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nickthetoony · 7 months

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I've been in a prolonged Star Wars mood recently which has coincided with me getting deep into Gundam so I've been comparing and contrasting their different approaches to similar ideas a lot, and I thought I might as well lay it all out in writing to get it out of my head.

I'm specifically comparing Star Wars to UC Gundam, starting with the original Gundam which for context began airing in 1978, after A New Hope but before Empire Strikes Back. You can see a bit of A New Hope's visual influence in some aspects of Gundam.

Both series prominently feature a laser sword of some description. "Lightsabers" in SW and "Beam Sabers" in Gundam. Other than the obvious difference of Beam Sabers being in scale with 18 meter tall mechs, there's also the difference in that the lightsaber is made out to be an elegant weapon, harkening back to a nostalgic imagining of knights and samurai, before the invention of less honorable firearms with future stories ascribing a deep cultural significance of the lightsaber to the people that made them.

The Gundam Beam Saber is in comparison a very utilitarian tool in a Mobile Suit's arsenal, usually carried right alongside rifles and bazookas. It still invokes a little bit of that knightly image, but the fact that it's usually used as a last resort weapon of desperation hampers the idea of it being a weapon of elegance or honorable combat. In a way they're more like real swords in that they're sidearms you only pull out in a battlefield when all your other options are unavailable.

Another superficial similarity they share is their masked villains, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Char Aznable was inspired a little bit by Darth Vader. Of course, since Gundam was pre-Empire, when so much of Vader hadn't been established yet and his most notable trait was having a cool costume, the two ended up diverging into wildly different characters.

Char is a pretty young man who uses a mask to cover his identity and Vader is old and scarred and needs the mask to breathe. Vader is the main character's father and Char is completely unrelated to his main character until they meet face to face late in the show. In a way Char is kind of more similar to Kylo Ren being masked pretty boys with daddy issues though again their arcs end up wildly diverging. Kylo and Vader both end up "redeemed" but Char isn't really the kind of character who can or should be redeemed.

Somewhat related to the above, both Gundam and Star Wars have enemy factions who are meant to invoke Nazi Germany. Star Wars' invocation of German fascism (at least in the movies) is a lot more nebulous than Gundam's, communicating this analogy through visual reference to Nazi iconography while leaving the actions of the Empire more broadly as just general cartoon bad guy stuff.

The way Gundam compares the Principality of Zeon and the Nazis is a lot more specific and a lot more direct. The way the Zeon arms race plays out in the original is a direct parallel to the real-life Nazi wunderwaffen projects, where the Third Reich's internal friction and investments in ludicrous super weapons ended up costing them more than they gained, contributing to their eventual defeat. Gundam also takes place in our future (or atleast a future envisioned in 1978) so the real Nazis existed in this world and Hitler is brought up as a direct comparison to the original show's big bad.

(Writing this out, I had the thought that you could draw the same comparison between the Death Star and the wunderwaffen program, but idk if Star Wars itself has ever drawn that comparison.)

Another point of comparison is that both series heavily feature mystical, psychic powers inspired by the spiritualist movements of the day. The Force for Star Wars and Newtypes for Gundam. The Force is cribbing a lot aesthetically from eastern spiritualism while Gundam takes a lot more from the visual ideas of psychedelia.

The Force is far more concrete and straightforward than Newtype-ism. A magic energy field that can be used to perform great feats of power, and which has birthed two established sects of thought that are both treated as ancient. Force users are also clearly demarcated into Good and Evil camps, with specific powers and abilities locked behind a character's individual morality.

Newtypes in Gundam are very different from Sith or Jedi though. Rather than representing an ancient struggle of good vs evil, Newtypes represent a supposed evolution of the human soul, when humanity can communicate to each other psychically in an era where miscommunication is impossible. Supposedly.

Because whereas in Star Wars, the conflict of the Force is one of primordial good and evil, the conflict of the Newtype is one of heightened spiritualist ideas butting up against the mundane reality of different people operating under different and conflicting motivations. There aren't dark or light side Newtypes in the way that Force users are categorized, all of them share the core ability to bridge physical limitations to understand each other on a deep intimate level, but does that matter when their material conditions are inherently at odds? What happens when two people understand each other perfectly and they still have to fight and kill each other?

My last point of comparison is between the two "heroes" of both series. Luke Skywalker and Amuro Ray.

In a way, they're very similar characters. Both start out as young boys living relatively comfortable-if boring lives who are Called To Adventure and eventually awaken to their special powers to become great soldiers of their respective wars. Both are defined by the legacy of their fathers. Both are coming of age stories.

Where I find the comparison between them very interesting is the comparison of Luke at the end of his character arc (in The Last Jedi) and Amuro at the end of his (in Char's Counterattack). Luke in TLJ is a sad disillusioned old man who has failed in his attempt to rebuild the order that had been entrusted to him and who has stagnated into a miserable grandpa. For many longtime fans of the character this was a shock, and apparently for a lot of people felt like a disappointing betrayal. Because Luke was the Hero of The Rebellion, the Return of The Jedi. He was brave, and true, and more than just a normal man. So to see him so impotent felt wrong for many people.

I find it interesting that Amuro (subtler than Luke) also ends up in a similar spot, but in a way that feels far more appropriate to his character and to the tone of the narrative.

Because Amuro was not a hero. He was a child forced to become a soldier far younger than he should've been. Pressured by the dire, apocalyptic world surrounding him and the societal pressures of masculinity that hound him. Luke's inheritance from his father was a Lightsaber. A weapon of a great shining order which eventually was mutated by the Disney movies into a sort of Excalibur wielded only by the worthy virtuous heroes. Amuro's inheritance was the Gundam, the Devil's Machine, the first in a long line of military weapons, the image of which would haunt him for the rest of his tragically short life.

Amuro had at one point been a war hero, then a rebel fighting against the corrupt and self-interested Federation that had eagerly turned him into a human weapon. But his childhood of violence eventually left him no choice but to be subsumed into the military hierarchy he had at one point attempted to break free of. In terms of combat skill, Amuro was the best of the best by the end of his arc, but he had failed in every other regard. His Newtype abilities, once seen as a gateway to a future without misunderstandings, were now honed for violence. His final words ones of dumb confusion as he failed to understand the feelings of his enemy.

Luke gets the benefit of a Rey. The ability to once again become heroic and good and brave, to inhabit the comforting role of a gallant knight. And this step in his characterization is still met with confused hostility by most viewers. Amuro does not receive a similar luxury. He dies young and suddenly, with only the suggestion that his actions will eventually make things better, but it feels right with his character even for how unsatisfying it is.

Again, I don't know if I really have a coherent point with this post. Apologies if you've read this far and felt like I have wasted your time. For now, I think my main conclusion is that it's interesting to see how two different kinds of science fiction (heroic science-fantasy VS military sci-fi) approach similar ideas. I think the reason Luke's arc in TLJ fails for many is that the story of the original trilogy was fundamentally unfit to handle it. It's tacking on an unsatisfying tragedy onto a conventional, simple Hero's Journey rather than building on the foundation of societal critique the way Gundam does with Amuro.

Anyway. Bye.

#star wars #gundam #luke skywalker #amuro ray #meta analysis #comparison #spoilers for both series #long post #sorry for barfing a bunch of words at you

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ashen-crest · 8 months

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Happy Storyteller Saturday! Are any of your characters themed after a certain fairytale or myth?

Ooh, good question! They're not based on any specific myth or specific story, but they've got fairytale and myth-like elements (like Aspen the forest spirit).

One sort of real-life tale/myth/idea/something(?) that inspired parts of The Stray Spirit specifically is the general concept of hidden truths within older stories that are largely dismissed as pure myth nowadays. A couple examples that come to mind, and apologies for not having more specific examples off the top of my head:

stories about gods that, when put into the context of their time periods and locations, describe real-life events, like volcanic eruptions or earthquakes

stories and songs about locations that only existed pre-Ice Age

disparate stories that actually connect to each other (ex: earthquakes in one part of the world causing tsunamis in the other part of the world, with both civilizations recording the event in different ways)

This is a common pattern in indigenous oral history. That example I mentioned above about pre-Ice Age locations? There are indigenous Australian oral histories that genuinely describe places that are now underwater, which means those stories are thousands of years old! Oh, and here, I found one about Hawaiian volcano narratives and how they describe real-life lava flows that align with our geological findings! They're just so cool!!

While The Stray Spirit doesn't actually align with these stories nor these communities, it does involve the general concept of a) stories describing a real-life event in an abstract way that people might overlook; b) songs containing important hidden messages; and c) those songs and stories being forgotten over time.

anyhoo, sorry for the rambling!! thanks for the ask!

#the stray spirit #sts #storyteller saturday

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jonathankatwhatever · 11 months

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It’s 10 Nov 2023 and I have a lot to say but first: were you really nervous this morning (my time), because I felt a panic at around 10AM? Next question: is that what you were nervous about? I didn’t realize that was today until later. Don’t you love playing around with times? Even the meaning of times.

That leads to something which seems to have been percolating without much if any awareness on my End: the coming together of the original conception of mechanics, as in Choice Mechanism or Context Mechanism or Creation Mechanism or even Concept Mechanism, because this is how ideas are born, how they spread, how they thrive or fail, and so on through whatever list you want to create because any list is finite because it is created, meaning it only continues as long as it is created, which means there is an infinite process of creation by which that list continues but it is finite at each step or stage. That is the minimum description. If we Attach an actual Thing to that idea, then we have the infinite process of the creation of Things, and as we add specificity to a Thing, like if we type it and otherwise classify it, then we generate more that must be continuously created. In other words, we could follow this continuous creation idea out and out and out, but I think what we really want to know is whether there’s a limit to that, a Boundary to continuous creation. And the answer is obviously yes: where the permutations fade to just the loneliest of few, when the line dies out, then there is no more link.

That’s relative. As in, relationship die because they’re not watered, which is fascinating to me because that was the gate I came in through. That really is striking. I’ve never had a clearer match in my head than just happened. And it has the next point too, which is slippery and easy to say badly, like it bites, which I don’t want. And that point is this scales entirely. I’m trying to keep this under control.

Scales means it Injects energy at the scalars, and then we scale those using HC. So now we can see that fCM stands as fundamental CM because it literally generates 50:50 and other choice and context mechanics. And SBE establishes modularities. That connects to scaling like Mag10, which includes or invokes (1+(SBE3)+1). SBE also connects to 1-0-1 and 0-1-0. The leaves what we call gs process, like Halving/Doubling and I//I. And gs process takes us to D-structure, which phrases all these methods and concepts in dimensional terms, notably using I//I to define existence as a D3-4 Thing in its related D-structure.

Anyway, whatever that paragraph was, it came out fairly well.

I meant to say that I was thinking about the Eulerian perspective, which is standing in one place watching stuff go by, versus the Langrangian, which is that you’re the stuff floating by, and then I started to think about Newtonian mechanics into Langrangian into Hamiltonian, and I had this extremely gripping and interesting moment which I need to describe.

I have now heard a bunch about the concept of jealousy like I am a jealous God, and the idea I keep hearing refine itself is that this means put me first, always, so whatever you do put me first and then act. There are of course connections over actions. Note: we can explain D’Alembert’s principle, why it exists, why it works.

So before the above, I had an ordering understanding about how HC leads to specific mathematical connections, like how the BSD conjecture has been unraveling, and then to physics, which makes the work not easier but connected and thus quicker.

That means there’s a mechanics in this. And I saw it in my head as a thing which saw me process the price on my house with objectivity, calculating what it might sell out for and thus what 30% of that might be and it made sense. Then I suddenly saw you, and I saw you doing stuff, and that became like a date or a flash of dates, and how else would you get to know someone, and that became is kissing part of getting to know, are handjobs, blow jobs, anal, you name it getting to know, and I terminated that progression, and then I saw a best image of you, one that always puts me first the way that I always put you first, no matter how far apart we have been, no matter how far apart we may ever be, always first.

And literally at that moment, I could see that is an effect over time, which compresses into moments of time, so we can define an encompassing mechanics, which includes any mechanics we can find or devise, and that was an enormous moments of clarity.

So now I have a blunt question for you: are you Ending our relationship? Are you choosing a life with him instead of me? Every other time I’ve thought this or brought it up, it has been knowing that I was nowhere near done. And now, I get frustrated if the most difficult problems don’t translate within hours. You’ve been experiencing the fluidity of enhanced creation. I can see it and hear it. And here you are with your boyfriend and I have to ask if this is all I’ll ever get from you.

You can see why this bothers me? It’s an inflection point and I have to question whether you will make the decision which has been dangled in front of me, which possesses me frequently during the day, or whether you’ll choose no to an actual relationship which actually involves me.

On another note, the amount of deja vu I’m going through is extreme. I rented a storage unit this morning and I did that entire thing already, including taking a photo of the maintenance guy with his broom in the open, empty unit. Even when I was typing on his computer and the mouse was wonky.

So I guess there’s a good chance this is our End. If so, I’m going to miss feeling alive. I hope you will miss me too. I have been looking forward to many years of productive, fun, happy times spent with you after so many difficult years. But maybe it’s time to give up and grow old.

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jjheejz · 3 years

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About Internet Water Army in the case

This is an ongoing update about the case from start to development. List of all related posts can be found on this blog's pinned post (link provided at bottom of each post as well).

19 August 2021 update: Added the scale of his success for reference, before bonus below

18 August 2021 update: Added timeline of events, orange title in post, found out the official English term for Immoral Media = Internet Water Army)

Major updates since first draft: Added bonus, added disclaimer, certain info details

Originally posted on 16 August 2021

[The purpose of this post is to provide a perspective as to why the Media is raised/blamed regarding the issue. Especially for international fans, as all the encounters happened on Weibo. Also, those who were on weibo, do read through if you will. So although it's lengthy, do try to read all, at least if not the last two parts].

The Media referred by most, is not the common perception of the Entertainment Industry (celebrities, directors, shows, channels, staff etc), but the dark side of the Entertainment industry: Antis, toxic fans, toxic marketing accounts. They are called Internet Water Army💧.

Toxic Marketing Accounts is one of the things they do, these accounts on Weibo has millions of followers, each of their post likes are in the hundred thousands (buyable) to give credibility to passer-bys. Some use similar names to Official accounts, some use similar logos. Their posts are usually subjective or aims to steer view points of a certain celebrity/movie/show. Before the latest update of this post (18.08.21), I just group them all together and term them as Immoral Media*.

*Below is my original post using my original term because at point of first draft, I did not know the official term (so have changed/added the term from Immoral Media to Internet Water Army in content below but retain the content based off first draft).

