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rauthschild · 1 year

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The British Monarch continues to act as the Overseer of the Pope's Territorial, that is, Commonwealth, interests, to this day, and administers those positions as a "Prince" with the Pope being the "King" over him. This position has grown since the days of King John from simply administering Commonwealth lands in England to administering Territorial lands worldwide and sitting on the Chair of the Estates --- that is, all the Dead Baby Estates -- created worldwide by the dual public and private interests being unconscionably created by private contracts which present themselves as registrations obtained under conditions of fraud and non-disclosure.

This results in a situation where the Pope is the majority Principal in the District of Columbia Corporation and majority interest holder in the District of Columbia Municipal Corporations --and under Ecclesiastical Law, he is also the owner and operator of all corporations, not limited to the Municipal Corporations in question. Thus, the British King acts as Administrator and Middleman -- and gets a healthy 40% cut for his services overseeing the Church's Commonwealth (also known as Territorial) property, with 60% of receipts going to the Holy See and the same general arrangement has long pertained to profit shares from the City of Rome administrators of the Empire of the Cities.

The Municipality of Washington, DC, an unauthorized independent international city state perched on our East Coast, runs its government as a Municipal Corporation that, like the foregoing situation with the British Monarch privately working for the Pope, is brokered by the City of Rome.

One might think of the British Territorial Municipal Corporations as all the various USA corporation franchises, and the City-operated Municipal Corporations as all the various US corporations and their franchises, though this is all much more complex and interwoven in reality.

Think of a round target with a red circle in the middle. That's the Municipal Government. Then imagine a blue ring around the center circle. That's the District Government. Now, imagine a larger yellow circle around the first two elements. That's our American Subcontractor, missing since 1861, the Federal Republic.

It was all supposed to be functioning in an honest and cooperative fashion, but instead, corporations have been used to foster a variety of non-consensual evils and usurpations against the actual lawful government of this country and many other countries, too.

In our case, neither the Territorial nor the Municipal Corporations are functioning within the limits set by the Constitutions that originally created these entities nor are they functioning within the Use Permits that established the District of Columbia and the City of Washington within it. Both have "gone rogue" and participated in a wide variety of unlawful and criminal activities that have impacted the British Homeland, our country, and the former Commonwealth countries, and most of Western Europe and Japan, too. Since the Second World War this pattern of commercial corporations being used to substitute for and usurp upon the lawful governments has spread worldwide, and the evils engendered by Lord Purbright and Cecil Rhodes in South Africa a 140 years ago, have simply grown and proliferated in various institutions to become a world-spanning nightmare.

All have been administered under Color of Law and False Pretensions of custodial and Protectorate interests that don't exist. The brutal Raj-like quasi-military governments and foreign Maritime and Admiralty courts and foreign offices of Territorial Secretaries of State and foreign Territorial Commanders-in-Chief have been imposed and deliberately used to subourne the lawful military forces and unlawfully convert them into mercenary forces, which the Municipal Corporations have misused to promote constant incursions and wars-for-profit on a global scale.

This present genocide is occurring many decades after slavery and biowarfare and mercenary conflicts have been outlawed, and has only been allowed by other crimes of personage and unlawful conversion contrived by the offending corporations responsible.

This Substitution Scheme which has substituted Territorial and Municipal Offices and Officers for the lawful Public Offices and Public Officers they impersonate, have used similar names to fool the public and members of the lawful governments into accepting their authority, when in fact they have no lawful authority and no business being here under these conditions. They have also promoted phony private corporation elections and substituted these for our lawful Public Elections.

This has involved creating an unsuspecting, and indeed, unknowing, electorate of presumed shareholders and presumed franchisees via undisclosed Voter Registration activities. The Voters act under conditions of non-disclosure to elect foreign corporation officers.

The Perpetrators of these criminal activities and private elections to claim that we are all voluntarily participating in this sideshow and agreeing to live under the Administration of these foreign Municipal Corporations and to pay the debts of these foreign corporations whatever their debts may be, and agreeing to obey their every command and so on.... which is all unconscionable and untrue. People here have not knowingly volunteered and not waived any part of their equitable interest in their estates.

None of the people participating in these "elections" know that they are private Municipal Corporation Elections. None of them know that registering to vote in these elections converts their political status. None of them know that the men and women they are voting for are acting as undeclared foreign agents. None of them know that the very offices they are filling via this process are private foreign corporation offices, not the very similarly named Public Offices.

As a result of this Similar Names Deceit and overall Substitution Schemes and undisclosed Registration and other Unconscionable Contracting Processes, there have been no valid Public Elections in this country since 1852 and absolutely none of the legislation passed by any Congress or State-of-State.Legislature from that time to this can be taken seriously for any purpose but the internal administration of these Municipal Corporations, their State-of-State franchises, and their actual employees.

Indeed, every piece of legislation passed by all the Territorial Congresses since the Civil War contain the verbiage admitting this and exempting Americans, even though the Enabling Clauses are not generally published with the legislation. Additionally, none of the similarly named private corporation officials "acting as" Governors and so on, take the Oath of Office required to actually enter the Public Office they are aping. As a result these Municipal Corporation elected officials and appointed officers have no duty to the office and no liability associated with it, but they also have no authority of Public Office, either.

As a result of this Gross Breach of Trust and Malfeasance by the Municipal Corporations and the other Principals involved in this fiasco, we can safely say that we, our venerable Federation of States and our lawful State Assembly Governments, are the only actual and empowered organs of government in this country. What we say has to go, because we are the only ones left with the authority and standing and duty of office to say anything on behalf of this country and its people.

Straightening out this grotesque mess after such a lapse of time will require goodwill and cooperation on the part of all concerned and concerted international effort to return prepaid credit which the victims are owed and also to redefine the monetary system, recoup the physical assets for the benefit of the actual owners, and restructure the banks and the military, as well as putting the courts and the foreign incorporated Territorial and Municipal Government organizations back in their respective limited jurisdictions.

Both the Municipal Corporations inhabiting the District of Columbia, together with all their franchises and agencies, are subcontractors of our Government. Both are obligated to obey and live within their respective Constitutions, which created the Municipal and District Governments, and both are obligated to provide us with certain enumerated services and to do so in good faith.

The District and Municipal Governments however structured as foreign incorporated businesses are obligated to provide enumerated services, and we pay for them. In lieu of a functional American-operated Federal Republic, the powers delegated to that entity revert by Operation of Law to the Delegator, which is our Federation of States.

Please also note that the American Civil War was a commercial Mercenary Conflict. This was not a war declared by our Congress and not a war promoted by our States. It was fought entirely by business organizations and all the "wars" that have been fought ever since have also been fought by business organizations as Mercenary Conflicts. It was all fraudulent and basically illegal on all sides and it provides no basis for any assumption beyond that.

We have to step back and start over on a firm foundation or face our demise as a species.

We cannot pretend that all of this criminality and fraud didn't happen, nor indeed can we pretend that some of it is not ongoing still. We cannot go back and amend the past, nor pay one injustice off by creating another. We must deal with this as it stands in the present moment and go forward as we create a new framework of law, trade, and governance.

What we can and must do, is: (1) put a stop to the fraud and wrong-doing by making immediate administrative changes to correct and limit the operations of the Municipal Corporations and by assisting the lawful governments worldwide to restore order and resume normal operations; (2) recognize the limits of federal authority; (3) retrain the courts and court officers to work for the General Public and administer Public Law; (4) stop misrepresenting private corporation elections as Public Elections; (5) make abundant prepaid credit available for the victims; (6) cease and desist population reduction programs and forced migration and resettlement activities; (7) remove Municipal Corporation Employees and Agency Personnel from leadership positions in the Federal Government that should be filled by our own American Federal Republic workers and which we will temporarily fill with Federation Employees; (8) return the purloined assets, both public and private, which have been cashiered in trusts, to the control of the lawful government and living people these assets belong to; (9) dissolve the public and private trust interests that have been merely presumed to exist and remove all Legal Presumptions attached to these artifices.

Finally note that fraud was involved in the start of The American Civil War in the conduct of the war, and in the administration of everything resulting from that conflict. Fraud has been part of every war and conflict since then.

As the American Civil War has no honor or dignity as a lawful war and as our States have stood as Third Party Non-Combatants and have stayed in honor throughout, there can be no excuse for anyone to assume that our States are at fault for the violent and egregious crime promoted against them, by their Employees and Subcontractors, and even less reason to assume that they are "dead" or "missing" for lack of being called into Session.

Our States and our People were simply left uninformed --- and misinformed, by their Subcontractors acting in Breach of Trust and Service Contract.

Our own ancestors were ambushed while carrying the Great Seals of the United States back home to West Virginia in 1865, and forced to flee for their lives to the Pacific Northwestern United States. Those Seals were last seen in the possession of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and are now rumored to be in the Philippines. They belong to us, literally, and we wish them to be returned.

It was at this same time that the British Fleet had to be blockaded by the Russian Fleet acting under the provisions of our 1858 Russian-American Alliance, to prevent Great Britain from launching an assault against our peaceful civilian government and the living people of this country.. This demonstrates the ill-intent and breach of trust which has enlivened these events from the moment that Lincoln decided to run for a Territorial presidential office and pass it off as The Office of The President of The United States of America.

Having failed to fool our States of the Union into joining their mercenary free-for-all, and having failed thanks to the Russians from overtaking our country physically, the British Monarchs have sought to engender a false "state of war" in this country and have acted under a cloak of secrecy to promote it, the essence of which has been to covertly promote themselves and their Undeclared Agents as Executors de Son Tort, and to establish public trusts in our names using the Dead Franchise, or, as we characterize it, the Dead Baby Scams described herein.

These schemes which seize upon babies by copyrighting their names and unlawfully converting their natural political affiliations have been a scourge for centuries, first at the hands of the Church, and later, at the hands of the British Monarch. It is time for these practices to end and be forever disavowed.

We have been accused of lying, and indeed, it seems like a preposterous idea that the Dead Baby Scam has been going on in the Church since the 1100's and that a variation of this mechanism has been employed by modern secular governments throughout the world, yet the private and public records all yield the same result and so does the administration of the courts and so does the legislative record which in our country yields such chestnuts as the Shepherd - Townsend Act and the Buck Act.

We have also been accused of persecuting the Church and standing in the guise of Martin Luther and even been accused of hating Catholics, but this is not about doctrine or religious beliefs or even politics.

This discussion is about business relationships and crimes committed against faithful employers, it's about contractual obligations that stand firm on the public record, and it's about fraud against babies and their Mothers practiced against them by Undeclared Foreign Agents --- and its about Medical Doctors, Registered Nurses and other Healthcare professionals illegally conscripted into Federal Service via licensing required under color of law, non-disclosure, and misrepresentation of authority.

These fraud schemes and acts of coercion and unlawful conversion all serve one end, and that is the enslavement of mankind under a scheme of Corporate Feudalism. Indeed, this is the only solution that the Perpetrators have that could leave them in power, but it is not to be.

We do not accept any theory of law that blames the victims for this.

No matter who thought all this up and implemented it, and no matter the time period, or the convenience of these unlawful property seizures, we have to believe that mankind is able to create a better rationale for organizing our lives and business affairs than this.

It is plain upon the records of the Roman Catholic Church and embodied in the Apostle's Creed that our bodies are created by and given to us by God, the Creator. It is also plain upon the Public Record and born out by ancient practice of every indigenous nation, that our Given Names are given to us as gifts, either by our families or by other caretakers. This is again supported by the Bible, which admits that we have not yet received our true names, so we must make do with these imperfect gifted names for now.

There can be no doubt then, that each and every one of us is in possession of these gifts, a body that is given to us and a name that is given to us, and that these possessions are ours in absolute terms. There can be no doubt that the body possesses both the land in its bones and the sea in its blood, and that our given names connect us to the realm of thought; thus we are each in possession of our own air, land, and sea and we are both in theory and in fact sovereign beings.

The theft of sovereignty at sea does not disallow nor change it, for like all assets, possession by pirates does not change ownership.

There can be no law or practice that denies our lawful standing and no delusion or fraud insinuated by the operators of the jurisdiction of the sea that can stand against our prior claims, either as individual people or as nations. No artifice of the Curia, no public trust merely presumed to exist, may stand against our embodied spirit.

We wish for the dissolution of all legal presumptions resulting from the contrived infant decedent estates associated with grown and living people, and the commencement of full and honest disclosure. We wish for the dissolution of all public trust interests upon demand, whether these demands are written or verbally expressed. We wish for examination of all public and private corporate offices to prevent the existence of personnel operating as Executors de Son Tort.

We wish for an end to all bankruptcy frauds utilizing the infant decedent estates or other legal persons created by incorporation to create unauthorized franchises of British Crown and or City-operated Municipal Corporations. We wish for the cessation of the use of these franchises as means to dump non-consensual corporate debts onto the backs of the living people.

Yet, the framework of the crimes and property claims that we are considering now is not really about which law system is better or worse, nor even the ownership interests and names of Municipal Corporations. The framework is more fundamental than that, and more the subject of Ecclesiastical Law.

Our ancestors chose to know both Good and Evil, a choice that allowed death and sin to enter the world. This is an education that we literally pay for with our own lives. Whether we hide from Evil or meet it to do battle in an open field, Evil now exists in this world, and it will find us. Evil will accuse us and stand against us until we recognize it and close it out of our lives.

We believe that we must be enabled and prepared to recognize Evil when it slithers its way into our lives, our homes, our businesses, our banks, our governments, or even our churches. We cannot afford to play the part of sheep; we must all in our own right, become shepherds of ourselves and our fellow man.

We believe that those opposed to crime must always expose it and oppose it. We believe that leaving people ignorant of crime only leaves them vulnerable to it, as the current condition of the world more than adequately demonstrates.

How many crimes of unlawful confiscation, imprisonment, and piracy have occurred as a result of the infant decedent estate scams, however well-intentioned they may have originally been? How many such criminal acts have been promoted by the false presumption of war? How many crimes against Man and God have been perpetuated by this system founded on fraud and ignorance?

The crimes of unlawful conversion we have described have resulted in a world turned upside down, a world in which living men and women have been parasitized by legal fictions and impoverished by constructive fraud carried out against them by their own employees and their trusted institutions.

The Church's traditional approach has been to guard the innocence of the populace and to deal with criminality both in their own ranks and in the wider world without engaging the public. It was thought that if people were unaware of the evil around them -- like sheep depending on a shepherd -- they would be kept pure and their minds untainted by evil.

This traditional rationale assumes that Evil is a parasite that does not naturally exist in us nor in our Autochthonous world, and that avoidance of any familiarity with Evil is for the best. Many Church theologians have likened the spread of Evil to the spread of a contagion.

What we call the Germ Theory of Evil is reasonable enough, as we can observe that the Hebrews were, in effect, infected by the Evil ideas and beliefs of the Canaanites and that they fell into these abuses and Evil practices through contact with the Canaanites, Ammonites, Philistines, Babylonians, Egyptians and others.

It was by contact with the Canaanites that the Hebrews made the mistake recorded in First Samuel, Chapter 8, Verse 5.

At the same time, we can see that avoidance of Evil or depending on the Churches to form a bulwark against it, hasn't worked.

The traditional effort to shield the populace from Evil by leaving them ignorant of it, is untenable. With a dwindling number of guardians and a portion of them inevitably becoming polluted with the crimes they deal with, there are not enough resolute shepherds left.

We must all take up the cause, face off evil, and deal with it.

Inevitably, we have wholesale slaughter, as we are experiencing now with the Covid-19 genocide. There have been 56,000 so-called extra deaths in Britain reported this past month, and almost a quarter million such extra deaths each month since January in The United States ---and we cannot begin to count the deaths that have occurred and are occurring in the Third World.

Likewise, the entire continent of Africa is convulsed with imported "civil wars" that are, again, contrived and disguised illegal Mercenary Conflicts promoted by the usual Western European Suspects -- the banks, the commercial cartels, and the elitists who persist in viewing Africa as their colonial possession and a potentially endless supply of cheap mercenaries, now the China has closed the door on them.

An unguarded flock suffers the consequences, and the victims have no way of knowing the evil with which they contend. Like sheep they are led to the slaughter in the courts and in the mercenary armies and there is no place safe for them, even in the Church.

