#radicalized against clu.

[moodymisty]

Hey.

Totally understand if you don’t want to make a part two, but something that’s been living rent free in my head since I read the Lion’el painting fic you wrote is what would happen if his lover potentially retuned somehow? Maybe she’d been on a ship that experienced warp shenanigans so it’s only been a few years since she disappeared from her pov, how he’d react to her return and how she’d handle the RADICAL changes to the imperium.

Preferred sfw but I don’t really mind

Totally fine if you don’t want to do a part two but I did want to express how much I loved the fic and make the request now that they’re open.

PS I love all your stuff so much

- 🍀

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙| 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Sequel to this request. You will probably need to read that to understand most of what happens here.

Author's note: Hey friend! Here's a little continuation of that fic, I hope you enjoy it <3

Relationships: Lion'el Jonson/Fem!Reader

Warnings: None really

Lion'el is disturbed from his what can only be described as meditation with the harsh slamming of ceramite boots on flooring, up until the door behind him is thrown open. LIon'el doesn't move as they force their way into the small room, his hands still on his thighs.

"Father!" They even forgo the proper respects, though he ignores it. He doesn't however, ignore their next words.

"She is awake!"

Lion'el's eyes snap open, and he's up to his feet in moments, pushing past his men with little regard. He knows they're following, though he couldn't care less if they did.

He only cares about one thing now.

Lion'el had been hesitant to tell any of his these Dark Angels about you, since waking. They had never even known he had a wife, only that singular relic had even clued them into the fact that he had anyone, besides his legion. The entire time they'd never known that mysterious woman had been beneath their feet; Much like himself, in a way.

It seemed whatever had cast him into an endless slumber had did to you much the same, not many years later. You'd commanded his men briefly in his stead, but one day, you fell the same as him. He'd never known you were so close until recently. He'd thought you dead and gone since he'd awoken.

He hasn't seen you awake since those days just after the Heresy, and only recently when you were still asleep; Now here you are, groggy and eyes wet, trying to pull your arm away from a concerned medicae. You stop however, once you catch sight of him.

"Lion?"

Your voice is hoarse, like a gravely whisper, you look at him like you have trouble thinking he's real. Perhaps he looks too different for you to instantly recognize him. He knows his beard is rougher, face is harsher. But his armor is almost the exact same.

He walks closer. Past his sons who have maintained a cautious barrier; They know little about you. He pushes through them despite complaints and reaches your side, where your legs dangle off the edge of a stone slab his sons had put you on ten thousand years ago.

His hands reach to cup your face, and your own grasp his armor, desperately trying to pull him into a hug. He allows it, feeling your tears on the skin of his neck.

He can see the look of confusion in his geneson's eyes. How they all look at him displaying such weakness. He knows how far gone down the path they've gone, how his words have been twisted and warped beyond even what he thought was reasonable.

You pull away from his neck but he still feels your small hands against the nape of his neck, weaving into his hair.

"Lion, what's happened? The last I remember, Horus and Lorgar had-" He quiets you quickly.

"I will explain everything to you." He turns to the medicae who is still hovering close by, but hasn't been able to continue his duty since being interrupted.

"How is she," Lion'el speaks bluntly. It takes the man a moment to regain movement of his tongue.

"She appears normal on every scan, considering all that has happened."

With that reassurance Lion'el goes to pick you up, carrying you as close to bridal style as he can given your difference in size. When he turns to take you away however, Azrael comes into view with his squad shortly behind him.

"Father!"

Lion'el had confessed to your existance once he'd visited you and noticed you shift in your sleep. He'd sent guards to watch you as you- at the time he had thought hopefully- began to wake, and Azrael had to then be let in on the secret that had been lost for ten thousand years. Azrael as he expected acted with suspicion, though had held back his thoughts at the time. Now he seems to decide not to.

He doesn't need to say a single word, the way the astartes' hand flinches tells Lion'el everything he needs to know about what him and his squad are thinking.

Lion'el looks towards his geneson with nothing but coldness.

"If your hand moves closer to the pommel of your chainsword I will not hesitate to kill you where you stand."

Azrael gawks at him like he's offended.

"Father, we should be cautious, you don't know what kind of warp trickery has-" Lion'el stands straighter, still holding you in your arms. You're drowsy, but still well aware of the standoff that is happening as you grasp his armor for stability.

"She is my wife. She is the legion mother of Dark Angels from before and after the Heresy, and she commanded your ancestors when I fell. I do not need you to tell me what I see."

Lion'el walks forward and his men give way to him, allowing their genefather to pass. He can feel Azrael's displeasure, but he doesn't care.

He walks away from them all, and they wisely choose not to follow.

"Lion, How long have I been asleep? All of your men, you..." You look around the halls as he walks. "Everything look so different."

Lion'el is silent for a moment, until he returns to his quarters and gently sits you down on his own bed. One of his gauntlets comes to rest on the nook between your shoulder and neck, awkward as he always was but reassuring.

"The same illness that took me, it took you as well." You look exactly how he remembers you, it's like not a day has passed. Since waking he's blocked out those detailed memories of you; The feeling of your skin and gentle look in your eyes. They hurt to remember, but now that he has them back he doesn't know if he could do that again.

"You've been asleep for ten thousand years. Same as I."

Your face is frozen in a confused shock, your breath quickens, though at some point you simply accept it. Or perhaps stow the feelings away to eventually explode when your brain isn’t so and confused.

Your hand pulls to try and bring him closer, and he puts a gauntlet in your lap for you to grip as a compromise. Your small hands wrap around his fingers, squeezing to reassure yourself as you talk.

"I missed you. Being with your legion alone, I don't know how to describe how it felt." You weren't meant to do such a thing, lead an army, and Lion'el laments having to put it on you. He's sure you did well in your time, what short amount of it there was.

"Are you tired?" He asks, and you uncharacteristically let out a laugh.

"Not to be rude, but I think I've had quite enough of that for a few lifetimes, apparently." Lion'el doesn't smile, but his face does soften.

Finally alone, he also leans in to take a gentle kiss from you, your soft lips on his own as his beard scratches your skin. It feels just the same as he remembered.

"Then come with me. I'll show you what else you have missed."

[nothorses]

im wanting to help give my cis friend who isn't internet poisoned a primer of whats going on re: current wave of anti trans masculinity and i was wondering if you knew of a few good posts to send them to start off with? or perhaps a compilation post of posts? there's a ton of posts made by us individually so it's kinda hard to gather all the info together by myself so im wishing to crowdsource it. they already know about baeddelism so i was hoping specifically for the most recent resurgence?

I don't have a ton on the current resurgence of baeddelism due to it's mostly on twitter and the bird app makes me actively miserable to be on.

the context I do have is amelia baeddelia (who you should be able to find on Twitter and Tumblr under that name; can't find my post talking about her right now but I'll look again in a bit) specifically, who, afaik, is the person who started said resurgence. I'd say most of the context needed to understand it is knowledge of the original movement, given it's literally just a rehash (but with even more gaslighting this time), but I think it's also largely backlash this time around- against transmascs speaking up in recent years- whereas the original movement sprung up with much less provocation, and seemed more like a natural next step in the radical feminism that had been growing in strength for a while by then. I could be wrong, though, I definitely was not clued into things myself at the time.

Which is just to say it's not the same now as it was then, though the fact that they want it to be makes it just as dangerous.

Idk! I don't have like a categorized list of posts for you on this, but maybe someone else knows of some good resources to start with?

[cyarskaren52]

“It was like holding a f**king live wire”: how Rage Against The Machine’s explosive debut album changed everything

It was early evening on Sunday, February 21, 1993 when the balloon went up. To the majority of people listening to Radio 1’s weekly chart rundown, the name Rage Against The Machine meant nothing. Why would it? A brand new band mixing metal and hip hop like no one had done before, they’d yet to make an impact outside of the nation’s rock clubs or the stereos of the more clued-in metal fan.

And so, when presenter Bruno Brookes cheerfully announced that their new single, Killing In The Name, had entered the charts at No.27 and cued the song up, neither he nor several million listeners knew what was about to happen.

The song started with a coiled guitar and tense bassline, as some guy rapped about the American police force’s inherent racism with palpable vitriol in his voice: ‘Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses.’ Then – boom! – the whole thing suddenly erupted. Over guitars that sounded like a thousand police sirens wailing all at once, the line ‘Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!’ blasted out of radio speakers everywhere, not just once, not twice, but 16 times. And then, suddenly, it reached its gloriously profane crescendo with one word hurled out with all the anger and pain that could possibly be mustered: ‘MOTHERFUCKER!’

Understandably, the snafu prompted a deluge of complaints to the BBC from offended listeners. Bruno Brookes, who was unaware that an unedited version of the song had accidentally been aired, was suspended for a week and almost lost his job. In just three and a half minutes, a group of political agitators from Los Angeles had detonated an incendiary device live on the airwaves.

“We knew the band’s politics were radical,” says guitarist Tom Morello today. “And that the band’s music was a radical combination of styles. But we didn’t think it was going to matter, ’cos no one was ever going to hear it.”

But people did hear it, in their millions. Rage Against The Machine were about to start a four-man revolution.

More than a quarter of a century after it exploded like a car bomb under the hood of mainstream culture, Rage Against The Machine has lost none of its power, impact or provocative fervour. It was the sound of Public Enemy yoked to Black Flag, of Dr Martin Luther King and Malcolm X set to a soundtrack of cutting-edge rap-metal.

Rage arrived as the wilfully shallow, MTV-driven rock scene of the 1980s was flat on the canvas with bluebirds fluttering around its head, laid out by the emergent grunge movement. In America, a new generation of hip hop bands was providing a vital social commentary, marrying the gritty reality of the streets with the violent glamour of a Hollywood crime blockbuster. All this was happening against a backdrop of global turmoil, racial tension and the threat of war in the Middle East. In hindsight, their timing was perfect.

In reality, it was purely accidental. Vocalist Zack de la Rocha, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Timmy C (aka Tim Commerford) and drummer Brad Wilk had been in various low-level LA bands, including hardcore firebrands Inside Out (Zack) and Lock Up (Tom, who played on their sole album, the unfortunately titled Something Bitchin’ This Way Comes).

“I had been in a band that had a record deal, I had already had my grab at the brass ring,” says Tom. “The band got dropped and I was 26 years old, and I thought that was it. I thought, ‘If I’m not going to be a rock star, or make albums, I’m at least going to play music that I believe in 100%.’ And I was fortunate to meet three people who felt very similarly.”

The four were brought together by various mutual friends, though Zack and Tim had known each other since childhood. Zack and Tom came from similarly radical backgrounds – Zack was the son of Mexican-American political artist Robert de la Rocha, Tom was the son of a white American activist mother and a Kenyan diplomat father. Growing up, both had experienced racism first hand, and bonded over their hard-left political views – views that would shape Rage from the off.

“I wanted to ensure the protection of this band’s integrity,” Zack told journalist Ben Myers in 1999. “Our words had to be backed up by actions, because we’re dealing with this huge, monstrous pop culture that has a tendency to suck everything that is culturally resistant to it into it in order to pacify it and make it non-threatening.”

Ironically, for a band who would go on to become one of the most successful of the 1990s, Rage Against The Machine saw their very existence as limiting what they could achieve.

“We began with zero commercial ambition,” says Tom. “I didn’t think we’d be able to book a gig in a club, let alone get a record deal. There was no market for multi-racial, neo-Marxist rap-metal punk rock bands. That didn’t exist. So we made this music that was just 100% authentic, it was 100% what we felt like playing. We had no expectations.”

Still, it was clear to the members of Rage from the start that they were onto something unique. Brad Wilk can vividly recollect the band’s very first rehearsal.

“More than anything, I remember this connection and movement and momentum that was happening in the room,” he says. “Something clicked. I played so well with Tim and Tom, and then we had Zack, who was a bolt of lightning, flying off my kick drum and was in it for real. There was something really special about what we were doing. We weren’t analysing it or putting our fingers on it yet. It was just an intense moment for us all. We saw the very beginning of the potential we could have.”

Like so many Californian bands before them, Rage’s first gig took place not at a club but at a party, in Huntington Beach, in the sprawling suburb of Orange County, south of Los Angeles.

“It was a party in a house, and the place felt electric,” says Tim Commerford. “A lot of our songs didn’t even have vocals at that time. In fact, we played a version of Killing In The Name that was just the music – he hadn’t got the vocals done. You could feel the electricity. It felt like holding on to a fucking live wire. That’s what it was: a live wire. And it kept getting more and more live.”

Collectively, Rage were fans of hip hop, and Tom recalls the band’s early days being sound- tracked by the likes of Public Enemy and Cypress Hill. But while hip hop provided a big steer for the band, it wasn’t their sole influence. All four had grown up on guitar music ranging from 70s rock and 80s metal to punk.

“Our histories run deep, that’s why we were the band we were,” says Brad. “We didn’t just listen to hip hop, we listened to all kinds of things, from Black Sabbath to Led Zeppelin to Minor Threatand the Sex Pistols. When we were getting together, we agreed that we wanted our record to sound somewhere between Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy.”

In March, Rage embarked on their first proper tour as openers for Public Enemy. Thanks to the controversies whipped up by the US media around ‘gangsta rap’ acts such as NWA and Ice-T, mainstream America had a poisonous – read: virulently racist – relationship with hip hop, and trouble was never far away. It was the perfect environment for Rage Against The Machine.

“The tour was a needlessly controversial one,” says Tom. “At the time, rap was considered a dangerous endeavour, and the police sometimes outnumbered the audience at these shows. They tried to shut several down, filed injunctions – none of which were successful, I might add. We were playing these colleges, and the audience would be 100% white fraternity boys and sorority girls, passing through five levels of metal detectors and pat-downs. I think the cops were afraid that we were going to be bussing in Bloods and Crips to the show. There was an air of hysteria.”

Today, the guitarist still expresses bafflement that anyone at all would want to take a chance on Rage Against Their Machine and their political message, let alone a corporate record company. But their 12-track demo tape found its way into the hands of Michael Goldstone, the Epic Records A&R hotshot who’d previously signed Pearl Jam.

“Our only goal was to make music for ourselves and to make our own record – a cassette tape, an elaborate demo tape of the 12 songs we had written,” says Tom. “That was our entire goal. We never thought we’d play a show. We never thought we’d make a record.”

