of there being a lot to his character - indeed, there is very little that we need to “get” to understand his character, which makes him an ideal vehicle for this episode. By substance I mean that he is a solid person; he does not fade into ambiguity without someone else around to define him. To prove this, we have the first real solo scene I can remember ever occurring in Crow Cillers, barring Elaine’s encounters with her self. There’s not much to it - it’s Gaige fucking around, drunk, blowing off steam - but that’s the point. If this is the shit Gaige gets into when no one else is around, it stands to reason we can trust him.

At least, some of us feel like we can trust him. The real-time plot of this episode - Gaige teaming up with the Crow Cillers - puts certain characters at loggerheads, and establishes with clearer definition a contrast in character types which has been at play in the comic for some time. Gaige is one of a growing number of “solid” characters - folks with no big secrets, no major psychological turmoil; people who know who they are, and act accordingly. Ondine is the most obvious example of this type - her biggest secret is the amount of time she spends watching DBZ - so naturally, she’s the first to accept Gaige into the fold. Paisley also emerges in this episode as a solid character, moreso than she wants to be; her posturing here stems from the fact that she knows perfectly well how cute and harmless she is - for now, at least.

The added focus on these solid characters gives parts of this episode a strikingly trope-ified vibe: Paisley’s montage feels like an anime, the dynamic between Gaige and Ondine is woven from the Saturday morning moralism of kids’ cartoons, and Gaige’s monologue while he tosses beer bottles around is almost like something out of a James Dean teensploitation movie. These are characters we’ve seen before.

On the other side of these solid types stands the majority of the cast, who are...well, what shall we call them? Superfluous, perhaps. They are people who have recognized, at one point or another in their lives, that they stand apart from normal society, not in an extraordinary way but just in an extra way. They have spent the remainder of their time grappling with the question that it would never occur to a solid character to ask: Who am I? Am I this or am I that? The “this” and the “that” here are less important than the ambivalence between the two; the lack of thisness or thatness is what defines these characters’ existence, living as they do in a world that cannot tolerate ambiguity, a world which wouldn’t care a whit if they disappeared entirely. 

Crow Cillers is, by and large, a comic about superfluous women. It is dedicated to the preservation of its Dorises and Cobys, to presenting their struggles in a way that steadfastly denies their superfluous status. The moments that stand out in these women’s lives - Lisa Simpson devouring Lord Marrow, Embry crying Ambrosia’s tears at the thought of an old tv storyline, Emma having a dream where she’s in the Matrix - exist on a level entirely devoid of trope, because Cate Wurtz has had to invent a new way of writing to make these characters and their thoughts understandable to an audience who has encountered them a hundred times in real life, and not once in any form of media.

Though these characters exist, in some sense, on a separate level, they are confronted every day with the reality of the normal, of the Matrix that surrounds them. The constant threat is that their thisness or thatness will be decided, not by them, but by society. Each character deals with this threat in her own way, but their choices are shaped by the social environments they find themselves in. Crow Cillers begins at the moment Emma realizes her superfluous nature, and each season tracks her personal development via the shifting mise en scène of power dynamics and influential people in her life. Their story is hers; she reclaims it, in the end, simply by dreaming it. She is a vessel herself - one of the good ones, like Neo, who have filled up their emptiness with something like love. In “Gaige Against the Machine”, we get another glimpse of a girl as empty as Emma, who finds herself filled up with something of a crueller nature.

We find out the first time we see Harlyn that she’s evil, because she’s talking to Embry, who knows that she’s evil. Harlyn relishes it, embraces it, hams it up. She is playing a role, a fun one, much more fun than the goody-two-shoes bit she used to keep up as Psy Squad leader. Yet she must be a good actor, because in the flashes we see of her old self, there is a spark there as well, a convincing imitation of someone kind and good. We are tempted to believe it is genuine, until we recall the thing that cannot be unseen - that moment dividing her two selves in which she was inhuman and vulnerable, that transgression which cannot be adequately explained either by etiquette or evil monologue. The only explanation I can give you is that she was empty and she had to fill herself up.