We are consigned to learn these lessons, to know the difference between Good and Evil. We are obliged to develop discernment and make a choice between them. Having developed this discernment and having made the choice for Good, we must be allowed to move on.

The Church has continued its internal struggle, asking who is at fault?

These crimes have become institutionalized, so we have problems here that go beyond any one generation of men. The Perpetrators who set up these criminal operations are all dead and gone. The people who operate these systems now are largely kept clueless about the mechanisms involved.

They don't even realize that they are committing crimes.

So let's bypass all the blame and finger-pointing and deal with what is.

These systems are broken and Evil. They have allowed incorporated fantasies to attack and own living men. They need to be completely reformed, and that will take the thought and effort of many good people throughout the world. Not just the Pope. Not just the Curia. Not just the Vatican Chancery Court.

The problem and the criminality involved is simply too old and too vast. It impacts too many countries and too many religious groups. Fixing it requires public action and ecumenical action, both.

Pope Benedict XVI realized that, and only desired that the criminality should end. As one of my personal detractors pointed out, there is a new Pope in town. Are we supposed to believe that Pope Francis is any less concerned? One of his first actions was to suppress the privateering.

We have not spoken except by email or occasional letters to the Holy See in many years. We have kept them informed of our findings and as each layer of the criminal onion has been peeled back, they have taken action to protect the Church and make administrative corrections, still trying to keep it all bottled up and in-house.

With the recent death of Pope Benedict XVI and the disposition of his Ministerial Office not being a matter of public record, we have more concerns to bring forward.

Like Pope Benedict XVI, we wish for all this criminality on the part of these Municipal Corporations and their managers to be addressed pragmatically and stopped. We wish for the people of this planet to know what has gone on in the past, not to blame anyone alive today, but to ensure that the past does not continue to blight and endanger the future.

It remains to be seen, in his own words, what Pope Francis wants and what the instructions left to him may be. His right and his responsibility to dispose of corporations engaged in unlawful activity is now invoked under Ecclesiastical Law.

We wish for the Church to rise to the occasion and not be afraid of these shadows, embrace the truth however bitter it may be, and resolve to re-examine the world as it is and how it could be.

The truth, in any event, is the only way forward. As men and women we must know our sins and confess them in order to be forgiven. Can it be any different for our institutions and the corporations we create? We must know the wrong and own it, before it can be corrected.

Or are our puny mental constructs immune from the Law of Heaven?

We wish for all of us --- Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Hindu or any Being or religion sentient of our Creator --- to take up our courage and put the ugly corrupt practices of the past away from us.

What we are addressing is a vast interlocking crime resulting in the enslavement of mankind and their servitude to institutions and corporations that are merely constructs of our minds.

We have the natural right to materially exist; these creatures of the mind do not have that right guaranteed to them, and can exist only so long as they operate lawfully, causing no harm to their employers, customers, and benefactors.

We have adequately described the harms and the abuses that have resulted from the misuse, misdirection, and abuse of corporate privileges.

We wish for Alphabet, Inc., Mindbox, Inc., and all related affiliates that have indulged in mind control research and mind control systems and mind control patents to be liquidated and for all patents aimed at enslaving our minds to be disallowed and destroyed.

We wish for Pfizer,Inc., Moderna, Inc., Johnson and Johnson, Inc., Astrazeneca, Inc., WHO, INC., UN CORP, INC., and all related affiliates worldwide to be liquidated for their part in the Covid 19 Operation, and for all patents related to biowarfare activities to be destroyed. We wish for all patents possessed by these organizations to be examined by expert and independent Third Parties, and for all criminal patents, that is, patents related to or employed by the Covid 19 Operation to be destroyed, along with any similar patents susceptible to criminal misuse and abuse.

We wish for Bayer, Inc., and Monsanto, Inc., which is now owned by Bayer, Inc., to be liquidated for their parts, respectively, in the Spanish Flu Epidemic, and for the criminal misuse of Genetically Modified Organisms, and jointly for the deployment of biological and environmental toxins and poisons responsible for the destruction of entire ecosystems and species.

We wish for all patents possessed by these organizations referenced above to be examined by expert and independent Third Parties, and for all criminal patents, that is, patents related to or employed by the Covid 19 Operation or any other criminal purpose, to be destroyed, along with any similar patents susceptible to criminal misuse and abuse.

We wish for SERCO, INC., which has been running the United States Patent and Trademark Office / USPTO, to be examined and liquidated for its part in promoting and allowing criminals to profit from the patent system, and routinely issuing patents for devices and business models and computer programs and machines and chemical products that are overtly criminal in nature.

We wish for the profits that the criminal corporations and their managers and boards of directors made at the cost of polluting the environment with industrial wastes and undermining our health using programs like the fluoridation of municipal drinking water, aerial spraying of coal fly-ash slurries and similar noxious industrial by-products, loading artillery shells with nuclear waste, and even polluting the human genome for profit, to be seized upon and for their unjust enrichment to be redistributed for the benefit of the victims of these crimes against humanity.

We wish for every patent issued in the past fifty years, including those deemed important in terms of National Security to be re-examined and for all patents which are overtly criminal in nature to be disallowed.

It is not the purpose nor the intention of our patent offices to promote crimes for profit.

We wish for these fraud schemes and all the associated crimes of other kinds, unlawful conversion, impersonation, racketeering, etc., and the methods used to implement them, to be known so that we never have to deal with them again.

We wish for the registration of babies and the copyrighting of their names to come to an ignominious end, and for the resulting legal and economic presumptions and non-disclosed public trust and private trust interests alleged against these innocents and their material interests to also be at an end. Let every parent and community take up the responsibility for recording new babies and their provenance, and let the States and Nations establish reliable recording systems for this purpose.

Of all the harms and injuries and injustices that our work has discovered, no one of these offenses is worse than the loss of our Good Name, and to hear it chanted among the other nations how much they hate "America" and how much they hate "Americans" --- never knowing how much we have suffered ourselves, and that our country and people have been misrepresented by foreign Municipal Corporations and their Employees acting in Breach of Trust and violation of their service contracts.

As much as possible, we make our aim and wish to restore our country's reputation for peaceful goodwill and fair-minded dealing among the nations, for we have lost that reputation at the hands of foreign brigands, inland pirates, and licensed privateers.

We wish for the purloined registrations, copyrights, and related public and private trust interests to be returned to the living men and women of all ages to whom these substantive and intellectual assets belong.

As we have examined all the wrong-doing, frauds, and substitutions and all the privateering, breach of trust, and corruption profiting people who have been employed by us and who have been obligated to provide us enumerated government services in good faith this entire time, it is difficult to view all this criminality and bad faith with anything but despair and a sick feeling in the stomach.

We have been pursuing these felons for many years and have to an extent become inured to the stench of corruption, yet we sympathize with those who encounter these conditions for the first time and are overwhelmed by fear and disgust. What can one man or one organization do against this much criminality?

Yet we must do, each one of us, our bit-- trusting that raindrops make oceans and that the joined consciousness of our minds and hearts can overcome and find new ways to organize and fund a far better world.

We wish for peace, for plenty, for kindness, yes, these things far more than any illusory justice, which cannot return our lost time, our lost joy, our lost faith, our lost homes, or our lost loved ones. Some things are beyond the ability of man to repair. Some crimes only our Creator can assuage.

Yet, the Vatican Chancery Court operating in Original Jurisdiction and under the Ecclesiastical Law, is empowered to render the most complete justice available among men. So here we lodge our claims and seat them and we confess that these words of ours are, to the best of our knowledge and belief, both true and accurate. We affirm them before men and with the Witness of the True God, and so we establish our names and signs and seals in token of this action and testimony against the offending corporations that have harmed us, harmed our countrymen, harmed our country, and harmed the whole world.

This completes our testimony and claims before the Vatican Chancery Court, in direct and observable affirmation of unlawful activities by the named and associated Municipal and Commercial corporations:

The United States of North America, in the Family of Nations, Law of Nations

SideBar: It was our Autochthonous Unincorporated Black, Brown and Coppertone Forefathers that Pronounced to the world, the "A Declaration" of July 4th, 1776. Thus, only USNA can declare war and Nuke Washington DC.

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nijjhar · 1 year

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Data Protection Act is of the antichrist promoting fraud. It is the FRUI... Data Protection Act is of the antichrist promoting fraud. It is the FRUIT of the Racist COE. Nathaniel was the TRUE SALT of Nobel Abraham with no duplicity or hypocrisy. https://youtu.be/sifIew7QuEQ Youtube channel - Truthsoldier I served in the satanic Iraq war. I openly am shamed for that and I asked for forgiveness for taking part in that war. I actually had my awakening while over in Iraq. My eyes were opened to the injustice of that war. The Iraqi people loved Saddam; they had whole stories with nothing but Saddam’s face on everything. Since then I have been speaking out against the US and ISRAEL on my Youtube channel. Here is my contribution:- Holy spirit, common sense, shatters the fetters of the dead letters, the Holy Books. If we have One God, our Supernatural Father of our souls, then there should be one Faith. In Christianity, Jesus said One Fold called the Church of God headed by One Shepherd, our Bridegroom Christ Jesus/Christ = Satguru Nanak Dev Ji, the Second coming of Jesus. Solid Proof; this Golden Temple is of the same size as the Holiest of Holy that used to be in Jerusalem and its Curtain held the Secrets of the Oral Torah = His Word was rendered from the Top, the Temple High Priests, to the Bottom, the village Rabbis off you go – Luke 16v16; Law and Prophets were till John and thus, everyone makes a direct approach to God through His Word = Logo = SATGUR PARSAD. So, these hireling Dog-Collared Priests and Mullahs, cannot give your account to God as the Rabbis used to give at Passover. So, they are "ANTICHRISTS" that have a following of the spiritually blind Super Bastard Fanatic Devils - John 8v44 -, Hindu, Jew, Sikh, Christian, Muslim, etc. Outwardly, and not spiritually inwardly. These spiritual selves Hindu, Jew and Christian, are never born like Christ, the Title and they never die but the tribal selves Judah, Levi, Jatt, Tarkhan, etc. were born and they will die. Thus, Jesus was born and Jesus died on the Cross and rose on the Third Day and NOT CHRIST, THE TITLE. Books:- ONE GOD ONE FAITH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf Greatest Blasphemers and Killers Blair and Bush being considered by Anti-Christ Bishops for Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Peace Prize should rather go to Assange and the Iraqi Journalist who threw both his shoes at the hypocrite Bush in Iraq. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qHdTpTXHvE&list=PL0C8AFaJhsWz7HtQEhV91eAKugUw73PW1 Christ Jesus was killed by the Temple High Priest Hypocrite/Blasphemer against the Holy Spirit and so are these Bush and Blair who at the backing of Jewish people in the USA destroyed one country after the other starting with the cradle of Humanity Iraq, the Land of the forefather of the Chosen People who are no more faithful to Abraham but has become sons of the Highest Satan Al-Djmar Al-Aksa. Blair and Bush’s blasphemies against Holy Spirit are bearing Fruit in economic chaos created by Virus https://youtu.be/0WBYOmpDuCs American Jews are today – http://www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/GrimReaper.htm Destroying one country after the other, so that the scripture is fulfilled. Also, do not forget the partition of India and how the dirty hearted-British divided the homeland Punjab of the brave Jatt tribal soldiers who fought in the two World Wars for the British. Very difficult Parable to understand but if you know Christ Jesus came to set us Free of the Clutches of these hireling Dog-Collared Priests working for Mammon or slave to Mammon and the Queen in England in which they glorify the soldiers who died in world war whilst we glorify God by serving the people as the Salvation Army Brethren do and they are nearest to God but hated by the Church of England Priests looking forward to becoming the Lord in the House of Lords one day, then you can well imagine how spiritually blind these stooges of Mammon are? And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but His Friends and not the disciples rebuked them because the standard of His Preaching was too high for the little unbiased children. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the clean-hearted people like the children come to me; do not prevent them as these hypocrite Dog-Collared Priests do, for the Royal Kingdom of God belongs to such as these that Jesus proclaimed Nathaniel was, no speck of hypocrisy. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the Royal Kingdom of God like the unbiased heart of a child will not enter it." placing his hands on them. Remember that in this Dark Age of Christ, everyone has to give his own account to God. Anyone, Pope and these Priests who stand between man and God is the Antichrist. My ebook by Kindle. ASIN: B01AVLC9WO Full description:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/Rest.htm Any helper to finish my Books:- ONE GOD ONE FAITH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf and in Punjabi KAKHH OHLAE LAKHH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/pdbook.pdf John's baptism:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/johnsig.pdf Trinity:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/trinity.pdf

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cyclone-rachel · 2 years

Text

thoughts on The Boys, season 3

Episode 7

okay, penultimate episode time!

“this series deals with sensitive issues, including death by suicide and contains scenes that could be sexual, graphic, or taboo in nature. No living people or animals were harmed or coerced. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.”

Well geez, where was this warning for the rest of the show up to now?

strong quotations around “rehab”

they think Homelander dumped her?

that certainly looks like a mistake

which is what?

he’s not wrong

oh my god

this scene is wild

so he actually has powers here?

fucker

get away from her!!!

ooooooh

You stepped on one of them, Homelander

She’d be fine losing her powers if it meant getting the fuck away from you

ew. ew. ew.

you also probably imagined having kids with the literal nazi

Are you sure?

you’re a fucking creeper and I hate you

what are the other two?

I love Annie and Kimiko so much

I don’t know if that’s as easy as it sounds

Basically, yes

“Aside from the two of us, I guess.”

no good ever comes from a place like this

is he a brony

okay I guess not

ERIC BAUZA? ONE OF MY FAVES ERIC BAUZA? NICE

this is weirder than that time the Deep hallucinated his gills talking to him

That’s gross

oh shit what was that

Ah, Butcher’s in his mind-prison

He sure says some wild shit

yeah so this dude is terrifying actually

And what do you care about the Lord?

Everyone’s a mess here.

Damn, Annie

that doesn’t mean he isn’t worth saving

You just lost them, and you were happy about it

I love her so much

I agree with Hughie here, man.

Give her some credit.

do you want to have a threesome with her and an octopus?

oh my GOD that was a JOKE

the deep: I can excuse sexual assault but I draw the line at sea creature misgendering

Hey, he offered to share.

who’s Dave Eggers

oh geez what is this

“Black Sheep Noir”, I love it

YIKES

YIKES. YIKES. YIKES.

young Butcher is perfect, like in terms of acting

yeah you can see exactly where he got his life philosophy from

The guys from the Believe conference?

Not a good combination

And clearly Hughie doesn’t want to be a soldier

fuck you, Homelander

Liar, lying liar

do you think the media caught that?

thanks, Vic

Homelander you weirdo

Again, thank you, Vic

Are you sure he’s going to be the president?

But you’re gonna fuck anyway probably

What’s her favor?

Oh, he’s okay.

Ashley, putting the “gaslight” in “gaslight gatekeep girlboss”

what in the goddamn fuck

this is just like those weird memes about one direction I think

Your wife’s gonna find out now

sorry what

Kimiko, honey

he’d always dance with you

Do you really think that would work?

are we going to see what it says

yes! yes! yes!

I love them so much

My good brave girl

Annie do you know what you’re doing

oh dear

why is he getting this narrated to him?

OH NO

ouch

So that’s what really happened

thank you, MM

I’m glad she’s not okay with it

dude. he has Starlight in his home right now

How do you know that?

oh noooooo

Annie get out of there girl

fucking asshole

love you, Annie

lots of windchimes

You don’t sound chill

He’s not going to put on underwear?

Aww, Hughie admitting Butcher is his friend

and now I’m hoping for a Hughie and Kimiko conversation

Aw, Butcher no

this certainly isn’t foreshadowing anything at all

oh that went THROUGH his eye

ouch

the green light for what?

what’s impossible?

the John Walker Special right there, everyone

is Butcher okay

so like in Uglies

He’s not gonna tell him

Oh no

how long do you have?

thank you, Annie

Well, shit

You’re so gross

DAD? HE’S A FATHER? HE’S HOMELANDER’S FATHER?