If you have chased before celebrities, or just simply passed by an article about certain celebrities, recall how some title that caught your attentions were like. Clickbaits is one of the many things they do. If GZ is your first and you do not have Weibo, then this read(link) is good enough.

Just as the term Immoral Media (Internet Water Army), it’s immoral and unethical, but they exists because they are paid to do so. Who pays them? Entertainment Companies, and maybe other Organisations

Normal Media/Marketing vs Immoral Media/Toxic Marketing/Internet Water Army

When a show or movie comes out, the normal Marketing department will generate outreach and buzz so that people know a show is airing soon/know the show exists etc. Official announcements are not enough, because there isn’t much context (limited content to put up as well) so having some other Marketing accounts do the buzz in a planned period to gain awareness through posts, some articles about the casts, the plot summary, the production details etc is normal. This is Marketing, bigger companies will probably have stronger Marketing departments (aka influence) and can hire more Marketing accounts to generate buzz. Celebrities (aka casts) themselves, are also Marketing point.

Then we have the Internet Water Army/Immoral Media, these are what they mainly do:

Create Fanfiction-rumors: Creating rumors about celebrities to shift audience perception of them. [eg. XX was seen with XX leaving a hotel, XX was drunk on Event Y and did ZZZ to AA, XX is dating BB and has been in a relationship for N years etc]

Honing their brain degrading skills: Come up with titled clickbait headings/ trending topics with negative written contents. For articles, exceptionally out of heading content related to the celebrity. [Refer to Baidu, it’s a winner of these, feel free to Google Translate]

Regressing their common sense and understanding skills: Take everything a celebrity does completely out of context in a negative way and create a topic out of it [eg. XX said AA is a ---, “XX raised his finger, a sign of ---?”, XX pushed BB aggressively on Variety Show Y - A competition variety show, XX is in beef with CC because XX was caught giving CC the eye]

Using their fingers to stir shit and bathe each other in it: Escalate all smallest form of possible tension created by fans/themselves into a huge thing by acting as the fandom's fans/lurk in fandom chat groups, and voicing their disguised opinion to spread tension/exaggerate severity of the issue [eg. XX fans mocked AA - in groupchats: tbh I've never liked AA before, AA just gives off a vibe that I dont like and now this? It just disgusts me even more > Yea, i feel this way too. AA has problems / XX Lurkers expressing views on XX about NN, slowly to NNMHFXW - XX did NNMHGT - I cannot accept NNmHfHw, I'm leaving = multiply by 1000++]

Epitome of a self-deteriorate: Creating something out of nothing and react to that something negatively to gain massive attention/reaction [eg. “XX raised his hand on show Y” - dk what XX fans are thinking, are they literally blind? XX fans are tasteless just like XX hahaha / “XX did community service” - they are acting / “XX breathed” - From the start, i thought XX was NN, but I am so ZZZ that XX breathed. Goodbye fandom, i’m leaving. Those who still want to stay I urge you to rethink your life choices] - if I may add, Xiao Zhan’s fanfiction case as well.

Metaphor - Ability to use bare hands to collect paychecks from the urinal/toilet bowl where their boss/client peed in: Doing all of the above.

Apologies for any term offense, but not apologetic of the term context. This is what they do for a living. Any normal human being who do not like anything, will generally not be interested at anything about it in the first place, so to have some antis/toxic fans knowing certain things and inside jokes/references in their posts questions their goal.

On involved in Internet Water Army/Immoral Media 💧

Fans on weibo during these few months witnessed many of the above on GZ. From rumored girlfriend (spammed with articles) to mean and nasty comments on trending topics, to bouts of insults and fake emotional cryouts by certain fan accounts that GZ's office has to release a number of Lawyer’s letter to them.

Aside from WOH there were also a few other BL adaptation films that were actually released this year but they did not reach exponential success like WOH. BL adaptations are so highly followed by because this is the key to wealth. Literally. Successful BLs like The Untamed and Dao Mu Bi Ji saw the amount of wealth fans are willing to spend on the celebrity as compared to say BG or idols (younger fan groups). This is why when WOH shot up exponentially, Immoral Media start to sweat.

Major anticipated adaptations were supposed to air this year eg. Hao Yi Xing(HYX), Sha Po Lang(SPL) etc but was severely held back due to the stricter change in BL adaptations submitting their scripts for approval regulations (WOH manage to submit earlier before the change). Because of this, most final films were rejected and they have to keep re-editing, by then WOH was already months into reaping tonnes of major brand endorsements, shows/movie casting, variety show appearances etc, something that is seen as too successful in the Immoral Media’s eyes, because they have to create buzz for other celebrities, some are specific celebrity oriented and thus circulate rumors about having endorsement opportunities shifted from celebrity X to GZ (think fanfiction-rumors and shit stirrer) causes tension in celebrity fandoms. - A real event just in July:

The Untamed’s cp fandom is called BJYX which had always been in the Top 1 of Cps for 2 years dropped for awhile to Top 2, over taken by LLD. Both of them had a war and hated each fandom, one fandom is somehow not allowed to like the other fandom even casually after everything broke out because it started out with some BJYX toxics photoshopped GZ on of portraits .

Also another case of which he wore the same costume as WYB did in a previous photoshoot and it became a useless comparison of who wore better, who looks better, degrading the other. (Finger stirring shit).

Now apply all of the above things the Internet Water Army do and we have them earning money, while both fandom reacts and hate each other.

In LLD, our own fans started suspecting each other on who is a spy from BJYX and what not.

The first few months of Internet Water Army saw LLDs mostly mocking them because the average age is 30-40s, they know and see through all of their intentions so nothing was big. They were trumpeting and LLDs didn’t even care, what with all the doing tedious stats was not even important to them.

Over time, as the issues they create became more and more serious LLDs did start to care, reporting Toxic Marketing accounts/toxic fans became a daily task, go vote for GZ at certain polls etc, solo fans, and LLD fans also split apart. Solo fans think cp fans use GZ to furnish their fantasies, and cp fans thinks they are the ones furnishing their dreaming-girls fantasy with (aka my boyfriend).

There was also a period where LLD had a habit of continuously mentioning “we are in the 30-40s so we can see through everything about the media, we are all fans for the first time, we are good at spending money (because of purchase power compared to other fandoms)” it was prevalent for so long it felt odd, ‘chasing celebrities the first time’ in particular sounds more vulnerable as a weakness than a strength / sth to be proud of.

Gradually, more secretive/insider confirmed ‘sweets’ were flying around. Fans advised each other to not circulate, and the mindset of “if you know, you know, dont tell.” (This is a problematic mentality, of which fans will still be curious to know and search for it themselves, but this secretive hook is unhealthy. Over the long term, it becomes hard for existing fans to know a lot of things properly to judge for themselves, especially those who knew and publicly reacted, but blasting those who ask and telling those who know to keep quiet, this did not help some to understand why on certain things, even so for international fans, dont know and dont understand, causing misunderstandings. Yes, certain information should not be shared, so why should you react about it publicly in the first place? - Internet Water Army effect)

The last few months (for example the July fan war) created a tonne of seriousness and anger. A period even broke out with a tonne of ‘insider confirmed sweets’ (which is LLD’s daily dose of happiness), it was hard to tell what was real and what was fake. Trending topics became negative and everyone warned each other not to enter because it will give the trends ‘views’ and trend statistics, in reality entering there is to enter an exhibition by the self-deteriorates, collecting the fandom's traffic data (it's a sure lose for fans each time they enter the topic). Everyone even starts thinking that the trend’s popularity was caused by each other (it's true but it can be bought daily and not caused by fans). There was a raise in the number of fans who were getting emotional because they want to protect but Internet Water Army kept coming and got worse, because fans, tbh, not just GZ fans, every other celebrity’s fans are always fighting with an Army, getting played and plotted in that Army's calendar.

Even so, despite all of these, LLD is actually a fandom Internet Water Army may find the hardest to break because they understand GZ so much, they could tell what are fake news regarding GZ, because among everything above, there are still plenty of logical fans to stop many fans from drifting too far and debunking them. Why? 30-40s are grown up adults.

Why 13.8.21 and the Japan issue is plotted?

First of all, in the political climate of China, there are many political dates in a month that is NO-Entertainment news. Because it’s the honoring of certain important political events. It’s like Remembrance Day, thus the sensitivity is higher. On these days, there are usually no news and even the Internet Water Army zip their pants. This year also marks the 100th year of the Chinese Communist Party(link)

Secondly, he had no work schedule on 13 August 2021. A great full day to focus on any other news (because if he had schedules, everyone will turn their attention to his events, what trumpeting outside is just bird chirps).

Thirdly, when the news broke out, especially about the shrine, the reception was actually quite serious within the fandom so the scale of this might be big but to what extent in reality?

Lastly, 15.8.21 marks the 76th anniversary of the announcement of surrender of Japanese in World War 2(link). Also a day of NO-Entertainment news.

Timeline of events:

13.8.21 - [His rest day, Eve of Chinese Valentine's Day, Japan News broke out] His rest day, no schedules = increased attention about him online. Lowered guard among fans because they are getting ready for tomorrow's Chinese Valentine's sweets = Caught off guard = Huge break out of fans' reactions

14.8.21 - [Chinese Valentine's Day, Eve of the 75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender] Keep a wishful and happy demenaor to not destroy the mood, suppressed thoughts about ZZH's Japan news

15.8.21 - [75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender, Official announcement of ZZH's boycott and all China social media account ban] NO-Entertainment news day, Solemn day, not allowed to voice anything so the fandom can only wait for tomorrow to start voicing out/debunking but before they can wait out, the boycott and social media ban happened, every official accounts about him was gone overnight, fans had no time to react

17.8.21 - [All official fandom accounts related to ZZH and JunZhe were locked/removed]

Forced to be silent since the day his matter broke out, over the course of official news release with everything taken down in a day because of the Japan correspondence, his accounts banned overnight across the Chinese media and the overnight cancellation, fans could not speak anything about it. Overnight cancellation like this scale happened for the first time in China, leaving no time to react by the fandom, by the time they can, they are silenced.

When the period of events occured within a set of special dates, it’s not coincidence.

Conclusion

Because he was too successful and had many actually honorable past things, and a hard to influence fandom, Internet Water Army view him as a huge threat enough to want to destroy him, because it’s hard to defeat. With a chance they have, they will hold it till the end, bringing up this issue to the Government during this period also shows a sign of how scared they were of him and perhaps his fandom to plot something like this.

Updated on 19 August: Here's a screenshot of assumed calculation on the scale of GZ success for reference while chatting with a fellow fan, assuming GJ also has 27 brands, and there are 1000 brands. Rationale of numbers used: Only big brands can hire big celebrities.

Bonus

Mentioned in the first post, will mention again in case. After the news broke out within 2 days, there was a drop on his weibo followers from 18.9mil to 18.7mil. 200k+ drops, if the politics was such a big national issue, there should at least be a huge drop, even at least a million right? Because weibo is a China-Chinese majority right? Nope, we get a puny 200k drop.

What's funny? The self-deteroriates:

Translation: "Are his fans bought? Why didnt he drop fans? Those people got brainwashed to this point?" / "I've never entered his weibo and today i feel like having a look yet it showed I've followed him. All his fans were bought right? It disgusts me, i immediately unfollowed. This kind of process is worse than WYF..." / "i dropped fans because of him...no...I just reposted 2 posts and I've dropped 4 fans?"

Isn't the tone and regressing brain cells, all too familiar and same?

Added above, will remind again to read this link. It has an even more in-depth knowledge on who are paying them.

So what should we do? Link here

Related posts 🛏️:

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ironwoman359 · 3 years

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This is probably not the best place to ask, but you’re also a Christian woman too. I was wondering what you thought about what the Bible says about women and how we must submit to husbands and some other stuff that has me (a potential ace) Christain woman kind of terrified. I would go to my church but social anxiety and my church is pretty conservative. I don’t want to think that we’re just second rate citizens with this. Um…that’s all. You don’t have to answer. Love your Tumblr. It’s one of the main ones I look at. Thanks for countless enjoyment!

— — —

(I’m responding on the submission and not the ask because the ask refused to post properly, I think it was too long for Tumblr’s fancy)

So I know you just asked for my thoughts and not a biblical interpretation lesson, but I didn’t spend 3 months writing an exegesis in college for me to never use those skills again, so buckle up for something of a long answer! (literally, this is almost 3 thousand words, so....sorry about that) *rubs hands together* The thing we need to take into consideration when reading the bible is Interpretation; any truly honest biblical scholar would tell you it is a mistake to take every word in the bible at its literal face value, ESPECIALLY since most of us are reading translations of scripture, not the original ancient hebrew/greek/aramaic/whatever else. So when interpreting scripture, we must consider these things:

Author (Who wrote it?)

Audience (Who was it written for?)

Context (What is written around it?)