The details of this moment grew clearer throughout season 3, while its sequence and place in Harlyn’s life remained mysterious. It was a puzzle piece out of place; for those who knew it was there, the only viable solutions to it were either death or a miracle. (There was no miracle, not for Harlyn.) Gaige’s story brings us no closer to solving it, though he comes in at the “transitional period”, where Harlyn is still somewhat vulnerable. It is a transition between roles, and there are slip-ups, enough that Gaige starts to see through the cracks. For example, in a scene of pure melodrama cooked up between her and Lord Marrow, she gets caught up in the moment, and forgets her line right at the climax, substituting her dorky old team name for the real unit she’s actually in: 

There’s no such thing. Psy Squad is an impossible ideal. The goodness, the purity of heart necessary to be involved in such an operation was pure cheese - it had to be. She was faking it back then, she’s faking it here, and her former unit is faking it on their own. And so she would go on to try and convince them of its falseness, just as she had been convinced of her own falseness. 

And what convinced her? What was it, in the end, that made her gestures of kindness simply gestures? What made every compliment, every word of encouragement, every noble-hearted assertion hang hollowly in the air like a resounding gong, a clanging cymbal? What happened to that little girl in the ballpit? What made her fundamentally different from Aria, who thinks of knives when she wakes up in the morning, or Embry, who spends more time sniffing out psychic trails than taking care of the child living in their house? Who was it that decided on her thisness or thatness? Who chose evil?

Could it have been Gaige?

Gaige, solid creature that he is, could not stand the ambiguity, the incongruity, the inconclusiveness that haunted their interactions. He wanted definitive proof of what she was. He didn’t realize he might be offering as much to her. It’s impossible to say for sure, things being as they are, but I think that when he confronted Harlyn, rejected her kindness once and for all, she heard it as confirmation, not as an accusation. I think it came as a relief.

It helps, after all, to have someone recognize you for who you are, even if the thing you ultimately are is nothing. When you are a series of abandoned passages pretending to be a human being, a meaningless site of trauma and contradictory information, sometimes the pretending hurts worse than any of the consequences of being discovered. Your secret, starving goal becomes to make someone see that empty and lifeless landscape inside you, no matter what cruelties it takes. When Gaige looked at her and laughed, Harlyn’s fate was decided. There was no point in faking it anymore.

(Still, I always felt there was some hope for her.)

[castlehead]

extracts fr. my side of the convo w/ shane etc.

the reconciliation of universal and personal is the most provocative and shadowy aim i have endless trouble with re poems. it is a skill; yet one does not come to the place from walking up and down the same A to B theticness. like finding god, in order to do so u do not start with the aim of finding god. i was lucky enough to be blessed with a horrifying vision years ago, so im ahead a few steps re a clearer idea that i do not think an idealization or something fabricated from what is lacking in my life, which would turn the whole pursuit into a psychology, and as f nietzsche says, psychology is a morality, in the end, when it comes to disputing metaphysics, and a limiting sort of stuffs

i also find it an oversimplification of the problem to say the god is born purely from the insecurities of man.

the soren of fear and trembling: his idea of 'infinite resignation' applied to the religious man whose moral principles are ultimately secular. the book is a lyrical treatment of abrahams dilemma in being told by god to kill his son isaac, when really it was satan, i think impersonating the archangel gabriel or something

so abraham is the knight of faith, bc he is without conflict in himself, and yet those untroubled waters so to speak are untroubled thru giving himself over, reductio ad absurdum, to his faith in god

the man stalwart, who does his right and wrong based in himself, will be conflicted by any adherence to faith that goes so far as to command him kill his son whom thou lovest best and all that etc.

kierkegaards question was: is abrahams faith as such even truly religious, ie christian? or is to be a knight of faith solely something abraham was and will always be the only one able to do? is his faith even of faith or is he a psychopath who happened to get off the hook? lol. anyway, the flavor of the book is a sort of resigned, quelled power. resignation to me can be almost a serenity, like looking back at the past event that was sad and feeling a newfound clarity in feeling sad about it, and that it happened, and that u cannot change it since it is already come and gone etc.

weeping at ones powerlessness is powerful. raging about it, lashing out at it, is mortal and dumb. allowing its beauty of limitation be revealed as a mournful truth, and u transcend the mourning with the mourning

how the soul becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child

--zarathustra

the atom bomb effectively ended philo

philo was replaced by physics and the quanta

why guess at makeups when literally they can be scientifcally pursued right?

thats the keyi mean, outside of the endless wrath of existentialismit inspired

shit man..