#papa don't look #the boys #the boys season 3 #the boys spoilers #rachel talks about stuff

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cincinnatusvirtue · 2 years

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William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146/47-1219). Greatest Knight of the Middle Ages...

If you hear the term Middle Ages or Medieval Era, at least in a European context one visual that might form in the popular imagination is that of the knight. Bedecked in armor, astride a horse, armed with lance, sword & shield prepping for war. While acting in accordance with a code of conduct known as chivalry, one that stereotypically stressed virtues of loyalty, martial prowess, gentlemanly behavior towards others, including in courtship among other virtuous behaviors.

The truth regarding Medieval knighthood is one far more complex when reviewing the individuals who actually embodied it. Knighthood and what it meant to be and even to look like as a knight developed over a long period of time, it was never that static of a concept. Concepts similar to knighthood can be found in many cultures the world over and many predate the popular European concept of knighthood in the Middle Ages. When you consider the Middle Ages was roughly bookended with the fall of the two halves of the Roman Empire. Starting with the fall of the Western Roman Empire to waves of invasions, primarily to Germanic tribes in the 5th Century AD to the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire in the mid 15th Century AD to the Ottoman Empire, you have about 1,000 years of history to cover, alot of time for a concept to take hold and evolve.

I want to focus on one individual said to epitomize our popular concept of the knight, who lived during the period of time where the notion of European knighthood crystalized from its embryonic concepts to the first flowering of our classical understanding of knighthood & chivalry. The individual said embody this most was man born in 12th century England, an Anglo-Norman by the name of William Marshal. In his native Norman French, he would have been Williame il Mareschal...

The Early Days:

-William Marshal was born in England around the year 1147 AD. His exact place of birth isn’t known but his parentage is. He was the younger son of a minor Anglo-Norman noble by the name of John FitzGilbert, AKA John Marshal and Sibyl of Salisbury. Both from Anglo-Norman families that had formed the new nobility of England following the 1066 Norman Conquest initiated by William, Duke of Normandy (William the Conqueror) who became King of England and united the Duchy of Normandy in Northern France with the whole of England.

-The Normans who descended from Vikings from Scandinavia and settled in Northern France in the late 9th & early 10th centuries. They converted to Christianity and adopted the French language and mixed in with the local Frankish, Flemish & Gallic peoples of France. Here they formed their own unique ethnolinguistic & cultural group. One best known for the martial prowess inherited from their paternal Viking origins combined with devout religious fervor & culture from their adopted French homeland.

-With the Norman Conquest of England started in 1066, the Normans replaced the Anglo-Saxon nobility in most instances with soldiers who accompanied Duke William and their families being granted estates of land throughout England, often at the expense of former Anglo-Saxon rulers.

-The Normans changed the ruling elite, architecture & some linguistic influence of French into England but the majority populace remained Anglo-Saxon.

-As time went by the communities remained somewhat segregated but did learn to interact. The Normans and their Anglo-Saxon subjects over the next century expanded into Wales, southern Scotland & eventually Ireland, becoming the first wave of lasting English influence on the Emerald Isle, more on that later.

-William’s eventual moniker and surname of Marshal, came from his father’s position as hereditary royal marshal. It was a position as an official marshal to the Anglo-Norman King & Duke, generally aiding in access within the king’s household. Nevertheless, for John FitzGilbert, it did not bring large estates and the role was relatively minor in importance.

-Only during the period of civil war known as the Anarchy (1138-1153 AD) did John FitzGilbert rise to a level of semi-importance. The Anarchy revolved around succession to the throne of England & Normandy. Henry I, King of England and last son William the Conqueror to rule England & Normandy found his reign from 1100-1135 in a succession crisis at the time of his death. His legitimate son and heir, William Adelin died at age 17 in 1120 during the White Ship accident on November 25th of that year. The ship hosted a large drinking party of royalty & nobility including the Anglo-Norman heir apparent. The ship disembarked from Normandy to cross the English Channel for England when it struck a rock and most of the people aboard drowned including William Adelin.

-William Adelin’s importance was to unite the political elements of England, Normandy & Scotland into one person. His father of Norman extraction and his mother Matilda of Scotland was born to the King of Scotland Malcolm III & the Anglo-Saxon princess Margaret of Wessex, one of the last vestiges of the displaced ruling house of Wessex which had ruled Anglo-Saxon England for over a century prior to the Norman Invasion. With his death these hopes were seriously endangered.

-William Adelin did have a sister Matilda (1102-1167) who married Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor from 1114 until his death in 1125. Matilda then married in 1128 Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou. Anjou like Normandy was a feudal state within Medieval France which was nominally in service to the French king but was effectively independent as the French king could only wield limited power to rein in his nobles at the time.

-Henry I on his death bed made his Anglo-Norman nobles swear to recognize his daughter Matilda as Queen and her successors as the legitimate rulers of England & Normandy. However, the problem of her sex & the fact that she was previously married to the German Emperor meant she appealed to less than some of the nobles. Her opposition came from her cousin and fellow grandchild of William the Conqueror, Stephen of Blois.

-Stephen, with backing from the English Church had himself crowned King of England on December 22, 1135, within days of Henry I’s death. Stephen had been one of the nobles who previously gave oath this uncle that would recognize Matilda as Queen. Despite his usurpation of the throne, it was didn’t immediately cause an outbreak of war.

-Stephen first dealt with troubles from Scotland and then returned to southern England to issue a series of reforms from the times of Henry I, reforms which were intended to shore up support for his rule by addressing so called royal abuses of noble privilege during the reign of Henry I. He then dealt with rebellion in Wales and gradually trouble from his cousin Matilda & her husband Geoffrey of Anjou who invaded Normandy.

-In 1138, Robert, Earl of Gloucester who was half-brother of Matilda & son of Henry I through a mistress rebelled against Stephen and this pushed England itself into civil war as various nobles in Normandy & England took up us the causes of Matilda & Stephen.

-In this environment John FitzGilbert who initially professed loyalty to Stephen and was granted castles in Wiltshire County and elsewhere as a result. In 1141 he switched his loyalty to Matilda and her supporters. Matilda even briefly sought refuge in one of his castles. While covering a retreat for her John himself took up refuge in an abbey that was set ablaze by Stephen’s supporters. This resulted in the loss of an eye due to dripping lead from the melting roof.

-The Anarchy went off and on over 14 years and John in 1152 was confronted at Newbury Castle in Berkshire by Stephen and his army. During the siege, John’s young son, William (Marshal) was taken hostage by King Stephen. The young boy, no more than seven years old was taken as hostage to ensure the compliance with surrender of the castle but John reneged on the deal with the king. Angry, Stephen threatened to load the young William on a catapult and slam his body against the castle walls as a sign of his determination. John merely mocked the king, saying he could kill his son, for he would make “newer and better sons”. For reasons unknown, Stephen who wasn’t entirely known for being ruthless appears to have taken pity on the boy and spared him. However, he did keep him as a prisoner for several months.

-Matilda & Geoffrey’s son, was Henry FitzEmpress who had become Duke of Normandy in 1150 with his father’s capture of the Duchy. Henry on behalf of his mother’s claim ventured to England in 1153 and ultimately agreed to a final settlement with Stephen as both sides were militarily exhausted with little change in their situation. A truce was agreed to with the understanding that Stephen would remain King of England for the rest of his life but that he would adopt his cousin Henry FitzEmpress as his son and successor. Matilda would therefore not reign herself, but her son would succeed to the throne and reunite England & Normandy under one ruler plus bringing in his inheritance from his father of the County of Anjou.

-Stephen died in 1154 and Henry took the throne of England as Henry II, great-grandson of WIlliam the Conqueror, grandson of Henry I. In addition to England, Normandy & Anjou, his 1152 political marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine heiress to the wealthy Duchy of Aquitaine in southwest France, herself a former Queen Consort of France during her marriage to Louis VII of France. Her marriage was annulled in 1152 prior to marrying Henry, then Duke of Normandy. This marriage brought into a unified political realm that eventually saw all of England from the borders of Scotland, parts of Wales, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine which bordered the Pyrenees mountains with Spain come into being. It would go on to include other French possessions including the Duchy of Brittany, Toulouse and the Lordship of Ireland. This became known as the Angevin Empire, derived from the paternal origins of Henry in Anjou with its historical capital in Angers, France, ruled by the House of Plantagenet, so named from Geoffrey V of Anjou’s habit of wearing a sprig of flower in his hat.

-John FitzGilbert went on to become the Marshal of Horses under Henry II and this became a hereditary position for his family. The position was meant to keeper of King’s horses but eventually became a kind of leader of household troops. It would be inherited by his elder son John Marshal, William’s brother. After his later death in 1194 it would officially transfer to William, becoming an early surname and eventually popularizing the name Marshal.

-William’s prospects were not great being a minor noble’s younger son meant next to no inheritance would go to him. Instead, he was at the age of 12 sent to a relative of his mother Sibyl of Salisbury who was sister of Patrick, Earl of Salisbury. This relative was William of Tancarville, a Norman noble who was lord of Chateau de Tancarville. Sent from England to Normandy, William began an apprenticeship under his mother’s cousin and began being trained in knighthood.

Becoming a Knight

-For roughly a six-year period in Tancarville, William Marshal was trained in horse riding, swordsmanship and fighting in the Norman tradition. He was trained in the early concepts of chivalry, the code of conduct by which knights were to abide by in all aspects of life. It meant loyalty to a lord, stressed physical prowess in combat but also gentlemanly honor in dealing with all individuals. The ultimate goal of a knight was to live in accordance with chivalry, expressed in loyalty to a lord by being part of the noble or royal master’s retinue of troops. In exchange for loyal service, they would be furnished with pay, food shelter & perhaps eventually grants of land themselves, though this latter perk was no guarantee.

-We know William’s training was several hours a day and involved not only combat but etiquette and culture, his apprenticeship was akin to both military basic training and boarding school in his day. He would have learned how to behave at the dinner table, learning the manners of his day. He also would have had some additional cultural training involving the arts. However, he would primarily be known for his physical prowess in combat training and the cultural training wouldn’t initially hold much sway with young William. Though it would nevertheless serve to provide a foundation for how he “should” act. Providing the diplomatic basics that would he come to utilize later in life.

-He was knighted in 1166 while in Upper Normandy which was facing invasion from the County of Flanders. He saw his first taste of battle which was yielded mixed results. He was remarked as brave and determined in combat though his prized horse was killed in battle underneath him. Horses were the most expensive part of a knight’s cost.

-Each knight from a retinue generally had multiple horses in the 12th century. A small horse or general travel, horses for transport of weapons & armor and war horses. Arabian horses brought to Europe by way of Italy & Spain were the most prized. The war horse was on its own more expensive than multiple other horses, armor & weapons. It was roughly the cost of several thousand goats on a farm in England or France circa 1170.

-Armor and weapons for knights in William’s day also did not consist of the shining and ornate full body armor of the later 13th & 14th centuries. Instead, it consisted of a hauberk or shirt of chainmail, occasionally some plates of armor and, a coif of chainmail on the head & helmet. The helmet did not cover the full face leaving them somewhat vulnerable to blows to the face. Otherwise with the weapons of the day, knights were virtually impervious to blows. Though injury could occur in many cases, death in battle among knights was actually not very common, relative to the common soldiery who had much lessor no armor by virtue of expense. The knights brandished a sword typically, along with a medium or large almost triangular shield. On horseback they also brandished a simple wooden lance. Lances were prone to breaking after one use or if lucky repeated use, but they could yield serious injury and occasionally death.

-The object of knight-on-knight battles was not always death or even injury but to render your opponent ineffective. Especially, to unhorse and capture your opponent as not all battle was honor driven but instead for profit. Knights who unhorsed and captured their opponents would take them as hostage and could negotiate for their release later on to be paid by the knight themself or their master since both were usually of noble and relatively wealthy backgrounds. Knighting was expensive but could be incredibly profitable and this served as motivation to join in this marital brotherhood.

-After this brief war, Flanders and the Angevin Empire made peace. William soon found himself also attending knight tournaments. These festive events were gradually becoming a popular spectator sport in the latter half of the 12th century. They were officially banned in England but not so in the rest of the Angevin realm, being popular in France and elsewhere in continental Europe including Germany and other parts of the Holy Roman Empire. These events were condemned by the church and did not generally allow women to attend and weren’t usually filled with spectator stands like later centuries. Nor did they tend to involve one on one jousts.

-Instead, these events which were embryonic in these days were a mix of ever- increasing pageantry filled with a series or one rather large melee of knights from different retinues acting as teams. The goal to capture as many hostages from opposing teams as possible for profit and increase in reputation. It is true retinues began to fly unique banners of their lords but early on the Norman knights would have flown under the banner of the Norman lions.

-William’s initial outings in tournaments were mixed in results like in battle. He appears to have been determined and quite physical. He was noted for his large size physical strength landing hard blows of lance and sword, but he appears to have been headstrong occasionally rushing into battle with little more than anger and courage on his side. This could lead to his own capture at times or yield only a few prisoners of his own. He would have to refine his technique in time.

-Suddenly, he found himself without William de Tancarville’s patronage anymore in 1168 for reasons not entirely known, with little prospects and still mostly unknown. He returned to England and found himself working for his uncle Patrick of Salisbury instead, quickly becoming part of his retinue.

-Later that year while Patrick of Salisbury was escorting Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine to her homeland, her escort was ambushed by rebels from the House of Lusignan, minor nobles in the region who rebelled against Henry II & Eleanor, hoping to use the queen as a bargaining chip for political gain. In the ambush, the Queen escaped but Patrick of Salisbury was killed with a lance blow by one of the rebels. This angered William who rushed headstrong as ever into battle. Again, he fought with determination but cutoff from his retinue he was wounded in the thigh and taken prisoner. He suffered a wound from which he made his own tourniquet to slow the bleeding. He was a prisoner for months and given clean linens with which to wrap his wound, until ransomed by Queen Eleanor herself, supposedly on the grounds of his brave reputation in the defense that allowed her escape.

-William served as part of her personal retinue for the next two years. He took part again in occasional tournaments, refining his skills.

Service to the Kings of England: Henry the Young King

-1170 saw the appointment of William Marshal as tutor in arms to Henry II & Eleanor’s eldest son and heir, the jointly crowned “junior” King of England, Henry the Young. Henry was crowned in June 1170 at age 15.

-Henry the Young King while in name a co-ruler with his father had no practical power. He was given an allowance and was politically married to Margaret of France, princess & daughter of the French king, Louis VII, former husband of Henry the Young’s mother.

-In time Henry the Young King appears to have been under the influence of others around him and in conspiracy with his brothers Geoffrey & Richard, his mother Eleanor & his father-in-law Louis VII of France, Scotland & some Anglo-Norman nobles he began the Great Revolt of 1173-74. William had to make a choice, loyalty to the King Henry II who was his overlord or his immediate lord, Henry the Young King his appointed lord who he trained in knightly arms. He chose to ride with Henry the Young King and made his way to France to take part in the rebellion.

-Ultimately, the rebellion teetered back and forth much like Anarchy of decades before. However, Henry II would be victorious in battle defeating his wife & sons. The motivations were varied but it seems to have centered around Eleanor’s desire to see her sons replace her husband, in part because of her estrangement from him due to his marital infidelity and her desire to see Aquitaine independent of his rule. France & Scotland wanted England & Normandy weakened and more amenable to their own political aims.

-Eleanor was imprisoned for the next several years in a castle in England. Meanwhile, Geoffrey & Richard would be given political positions in their own right to satisfy their desires as they reconciled with their father. Geoffrey would still be Duke of Brittany, Richard still Duke of Aquitaine and Henry the Young King, still junior King of England. However, Henry the Young King did not enjoy much more than an increased allowance and was kept under strict observation by the Henry II initially.

-William & Henry the Young King appear to have bonded quite well during the rebellion, Henry appreciated the loyalty and William the continued patronage. Their does appear to have been evidence of a true friendship. This would only become more apparent in the ensuing years.

-William Marshal became part of the Henry the Young King’s retinue in knightly tournaments over the next few years. Both became obsessed with the sport and in time, went from being little regarded to among the most respected in tournaments.