So the verses you’re referencing are Ephesians 5:22-23, and in the NIV, they read as follows:

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Isolated from author, audience, and context, they sound pretty sexist, don’t they? And male authority figures have used these verses as justification for the oppression of women for centuries, just as white men used the passage only a few verses away, Ephesians 6:5, as justification for the oppression and ownership of black people (Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ). So let’s look at each of the points above in regards to Ephesians 5 and 6. First, who wrote it? Sometimes that can be a tricky question to answer, but in this case, it’s actually very easy (though there is still a bit of fuzziness/debate). Traditionally, Ephesians is one of the Apostle Paul’s letters to the early church. Specifically, to the body of believers in Ephesus, a Greek city that was a part of the Roman Empire at the time. According to two different study bibles I have, the letter of Ephesians was not addressing any particular problem that the church in Ephesus had (as was often the case with Paul’s letters), but was meant as an encouragement of faith and to increase his readers’ understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Christ. So now what about the Context? Why are the verses at the end of chapter 5 and beginning of chapter 6 so damning to our modern sensibilities? To answer that, we must look at the passages both in context to the verses around them, and in historical and cultural context (which is where 1 & 2 come into play again). Going back to the beginning of chapter 4, which is subtitled “Unity in the Body of Christ” (and remember, these subtitles and groupings were come up with LONG after they were written; we grouped sections together in a way we thought was most logical, which honestly for a book as short as Ephesians I would argue is barely even necessary), we can see that the letter from chapter 4 onward is about living a Holy and Godly life. Chapter 4 urges us to be “completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love” and warns us against living “as the Gentiles* do, in the futility of their thinking.” *Gentiles in this case meaning not neccesarily all non-Jews, but non-believers. AKA, we should live like Jesus lived, WWJD and all that jazz. If the Holy Spirit is in our hearts and our relationship with God is at the forefront of our lives, then that should show clearly in our actions. The very first verse of chapter 5 reads “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Chapters 5 and 6 especially are meant to act as a sort of guide for how a follower of Christ should act. There’s some stuff about obscenity, greed, sexual impurity, 5:15 sums it up pretty well basically, “Be very careful, then, how you live- not as unwise but as wise,” and then we reach the all important verse. Ephesians 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That’s a full sentence, just that there. Submit to one another. The following three sections are all subsections of this point: one for Wives submitting to Husbands, one for Children submitting to Parents, and one for Slaves submitting to Masters. But when looking at all of these, bad shepherds (ie, racist, sexist assholes) like to ignore that first bit, submit to one another, just as they like to ignore 5:28, which says “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself;” or they ignore 6:4 which says “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord;” and they ignore 6:9, “Masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” I do highly encourage you to read chapters 4, 5, and 6 in full, or at least start at 4:17, which is where Paul starts talking about “Living as Children of Light,” because it makes the intent of these apparently damning verses much more clear. Paul is stating that as Christians, we should treat everyone around us with honor and respect. According to one of my study bibles, the grammar of the original Greek suggests that the “submission” involved in all three sections is intended to be mutual submission, and is to come from a filling of the Holy Spirit. However, to be quite frank, Paul still Lived In A Society. A highly structured, patriarchal society, in which all members of a household (women, children, slaves) were expected to submit to the patriarchal head of that household. Male children until they reached adulthood, Slaves until they were freed (remember that, while by no means a purely morally good thing, the system of Roman Slavery was VASTLY DIFFERENT from the Atlantic Slave Trade that men later used this passage to justify existing), and women, unfortunately, for their whole lives. In another one of his letters, what is now the book of Galatians, Paul says in chapter 3 verse 27-29 that “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” This would have been radical at the time. Paul is promising all people of all genders and classes that, in the eyes of God, they are Equal, One, and all “sons,” meaning that they all have a right to the Inheritance of the Father (remember, at this time and in this culture women did not get any inheritance, and younger sons got significantly less than the firstborn. Paul assures the believers that they ALL are equal receivers of the Promises of God). But this equality that Paul speaks of was, in his eyes, a spiritual equality. He was not particularly concerned with overthrowing the earthly patriarchal society that subjugated women and lower classes, but rather instructed all members of that society who also were Believers to submit equally to one another out of love and respect, for they were all Equal in God’s eyes and would be Equal in heaven. This is why he both tells women to submit to and obey their husbands, but also husbands to love, cherish, and care for their wives. Children, obey your parents, but Fathers, don’t be dicks to your kids. Slaves should obey their masters (slavery was much more like a job that you weren’t allowed to quit until your boss said so) but Masters shouldn’t abuse their slaves. There are Societal Authorities, and Paul is telling his readers “look you can’t just go around not respecting those Authorities, but also hey, if you’re the Authority? That’s not a free pass to be an asshole.” As one of my study bibles puts it, “Paul counseled all believers to submit to one another by choice…this kind of mutual submission preserves order and harmony in the family while it increases love and respect among family members.” Paul is basically saying “it’s better for everyone if we all get along, and remember that Christ had a servant’s heart, and intentionally lowered himself for us, so we should do the same for each other.” And while a patriarchal class system is still super sucky for like 80% of the people involved, at least it’s a whole lot more bearable if everyone involved is being a Nice, Good Member of that Society. You mentioned being worried about being treated like a “second rate citizen.” The fact of the matter is that when this was written, women were second rate citizens; that is the context in which Paul is writing. And while I firmly believe that that was wrong, in every sense of the word, Paul wasn’t especially concerned about challenging that aspect of society. Priority one was “Spread the Gospel” and Priority two was “Don’t Get Killed while Spreading the Gospel.” Speaking of Paul, let’s talk a little more about Saul of Tarsus, shall we? In all literary analysis, it is important to examine the author’s beliefs and what biases may have made their way into the work. And while we believe the bible to be a Holy Book, it can and should be subject to the same rules of literary analysis as non-religious texts. First, you must ask yourself, what do you believe about the bible? There are four general ways of looking at it (which are called Theories of Inspiration).

The bible is the Divine Word of God, dictated word for word across centuries directly to its human authors by God Himself.

The bible is the Divine Word of God, written across centuries by men Inspired by the Holy Spirit. While they are writing in their own words, this Inspiration means that the bible is Wholly Perfect with no errors.

The bible is the Divine Word of God, written across centuries by men Inspired by the Holy Spirit. However, because they are imperfect, fallible men, there is a possibility of errors in the text, both in the account of events that happened and in the teaching therein.

The bible is a collection of accounts written by men, with no Divine Intervention from God. It is not Holy, God’s Word, or Infallible.

I was raised to believe theory 2, but now I personally believe theory 3. And since I’m the author of this analysis, it is through the lens and bias of theory 3 that I now present my next point: Paul was sexist. I don’t think he was maliciously so (see again, Galatians 3, and the statement in Ephesians 5 that men should honor, cherish, and care for their wives), but he was a product of his time who had ingrained ideas about women and their place in society. This does not A) mean he was right about how women should act OR B) mean that we should toss out everything he had to say, about women or otherwise, because he was Problematic. Most biblical authors were, in fact, Problematic. Either by our modern standards, due to the time in which they lived, OR by the standards of their own time, because God liked to use Imperfect People (we’re all imperfect, but He liked particularly imperfect people) in His plans. David was an adulterer and murderer. Paul happily sent dozens of Christians to their deaths. Peter was hotheaded and super prejudiced against Gentiles and Samaritans. And most of them were, in one way or another, sexist, racist, and homophobic. These biases then found their way, intentionally or not, into their writings, and then other racist, sexist, homophobic men used those writings to justify systemic oppression of anyone who was not like them. Oppression that is not Christlike. So where does that leave us, in our 21st century application of scripture to our daily lives? We must examine how it was to be read at the time (which we have done), and then see what we can apply from it to our own lives. For myself in my marriage, I look again to the original grammar of Ephesians 5, that indicates the submission is to be mutual. I “submit” to my husband, and he “submits” to me. In other words, our relationship is built on Trust, Clear Communication, and Respect for one another. Sometimes we have to compromise, and I have to put aside my own desires for his sake, or he must set aside his own desires for my sake. It is a willingness to listen to one another, to approach conflicts with an open mind, to consider each other’s feelings before we speak. It is an equal, mutual submission based on love for each other, which doesn’t contradict what Paul says at all. God created all people to be equal. Humans are stupid sometimes and try to insist that we know better, try to create hierarchies and use the bible to try and justify that, but that doesn’t mean those humans are right. If your church is trying to make you feel less than because of your gender, or if you date somebody who pushes TradWife rhetoric and tries to use Ephesians as their justification, then you Run, and feel justified in doing so. (Especially if they also try to use Paul’s words to tell you why you owe your partner sex; see again, Paul was not only sexist but also lived in a patriarchal time when women were second class citizens that had very specific expectations placed on them AND he wasn’t even in a relationship himself, forgive me if I take his advice on my sex life with a grain of salt. Without doing this whole process again, a good modern reading of “don’t deprive one another” is “don’t use sex as a weapon in your relationship/withhold it for bs reasons when you’re mad at each other, etc. Like all other relationship things, sex (or a lack thereof) with your spouse should be based on mutual trust, communication, and love, not petty arguments or the standards of others.)

Trust me, as an ace woman myself, I totally get the fear. I’ve felt it myself, in the past. But God’s intentions for you are not that you become a doormat or servant to a man. If a romantic relationship (or any other partnership) is part of His plan for you, then the bible clearly states, both in Ephesians and elsewhere, that it should be one built on Love and Trust, not Subjugation and Servitude.

I hope this helped you, and again, sorry it was so long XD. Have an amazing day! <3

#christianity #biblical analysis #religion #anti trad wife #ephesians 5 #ace things #taylor talks #for a loooong time

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littleoddwriter · 3 years

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Hello dear! Can i request a Roman Sionis X Male!Reader where the reader is a metahuman with the ability of manipulating blood (aka a vampire) and tries to hide it from his lover until Roman finds out when Reader saves him from a mobster? Fluff please + Roman as proud as hell of his lover? Thanks in advance!

Life's Good | Roman Sionis x VampireMale!Reader

I am so sorry it took me so long to finally write this! I'm slowly catching up with the last few requests I've received before my break. I hope you're still interested in this and like what I've done with it (I admit, it got a little away from me because I was super invested in the scenario I came up with, so it is probably less fluffy than you may have wanted, sorry)!

summary; see above.

notes; CW // Blood-Drinking (mild Dub-Con for that at first); Gun Violence; Being Threatened; Murder (not graphic). Vampires; Kind of angsty?; Fluff; Aftercare (non-sexual, but you know, after feeding from someone).

Unlike most people would think you’ve actually been born this way. Your parents were vampires, conceiving you naturally, which of course meant you’d been born a metahuman. You’ve lived quite a normal life, despite the fact that instead of eating, drinking and sleeping like other humans would, you only slept rarely, only ate people food when you had to fit in, and otherwise you fed from humans, drinking their blood. You’d never killed anyone with it, though. Enough people who wanted you to feed from them existed, establishments were you could find them were all around the world. It was a pretty good life.

Still, you usually opted to keep it secret, unsure as to how people might react. While the general opinion of vampires has changed in all these centuries, standing in front of one was still a wholly different thing for most. You understood and respected that.

So when you met Roman – his scent so enticing, you had trouble keeping your fangs in – you stood in front of the question once again. Should you tell him?

Eventually, you decided to go with the flow and see where it’d take you. You didn’t immediately want to ruin your chances with him before you’ve actually gotten to know him at all.

At first it was a casual relationship anyway, no need to tell him your big secret then. But as time went on, your relationship became more serious. You stayed over at his loft more frequently, forced to eat his food and drink his beverages, so as not to let him suspect anything. It didn’t hurt you or anything, it was just unnecessary and you’d never get really used to, well, actual food and such. All the different textures and tastes and what you could do with what to change it. It was fascinating, but not exactly your favourite thing.

Of course, one fateful day it had all come to a head.

You had just admitted to yourself that you loved Roman a couple of weeks ago, not daring to say anything to him, as you didn’t fancy ruining what you two had with those three simple, yet powerful words.

Now though, you regretted that decision more than ever, terrified that maybe you would never be able to tell him how you felt.

It all happened so fast, too. One moment, you and Roman were out on the streets, way into the evening, having just had dinner at an expensive restaurant he’d invited you to; and you were laughing, talking about something – you couldn’t remember what – when you turned into an alleyway. In the next moment, a rival mob boss shot at the two of you. Warning shots, missing you both on purpose.

“What the fuck?!” Roman exclaimed, livid, but you could smell the underlying anxiety change his usual scent from when he was enraged. You hated it.

The gang leader – whatwashisface, you could never keep up – stood now in front of you two, having Roman at gunpoint. His men had surrounded you two, pointing their guns at both of you.

“What do you want?” Sionis spat at the other mob boss, glaring at him with a piercing, wild look in his eyes.

You stayed silent, your hands raised out of instinct. The bullets wouldn’t be able to kill you, unless they were specifically made for it, but that was so unlikely, you weren’t overly worried. You were concerned about Roman, though, anxious that this might have been it.

“Set an example, that’s what. You can’t scare us into submission. You can’t control us. You really think getting a hold of the East End would give you enough power to do that? Fuck you, I say!” the leader yelled.

“Well, fucking go on then if you’re really so tough! Or are you only bark and no bite? Cowardly ambushing me in private like that, I’m inclined to believe you are nothing but a talker. You can’t scare me either, you fuck.” You really wished Roman would shut up for once, lest he’d really get himself killed this time.

Your mind was racing with all possible outcomes this situation could bring. Only one was sure to get Roman out alive; and boy were you glad you’ve fed from someone yesterday.

Even though you had never killed anyone and didn’t desire to do so, you were ready to do anything for Roman, no matter what. You didn’t care that he’d know then, know that you were a freak of nature, as some hateful people liked to call people like you. You didn’t care that you’d take lives. They weren’t innocent, dared to threaten your love and you just couldn’t see past that.

Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes and concentrated, focusing your abilities into play and onto every single man of this rival gang. It was rare for you to use any of your powers that didn’t exist and activate naturally, like your strength. Your parents had taught you to only use them for self defence and this situation was practically screaming for it.

Snapping your eyes back open, now glowing red, all of the men around you gasped and crumbled, letting their weapons clatter to the ground, grasping at their throats, or chest, trying so hard to save themselves. Moments later, they were all just lifeless bodies, lying around Roman and you, as if you were some victorious kings. And in a way, you were exactly that, weren’t you? Roman was soon to be the King of Gotham after all.

All too suddenly, all the strength left your body, your legs giving out. Roman, despite his apparent shock, caught you, steadied you. Gently, he lowered you to the ground, keeping his arms tightly wound around you.

It had taken a lot more out of you than you had anticipated. You desperately needed to feed.

“Y/N? Baby, hey, look at me,” Roman spoke softly, something only reserved for you, you had come to realise.

With half-lidded eyes, you looked up at him, a strained sound passing your lips. “You okay?” you asked, still unsure if everything had truly worked out the way you thought it would.

He scoffed, “Yes, quit worrying about me. Are you okay? What the fuck was that anyway?”

“Just gotta eat,” you murmured, slurring your words heavily, “Sorry about the- that. I’ll explain later.”

“What do you mean you have to eat? Baby, I can’t follow you. I hope you realise that I’m missing some of the fucking context here,” he chuckled, which bordered on sounding hysterical.

“Blood. Vampire. Now, Roman, or else- fuck. Won’t make it.” Your eyes fluttered closed for a moment, your voice just barely above a whisper anymore. Fuck, you hoped he understood. Even more so, you hoped he was okay with it and that maybe he liked you enough to save your life. You didn’t exactly fancy feeding from him, when he was basically pressured into it. But he had a choice, you told yourself.

When you were slowly lifted up a bit and felt skin against your lips, you forced all your last strength to open your mouth – your fangs had automatically unsheathed when you unleashed your powers – and bite down.

The first taste of Roman was as intoxicating and overwhelming as you had always fantasised it would be. A shaky moan came out of him when you started sucking in earnest. Pretty quickly, you regained more and more strength, feeling increasingly less dead. You cupped the other side of Roman’s neck with your hand and pulled him further in. Shit, you couldn’t possibly get enough.

After a few, long moments, you felt Roman push against you, as well as pulling at your clothes, calling your name. Reluctantly, and almost as if you were just waking up from a trance, you let up and licked up the excess blood on his neck, simultaneously licking his wounds closed.

Roman was breathing heavily, and you were still feeling out of it, as you two just kneeled in this alley, holding each other, amidst the dead bodies of Sionis’ former rivals. It was bizarre.