Garth Richardson was a young Canadian studio engineer whose biggest credit came on an album by hair metal B-listers White Lion. But he was young and hungry, and when Epic asked his boss, producer Michael Wagener, who should work on the debut album by this hot new rap-metal band they had signed, he was an obvious choice.

“I got the demo tape and went, ‘Holy shit.’ There was nothing else like it,” he recalls. “I went over to see them play in their jam space. I think they played me four songs, and I was blown away, to the point where I couldn’t talk afterwards, because my stutter was so bad. I was like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me – I’m going to be doing this band?’ It was their power, and also what Zack was saying. It was so fresh and so new.”

Rage began recording their debut album with Garth in March 1992. Seven of the 12 tracks from the demo tape, including Killing In The Name, Bomb Track and Bullet In The Head, would appear on the album.

“The songs were probably about 85 to 90% there,” remembers Garth. We made a few changes, mostly lyrically. Literally, somebody just had to capture them.”

To achieve this, the producer brought in a full concert PA system to get the full impact of the band’s live firepower. This was undiluted Rage – though sometimes it created unforeseen problems.

“The problem is that sometimes Zack’s voice went,” says Garth. “He was working it so hard. The end of Freedom, where he’s screaming, ‘Freedom!’, that’s just one take. Every time he sang, he gave it his all. Anybody that wanted him to hold back, he was, like, ‘No, fuck off, leave me alone.’”

Given the incendiary lyrical subject matter, there was surprisingly little input from Epic. They seemed to learn their lesson after suggesting the band remove the line ‘Now you’re under control’ from Killing In The Name. “There was a big conversation about that,” remembers Garth. “And the band just said, ‘Fuck you, that part stays.’”

Killing In The Name would be the song that broke the band in the UK. For six months, it soundtracked every rock club in the country, its impassioned call-to-arms galvanising dancefloors of people out to party. Yet, like so many of the great songs, it came about by accident.

“I remember coming up with that riff,” says Tom. “I was giving guitar lessons at the time, and I was teaching some Hollywood rock musician how to do drop-D tuning. In the midst of showing him, I came up with that riff. I said, ‘Hold on a second’, and I recorded it on my little cassette recorder to bring into the rehearsal the next day, never realising that it would be the genesis of a song that would have that lasting impact.”

In April 1992, a series of riots erupted in Los Angeles when four white policemen were acquitted of beating African-American motorist Rodney King, despite the assault being filmed by a witness standing on his balcony. For America, it was a moment of chaos. For Rage Against The Machine, who had already recorded their debut album and would release it in November, the timing was unfortunately convenient.

“All of those songs were written prior to the Rodney King riots,” says Tom. “In some ways the record was prescient, in that it saw this maelstrom of racial strife and imperialist war on the horizon. When the record hit, it was a fertile field for us to have the ear of audiences around the world.”

Rage were proudly revolutionary – too revolutionary for America, who were slow to catch on. Britain was a different matter, as Bruno Brookes’ unfortunate Radio 1 mishap proved.

“The UK was the first place people lost their minds over this music,” says Tom. “One of the principal reasons was that there were more lax lyrical censorship laws on your MTV and radio. We never edited the curse words out of songs, so people in the United States couldn’t even hear them on MTV, they couldn’t hear them on radio. And secondly, people over there were surprised to hear an American band that had a view of America that was similar to Europe’s view of America.”

From that small spark, a conflagration began to spread, as word about Rage Against The Machine grew. Their snowballing success had the desired effect, as a generation – or at least sections of it – began to wake up to the messages they were delivering through the bullhorn of their songs. Musically, too, they dragged the dormant rap-metal movement that had briefly flared up in the late 1980s back out of its stupor (in Bakersfield, California, the members of a brand new band named Korn were certainly paying attention to what Rage were doing).

Plus, society was changing fast in the early 90s. While sexism, racism and homophobia were still unfortunately prevalent, there was growing opposition to such outdated outlooks. Rage Against The Machine took it several steps further, crediting Black Panthers founder Huey Newton and Provisional IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands on the credits list to their album – a contentious move on both sides of the Atlantic. The sleeve itself featured a 1963 picture of Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc setting himself on fire in protest of his government’s oppression of Buddhism. It was the ultimate visual representation of protest.

“My heroes were not guys in rock bands,” says Tom. “They were revolutionaries who were fighting to change the world. It looked like we were going to have an opportunity to get in that arena. This was an incredible opportunity to engage the planet – not just with our music, but with our ideas.”

The success of Rage Against The Machine took everyone by surprise, not least Rage Against The Machine. They rapidly went from being the outcasts of the Hollywood scene to a lightning rod for the alt-rock movement. Rather than blunting their political edge, success only sharpened it – most famously in 1993, when they took to the stage at a Lollapallooza festival show in Philadelphia naked, apart from gaffa tape over their mouths, as a protest against censorship.

But the pressure-cooker environment that comes with being in a revolutionary left-wing band eventually took its toll. Tensions between the bandmembers grew, and Rage split up in 2000 after just three studio albums. They have sporadically reformed since – most famously for a one-off gig in London’s Finsbury Park, after a fan-led campaign saw a reissued Killing In The Name trounce the Simon Cowell-backed X-Factor winner Joe McElderry to the 2009 Christmas No.1.

More than 25 years after it was released, Rage’s debut remains a landmark – the point where rap and metal truly came together to deliver a body-blow to the status quo.

“Human strife has not changed. Racism has not changed. Things have actually gone backwards,” says Garth Richardson. “Rage Against The Machine wrote an incredible record that was current – and it will be time and time and time again.”

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

“There was an interruption to a news broadcast with the voice of this alien… I thought, ‘What if it were real?’” I Am The Manic Whale bring an old storybook to life

Sent from my iPhone

[krytus]

[dwellordream]

how does being with charity slot into regulus’ current beliefs? like he has to know she’d be horrified if she knew he was a death eater, and that their relationship right now hinges on their mutual denial. is he questioning his fucked worldview a little bit at this point, or is it more of an “oh well she’s one of the good ones and her mom is a Fawley soo” justification to himself? (1/3)

like god their relationship is just so compelling and horrifying all at once. and there’s so many sad layers to it bc you can really feel that charity isn’t exceptionally romantic in her feelings toward him, but that this is one of the first times she’s felt seen and cared for by someone other than family, but it’s by someone who’s a bigot… and I think it’s kind of equally an escape for him from being a death eater and from his home life, although the vibe I’ve gotten is that he feels a little more strongly for her than she does him… sorry for the word vomit, I just feel very strongly about regulus and charity… I really love caritas a lot and I also love that you are honest in your portrayal of regulus, rather than going with the woobified brooding misunderstood bad boy treatment he gets by a lot of the fandom There's a lot at play here and I want to avoid spoilers so I will break it down this way. I think much as Charity downplays and denies the fact that Regulus is from a family of potentially violent bigots and that most of his friends are violent bigots, he downplays the fact that her father is a muggle and that she is estranged from her pureblood mother. It is easy for him to avoid thinking about the fact that Charity leads an essentially 'muggle' and mundane life when not at Hogwarts. Much as it is easy for her to avoid thinking about the fact that he spends his free time in very hateful blood purist circles. Is that becoming harder to ignore at time goes on, yes, for both of them. Is any of this leading Regulus to question his beliefs, well, that would be telling, right? If he's having some sort of crisis of conscience he certainly hasn't clued Charity onto this. He is also very aware that his brother is on the verge of being excommunicated from the family for his rebellion against said heinous beliefs. And above all else, Regulus has a deep, almost religious devotion to his parents and family elders. The idea of questioning and disobeying them is disturbing to him. Does that excuse his actions, of course not. He's 17, not 7. He is a teenager, yes, and his judgement is poor because of that, but he's old enough to understand that hurting innocent people due to your beliefs is wrong. I think part of what I wanted to explore with Charity is how people often fall into these circles of bigoted and even violent people. How are people radicalized into hate groups? Often it's because the first time they experience real affection, love, and praise is from someone from one of those radical groups. The group becomes their family. This is not to say Charity is about to take a turn for the dark side. But we can see through her POV how tempting and convenient it is to just forget all that nasty unpleasantness and just enjoy being with someone who confides in you, who treats you like you're valuable and special to them. The real difference between Charity and Regulus is that she has a supportive and loving parent and sibling at home. He does not. If Charity didn't have a happy home life, I think she would be far more susceptible to being infected with this fucked up world view. Because she has those ties, even if they feel distant while she's at school, she has a stronger sense of self, even if she thinks of herself as being weak and pathetic and ugly. Regulus, for all that he is popular with his Slytherin peers and seen as attractive and smart, does not have that support system at home. He grew up understanding love is conditional, and that if you displease people who love you, they can take that love away and punish you. So yes, spending time with her is for him, something of a guilty escape. He knows he shouldn't be doing this. He knows he could put her in very real danger, and he knows he is not being honest with her. He knows there is no hope that this lasts once they've graduated. But it allows him to distract himself from the reality of his life. And the reality of his life is that he's made some decisions from which he can't come back, and he knows this. All that to say, as you mention, I didn't want

to woobify Regulus or portray him as a tragic bad boy with no responsibility for his actions. I think you can write a complex character who does bad things and believes in bad things without making them out to be an innocent victim in all of this. I try to portray him honestly. Charity knows this relationship is not good, even if it's not romantic on her end. It's not coming from a good place. He is not good for her. But they are both human and humans often do things against their own best interests and morals because of feelings of love and loyalty.

[bigskydreaming]

“I was human once. Where were you then?” I pretty thoroughly abandoned Teen Wolf after season 4, and even before then, I didn’t engage with the fandom much, but the voice that you give Scott is enough to keep me with one toe dipped in the pond. He’s funny and clever and kind. Even years since I’ve read anything else in TW, WTWTA continues to be a favourite. Do you feel like talking about where you were planning to go with it? I’ve seen you talk about Lightning Crashes plenty, but not WTWTA.

Thank you so much for this ask! Not gonna lie, Lightning Crashes consumes most of my remaining Teen Wolf attention just because its so freaking big and I've got so much written for it over the years that like, I will riot against myself if I don't finish it because like ugh I didn't write all that just to have it sit unread in my own damn files forever, y'know? So like, while I would love to return to Where Wild Things Are someday I'm not trying to make any claims about that one until LC is off my back. Tbh, I'm trying not to make any claims about fanfic or deadlines until I'm fully recovered from my surgery and whatnot because like......my day to day life is just not reliable and I hate not being able to keep my word on stuff.

BUT. That all said, I do still have a lot of fondness for WWTA and plenty of thoughts about it and willingness to talk about where it was headed for anyone who prefers to just hear about that on the assumption it won't ever really get returned to, cuz like, you are Valid.

And I actually have a lot of fondness for that part you quoted in particular, like, I've heard a lot of good things from people about that whole interaction being a standout for them, and its a personal fave because it pretty succintly got to the heart of some of my biggest issues with Teen Wolf's portrayal of hunters and specifically their ideology and self-justifications.

Anyway, some basics about where that fic was going below the cut, and I'm happy to go into more detail or provide snippets or excerpts from future parts as well.

So the very next chapter after what was posted is actually another Scott POV, and it has Peter showing up to his house at night while his mom's at work, Cora with her uncle as well, and 'summoning' Scott to be by his side as well while Peter goes to meet with another Alpha in a rival pack's territory. (Said Alpha being Ennis, in this case).

This chapter's actually a pretty interesting one IMO because I used it to play around with a personal headcanon I have for chemo-signals. There's actually been a fair amount of theorizing in the scientific (and pseudo scientific, lol) communities about what it might be like if humans could pick up on and interpret chemo-signals, because the science suggests that actually we DO.....just at such a tiny magnification so as to make it impossible to get any like, usable data from what little our noses do pick up.

But a popular theory is that picking up on chemo-signals would produce a physiological like, 'mirroring' of what's being picked up on, like....okay, so there's this thing in a lot of evolutionary traits that are linked to survival mechanisms. Where like, the body in the act of receiving various signals from another being about something being dangerous or threatening or to be avoided, it'll essentially mimic the very signs of distress or warning in the person or creature its picking up those signals from. Its kinda part of an automatic feedback loop, like going through a version of the same reaction a person is seeing in others is part of the body and brain's interpretative process, taking in certain stimuli and then processing it in ways that end up with the brain consciously cluing in that what its seeing is that it should be wary of danger.

I'm explaining it badly, but the basic idea is like.....you know that almost instinctive flinch of horror or fear you get almost in like....sympathy, when you see someone else in obvious distress or terror....even before or without seeing or experiencing whatever it is that's making them so distressed/afraid yourself? That's an example of what I'm talking about here. One creature or person transmits various signals - be they visual by way of stance or expression, or scent, or auditory like screams - and surrounding 'pack creatures' or basically any nearby beings likely to be part of that initial being's pack or herd or community.....they pick up these signals and the message of warning or whatever being conveyed via those signals....and in the process of translating that into some kind of actionable instinct, they ALREADY replicate and thus partially pass on those very same signals themselves.

So the thing about scents that we give off even as humans, is that there's actually a LOT of data and signals encoded into these scents or the various things our bodies produce in association with these scents, like sweat. Even though we can't discern these scents to any degree that allows us to meaningfully interpret the data encoded in them, because we didn't ever end up evolving down the evolutionary path that might have resulted in us being able to smell to that degree....like, the information is still THERE, packed into those scents and odor-producing body by-products.

And that has a lot to do with why we react the way we often do to smelling someone's sweat even to the degree that we DO pick it up.....because think of what bodily reactions tend to produce sweat. Its not just physical exertions, its also in a response to nervousness or discomfort or disgust or outright danger, etc.....and our instinctive responses to scenting the sweat someone produces is often to like....mirror those very same emotions. Just to a much more minor degree than if we were able to smell to the same degree that like, we can see.....and thus pick apart single scents and interpret the various distinct elements and emotions packed INTO those, much like how our eyes are evolved to pick apart visuals and interpret specific details about shapes we see in front of us and give a lot more nuance and specificity to what our eyes are picking up on.

So the theory is that if we WERE able to smell to this keen degree....we would be able to tell a LOT about people's emotional state just from the physiological byproducts they produce in various emotional states.....BUT there'd be a trade-off. We would also be prone to the same tendency to unconsciously mimic the signals we were picking up on.....so our own scent glands, our own expressions, would be likely to 'pass on' the indications of fear or arousal or anxiety that we're smelling.