-Having learned some tricks from Philip I, Count of Flanders, both Henry & William learned to begin winning the day seizing many opposing knights in these melees. Sometimes by what we may regard as less than fair means in the modern sense but still within the rules of the day. One tactic involved not announcing to partake in the melee until it was already under way, then joining in the fray after the first contact, this caught opponents off guard and allowed them to be captured. Otherwise, William’s combination of great physical size, strength and steely determination and renown for unhorsing opponents with hard lance hits and unmatched sword blows coupled with a favored technique of grabbing the opponents horse bridle in one hand with sword in the other while “steering” the opponent away from the fray until they surrendered made him especially successful. By 1179-1180 William Marshal was a relative celebrity on the tourney circuit in Europe. He was feted for his bravery & guile in battle along with his sense of honor and humility outside of battle.

-Two recorded stories sum of his becoming he epitome of the knightly gentleman. Due to his own renown, William was with some persuasion to Henry the Young, allowed to represent himself in some tournaments and he began to develop his own personal small retinue. On the evening before a tournament in France, he ventured into the host town to stay with a local noble. He left his prized hors with a local boy for safekeeping outside the local lord’s home. During a toast to his honor the sound of a thief making off with Marshal’s horse led to him pursuing the criminal on foot. He doggedly pursued the offender and captured him while he was hiding behind a bale of hay in an alleyway. He proceeded to beat the criminal but would not let him face capital punishment. This act showcased his willingness to defend his honor & property but also his mercy towards others. The second story involved a tournament being held in which William held his own but only had mixed results on the day though his bravery was unquestioned. The tournament organizers looked to present an honorary dedication to a knight on that day, a sort of “knightly MVP” of the tournament. They couldn’t decide on one until William Marshal was so named, he reputedly tried to turn down the honor, saying he was not worthy of it but nevertheless accepted it after their insistence, demonstrating his chivalric humility.

-By William’s own later recollection, he captured about 500 knights in tournament career. His winnings made him wealthy and his reputation for success, bravery and gracious behavior made him a celebrity of his time. He had also earned the right to has have his own retinue & bear his own arms in tournament. His coat of arms would remain with him for his life. A red lion rampant on a shield half green and half gold.

-Yet, he lacked the remaining perks of some fellow knights, land and a title. Henry the Young King could not provide him these officially. In time, the two best friends had a falling out circa 1182. The reasons aren’t clear, but one accusation was William having an affair with Margaret of France, Henry’s wife which has never been proven. In could be due to William’s own greed or desire to pressure Henry for his benefit whatever the reason he was dismissed from Henry’s service

-In 1183 they reconciled with Henry went to war with his brother Richard. Henry II intervened on Richard’s side and in May of that year, William was cleared of any wrongdoing he was accused of and returned to Henry’s service, but it was too little too late. Henry the Young King died as age 28 in June 1183.

-Henry on his death bed got William to commit to take up the cross and go on Crusade to the Holy Land.

-William undertook this venture in late 1183 by travelling to Jerusalem with Henry II’s blessing. There is little to no record of his activities while on Crusade, but he did make a promise there that on his deathbed he would be received as a Knights Templar, a Christian military order that partook in the Crusades. Presumably, William partook in military activities, but this could not be definitively determined.

Service to the Kings of England: Henry II’s final years

-Upon returning from Crusade in 1185, William Marshal found himself a captain in Henry II’s army and in personal service to the king.

-He was granted a land holding Cumbria and offered a bride from a minor noblewoman in the north of England. William would decline the offer.

-Henry II would find himself at war with Philip II, King of France and son of former king Louis VII. This war was for control of the region of Berry in central France.

-During this conflict, Richard, Duke of Aquitaine and now Henry II’s heir given his elder brother’s death in 1183 had turned to side with Philip II.

-During a battle, William personally charged Richard and knocked him off his horse killing the animal with his lance. He reminded the Duke of Aquitaine and prince he could have killed him but chose not to out of respect. William Marshal went down in history as the only man to unhorse Richard.

-Henry II died that same year and Richard despite his rebellion against his father was still named heir apparent & now rose to the throne as King of England and Duke of Normandy. Known as Richard I or Richard the Lionheart.

Service to the Kings of England: Richard the Lionheart

-Richard I had received news of the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt & Syria. He was to partake in the Third Crusade to restore the Holy Land to Christian rule. This would involve a planned alliance with Philip II of France & Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor. Richard would go onto take control of Cyprus and best Saladin in a series of battles, notably the Siege of Acre & Battle of Arsuf. Though he failed to retrieve Jerusalem. The two rulers had a martial respect for one another and agreed to a truce and the coastal territories of the Holy Land remained in Christian hands with free passage of pilgrims to holy sites. While Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands.

- Prior to his departure for the Holy Land, Richard upon becoming king recognized the martial talents of William Marshal. Rather than ignore or punish him, he sought to keep Marshal in his service.

-Henry II was prior to his death looking to finally grant Marshal a marriage that would land him fortune, vast estates and title for his service. He settled on the 17-year-old Isabel de Clare, Countess of Pembroke. Isabel was an Hiberno-Norman (Anglo-Irish) noblewoman. The daughter of Richard de Clare 2nd Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow. Strongbow was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and soldier who hailed from the de Clare noble family which held many castles throughout England and had served the Norman Kings of England. Strongbow was responsible for leading one of the first English invasions of Ireland which was to have lasting permanent effects on that island. Due to a civil war between Irish kingdoms, the King of Leinster Dermot MacMurrough, ruler of an Irish petty kingdom in eastern Ireland was kicked out by his rivals. He left for England and appealed to Henry II who was campaigning in France for assistance in regaining his throne. Henry did not personally join but did allow Dermot to organize a mercenary army of Anglo-Norman nobles to assist in regaining his throne. Strongbow being one of these mercenary leaders made a deal with Dermot, in exchange for this restoration to the throne, Strongbow would marry Dermot’s daughter Aoife (Eva) of Leinster, gain lands in Ireland and became his co-heir with Aoife as his bride.

-Strongbow and other Anglo-Norman lords and their small but well-armed retinues made short work of the Irish opposition in 1171. Dermot was restored to the throne of Leinster, peace was made with his rivals, Strongbow married Aoife & gained power in Ireland. Too much power in Henry II’s eyes.

-Strongbow & Henry II worked out a deal, due to an earlier dispossession of his lands in England & France because siding with Stephen in the years of the Anarchy against Matilda, he wasn’t recognized in certain titles. In exchange for relinquishing control of now Anglo-Norman settled strongholds in Ireland, namely Dublin and other key cities to the King of England, Strongbow would be allowed to retain lands in Ireland, plus his lands in Wales and regain holdings in England & France, making him one of the richest and most powerful Anglo-Norman lords in all the realm. He was also named 1st Lord of Leinster & Lord Justicar of Ireland. In other words, the King of England’s chief justice or representative in Ireland, the first of 700 years of English rule that was to follow.

-Strongbow died in 1176 and his son Gilbert died in 1185 but his daughter with Aoife, Isabel survived into adulthood and was allowed to inherit the landholdings and title of Countess of Pembroke from her parents.

-In August 1189, Henry II’s promise to marry Isabel to William Marshal was upheld by Richard I of England, fulfilling his father’s arrangements.

-William was made Earl of Pembroke by virtue of his marriage a decade later in 1199. He also gained all the rights to most of Isabel’s lands that once belonged to his illustrious father-in-law. He was wealthier than ever with all these land holdings from Ireland to Wales, England & Normandy.

-William was 43 at his marriage & his wife 17 but despite the age difference & political motivations, the marriage was by all accounts a genuine love affair. Both spouses were loyal to each other and 5 sons and 5 daughters. Many people numbering in the thousands if not greater descend from this union into the modern age.

-Richard I made William a member of his regency council upon his leaving for the Crusades in the Middle East.

-During this time William played the role of diplomat and statesman, helping the council of regents to oversee & rule England in the king’s stead. He sometimes sided with Prince John, youngest son of Henry II & Eleanor of Aquitaine.

-Upon William’s older brother John’s death in 1194, he was allowed to inherit John’s lands and title of royal marshal which in turn could pass to his sons.

-Prince John fought against his brother Richard’s loyal regents including William Marshal and he also joined in Richard’s Norman campaigns against Philip II of France as the ongoing power struggle between France’s royal House of Capet & England’s Norman derived royal House of Plantagenet continued to play out for control of Western Europe.

-On Richard’s deathbed in 1199, he made William Marshal custodian of the Norman capital of Rouen plus the royal treasury. Richard was succeeded by his brother John.

Service to the Kings of England: John I & the Magna Carta

-John I took the reins of power in 1199 and William was entrusted with defending Normandy from the French king, but it was ultimately lost as a whole in 1203.

-John alternated with William being in his favor and not being in his favor. John allowed William to serve as an ambassador to Philip II of France where he had to do homage on behalf of the King of England to the French king. William hoped to do so would allow him to personally retain lands in Normandy given his knighthood developing there. However, the French king insisted on a personal homage for this, something not authorized by John. William nevertheless did in order to retain his lands in Normandy, this led to icy relations between Marshal and his monarch.

-John went to war with his nobles in Ireland who he felt exercised too much power independent of his rule. The results were varied. Marshal himself fought against the king’s agents and lost some land but some was regained when his wife Isabel led an army that defeated John’s loyalists. Allowing William to return to Leinster, he remained in Ireland for much of this time up until 1213. He built Carlow Castle, the first towered keep in all of Ireland, its ruins remain standing to this day.

-By 1212, he was back in good favor with John and summoned to the royal court in 1213. The two men had differences having spent a decade in mixed favor and falling out. Nevertheless, after 1213 William Marshal remained loyal to John during the First Baron’s War (1215-1217).

-During this time, William Marshal guided and advised King John to sign the Magna Carta (Great Charter) which affirmed certain noble rights for the barons of England in return for their loyalty to the king. The Magna Carta was seen as a prototypical first step in the placing limitations on the English monarchy, paving a tenuous first step over the centuries towards constitutional monarchy, as well as influencing English common law tradition of later centuries & much later was cited as an influence on American law.

-William Marshal was named one of the 27 Counsellors to the King on the original Magna Carta of 1215.

-Despite Magna Carta, some barons continued to rebel due to John’s perceived lack of compliance and the weakness of its remedies to their grievances. Additionally, Louis VIII of France sought to use English barons against his rival John to push French influence on England.

- As Earl of Pembroke, William remained loyal to John throughout the civil war. There was a final brief falling out but it lasted mere months and the two reconciled once more. Only like decades before in service to John’s much older brother Henry the Young King, the reconciliation came in time for the monarch’s passing. John was on his deathbed in late 1216. He named Marshal one of his regents and entrusted William with protecting the interests of his nine-year-old son and heir, Henry.

-William Marshal was now regent to the newly crowned Henry III, King of England.

Service to the Kings of England: Henry III and final days

-Counting Henry III, John I, Richard I, Henry the Young King & Henry II, William Marshal would serve 5 English kings in succession over three generations served.

-On May 20th, 1217. William Marshal took personal charge of the English army loyal to Henry III as regent to the underage king. He was the real power behind the throne, becoming the most powerful man in all England. At age 70, donning armor one last time he personally led knights into battle in the Battle of Lincoln defeating a combined French and rebel English Baron force which had besieged Lincoln Castle.

-John’s death had caused some barons to switch sides but others were bought up in influence by the French king who sought to place himself on the English throne combining all of France & England into one personal union.

-The Battle of Lincoln and Marshal’s victory over the French and rebels largely ended this French pretense. Rebel barons were killed or captured, French soldiers in retreat killed in the English countryside & the subsequent naval Battle of Dover decided the war in favor of England and Henry III.

-Henry III’s regents including Marshal would uphold his claim to the throne and Louis VIII would drop his claims to the throne of England, vow never to attack England again in exchange for a general amnesty of English barons who had been rebels against John & Henry III. This was the Treaty of Lambeth (1217)

-Some criticized William Marshal for his lenient terms at Lambeth but his sense of diplomacy and restraint were in line with his character and knight’s training with its emphasis on mercy. In battle he was known for his vicious blows but off the battlefield, he had learned that a knight’s chivalry demanded an honorable and if possible expedient peace. Magnanimity in victory was crucial to his thinking and knight’s training.

-To further amends, Marshal reissued Magna Carta in Henry III’s name in 1217 with slight updates from John’s originally signed one from 1215.

-in 1219, with his health failing, Marshal as leader of the regency called together Henry III, the remaining regents & his own son, William Marshal II & his retinue of knights. He chose to name the papal legate as Henry III’s regent. He also fulfilled the promise to officially join the Knights Templar on his deathbed. He died on May 14,1219 at age 72 at Caversham, his estate in Berkshire, England. He was buried in Temple Church in London, where his tomb remains to this day.

-In his funeral, the bishop named him the “greatest knight who ever lived”, due to his prowess & bravery on the battlefield regardless of the circumstances, unrivalled success on the tournament circuit and for his generally dedicated service to England and the stories of his humility, honor, mercy & magnanimity which served as the basis for him being the living embodiment of a chivalrous knight, one who came closest to exemplifying the virtues of King Arthur & his Knights of the Round Table. While this may somewhat be an exaggeration as Marshal was no doubt a man motivated in part by profit, fame & title and he was doubtless a very shrewd politician. Nevertheless, his bravery was never questioned and plenty of stories seem to exist to somewhat uphold this image of knightly hero. Plus, the political restraint he exercised in his dealings as royal regent suggest that his knightly training and the emphasis on chivalry did influence his behavior. We might be able to gleam from William’s life, someone who probably fell short of the chivalric ideals, at least in the purest sense and at the same time, perhaps came closer to embodying them than many of his contemporaries.

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silvadour · 3 years

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Attack on Titan: The End of an Era - Final Chapter Review

Disclaimer: This blog post contains MASSIVE spoilers towards the ending of Attack on Titan as well as the greater series. If you wish not to be spoiled on certain story aspects and character revelations, I kindly suggest reading the manga or waiting for the 2nd half of the Final Season to be released in Winter 2022. Furthermore, if you are not caught up with this and read this post anyway, kindly refrain from spreading information presented here as not to spoil the experience for other readers and watchers that have yet to see the very end of the story.

And now without further ado, let is begin with the blog post.

Well, we’ve reached the endpoint, we arrived at that scenic view. Attack on Titan’s story has finally ended and if I’m being frank with you…I’m satisfied with it.

I have to say it’s always a weird feeling of coming to face the truth that a story you like and have invested many years reading has finally come to an end, there’s just an underlying feeling that you wanna deny the reality of it but you also can’t deny that sense of closure you gain from it either. While the series started way back in the year 2009, I did not get invested in the manga’s story until late 2013 when the anime’s first season finished airing. And my experience with AoT has been a strange one. As a young teen, I was impressed by the action on display so much that I began craving more of it like a crack-headed squirrel; this, in turn, led me to read through internet message boards and forums for possible new information on the stories developments which unsurprisingly led me to find spoilers of later events (particularly the case with Reiner and Bertholdt’s identities) However, even by the time I reached that revelation in the story in the existence of the Coordinate plot element came into play, I was aboard for the dramatic thrill ride ever since. And by the time I was reading it and the story shifted from fighting humanoid monsters to actual humans in the Royal Government/Coup d’etat arc, I started thinking of Attack on Titan as a rather niche series that only a few people could understand even with its ridiculous surge of popularity in the early 2010s, and I never could have anticipated back then on how emotionally attached I would be to this series nor how well it portrays a morally grey story where both participating parties of an ongoing war suffer from the circumstances of their character and nature.

The opening page to the series

As a modern monthly shonen series, I can say that it’s certainly a step above other manga of its type in how it re-frames familiar shonen archetypes in much more grounded and grim settings, and I find that it’s because of that grounded feeling found in its writing and setting that Attack on Titan has garnered such a large following for the elements in the story make themselves easier for audiences to distill themselves in similar situations, the narrative creates a sense of audience inclusivity that allows readers to imagine themselves in situations of survival. However, once I heard the series would end at 139 chapters apart of me was wondering if the series would have enough time to address aspects of established lore and give character arcs a fitting conclusion, and suffice it to say, the series accomplished that though some feelings on them I’m still processing. So knowing this I think it would be best to tackle the ending of Attack on Titan by discussing each of the established themes and characters one at a time, starting with the theme of freedom and liberty.

