#the freedom of expression while also being constrained to reasonableness is good | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

trevor-wilson-covington · 4 years ago

Text

What could have been...

//Saw that the site I use to make mood boards has a CD Cover option and thought it would be fun to do Sunset Curve’s Demo and Unreleased Songs (+Home Is Where My Horse Is) as they would look as singles!!! I may make CD Covers for the other 13 songs in the show...if people end up really liking these ones and if inspiration strikes!

**Gave an idea of what I think the other 7 songs would be about/why they were written (said what we know Unsaid Emily, Now or Never, and Home Is Where My Horse Is are about already of course too)!!

1. Unsaid Emily: Is of course about Luke’s rough relationship with his mom, which was never resolved before his death. It touches on how he knew he should have turned around and come back home but his pride stopped him. All the conversations he had created in his head about what they would say to each other when he finally saw her again stayed that way, thoughts in his head. Wondering if he had been able to say the right things to his mom or made up with her before dying, would time not have erased the memory of him?

2. Get Lost: I believe it is about the feeling of restlessness and wanting to just take off on an adventure somewhere new or unique. Similar to how Luke finds sleeves (zleeves) restricting, this song is about how life can feel suffocating sometimes and all you want to do is grab a bag of essentials and walk in the mist/ride off into the night to a freer life.

3. Long Weekend: Is about the band’s friendship/brotherhood/sense of found family and how over many weekends they find themselves going through a lot of struggles and heartache together. These are the weekends that feel the longest because there is so much the four boys help each other through and many times they find they don’t want the weekend to end so they can spend more non-band time together to just be four stupid teen boys navigating all the twists and turns of life.

4. Crooked Teeth: My thoughts are that it could have been written when he had braces/a retainer in the 90s & was self-conscious of it, so it was written to cheer Reggie up about his braces/retainer & pretty much say "hey, Reggie...people's smiles vary & they're all unique & beautiful"...instead of mocking him, like the show seems to tell us it was written to do.

5. My Name Is Luke: Is a darker, more introspective song about Luke’s struggle with an identity crisis where he feels he’s being pulled in different directions. One side is the Luke who loves his parents and wants to make them happy and have them be proud of him. The other side is the Luke. who is passionate about writing and playing music, who thrives off the feelings and energies of the crowd as they connect with him and his lyrics. Luke finds he can’t be one version of Luke without ultimately giving up the other and trying to do both is exhausting and soul crushing at times. The title is his way of saying ‘Hey, this is my name, it’s who I am, and I can be a loving son my parents can be proud of while also doing what I love and making a difference in the lives of people who listen to my music’. He just wishes his parents could come to understand that he loves music and he’s really good at it, so why can’t he continue doing it and make them proud at the same time.

6. Now or Never: Is, as we know, about Sunset Curve’s rise to fame and how they can dream as though they’ll never die but they’re going to live their life as though today could be their last day alive. They aren’t looking to the future, because all they need are each other and the energy that is coursing through their bodies in the present. They hear a voice in their heads saying you only have this one life, so make the most of it so when you die you’ll have had no regrets about the things you did or didn’t do. This is their time to shine and even when their lives were bleak or lacking, their days were still the best of their lives because they were making music and gradually making a name for themselves doing so.

Weaved in are of course lyrics that seem to foreshadow their 3 deaths with the mention of shock to their hearts (the defibrillators used to try to keep them alive in the alley or ambulance), clocks moving forward but they don’t get older (how for 25 yrs they were in limbo and didn’t age and are now 17-year-old ghosts in 2020), how they kept on climbing 'til their stars collided (floated up out of the ambulance to the dark place until crashing into Julie’s life (she’s a star as Luke says)), and how all that they left in the past was just the just the key to paradise (all the things they left behind once they died were just ‘stepping stones’ to the ‘paradise’ of heaven for most people or in the boy’s case the path to Julie and playing music again).

7. Late Last Night: Is about the late nights the four boys spent out at clubs/venues leading up to the Orpheum, gigs that helped them gain a decent following, and all the crazy things they saw and did. 17-year-olds out late partying, possibly drinking, on school nights. A higher energy song, similar to Now or Never to match the antics of a bunch of teens practically let loose on the music/club scene during the band’s rise in the Hollywood/LA music scene in ‘93/’94/’95. It evokes the feelings of being wild and reckless as a teen, while also somehow capturing the energy of the nighttime as you move from the crowded main strip into residential areas and how quick and jarring the change can be.

8. Lakeside Reflection: This is a tough one, but I think it would be about the individual experiences most or all of the boys have from going to lakes during summer with their families. There’s of course all the fun time spent with family, but in the reflection on the lake of those moments the boys only see the truth of their family dynamics, what was hidden behind a pleasant façade.

For Luke, it was the strained relationship and fights with his mom over the band and his dreams.

For Alex, it was the looks and offhanded comments made by his parents and the looks of sympathy from his sister, ever since he told them he was gay.

For Reggie, it was the nights spent keeping his brother and sister distracted as the walls practically shook from the volume and intensity of his parents’ almost daily fights.

And for Bobby, it was the truth that he kept up a façade even with the boys so they wouldn’t know that his family, that the others always believed to be perfect, wasn’t perfect at all. When rarely he saw his parents and they weren’t off on business trips or working late into the night, Bobby found them to be disinterested in his life and any affection or love was relegated to a pat on the back or a quick hand held before they rushed out the door once more.

The happy summer vibes at the lake could never truly make any of the boys forget their truths, but at least they could let loose for the extent of their trips and finally feel like a carefree teen again.

9. In Your Starlight: This would seem to be a certain kind of love song at first glance and for some people that’s what it may be, but to me it is a very specific kind of love song. This love song is about relationships each of the boys had, the very few of them, that didn’t turn out well for some reason or another. A passion for music overshadowing the passion to keep a relationship going. The fear of long-term commitment and a short-lived bliss, before the fighting starts, ending the relationship before it ever grew deeper. The smothering of a fire in the soul so outsiders can’t see one trace of its flicker, hidden behind a lie, in case they find out the truth and react with disgust or hatred. Or the overly flirtatious and, at times, clingy antics used to get a person interested in starting a relationship. To keep them invested in the relationship, in an effort to make sure they won’t leave out of boredom or for someone better. This song is from the perspective of those other people, how they saw the relationship, no matter the length, and what they see as the thing that ended it or kept it from growing stronger. How they all in some way felt like they were pulled in by light of each of the boys (the stars) and things were good at first, before the cracks started to appear and reality truly set in.

10. Home Is Where My Horse Is: It’s an expression of where and whom Reggie calls home. The horse had never really stood for an actual horse, but rather it represented Luke, Alex, and Bobby. The people Reggie considered his family, his home, more than he ever would the house he had grown up in. Horses symbolize freedom without restraint, because riding a horse makes people feel they can free themselves from their own bindings. There is no constraining a horse when it runs with the wind, but they also enjoy the company of family and friends. Reggie wants freedom from the stuff with his parents and his own personal demons that keep him held back. He finds with the band, his real family, he can run free and be himself...enjoying being around the boys and not having to worry about fighting and drama. His home is where he (the horse) is... able to be its true self and go where the wind takes it.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #sunset curve #jatp fanart #jatp meta sort of #luke patterson #alex mercer #reggie peters #bobby wilson

181 notes · View notes

lemonadeflashbang · 4 years ago

Text

Katana Zero Thoughts/Review

Almost two weeks ago I had the pleasure of playing through Katana Zero while conked out on my second shot. I waited before writing this post to fully digest what I actually thought of the game. It’s definitely a stylish game, and fits in quite well with other games published by Devolver, but I think it was likely held back a bit by its’ own ambition. For those who don’t know, Katana Zero is an action game where you play as a time controlling samurai who has to kill every enemy in an area before proceeding to the next room. Enemies die in one hit, but so do. The gameplay is twitchy and the concept is kind of anime as fuck, and when it works it works. There’s also a cool cyberpunk story, and for an indie it’s actually pretty well written. There’s a narrative system that allows you to pursue different dialogue paths, but you can also “get to the point” by spam pressing all the initial “rude” prompts. You can also choose to wait out a timer and reply with silence. Generally speaking though, even though I liked the story I felt like its’ focus was ultimately a detriment to the final game. The whole game is only a few hours long, and you probably spend at least half of that time navigating through dialogue. Tons of resources went into the writing and the cutscenes, many of which are lovingly animated, that I think might have been better served by being poured into the core gameplay loop. There’s a bit of a myth in gaming that games are the sum of their parts. For example, if you clone a game but improve the story, the game is objectively better. I believe that to be false. Take a Mario game, for example. Taking the quick “princess is kidnapped” story and replacing it with something epic- maybe from a JRPG or from something more western like Horizon Zero Dawn, wouldn’t result in a better game. And the reason is simple- the core gameplay of a Mario game is about the platforming. That’s the most fun part of the game. Even if you improve the story, so long as that story takes up more time you’ll find that your players will be having less fun on average simply because the story isn’t as good as the platforming segment, and now you’ve blown it out and made it more important. There’s a reason why these Nintendo games have such basic stories. Nintendo has no problems writing funny Mario RPG’s as any fan of Mario & Luigi or Paper Mario will tell you. They’re choosing not to so they can focus their energy on the most fun part of the game. Narrative and RPG games have a lot more room to play with long story segments, because story is part of the core value proposition for these genres. But that’s not true of all game types. So let’s loop back to Katana Zero. There are now half of your game sections that are about the narrative... but the narrative is short, raises more questions than answers, incomplete, and doesn’t give you time to get attached to most of the characters. And let me be clear- this isn’t because I think the devs did a bad job. But indie games are stretched thin, so creating content, especially cutscene and effects heavy narrative content that can’t be reused, is super time consuming. And at some point you just have to ask- are we going to be able to tell a story that’s as gripping and exciting as our gameplay? Does the story enhance the gameplay, like in a narrative or RPG game? Is the enhancement worth the time? I’d argue that it isn’t. Not that there isn’t a good story there, but that the story is way too big to fit comfortably in an indie package and get really attached to. Not without a genre shift, resource injection, or cutscene de-escelation. There’s a reason most RPG cutscenes look so donkus, even today. So in the end, you have a game where you spend half your playtime as a kickass time bending samurai, and the other half navigating dialogue trees that don’t result in alternate endings or secret levels or anything all that gameplay related, but tell the prologue to a story that may never have an ending. There’s a mismatch between your most fun thing, and the rest of the game, and the gap is big. Not because the story sucks, because the core gameplay is fun. Let’s talk more about the core gameplay though. Story isn’t the only place where I feel that ambition may have caused some problems. There’s a point in the game where you can play a single stage as a second character. Just the one. Why implement a character just for one stage? Why not bring them into more of the game? As an unlockable character choice to increase replayability, perhaps? There could be some level design constraints around that, but I don’t think it’d have been an issue with the alternate character that existed as it was. Finally, I feel like the level design starts to break down in the last third of the game or so.As you approach the last act, you lose freedom to express yourself in your approach and become more constrained by enemy reaction times and numbers. This isn’t necessarily a huge issue, but it also starts to force you to rub against the bits of randomness in the game. You might kick open a door only to get immediately shotgunned by the police officer across the hall, unable to deflect the bullets because the spread is random and two of them are too far apart to hit in one swing but close enough together to kill you during your attack’s cooldown. Maybe it’s not one shotgun blast but three or four pistol rounds, shot by enemies without friendly fire. Maybe they’re guarding a laser cannon with that will blast you unless you descend precisely from above. Maybe you retry a prior tactic, but it doesn’t work because when a level resets it doesn’t move enemies to a fixed position- and their different placements results in different AI behavior even when executing the exact same moves. Whatever the case, the game becomes significantly more punishing and less predictable. You may have to idle and wait for enemies to move into a good position again before retrying a tactic simply because it just won’t work in the current spawn position, which slows down the pacing of an otherwise fast game. Most importantly, the games difficulty increase has nothing to do with mechanics being harder- it’s just repeating the prior challenges but generally less forgiving. Increased mastery is good to aim for, however there’s a couple things you want to avoid. The first is shrinking the play space too much. If your increased mastery comes at the price of player freedom and flexibility, what will happen is levels devolve into rote memorization and the game loses replayability. It also starts to feel like farming, or a chore, even if it’s the first time you’re playing it. The second is you want to make sure that you maintain predictability- which is lost with the shotgun shell randomness and the variation in enemy starting placements. The game ends up feeling stale towards the end of its runtime, which is odd given how short it is. I think an extra mechanic or two to play with for the core gameplay could have taken it farther and let it keep its’ shine. The game was good, and is definitely a fun ride for an afternoon or so, but I can’t see myself wanting to go back to it- even with a DLC update. Generally speaking, I recommend it- but maybe on sale.

#katana zero #game review

2 notes · View notes

argyrocratie · 4 years ago

Text

Religious and philosophical examination of the principle of authority

(Elie Reclus’ pastoral thesis accepted in 1851 before his immediate resignation. Tranlsated trought me from here )

...

“You, who want to be under the law, do you hear the law!”

- Gal. iv, 21.

INTRODUCTION

At all times of transformation, the question of authority and freedom is increasingly debated. Whenever a new idea wants to creep into humanity, those who are afraid stop it in the process, and say to it: Who gave you the right to live? - Non licet esse vos, said the official world to nascent Christianity.

Now, that a new religious movement is being prepared, this is what everyone has a presentiment of, some with joy, others with apprehension; but whether we love spring or hate it, the swallows are back.

- I wanted to do a job of removing muck

It is only a question of the religious question here: to leave it is to descend.

It’s not me speaking, it’s the Idea: I have accepted the starting point of Authority, to produce all of its consequences, to multiply itself by itself. Evil reveals its ugliness by showing itself in broad daylight.

Having to deal only with ideas, I wanted to be severe, because the struggle is serious, it is even deadly. For my part, I refuse any quarter that I would not give; between force and idea, I sided with freedom, and I said: Live free or die!

PART I, CHAPTER l

ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY AS A PRINCIPLE.

Sovereignty.

I. What is authority?

Etymologically, authority means the power of the creator over the created thing. Factor, actor, auctor, auctoritas. In practice, this word designates the government and its delegates. In religion and philosophy, it applies to any principle that calls for obedience.

This is what is meant by authority, but it is about getting into the idea itself, understanding its content and consequences. - I say that it is power, that is to say, necessity, in the forms of right and of fact.

II. By analysis, particular objects break down into elements common to many others. Thanks to certain laws, gases form oak, moss, or seaweed; what constitutes a flower, a trunk or a fruit could have become charcoal, diamond or freestone. The individual exists only through the action of some law.

If there is an absolute law, it is correlative to the very idea of Being.

III. The Being is not yet life. The stone exists, but it does not live. The laws of Being can be summed up in mathematical laws, but if they had no other existence than the abstract reality of four equal to two plus two, they would be nothing. What is justice without a righteous being? Being as substance will have to take form and life; it will act through individualization; through personality he will truly be a force, and will enter the world of facts and realities.

But the personality will never be anything but the expression of the laws of Being, from which it can no more be freed than nine of the laws of the ternary. Without individualization, the law would be an abstraction, but personality without a law, would be nothing at all. To be, yes or no, subject to its law, for each individuality, is to be, or not to be. Authority as law is summed up in the idea of Being, in that of the Supreme Being, who is God. Authority as a fact, in turn, is summed up in the primary personality, which is God. Authority is God, God is authority.

IV. Whoever unites with God becomes a participant of divine qualities, becomes a participant of impeccability and infallibility.

Communication with the Divinity carries with it the right of sovereignty. The respect due to the master is due to his representative, and to his ministers; now his ministers are the Prophet with the word of truth, the King with the sword of righteousness, and the priest with the bloody knife of atonement. The king, the pontiff and the prophet are in the midst of men the reflections of the divinity, as in the midst of pebbles, the diamond is the mirror of the sun.

V. The philosophical idea of the law brings us back to Being and to personality, that is, to God, the Law and the Lawgiver. But the religious man does not restrict himself to this detour; he accepts faith in the name of God, and God in the name of faith, he starts from obedience, and returns to obedience.

VI. All existence being only a living law, nature is only the system of laws, is only universal law. The law being the principle of cohesion and Being, outside of it there is nothing but nothing.

Who will tell all the laws of organic and inorganic matter, the laws of gases, liquids and solids, laws of light and heat, of electricity, of magnetism, of gravity, of expansion, and molecular unions? Where is the forgotten stone, where is the star in the heavens that is not the culmination and the starting point of countless laws? Show it, you who say: I am free!

VII. The law, that is, the authority, is absolute. As absolute, it is the cause, goal and means of all things. As absolute, it is everywhere and always identical to itself. So, the essence of authority being absolute, so too will the attributes; therefore all manifestations of authority are equally just and legitimate.

VIII. Being absolute, it is the unity of all contradictions. One does not have to do with this or that change, it ignores them. The stream, the cloud and the ice cube are always water. Yesterday it was this, today it is, and tomorrow it will be quite another thing, but it will still be the authority.

IX. Authority, being the absolute principle, confiscates all others for its own benefit. It is she who calls herself the source of justice, of truth, of good and of beauty.

X. Authority begins by denying any intelligence towards it. For strength without intelligence is pure strength. What can intelligence do against force? Force institutes order, even without intelligence, but intelligence deprived of authority what can it achieve? Something less than disorder,nothingness.

Intelligence is only a passive view; the sight of what is inside and outside of man; it is the more or less obscure perception of objective laws. Man has reason to be proud of his intelligence, as the drop of water to be proud, because the sun has penetrated it with one of its rays, as the night because a lamp has entered its darkness. All subjectivities can only exist through their union with the Objective, that is, through their dependence on the primary fact. So everyone's reason is only the more or less misleading mirror of primary intelligence.

Any intellectual notion in accordance with the immutable laws of Necessity is true, any notion in disagreement with them is false. Intelligence is the apperception of laws, intelligence itself is law like optics. The laws of intelligence are the laws of logic; the logical laws are the laws of equality, then of inferiority, or of superiority, those of addition and subtraction, also those of multiplication and division; they present themselves, it is true, under various combinations, and under great philosophical names; but they are nothing else than mathematical laws, generally qualified as material. Since intelligence is valuable only through its submission to authority, intelligence in itself is null.

XI. Authority again says: I am justice, and outside of me there is nothing but nothingness and injustice. For justice is only harmony with the law, and the law is only the expression of authority. The law is the will of the legislator, and the pure Will is outside justice, it is arbitrary. If God had wanted good to be bad, good would be bad, and evil would be good.

Authority does justice to the most violent injustice. When Jehovah ordered the massacre of the inhabitants of Canaan, he gave an order that it would be a crime to find bad.

The law cannot be debatable, the law can only be fair. The law is not law because of its justice; on the contrary, it is just, because it is the law.

XII. Authority being the negation of freedom, its presentation begins and ends with the negation of freedom.

This negation has much more logical force, now that the authority has just eliminated reason and justice; while freedom can only live on the life of love and understanding.

Authority is therefore supreme freedom to itself, and to others supreme necessity.

XIII. As much as the vulgar apologists for authority and those for freedom have agreed to confuse the two terms, so do we strive to maintain their distinction. If Bahal is God, serve him; if the Lord is God, love the Lord.

The relative has only a relative value. Now, the relative is precisely what needs law. Whether there are relative authorities, whether there are so many and more, from delegation to delegation man must be able to ascend to the ultimate sovereignty, from which no one can call and say: I brave you; before which all will bow down, as the grass bends in the wind. Under pain of suicide, the authority must crush all enemies; if authority is not binding, it will no longer be authority. Which means that authority has force for its essence, that is, necessity.

However, relative authority is not authority. Because as a relative, it can only engage man relatively, so it cannot constrain him, so it leaves man free.

We are a slave, or we are not.

Relative freedom is not freedom either. As soon as there is coercion, there is no more freedom. One is tied to a tree, were he only tied by a thin loose rope, if he were only tied by a very long rope, he is certainly not free. One with his hands tied behind his back, even if he can walk around the whole world, he is not free.

We are free, or we are not.

Authority, relative freedom, are only relative ideas. Both are only a swing between the two extremes and the two opposites, a compromise between Yes and No, an absurdity continues. Relative authority and freedom are the adulterous fruits of the union of Freedom and Necessity, of Being and of Non-Being.

The relative is a liar, there is only truth in the absolute.

CHAPTER II.

ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY AS FACT

Obedience

XIV. Sovereignty having placed itself above intelligence, justice and freedom, affirms that it is nothing but Force. What is strength in turn? It is not an idea, it is not a principle, it is necessity, it is inevitability, it is chance, it is a fact.

It will therefore be the absolute fact.

XV. If authority is absolute, it is because it has no other reason than itself; it is sovereign, to exercise sovereignty. Why wouldn't the tyrant flog the slave? Now, the God of the slave, can and must only be a despot. For if no tyrant would find themself before a slave that the slave would enslave themself not to the free man, but to another slave. The servile soul enslaves itself to everything, it is afraid of what is good, as well as of what is bad, it is afraid even of what does not exist.

Free the slave? It’s pointless and absurd, it’s cruel.

XVI. From God man derives his being and his personality. He was plunged into the abysses of nothingness, and God, in giving him existence, committed himself to nothing, but committed him to everything. May God send him torment upon torment, man will perhaps owe him gratitude, always submission.

Moreover, he still continues to be before God only the nothingness from which he emerged; his ground is nothing, and the form which this nothing has taken has been given to him by a will other than his own. What does he have left for personal value?

Now, what are, vis-à-vis Omnipotence, what are the rights of nothingness?