the way you write confuses the general pronoun, so that subject and object are ruled by whatever wraps the dependent clause, and even then it is difficult to figure out who is speaking of who, or what.

i am the same way.

i understand; the statement on the vagary of the ego of the speaker, a tacit identity crisis, a question with each sentence about selfhoods

the issue is pertinent to poetry tho

in particular which depends on a consecrated speaker

notice i say 'consecrated' as in, come to at last after a search for the voice.

whitman is important for his complete and absolute understanding, and comprehension, of voice and stance

that is the seed i only come to truth in his poems thru understanding who the speaker was

a difficulty with the general pronoun can indeed make a statement abt the selfs fiction, multiplicity, and fracturedness. but the statement if not pursued with skill can become oversubtle and appear as muddledness when it is not. if that is yr aim, it is one that must stand out, be visible. which is a contradiction: that an idea based in questionability should not be stated questionably. but the dialectic, the dance of it, is similar to why poetry is, and issss, at all: the ego is what must be revealed thru a daemonic anxiety to turn from oneself: thus the ego as well must be exorcised, and all left of anything what is sighted by emersons transparent eyeball, or if u like, a shopenhaeurs pure will-less knowing. the ego in poetry must be the nourishment for an objective vision of things, shed of the very daemonism, ie egoism, that brought it there. but that is why poetry is inherently a discontinuity, or transference, of issues of oneself transferred via language as an image or metaphor distant from the problem of the day one has had.

i bring up whitman bc song of myself, among the hundred or so pages of perennial american poetry on par with stuff produced in like antiquity that whitman has

is way more than pure celebratory 'i am' stuff

whitman is most recognizably to me an elegist of the self.

if u wish for me to elaborate with specific examples i can do that; im basically mostly being conceptual right now but im p sure i have a good idea of the shape- of s of myself, the sea drift elegies, lilacs last in the dooryard bloomd, etc etc and all

i suggest whitman to u if u have not read him bc his language is oracular. it reads like a psalm

therein something old vibrates, for sure

and he is not served well by people who dont understand him outside of his pop culture silhouette

as a poet, in forming a voice, its a learning experience to read crossing brooklyn ferry, and the rest.

i only truly understood him when i finished wordsworth's prelude, but i digress

w whitman ws the son of walt sr. a carpenter who lived in long island and a follower of the quaker elias hicks, who was partly black and partly indian.

he became a journalist later on. the title 'leaves of grass' is sublime and throwaway at once: leaves a pages of newspaper wrapped in a bundled folio.

grass is editorial junk to fill up the page when more inches are required

19th cent. printers lingo

also: 'all flesh is grass' etc.

poetic ancestors falling leaves, to become one with the richness of the soil and sprout as the grass we walk upon, and which sometimes we will find under our bootsoles, a replenishing entity, as whitman saw himself, in the last lines of song of myself, which ill write from memory here: "if u want me again look for me under yr bootsoles / u will hardly know who i am or what i mean but i shall be good health to u nonetheless / and filter and fiber yr blood / stopping at one place keep encouraged / missing me one place search another / i stop somewhere waiting for u" -thus, indeed, 'consecrating' the loop of poetry and tradition and epiphany and history. we forsake the replenishing thing; bc it is not an end in itself but begins things for us. it is odd that whitman is known as the poet of the evening land. from whence no time is left to progress toward yet another originality. no newness left, for the sun has set and goes out of sight even from the highest cliff zarathustra peers from haha

i think whitman as a final summing up, not a dead end but a last word on the matter of poetry, is strange to consider when he asserts he is for ur health, for to begin and forge into the truest possibility. the reason he is the last word is not only that he is aware of that fact, but makes it clear in expressing it. ironically, by allowing himself to be where meaning gets started, he became, thru a near mythical self consciousness, where meaning ended also

[shamesedowning-blog]

‘I hope you get through it, whatever it is your going through’