“I think we should go home,” Roman said eventually, his voice sounded so soft, as if he was barely present in the real world.

You nodded and got up, helping Roman to do the same. He was swaying a little and this time you were the one who steadied him. Drinking someone’s blood always took a toll on both parties and you knew you had taken more from him than you usually dared to do with anyone. It made you feel guilty. You had to make it up to him later – if he still wanted you then – that was for sure.

When you had arrived at Roman’s loft, you helped him lie down on his chaise longue, legs propped up on one of his many pillows, to help his blood flow to where it was most needed. Then you went over to the kitchen to get him a glass of orange juice and an energy bar.

Roman nodded in thanks when you pressed either item in his hands, standing above him. You felt so uncomfortable, didn’t quite know what to do with your hands, or if you were even supposed to still be here. He’s been so unusually quiet the entire time, albeit it was most likely due to shock and blood loss.

“So, you’re a vampire.” Roman stated, looking at you, and you hated that you couldn’t place his expression into any kind of category. You just nodded in answer. “Right. And why exactly didn’t I know?”

Your mouth opened and closed a couple of times, looking for the right words. “I was afraid of losing you over it,” you settled on telling the truth eventually.

Again, Roman only nodded; his expression was still so indecipherable, but then a certain shine caught in his eyes. You’ve only witnessed it a couple of times thus far.

“You killed for me,” he practically gasped. “Have you killed before? Being a vampire and all, I’d presume you have.”

You shook your head, “No, that was the first time, actually.”

“Fuck,” he muttered. Then, in an instant, his expression morphed into something prideful, a huge grin plastered on his face, his eyes brighter than any stars you’ve seen in the sky above – it was breathtaking. “You killed for me,” he repeated, sitting upright, throwing his legs over the side of the chaise longue, planting his feet on the ground.

“Y-yeah, I did,” you replied, a weak chuckle leaving you. You still couldn’t quite believe that you’ve done it, especially when you spared a thought on how it made you feel – powerful, so far above others, good.

“I can’t fucking believe you. Fuck, you’re a dream come true, my little prince! You’re so special. A vampire! And you killed for me, because-“ He couldn’t finish it, realisation dawning on him, you could see it in his eyes, in the way his smile slowly vanished.

“Because I love you, yes. I couldn’t lose you over some stupid mob boss who thought he could ambush you like that.”

Roman licked his lips and nodded, placed the empty glass and half eaten energy bar on the table in front of him, and got up.

“I’m proud of you,” he then said, taking you by surprise.

“What? Why?”

“For not letting your fears get in your way. You were afraid of losing me for being a vampire, but you were probably even more terrified of losing me to my mortality. And you pushed through it. Almost fucking killed yourself, only to save me. I’m proud of you for doing that. I’m grateful, too, naturally.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Thanks, Roman,” you snickered.

Instead of continuing the conversation, Roman pressed his lips against yours in a passionate kiss, wrapping his arms around your waist. Putting your arms around his shoulders, you kissed him back, hoping to show him just how grateful you were with that single kiss.

Then you remembered your guilt from before and broke it. Roman glared at you for a moment. “What?”

“You never gave your consent, I- I fed from you and you never-“

“I did. By offering myself to you. I had a choice, you know? So quit it. You’re not guilty of anything, my boy. And just so you know, I’ll fucking kill you if you ever feed from anyone else again, ‘kay?” He was smirking, but his eyes had an edge to them, which let you know that he was serious about his threat.

Giving a short laugh, you nodded and kissed him again. Life really was good.

#murder tw #vampire #x male reader #male reader #male reader insert #reader fic #reader insert #roman sionis #roman sionis x reader #roman sionis x male reader #roman sionis fanfiction #ewan mcgregor #ewan mcgregor x reader #ewan mcgregor fanfiction #mlm fanfic #mlm fiction

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grrrenadine · 3 years

Text

Shadow & Bone and Russian Culture

Due to the (unexpected) popularity of my post on Russian naming conventions in Shadow and Bone, I’ve decided to write another post giving some historical/cultural context to the Grishaverse. Specifically, I’m going to talk about keftas, kvas, oprichniki, the tsar-vs-king dichotomy, and Russian calligraphy practices.

Again, this is merely for educational purposes. I just think it’s cool to learn about other cultures! (Quick note: I am Russian, but I’m not a historian by trade, so the text below is mostly surface-level stuff — do correct me if I make fumbles).

1. Kefta. Okay, so the Russian language has these two similar-sounding clothing items (both originate from the same Turkic word):

kofta — this used to just mean “cardigan”, but today it’s an umbrella term for all light long-sleeved clothes except sweaters, jackets and button-down shirts.

Here’s a random Google search for koftas for sale:

kaftan — a type of outer garment (of West/Southwest Asian origin) similar to either a robe or a long suit, anywhere from mid-thigh to floor-length. Styles vary from culture to culture, but it’s generally worn as an overcoat. Still in everyday use in some Asian countries (but not in Russia, where it’s considered a historical clothing item).

Here are some Ivan Bilibin illustrations feat. kaftans:

Here’s Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens) rocking a snazzy kaftan-like coat in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga:

And here’s Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) looking regal in a kaftan on Game of Thrones:

2. Kvas. Not an alcoholic drink! Yes, it’s fermented, but the alcohol content is at around 0.5–1%. This is soy sauce levels of spirits, and kvas is legally classified as non-alcoholic (meaning it can be sold 24/7 and is available to minors). It tastes kinda like kombucha and people drink it as a healthier alternative to soda. It’s also used as an ingredient in a soup called okroshka. I should note that in like ~10th century kvas was indeed a stronger drink and you could get drunk off it.

If you’re writing Slavic-inspired fantasy and you want your characters to get wasted on something other than vodka, here are a few cooler options:

braga — 3–8%, normally sweet, very old-time-y.

zubrowka (aka bison grass liquor) — 40%, herbal vodka liquor. Illegal in the States due to ATF regulations, so you can only buy an ersatz version.

samogon — the Russian word for moonshine.

3. Oprichniki (“outside men”, “aside men”). This was a type of bodyguard corps that existed for a super short period in Russian history during Ivan the Terrible’s reign of terror (16th cent.), and then thankfully never existed again. They were infamous for a “rape, pillage, kill” mentality, cruel public executions, and thinking themselves above the law.

In true Nazgûl fashion, they rode only black stallions. Popular iconography also normally depicts them with brooms and dog heads attached to saddles (the dog heads are not a verified historical fact, but they do make for a pretty striking image). In short, this is a very dark, grim figure — think of a cross between the Spanish Inquisition (there was a religious component to their doctrine) and the SS.

From the 19th century onward, the word has been used metaphorically to mean “government henchmen who enforce excessively repressive measures”. NOT a compliment.

As a bonus, here’s the dog head + broom icon on the covers of Vladimir Sorokin’s The Day of the Oprichnik:

4. Tsar vs king. Olden day Russia consisted of a bazillion duchies, each with its own ruler, known as knyaz (“duke”, “chieftain”, “prince” — translations vary). By the 15th century political power was centralized in the Duchy of Moscow, and Moscow knyaz Ivan III (granddad to Ivan the Terrible) started calling himself tsar, because it sounded cooler. Come 18th century, Peter the Great thought the title “tsar” wasn’t cool enough and became emperor instead. Since then, the rulers of Russia were called emperors; however, “tsar” remained part of the full title and was also used in less formal settings.

Russian has a separate word for king (”korol”), but it’s only used towards monarchs outside of Russia. Here’s the king-vs-tsar dichotomy:

Russian monarchs are called tsars (NEVER kings), and prior to being an Empire, Russia was a tsardom (NOT a kingdom);

in Russian, ancient and/or Biblical kings are also called tsars (”tsar Solomon”, not “King Solomon”);

the word tsar is used metaphorically, e.g. “tsar of the hill”, “tsar of the animals”.

foreign monarchs (e.g. European royals) are kings.

TLDR: king -> kingdom, tsar -> tsardom. It’s an either/or situation.

5. Vyaz. A type of decorative lettering/calligraphy consisting of elongated interlocking letters, historically used for book and chapter titles. The word “vyaz” comes from the verb “vyazat”, meaning “to knit”, so this is basically “knitting with letters”. And much like knitting, it’s meant to form an unbroken ornament, i.e. without spaces between words and ideally without spaces between letters, too.

This style is super old-time-y and was out of use/fashion in the Russian Empire due to low readability.

That’s presumably what Shadow and Bone was trying to go for with this:

It looks nice, but real vyaz normally has tighter interlocking (done either via small letters or decorative elements) in order to eliminate awkward empty spaces, which here are all over the place. For comparison, here’s a real-life historical example, from Acts and Epistles of the Apostles (the first known book to be published in Russian):

Nowadays, vyaz is gaining popularity in the Russian lettering/calligraphy community, because a) it’s pretty culturally specific and b) it looks amazing. Here’s a modern-day example by Andrey Martynov — note the tiny E’s and O’s used for a tighter fit between letters:

And another example, by Vlada Ruzhitskaya — this one relies more on decorative plant-like elements for interlocking:

That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this and learned something new.

#russia #shadow and bone #sab #leign bardugo #oprichniki #fire saga #dan stevens #game of thrones #oberyn martell #vyaz #pedro pascal #grishaverse #grisha trilogy #text

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ilomilodailystuff · 3 years

Text

If You Love Me || Sylki Fanfic

...really love me

Loki x Sylvie fanfiction

[LOKI FINALE SPOILERS]

dt @entertainmentforgods

(every mean comments about this ship will be deleted. If you don't like this ship, please just ignore.)

They did it, it was over. The impossible had come true.

Their heart beating wildly, the anguish of their uncertainty gradually fades as they understand the finality of it all.

Loki and Sylvie had joined forces to destroy the true mastermind of the TVA. The overpowered individual who pulled the strings behind the curtain.

The Goddess of Mischief dropped her bloodstained sword on the dark ground, making a loud metallic sound. He Who Remains had just gave his last breath.

Sylvie took a deep breath while staring at the inert body of the one who called himself The Conqueror. As Loki stood behind her, he watched her worriedly. She had just accomplished what she had fought for all her life. So many years feeding a justified anger towards one man, for it turned out that the Time Keepers were nothing but a sham. So many years of hiding, of surviving in the midst of so many apocalypses instead of just living fearlessly. Instead of living happily, instead of laughing, smiling, dancing, singing, enjoying the present moment, observing the universe and its many wonders without them being destroyed around her, loving and being loved in return... All of that was taken away from her, because The Ruler had decided to do so. Because only one man had made the decision to sacrifice her timeline and her family and those she loved. She had lost everything as a child, because a human had condemned her existence.

And now, the latter had just died. He had lived millions of lives, and the last had just ended, killed by the vengeful hand of an innocent orphan.

Slowly, Loki moved closer to her as he kept his eyes on her. Then when he was right behind her, he gently took her hand to try to get her out of her torpor. Her face turned to him as her gaze was drawn to the ground. She was still trying to regulate her breathing and realize the previous events.

"Come with me…" He half-murmurs, his blue eyes tinted with green watching his partner's reaction carefully, anxious to see her breaking down despite her strength to contain her emotions.

It was then that she nodded softly, still too absorbed by this decisive moment in her life. Sylvie turns to him with the intention of following him, no matter where he wanted to take her.

A few seconds later, both found themselves outside the entrance to the Citadel.

Loki went down the few steps, before sitting quietly on one of them. His teammate was not far away and she watched him get comfortable, while thousands of thoughts jostled in her mind. Curious, Loki brought his attention to her. When their eyes met, she began her steps to him to sit beside him on the step.

A deep sigh escaped her lips as she sat down comfortably, her eyes fixed in front of her, finally noticing the awe-inspiring beauty of the sacred timeline they both would have admired sooner if it were in a less disastrous context. But now as they ran after time, it was as if it has just stopped.

The variants observed this painting before them, this masterpiece born from space and the end of the universe. For a moment, a pleasant silence rocked them in a surreal dream. Their eyes shine brightly, illuminated by the cosmos and time materialised in a perfectly fluid and sparkling line. But also, their intense feelings took over and tears had formed.

Hesitant but at the same time strangely confident, Loki turned to Sylvie, only able to imagine how she felt now.

"You're okay ?" He dares to ask softly.

Suffering of an internal conflict, Sylvie keeps her eyes wide open and try to look indifferent.

"I accomplished my mission, how do you think I feel ?" She replies naturally, almost on the defensive.

"Relieved ?"

"Yeah, among other things." She confirms with obviousness.

Amused by her slightly aggressive responses which, according to him, are what make her what she is, the god of mischief ends up stretching a tender smirk, realizing that this tone will never leave her no matter the situations in which they find themselves, as dramatic and catastrophic as they may be.

Innocently, Sylvie ends up looking at her partner.

"Why do you smile ?" She asks.

He smiles a little more.

"The real question is... why don’t you ?" Loki retorts, eyebrows raised.

The Enchantress raised her eyebrows in turn, that desperate, lonely look that makes her charm appearing on her face. What to answer to that? She had learned that Loki was insightful about her, but she wasn't used to being the center of attention that much.

"Why seek answers to trivial questions." She asks rhetorically as she looks away from him.

After a while, Loki also turned away, dissatisfied with her answer but still preferring to let go.

"So this is it..." He starts. "It's done."

"It's done." Sylvie asserts, nodding her head a little.

His eyes going here and there, Odin's son was asking himself lots of questions. Including one in particular.

"What do we do now ?" He wonders, seeming lost.

Sylvie took a deep breath again, ignoring like him the future of events.

"Should we go back to the TVA ?" Loki continues, bringing his gaze back to the one person he trusted.

"Why ?" She asks softly. "They don't need us anymore."

"But we don't have to hide." He responds with a comforting smile. "We are their allies."

"Is that what you want, to go back to the TVA ? But to do what ?" She asks again, looking into his eyes.

He thought for a moment, trying to unravel this enigmatic knot, stepping into the unknown.

"The Sacred Timeline is free" He said, emphasizing the first words in an exaggerated and caricatural way. "Maybe once we get there, we can look for another timeline where we can... fit in ?"

A silence took hold of them, leaving for only words the looks they exchanged.

Sylvie then ends up lowering her gaze in the direction of her own hands, revealing between her fingers the object that the Conqueror kept around his hand. The tempad.

"How about we take a break, until one of us finds a place to go ?" She offers softly, lost in thought as she doesn't take her eyes off the object.

"What, here ?" Loki asks, uncertain and surprised by her answer.

"Why not..?" She replies, her eyebrows raised, her mind being elsewhere. "When you've seen thousands of apocalypses, The Void isn't as bad as it seems."