XVII. Not being the cause of his life, of his inner principle, he is even less the creator of outer things that can happen to him. If the germ does not come from him, all the developments of the germ will be things beyond his control. Which means that the supreme fact is that of Predestination.

XVIII. The reason for predestination? - But there isn't, and there shouldn't be. Predestination is the pure fact, isolated from any consideration of justice and morality.

If a child dies at birth, and by some accident, has not received the waters of baptism, it is predestined to doom. Cardinal Séfrondate, a modest and pious man, had hoped that these poor innocent people would not go to the place of torture, but Bossuet, the last father of the Church, overwhelmed him:

"Low and angry feeling, which destroys the strength of piety, strange novelty, detestable error, incredible language which strikes us with astonishment! "

“The damnation of infants who die without baptism is of steadfast faith in the Church. They are guilty, since they are born under the wrath of God and in the power of darkness. Children of anger by nature, objects of hatred and aversion, thrown into hell with the other damned, they remain there eternally under the horrible power of the Demon."

"So decided by the learned Denis Peteau, the eminent Henri Nolis, the eminent Bellarmine, the Council of Lyon, the Council of Florence, the Council of Trent. And such things are not decided by thin reasoning, but by the authority of the Scriptures!"

XIX. Whatever happens to you of joys and sorrows, O son of nothingness, comes to you by the express will of Him who, before children were born, loved Jacob and hated Esau. He created light and darkness, the fiber to suffer, and the heart to bleed; it is he who created the criminal and the torment, and the wicked for the day of wrath.

On feast evenings Christians and Christian women were brought into the emperor's gardens, tied to posts, smeared with pitch, and that pitch was set ablaze. And these men burned in the night, and died in excruciating pain, while Nero, accompanied by the imperial ladies, walked by the light of the horrible torches.

Nero had the right to do so; for he was absolute master.

And what you abominate in Nero, with your hand on your mouth, adore it in the strong and jealous God, who decreed the birth of Humanity, so that all of it, except "the little flock," may be destined for the sin and sorrow, and with infinite happiness, he looks upon his dreadful agony during the stream of eternities, and says: All is well, and I have done this for my glory.

XX. To say that authority is absolute as a fact and a principle is to say: de jure and de facto you are a slave.

But who to obey?

Since authority boils down to de facto necessity, one owes absolute submission to the Church or the religious community, in whose bosom one finds oneself by chance of birth.

Your Church will therefore impose some sort of dogma on you. Without discussion or murmur, you will accept them; with love, if she orders it; whether they are from the Thibetian catechism or from the La Rochelle Confession. It is of no importance that you understand them; you have to believe them; although absurd, because absurd, if you understand them, so much the better, but if you doubt, you are a criminal.

To the Church and its leaders, who impose dogmas, correspond the State and its leaders who impose laws. You will obey them.

Who is the legitimate authority in politics?

This question was urgently removed from the jurisdiction of individual reason. Legitimate authority is that under which one finds oneself, whether it be that of a usurper of yesterday, or that of a descendant of the usurper of centuries gone by.

All power is sent from God, if you disobey the power, you insult the representative of the Divine Majesty, that is why you will be punished. The de facto authority is the de jure authority. The authority is the one who holds the scepter which is a staff, the one who holds the sword, and says to you: It is the sword of God. This sword will hurt you, it may kill him too, but would you resist God?

XXI. As much as absolute authority as a principle has denied relative freedom, so authority as fact will deny freedom of examination, which for it is the rotten fruit of a poisoned tree. So if we do not ignore it, it is not to clarify the question, it is only to better formulate it.

In examining the principle of authority, absolute sovereignty has been asserted objectively and a priori. Infinity being the cause and purpose of the finite, submission is required in the name of infinite power.

In the examination of the fact of authority, absolute obedience is justified subjectively and a posteriori. Man not being his own cause, man being only an effect, submission is demanded in the name of his infinite weakness.

This justification, for being only a way to put iself out of the question, is no less terrible. It is the authority that turns around and condemns who wants to judge it. Indeed, if it is in the nature of freedom to forgive, authority need to justifi itself only by irony against whoever doubts, only by lashes and swords against who fight it.

XXII. Freedom of examination is a lie or obedience is a lie. Because if authority is authority only after being accepted by reason, it is reason that is the sovereign mistress. However, the spirit of each one is subjectivism, therefore dispute; intelligence by its nature is individual. What did I say ? The rights of individualism are the rights of intelligence, and before authority, the right of individualism is the right of revolt.

Individualism and authority are mortal enemies, they only fight to kill each other.

If the review confirms the value of the authority's orders, it is unnecessary; if it is against them, it is criminal. Why roll the dice, why risk the unnecessary against crime?

Who says freedom of examination, says absolute freedom. This man who maintains the autonomy of human reason vis-à-vis all revelations, would this man then abdicate his freedom to bow under a yoke? It would be absurd, it would be bitter madness.

Does he submit himself who submits only conditionally? If religious authority grants the right to scrutinize the Scriptures, it grants the right to reject them; if it is permissible to seek the rights of the pope, priest and pastor, the sincere man and the hypocrite will be able to claim that they are void.

Otherwise, the so-called freedom of examination is nothing but the freedom to find anything good; the executioner allows this to his victim.

Such were the consequences that Lamennais and J. de Maistre drew from the principle of the Reformation, and by denying them Protestantism lied to its principle and was cowardly of heart.

He therefore accuses the authority which wants it to be justified and which says to him: Wash away your iniquity. Whoever doubts today will attack tomorrow, for doubting is the first degree of disbelief, protest and hatred. The protest is revolt, and woe to the rebel!

The authority covers the idea and the ideologue of a sovereign contempt, it would gladly do like Nero, who, going for a walk in Greece, forbade the speaking of philosophy during his absence. Mystery and criticism are two contradictory ideas, and the very notion of mystery implies absurdity in the mind of whoever would like to judge it.

What is your right to judge, son of ignorance and desire, nothingness and greed? To be puffed up with pride and puffed up with vanity, which lives only by sucking the void, you would judge the laws immutable and eternal! Say, blasphemer, who assert that God is this, that God is that, say, who are you? where did you come from? say where you will go Do you only know what is your thought, what is your will?

Whoever has not searched what is in a drop of water, would he scrutinize the mysteries of the divine essence? The unfortunate one would dare to judge the one to whom he must obey?

Why do you command the ox, the horse and the donkey, and impose on them the labors of hard slavery? Because you are smarter than the animal, that is also why you slaughter it and eat its flesh. Now the law which is just against the beast is also lawful against you, whose understanding is without virtue, and is only exalted a degree above that of the brute.

XXIII. Now, even in logic, the idea of ignorance resolves itself into that of sin, for ignorance can only be caused by estrangement from God, that is to say evil.

Sin has terrible significance.

Don't we say that the progress we make in our knowledge of the world and of ourselves is progress in the science of evil?

Whether you were created as one, or have become one, you are a villain; now, from the wicked one must take away his freedom and his life, if one can. You crush the barely hatched viper, which never bit or hurt, just as you crush the one you meet on your way. And you who, defiled from head to toe, dare to show yourself to the rays of the sun, you were created poisonous scorpion, poisonous scorpion, you will be killed and tormented.

The fruit of sin is death, and to him who has deserved death, the hardest slavery is commutation of punishment and a gift of mercy. For all sin is a violation of eternal laws, and before eternal laws there is not too great a penalty for the least of peccadilloes.

Sin, then, is the moral foundation of the idea of authority. Who says original sin, says absolute authority and complete perversity of human nature, and says that gangrene has rotted the head and the heart.

CHAPITRE III.

Sanction of authority.

XXIV. When there is sin, authority is the punishment. If the crime calls for punishment, it is the authority that gives it. The great sanction of the law is retribution. The commanding word says: "Do this, or you will die." "The punishment, say the laws of Manon," the punishment governs the human race, the punishment keeps watch while all sleeps, the punishment is justice, the punishment is the most powerful of energies. "

Since man is evil and corrupt, can he do anything other than evil? The good is then that it is passive, entirely passive. Being absurd and wicked, he will obey by constraint; of intelligence he must have only to understand the order, of sensitivity, only to feel the lashes.

It doesn't matter to the authority whether you accept it or not; What does the resistance of the captive do to the heavy chain which seals him to the wall? Authority ignores your obedience, like your rebellion; but if you brave it, force will remain with the law, that is to say, you will be crushed and you will learn what is the reason of the saber and the logic of the grape shot.

XXV. Political and civil laws, as de facto authority, will have their de facto sanction. This is why the executioner closed the king's procession. This is why the state is calling for the prison and the guillotine.

In absolute authority, Church and State are brother and sister, and all religions give eternal condemnation as the last reason for their dogma. So much so that the believers, who tied Arnold de Brescia and Michel Servet to the stake and blew the flame there, said: If it is right for God to burn the heretic throughout all eternity, it is our duty to burn them already in timely manner. The last religious formula is this: Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, or he will send you into the lake of fire and brimstone.

Summary.

XXVI. Man now knows what to expect. The earth is only one of the dark satellites of a dark star, an atom in the luminous dust raised around it by the ten-millionth of those blue, green or red suns, which seek some radiant constellation in the boundless fields of space.

Lost on this earth, which seems so great to him, lost like the infusor in the drop of dew trembling at the end of a straw, what is a man in the peoples of humanity, in the generations of past, present and future?

It is the drop tossed from one wave of the sea to the other, and which swirls between the whitening ridges; and the drop cries out: My life is agitated, it is stormy like the ocean; it speaks of revolutions and historical cycles, as it dies in the course of wave to wave, while it vanishes under the vault of an air bubble.

Your cries of joy and sorrows, O generations without number, are they anything other than the little sizzling sound of foam, of foamy foam that melts and goes away!

XXVII. With respect to authority, man is only one of the forms of nothingness, he has no right but to worship in the dust. His intelligence will never receive any other explanation than: I want it, and it is enough for you! If reason wants to protest against this absolute obedience, it is because the demon of pride is in it; it is that the man who thinks is a depraved animal. If your hand wants to disobey, cut it off and throw it dead and bleeding, as you would throw the slobbering head of a snake far away! Your submission should have no limits except that of your existence, miserable worm!

For it is not an exterior and passive submission that suffices, it is necessary interior and absolute.

The rights of human personality are not made for the slave, to whom the master owes nothing, not even his life. Whether the master chains him to the posts of his doors, so that he remains there from his youth until his very white old age, or that he has the body of the unfortunate thrown to the fish in his tank, the master is in his law.

The slave is one thing. He must annihilate his individuality in that of the master, he must “obey like the corpse,” submission is eternal suicide.

Slave of authority, do you understand?

XXVIII. It follows from the above: That authority is no principle of greatness, beauty, justice or intelligence.

That authority is a fact, and that this fact is that of overwhelming force, the fact of necessity.

Let absolute authority deny relative authority.

That authority denies in man all freedom, all reason and all conscience, and reduce his value to the value of nothingness.

SECOND PART.

RELATIVE AUTHORITY.

XXIX. Relative authority and relative freedom are just two sides of the same principle, that of the relative.

As much as the absolute is an enemy of the relative, so much is the antagonism between the two expressions of the same relative principle. So that relative authority fights relative freedom, and these two, leagued together, fight absolute authority and freedom. And yet relative authority has its source in absolute sovereignty, like relative freedom in absolute freedom.

XXX. Relative authority says that absolute sovereignty is impossible, by the very fact that it claims to be absolute. Man is not absolute, therefore nothing absolute can be imposed on him.

Moreover, absolute authority is absurd by the very fact that it places itself above, that is to say, beyond reason. Is absurd whichcommands absurdity.

Likewise, absolute authority is immoral in that it places itself outside the laws of justice and morality.

XXXI. Relative authority is now fighting the religion of absolute sovereignty, having attacked its morals and philosophy.

If the good and the just are such only by the will of God, if what is false and bad today could cease to be so tomorrow, the good would only have a value of arbitrary, arbitrary willed from all eternity perhaps, but always arbitrary. It is to deprive God of all moral value. This is to say that the divine personality is only a blind and fatalistic will, caprice raised to the height of the absolute, fantasy in the power of eternity.

What are the consequences ?

It is that chance and necessity, despite their apparent or real enmity, are only a duality reducible in the same principle, that of fatalism. Chance is the cause of fatality, necessity its effect.

So that the religion of chance and that of necessity are the same, so that the philosophy of the atheist and the religion of the God of predestination are correlative.

The philosophy of the atheist thus says: There is no God, there are only logical laws, and the harmony of universal laws. Everything is thus reduced to a mechanical-mathematical system of the attraction of similar and proportional, of opposites and homogeneous, everything is reduced to being nothing more than the product of the law of the vibrations of the strings, and of planetary gravitation. .

But why?

“… Necessity,” we are told.

For their part, the Muslim and the Calvinist blame the atheist for not leaving the idea of pure Being, yet the pure Being, the God of the Neoplatonists has only a much less real existence than that of hydrogen gas. As for them, they bring everything back to a primary personality.

Very good.

But this personality is only the hypostasis of predestination, which is only eternal arbitrariness, despite its name of immutable justice.

If in the first system all the affections, from the dog's attachment to his master, to the love of man and woman, have no more moral significance than the fact of a stone which falls under the laws of earthly attraction; in the second, all loves, including the love of God for man and of man for God, have no more moral value than the fact of pebbles placed next to each other by a idle child.

The atheist naturalist says: There is no God, there is only the impersonal existence of cosmic laws. The supernaturalist says: There is only reality the divine personality, apart from it, to imagine itself to be something, it is the drop of dew which believes itself to be the sun.

Materialism on the one hand, pantheism on the other, blind fatalism on both sides.

XXXII. After denying the principles of absolute authority, we will deny the consequences.

If man is evil itself, if he can only be an abomination, he is no more wicked than the rolling mill which by chance crushes a poor worker between its rolls.

If man is necessarily bad, evil is necessary, evil is only mechanical and material, that is, the very notion of moral evil is destroyed.

XXXIII. If absolute authority brings out the idea of sin and perversity, the relative authority and freedom bring out human weakness, and reduce the principle of human corruption to be nothing but that of the sin of ignoring. Relative authority and freedom therefore have intellectualism as their religion; this is what we see in these religions of compromise between the two opposing tendencies, such as Semipelagianism, Arminianism, Jansenism, Socinianism, and so on.

Indeed, the principle of relative freedom is summed up not in the principle of creation, but in that of a choice between two extremes.

Relative authority and freedom will therefore be summed up in philosophy. And what philosophy?

For example, that of Monsieur Cousin. -

XXXIV. But as soon as it comes to rebuilding the overturned edifice, then the union between relative authority and freedom disappears. One wants to take the most, the other wants to give as little as possible; and the struggle has no other logical end than that of a common death.

The relative authority will copy the absolute sovereignty, that is to say, it will reproduce the brass colonnades, the marble porticoes, and the granite walls, with slabs of clay and wicker trays. .

Instead of being based on the perversity of man, and his blindest unintellence, it will be based only on weakness and ignorance, and while one claims Omnipotence and that everything be nothing but nothingness around it, the other will have for strength only the weakness of what surrounds it.

XXXV. Relative authority as authority will feel the need to go back to its principle and will always end up believing itself to be pure authority and giving precedence to sovereignty over reason and justice, in other words: "order comes before freedom, obey first, then you will claim. "

By the sole fact of its exercise, relative authority becomes again theocratic despotism and divine right.

XXXVI. "Choose your government," says Freedom to Members of State and Church. "But stay loyal to it," adds relative authority.

This government, once established as best it can, wants, by the very logic of things, to realize the idea of government, that is to say to govern more and more. Relative freedom, in its turn, wants, no less logically, to be free more and more.

The struggle is therefore permanent; since there are governments and ruled, there has been religious heresy and civil revolt. Quite naturally, power will therefore compress more and more, just as freedom will react more and more. However, the compressive force on one side and the repulsive force on the other have the same goal: to break the existing union.

The old government will therefore be overthrown, another will be raised, and the struggle will never be more violent; for relative authority must reduce relative freedom, relative freedom must destroy relative authority.

XXXVII. If absolute authority is only a fact, with much more reason it is the same for relative authority which is only a compromise between two principles, which is therefore only their limitation, their mutual negation.

Relative authority is said to be the golden mean between absolute authority, which it calls despotism, and complete freedom which is only license to it.

The golden mean being the system of measurement, resent everything that goes too far to the right or too far to the left, because as soon as the two parties go to extremes, the union breaks up, the dualism of wills being irreducible. So, if a power understood its interests, it would only be the point common to all the parties (it is true that this power would only be one of the expressions of freedom), but always power is lost by ceasing to be the central point of opinions, becoming a party itself, an extreme.

The golden mean is the balancing of the forces; a matter of statics, it is the neutralization of all powers, which he minimizes; he protests against any energetic movement, for then how would he control it? he does not like life, because life cannot be weighed, nor measured. It tends to stand still, it tends towards death. Indeed, the golden mean concentrates the universe at a mathematical point, and that point is it. This mathematical point, having neither width, nor length, nor height, nor thickness, would be the infinity of littleness, if it were not the golden mean between what is and what is not; and how would he want movement, it who does not know what space is, how would it want Spirit, it who protests against infinity?

XXXVIII. As a fact, relative authority will translate into relative fact. It will be the chance of the moment that will become the necessity of the moment. These are the laws and dogmas of a day, the merit of which is to be provisional and temporary, and the wrong of believing themselves to be eternal. This is how civil property is that which has been owned for thirty years, without question; for under pain of an eternal war, there must be a statute of limitations for all usurpations.

On the other hand of religious authority which does not claim to be absolute, there are very few; for almost all of them give themselves an eternal value. But for a dogma to be absolute, the faith of the believer is not absolute; which is also a way of relativizing the absolute.

XXXIX. Telling the facts of civil and religious authorities, wouldn't it be a reminder of the shame and pains of humanity? We therefore refrain from doing so here, and stop only at the flow of ideas.

Authority being a fact, authority is necessary as long as the devotee, the serf and the subject believe that he who commands them is more than them, and that he is more than a man; it is then true, indisputable, for we need it, for necessity is the first of laws and the best of reasons; but the moment one no longer believes in authority, it is de facto and de jure annihilated; because if it can burn, it cannot convince.

As soon as relative authority, that is to say authority mixed with intelligence and liberty, has spend away its higher principle in favor of a people or an individual who has known how to assimilate them, it is then no more than pure authority; and it is precisely when it must perish that it proclaims itself eternal and absolute.

XL. Absolute sovereignty and relative authority agree that the measure of sin is that of their power.

Be it.

However, the authority being exercised by men, so much worth will be the subordinate, so much worth will be the master.

XLI. As far as the authority has been fair, as far it has developed the people towards morality, as far it will have done the work proposed by the tutor of Louis XV, who was working to render himself useless.

As far as it has been unjust, as far it will have developed the instincts of revolt and produced rebellion.

Thus the authority which is legitimized by the sole fact of its existence, is destroyed by the sole fact of its existence.

XLII. Who says relative authority, says authority which will end. For it can only have the practical value of time, accidents and circumstances, which vanishes as soon as we speak of God, conscience and eternity.

Relative authority is typified by paternal authority, which is also absolute at its origin. As long as the child is null as a force, he would be the victim of all external agents, if he did not have beside him a complementary being to be its strength and his intelligence. But as soon as the child is the smallest possible thing, it is only a question of relative authority, which in turn will decline in the face of the relative freedom of the child, from the day when the father has been somewhat wrong. ; finally, this authority will be nothing at all, when the son is morally up to his father.

Absolute sovereignty and relative authority correspond to the birth and childhood of man; however, it is in the very fact of childhood that it destroys itself by continuing; it is in the nature of authority to destroy itself by exercising.

This is the history of States, of Churches, it is the history of mankind.

Summary.

XLIII. Absolute sovereignty has proven by logical argument that it alone is true and that relative authority is absurd.

Relative authority has proven by the practical argument that only it is possible and that absolute authority is absurd.

Do we state an antinomy between fact and reason?

Yes, if there is no freedom.

Yes, if the freedom is not absolute.

- I believe in my infinite freedom.

CONCLUSIONS.

There are three religions, that of Force, that of Wisdom and that of Freedom.

The religion of intelligence is the religion of the golden mean, and like any intermediary, it has only a transitional value, and resolves itself into dualism; it is in fact only the perpetual antinomy of the ego and the non-ego, and the eternal attempt at union between the finite and infinite world.

Sixty centuries have slowly come to parade before the God of Strength, all peoples have come down through the ages to bow down to the dark Majesty.

The God of authority is the Sanzaï, it is the terrible Siwas and the heavy Djaggernaut, it is Zeus and Jupiter, it is the Manitou, it is the bloody Teutatés, it is the great fetish of the Kohi desert, and of the black inhabitant of Guinea.

This God they also called Jehovah, and of Christ with a heart burning with love, the wicked have made the minister of anger and vengeance. On Golgotha stands an immense cross, which rises above the rolling and noisy waves of human generations; and from the cross of the Saint and the Righteous they made a gallows, and to its two arms they tied the sons of Liberty, it is there that they die condemned in the name of God, and of the Man of Sorrows and infinite compassion.

Night covers the fields of the past, but if you look in the dark you will see the red flame of the pyres, and on these pyres they burned Vanini, they burned the noble Arnold and Savonarola, the heralds of freedom, they burned Jean Huss and Giordano Bruno, they burned the holy Joan of Arc. But will I say the names of the martyrs? Ask Torquemada, ask the Albigenses!