I find myself struggling. This is nothing new, to be honest, this has been an ongoing battle for me. I struggle because I cant make sense of my emotions. I feel nothing, I’m empty inside. When I mention I feel nothing, I don’t mean literally, nor do I mean emotionally wise..I mean when I think about my future wedding I think and I feel nothing.I draw a complete blank..Or when I ponder about whom my ideal man would be or look like in god’s image..I feel nothing..No excitement rises, no joy, its almost at the point where I could care less...I struggle because I fall to easily in a comfort zone that I can’t seem to break free from. I struggle because i’m more afraid of what others think about what I wear, what I look like, then what I think about myself..My life thus far has been a fairy tale, imagination, of a depicted reality that does not exist in my world. I study, search, and spend hours looking and envying other peoples lives that i forget to live my own. I don’t know who I am, and I don’t know how to find myself. I have lived play by play, attempting to break free from the enemies threshold over my heart, and my mind, and my soul. I have gotten saved, baptized and have given my all thus far to acknowledge Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, but yet i sit here, in tears, wondering why can’t I be me. Have my past rejections, hurts and sorrows completely trapped my inner soul so deeply that there is no way I’ll meet me again. Am I not deep enough into the word, which defines who I am in god’s eyes, the only eyes that matter, that I can’t come to terms with my own reality.

I don’t even know how to enjoy the things i once loved such as writing, drawing, talking and having fun. I spend most of my days thus far searching and comparing myself to others. In fact, I get so discouraged that I pretend I hate certain things just to impress people or seem cool. All that has gotten was friendless, all that has gotten me was trying to match with people i have nothing in common with. Ultimately, it ended in a friendship that was never meant to happen in the first place. I can remember before becoming a christian, I would down play myself whenever I mentioned something even remotely important to me. “I would say wow that’s cute, but not on me i’m too ugly” sounds normal except ever word/sentence that came out of my mouth was followed by my own slander. How do I get me back god? How do I become the women you called me to be? How do I let go the frustrations and anger that haunt me day in and day out. I quit my job of 4 years without a new job on your word. Because it has down nothing but demean me and attack my spirit. I trust you god but why am I so quick to anger? I think its because I’m searching constantly for myself and I keep coming up short.

I think I’m suppose to have these things other people have and i’m finding its not only unattainable because thats not who I am, but also because its not who you are. I’m reaching for things you never declared as mine. I’m fighting for a persona that conflicts with my personality. I am denying myself of my true identity and allowing myself too shrink in the presence whom are just like me. 

I’m hopeful I will breakthrough, I refuse to cry, to give up, and to be afraid of any human being. I know i cant get hit and cry, I have to be ready to fight. I have to stay focus on god’s word inevitably. I have to fight the enemy within for love, happiness, peace, and ME.

[samanthasroberts]

Dear Britain: Elena Ferrante, Slavoj Žižek and other European writers on Brexit

Ahead of the European referendum, we asked leading authors and thinkers from EU countries to write letters to Britain. Do they want us to stay, or are they ready to say goodbye?

Elena Ferrante Italy

Dear Britain, I dont have much sympathy for the current European Union. Its upper floors are elegantly furnished, with spacious halls for parties and banquets; there are abundant stores and provisions, rooms with panoramic views where building bylaws pertaining to those residing on the lower floors are discussed and drawn up, security services that design alarm systems and sturdy doors to keep out those who want to set up camp in the entrance hall or at least in the basement. Its an ugly Europe, this one. Behind its facade, it safeguards the interests of those countries that are strongest, both economically and militarily. And yet, despite the rules and regulations, it has never stopped thinking that when there is nothing further to be gained it is best to throw off the union and make do with the old cocksure ways of the proud old nations.

This belief is the most wrongheaded of all. The single pieces of Europe have long lost their autonomy and centrality. Major financial crises cannot be faced by stewing in ones own juice. Migrations cannot be controlled with traffic lights or barbed wire. Global terrorism is not a video game you play at home in your living room. The worlds climate cannot be fixed by opening an umbrella. The happy few are no longer enough, not even for themselves, but must confront the unhappy many.

And so, while it may be a union that has united little or nothing, it is necessary, in my opinion, to stay together at all costs. What we need now is not many small countries but a continent. Amid conflicts and confrontations, in defiance of the facts, we must try to move towards a community that instead of drawing up lists of objectives becomes actively political and puts an end to countless intolerable inequalities. Contained in the treasure chests of its sovereign states, Europe has many kinds of poison but also wonderful jewels. It is time to throw away the former and pull out the latter in preparation for our impassioned feast of common thought and action. We dont need roots now: they make plants of us, splendid, yes, but bound to the ground, and nowadays everything is more mobile than ever, shifting quickly from one shape to the next. A broad, true identity must open itself up to all identities and absorb the best in them. Time is short. Many kinds of malaise and poverty are spreading, the streets are increasingly stained with blood, the worst intentions feed the worst kinds of politics. Staying together is no longer an option but an obligation and an urgent necessity. Women and men of Britain, please, let us stay together, and change Europe together.