What intrigued me about this idea, in terms of werewolves who are stated to be able to pick up and interpret chemo-signals......is that it carries with it the implication that actually, most werewolves - at least those in packs - would have EXCELLENT self-control, in contrast to what most hunters believe about werewolves and their lack thereof.

Because think about it......if werewolves are constantly being bombarded with the chemo-signals of those around them, and interpreting these smells and the signals contained within them with the same matter of fact ease most of us translate the visual signals our eyes convey to us......in actuality, werewolves would need to have exceptional control over their own reactions to external stimuli.......or else they'd constantly stand out by having facial expressions and stance cues that seem to change radically with seemingly very little reason for them to do so as far as normal humans around them can tell. And at the same time, the facial reactions they might instinctively flash to in response to picking up say, stark terror from someone who was trying their best to hide that VISUALLY due to the presence of someone they were afraid of like an abuser....the fact that werewolves seemed to often be reacting to things they were picking up on in ways that seemed completely contrary to what visual or auditory cues were evident to everyone else....this would also make them stand out even in a crowd.

So to my mind, the extent to which werewolves were shown deciphering information via chemo-signals on the show suggests that actually, werewolf packs would place a huge focus on teaching their children and their new bitten members both the importance of having firm self-control over their own reactions and emotional state - in order to counter their own instinctive tendencies upon smelling things like strong fear or arousal or anxiety in others - as well as the HOW of doing just that.

Which in turn would lead to the idea that its the LACK of a pack - and the grounding knowledge and presence of other experienced werewolves - which most often results in the existence of the 'out of control' omega werewolves that hunters use to justify the necessity of their existence.

Think how bewildering it would be to constantly be bombarded with signals and cues that suggest that the people around you are at any given moment in heightened states of panic and distress and discomfort. How much that would shred your own self-control if you weren't extremely practiced - and aided - in keeping a clear awareness of your OWN emotional state and feelings at all times, so you don't get swept away by the tide of emotional information you're picking up on all sides. I imagine it wouldn't be that much different walking down the hall of a school picking up the scent chemo-signals of a hundred teenagers in the throes of puberty, hormonal changes, and constant stress and intense feelings.....than say, if you or I were to walk down that same hall and instead of just seeing and hearing a hundred teenagers laughing and talking and going about their day, we saw and heard every one of those teenagers acting out visual and auditory cues of extreme intensity on all sides, from some of them screaming for dozens of different reasons to others being clear images of someone in pain or outright terror, etc.

Its a lot. Its easy to imagine that omega werewolves would not actually be any less 'capable' than any other werewolf, they're not wild or feral because they're lesser or whatever.....its simply for whatever reason, they never were taught the lesson of just how important it is to learn how to not just interpret scent cues, but block them out when necessary or at the very least maintain a conscious awareness of how to keep your own sense of self prioritized in your brain over just....instinctively reacting to everything being flung at you information wise.

Anyway. So a big component of what's to come there is how this might impact the world of Teen Wolf if explored in depth.....

Because on the one hand, this information would be the EXACT thing needed to really put things into clarity re: hunters and werewolves. The reality that actually, most werewolves are exceptional at self-control....that when they're a danger to others, its usually because they're that way with INTENT like Deucalion or Ennis. That most werewolves aren't the inches-from-being-mindless timebombs that hunters stress are the real reason for why they exist. The omegas are actually the odd ones out, and their lack of self-control is something that can actually be mitigated by integration into existing packs or just more avenues for educating themselves on what they are now and what differences that makes in their lives and just their very approaches to life.

But on the other hand, this information is exactly what werewolves like Scott CAN'T inform hunters of en masse.....because of the existence of hunters like Gerard and Kate who actually don't CARE about the code and the idea of just existing to protect humanity from the out of control dangerous 'monsters'....but rather just want to kill werewolves for other reasons. Because hunters who were fully in the know as to how much control the average werewolf has over their emotional state....as well as WHY its so important for them to learn and practice such exceptional self-control......because of how VULNERABLE to reacting to the emotional states of others werewolves are......they would no doubt be able to weaponize this against werewolves. After all, even exceptional self control is bound to waver if say, in the presence of large numbers of humans who are being deliberately influenced to give off certain scent cues in mass quantities......just so hunters can pick out at a distance who seems to be reacting to things none of the humans present seem to be aware of, etc.

So things like this are meant to become central to Scott and Allison's burgeoning relationship and the everpresent question they each have for how much they can really trust the other - and trust the other WITH - no matter how much they want to. Even as Scott starts to fall for Allison and believe the best of her, he's very aware of her still existant ties to her family, her own 'pack' - and despite being in possession of so much knowledge about werewolves that could most likely open Allison's eyes even further to how inaccurate most of the information she and others like her father are working off of is......Scott's equally keenly aware that giving her that information COULD still backfire and put his own pack in danger if it for whatever reason doesn't end up being enough to fully bring her over to his side.

Basically the big theme of the story has always been about who can you trust, even when you really WANT to trust them, because even people with similar moralities can have conflicting priorities and its not always enough to just be on the same page in one of those respects.

Anyway, the next chapter is big on introducing the importance of chemo-signals as Peter drives to his meeting with Ennis and tells Cora and Scott to settle between themselves who will accompany him inside (a clear position of prominence relevant to the ongoing power struggle between Cora and Scott for influence among their packmates). And most of that happens by way of the two of them 'scent-talking' to each other in the backseat. Because a side-effect of the idea that smelling chemo-signals prompts certain facial cues in response, as well as exceptional control over their own emotions and thus accompanying physiological cues, means that its possible for werewolves to have very involved silent discussions just by deliberately invoking various scents for the other, etc.

Cora of course wins that mini-battle between them, by way of the leverage she has over Scott now that she knows he's able to lie to Peter without betraying it with his scent or his heartbeat. Peter would never risk having someone capable of lying to him with no sign, so that's as good of a death sentence if he finds out. But at the same time, its something Cora knows she can't milk for too long, because the longer SHE has the information that Scott is capable of that, the less effective it becomes as leverage.....since hiding that from Peter could massively backfire and put her at risk too, meaning there's only so long she can use it as leverage against Scott before it becomes a case of mutually assured destruction and he says 'go ahead, tell Peter, and once he finds out how long you've kept that from him see what position that leaves you in.'

So Cora knows this information is best used sooner rather than later, so she leverages it off the bat, to get Scott to cave on this one and so she's the one to accompany Peter to his top secret meeting with Ennis and learn whatever they're talking about and what the basis of this alliance they seem to have formed is. Also, Peter comes out of the meeting carrying a mysterious box he got from Ennis, that seems to have been his goal all along, and has Cora troubled, but unwilling to divulge any information about what it might be.

Scott however gets something out of the meeting too, because even while left outside, he discovers some key information.....Ennis' pack includes Jiang and Tierney, two members of Brett's old pack that he thought were dead. Ennis had 'taken them in' though they really didn't have a ton of choice in the matter and were less than thrilled about it....which gives Scott the start of an actual plan. Which thickens once he learns Brett's sister Lorilee is alive as well, and a member of Kali's pack, along with refugees from another wiped out pack, the Primals.

Essentially, where this is all building towards is over time, Scott starts reaching out to the exploited and miserable teens stuck at the bottom of abusive packs they never asked to be a part of but are afraid to leave....and begins building an alliance of teens across multiple local packs. None of them are strong enough to overthrow their own Alphas on their own, but together, they could be strong enough to overthrow a single Alpha, and then consolidate as a pack of their own behind a single teen Alpha.

Of course, problem is Cora figures this out eventually as well, and begins building her own rival alliance among teens from Kali's pack and others, and it essentially becomes a race to get an alliance strong enough to topple Peter built first, before the other can make their move.

On Allison's side of things, she begins mentoring the younger teens that Scott picked out as being eyed by his Alpha as potential recruits. This involves teaching them archery at her house one weekend, only to then discover from Gerard's conversation with her parents that hunters recovered the arrow Allison had shot through Isaac's shoulder way back in the first chapter. They found blood on it, and are planning to use it to see if the person that blood belongs to is in the system at all. Which Isaac is, due to being in the foster care system, even if only nominally.

Feeling complicit and not ready to trust the werewolves yet but not willing to feel personally responsible for the death of someone she goes to school with, Allison alerts Scott to the danger. Which in turn leads to the pack under Peter's orders, like, breaking into the facility where the arrow and blood are being analyzed and destroy the sample before it can trace back to Isaac and from there, the rest of them by association.

Problem is, its Matt's first official 'outing' on a werewolf mission and he decides to revel in his newfound power by killing a guard. Welcome to Team Blue Eyes, Mattie. That didn't take long. Not that anyone is surprised, but Scott is a bit screwed by it. Because now Allison is furious and retreating from their slowly building alliance/relationship because she feels guilty that her information led to someone getting killed by a werewolf and thinks she never should have shared her intel even though Scott tries to stress that he had no control over Matt and could do nothing to stop it.

So that kinda puts a roadblock in the Scallison that takes time to work past, though it will of course get worked past.

Meanwhile elsewhere, Peter's plans for turning more freshmen are delayed when Cora and Scott both feel pressed to alert him of a surprising development at Beacon Hills High before the other tells Peter first. Suddenly there are two new werewolves at school - albeit very nervous, scared and confused werewolves - and they aren't transfer students. Someone turned two of their classmates, Tracy and Josh, and that someone was NOT Peter. So now Peter is outraged because someone is turning people in his territory which is a clear challenge from another Alpha, and he wants to know who. Which leads to Erica and Boyd being assigned to tail the new wolves and see who they lead back to.....as well as both Scott and Cora, by now accelerating their efforts to build up support for their positions both inside and outside of the pack, like both of them now make plays to get Erica and Boyd from the No Man's Land they've been residing in, and get them to finally pick a side between the two rivals for Peter's Alpha crown. With the information they glean from following the two new surprise werewolves being vital to both Scott and Cora's plans.

The Alpha in question turns out to be Deucalion, who is back in the area after years away where he seemed uninterested in werewolf politics, but now seems to be intent on building up a new pack for himself across multiple Alphas' territories in earnest.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Scott has started to worry about where Theo's loyalties actually lie, as Boyd informs him that part of what's kept him from throwing in with Scott is Boyd keeps his nose to the ground to stay very informed on what's what and keep abreast of what everyone else is doing at all times - Boyd is very big on the idea that knowledge and thus information is power - so Boyd has been paying more attention to Theo than even Scott has lately, given how much Scott's got going on at the moment. And Theo's been making some moves of his own that have Boyd distrustful of just how much Scott ACTUALLY has his loyalty, and thus Boyd is wary of hitching his wagon to the prospective Alpha who is perhaps not as well or thoroughly supported as he thinks he is, or is counting on being.

So Theo being Theo will complicate matters considerably. Note that I don't go with unnecessarily evil Theo ever, as that's boring, but I always fuck with absolutely and necessarily self-interested and amoral Theo because that's anti-boring. So Theo's not out to screw Scott just to screw him (well not THAT way at least), but Theo is big on covering his bases and he's contemplating making his own bid for power because he's not sure he trusts that Scott can pull this off and Cora's not an option given that he HAS until now been Team Scott in all visible ways, so he's seeking....other options. Just so he can have the most possible options and vet them thoroughly before deciding on a course of action, naturally.

The big tipping point to all of this will come when someone betrays Scott to some hunters and leads to him being captured and identified as a werewolf by some hunters loosely affiliated with Allison's family.....and Allison makes her choice here for good and risks everything to rescue Scott which might involve someone dying. Not a main character. But uh, there definitely is some dying and it makes Allison and Scott both feel things like guilt, regret, self-recrimination and also "I did what I did and that's that about that" with only like 60% of that being bravado to cover up omg I have no idea what I'm even doing anymore.

In order to find somewhere for Scott to recuperate that is not her house, because lol duh, and is not Scott's house, because Peter lol duh, a desperate Allison ends up looping in Lydia, Danny, Jackson and Stiles, and enlisting their help in hiding Scott at Lydia's lakehouse until he recovers. This leads to them all finally being in the know and uncomfortably allying with Isaac and some other werewolf members of Team Scott, who are of course furious at the betrayal of any werewolf giving up one of their own to hunters, let alone Scott.....which leads to the twins making a surprise shift in allegiance, because they think Cora was behind the hunters finding out and that's too far for them. It was NOT in fact Cora, but it might have been someone ON Team Cora who thought they were doing what Cora would have wanted them to do. And by might have I mean definitely and also they were Not Correct in their assumptions about what Cora would want. She and Scott are rivals and she's an antagonist here but she's not evil or even as bloodthirsty as she pretends to be for appearances, but she like Theo is looking out for number one and what she believes is best for what remains of a Hale pack, any Hale pack.

Other stuff happens, Liam does get turned, Mason gets his druidic knowledge on because that's a Trope that no Kalen story will ever be without, and the ultimate showdown between teens and asshole adult werewolves will end with Scott True Alpha level-upping but Peter definitely will still die as will several other Alphas and Scott is not the only teen who ends up an Alpha at the end of things though each teen Alpha will for now go their own way with their own pack made up of kids from the two teen wolf alliances. There will be confrontations with the hunters before the end too, beyond just rescuing Scott from the NPC hunters who are destined for Demiseville, population them, but the hunters will not be 'totally defeated' in as much as that's even a possibility, and the story was always meant to end with the McCall pack and some human allies taking to the road to find somewhere else to establish a territory and build their strength (and graduate high school) before making a full stand against hunters.

Backstory is meant to be filled in all the way through, with a focus on Scott and Derek's not-at-all-like-canon relationship as for the first year or so after Scott was turned, Derek was still around and did his best to help guide and teach Scott while acting as a buffer against his uncle which Scott greatly appreciated and his thoughts of 'fuck you Derek' should be taken as unreliable narration and mostly just cynical humor cuz he misses him. With said backstory reveals culminating in the eventual shocker of how Derek died (surprise, it was Peter in the parlor with the backstabbing and also candlestick), Cora finding out, cue Cora Not Being Very Pleased With Uncle Peter At The Moment, Actually, and like....other shenanigans are had.

Also also there may be a road trip involved at the veeeeeery end, that involves the mysterious box Peter traded something to Ennis for, which may or may not be magic and resurrection-oriented, but also definitely is both those things and aimed at a grand finale of teen Derek rising from mystical waters being like "who the fuck are you" at Scott who smiles and says "we're brothers."