As for the people, they never recognized the man of God and cried out to him: Hail, O prophet! only when he saw her hanging bloody from the top of a cross. Who will speak of your sorrows, O martyrs of truth, you who have exercised righteousness! You have been stoned, you have been killed, you have been put to death by the edge of the sword, you have been grieved, tormented, you of whom the world was not worthy!

Oh ! when I look at the executioners dressed in purple reddened in the blood of martyrs, my heart trembles, and my flesh shivers. I shuddered with anguish and anger when I saw Faith, bloody Polyxena, dragging their hands behind their backs, before the altar of a black snake-headed fetish; they spread the dark veil of the criminal over her face, she lowered her head, then the priest cursed her, and the executioner plunged his knife into her chest.

Authority, bloody authority, I will not curse you, for I would make you hated by men weak of faith, and we must pray Forgive, O God, for they do not know what they are doing, to the executioner forgive, forgive because of the victim !

By accusing authority, I am accusing Humanity, and if I cursed it, I would curse my mother. For Humanity adores Necessity, peoples adore the Law of the sword with frightening fervor and immense cowardice.

All of them adore egoism, which imposes itself on other egoisms, and walks haphazardly across the world, all of them adore despotism, except a few men of desire and love who are lost here and there, near whom pass the people of the city who smile and say: Look at the poor dreamer!

You who cry out: Slave crouching in the mire, slave, with your head bowed between your knees, get up, get up, and be tall as a man! Poet, prophet, and you, preacher of truth, you are doing a work of greatness and nobility.

Help them, Lord!

Because they will be told: You are an ungodly and a blasphemer. They will be told: I excommunicate you, that is, if you take part in the meal of the saints and the blessed, I want the blood of Christ to become poison in your veins, and the flesh of Christ to become in you ferment of death

.Friends, in the name of the Idea, you advance against the sharp bayonet, and you advance against the whistling bullet, and you declare war on the Might, and you want to defeat the Force. So you will perish.

Let them cry out about madness, about immense madness! They will cry out about the madness of the faith and the absurdity of the miracle.

Go, noble prophet, go therefore and cry: That which is selfishness in the soul manifests itself in tyranny and bondage; what is love in the heart is revealed as Devotion and Freedom!

Our father in heavens, May your kingdom come!

THESE

Ubi spiritus domini, ibi libertas. 2 Cor. III, 17.

Ubi spiritus diaboli, ibi auctoritas.

II.

To argue with authority is madness. It accepts only one response: I am as strong as you, or this one, which is even better: I am stronger than you.

III.

It is said: Authority is the bond of beings, therefore it is unity; it is the first principle, it is therefore life.

Paralogism.

If authority is a link, it only recognizes the enmity of two pre-existing objects.

There is better than a chain to unite two beings, and all the freedoms there is attraction and love.

IV.

If the authority is legitimate by the sole fact of its existence, Freedom will find its justification in the sole fact of its existence.

If authority is only a question of fact, it will only have a matter value.

Now, if for the slave there is no Right against the Fact, for the free man there is no Fact against the Right.

Any power that wants to impose itself must be said to be of divine right; because man cannot have rights against man.

VI. If authority is the product of corruption, authority is corrupting.

VII.

Denying individuality, authority denies the immortality of the soul.

Without absolute freedom, the eternity of man is nonsense.

If man has infinite duration, he must have infinite value.

VIII.

I say that all Revelation, all Redemption was made against authority.

IX.

To be free is my right and my duty.

Protestantism has severed the vital root of Catholicism by depriving it of its principle of authority, papal infallibility.

If Protestantism in turn materializes in any authority, it will perish through authority.

Jesuitism and Calvinism represent the same principle of absolute authority; one stuck to the purely religious and metaphysical question, the other represented the authority of the Vice-God on earth, and stuck mostly to religion in its earthly dealings.

Jesuitism and Calvinism were born and died around the same time, today they are resurrected around the same time.

Representatives of the same principle, they have been the most violent enemies.

The authority of the last days had to be realized in the two most powerful extremes, the better to neutralize each other.

Because authority must perish.

XI.

If fatalism is a pagan idea, through Calvinism and Augustinism, paganism has entered the Church.

As far as it was in him, Calvinism destroyed the redemption of Christ.

XII.

One makes Christ an apostolic and Roman Catholic.

One makes him an "old Lutheran".

One makes a Calvin.

One makes him a rationalist.

Someone else does something else with it.

Certainly, Christ is the Christ.

XIII.

One make of Christianity this,

One make of it that.

One tastes of the nut only the very bitter husk.

One eats the fruit of it.

XIV.

God is the supreme objectivity only because he is the supreme subjectivity.

XV.

No one assimilates objectivity, except according to the power of his subjectivity. If I have no more self-awareness than the pebble in the road, I will not have the feeling of God any more than it has. My life is my love. -

XVI.

A higher truth would be fatal to a lower life. The fish that must breathe the little air in the water suffocates in atmospheric air.

Everything is mortal for the being who balances between life and nothingness, but for life everything is life-giving.

This applies to faith, to love, to all energies of the heart.

XVII.

It is said that two infinities cannot coexist without limiting themselves, that is to say without mutually destroying each other.

This is true for infinities which would be of the same nature. This would be true for the co-eternity of Good and Evil, the two sides of the same moral principle.

Is this true for infinities that are of a different nature?

I do not believe that.

I believe that infinite number of individuals would all have infinite value.

If the notion of individuality is identical to that of a being whose essence is absolutely sui generis, the notion of individuality is identical to that of infinity.

XVIII.

God is love.

Man is love.

End.

#someone can @ the christian anarchist for me #élie reclus #Christianity #christianism #anarchism #theology

3 notes · View notes

liliesoftherain · 6 years ago

Text

A Knight’s Honor

Ch 1 - Hold a Star

Masterlist

Summary: You are a female squire, who is not willing to give up your dreams of Knighthood to become a slave to society to save face.

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

SLOWBURN

A/N: Here is the first chapter! It’s like 2am but I couldn’t get it out of my head so I started writing and realized the direction I want this to go is going to cause it to be a bit lengthy. SO I’m not sure if this will really count as a full on slow burn but I’m going to try my best! Thanks for reading!

The sky was a hushed dark, the only present source of light was the wisps of the sunbeams that peaked out from over the hills towards the east. Allowing light orange and pink tones to spread and fade into the midnight blues. The stars were also taking it upon themselves to disappear, leaving a blank canvas that was ready to painted on. You knew it wouldn’t be long before the new brilliant baby blue and feathery whites of clouds took over and spread out as far as the eye could see. It was always a breathtaking sight to see the dawn of a new day, a gentle reminder of knowing you were alive and living your dream.

“Keep movin’ lassie, ‘therwise yoo’ll be missin’ yer breakfest an’ ye dinnae want ‘at.”

Well, almost living your dream.

“Yes Sir.”

You continued to scoop the horse dung, going almost nose blind to the smell as you have been at it for a good 20 minuets already. It was thankfully the last chore of your morning duties for today and you could go straight to breakfast after this. Lazily you look back towards the sky, a small sigh escaping your lips as you continued with you work.

It was, and would always be, a dreadful chore to complete before you were able to partake in breakfast. Even though you only had to worry about it once per week, it was still disgusting to have to do when all you wanted was the smell of bread in your nose, not the smell of dung.

Yet you managed, quickly growing used to the idea and trying not to let it both you as you scarfed down whatever the lovely kitchen hands whipped up. You could not afford to to be hungry for the rest of the day, breakfast was always too early and lunch so far afterwards. If you could call it lunch. It was mostly a quick snack you were able to have for a few moments before being pulled into even more duties your Knight deemed of needing completion, duties that were a must to get done before you could even think about dinner.

Being a Knight’s Squire was all around exhausting and not what you once thought it was when you were a child. Sure, you were able to do extraordinary tasks that you only once dreamed about, such as overnight ventures to different kingdoms and quests galore. However, with your great Kingdom at peace, there were plenty of thrilling tasks that weren’t needed, like following your Knight onto the battlefield and helping to protect your home. Yes, you were greatly blessed to be born into these peaceful times, not have the displeasure of the blood and sacrifice of war, so you often scolded yourself when you found your thoughts drifting to battles and missions alike.

No, instead of dealing with disastrous enemies of front lines, you found your action of the practice field, and Lord knows you’ve seen that all too many times.

You often times loved the feeling training provided you, yet you were always disgruntled when you were frowned upon due to your gender. Not by many, in fact there were many more who believed you had every right to be here, but others tended to disagree. It was hard to force someone out of their backwater ways, and it wasn’t even just the elders who held onto this ideal, it was from your own peers as well. One peer in particular really, and it hurt you to a point to think someone you have known for most of your life could come to loath you so.

To this day you still had no idea as to why.

As a child, you had always pictured yourself as a Knight. Dreaming of the day you were able to attend wild adventures and the freedoms it would bring. Your mother, who had wanted nothing more than to groom you into the finer life, was always displeased at your father who gave you the encouragement to follow your heart. He was a giant of a man, towering over most, feared and respected among his peers. Yet he was always so loving and kind to you, and threw memories of him always stayed no matter how much time as passed since he has moved on from this world. He wanted you to understand the importance of knowing when to rely on someone, and when to rely on yourself. Your mother thought it absurd for you to know such things, saying how once you became of age, old enough to wed, you would be tethered to a man who could protect you better than you could ever protect yourself.

Which was completely and utterly injudicious.

You were most definitely able to take care of yourself, and you found no need for a man to constrain you into a submissive lifestyle that would no doubt lead you to dread the mornings you were so fond of. All because that would mean if you were awake, you would still be in the nightmare of a domesticated life.

You wanted an eternity of freedom, not a lifetime in a prison cell disguised as your home.

“Thenk ye again lassie, ye wark strong. Jist need tae quit starin’ at th’ sky.” The man chuckled, patting your head roughly with his large hand.

This man, Sir Campbell, was a Knight you helped during this particular morning chore. He was one of few to come and serve the Kingdom from a foreign land, causing his differences in tongue and spirit. While this was and always will be you’re home, the feeling of some kind of sturdy connection was formed.

He was different from his peers as were you.

It was the similarities of the differences you carried that had brought you together, you thought of him family as he did you.

“The sky is an endless adventure, Sir. Can you imagine if we were able to explore the noble skies as we did the rolling plains of foreign lands?”

He grinned at your words, an own thoughtful expression pulling on his thinned lips as he held his bearded chin in mock thought.

“Lass, ye hink tae much. ‘en again that’s whit makes ye sae sharp-witted isnae it?”

You smiled back, eyes shining with mirth at knowing you once again thought of something your elder had not.

“I’d like to think so Sir, although I get my wonder from you, as you do not think of such things on your own.”

He barked out a laugh, horses whining at the sudden noise that had caught them off guard, and echoed around them.

“Ye will be th’ death ay me yit!”

“I hope that is a day that will never come to pass Sir, not until the stars have been held in our own bare hands.”

“Ah pray ‘at day come tae pass, lassie. noo rin alang, gang enjoy yer weel deserved breakfest. Duty will be ringin;’ shortly.”

“More like screaming.”

“Aye, ‘at Sir Hizashi surly can yeel i’s true. Rin alang noo!”

You bowed your head respectfully before taking your leave once you finished putting the shovel away in its rightful spot. His laughter still ringing in your ears, causing your mood to uplift as if following suit with the edges of your mouth.

You made your way to the water spicket that was as tall as your breasts, and lifted your arms to pump the bar till water flowed from the spout. Using it to rinse your hands and face clean of a hard morning, you then dried them on your tunic, which you wore over your chain mail.

You of course wore a protective layer under the chain mail. No matter how much heat you could withstand due to your ability, you were not immune to the burns and irritations it could leave if it was placed directly on unclothed skin. You wore somewhat lose trousers, but it was only baggy enough to not be mistaken for tight undergarments, as your tunic fell down to your mid thighs. A belt holding your sword was wrapped securely around your waste, the simple leather having immense strength to hold up not only you sheath and blade, but other necessities you found yourself carrying in pouches which were also strapped on.

A simple look, but the look of a squire indeed. Not one of a high Lady of the Court.

Your feet carried you to one of your most favorite spots, the place by the kitchens. It’s were the meals were held, meals of those who lived in the castle walls yet were unable to sit at the table that was intended for those of higher status. It was an austere little place, but that did not mean it wasn’t full of life. Few rows of benches were pushed together right near a door that led into the kitchens themselves, lanterns placed along the wall behind them. It was a place that was never overcrowded, but quaint enough to be able to sit together and laugh and talk about the hardship of the days like it wasn’t a problem at all.

You spotted a man you knew very well already sitting at the only available table, and gladly quicken your pace to reach your destination faster than your fatigued body would have liked. You snatched a roll from his plate once your were close enough, taking a bite from the delicious bread as you sat to his right. He barley glanced your way before reaching out to grab another roll from the basket to his left, letting out a sigh while he did.

“Tis too early to be dealing with you.”

“Ah, you flatter me kindly Shinsou.” You laughed.

“Anything but I assure you, (l/n).” Even with his exasperated tone seeping into his guttural voice, he threw you a small smile in welcome.

He enjoyed your presence and often did seek you out for it, ignoring the few who once scolded him for it years prior. He did not care you were a woman, woman or not you could kick anyone’s behind if you saw fit. You were here, just like everyone else, training to become a Knight. While many would complain, he knew you had the most reason to. Yet you never once spoke of the hardships of training. You bared through it, proving time and time again that you wanted to be here and you deserved to be as well.

“I say, you become Sir Aizawa more and more with every passing day, tis almost disturbingly so how you two are alike in manners.” You shook your head, grinning as you grab a bowl and began to fill it with warm porridge that was present on your right. That was one of the perks of finishing earlier than expected, besides having more down time, the food was still warm.

“If I am becoming my mentor than you must know you are surely becoming yours.”

“I am not as boisterous as you believe, Sir Hizashi is a man whose energy knows no bounds. No one can thinking of beating him in such a game.” You rolled your eyes, already picturing the assault your ears were to be faced with today as soon as you went to report. Sir Hizashi was a pleasant Knight and wondrous mentor, with many talents and a vast knowledge no one gave him enough credit for. Yet, he was always so terribly loud, often forgetting his surroundings and letting loose with wild battle cries and deafening laughs that stayed echoing through the valleys for months.

“You cannot play me for a fool, (l/n). I see it grow in you each day.”

“If you see me as Sir Hizashi then you must realize you will never be able to rid yourself of me.”

“Oh?” He raised a brow, a wooden cup up to his parted lips to drink the lukewarm liquid, “what is it that makes you believe such a tale?”

“Our mentors are both kindred spirits of course, they have known one another since childhood and they continue to be in each other’s life to this very day.” You beamed, a such intense look of happiness on your face Shinsou could not find it in him to pull away from it.

“How joyous,” his hand came to pinch the bridge of his nose as your dazzling look became devilish with the smug smile that taunted him so, “ you will only serve to deepen my scars of sleepless nights.”

“Oh Shinsou, I am afraid my presence can do nothing more to what is already permanently etched into your skin. Not even help it I’m afraid.”

“You may bet right.” He chuckled, looking down at you and plucking the apple from your hand that you had just picked up not a second prior.

“Oi-” He cut you off with a loud crunch of a now ruined apple, his chewing only serving to fuel your anger.

“You sly fox what was that for?”

“You always pick the most juiciest apples from the bunch, tis only natural I may want a taste for myself.” He used the red fruit to hide the twitch of his lips at your bewildered expression.

Your reactions were always the best to witness, always making an exaggerated face for no reason other than you could, or perhaps it was just because you never realized how much emotion you actually shown to others.

“I pick the tastiest apples for myself, not to share! You gluttonous cutpurse!”

The sound of loud footsteps heading in your direction caused the pair of you to halt your conversation and glance up, seeing a pair of Squires making their way to your table. You sent out a quick huff of breath, unsure if you were willing to deal with his attitude so early in the morning. Shinosu kept his mouth shut, unwilling to express his distaste as verbally as you, but still felt it nonetheless.

“Ah Shinsou! (l/n)! Tis good to see you both in high health this fine morning!” One smiled, taking a seat in front of you while the other boy took a spot to the left of him, diagonally from you.

“Kirishima.” Shinsou let out a curt nod, having no will ill towards this gentleman at all. Only confusion, if not pity, for how he has to put up with the child next to him.

“Good to see you in such high spirits as always Kirishima.” You gave a polite smile, quickly snatching your apple back from Shinsou’s unsuspecting hand.

You innocently smiled at the red head in front of you as if you did nothing wrong, ignore the glaring and grumbling from the boy beside you.

“You two are the ones in high spirits it seems!” Kirishima laughed as the exchange, seeing your pleased expression and Shinsou’s exasperated one.

“Tch.”

The noise caused a flutter of irritation to pass through you, but you ignored it and glanced at the blond who had not spoke a word yet. Focusing on filling his bowl with breakfast instead of pleasantries. He bit harshly into a roll, setting the ladled down once he finished scooping the now cooling porridge.

“Good morning Bakugou.” You spoke shortly, not wanting to be rude to the other member of the table.

“Shove off.”

You clicked your tongue, not knowing why you bothered in the first place as you knew that would be his response. Kirishima gave you an apologetic smile, changing the subject to ask about future events the current day will hold for the lot of you. He was always able to lift the mood so easily, no matter the circumstances.

It was an enjoyable breakfast while it lasted, save for the brooding boy who only chimed in with insults or annoyed grunts of disagreement.

“As lovely as this has been, I must be off now. I am assisting Sir Aizawa in his visit of a neighboring kingdom. We are simple escorts of the Chamberlain and his youngest brother. “ Shinsou sighed.

The sun was more visible in the changing sky, almost fully so. Only a sliver of it hidden from view as the sky lightened because of it, allowing the dim lanterns to be shut off and replaced by a brighter source.

“Oh,” You frowned, “I assume you will be gone for a few days then?”

“Three at most, if it can be helped.” He mirrored your reaction.

He never liked leaving you alone. He never has doubted your ability to take care of yourself, that wasn’t the issue. More so it had to do with the glaring boy sitting a few feet away, sharp crimson glaring daggers into warm violet. Bakugou was by no means the kindest man to his peers around him, but he seemed to have an extra special case of bitter anger for you that exceeded his normal gruffness by tenfold. Shinsou knew it weighed heavily on you, once friend turned foe all because of a dream. Yet you always pushed through, it was one of your most admirable traits in his opinion.

Your unwavering ability to overcome anything.

“Worried your protection will not be around to save you, (y/n)?” Bakugou sneered, his gaze never leaving Shinsou’s.

“You assume false, Katsuki. I have no need for anyone’s protection but my own.” You spat back, hating how the bastard wouldn’t even look at you.

As if he seen you as something less than a person, something that didn’t even deserve his time of day.

“Come now you two, please no fighting so early! Let’s end this breakfast in good spirits and go on with our day.” Kirishima pleaded, always being the mediator, bless his soul.

“A day is only so lovely when the face of that wench is not in my sights.” Bakugou hissed, clenching his teeth as he felt the anger rise in him as Shinsou stood and grabbed your arm.

You were half tempted to lunge at the foul-mouth boy, but Shinsou’s strong hand on your upper arm held you back.

“Leave the man-child be, let us be on our way. I bid thee good day gentlemen.” Shinsou spoke, cold eyes turning away from Bakugou to address Kirishima, the only person his goodbye was intended for.

“Enjoy your day, may it go by swiftly for you,” You spoke to Kirishima who just gave a wavering grin, uneasy at the tension that had grown. You faced Bakugou who finally had the decency to look at you, and you could see the vexation boiling in his eyes, “you hog-hearted knave.”

You left your farewell at that, ignoring the shouts he threw as you and Shinsou as you grabbed your dishes, bringing them over to be rinsed and then set inside the kitchens for proper cleaning from the kitchen hands later.

You glanced back at the table to see them both barley rising to follow what you two have just done, before turning back to your friend with a displeased frown.

“I wish you were not my voice of reason.”

“You would be damned if I were not.” He pointed out, turning to walk away.

“You are right, of course. Yet that does not mean I like it.” Your frown lifted into a tender smile as you reached out to stop him from walking off, knowing you going to have to bid your best friend farewell.

“Like it or not, I will always be.” He turned back to face you, saying those words on purpose. Understanding the weight of them. While the kingdom was at peace, that did not mean all danger was vanquished.

It was simply hidden better.

“Aw, so you do agree that we are kindred spirits? Shinsou you sappy sack of flour!”

“Hush your tongue, wretched girl,” He grinned, “You best behave while I am gone, understand?”

“Yes yes, I am able to to take care of myself and be without problems for a measly two days.” You rolled your eyes, mischief all over your face though the words you spoken were intended for innocence.

“I am serious.” He deadpanned, noticing the look that only grew at his words.

“And so am I.”

“I do not believe it.”

“You are right to do so.”

He groaned as you laughed, shaking his head at you in mock disappointment. His look then hardened and he took your hand in his, as if he were about to shake it.

“In three days.” Seriousness in his eyes as he whispered.

This was an unspoken tradition between the both of you. A silent promise to return, return alive, in the allotted time given.

“In three days.” You repeated, your grip on his hand tightening before releasing altogether.

A smile crossed you both before you took off down separate paths, you glancing up at the sky wishing to see the stars once more without having to look back at the boy walking away. Because you knew, Shinsou was the closest thing you would get to accomplish your wild dream of holding a star. It may be silly, but if it would be anyone, it would be him: a shining star who had the world beneath his feat and the endless sky around him.

However, unknown to you, a different kind of star was staring into your back as you left. This star was as big and bright as millions of stars together and was known as the sun. And be damned if the sun was out shined by a measly twinkle in the sky he owned.