“To either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”

Freedom and Liberty:

One of the major recurring themes in the story of AoT is that of the nature of finding true freedom. Freedom as a concept is described as the ability to speak, act or think by one’s own accord; freedom can be individual yet it can also be shared with various individuals. The story always made the best attempts at portraying both the positive and negative aspects of freedom in a morally grey manner. While the idea of wanting to do something of your own will, it all becomes a different story altogether depending on what the actions initiated from that free will end up being. One person’s freedom would naturally come to blows with the freedom of a collective group and trying to determine who is more rightfully just in their expression is never given a clear cut answer, case in point Eren’s yearning to be free of a world where he and his people aren’t demonized or viewed as cattle comes to blows with the antagonists’ (the nation of Marley) yearning to freely put him and the other Subjects of Ymir in their place as the two parties eventually engage in a long-standing war that has spanned for centuries. In an essay by John Stuart Mill, he presents an argument for the nature of human liberty that frames it as a double-edged sword; while it may stand as a tool to defend oneself from oppression and tyranny, it in of itself can be used as a tool to enforce other individuals into compliance and agreement should they not initially comply to certain established schools of thought. The expression of freedom is never displayed in an absolute black and white morality as each of the opposing parties have valid justifications for their expressions of personal freedoms (the nation of Marley’s long history being under the terror of the old Eldian Empire, and the island of Paradis being constantly invaded by Titans from Marley due to their history), rather the expressions freedoms are made due to self-interest.

Zeke describing Marley’s plan of action in order to ensure its future as a world superpower.

This is seen numerous times throughout the series, Ymir (104th Cadet) being used as a scapegoat for the cult that took her in, Erwin’s planned scapegoat execution during the royal government arc to ensure the original monarchy’s total rule over the population within the walls, the world nations following the bandwagon of Eldian discrimination as a political tactic of gaining advantages for the development of their nations through the extortion of the many Eldians around the world. Even with the characters that are standing on the “good” side still hold feelings of seeking self-interest as they are allowed so, solely due to the fact to want and something and act upon is part of their birthright just like any other human; case in point Eren and Historia at their most standout moments before the time-skip which would eventually coalesce with Eren’s meeting of the Founder, Ymir Fritz. This now brings me to the man himself, Eren Yeager.

Eren Yeager/Ymir Fritz:

When I first got into Attack on Titan, my opinion on the writing for Eren, especially in the manga’s early run, landed generally around middling. However, over time as I got further invested in the TV adaptation, I made attempts on doing retrospective rewatches to see whether my opinions on certain aspects of the story had changed; and during this time I found that my opinion of Eren changed to that of a more positive one. Throughout the series I saw this driven teenager coming to terms with his situation as a potential key for his people’s future, learning to quell his anger, as well coming to face the reality of his various failures all to eventually crack under the weight of the expectations he has placed onto himself, finally re-discovering his self-worth through the relationships he’s made with people closest to him only to have his reality crash right into his face when he finally discovers the truth of the world which bruises his idealistic nature.

To many of the fans that have seen Eren’s exploits in the latest season, his change in character might have come as a jarring shift since he has shifted to focus on eradicating the Titans to now eradicating the invaders of his home island. While the shift to different targets might seem like a strange change on the surface, fundamentally, Eren Yeager is still relatively the same character he was initially portrayed as, the only difference is that some of his more notable traits such as his anger, his battle tactics, and self-expression have just been more hardened due to the nature of his and homeland’s circumstances.

Eren is a prime believer of freedom, that any person is entitled to live free without feeling as if their freedoms are being imposed by others, solely on the basis that they were born into the living world. Should someone pose a threat to his freedom, he will not hesitate to steal freedom from others. And from the beginning till the very ending of the series his character writing remains consistent. Eren is a man lashing out against a prejudiced world that views him and his people as pure evil, he lashes not just for the sake of his freedom but for the freedom of those he cares for. However, throughout that lashing and emotional hardening he becomes something different from how he initially perceived himself.

For most of the manga’s final arc, Eren’s detached demeanor he presents onto his friends serves to highlight how he faces his challenges; he is more of a person that suppresses his grief and other vulnerable emotions because he has no choice but to appear strong and move forward when he cries out the world for something he wants, as a person ostracized by the world, his actions are indicative of the world telling him that he is not allowed to be viewed as a human being. His repeated fighting against Marley and the other allied nations can almost be interpreted as a cry for help. And throughout these actions, Eren was always consciously aware of his actions and the consequences that would be brought upon them, but he would never reveal his true feelings until he reached his two final goals, Ymir Fritz and his ultimate fate. When Eren first encountered Ymir Fritz he saw her as the absolute ruler of the Power of the Titans and wished to use her to finally make his true ambitions become a reality, however, during that process Eren realized that Ymir was so much more than a divine being. In his embrace of the Founder and in seeing her past through the Paths realm, Eren came to realize that Ymir was simply a human that much like him was ostracized and forced to harden her emotions out of fear of being further abused for appearing as weak; who trapped herself in ethereal realm due to her misguided understanding of “love” she had for her abuser, Karl Fritz I.

In recognizing her as a human, Eren sets Ymir free to finally act upon her own will for the first time in over 2000 years.

Personally, in this particular moment of Eren embracing Ymir with a hug and telling her the words she always wanted to hear “you are a human being”, I feel as if those words themselves are what Eren wanted to hear from someone who truly understood him and his reasons for going as far as does. Eren fights because he wants to end all fighting in the world, but he doesn’t know any other method besides fighting, much like Ymir, Eren needed someone to free him from himself. I find that Kenny Ackerman’s final words resonate with this scenario very strongly in retrospect: “We humans, are all the same…every last one of us. All of us had to spend our lives drunk on something or else we’d have no cause to keep pushing on. Everyone was a slave to something” (S03E10)

Eren’s “freedom” upon reaching that scenery he foresaw in his future visions.

At the moment of that embrace, Eren was fundamentally just like Ymir, a human child unable to cry due to repressing their emotions, Eren was only able to reach his external and internal goals in the final chapter through his relationship with Mikasa and Armin in their final interactions in which he imparted his freedoms and his dream to the two people he cared about most in the entire world. That being said in his fight for obtaining the ideal freedom for himself and his people, Eren only realized in his very last conversation with Armin that the freedom he sought after wasn’t only his. Armin’s final heart-to-heart made him re-acknowledge that the weight of his dreams for an ideal world shouldn’t be his to bear, even if ended endangering him and his loved ones. By refusing to entrust his dreams onto others, Eren was becoming a slave to his ambitions (in fact his appearance as the Founding Titan portrays him as a marionette), only to be finally set free (and possibly reincarnated as a bird, a common symbol of freedom in literature) by his best friend when he comes to understand him and offer him peace for all he has done for the sake of his people.

In his final meeting, Eren’s true self as the boy who lost all things he cherished in the beginning of the series confides with his best friend Armin on the actions and choices he has made, as well as finally reciprocating Mikasa's feelings of love.

Closing thoughts:

Overall, I find that Eren’s motivations and his character arc met my expectations of how I somewhat imagined the series would end. It didn’t end on a completely misanthropic note, but rather a bittersweet hopeful one. As even though the island of Paradis establishes a new military under Eren’s splinter cell faction, the Yeagerists, there is hope found in Armin carrying out the role that Eren always saw him, a hero and a purveyor of peace, as he, Jean, Connie, Annie, Reiner, and Pieck now taking on the role as ambassadors for the remaining population of Earth, embark to Paradis to begin peace negotiations. Whether the treaty succeeds is left entirely to the reader’s imagination (or Isayama adding more context in the volume edition of this chapter), but what I find truly beautiful about this ending of a series with clearly morally gray divisions, is that the people of those same divisions finally came to the realization that they are simply just people. They are not devils or angels, they are simply just people; not that much different from one another and willing to try and exist in a better tomorrow with each other. And what I love about this ending, even more, is that it finally bookends some goals and declarations that were said in the first half of the series: Eren wanting to eradicate the existence of Titans became a reality, after Eren’s death Armin took responsibility in claim he killed in turn that leads him to be viewed as a hero and purveyor for peace, Eren wrapping his scarf around Mikasa, all of these character declarations coming back in some unique form makes me love this series even more.

Your heart and soul to the cause.

Some may complain that this ending is not that great for it still doesn’t explain certain aspects of the story such as the nature of the Power of the Titans or the identity of Historia’s baby daddy or just general lack of presence in the final arc, but personally, I am content in not receiving a clear answer to some of those aspects, mostly because they either don’t matter or are already narratively complete, plus their open-ended-ness just offers me more chances to think about some aspects of the story and promote discussions around it. And while the use of mental time-travel ala Seers from Game of Thrones that were displayed by Eren’s use of the Attack Titan’ innate ability in the Paths realm, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t unsure or somewhat conflicted by the existence of mental time-travel; especially when time-travel as a narrative concept is INCREDIBLY easy to mess up. However, aside from these minor gripes, these were my overall thoughts towards the ending of Attack on Titan, we have reached the end of the story where Eren, Mikasa, and Armin’s respective character arcs came to a narratively true and satisfying conclusion. This is definitely a notable end of an era in the world of manga and pop culture. And without much left to say, all I can do is offer a salute to the author Hajime Isayama for his dedication to this story.

Thank you, Hajime Isayama.

#Attack on Titan #manga #AoT spoilers #AOT 139 #snk spoilers #text post #long post #shingeki no kyojin #thank you hajime isayama #Eren Yeager #Ymir Fritz #Armin Arlert

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foreverlogical · 4 years

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As much of the political world went into an uproar over Donald Trump floating the idea of delaying the November election, inside the president’s orbit, his Thursday morning tweet suggesting just that was seen as something far narrower and more strategically focused.The president isn’t really trying to delay the vote. He is trying to preemptively delegitimize the likely results.Two administration officials and another individual close to the president say that what they saw Thursday morning was the most recent tantrum—“frustration,” as one of the officials put it—of a president in search of a scapegoat in case he’s denied a second term. None of these sources said they were aware of any serious effort to trample the clear constitutional guidelines and delay a presidential election.“He is terrified of losing this one,” said the person close to Trump. “I have heard him say more times than I can count how insane it would be to live in a country where the people could possibly prefer this guy, Joe Biden, over [the president] and think that this buffoon could be a better leader than Trump.”Asked at his press conference Thursday about the tweet, Trump said “it doesn’t need much explanation” before launching into a lengthy assertion of claims that there would be widespread fraud in the election due to the use of mail-in ballots, relying heavily on reports of delays and irregularities in New York City’s primaries. “I just feel, I don’t want to delay, I want to have the election. But I also don’t wanna have to wait for three months and then find out the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything,” said the president. “That’s whats gonna happen… smart people know it. Stupid people may not know it.” “Do I want to see a change? No,” said Trump, when pressed on whether he actually meant to change the election’s date or if he meant to sow doubt in the outcome. “I don’t want to see a crooked election.”Will Trump’s Voter-Fraud Rage Backfire?Even if Trump’s tweet about delaying an election—an act for which an army of legal scholars noted Trump lacks the authority—was just a bluff, it underscored a reality that isn’t much more reassuring: The president and his allies have been busy for months sowing doubt about the credibility of an outcome in which Trump isn’t the victor. And they’ve done so through increasingly baseless, self-serving means, including by directing tens of millions of dollars in advertising, multipronged legal action, and nonstop messaging, towards attacking the practice of voting by mail.On Thursday, following the president’s morning tweets, Trump’s lieutenants made clear that that was Team Trump’s primary concern: turning voting-by-mail, a well-established and fairly common practice in American elections, into a convenient bogeyman. “The president is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting,” alleged Hogan Gidley, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary. “They are using coronavirus as their means to try to institute universal mail-in voting, which means sending every registered voter a ballot whether they asked for one or not.”Across town on Capitol Hill, the president hitting the send button on the Thursday tweet sparked a time-honored reaction: Republicans ducking and claiming they didn’t see it. For those who copped to looking, nearly all pointed out that Trump lacked the authority to follow through on his presumed threat. Others suggested he was merely joking. “I don’t know how else to interpret it,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told The Daily Beast. “All you guys in the press, your heads will explode and you’ll write about it.”But on the question of whether Trump’s words served to sow discord over the trustworthiness of the election, a familiar split developed, with lawmakers close to the president validating his stated concerns about mail-in ballots, and his critics expressing fear that Trump’s tweet was posted in earnest. Asked if she was concerned that Trump’s tweet would undermine public trust in the election, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) quickly said yes. “I think that we should all be working to shore up the faith in our electoral system,” Murkowski said.And Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has formally warned against undermining trust in U.S. elections, told The Daily Beast he wished Trump hadn’t said what he did. “He can suggest whatever he wants,” Rubio added. “We're going to have an election, it's going to be legitimate, it's going to be credible.”Even a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society expressed horror at Trump’s tweet. “Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate,” Steven Calabresi wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. Fox News Analyst: Trump’s Election Tweet a ‘Flagrant Expression of His Current Weakness’Many Republicans were content to sidestep questions about the impact of Trump’s words on the public’s trust in elections. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) responded by saying that Trump was raising legitimate concerns about mail-in voting. But he also expressed confidence in the electoral process. “I feel like we’ll be ready to go in November, and we’ll have a free and fair election,” said Graham.While Trump’s main objective may have been to seed doubts about the outcome of the election, the fact that he expressed it shows the erosion of bulwarks against authoritarianism, according to lawyers and scholars. They warned that those safeguards depend in large part on Republican condemnation. The fact that they weren’t, said Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor, poses an urgent threat to U.S. political stability, particularly as Trump “surges” federal agents into what he describes as Democratic-controlled cities against protesters he conflates with terrorists. “Republican leaders have to denounce this. Trump is testing the waters, like he always does,” said Stanley. “The worry is that after multiple presidential elections in which the minority party won and governed in a way untethered from its electoral support, American democracy is seriously challenged.” Legal scholars agree that the law provides no authority to the president to delay an election, but instead leaves that power in the hands of Congress. In 2014, a Congressional Research Service report assessed the prospect of delaying an election due to a “sufficiently calamitous” terrorist attack. It concluded that while the Executive Branch held “significant delegated authority regarding some aspects of election law, this authority does not currently extend to setting or changing the times of elections.”But the Trump years have provided routine lessons about the fragility of American institutions as bulwarks against authoritarianism. Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, said that beyond the illegality of delaying the election, it was significant that Trump believed he possessed the power to delay it. “There’s a difference between saying, ‘He’s not allowed to do this’ and saying, ‘He won’t do it,’” Jaffer said. “That’s what’s most disturbing here, not the possibility they come up with a colorable argument, but that the president will act in spite of the absence of any colorable legal argument.” A Justice Department spokesperson did not reply to a query about any recent guidance its Office of Legal Counsel has offered on the issue. During Tuesday testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William Barr said he had “never looked into” whether the president could override statutes establishing the date of the presidential election. Barr also demurred when asked if he committed the department to noninterference in a contested election outcome, saying merely, “I will follow the law.” Several prominent Trump allies—including some of his chummiest advisers and most hardened legal defenders—dismissed the notion that he could or would push the election back. In a brief phone conversation, celebrity attorney and Harvard Law figure Alan Dershowitz, a member of the defense team during Trump’s impeachment trial, said, “The answer is clear: only Congress can change the date of the election. A president doesn't have the authority… Of course, any citizen has the right to ask Congress to make a change, but I can’t imagine that they would do that.”But others close to the president kept the door propped conspicuously open. Testifying on Thursday morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an attorney, said about presidential authority to delay an election, “In the end, the Department of Justice, others will make that determination.” Stanley, who authored the book How Fascism Works, said the presence of federal law enforcement in American cities rendered it “a dangerous time” for Trump to “raise doubts about the election in case he loses.” He noted that in Portland, agents from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security “went and did what Trump wanted them to do” while using the language of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to justify suppressing protesters. Vigilante violence tied to the election is also possible in the event that Trump disputes the outcome. Armed accelerationist elements like the Boogaloo Bois, a meme-turned-militant movement, seek a civil war or a race war. In Louisville over the weekend, opposing armed militias assembled at a rally for Breonna Taylor but avoided violence. Historically, “it’s very familiar when you have a militarized force used to going after foreign enemies and then allowed to operate domestically to separate citizens from noncitizens, and now the worry is they’ll be sent against protesters and demonstrators, and all of this is worrisome ahead of the election,” Stanley said. “Unfortunately, this is on the Republican Party, and unfortunately, the Republican Party has not been acting like a party in a democracy for quite some time.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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jbuffyangel · 5 years

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Entertainment Weekly Arrow Article

We never get any big articles of Arrow, so yeah I am posting the whole damn thing. There were some interesting little tidbits and of course discussion around Emily Bett Rickards’ exit. Is it wrong that I am low key pissed that of course Arrow gets the cover of EW after she leaves? Is it also wrong that while I’m happy Arrow is getting some attention, I’m annoyed it wasn’t an Olicity cover? Cuz that’s where I am at. (X)

How Arrow saved the TV superhero — and why it had to end

As 'Arrow' prepares for the end, Stephen Amell and the producers reflect on its origin story and preview the 'Crisis'-bound eighth and final season.