Loki takes the time to consider this idea, thinking about everything else. The members of the TVA, the sacred timeline that has become completely independent, the very few people to which he is attached. They had just accomplished something huge, should they just ignore the multitudes of consequences their act caused ?

"It's over, Loki." Sylvie said, looking up at him.

Again, his gaze plunged deeply into her eyes

"We did what we had to do." She continues, looking serene.

"What if they still need us ?" He asks, referring to the TVA, specifically Mobius and hunter B-15, the only two people who believed in them and offered their precious help.

Sylvie watched the sacred timeline as it gradually divided, and she sighed.

"I am tired." She admits, ignoring Loki's question. "And you ?"

Loki admired the many timelines that continued to split, before taking a deep breath.

"Yes, me too..." He answers softly, releasing his breath, releasing the pressure he had been holding since his arrival at the TVA and which he hadn't known he had kept in him all this time until now.

However, he couldn't shake off his negative thoughts and all his apprehensions about the completion of their mission and the impact it will have on the trillions of people the universe can create. The god of mischief had, against all odds, developed a conscience and a moral code. Yes, they had delivered the world by giving it back its free will. But for some reason that he didn't quite understand, he began to doubt.

And buried into his torment, Sylvie brought a comforting hand to his.

Loki laid his eyes on this delicate hand, yet belonging to that of a warrior, his heart missing a beat at the gentle contact of the one he had become crazy about. In this moment of complexity, in this major turning point for the multiverse, he almost forgot his feelings. He almost forgot the way they looked at each other in the Citadel as they walked into the darkness. He almost forgot the moment she had gripped his hand in the Void, in front of Alioth, hoping to help him unleash his enchantment powers.

Suddenly caught up in his emotions, he looked up uncertainly in the direction of his partner. Then, she gave him a brief smile, but oh so genuine. The same smile she had given him on Lamentis, while everything around them was death and destruction. Apparently everything was written. But he decided to ignore this detail that the conqueror had shared with too much pride.

Still confused by these unusual feelings, Loki returned that affectionate and heartwarming smile. Only, looking into her expressive eyes - but in the greatest secret, a loving gaze- he realized that the very thing he wanted above all now was to never leave her again. To stay by her side, as long as possible, even forever, better than that : beyond death. His desires made him all the more nervous. He never thought he would be so consumed by his moods, let alone by a loving emotion that possesses him more and more after each day he spends in her company. Nevertheless he wanted to seize this desire and make it come true.

This time, it is the TVA that he forgets, it is the universe that he neglect, it is the time that he ignores.

It is his glorious purpose that he gave up, because he found a new one...

"Sylvie..." He said, drunk with love for her. "I..."

"No, Loki, wait." Sylvie interrupts him, being totally lost and frightened at the same time. "I have to tell you something..."

"Yes ?" He asks, innocent, patient, in love.

She looked at him intensely, trying to express herself. Something seemed to upset her. Loki was trying to read into her eyes, to read her face, when no word could break the barrier of her lips. Disturbed by this confession, it turned out that it was getting stuck between the walls of her throat.

So the Prince of Asgard frowned, intrigued by the torture she was inflicting on herself through this mysterious revelation.

"I..." She starts before her lips instantly seal.

She took a deep breath, bracing herself for another attempt, as Loki's piercing, loving gaze dug into her pupils until it consumed her whole being.

When finally, in complete disarray, she ends up throwing herself at his neck.

Her lips crashed against his, tenderly, passionately but mostly timidly. Surprised but more than grateful for this proof of unexpected love, Loki was not long in returning her kiss with just as much fervor.

Sylvie had never been attached to anyone. She never wanted to be weak because of her feelings. She would never have dedicated herself to someone body and soul, for trusting and breaking down the imposing and solid walls she had built around her was inconceivable. And yet, faced with the many selfless acts of the one who had irrupted into her plan, she had found herself giving him importance. She hated knowing that she was only considering trusting him. She hated the fact that he could climb these walls she had locked herself between.

Worse yet, she was terrified to find herself reaching out to help him climb.

Eyes closed, they kissed each other with fragility, embarrassed to feel such intense emotions but oh how much they surrendered to them.

Sitting side by side, they relished this moment of sincerity and calm after all they had endured. The highlight of their journey. The completion of a battle for freedom, the same cause that the rightful king of Asgard fought against to make it inaccessible to the people of the earth. This cause that he finally chose to defend ; for him at the beginning, but for her on the way, and for the others at the end of their fight.

Slowly, they parted. Loki then dared to rest his forehead tenderly against hers. They kept their eyes closed, as if to immortalized this moment in their memories, for who knows what might happen to them tomorrow.

That's why he whispered these few words :

"You're right, I... I'm a little tired..." He admitted again hesitantly, unsettled by this moment of pure sincerity.

Keeping her forehead against his, Sylvie nodded gently, not daring to open her eyes to face the truth she still had trouble swallowing.

"Let's stay here..." Loki continues.

"Only for a little while." She continues nervously, muttering her desires like him, probably too afraid that someone will hear them or too embarrassed to admit she is weak in front of him, while he is weak in front of her.

"Yes, after all... If something goes wrong, they know where to find us, right ?" He responds with a raised eyebrow as he still kept his eyes closed, trying to reassure himself by making excuses to stay.

"Yeah, of course, nothing prevents Mobius from coming back here." She confirmed casually.

"Well, unless... Unless he had to prune himself." He said worriedly. "But it’s not as if we have no way to reach them !" He adds anyway, optimistic and trying not to feel guilty.

“Yes ! We have the--” She mimics his optimism, as she pulls away from his forehead to observe the object in her free hand.

"T-the tempad..." He confirms by muttering and nodding his head, bringing in turn his attention to the latter.

The taste of her lips was still too present on Loki's for him to think properly. However, he was trying.

Shyly, he finally looked at her again, a quiet smile displayed on his face.

Of course, Sylvie had noticed it. How to ignore him ? So, embarrassed, she gave him an uncertain look, having no idea how they should react now. After all, despite their thousand years of life, the variants had never really been devoted to feelings or romance that seemed more than superfluous and unnecessary at the time. Although they were aware of their emotions, repressed or not, knowing how to react to them was still an area to be explored.

The landscape around them gradually brought her back to reality. Then, looking worried, she turned her gaze to the entrance to the Citadel. She remembered the corpse of the He Who Remains, the one who had wiped out her timeline and certainly thousands more.

Loki frowned, noticing the change in expression on his partner's face.

"Are you sure you’re okay ?" He asks once more with patience.

Lost in thought, Sylvie continued to look at the place where everything had changed with a blank stare.

"No..." she sighs slowly.

The god of mischief was envious to possess the complicated mind of his variant for the sole purpose of finding the source of her ill-being. It would be enough for him to touch her to enchant her, now that he knows the secrets of enchantment. However, would he dare ? He hesitated for a fraction of a second, before totally rejecting the idea away from him. He was incapable of defying her trust, for he knew full well that he would risk a lot if he tried. Especially since he was still cruelly lacking in experience concerning enchantments.

"But when I wake up tomorrow knowing that the one responsible for all this horror is only a memory, then I could savor every second of my life." She asserts returning her attention to Loki as if nothing had happened, speaking with confidence and lightness.

Perplexed but somewhat reassured, he just nodded briefly, straining to accept her answer. However, something in him told him that she wasn't being entirely truthful.

"...Glorious purpose." He said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Mh..." She only answers, a quiet smirk nestling in the corner of her lips.

Calm eventually took over. Neither of them spoke, only watching the story of trillions of lives forming before their eyes in those many fluorescent lines.

"We're not leaving." He speaks up, his statement sounding more like a question mark.

"We're not leaving." She repeats with a little more conviction than him.

Slowly, he finally took a light breath, before sighing in contentment.

After an extremely difficult journey that could have cost them their lives, even though the Ruler had decided that they would be spared so that they could both achieve their goal, they were going to be able to rest, they were going to be able to breathe. Because even if the gods have more ability than humans to resist fatigue and pain, they could do nothing before the effervescence of their emotions. And as tough as they could be, they were tired, mentally and physically.

Thereupon, on this mutual agreement, the two variants had decided that it was time for them to rest for a while. They didn’t know what they were going to do. But they had decided to figure this out…

Together.

#sylki #pro sylki #sylki fanfiction #sylkie #love is a dagger #loki x sylvie #loki spoilers #loki series #tom hiddleston #sophia di martino #loki #loki fanfic #sylvie #sylki au

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bookwyrminspiration · 3 years

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hello! just curious, how do you plot out your stories? (for example, what have you done to plan out the wings au? do you have it all in your head? do you plan it out on paper or in a doc specifically for it? do you just go with the flow? sorry if this is a lot of questions lol i'm just trying to convey my point-)

hello, synonym!! lovely to see you again! I'd love to share my process!

as I explain my personal methods (again, personal, just how I do things!), I'll use the wings au as an example because i know you've read it and it'll just be easier over all. but essentially, yes to all of the above, just with different parts of the story!

my progression is: chaotic doc, background (as needed), basic written plot, expansion on the plot, any other details needed, and then just write things! but don't worry, I'll provide more detail, i say as if i'm capable of being concise

(putting below a readmore for simplicity)

chaotic doc: so, the very first thing I do when i have a story is open up a doc, and write down everything i know about it in little bullet points and rambling sentences, just basic information with no organization. the organizing can come later, right now I just want to get as much of what's in my head onto the paper as possible.

I type out the basic premise of the story or the few things I know about how I want it to go, the things I know I want to remember later, things I'd need to think about to set it up, etc. for the wings au, this was details like everyone's wings (things to remember later), how they got those wings and a sentence or two about what the world was like now (things I needed to think about to set it up), a little blurb about where the story would start. this is less writing details about the story, and more noting down the details I want to figure out later in the expansion. i find it works best to type this out because i'm a much faster typer than I am at physical writing, which allows me to follow the flow of my thoughts a lot better and go back and change things.

background: background prepares me for the next step, but the amount of effort I put into this section depends on how complex my story is. it basically means write down (we've moved to pencil and paper now, but this could be digital too if you prefer) anything you need to know in order to set up the rest of your story. what do you need to know in order to tell the story you need to and to get you where you want to be? for the wings au, the background was that the world had been overrun with monsters and everyone was living underground now. the neverseen had been defeated, or so they thought, coming back later. all these things that essentially prepared me to get to the plot. it told me where the story was happening and the emotional/physical environment everything else would happen under. if you have a more worldbuilding heavy world, this step might be a little more complex, or if there's something very specific with the characters you need as context beforehand.

sometimes the readers will be aware of pieces of the background, and it's even necessary for them to know--for example, you all knowing the elven world is in the middle of a monster apocalypse and living underground; if you didn't know, the rest of the story wouldn't make any sense. but there may be things you write down that are just for you to know, personal notes. for example, I have notes written about how the monsters came to be, more specifically, that you all haven't been made aware of and may never be. planning this out is for you, so if there's something you want to remind yourself to keep in mind while writing, this could be a good place. but now that we know the world we're writing in, we can move on

basic plot: for me, I struggle to figure out where to take a story, and if I don't have the basic concept laid out before I start writing, I ended up with really weird stories that completely deviate from what i wanted (I say this from experience). so I break it down into the bare essentials. literally as basic as I can be. there are five crucial parts of a plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. just those five. for each of those, i write--writing, because it takes more time (allows me to think) and feels more organized to me, but you can do it differently--just the general idea I have for each section. just as few words as possible. detail comes later. for the wings au I literally wrote "they get wings" for rising action. having read the wings au, you know just how simplified that is.

one things that might help is consider how you would explain this idea to someone in one or two sentences. you just want to make sure you have a beginning, middle, end, and the transition between them. from there you've got the skeleton of your story, and everything else can fit itself into this idea.

expansion: now that you have the skeleton, it's time to fill in some of the more essential anatomy. this is where you add the specifics. for me, i write this physically in bullet points in a journal of some kind. I take the first section, and write down how the story is going to start. where am I going to begin this journey. for the wings au I wrote "beginning: sneaking into breeding facility to destroy monsters. problem: caught/monster breaks loose." if you remember this is essentially the events of the first chapter but in two sentences. I'm giving enough detail that I know what I'm going to write, but not so much it's going to be stifling to follow my exact notes when I actually get to writing. this will be different for different people, so you may want more or less detail than I provided, I'm just giving an example of how I did it.

I continue this for the rest of the plot, but that doesn't mean every single little detail that will ever happen is planned out. I'm not patient enough to be super thorough with every little thing, so I go long enough until I have a solid understanding of what I'm going to start with when I'm writing, or just until I'm bored and can't deal with planning anymore. for me, that meant I was more detailed when planning from the mission in the facility to them getting to the abandoned gnomish village, as those would be some of the first things I would be writing about. after that, I got more vague and just touched on some of the key part of each of those five sections. I take those two/three words and turn them into two/three bullet points. I also didn't want to be too specific with the later details, because I knew i'd be influenced by things as I wrote and would be inspired to fill that out.

any other details: this is kind of any afterthoughts you might have or details you need to keep i mind that aren't necessarily plot. you may have a lot of these, or you may have none. for me, this was where I wrote down what kinds of wings and other animalistic traits each of the characters had (yes, I wrote them down again). it's not strictly plot, but it does affect the rest of the story. this is also where I write anything I forgot to when going through the first time, and then i can draw a little arrow pointing towards where it fits in to the rest of the story or is relevant (which is part of why I like the writing aspect, but this is entirely achievable on a doc). another example from the au is me writing "domestic" to the side and pointing it back to my notes about the gnomish village, because while it wasn't essential to moving the plot forward, i wanted to touch on some aspects of domestic live with the ten of them while they were there.

just write things: now that you have all this planning done (good job, you!) you can get into the writing aspect. you've already decided your beginning and know where you want to go, so this is the part where you just starting putting words on the page. it can be pretty daunting to just look at a blank page, so if you'd like, start a paragraph in. skip the first paragraph and just start in the middle of something else--you can add back what's missing later. I personally note things that I want to come back to inside [brackets like this], and that can be words, sentences, entire paragraphs. i use the square ones specifically because I don't use them in my writing unlike (these parentheses), and then I can search the document for them all at once and see all the places I need to go back.

this is also where the "just in my head" and "make it up as I go" part comes into place. you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but you're going to have ideas as you write, so sometimes you just follow the flow of your brain and write things you could've never even planned for. and if you're interacting with others as you're going (like I'm talking about theories with you all while writing future chapters) then you may be inspired by them to add things to the story. originally, I wasn't going to even have any messages from Bronte or Oralie, but now because I saw what some of the people reading it were picking up on, I realized the potential there and added them in on a whim

and sometimes when you get stuck, the best way to get yourself out of that is to just add something random, which can spiral off and affect the rest of the story. I've said it before, but the dragons were not planned. I'd actually seen a piece of writing advice months ago that if you're stuck, change the weather. so I was stuck and made a sudden rainstorm, but then I needed an explanation as to how things got so wet so fast because I'd mentioned clear skies earlier. so in my attempt to explain it, dragons came to exist. writing is a process, so don't limit yourself to everything you've written. you'll be inspired along the way, so try to take it in stride.

one final note: as much as you plan, this is not going to be a definite map for how the story will go. maybe something makes sense as you're planning it out, but when you get to actually writing it makes no sense as all and you need to change things. that's fine! this kind of a plan is just to get you prepared and keep you afloat amongst this ocean of words trapped in your head that you want to transcribe. if something isn't working, change it! in my original written plan for the wings au they weren't going to run away for a few weeks, instead sneaking out for an hour or two at a time over those few weeks because they couldn't stand being underground anymore, until Linh was actually the first one to make contact with a creature and realize it didn't immediately want to kill her. but because she's not the narrator of this story, I couldn't write it the way i wanted, so I gave that to sophie in the tree.

this is just my approach to my more complicated stories! for some of the really quick ones, I just open a doc and start going. this kind of thinking keeps me organized so that I'm doing the idea the most justice. but just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. if it does work for you, great! but if there are parts you need to modify for yourself, you are more than encouraged to do so. personally, if I could only chose one part of this process to rely on, it would be the basic plot. that's the key to everything for me, but for others it might be something different.