128 notes · View notes

arlingtonpark · 5 years ago

Text

SNK 127 Review

0/10 This chapter sucks. Continuity is dead.

In my last post I said if we got flashbacks, it’d be damage control for the last chapter. I was right.

The first couple of scenes in this chapter are clear attempts to clean up the last one’s mess. We never saw Jean and Mikasa make contact with Hange, and here, we do.

Honestly, I think this could’ve been handled better.

Jean had something of an arc in chapter 126, where it seemed like he genuinely had chosen to follow Floch, only it turns out he was working with Hange all along. So I get why these scenes are presented out of order. It’s an attempt at dramatic tension.

It fails, though, because not enough time was devoted to showing Jean working with Floch. Jean stood next to Floch in some scenes. That’s it.

Let this be a lesson to aspiring writers everywhere. If you want to do a story arc, or even just a mini-arc, make sure you have the time for it. If you can’t spare the time to do it justice, it’s better to just cut it completely.

Hange’s character is much better served this chapter. I forgot to mention this last time, but Hange’s character was screwed over pretty hard last time.

Her arc has been about growing into her new role as commander. She failed to constrain Eren, and Floch, and everything’s gone to shit in general, and she doubts her own leadership.

Then, after escaping the Yeagerists with Levi, Hange considers just walking away and living out in the woods.

They chose not to.

This is a major turning point for her character. She’s beaten down and has a chance to walk away, but she gets back up.

This major plot beat has maybe a few panels devoted to it. At most.

We don’t see the choice get made. In fact, it’s kind of implied that Hange didn’t consciously make that choice at all. Hange is building a cart to lug Levi around, and he notes that Hange’s doing that because they can’t stay on the sidelines.

Was Hange building the cart because they’d already decided they weren’t quitting?

Or were they going to use that cart to carry Levi to the eventual site of their woodland hut?

Was Levi just pointing out that Hange is doing what they’ve always done?

Or did what he say convince them in some way?

Who knows, because chapter 126 is still a rushed mess on every level.

Whatever Hange’s motivations or line of thinking, it should have been shown during the scene in the woods, when it happened, not in this flashback to a completely different scene.

Character development happens when characters make revealing choices. Showing the character’s motivation separately from the resultant action dilutes the poignancy of that character development.

It’s actually worse than that because not only was Hange’s thought process shown after the fact for no reason, the moment the choice itself was made is not shown at all.

The moment where Hange is surrounded by the ghosts of her fallen comrades would’ve been sooooo much better if it had been in the forest with Levi. It should have been in the forest with Levi.

Hange already chose what they were going to do, so there is no gravitas to this moment. It’s just exposition. This could have been a powerful moment. Instead, it’s just Hange monologuing about their motivation.

When the same happened with Erwin, we saw his struggle as it was happening. We were in the moment, so we felt the weight of Erwin’s struggle. He was bearing out his feelings, agonizing over having to throw his life away unfulfilled.

In 127, Hange is sitting in a chair, explaining her thinking, agonizing over nothing because she’s already decided to throw her life away, and is apparently already at peace with it.

This is what damage control looks like. Isayama fucked up and he’s trying to make up for it.

And even then, we still don’t have the explanations we badly need.

Why did Annie choose to help? She’s not doing this because it’s the right thing to do, she just wants to see her father again.

How did they convince her that they could deliver on that?

It’s the same with Pieck and Magath. They didn’t want to just do nothing, but what convinced them that this was better than doing nothing?

Mikasa asked Hange what the plan was, and their response was basically, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

So in other words, they have no plan!

Jean raises a good point about stopping Eren: it’s a death sentence for them. Hange’s only retort is that it’s the right thing to do, so they have to do it. This is great.

Genocide is inherently wrong, thus the answer to genocide is not more genocide. With this many lives involved, tit-for-tat is not acceptable.

In some cases, there may have to be retaliation, but there are always limits. These moral limits have a general applicability to them. Of course there are exceptions, but they apply in almost all cases.

I love how Hange explicitly rejects Eren’s dumbass egoist worldview.

“‘Just bringing freedom to this island is enough for me’ Do you think a single one of them would be so narrow-minded as to say that?”

Eren doesn’t just care about Paradis. He doesn’t care about the outside world.

He seemed torn about whether to rumble the world. And he did cry over having to potentially rumble the refuge camp.

Gather around, children, because I have some very mean things to say about Eren here: let me tell you something about crocodile tears.

Crocodile tears are when you feel sad for something, except it’s fake, because deep down, you don’t care. The expression comes from an ancient legend that crocodiles cry for their prey while eating them.

Eren agonized a lot in the lead up to making his decision.

-rolls eyes-

What a drama queen!

Rumble the world, or not? If you have to take time to decide which is right, you’ve already failed.

Eren never truly cared about the outside world. He’s just doing this to bring freedom to Paradis; the lives of everyone else is a nonfactor.

It’s great to see Eren finally getting the dragging he deserves. He is, in fact, a narrow-minded ass.

Jean’s point still stands, though. And even though Eren is obviously indefensible, people still keep making excuses for him.

Hange says their “cowardly idealism” is what pushed Eren to do this. Note that this is the second time they’ve said this.

Uh, what?

Was making reasonable overtures of peace to the outside world cowardly?

Obviously not.

Establishing relations with other countries? That sounds reasonable.

Making contact with pro-Eldian advocacy groups? That sounds reasonable.

What about this is cowardly?

And what’s so idealistic about hoping for peace when there are possible paths to it?

Hange did nothing wrong. Eren is the one who did everything wrong.

Eren’s friends were actually working on a solution. They were trying to make a lasting peace between the Eldians and the world.

Meanwhile Eren was just bumming around not doing anything!

Could there have been a peaceful solution?

Beats me, but I’m not going to spend any thought on coming up with one.

By now, I think it’s clear that the point is that there is no peaceful solution. We saw Paradis try and fail repeatedly. The story in general has not even entertained a possible, peaceful solution.

Creating a Wall Titan “nuclear umbrella” over Paradis won’t work. Eren will be dead in a few years, and they don’t want to continue the Reiss’s gruesome traditions.

Armin’s idea of a targeted rumbling won’t work either because it’ll only increase the world’s resentment towards Paradis.

The point is that sometimes peace isn’t possible, but also that excessive violence isn’t justified. I don’t know how the story will end, but I don’t think it’ll be a happy one.

It’s always uncomfortable whenever the series talks about history and playing the victim. It’s such an obvious commentary on Japanese politics, I cringe every time.

Past Japanese war crimes are a very big factor in Japan’s relations with its neighbors. China and the Koreas are still indignant over the crimes Japan committed, and they feel the Japanese haven’t been apologetic enough.

Paradis is obviously a mirror of Japan.

Island nation with a sordid past that leads to rocky international relations even today. That’s Paradis and Japan.

The series’ stance is that these past events should not be such an issue anymore.

That’s not wrong…but I have a reservation.

The biggest flaw with the Paradis-Japan connection is that the Eldian Empire ended thousands of years ago.

The Japanese Empire ended 75 years ago. That’s not much.

China does overplay the war crimes issue, but there are still real issues with how the Japanese have responded. Many Japanese people are still taught a cleaned up version of what happened.

If anything, China should be called out on abusing the issue of war crimes for political reasons. Their government uses it as propaganda to rally popular support and distract from domestic issues.

In Attack on Titan, the Marleyans are not called out for that. They’re called out for playing victim over something that happened 2000 years ago.

The Marleyans, used by the story as a clear parallel to Japan’s neighbors, are portrayed as in the wrong because “it was a long time ago.”

Let me tell ya, that’s not a good look. What we see in the story is just close enough to reality to draw comparisons, but just different enough to be arguably offensive.

I will say it’s nice to know what Isayama thinks on a given issue. Annie calls out Mikasa and Armin on not being prepared to kill Eren if they have to. She aks how they know he’ll even listen to them.

Armin: we won’t know until we try.

Brilliant.

You can tell who’s side Isayama is on whenever the characters argue because the side he’s against will be the one with the dumb platitudes.

Mikasa: How are you going to stop Eren?

Hange: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Annie: How do you know talking will work?

Armin: We won’t know until we try.

Then…stuff happens.

Annie claims Mikasa will fight her if Annie tries to kill Eren, even if Annie’s just trying to defend her homeland.

Then Mikasa draws her swords for no reason, and Annie looks like she’s about to titan shift for no reason, then…Annie backs off for no reason.

There were definitely some plot beats missing here. Annie instantly goes from getting ready to shift to backing off. What happened?

And why did she back off? Her point still stands. She said Mikasa would fight her if she tried to kill Eren and Mikasa did not deny it.

The only plans of attack discussed have been (1) talking Eren down, and (2) killing him. It looks like they’re going with plan (1) now, but Mikasa is clearly not going to let Annie go through with plan (2) if (1) fails.

That’s a pretty important issue. And Annie raised it herself, only to just drop it for no reason.

Why does Annie think her time is better spent here than on a boat heading to the mainland?

Getting to her father in time to die with him sounds a lot likelier than stopping Eren, especially when killing him isn’t an option.

And then we come to Yelena.

You know, actually, this chapter has a lot of the same problems the last one did. Lots and lots of rushed plot beats that should have been fleshed out more.

One of the dumbest tropes in fiction is when a character looks into another character’s past off screen, learns sordid things about them, then exposition dumps about it.

Oh, look, this chapter exists.

This is lazy, lazy writing. Instead of a flashback montage with narration, we get some word balloons.

Why is this happening? Anything would have been better than this. There could have been a few more pages devoted to this. He at least could have come up with a better way to deliver this information.

Is Isayama just that dead set on finishing this manga before 2021?

Then Yelena delivers a monologue of her own. I can only assume that it is stupid on purpose.

Speeches like this have been given before in Attack on Titan. Annie gave one in her arc.

“You think you’re better than me?! Well you’re not! You’re a shithead just like me!”

-Annie, basically.

Kenny gave a similar one too. He said that everyone is a slave to something, even mother’s to their children. Then he asked Levi if he really thinks he’s so virtuous and then he died.

I mean, I don’t know what you’d call someone who, all else being equal, fought for the sake of their children if not a “hero”.

Yelena’s speech is dumb and that’s the point. It’s drivel that sounds smart, but is really just edgelord crap.

“You give yourselves to the sublime excitement that is the idea of saving hundreds of millions of lives.”

Christ, not this again!

Claiming good deeds aren’t really good because people do them to feel better about themselves is very common on the internet. You see it all the time on Reddit.

In fact, Yelena even says it like she’s trying to sound smart.

“The sublime excitement.”

-SIGH-

The problem with this reasoning is that it’s moving the goalposts. Yelena is redefining altruism and selfishness to get the result she wants.

You could think of many examples of people doing things that are obviously selfless.

Take a soldier. Let’s say their platoon is on patrol, and then the enemy tosses a grenade at them. The soldier dives on top of the grenade and shields his platoon from the explosion. But obviously, he dies.

That was selfless.

-puts on crazy, blonde, mop-top-

HOWEVER!

WHAT IF SHE SACRIFICED HERSELF BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO BE REMEMBERED AS A HERO?

DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT!?

Shut up I know this actually did happen in this manga that’s not the point.

Yelena has redefined selfishness to cover everything people do, and at that point, the word becomes useless. She’s wrong because when you think about it, “selfish” is a meaningless word in her worldview.

Yelena then proceeds to list off all the bad things everyone’s done, as if they’re all to blame for it.

Annie did awful things, I won’t argue against that. And she doesn’t seem very apologetic about it, so Yelena actually has a point there.

She also has a good point with Armin. Destroying the port was excessive, especially since it never ended up helping in the end. The port was destroyed to delay a Marleyan attack. Too bad the Marleyans just attacked via airship instead.

Reiner broke the wall, but despite what the man himself says, he was still just a brainwashed kid at the time. I don’t think it’s entirely right to blame him. He’s very apologetic about it, either way.

The Battle of Liberio never should have happened, but the Survey Corps was forced into it by Eren and they did what they could to limit civilian casualties.

It’s the same with Jean and Falco. Jean almost killed Falco, but only because Falco got in the way. That’s on him. Not. Jean.

Gabi killed Sasha, but it was a battle! Wars are ultimately fought to the death. If you go into the military and don’t expect to die, you’re clueless. There was no foul play with how Gabi killed Sasha. She boarded their airship, and shot her. That’s war.

She wants to believe that these people are just as bad as she is. Because if everyone is a piece of shit, then she isn’t so bad in comparison. It’s a common tactic people use to rationalize their own shitty behavior.

But she’s wrong, and they all prove her wrong. Jean can’t forgive Reiner, but he doesn’t let that get in the way of stopping Eren.

And no matter what Yelena says, it’s selfless what the 104th and Hange are doing. Long term, stopping Eren is a death sentence for them. They don’t care.

Leave it to Reiner to give the most Reiner response to Jean possible.

“I felt really bad about it afterwards.”

“Don’t forgive me. I don’t deserve it.”

“I’m sorry.”

That was the cringiest thing in the whole chapter. Good on you, Jean, for beating him for it.

(Not really)

This chapter was about everyone coming to terms with working together, but I feel it was half-baked.

Magath and Jean’s fight wasn’t really resolved, just dropped.

Annie and Mikasa’s fight was also just dropped.

None of the bad things Yelena brought up was commented on or dealt with. They weren’t dropped; they weren’t even taken up!

Reiner and Jean’s fight was properly dealt with, but that was it.

Now we’re heading into a fight with Floch and……I guess the emotional processing is over?

You know, I take it back, this chapter was better than the last one, but it still had a lot of the same blatant issues.

Rushed plot beats, unwieldy dialogue, and undercooked plot developments.

So.

On to the next chapter?

#shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk 127 #snk chapter 127 #spoilers

17 notes · View notes

growingstronglikeahighgardenrose · 6 years ago

Text

The Christmas Stocking

Pairing: Esther Denham/ Lord Babington Prompt: 12 Days of Sanditon day 3: stockings Rating: M Synopsis: After days of anticipation, Lord Babington could wait no more. On the stroke of midnight, he asked his beloved wife to take a look in her Christmas stocking. Turns out his funny gift wasn’t so silly after all. Sexy times for the Babingtons.

Available on AO3 as well

It was the 25th of December, the clock had just announced that midnight had passed. Christmas Eve had turned into the night of Christmas Day.

Esther Babington sat in front of her vanity, taking out her hairpins, when her husband walked into the room.

‘You are smiling way too much. What is it?’ Esther noticed with feigned annoyance.

‘Seeing you often brings a smile to my face, dear. But tonight it’s because… well, since Christmas Day has technically begun, we can open our presents.’

Esther bit on her lip and kept on feeling for hairpins.

‘Try not to smile, dear. I’ll start thinking my mellow behaviour is growing on you’, he laughed as he approached her.

‘You remain a ridiculous man’, she sighed as she let her head fall against his frame.

His hands took hold of her red hair and started taking out the remaining pins.

‘What does that say about your taste in men?’

Replies ranging from ‘That I care more for wealth than intellect’ and ‘my choice was limited’ crossed her mind. She would have used them a couple of months ago, but Lord Babington, despite his good-humoured nature, could still be hurt. She felt disinclined to say anything too rude to him, but her old habits didn’t die easily. There’d been times, more than she cared to admit, she’d lashed out at him without reason, or had treated him cruelly because she’d been annoyed by something else. She had a hard time opening up and telling him about her problems instead of trying to hide them by directing her anger at him.

‘I suppose I had the silly thought that the merits of you as a husband outweighed the heavy burden of having to deal with your abnormal cheerfulness and bad jokes.’

‘Quite silly’, he agreed as her hair tumbled down.

His fingers slid towards her scalp and gently started massaging it.

‘Which merits do I have?’

‘Are you digging for compliments?’

‘Another failed attempt. No doubt that if you decide to come up with a compliment, it will also be able to serve as an insult.’

‘You know me too well already.’

‘I like knowing you.’

A soft moan escaped her lips as his fingers found just the right spot to massage.

‘Alright,’ she decided after a five minute scalp massage, ‘you suggested unwrapping the gifts. Why are you so intent on opening them tonight?’

‘Not all, just the little ones in the stockings.’

‘Oddly specific’, she noticed as she critically studied his face.

‘Whatever could be in them that you are so eager to take what’s in them tonight?’

‘Perhaps I just like opening presents.’

She rolled her eyes and stood upright.

‘Fine, if you so wish it. You may hand me mine.’

His lips parted. During the months they’d been married, Esther had allowed herself to analyse his behaviour. She’d liked and enjoyed many of the things he tended to do before they’d gotten married… From his jokes, to his empathy, his understanding and his perseverance. But she had forbidden herself to think of his merits until she learned of Edward’s tryst with Clara. Turned out that if she wasn’t trying to find reasons to be annoyed by his behaviour, she quickly found things to admire and love.

Liking him, and even loving him, had come so easily, and his behaviour managed to endear him to her time and time again. One of the things she’d noticed was that he always got a certain expression on his face when she bossed him around, and it wasn’t one of displeasure…Rather the polar opposite.

‘Lady Babington’, he said as he handed her the large stocking.

She threw him a look and weighed the stocking. It wasn’t particularly heavy, nor did there seem to be large solid objects in it.

His smile grew as a wrinkle formed between her eyebrows.

Her slim hand disappeared into the stocking.

Soft, silky fabric… lace… silk. She formed a fist around the fabrics and pulled them out.

They were stockings.

In white openwork lacing, ivory silk, cream with lace appliqué and then… two pairs of black frilly stockings.

‘You are aware that you’re not intended to take it this literally?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because – ah…’

‘Are the best gifts not the useful ones?’

It was a truly silly gift, but then again she shouldn’t be surprised. He delighted in teasing her. He knew just what would get a reaction out of her.

She put the big Christmas stocking and the pale stockings on her vanity, and kept the black ones in her hands for closer examination.

‘Black?’

An odd choice for a woman’s stockings.

‘You enjoy wearing darker clothes and sturdier textiles, so it’s not like they’d shine through. They’d rather fit your shoes and dress.’

‘People will find it strange to see black stockings though, whether I’m able to wear them under my dresses or not.’

‘You could always wear them at home. I won’t look shocked.’

‘Won’t you?’

‘No.’

‘So just… The stockings?’

He swallowed, staring at the black fabric she was wrapping around her hand. His imagination immediately conjured an imagine.

‘You could wear one of the dresses you wear around the house, of course. I promised I wouldn’t force or constrain you. You’re free to do with them as you please, you can choose not to wear them.’

She noticed how he looked at the way she was wrapping the black stockings around her hand.

He seemed mesmerized by them.

His response to her handling the stockings, created a now familiar heat in her belly.

‘You know, for clothing items intended to safeguard my propriety, you seem far too fond of them.’

‘What I think is… trivial. They’re your present. What do you think of them?’

‘I think they are…’ She bit her lip in an attempt not to laugh.

‘I think I could find a good use for them. After all, they’re nice an thights’, she said as she gave them a pull.

His mouth opened and closed again.

He didn’t even laugh at her deliberately bad joke.

She didn’t need any more proof to know her husband’s brain had gone into hibernation.

‘I believe I might like them.’

She stepped forward and pressed her lips against his. As she did, she could feel his enthusiasm.

Would it be wrong to act out on the idea she’d just conjured?

He’d always insisted on her freedom. He wanted her to behave as she pleased, but it would be quite bold.

They’d barely been married for a season, she had little experience and little confidence in the field… But, there might be a chance he’d like it.

He would never make her feel bad for trying something, even if it didn’t work out. This was Babs, not Edward, he wouldn’t put her down for saying or trying something.

She stepped back again, unwrapping the tights and pushing him into her chair.

His eyebrow creased… He was questioning what she was doing.

Was it too weird?

He doesn’t yet know… Continue, the darker part of her mind encouraged her.

He was staring at her without blinking. He was obviously curious.

‘You might not want to constrain me’, she said as she wrapped the first stocking around his left wrist.

He didn’t offer any resistance as she bent down to tie his other wrist to the chair. She bent over in a way that he got a long luxurious look at her cleavage. His fingers twitched, but that was it.

‘But it seems you don’t mind being constrained yourself.’

She sat down on his lap, her left hand travelling to his nether regions.

She wished she could see his face, but she didn’t dare to look at him as she was doing these kinds of things yet.

A strangled moan left his lips.

Her hand shot away at the sound, and her eyes sought out his. His hips buckled at the sudden loss of contact.

‘Please.’

Oh, was he begging already?

She couldn’t hide her smile anymore. Any feelings of shame and awkwardness melted away by his positive response to her actions.

‘Please what?’ she asked innocently as she untied his cravat.

‘You know…’ she said as she took the cravat and tied it around his mouth.

‘They look quite lovely on you.’

She started unbuttoning his vest and shirt.

‘Perhaps, you should wear them more often?’ she suggested as she leaned into him while pushing his shirt from his shoulders. His chest was searing hot and warmed her colder body. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a couple of seconds to relax against his body, taking in his scent and the feel of his body against hers. Her fingers still played with the fabric of his shirt, which she only managed to get down to his elbows. It got stuck on his underarms, another piece of clothing restricting his movement.

His hips buckled again.

This time it was she who moaned.

Her hands shot to his hair as her face turned upwards to kiss him. But she was confronted with his bandaged mouth. She felt the need to kiss him, but where?

Her eyes travelled towards his neck… Hadn’t he kissed her there before?

Her stomach fluttered at the memory.

Her lips traced his neck, searching and finding a comfortable spot to kiss him as she rested her head.

A hum made his throat vibrate. The fire within her grew.

She felt odd, taking the lead like this with minimal participation on his side, but the nervousness excited her as well.