And that's what you missed on Glee.

[violetmuses]

Grey || Chapter 2

Dedications: @clints-lucky-arrow @mymagicsuitcase @mypoisonedvine @punemy-spotted

__________

2023

Helmut Zemo

“I was a God. I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do, but mine was going to be different. No clunky machines or jacked up bodies. Mine was going to be subtle, optimized, perfect.” Dr. Nagel held enough arrogance to proclaim so-called immortality. We learned as well that Nagel recreated twenty vials of the damn Serum before Karli Morgenthau had stolen those items. I kept scowling, eying his boxed lab with disgust. Across the room, James and Sam were still alert nearby.

“How have we never heard about this?” Sam reasonably questioned soon after lowering his own firearm. James still kept his weapon close, planning to threaten Nagel once more if need be.

“Before I was able to complete my work, I turned to dust. When I returned, it was five years later. The program had been abandoned, so I came here. The Power Broker was more than happy to fund the recreation of my work.” Nagel continued speaking, his voice low but still purposeful. I quietly armed myself after finding a gun tucked under one silver cart.

“Where’s Karli now?” Sam probed once more as expected, keeping calm despite our current situation of urgency. With each passing moment, I’d become restless, but knew better than to react before questioning truly gripped its strong point.

“I don't know where Karli is, but a couple of days ago, she called and asked if I could help someone named Donya Madani. The poor woman has tuberculosis and it’s a typical consequence of overpopulation in displacement camps like that.” Nagel offered more information and I still listened intently, despite holding the gun.

“What happened to Donya?” Sam then asked logically to volley himself back for this interrogation.

“Not my pig, not my farm.” Nagel acted smug once more, irking my thoughts again.

For a moment, I concealed my weapon and stepped towards him, eying Sam as he allowed me to move forward. If questioning by “good people” didn’t work, then there was a chance that I would be convincing here. There was no other choice.

“If you won’t reveal where Karli is, then perhaps you can tell me where this woman could be found.” I reached for one of my inner coat pockets and showed Nagel this personal photograph. My own heart dropped and raced all at once this time.

“You’re definitely behind the times with this picture, but I know exactly who that is.” Nagel laughed almost menacingly to himself while sitting in the chair. James and Sam stood in place with clueless expressions, but of course I did not care.

Another story for another time.

“Where is she?” I asked, nearly gritted my teeth whilst anger coursed through every vein within me now. James and Sam were still watching us both, but questions had surely crossed their minds as I changed subjects of this probe.

“Dionne Charles has hid in plain sight for decades now. You haven’t been paying attention.” Nagel clued to me, but remained vague. It took everything in me not to shoot, but his answers would've meant quite the breakthrough. I needed more.

“Is she here?” I snapped once more, patience finally growing thin.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Nagel shrugged. I back away, deciding not to pull the trigger yet.

“Back to business. Is there any serum in this lab?” James stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his firearm right up against Nagel’s temple.

“No,” Nagel allowed his voice to tremble as he reached the brink of death once more.

“Guys, we're seriously outta time here!” Unexpectedly, Sharon Carter entered the container and warned us of more incoming trouble.

Not caring, I finally unveiled my firearm soon and pulled the trigger, killing Nagel without any further hesitation.

“No!” Sam and James then yelled towards my direction, pulling me back with his own stronghold.

“What did you do?” Sharon asked, peering towards my eyes. I still couldn’t care less. Impact of the powerful gunshot had shuffled Nagel and forced his hardened chair to fall backward. Blood immediately splattered all over his chest and face.

_______

James, Sam, and I had taken my private jet once more, moving to my safe house in Riga, Latvia the following day. One GRC resettlement camp had been located in this specific city and Donya Madani passed away there, which signaled one step closer towards Karli.

“I’ll ask you again. Who the hell is Dionne Charles? You won’t even show us the picture that Nagel saw yesterday.” Sam questioned me, sitting at the kitchen counter. I’d placed down a drink for him, but he crossed both arms, waiting for me.

“Fine, do you want the truth?” Sarcasm lined my voice, but he was right. I’d quietly spent the past few days hiding behind phones and secrecy to find someone and my veiled movement left them suspicious.

“Lying would put you back in jail without a doubt, so tell me everything.” Sam kept his words leveled, but this sense of curiosity peaked as well.

“Apologies for the old photograph, but this is the image that I showed Nagel yesterday.” I’d taken this laminated Polaroid out of my coat and finally handed the beloved image to Sam.

I’d captured the image myself with a disposable camera. 2003 had marked the year on a white border. In this candid picture, Dionne wore this cocktail dress and drank her favorite wine, sitting on the balcony of my family’s estate in bliss. The dark complexion of her skin tone nearly glowed as daylight turned into evening.

“She’s beautiful.” Sam mumbled gently, but I understood. Of course she was beautiful.

“I know.” I sighed, thinking back. Anyone with two eyes knew that she was arguably one of the most gorgeous people in the world. The phrase “often replicated, but never duplicated” was true, especially considering her presence.

‘Any reason why you’ve kept this picture around? I’m sure that times have obviously changed for both of you.” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes. At least he was not willing to act invasive.

“Nostalgia, perhaps. I haven’t seen her in person since…” I trailed off these words when James entered the safe house, entering my kitchen as well. Even Sam had then caught me and tucked the Polaroid back into that fur-lined coat of mine.

Mission first, memories later. I thought to myself.

“Well, the Wakandans are here and they want Zemo. I just bought us some more time.” James announced, not bothering to greet Sam or I in some content manner.

“Were you followed?” Sam asked James in return, completely forgetting and ignoring my previous conversation with him.

“No.” James answered quickly.

“How can you be so sure?” I joined in, facing the stain-glass window.

“Cause I know when I'm being followed.” James defended himself.

“It was sweet of you to defend me at least.” I turned away from the window and sprayed cologne, faintly smirking.

“Shut it, no one’s defending you. You killed Nagel.” It was not long before Sam spoke up once more, facing me.

“Do we really have to litigate what may or may not have happened?” I volleyed back, prompting Sam to respond again.

“There's nothing to litigate. You straight shot the man.” Sam eyed me as I handed over another beverage.

“Eleven injured, three dead.” James scrolled through his cell and offered information on Karli. A bombing at the GRC supply depot had taken place recently. There would be more attacks if a list of demands weren’t met as soon as possible.

“The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people. It was that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, and to the Avengers.” I reiterated our need to rid the world of these monsters. No one deserved to have that immortality.

“So, Karli is radicalized, but there has to be a peaceful way to stop her.” Sam joined the conversation once more, facing me and James.

“The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals. Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path. She will not stop and she will escalate until you kill her, or she kills you.” I set down the truth of Karli’s intent.

Whilst discussing our mission, I didn’t know what to believe when my burner phone began ringing within the trench coat. Backing away from James and Sam, I discreetly moved towards my coat and reached for that pocket. James and Sam were clueless, just continuing to speak on Karli or the Flag Smashers radicals.

973-675-1342

As soon as I grabbed the phone, this New Jersey phone number flashed before my eyes, signaling memories that had been long buried. Ignoring James and Sam once more, I headed into this cornered master bedroom, closing the door behind me.

“Hello?” Pacing back and forth at the foot of this bed, It was not long before I smiled briefly, trying to register the possibility of hearing her voice without jumping through the answering machine. This chat would be twenty years in the making.

“Who the hell are you?” On the other line, a man’s voice nearly growled unexpectedly to somehow address me. I’d never heard his voice before, but anger coursed through my veins as time stopped. This stranger even sounded American.

“Where’s Dionne?” I snipped with a low tone, conjuring up the worst case scenarios. In short the time when Nagel explained that Dionne could’ve been hiding in plain sight, an abduction could’ve taken place soon after. My skin crawled.

“You really don’t remember me, Colonel? That’s a shame.” This bastard laughed to himself while briefly recalling my years with Eko Skorpion. Despite still holding the title of Baron, I’d taken military service not long before Ultron destroyed Sokovia.

“At least give me your last name during this call, please. You sound like some average and run-of-the-mill American man.” I said, rolling both eyes, regardless of ongoing anger. For all I knew, this man could’ve held Dionne for ransom right now.

“Perkins.”

Back in 2012, Russell Perkins somehow bypassed the no-flight list and failed this harsh attempt to assassinate one of Sokovia’s official diplomats. Not only was Perkins arrested and indicted immediately, but he’d been imprisoned shortly after.

“How the hell did you escape prison?” I grit my teeth. Enough was enough.

“I could ask you the same question.” Perkins chuckled, showing the velvet tone of voice that would’ve rivaled any one of my cousins on their best day.

“How I have now been freed from my cell is none of your concern, Perkins. Where is she?” I returned to our main speaking point: Dionne. My heart dropped and shattered once more, trying to calm, but still enraged now.

“Right here. Hold on.” Perkins lowered his voice once more. Both anxiety and anticipation had quickly raced through my mind as I listened out for Dionne's presence, hoping that Perkins wouldn’t make a joke out of this very situation.

“Z…” Dionne spoke to me at last. Her voice, nearly fleeting, edging on the brink of death, shocked me. Not a hint of joy or content lined her tone as she tried to utter my last name.

“Hello, Sweetheart.” Tears pickled my own eyes. Yet, at that moment, my heart sank. It took everything in me not to shout for her and give myself away during this phone call. Sam and James would’ve immediately noticed that I was not nearby.

“Don’t say that to me.” she warned, reminding my heart of the mistake that led to our breakup many years ago.

“Apologises.” I whispered to her, still keeping my voice leveled despite the anguish that filled my very being now.

“Just say hi to Sam for me and tell James that I’m proud of him. I’ve heard a lot of different things since The Blip took place.” Dionne offered greetings to Sam and James, emoting bittersweetness.

“I promise to speak with James and Sam, but where are you? Where is Perkins hiding you right now? Please tell me.” I tried to keep up this clear facade of strength, but the attempt crumbled with each passing moment.

“I’m so sorry, but I can’t tell you. He’ll...he’ll kill me if you find out.” Dionne whispered back to me. Her perfect voice had shuddered against my left eardrum in response, but one damn gunshot then pierced out loud just moments later.

“No!” I yelled, allowing the phone to drop out of my hand instantly. If James and Sam barged through the door, so be it. To be honest, this moment marked the first time that I’d genuinely cried since the loss of my family, including Heike and Karl.

______

“I took the liberty of crossing my name off in your book. I hold no grudges for what you thought you had to do. Goodbye, James.” I bid farewell to James one last time before members of The Dora Milaje could haul me away towards The Raft now.

“She’s alive.” Whilst lowering his firearm at last, James uttered something from behind me. At one point in time, even one member of the Dora had allowed me to turn around.

“What did you just say?” I asked, narrowing my eyes across the cobblestone path found between us.

“Dionne is alive.” James repeated himself.

[queernuck]

Fucked: Death, Disease, COVID-19, Sexuality, Performance, and Psychopolitics in Early 2020

When a crowd can make AR-15s, masks and gloves look uncool, there is something seriously wrong with their priorities. The petit-bourgeoisie nature of protests to “reopen” states and the neoliberal direction, as well as the way in which neoliberal opposition directs a flow of crisis, anxiety, and repetition thereof into state control and the power thereof, creates a model whereby two wings of the same party join in a kind of neoliberal unity in order to protect the articulation of hegemony at a time when it is most in danger, when the commodities it most openly fetishizes are at risk of falling out of use, when the two form coalitions such that various apparatuses of recapture can function as usual even in a highly unusual time.

And what better apparatuses than those of intimacy, sexuality, the means by which vulnerabilities are made most clear and a point at which numerous striations upon the socius are imparted, cross, become part of assemblages of the body in forming the many linkages of binary-machines that make up the series of desiring-machines most active in a time of quarantine. In this time schools, asylums, hospitals, factories and prisons seem to be sharing far more than ever, are converging on and repeating one another in frightening fashions as conceptual spaces of play become ones of work, languages of wartime production become the vocabularies of virologists, and the tally of American lives is measured against terrorist attacks and failed wars of conquest that define exactly who can be considered “American” at this time.

It is rather clear that those who attend these reopening protests are at the least not terribly concerned with their own safety, at least from COVID-19: there is a belief that a personal exemption can be had from the virus, in a fashion which specifically targets individualism, notions of routine and fetishization of lifestyles as consumerist acts of branding, identification with brands and experiences thereof which have become the basis for psychopolitical engagement with Neoliberal modalities of exchange. By stripping off the surgical mask, there is another mask (in the sense of Jung) being placed on, one of an exceptional specimen who is undaunted by a kind of agenda which wishes to blow the Coronavirus out of proportion, to deny that the thousands of deaths are happening, to attribute those same thousands to a bioengineering project on behalf of the Chinese state, and moreover to claim that just as America is artificially inflating the number of deaths, China is deflating them by an even greater magnitude. The attitude, the brazenness with which these acts are carried out, requires a kind of specific ideological positioning wherein one’s safety is in fact not actually meaningfully threatened by the prospect of reopening en masse.

The language of social distancing and self-quarantine, when weaponized in the survivalist vocabulary, has become sort of an excuse to throw a Flugaloo bash in hopes that an oncoming Boogaloo is rising: “Boogaloo” is a term that has gone through a series of ironic internet references to pick up iconography of igloos (the Big Igloo), tropical shirts (referring to the Big Luau) and now the “Flugaloo” with cheeky Lysol cans attached in place of vertical grips on paramilitary-style rifles. Self-quarantining and social distancing, as practiced in this case, is a kind of performative creation of quarantine as begrudging, the result of a liberal overstep, but a time to work on various projects, or to goof off, a time for telecommuting but also not doing all that much business at all, is a kind of extension of the petit-bourgeoise lifestyle that many aspire too and that most would have to be to maintain a serious hobby of survivalism and small arms collecting, given the price tag on some of the more useful rifles out there. The lifestyle is documented on instagram or reddit for consumption of others, as a psychopolitical display which aims for a kind of living-out in the exact sort of display that the protests at capitol buildings are aiming for. They assert a kind of right over individual bodies by a means which entirely negates any actual critique such an assemblage could raise: Butler’s description of protests which specifically flaunt rules by following them more earnestly than a traditional protest is entirely lost, in that here assembly is taken as a more absolute directive to break guidelines in order to assert a truth about oneself, one’s identity, to cultivate one’s own immunity through presence in the body wielding an invisible hand to pry markets back open. The admonishment of some that these protests represent working-class anxieties is mostly misleading in that not only are these reactionary protests (and thus, lacking in class consciousness, refusing any potential even among those who may be working class within) but additionally by positing oneself as a consumer, as part of a consuming or leisure class which is suffering as a result not of the virus, but the antivirus, bodies repulsed by the antibodies of closures and distancing. One can “bug out” or hunker down with as many weapons as one wishes, but only after engaging in the conspicuous displays of consumption that ensure the current “late-stage” acts of capitalist identification are met, the correct Veteran-Owned companies are supported, the right businesses buycotted and so on.