Translated by Daniela Petracco. Frantumaglia: An Authors Journey Told Through Letters, Interviews, and Occasional Writings will be published in November by Europa Editions.

Javier Maras Spain

Dear Britain, As Spaniards born under the Franco dictatorship (especially those of us who belonged to families on the losing side of the civil war) we were always aware that we might one day have to leave our country and go into exile. Whenever I imagined this possibility, my chosen destination was never France or Italy or some Latin American country, but Britain. This was perhaps because, early on, I acquired a reasonably good knowledge of English, but it was doubtless also because I had read so much British literature and seen so many British films that Britain seemed to me a familiar place and as undeniably European as my home town of Madrid. Indeed, I partly owe my vocation as a writer to Richmal Crompton and her Just William (or Guillermo as we knew him) books. I was brought up reading Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and GK Chesterton, J Meade Faulkner and Anthony Hope, Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. My childhood heroes were portrayed by actors such as John Mills, Stewart Granger, Jack Hawkins, David Niven and Trevor Howard. My first platonic love was Hayley Mills. Britain was not only a constant presence in my fantasies, it also seemed to me a country that would be sure to take me in if things took a turn for the worse in Spain; a place where I would not feel entirely foreign. For me, it is as much a part of Europe as Italy, Germany, France or Austria, possibly even more so.

I knew, too, that it was an invariably democratic country, respectful of individual freedoms and generous to those who took refuge there: from Joseph Baretti to Nikolaus Pevsner and from Elias Canetti to my friend Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who was exiled from Cuba in 1965, not to mention such Spanish writers as Blanco White, Luis Cernuda, Arturo Barea and Manuel Chaves Nogales. It seemed only natural that Britain should form part of the EU. True, the EU does not tend to arouse great passion it more often provokes feelings of discontent however, it is largely responsible for the fact that, since 1945, the various countries of this continent have not resorted to killing each other. That this fails to spark enthusiasm and, above all, gratitude, only demonstrates how ignorant and forgetful our present-day societies are.

Were Britain to leave the union, its unlikely that anyone would immediately start a war, but you never know. One thing I do know is that the rest of the continent would feel orphaned, amputated, empty and even defenceless. Let me explain that last word: those of us who do still remember ought to give thanks every day for the existence of that island separated from us only by a narrow strip of sea. Without it, it is probable that the entire continent would have suffered the consequences of a crushing victory by Hitler. Simply knowing that this small island spent years resisting tyranny and invasion is enough to make us all want to be able to count on its continuing presence, and always to be on the same side, whether in wartime or during long years of peace. We want to keep it as close to us as possible, even if only for purely selfish reasons and in order to save us from ourselves.

Translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Thus Bad Begins is published by Penguin.

Timur Vermes Germany

Dear Britain, Lets keep it short: what is the EU? Its the consequence of the second world war. Its the attempt to make things better.

Even if you dont always get the best result for yourself.

Many, throughout the whole of Europe, dont share this ambition any more.

Thats understandable, for 60 million people had to die before most found it a worthwhile ambition.

And that was a long time ago.

Everyone has the right to wait until this view comes naturally to them.

But they should know this: next time they wont get it so cheaply.

Look Whos Back is available in paperback from MacLehose.

Anne Enright Ireland

Dear Britain, I have two of your children at least, they might choose to be yours. Their father is British, born and reared. He likes cricket. His name is Murphy. His family moved from Ireland to London after the potato famine of the 1840s and five generations later, they are still called Spud. In 1980 he swapped the friendly racism of Surrey for the friendly racism that English people are subjected to in Dublin, which he finds a bit tiresome. The huge migration that unsettled his family and left them forever subject to cheerful insult involved more than a million refugees who left Ireland for the urban centres of Britain and America. When a population tips like that it is hard to rebalance. Ireland has been weakened by migration ever since, and Britain has been strengthened by it.