Her hands went from his hair to his back. She dug her nails in his back, an a move which never failed to get a reaction from him. He moaned and moved again.

Almost instinctively, her mouth opened and she bit down.

The next moan was so guttural and long that she was immobilized with surprise.

She bit down again, another moan, his hips buckled again, three times now.

Hers flexed in response.

She felt herself reaching the end of something… The game would come to a stop soon.

She wanted his lips against hers, and the weight of him on top of her.

She pulled back, regretting the loss of contact.

A red mark remained on the skin where she’d bitten him. As she touched the still wet skin, her stomach turned and twisted. Seeing a physical sign of her actions took her breath away.

His blazing blue eyes looked at her with anticipation.

She bit her lip. What could she do next?

Her fingers glided over his shoulders, and down his chest, her nails pressing against his skin. His eyes fell shut as she left pink nail marks on his body.

She remembered how the first few times, she’d been too nervous to look at him. He didn’t look like the sculptures, nor like Edward. He wasn’t as fit as the rest of his friends. Not that he was in a bad shape, but still, seeing a naked man, and one so different from the sculptures and paintings, had made her blush.

But now, every time he undressed, she got another feeling, something aching to odd fascination… She couldn’t look away. She liked the feel of his solid body against her, and now found the thought that she could’ve had hard muscles and sharp hipbones on top of her quite repelling, and every morning, as he held her in his arms, her nails softly raked through the soft curly hair on top of chest, and she couldn’t imagine wanting anything else.

She pulled her fingers upward again, the lines turning even more red.

The burning fire inside her belly had spread, and now the heat was located in her nether regions as well.

Screw it.

She wanted him too much. Perhaps next time, she could prepare her little act, instead of ending it so abruptly. But right now, she didn’t care.

‘Oh, Lord Babington, what a sight you are. Are you alright? You seem to be struggling. Perhaps… I should let you go to bed, instead of teasing you so.’

She untied his hands first, and only then pulled down his cravat.

‘You’, he breathed. She bit her lip as she stepped back in anticipation.

What would he do?

‘Keep amazing me.’

He took her in his arms, his lips crashing against hers with a burning need.

‘Extraordinary’, he breathed against her lips as his hands pushed her back.

The bed was close now.

His lips left hers for a second to remove his coat, vest and shirt.

His mouth found hers again.

Another step towards the bed.

His teeth sinking into her lower lip.

The back of her knees touching the bed.

Her falling down on it, her legs bent around the side of the bed.

Him sinking on his knees, eyes gleaming as hers connected with his.

His teeth craftily undid the satin chords keeping her stockings up. She could feel them slithering down her legs, followed by her husband's soft cheek and light stubble.

A tongue on her knee had her gasping for breath, and the cold night air kissed the wet skin immediately afterwards. His hands travelled across her body, pulling at all bows and buttons keeping her clothes together until she was completely naked, his lips followed every inch of newly uncovered skin.

Her head swam in a lake of never-ending ecstasy.

He never shied away from showing his love for his wife. But it left her gasping for breath each time. She wondered if it would ever stop feeling like this.

She used her elbows to get away from him towards the center of the bed, as he crawled towards her like a hunter closing in on its prey.

‘I thought it would be better to give you such a present in the privacy of our chambers, since it was a bit more private… But I must admit, I never considered this turn of events. Do keep surprising me, lady Babington’

‘Hush and get on with it, or I’ll have to restrain your mouth again… So you’ll know where your priorities need to be.’

A smile appeared on his face.

‘I apologize, I wouldn’t want to go against my lady’s wishes.’

‘You shouldn’t.’

‘Most certainly not.’

‘But I’m glad that I’ve found a solution… In case you forget yourself again.’

The last thing she could discern, before she lost herself to pleasure, was the gleam in his eyes right before his lips met hers again.

Perhaps the gift wasn’t so silly after all.

____________________________________

#12 days of sanditon #sanditon #Esther Denham/ Lord Babington

13 notes · View notes

oneyeargraduation-blog · 5 years ago

Text

The Many Advantages of Education

Offer this article preferences of education Knowledge truly is force, and chances are, you've just had in any event an essential degree of training accessible to you as of now. Shockingly, there are numerous spots on the planet where access to even the most essential instruction is seriously constrained. This is a miserable actuality, since instruction is extremely probably the best apparatus for social change, monetary improvement and success in a nation. To begin, examine this ongoing post on the manners in which learning is done successfully.

The upsides of having training are many, and it's dependent upon you to make the most of the open door that is ready for whoever gets there first. This course covers how to support your higher education without going belly up, so there truly is no reason for not getting the best instruction you can. The subsequent advance is really getting in, so view this course and find how you can separate yourself from every single other competitor in your application.

Getting decent instruction is the way in to our development as individuals, as it permits education information to be progressed from age to age. As follows are the top points of interest of having decent training.

Business

Applicants with training, whether or not it is in school or an exchange, have a lot more business alternatives than an incompetent specialist. The credits and accomplishments you make in your instructive field help to put you progressing nicely for an incredible employment. This lifts your freedom, and permits you to bring home the bacon once you get done with considering, and be a positive citizen. Individuals who have considered, and invested the energy to learn pro aptitudes are normally compensated with a more significant compensation, and are more monetarily secure than their uneducated partners.

Obligation

Effectively finishing your instruction shows you how to oversee yourself and be dependable. All through your instruction there will be ordinarily where you've needed to make penances to contemplate, or compose assignments – and you need to invest energy away from your loved ones. All to make sure you can pass your courses. Figuring out how to manage this, and assume liability is the center of finding what you're extremely prepared to do. In case you're battling on this part, look at this course covers what is basic in getting taught. Get this right, and it will persist into all parts of your life.

Rationale

Another incredible viewpoint about a training is that it shows you how to utilize rationale. You learn basic thinking as you compose assignments for your classes, and find the apparatuses and important contentions you can use to strengthen your assessments and back up your cases. It encourages you to see when you are being told lies, as you utilize your thinking aptitudes you've created to address and dissect everything that you're told.

Experience

All through your advanced degree you will be in contact with a wide gathering of companions, a lot bigger than you looked in school. It's from these individuals you'll find new perspectives, figure out how to acknowledge assorted variety, and develop as an individual. It likewise gives you a superior and progressively created comprehension of the world, and the significant recent developments that are happening in it. It likewise encourages you to construct and fortify your notoriety and social picture, which have a solid base in your instructive capabilities. Individuals take a gander at you distinctively in case you're "Dr. Smith", or Joe at the vehicle wash, it's a tragic unavoidable truth. What's more, an acceptable training permits you to decidedly contribute and turn into a functioning part in a general public, as we comprehend, and take an interest in the progressions and advancement that is required to make a network incredible.

Strengthening

Your instructors assist you with creating and arrive at your latent capacity, testing and pushing you as far as possible so you arrive at new statures, and accomplish far more prominent things than you at any point thought conceivable. Being taught sets up your autonomy, and gives you a solid trust in your senses and information to settle on the correct choices. It permits you to settle on choices dependent on rationale and thinking, and make your own reactions instead of basically following the pack.

Companions

All through your instruction you'll have numerous chances to make companions en route. In your classes and talks there will be plentiful opportunity to meet new individuals, and conditions frequently constrain you to work two by two or a gathering to complete an errand. Moreover, you'll additionally invest a lot of energy with your colleagues, so set aside the effort to find a good pace. It's in school and school you structure the kinships that endure forever, as you are united with individuals that have normal interests and offer fabulous encounters with.

Learning

The way to training is learning, with the goal that you can profit by the entirety of the mix-ups individuals before you have made. This base information permits you to benefit from the arrangements, and expand on what has been accomplished as of now, without rehashing the missteps. Strong instruction gives you a base degree of understanding that permits you to effectively take an interest in scholarly discussions, and makes you mindful and liberal in any circumstance.

Time Management

With numerous classes, cutoff times, and frequently extra family or work obligations outside of your learning, there will be numerous requests on your time. Accordingly, most understudies transform into viable machines, as they produce assignments and study for tests, while working low maintenance or taking care of their family. This weight compels you to turn into an ace of time the board, which will persist into all pieces of your life.

Get boundless access to 3,500+ of Udemy's top courses for your group. Learn and improve abilities across business, tech, plan, and then some.

Control

There's no preferred spot over school to discover that each activity has an outcome. Neglecting to get through a class implies that you have to rehash it, where in reality you may never understand the lost open door from missing a cutoff time or letting down your chief. Figuring out how to manage the outcomes of your activities in a strong situation is perfect, and will make you a progressively restrained person.

Social Skills

All through your training you are frequently compelled to communicate with individuals that you would not converse with in typical conditions. Grasp it and get familiar with the social abilities you have to exceed expectations in the homeroom, however in occasions, gatherings and get-togethers also. Building the "delicate" relationship building abilities is an awesome bit of leeway of training, and is reflected in the manner in which you talk, make recognitions and cooperate with everybody that you meet. You'll be vastly improved off than your uneducated partners.

Hierarchical Skills

Despite the activity you wind up doing, being sorted out is critical to accomplishment in your instruction. You won't exceed expectations except if you have an investigation plan, apportion time to doing your assignments, and furthermore balance your public activity close by the scholastic. The authoritative abilities you create as you ace the parity in your life will consistently remain and be an advantage to you, significantly after you graduate and are working all day.

Point of view

What you realize, and the individuals you meet as you are contemplating gives you an a lot more extensive image of the world. You'll get assorted variety, different societies, religions and puts, and get a genuine feeling of what the world is about. This viewpoint is one of the key points of interest of training, as it makes you fully aware of the open door that is surrounding you.

Potential

All through your instruction you have the chance to be presented to a wide range of fields. From bookkeeping to science, designing to expressions, there is the chance to adapt nearly whatever you could envision. This lets you pick handle that both energize you, and you're enthusiastic about.

Diminishes Inequality

For individuals that don't have a blessed foundation, training is the best equalizer. The accessibility of training today is substantially more common than in previous eras, permitting people from lower financial foundations to contend with most of occupation searchers. Having the option to increase a degree they are on a similar level the same number of others, and can ascend from their current level, lessening disparity, both at a financial and a social level in a general public. This course is incredible as it causes you find how to get the best training you can.

Eventually, a training is vital to improving the nature of human life. It's where the joined information, abilities, customs and qualities are given to the new age, and are fundamental in the improvement of a person. Likewise, the positive impact that these people can have on society once they are furnished with the information and experience to have any kind of effect is massive, and there is no uncertainty that instruction is vital to a world that is additionally an incredible spot wherein to live.If you want know more information about on click here.

#education #advantage of education

1 note · View note

pinkprimrose05 · 2 years ago

Text

Oh, well this is an interesting question! Personally, I prefer writing in the second language -English, go figure- for a multitude of reasons.

1) Most of what I usually write is either part of or related to schoolwork, and as it so happens, my Advanced English syllabus gives way more freedom with choice of words and expressions compared to the Arabic syllabus. Being constrained to only what I learned at school is an incredibly frustrating ordeal; I mean, if you want me to write something of good quality, at least let me use everything I know!

2) Perhaps it's just me, but writing in a foreign language makes it easier to view what I've written with a more objective lens, so to say. It makes the words somewhat detached from the thought and meaning I've put into them, so I can fool myself into feeling like I'm reading it for the first time by redoing the extra step of translating the meaning, and that helps in smoothing out any issues that crop up.

That's also why I decided to write my diaries in English a while ago; it's more comfortable to feel detached from an ongoing problem at the moment of writing, and it also lets me view said problem with more clarity later on, so I can reflect on it a little better.

Excited for this outcome. Especially because Tumblr is so English-centric, even though a lot of people are not native speakers.

As always, reblog for a bigger sample size.

Put the actual language you write in in the tags!

#see this is why i love writing #its one way to explore certain aspects of life in a different way #and one can always keep that to themself if so desired

2K notes · View notes

idolizerp · 6 years ago

Photo

LOADING INFORMATION ON XLNC’S LEAD RAP, LEAD VOCAL, LEAD GUITAR YOO JINHWAN...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 22 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 16 COMPANY: Koala t. SECONDARY SKILL: N/A

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): “silver tongue”/“smooth talker”: Jinhwan has a way with words, making him incredibly persuasive and quick-witted. Because of this, he’s very good at using his words to get both in and out of situations as he pleases. INSPIRATION: Jinhwan had always wanted to be a musician, and wanted to join a company that was pushing the boundaries of what usual popular music sounded like. When Nitro debuted with their quirky music style, Jinhwan took a chance and auditioned for Koala.T, hoping that his interests in rock could appeal to the company’s pursuits of niche markets. He was also a fan of Genie when he was younger, which boosted his interest in the company. He was accepted, and was overjoyed when Koala.T announced their plans to debut him in a band with rock style influences. SPECIAL TALENTS:

Can identify any note by ear

Master of acrostic poems

NOTABLE FACTS:

Spent a year in Japan while his dad worked out of Narita airport as a pilot on Japan Airlines, so he speaks some Japanese

Studied at Incheon Nonhyeon High School before moving to Seoul to become a trainee - did not finish high school

Has talked about producing music before, but none has been released

Enjoys American rock music like Aerosmith, Van Halen, and The Doors, as well as Japanese rock music like One Ok Rock and L’Arc En Ciel

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

Jinhwan’s primary goal for the time being is to get XLNC to a point of wider public recognition and ultimately public success. This isn’t so much out of concern for money, but rather out of his own interest in recognition and approval. As someone who is quite sensitive to the opinions of others, seeing XLNC struggle since their debut has taken quite a toll on his confidence. Especially when paired with the usual comments of XLNC as unprofessional musicians, Jinhwan has grown to resent their place in the industry. To combat this, he’s taken his ‘silver-tongued’ moniker in stride, throwing himself into every variety opportunity the company will let him get his hands on.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

Jinhwan joined the industry to become a true musician– one who writes and produces all their own music– and that’s what he’s still set on doing. He has a strong interest in producing, lyric writing, composing, but his ideas are constantly shut down by the company for a variety of reasons. Now feeling constrained, Jinhwan hopes that improving XLNC’s popularity and achieving more success will win him the company’s favour and allow him more freedom with his music tastes and opportunities. Even though he’s part of a band and knows there isn’t much of a chance in going solo, he’d like to get some solo production credits to his name, whether it’s for XLNC’s own music, a solo track released on Soundcloud, or for another group.

IDOL IMAGE

Jinhwan has a bit of a reputation as a flower-boy face with a playboy personality. Despite never having experienced a dating scandal, Jinhwan usually grabs attention for charming the cast on whichever variety show he appears on. Within XL-ENTs, he’s known as being one of the most relaxed with fans, often allowing XL-ENTs to blur the line of what is appropriate interactions between idols and their fans. He’s well-liked by male fans as well, as he isn’t the type to get embarrassed by their affections and encourages the same as he does female fans. Jinhwan is also a notorious lurker on social media, but he isn’t secret about it, and is known to like or reply to fans’ comments and tweets with hearts, laughter, or other emojis. He enjoys and thrives off of the attention– he’s even admitted that his favourite thing to hear from fans is, “I like you even more today than yesterday.”

Despite his friendliness with the fans, though, Jinhwan isn’t one to reveal deeper aspects of his personality to the public. The sensitive and prickly sides of his personality are glossed over with sweet-talk and brazen faux-confidence. As such, fans often complain that Jinhwan can be a bit of a mystery in some respects, commonly declining to clearly answer questions about more personal aspects of his life, such as his family, life before debut, or any sort of relationships– romantic, friendly, or otherwise. However, he only jokes about this when fans try to call him out– “If I told you everything, then there would be nothing left to be curious about~”

This leads to fans absolutely adoring any softer side they see of Jinhwan. He’s good at hiding any emotion other than happiness, so when something slips out, it’s even more satisfying for fans. His only openly emotional moments are when he’s performing and in his element, meaning his fancams are popular among his fans for proof of Jinhwan’s more emotional side. Occasionally, his secretly soft side can be seen when he’s talking about XL-ENTs. “I just want us to make good music, and the fact that you’re all here to support that… It’s the most important thing in the world to me.”

IDOL HISTORY

Jinhwan was born in Incheon, South Korea on June 17, 1996. He’s the first and only child of his family, which consists of his mother, who works as an administrative assistant with Korean Air, and his father, an airline pilot. He doesn’t have any close extended family outside of his grandparents, meaning that the focus was always on him as a child. Because of this, Jinhwan was always under pressure to do well— something that he resented, as he never had an interest in school. The only thing he was interested in as a child was music, and thanks to his parents enrolling him in piano lessons at a young age, he was able to pursue that interest early on.

Due to Jinhwan’s father’s job as a pilot, he ended up travelling quite a bit with his family when he was younger. Most vacations were spent abroad— sometimes somewhere exotic, but more often than not, his family spent time in Japan. When he was ten, his father ended up signing a contract with Japan Airlines and relocated the family to Japan for a year. Although Jinhwan was still quite young when he lived there, his family’s frequent vacationing to Japan allowed him to maintain his Japanese to some extent. This ended up helping him out in XLNC once they started their Japanese promotions, since he didn’t have to work as hard to learn what other members might have.

Jinhwan decided to become an musician as soon as he got his first guitar at age 8. His parents had gotten it for him as a birthday gift, as he had already become quite proficient at piano and he wanted to try learning another instrument. What they didn’t expect was for playing guitar to consume Jinhwan’s life– he stopped caring about school, instead focusing any spare moment he had to perfecting his guitar skills. They regretted their decision, but Jinhwan was stubborn and couldn’t be stopped no matter how much they dissuaded him. Realizing they were stuck, they pushed Jinhwan to audition for as many companies as he could, hoping that with his looks he would be able to make it big.

Jinhwan auditioned for Koala.T in September 2012, a few months after his 16th birthday. Koala.T was one of the last companies he auditioned at— he has already auditioned at all of the biggest companies, and while he waited to hear from them, he worked his way down into smaller companies. Even though Koala.T wasn’t the first company he auditioned at, it was one of his top choices— he wanted a company that was less restraining, and was hoping that Koala.T would give him that opportunity. He got a call back the same day, and within a few days, he had an offer for a trainee contract… alongside two other offers from bigger companies. Despite the arguably better chance at success with the bigger companies, Jinhwan chose to train with Koala.T, much to the disappointment of his parents.

An even bigger disappointment to Jinhwan’s parents was when Jinhwan announced that he was going to leave high school. For the first month of training, Jinhwan had been going back and forth between Incheon and Seoul on evenings and weekends, but the physical exhaustion of trying to manage school and trainee life, as well as the mental exhaustion of trying to focus on school when all he cared about was training, was taking a toll on him. It wasn’t a hard decision for Jinhwan to make— he had friends in high school, sure, but Jinhwan had always been the type to hold people at arm’s length, so he knew he wouldn’t miss them too terribly. Even if he did have people he was particularly close to, Jinhwan’s number one priority was always to become a musician. He told his parents that he was dropping out, and despite their attempts to talk him out of it, Jinhwan remained set on his goals. He left the school he had been attending, Incheon Nonhyeon high school, and moved into the dorms in Seoul to train full time. Jinhwan’s parents have always been vocal about their disappointments with Jinhwan’s choices, and they continue to express their disappointment now that Jinhwan has debuted with XLNC to lukewarm success. This is the biggest contributor to Jinhwan’s need for attention from fans, his stress about XLNC’s success, and his reluctance to talk about his family.

Jinhwan has never been in a scandal, although he has has come close. In high school, when Jinhwan became obsessed with becoming a musician and living the rockstar lifestyle, he ended up drinking while still underage. A particularly bitter ex-classmate tried to bring up these rumours after Jinhwan debuted, but as they had no pictures, the rumour gained no traction and was generally ignored. Now legal, Jinhwan still drinks, but rather than from a desire to live like a rockstar, it’s out of a desire to forget the stress he’s under. As such, he’s prone to drinking excessively, and not always in private– but thankfully, none of this has been caught by the public (yet). Still, this doesn’t sit well with the members, nor his company. Although he won’t admit it, he speculates that one of the reasons why the company hasn’t allowed him many producing opportunities despite his considerable interest in it is because of such behaviour.

Jinhwan’s flirty and friendly image covers up a lot of what he’s like behind the cameras and off the stage. In reality, Jinhwan’s sensitivity to the opinions of others means he’s someone who’s prickly at the best of times and confrontational at the worst. He’s quite self-aware of this, though, so he usually doesn’t let himself get to the point of arguing or fighting with others. Instead of confronting these feelings in more productive ways, though, Jinhwan tends to remove himself from the situation entirely and try to drown the feelings out. It’s now become quite common to the members of XLNC to find Jinhwan absent from the dorms after a particularly difficult day or an argument with one of the other members.

Jinhwan has always cared way too much about what people think. Becoming an idol has exacerbated this, and as XLNC continues to struggle, Jinhwan has become obsessed with reading netizen comments, social media posts, and articles about him and the rest of the band. He’s constantly stressing about what people are saying about them, what the public thinks, how their music is charting. If anything is aimed at Jinhwan in particular, that hits him even harder.

As Jinhwan’s ultimate goal is to make his own music, to not be able to do so because of the company is incredibly frustrating for him. That, coupled with the comments from netizens about XLNC being unprofessional musicians has led to a lot of resentment. While the resentment was originally aimed at the company, it’s now starting to seep into his relationships with his bandmates. He finds himself getting more and more jealous and bitter, especially if other members are getting opportunities that he had wanted for himself… But Jinhwan doesn’t say anything. Why deal with bad emotions when you can get drunk, flirt with someone cute, and drown those feelings out with good ones, right?