Of course, even from home the act of identification through the willing acceptance of a certain state of things and a retirement to various internet services is another psychopolitical recourse for many. In trying to find humor within the notion of social distancing and self-quarantine, the subject of nonmonogamous relationships has become a particularly fertile ground. Reductress and The Hard Times, two of the leading satire sites that have picked up slack after The Onion’s ownership group neutered some of its best content, have discussed sex and sexuality in relation to COVID-19 in a fashion that is hip, relatable, most of all distanced from any meaningful commitment to statements on exactly what one should do or be within systems present in neoliberal logics of life and commitment, especially regarding the topics of polyamory and open relationships. Discussions of nonmonogamy seem to predominantly tend toward offering a reactionary structure of preemption: by being “above it all” with a kind of ironic detachment, nonmonogamous relationships can be dismissed out of hand as worthless or less worthwhile, in a fashion that retains a certain woker-than-thou aesthetic while also failing to meaningfully situate itself in relation to notions of monogamy and life within it. At once there are both assumptions about nonmonogamy and polyamory: it is a singular slightly-above-average and certainly-above-her-station woman who is entertaining multiple affable but ultimately disposable men, while also being a man who is effectively cheating on a number of women all at once, with both deserving different sorts of contempt, either the woman with her “simps” or the kind of softly wrapped cheating and manipulation that the man gets his partners to pretend to accept. Even in queering this structure, recognizing that there are far more relationships than these two structures can describe, than these two Oedipal fantasies, there is a basic assumption that one body must fit at the nexus of this, that the polycule requires a center and is not simply a relationship of affinities, part of an assemblage of various other relationships that could just as easily be friendships, kinship, social ties with or without sexual implications that are not codified as such.

That there is frequently a display of such relationships on apps such as tumblr, facebook (wherein the parties’ partners engage in displays of affection that are almost as much about confusing those who are not clued in and reassuring themselves of a certain status as they are about making the partner feel loved) and Discord, along with the means by which psychopolitical acts of refusing to name certain potentially-rhizomal developments of friendship and trust in fact serves as an excuse to force an arboreal notion of dominance on them, making it so that the placehood of a relationship is profoundly realized during the decision to quarantine with a particular partner. Nonmonogamous structures of relationship in relation to contemporary questions on sexual identity, the ways by which sexual relationships are formed and realized, and the many ways in which a proliferation of identities converges on a sort of infinite signification, a kind of Dessert of the “Real” wherein one spoils oneself with the sweet possibilities of a Virtual life, is coming to the fore at this very moment. The beauty of relationships outside of a single structure, either a requirement of monogamous narratives (perhaps queered by the introduction of some sort of academic reasoning to them) or polyamorous ones (with the insistence that there is an inherent radicality to this that ignores how partners may wish to interact with one another, may get-along-or-not, may in fact be hiding their own feelings on such a relationship for various reasons) makes it such that the psychopolitical aspect of new relationships and their potential is continually in flux, on display, must always be presented in order to be analyzed by those whose relationship to the relationship is a foundational aspect of the relationship itself, a kind of audience (imagined or not) for which one performs.

More generally, discussions of relationships in quarantine are common, and most are pointing out what should be obvious: any situation wherein an abused partner is forced to spend more time with their abuser will be fraught, will be difficult, will have at the very least some psychological toll if it does not unfold into outright violence, how the threat of abuse functions in relation to abusive actions, how abusive actions play with certain thresholds in order to retain the structure that enables them (that is, refraining from physical violence specifically such that this points to an absence of abuse rather than a genuine calculation on the part of the abuser) and moreover how domesticity in the middle of a crisis such as this can exacerbate and trigger certain dynamics which were not as clear formerly, how loss of work or loss of a social circle greatly increases one’s susceptibility to violence, how a pressure to show that one is not only quarantining, but quarantining well, doing sufficient effort to come out of this “better” extends even to those who have already been submitting to an act in order to hide being abused so that there is always more more more to hide. 

So then, what kinds of assemblages are possible over distance? What performative structures result from this? The way in which nonmonogamous structures are enabled and enhanced by the digital interfaces with which a larger Virtual is created includes a new update to cruising: that of Grindr, a vast improvement over chancing dying on 9/11 cruising in the WTC bathrooms, one must admit (even if dying for a well-sucked dick is a romantic prospect). Grindr did long before and to a far greater extent what apps such as Tinder have attempted to do, in that their Virtual is a kind of hyperreal sexual signaling, is in many ways a part of a cultural shift, is a kind of discrete indiscretion that has been interrupted by the ban on casual travel enacted by COVID-19. The granting of an app access to one’s most private sexual desires is a new transformation in potential acts of control one which goes far beyond mere newspaper classified ads: the danger of Grindr as a lure for homophobic attacks is well-documented, with the fear of various dangers laid upon the spectre of homosexuality far more easily raised and discussed by a largely heterosexual class of analysts and spectators. Even within communities, objections to the ease with which Grindr enables practices such as chemsex and the related acts of dealing shows a desire for some kind of respectability: there is a limit on what can be enacted, and it is far better to make the sexual statement on freedom than to adopt a more genuinely radical philosophy around what one may do with one’s body in expressing sexual identity, how the chemical alteration of the body must stay within acceptable limits, the skin must remain intact, the phallus the only phallus and the act of fucking the only penetration, fists and hands allowed but needles only for play, never injection. Again, subjecting oneself to a certain sort of mask (the one that the Grindr logo cheekily evokes) allows then for a new sort of expression, for flows of desire that are not otherwise possible and moreover which are newly made possible by the kinds of knowing connections Grindr fosters: the creation of more intricately-planned public scenes, staging of a sexual fantasy more readily, the commodification of sex. 

As to who makes money off of these commodities, one perhaps might point to the rise and dominance of OnlyFans: as a means of sexual expression, as a means of sustaining oneself while in quarantine, as a kind of entry into sex work or as a means of transitioning to a different platform through which to perform such work, it has been a dominant part of the discursive structuring of COVID-19 and quarantine when it comes to sexuality. Sauce Walka, a rapper known just as much for his lean and jewelry as his rapping, started a companion OnlyFans to the two women he is currently dating, who both have OnlyFans of their own. Beyoncé namechecked the site in a verse on her remix of “Savage” with Megan Thee Stallion, whose song was already a cultural force in its own right. The way in which a kind of public discursive function is served by the question of what exactly is implied, mediated by this website and its functions is specifically that of a larger discussion about what sex work entails, its acceptability, its structure and just how much striations within sex work apply in relation to class and identity just as with any analysis of the sort. Again, all at once it is a kind of psychopolitical exercise for the performer (that is, submitting oneself to a specific kind of willing surveillance) and one for the audience (whereby one may reference it in order to support or malign those on the platform, to signal various identities and acts of identification, so on). The means by which it has become a discursive tool in addition to the website makes it so that the hyperreal version, a kind of Virtual idea of what it entails on top of the Digial interface, the second-order simulacra of what fantasies about the site insist it must be, makes for a far more interesting and impactful statement than actually going through and looking for any individual consensus on who uses the site how, just as Craigslist before it had no one common class character.

A commonality between the many lines of critique is some belief that quarantine may not be permanent, for one reason or another, and it is this vital difference which drives the differance between the notion of staying quarantined and reentry into “business” as usual. What the more Democratic solution seems to understand is that, even at home, the psychopolitical necessity of consumption has taken a toll to the point where brands can advertise that they will indeed, merely continue selling their products and consumers will support them. Companies will offer a charitable side dish to their main meal of a product, and it will be eagerly consumed. These new forms of consumption are a kind of test for ideologically-pitched battles over exactly what kinds of risks are entailed in preserving the socius. Spontaneous gatherings are too prone to turn into riots, to insurrectionary forms, to develop into battles within a People’s War: it is better to create a notion of prison that relies on a complete separation from any meaningful experience of prison, a specifically white consciousness of imprisonment separate from its presence in living with antiblackness that transposes itself onto the form of quarantine. Similarly, the means through which the school, the hospital, the asylum are all located within the home, are reliant on the psychopolitical acquiescence of an audience, and moreover a lack of questioning of exactly how effective this hastily-compiled pedagogy can be (thus preventing sponaneously radical pedagogical efforts) or how effective telemedicine is as a practice (making it such that doctors can arbitrate their power more effectively, psychologists and psychiatrists can focus more on specific mannerisms to add to the next DSM once this less expensive and more profitable means of seeing patients becomes more dominant) makes it rather easy to make accessibility inaccessible, shows just how frustratingly arbitrary many barriers have been and how even more frustratingly present many are now when making themselves known along settler-colonial lines, in communities that are marked by antiblackness (and high COVID comorbidities) as well as in vulnerable communities like sex workers, people who use drugs, disabled people who need support groups or extra medical care (and providers of such care), the many immunocompromised and those who love them. The means by which this crisis has striated the socius so dramatically is not going to be forgotten soon, and undoing it except through a full-scale dismantling of capitalist structures of exchange and marketing is perhaps not even a goal worth discussing, let alone an attainable one.

[star-anise]

fierceawakening reblogged your post and added:

Op, since you seem clued in on this: am I right in amorphously recalling that back in the day, (some? A lot of?) political lesbians thought that no lesbian should be butch or femme and saw it as copying straights or copying bad patterns of behavior from gay men?

Hahahaha, so I’m gonna reveal my awesome secret superpower: When I can’t remember, I just look all this shit up on Wikipedia. 🤣 Undergrad was a long time ago, I remember that I read things but not always who wrote them, I need a refresher. So I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on pages like Feminist views on sexuality and Feminist views on sexual orientation.  

So on the Butch and femme page, we do indeed see:

In the 1970s, the development of lesbian feminism pushed butch-femme roles out of popularity. Lesbian separatists such as Sheila Jeffreys argued that all forms of masculinity, including masculine butch women, were negative and harmful to women.[52] The group of radical lesbians often credited with sparking lesbian feminism, Radicalesbians, called butch culture “male-identified role-playing among lesbians”.[53] This encouraged the emergence of androgyny in lesbian feminist circles, with many women wearing clothing like T-shirts, jeans, flannels, and boots. This dress was very similar to butch dress, weakening a key identifier of butch lesbians.[54]

While butch-femme roles had previously been the primary way of identifying lesbians and quantifying lesbian relationships in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, lesbian feminist ideology had turned these roles into a "perversion of lesbian identity".[55] Lesbian feminism was publicly represented though white feminism, and often excluded and alienated working class lesbians and lesbians of color. In these excluded communities, butch-femme roles persisted and grew throughout the 1970s.[26] Despite the criticism from both middle-class lesbians and lesbian feminists, butch and femme roles reemerged in the 1980s and 1990s, but were no longer relegated to only working-class lesbians.[54]

I’m not trying at all to be snarky, I’m answering in this much detail for the audience, not because I think Fierceawakening in particular needs a reminder of how Wikipedia works. I’m literally like, LOOK AT ALL THIS AMAZING EVIDENCE FOR FREE. 

Now I’m dealing with kids going up to me like “I’m really confused, I hear two different groups claiming opposite things, how am I supposed to know which one is correct?”

And part of what I want to do is break out of this Tumblr habit of ideology by fiat, where you just make a text post like YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BUY BISEXUALS A COFFEE WHEN YOU SEE THEM, and people are just supposed to blindly accept that and like, shell out at Starbucks. Sometimes those text posts are great and valid--trans women are women!--but the entire practice leaves people prey to thinking these are rules strangers can just tell them and make them obey, not political arguments they get to investigate and make their own decisions about. If you know how to find them (and Wikipedia is a great wayfinder) and you look at the citations (and google them and find an illicitly uploaded pdf) you get to read the original arguments and experiments and conversations where we figured this out as a community! And then you get to decide, yourself, whether or not you want to be a feminist, or support gay liberation, or campaign against BDSM, or want to throw bisexuals out of the LGBT+ community. Because of course I have my own perspective, and I absolutely know what I’d like people to choose on all of those topics--but I actually think it’s more important that they get all the information and get to choose for themselves.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 Rest and Resolutions + Alone Together

This is a re-posting from December 8th, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Hello, everyone! I apologize for the two week gap between reviews. Academia caught up with me in the worst way possible, but that is behind us now, hallelujah. There's a lot to cover in our last two episodes, so let's dive straight in.

First off, Ozpin is the Wizard theory confirmed.

We all knew it was coming, but it's still nice to finally have validation for that idea. Often times writers will deliberately askew what the viewers expect to happen in a failed attempt at originality (see Sherlock's season 3 premiere), but if you've planted the hints there's every reason to follow through with them. In true RWBY fashion though, this information leads to even more questions. I'm particularly interested in this balance between history and storytelling. That is, the version of Ozpin-as-Wizard that we hear about is explicitly a fairy tale and we all know that time has a tendency to twist events, especially when people begin to view them as just old wive's tales, rather than actual truth. All we really know is that Ozpin indeed gave much of his power to four girls, creating the original Maidens. However:

Did he really isolate himself like the story says? Honestly, if I'd been dealing with all Ozpin's shit I'd probably hide in the woods too.

How soon after receiving the curse did all this go down?

Depending on that timing, did Ozpin have reincarnations before he was the Wizard? Or is that his original form? A lot of fans still assume that he was also the King of Vale, though where that fits into the timeline is a little unclear.

Did Ozpin know at the time that his magic was finite? Or was this the event that clued him in?

Did he give the four women magic in a deliberate attempt to stop Salem? Or, like the story implies, was there a broader reason, the desire to give these women the power to continue spreading hope? That would certainly fit with the show's "honest soul" theme (and perhaps an indicator that characters like Ruby have something to teach Ozpin even as he teaches them, just as the original Maidens did).