I dont think there will be a Brexit because people rarely vote against their clear economic interests (Apart from working class Tories, mutters Mr Murphy). But I would like Britain to stay in Europe for more positive reasons. I could talk about idealism. I could talk about the second world war, or other wars less glorious ask why you dont vote to leave Nato, for example, or the community of nations that went to Iraq but the arguments for Brexit seem based on a fear of being contaminated by foreigners, and fear is never truly idealistic. It is tribal. It is the kind of atavistic thinking that makes me step back from my own nationalism, now and then. So it is easy for me to set aside my Irishness in order to say: I like Britain very much. I mean, I like whatever Britain is a shifting thing, a landscape, a language, a library full of astonishing books, a mosaic of peoples stalled in one migration or another, from the raw Saxon faces you see in East Anglia, to the sari shops of Bradford, to the eyes of my two children, who came from God knows where.

They like the trees, by the way. Also, and in this order: curry, cousins, yorkshire pudding, the way that everything is better funded, the BBC, Bristol, sarcasm, the pub, AFC Wimbledon, Edgar Wright, Topshop and how the politicians seem very polite but are really furious. So now you know.

Of course as an Irishwoman I also have to be cheerfully insulting and say that I am really sorry that Britain lost her empire with all the money and the power that came with it, I know that must be hard for you all. But as you would say to any grand old lady, in her nostalgia and wounded pride, Dont isolate yourself. It must be so tempting to shut the doors and pull the curtains, keep the money under the mattress until the value fades out of the old notes, and think about the past. Which was great, if a little bit unfair. But the world has changed, since Britain was last alone. Dont go. You will not thrive, and we want you to thrive. You are still family to us all.

The Green Road is published by Vintage.

Yanis Varoufakis Greece

Dear Britain, Last year I tried, and failed, to convince the EU top brass to behave humanely toward my long-suffering country. Now, I am writing to you with an odd plea: that you stay in this same EU yes, the one that crushed our Athens spring and has been behaving abominably ever since.

Some will deploy tabloid logic to explain my plea (Varoufakis wants the UK to stay in to pay for Greeces bailouts). Others will accuse me of abandoning the fight for restoring democracy. Yet I trust that your Pythonesque appreciation of paradox will pierce through the seeming contradiction.

The reason I want you to stay in is that voting to leave will not get you out. Rather than escaping the EU, Brexit will keep you tied to a Europe that is nastier, sadder and increasingly dangerous to itself, to you, indeed to the rest of the planet.

The masters of the City will never allow a new Boris Johnson government to even think of leaving the EUs single market, despite Michael Goves musings. Which means that all the gadgets sold in your shops will have to abide by standards made in Brussels, your environmental protection rules will be drawn up in Brussels, and market regulation will be (yes you guessed it) determined in Brussels.

So, even after Brexit, the majority of your laws will be written in the same dreary Brussels corridors as now, except you will have no say in their shaping. With your democracy as truncated as it is now, you will remain stuck, albeit less powerful, in a Europe whose fragmentation Brexit will accelerate.

The EU is undoubtedly bureaucratic, opaque and contemptuous of the parliamentarianism that you and I cherish. You may, therefore, conclude that speeding up the EUs fragmentation is not such a bad idea. Think again! Will its disintegration cause progressive democrats to rise up across Europe, empower their parliaments, usher in the forces of light and hope, and foster harmonious cooperation on the continent? Not likely.

The EUs fragmentation will divide the continent in at least two parts, the major fault line running down the Rhine and across the Alps. In the north east, deflation will rule, with millions of working poor Germans, Poles and so on becoming unemployed. In the Latin part, the order of the day will be inflation with unemployment. Only political monsters will crawl out of this fault line, spreading xenophobic misanthropy everywhere and ensuring, through competitive devaluations, that you will also be drawn into the ensuing vortex.

This is why I am pleading with you to stay in our terrible EU. Europes democrats need you. And you need us. Together we have a chance of reviving democratic sovereignty across Europe. It wont be easy. But it is worth a try.

When I was student, a close friend who hated parties nevertheless never missed one just so that he would have something to bitch about the day after. Please do not be like him. Please stay in the EU with enthusiasm for our common cause: to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them.

And the Weak Suffer What They Must? is published by Vintage.

Riad Sattouf France

Riad Sattouf

The graphic novel The Arab of the Future, Vol 1 by Riad Sattouf is published by Two Roads.

Jonas Jonasson Sweden

Dear Britain, You have many talents. Playing football springs to mind. Brewing decent beer. Speaking a language that people understand. On the other hand, you seem to be having trouble driving. It is the wrong side, you know. But it seems to work, as long as you all make the same mistake.