I hope this helps with whatever it is you're writing!! I wish you luck and look forward to seeing whatever it is (should you chose to share it, no pressure)!! if you'd like more of my process on how I write it consistently and update on a schedule, I'd be more than happy to talk about that too!

#all of this took up about three pages in a 4.25 by 8.25 dotted journal #but I have very small handwriting so keep that in mind #also you might just be more/less detailed then i am!#this is just the framework I use #so use it if it helps!#this is also usually spread out over multiple days so I can think about the idea in between #and also because i don't want to do this much work all at once #I get distracted #but i did have a very specific approach when writing the wings au #so I'm very excited to get to talk about it!#i have written several other stories without planning and they always end up veering off into random things #like 'what happened. to the original plot. of the movie??' vibes #ah seli (an oc whose name I might change yet again)...I did you so dirty...#kotlc wings au #writing #writing advice #story planning #quil's queries #synonymroll648 #writing tips

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bloodybells1 · 3 years

Text

Some Other Aisle

As of late, the following words recur in my head:

Drifting leftwards . . . .

They come in and out of my awareness like waves. Sometimes I’m making breakfast and they loll in like a prerecorded mantra; the volume fader slowly goes up and then down and then the words disappear.

Other times they resemble the ambient calls from the hallways—I live in an apartment in the city—pinging and echoing in my head like the sundry canines and babies, the hellos and the door slams I hear above and below. The words pop in, linger in the air for a bit and then slowly disappear.

Drifting leftwards . . . .

What are they doing in my brain? They don’t seem to make all that much sense; there’s little context for them, at least as I stand over the pan searing my Beyond sausages. I guess you could say that they’re vaguely nautical. That doesn’t help me understand all that much, though, since I don’t boat. Without the endemic jargon of boaters—that lexicon which I’ve never been able to quite get (“aft,” “knot,” “halyard,” et al)—the words don’t place me anywhere, at least not in the way boating terminology places me. When someone says “Stay on port tack” (I hope I’m getting that right) we are instantly there, on the sea, looking up at a sail, smelling the brine. These words, however, in their mundanity, as specific as being stopped at a light after which one turns to who knows where, don’t capture a comparable sense of environment.

Drifting leftwards . . . .

Ok, so they’re not nautical; but, for the sake of argument, let’s just say they’re of a maritime nature.

I suppose that’s as it should be. If we’re talking about being adrift, that is. Yet, despite all this murk, the drift I’m experiencing does, in fact, have a direction. No Sargasso Sea here. So the words don’t imply off the bat that my movements in the ocean are random. I do seem to be going somewhere. After all, I may be drifting, but I’m still going left.

[I should note that this post will come with the second edition of my newsletter, called, not too coincidentally—now that I think about it—The Anchor. Should I take this as some kind of synchronicity]?

You might be able to guess by this point that I’m talking about politics. Which is slightly weird since I don’t usually write about politics. I used to, though mostly on social media. And it wasn’t pretty. So, a little over a year ago, I terminated my Twitter account, an action I carried out with the conviction of a toilet flush. Since then I’ve been consuming my usual intake of news, commentary and opinion pieces, which I might rate as above average. But, though a lot has been going in, almost nothing has been going out. The only time I pontificate these days is with my girlfriend and friends. Which I’ve truly savored the way recovering alcoholics savor their meetings. Unlike with social media, I consider the face-to-face gathering of friends to discuss important current affairs as a sacred event, tantamount to a kind of civic duty. I’m not a commentator, at least not by profession, so, while I certainly can’t go a day without gabbing about D.C., actually writing about politics doesn’t naturally occur to me.

But, I’ve been confused lately, what with little imaginary logographic boats sailing into view all the time, and so I feel the need to break my fast—though of course not on Twitter but in this much safer environ. I suspect that my confusion stems from not just my political orientation “drifting” but also from the nature of this particular type of drift, which looks now as if it’s in some late stage wherein my loyalty to the Democratic Party is being cast off. And, since this for me is also a recognition that there exists no viable political party to migrate into, I’m encountering what sounds like what many veteran Independents have already remarked upon, that this process traffics in mystification. The word on the street when it comes to being an Independent is that it’s a hazardous affair, a road full of potholes and dead-ends. Though, of course, we live in strange times anyway now, which explains why this strange migration I’m writing about now, a migration I’m undertaking in a definitive way, is becoming quite common indeed.

One of the first things that occurs to me is how long this has taken, how ironclad my loyalty to the party has been. It’s been like trying to wrest myself from a plush lounge with great vibes, though, as of late, the more I make for the exit the more it feels instead like prying myself from a hungry shark. I think many Americans believe they must be in one of these parties, and that if they aren’t that they’re betraying something terribly important. Sometimes it even seems like they sin if they don’t pledge fealty either way. What’s most interesting to me is how, now that we’ve all entered the so-called subtext-as-text phase of late-stage capitalism, the battle lines are drawn so firmly, etched so concretely, it’s impossible to ignore just how conspicuous the split-screen is. They used to do it with a modicum of grace. The line between us versus them used to be drawn with a fine stencil. Now they’re using magic marker. That aisle they love saying they used to cross all the time, the lost tradition of which they now with calibrated sighs bemoan, is truly a wonder now, a border wall within our politics that has developed into its own iconic status. The word “duopoly” is on everyone’s lips. It’s impossible to ignore. It’s also no longer possible not to see the sham of it all.

So what next? What happens when you finally cross some other aisle, the one that most people either don’t know about or, worse, don’t take seriously, that specific weird aisle reserved for the curious and strange, the soon-to-be politically homeless? This is the aisle that divides those with membership in a party from those without. Already I can hear the war drums beating in my head, warning me of doom should I cross. There are people who use their influence to frame any other aisle than that binary defined by cable news as nothing but a chimera. Or, if you press the point, they’ll insist on a certain closetedness: “you’re sounding like them over there” is what you’ll hear the moment you express the barest nuance. Which is why they’ve largely succeeded in painting the independents who reject the binary as only so many anomalous simps.

Have I, in my confusion, in my consternation, internalized this sophistry? Does my procrastination in cutting the cord with the Democratic Party indicate an abdication of free thought? Have they succeeded in a kind of coercion?

Or could it be that my confusion is not confusion at all, but merely the oh so strange sensation of real liberty?

Now that I’ve tasted this wine, I most certainly believe the latter.

And yet, still, the question persists: what to do now?

I guess what I’m describing is the experience of not having a tent, of running in between the awnings and getting stuck in the rain. The big tent I’ve been under my whole life has become intolerable, the duplicities unconscionable.

I should also note that not all Independents are created equal. Some truly have no political affiliation, are agnostic to their bones. You could call these people “winnable,” “persuadable,” or “available” for either flank of the duopoly.

But I suspect that many are like me. Many have fled their party and have seen only two exits from the tent, one to the right and one to the left, and have decided to pick a direction to go in. They haven’t just entered an escape pod into deep space, they’ve made a decision that their own party doesn’t have enough of a certain direction. I guess that, by this logic, my drift doesn’t look like drift at all, but actually something like forward momentum in a specific direction.

Though it still consoles me only a little bit. Because, now that I’ve picked a direction, I see that those two exits in this tent both have real problems.

To me, the rightward exit from the Democratic Party looks like a chaotic bazaar, like a crazy festival saturated in personality cults all centered around a Randian neoliberal hellscape that believes in running the economy like it’s a grotesque hotrod engine that should be free to ride the highways with no speed limit. So, needless to say, no can do.

But the one to the left, seems, well, like Siberia. “A Leftist in the United States” are about the loneliest words on the planet. “Anyone home?” It’s so cold on this side of the tent it’s enough to instill a desire to trick oneself into taking the snake-oil on the right. After all, bazaars are fun. That right-wing snake-oil even seems more American somehow. They love waving that flag. In a way, they’re right. They certainly have the optics. The thought over on that side of the political spectrum has metastasized over several centuries into a bunch of indelible tropes, from the snare and piccolo accompanied ostentation of Old Glory to the baked-in fetish for John Wayne individualism. It bespeaks of a hopeless ontology of right-wing sentiment in the American soul. So, to actually drift away from that, towards what is ostensibly opposite of what it means to be American, away from the bazaar of one side to the permafrost of the other, seems like a kind of masochism.

Yet: what else am I to do? I do love the woods, so I guess my direction makes sense. Though that offers little help with the vertigo.

- - - - - -

I was eighteen when Bill Clinton won in ’92. My hot take the next day was telling my friend that “I don’t trust that guy." At the time, I knew little of politics. I only knew to parrot my father’s condemnation of all things “big D” Democratic. His politics and how he came to judge the candidates, typically, I suppose, for a certain type of Republican, was a matter of scents: one needed only to hear where they stood on gays in the military and the rest could be easily derived from a kind of intuition that was equal parts Holmesian induction and animal instinct. And so Bill with his aw-shucks smirks and his suspicious charm and his saxophone was immediately written off as a shyster. My father, unlike me, would never waver from his discontent: late-stage Bill, awash in controversy, was as offensive to my father as the early one that won the first term. Like many Americans during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, I watched Bill tell the camera live that he didn’t have relations, though, in my case, as was the case with many who had angry, right-wing parents, that broadcast was accompanied for me with an audience response (“You’re an effing liar!”).

For my part, when I was eighteen, I barely understood the difference between the two parties. I knew only of certain optics, that there’d been twelve years of Republican rule and that it had come in two forms, in the persons of two scions of elite moralism. First, in the person of Reagan, with his Californian scrupulousness and throwback to old-timey Hollywood—with all of the American exceptionalism coded in. And second, in what followed for another four years, another term of Republican rule in the form of upstanding CIA-style technocracy, in the person of the elder Bush—though H.W. also mixed it with some of the can-do Calvinism of New England WASPS (brilliant).

And then along come a hammer to bash all of this Comstockery into smithereens with some Dionysian fun from the South, a devil from the Bayou in the person of Slick Willy, a good ol’ boy from Arkansas with a thick drawl that spoke of marshes and barbecue sauce. It was like for twelve years we’d been attending some Heritage Foundation conference, complete with $500 tables (or, more likely $5,000) and suddenly some greasy libertine who souped-up his neighbor’s cars for a living had now crashed the event and taken over the microphone (never mind the cleverness of Bill’s working class disguise, which lopped over and around his tenure as a Rhodes scholar like a Laudian vestment in reverse).

I’ll never forget the smile on election night, which seemed to already telegraph how much of the tenor, if not the substance, of the times were about to change. Indeed Bill’s own face, the one which that night would induce my skepticism, was a hallmark of the coming era. Unlike those of his 80s Republican forebears, whose narrow features made them a little more difficult to lampoon, Bill’s was a face made for the comic strip. Along with that smile there was the symmetry of those gigantic cheeks, and of course that nose, a proboscis which over the years would so often turn red and sometimes seemed even to grow. He was to become both Rudolph and Pinocchio, at once the odd one out and the liar.

After the steady drip of my father’s nativism throughout my childhood, really the entirety of my conscious years up to that point—I was six when Reagan was elected—I was only now beginning to figure out where I stood. It was becoming clear to me that I was not to follow in his bigoted boots. Which made Election ’92 something of a political inception point, something that ushered in the very drift I’m experiencing right now, thirty years later. It was the first time I became conscious of a swing, of the possibility of this central aisle in American politics. I could feel the change. I wasn’t completely free of the nationalism and xenophobia I grew up with, still prone to repeating my father’s propaganda about white countries (he was a big Pat Buchanan guy). But Bill Clinton’s election had triggered the first stirrings of honest political consciousness on my part. In the 90s, I became aware of myself and my peers as being defined not only by the music we listened to but in our belief in Bill and the Democratic Party. And it was to be a long haul: I was already back in New York at NYU when he was reelected four years later, by that point well on my way in my effort at ditching my working class affects and seeking entry into the rarified climes of the so-called liberal coastal elite.

But what’s as important as having ultimately shed my father’s atavism was having begun my long drift, the one towards the leftward exit from the big tent which I’m finally taking now.

By the time of Clinton’s tome of an autobiography, My Life, which I read cover to cover during the later neocon thicket of the Dubya era, Bill hadn’t been Slick Willy to me for a long time. He’d been a hero. He’d become ensconced into the storybook of past warriors, much the way Obama is looked upon now, as the de facto leader of the party. And just as the memory of the good warrior Obama functioned during the Trump administration, as a carefully placed reminder to hold the party ticket line, to make way for the future good king that shall save us from the present bad one, so too did the memory of Bill furnish that necessary coercive maneuver on the part of the elites seeking to shore up the liberal vote and keep it in line for the next election. In the face of Dubya’s psychotic Middle Eastern rampage, Bill’s face was soothing, especially on the cover of his book, proboscis and all. It was a reminder that we’d only been a couple of hanging chads’ worth away from victory and that we best hold on, never mind that the road to Baghdad had been paved long before Dubya, by Bill’s minions in the CIA. I, of course, fell for it all, hook, line and sinker.