Are the Maidens' powers connected to their original gifts? Winter is the Maiden of creation and encouraged Ozpin to meditate and reflect. Summer is destruction and, interestingly, told Ozpin to "step outside and embrace the world." Spring brought food and flowers to revitalize his garden and is the Maiden of knowledge, while Fall is choice and reminded Ozpin to be thankful for what he has. I can see some similarities among all that...

We might not ever get answers to questions like these. Unlike other fantasy series, RWBY is rather restricted by its medium--you can't spend page after page explaining nuanced world building as you would in a novel; we've only got about fifteen minutes max each episode and plenty of more important issues to tackle first. Still, it's something.

Besides that confirmation, "Rest and Resolutions" really lives up to its name. We have all the kids enjoying a happy meal together, with only Oscar noticeably absent. (I know, I know, he's housing Ozpin's soul and Ozpin needs to have Important Conversations with Qrow about the missing huntsmen, but let the kid hang out a bit with people closer to his age, yeah?) Much of this volume has been recap of one form or another, so as to make sure that each character is caught up on what everyone else has been doing and are aware of the information that others/the viewer already knows about. Ruby and co.'s conversation works similarly, only these callbacks are meant to induce a sense of nostalgia rather than act as firm plot foundation.

Jaune recounts "loosing" the map on their travels. Jaune. You literally threw it away when you realized that an entire town had been besieged by grimm. Like, I get that losing their map isn't great, but at least the guy is really invested in the welfare of others?

(cough--comforting Pyrrha instead of watching the door--cough)

(It's actually a personality "flaw" that, as we've seen twice now, can cause some serious consequences.)

The kids take turn complimenting one another (aww) and Ruby says that Ren was "out of control" during the fight against the Nuckelavee. I've seen a few autistic!Ren headcanons over the years and this perhaps can be read as evidence to support that. Ren drastically misreads the tone and intention of Ruby's comment, apologizing quite sincerely for his behavior and personal investment in that fight. It's only when Ruby clarifies that she meant it as a compliment that Ren understands... and thanks her. There's a lot of acceptance and support in this moment.

Weiss alludes to summoning her boar during the party (Ruby: "You did not!") and when Nora doesn't believe her Weiss summons the boar right next to her, startling the hell out of poor Nora. This really shows how much Weiss has improved. There's no hesitation, no need to concentrate--she just summons it up with pure ease right in the middle of a conversation.

I was actually rather surprised by Nora's reaction. Yeah, the jump scare was played for humor, but that combined with her horror at Yang detaching her arm... Nora seems a little... skittish to me?  I might be reading too much into things (I almost certainly am), but between these two moments, the joke about her eating, watching her sneak food last episode... they all read as not so subtle indicators of stress to me. And who can blame the girl.

Other nostalgic moments include our Vol. 1-3 nicknames: Ice Queen and Vomit Boy. The group has a long-overdue acknowledgement of how much they've grown since they were at school, with Ruby in particular delivering the iconic line that she tried to "1v1 a Nevermore on our second day of school." And the Death Stalker, Ruby. God bless this trigger-happy child.

There's also talk of Yang's arm. It did my heart good to see Ruby ooo-ing over the mechanics and Yang looking damn proud of it for once. The arm wrestling contest between her and Nora was, of course, fantastic. Yang's not just embracing this new part of her but actively using it to her advantage... that's exactly where we all knew she'd end up. Can't hold this girl down for long.

Yang: "It's no replacement for the real thing, but I'll make good use of it."

There's a radical tone change once dinner is over and Ozpin rejoins the conversation. Yang is clearly distrustful of him after her talk with Raven (despite the fact that Yang has no reason to trust Raven...) and in true Ozpin style he tries to console her with wisdom and compliments: "Your mother must trust you a great deal" if she told you all that.

Yeah. Sorry, Oz. You know as well as the audience that Raven told those secrets to manipulate her, not because she trusts her. That little strategy fell flat.

Ozpin confirms most of what Raven said though, including that he turned her and Qrow into birds. What Raven of course failed to mention was that they both agreed to the transformation. Whether that agreement was a strong and enthusiastic "Yes!" or the kind of consent that Pyrrha gave--a very complicated scenario with no good choices on the table--is hard to say. My own assumption is that Raven was probably thrilled to be given such a useful power, especially when she intended to turn it against the very community who gave it to her. She only regrets it now that her life hasn't turned out quite as planned. She, like others, is looking to use Ozpin as her scapegoat. 

In fact, we're given no explanation for Raven or Yang's anger here. Raven I can conceptualize--she's the type to blame others for her problems--but Yang? What exactly is so horrific about being turned into a kick-ass bird? As Ozpin describes it, this magic allows Qrow and Raven to "see more" and to be "unburdened" in ways that the normal huntsmen or huntress is not. This ability allows them to spy on Salem rather inconspicuously and, as we've seen in the case of Qrow, is useful in terms of keeping track of other people--like your wayward niece who goes off to try and take on the forces of darkness alone. As far as we've been told there's no downside to this ability beyond the fact that Ozpin's magic is finite, but that hardly effects Qrow. He transforms when he chooses, it doesn't seem to cause him any pain, it grants him an ability outside of his bad luck semblance, he already lives in a world where half the population has animal traits... seriously, where's this anger coming from? Just the fact that magic is an unknown to Yang and therefore scary? It's really unclear and frankly worrying considering how much Yang is basing her accusations and demands around that anger. 

Because the irony is that Yang demands no more secrets from Ozpin. He insists he doesn't keep secrets from them, just plays certain pieces of information close to the chest, but Yang says 'tomato tomahto’ even though, as we’ve just established, that wasn’t Ozpin’s secret to tell. And it has no repercussions that impact the rest of the group. Certainly not the girl who just showed up. I mean, maybe there is still a downside? They’ll definitely be a real backlash if the kids discover there is some horrific consequence to Qrow and Raven's ability and Ozpin didn’t say anything... but again, that’s not fair to Ozpin. Isn’t anyone going to ask Qrow why he kept this from his family? Or ask Yang why she’s suddenly on the side of the mother who abandoned her and is a known killer? Putting all this on Ozpin is, again, pretty worrying. 

Perhaps the most moving moment of the episode though is when Ozpin tells the kids that they can still leave. (Except Oscar of course. This poor kid. He got dragged into this fast and is the only one who's truly stuck with it.) He emphasizes that abstaining from battle is not the same thing as retreat and reminds us that these are just kids and they can't be expected to shoulder it all. No one stands except for Yang... but she's not leaving, just making it clear that whatever Ruby decides to do she'll follow her lead. It re-emphasizes that Ruby isn't just a strategic leader like Jaune is. She's the moral compass of the group. Once Ruby decides to keep fighting--and we know she always will--the rest of her family follows. That’s... not always a good thing though. Everyone needs a reason for fighting this kind of war and I don’t think ‘because Ruby is fighting it too’ is powerful enough to carry them through whatever new hardships they’ll face. 

Because you can’t keep the peace for long. We're left with one hell of a cliff-hanger as Emerald, Mercury, Cinder, and Watts approach Raven's camp, the whole gang demanding an audience--or more likely a Maiden. Every fan who cried over the fact that Emerald isn't in the opening finally got to see their fave prepping for a fight and I for one am looking forward to a real battle this Volume. None of the measly stuff we've seen with Blake or in training. For the first time this will, presumably, be Maiden vs. Maiden and I expect something epic.

Luckily the episode airs soon!

Before that though we have the heart-wrenching episode "Alone Together," wherein three fourths of Team RWBY finally get some downtime together. Ruby is up very early due to difficulty sleeping (who can blame her) and she soon realizes that Weiss and Yang are in the same boat. Loved Yang's sisterly "Boop" with her hair (pick that up from Nora, did you?) and Weiss knows her friends well, dumping an unholy amount of sugar into Ruby's coffee to make sure she likes it. "Nice Weiss strikes again!"

I'm quite liking Nice Weiss this Volume. What a step up from Ice Queen.

There's a bit more recapping--Ruby is called out on her priorities. That fact that they're all together at Haven Academy; that's what she can't believe?--before the conversation quickly turns to when they'll see Blake again. We've watched Yang deal rather well with the loss of her arm this past Volume and she kept a comparatively cool head around her mother. This though... this is what's really been festering.

Yang says that Blake "made her choice" and expresses very little interest in seeing her again. Weiss and Ruby are, understandably, shocked. With shaking hands and a flash of red eyes, Yang finally reveals what's truly been holding her back. Not her arm, not Raven, not any anger at Ruby, but the fact that Blake ran from them. Again.  

It's an understandable flaw on Blake's part, and it's equally understandable that this would nevertheless frustrate and upset Yang. I love that it's Weiss who helps her see Blake's perspective in all this: that after finally opening up to them, everything she'd feared actually did come to pass. The family she'd found was torn apart. Beacon fell. Adam hurt Yang in the worst possible way. She brought down the metaphorical walls around her heart and the literal walls of Beacon crumbled. As far as Blake is concerned, getting close to others really did bring nothing but misery. It's not logical, but emotions rarely are. Of course she's going to try and get as far away from them as possible after that, as well as return to her parents. It was a move born equally from a desire to protect herself as well as others.

It says a great deal about Yang's maturity that she does understand Blake's perspective rather quickly (even if, interestingly, she can’t understand Ozpin’s. A difference in who she actually cares for). Notably this is done through Weiss' own experiences, her admission that they've all experienced their own versions of loneliness. Yang says she doesn't blame Blake for the decision any longer; she's just upset that Blake hasn't realized yet (as Yang herself has) that things are easier when you stick together. That she, Ruby, and Weiss could have supported Blake through this... and that they need her support too. Yang resolves to be there for Blake just as soon as she's ready. The girl has a wealth of love within her. And yes, a lot of that stems from adopting the role of caretaker early, looking after Ruby as a big sister, but the fact that Yang can separate her current desire to protect her friends from that difficult childhood is huge. She knows how trauma has shaped her and she's prepared to make the best of it.

Ruby finally does check up on them and lets out a heartfelt sigh. Everything's okay.

Now, I'll be real interested to see if Yang's shaking lessens after she's reconciled with Blake...

Meanwhile, there's Ilia. And you all know what I'm going to discuss here.

There's a lot to say about her meeting with Blake--the well-played betrayal; our look at how Blake might end up in Mistral; the introduction of a very cool spider faunus; Ilia's speech about how there's no right or wrong, no innocents, just doing "what's best for us" that reminded me strongly of Roman's own speech--but for now, especially given how long this review already is, I want to focus in on her sexuality.

(FYI what I have below was originally written as a separate post, so apologies for the repetition.)

In the past week I've seen numerous complaints about how the fandom is “whining” about finally getting what they want. I’m one of the “whiners,” and this, to be frank, is not what I asked for.

Let’s start with the acknowledgment that yes, no matter who Rooster Teeth chose as their first LBGTQIA character, some people were going to be disappointed. Either because the choice doesn’t fit their ship or because of the dichotomy we’re seeing now: the Good vs. Evil gay character divide. It’s a simple disagreement on the surface that nevertheless houses a lot of important questions and concerns: should you make your gay character one of the Good Guys in order provide positive representation, or should you make them one of the Bad Guys in order to provide diverse representation? Do you send the message that being gay is wonderful by associating it with the heroes, or something that’s natural by associating it with the villains--making a statement that anyone can be LGBTQIA, not just the ones you’re rooting for?

The answer to this dilemma is that you do both. You provide variety in order to likewise provide true, diverse representation. However, the reality is that we haven’t reached a point in most media where you get lots and lots of gay characters to provide lots and lots of diversity… so therefore I feel rather strongly that the first character should be a positive portrayal.

Why? Because we’re not living in a positive world. Because we’re still a part of societies where LGBTQIA people are ridiculed, discriminated, and murdered. Because the idea that it’s not just okay, but fantastic to be gay is FAR from universal.

Because we have a very long, awful history of villains associated with gay stereotypes. Because there’s literally a Psycho Lesbian trope with plenty of examples to choose from. Because we don’t live in a culture where you can casually throw out ‘gay’ + ‘bad guy’ and expect your audience to separate the two critically.

Which brings me back to Ilia.

For all these reasons I was truly disappointed to see that she was our first LBGTQIA character. Out of a wealth of women in this show who love each other in healthy and nuanced ways, they were all bypassed for a character who is currently one of the Bad Guys.

Is Ilia pure evil? Of course not. I’ve mentioned previously about how much we see her struggling with her choices, but she’s currently not on a good path either. More importantly, the way her sexuality is revealed does nothing but position it badly. Let’s break that scene down just a bit. The first LGBTQIA content we’re given is:

A woman who is working for an extremist group that in turn is working for the Big Bad

Ilia reveals her sexuality after having her henchmen abuse Blake, attacking her, forcing her onto her knees, and announcing that they’re currently attempting to murder her parents

Ilia says that she wanted Blake to look at her like she once looked at Adam, intentionally or not drawing parallels between her love and Blake’s abuse

She positions her sexuality as at least partly a justification for her actions. Illia is subtly blaming Blake: if you’d paid more attention to me, maybe none of this would have happened. It actively positions all this horror as at least partly a consequence of same sex attraction

Does all of this craft a rather complex, LGBTQIA character? Absolutely, but it’s also one that left a rather sour taste in my mouth. Overt, same-sex attraction is still so rare in our media and frankly I’m sick of it. I’m sick of vague comments, queer baiting, or promises of something “coming later.” I’m equally sick of burying our gays and having same-sex attraction presented as something that only those who are otherwise sick in their morals would experience. Is it so much to ask for something reaffirming in a series that keeps growing in popularity and influence?

Will there be more LGBTQIA characters in RWBY? I assume so, I hope so, but for now all we have is Ilia. A character who, I’d also like to point out, we barely know. I’m sure she’s lots of fans’ fave, but I for one have little interest in this side character… and her position as a side character makes me nervous for her survival. Her sexuality only compounds that.

Rooster Teeth had a huge opportunity here. LGBTQIA viewers have waited five years to see someone like them in this series and it could have been a really magnificent reveal. It could have been Yang realizing her feelings as she worked through her anger at Blake. Or Weiss realizing hers for Yang as they get closer this Volume. Or Ruby for Weiss. Or Weiss for Blake. Hell, give us a throwaway line about Port and Oobleck being happy husbands, or let Ren be pan, or let Oz admit to same-sex attraction after having lived thousands of years…. I don’t care. I’ll take any ship wars that develop as a consequence. All I wanted was to see a character I know and love embracing their sexuality in a way that reaffirmed how proud I am of my own.