Stephen Amell is dreading the eighth and final season of Arrow, though you wouldn’t know it on this hot, sunny July day in Los Angeles. Wearing Green Arrow’s new suit, the CW star seems perfectly at ease as he strikes heroic pose after heroic pose on a dimly lit stage. But once he’s traded heavy verdant leather for a T-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, his guard drops and the vulnerability starts to creep in as he contemplates Arrow’s last 10 episodes, which was set to begin production in Vancouver a week after the EW photoshoot took place and premieres Oct. 15.

“I’m very emotional and melancholy, but it’s time,” Amell — who is featured on the new cover of Entertainment Weekly — says as he takes a sip from a pint of Guinness. “I’m 38 years old, and I got this job when I was 30. I’d never had a job for more than a year. The fact that I’ve done this for the better part of a decade, and I’m not going to do it anymore, is a little frightening.”

Developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg, Arrow debuted in the fall of 2012. The DC Comics series follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Amell), who, after years away, returned to now–Star City with one goal: to save his home-town as the hooded bow-and-arrow vigilante who would become known as Green Arrow (it would take him four seasons to assume the moniker). What began as a solo crusade eventually grew to include former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), quirky computer genius Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), lawyer-turned-hero Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy Rodgers), and the rest of Team Arrow. Together they’ve defended their city from a host of threats — dark archers, megalomaniacal magicians, and the occasional metahuman — while Lost-like flashbacks revealed what Oliver endured in the five years he was away, first shipwrecked and then honing his skills around the world to become someone else, something else.

The premiere gave The CW its most-watched series debut since 2009’s The Vampire Diaries. But before they launched Arrow, Berlanti and Guggenheim had to suffer through a failure: 2011’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds. The duo co-wrote the script but lost creative control of the film, which flopped. So when Warner Bros. Television president Peter Roth approached them in late 2011 about developing a Green Arrow show, they were wary. After much deliberation, Berlanti and Guggenheim agreed, on the condition that they maintain control. Says Guggenheim, “As long as we succeed or fail on our own work, and not someone else’s work then maybe this is worth a shot.”

Their take on the Emerald Archer — who made his DC Comics debut in 1941 — was noteworthy from the beginning. Taking cues from films like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Identity and series like Homeland, the writers imagined a dark, gritty, and grounded show centered on a traumatized protagonist. “As we were breaking the story, we made very specific commitments to certain tonal things, such as ‘At the end of act 1, he has his hands around his mother’s throat.’ And, ‘At the end of act 2, he kills a man in cold blood to protect his secret,’ ” says Guggenheim.

A hero committing murder? That was practically unheard of then. Having Oliver suit up in a veritable superhero costume by the pilot’s climax was radical too. Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was deep into Phase One when the producers were developing Arrow, but TV was traditionally more apprehensive about comic books. Smallvillefamously had a “no tights, no flights” rule and only introduced superhero costumes in the last years of its 10-season run, and there weren’t any masked avengers running around NBC’s Heroes or ABC’s No Ordinary Family, the latter produced by Berlanti (Let’s not even mention NBC’s The Cape, which was essentially dead on arrival and never did get its six seasons and a movie). But Arrow not only fully committed to the idea of someone dressing up like Robin Hood to fight crime with a bow and arrow, it introduced a second costumed rogue, the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), in episode 7.

“It’s just comic book to the extreme and the fans seem to really love it,” says Batwomanshowrunner Caroline Dries, a former writer on Smallville. “They still maintain it very grounded, but it’s very different with everyone in costumes. The appetite for superheroes has changed in my mind in terms of like they just want the literal superhero [now].”

Not that the team wasn’t meticulous about creating Green Arrow’s cowl. “We had to have so many conversations to get it approved, but that’s why we got [Oscar winner] Colleen Atwood [Memoirs of a Geisha] at the time to [design] the suit,” says Berlanti. “We were determined to show we could do on TV what they were doing in the movies every six months.”

“It’s really easy to make a guy with a bow and arrow look silly. We sweated every detail,” says Guggenheim, who also recalls how much effort it took to perfect Oliver’s signature growl. “I actually flew up to Vancouver. On a rooftop during reshoots on [episode 4], Stephen and I went through a variety of different versions of, basically, ‘You have failed this city,’ with different amounts of how much growl he’s putting into his performance. [We] recorded all that, [I went] back to Los Angeles, and then sat with the post guys playing around with all the different amounts of modulation.”

That process took eons compared to the unbelievably easy time the team had casting Arrow’s title role. In fact, Amell was the first person to audition for the role. “It was Stephen’s intensity. He just made you believe he was that character,” says Guggenheim, recalling Amell’s audition. “We had crafted Oliver to be this mystery box character, and Stephen somehow managed to find this balance between being totally accessible in a way you would need a TV star to be, but he’s still an enigma.” After his first reading, Amell remembers being sent outside for a short time before being brought back into the room to read for a larger group: “I called [my manager], and I go, ‘I know this is not how it’s supposed to work, but I just got that job.’”

In the first season, the show’s chief concerns were maintaining both the “grounded and real” tone and the high quality of the stunts, and investing the audience in Oliver’s crusade. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much of an over-arching plan, which allowed the show to naturally evolve — from introducing more DC characters, such as Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) and Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), sooner than they initially intended (the shot of Deathstroke’s mask in the pilot was meant as a harmless Easter egg), to promoting Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity from a one-off character in the show’s third episode to a series regular in season 2 and eventually Oliver’s wife. Even the whole idea of a Team Arrow — which, over time, added Oliver’s sister Thea (Willa Holland), Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez) and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy) — was the result of the writers allowing the best ideas to guide the story. “Greg used to say all the time, ‘You have a hit TV show until you don’t, so don’t save s—,’ ” says Amell.

Also not planned: Arrow spawning an entire shared universe. “We went on record a lot of times during the premiere of the pilot saying, ‘No superpowers, no time travel.’ But midway through season 1, Greg started to harbor a notion of doing the Flash,” says Guggenheim. “I’m a very big believer that it’s great to have a plan, but I think when it comes to creating a universe, the pitfall is that people try to run before they can walk. The key is, you build it show by show.” And so they did. First, they introduced The Flash star Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen in the two-part midseason finale of Arrow’s second season. From there, Supergirl took flight in 2015, then DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in 2016, and Batwoman is due this fall. “It’s like the hacking of the machete in the woods and then you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a path,” says executive producer and Berlanti Productions president Sarah Schechter. But even though Arrowis the universe’s namesake, Amell doesn’t concern himself with the sibling series outside of the now-annual crossovers. “I never think about any of the other shows,” he says. “I want all of them to do great, but they’re not my responsibility. My responsibility is Arrow, and to make sure everyone from the cast to the crew are good.” His sentiments are seconded by Flash’s Gustin: “I don’t understand how he does it — his schedule that he maintains with working out, the conventions he goes to, the passion he has for it, and the love he shows towards fans. He’s always prepared. He cares more about that show being high quality than anybody else on the set.”

That said, the universe’s expansion precipitated what is widely considered to be Arrow’s best season, the fifth one. After focusing on magic in season 4, the show returned to its street-crime roots as part of “a concerted effort to play not just to our strengths but what made the shows unique,” Guggenheim says of balancing their four super-series in 2016. “Because Arrow was the longest-running Arrowverse show, we were able to do something that none of the other shows could do, which is have a villain who was basically born out of the events of season 1,” he explains of introducing Adrian Chase/Prometheus (Josh Segarra), whose criminal father was killed by Oliver. “That gave the season a resonance.”

It was midway through season 6 when Amell realized he was ready to hang up Oliver Queen’s hood. “It was just time to move on,” the actor says of pitching that Oliver leave the series at the end of season 7. “My daughter is turning six in October, and she goes to school in L.A., and my wife and I want to raise her [there].” Berlanti persuaded him to return for one final season, which the producers collectively decided would be the end. “We all felt in our gut it was the right time,” says Berlanti. Adds Schechter, “It’s such a privilege to be able to say when something’s ending as opposed to having something just ripped away.”

But there’s one integral cast member who won’t be around to see Arrow through its final season. This spring, fans were devastated to learn Rickards had filmed her final episode—bringing an end to Olicity. “They’re such opposites. I think that’s what draws everyone in a little bit,” showrunner Beth Schwartz says of Oliver and Felicity’s relationship. “You don’t see the [love story of] super intelligent woman and the sort of hunky, athletic man very often. She’s obviously a gorgeous woman but what he really loves is her brain.” For his part, Amell believes the success of both Felicity and Olicity lies completely with Rickards’ performance. “She’s supremely talented and awesome and carved out a space that no one anticipated. I don’t know that show works if we don’t randomly find her,” says Amell, adding that continuing the series without Team Arrow’s heart is “not great. Arrow, as you know it, has effectively ended. It’s a different show in season 8.” And he’s not exaggerating.

The final season finds Oliver working for the all-seeing extra-terrestrial the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) and trying to save the entire multiverse from a cataclysmic event. “[We’re] taking the show on the road, really getting away from Star City. Oliver is going to be traveling the world, and we’re going to go to a lot of different places,” says Guggenheim. “Every time I see Oliver and the Monitor, it’s like, ‘Okay, we are very far from where we started.’ But again, that means the show has grown and evolved.” Adds Schwartz, “This is sort of his final test because it’s greater than Star City.” Along the way, he will head down memory lane, with actor Colin Donnell, who played Oliver’s best friend Tommy Merlyn in season 1, and Segarra’s Adrian Chase making appearances. “Episode 1 is an ode to season 1, and episode 2 is an ode to season 3,” teases Amell. “We’re playing our greatest hits.”

But season 8 is not just about building toward a satisfying series finale. “Everything relates to what’s going to happen in our crossover episode, which we’ve never done before,” says Schwartz. Spanning five hours and airing this winter, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” will be the biggest crossover yet and may see Oliver perish trying to save the multiverse from destruction, if the Monitor’s prophecy is to be believed. “Oliver [is told] he’s going to die, so each episode in the run-up to ‘Crisis’ has Oliver dealing with the various stages of grief that come with that discovery,” says Guggenheim. “So the theme really is coming to terms, acceptance.”

If there’s one person who has made his peace with Oliver’s fate, it’s Amell. “Because he’s a superhero with no superpowers, I always felt he should die — but he may also not die,” says Amell, who actually found out what the show’s final scene would be at EW’s cover shoot. “I cried as [Marc Guggenheim] was telling me. There are a lot of hurdles to get over to make that final scene.” Get this man some more Guinness!

#arrow #arrow season 8 #stephen amell #marc guggenheim #arrow interviews #oliver queen #olicity #emily bett rickards #felicity smoak #arrow spoilers #spoiler theoretical

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arrowdaily · 5 years

Link

Stephen Amell is dreading the eighth and final season of Arrow, though you wouldn’t know it on this hot, sunny July day in Los Angeles. Wearing Green Arrow’s new suit, the CW star seems perfectly at ease as he strikes heroic pose after heroic pose on a dimly lit stage. But once he’s traded heavy verdant leather for a T-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, his guard drops and the vulnerability starts to creep in as he contemplates Arrow’s last ten episodes, which was set to begin production in Vancouver a week after the EW photoshoot took place and premieres October 15.

“I’m very emotional and melancholy, but it’s time,” Amell—who is featured on the new cover of Entertainment Weekly—says as he takes a sip from a pint of Guinness. “I’m thirty-eight years old, and I got this job when I was thirty. I’d never had a job for more than a year. The fact that I’ve done this for the better part of a decade, and I’m not going to do it anymore, is a little frightening.”

Developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg, Arrow debuted in the fall of 2012. The DC Comics series follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), who, after years away, returned to now–Star City with one goal: to save his hometown as the hooded bow-and-arrow vigilante who would become known as Green Arrow (it would take him four seasons to assume the moniker). What began as a solo crusade eventually grew to include former soldier John Diggle (David Ramsey), quirky computer genius Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), lawyer-turned-hero Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy-Rodgers), and the rest of Team Arrow. Together they’ve defended their city from a host of threats—dark archers, megalomaniacal magicians, and the occasional metahuman—while Lost-like flashbacks revealed what Oliver endured in the five years he was away, first shipwrecked and then honing his skills around the world to become someone else, something else.

The premiere gave the CW its most-watched series debut since 2009’s The Vampire Diaries. But before they launched Arrow, Berlanti and Guggenheim had to suffer through a failure: 2011’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds. The duo co-wrote the script but lost creative control of the film, which flopped. So when Warner Bros. TV president Peter Roth approached them in late 2011 about developing a Green Arrow show, they were wary. After much deliberation, Berlanti and Guggenheim agreed, on the condition that they maintain control. Says Guggenheim, “As long as we succeed or fail on our own work, and not someone else’s work then maybe this is worth a shot.”

Their take on the Emerald Archer—who made his DC Comics debut in 1941—was noteworthy from the beginning. Taking cues from films like The Dark Knight and The Bourne Identity and series like Homeland, the writers imagined a dark, gritty, and grounded show centered on a traumatized protagonist. “As we were breaking the story, we made very specific commitments to certain tonal things, such as ‘At the end of act one, he has his hands around his mother’s throat.’ And, ‘At the end of act two, he kills a man in cold blood to protect his secret,’” says Guggenheim.

A hero committing murder? That was practically unheard of then. Having Oliver suit up in a veritable superhero costume by the pilot’s climax was radical too. Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was deep into Phase One when the producers were developing Arrow, but TV was traditionally more apprehensive about comic books. Smallville famously had a “no tights, no flights” rule and only introduced superhero costumes in the last years of its ten-season run, and there weren’t any masked avengers running around NBC’s Heroes or ABC’s No Ordinary Family, the latter produced by Berlanti (let’s not even mention NBC’s The Cape, which was essentially dead on arrival and never did get its six seasons and a movie). But Arrow not only fully committed to the idea of someone dressing up like Robin Hood to fight crime with a bow and arrow, it introduced a second costumed rogue, the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), in episode 7.

“It’s just comic book to the extreme and the fans seem to really love it,” says Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries, a former writer on Smallville. “They still maintain it very grounded, but it’s very different with everyone in costumes. The appetite for superheroes has changed in my mind in terms of like they just want the literal superhero [now].”

In the first season, the show’s chief concerns were maintaining both the “grounded and real” tone and the high quality of the stunts, and investing the audience in Oliver’s crusade. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much of an over-arching plan, which allowed the show to naturally evolve—from introducing more DC characters, such as Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) and Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), sooner than they initially intended (the shot of Deathstroke’s mask in the pilot was meant as a harmless Easter egg), to promoting Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity from a one-off character in the show’s third episode to a series regular in season 2 and eventually Oliver’s wife. Even the whole idea of a Team Arrow—which, over time, added Oliver’s sister Thea (Willa Holland), Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez) and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy)—was the result of the writers allowing the best ideas to guide the story. “Greg used to say all the time, ‘You have a hit TV show until you don’t, so don’t save s—,’” says Amell.