…Right?

#id.bio #id.koalat #id.xlnc #id.cha hun

1 note · View note

batgirl-87 · 7 years ago

Text

I’ve seen some zodiac/astrology traits posts for HPHM MCs which I’ve enjoyed and also really wanted to do myself so...

Adeyln-Keira Black: February 11, 1973 - Aquarius

Element: Air

Quality: Fixed

Color: Light-Blue, Silver

Day: Saturday

Ruler: Uranus, Saturn

Greatest Overall Compatibility: Leo, Sagittarius – Jacob is a Leo, Bill and Charlie are Sagittarius (Idk when anyone else’s birthdays are)

Lucky Numbers: 4, 7, 11, 22, 29 – Her birthday is the 11 (anniversary had been planned for Jan 29)

Date range: January 20 - February 18

AQUARIUS TRAITS

Strengths: Progressive, original, independent, humanitarian

Weaknesses: Runs from emotional expression, temperamental, uncompromising, aloof – ahahaha the accuracy of running from emotional expression! Yeah, she’s pretty stubborn and likes to be right

Aquarius likes: Fun with friends, helping others, fighting for causes, intellectual conversation, a good listener – literally yes to all of this

Aquarius dislikes: Limitations, broken promises, being lonely, dull or boring situations, people who disagree with them – she actually likes her alone time but being alone and being lonely are technically different things so… sure? (Oh there’s more below that proves this!); Yeah she likes to be right

Aquarius-born are shy and quiet, but on the other hand they can be eccentric and energetic. However, in both cases, they are deep thinkers and highly intellectual people who love helping others. They are able to see without prejudice, on both sides, which makes them people who can easily solve problems.

Although they can easily adapt to the energy that surrounds them, Aquarius-born have a deep need to be some time alone and away from everything, in order to restore power. People born under the Aquarius sign, look at the world as a place full of possibilities.- Idk about that, especially at the moment with Jacob and everything, pretty pessimistic

Aquarius is an air sign, and as such, uses his mind at every opportunity. If there is no mental stimulation, they are bored and lack a motivation to achieve the best result.

The ruling planet of Aquarius, Uranus has a timid, abrupt and sometimes aggressive nature, but it also gives Aquarius visionary quality. They are capable of perceiving the future and they know exactly what they want to be doing five or ten years from now. – she will cut a bitch and punch you in the throat!

Uranus also gave them the power of quick and easy transformation (animagus? =p), so they are known as thinkers, progressives and humanists. They feel good in a group or a community, so they constantly strive to be surrounded by other people.

The biggest problem for Aquarius-born is the feeling that they are limited or constrained. Because of the desire for freedom and equality for all, they will always strive to ensure freedom of speech and movement. Aquarius-born have a reputation for being cold and insensitive persons, but this is just their defense mechanism against premature intimacy. They need to learn to trust others and express their emotions in a healthy way. – Call out to my MC!

AQUARIUS LOVE AND SEX

Intellectual stimulation is by far the greatest aphrodisiac for Aquarius. There's nothing that can attract an Aquarius more than an interesting conversation with a person. Openness, communication, imagination and willingness to risk are the qualities that fit well in the perspective of life of this zodiac sign. Their compatibility with other signs can be complex, Integrity and honesty are essential for anyone who wants a long-term relationship with this dynamic person. In love, they are loyal, committed and not at all possessive - they give independence to their partners and consider them as equals. – She may be a bit possessive though… maybe protective is a better word for it?

AQUARIUS FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Although Aquarius-born are communicative, they need time to get close to people. Considering that they are highly sensitive people, closeness to them means vulnerability.

Their immediacy behavior combined with their strong views, makes them a challenge to meet. Aquarius will do anything for a loved one to the point of self-sacrifice if necessary.

Their friends should possess these three qualities: creativity, intellect and integrity. When it comes to family, their expectations are nothing less. Although they have a sense of duty to relatives, they will not maintain close ties if the same expectations as in friendship are not fulfilled.

Aquarius – Fixed Quality

The sign of Aquarius belongs to the element of Air, and its fixed quality is probably the most difficult to understand. It comes with the middle of winter and stands for the coldest time of year. In a way, this is a combination that speaks of hibernation and preparation to wake up from a long sleep. This might be the best image to depict an Aquarius. Air never stops, it moves quicker than anyone else, and when it is fixed, it seems to be trapped in its movements without the ability to ever stop. This explains the stress and limit breaking of all Aquarians, as well as their need to fight the system and anything that takes control over their activities.

And because I find Birthday Horoscopes interesting…

February 11th Persona Profile

People born specifically on the 11th of February are believed to have a charismatic, bright and authoritative temperament. This sits alongside the wonderful typical Aquarian imagination and friendliness. The ruling astrological planet for this particular day is the Moon giving you evenly balanced views and priorities. If you have this birthday the ability to harmonize your life without losing focus of your ambitions and responsibilities will be strong. – She’s going to find her brother, be Quidditch Captain, win a World Cup, become Prefect, and graduate with high marks!

You are also quite competitive and socially aware for a water bearer and will generally take life's little disappointments with much resilience. Your lightheartedness is just the right amount to offset your sometimes too serious nature. Individuals with a February the eleventh birthday are friendly, warm, loyal and hardworking with a good sense of direction. Although you are fairly instinctive in your approach to life this perception does not always extend to emotional situations. – Idk about friendly, she comes off as pretty cold before getting to know her and getting close; not sure about a good sense of direction, she has no idea what to do after Hogwarts; but very competitive and has a good sense of humor to balance out her also serious, and admittedly dramatic, nature.

February 11th Personal Relationships

For an Aquarian, the person born on the eleventh day of February is not unusual in their partner preferences of both a friend and a lover. You will ordinarily get bored very quickly with any personal relationship that is mostly physical. (– Doesn’t care much for physical contact.) To you, especially when you are younger, romance is often regarded in second place to your other objectives. (– Absolutely!) A single status seems to suit you for quite a while as you enjoy its freedoms but you will eventually long for the security of a long term love union. In a soul mate you seek someone who can fulfill your ideals of an ultimate body and mind closeness and trust. They must be understanding of your ambitious motivations and be able to appeal to, and reason with, your intellectual side. Committing to a romantic partnership may be difficult but you do it wholeheartedly and will be totally devoted once betrothed to another.

February 11th Strengths and Weaknesses

The strongest parts of your character are probably in your inventive thought, helpfulness and humble appreciation. These strengths make you a popular individual who appears to be highly resourceful (hello, Slytherin!) and admirably equal in their give and take allocation. Identifiable personality weaknesses for those born on February 11th are your tendencies to be occasionally excessive or insensitive. These negative idiosyncrasies occur most often when you are completely absorbed in something. You are also likely to get rather grumpy if you are distracted during one of your periods of creative thought as it disrupts the flow. – Don’t throw off her groove!

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #hphm mc #my mc #personal #hp oc #long post #i know no one cares #but i'm excited to create a character and get back into all this again #and i love learning about other's characters #astrology #it won't let me add a read more link sorry!

5 notes · View notes

lindentreeisle · 7 years ago

Text

The Masterpiece Cakeshop decision, for the layman

Hey, y’all. I know there’s a lot of alerts going out now about this decision being released, and as is usual in these situations, there’s going to be a LOT of bad, panicked reporting by people who haven’t read the decision or don’t understand it. I was just reading it and explaining it to my brother, so I thought I’d put something up here.

Here’s the short version:

They ruled for the baker

But it was very narrow, so don’t freak out

The Commission that heard the discrimination complaint and ruled against the baker was unfair, so he gets a new hearing

The Court did not give the ok to discrimination

More below the cut if you want to see detailed explanations/analysis.

First, the opinion is here, if you want to give it a read yourself. Second, DON’T PANIC. Yes, the baker won. But he won on a very narrow grounds, and not the ones his bigoted supporters leaned heavily on. This is not an all-out victory for the forces of discrimination. And while a total defeat of the baker would have been better, in the current Supreme Court “it could have been worse” is not the worst result we could have had.

There’s going to be a lot of legal analysis (check out Scotusblog for a good sampling of analysis by lawyers) but my quick and dirty take is that the Supreme Court punted. I think the Court desperately wanted to avoid making a Big Decision on whether the state has a right to bar discrimination when it’s based on religious belief. They may well have not had a clear majority either way. And Justice Kennedy, who wrote the opinion for the majority, is a well-known swing vote. So what they were able to get 7 of 9 to sign on to is a victory for the baker that avoids making any declarations that are generally applicable: a very case-specific decision that will be hard for anti-gay bigots to use as a weapon.

The ruling was essentially that the baker had a right to “neutral and respectful consideration of his claims” when he was brought before the Colorado Commission on Civil Rights and pled religious belief as a reason for his discriminatory practices. (This is, in my view, an extremely pissant argument.) The opinion talks about how the commissioners made comments at the public hearing that were negative towards the baker, and therefore indicated that they were biased against his religious beliefs. Justice Kennedy adopts a scandalized tone when he says that the commissioners actually compared the baker’s practices to defenses of slavery and the holocaust!!! But what the commissioner actually said was that religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, including things like slavery and the holocaust. Which is...you know...a fact. I guess it’s discrimination against religion to state facts that make religion look bad?

The majority also compares the Commission’s handling of this complaint to several other complaints where they upheld the rights of bakers to refuse to make cakes with anti-gay messages, and says that this is an indicator that the Commission was biased against religion. Of course this is a completely false equivalence; the bakery case is not about whether or not a business has to produce a first amendment expression they disagree with, it’s about whether a business can disregard public accommodation laws by claiming he doesn’t believe in them. To be plainer, saying these two situations are identical is like saying a business refusing to sell bumper stickers to black people is the same as a business refusing to print “fuck n**s” bumper stickers. You don’t have to be a lawyer to see those two things are not the same.

If the punting didn’t tell you already, you can see how deeply divisive this case was based on the fact that there are THREE concurrent opinions and one dissent. he dissent is by Ginsburg and Sotomayor, who unsurprisingly view this as a clear-cut case of discrimination that the Commission correctly identified as such. The concurrences are interesting only in that they tell you where particular justices stand and therefore what they are likely to do in future cases; concurrences do not make new law and can be cited only as non-binding statements, which we call “dicta.”

Kagan wrote a concurrence in which Breyer joined, solely to point out the false equivalence of comparing the baker who wouldn’t serve gay grooms-to-be to the bakers refusing to make cakes with anti-gay messages, and state that they felt the difference in results was based on a neutral reading of the discrimination law. Gorsuch wrote a concurrence in which Alito joined, leaning heavily on the false equivalence and how it proves religious discrimination. He says that because the Commission was so mean to the baker, they need to just give him the same ruling that it gave the bakers who refused to make cakes with bigoted messages. Thomas wrote a concurrence in which Gorsuch joined, saying that he would have found that baking a custom cake is a creative endeavor entitled to first amendment protection. (This was the biggest argument of the bigoted set, not surprising that Thomas liked it.)

No surprises on this one. Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas firmly on the religious nutjob side; Ginsburg and Sotomayor on the progressive side; Kagan, Breyer, Kennedy, and Roberts hugging the fence. Roberts didn’t sign on to either of the conservative concurrences, which is strange- especially given his vehement dissent from the Obergefell decision, which found that marriage was a fundamental right for gay as well as straight couples.

What’s interesting, and what I’m sure has progressive lawyers salivating, are the meaty bones tossed to the anti-discrimination advocates by the majority opinion. Despite the concurrences, six justices signed on to the majority, which is therefore not a plurality and will be cited as the law of the case. So when future lawyers are writing their briefs and type “Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission said...” they can follow it with:

“The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws.”

“Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts”

“Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.”

“Yet if that exception were not confined, then a long list of persons who provide goods and services for marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay persons, thus resulting in a community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations.”

“Petitioners conceded, moreover, that if a baker refused to sell any goods or any cakes for gay weddings, that would be a different matter and the State would have a strong case under this Court’s precedents that this would be a denial of goods and services that went beyond any protected rights of a baker who offers goods and services to the general public and is subject to a neutrally applied and generally applicable public accommodations law.”

“And any decision in favor of the baker would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect be allowed to put up signs saying “no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages,” something that would impose a serious stigma on gay persons.”

So while delivering a victory for an individual bigot, the majority opinion of the Court made it ABUNDANTLY clear that the state absolutely has the right to regulate businesses to protect gay people from discrimination, and that an absolute refusal to serve gay people based on religious belief would be illegal. I consider this important: not only is it a slap in the face for anti-gay bigots, the simple fact is that whenever you make a legal argument, even something that should be simple and obvious, you need to be able to cite the law or precedent to support what you’re saying. The quotes above are a pile of ammo for any lawyers briefing or arguing the issue of LGBTQ discrimination.

#masterpiece cakeshop #lgbtq issues #lgbtq civil rights #civil rights #discrimination #public accommodations law #supreme court

16 notes · View notes

rurulaura · 8 years ago

Text

Chosen Children ZOdiac

Here is my own headcanons about the Chosen Children and the Zodiac signs they are. I know most people like to put one zodiac sign per kid. But I just couldn’t do that.

Taichi - Aries -

Strengths: Courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, passionate

Weaknesses: Impatient, moody, short-tempered, impulsive, aggressive

Aries likes: Comfortable clothes, taking on leadership roles, physical challenges, individual sports

“ Aries rules the head and leads with the head, often literally walking head first, leaning forwards for speed and focus. Its representatives are naturally brave and rarely afraid of trial and risk. They possess youthful strength and energy, regardless of their age and quickly perform any given tasks. “

Taichi was shown a lot in Adventuer to be reckless and go head first into things without a second thought. Like when Sora is kidnapped by Nanomon, only then does that start his journey to think things through. But he still has the determination to finish things. Like in the latest movie, Symbiosis, he came to the decision to save Meicoomon, eveen if that meant killing her. Because he trusted Meiko’s word. Despite protest from Yamato, he was driven to accomplish that.

Yamato - Scorpio

Strengths: Resourceful, brave, passionate, stubborn, a true friend

Weaknesses: Distrusting, jealous, secretive, violent

Scorpio likes: Truth, facts, being right, longtime friends, teasing, a grand passion

Scorpio dislikes: Dishonesty, revealing secrets, passive people

“ Scorpio-born are passionate and assertive people. They are determined and decisive, and will research until they find out the truth. Scorpio is a great leader, always aware of the situation and also features prominently in resourcefulness. “

Taichi and Yamato commonly butt heads because they are so passionate in their beliefs. Yamato always tried to be rational and more realistic, while Taichi thought more emotionally what was best for everyone.

Yamato was shown to get so jealous of Taichi that it caused a rift between the team later in Adventure. Yet, it was what brought them together. Yamato still looks to take care of everyone when Taichi ‘dies’ in the end of Symbiosis. He is very much leader #2 in the group.

Sora - Cancer

Strengths: Tenacious, highly imaginative, loyal, emotional, sympathetic, persuasive

Weaknesses: Moody, pessimistic, suspicious, manipulative, insecure

Cancer likes: Art, home-based hobbies, relaxing near or in water, helping loved ones, a good meal with friends

Cancer dislikes: Strangers, any criticism of Mom, revealing of personal life” As children, they don't have enough coping and defensive mechanisms for the outer world, and have to be approached with care and understanding, for that is what they give in return.

“ As children, they don't have enough coping and defensive mechanisms for the outer world, and have to be approached with care and understanding, for that is what they give in return. “

Sora is a hard person to read. She keeps all of her feelings to herself and it eventually consumes her, via the dark cave. As she grew to understand her Mom and Piyomon, she was able to help others in return. Even in tri. she is seen helping others get through their hard moments (Meiko and Mimi) and making sure everyone is happy, making food for everyone in the Digital world. Also calling everyone in Confession to make sure everyone is taking care of themselves.

Mimi - Aquarius

Strengths: Progressive, original, independent, humanitarian

Weaknesses: Runs from emotional expression, temperamental, uncompromising, aloof

Aquarius likes: Fun with friends, helping others, fighting for causes, intellectual conversation, a good listener

Aquarius dislikes: Limitations, broken promises, being lonely, dull or boring situations, people who disagree with them

“ The biggest problem for Aquarius-born is the feeling that they are limited or constrained. Because of the desire for freedom and equality for all, they will always strive to ensure freedom of speech and movement. Aquarius-born have a reputation for being cold and insensitive persons, but this is just their defence mechanism against premature intimacy. They need to learn to trust others and express their emotions in a healthy way. “

In Adventure, Mimi hated having to fight, watching comrades die one after another. She even needed to leave the group to clear her head. But in the end she found her will to fight and even brought an army with her to help fight the Dark Masters.

In tri. she is much more carefree and expressive. But it comes off as selfish because she’s not taking everyone’s thoughts into consideration. Feeling like she was being constrained bothered her to the point she wasn’t motivated to do the cafe anymore and didn't want to trust her instincts to fight to get Meicoomon back.

After realizing it’s ok to be a little loud, she continues to wow the group with her food creations. and wild bikini party ideas

Koushirou - Virgo

Strengths: Loyal, analytical, kind, hardworking, practical

Weaknesses: Shyness, worry, overly critical of self and others, all work and no play

Virgo likes: Animals, healthy food, books, nature, cleanliness

Virgo dislikes: Rudeness, asking for help, taking center stage

“ Virgos are always paying attention to the smallest details and their deep sense of humanity makes them one of the most careful signs of the zodiac. Their methodical approach to life ensures that nothing is left to chance, and although they are often tender, their heart might be closed for the outer world. This is a sign often misunderstood, not because they lack the ability to express, but because they won’t accept their feelings as valid, true, or even relevant when opposed to reason. The symbolism behind the name speaks well of their nature, born with a feeling they are experiencing everything for the first time. “

Koushirou has always been lost in his own thoughts, continuing to ramble on even if no one was listening. He takes pride in being able to find the answer to any solution. But loses face when he couldn’t find one.

He is also very loyal to his friends, even putting himself below them. He calls everyone with “-san” even if they are younger than him. He has grown out of this and learn to even see people’s emotions and react to them more. But in tri., it was evident he struggled with giving himself some credit.

Jou - Taurus

Strengths: Reliable, patient, practical, devoted, responsible, stable

Weaknesses: Stubborn, possessive, uncompromising

Taurus likes: Gardening, cooking, music, romance, high quality clothes, working with hands

“ Practical and well-grounded, Taurus is the sign that harvests the fruits of labor. They feel the need to always be surrounded by love and beauty, turned to the material world, hedonism, and physical pleasures. People born with their Sun in Taurus are sensual and tactile, considering touch and taste the most important of all senses. Stable and conservative, this is one of the most reliable signs of the zodiac, ready to endure and stick to their choices until they reach the point of personal satisfaction. “

Good ol’ Reliable Jou. He is the papa to the group like Sora is the Mama. Taking people’s health and safety into consideration, and even more so when he’s the oldest and must take responsibility.

In tri. especially, he struggled to not see things from a realistic stance. Why couldn’t the other Chosen take care of the Digimon? Why did it have to be them again, when it was time ot be an adult? Jou learned to not be so strict with materialistic views.

Takeru - Strengths: Generous, idealistic, great sense of humor

Weaknesses: Promises more than can deliver, very impatient, will say anything no matter how undiplomatic

Sagittarius likes: Freedom, travel, philosophy, being outdoors

Sagittarius dislikes: Clingy people, being constrained, off-the-wall theories, details

“Sagittarius is extrovert, optimistic and enthusiastic, and likes changes. Sagittarius-born are able to transform their thoughts into concrete actions and they will do anything to achieve their goals.Like the other fire signs, Sagittarius needs to be constantly in touch with the world to experience as much as possible. The ruling planet of Sagittarius is Jupiter, the largest planet of the zodiac. Their enthusiasm has no bounds, and therefore people born under the Sagittarius sign possess a great sense of humor and an intense curiosity.“

Takeru may be young in Adventure, but it didn’t stop him from being maniplutive and playful when he had to. To get away from Puppetmon, it was a great show of his quick thinking and playful behavior. Then in 02 he disliked Daisuke’s ideas that they couldn’t possibly hurt MetalGreymon. Takeru understood there was no other way.

In tri. his sense of humor and teasing is showcased. He always says inappropriate things at inappropriate times. It’s to change the subject, but let’s be honest, he’s a little shit. Even so, he is still to help and give a hand. Still trying to protect Hikari all these years.

Hikari - Pisces

Strengths: Compassionate, artistic, intuitive, gentle, wise, musical

Weaknesses: Fearful, overly trusting, sad, desire to escape reality, can be a victim or a martyr

Pisces likes: Being alone, sleeping, music, romance, visual media, swimming, spiritual themes

Pisces dislikes: Know-it-all, being criticized, the past coming back to haunt, cruelty of any kind

“Pisces are very friendly, so they often find themselves in a company of very different people. Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back.”

Hikari has always been the one to harbor bad feelings onto herself. Even when it’s not her fault, HIkari always blames herself. Something that Taichi knows of and destroys him knowing he almost killer her once.

Her soft and altruistic is what causes her to be so vulnerable, so much so that it’s taken advantage of in tri. to create a monster and target the real world. Her vulnerability in 02 led her to the Dark Ocean, and her anguish escalated in seeing her brother die, creating a fusion to destroy the real world.