Instead it’s Ilia, admitting feelings for Blake while she plots to kill her parents. While she hurts her and betrays her. Sorry if I find that a little difficult to watch. Sorry if I need to “whine” about it just a bit.

So yes. Needless to say I'm disappointed. After that I couldn't really appreciate Ghira's transformation and concern for his wife, or Kali's badass, "Get out of my house!" As said, the whole scene with Ilia left a bad taste in my mouth. I know Rooster Teeth can do better.

Hopefully we do get better. Preferably soon. This is the perfect, filler kind of Volume to set up more characterization, including queer sexualities, and we've got four more episodes until the hiatus.

Tick, tock, RT.

Other Details of Note

Nora, what exactly happened with you and that punch?

I liked the gears on the wall clock. Which begs the question: where did this house come from? Is it a safe place that Ozpin had set up long before Beacon's fall?

They ate ALL that food. Everything they'd prepared while expecting who knows how many huntsmen/huntresses. Never underestimate the appetites of a group of teenagers.

James and Glynda get mentioned this volume! Everyone rejoice! Now if only we got to see them on screen...

Nora exclaiming about how Qrow and Raven are named after birds was pretty hilarious. It's not like we weren't already thinking it. Despite all the jokes on tumblr though, there's no way Ozpin chose those forms specifically because of the Branwens' names. If anything, this seems to act as evidence that a person's semblance/abilities draws on their personality, rather than the other way around.

There are a number of bird motifs throughout "Alone Together," including our opening shot of Ruby watching them fly overhead and a pair of carved ducks on display in the bedroom where Yang and Weiss chat. It's a nice nod to one of this Volume's major themes. (Or, if we buy into this headcanon that this place is a safe house purchased specifically for Qrow, then Ozpin needs to get called out on his on-the-nose decorating lol).

Yang staring at the team photo hurt in so many ways. Excellent touch there.

We have that acknowledged parallel between Weiss and Ruby, in which Yang (and the audience) expects it to be Ruby knocking on the door, trying to talk. The difference is that now, months later, Yang is actually in a position to open up to someone and that someone is Weiss, now just as much a sister to Yang as Ruby is.  

Confirmation that Weiss' mom is an alcoholic. We knew that was coming too...but still. Yikes.

Yang cries! Let all the children keep crying! It's good and natural!

There's a "nocturnal section" of Menagerie. Of course there is. God I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Ilia can completely blend in with the shadows. It's official now: all Volume 1-3's shadow people are just really, really shy chameleon faunuses. Spread the word.

That blow Blake took seemed to hit her pretty hard. Kind of like how Oscar staggered when he got hit without his aura... could Blake really trust Ilia enough to attend this meeting without proper protection? She might, which makes Ilia's betrayal all the worse. In the episode where Yang talks of letting Blake support and be supported by others, she was finally willing to do that with an old friend. Obviously having that backfire won't help Blake to open up any further.

GIF credit: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/841077-rwby

[monsterfucker-lisa-swallows]

fox news and other similar fearmongering networks are terrible for people with paranoid delusions, and we don't talk about that enough.

disclaimer: i have a family history of delusions (bipolar and schizophrenic family members) and i've been hospitalized for different issues and known a few people with psychosis and delusions, so this isn't a post spurring fear mongering about that community. people with delusions are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence.

with that out of the way, all this bad faith entertainment propaganda masquerading as news is TERRIBLE for people with delusions because it adds new fuel to the paranoia. i've seen it in my family and i saw it today at work.

this white woman was at my checkout. she was probably in her early 50s. she suddenly starts whispering to me about these two 40-something black women in the back of the store.

"these lowlifes back there, you can tell they aren't from around here. they're so loud and i told them they have no business acting like that in a store."

i glance back and see these women who are obviously doing nothing wrong and make a mental note to do whatever i can to make sure they're okay later. at this point i'm really not sure what i'm supposed to say, but i figure getting this woman out of the store is the most important thing.

she carries on. "i mean people from around here don't act like that, they're definitely not local. and it's discrimination."

the sudden umprompted jump in conversation reminded me of how my mother would get when she'd get worked up like this, so that clued me into the fact that she was probably delusional.

"i mean that's against my civil liberties. i'm college educated, i don't come to a store to be followed around and profiled." then she turns right back to. "anyway, they're so threatening, it's not safe."

i barely had time to think how ironic it was that she completely misunderstood what profiling is (nobody is looking at a middle aged white lady, it doesn't work like that) while obviously profiling these two innocent women, before she launched into the worst part.

"i told them i'm going to call the police if they don't stop following me around."

they're still way back in the back of the store, they weren't even looking at her.

"i don't think there's any need for that," i said

"it's against my civil rights to be profiled like that," she said. "i'm going to call the police and have them arrested."

my mind was suddenly filled with the horrifying realization that this is the exact situation you see on the news. some old lady calls the police on some unarmed black people who were just living their life and one of them ends up dead. but i didn't want to escalate the situation either by agitating her, so i tried to deescalate.

"i don't think there's any need for that," i repeated. "i'm sure we can handle it ourselves."

"they're obviously antifa!" she said. "following me around profiling me! definitely not from around here!"

i managed to convince her that we would keep an eye on things then got her to leave without things escalating, but the fact that she jumped to antifa really set me off. because this is obviously some woman with delusions who has been radicalized by the irresponsibility of conservative "news" networks. they've fueled this woman's paranoid delusions and if she'd actually called the police, she could've gotten some people very hurt.

she called the store later to say that she filed a police report, but we never heard anything about it. we figured the police could probably tell that she was delusional. and anyway, what were they going to do? go to a location that none of the people were at and arrest people they didn't have the names of?

the other ladies were very sweet considering the drama that was going on and i made sure that they felt welcome in store. i just felt that calling out the woman would fuel her paranoia more and cause the situation to escalate dangerously and these women's lives were more important than some kind of performative hero routine. not sure if i handled it correctly at all, but i felt that a stranger trying to reality check this customer would've made things a million times worse so i decided to try to move her along rather than confronting her about her issues.

[dawnfelagund]

Fandom Snowflake: Day 10

Join in the challenge here!

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (Or a few!) Tell us what makes it work for you, and why it appeals to you so much. Talk about what you like to see in fanworks featuring that theme most. Feel free to include recs and examples!

I absolutely adore fanworks that assume that the texts don’t tell the whole or only story. In my scholarly work, this rears its head in my fascination (obsession?) with documenting evidence of historical bias in The Silmarillion. I would love to see a fandom where the “canon” is questioned constantly and reimagined/reconstructed by fanworks creators assuming the perspectives of characters disfavored or ignored by that canon.

Part of this love has to do with the fandom I entered twelve years ago. My blog is called the Heretic Loremaster because I self-styled myself as a heretic because I did not take the canon as the infallible Word, and I wanted to alert people of that and so head off the inevitable criticism. I feel like I got less than I would have if I’d entered the fandom even a year earlier. In the way of pendulums swinging, in 2005, the Tolkien fandom had started to correct somewhat for the intense and often mean-spirited canaticism that had defined many of its spaces in years prior. But the idea that fanfic should be more than a paint-by-numbers story that showed off its author’s knowledge of canon minutia was still new and somewhat radical in many fandom spaces.

What first clued me in that The Silmarillion isn’t an entirely reliable account of the history of the First Age and earlier was that Fëanor was called “the most beloved” of the sons of Finwë, yet The Silmarillion has almost nothing nice to say about him or his sons. As I posted about on Day 8, I came to realize that I shared some important beliefs with Fëanor, and I didn’t believe I was a bad person (although, like him, I have my flaws) and, in fact, think that people like us have much to offer the world. And as I began to look at the deeds of his sons, I came to realize that the positive things they did--which were many--were underwritten or unwritten altogether, left to be read from between the lines. (An example of this would be their eagerness to assume the most dangerous realms in Beleriand, those that would be first in nearly any line of attack from Melkor, being directly south of the break in the mountains that protected the other princes of the Noldor. The author of The Silmarillion admits of Maedhros that “he was very willing that the chief peril of assault should fall upon himself” but says nothing of the other brothers, who arrayed themselves behind Maedhros while their cousins retreated behind mountains or to hidden realms. Even the celebration in The Silmarillion of opulent realms--on Gondolin, Menegroth, Nargothrond--shows this bias because the Fëanorians couldn’t build elaborate, decorative kingdoms: They were sharing a border with and defending a geographical gap against Morgoth. It was essentially Middle-earth celebrity culture at the expense of ignoring the real work being done by people who are actually trying to make the world better, not just look prettier. But I digress.)

I have loved to see these kinds of fanworks become more popular and also to see greater acceptance that “not in the texts” =/= “contrary to the texts.” This has opened up fanworks to represent the perspectives of characters who aren’t just straight white guys. I have loved to see the work of authors/scholars like @vefanyar result in people wanting to write about women, and femslash in particular. (Femslash was once so rare as to be nearly nonexistent in Tolkien fanfic.) This appeals to me because art is one of the few places where our ideas and experiences are equal to those in power, and I like to imagine that writing the perspectives of those who don’t hold power in Middle-earth makes us more apt to consider those perspectives in our own Modern-earth.

[johnhardinsawyer]

When You Hear Your Name

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

11 / 15 / 20

Luke 19:1-10

Psalm 51

“When You Hear Your Name”

(Pathways to Generosity – Part 3)

Have you ever been somewhere, and you think you hear your name being called by someone, and so you look around, excitedly, only to discover that whoever was calling your name wasn’t actually calling for you?  There have been times when I might hear someone say, “Hey, John!” and I look around, my heart all aflutter – with a “somebody wants to talk to me?” feeling.  And then, I see some other guy, apparently named “John” saying, “Oh, hey!” back to the person who called them in the first place.  But there have also been times – and maybe you have experienced this, too – when I have heard my name being called, unexpectedly, and I look around to find that I was actually the person whose name was being called.  And, when I have heard my name, and realized that it was my name, I have, in that moment, felt joyful and thankful just to be seen and known.

Now, there are some names that are more common than others, and so, this phenomenon happens to some people more than others.  But, let’s say that your name is not quite as common – a name like Zacchaeus, for example.  I mean, how many times – other than in today’s story from the Gospel of Luke – do we hear someone say, “Hey, Zacchaeus!”?

For the people of Jericho, the name Zacchaeus did not spark joy.  You see, Zacchaeus was a tax collector, the Chief Tax Collector of the region.  This position had all sorts of political and religious and social baggage associated with it.  Here was Zacchaeus, a local Jewish man who was in charge of collecting taxes for the occupying Roman Empire.  Through his job, Zacchaeus was funding the oppressive occupation of his own people.  Not only did his neighbors in Jericho consider him to be traitorous, he was also known to take more money from his neighbors than they actually owed the government and then pocket the difference.  Imagine someone else getting your tax refund year after year after year.  This made Zacchaeus very rich – likely, one of the richest men in Jericho – but it was wealth built on a foundation of dishonesty.  Perhaps, for Zacchaeus, all of that money took the edge off the fact that people disliked him.  But, money can’t buy everything you truly need.

In today’s story, we find Jesus passing through Zacchaeus’ town, on his way to Jerusalem.  As has been the case for Jesus for months now, wherever he goes, he draws a crowd of people.  “Hey John,” you might be wondering, “what is a crowd of people?”  Well, friends, before the Covid-19 pandemic, there used to be these things called “crowds” where people could gather together by the hundreds, the thousands, and nobody had to worry too much about spreading a virus.  Anyway, as Jesus arrives in Jericho, one of the most ancient cities in the world – a place where crops are brought to market, oil and spices are traded, and where palm and fruit trees grow along the road – crowds of people from the city come out to greet him.  And Zacchaeus joins the crowd, too.

As the text tells us, Zacchaeus “is trying to see who Jesus is.”  (Luke 19:3)  In the original language, Zacchaeus could just be trying to figure out which person in the crowd Jesus might be.  But, he also could be trying to figure out “what sort of a person”[1] this Jesus might be.  Is he really the prophet, the teacher, the healer that people have been talking about?  Or, is he just some man with a crowd of people around him, going from town to town?  Something – maybe curiosity, maybe something else – is drawing Zacchaeus toward Jesus.

When John Calvin writes about Zacchaeus going in search of Jesus, he says that there is clearly something holy at work:  

Some were led, no doubt, by vain curiosity to run even from distant places, for the purpose of seeing Christ, but the event showed that the mind of Zacchaeus contained some seed of piety.  In this manner, before revealing himself to [us], the Lord frequently communicates. . . a secret desire, by which [we] are led to him, while he is still concealed and unknown; and, though [we] have no fixed object in view, he does not disappoint [us], but manifests himself in due time.[2]

In other words, the Holy Spirit is already at work in our minds and hearts, and in Zacchaeus’ mind and heart – pulling him toward Jesus through the crowd.  But Zacchaeus has a problem.  When he joins the crowd to try to see who Jesus is, all Zacchaeus can see are the backs and shoulders of everyone else.  Zacchaeus is vertically challenged – he is short.  He can’t see through the crowd and definitely can’t see over them.  But, Zacchaeus, who has always proved to be resourceful in the ways he has made his fortune, comes up with a resourceful idea for how to see Jesus.

And so, as the story goes, Zacchaeus runs ahead of the crowd and climbs a sycamore tree – which is a fig tree that has large branches and big leaves.  According to one Bible scholar, the sycamore tree was often the source of food for people who did not have money to buy food.[3]  So, here is this rich man – Zacchaeus – hanging out in the branches of a tree where poor people – maybe even some of the people Zacchaeus has robbed over the years – might congregate.  And, now that he is sitting there in the branches of the tree, the crowd of people arrives with Jesus.  Imagine, if you will, being in the middle of a crowd where everyone is calling your name and wants to see you and talk with you, everyone wants to hear what you have to say and have you listen to them and their needs.  This is where Jesus finds himself.  And yet, somehow, in all of the confusion of the crowd – in the sea of needy and excited faces that surrounds him – Jesus looks up into a tree growing by the side of the road, and sees someone there among the branches.  “Zacchaeus,” he says, “hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”  (Luke 19:5)

Just so you know, we are not told how it is that Jesus knows Zacchaeus’ name.  Maybe he has heard it among the people in the crowd – a name muttered, under-the-breath, with great derision.  Maybe his disciples or the local synagogue leaders have clued him into the influential people in Jericho and/or the people who are causing problems for everyone else.  But maybe, as Calvin suggests, there is something deeper and holier going on, here. . .  Maybe, when it comes to Zacchaeus, Jesus just knows – knows his name and everything about him.