Also not planned: Arrow spawning an entire shared universe. “We went on record a lot of times during the premiere of the pilot saying, ‘No superpowers, no time travel.’ But midway through season 1, Greg started to harbor a notion of doing the Flash,” says Guggenheim. “I’m a very big believer that it’s great to have a plan, but I think when it comes to creating a universe, the pitfall is that people try to run before they can walk. The key is, you build it show by show.” And so they did. First, they introduced The Flash star Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen in the two-part midseason finale of Arrow’s second season. From there, Supergirl took flight in 2015, then DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in 2016, and Batwoman is due this fall. “It’s like the hacking of the machete in the woods and then you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s a path,” says executive producer and Berlanti Productions president Sarah Schechter. But even though Arrow is the universe’s namesake, Amell doesn’t concern himself with the sibling series outside of the now-annual crossovers. “I never think about any of the other shows,” he says. “I want all of them to do great, but they’re not my responsibility. My responsibility is Arrow, and to make sure everyone from the cast to the crew are good.” His sentiments are seconded by The Flash’s Gustin: “I don’t understand how he does it—his schedule that he maintains with working out, the conventions he goes to, the passion he has for it, and the love he shows towards fans. He’s always prepared. He cares more about that show being high quality than anybody else on the set.”

It was midway through season 6 when Amell realized he was ready to hang up Oliver Queen’s hood. “It was just time to move on,” the actor says of pitching that Oliver leave the series at the end of season 7. “My daughter is turning six in October, and she goes to school in LA, and my wife and I want to raise her [there].” Berlanti persuaded him to return for one final season, which the producers collectively decided would be the end. “We all felt in our gut it was the right time,” says Berlanti. Adds Schechter, “It’s such a privilege to be able to say when something’s ending as opposed to having something just ripped away.”

If there’s one person who has made his peace with Oliver’s fate, it’s Amell. “Because he’s a superhero with no superpowers, I always felt he should die—but he may also not die,” says Amell, who actually found out what the show’s final scene would be at EW’s cover shoot. “I cried as [Marc Guggenheim] was telling me. There are a lot of hurdles to get over to make that final scene.” Get this man some more Guinness!

#stephen amell #beth schwartz #marc guggenheim #greg berlanti #cast #s8 #interviews #news

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yobaba30 · 5 years

Link

If this election turns out to be just between a self-proclaimed socialist and an undiagnosed sociopath, we will be in a terrible, terrible place as a country. How do we prevent that?

That’s all I am thinking about right now. My short answer is that the Democrats have to do something extraordinary — forge a national unity ticket the likes of which they have never forged before. And that’s true even if Democrats nominate someone other than Bernie Sanders.

What would this super ticket look like? Well, I suggest Sanders — and Michael Bloomberg, who seems to be his most viable long-term challenger — lay it out this way:

“I want people to know that if I am the Democratic nominee these will be my cabinet choices — my team of rivals. I want Amy Klobuchar as my vice president. Her decency, experience and moderation will be greatly appreciated across America and particularly in the Midwest. I want Mike Bloomberg (or Bernie Sanders) as my secretary of the Treasury. Our plans for addressing income inequality are actually not that far apart, and if we can blend them together it will be great for the country and reassure markets. I want Joe Biden as my secretary of state. No one in our party knows the world better or has more credibility with our allies than Joe. I will ask Elizabeth Warren to serve as health and human services secretary. No one could bring more energy and intellect to the task of expanding health care for more Americans than Senator Warren.

“I want Kamala Harris for attorney general. She has the toughness and integrity needed to clean up the corrupt mess Donald Trump has created in our Justice Department. I would like Mayor Pete as homeland security secretary; his intelligence and military background would make him a quick study in that job. I would like Tom Steyer to head a new cabinet position: secretary of national infrastructure. We’re going to rebuild America, not just build a wall on the border with Mexico. And I am asking Cory Booker, the former mayor of Newark, to become secretary of housing and urban development. Who would bring more passion to the task of revitalizing our inner cities than Cory?

“I am asking Mitt Romney to be my commerce secretary. He is the best person to promote American business and technology abroad — and it is vital that the public understands that my government will be representing all Americans, including Republicans. I would like Andrew Yang to be energy secretary, overseeing our nuclear stockpile and renewable energy innovation. He’d be awesome.

“I am asking Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to serve as our U.N. ambassador. Can you imagine how our international standing would improve with youth worldwide with her representing next-gen America? And I want Senator Michael Bennet, the former superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, to be my secretary of education. No one understands education reform better than he does. Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna would be an ideal secretary of labor, balancing robots and workers to create “new collar” jobs.

“Finally, I am asking William H. McRaven, the retired Navy admiral who commanded the U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014 and oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, to be my defense secretary. Admiral McRaven, more than any other retired military officer, has had the courage and integrity to speak out against the way President Trump has politicized our intelligence agencies.

Only last week, McRaven wrote an essay in The Washington Post decrying Trump’s firing of Joe Maguire as acting director of national intelligence — the nation’s top intelligence officer — for doing his job when he had an aide brief a bipartisan committee of Congress on Russia’s renewed efforts to tilt our election toward Trump.

“Edmund Burke,” wrote McRaven, “the Irish statesman and philosopher, once said: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”

If Bernie or Bloomberg or whoever emerges to head the Democratic ticket brings together such a team of rivals, I am confident it will defeat Trump in a landslide. But if progressives think they can win without the moderates — or the moderates without the progressives — they are crazy. And they’d be taking a huge risk with the future of the country by trying.

And I mean a huge risk. Back in May 2018, the former House speaker John Boehner declared: “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”

It’s actually not napping anymore. It’s dead.

And I will tell you the day it died. It was just last week, when Trump sacked Maguire for advancing the truth and replaced him with a loyalist, an incompetent political hack, Richard Grenell. Grenell is the widely disliked U.S. ambassador to Germany, a post for which he is also unfit. Grenell is now purging the intelligence service of Trump critics. How are we going to get unvarnished, nonpolitical intelligence analysis when the message goes out that if your expert conclusions disagree with Trump’s wishes, you’re gone?

I don’t accept, but can vaguely understand, Republicans’ rallying around Trump on impeachment. But when Republicans, the self-proclaimed national security party — folks like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton — don’t lift a finger to stop Trump’s politicization of our first line of defense — the national intelligence directorate set up after 9/11 — then the Republican Party is not asleep. It’s dead and buried.

And that is why a respected, nonpartisan military intelligence professional like Bill McRaven felt compelled to warn what happens when good people are silent in the face of evil. Our retired generals don’t go public like that very often. But he was practically screaming, “This is a four-alarm fire, a category 5 hurricane.” And the G.O.P. response? Silence.

Veteran political analyst E.J. Dionne, in his valuable new book, “Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country,” got this exactly right: We have no responsible Republican Party anymore. It is a deformed Trump personality cult. If the country is going to be governed responsibly, that leadership can come only from Democrats and disaffected Republicans courageous enough to stand up to Trump. It is crucial, therefore, argues Dionne, that moderate and progressive Democrats find a way to build a governing coalition together.

Neither can defeat the other. Neither can win without the other. Neither can govern without the other.

If they don’t join together — if the Democrats opt for a circular firing squad — you can kiss the America you grew up in goodbye.

#united states politics and government

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shyeehaw · 6 years

Text

Van der Linde Gang in College

Choice of degrees HCs

Dutch: Politics degree. He has the charisma and is well spoken. I would vote for Dutch! He’s dynamic and would succeed in the versatile politic setting, also many times he used his voice to motivate others. Although we don’t know if he would follow his Robin Hood days or will weight more to the outlaw side. Let’s just hope this time his plans actually work, for the greater good.

Hosea: he strikes me as a dedicated person to his studies. Calm and precise he would be a good architect. A visceral job like this would give Hosea a sense of fulfillment, his projects would actually impact in the life of many others.

Arthur: He would be one of those students that even when it’s midway through his course would doubt if that’s really what he wanted. I can see Arthur being torn between veterinary medicine or a design degree. At the same time he is excited to learn all about different species, he fears that his connection to animals might not be enough for him. Albert Mason would be his classmate in some classes, and so would Kieran. With a design degree he would feel more fulfilled as he would be able to create not only for him , but to the other’s benefits as well.

John: He lived a tough life and grew up on the streets, John knew exactly how the bad side was and he never wanted to get back at doing those things. When time came, he didn’t wanted to spend years of his life with his nose on a book, he found pointless to just memorize things that other people already knew. He wanted to actually do something meaningful. He got a spot at the police’s academy. Training for years in the hope of someday avoiding young kids fall in that kind of life he had before.

Abigail: She convinced John to live a decent life didn’t she? He woke up early every day to mend fences until his back was about to snap in two. Highly persuasive with her sweet words, she would do just fine with a marketing degree. Abigail has the right proactive attitude that this profession needs.

Bill: People never let him forget how bad he is with words. But he is actually pretty smart with numbers. What a waste would he be locked away in a room doing just that. Bill would prosper with a agriculture degree, with which he would be able both to work in the field using his strength, getting his hands dirty and using his natural aptitude for mathematics.

Javier: Fashion degree! Javier is very versatile and just like Arthur he second guessed his choice. He ended up picking a history degree in mexican culture, a way he founded to keep the love for his homeland always burning. He would be an active member of the political debates groups and be responsible for organizing collective acts to help improve life in Mexico countryside. He is a very engaged student. In his spare time, he will attend to music workshops.

Micah: In which field almost anything is valid? Where the competition is always ferocious? What’s the modern translation of a merciless lifestyle? Micah would have a degree in business and management. A title he got from his father, Micah was a prospect to inherit a big company built on blood and secrets. What could suit him better than being able to be rude to everyone “under” him without any consequences? He never cared for it before, and his not going to start now when his about to be CEO.

Lenny: This sweet boy wants a job that will allow him to help people but without having their lives at his hands. Lenny is hard-working and focused, so he would end up getting an English degree, in hopes to someday become a teacher. He is patient, kind and funny. The type of teacher he wish he had when going through college.

Charles: He is a deep and compassionate person, and I can see him choosing an physiotherapy degree. At first he thought about a psychology one, but being and introvert and sometimes finding being around new people too draining, he choose the next good thing to help others. He’s strength helps him lift his patients and aid them to do their exercises. It’s a long process that he finds so rewarding when it’s done. Being able to notice other’s improvement makes him genuinely happy.

Sean: All right, he will admit that he just needed to enter in a course, any course really. All his energy made a lot of degrees impossible, even game design, one of his options, required a level of attention he didn’t had. For some weeks, he even enrolled in a P.E course but the brodudes had their own little posse, and didn’t liked Sean, making fun of his jokes and skinny body. He found himself in the audiovisual communication course. Initially it was all a part of his plan to take over YouTube with his gaming videos, but slowly he started getting interested in experimental techniques, being able to go as crazy as he liked. People actually looked up to his carefree techniques.

Sadie: Sadie is not want to stay still and do boring stuff. With this in mind she kept seeking careers that would give her a sense of adventure and excitement. Archeology seemed good as any guess, she was lured by all the traveling she would get to do, but the job itself was too still. She then chose a crime scene investigation degree, solving those crimes and bringing closure to the victim’s family was something that kept Sadie going. Never a boring day at work, always something new to uncover.

Karen: A body positive queen, Karen pursued a esthetician’s degree. She is great at making people comfortable on their own skin, always looking forward to make young girls embrace their natural beauty. Her bubbly, talkative personality won over the hearts of celebrities even when she was still an intern in training. That brought her a status of beauty guru on Instagram.

Tilly: Ambitious and diligent with her studies, it was written in the stars that Tilly would have a bright future. Her dedication paid of by earning her a spot in a prestigious medical school. She has many traits suitable for this profession. Empathic and understanding, she is leaning towards the pediatric specialization, but not only that, Tilly is practical and good under pressure, which makes her stand out among her classmates.

Mary-Beth: A life among books was all that Mary-Beth could dream of. But she also knew how difficult the publishing industry is. So not only she now studies creative writing improving her already natural skills, and flirting with new genres, she decided to get a degree in library sciences. A way to secure her financial independence and be surrounded by the things she loves the most. The work as an intern at the library is lovely, she gets to meet new people who shares the same interest at her and contribute so everyone gets access to books.

Mrs. Grimshaw: Let’s go ahead and admit that Susan likes to be in charge. He was not born to hear others telling her what to do. When choosing a degree, she kept that in mind. The one that she showed more interest was in people’s management and Human Resources. Where she could delegate all she wanted. But not only that, Susan likes to analyze who is better suited for each task. Great at reading people, she will do great in her field.

Molly: Oh, elegant and classy, Molly! Her sense of aesthetic is on point and that lead her to a life of famous trendsetter on the internet. But she thinks that’s not a real job, so, looking to put her good taste in things at a use, she ends up getting a degree in Jewelry design. Uniting her passion of expensive, beautiful things with artistic talent.

Kieran: All he ever wanted to do with his life is to be around horses. They brought such peace and joy to Kieran that he knew his life would have to follow this path. He started pursuing a Large-Animal vet, with a minor in equestrian studies. It was even better than he imagined, he was fascinated by every aspect from animal nutrition to the actual care of horses. Being a responsible, calm person made a lot of his teachers very pleased.

Trelawny: Captivating and a social butterfly, Josiah had no doubts about looking for a career in communication. His charming personality was very suitable for a journalism degree. He knows his way around words and the most terrible news don’t sound as awful coming from the charismatic (future) anchorman. I wouldn’t mind having his face on my TV every night.

Pearson: Truth is didn’t mattered if he loved cooking for people, as people didn’t loved his food. He didn’t knew if was the improvising or just the plain lack of formal knowledge, he was never taught, just jumped on it. Tired of people giving the food piece by piece for the dog, Pearson pursued a degree in Gastronomy. Finally being able to dive deep in the dishes he was trying to master for years. Pearson is a simple, rustic man and most of the students gave him a hard time for him not being sophisticated enough. He doesn’t mind, at least his foods fills more than the gap of teeth, like theirs.

Swanson: He was kicked out of his theology course, never showed up sober. That’s it. Currently studying philosophy instead and actually enjoying himself. Orville has many thoughts that can be deepened by getting this degree. He looks forward to a get a minor in counseling though, to help others there were in the same place he was a few years ago.

#rdr2 headcanons #rdr2 AU #rdr2 #no one asked for this but here I am!#If anyone thinks differently let me know #I would love to hear yall thoughts

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haillenarte · 6 years

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the swallow’s compass;

Here are translations of various Hingan signs, both within Kugane and The Swallow’s Compass.

...That’s the simple explanation, anyway. The full post below involved a lot more research than I expected, but I don’t really know how else I should describe what I’m doing here. I imagine that this will be fairly interesting to those loremongers with a special interest in Doma and Hingan culture, so if you really like Kugane, or you write a Doman character or something, come on in!

...That said, now I have no idea where I should begin.

I guess I’ll start from the top. I’m not sure if this is widely-known information within the “Western” FFXIV fandom, so forgive me if I’m parroting things that you already know, but basically, the the signage in Kugane and Doma utilizes a “Hingan alphabet” that is essentially a substitution cipher for Japanese hiragana. You know how Eorzean works, right? With the Eorzean signage in the game, the letters of the Eorzean alphabet are substitutes for English letters... so with Doman signage, the characters in the Hingan alphabet are substitutes for Japanese characters.

If you can read hiragana, you can check it out yourself at this fansite here.

I should note that the Japanese version of FFXIV doesn’t really utilize the concepts of “Doman” and “Hingan” the way that the English version does, so Japanese fans refer to the “Hingan alphabet” as クガネ文字、 or “Kugane characters.” I should also note that it seems straightforward enough until you realize that a lot of the in-game signage is highly stylized, so reading it is a lot harder than you’d think, sometimes...

Let’s take a look at the sign outside the Shiokaze Hostelry, shall we?

Broken down — and reading vertically from right to left, of course — the characters here read:

youkoso Kugane e

Welcome to Kugane.

Here’s another example: the banners in the Sekiseigumi Barracks! What do they say? Well... they’re not very interesting, actually. This just says:

Kugane Sekiseigumi

At least they’re proud of themselves...