There actually was one meaningful difference between Bill and Obama, though. Contrary to his Democratic heir, Bill had served as an exemplar of a certain type of liberalism—free-thinking, sexually liberated, compassionate—which Obama would slightly temper. It was the kind that had been fought for during the Civil Rights Era and Vietnam War, one which, whether I consciously knew it or not, had informed my every move during my previous adulthood. Indeed, every nascent lesson had come to me under the wing of the Pax Clintonia. Every experience, every benchmark of post-adolescent growth, from high school graduation to moving out of the house to going back to school to moving back to New York, from my first love to my first car accident to my first mosh pit to my first sexual experiment, all were undertaken under the bright aegis of Clintonian liberalism. Bill, our first baby boomer POTUS, had ushered in a countercultural victory—what with his cheeky failures at inhalation—and so far my life was headed in the exact direction of that particular mandate, one that was so carefully balanced within, if not outrightly epitomized by, the winking insouciance of the lothario whose love for Third Way policy was matched only by his lust for workplace sex. And with the dawning of the new millennium just up ahead every decision I made and every milestone I achieved in those early years of adulthood smacked of a last-minute bargain during the End of Days. Only, owing to post-Cold War optimism, it was in reverse. The promised land of liberation from cultural strangleholds had come early, and we were to partake of the harvest freely. We were Generation “Move On.” And, like many during the dark ages before Generation MeToo, before belated conversations about power relations and patriarchy would pose a meaningful challenge to the prerogatives of the counterculture, I had been proud of being a part of it.

That I’m now making for the exit from the big Clintonian tent is actually not the saddest part of this story of disenchantment. That’s merely bittersweet, since I know that I now see the truth, my soon-to-be political homelessness notwithstanding. The scales have fallen from my eyes, as it were. “. . . [W]hereas I was blind, now I see” [Saint Paul].

No, what’s saddest isn’t unregistering from the Democratic Party, but, rather, thinking back to my blindness during the Clintonian era, along with the nauseating pendulum swing to the War on Terror that came fast on its heels. It’s humbling now to see how much darkness had in fact surrounded me and how little I knew of it, like a straggler in the woods at night mistaking the moon for the sun. What today I see as the plain truth, that this New Democrat-Third Way is actually a cleverly disguised dead end, something that is almost consciously tailored by oligarchic forces to forestall economic justice, the very same economic justice that the Democratic Party claims as one of its ideological pillars, was obscured during the Dubya era by something rather maudlin stirring within me, which I feel chagrin even thinking about today. It was the man from Hope’s smile on the cover of his book. I used to look at it longingly after reading passages of his autobiography, all of the studiously reproduced details of his administration, no doubt culled from endless minutes and meeting transcripts, of his intervention in Sarajevo, of his steadfastness during the government shutdown, of his long, post-Monica affinity for sleeping on the living room couch. It was thrilling, like reading about what the Kingdom of Earth was like up in the castle during my very first years as an adult. I’d finish a long passage and close the book and look at his face on the cover. My brain would be addled by the ubiquitous “Hail to the Chimp” renderings circulating the media of then present-day POTUS. I would look into that smile, the one that had fostered such visceral distrust back in ’92, and instead see a bright glimmer of hope during a time of war. I would think, “Save us from the chimp.”

I need to have sympathy for myself in thinking back to the bamboozlement of all of this. The con job’s a tough one to crack. I could not have known how intoxicated I was back then while I was so entranced by Bill’s face; I could not have known how much this movement was scripted, how my consent was so maneuvered, the puppeteering of it all. In the same way that a mother props up a stuffed toy on her lap and animates it with her hand and tricks her newborn into gleeful smiles, so the duopoly had successfully manipulated my own credulity around this figure of Bill the Savior, the previous good-guy whose book we should now read to keep the home fire burning during times of darkness when the bad guy is the king. Keep it burning, they say, for the good king shall rise again, just you wait. Only, of course, another bad king shall rise in his wake as assuredly as this current bad king lives and breathes. And onward and so on and so forth into the horizon like a flock of sheep.

What’s really scandalous to me is thinking back to how I’d read Bill’s book and incanted this ritual at thirty thousand feet, in business class, with the loud background roar of jet turbines constantly reminding me that I was a “Somebody-Headed-Somewhere.” This was when I played with the band Interpol, when I very busy touring and performing across the globe. I was making a lot of very popular music, making a lot of money and making a lot of appearances.

I guess it only makes sense, then, how I failed so spectacularly to see what is plainly evident today, how Clinton’s Democrats were not all very different from Reagan’s, nor, for that matter, from Republicans in general. It makes sense to me now how I stayed in the dark, how that smile, as I gazed longingly at Bill on the cover of his book, could offer me such misplaced hope. The chief difference between Bill and George was that the former’s vision of America made room for cherished liberal ideals, specific ones, though, the ones that made for good news and party enlistment, ideals centered around racial equality and the right to choose. Beyond that, there was very little. Let’s not be obtuse. Sure, it’s pretty likely Gore wouldn’t have brought us to Iraq, though I think we can now see that something just as troubling as, say, Obama’s drones would’ve arisen. After all, they always, Republican or Democrat, find a way to appease the brass. This is to say nothing of the gutting of American manufacturing, of course, nor anything else regarding the working class.

There was still relative prosperity for many back then, so we still weren’t at a time for rallies around minimum wage and healthcare to be viable seat fillers. At the end of the day, only the specter of “the other side” gaining power satisfied the political consumer’s appetite for bread and circuses. That’s still a problem today, but it was believed in much more prevalently back then. Obviously, there were plenty of people at the time who could see past the propaganda, like I only have gotten around to at this relatively late juncture. There were no doubt many Lefties to go around. But, pre-Bernie, they were living in an even more profound darkness than today. I certainly didn’t even know they existed. I didn’t even know what a Lefty was.

I was too drunk on the Clintonian-countercultural promise, the rise of the enlightened liberal outlook, the world of Move-On where the sexual advances, and even abuses, of a lecherous boss should before anything be understood as honest desire and that to litigate it is the worst—read, most Republican—offense any good liberal could ever hope to make. It was an attractive carrot to hold in front of the libs, back during less complicated moments for sexual liberation. But that promise should’ve always been qualified, heavily, since its noble valence of a world free of intrusive oversight, sexual domination and gendered coercion, without the necessary correlate of economic justice, easily curdles into its more cynical variant of a consumer-driven hedonic paradise. There are still problems with a party that leads with the counterculture even in the best case, since all of that Berkeley campus gusto did very little to address the growing income inequality. For my part, the bargain was as conspicuous as it was reductive. It amounted to a basic fact around heteronormativity, hormones and rising social capital, all realities that proved themselves to be in my case—somewhat embarrassingly in hindsight—worthy of electability ipso facto.

I can see pretty clearly now that the buy-in to the duopoly, forever toggling between good and bad kings, politics as cinematic kayfabe, was deeply aligned with my class interests at the time. At the end of the day, the Admirals Club really only votes in one direction, even when they cast their vote for the “good guy.” They think that they’re voting to help the little guys when they vote-blue-no-matter-who. If you spend enough time on cable news or reading literary journals like The New York Times, then, yes, of course, you will believe that these are the good guys. And speaking for myself as an erstwhile member, I had completely drunk the New Democrat Kool-Aid. How could I not have? I grew up during its regime. And my moral vanity was now benefitting from its dibs. I had failed to make the connection, that, for people with my class interests, the difference between a Democrat and a Republican in office is merely a matter of window dressing. We well-off liberals are made to endure periods of four or eight years wherein some group of people we don’t like have put up curtains that we find tacky. But in terms of the structure of the house, its foundation, its plumbing, its electricity, there is no real difference. The lights stay on regardless. And in order to evade having to look squarely in the face of this “inconvenient truth” we buy in wholesale into the kayfabe and convince ourselves that the scripted professional wrestling is actually a real match. And so, rather disingenuously, we believe that we are voting for the little guy when we vote-blue-no-matter-who but in fact we are only voting for ourselves and our class interests. That middle aisle that everyone always seems to think is so very wide, such a giant chasm, is actually quite narrow, not much wider than the one I knew so well up above in the airplane in business class, only about as wide, in fact, as the opening of an unfolded wallet.

- - - - - -

Today, I became an Independent. I sent in the form. I do not say this jubilantly. It’s a statement of a kind of homelessness, of a drifting into the woods. The value of growing up during Clinton’s time, of having a more compassionate politics than that of my parents, had certainly been accomplished. But like any tutelage under the wing of a corporate Democrat, it came with a price tag, one that today I can no longer afford. There is no party for me, at least for now. So there’s no chance of setting myself down firmly at a table. Maybe I’ll go Green. I tend to be skeptical of third parties, but that could change. My drift continues.

I know I’m not reinventing the wheel with this decision. I know that Independents have been growing ever since Reagan began the decades-long, successful luring of the working class away from the Democrats. I also know that my own class interests are very different from these people. So I’m not looking to gain credit by making a play to join their ranks. I don’t have that ability since, for a while now and for all intents and purposes, I've been a member of the managerial class.

But from this point forward I intend to hold solidarity with their class interests, not mine. Because I’m not the one suffering. They are. It sucks it took me this long to leave this tacky, tired party, this party that has sold out this class of people over and over again for decades, and which continues to do so. But better late than never, I suppose.

The real reason I’ve written this post, though, is not to litigate my various disappointments over the years. I’m sure it has sounded that way. But I can only trust that I went into a historical account to serve its necessary expositional role. This has been a long journey. One that began during a very different time.

The real reason I’ve written all of this down is to address the curious feeling I’ve had since I’ve made this decision. I’ve crossed some other aisle I never knew existed, the one between the people with political addresses and those without them. I’m beginning to sense that there is some other affiliation here, one that puts me with strange bedfellows, people with some views that I can never support, but whose realities and experiences I somehow sympathize with. What unites me with these people is our missing political addresses. Within the bifurcated panopticon of Red/Blue politics there seems to be no other valence than the digital toggle, the on/off switch between the two parties. I ask, then: where’s the dimmer? I long for shades of colors. At the very least, irrespective of our views on religion, sex, racism, patriarchy and so on, I have one very important point of solidarity with all of these latter-day strange bedfellows: a rejection of the binary. Or at least, a rejection of that binary.

It feels way different. Even almost like a betrayal. I have come to believe so forthrightly in progress and in all of the forms of justice that our country sorely lacks, racial and otherwise. Naturally, this won’t change for me, but it still feels almost verboten to go the economic justice route, because I’ve believed that the other forms of justice should come first before anything else. I have brothers and sisters to think of, fellow humans that I care about with whom I wish never to waver in my solidarity. It’s just that now I’ve come to believe that the best way to fortify that pact is through a labor union. And, sadly, we don’t live in a particularly union-heavy universe, which means needing to take this torch, the torch of the working class, up first.

Drifting leftwards . . . .

Yes, very strange times indeed. I think it’s why those words keep wafting into my field of attention, when I’m walking the dog or decorating the tree. The drift is gradual. It’s not that I’m kicking myself out into the street after an eviction. It’s a slow process of untethering, of slackening the leash until I’m out there in the wilderness. It feels as though I’ve just now taken a very important step in that process, kind of like the feeling of the car dropping you off at the trailhead with nothing but a backpack on and no one around.

There’ll be rallies in the future, sure. There’ll be chances to break bread with fellow travelers. But the likelihood that any of these efforts will result in real power, real change and real meaning is very low. Interestingly, I almost wrote just now that the reason for this absence of potential is that we don’t have the numbers, but that’s actually not true. All of these policies poll extremely well. They are prima facie net goods. No one says no to a government check. There are so many sleepy would-be socialists out across this great land. We do have the numbers. We just don’t have a working class with class consciousness. They are not permitted to, not under the current system. And so long as the working class sleeps, nothing will ever change. Power concedes nothing.

This is a dark vision, yes. But the acknowledgment of surrounding darkness is itself a form of light. Because it induces you to light a candle, a tiny little light of truth that you can use to light your way as you amble through the catacombs. I can’t say that I’m happy that I’m going to spend the rest of my days in the wilderness. But I will enjoy it greatly when I begin to see another faint light in the distance, another candle lit for someone else’s path, and draw closer to it so that when the twain shall meet, bread will be broken, stories will be told, feelings will be exchanged and, with this nourishment in the belly, the two shall separate again and drift on until the next time.

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nicelytousled · 3 years

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As we're on the topic of a potential sequel explaining the immortality of the old guard, despite agreeing that it is probably better left alone since they would only have like 2 hours and I want Quyhn to have time to shine, I'm gonna play devil's advocate because I've been sitting on some Thoughts™ about it. What if their healing is not simply regenerative but rather reversal, a kind of time travel?

warning: this post contains body horror pls proceed with caution

I think it would be cool if their bodies were their own unique contained alternative timelines and healing was sort of like recalling a memory. When you remember an event you're not remembering the initial event itself but rather the last time you remembered it. Healing and coming back to life would mean rewinding to the last time they were healthy/alive. I think that could explain basic things like why their hair grows back the same way, why they have scars or piercing holes from before their first death, etc.

To explain what I mean in more depth let's use Nicky's spleen as an example. Let's say Dr. Kozak removes Nicky's spleen, puts it in a jar, and sets it aside. That spleen now exists in two different timelines: the timeline of the external world where it's in the jar and the timeline of Nicky's body after it reverses to the last time he had a spleen. That would also mean there's nothing remarkable about their DNA, something an anon bought up in an ask to @wickedpact which I thought was interesting. Dr. Kozak's samples would be effectively useless, just ordinary organs and tissue samples that abide by different rules of time only within the context of their bodies.

It could also explain how their bodies reject bullets and how they would be immune to disease. If their bodies are their own contained alternative timelines and all their atoms abide by different physical laws then anything that entered that differing timeline would be reversed and rejected. For example, when Nile stabs Andy if Andy hadn't pulled the knife out then eventually her body would have pushed it out by itself. I think this would also make very traumatic injuries like being beheaded easier to explain. Instead of growing an entirely new head from nothing they would instead revert back to the last time they had a head.

To explain what I mean further, if I place my hand flat against a wall then my hand and that wall are made of the same essential stuff, it's all just atoms buzzing around together in different combinations abiding by the same laws of physics. If Nile with her newfound immortality put her hand flat against a wall it would be different. Her hand and the wall would not be made of the same essential stuff because her atoms are buzzing away to a totally different tune than the wall she's touching. They can interact but they are fundamentally different because Nile's body is its own unique dimension with different rules about how time works.

Off the top of my head, I think this is interesting in regard to the story of The Old Guard for these reasons:

It might be interesting to explore exactly what results in someone transitioning from the timeline the rest of the world operates in into their own embodied dimension. We don't yet know the circumstances of Quyhn or Lykon's first deaths, but going by Andy, Nile, Booker, Joe, and Nicky they probably all share the setting of war and the experience of very intense emotion, for example, betrayal, hatred, and fear. What is it about war specifically? What is it about those emotions? What do the characters think about these shared similarities? They could dig a lot deeper than destiny and misery loves company.