And you were more than brave during the war. Churchill said all he had to offer was blood, toil, tears and sweat. But he left out self-esteem. You taught the world and yourselves that a Brit is a Brit is a Brit. Meanwhile, Swedes let the Nazis pass through our country, cap in hand.

War is bad. And still Europe engaged in war for a long time in the first half of the 20th century. More than 50 million Europeans died. And we came to sensible conclusions: we decided to work together, across the borders, in such a way that attacking your neighbour would be like attacking yourself. We called it the European Coal and Steal Community, a rather ingenious construction presented by a French politician of German descent. As more countries joined, this community eventually turned into the European Union, and it was quite something. Fifty million died during the first half of the last century. Fifty thousand in the second half. Were it not for the downfall of Yugoslavia, there would be no official number at all.

But then there is this thing called memory. We tend to forget a lot. Like England not being able to beat Sweden in football for 24 straight years (you were just as surprised every time we won). Or like the EU, and what it is really for. In Sweden, people tend to write about how the UK would be worse off leaving the union. The fact that it would be a disaster for the rest of us is given less attention. I think Brexit would be the beginning of the end of an unprecedented period of peace at the heart of Europe. Without you, the EU will crack at its very seams. I wish you would stay, and that all of us together in toil, tears and sweat but not blood will steer the peace project that is the European Union in the right direction. If you accept, you may drive on whichever side of the road you prefer. We will even let you win Euro 2016 this summer. After all, the manager of the England team is practically half Swedish.

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All by Jonas Jonasson is published by 4th Estate.

Kapka Kassabova Bulgaria

Dear Britain, The country I come from is where Europe technically ends today, or begins, depending on your journey. But only technically: recently, in European Turkey, I met people who feel proudly European, just minus the passports. To them, Europeanness, like the secular republic, is a hard-won value, worlds away from Brussels, where beautiful Europa has been nibbled to a drab word. The Turks on the west side of the Bosphorus are perhaps the last European idealists.

It was the Ottomans who gave Europe via the Balkans the word komshulak, neighbourliness, the spirit of living next door convivially, sharing joys and sorrows as the tides of history turn. Komshulak is the highest, if humblest, form of civility. When it breaks down, everything breaks down. Komshulak is at the heart of the battered European project. Battered but not beaten. Let us not be fooled, on these most westerly isles, that there is some better place, once we drift away. There isnt. There is only the cold Atlantic Ocean.

I settled in Edinburgh a decade ago, after a decade in New Zealand: I had returned to Europe, and one of its great cities too. When I moved to the Highlands, I lost none of this essential Scottish Europeanness, with its unfussy love of eccentricity, diversity, and live-and-let-live attitude, this sense of continuity with the continent even in remote glens. And though I love Scotland with an almost unseemly passion, I feel like an adopted Brit. Is that a paradox? Then so is the fact that I feel Balkan and European, in the sense that the Balkans are (whisper it) only partly European. And heres the wonderful rub: Europe is not a monoculture. It is a place where people ride reindeer, grow vines, eat Turkish delight, and call themselves Shetlanders. Ill keep my subscription to that.

Border will be published by Granta in 2017.

Slavoj iek Slovenia

Dear Britain, When Stalin was asked in the late 1920s which is worse, the right or the left, he snapped back: They are both worse! And this is my first reaction to the question of whether or not to leave the EU.

I am not interested in sending love letters to the British public with the sentimental message: Please stay in Europe! What interests me is ultimately only one question. Europe is now caught in a vicious cycle, oscillating between the false opposites of surrender to global capitalism and surrender to anti-immigrant populism which politics has a chance of enabling us to step out of this mad dance?

The symbols of global capitalism are secretly negotiated trade agreements such as the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa) or Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The social impact of TTIP is clear enough: it stands for nothing less than a brutal assault on democracy. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which allow companies to sue governments if their policies cause a loss of profits. Simply put, this means that unelected transnational corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments.

So how would Brexit fare in this context? From a leftwing standpoint, there are some good reasons to support Brexit: a strong nation state exempted from the control of Brussels technocrats can protect the welfare state and counteract austerity politics. However, I am worried about the ideological and political background of this option. From Greece to France, a new trend is arising in what remains of the radical left: the rediscovery of nationalism. All of a sudden, universalism is out, dismissed as a lifeless political and cultural counterpart of rootless global capital.