I considered photographing and documenting every instance of Hingan writing that I could find, but the fact of the matter is, a lot of it is very self-explanatory: the sign outside of the Bokairo Inn, for example, just says Boukaisen, advertising the Bokaisen Hot Springs. (By the way, I believe the localization team chose to go with short-vowel romanizations to encourage correct pronunciations among non-Japanese players, so that’s why there’s an extra vowel there.) So it wouldn’t have been very interesting for me to go around taking pictures of every single sign I could find...

One thing in Kugane I do find really interesting, however, is the sign just outside of the Mujikoza theater!

This sign is actually an advertisement for the actors at Mujikoza:

enja (”Performers”)

Maibito Shiranami Narita Rakuyou Gakunin Fuuran

Gakunin Yabusame Narita Ransetsu Narita Yachiyo Maibito Kikusui

I am not sure if these are intended to be surnames or titles. My assumption is that they are titles, because Gakunin is probably 楽人、or musician, whereas Maibito probably means 舞人、or dancer. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out what “Narita” means in this context, because it definitely isn’t the airport. My guess is that it might be a yagou — a stage name, or acting-house name, which you can read about here.

Note that the actors again receive top billing on the roof of the building, where the sign reads:

SHIRANAMI RAKUYOU FUURAN

Yabusame Ransetsu Yachiyo Kikusui

Shiranami, Rakuyou, and Fuuran must be really popular?!

I’ve got one more surprise from Kugane to show you all, but before we get to that, let’s dive into the Hingan text in The Swallow’s Compass.

First, a little background information: The Swallow’s Compass is, in Japanese, called 風水霊殿ガンエン廟 — very literally, “feng shui temple, gan-en mausoleum,” but since the localization has decided to translate feng shui as geomancy, I think the Japanese dungeon title is best rendered “The Palace of Geomancy: Ganen’s Tomb.”

The English description of the dungeon elaborates on this somewhat:

Enshrined within this tomb, his likeness carved on an imposing scale into the cliffside, is the person of Ganen, the great general who united the warring clans of Yanxia to arise as the first king of Doma. A skilled swordsman and mage both, he is credited as the founding father of Doman geomancy.

Anyway, with that background knowledge, let’s dive right into the signage in The Swallow’s Compass. Quite a lot of it is, um, pretty cool, but really very redundant in my opinion — you know, it’s a million different lines about earth and wind and water — so I have to admit I’m glazing over some of it...

Just imagine a lot of stuff like this...

hagukumutsuchi soil nurtures

megurumizu water circulates

hakobukaze wind carries

Notably, this tablet just past the first boss is a quote attributed to Ganen himself:

kaze wo shirite mizu wo seishi chi wo osamuru ganen-ou

Know the wind Contain the water Heal the earth — King Ganen

The tablet to the right of King Ganen’s reads as follows:

mu ni naru kawa ryu ni naru yama yansa no chi doma to nasu

As the river turns to nothing And the mountain becomes a dragon Does the land of Yanxia Form the nation of Doma

Lastly — I have not included screenshots of every single stone, because it would just be too many pictures that all basically look the same — two famous Chinese poems are quoted throughout the dungeon! I won’t get into the whole history of kanshi poetry and the tradition of Chinese poetry in Japanese literature, but suffice it to say it’s a personal favorite subject of mine.

The Swallow’s Compass quotes two lines from “In the Mountains on a Summer Day” by Li Bai, for which I have enclosed two translations (not by me, of course):

夏日山中李白

懒摇白羽扇裸袒青林中脱巾挂石壁露顶洒松风

In the Mountains on a Summer Day, by Li Bai trans. Arthur Waley, 1919

Gently I stir a white feather fan, With open shirt sitting in a green wood. I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone; A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.

A Summer Day in the Mountains, by Li Bai trans. Andrew W.F. Wong, 2014

Too lazy to wave my fan of white plumes; Rather, go naked, ‘neath the greenwood trees, My headcloth undone, on a stone wall hung, Idling, bare-headed, in the pine-filled breeze.

Peresonally, I think Wong’s translation is better by far, and more ambitious with the rhyme scheme and structure, but Waley’s is more well-known, as you might imagine. Oh, and I’ve italicized the lines that are quoted in FFXIV! The rest of the poem isn’t in the dungeon, but it seems silly to only enclose a part of it here.

The Swallow’s Compass also quotes another poem by the master of masters, Du Fu. There are many translations of Du Fu’s “Spring Prospect,” but here’s one that I liked:

春望杜甫

国破山河在城春草木深感时花溅泪恨别鸟惊心烽火连三月家书抵万金白头搔更短浑欲不胜簪

Spring Prospect, by Du Fu trans. John Tarrant, 2014

The nation is broken – mountains and rivers remain. Spring comes to the city overgrown with grass and trees.

Feeling the time – flowers weep, hating captivity – bird calls pierce the heart.

The war beacons have burned for three months now and I’d give ten thousand pieces of gold for a letter from home.

I’ve torn my white hair till it’s so thin it almost won’t hold a hatpin.

With these poems in mind, I’m coming back to the final sign from Kugane that I saved for last...

The wall scroll in Hancock’s office reads:

saihi akatsuki ni izureba shimoyuki no gotoshi

This, too, is a quote from a kanshi poem, but this poet isn’t very well known at all. Instead of another big-name poet like Li Bai or Du Fu, someone on the dev team decided to quote “Keirinsou Zatsuei” by Hirose Tansou — a really very obscure poet better known for being an egalitarian educator.

...Since no English translation of this particular poem existed, I decided to translate it myself. This involved a lot of personal research and time, so I wound up translating a small selection of Hirose’s poetry as the final project for one of my translation classes. I considered submitting my collection of Hirose’s poetry for publication somewhere, but in the end, well... I don’t know, I mean, who would care except for FFXIV players?

The poem itself is a celebration of friendships forged during one’s schooling years. I have enclosed a direct translation and a more structured, syllabic, rhyming translation:

桂林荘雑詠広瀬淡窓

幾人負笈自西東両筑双肥前後豊花影満簾春昼永書声断続響房書

休道他郷多苦辛同袍有友自相親柴扉暁出霜如雪君汲川流我拾薪

遙思白髪倚門情宦学三年業未成一夜秋風揺老樹孤窓欹枕客心驚

長鋏帰来故国春時時務払簡編塵君看白首無名者曾是談経奪席人

Song of the Cinnamon Grove, by Hirose Tansou trans. haillenarte, 2018

(direct translation)

From east and west we travel, carrying our book-boxes, through the plains of Ryōchiku — as fertile and lush as ever. The shadows of the flowers shield us from the sun as intermittent voices rebound and resonate in clusters of sound.

We shall not rest in foreign lands with bitter feelings in our hearts when our brothers here, our comrades-in-arms, will soon become our dearest friends. As we leave the house at dawn, beneath the hoarfrost so like snow, you will draw our water, and I will collect our firewood.

Distantly, I think of gray hair, and my heart presses against the gates — my third year at civil service school, and my work isn’t finished. In the evening, an autumn breeze shakes the ancient trees, and I rise from my solitary pillow, trembling with wanderlust.

And at last, the sweet return, the glorious springtime of our homelands! The time has passed, our work is cleared, and our books are layered in dust. With your hair grown white, you would be nameless to me but for the hours we have passed debating the sutras, side by side.

Song of the Cinnamon Grove, by Hirose Tansou trans. haillenarte, 2018

(structured translation, departs from original)

From east and west, we walk with burdens through the fields of Ryōchiku. The shadows of the flowers shade us as I talk and walk with you.

We shall not rest in foreign lands with bitter feelings in our hearts when we have friends to stand beside us in our study of the arts. And as we leave the house at dawn ‘neath frozen dew that looks like snow ‘tis you for whom I tend the fire, you for whom I make it glow.

As I recall the greying hairs my mother and my father wear, I long to travel to my home, where perhaps I will see them there. Beyond these years of solemn schooling, I have work that must be done, but I rise from my lonely pillow, thinking of the rising sun.

And after all of this is over, someday we will return home with dusty books and whiter hair and fewer, fewer lands to roam; And you would have no name to me but for the time we spent in class, Arguing over the sutras, laughing as we lay in grass.

Why do I think the dev team decided to quote this particular poem? Well... read it to yourself. Doesn’t it remind you of a certain scene, from a certain patch, from another expansion, long, long ago...?

#kugane #ffxiv #ff14 #stormblood

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years

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Dual Loyalties

I think most of us in the Jewish community take the accusation of “dual loyalty” as a feature specifically of anti-Semitic rhetoric. But the reality is that the insult itself, although always a popular way among anti-Semites to disparage Jewish Americans, has a far more complicated history than taking it “just” as a way of questioning the patriotism of American Jews would make it sound. And the philosophical underpinnings of the idea—the question of whether loyalty to one’s country by definition precludes the possibility of also harboring a deep sense of emotional, financial, or activist involvement in the affairs of some other country—is itself an interesting question to think through.

It is widely understood that the heart cannot love two other persons simultaneously with the exact same level of passion or vigor, and that, as a result, one of the two parties will always be the less loved and one the more no matter how pure one’s original intention to love them both equally well might have been. Indeed, it was the slow insinuation of this idea into our Western consciousness that led to even the most traditional Jews turning away from polygamy despite its scriptural bona fides and instead embracing the monogamous model in marriage. Nor is this just a non-binding instance of a custom falling into gentle desuetude: Rabbi Gershom ben Judah of Mainz formally interdicted polygamy in the year 1240—an amazingly daring move in his day in that it actually made (and makes) it forbidden to obey to least one of the 613 commandments according to the simple meaning of the text, which is surely how Scripture meant for it to be observed—and thus does it remain forbidden and not merely out of vogue for Jews even today.

What is true with respect to the love of another person is also widely understood to be true with respect to the love of one’s country. And, indeed, although fidelity to one’s spouse and allegiance to one’s country are hardly each other’s exact counterpart in every single way, there are features that both clearly do—and should—share. To consider the issue from an American vantage point, for example, I think it is entirely fair to say that the love of country that characterizes the patriotic citizen, rooted as it must be in a deep allegiance both specifically to the foundational ideas upon which the republic rests and more generally to the whole American ethos as it has evolved to our day, simply cannot co-exist with that citizen’s same level of allegiance to some other country and to its institutions and foundational ideas.

But does that concept of patriotic monogamy, so to speak, mean that citizens are somehow being untrue to the country of their own citizenship by caring deeply about, and feeling intensely involved in, the affairs of other nations? Is it an act of disloyalty for someone happily married to a loving spouse also to care deeply about other people—about a neighbor suffering from some terrible illness, say, or about a co-worker suddenly in danger of losing his or her home? Who would say it does? And yet the dual-allegiance derogation—with its implication that one cannot be a truly patriotic American if one also cares deeply about the affairs of another country and is emotionally or even spiritually caught up in that country’s affairs of state—continues to surface like an endlessly recurring infection that simply refuses to succumb until it has done the maximum damage possible…to those whose American patriotism it attempts to sully and, paradoxically, also to those who degrade their own allegiance to our nation’s democratic principles by using it to question the patriotism of others. And, yes, this does seem to be more focused on Jewish supporters of Israel than on others: I imagine Irish Americans care more about Ireland than most other Americans do, but I can’t recall anyone accusing them of disloyalty because of it.

Most recently, this has come up in the wake of a comment of Rashida Tlaib, the newly elected member of the House of Representatives from Michigan, who openly and publicly suggested that people backing a series of pro-Israel bills in the House appear to hear to have forgotten “what country they represent.” The implication of that remark, tweeted out to her 280,000 followers on Twitter, is completely clear in its suggestion that any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate who actively and vocally supports Israel cannot be a truly patriotic American and so should not be trusted to serve in the Congress or imagined invariably to have the best interests of American citizens at heart. (The irony that inheres in the fact that Tlaib is both a Palestinian-American and an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause, yet presumably does not see herself as unsure what country she represents, went unnoticed only by some. See below.)

The “dual loyalty” mud has been flung at many others as well over the years. The internment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans in West Coast concentration camps during the Second World War could only be justified with reference to the fear that, now that war had come, Americans of Japanese descent might reasonably have opted to preference allegiance to their ancestral homeland over loyalty to their adopted one. The 1960 presidential election was marred by opponents of John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, openly wondering if the then-candidate’s true allegiance was to our nation or to the Vatican. There are lots of other examples too, of course. But all have in common the basic notion that caring deeply, personally, and intensely about the security and wellbeing of a foreign state is a form—albeit a minor and unactionable form—of sedition. But is that a reasonable supposition? It is one thing, after all, for the Constitution to require that the President of the United States be a “natural born Citizen,” presumably because of the fear that any citizen who was formerly the citizen of a different country will necessarily harbor in his or her heart the kind of indelible allegiance to that country that would make it impossible to be wholly loyal to this one. When spelled out that clearly, that sounds ridiculous. Or at least to me it does! But to posit that citizens in general, and not specifically those seeking the highest office in the land, are by definition disloyal if they care deeply about the fate or wellbeing of specific other nations strikes me as being infinitely more so.

Two essays published last week spoke directly to this issue and I’d like to recommend them both to you.

Writing on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency website, Andrew Silow-Carroll cited a remark by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis dating back to 1915 in which he could have been addressing himself to Rashida Tlaib directly. “Multiple loyalties,” he wrote, “are objectionable only if they are inconsistent. Every Irish American who contributed towards advancing home rule [i.e., in an Ireland then fighting for its own independence from Britain] was a better man and a better American for the sacrifice he made. Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine, though he feels that neither he nor his descendants will ever live there, will likewise be a better man and a better American for doing so.” In other words, caring deeply about an ancestral homeland and feeling a tie of kinship and emotional affinity to its inhabitants is not a sign of disloyalty, much less of sedition, but rather a natural extension of the allegiance we all feel to our extended families. But Silow-Carroll’s comment on that passage is also worth citing: “The Brandeisian notion that ‘multiple loyalties’ make you a better American has guided and justified Jewish activism for Israel even before its founding in 1948. It’s based partly on Brandeis’ theoretical notion that loyalty itself is an admirable and fungible quality, like honesty or sobriety. And it assumes, as Brandeis did famously, that American values, Jewish values and Zionist values are fully aligned.” I couldn’t agree more. To read Silow-Carroll’s piece, click here.

The other essay was by Alan Dershowitz and was published on the website of the Gatestone Institute. His essay is less about Tlaib herself, however, and more about the anti-BDS legislation whose supporters Tlaib was attacking. (To read the essay in its entirely, click here.) That legislation, intended to make illegal discrimination against entities (commercial or academic or otherwise) that do business with Israel, is being widely attacked in some circles as an attack on the freedom of speech promised all Americans by the First Amendment. He addresses that charge, I think effectively and—for me, at least—conclusively, and then turns his withering gaze to Rashida Tlaib herself and addresses her tweet: “Tlaib argues that ‘boycotting is a right and part of our historical fight for freedom and equality.’ Would she have supported, in the name of equality, the right of white bigots to boycott Black owned stores in the South or Black apartment renters in the North? Would she support the right of homophobes to boycott gay owned stores? Or the right of anti-Muslim bigots to boycott Muslim-owned stores or products from Muslim nations? If she were to support legislation prohibiting anti-Palestinian boycotts, how would she respond to an accusation that she ‘forgot what country’ she represents?...No one has accused Tlaib of forgetting what country she represents when she supports the Palestinian cause, even though Palestinian terrorists, acting in the name of ‘Palestine,’ have killed numerous Americans. Americans of any religion have the right to support Israel, and most do, without being accused of disloyalty, just as Americans of any religion have the right to support the Palestinian cause. It is both bigoted and hypocritical to apply a different standard to Jews who support Israel than to Muslims who support the Palestinian cause.”

What else is there to say? I couldn’t feel myself to be a more patriotic citizen of our great country. My deep commitment to the security and wellbeing of the State of Israel is not solely rooted in the fact that Joan and I own property there, but far more deeply in my conviction that the future of the Jewish people is inextricably tied to the fate of the State of Israel. I can’t even begin to explain why anyone would argue seriously that that makes me less of an American patriot.

#Dual Loyalty Issue #Rashida Tlaib #Alan Dershowitz #Andrew Silow-Carroll

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