It could also add some depth to how they dream of one another before they meet. The dreams are from an outside perspective, which on my last rewatch I thought was odd. It's not like you're in someone else's head when you dream of them, rather you're being shown their face from some non-existent perspective. It's like they're being orbited by something, as if they're each the centre of a different plane of reality.

It would explain how Quyhn could be awake for long enough that Nile could dream about her in such detail. Her body would be constantly returning to the point where she took her last breath, reverting to when it last had oxygen. I think that's more terrifying than the idea that she's simply regenerating, to have been submerged for hundreds of years but to have your body constantly reverting to the state it was in the last moment you had above the surface.

^ side note on the above points but The Old Guard has the potential to be a kind of cosmic horror story I think, especially from Quyhn's perspective. Her body constantly turns back time but her present remains the same and there's no escape and no way of knowing why. I might make a separate post some time about The Old Guard in relation to the fear of the unknown and the discovery of incomprehensible truths. Much to think about there.

I also think this version of immortality is interesting because it's such a contrast to how healing works for ordinary people, and how emotional healing works specifically. Healing is never about returning to the place you once were before you were hurt, something that's often impossible to achieve and distorted by memory, but rather about building yourself back up while accepting that hurt as a part of you. Both Andy and Booker are carrying around unprocessed grief, and I think it's interesting how their bodies could be so out of sync with how humans heal emotionally. That must wear on them psychologically and that could be interesting to explore.

On a much lighter note, if they are their own contained alternative timelines then maybe Joe and Nicky are perfectly in sync. Not to quote Bronte wildly out of context but I'm talking "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" kind of stuff. I'm talking when @emjee wrote "They’re a binary star system, Joe thinks. Two bodies, one single point of light.” Maybe they're perfectly mirrored, orbiting one another. Maybe because of that they're guaranteed to stop being immortal together too, I think that would be nice.

Really, I do agree with Greg that a sequel should be focused on characters and relationships rather than exploring the how's and why's of their immortality. In 2 hours it would be better to dedicate time to incorporating something like flashbacks like Greg says, maybe to show the tension between past and present with Andy and Quyhn.

I think my more general point is that if a potential sequel did explore the how's and why's of immortality, I think there might be a sweet spot where they could give us more information about how it works without revealing everything (like they did with Copley's big board of stuff). Sometimes information like that can ask more questions than it answers, and it can strengthen character arcs when interpreted by the protagonists, and I think that can be great for storytelling. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing that in a third film.

#the old guard #the old guard meta #long post #bird makes stuff #tw body horror #i use the word interesting far far too much #its almost midnight forgive me #does this even make any sense? who knows #why does a post need to make sense is it not enough to read a collection of words next to each other

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Thank you for your answer to my last ask! Just sort of carrying on from that, what do you think about how they should cover medieval queerness in a potential prequel? I read your post about the deep relationships between knights which was really interesting. I guess what I'm asking is what would "Period-typical Homophobia" for Nicky and Joe actually be? Thank you for educating us better than school does.

Okay, I’m gonna come in here with a Scorching Hot Take that may ruffle some feathers, but possibly... none?

If the point of including casual homophobia or homophobic references is literally just for the sake of evoking some supposed Medieval Bigotry for ~Le Atmosphere Of Dark Age, there is a) no point to it, and b) not much historical evidence either. People love to point out that we didn’t have the modern identity labels of “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” etc. in the olden days -- well, in that case, we don’t have modern homophobia either, or reactions to those behaviors in the same way. We don’t even have much textual evidence for how ordinary people (outside clerical/religious elites, who would be predisposed to disapprove, just like the religious right today) reacted to so-called “queerness” in their communities, and the circumstantial evidence we DO have suggested that it was far from any imagined universal experience of rejection and isolation. Besides, what we call “queer” due to fragile modern heteronormativty and toxic masculinity was actually intensely normal for medieval people.

One of the tiresome arguments that Straight Historians tend to use, when queer historians are arguing for a queer, romantic, or sexual relationship between two people of the same gender (usually men, because that’s who mostly appears in our sources), is that “friendship was a lot more romantic/intimate/emotional/physical in nature back then!!! They’re not gay They’re Just Pals!!” This is actually true, in that medieval men, far from this Iron Man No Homo No Emotions trope that (once again) we ourselves have come up with, were encouraged (as I wrote about in my gay knights post) to love each other almost, if not quite, beyond reason. There was so much crying, kissing, embracing, tender declarations of loyalty, etc (see: Is It Gay or Is It Feudalism?) Any of those behaviors would make the modern viewer go “lololol HOMOSEXUAL!!!”, but it’s not even always the case? The standards of physical affection, vows of devotion, and close emotional bonds even between platonic friends were just different, and while yes, there was a corresponding anxiety about this attachment turning sexual, the fact that it was considered as a worry in the first place shows you how intense these bonds could be. So while the modern viewer may see two men acting like that and go “oh no gay cooties,” this just wouldn’t raise any eyebrows at all to a medieval person, and hence they’re not going to come back with some dumb manufactured homophobic comment.

Next, in re Joe and Nicky specifically: I SORELY long for a scene in this imaginary prequel where after something romantic has happened between them for the first time, Nicky understandably freaks out a little and goes to confession. There is one other guy in front of him, and a bored priest who is not very good at his job. Guy In Front of Nicky (we’ll call him Guy) goes into the booth and kneels. Priest looks at him, doesn’t even ask. “Oh, is it sodomy again? Fine, seven days fasting bread and water, say two decades of the rosary, Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris -- ”

Waiting outside the booth, Nicky can hear this (since remember this priest is Bad at his Job and has apparently never met the concept of confessional confidentiality in his life) and sags in relief a little. Oh sodomy isn’t that bad, right, it’s a venial sin, no big --

“Father,” says Guy, “I confess that I have also consorted with a Saracen in search of a magical remedy.”

(We don’t gender the Saracen, because we don’t believe in supporting stereotypes, and since it’s established Guy is into Kinky Stuff, you never know.)

Priest LOSES HIS SHIT.

“You WHAAAAAAAT? CONSORTING WITH A SARACEN FOR MAGIC!! THIS IS A TERRIBLE SIN!!! YOU NEED TO REPENT IMMEDIATELY!!!”

Cut back to Nicky. OH SHIT!!! Sodomy not bad, he could deal with that. Consorting with a Saracen?? OH SON YOU’RE DOOMED. SODOMY WITH A SARACEN??? OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO HELL!

Cue Nicky’s silent existential crisis Dying in the background while the priest lectures Guy to within an inch of his life. Finally, Guy decides fuck this priest (not like that, this is not Fleabag) and scuttles out. A thoroughly terrified Nicky thinks about following him, but since the priest has already seen him, he can’t flee. He goes into the booth and kneels down, Quaking.

“What have you come to confess, my son?”

Nicky.exe has stopped working.

“.....jealousy.”

You get the idea. And guess what? This would be COMPLETELY accurate, because if we were using, say, Burchard of Worms’ Decretum, an early 11th-century handbook advising priests what penalties to give to various sins, that’s basically how it’s treated. Sodomy is blown over briefly with the other venial sins as a certain amount of days fasting on bread and water, while Burchard is really, really worried about witchcraft, magic, non-Christian beliefs, and other such things. So again, really, what is “Period-Typical Homophobia?” We’ve already established that behavior between two men that would raise modern eyebrows would be absolutely nothing remarkable to a medieval person, while priests obviously don’t approve of sodomy, but they’re not that fussed by it either. (Unless you’re Peter the Chanter, who’s just a dick, but he is yet again one guy writing about one specific context, 12th-century Paris, and the fact that he’s complaining so much means that it’s obviously happening in reality.) Besides, the whole idea was that sodomy was the “unspeakable sin,” aka something people just didn’t mention or talk about, which is why it can be hard to track down reliable or unambiguous treatments of it. Obviously, queer erasure isn’t a surprise, but it doesn’t mean that these people didn’t exist; it just means that chroniclers, especially monastic chroniclers, didn’t write about it. So even if this is outright happening, i.e. Joe and Nicky’s romance and/or the number of other queer characters we will be sure to include for verisimilitude, there’s still no guarantee that anyone would even actually SAY something.

And besides: not every minute of history was filled with homophobia, just as not every minute was filled with filth, torture, misogyny, etc. There is actually no necessary reason to include it, especially in boring modern homophobia form, unless you’re trying to beat us over the head with Things Being Bad Back Then. Especially if we’re making a movie that honors and empowers queer people, who deserve a chance to escape into a lavish historically detailed gay romance with Joe and Nicky and not have to deal with bog-standard microaggression as a result. Because what I’ve laid out above is just as much (in fact more so) historically accurate, and MUCH more funny, interesting, authentic, and original.

(And thanks so much!! Another GREAT question.)

#history #medieval history #queer history #joe x nicky #persephone-rose-r #ask #the old guard meta

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8uggestionamplifie6 · 3 years

Text

I just had the dumbest but coolest thought.

You know how there are soulmate AUs for Star Wars, right? And usually everyone in the galaxy has a soulmate, right?

Well, I just came up with a genius soulmate AU for Star Wars that'll fit in (I think).

First of all, the only people who have soulmates are Jedi (and their soulmates, obviously). Second of all, 'soulmates' aren't actually soulmates, not in the traditional sense at least.

Most soulmate AUs have it where the two persons both combine to make a single complete soul (person A: 1/2)(person B: 1/2) (which makes 1 whole).

But my soulmate AU is different.

And here's why. (Yes you'll need the context, so don't skip it.)

When the galaxy was first created, there was no such thing as soulmates. And it stayed that way for billions of years.

Until eventually, that changed.

During one of the first Sith-Jedi wars, the Sith realized that they were losing. The Jedi had more soldiers, more people, etc. They were losing BADLY.

So you know what they did?

They placed a curse on the Jedi Order.

This curse would split the soul of any Jedi in half, thus making the Jedi weaker and easier to kill.

(Restrictions: Person must take vows as a Jedi/acknowledge themselves or be acknowledged as a Jedi in order for the curse to take affect. Either or, just fulfill one of these requirements.)

Of course, the Jedi Order found out about the curse quickly and tried to capture the Sith who created it in hopes of reversing it.

But the Sith who participated in the ritual knew that the Jedi would find out, so all fifty-something of them committed sewerslide right after the curse took its affect.

So now the Jedi couldn't reverse it anymore. They don't know what rituals the Sith used, they don't have any information, they don't know how to reverse it, they don't know anything.

And that's when the Force came in clutch to help them.

So basically, the half of any Jedi's soul that was ripped from them will be sent to a person who needs it most.

(Ex. Very sick girl at home. Boy joins Jedi Order and becomes a Jedi. Boy's soul is torn apart. Girl is given that half of Boy's soul and becomes healthier.)

Not only that, but Jedi can access the other half of their soul (not the soulmate, just their soul) in their last moments.

I like to call it, "The Final Hour".

What I mean by this is that when a Jedi exhausts themselves near death's door or dies or is fatally injured, the other half of their soul (soul B) will gradually be brought to them (soul A), momentarily increasing their strength and power. This gives them a better chance at killing the person attacking them or to protect more people, even if they've already 'died'.

On average, this state lasts about an hours, give or take a few minutes, hence the name.

When the soulmate dies first however, Soul B disappears, which leaves only Soul A (which is with the Jedi).

Think of it like this: the soulmate is the anchor Soul B uses and needs to stay 'alive'. When that anchor dies, Soul B doesn't have a way to travel from point B (the soulmate) to Point A (the Jedi) anymore, so Soul B just disappears into the Force, waiting to be reunited with Soul A.

But when the Jedi dies first, Soul B still has the soulmate to use as an anchor point (the other anchor point being the 'main' soul aka Soul A), which means that it can travel to the Jedi in order to start the "Final Hour".

But anyways, back to the 'soulmate' part because I'm about to do some world-building for this AU.

One, having a soulmate is generally seen as a curse. This is because when the Jedi dies, the Soul B that was inhabiting the 'soulmate' will leave to join Soul A, thus killing or incapacitating the 'soulmate'.

Like I said, the Force specifically guides these half-souls to people who need it most. Say a terminally ill boy is given the half of a Jedi's soul, he gets better and is no longer terminally ill. The moment the Jedi dies however, Soul B will be taken back and the boy will return to being terminally ill. Which is why having a soulmate in this AU means being 'cursed' and not blessed.

Two, most people don't know why soulmates exist or they don't know why the people who have a Jedi's soul is 'cursed'. To them, they can't explain it. One second the boy is all fine and dandy, and the next he drops to the ground dead.

Three, Jedi are weaker than Sith. Since Jedi only have half of their soul with them (unless they die and enact the "Final Hour"), they are weaker and thus need to train a lot in order to make up for their lack of pure power. Remember, the Sith don't have this curse on them, so they still have an entire soul.

Four, Sith hunt the soulmates of Jedi. (Another reason why being a soulmate is seen as a curse bc no one wants to be murdered by a Sith). For reasons stated above, by killing the soulmate, you basically permanently kill off half of a Jedi's soul, which makes them even weaker.

Five, yes, force-sensitives can be the soulmate of a Jedi, it has happened before. This usually makes the force-sensitive soulmate even stronger because since the soulmate is only force-sensitive and not a Jedi, they don't have the curse on them, so they technically have 1 & 1/2 souls. When this happens, the Jedi and the Sith scramble to find the soulmate. The Jedi want to hide the soulmate in order to keep the soulmate safe and stop the Sith from gaining another weapon. The Sith, however, want to train the soulmate and turn them into an extremely powerful Sith Lord.

(My head canon is that quite a few notorious Sith Lords are these special force-sensitives with an extra half of a soul.)

Six, the reason why the Jedi Order is so small during the Prequels Era is because the Order stopped seeing a reason to have more people have their souls brutally torn in half. That shit hurts mad and it's not fun. More importantly, the Sith were 'dead'. The Order believed that, so that's why they stopped conducting major Searches and stopped accepting initiates. They also placed stricter acceptance rules in order to discourage people from sending their children to the Order.

So, what do yall think? Like it or nah? Which Sith Lords do yall think would have 1 & 1/2 of a soul? Questions, comments, concerns?

(Why the hell did I write this?)

#star wars #soulmate au #sith #jedi order #head canon #jedi culture #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #im only tagging that so my post will hopefully be noticed more #sorry if I offend anyone by doing that #I just really want someone to geek out with and I dont have any friends #sorry lmao #sorry yall

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