Daisuke - Leo

Strengths: Creative, passionate, generous, warm-hearted, cheerful, humorous

Weaknesses: Arrogant, stubborn, self-centered, lazy, inflexible

Leo likes: Theater, taking holidays, being admired, expensive things, bright colors, fun with friends

Leo dislikes: Being ignored, facing difficult reality, not being treated like a king or queen

“People born under the sign of Leo are natural born leaders. They are dramatic, creative, self-confident, dominant and extremely difficult to resist, able to achieve anything they want to in any area of life they commit to. There is a specific strength to a Leo and their "king of the jungle" status. Leo often has many friends for they are generous and loyal. Self-confident and attractive, this is a Sun sign capable of uniting different groups of people and leading them as one towards a shared cause, and their healthy sense of humor makes collaboration with other people even easier. “

Daisuke strives for Hikari’s heart and Taichi’s admiration. When the group gets beat down, it’s him that picks the pieces up and comes back stronger than before. He knows how to cheer his friends up and cheer them on. He does have his down times, losing face when people ignore him and laugh at him. But it doesn’t take long her him to make a come back.

He learned to be patient with Ken, that trying to force him into the group wouldn’t work. That Ken needed time. There were times that he refused to listen to anyone else, that his way was the only way. His stubbornness has been good and bad. He almost got Vmon killed because he didn’t want to fight an infected MetalGreymon, but on the flip side. He refused to back down against BelialVamdemon, which led to victory in the end.

Miyako - Gemini

Strengths: Gentle, affectionate, curious, adaptable, ability to learn quickly and exchange ideas

Weaknesses: Nervous, inconsistent, indecisive

Gemini likes: Music, books, magazines, chats with nearly anyone, short trips around the town

Gemini dislikes: Being alone, being confined, repetition and routine\

“ Expressive and quick-witted, Gemini represents two different personalities in one and you will never be sure which one you will face. They are sociable, communicative and ready for fun, with a tendency to suddenly get serious, thoughtful and restless. They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see. “

Miyako quick witted mind has saved the kids in several situations. The Big House Episode with Arukenimon is a great demonstration of that. She was able to use a big computer to switch the audio around to make the Digimon go back to normal.

But she has had her moments where she got a head of herself and almost got herself killed. She had to learn to slow down a little and think things through. She wasn’t sure how to feel about Ken after he turned good. Or even to beat him when they found out Ken was the Kaiser in the first place. ]

Iori - Capricorn

Strengths: Responsible, disciplined, self-control, good managers

Weaknesses: Know-it-all, unforgiving, condescending, expecting the worst

Capricorn likes: Family, tradition, music, understated status, quality craftsmanship

Capricorn dislikes: Almost everything at some point

“ Capricorn is a sign that represents time and responsibility, and its representatives are traditional and often very serious by nature. These individuals possess an inner state of independence that enables significant progress both in their personal and professional lives. They are masters of self-control and have the ability to lead the way, make solid and realistic plans, and manage many people who work for them at any time. They will learn from their mistakes and get to the top based solely on their experience and expertise. “

Iori was always the serious one even at such a young age. Determined to follow every word that his late Dad taught him and follow his lead. He saw the world as black and white. All good was good and all evil was evil.

But he grew to learn there was a difference. That even though Ken once did so many awful things, he could still be a good person. Or that his dad was friends with Oikawa who was now doing terrible things. It showed him there was a lot of grey in that world of black and white.

Ken - Scorpio

Strengths – Although it can sometimes be hard even for Scorpios to accept this fact, their greatest strength is their sensitivity. While many Scorpios hide from their own emotions, not knowing what to do with their intensity and depth, when they find a way to regenerate and forgive those that hurt them, they become amazing healers, psychologists, partners and friends.

Weaknesses – Once they do get hurt, this pain goes too deep and they have the urge to turn to vengeance, often becoming filled with hate and anger. These emotions can get destructive, to others and themselves, and their true challenge is to accept them as normal and usual, in order to set free and turn to the future instead of staying buried in the past.

Ken was faced with hatred of his brother when people constantly praised Osamu, but never recognized his accomplishments. He soon grew vengeful and wished for his brother to disappear, when it actually happened it affected him greatly, to the point the dark spore and influence from Oikwawa made him into a different person.

After Ken comes to his senses, he is greeted with such grief that he even wants to end his life at one point. The whole second half of the series is him learning to forgive himself and not let his past ruin him.

Meiko - Virgo

Strengths – Virgo is considered the most intelligent sign in the zodiac, as the place where Mercury is exalted. They are in fact truly practical and smart when it comes to everyday issues. Analytical and deep, their greatest strength is their mind at they should use it to resolve matters of life that obviously present to them for a reason. Clean and thorough, a Virgo will make everything that was broken, tainted or spoiled, clean, fixed and working again. This is why they are often found as healers, for some Virgos have a talent to fix broken hearts, souls, egos or bodies.

Weaknesses – the greatest weakness of any Virgo hides in their emotional world. While they rely on their mind to give them all the answers they seek, lack of understanding can lead them to hurtful, irrational experiences that they simply don’t understand. They need to accept their fragility, sensitivity and approach matters of the heart as valid, important and sensible. The other weakness these individuals have to face is lack of awareness of their self-worth, shown through their need to always think less of themselves, as if they cannot do anything that is satisfying enough.

For years Meiko had been hiding shame and resentment of herself under a veil of shyness. She thought she could control Meicoomon, as long she was there, Meicoomon wouldn’t go berserk.

When she realized Meicoomon was the source of the infection that caused her friends so much suffering, she kept blaming herself, even running away. She felt she had no right to be around the DIgimon or her friends.

Even with the reassurance of the others, it was hard to have faith in herself and to think good things about herself. To see what was good in her.

Meiko has shown to use what she learned from everyone else to help in her goals. Reiterating SOra’s words back to her, and having to come to the conclusion that ultimately, her partner would have to die in order to save both worlds. Despite the harshness of the decision, Meiko still very much loves Meicoomon

Daigo - Sagittarius

Strengths – Sagittarius is an adventurer, both physically and mentally. People born in this Sun sign have a broad mind and they are able to change perspective with ease, until they find the right version of words spoken, events or reasons for anything they want to examine. Highly adjustable and with a deep understanding for different people, nations, countries, governments and in general – ways of life, they blend in perfectly with the natives, wherever they are. They need enough space, don’t want to be contained in their home, by their partner or in any other way. Movement will fill up their batteries, energize them and make them confident and strong. Independent, optimistic and sincere, this is a friend you want in your life, especially if you need someone to help you find hope or a purpose to anything that troubles you.

Weakness – The greatest weakness of Sagittarius is their inability to find focus. With such a broad vision, it is not easy to pay too much attention to details, be practical and narrow down their sentences to be understandable and unambiguous. As a consequence of their faith in the goodness of human kind, these individuals will often end up disappointed or challenged, and their faith has to be built up from a point of deep understanding, or they have a tendency to turn into inflexible, grumpy people who had high hopes, once.

Daigo is very laid back and cares deeply for the people around him. So deeply he doesn’t see the big picture and how destructive Maki’s suffering actually was. He tried to be the hope she desperately needed, but couldn’t help her.

As his time as a Chosen Child, he was the leader of the group, and probably was their hope in many desperate situations.

He teaches Calligraphy as his part time job and helps Taichi to find a good career path for him to take.

Maki - Capricorn

Strengths – The greatest strengths of a Capricorn are his ambition, discipline and patience. With their ability to plan ahead and think of all necessary steps in their chase for a certain goal, they are often successful in their career path. Reliable and dedicated, these individuals often have trouble opening up to other people, but become trustworthy and stable in a relationship once they decide to be a part of it. With their endurance and patience, there is hardly anything that seems impossible.

Weaknesses – While they set extremely high goals for themselves, they often do so without the proper basis in their hearts. If they separate from their emotional needs and stay focused mainly on the image they will show to the rest of the world, they easily become unsatisfied, grumpy, and even angry at their circumstances, however successful they might get. The lack of compassion that comes as a product of their own, personal lack of satisfaction, leads to them becoming cold, distant and detached from others, while selfishly pursuing their goals with no regard to other people along the way. Their direction needs to be founded in their true personality, creativity and their hearts, in order for the rest of their life to have true quality.

Maki had plans of a reboot since University years and saw an opportunity to turn her plan into action with Meicoomon and eventually “Gennai’s” help. She carefully thought of the plans and actions in hand in order for the plan to work.

But one thing she didn’t foresee was what the reboot could mean other than reviving perma dead Digimon. Bakumon not remembering her then running away caused her to snap. The circumstances caused her to have an emotional break and end up in the Dark Ocean, begging for Bakumon to come back to her.

70 notes · View notes

belltasya-blog · 8 years ago

Photo

Anastasia Tasya Bellchant.

Hufflepuff. Debater Personality. Chaotic Evil (84%) Chaotic Neutral (70%). Aquarius. ENTP. ❝ May I point out a couple of mistakes in your argument? ❞

mind: 64% extroverted. 36% introverted energy: 80% intuitive. 20% observant. nature: 64% thinking. 36% feeling tactics: 96% prospecting. 4% judging. identity: 67% assertive. 33% turbulent. The Debater personality type is the ultimate devil’s advocate, thriving on the process of shredding arguments and beliefs and letting the ribbons drift in the wind for all to see. Debaters don’t do this because they are trying to achieve some deeper purpose or strategic goal, but for the simple reason that it’s fun. No one loves the process of mental sparring more than Debaters, as it gives them a chance to exercise their effortlessly quick wit, broad accumulated knowledge base, and capacity for connecting disparate ideas to prove their points. An odd juxtaposition arises with Debaters, as they are uncompromisingly honest, but will argue tirelessly for something they don’t actually believe in, stepping into another’s shoes to argue a truth from another perspective. Taking a certain pleasure in being the underdog, Debaters enjoy the mental exercise found in questioning the prevailing mode of thought, making them irreplaceable in reworking existing systems or shaking things up and pushing them in clever new directions. However, they’ll be miserable managing the day-to-day mechanics of actually implementing their suggestions. Debater personalities love to brainstorm and think big, but they will avoid getting caught doing the “grunt work” at all costs. Debaters only make up about three percent of the population, which is just right, as it lets them create original ideas, then step back to let more numerous and fastidious personalities handle the logistics of implementation and maintenance. Debaters’ capacity for debate can be a vexing one – while often appreciated when it’s called for, it can fall painfully flat when they step on others’ toes by say, openly questioning their boss in a meeting, or picking apart everything their significant other says. Playing devil’s advocate so well, people with this personality type may find that the most complex and rewarding intellectual challenge is to understand a more sentimental perspective, and to argue consideration and compromise alongside logic and progress.

Chaotic evil beings believe their alignment is the best because it combines self-interest and pure freedom. The is the most dangerous alignment because it represents the destruction not only of beauty and life but also of the order on which beauty and life depend. If they are simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If they are committed to the spread of evil and chaos, they are even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard, and any groups they join or forms are poorly organized. A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but their behavior is not totally random. They are not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal. Can also be a dangerous alignment when they seek to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society. Chaotic neutral characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions. With this as a guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment. Good and evil are irrelevant when making a decision. Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die.

Aquarius Strengths: progressive, original, independent, humanitarian Aquarius Weaknesses: runs from emotional expression, temperamental, uncompromising, aloof Aquarius likes: fun with friends, helping others, fighting for causes, intellectual conversation, a good listener Aquarius dislikes: limitations, broken promises, being lonely, dull or boring situations, people who disagree with them Aquarius born are shy and quiet, but on the other hand they can be eccentric and energetic. However, in both cases, they are deep thinkers and highly intellectual people who love helping others. Their immediacy behavior combined with their strong views, makes them a challenge to meet. Aquarius will do anything for a loved one to the point of self-sacrifice if necessary. The biggest problem for Aquarius-born is the feeling that they are limited or constrained. Because of the desire for freedom and equality for all, they will always strive to ensure freedom of speech and movement. Have a reputation for being cold and insensitive persons, but this is just their defence mechanism against premature intimacy. They need to learn to trust others and express their emotions in a healthy way.

#( & those who mind don't matter. )#( it's true but you shouldnt say it. )#//me: *fails to be productive all day* ok that's enough nonsense it's time to get to replies now #also me: pssst... u gotta waste another hour doing some character research #in other words: i don't fucking how to explain my own muse's ridiculous impulses so i get the internet to do it for me. nice.#look who finally got around to doing all the tests. home girl's a enigma of goodness and violence.#she's overcompensating bc she's smol af and has more than one complex doing on tbh #oK NOW IM CONQUERING MY DRAFTS/DMS i s2g

3 notes · View notes

theletterformallyknownasq · 5 years ago

Text

Kaja - August 22nd, 2018

Me: All right. Session 2. I'm here with Kaja Vang. Thank you for allowing me to interview you and hear your stories and your experiences of being Queer and immigrant while living and working and making home in Minnesota. Can you tell me how you received your name? Kaja: My mom said that my grandma had a dream and it was filled with a lot of fireflies. She just woke up and told my mom 'you're gonna name your kid Kab Ntsha.' That's how you pronounce it in Hmong. Kab meaning Bug, Ntsha meaning Light. And my mom was like 'OK cool.' And then she gave me my middle name which is Mindie. But my grandma basically named me.

Me: Have you ever revisited that story with your family to confirm that? Kaja: When I was a teenager, yeah. So my grandma passed this past winter, so I wish I took the time to actually talk to my grandma and figure out how did she specifically came up with my name. Because memories and words aren't always 100% what my people say. My mom is super dramatic sometimes. So when I was little when I first entered the academic world, my teacher couldn't pronounce my name, so they came up with Kaja, I just went with it. Then I was like, 'is that how I pronounce my name?' It sounded way easier. So I'm like 'OK cool whatever.' And then when I was transitioning into my freshman year in college, I was like 'oh I really want to reclaim my name and make sure people say it right.' And then I was talking to this white boy. He's like, "What's your name?" I'm like 'It's Kab Ntsha.' He's like 'Oh, ganja like weed?' And from that point I'm like 'nope, zip, I'm going with Kaja, pronounce my name wrong. I don't give a shit.' I only correct you if I love you dearly and you're a part of my life and I want that to be a thing. But general strangers, the youth that I work with, they sometimes call me the wrong name that sounds similar to Kaja. And people always question 'Oh is that how you say your name in Hmong?' And I'm like, 'no but I'm not trying to teach you right now.' Me: How have people mispronounced your name? Kaja: They call me Kaia which is like some white European shit. It's K-A-I-A instead of the J. They call me Kesha. Me: No. Kaja: They call me Tasha. Me: Nahhhh. But The "T"?! Kaja: Right? But that's the general gist of what people call me. And I just don't want to correct them unless I really care about them. Me: How do you identify? Pronouns et al? Kaja: I identify as a nonbinary and Queer Hmong writer. I write a lot. I'm pretty gay. Me: You kind of already touched on this but where's your family from? Kaja: So they are technically from Laos. I don't know my dad's history, I mainly know my mom’s. She grew up in the refugee camps in Thailand. Thailand and Laos is where my family is from. Me: And what brought them to Minnesota? Kaja: Colonialism. White supremacy. The U.S.-Vietnam War. My mom was born in 1974, so she grew up in the middle to end-ish of the Vietnam War. My mom's the oldest in her family and she had I think two younger brothers at that time when my grandma decided to leave Laos to go to the refugee camps in Thailand. She left my mom and her younger sister behind. So my mom and her younger sister had to basically leave. Someone ended up taking them to a refugee camp somewhere. I'm not sure if it's in Laos or Thailand. My mom was like 5 or something. She found aunties at the refugee camps and every morning before the sun rose, she would exit the refugee camp and then knock on neighbors’ doors and beg for food and she would come home, come back to the refugee camp and feed her younger sister. All the aunties kept telling her that her mom didn't love her, that she abandoned her and her father left as well. My granddad left way before my grandmother left to go to another refugee camp. But eventually a couple of years later, my grandpa came back and realizes she's his daughter, tells her to leave with him. And the whole family got reunited in the United States again. Me: Wow. I’m holding that for you, that's really heavy and hard to recall. My family had a similar experience but we were never displaced from our homelands. Thank you for sharing that. And what has kept them and yourself here? Kaja: I think the hopes and dreams of living a better life. For my parents, this is what they've always thought the U.S. would be. A place you can make it on your own and have your own business and be wealthy in terms of what Hmong immigrants think is successful. In my eyes, they're super successful. They have always thrown themselves into new experiences. So I grew up in a grocery store that my mom and dad got handed down from shady ass uncles. My mom and dad just kind of winged everything and learned everything about business by themselves. And they've always pushed me to be super innovative, creative, and to make a lot of money. And for me the reason why I'm here is because I'm about community. I found people who love me for who I am, and really support me and my journey of finding and expressing my authentic self. And that's why I'm here. Me: Would you want to stay in Minnesota? Kaja: For the time being, yes. I’m pretty sure this is an excuse for myself, but my parents are transitioning from owning a grocery store and then having the state buy the land because they want to pave a highway through it and do this man-made sewage lake thing.

Kaja: So then my mom and dad then purchased another commercial building a few miles away from the original one and this was a transitioning time my mom got her hairstyling license. And we bought this commercial building with the money that the government gives and my mom opened up her own beauty salon. And so right now, business has been going down and instead of renting out the open spaces in the building, my dad decided to renovate the middle space and make it a grocery store again. And so right now I'm kind of stuck helping them. Feeling obligated to be here for them still. But I mean I would like to move elsewhere and experience what life could be or how community looks like outside of Minnesota. Me: Hmm. East Coast then, maybe? Kaja: I haven't been there as an adult. I've only been to New York when I was a teenager. Me: What do you do for a living? Kaja: I work at a homeless drop-in center for youth between 16 and 23. I'm basically a social worker that stays in one spot. I don't leave the building ever, so I just do a lot of case management stuff or I build relationships with youth and provide them basic needs. But outside of that stuff that I do for a living that I don't get paid for, I do a lot of community organizing but not in terms of what the white structure of what community organizing is. I write and hope that would be something I can get paid to do one day. But I'm still trying to figure that out. Me: Next question is what gives you joy? Kaja: Gives me joy? Off the top of my head, I think puppies and babies. That gives me joy as well as connecting and getting to know more Queer and Trans folks of color as well as seeing how my parents are slowly learning and shifting their verbiage of talking about Queer and Trans Hmong people. My mom and dad are always using the excuse that they're too old and can't learn anything new, relying heavily on their kids. Just seeing the initial moment where I told my mom that I'm Queer. She's been referring to my partner as my partner instead of my friend. Slow steps. And that's cool with me. And that brings me a lot of joy, intermingled with a lot of frustration and anger. Good food brings me joy. Eating with other people brings me joy. I hate eating by myself. Me: What does Queer mean to you? I'm going to ask you to elaborate on your definition. Kaja: Queer. It means freedom or space to invest in yourself where you're liberated from the constraints of who you should be. So before I came out or identified as being Queer, I wondered if I was bisexual, and then was like ‘nah, bisexual doesn't feel like me, doesn't feel good to me.’ And then I wondered if I’m pansexual? Am I just attracted to people's personalities? And I'm like ‘nah, that doesn't feel good to me.’ And coming across the word Queer and having a community to reclaim that word again felt right. And it didn't feel too constraining or too rigid, but rather I get to define what Queer means to me. And you might have a different definition and that's cool. I don't mind that. But to me, it just means I'm able to move freely in my journey of discovering all of my identities and how that affects me in the ways that I navigate life. Me: What do you like or don't like about the mainstream definition? Kaja: I don't like white Queers. They're terrible. I have a couple of co-workers who are white cis gay men who say stuff like, "Back in my day, the word Queer was horrible. I don't know why you young kids are using it now." And I'm like ‘ok, to each their own, whatever. Don't judge me. Don't judge anyone.’ And then to the younger Queers or Queers my age, the mainstream usage of it just seems too academic where you have to have the right definition of Queer. And there is no fucking right definition of Queer. And even if your definition doesn't match, you're shunned. Using the word Queer in the mainstream way just seems so full of privilege and whiteness and I don't like that.

Me: Amen. Affirming all of those things. How does your family's culture define Queer? Kaja: YIKES. Me: If they can? Kaja: It's like an intermix of adopting the english word 'gay' to describe all types of Queer relationships and Queerness. Using slang terms. I don't know how to say it correctly, but it's a word that people have adapted to describe Trans women in community. But that's a really negative context that they use it in. It's just also kind of not spoken about. We don't talk about it. We don't acknowledge it. We pretend that Queer and Trans Folk people have never existed before and people think you're just crazy and that you need to find yourself a good man or woman then you'll be OK. I can't describe it in words but rather like in feelings of what Queerness means to the Hmong Community. A lot of shame and guilt and a lot of gaslighting that happens. Like an out of body experience of where you're like ‘Oh am I really Queer?’ But we don't have a word for it. It's shameful. So they think I'm just crazy. So I should probably marry a man.

Me: Last question before we get kicked out of this booth! It's a lil long though. If you could address the most influential public figures and decision makers in the state right now, what would you say about improving the standard of living for someone like yourself in Minnesota? Kaja: Well I don't know the academic term, but the health care where they don't bill you separately and you never meet your deductions and so you have to pay out of pocket for your health care. Universal health care that's affordable. Affordable in terms of we're not sacrificing X Y and Z to pay off our health care bills. We need health care that is encompassing all identities and all genders and all needs so we don't always have to go to specialty doctors and having to pay more and take the chances to cover it out of pocket. Kaja: Housing. Having a more sustainable way of providing housing for folks. Because homelessness is a huge issue here and people always go 'well why don't they work? Then they can get a place. Why isn't there enough public housing?' But there is enough public housing. The thing is we don't provide support to make that housing sustainable for them and we're only worried about if they're going to make enough money on time to pay for rent. It's more than that. It also includes mental health that affects their stability in housing. It also affects what barriers do people have to go through, especially being Queer and Trans and folks of color, to get jobs that pay you well and pay you enough so that you're able to have sustainable housing and that you don't always have to move here and there. And at the end of your lease, if your rent has gone up, you don't always have to find a new place, you know? We're always being displaced. We're always being moved. We are constantly forced to choose. Choose to live in a communal space where we're sharing a house with people, like 6-8 people in one place. And it's not like I only want my own house or my own space, but instead I want that to be a choice rather than out of necessity. Where you have Queer and Trans folks of color having to pool money together, having to share the little resources that they have to be able to support one another. That shouldn't be a thing. It should feel like a choice. But we're doing it out of necessity and survival. Put more Queer and Trans people in higher positions instead of assessing their background in education and experience and them not being good enough for those positions. Or the worry or the threat that we pose as Queer and Trans folks of color when we're trying to get hired for a supervisor position. It's not a threat to you and your power for the company to hire more Queer and Trans folks of color in a higher position.