The reason for this is obvious: the rise of rightwing nationalist populism in western Europe, which is now the strongest political force advocating the protection of working class interests, and simultaneously the strongest political force able to give rise to proper political passions. So the reasoning goes: why should the left leave this field of nationalist passions to the radical right, why should it not reclaim la patrie from the Front National?

In this leftwing populism, the logic of Us against Them remains, however here they are not poor refugees or immigrants, but financial capital and technocratic state bureaucracy. This populism moves beyond the old working class anticapitalism; it tries to bring together a multiplicity of struggles from ecology to feminism, from the right to employment to free education and healthcare.

The recurrent story of the contemporary left is that of a leader or party elected with universal enthusiasm, promising a new world (Mandela, Lula) but sooner or later, usually after a couple of years, they stumble upon the key dilemma: does one dare to touch the capitalist mechanisms, or does one decide to play the game? If one disturbs the mechanisms, one is very swiftly punished by market perturbations, economic chaos and the rest. So how can we push things further after the first enthusiastic stage is over?

I remain convinced that our only hope is to act trans-nationally only in this way do we have a chance to constrain global capitalism. The nation-state is not the right instrument to confront the refugee crisis, global warming, and other truly pressing issues. So instead of opposing Eurocrats on behalf of national interests, lets try to form an all-European left. And it is because of this margin of hope that I am tempted to say: vote against Brexit, but do it as a devout Christian who supports a sinner while secretly cursing him. Dont compete with the rightwing populists, dont allow them to define the terms of the struggle. Socialist nationalism is not the right way to fight the threat of national socialism.

Against the Double Blackmail is published by Allen Lane.

Cees Nooteboom The Netherlands

Dear Britain, Imagine for one moment a peculiar kind of parlour game. Take the famous picture by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, The Congress of Vienna, from 1815. Look at the gentlemen involved, Alexander I, tsar of Russia, the Duke of Wellington, the devious and eternal Talleyrand, accompanied by a poet and a writer, De Lamartine and Chateaubriand. Then of course Metternich, the Bavarians, the Saxons and the Prussians, Karl August Frst von Hardenberg, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. There is even a Dutchman with a German name, Hans Christoph Ernst von Gagern.

The Congress of Vienna by Jean-Baptiste Isabey. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / (C) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016

Now take out Viscount Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Aberdeen and the rest of the British delegation. Remember it is only a game. Make them leave their seats, that means five empty chairs. Look at the intense amazement on the faces of Metternich and Talleyrand. Where are the British? Have they really left the table?

These last few months we have been reading and hearing daily about Brexit. Economists, politicians, commentators have inundated us with arguments for and against. We have lost our innocence. There is no escape. We must have an opinion. Even me. I am not an economist. I am a poet, like Lamartine. And I have written a book on Germany. Does that make me an expert? I was a child during the second world war. My father died in the British aerial bombardment of the Hague in February 1945. But the British did not start the war. Germany did. And the Germans have understood better than most they were on the wrong side of history. Therefore they are now convinced that they do not want a German Europe but a European Germany.

But what if a British absence will force them to fill the European vacuum? Simply, by their specific weight in the middle, by their industrial strength, and by their history, which will determine the history of Europe, because they are there? And how does that affect the other countries of Europe?

I am a European, convinced, against all odds, and amid the sad turbulence of separatists and populists. The Europeans outside Britain cannot decide their fate this time. Now I read that the bosses of hedge funds are supporting the campaign to leave the EU. These are the people who were called not so long ago the dandies of the apocalypse in a French publication but who reads the French newspapers in the UK? David Cameron has spoken about the possibility of a world war. That seems far-fetched rhetoric, and has been ridiculed.

And yet, who dares to bet that if Britain opts out, later historians might not see this as a Versailles moment? Castlereagh and Wellington never left the congress in Vienna, and as far as I am concerned Cameron or Johnson, or Corbyn should stay seated at the tables of Europe. Our problems are manifold, but 50 years of peace is too precious to gamble with.

Letters to Poseidon is published by MacLehose.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/11/dear-britain-elena-ferrante-slavoj-zizek-and-other-european-writers-on-brexit/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/dear-britain-elena-ferrante-slavoj-zizek-and-other-european-writers-on-brexit/