It sure seems like Jesus does know, because he up and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house.  So, Zacchaeus climbs down from the tree, and moves through the hostile crowd, filled with the neighbors that he has wronged, and he is happy to welcome Jesus into his home.  This does not please the people, though, who all grumble and say, “Jesus is going to be the guest of one who is a sinner – the guest of a traitor, a thief, a man who uses the power of the empire against us.”

You know, there are those who believe that politics should be kept out of the pulpit, but it should be noted, here, that Jesus is neck deep in the politics of his day.  The grace and welcome that Jesus shows Zacchaeus is enough to upset both the religious right who are all about purity, and the radical left who are all about justice, and everyone in the middle who just don’t like Zacchaeus for taking their money.  Nobody likes Zacchaeus. . .  Nobody, except Jesus. . .  And Jesus lovesZacchaeus.

I don’t know if anyone else in the crowd sees the great love that Jesus has for Zacchaeus – a love that looks beyond his faults and his sins, a love that only sees the goodness that God has planted at the heart of every person.  But Zacchaeus catches a glimpse of this love, and suddenly – standing in the middle of the angry crowd in front of the only person who loves him – the Holy Spirit does something to him.  The grace of God breaks Zacchaeus’ heart open to reveal the love and goodness of God that have been there all along.  “Look, Jesus,” he says, “half of my possessions, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much – way more than what the old laws of Moses say I should.”[4]  Zacchaeus has heard Jesus call him by name – he has heard Jesus welcoming himself into Zacchaeus’ life and home and heart.  And in this moment of extravagant grace, of being recognized and called by name – filled with the thrill of being seen and known and loved – Zacchaeus’ first response is extravagant generosity.

There is this passage in the Book of Isaiah, in which the Lord speaks to people whose lives are full of challenge, and grief, and pain – and God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  (Isaiah 43:1) “Do not be afraid, for I have liberated you from whatever was binding you – whatever was harming you, whatever was holding you back from fully loving me.  I have claimed you and called you by your name. . .  Your name. . .  You belong to me.”  This is what Jesus is saying to Zacchaeus.  This is what Jesus is also saying to us.

The question is, how do we respond to this extravagant grace?  Just like it always was for Zacchaeus, the potential for good is always there – beneath the surface – present in our hearts and minds and souls.  But it is the love of God that breaks us open to reveal the good.  It is in coming to know that we are deeply loved by the One who created us, the One who frees us, the One who sustains our every breath, that draws us deeper into a life that is lived, not for ourselves, but for God. . . and for others.  This is the life of discipleship – the life of saying “Yes” to the One who has given us all things.

Whether we know it or not, there is always something holy that is drawing us toward Jesus.  And, in this season of Stewardship, as we reflect on what God has given us, and what kind of disciples God is calling us to be, there is always room for more, on our part – more growth, more trust, more generosity, more openness to God’s grace, more room for Jesus.  Jesus is always inviting himself over into our lives and into our hearts.  He is always calling us by name.

How many times in your life have you heard someone say your name?  Ten thousand times?  Hundreds of thousands of times?  A million times?  Most of these times, I’d guess, have been fairly routine.  But I am sure that there are some times when you have heard your name and it has meant more – when your name is said and has been filled with all of the fullness of love that is possible.  This is how Jesus is saying your name in every moment of your life.

How will you respond when you hear your name?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

-------

[1] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1979) 819.

[2] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVI – Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 2009) 434.

[3] Watson E. Mills, et. al, Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (Macon:  Mercer University Press, 1990) 979. Norm Yance, “Zacchaeus”.

[4] See Leviticus 6, Numbers 5, and Exodus 22.  Paraphrased – JHS.

[restoreamericanglory]

New Post has been published on Restore American Glory

New Post has been published on http://www.restoreamericanglory.com/breaking-news/portland-mayor-getting-crushed-by-antifa-supporting-opponent/

Portland Mayor Getting Crushed By Antifa-Supporting Opponent

After pandering to the far-left anarchists who have been rioting in Portland for months, how is Mayor Ted Wheeler fairing in his re-election campaign? Well, if the idea was to endear himself to the radical residents of his Oregon hometown, we can only conclude that it was a failure of a strategy. We know this because his opponent in the race – a woman who recently proclaimed “I am Antifa” – is leading the embattled mayor by a whopping eleven points as we head into the home stretch.

Wheeler is getting whipped by Sarah Iannarone, whose biography, according to Willamette Week, amounts to this: “An unknown Portland State University bureaucrat preaching the value of sustainability and smarter transportation and land-use policies.”

But if you’re thinking, well, that tells me that they could have run a sofa against Wheeler and have still won the election in a landslide, don’t be so sure. Iannarone is unapologetically radical in her left-wing politics. When the Portland demonstrations were just getting started in early July, she tweeted her support for the anarchists.

“Goddamn tired of watching reporters, medics, legal observers, peaceful protesters, and, yes, vandals getting targeted, arrested & assaulted by Portland Police,” she tweeted. “F*ck you, Ted Wheeler, seriously.”

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

Classy!

Later in the campaign, she pledged her support of Antifa, branding herself an “everyday anti-fascist.”

In case there were still voters not clued in on the message, Iannarone gave them some visual illustrations, wearing a skirt that was decorated with the faces of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and other Communist dictators.

And that seems to be exactly what Portland residents want in their new mayor.

“Wheeler polled at 30% to Iannarone’s 41%, with the remaining 29% of surveyed voters split between writing in a candidate (16%) or remaining undecided (13%),” Willamette Week reported. “It’s an especially notable result given that the poll was not conducted by either campaign, though PBA is supporting the mayor. (The poll has a four percentage point margin of error.)”

While we certainly understand the impulse to get rid of the feckless, incompetent Ted Wheeler, the fact that Portland is set to replace him with this lunatic is evidence that this city is beyond saving. If they put Sarah Iannarone in office…well, sorry, but they will get exactly what they deserve.

[glittergummicandypeach]

The Sisters Who Pulled a Prank and Accidentally Started a Religion

Every other Wednesday in Fads!Crazes!Panics!, Luke T. Harrington looks at one of the random obsessions to have gripped the public mind in the recent past, and tries, in vain, to make sense of it all.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. —1 John 4:1

In 1848, two sisters were living with their parents in Hydesville, New York. The fact that the place was named “Hydesville” was probably already creepy enough, but their house had a reputation for being haunted as well. The sisters reacted to these rumors of a haunted house the same way any young girls would: by starting some trouble. 

For Kate (age ten) and Maggie (age fourteen), the whole thing started as a harmless prank: After their parents put them to bed at night, they would tie apples on their fingers with string, and then bounce and roll the apples on the floor. I’m not 100% positive what an apple rolling on the floor sounds like, but apparently it’s really spooky, because their parents started to get awfully freaked out.

Having gotten their attention, Kate decided to take things to the next level, and began talking to the “spirit.” She challenged him to repeat the snaps of her fingers, which (surprise!) he did. She then began to ask him simple questions, like how old she and her sister were, which he would answer with a series of raps, counting up to their ages. From there, it wasn’t hard to work out a series of knocks for spelling things out, and soon the sisters were conducting full-blown séances. The entity eventually revealed himself to be the ghost of a peddler named Charles B. Rosna, who (he claimed) had been murdered and buried in the house’s cellar; excavation of the cellar failed to yield a body, and there was no evidence that anyone named “Charles B. Rosna” had ever existed anywhere, but that hardly seemed to bother the sisters or the people who wanted to believe them. The people of Hydesville were so committed to the idea that the sisters could speak to the dead that they picked a random resident, accused him of the murder, and ran him out of town. Which, justice, amirite?

Soon it became clear that an entirely new sect was breaking away from Quakerism—one that was less about talking to God and more about talking to, y’know, dead people.

Things were getting a little crazy at this point, so Maggie and Kate’s parents sent them to crash at their adult brother’s and sister’s houses, respectively. The mysterious rappings followed Maggie and Kate to these new locations, which probably should have clued people in that Charles B. Rosna was not actually haunting their parents’ home, and they were instead cracking their knuckles and kicking table legs, but of course it didn’t. While there, they attracted the attention of Amy and Isaac Post, a pair of radical Quakers, who were instantly convinced of the rappings’ authenticity and invited all of their Quaker friends to put down their oatmeal spoons and attend one of the girls’ séances. (Note: Yes, I know that Quaker Oatmeal has no association with actual Quakers. Something, something, cultural appropriation.) Soon it became clear that an entirely new sect was breaking away from Quakerism—one that was less about talking to God and more about talking to, y’know, dead people.

It wasn’t long before the Fox Sisters (now joined by their much-older sister Leah, who presumably served as the Curly to their Larry and Moe) were giving paid demonstrations of their abilities—not just in the revival-heavy Burned-over District, but in New York City itself, many of which were attended by the celebrities of the day. The sisters’ star was rising, and countless imitators were springing up all over the United States and Britain—because, when all you have to do to win fame and fortune is turn out the lights, say some spoopy stuff, and crack your knuckles a few times, well, a lot of people are going to want in on that.

Soon, Spiritualism—as it was now called—was a full-blown movement, with figures such as Cora L. V. Scott (whose claim to fame was that she could speak intelligently on many subjects, which apparently was enough to prove you were a medium for spirits in the nineteenth century) and Paschal Beverly Randolph (a noted proponent of “erotic alchemy,” whatever that is) joining the fray. All of them claimed the gift of speaking with spirits, and all of them—coincidentally, I’m sure—had show tickets and books to sell you.

It probably goes without saying that skeptics considered this stuff thoroughly debunked, basically from the word go. The first one to investigate the Fox Sisters, physician E. P. Longworthy, had them figured out just a couple years into their careers, observing that the rappings always seemed to come from beneath the girls’ feet or happen when their dresses were touching the table. A year after Longworthy, three investigators from the University of Buffalo proved that the noises didn’t happen if they made the girls sit on an upholstered couch with pillows under their feet. A year after that, patent examiner Charles Grafton Page demonstrated that simple noise-making machines could be built and concealed under nineteenth-century-style dresses, in case the girls ran out of joints to pop, I guess. Skeptics remained unconvinced by the copycat mediums as well.

If you’re expecting any of that to have changed the trajectory of the Spiritualist movement, though, you’re (of course) mistaken. There were just an awful lot of people who really wanted to talk to the dead, even if the dead were seemingly only good at rapping out Morse Code. It didn’t hurt that the dead also seemed consistently to be on the proverbial Right Side of History, frequently championing fashionable causes like abolition, women’s suffrage, and prohibition. (Two out of three ain’t bad.) It also didn’t hurt that two of the bloodiest wars in American history—the Civil War and World War I—were right around the corner, providing mediums with two huge waves of bereaved people looking for closure. Each of these waves was met with its share of skeptics—including, in the 1920s, Harry Houdini himself—but it was never enough to overcome the desire of believers to believe.

For their part, the Fox Sisters actually admitted the whole thing had been a hoax in their later lives. In 1888, Maggie and Kate took the stage in New York one last time to show how they’d been making the sounds for forty years. With doctors to present to confirm, Maggie demonstrated that pretty much the whole trick had consisted of—wait for it—cracking her toes.

Those determined to believe the claims of the Fox Sisters will point out that by this time in their lives they were all living in near-poverty and would have said pretty much anything for money; Maggie more-or-less confirmed this a year later by attempting to recant her previous confession, apparently due to financial pressure from the Spiritualist movement. Back in New York City, though, her own words against the movement had been pretty forceful: “I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world.”

Of course, forty years into the movement was probably too late to recant, if she had hoped to put an end to it. At its height, Spiritualism had eight million adherents globally, and while that number has dwindled to six figures since, I’m currently just a few minutes away from several Spiritualist congregations (I wonder what their Zoom services are like). I’m not sure if this sort of thing was what St. John had in mind when he admonished believers to “test the spirits,” but I’d say that verse doesn’t not apply here.

I, personally, am not a knee-jerking skeptic when it comes to all supernatural and paranormal claims—I probably couldn’t be a Christian if I were—but there is something to be said about having a healthy skepticism about them, especially when they’re what we already want to believe, and especially when there are much more obvious explanations. 

And also to keep in mind that, if ghosts do exist, they’re probably up to something much cooler than tapping out answers to tedious questions.

This content was originally published here.

[entmagazine]

As a teenager, Aaron Caddel began having seizures. His doctor told him he’d grow out of it, but as he approached 20, they became more frequent. Then an MRI revealed a tumor growing on his brain, pushing against his primary motor cortex. Doctors said they thought the tumor was cancerous because of its rapid growth, but they couldn’t be sure. They advised Caddel to wait until the seizures became unbearable before pursuing surgery, out of fear that the procedure would leave him paralyzed. “As long as I was willing to bare seizures, and losing bite-sized pieces of my tongue, I could maintain a life without extreme physical disability,” Caddel tells Entrepreneur. “It was the choice between dying at 30 and scanning Craigslist for wheelchairs at 25.” Caddel held off and endured more seizures. Meanwhile, he decided that entrepreneurship would be his most likely avenue for success with his limited time left on Earth. He negotiated a profit-sharing agreement with the owner of a failing chocolate retailer, which he turned into a coffee shop. The coffee business clued him into an opportunity in the breakfast market: There were a lot of coffee shops, but not enough bakeries to help them fill their pastry cases. In November 2014, he opened @mrholmesbakehouse, a now Instagram-famous bakery that draws long lines for its delicacies such as the cruffin (croissant-muffin hybrid), which comes in rotating flavors such as cherry matcha and Almond Joy. But that wasn't until after he applied for five credit cards in one day and put himself $100,000 in debt. “As a millennial, I think I already had the propensity to break all the rules,” Caddel says. “The death sentence just radicalized that mindset by removing the fear of repercussions.” Caddel eventually got the surgery, and the 25-year-old is now tumor- and seizure-free. He still has his mobility and his bakery. Mr. Holmes Bakehouse (named after a cat called Sherlock Holmes) has three locations in California and two in South Korea, and the company launched a wholesale partnership with national brand Intelligentsia Coffee in Los Angeles in January. _ Visit the link in our bio to read more. (Photo: Travis Kaenel) via Instagram http://ift.tt/2tlX0Sl