Me: Well it challenges a power structure, that's why they don't do it. Make us the public figures and decision makers? Kaja: Hell yeah. Especially if you're working with Black and Brown youth, don't you think that? Me: They would respond a little more if they recognized themselves in the people in positions of power?

Kaja: Yeah. Like, why would you hire a white person to fill a role who doesn't reflect the population you’re serving? Me: Or does it? Kaja: Oooooh. Me: On that note. I think that is really awesome. Thank you Kaja!

#interviews

0 notes

williambuist · 6 years ago

Text

Constitutional Reform, and why Electoral Reform could make things worse.

This blog is somewhat longer than many others and on a political topic. It highlights the complex interdependencies of decision making, by discussing issues around the voting system and proportional representation, but those challenges of complexity crop up everywhere. Many many years ago in a country far far away (or at least, very different from the one we are now in), a few powerful men came to the conclusion that the monarch wasn’t very good at making decisions. We needed wiser heads. Obviously, (!) people who already had power, and land, needed to make the decisions. That worked for a while, but then some round-headed people had a bust-up others who were, frankly, a bit too cavalier. Nonetheless from that, a nascent parliamentary democracy was born and it has evolved to the present day. It’s extended the franchise, extended the powers of the parliament and created an enduring democracy that has many strengths. Yet evolve it still must. There is a real sense that the system is broken, that it fails to deliver, that it has lost trust. I think all of those things too. One area that is regularly questioned is the voting system, in this essay, I suggest that this isn’t where we should start, that the constitutional issues are more complex than how we choose a representative and changing the voting system without addressing the other systemic issues won’t solve the problems that both flaws create. There’s a variety of reasons for it. For one thing, we’ve made a LOT of constitutional changes in recent times. We have devolved power from Westminster to Wales, NI and Scotland. We have negotiated treaties like the Good Friday Agreement, and with the EU, and repatriated powers from the regions, and counties, and districts. It’s hard to know who actually makes the decisions. Then, of course, there is social media and the so-called ‘democratisation’ of news, of opinion, of ‘facts’ and the ever-present, almost omnipresent, Google. (The issue here is that people rely on Google as a source, when all it is an index of material that is on the internet, factual or false, accurate or imagined, Google treats those imposters just the same). Social media creates an illusion of conversation where none exists. In the political sphere, when people comment on what this MP, or that world leader, tweets, some, not all, think their voice is being heard. It’s not even a whisper into a hurricane, just a drip into a waterfall. Decisions on laws, taxes, rights, freedoms, healthcare, roads, trade etc, all feel like they are taken without care, or with a deliberately malign hand that favours the few over the many. Nearly all the population, when asked, want something different. Often without the certainty of what needs to change, nor why. Why could we know? We aren’t privy to how the system works, (or doesn’t) most of the time, we really aren’t informed enough to redesign it. Yet those who are charged with doing so have a vested interest to change it for their own benefit, and we sense that they will. There’s a constant noise about the unfairness of the voting system (which I fully accept, but then voting isn’t the only, nor the fairest way for societies to make decisions). Yet what are the objectives of an electoral system in the first place? If we step back and think about what we are seeking to achieve when we vote, if we also identify the issues that we consider with the outcomes we have, only then we can consider if a change in the voting system will deliver the needed change, or, if other changes are, in fact, what is needed. Voting in a parliamentary democracy is intended to provide a body of representatives of the people in order to make decisions on behalf of the society over which they have been ceded authority. Yet too often the decisions they take seem at odds to large segments of society. When that happens too often or too deeply the social covenant can be broken.

How do those decisions exhibit themselves?

The legislature creates new law which sets society within the boundaries of what it (through its representatives) deems acceptable activity and behaviour. There's no doubt for example, that we collectively consider murder or physical violence, to be something that is not tolerated. We don’t have a single written document that describes the rights of individuals, their rights, in general, are defined by where we have legislated to constrain them. All other activities and behaviours are, in effect, permitted, even if they are not ethical, or decent. That is a different approach from other states that seek to define rights as well as laws, and our system is strained where there are overlaps between these two systems. European law, and things like Human Rights legislation, push oddly at the body of British Law. That body of law deals with many areas of daily life. It's therefore important that our representatives can consider the needs and desires and collective responsibilities of the people that they represent. Yet that is a two-way street, not a one way one. Voters also have a responsibility here, but more of that later. The second part of the government, the Executive, provides for the activities of the state within the boundaries of the law. Through the policies of the executive, we determine things like how much taxation will be raised, and how that money will be spent, for the good of society. Again, our representatives (or more accurately, some of them) broadly make these decisions by virtue of forming a government, developing strategies, setting them out in a manifesto, and executing those strategies, subject to scrutiny by the body of representatives. In this role, the representatives need to have suitable experience to properly scrutinise the strategies and plans of the executive and the wisdom to modify and mould those strategies in the general interest.

The balance of power

In Britain, we've generally had two main parties. A choice between what has become known as the left and the right of politics. Those terms are vague and adaptable, but in broad terms, one is driven by a belief in the power of individual choice to deliver collective good, the other about a need to create collective good by (fair) redistribution and regulation to control selfish excess. I recognise that this is an oversimplification that could be criticised but its purpose is not definitional, merely illustrative. What it highlights is the (historical) divide between two ideologies that naturally create a binary divide that opinion can coalesce around. Yet in more recent decades things have become more nuanced and that brings with it a change. Where that first appeared was in the move of both views towards a more central ground, of some small “c” conservatism and focus on individuals and some small “s” socialism focussed on the needs of others. In that ground, the small “l” liberals had long sat as a foil to both extremes but became lost in the noise of both. In general, the binary split of views worked well in this country. That’s because those two extremes are balanced by the mechanisms of Parliament, by the two houses, and by a government and its official opposition. The results of debating were outcomes that were more acceptable to everyone (perhaps most often by making everyone equally disappointed). No individual group had too much power or could have it for too long. The checks and balances mostly worked. Less so today.

The importance of voting.

Electing a representative is a significantly important part of the process. It relies on the people making an informed and realistic choice between the candidates offered to them in that role. In order to achieve that we have divided the country into constituencies and each constituency elects a single representative. That creates some challenges and some advantages, some perceived, some real, but all relevant to the impression that people have of the fairness of the system. When people choose an MP, they cede their decision making power to them. Whichever candidate we voted for our views are still represented by the one person elected, even though they may not be the one we voted for. Ceding authority requires trust, and that has to be earned. The giving of a vote, whether people view it this way or not, is an expression of trust in the candidate. It’s also an expression of trust in the system and in the expectation that by participating people will get benefits. It is the expression of consent in the system as much as it is an operation of the system. That’s important when we come to look at how elections work from a perception and acceptance point of view. At one level a great deal of importance is placed on the General Election vote and many things flow from it, and are recorded by it. Public votes can only be considered to influence these downstream decisions, but not direct them. The party, or group, that wins the most representatives and which can ‘have the confidence of the House of Commons’ is asked to form a government. Their leader, usually an elected MP, becomes Prime Minister and they appoint ministers to run departments and junior ministers to assist them. These positions are filled by the leader and generally will, therefore, be people who have shown ‘loyalty’ and alignment with them. At the same time, the next biggest grouping forms the ‘official opposition’ and matches the government with shadow ministers to act to hold their counterpart to account for the choices they make. In parliament, there are regular votes of our representatives who troop through lobbies to be counted, observed by the Whips (party officials whose job it is to ensure compliance with important votes), and recorded by the tellers and in public documents like Hansard.

The proper working of parliament

Opposition. In parliament, the role of the opposition is to challenge everything the government proposes, however much it agrees with it. This is to ensure that debates can have teeth, will scrutinise the detail properly and eliminate, as far as is possible, unexpected side effects from poorly constructed legislation that hasn’t considered all sides. It does not mean that the opposition disagrees with the proposal. From a perception point of view, this can be difficult for an opposition whose public policy on some issues may be aligned with government policy. There’s a perceived fear of taking a debating stance and a public stance that is not aligned. Partly that’s because opposing parties play politics rather than celebrating the proper working of parliament. Indeed, there is strong evidence that past voting records in parliament are used extensively in Social media and elsewhere to attack individuals for their views. Few people, it seems, mostly because of the PR and party machinery, are willing to separate what’s said and done in a constitutional role, and what is policy. Which brings us, neatly, to systemic perceptions. Perceptions of representation It’s clear that voters consciously choose a candidate based on what they want to happen. To guide them, and somewhat subconsciously, they use the party alignment the candidates have and their manifesto. Often there are ideological differences between one party and another, clear divides on issues like taxation of the rich, regulation of business, the size of government, the NHS etc. That’s good for aiding the choice of where to vote but bad for the perceptions of representation afterwards for those whose vote goes to a losing candidate. Whither now their representation? For people to feel enfranchised they need not just to have an opinion, but also to see that it has been heard, and feel that it has been taken into account. No issue has been as divisive as Brexit, and the challenge of people feeling their view, their opinion, has not been heard, not been taken into account, has never been stronger, on both sides of that argument. That’s just a clearer, starker, example, though, of something that happens, more or less, on every issue. It highlights the challenge for our representatives of connecting with the electorate in a way that enables them to feel that they are being listened too. The societal covenant. Implementing action which is closely aligned only to a narrow segment of people yet having it accepted by society as a whole is the very essence of politics. It requires a skill that is essential for consensus to be created and a rare one. Mostly, that’s about perceptions, not agreement. Perceptions of having a means of changing direction in the future if it proves to be a mistake, and perceptions of having had a voice, and still have one. Where power resides. A number of changes to British politics have made a difference in the way elements of our governance are perceived. Most changes that have affected perceptions are, apparently unrelated, and yet they do change those perceptions. The biggest, I think, is the distance between voters and the decisions which affect them, and that, in most things, has widened. Another example is the fixed-term parliament act, designed to protect a coalition, yet it has had an unintended side effect of making it much harder for a poor government to be forced to return to the people. The subconscious impact on the sense of powerlessness is itself powerful, and negative, in the perceptions of voters. Some people may feel (subconsciously probably) that they have lost a lever of control over parliament, and that lever was removed by parliament itself. What is the cumulative effect of parliament making small changes that shift power, perceived or real, from the people to themselves? Subsidiarity and the reach of power. One aspect of government is that it is multi-layered, decisions are taken in a variety of places, not just Westminster. Westminster is the seat of law but that’s only the legislative branch and the executive branch affects the people far more and is much more distributed. I live in a small village north of Chepstow, it has local (Tidenham) parish council, responsible for very local matters, Forest of Dean district, and Gloucestershire county, before we get to Westminster, and long before we get to the EU. If I lived just two miles south then the same structure would exist but with a devolved Welsh assembly having a say on some Welsh aspects. Add to that some other roles such as Police Commissioners, also elected, who affect decisions on local societal matters and it’s clear that ‘democracy’ delivers power to a variety of people in a variety of roles. Over the years powers have been centralised and then devolved, mixed and confused and then redistributed again. There are anomalies all over the place which make little sense to the 1% who understand what they are and are opaque to the rest of us. Social media and its impact. Social media has completely rewritten the rules of communication. In the past communicating with representatives could be achieved by lobbying in the House of Commons, meetings at MP surgeries or in private, and by letter. Most people did not but knew that they could. Then social media arrived. Now MP’s have made themselves available, particularly on Twitter, but other platforms too and receive thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of replies to each comment they make. They reply to a few. For those engaging on social media, there is a sense of ‘talking to’ their representative, but there is very little sense of being ‘heard’. It is my contention that this is a significant driver of voter dissatisfaction. Politicians in a private or written exchange can discuss and explore a topic in ways that in 280 characters they cannot. They tend to set out a position, and never waver. That never wavering is also a by-product of social media’s ability never to forget. Any politician whose opinion shifts is immediately attacked for the change, with ‘evidence’ of historic tweets. It’s a febrile sense of accountability that is fossilising views into their first iteration. How often are our first instincts what we end up running with? Views evolve, but social media often denies that possibility, curtails debate, restricts room for manoeuvre and locks in opinions too early. It’s not good for Governance.

Voters responsibilities (whether accepted or not).

Informed choice... If the system relies on the representatives to do a good job of representation, then that puts a responsibility on voters to chose someone with the skills and capability to deliver that. Yet to a great extent they do not take notice of the day to day activities, nor read the speeches, not lobby, nor write. Many voters expect to be represented yet make no effort to indicate what form that representation should take. Instead, they turn up, or not, on polling day, and vote. When we make any choice without direct experience we tend to be influenced by tradition, habit, family, friends, peers and those of a high profile with whom we agree. These are proxies for experience. They are not reliable, and we, at one level, know this, so we may also look to see what is promised. Manifestos take on a minor significance (We don’t generally read them either, but rely on what the media, selectively, report from them). Often simple party allegiance can carry the most weight. from a pool of “capable” people... The ballot paper contains the names of the candidates, chosen, not at random, but by the party they represent. That selection is often opaque and risks criticism. The procedure varies by party but there’s always a suspicion of it favouring both compliance and loyalty over competence and experience. Less about individual skill at representation and service, more about reliable compliance with the party. Yet from these people, the voters must make a choice on quite different criteria.

The voting system

We currently operate a first past the post (FPTP) system for national elections. We also operate a variety of either FPTP or Proportional representation (PR) systems for other elections, from multi-member super constituency closed lists for European elections, to the alternative vote system. Proportional representation purports to provide a result that is more in proportion to the votes cast. That, of course, predicates the argument for such a system with an assumption that, as an outcome, it will deliver something “better’. Any voting system will be subject to voter unpredictability. Voters seek to get their preferred result and will make judgements on how others are likely to cast their ballot in reaching a decision. Voting is designed with the intention of voters casting their votes for the candidate or party they prefer, but in reality, they will often cast a vote against other candidates, or to stop particular results. In some areas of our voting system, there are conventions that impact the rights of the people too. For example, by tradition, the representative chosen to be the Speaker of the House of Commons will be elected unopposed if an election is called. Equally, seats with a ‘safe’ majority for the current MP, may not have as much talent to choose from on the ballot paper if parties choose to put their energies and ‘best’ candidates in more ‘winnable’ seats. In considering any change to the voting system we need to think about more than just the impact on the perceptions of representation. We need to consider the nature of representation itself. Perhaps we also need to think about those considering standing for election, on the parties, on the legislature and executive and to the connections of the various layers of government. Single-member systems With Single Member constituencies the voting system elects a single candidate to represent a single area, or constituency, decided by using a voting system that requires a candidate to get to a threshold of votes. First Past the Post is a system of voting where the winner is decided by reaching a threshold of ‘the largest number of votes cast’. The alternative is AV - Alternative vote - to redistribute the bottom candidate votes to the voter's second preference until a 50% threshold is reached. In the UK we had a referendum to consider changing to a system of AV and rejected it. Yet in some areas of our decision making it is used. Police Commissioners use this system and it is used, for example, in the Labour Party to elect its leaders. It rarely delivers a different result from FPTP but there is a different feel to the outcome. Those who vote for a minor candidate get to express that preference in the likely knowledge that their vote will be redistributed, maybe more than once, but those who vote for the eventual winner, and in most cases the second-placed candidate only have their first opinion checked. That can feel to supporters of minor candidates that they have more say in the outcome. The impact of that is to encourage more extreme views to get a louder voice. People can vote for someone they ‘know’ will lose, knowing that it’s their second preference that really counts, at least whilst they do that in isolation. None of that changes nor addresses any of the structural issues discussed above, and simply ‘feeling’ more enfranchised whilst not actually being so, is, at least in part, why this suggestion was rejected. Multiple member systems Here larger areas with more voters elect multiple members to parliament. There are many ways to achieve this, but some aspects are similar. Firstly constituencies are much larger, with 3 or more representatives returned. European constituencies, for example, return between 3 (Northern Ireland) and 10 (South East) MEP’s. How they are chosen depends on which multiple member system is chosen. There are open list and closed list systems. The European elections used a closed list system where the parties choose who their candidates are AND the order in which they are elected. Voters choose a party not a representative, and, using an allocation system the MP’s are chosen from the lists. (Europe uses a system called D’Hondt allocation). Others use an open list where parties nominate candidates and voters select the one(s) they want the most. A candidate vote counts as a party vote. The aim of both is that the representatives in the large constituencies are more closely aligned to the voting preferences of the electorate. Currently in the South Each constituency the people are represented by 4 Brexit Party MEP’s (40% of seats | 36% of vote) 3 Lib Dems, (30%|26%) 1 Green (10%|13%) 1 Conservative (10%|10%)1 Labour (10%|7%). In total 8% of votes were for candidates that were not elected. Mixed Systems There are some areas who have single-member constituencies and a list system to balance out the results so that the parliament is more closely aligned to the overall balance of votes. This is how the Scottish Parliament is elected. It has 73 constituency seats and 56 regional seats Unaddressed issues Whose names appear on the ballot paper remains out of the control of the general electorate. Whilst some of these systems provide clarity about who will be elected, some put far more control into the hands of the parties. The impact of that can be to reward loyalty over principle. In some sort of Faustian pact those who wish to be elected need to be at the top of the list, only then are they subject to any form of public scrutiny. Of course, this is an issue for FPTP systems too, which are, in effect, a closed party list of one. In FPTP some constituencies are so strongly skewed to one party or another than those who support a different party can feel that casting their vote has no impact, that it is ‘wasted’. In reality, all individual votes have little impact on their own, whether one person votes or not in isolation will only in the rarest of situations have any significant impact on the result. Yet every vote does measure the level of opinion in that constituency, and so all votes have some value. Making their true value perceived is a hard challenge for any democracy. On party list systems the Electoral Reform Society says ”Party-list systems can be very proportional, but if voters can’t pick their representatives, the politicians don’t have a strong link with their voters” - Nowhere is this more starkly an issue that with the EU where MEP’s seem so distant from voters that there is a real sense of a democratic deficit. Why is that? When we want to contact “our MP” we know who to go to, but if we want to speak to our MEP we will tend to go to the representative we like, or who is from our favoured party. There are many issues with this. Each representative can believe that others should be addressing that issue. There’s no ultimately responsible person. My experience of engaging with local councillors to MEP’s the place where there is the most engagement is where there is the one to one relationship, with MP’s - where there are multiple people the responses can bounce me from one to another. The other risk in multi-member constituencies is that for each party representative the exposure they have to ‘constituents’ is far more aligned to their party, and that leads to an echo chamber effect and an unrepresentative view of what the broad base of all constituents actually think. In mixed systems, the parliament is more proportional, but some MP’s represent the electorate and others don’t. It’s unlikely that a non-constituency representative can be as much of an influence on local issues, but for a voter who supported a different party from their local MP, to whom do they turn? These systems all create complexity in the connection between electorate and representative, and complexity is a distraction. They create a sense of democratic deficit. Ultimately, if it is the flaws in the constitutional protocols of parliament that create the sense of a failing democracy then changing the way we choose people to operate within that flawed system won’t deliver any benefit. Complexity also has an impact on turnout. Turnout in Scotland for their assembly elections with its complex mixed system was 56% but in the 2017 General Election run on FPTP it was 66% - European elections have a dismal turnout. These impacts can’t be ignored in a proposed change to the voting rules. What I think does matter is aligning the voting system to the constitutional requirements of the system. Once the roles of local, regional, national and Westminster parliaments, as well as any supranational bodies to which the people elect representatives (like the EU), are clear then the appropriate voting system to use should become clear. Our current single-member constituencies electing a single representative would mean first past the post, or AV systems are really the only contenders. Given that choice the people chose FPTP. If the nature of parliament, the size of constituencies, and the issues of subsidiarity are changed then it makes sense to review how we choose our representative. To design the whole system to work more effectively and fairly. Then, but not until then.

Summary

This analysis is not suggesting that FPTP should be retained, nor that it is ‘better’ than all the possible variations of PR. It is, however, suggesting that the perceptions of a failure of democracy are caused by elements of the constitution that a change in the electoral system will not address, or are only addressed by impacting perceptions. I’m in favour of a change to the voting system as part of wider reforms in the whole process of collective decision making. There are elements of subsidiarity and where power should, and where it does, reside that need to be reformed. Parliamentary voting is anachronistic and open to abuse (which is another topic). Political transparency, the means of gathering opinion, the right to and manner of lobbying, constituency governance, the separation of powers and much more all need reform. I am, though, convinced that changing the voting system without addressing the other constitutional issues will make those other issues worse. Far worse. Sources: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/which-european-countries-use-proportional-representation/ South East Region - 10 MEPs | MEPs & Elections | European Parliament Liaison Office in the United Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_East_England_(European_Parliament_constituency)#Election_results) Read the full article

#Politics #UKConstitution #voting

0 notes